Chapter Text
Winter Olympics - Russia - 2014
Shane had desperately been trying to avoid his mom for the past four hours. She had already rang him two times and texted him seven. He sighed before putting his phone on the bar counter in front of him. Shane liked his mom, it really wasn’t the issue here. The problem was that his mom was always trying to control his PR, even right after Shane and his team had won gold at the Olympics the day before. He had even spent more time giving out interviews for every media outlet that had the slightest interest in hockey than actually celebrating their second Olympic victory in a row with his team.
“What can I get for you, sir?”
Shane looked up from wherever unimportant bit his eyes had landed on and looked at the blond barista in front of him.
The Olympic village had been surprisingly well equipped this year. More than their regular room service or communal restaurants, this year several coffee places had been built all over the village, making Shane feel a bit more at home in this faraway continent.
“Just a ginger ale, thanks.”
Shane picked up his phone and stared at his mom’s unread texts. Two more had arrived since the last time he had looked.
‘Shane honey Prada would like to talk to you.’
‘We need to go over the end of your contract with Calvin Klein too. They might wanna extend it.’
“Here you go.”
The barista handed him a ginger ale can, probably the closest he’ll ever get to a celebratory drink with his team this season. He smiled at her, handed her some cash and went to sit down at an empty table at the corner of the shop. Most of the tables were empty. The Olympics were coming to an end and few were those staying longer than necessary after their failed or successful participation. That’s the way the competition was here. No need to linger once you got what you came here for. There were other events to get ready for. Thus was the life of a professional athlete.
“ ‘sup sulky mookie.”
Two large hands dropped on Shane’s shoulders, squeezing them before letting go. Next to him, J.J slumped on one of the previously empty chairs. Hayden followed close behind.
“Hey guys”
“Why the long face, Hollander ? Is our gold medal giving you sore shoulders already?” J.J laughed before taking a sip out of Shane’s ginger ale, grimacing at the taste. “Je demanderai bien la même chose à Pike mais il a pas de médaille pour comparer.” He added in French, discreetly putting the can back in front of Shane’s.
“I might still not be able to understand why the Metros drafted you, but I sure can understand the language of the country I’ve been living in for years.” Hayden glared at J.J, hitting the leg of the chair he was sitting in. J.J continued, unphased.
“You're not back in Montreal yet? I thought you’d have taken an early flight. Not seeing you at the hotel and all.”
“Nah, I stayed here a bit longer. The games aren’t over for some and my mom wanted me to meet a few people for the post-game interviews and all…” Shane sighed. He started playing with the pull-tab of his can, finding something else to stare at than the questioning looks of his friends.
“A few? I saw Yuna dragging you from media to media yesterday. Your face is on all the news and papers I’ve seen today. How many interviews exactly would you say it was?”
Hayden was worried. Shane could sense it in his voice. Probably the same way his best friend could sense that something was wrong with Shane just by looking at him.
“I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter now.” Shane exhaled and finally looked at his friends. “She was just doing her job. I’m the one who told her more interviews and PR would be good for the team. She’s just doing what I asked her to do.”
“Well, maybe Yuna is being kind enough to follow Shane Hollander’s wishes of keeping him fully booked so he can appear on the cover of every magazine for the next three weeks, but believe it or not, Pike and I prefer the version where you are fully booked with shots of vodka queuing for you and us two as your designated on-hand emergency contacts.”
Shane chuckled.
“Is that what the two of you were up to last night? If so I’m glad you guys celebrated the end of the competition, but I’m not feeling quite up to getting drunk right now.”
Hayden and J.J exchanged a look that Shane didn’t quite grasp. Were they getting annoyed at his lack of enjoyment? No, he reminded himself. His friends would never be annoyed at him for closing in on himself. They’d had that conversation before and had said it was never more than simple worry and wanting to help him with whatever was happening. In the end, that worry might’ve been the correct answer as both men got closer to him, J.J resting his hand on Shane’s shoulder and Hayden’s on his wrist.
“Look, buddy. We know the past few months have been hard on you. With the pressure of becoming Captain, leading your team to the play-offs, winning the Olympics and all the shit the news has been writing about you… coming here mustn’t have been easy.”
Shane stayed silent, but he knew Hayden was right. The past few months hadn’t been easy. With trying to lead his team to the play-offs while participating in the Olympics for the first time as Captain of the Metros, the pressure had been huge. His team and family had been a big help and support, and he didn’t even know how to thank them enough to have believed he could lead them to the gold medal this year again. But here they were, halfway into the season and with another award to bring home.
