Chapter Text
The old saying about a butterfly flapping its wings and earthquakes was something that Shane thought a dedicated athlete in his prime shouldn't think about as often as he did. He liked plans; he believed that it was drilling plays and studying video and keeping at peak condition that would lead their team to the playoffs and then on to win the finals for the second time in a row. But he wasn't an idiot, he liked to think of himself as a realist, so infuriating though it was, he was aware that a game could turn on a dime. That no matter how well you drilled and trained and optimised, there were things you could never account for.
Sticks broke at the worst possible moment, skates caught in ruts, refs woke up on the wrong sides of the bed and called bullshit penalties, or not called obvious ones... That was hockey. Shane loved it all the same—in his more honest moments not despite, but because of the unpredictability.
Still, you couldn't focus too much on the what ifs. What if I'd gone left instead of right, what if Comeau had passed to Marky, what if we'd changed the shift earlier, what if I hadn't ducked out of sight in time, what if I hadn't shifted and woken him up last time...
That way lay madness.
Something Shane Hollander did his best to banish from his mind while doing yoga, reminding himself to stay present, and grounded. To accept the past, not overthink it, not stress about the things he couldn't change, to learn from it, to focus on the future and on what mattered to his performance.
If Shane Hollander ever heard about the multiverse theory, his mind would have let out an anguished shriek, and then he would have gone to do some serious yoga about it.
So it was a good thing that Shane Hollander would never know to consider if the course of his life changed one cold December morning in 2015 when a baby in a supermarket reached out, grabbed the corner of an unwrapped candy bar his sisters had succeeded in throwing into his vicinity, and stuck it in his mouth.
Nevertheless, that is exactly what happened because within two days, Jackie and Hayden Pike were calling Shane, losing their minds, because Arthur's fever wouldn't go down and he'd spent the entire night screaming his little lungs out, and Hayden's parents were on holiday in Costa Rica and Jackie's too far to be of help, and there was no way either one of them could handle maneuvering the traffic on their own with a suffering baby in the backseat.
So Shane raced across town, accepted a distracted, nearly delirious "Thank you so much, man," from Hayden and "Meals are prepped in the fridge, the schedule too," from Jackie, and then the front door closed and he was left, staring into two identical faces in a play pen, and he wasn't sure who out of the three of them was less prepared to deal with the situation.
He'd met the twins, of course, when he came over for dinner or to watch a game with the boys or when Hayden took them off Jackie's hands for a trip somewhere around Montreal. But the maximum time he'd spent with either of them on his own was the length of either of their parents' bathroom breaks, and since he had been asleep 45 minutes prior, it was only now that he was realizing this and his own near absolute lack of knowledge regarding child-care.
"Hi," he said, approaching cautiously, because if he wasn't afraid to be boarded by the biggest defensemen in the league, why should he be afraid now. He took his hands out of his pockets to wave a little. His brain recalled a nature documentary stressing the importance of keeping calm, using a soothing voice and not making any sudden moves. He put on the most soothing tone he could manage and said:
"I'm... Uncle Shane? And you're Ruby and Jade, right?"
One of them promptly burst into tears, loudly.
"No, no, hey, it's okay, I promise," Shane said, hurrying forward. The other one started crying as well.
So Shane said: "Okay, okay, okay" and with his hands raised above his head, fled to hide in the kitchen, where he tried to find solace in studying the charts on the fridge, but even though they were amazing charts—Hayden did such a good job marrying Jackie—it was difficult to focus due to the fact that there were two extremely distressed children just around the corner who it was apparently his job to keep alive and without lasting trauma until their parents came back.
Shane clicked on the first link that came up under "how to calm down child distressed emergency babysitting for friend", read as fast as he could, wishing these kinds of articles came in bullet point format, then took the day's schedule off the fridge, arranging the magnets back in place, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, swore never to tell a living soul that for a moment, what he really longed for was the feel of his mouthguard gripped tight between his teeth, and then he was walking out towards the sniffles, armed with tissues, and the words "routine", "good humor", "calm" and "physical outlets".
