Work Text:
Nothing exciting happened at Build-A-Bear Workshop before noon on a Wednesday. It was one of the reasons Molly had been so willing to swap her weekend shift with a co-worker’s when theirs had interfered with their college schedule. The anticipated quiet meant she’d be working the store alone, which wasn’t technically allowed but that wasn’t the kind of thing their manager cared about, but that was part of the appeal. Instead of sticky-fingered children and over-excited birthday party groups, Molly had been looking forward to a blissfully quiet morning with only a small handful of customers to break up the stretch of time.
And then Shane Hollander walked in.
Molly knew he lived in Ottawa now, obviously. Her girlfriend was an avid hockey fan and had been begrudgingly supporting the Ottawa Centaurs for her entire life. The recent addition of Ilya Rozanov, followed a couple of years later by Hollander, his husband, had finally given Louise a hometown team to be proud of. Molly supposed they were her team too, now, just by association. A team that now had Cup prospects.
She’d seen Hollander on the ice at the Canadian Tire Centre arena a few times since the start of the season, so she’d already had concrete confirmation that he existed as a corporal being. Yet he still would be absolutely last on any list of people she might expect to walk through the doors of Ottawa’s only branch of Build-A-Bear Workshop. Especially accompanied by seemingly half the Centaurs’ roster.
Blinking a few times didn’t clear the image from Molly’s vision. This was either real, or one hell of a daydream.
Hollander was on crutches, which was strange to see in person. Molly had seen a picture of him on his sofa, scowling at the camera – or at least the man behind it – with his bandaged foot propped up on a cushion and his crutches on the floor beside him, on his husband’s Instagram. The caption had said something about Hollander being a bad patient, especially since his injured ankle meant his absence from the next few games. She had not anticipated that Hollander would walk, or hobble, out of her phone and into her place of work.
Molly and Louise had both been at the game where Hollander had gotten hurt. A freak accident had seen him catching skates with another player, going flying across the ice until his ankle yanked him back. The other guy had skated away, but Hollander hadn’t even gotten up. It was immediately clear to everyone in the arena that something was wrong. Rozanov had called for play to stop, rushing to Hollander’s side immediately. Molly still remembered the fierce grip Louise’d had on her hand. By the looks of things, Hollander had been clutching Rozanov’s hand just as tightly as he responded to questions in short bursts and nods.
Before medics were even on the rink, Rozanov had slipped his arms under his husband and picked him up off the cold, unforgiving ice to skate him back to the bench. Hollander had visibly protested, but wisely didn’t seem to struggle too much. Getting dropped wasn’t going to improve his injury. Rozanov dropped him off gently, passing him into the care of the medics who were finally getting their shit together. He’d bent to press a kiss to Hollander’s jaw, probably all he could reach with their helmets in the way.
When play resumed, Rozanov was visibly distracted. Even with frequent looks towards the bench, he still played better than half the league on their best day. The Centaurs had taken the victory, much to Louise’s delight, but Rozanov had only taken a moment to celebrate on the ice before returning to his husband’s side.
Considering his behaviour at that game, Molly couldn’t help but look for Ilya Rozanov, but he was noticeably missing from the group assembling in the store. She recognised Wyatt Hayes, Zane Boodram, Troy Barrett, and Harris Drover, who wasn’t a Centaur but made frequent appearances on Barrett’s Instagram as his boyfriend. As a – begrudging – hockey fan, she had to fight hard to keep her face neutral. As an extremely bored, minimum-wage paid retail worker who had been presented with something interesting to watch, she had to fight even harder.
“This is ridiculous,” Hollander protested, even as he seemed to willingly enter the shop.
“No,” corrected Boodram, patting Hollander on the shoulder with care not to destabilise his one-legged stance. “This is vital team bonding.”
They were lacking an awful lot of the team for it to be a vital bonding session, and Molly was fairly sure most NHL teams didn’t make stuffed toys together in order to improve their efficiency. Or at least, that’s why she assumed they were visiting. It was the usual purpose of a trip to Build-A-Bear – the name said it all, really.
“Ilya is a fully grown man. He is perfectly capable of going away without me. We spent years lucky if we saw each other once every couple of months,” Hollander said.
Molly had absolutely already been eavesdropping, but her ears pricked up even more at that. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov hadn’t publicly said much about the origins of their relationship beyond insinuating they’d been together for a while. She welcomed any further details, knowing Louise would cherish any scrap of insider intel.
