Work Text:
Shane's body has betrayed him.
He rests his head against the porcelain of the toilet. It’s objectively gross— this place barely qualifies as a hotel—but that feels irrelevant now as his hair is slick with sweat. He hasn’t thrown up before a game since juniors. Shane goes through his usual breathing technique for nerves, but his stomach still lurches. He spits bile down the bowl.
Later tonight is the gold medal game against Team USA. Russia's out of the running with an embarrassing loss against Latvia, of all teams. Shane had tried to say something to Rozanov during the Men's Short Program, but the other man had completely iced him out.
No, I didn't answer your boring text, spoken with barely masked disdain. Like the concept was so ridiculous to him, like he hadn't tried to get inside Shane for the past two years, and the second Shane had let his walls down—
Why is he thinking about Rozanov anyway? He has a game to win, if his stomach will cooperate. Shane spits one last time into the toilet and then gets up to flush it. Gotta get his game face on.
At the end of it, he flies back home with a silver medal in his suitcase.
jockadjacent: so i wrote the first few paragraphs [bats wrote the opening line i believe] and i specifically chose the olympics because of 1) ilya's rejection of shane and 2) it's implied that shane lost this game. without the context of a fucking PREGNANCY, i think shane puking is still plausible and compliant with canon. it's his first olympics! his parents arent there! his situationship hates him and so does russia!
songbyrd: i have always treated the first line of anything i've ever written with more ceremony than is probably neccessary, and this is no different. i was thrilled to come up with "shane's body has betrayed him" because in this moment, shane feels betrayed by his body for throwing up before the most important game of his career thus far… but little does he know! it gets worse! his body has betrayed him in a much worse way!!!
The third time he throws up in the morning, Shane goes on the internet. It doesn’t feel like a regular cold or flu. No sore throat, no congestion. But his body keeps aching–especially around his chest and lower back. Shane’s meant to be an athlete at his peak, but fatigue keeps creeping in. He’s getting slower on the ice, causing too many turnovers because he’s not outskating the other players.
jockadjacent: rozanov's go-to insult continues to haunt shane. a fucking slow canadian hockey player
songbyrd: ilya haunts this whole fic. i am a SUCKER for somebody haunting the narrative! one of my biggest inspirations when working this fic with addy (among other things) was hereditary (which i won't spoil, but some major haunting of the narrative occurs). the way ilya haunts the narrative is looming/impending, but shane is also, above any kind of fear or shame, BITTER. ilya can fuck off for six months and ostensibly forget about shane. but for shane, ilya—in the form of pregnancy—is PHYSICALLY rooted inside of him, and he can try his best to ward off all his thoughts about that guy but at the end of the day his fucking baby is growing inside him
"Get it the fuck together, Hollander," Shane mutters.
songbyrd: ok addy wrote this line but what if he called himself hollander instead of shane because he was imagining rozanov saying that… food for thought
Last night had been brutal, with his own mom sending him soundbites from sports commentators. What's going on with Shane Hollander? Well, he's here to find out.
Into the search bar, he types: nausea body aches fatigue
The first page of results suggests a viral infection. The second page suggests a heart attack of all things, and diabetes. Does he have a family history of those? If Shane asks, his mom would totally freak out. He's only 23.
Shane is healthy, though. He should be. He's eating clean, he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he's working out—he can't not have an active lifestyle. From what he remembers from high school health class, Shane is doing everything right. Everything's perfect. No risk factors. He's not even fucking Ilya Rozanov.
Where the hell was Rozanov last night? Not in Shane's bed, that's for sure.
Shane doesn't think he's ever been more desperate than last night, texting Rozanov his hotel and room number. He's never been so nonchalant, watching it go unanswered and moving on with his life. It's about meeting Rozanov's energy. No more chasing. Shane can't stay in second place forever; he literally has the rest of his life to live.
Typically, his body takes about a week, sometimes less, to burn through a bug. He buries his head under a blanket and a humidifier. He adds orange peel tea to his morning routine. He adds another ten minutes to his game-day naps even though it throws him off like everything's tilted at an angle.
Nothing works. Weeks pass with the symptoms only getting worse. Shane removes the extra ten minutes.
He gets a nagging clue when he comes to at his kitchen island, staring at a gas station receipt for a box of ice cream sandwiches and a hot pickle. His stomach, satisfied, somehow. He's missing time.
jockadjacent: this right here was meant to communicate his weird food cravings AND disassociation—shane has a clear definition for his personhood and when he does something that deviates from it, the narrative skirts around it. well thats what im trying to get at anyway
He takes a stool and pulls a notepad from the drawer.
-
body aches
-
nausea
-
tenderness in the chest
-
fatigue
-
really really weird cravings outside diet plan
-
weeks → month?
Shane isn't stupid enough to ignore what's right in front of him. Just stupid enough to let it happen.
His first idea is to cross the border. He'll find some Buttfuck, Nowhere town in the States, where everyone is American and no one cares about hockey. At least, not like they do in Montreal. Shane can be just another random Asian guy in a convenience store. He'll look at the cigarettes behind the counter instead of meeting the clerk's gaze, and he'll pay in cash, and no one will suspect a thing.
He sits with the idea for a few moments until it sounds ridiculous. He doesn't have to do all that. He can just wait until they play Scorpions on the road trip. Hockey doesn't mean anything out there, not in the desert.
The next week, their plane lands in Phoenix. Time for his plan to come to fruition.
