Shane should be able to crash out at his last Metros game. I mean fully lose. His. Shit. It is absolutely criminal that he doesn’t canonically get to do that.
Hayden watches way Shane’s right eye twitches as Drapeau throws another snide comment his way. It’s not something Shane had before this season, before the video, Hayden’s monumental fuck up, being outed, having his entire life put under a high-powered microscope even more than it was before and—Hayden, I forgive you. It’s okay. You don’t have to freak out about this.
The twitch started up as the rest of the team treated Shane less like their captain and more like…fuck, what even is this? JJ barely glances Shane’s way anymore; just nods wordlessly at practices. Theriault barks orders at them the same way, but he’s more critical of Shane than ever and far more liberal in his use of “ladies” and “pansies” as insults now. The rookies are quiet, following whatever the veteran players do and laughing at their shit comments.
Drapeau and Comeau are the worst. They were already bad when Shane came out to the team—asking how he played after taking it up the ass, complaining about showering with someone who might check them out. But finding out who Shane’s been seeing makes them so much worse.
They seem to be leading the campaign to push Shane out, and they don’t stop even after the trade announcement. They encourage the rest of the team to get worse. Miitka stops passing to him at practice one day. Then Stedlund, then Olsson, then Gagnon, and then all the rookies within a week. Wilson starts scoffing when Shane calls plays. Berkes rolls his eyes and makes vile hand gestures behind Shane’s back. Schneider removes Shane from the team group chat before Comeau renames it “Real Men Only.”
Shane just takes it. He takes the disrespect, the losses, the notable decline in performance that the press won’t stop asking about. We’re having an off season. Just growing pains. There are big changes coming and everyone’s adjusting to what will be the new normal.
The eye twitch starts after a dismal shutout against Toronto. Shane insists that it’s nothing, like Hayden can’t see it getting worse as their hopes of a fourth cup go up in smoke.
Tonight, though? As Drapeau opens his mouth in the locker room to say something else, to add another drop into the already overflowing bucket? As Shane tries to make his final speech as captain and nobody’s even looking in his direction? The twitch comes and then just…stops. It doesn’t linger the way it usually does, taking a few minutes of uneven blinking to calm down. It comes, causes a few jerky movements at the corner of Shane’s eye, then stops abruptly.
Right as Shane decides to stand on a bench and un-fucking-load.
“Listen up!” The locker room goes silent as Captain Hollander—not Shane, not Hollander, not “ugh, the queer”—commands their attention in a way he hasn’t all season. “You want to act like assholes? Fine! You want to—interrupt me again, Comeau! I FUCKING DARE YOU!”
Whatever hateful jab Comeau started dies in his throat. His mouth snaps shut with an audible “click” and the confident grin on his face slides right off.
“You want me gone? After I gave this team everything? EVERYTHING! THREE cups you wouldn’t have gotten close to without me!”
The door slams open as Theriault bursts in. He looks ready to demand they get their asses in gear, but one look at Shane shuts him up.
“But being in love with the wrong person and suddenly none of that matters! You get to throw me out like trash!”
JJ visibly flinches. Hayden tries not to feel like he deserves to feel targeted.
Shane hasn’t even broken a sweat. He’s screaming, positively bellowing, and he looks like he’s not even out of breath. Like the release valve has been turned as far as it will go and holding all this in was harder than letting it out.
“This is my last game as a Metro,” he hisses, glaring at his teammates. “Because I know your godawful playing means we’re going to lose. There’s no cup for us this year, so this is the last game I get with a team I’ve wanted to play on since before I could talk. The team I thought I’d retire with. You do not get to take that from me!”
He jumps off of the bench, snatching up a helmet as he lands and shoving it at a shell-shocked rookie.
“We will not have another pathetic shutout tonight! You will put your fucking gear on! You will play like you have some fucking sense! You will pass the goddamn puck like you’re not afraid of it being contaminated with gay cooties!”
Miitka glances at Hayden, who offers nothing more than a hard stare in return. He hopes it communicates “this is what we deserve.”
“You want to be assholes? Fine! You want to be a losing team instead of having a gay captain? Fine!”
Hayden’s not sure when Shane picked up a random stick, but he sure as hell notices when it snaps and splinters in half. The entire team watches in terror as their normally calm and cool captain breaks a stick in one hand, then tosses the pieces aside.
Every last man in the locker room—minus Shane and Hayden—has their eyes trained on the floor. Nobody dares look up. After months of hate, nobody’s got a fucking thing to say.
“We’re not making it to the cup. We can’t, because you’ve all got your heads too far up your asses to do your jobs! But we will score tonight or so help me FUCKING GOD!”
Hayden doesn’t think he’s ever been afraid of Shane. He also doesn’t think that’s the case anymore.
“You will get your asses on that ice and for once, just once this season, you will not fucking embarrass me! Do you understand?”
Complete silence. It doesn’t sound like anyone’s even breathing.
A flat, subdued “yes, captain” rolls through the locker room.
And in the blink of an eye, Shane takes a deep breath and just…stops.
“Good,” he says softly, voice flat and face blank. “Glad we had this talk.”
