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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The Hood Kids Series has a new home on Ao3!
The parts will remain here on Tumblr, as will new installments. Each new part will include a link to the corresponding Ao3 chapter. It just made sense to move the fun (and pretty much everything else, at some point) to a platform that allows more organization.
Enjoy!
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.
Imma fix it.
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.
Right. Right.
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.
“Not at my last game!”
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.
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
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.”
Both Shane and Ilya have the most severe cases of Resting Bitch Face when they’re on their own. Face cards lethal, both aesthetically and in terms of how fearful for their own safety people are if they don’t understand the context.
Ilya is Slavic. That’s really all there is to it. There is no deeper explanation and he will not provide one. If you keep being weird about it, he’ll start giving you made up reasons just to fuck with you. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why. Who just goes around asking people to explain their faces? Rude.
Shane is Shane. He’s a neurodivergent baddie who’s in his own head a lot. No, he’s not pissed off; that’s just his face. No, I promise you, he’s not plotting a murder. That’s seriously just his face. Yes, he knows, we’ve all mentioned it at least once because we thought we did something wrong. That’s just his default face.
Post-outing, Ilya’s Slavic stoicism and Shane’s…Shane-ness don’t magically go away, but the public notices a shift as they stop hiding their relationship. They show up places together now, holding hands and existing in each other’s personal space without having to excuse it with the Irina Foundation. Their respective reputations for Resting Bitch Face take a major hit when their default faces start popping up less and less in pictures. IG comments document the change.
Ummm…anybody else notice Rozanov’s always smiling now? 🤔
I thought Hollander was a robot. I ain’t never seen robots smile.
Look at them! They’re so happy 🥹
When will happiness like this find me?
Is this what married sex do? Just rewire your brain?
Bro’s Slavic face? Gone. Perma-smile.
Demons on the ice, gummy bears in real life.
Have Hollander’s teeth always been so white? I don’t think we’ve ever seen them this much.
How much you wanna bet Roz has been a loverboy this entire time? Yes Shane, anything you want Shane, anything for you Shane. 😂
Did we know Roz had a dimple on his left cheek? Holy shit.
Got Shane “RBF” Hollander smiling like it’s candy and rainbows around here…Ugh, I hate them both so bad.
- Actually or…?
- Fuck no, I love smiley Hollanov. I hate that I don’t have someone to be this cute with!
It’s funny until one comment makes Ilya squawk indignantly.
Rozanov - Looks like he’ll murder you, is actually a cinnamon roll. Hollander - Looks like he’ll murder you…probably will, just happily now.
“They know I am soft,” he whines, not doing himself any favors as he throws himself down on the couch and pouts dramatically. “My reputation is ruined! A whole career as the sleep paralysis demon of hockey players worldwide, destroyed by a beautiful man with beautiful freckles. I will never recover, Shane!”
Shane smiles softly at the comments and tangles his fingers in his husband’s wild curls. “How tragic. The world knows you’ve got a soft, gooey center.”
Ilya continues pouting (“That is lie, liar told you that.” “I can see you with my own eyes.” “Your eyes lie. Russians do not pout.” “I mean…you’re Canadian now.” “…Shane. SHANE. How can you say this?!”). He huffs and crosses his arms petulantly.
“Easy for you to say,” he grumbles, eyes drooping in relaxation as Shane massages his scalp. “They still see you as a threat. I am Mister Cinnamon Roll now.”
“Then I’ll threaten them enough for both of us, baby.”
Ilya smiles sleepily and puckers his lips, wordlessly demanding a kiss. Shane obliges without hesitation.
He doesn’t mention that Ilya’s lip balm actually tastes a little like cinnamon rolls.
“Williams’ victory feels especially well deserved because Shane Hollander is not an easy character to portray. As we wrote in our review of the series, Williams delivers “a masterclass in micro-expressions and physical restraint.” Shane spends much of the story fighting against himself, suppressing emotions he barely allows himself to acknowledge, and Williams manages to communicate entire emotional arcs through a glance, a tense jaw, or a slight shift in posture. Every crack in Shane’s carefully constructed armor lands with devastating impact because of the work Williams puts in throughout the series.
Seeing that performance recognized on one of Canada’s biggest stages feels incredibly rewarding. Williams’ win is also historic in its own right. At just 25 years old, he became the youngest performer ever to win Best Lead Performer, Drama, at the Canadian Screen Awards, accomplishing the feat on his very first nomination.”
- Q+ Magazine
I feel Some Type of Way every time I see Hudson Williams.
Do I know this man personally? No.
Do I know anything about him outside of his involvement in this gay hockey show, and that skincare video he did that absolutely did not influence my own routine at all (I’m lying, I definitely bought things—his skin is amazing)? No.
But every time I see him winning, smiling, popping up in ads and promotions, existing? I get so happy.
When lead actors of color pop out, they are always shoved to the side in favor of their white co-stars. Not even other leads—supporting actors, folks who were in maybe a tenth of the total project. They fall victim to online vitriol and violence aimed at making them small and insignificant for the horrible offense of not being white or, in Hudson Williams’s case, not being fully white. For having the nerve to be melanated and be at the front of something good.