After their morning skate, Shane finds a convenience store somewhere in Scottsdale, waving off Hayden's concern as he postpones his game-day nap. A hat and a pair of sunglasses don't look out of place here, where the sun beats down and there's no cloud in sight.
jockadjacent: i was writing shanebortion around the same time as the pluribus au, so i had the arizona scorpions (not real nhl team) and scottsdale in mind already.
The pregnancy tests are locked behind a plastic box. Shane blinks and they are still locked behind a plastic box. That is—crazy.
"First time, buddy?"
Shane nearly jumps out of his skin. "Um, what?"
The stranger—some guy with dark red skin like a permanent sunburn—nods at the pregnancy tests. He's wearing a Diamondback jersey. Baseball, so Shane relaxes a little bit. "It's going to be okay. After the third kid, you get the hang of things."
"I don't think… I don't think three kids are in the cards for me." He is barely handling the concept of one.
songbyrd: oh my god imagine if it was twins. or fucking triplets.
The man shrugs. "It may sound a lot, but life's a blessing, you know?"
Shane swallows. "I know."
"I'll get the worker." He pats Shane's shoulder as he walks away.
God. What the hell is Shane doing here?
He wants to run. By the act of some powers that be, he doesn't. Somehow, Shane stays standing by the pregnancy tests and is able to tell the clerk that he wants two as the guy unlocks the box. Each package has two tests. That gives him four chances to be absolutely sure. Then, the three of them make their way to the front.
The clerk rings up the tests. Beep. Beep.
"That'll be $35.89," he says, "do you have an Extracare Plus Card?"
jockadjacent: im from the midwest (stateside) so i had to look up whether or not scottsdale would have a CVS and the prices of a pregnancy test lol
"No," Shane says. He opens his wallet and stops. Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He has no cash in hand, just a bankcard that has his fucking name on it. There's no chip reader. He has to pass along his card with his fucking name on it and the clerk is going to read his fucking name on it—
"Son, are you okay?" The paternal stranger asks in response to whatever Shane's face is doing.
"I'm s-sorry," Shane sputters. "I think I'm freaking out. Do you have an ATM or something?"
The worker shakes his head. "No, sorry."
"Fuck. Sorry. I don't think I—I can't do this. I'm sorry for wasting your time." He puts his wallet away. He's so fucking stupid. Shane Hollander is the dumbest person alive and he doesn't even have his hockey IQ going for him anymore. He literally thought about this. He had planned to make his purchase in cash so why the fuck is his wallet empty?!
jockadjacent: shane's freaking out because i forgot that bats wrote him planning all this out to the T and i double downed on him forgetting cash lol.
"Hey, take a breath. Let me cover this."
"I can't ask you to do that—"
"Don't worry about it, kid. Well, maybe I shouldn't call you that since you're about to be a father," the man says, laughing.
Instead of throwing up at the word father, Shane plasters his best attempt at a smile onto his face. He watches the man as he gives the clerk his own card, says no to the receipt, and puts the pregnancy tests into Shane's hands.
Another supernatural power must have brought him back to the hotel because Shane doesn't remember taking the trip. Hayden, thankfully, isn't in the room when he walks in with his contraband hidden inside his pockets. Shane wraps them up and buries them under the extra boxer briefs in his suitcase. He won't find out today. He has a game to focus on.
jockadjacent: in a meta way, i like to write shit like "another supernatural power must have brought him back" for my transitions because i hate to write transitions.
Shane lies on his bed, closes his eyes, and wills himself to sleep.
He gets no more than four hours of sporadic rest. They lose to the Scorpions, 4-2.
There's a lull in the schedule once they're at home: two games in five days, and no sponsorship obligations. Shane finally gets to be alone at one of his properties. He doesn't want any trace of this at his own place, doesn't want anybody digging through his trash and finding a scandal between Reebok shoe boxes and tissue paper. Fuck, are pregnancy tests even recyclable? The packaging definitely is.
Shane downs two glasses of water and some hibiscus tea because it's a diuretic. Soon enough, he has to go. He holds himself, aims his stream onto the test strip, and wishes more than anything that he was holding a gun instead.
jockadjacent: it's not a gun and he's not fucking happy, like yes i wrote this to drive home how low and suicidal shane feels, but most importantly i wanted to make this stupid ass joke LOL i think im a funny person
When the longest five minutes of his life finally end, he wishes they hadn't.
Two pink lines.
A piece of Ilya Rozanov is inside him. Shane doesn't want to believe it. They'd done it only once. And Shane had made sure to grab the right supplies, the lube, the pack of condoms that Rozanov had laughed at him for.
You think there is enough?
It should've been enough. Shane had accounted for size, had held Rozanov in his mouth. He had accounted for friction. He did his research, didn't want Rozanov to treat him like a virgin. This isn't supposed to happen to him.
songbyrd: ok this is a weird thing to compare this to but shane getting pregnant reminded me of when i got my wisdom teeth out. i had four wisdom teeth and after the procedure i did EVERYTHING right (no straws, no smoking, etc) and i STILL got dry socket in both of the bottom extractions. which means my nerves were exposed to the open air, which yeah, was as painful as it sounds. i imagine shane feels just as affronted getting pregnant after being so careful with condoms etc. anyway channeling my frustrations from that incident really helped me!
There is another test strip in the packet if he wants to confirm again in a week or two.
Alright. He'll do that. Shane makes a nondescript event for it in his calendar.
Another two pink lines.
