Chapter Text
Shane Hollander doesn’t fight.
The NHL knows this. The NHL’s players know this. Ilya knows this.
Shane Hollander doesn’t chirp much and even when he does, his chirps are playful, kind and somehow feel like friendship. Perhaps that’s why no one fights Shane Hollander either. The man is too kind, too beloved, and entirely too adorable to fight. Though that might be just Ilya’s own bias speaking.
Two plus two is four, humans can’t survive without oxygen and in his twelve years as a professional hockey player, Shane Hollander has never fought before.
Why? Because. Shane. Hollander. Does. Not. Fight.
(There was that one particular incident between ‘Golden Boy’ Shane Hollander and ‘Nice Guy’ Scott Hunter but even that was interrupted before any punches were thrown and followed up by profuse apologies from both parties so it didn’t really count as a fight, did it? Ilya, who does fight quite a lot, doesn't think so.)
There was a time when the media, and the fans in general took issue with this. Hockey was an inherently violent sport and fighting was part of the fun. It was forgiven quickly enough though because he may not fight but Hollander settled his scores on the scoreboard.
The fact that Shane Hollander “doesn’t” fight, however, does not irrefutably speak to his ability to fight. “Doesn’t” is not synonymous to “can’t.”
Unfortunately, the NHL, and Ilya himself made the mistake of assuming “doesn’t” does in fact mean “can’t” and assumptions apparently make an ASS out of U and ME because that is precisely the situation they’re in right now.
Ottawa was playing Montreal on Montreal ice. Ilya didn’t have to be a genius to know what kind of reception they’ll receive.
His team, on the bright side, seems to share his sentiments.
“If they so much as look at either of you funny, someone’s going home with a broken jaw and it ain’t gonna be one of us,” Bood grumbles.
“I was an asshole once. I don’t mind temporarily being one again.” Troy Barret cracks his knuckles for emphasis. A moment of pause, “for a good cause this time though, obviously.”
Haas is offering, “I could use some more fight experience.”
Hayes agrees,“T’is hockey. Fighting is an occupational hazard anyway.”
Shane smiles at the spirit. Ilya will fight the entire Voyageurs roster if it means Shane will keep smiling like that.
But Shane Hollander does not fight. “I appreciate the support guys but no.”
Ilya tilts his head towards his husband. “No?”
“No.” Shane confirms. “You guys want to defend my honour? Play to win. The only scores I want settled are those on the scoreboard.”
Ilya comes closer to him, his head on Shane’s shoulders and lowers his voice to almost a hum. “I hope you know that they do not share your sentiments and they will not play as clean as you want us to.”
“I’m not saying you let them walk all over you,” Shane defends. “I’m saying that they’ll be pissed at me and I need you guys to focus on winning this game and trust that I can take care of myself.”
Dillon looks at him funny. “So don’t let them walk over us…”
“...but you’re fair game?” Barret looks like he’s ready to drop the gloves right there in the locker room.
“I’m saying we’re here to play our game,” Shane grits out. “Not focus on theirs.”
Ilya doesn’t like that. He practically spits, “Gagnon isn’t there to play any game.”
Tanner Gagnon was Montreal’s newest addition to the roster. 6’8. Big. Bulky. Criminal record for assault. Fair hockey ability.
Why he was on the team was no mystery.
“We won’t react to him,” Shane insists.
Moments like this remind Ilya of why he calls Shane his Solnyshko. Shane shines so bright sometimes, that he doesn’t register the darkness.
Ilya sighs, but still tries “Solnyshko…”
Shane turns to him, sharp, serious. “I’m serious, Ilya. They don’t win today. They can’t.” Something dangerous is on Shane’s face. “I don’t just want to win. I want them to lose so badly that they go home crying and we can’t do that if you guys get sent to the fucking penalty box for petty scrimmages.”
There is weight behind Shane’s words. The locker room stills and Ilya can see glimpses of Captain Shane Hollander. It makes him giddy, for some reason.
It’s Bood who catches up first. He looks at the team. “You people heard the man.”
Barret echoes, “Let’s do it!”
“We trounce their asses!” Chouinard agrees enthusiastically.
Shane looks touched. He looks at Ilya, and says, “Promise?”
“Score over scrimmage,” Ilya vows, albeit reluctantly. “Promise.”
Shane’s face lights up. Solnyshko. Shane kisses Ilya, quick, chaste. Ilya blushes anyway.
A cough. A snort. An untraceable ‘whipped.’