Season one ended 6 months ago and Hudson Williams’s star keeps rising. He didn’t get tucked behind his white co-stars and forgotten, no matter how hard people tried—and fucking hell, did they try. This man didn’t get silenced by hate thrown at him online. Instead, he kept working, stayed booked and busy, and now look. He’s out here winning and existing, and I know that makes racists so mad.
I love this chaotic man so much because he gamed the system. A fellow melanated person finessed a system that consistently tries to destroy us. I’m sure it’s not easy and I’m sure he’s not unscathed, but he’s shining and winning and his star is still rising. He’s not done succeeding yet; he’s just getting started.
I don’t know this man, but I’m so proud of him 🥹
A continuation of this post, because I want to see Shane and Ilya happy, giggly, and cute.
Harris schedules filming for a second Ottawa Centaurs Try Not to Laugh video after practice. The rules are simple:
1. You laugh, you’re out.
2. Shane and Ilya CANNOT sit next to or on each other.
He probably should’ve added a third to prevent what’s happening, but it’s far too late to stop it now. The team seems to have agreed that eliminating Shane and Ilya is the goal, and every joke told thus far has been tailored to them. Is it fair? No. Will the engagement be amazing?
Fucking hell, it’ll be off the charts. This is too good.
Shane is holding his nose, lips trembling and face red as he tries to hold in laughter.
“Please,” he gasps desperately. His chest spasms with trapped giggles and he’s this close to breaking. “I can’t. This has to be against the rules.”
“This is torture,” Ilya grits out. His teeth are clenched almost as hard as his fists are at his sides. “Bag skates for everyone tomorrow.”
“Worth it,” Bood cheers as he grabs the mic for his turn. “Alright, buckle up. What do you call a drink made with tuna juice, maple syrup, and rose petals if you leave it alone for a while?”
Wyatt snorts and covers his face with his hands. Luca looks like he’s about to combust. Bood bites his bottom lip to maintain control before the punchline.
“Depends on the year. If it’s 2016? A sad Russian.”
Ilya’s eyes about bug out of his head as a team-wide “holy shit” echoes in the room. He reaches out wildly for a hand, an elbow, anything to steady himself, but it’s no use. He pitches forward in his seat, falling out on the floor in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
Shane makes a sound like a dying animal. His jaw’s clenched so hard that he thinks he can hear teeth cracking.
“Please,” he wheezes. A tear rolls down his beet-red cheek. “Mercy.”
Wyatt snatches the mic. “Okay, this has to do the trick. I’m calling it.”
He clears his throat, looks Shane in the eye, grins like an absolute lunatic, and jumps right in.
“Do you know,” he starts, voice high pitched and ridiculous, “the Muffin Man?”
“Ah, yes,” Ilya cuts in, words garbled in between chuckles. “The Muffin Man. Who lives on Drury Lane?”
“I hate you,” Shane chokes out. “You asshole. I fucking hate you, oh my God.”
Wyatt makes a strangled noise, but keeps going. “Well…she’s married to the Muffin Man.”
Shane slaps a hand over his mouth. He’s not going out like this. He won’t!
Unfortunately for him, Harris decides to join the fun. “The Muffin Man?”
And before Shane can shoot Harris a look of utter betrayal, the entire team joins Wyatt for the killing blow.
“THE MUFFIN MAN!”
The final cut of the video shows Shane Hollander, three-time Stanley Cup winner, People Magazine’s Hottest Man Alive 2022 and 2024 (and in the top 5 since 2021, right along with his husband), and man known for his unwavering professionalism, completely losing his shit. Mouth open so wide that at least a few viewers will comment on a filling in his bottom left molar. Tears streaming down his cheeks. Laughing so hard that he doesn’t even make sound at first—just shakes silently as the full force of repressed giggles builds up before he gasps and explodes into impossibly loud joy.
The video is an instant hit.
I know Ilya loves encouraging Shane’s pettier impulses. Not because Ilya is king of pettiness or a bitchy person. I mean, he can be, but those aren’t primary facets of his personality.
No—it’s because one thing Ilya knows is two things for certain. One: Shane is the best. THE best. Ilya talks a big game and he can back it up because he’s a generational talent in his own right, sure, but he is not Shane Hollander. He teases his husband and calls him “second best player in the league” because it gets Shane in a mood that always leads to fun (and that’s business that stays between Ilya, several ruined sets of sheets, and the thin walls of multiple hotel rooms). When you get down to it, he’s the famous and amazing Ilya Rozanov, yes, but that’s…that’s Shane Hollander. Shane “break the internet, top two and I ain’t number two” Hollander. Shane Thee Hollander.
Two: despite being Shane Thee Hollander, first of his name, baddest of bitches, and the Beyoncé of their field (and a cutie patootie on top of all that), Shane is not loud about his accomplishments—and Ilya thinks he should be. Shane lets the accomplishments speak for themselves. He achieves, breaks records, wins and wins and fucking wins some more, and just keeps going. He’s a force of nature. Ilya thinks his husband should have an opportunity to be loud, braggadocious, and downright obnoxious if and when he wants because, again, he’s Shane fucking Hollander.