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On the top of the results page is a list of hotlines to call. Help Is Available. Shane is full of doubts. Shane is full of Rozanov's baby.
songbyrd: i love this line addy wrote about shane being full of rozanov's baby. it exemplifies that he truly doesn't feel any ownership or relationship to this thing inside of him. objectively, it is both his and ilya's doing, it is a baby made from both of them, but to shane: this is something rozanov left behind when he scurried out of his life
jockadjacent: and from a characterization standpoint, this whole fic is about shane feeling out of control and trying to get it back—sex with ilya is when he freely gives it up and the baby is literally a manifestation of that. of course it's rozanov's baby. of course it's not shane's.
Sometimes, when he takes the back roads instead of the freeway, he drives past a dilapidated billboard of a cartoon woman. Dirt and grime and weather have removed her face. Shane can make out a dress. Pregnant and alone? Know your options!
What are the options for Shane Hollander, Captain of the Montreal Metros?
jockadjacent: this is based off a real billboard i would drive past nearly every day on my commute to campus :]
songbyrd: shane is such an overthinker. he manages to imagine every possible contingency except for the one where he tells his mom and everything ends up mostly fine because yuna hollander has never met a problem she can't solve. he doesn't even consider that an option, though
Telling Rozanov doesn't go well. Telling Rozanov doesn't go. Shane has four hours in between brunch with his parents and afternoon practice. He spends most of it pacing up and down the hallway, typing and deleting, typing and deleting, biting the raw skin around his fingers until his cuticles are a bloody mess.
I have to tell you something.
Can we talk?
Rozanov, I think we fucked up.
Rozanov, we fucked up.
I fucked up.
During the week after he finds out, Shane probably drafts and deletes close to three hundred messages. He types up angry paragraphs. Writes a dozen different apologies.
But does Rozanov even need to know? What if Shane just… quietly dealt with it? He's not having it, that's for sure. And if he's not having it, there's nothing he has to explain, right?
The condom broke by the way if you care.
Rozanov, what the fuck is your problem why are you ignoring me
Nice goal.
And while Shane deletes all these messages he can't send, it's silence from Rozanov's end. Nothing but Shane's stupid, boring text from when they were both in Sochi. Rozanov got what he wanted.
You still okay? Rozanov had asked him. Is okay?
And Shane had dug his heels in, pushing Rozanov deeper, and deeper.
He was the one who bought a value pack of condoms and shoved them into the nightstand. He was the one who smiled when Rozanov had parroted, No, you come here. Shane kissed him on the forehead, for fuck's sake. So, at the end of the day—this isn't really Rozanov's problem, is it? This was Shane's doing.
You killed me, Hollander. I am dead.
Shane had wanted it.
jockadjacent: this is where i reallly appreciated having a cowriter because i had written the texts and THAT WAS IT!!! i wrote the texts, thought my work was done, and moved the fuck on—thank bats for the lush descriptions if i had written this alone it wouldve been so short. anyways, both bats and i went back to rewatch ep2 to pull quotes from the Scene bc we wanted canon-informed angst :>
songbyrd: shane hollander carries a universe-sized backpack full of shame and guilt. shane hollander is excited to share that he is starting a new position, shouldering moral responsibility full-time. in other news: fork found in kitchen
Shane has never really spoken to his parents about their fertility issues. He knows he's a rainbow baby, and he knows his parents had considered adoption to give him a younger sibling.
Whenever the topic comes up—which is rare—Yuna will put on a smile and say something along the lines of, We are so grateful to have Shane, and to be able to focus on raising just him.
He's laying down in bed, holding one of the tests from the other week. He hasn't thrown it away yet. He'll probably toss it soon. Maybe into the St. Lawrence, so it will float away into the Atlantic Ocean where no one will ever find it. But for now, he stares at the pink lines, early morning sun streaming through the blinds to drape across his body in sharp stripes.
Shane has never heard the story of his mom finding out she was pregnant. He tries to picture it: his mom's hand clamped over her mouth, his dad in the doorway trying to read her face before she says anything at all.
He thinks about how easily it happened for him. How unfairly. How his parents spent years bracing themselves for disappointment and he can't feel anything but dread. How, when Shane had gotten over the initial shock of a positive result, he had thrown up and cried until his whole face radiated with the pain of his mistake.
He thinks about how badly his parents wanted him, and how much he hates the thing growing inside of him. He thinks himself into a tizzy. He thinks so long that the sun inches higher, the stripes of light shifting across the sheets, across his hands, locked in place around the test. He tries not to imagine his parents’ joy overlapping with his own fear.
songbyrd: this part was slipped in after the rest of the fic had already been mostly finished. when i remembered david and yuna had fertility problems how could i possibly not discuss that here??? it really exacerbates the unfairness of the whole situation that's weighing down on shane. additionally, i think the contrast of shane's parents loving and wanting him so much and shane not being able to refer to the fetus as anything but "it" or "the thing" is really awesome and nauseating. shane was so loved from the moment yuna saw that positive result. yuna had a loving, doting husband and probably a great support system and her pregnancy was planned from start to finish. shane absolutely fucking hates the baby and himself, and is completely alone in this.
Sleep is a stranger these days.
When it does come to him, it's the awful, fitful kind. The kind where it takes an hour for darkness to finally claim him, where he wakes up over and over twisted in sweaty sheets, and where nightmares blur into each other and then bleed into reality when he wakes up, heart racing, back aching, hands trembling.