However, Shane knew these difficulties weren’t what Hayden had been talking about at all. A few months ago, before the season had even started, Shane had been out with his best friend, Rose Landry. Rose and Shane had met a couple years before through their mutual friend, Miles. The two of them had planned on meeting Miles at an ice skating rink in town. Miles and Shane both being pretty famous in the ice skating world with Miles being a renowned figure skater and Rose’s acting career rapidly putting her at the top, they all had decided to privatise a quiet place where no one would come to bother them. The three of them had spent hours on the rink; laughing, dancing and even starting a competition to know who the best skater was between Miles and Shane. In the amusement, drunkenness and loud music of it all, none of the friends had felt the need to hide their true self between those walls compared to how they might usually do it in the outside world. So, Shane and Miles had kissed. Maybe even more than kissed, the two men had fully made out under the drunken laughs of Rose.
The two of them knew this kiss did not mean anything. They were just long time friends, comfortable in their sexuality and their friendship enough to trust the other and to mess around when enough alcohol was involved. But the media did not see it that way. Twelve hours after the event happened, the press was all over it. The security cameras of their privatised rink had leaked, and with it, Shane’s biggest secret of all time.
The reaction had been immediate. Between phone calls and emergency meetings with his brand deals, Shane hadn’t even had the time to process he had been outed to the entire planet and been put in a fake relationship with Miles. And despite all the harsh comments and insults that had started blowing up in his face everywhere he was looking, the comments only got even more awful when Shane had to explain that Miles and him were in fact not in a relationship. The ice skating world that had been aware of Miles' sexuality for years suddenly turned against him and blamed him for using his friend’s sexuality to his own advantage.
It had taken almost two entire months for the entire thing to calm down and for people to start accepting Shane as still one of the greatest hockey players of his generation and as seeing his sexuality as an off-ice issue.
The insults were still there, and the invasive questions were more present than ever before, but Shane had survived it. He had survived his extremely public outing and had even been overwhelmed by the positive side of it all. Banners had started to pop up at his games, the outpour of love from fans and friends had been incredible and even a few of his on ice competitors had started using rainbow tape soon after the start of the season. Shane had been lucky, and even more than that, he had been extremely well surrounded. After the shock effect of it all, especially with seeing their best friend full blown making out with a man on their TV screen first thing in the morning, J.J and Hayden had showed up to his house and prepared him an awful lunch that Jackie had to come save them all from.
During one of the worst days of his life, Shane had been surrounded by his family, the Pike family and their endless children, by J.J and his “Calisse de tabarnak c’est un sacré coup de langue pour de la public television ça”, quickly followed by Hayden punching him in the arm. Miles and Rose had been quick to follow. Having to deal with the followup of their own involvement in the story and the impact it could have on both their professional careers, they hadn’t been able to come see Shane right away. But as soon as the door opened and Shane saw them, his two friends on his doorstep, fear and panic in their eyes, the biggest of weight was lifted off his shoulder. He had hugged them tighter than ever before and the whole group of them had spent the night chilling in Shane’s condo, trying to enjoy the calmness right before the mediatic storm that was about to hit all of them as soon as dawn would start to appear. And just as Shane thought, the following days were mainly about dealing with his brand deals and his public image with the help of his mom, Yuna.
Even now, months later, when everything had immensely quieted down, Shane still felt on edge. On edge of losing brand deals, on edge of losing his job and worst, of losing everyone he cared about. And even if coming to the Olympics and winning gold with his team had been everything Shane had been dreaming of since he could remember, he still had a bitter taste at having had to deal with so much and having to be oh so careful in a country he knew he wasn’t welcomed to.
Shane had been to Russia before, but not since his coming out. And despite being here with his supporting team and Rose texting him everyday that she loved him and couldn’t wait to see him again, Shane felt like the moment to fly out of here couldn’t come soon enough. But he couldn’t leave, not yet. He had made a promise to Miles, and he’d hate himself more than any homophobic douchebag ever would if he broke that promise.
Hayden and J.J were still sitting next to him, waiting for him to say something, anything. He knew they wanted to give him some space, but he also knew he had been quiet long enough for Hayden to start tapping his foot on the floor. Jackie would kill him if she knew he had gotten into that bad habit again. But Shane wasn’t one for telling on his friend, especially when he was the one causing him stress.