So when Shane starts off a conversation with “I’m going to say something kind of mean,” Ilya rolls out the proverbial red carpet. Talk your shit, baby. I’m all ears.
“He’s really confident for someone with such low shooting accuracy.” Exactly. The nerve of him to even breathe your air, much less chirp at you.
“…but if I showed up in that outfit, Twitter would never let me hear the end of it!” You’re so right. He looked awful.
“Fuck him! And not in the good way!” Yup! Say it again! Matter of fact, let me get you a microphone.
“I love Hayden—as a friend, Ilya, Jesus—but maybe a vasectomy is a good idea.” I’d put ten babies in you if I could, but you’re still absolutely right about this. Jackie’s had enough.
“I respect Scott, but he’s not exactly in his prime, you know?” Scott is a dinosaur. It’s a miracle that he dodged the asteroid and made it this long without turning into dust. We should call and tell him ourselves.
“Our wedding was better.” Of course it was. I got to marry you. Any event with you at the center is the best. All the others are bullshit.
“I’m not taking that shit from some fucker with a receding hairline and no points for an entire season. Pick a struggle, asshole.” We should book him a flight to Turkey for one of those procedures. Can’t fix the other thing, though.
“Was that too mean?” Never! Say more, my love. Insult his mother. Shit-talk his teeth. You know he had a nose job last season? Supposedly it was to fix a break, but everyone knows that’s bullshit.
I desperately need JJ and Bood to interact, for no reason other than my intense desire for Hybrid Non-Verbal Caribbean Judgment.
For the uninitiated—Caribbeans and West Indians are not inherently a judgmental people (lie mi a tell). There’s just something about the particular judgment styles, especially the non-verbal styles that transcend inter-island language barriers, of each country coming together. It’s one thing for a group of Bajans or a group of Jamaicans to judge you solo. When the Bajans and the Jamaicans team up? Then when they invite their Guyanese friends? It’s something so beautiful (and ego-killing) to witness.
I like to think that JJ (of the honorable Haitian delegation) and Bood (of the esteemed Trini contingent) are friends who just don’t get to see each other often. When they do meet up, particularly with other members of their respective teams, a lot of their conversations are non-verbal. Not because they’re talking shit (they are, that’s just not the reason), but because they connect on a level that doesn’t require words.
It’s cut eye when Hayden makes a sideways comment about Rozanov (again—like, damn; you got a crush on Hollander’s man?). Bood kissing his teeth when a teammate does something he’d be positively crucified for in the media if he did it. It’s JJ pointing at someone with his lips instead of his hands, and Bood knowing exactly who he means. It’s the occasional “mmmhmm” and “eh heh” when they agree on something neither of them have said out loud.
Above all else? It’s their colleagues and friends not understanding a damn thing, but knowing that they’re being judged severely with the full force of ancestors from two countries.
“I do not like this,” Ilya grumbles into his half-empty glass. “You are talking about us without talking. Is not fair.”
“Poor likkle baby,” Bood mocks, his accent more prominent with more than a few drinks in him. “Suck it up.”
JJ chuckles into his beer bottle. “You’ll be okay, ti gason blan. We’re not even talking about you.”
Both men turn their attention back to the ruckus across the bar, where some of the Admirals’ new rookies are drunk, sloppy, and way too damn loud.
“Ah,” Ilya says. “Apologies. Please, pardon my interruption.”
For the apology, JJ spares Rozanov. For five minutes, but still. He’s gracious.
Shane experiences something many melanated celebrities go through—a wax figure that looks nothing like him. Like…at all.
It’s clear that whoever made it is very talented. They’ve made a wax figure so lifelike that it looks seconds from walking away. Objectively speaking, it’s a great sculpture.
The problem is that the wax figure is a white man.
“Bro,” Bood gasps—actually gasps, eyes wide with shock and a hand over his mouth. “They Beyoncé’d you!”
And unlike other times when Shane has no clue what that means, because huh? Pop culture and internet memes? Nope, sorry, chronically offline person here! Unlike those other times, Shane knows exactly what he means. He’d researched celebrity wax figures with Yuna when the museum reached out to his team. They’d both balked at the pattern—people of color being sculpted with different eyes, lighter skin, narrower noses. Figures that were completely unrecognizable compared to their inspirations. They’d both laughed over the blonde white woman unveiled as a wax tribute to Beyoncé.
Yuna had acknowledged the risk of it going wrong, but encouraged him to pose for the sculpture anyway. “Just give it a chance,” she’d said. “If it’s awful, we ask them to scrap it.”
Luca looks deeply disturbed. “Who even is this?”
Wyatt turns his head to try looking from another angle. “Looks like a young Robin Thicke.”
Yeah. It’s fucking awful.