While his eyes are closed, his mind has several recurring nightmares to pick from: the one where he gets hit by a train over and over again, the one where he vomits blood during a press conference and all his teeth fall out, the one where he eats and eats and eats, macros damned, his physique probably ruined forever.
All of those nightmares are awful. But the worst one is this:
He's stranded in the ocean. The water is a dark, midnight blue. It roars and beats him around with an unbridled fury. But the sky is a bright, clear blue. The sun is smiling. When Shane's body is thrown across the black rocks—skin shredded, salty wounds burning—he can see, way out in the distance, a beautiful beach.
The sand sparkles white. Usually, the beach is empty. Sometimes his parents are there, jumping up and down and waving their arms around, helpless to do anything but watch their only son drown. Other times they don't seem to notice him dying.
Occasionally, it's Ilya.
All milk and honey and sunshine, golden hair curling around his ears and toes wiggling in the twinkling sand. Whenever Shane is up on those rocks, hands scrabbling for purchase on the jagged, barnacled surface, Rozanov smiles and waves.
That's not the dream he's having tonight, though. He's replaying a technicolor memory, supersaturated in a way that he can squeeze like a rag and watch details drip and pool. Details like: Rozanov's lips against his back, Rozanov's chain glistening in the lamplight, Rozanov's hand on his neck, shoulder, in his hair. Rozanov. Rozanov. Rozanov.
He's lying in the bed, sighing and rolling his hips to meet Rozanov's thrusts when he sees it. In the corner of the room, up on the ceiling. A red, pulsing mass.
It swells as he watches. Thrums in time with his heartbeat.
He doesn't realize Rozanov is talking to him until the bed jerks beneath him.
"Hollander, what the fuck—"
There's blood. It seeps out of him in a slow, obscene spread, soaking the sheets, slicking his thighs, darkening Rozanov's hands.
"I—" He tries to sit up and pain blooms low and deep. "I didn't—"
Rozanov's face blurs at the edges, expression twisting between alarm and disbelief. His mouth moves, still talking, but the room is breathing again. The ceiling sags, the red mass pulsing brighter now, closer, veins crawling like living things.
The bed gives way, dissolving under him. The sheets melt into flesh, fabric unraveling into sinew and fluid. Rozanov grabs for him, fingers digging into his arms—but his hands slide away, skin slick with blood, his face pulling long and distant as if seen through water.
He falls inward and slams into something spongy, the impact knocking the air from his lungs. His blades scrape wetly as he stands. Blood laps around his ankles and clings to his skates as he moves, wading through the grume. Above him looms something enormous, swollen beyond possibility, skin translucent enough that he can see vessels branching beneath it.
It has a thousand eyes and a thousand limbs and its screaming with a thousand voices. It's Ilya. It's Shane. It's an awful, twisted combination of the two.
songbyrd: i found it actually very easy to turn pregnancy into horror. the concept of a child looking like a perfect combination of both of their parents is cute in most contexts, sure… but what if it were a horrible amalgimation of two people, a physical embodiment of their tumultuous five year situationship?
Shane jerks awake with a wet, gasping breath, hands flying to his stomach as if he expects to find it split open. His heart is slamming so hard it makes him dizzy, nausea rolling through him in a fusillade of churning waves.
He lies there shaking, staring into the dark, thinking with a frigid certainty that this has to end soon.
songbyrd: wow hi. this whole nightmare section! you are probably not surprised to hear that most of my inspiration for this imagery comes from some of my favorite horror media. i read the haar last year and the gorey descriptions were seriously something else, they've stuck with me for a while. this is honestly mild compared to what david sodergren goes into. definitely reccommend. mouthwashing (video game) was also great inspiration for fetus-related nightmares specifically. i also like the idea of shane usually wearing his skates while he's dreaming—he spends so much time on the ice, and when he's off the ice, he's thinking about hockey anyway. i really wanted to create this gnarly image of trying to wade through a giant fleshy womb cave, the skates like slicing up the tissue and stuff. hope it made you nauseous!
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The first time it happens, it's an accident.
Hockey is just about the only time Shane's not thinking about it. The thing growing inside of him. He can focus on where the puck is, where it's going next, how the other team's left wing is favoring one shoulder over the other. He loses himself in the sound of skates tearing through ice and the feeling of sweat pouring down his forehead.
It's not his fault unfamiliar hormones are rushing through his body like bitter juice. He feels less and less like himself every day. His chirps are a little too loud, a little too mean. He plays a little too dirty, and suddenly, all two hundred and something pounds of Ryan Price are crushing him into the boards.
His first thought is the baby, but it is quickly overtaken by an overwhelming, sickening wave of relief.
Shane is disturbed to find himself blinking away thoughts of getting undressed after the game and finding his underwear bloody, his abdomen twisting and cramping as the thing inside him dies. He is further disturbed to realize that these thoughts fill him with so much peace he feels giddy.
He leans against the boards for a bit longer than he probably needs to, looking down at the bright ice and feeling like he's staring into a discolored alien landscape.
Later, when he undresses before his shower, there is no blood. Shane is disappointed.
Any time after that is not so much an accident.
Shane tells himself he's trying to make up for his poor performance with biting words and harsh shoves. He leaves games with bruises, a split lip, sore ribs. They're welcome distractions from the other ways his body is aching.