After half-an-hour, Shane decided that dealing with small children wasn't very different from dealing with drunk hockey players. Both were loud, prone to tears, manic laughter, endless repetitive questions only parts of which were in a language he could understand, and running into things. And really, once Shane internalized that, things became so much easier. (And once he managed to persuade them that they knew him and that Mommy and Daddy would be home very soon, and yeah, they'd be bringing back the baby too, the same baby yeah since doctors swapping babies was very illegal, no, hopefully he wouldn't cry so much, but some crying was to be expected because being ill sucks and hurts. Because your mucus membranes are swollen. Because of the virus attacking your body and fighting with your immune system. Yeah, maybe it's like with Ryder and Chase from Paw Patrol, but Shane wasn't sure, since he's never met them.)
There were differences between taking care of and entertaining Ruby and Jade versus drunk rookies. For one, Ruby and Jade were much less heavy to catch and restrain when they launched themselves places without regard for sharp edges or watching their feet. For another, they were quite an ego boost, since they seemed to find the completely normal things that Shane said fascinating and hilarious. On the other hand, the most he ever had to deal with his players' bodily functions was when he was calling them transport home, apologizing and offering to pay extra. He had a feeling that the way the high-pitched "Uncle Shaaaaane" echoed around bathroom tiles was going to haunt him for a while.
Hayden texted with regular updates, Shane texted back. That they were keeping to the plan, that he was keeping the girls hydrated, asking whether they really were allowed to go outside in the snow in just their inside clothes because that seemed highly unlikely to him—to which Jackie answered with both the information that it was alright to break the routine since getting the twins dressed was a hassle even on a regular day, and precise instructions on what they were supposed to wear and where to find it if Shane thought they might bring the house down unless they could run their energy off.
The twins jumped in the snow and slid and fell in the snow and packed snow together into shapes, having Shane guess what they were—after he'd made the mistake of saying "Yes, that's pretty, is it a turtle?" instead of just "Very pretty! Good job." When Shane ran out of living animals to name and had to resort to extinct stuff like dinosaurs and mammoths, it was time nearly for lunch, and he suspected it was only his last year of captaining the Metros all the way through the season to the play-offs to the Cup Final that gave him the skills and determination and perseverance to herd the twins back inside, out of their sodden wet clothes and into the bathroom to wash their hands.
Where, despite an initial barrage of "Why?", they soon lost interest in him explaining germ theory to them.
They had lunch, and then they were scheduled for a nap, which Shane was surprised to hear they didn't appreciate, because at that point, he certainly would have liked to take one. But there was the chart and Shane's further instructions from Hayden were to be uncompromising, so there he was, sitting on the floor of a very pink bedroom on an extremely fluffy pink rug, and trying to remember some type of a bedtime story, because either Jade, or Ruby insisted that they didn't want any of the ones from the books on the shelves because those were for bedtime-bedtime, and not naptime.
"So, the Little Red Riding Hood was this little girl, who wore-"
"No!" yelled one of them. "We know this one!"
"Er... right, of course you do," said Shane. Because yeah, figured. "Well, I'm not sure... Do you know the one about the girl who lost her shoes and married a prince?"
They did. They even had to remind him of her name, so clearly that one was out.
His phone signaled an incoming text. Shane checked it, hoping it was Hayden with the news that they were on their way. It wasn't.
Lily: 1 new message
Shane stared at the screen, felt the tips of his ears go red as his eyes went wide. Here, in this bedroom on soft, fluffy pink rug, it felt like being hit with an asteroid: two-worlds colliding.
"Uncle Shane! A stolly! You pllomise stolly!!"
"Right, I did. I did do that." He locked his screen again and looked at their determined, tired faces. So painfully familiar. It was the same face that Hayden wore semi-permanently during the play-offs last season. It meant playing through exhaustion, bruises that went deep into tissue, joint pain... It meant not giving up for anything. Which was great and admirable on the ice. Less ideal now.
It occurred to him, suddenly, there was a clear solution to make them stop arguing whether they knew a story or not.
"You definitely haven't heard this one before. It's... about a bear... Called Lily..."