The eyes are significantly rounder and angled differently. Shit, they’re not even the right shade of brown. The nose is higher, and the bridge is far more prominent than it should be. The skin tone is several shades lighter, almost like whoever this is based on hasn’t seen the sun in years. And to add insult to injury, the sculptor completely erased his—
“Freckles,” Ilya growls as he snatches Shane’s phone from the rookies. He start typing furiously. “They make you a white man, take away what makes you you, and then have the nerve to erase your beautiful freckles too. We cannot allow this.”
Shane tries snatching the phone right back before Ilya can do anything, but he’s too late. And, truthfully, he didn’t try very hard. He wanted to send a scathing review, ask if the artists needed their fucking eyes checked, demand that the figure be destroyed and never see the light of day with his name attached to it. He wouldn’t say that—he’d send something professional, but pointedly critical—but he very much wanted to.
Ilya’s response (which Shane could absolutely unsend before someone read it, but oh no, time to hit the ice for practice) makes it clear enough.
Whose goddamn white baby is this?- S. Hollander-Rozanov
I firmly believe that Shane is actually a menace.
Shane is just as unhinged as Ilya, if not more so—he just requires a certain level of comfort and ease to let people see that. Ilya’s baseline is “I woke up today and I’m going to make it everyone’s problem.” Shane is more “I need you to prove your worth and trustworthiness before I allow you access to additional sides of me.”
Shane’s parents? Fully aware of his gremlin tendencies. Ilya? Intimately acquainted and in love with this undercover harbinger of mischief. Rose, Hayden, JJ, Jackie? They know that Shane is actually just three chaos demons in a trench coat. Everyone else only catches the occasional glimpse because Shane isn’t comfortable showing that part of himself to just anyone, much less in a professional capacity.
Enter Centaurs.
Hayden notices the difference at the first Montreal game against Ottawa. Shane’s playing the same—an absolute demon on the ice, something the Metros are woefully unprepared to face now that he’s playing against them. They score a single measly goal against the Centaurs’ 10, 6 of which are Shane’s alone.
He looks relaxed, Hayden thinks as the press flocks to his friend after the game. Less tension in his shoulders. An actual smile on his face instead of the fake one reporters still haven’t caught on to after all these years. He looks…happy.
“Shane!” One of the reporters pushes to the front and holds out a microphone. “Your former teammates spent most of this game gunning for you instead of actually playing. It doesn’t seem to have worked out well, but is there anything you’d like to say to them now?”
Hayden feels a chill run down his spine as he watches the way Shane’s smile shifts from soft to sharp, closed mouth to shark-like. Oh no. Wait, wait, wait—
Shane looks directly at the camera and shrugs.
“Hoes mad.”
In the background, Rozanov’s face positively lights up. He looks like Christmas, New Year’s, and Valentine’s Day just came early, all at once and specifically for him. The rest of the Centaurs are behind him, cheering wildly.
More importantly? None of them look surprised.
Hayden’s not shocked that Shane said it—he knows what his friend is really like, knows the Metros are mad (even if he does personally object to being called a hoe). He just can’t believe Shane said that out loud, in front of cameras, in front of other people, and nobody (aside from the reporters, who are gobsmacked and clamoring for more) looks even remotely fazed by it. They’re looking at him in a way that says “that’s our Shane,” not “holy shit, he really just did that.”
As Shane walks off, completely at ease, Hayden feels two diametrically opposed emotions. On one hand, there’s a guilt gnawing at him. How awful were the Metros that Shane never felt comfortable enough to be himself and talk like this after a game? How had he not noticed? Had he taken his own privilege, his own glimpses at the gremlin that is Shane Hollander, for granted? Fuck, had he failed his friend?
On the other hand, Hayden’s excited for his friend and for the rest of the season. This Shane is comfortable enough to truly be himself and he’s going to be a complete, unapologetic, grade A problem for everyone. Hayden can’t wait to watch it happen.
As a continuation of the headcanon above, please enjoy the following installments of Shane The Menace:
Much to Hayden’s excitement (and slight fear, not gonna lie—has to play against the guy now), Shane The Menace begins making more frequent public appearances. As best friend of The Menace, Hayden dutifully corrects the Metros who grumble and complain about their former captain being corrupted by Rozanov.
He’s always been this way, Hayden says repeatedly. No corruption necessary. He just wasn’t comfortable enough to show you. Now you have to deal with being on the bad end of it.
After another Ottawa-Montreal game (another, far more dismal loss; the Centaurs pulled off a complete shutout and racked up 8 goals), the press is practically foaming at the mouth for more quotes from Shane. This time, they’re angling for some kind of reconciliation between the newest Centaur and his former teammates.
“Greg Hines, ESPN,” a stocky man in front announces as he holds out a mic. “Gilbert Comeau took a nasty fall in the first half and was on the bench the rest of the game. According to the official Metros social media team, he’s fractured an ankle. Any well wishes for him or the rest of the Metros after their loss tonight?”
Shane pulls a face—like he’s aiming for sympathetic and failing miserably. One of his former teammates tripped and now these vultures want pleasantries from him? The irony.