People take notice of his change in behavior— and of course they do, some days it feels like every camera in Canada is pointed at him. J.J. claps him on the back and says, Our boy has finally grown some balls, huh? Hayden seems confused, but not disappointed. Shane's parents are worried. His mom tells him, This seems out of character for you, honey, but Shane pushes her away with a flimsy explanation and a weak smile. It's easy because he's been lying to his parents since the summer before rookie season, and he's sure as hell not gonna stop now.
songbyrd: a way i see people commonly mischaracterize shane is by calling him a bad liar. WRONG! that boy lies and lies and lies. he lies to everyone he loves for years and years. he lies so well that he can even convince himself, sometimes.
jockadjacent: he's a good liar, but bad at acting—however he's so consistent about it that it becomes a part of his persona. its an awkwardness that feels true to him even though he's sharing falsehoods
Rozanov is the only one who doesn't care enough to say anything to him. He definitely doesn't care enough to notice.
Maybe it's because Shane tones it down a little, while playing Boston. He doesn't want to rile Rozanov up too much. He can't be the one to kill it.
But would Rozanov even want it?
Would Rozanov tell him to keep it?
Shane would have to retire if he keeps it, but there's no way that's happening. He hasn't even won a cup and from he knows—knew—about Rozanov, the man wouldn't want Shane to retire either. They're both competitive players, the two faces of this intense rivalry, and if Shane were to just leave it, to go off the grid, to disappear off the face of the Earth, because he has a child—
jockadjacent: shane still respects ilya, the game, the drive, and the rivalry they have. he fucking hates that this baby is the outcome, but to leave the game would be a great injustice. so the baby has to fucking go.
Boston's been on a tear the last couple of weeks, boasting a 12 game winning streak with no signs of slowing down. Shane catches Rozanov's interviews sometimes, purely incidental, when he puts on Sportsnet. The reporters bring up the chances of him earning the Art Ross for the season, he's scoring left and right. Bring up Shane's name and there isn't a single change in his facial expression. As if Shane is nothing to him at all. As if he didn't leave a piece of himself inside Shane and then abandon it to fester and rot.
Shane wouldn't know what to do anyway if Rozanov looked at him. Jesus Christ, he couldn't even send a text. What could they possibly have to say to each other?
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Shane runs his fingers over his distended lower belly, swollen and slightly soft in a place he'd usually be hard and chiseled.
He's bloated, but he hasn't eaten anything. Sure, he had a cup of coffee, but he's been drinking coffee every morning for years. His body wouldn't betray him like that. This has to be something else. This has to be—
songbyrd: ohh but your body would betray you like that shane!
If all the impossibilities are ruled out, whatever's left is the truth.
Not on his fucking watch.
jockadjacent: this is a paraphrase of the sherlock holmes quote. at first i had the og quote in here but then i was like is that coming from me or coming from shane? couldn't decide if shane's the type to read sherlock OR have that quote memorized so i abbreviated it like how the mcu did with the great power great responsibility line from spider-man
Images crawl to the forefront of his mind, unbidden. His womb, expanding, pushing his organs out of its way, rearranging him. Something growing, not alongside him, but at his expense— sapping his energy, borrowing his blood. He imagines being further along, it starting to form little fingers and toes and pressing its feet into his walls and trying to escape and he doesn't make it to the bathroom in time so he's puking coffee-brown bile onto the hardwood floors in the hallway.
He braces himself with one arm against the wall, tears rolling down his hot cheeks, trying to focus on the burning in his throat while he dry heaves instead of imagining a bloody baby with dark blond curls plastered to its head.
It would probably come out wrong. With a tiny, fucked-up heart, or half a brain, or something, with how little Shane has fed it and how hard he's pushed himself on the ice. His body just won't fucking listen to him. He never eats, he never sleeps, he's taken hits that would probably kill other people's babies. Not his, though. No, his body, stubbornly, continues to siphon his nutrients, his energy, his everything into the terrible little creature expanding obscenely against his will.
songbyrd: this thing is a parasite to shane. i read a nonfiction about filoviruses last year (the hot zone) and the prose was beautifully disgusting. i took a lot of inspiration from the way richard preston describes the viruses when describing the fetus.
He tears the page off his notepad and misses the trashcan again. Making a list isn't working. He knows what he won't do: go to the hospital and ask for an abortion. This doesn't bring him any closer to a solution. Jesus Christ. It might be too late. It's definitely been over 12 weeks. He's showing. He's showing.
Even if he could do it that way, he's Shane fucking Hollander. It's a huge scandal on its own without knowing who the father is, and Shane knows. Somebody's going to leak it to the press. The payday would be huge and even if Shane bankrupts them to an early grave, there's no taking back that kind of story.
If a hit from Ryan Price doesn't work, Shane has to be the one. He has to get his hands dirty. There is no other way around it.
On the bathroom counter are three things: a bicycle spoke, a ballpoint pen, and a meat thermometer, previously used on his salmon meal-prep last week. Shane holds each of them up to his abdomen. He considers their reach, sharpness, considers the flexibility of his wrist, considers the purely physical logistics of it all, and comes to a decision.
songbyrd: not sure where the idea for the meat thermometer came from. i was just thinking about sharp household objects and it was one of the few i could reasonably see shane having. it also just exacerbates how much control he tries to exert over his body. here is the meat thermometer i use to make sure my salmon is cooked to exactly 130 degrees fahrenheit so i can eat it with my brown rice and broccoli and now i am going to use it to kill this fetus so my body can go back to normal again.
There's also a cup of water and a bottle of pain medication leftover from last season. Stronger than Tylenol, but still safe. He refuses to come out the other side of this with an opioid addiction. Towels too. His first aid kit. That's all he needs. All he needs to keep going.