Shane didn't regret basing the naptime story for his friend's children on Ilya Rozanov when the twins had him explain what Russia was - a place far away that had lots of bears and snow and ice and probably, they didn't have ice cream houses, but no, he wasn't 100% sure. He didn't regret it when Jade (he thought it was Jade anyway) asked while sniffling a little if Lily the Bear was sad so far away from home from Mommy and Daddy and he had to quickly give Lily the Bear an occupation that would mean that sometimes she was sad, but she was also really happy and having fun, and nothing else came to mind except hockey.
He didn't regret it even when now, to keep the story narratively satisfying, Lily the Hockey Playing Bear, had to be the best hockey-playing animal in the world, and win games against bears and tigers and wolves and unicorns, but not cats or dragons because those would play in a different league on account of the size-difference. (It was while he was pondering - semi-deliriously and out loud - the requirements of hockey arenas for dragons, that he realized the twins had dropped off. So even though he felt a little foolish for all the nonsense that had come out of his mouth, they were asleep and he couldn't regret that. Since it meant that he could relax and unclench and receive the update that Hayden and Jackie were on their way back while feeling like he had done a good job, which let him sit on the fluffy rug, smirk a little and compose a truly, truly excellent reply to Rozanov's usual nonsense.)
He didn't regret it a couple of days later when Hayden asked him to come over to keep him company with the twins before a home game while Jackie took Arthur for a check-up, and Shane was very surprised to find himself in demand for storytime, and had to ignore the heat in his ears and convince Hayden that Shane was happy to help out by putting the twins down for their nap by himself and Hayden could go do whatever it was he needed to do in the bathroom. (Shane loved him, but he didn't need to know about his bowel movements or the difficulties of having any privacy with toddlers in the house.)
He was unsurprised by the request for more Lily-Bear, and felt relieved that the twins seemed happy to listen to him recount mostly the same thing over again (though he wondered if he should tell Hayden or Jackie that one of the girls seemed kind of stuck on Lily's parents being so far away) and this time he didn't protest the ice-cream houses in Russia because why the hell not, and luckily, the girls fell asleep before Hayden returned and Shane got away with not having to explain why he was giving his daughters the play-by-play of Rozanov's latest game against the Admirals or agreeing with Ruby's (possibly?) suggestion that the Admirals' captain was a unicorn.
Shane didn't regret Lily the Hockey-Playing Bear even as he was reminded of it when they touched down in Boston and he turned his phone on to find a message from Lily waiting. Because he was there to play hockey, win, and then get his brains fucked out in a hotel room. And he didn't regret it even though they lost in overtime, and the bear tattoo on Rozanov's chest seemed to have a sort of a new obnoxious, knowing look as the muscles underneath flexed, while Shane lay gasping, panting, grabbing at Rozanov's back and his hotel sheets urging him faster and harder into his body.
He didn't regret it and actually found himself biting back a smile as they lay together afterwards and he traced the contours of the tattoo with idle fingers.
"Missed him, hmmm?" Rozanov asked with a shit-eating grin that didn't go away even when Shane told him to fuck off and turned his head to give the nearest muscle within reach a bite. All it got him was a rumble of a laugh, and a pinch at his waist that had him squirming closer to avoid it.
He didn't regret telling that story when Rozanov left to take a shower and he found himself wondering—unwillingly after the misguided attempt at a conversation in Vegas—about Rozanov's home life, and stupidly imagining, what he would say if this thing between them was a thing where Shane could tell him about the nerve-wrecking experience of babysitting Hayden's children and using him as inspiration during storytime without Rozanov taking this the wrong way, thinking that Shane was some kind of an idiot who couldn't compartmentalize good sex and feelings.
No, the first pangs of regret hit Shane on the plane to Columbus when Hayden said: "Bud, you're not going to believe this. This is a fucking nightmare," and showed him a message from Jackie which contained a video and two lines: "our daughters are in love 😂😂" and "they did the same thing yesterday too". The video showed the twins on the couch in the living room, eyes wide and glued to the TV screen, where Ilya Rozanov, larger-than-life gave a post-game interview to the press, shirtless chest and tattoo gleaming. But the joyful shouts of "Lily-bear! Lily-bear!" were kind of funny, and so were the discontented cries when the camera cut away, only for the phone-holder, Jackie, to rewind the footage back to Rozanov to twin delighted cheers of "Lily" and "Bear!"