Hayden feels his stomach drop into his ass as Shane looks at the camera. Fuck, whatever he says is gonna make the Metros group chat go insane.
“No points and a broken ankle,” Shane deadpans. “Damn. Double homicide.”
Hayden sighs as he taps an Instagram link from JJ. It looks like the paparazzi cornered Shane at the airport, right as the Centaurs arrived for their flight to Miami. It’s already at over 200,000 views. This can’t be good.
“Shane!” A tiny woman with green hair and an old school tape recorder rushes ahead of the crowd. “Any comment on the petitions to bench you and Ilya Rozanov? Some Metros fans seem to think playing on the same team as your husband is—“
Shane normally just smiles and nods politely when approached in airports, but he pauses mid-stride. Hayden feels the temperature in his living room drop. Oh God, what’s he about to say?
“All the flavors in the world and people choose salty.” Shane adjusts his sunglasses delicately. “Blood pressure must be sky high.”
Hayden damn near chokes on his tongue laughing so hard.
Sometimes, Shane The Gremlin makes an appearance. That, Hayden explains to the uninitiated, is when Shane isn’t provoked; he’s just feeling mischievous.
In fairness, the interaction with this fucking podcaster—Henry? Harold? Fuck if Hayden knows or cares—isn’t completely unprovoked. It’s not immediately provoked, not in the moment, but it’s almost an inevitable conclusion to months of constant shit-stirring. The guy’s been one of the loudest voices decrying Shane’s exit from Montreal, using very, very thinly veiled homophobia to push his “concern for the sport.” It’s a massive crock of shit, and Hayden’s amazed the guy got a press pass for the Irina Foundation’s annual gala.
…oh. Oh shit. Shane did this on purpose, didn’t he? Jesus H. Christ, this is going to bad. Somebody should call Yuna.
“I just think it’s weird,” Shane says directly into the unsuspecting podcaster’s obnoxiously oversized mic. “You spend so much of your time with my name in your mouth, talking about how I have my husband’s dick in mine. Gotta say, I’ve never—as a gay man, mind you—thought that much about a penis that wasn’t mine or the one I was married to. Do you…have something you want to get off your chest or…?”
Hayden is not surprised when Herman (Hassan? Herbie?) goes red as a beet and silent. He’s also not surprised when the clip, recorded by at least a dozen professional-grade cameras, goes viral within minutes. He’s even more unsurprised when reaction gifs of onlookers—himself included, looking like he’ll blow a blood vessel trying not to laugh—pop up alongside #ShaneUnleashed.
stay-at-home dad ilya 🙇 (and shane at work)
Listen. Listen. I love this creator’s Twitter so much and I’m so glad they made a Tumblr for me to follow. I have never squealed and kicked my feet over fictional babies so much in my entire black ass life. Mpreg really not even my thing, but you know what? Hell yeah. I don’t care how it happens (that’s a lie—I can suspend disbelief for just about anything except the omegaverse; not yucking anyone’s yum, but it does not compute for me) , but knock up Shane Hollander so I get endless drawings of these adorable little Shanelings.
Hollanov as parents? Yes. No further questions needed.
Shane can be a petty bitch and a spoiled brat. Let me explain.
After he and Ilya move in together, get married, build a beautiful life together, he gets accustomed to a certain type of treatment. A certain marital privilege. It’s not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it means so much to Shane when he and his husband had to spend a decade pretending the most likely physical contact between them would be throwing hands on the ice.
Ilya walking by means booty smacks. They are mandatory. No exceptions. Plain and simple.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the locker room, in front of reporters, or just them at home. If Ilya gets close enough, he’s smacking one of Shane’s cheeks. Not hard, often not with enough force to make a sound. Just a little “hey there, beautiful” tap. Or, if they’re both in a particularly amorous mood, grabbing a handful and hanging on until clothes start coming off.
Shane went red as a tomato the first few times it happened, but he also never told Ilya to stop. He loves it. He loves how Ilya shows affection all day, every day, without fail. How free they get to be now. Ilya never misses an opportunity to remind him how sexy he is, and Shane would be lying if he said that the little love taps/pats/grabs/smacks weren’t important to him.
Now it’s a problem when Ilya walks by and doesn’t cop a feel. Shane’s become accustomed to it—he expects it. Those are his booty taps to collect on a daily basis. He’s entitled to those little reminders of love and affection.
When Ilya comes into the kitchen one morning and doesn’t grab a handful or give a playful smack, Shane’s immediately caught off guard. What the fuck? Why the fuck? Ilya has never, not once since they’ve been out and living together, not smacked his ass when within touching distance. Is he mad? Is he over it? Is he making a statement? Is he being an asshole for no reason? What the fuck?
While Shane stews at the kitchen counter, growing increasingly distressed, Ilya’s completely clueless. He’s distracted on the phone with Svetlana, shit-talking one of her most recent hookups (“A bowl cut, Sveta? Was he rich? A literal king? Does he have a gigantic dick?”). He has no idea the nightmare he’s just unleashed.