Shane tries to will his hands to stop shaking.
He eases the thermometer inside himself. He goes slowly. He can already feel tears welling up in his eyes and, for once, he lets them fall. He has to stop, a few times, frozen in fear, imagining himself crumpled on the bathroom floor, dying along with the thing inside him in a pool of his own hemorrhage.
He removes the thermometer.
He steps into the bathtub.
He tries again.
jockadjacent: he steps into the bathtub!!!! like i said, i think im funny, he literally imagines himself dying and he's like nah, i gotta keep this clean and contained. same thing with the opioid addiction, shane has expectations for his own abortion
Shane takes a few deep, steadying breaths. In for four, hold for four. He imagines, instead, what would happen if he did not do this. Walking around, fat with a man's child. Completely losing the shape he's carefully maintained for years. The whole world knowing the reason he's been playing terrible hockey. Never playing hockey again, having to take care of a child with grabby hands and golden curls. He imagines looking into its eyes, seeing the eyes of the man he had trusted reflected back at him, and that's the thought that makes him jam the thermometer the rest of the way in.
Sharp, blinding pain consumes all of Shane's thoughts and senses. A scream tears itself from his throat. When he looks down, blood is dripping onto the tile. Fear shoots through him with the possibility that he might've—might've missed his womb. Shane stabs the thermometer inwards again, delirious with pain, fingernails digging harshly into his thigh, making these wretched, feral noises he's never heard from himself before.
His gut spasms. The thermometer drops from his hand and he follows it, his legs weak. Blood pools under him, running down his thighs and circling the drain of the bathtub. It looks bad. It looks really bad.
It looks like he might have fucked up.
His abdomen cramps up again like someone's reached into him to wring his guts like a towel. Shane curls up, hitting his head against the faucet. Everything hurts, everything fucking hurts, and Rozanov isn't here. Rozanov would never feel this. Rozanov stuck his dick in and now, now Shane's going to fucking die. He's going to die trying to solve this problem Rozanov left him with.
The first aid kit is too far away. Everything he needs is on the counter and he's all the way down here in the bathtub. He needs to get up, he needs to move his legs. Shane rolls onto his side and feels something digging into his back. What is that? Is that his phone?
Shane reaches behind him and—FUCK! New pain hits him again. Is that a contraction? Is his body finally expelling that thing? He did it. He did it. He—fuck, he needs the meds so bad. Somebody should go get that. Somebody should go get that for him.
His fingers slip across the phone screen. It takes him a few tries, but he unlocks it. Shane thumbs the phone icon for a call.
"Hi. This is Ilya. I will never listen to your voicemail." Beep.
"I—" The words catch in the back of his throat. What does he say? What can he say to Rozanov? Their baby is gone. Shane is making sure of it. Shane is making sure this doesn't happen again. What does he say to Rozanov? Rozanov, who promises to never listen to his voicemail?
"Fuck you," Shane decides. His voice is wet. He can't help it. "You will never be anything to me again."
Before he embarrasses himself any further by sobbing into the receiver, he hangs up.
jockadjacent: this fic could've come out a week before it did if it weren't for this scene!!! we knew shane would have to call someone!!! but couldn't figure out who first and what the fuck he would even say!!! as you can see, i even avoided writing shane's explanation to hayden. in the show, i definitely took the reveal of ilya's voicemail note to be humorous so i was really excited to make it angsty in the fic. this is also… the first on-screen (of this fic) interaction that shane has with anything ilya related. before this, we had flashbacks, summaries of ilya's game interviews, and unsent texts. i wanted this exchange to be a mirror of sorts. ilya says, i will never. so shane says, you will never, using ilya's words as a guide to form his own message. shane has a really good reason to "ghost" ilya back—but it wasn't originally his choice and he ended up following ilya's lead.
songbyrd: fucking phone calls bro we truly agonized over writing these LMAOO.. I honestly would love to write (well, everything) this scene in particular from hayden's perspective. it's like 6:30 in the morning, he hasn't even wiped the crusties out of his eyes yet and shane is on the phone struggling to breathe and talking about how hes going to die or something.
Between that and now, Shane somehow calls Hayden.
songbyrd: addy's transitions are truly magical
jockadjacent: i went back to read our dms and turns out i had sketched a little bit of shane's convo with hayden. hayden goes, shane? what the fuck, it's like six in the morning. shane tells him, i did not think this through. he's breathing hard. it sounds like he's in pain. hayden asks him, buddy, what's going on? are you okay? and shane asks for help for the first time. i need... help. i think i need bandages. he laughs. i might have fucked up. bring jackie? which—was fine. but too coherent for what i wanted.
"Hey, buddy? Holls? I'm on my way, I just need you to be awake a little bit longer, okay?"
"Shane? Shane, come on. Tell me—fuck—tell me who's played the most games. Regular season, not playoffs."
"Are those sirens? Wait, I'm turning onto your street right now. You're going to be okay. Let them help you, please. Holly? Shane!"
"I'm coming with him," Hayden says resolutely.
"Your voice got bigger?" Shane turns his head with painstaking effort, Hayden sounding both too close and too far away. "How did you do that?"
"Shane, I'm here. I'm right here," he promises, grabbing his shoulder. "Jackie's going to meet us at—where are you taking him?"
"General hospital," one of the EMTs say. Someone hands the bloody thermometer to someone else. Hayden's eyes track the movement. "Sir, step aside please. One, two, three, lift!"