So the regret didn't fully set in until several days later into the roadie when Jackie sent a new video, voice shaking in suppressed laughter, showing the girls stills from interviews on the big TV:
"Who's that, girls?" "Daddy! Daddy!" Enthusiastic and hyped up. Click.
"And who's that?" A short thoughtful silence, then a tentative: "Unca Shane?" morphing into a joyful: "Unca Shane!" Click.
"Who-" An absolute cacophony of: "LILY BEAR! LILY! LILILLILILILY BEAR! BEAR!"
Click. Back to Hayden. "No! No! Back! Lily Bear!! No!"
Because Hayden had been incautious enough to play it for the first time in the airport with the rest of the team around, so everyone congregated around the two of them to see what the children yelling and Hayden's shell-shocked expression were about.
Most found it hilarious, and Shane had to admit it that if he had not been the cause of it all, he probably would have, too. But there were one or two instances of things like: "What is she teaching those girls?" "Better keep an eye on that woman of yours" that had Hayden jump to his feet and snarl: "You do not fucking speak about my wife like that, rook, if you want to fucking keep your teeth!" Which was a lot less funny.
The phone call home from their hotel room after their loss was even less amusing, during which Shane hid away in the bathroom and tried not to listen as Hayden's voice went from tense to defensive to genuinely upset and angry? And Shane sat on the closed toilet seat with his head in his hands and slowly realised that he had to tell the truth about the fucking story now because they had to play another game on the road before heading back home and also he couldn't have his friend's marital problems on his conscience.
So after Hayden rapped on the door and told him he needed to take a piss, phone call definitely over, Shane came out, sat on his bed, trying to come up with reasons why a normal person who hadn't been fucking Ilya Rozanov every chance he could get over the course of the past few years would tell two clearly very impressionable toddlers a bedtime story about his female-bear alter-ego.
Somehow, he got through it, using the fact that Hayden was in the process of changing to his sleep clothes as an excuse not to keep eye-contact.
He finished with a trailed off: "It just... happened. I didn't mean... Yeah. Sorry."
"What the fuck?"
"I know! I fucking know, alright! But they didn't want Little Red Riding Hood and we were playing Boston next, so I guess bears and Russians were on my mind, and I never thought..."
"That my insane children would connect a cute cuddly bear who plays hockey with a shirtless asshole on TV? No fucking shit! Who would? This is fucking insane!"
And then, to Shane's great relief, he started to laugh. Thank fucking Christ, right? Shane flopped back on the bed, bone-tired and grateful at how well Hayden took the whole thing.
"Honestly, man, I think it's the tattoo they're into more than anything else," he said after they both calmed down.
"Yeah, probably," Hayden replied before fumbling for his phone. "I gotta call Jackie back and apologize, I was fucking dumb about it anyway, and- shit, it's so late. I'll call in the morning."
And Shane had absolutely no idea that that was the last time for some time he was falling asleep with his mind nice and quiet without needing to do any breathing or meditation exercises at all.
In the morning, the sound of the hotel door clicking shut woke him as Hayden slipped out for his apology call to Jackie. Shane exhaled, stretched his body and categorized the sore muscles, bruises, evaluated the ache in his ankle. Bit his tongue against the desire to pop his knees, and checked his phone by habit.
Lily: 2 new messages.
With a quick glance at the door, Shane sat up against the headboard and, excited heat coiling in his belly, opened the conversation.
The first message took up half the screen - a link to an Instagram post that the app had transformed into a preview.
Shane blinked, sleepily pleased and cautiously surprised, because sometimes, increasingly lately, he'd come across posts in places and have to stop himself from sharing them with Rozanov with words like: "You after my beautiful goal last week" and "What the hell? Do people really do that in Boston?"
He clicked on the link before the words on the messages below registered (rivalry over, jane 😂😂😂 best hockey player decided forever. children speak the truth), and so he both did and didn't expect it when the hotel room rang with a by-now familiar:
"Who's that, girls?" "Daddy! Daddy!"
Shit.
Shane saw Jackie's Instagram handle, the very, very late time of posting. He saw the number of likes and comments. He saw Rozanov's right at the top: "beautiful and very smart like their mama. 😂💙 next goal I score for them 🐻"
Fuck.
Fuck!