Chapter Text
Shane’s earliest memory is standing in their driveway next to their bright red car, impatiently waiting for his sister to stop throwing a temper tantrum a few feet away. He’s pretty sure they were supposed to be going to watch a real life hockey game, although he might have made that up. He definitely remembers his mother telling his father that she “simply doesn’t know what to do with this girl,” and then walking over to Shane and thanking him for always being so patient.
He remembers thinking it was a strange thing to thank him for, because there was nothing to do but be patient whenever Emily did this (which was often). The family joked that Em came out screaming and never stopped, and it was really only half a joke. She really did scream a lot.
Shane, in a weird way, was always kind of grateful for it. Even when it was annoying (which was often), Emily causing a scene took attention away from him and let him fade into the background for a bit. His mother couldn’t keep talking to him about his stickhandling when Em was freaking out about homework or refusing to do her chores or ignoring her grounding or whatever the drama of the day was. And Shane, for his part, tried to take the heat off her sometimes too. Yuna was all-too-easy to distract with a well-timed hockey question, and by the time they were teenagers Shane was pretty good at noticing the glazed look in Em’s eyes when a lecture had moved from Helpful Parental Guidance to About To Be Her Thirteenth Reason. He wasn’t good at reading anyone else, but Em he always understood. Maybe it was a twin thing.
—
Summer 2007, Hollander Family Cottage
“I can’t believe you’re fucking abandoning me next month.”
Shane knocks his shoulder against his sister’s as they continue their walk to the corner store.
“I’m not abandoning you, I’m just going to play hockey.”
“Yeah in fucking Kingston! A million miles away!”
“It’s just for a couple years.” That’s what he tells himself, anyways. It’s not like he gets to choose which major junior team wants him, he just goes where he’s told. “This is my best shot at going pro. I think it’ll be really good.” It doesn’t stop the guilt or the fear or the near-crippling imposter syndrome, but it is what it is. He wants to go pro, and he’ll do whatever he needs to make that happen.
“Ughhh,” Em groans dramatically. “Obviously I’m happy for you or whatever–” Shane doesn’t have to look to know she’s rolling her eyes, “– I just don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to manage the full weight of mom’s, like…”
“Love?”
“I was going to say pathological obsession.”
“She’s not that bad.”
Em grabs Shane’s elbow and pulls him to a stop so that she can more effectively glare at him, knowing that her silent response is absolutely speaking volumes.
“She’s passionate?” He tries as a reframe.
“She’s a fucking lunatic and without her favourite toy she’s going to turn her full attention to me. I genuinely don’t think I’ll survive, and it will be entirely your fault.”
Shane huffs. “Okay first of all, I’m not her toy, that’s fucking gross–”
“Not like that you pervert!”
“– and secondly, it’s not like I’m dying! She’s been telling me all about her plans for my juniors career, Kingston isn’t far enough to stop her–”
“The moon isn’t far enough to stop her–”
“– so I’m sure she’ll be plenty busy managing me over the phone. She’s already said she’s going to try to come to my weekend games whenever she can.”
“Halle-fucking-luah.”
They arrive at Joseph’s Corner Store and step inside to a blast of icy cold air conditioning, immediately turning left to head to the ice cream counter. Kawartha Dairy ice cream is a cottage tradition that Shane will really fucking miss once he’s settled in Kingston. Even if he can find it in stores there, it won’t be the same as freshly scooped from Joseph’s.
“What flavour are you going to get?” he asks.
“Bubblegum, bitch.”
“Doesn’t it turn your shit green?”
“It’s rude to ask people about their bowel movements, Shane,” she says in a perfect imitation of their mother’s voice. She’s really such an asshole.
“Whatever. I’m getting–”
“Tiger Tail, I know. You’ve only picked the same flavour for 15 fucking years.”
“Why mess with a good system,” she quotes breathily, echoing his exact response as he speaks it. Fucking douchecanoe.
“This is why no guys want to date you, you know,” he mutters under his breath. It’s probably a low blow but whatever, sue him for being petty to the most annoying sister in the universe.
She orders for both of them (hers in a cone, his in a cup) and hands over the cash to the person behind the counter.
“I could date any guy I wanted,” she replies primly once the cashier starts scooping their ice cream. “I just have taste, so I don’t.”
“It’s stupid to be dating at this age anyways,” Shane says. “Better to focus on school.”
Em snorts. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what all your hockey buddies are doing. Focusing on school.”
Shane frowns. He knows that’s not what the guys on his hockey team are doing– they’re all dating, at least according to the chatter in the locker room. What he doesn’t know is why. Granted, most of them aren’t good enough to be going pro (or even making it on a university team, if he’s being honest), so they obviously aren’t going to be as focused on hockey as he is (another reason he’s excited to be joining an OHL team; everyone will be actually serious about the sport!) But if not hockey, then surely they should be focused on school? Building their resumes, volunteering, getting into a good university? They can date later. He really doesn’t see what the rush is.
Em hands him his cup of tiger tail ice cream and he follows her out of the store to begin their trek back to the cottage.
“Oh,” he says as they round the wooded corner towards their lot. “I put together a presentation for the parentals to convince them to buy us both cellphones so that we can stay in touch. I’ll show you the notes when we get back, I think I make some pretty good arguments but you’re definitely going to have to be on your best behaviour if we want to win this one.”
“They’ll get you a cell no problem, but there’s no way in fuck they’re going to get me one,” Em laughs. “They won’t even get me a laptop and that’s legit for school.”