Shane clears his throat, waiting for Ilya to correct course himself. The blond looks up and blows his husband a kiss, but doesn’t make any other moves. Again, he has no idea what he’s done.
Now Shane is pissed. How dare this man withhold affection. From me! His love, his life, his moon and stars! The nerve! The gall! The audacity! The fucking—ooooh, he doesn’t even know. Ilya doesn’t even know how badly he’s fucked up, how he’s created a monster that’s growling, roaring, ready to burn shit down at the slightest provocation because where are my booty slaps?!
The rest of Shane’s morning is spent intentionally shedding and changing clothing until he’s shirtless and in the shortest pair of shorts he owns—the ones that ride up and offer the slightest peek of cheeks if he leans over just so. He tells himself that he’s not doing this on purpose, that the hoodie and sweats he’d had on were too heavy for a chilly morning in October (Jesus, Shane, get a grip). That he doesn’t feel satisfaction watching Ilya get within smacking distance, then huff in disappointment when Shane shifts and walks away before his hands get close enough for contact.
They both crack by 2 p.m. Ilya’s phone call with Sveta is long over and forgotten, and he’s spent five hours wondering why his husband seems to be avoiding him. Shane has huffed and puffed and blown this wildly out of proportion, but he’s positively incensed at the blatant disrespect of his cheeks going slapless and ignored.
Ilya apologizes profusely once he realizes what’s wrong (“Shane—my Shane—I would never do this on purpose! Please believe me!”) and offers two booty slaps—one to each cheek. Shane accepts the apology and jokingly warns him that if this ever happens again, it’s grounds for divorce. They both know he’s teasing and that this entire situation is absolutely ridiculous, but Ilya never misses a booty smack again. Not now that he knows how important it is to Shane to be felt up on the regular.
Shane expands his collection of short shorts, just in case Ilya ever forgets again.
Shane doing yoga is very important to me. For general wellness reasons and for freak reasons.
Being a professional athlete is rough, physically and mentally. Weightlifting alone doesn’t build and maintain strong muscles. Shane having a low impact physical activity to counteract the intense training and brutality he puts his body through on a daily basis is vital to his long term health. More importantly? It’s calming for him. It eases his anxiety and helps quiet his mind. Shane’s pretty sure he’d lose his shit without his morning yoga.
His morning yoga has also contributed greatly to Ilya’s “you’ve killed me, Hollander—I am dead” moments.
He and Ilya have a healthy sex life. Very healthy. Robust, one might say. One of the primary reasons for that is the extraordinary stamina they both have as well-trained professional athletes. Marathon sex for us mere mortals is a regular night for those two. Marathon sex for them would put a layperson in the hospital, IV in one arm and a social worker at the end of the bed asking if we’re safe at home.
One of the other big reasons for their impressive sex life? Shane being mind-bogglingly bendy. Flexible as fuck. Nightwing levels of limber.
Legs behind his head? No problem. One leg around Ilya’s waist, other one angled back toward the headboard? Easy peasy. Do a split on it? C’mon, at least make this a challenge; he does that on the regular. Bend over, touch his toes, take it like a pretty little—
You get the idea.
Ilya has yet to find a position too challenging. He tries his damnedest, just for the thrill of finding something that pushes Shane to his physical limits, but Shane has never been outdone. He just grins, makes a show of stretching his arms above his head as he whips his shirt off, and tells Ilya that he hopes they don’t have plans for the rest of the day/night/weekend/week. And he always, always eggs Ilya on.
“Hope you stretched first, Rozanov. I’ll wear you out.”
And he does. Every. Single. Time.
I firmly believe that Shane is actually a menace.
Shane is just as unhinged as Ilya, if not more so—he just requires a certain level of comfort and ease to let people see that. Ilya’s baseline is “I woke up today and I’m going to make it everyone’s problem.” Shane is more “I need you to prove your worth and trustworthiness before I allow you access to additional sides of me.”
Shane’s parents? Fully aware of his gremlin tendencies. Ilya? Intimately acquainted and in love with this undercover harbinger of mischief. Rose, Hayden, JJ, Jackie? They know that Shane is actually just three chaos demons in a trench coat. Everyone else only catches the occasional glimpse because Shane isn’t comfortable showing that part of himself to just anyone, much less in a professional capacity.
Enter Centaurs.
Hayden notices the difference at the first Montreal game against Ottawa. Shane’s playing the same—an absolute demon on the ice, something the Metros are woefully unprepared to face now that he’s playing against them. They score a single measly goal against the Centaurs’ 10, 6 of which are Shane’s alone.
He looks relaxed, Hayden thinks as the press flocks to his friend after the game. Less tension in his shoulders. An actual smile on his face instead of the fake one reporters still haven’t caught on to after all these years. He looks…happy.
“Shane!” One of the reporters pushes to the front and holds out a microphone. “Your former teammates spent most of this game gunning for you instead of actually playing. It doesn’t seem to have worked out well, but is there anything you’d like to say to them now?”