Coach Wiebe comes in. “Ready to go, boys?”
He’s met with a round of whoops, yes’s and a few creative murder intention declarations.
“That’s the spirit,” He grins. Then, he looks at Hollander with something akin to pride. “Hollander. You’re centering the first line today.”
Shane looks shocked. Then looks at Ilya. “But…”
Ilya grins at him. “I will be on your right.”
Shane looks at him adoringly. “I love you.”
Ilya leans close and says, “Ya tebya lyublyu.”
Dillon whines, “You can still be in love after the game, oh my god!”
Shane blushes. Ilya gives Dillon the middle finger. With that, they’re off. Shane’s face twists into something determined as they step onto the ice.
Well. Shane Hollander does settle his scores on the scoreboard after all.
By the end of the second period, Ilya is just about ready to break his promise.
Baring Pike and Boiziau, the Voyageurs were, apparently, keen on taking full benefit of the homefield bias advantage.
Montreal had been gunning for Shane with a passion of a woman scorned. Shane had been tripped, shoved, highsticked, tripped again, checked legally at every opportunity and checked illegally albeit less frequently.
Troy had lost his cool when Shane was tripped the second time and it took Bood physically grabbing him by the collar to avoid the sin bin, though Bood did look close to letting Troy at them when the Comeau leaned close to whisper something most likely vile.
Dillon, Chouinard, and Haas had all also narrowly avoided fights on multiple instances. Though Haas did do two minutes for tripping a loud mouthed rookie and didn’t even look remotely ashamed for it.
Pike had come up to them to apologize about five times now. Boiziau had taken to yelling at his teammates. It wasn’t working.
At least Shane’s words about settling things on the scoreboard rang true because Shane had scored a hat trick by the end of the second period. That, combined with Ilya’s two goals, Barret’s one and Haas's one made the score 7 -1 in Ottawa’s favor and there was less than a minute left on the clock and the puck securely under Shane’s control.
The problem, though, was Tanner Gagnon.
Gagnon had been on Shane’s tail the entire game, barring the time he did in the penalty box. He was out for blood and frustrated Shane hadn’t taken any bait.
In hindsight, Gagnon dropping his gloves shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. It was a lost game for Montreal. Shane had the puck. Fighting him then and there stops him from scoring again and Montreal may walk away with a fight win if not a game one.
Shane, though, doesn’t reciprocate. Instead, he ignores Gagnon, and skates forward, passing to Ilya. He mouths, ‘go!’ and that’s all Ilya needs.
Even with the roar of boo’s Shane received, Ilya is too relieved to be disappointed. He takes the puck and bursts forward.
Unsurprisingly, he scores. The final buzzer sounds a second after Ilya tucks the puck in. There’s a roar. Ilya turns behind him, expecting to see Shane right there behind him but he’s not—
Wait.
Where is Shane? And what is everyone staring at—?
Ilya goes pale.
Because right there where Shane had passed the puck to him, stood Shane, gloves off, mid-fight. Mid-fight with Tanner Gagnon.
6 '8, bulky, former criminal Tanner Gagnon.
You aren’t supposed to interrupt fights. Ilya doesn’t give a flying fuck about that right now. He roars and bursts forward at full speed but he’s intercepted by Barret and Boodram.
“Let me go!” Ilya roars.
Bood looks at him unimpressed. “No.”
“Fuck you! I’ll kill you, and him! Я вас всех убью! Клянусь!” Ilya thrashes.
“Shane’s winning, you marble!” Barret snarls at him, half-stunned, half-delighted.
At that, Ilya stops and looks because fuck, yes, he was.
Gagnon lunged at Shane wildly, swinging a massive overhand hook toward his head.
Shane didn’t flinch. He pivoted to the side on his skates, letting Gagnon’s punch miss and throw him off balance.
Before Gagnon could recover, Shane struck back, quick and clean, snapping Gagnon’s head to the side. Shane kept moving, using his skates to hook Gagnon’s leg. Gagnon lost his footing and dropped to one knee.
The crowd’s roar warped into a stunned silence.
And Shane, Ilya’s Shane, was a fucking beauty. Blood on his lips, hair flying, a wild, animalistic look in his eye oh my god—
Ilya can’t help it. He’s yelling “Go, baby!”
Shane doesn’t stop.
Punch. Knee. Knee. Punch hit hit hit
Uh oh.
Gagnon isn’t fighting anymore. He might not even be conscious.
Ilya yells, “No, baby!”
The refs are having no luck pulling Shane off. The Voyageurs are rushing to defend their enforcer.