“That’s just because mom caught you on that fucking message board talking to strangers again.”
“Oh my god they weren’t strangers, I only PM with friends!”
“People you meet on the internet are not your friends, Emily.”
“You sound like an episode of Degrassi, Shane.”
He scoffs. “It’s true! You don’t know anything about them, they could be anyone!”
“Okay well first of all GoLiveWire is a message board for teens, so it’s literally mostly teenagers on there. And obviously I’m not giving away any identifying information! I don’t even have my asl filled in on my profile, I could be literally anyone. And sometimes it’s just fucking easier to talk to people online instead of in real life. I fucking hate the people at school, you know that.”
And yeah, obviously, Shane does know that. Em has had a shit go of things since they started high school. Shane– awkward and fumbling as he is– mostly gets away with social faux pas because he’s got the social currency of being a jock who’s really really fucking good at hockey. Emily– if she’s known for anything– is mostly known as being his sister. And kind of weird. There was a rumour last year that she was a lesbian, which started because she tried to organize a Day Of SIlence protest at their school after the principal refused to approve of a Gay/Straight Student Alliance. Em’s just super passionate about justice and shit, but it really doesn’t tend to go over well with their peers…
“Anyways,” she continues, “we can just talk on MSN. With you out of the house I’ll have way more time on the family computer, and mom has actually been pretty chill about MSN as long as I let her go through my contact list twice a month and explain who every single person is and how I know them.”
“She doesn’t read your chats?”
“Oh she definitely would, but after that extremely humiliating experience in grade 8 I always delete my conversation history with everyone before I log off. And I always log off. That was my main mistake that time, I think.”
“Pretty sure your main mistake was having cyber sex with your secret boyfriend.”
“He wasn’t my boyfriend!”
“That’s worse! You get how that’s worse, right!?”
They start trudging up the final stretch of hill to the cottage.
“Whatever, don’t talk to me,” Em huffs. “Fucking traumatizing having your parents show up at the mall in front of all your friends and ask a boy about his intentions with their daughter…”
“Yeah,” Shane nods, “especially since his messages made it pretty clear what his intentions with you w–”
“Oh my god shut up!” she yelps and shoves him. “It was bad enough the first time, we don’t need to re-live it!”
He laughs as he regains his balance. “I wish I could bleach my brain, honestly. Learned way too much about my sister that day.”
“Yeah yeah, laugh it up, see if I ever help you delete your browser hist–”
“Emily!” It’s his turn to shove her. “We do not speak of that night!”
They’re both still laughing at each other as they walk up the path to the front door, knowing better than to continue the conversation within ear shot of possibly open windows. He’s really going to fucking miss his sister when he moves.
—
December, 2008, Regina
“Just go talk to him!” she whispers furiously.
“I fucking… ugh–” Shane grabs Emily’s arm and pulls her outside the arena where they’re less likely to be overheard. “I don’t even know what I’d say to him!” he whispers in response.
“How about ‘hi, you’re an amazing player to watch and I’m fucking obsessed with you!’?”
Shane glares at her. “I would rather die.”
Em rolls her eyes. “Just fucking introduce yourself! The coaches are already pitting you guys against each other, you spend more time watching tapes of his games than your own–”
“I fucking don’t!”
“– and it’s just a nice fucking thing to do when a foreign team is playing on your home soil,” she finishes, ignoring his interruption entirely.
He thinks he might prefer to get an own goal than go up to the Russian captain, but he definitely doesn’t want to be rude and Em is right that it is a nice thing to do to introduce oneself as the captain of the home team…
“What’s the worst that can happen?” she asks. “He’s a dick? He trash talks you? He’s probably going to do that anyway, who gives a shit.”
Shane scrunches up his face and looks to the sky, which is unfortunately blocked by the concrete overhang outside the arena doors. “If he’s just going to be a dick then why bother?” This is the game of mental pingpong he’s been playing in his head and with Em for the past week of the tournament. The final game is this afternoon and he’s worked himself into a fucking tizzy over this stupid idea.
His sister grabs him firmly by the shoulders. “Shane Hollander. My brother, my wombmate, my least favourite twin. I literally do. not. care. if you introduce yourself to this boy or not, but you have been yammering about him nonstop for fucking days and you very clearly want to talk to him, so as your older sister–”
“–I was literally born first–”
“You were removed first, we both know God wanted me to–”
“You were breech and tried to take your fucking placenta with you, I don’t think ‘God’–”
“A girl causes an almost-fatal hemorrhage one time and no one ever lets her fucking forget it! Whatever! The point is that you clearly want to talk to this guy and we just saw him walk over there alone so now is your perfect fucking chance! Just go say hi! Stop overthinking it!”
“Wow, stop overthinking, what revolutionary advice. Thank you so much for that game-changing fuc–”
She punches him in the shoulder hard enough to actually hurt. “Okay how about this, fuckface: either you go introduce yourself to him or I will.”
Shane looks her dead in the eyes as he rubs under his coat where a bruise is surely forming. “You wouldn’t.”
Emily stares back with her steeliest glint. “Fucking. Try. Me.”
He scoffs. “What would you even say!”
“I’d say ‘hi Ilya Rozanov, my brother Shane Hollander is your biggest fan but he’s too chickenshit to ask for your autograph so pretty please could you–”
Shane is already walking away before she even finishes her sentence. Obviously he’s not about to let that happen. He’ll just go introduce himself. It’s just another hockey player, it literally doesn’t even matter. Be normal about it, whatever. Shane can be normal. He can.