They work fast, getting him and Hayden into the ambulance. They lurch forward, and Hayden stumbles with it, catching himself on the edge of the gurney, one hand never leaving Shane's. His face swims in and out of focus as the EMTs work around them, efficient and unflinching. Sirens blare as they speed down the streets.
"Sir, may we remove your pants?" Shane looks down. Mercifully, he must've pulled them back on at some point to preserve his dignity. It's too bad that things are probably about to get undignified in a way he will never live down.
Shane looks at Hayden. He is pale.
"Holls, I'm not," Hayden stops. He licks his lips. "I'm not going to look, okay?"
"Okay," Shane says. He gives them permission with an affirmative noise and a vague gesture of his hand. Saying any extra words feels like burning energy he doesn't have. The pain in his midsection is boiling, churning.
A pair of scissors snips off his sweatpants. He feels every inch they peel from his skin, dark hot blood making it sticky, tacky.
"Sorry, sorry, trying to be gentle," the EMT says, "Can you get me the maternity kit?"
'Maternity kit?' Shane sees Hayden's lips move.
"I'm sorry, Hayd," he says in lieu of an explanation. His chest is—rattling. "I'm sorry I called you."
But Hayden is shaking his head the moment those first two words leave Shane's lips. "No, don't be sorry, Holls, I am so, so glad you called me."
Shane swallows. "I wanted to fix it. My problem."
The thing inside him, that was ruining him, ruining hockey, ruining everything. "I had to get to—fuck—I had to solve it."
Hayden looks—his eyebrows pinched together, his lips stretched thin against his teeth like he wants to swallow them—he almost looks sad. Shane wants to say something to claw the pity off of his face, but:
Another contraction. Another wave of pain that crashes onto him. It forces a ragged sob out of him. Shane pushes, he pushes, he wants it out, he wants it gone. It's happening. All he has to do now is live through this. That's all there's left.
Behind Hayden's back, Shane only sees it for half a second. It's sequestered away into a pouch out of his sight almost as soon as it slips onto the stretcher. He only really gets a glimpse, but it's a sight Shane knows he will remember for the rest of his life. How could he forget something like that? It looks exactly like the little monster he was imagining greedily sucking the life out of him— and simultaneously, not what he expected at all. Yes, it's bloody, and vaguely alien-looking. But it has little fingers. It has tiny ears and eyes that will never open. It's only a few inches in size, but it's strange to see his and Ilya's connection bundled together in physical package like that. Expelled from his body. Put in a bag.
"Would you like to hold—" the paramedic begins to ask kindly, capping the sharpie they, presumably, just used to label the container with the thing inside.
"No," Shane interrupts them. He probably would've screamed if he had the energy, but the refusal comes out wet and pained instead. He wonders what the label says. "No, no. Get rid of it. Please."
jockadjacent: i had found a pdf online that gave EMTs a guideline on how to treat people with miscarriages which informed this ambulance scene
songbyrd: it was very important that shane never regretted his decision once. (except for maybe the method). at no point did he even consider keeping this baby as a possibility. after imagining the baby as a parasite and an "it" or "thing" the whole time, it would be very jarring for it to come out looking… you know, human. when the fingers and the ears and the eyes humanized the baby, it was important for that to not change shane's decision at all
"Shane," Hayden croaks, his voice shattering on the single syllable.
He tries to take a breath. Laborious, still. Ha. Labor.
"Stay with me, buddy, stay awake," Hayden frantically urges him, squeezing his hand. The pressure makes him realize the death grip he's had on Hayden's hand, which he relaxes. He realizes the rest of his body is tensed up, so he relaxes all that, too. It's gone. It's out. Shane's so tired. He's been so tired for a long, long time.
His head hits the gurney. The pain doesn't stop, but he feels lighter now. Finally. Finally. The weight is gone. He has to laugh. The weight is in a bag. Labeled.
Hayden and the paramedic are talking, but Shane can't grasp onto the words. He closes his eyes, ignoring the feeling of the blood on his thighs turning tacky and the protests of his cramping abdomen.
"Shane, seriously, dude, keep your eyes open," Hayden says, scared. Shane peeks his eyes open just a sliver with a groan.
"Fuck off. I'm… I'm 'austed."
"Shane, we would really appreciate it if you could stay awake for us," the paramedic says, further down, somewhere. "It's important."
"Do you want to talk about hockey?" No. Shane doesn't want to talk about hockey. He doesn't want to talk about anything. He just wants to keep his eyes closed. But it's apparently important he stays awake, so he makes some kind of strangled, affirmative grunt.
"How many goals did you score your first season?" Hayden asks, still holding Shane's hand. He's looking at Shane like he's going to disappear at any moment.
"53," Shane mumbles.
jockadjacent: originally it was 67 but bats said we shouldnt
songbyrd: we COULDN'T
"Okay, umm, that sounds about right," Hayden says, and squeezes Shane's hand when his eyes start to slip closed again. "What team does Scott Hunter play for?"
"Admirals," Shane answers. His eyelids are so heavy. The noise of the siren is too loud.
"What country is Ilya Rozanov from?"
"FuckoffHayden!" The words explode out of him, all in a rush. It's not Hayden's fault. He has no idea who Rozanov really is to Shane—and he never will—but hearing the name still causes everything Shane's bottled up since two thousand fucking nine to come rushing out. "I'm awake, 'kay? Can you—?" He lets go of Hayden's hand. Gestures wildly in a way that he hope can be interpreted as fuck off.