The Centaurs realize they should be doing something too so Bood and Barret drop Ilya and the three of them lunge at Shane, pulling him off Gagnon.
Shane turns, fury in his eyes, but the fight leaves him the second he sees it’s Ilya holding him.
Shane looks so fucking lost. Ilya thinks fuck it and pulls Shane into the crook of his neck. Shane breathes Ilya in, letting himself be dragged off to Ilya’s pace.
Gagnon leaves on a stretcher. Yikes.
Somehow, Ilya honestly doesn’t feel bad about it.
Shane does though, if his sharp intake of breath is any indication.
Pike and Boiziau are trying to get Shane’s attention.
Ilya makes a calling motion and mouths ‘later.’ They look unsatisfied but sucks to suck.
The locker room is silent afterwards.
Everyone is pretending to mind their business but stealing glances at Shane and Ilya.
Shane’s getting looked at by the team medic when Coach Wiebe walks in, face grim.
Wiebe jumps straight into it. “Bruised ribs, black-eye, concussion. Hollander, you broke the man's jaw!”
Ilya is ready to attack if he dares—
Wiebe breaks out a grin. “Hollander, you beautiful, crazy, fucking beast.”
Instantly, the mood shifts.
"Just because I threatened to break someone's jaw doesn't mean you actually had to go do it, Hollander!" Bood slaps his shoulder.
“‘Settle it on the scoreboard!’ ” Dillon mocks, “What happened to that?”
Shane huffs, wetly, “Technically, I did. With the hat trick.”
Hayes teases, “You literally ignored Gagnon dropping his gloves till you’d passed to Ilya. Then, you were like ‘okay I can fight now!’ when he had the puck.”
Shane blushed. “I wanted him to have a hat trick too! And the score was 7 - 1! One more and it’d be 8 - 1. 81. Like Ilya’s number!”
Ilya… had not realized that. He was touched. “Moy Lyubimiy…”
“Shut up,” Shane hides back into his arms.
Ilya looks at him innocently. “Did not say anything.”
Shane mumbles, “I had to…”
“You had to break his face?” Wiebe asks, amused.
Shane goes still and looks at the floor. The team catches onto the shift.
Ilya asks, meaningfully, “Sweetheart.”
Shane looks at them darkly. “He said something I couldn’t let go.”
There’s weight behind those words. And with the protective grip Shane has on Ilya, they can take a pretty neat guess what category of insult that “something” fell in.
“Well,” says Barret. “He had it coming then.”
Shane promises, “I’d do it again if I had to do it all over.”
Boyle insists, “Who are you and what have you done with our Shane?”
“Where the hell did you learn to fight like that?” LaPointe interrogates.
“Nowhere,” Shane mumbles, “Just some karate I did when I was a kid.”
“You? That? Karate?” Holmberg demands, “That was not just ‘some’ karate you did.”
Wiebe chuckles. “Save the questions to the media. Come on, Hollander. You’re on in 10.”
Shane groans. “Can I not?”
“After that fight? No fucking chance, kid. Outside. In. Ten.” Wiebe leaves them with that.
Somehow, the best part comes during the post game interviews.
A reporter asks, “Mr Hollander! Tammy from HockeyWatch. Mr Gagnon was taken to the ER after you’re fight. He’s reported to have a broken jaw and concussion. Given that the Centaurs were in a 7 - 1 lead at the time of the fight, 8 - 1 between it, with barely any time left on the clock, do you think your conduct in the fight was an over-reaction?”
Shane clears his throat. “Hi, Tammy. Well, first of all, I didn’t initiate the fight. I don’t fight. But that doesn’t mean I can’t. This is hockey. Fights happen. And Gagnon is not the only one that was injured.” Shane waves his lightly bruised knuckles in front of her like a child at show and tell. “I got hurt too!”
Tammy looks at his hand, then back at him. “Sir. Gagnon has a broken jaw.”
Shane flushes. “It’s not a competition. And my knuckles really do hurt.”
Tammy blinks. “Tanner Gagnon’s fingers are in a cast.”
“It’s not a competition, Tammy!” Shane insists.
An Ottawa representative, Kathy, practically trips onto the stage. She drags him off, “That’s a wrap! Shane Hollander is done. Let’s go, Hollander.”
Kathy from PR shakes her head and informs him. ‘Twitter's gonna have a field day and Harris is gonna kill you.”
Shane sighs and tries, “How bad could it be?”
Kathy looks at him, unimpressed.