Hayden feels a chill run down his spine as he watches the way Shane’s smile shifts from soft to sharp, closed mouth to shark-like. Oh no. Wait, wait, wait—
Shane looks directly at the camera and shrugs.
“Hoes mad.”
In the background, Rozanov’s face positively lights up. He looks like Christmas, New Year’s, and Valentine’s Day just came early, all at once and specifically for him. The rest of the Centaurs are behind him, cheering wildly.
More importantly? None of them look surprised.
Hayden’s not shocked that Shane said it—he knows what his friend is really like, knows the Metros are mad (even if he does personally object to being called a hoe). He just can’t believe Shane said that out loud, in front of cameras, in front of other people, and nobody (aside from the reporters, who are gobsmacked and clamoring for more) looks even remotely fazed by it. They’re looking at him in a way that says “that’s our Shane,” not “holy shit, he really just did that.”
As Shane walks off, completely at ease, Hayden feels two diametrically opposed emotions. On one hand, there’s a guilt gnawing at him. How awful were the Metros that Shane never felt comfortable enough to be himself and talk like this after a game? How had he not noticed? Had he taken his own privilege, his own glimpses at the gremlin that is Shane Hollander, for granted? Fuck, had he failed his friend?
On the other hand, Hayden’s excited for his friend and for the rest of the season. This Shane is comfortable enough to truly be himself and he’s going to be a complete, unapologetic, grade A problem for everyone. Hayden can’t wait to watch it happen.
I choose to believe that Shane Hollander was a fat baby. Cheeks so round and chubby that his eyes disappeared when he smiled. Arms and legs looking like a busted can of biscuits. Needed some extra scrubbing at bath time to make sure he didn’t have milk in his neck rolls. Hands and feet just ridiculously fluffy, looking like marshmallows with nubs. A butterball with brown eyes and freckles.
Yuna and David constantly had to correct people, but they thought it was hilarious.
“Oh no, he’s only 6 months. He’s just a big boy.”
“He’s exclusively breastfed. No, we don’t overfeed him.”
“His pediatrician says he’s perfectly healthy.”
“Yes, our backs hurt from carrying him around, but he’s perfect.”
Ilya sees baby pictures of Shane and wonders how a spoonful of marshmallow fluff became sentient.
That’s it. That’s the post. Shane was the chunkiest baby. You’re welcome.
Bruce and Clark have a very special relationship that’s resulted in multiple levels of privilege and confidentiality.
Batman-Superman privilege: things discussed in uniform stay between them unless otherwise specified or necessary. Batman doesn’t spill the tea on Superman and Superman doesn’t tell Batman’s secrets (the ones he knows, anyway).
Friend privilege: if it’s embarrassing, hilarious, gossip-worthy, or stupid, it stays within the confines of the friendship until or unless both agree to share with others. The “others” are usually Diana, Alfred, Lois, and/or Dick (who immediately tells his siblings).
Breakdown privilege: if one of them has gotten to the point of a nervous/emotional/mental breakdown, the events leading up to and included in said breakdown remain a secret unless the physical well-being of the breakee is an immediate concern. This privilege often means that the witness to the breakdown holds the breakee until the tears stop, but that’s also a friend privilege. Nobody else gets to or has to see you cry. I’ve got you.
There’s a special level of confidentiality that transcends their personal and professional relationship. Nobody on Earth has more knowledge on the physiology and medical needs of Kryptonians as Bruce—and that includes Ma and Pa. Possibly the known universe, but it’s still not clear how far Kryptonians traveled and mingled throughout galaxies before their planet was destroyed. Could there be physicians somewhere out there who understand Kryptonian anatomy? Unknown. Possible, but unknown.
The limited knowledge on Earth, though? In this galaxy? It’s by design. There’s no one on Earth with the mind, resources, curiosity, and generosity to learn as much as Bruce does about Kryptonian anatomy, use it for good, and protect the knowledge from bad actors. God forbid someone like Lex Luthor learn any more about Clark than he already knows via DNA-jacking. More importantly? Bruce is the only person on Earth who can feasibly kill Superman if he needs to, and Clark doesn’t trust anyone else to have that knowledge and use it if absolutely necessary.
This all means that Bruce and Clark’s relationship also includes what’s essentially doctor-patient confidentiality. Bruce is the only person Clark can go to when he’s feeling off in a way that can’t be easily addressed, and Bruce would never betray his friend’s trust—both because of the personal implications and the risk to the universe.
This also means that Bruce is tasked with caring for one of the strongest beings in the known universe. He performs Superman’s annual physicals; height, weight, bloodwork, vision, head-to-toe physical exam. He knows what exposure to different light sources and colors do to Superman’s cells. He knows which foods are off-limits because of allergic reactions (Kryptonian anaphylaxis is horrifying), intolerances (Clark indulges in nightshades sparingly; otherwise, he has a tummy ache), or straight up biological incompatibility (Clark can digest literal radioactive waste, but not pork—no, they’re still not sure why; Clark sticks to turkey bacon).