Hayden's face is doing something weird, like it's warring between several different emotions. Probably shocked Shane is blowing up at him like this, relieved he's awake enough to do so. He opens his mouth to probably ask him another stupid fucking hockey question, but Shane's not done.
"I just aborted a— a thing, okay?!" His yelling is hoarse, and he belatedly realizes there are tears streaming down his cheeks. He wonders how long he's been crying for. He wonders how long Hayden's hand has been petting his hair.
"I don't fucking care about Rozanov!" But his voice breaks on the name. "Or, or New York. I just want to close my eyes a little bit! Fuck! It's so fucking bright."
"Shane," Hayden says, and Shane squeezes his hand like it's the only thing tethering him to this Earth. He can't hear the rest of what he says over the ringing in his ears. That's fine. It's fine.
No further questions.
They make it to the ER. They admit him as a patient. They dress him for the operating room. He gets several transfusions. He goes under. They stitch him up. It goes well. They bring him to this patient room.
Shane doesn't entirely remember the details. This is what his nurse tells him, politely laconic, when he's awake and lucid.
jockadjacent: i love to avoid writing things! i didn't think it was necessary so i went with the nurse's summary
songbyrd: you guys, we hate writing
"You weren't always…" Hayden trails off. He makes a gesture with his hand that doesn't really mean anything to Shane. "You woke a few times, but you weren't… oriented?"
His eyes dart to the side. Keyboard keys clacking as Shane's nurse types on the computer.
songbyrd: "oriented" - the biggest word hayden pike has ever said. he's glancing at the nurse to make sure he used it right
"Oh," Shane says. "Did I say anything?"
Hayden looks unwell. "Nothing that we could make out?"
"Okay."
They don't say anything else.
Eventually, the nurse finishes up on the computer. "And if there's anything you need, please press the call light." She leaves.
jockadjacent: shanebortion broke my streak bc i had 4/4 fics featuring lesbians for gc/hr. a part of me considered giving the RN a pride flag badge reel but shane wouldn't notice and wouldn't care to include it in his thoughts imo
"You're staying?" Shane asks when Hayden doesn't follow her.
"Yes," Hayden vows, his knuckles whitening around the railing of the hospital bed.
"But—the kids?"
"With Jackie's parents." Hayden's eyes rove over Shane's face, looking for something in his expression. He must not find it. He releases his grip on the bed railing, running a hand through his hair instead, which is already thoroughly mussed.
"Shane… why? We could've helped you, buddy. This didn't need to happen." Hayden's expression is pained, voice pleading. Shane can't stand it. He turns to look out the window instead. From up here, it's a pretty good view of the city. This city that loves him.
"Yeah, it did." Shane closes his eyes. "You wouldn't get it."
songbyrd: the montreal general hospital is perched on kind of a hill and actually has a very nice view of the city. when shane turns his head in an attempt to escape the shame he feels regarding hayden's pity (read: concern), looking down at the city that idolizes him only fills him with even more shame. he's been playing poorly recently—he already feels like he's letting everyone down, and if they knew what he had done, they'd be ashamed of him too.
The second time Shane is awake and lucid, a question comes to mind.
"Did they tell you?" he asks, rolling his head over on the pillow to meet Jackie's gaze.
"Tell me what?" Jackie smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. She leans forward towards the railing, as much as her pregnant belly will allow. Hayden told him it's going to be a boy.
"When I can get back on the ice?"
The smile dissolves from Jackie's face.
"Shane, honey, you just got out of surgery," she says softly, placing her hand on top of his. The hospital sheets are twisted up in his fist. The white gold of her wedding ring is cool against his skin.
"But it's over now," Shane says. "I fixed it, then they fixed me. Has Coach said anything to Hayden?"
"Shane."
"I was playing so badly. It was fucking everything up." Shane closes his eyes. "I fixed it. What did Coach say?"
"I don't know." Her fingers now in his hair. "Let's focus on your recovery, Shane."
She's going to be a good mom. Shane knows he wouldn't be. He hopes that's okay. He doesn't expect Jackie to be a star at hockey too. They have their own lanes. He's sorry she has to be here though. She has a baby boy inside her. Shane has no idea what he had. It was red, in a bag.
jockadjacent: it was red… in a bag… bats wanted to mention jackie's baby shower, so i wrote that line as a segue—jackie's always pregnant so we assumed she was for this year too
Shane had gotten her a new diaper bag with more compartments for more babies. It's Prada. He had claimed it off her baby shower wishlist. He needs to have it delivered by a service. He cannot be the one.
Her fingers are so gentle. Shane unfurls his fist, fingers aching with the act of letting go.
jockadjacent: i had shared my thoughts on this in a comment already, but here they are again: this is all about shane regressing into a kid and benefiting from jackie's maternal instincts. shane was not having a rational response to any of this and the way he dealt with his fear felt very stunted and naive. i dont really believe in the whole underdeveloped frontal lobe thing, but i think shane lacks growth in a lot of areas because his whole life is dedicated to hockey. one of the most mature things you can do is ask for help.
"You didn't have to do like this," he thinks Jackie says.
Yeah, he did. He created the problem. He had to fix it.
The third time Shane is awake and lucid, his room is empty. There are new things, like flowers on his side table. A card that says Get Well Soon, Uncle Shane! scrawled in crayon. His mom's E-reader is left on one of the chairs for visitors. That's right. His emergency contacts. They're going to have questions.
That's fine. It'll be fine. He doesn't have to bear the weight anymore. It's gone.
Shane is free.