“I’ll be fine, guys. There’s no need to worry about me.” Shane smiled at his friends, trying to give off a more relaxed vibe. He knew it mustn’t have looked very convincing, but he thought it would have to do for now.
“Does that mean you’ll come get a drink with us?” J.J begged
“I really wish I could, but I have to be somewhere right now. I-” Shane looked at his phone, where he had another unread message of his mom. He really needed to stop ignoring her and answer her texts, fast. He looked at the time on his phone. He quickly got up from his chair, the noise surprising a few people around him. “Shit, I’m gonna be late. Miles' performance is in 20 minutes, I really need to go.”
“Miles’ performance is today? Can we join?” J.J was suddenly excited at the prospect of having another thing to do
“Only if you promise to get there faster than you are on ice.”
“Fuck off, Hollander. I’m faster than you.”
“Better prove it if you wanna make it on time then.”
The three of them started running out of the coffee place, straight for the ice skating arena.
***
The arena was packed. Shane knew figure skating was a pretty famous sport, but hearing Miles talk about it and actually seeing it in person were two completely different things.
Hundreds of people were filling in the stands, banners in their hands and flags on their shoulders. The crowd was loud, cheery and kept moving in their seats, trying to get the best angle of the ice they could.
Shane had been lucky. Miles had given him his extra tickets so he and his friends could get in the private stands with no problem. Knowing that he didn’t have to be in the middle of the crowd with people that would definitely recognize him made him feel a bit lighter. He could just be here for his friend without having to explain himself to hardcore figure skating fans trying to defend their beloved performer.
“Lots of Russian flags all around.” J.J kept looking at the crowds, leaning on the balcony the three of them were sitting in
“You’d almost think this was Russia.”
“Not what I meant, Pike.”
“Shush, it’s starting.” Shane signaled J.J to sit down right before the lights of the arena dimmed. Booming in the arena, the voice of the presenter announced the name of the first participant.
“When’s Miles?” Murmured Hayden
“Going third.” Answered Shane, eyes focused on the ice
“From Russia, performing to ‘I’ll Believe in Anything’ by Wolf Parade is Ilya Rosanov.”
From then on, it’s as if a light was switched in Shane’s brain. Right under his eyes, and on the big screens surrounding the rink, a man stepped on the ice. Broad shoulders, slicked back blond curly hair, a soft mole on his cheek and the tightest black figure skating costume Shane had ever witnessed on anybody. Silver sparkles were covering the entire top of the costume and slightly vanishing along the body the more they were going down. The top was open in a V neck descending in the middle of the sternum. Around his neck was a golden cross, close to his heart.
The song started playing, and with the first movement of the man on the ice, Shane’s heart started beating stronger than ever before. The hands and arms of the man were moving and reaching to the sky like a bird trying to touch the clouds for the first time. His legs were bending with grace and his jumps reminded Shane of deer jumping through his property in Canada during summertime. When the man started spinning on himself, time seemed to slow down for Shane. His jump brought him high up, his arms went to cross on his chest and he spinned on himself once, twice, three times and a fourth. He landed on the ice with such softness and beauty that Shane let out an audible gasp. Hayden turned to his friend for a brief second, surprised at the noise. But Shane was transfixed at the sight in front of him. The man continued by taking his foot behind his head and spinning some more for what felt like minutes. Shane’s eyes felt like they were going to come out of his eyes due to the speed at which the man was spinning before him. And, before he even knew it, the man had stopped and was panting on the ice, his hands raised in a victory sign. The crowd erupted in cheers.
Without any hesitation, Shane got out of his chair and clapped with all his might before stopping mid clap. A few meters down, on the ice, the face of the man was pointed towards him, staring at him in the eyes. Was Shane getting crazy or was this man really staring at him from several meters down?
Shane felt himself blush, and looked at the big screen instead where the face of the stranger was looking somewhere in the crowd. With a still very loud and cheering crowd, Shane saw it clearly. Face pointed in his direction, the Russian figure skater smiled, before winking at him. Wait, him? He felt his cheeks getting a very uncomfortable shade of red.
A few seconds that felt like forever passed, and the crowd sat back down and with them the noise of the cheering. But Shane was still standing up, confused at what had just happened. Like out of his body, he heard himself react.
“What the fuck was that?”