Bruce knows that Superman can catch the flu. It’s a specific strain of flu not found on Earth, but still. It lays Clark out for a week and there’s nothing to do but wait it out with tea and frequent naps. Also? Kryptonian phlegm is a pretty shade of blue when exposed to oxygen.
Bruce knows that under a red sunlight or after prolonged kryptonite exposure, Clark’s actually nearsighted. The glasses he wears everyday are prescription lenses and on a normal day, his eyes adjust when he puts them on. In the event he’s depowered, he’s got what he needs to see clearly. And yes, Bruce came up with this after an unfortunate incident that left Clark squinting at everything until he got some yellow sunlight.
Batman is Superman’s emergency contact on any and all Justice League paperwork. Lois isn’t surprised or insulted. She’d much rather someone with the tools and skills to help Clark with a medical emergency be the first one called. No, I can’t tell you what his blood type is; I don’t even know if his blood works like that. You have to call Batman, but he won’t tell you. He’ll just show up and fix it.
Bruce doesn’t know it, but Batman is recognized as the foremost non-Kryptonian expert in Kryptonian medicine and physiology by an intergalactic board of practitioners. The knowledge is considered lost to time and extinction. If and when the time ever comes that someone in the known universe needs information on the Kryptonian circulatory system or nutrition requirements, they’ll travel to Earth looking for him.
When Alfred snarks about him dropping out of medical school, Bruce just grins. You’re mad I’m not a doctor? I am a doctor, Alfred. An intergalactically recognized medical expert. I’m just on retainer for one very special patient.
The Centaurs do silly Try Not to Laugh challenges for social media engagement. The rules are simple:
1. You laugh, you’re out.
2. Shane and Ilya CANNOT sit next to or on each other.
It’s not that they strategize to get everyone else eliminated first (although that would absolutely make sense and wouldn’t be a stretch). It’s not even that they’re too difficult to crack; Ilya can be taken down with the right facial expression and Shane’s a hockey robot, but he’s not an actual robot.
No—the problem is that they radiate joy when they’re together. Infectious, contagious, overwhelming joy. It’s uncontainable, uncontrollable, and impossible to resist. No one is immune.
The first challenge Harris tried filming, he’d let the team choose their seats. Ilya, being Ilya and team captain, chose to be front and center. He also (1) removed a chair to ensure they were one seat short and (2) “innocently” asked Shane to get his water bottle from the locker room, making him the last one to arrive.
“Oh no,” he deadpanned, looking straight at the camera. “Where will my beautiful husband sit? No chairs. I—ah! I have solution.”
And that’s how Shane ended up in Ilya’s lap, red as a tomato but grinning and giggling like a fool, first to get eliminated from the challenge in a video that got over a million views in just a day. That’s also how Bood made the mistake of looking at Roz’s possessive, lovesick face and immediately bursting into laughter, which spread to Wyatt, Luca, and—shit, the whole team’s down. Cut!
**Continued with a part 2 here!
Hayden doesn’t see or hear Shane laugh until after Shane and Ilya are outed.
He’s seen Shane Hollander laugh. That forced, professional, made-for-the-cameras laugh. He’s seen Captain Shane laugh, with a short, restrained smile before he gets right back to business. He’s seen My Best Friend Shane laugh at dinner with Jackie and the kids, in a way he’d thought was real for over a decade because it looked like it reached his eyes.
Then he watches the way Shane—not Captain, not the kids’ Uncle Shane, not post-game press Hollander; this is the real Shane—lights up when Rozanov whispers something in his ear. There’s no other way to describe it. Shane leans in to listen to whatever Rozanov has to say and the way his face breaks open into pure, unfiltered joy is just…
Damn, Hayden thinks to himself. Where was this Shane the whole time?
Shane laughs so long and so hard that he can barely breathe. He’s red in the face, wiping away tears and gasping for air as he tries to hold in the giggles—and that’s the only way to describe the sound; these are uncontrollable, soul-deep giggles. He loses the fight over and over, dissolving into laughter every time Rozanov looks his way.
He was here the whole time, Hayden says internally. We just didn’t see him.
He thinks back to every locker room conversation, every victory party, every team dinner where Shane had seemed happy. Every shared hotel room and late-night talk where he’d asked if his friend was okay because something had felt off and he’d assumed that behind closed doors and closed-off smiles, Shane was lonely. Every conversation they’ve had with JJ since The Video, where Shane looked down and clammed up. Every practice where he stopped looking angry when Comeau stopped passing to him and the other players followed suit, and he’d just looked blank.
I’m good.
I’m fine.
You worry too much.
What are you, my mother?
Rozanov—Ilya—hauls Shane into his lap by the waist and plants a wet, sloppy kiss onto his freckled cheek. The Shane Hayden knows—knew?—would’ve made a face at the extreme physical contact. This Shane laughs harder and revels in the affection, tilting his head and giving the other man access to his neck.
Fuck, we didn’t see him, Hayden thinks. I didn’t see him. I didn’t hear him. I let him disappear right in front of me.
…am I a shit friend?