“But then you married him and joined his hockey team and moved in with him, and now he’s addicted,” Wyatt Hayes explained, with the patience of someone who had spent way too many years riding the bench. “And we’re the ones who will have to suffer through his withdrawal symptoms while you’re at home with your leg up on a cushion, drinking ginger ale and petting Anya.”
“It is not ‘his’ hockey team,” Hollander huffed. “And you know I’d much rather come on the road trip with you, but Coach said—”
“We know,” Boodram interrupted. “Stuffing an injured ankle into limited leg room on a plane isn’t a good idea. But Wiebe isn’t going to let Roz stay with you, and neither are you, so let us get your man a damn bear for the road so he doesn’t drive us all insane with how much he misses you.”
Even from across the shop, Molly could see Hollander’s cheeks go red. He looked like he wanted to keep protesting, but Harris stepped in.
“Come on,” he said, an infectious smile visibly lightening everyone’s mood. “The quicker we pick a bear, the quicker you can get home to make the most of the time before we leave.”
“See, Harris gets it!” Boodram said triumphantly. “Let’s pick a carcass.”
Molly had to smother a snort of laughter. The bins full of unstuffed bear skins were admittedly a little morbid.
She watched the group of hockey players huddle around the selection of bears, considering each one. Harris and Barrett seemed to be favouring one of the canine options, while Boodram was holding several of the darkest bears up to Hollander’s face.
“Stop rolling your eyes, I’m trying to match them,” Boodram complained.
Oh, this was so worth swapping shifts for. Molly wondered whether she’d be able to get a copy of the CCTV footage. No one was going to believe her if she had to tell this story without proof.
Eventually, Hollander fought off his teammates’ help and considered the options himself. He reached for what Molly already knew was the softest option they had, brushing his fingers through the short fur.
“This one,” he said, barely loud enough for her to overhear across the shop. “He’d like this one best. It’s the same colour as Anya.”
It was a mark of true professionalism that Molly kept her resulting ‘awww’ internal. She’d seen plenty of sweet couples making bears for each other, but there was something so undeniably fond in Hollander’s voice now he’d committed himself to the job of making one for his husband.
“It’s a bear of you, not Anya.” Barrett pointed out.
“No,” Hayes said, “Hollzy knows his man best.”
If it was possible, Hollander blushed an even deeper shade of red. But his grip on his bear of choice was firm and he seemed to have made his mind up, which meant it was time for Molly to actually do her job. She pasted on her best customer service smile, one that hopefully didn’t give away the fact that she knew everyone in the store by name, and left the safety of the counter.
“Hi there,” she said, painfully cheerful. “Are you ready to stuff your bear?”
Hollander looked back at her like a deer caught in headlights, rather than a professional athlete in a full-contact sport. Molly was five foot nothing and had lilac streaks in her hair – it was comical to think she might be intimidating to a guy who faced off against veritable giants of men on a frequent basis.
“Yes?” he said, unsure. “Sorry, I’ve never been here before. The guys didn’t give me enough warning to look up how it all works.”
“That’s okay!” Molly reassured him. “Let me just take that, and we’ll make him huggable for you.” She gently took the empty bear off Hollander so he could manoeuvrer his crutches more easily as she shepherded him towards the stuffing station.
There were two chairs set up for Bear Builders so Molly nudged the spare one in Hollander’s direction. Presumably he was supposed to be keeping weight off his ankle, if it wasn’t stable enough for him to play on. He sank onto the seat with a grateful smile. His teammates crowded behind him and Molly could tell which of them were familiar with Build-A-Bear’s heart ceremony based on their grins. She was going to go easy on Hollander, since he was injured and all, but not that easy. How many times in life was she going to get this chance?
Before she could start, Zane Boodram cleared his throat. “Can you still record custom sounds? Because I think a biblically accurate Hollander bear would probably be telling Roz he loved him.”
Hollander looked mildly horrified. “What? No! Absolutely not. That’s not a thing, right?” he asked Molly.
“It is a thing,” she said apologetically, because it seemed like Hollander was outnumbered by teammates who supported the suggestion.
“He already knows I love him,” Hollander protested to the group.
“What if he needs a reminder?” Hayes suggested, grinning.
“Then he can look at his wedding ring.”
“What if he loses it?”
“Then I’ll kill him, so it won’t matter if he remembers whether I love him or not,” Hollander argued, but then he seemed to take a moment to think, his features going soft. “But he wouldn’t. Lose it. He’s too careful with things that matter.”
“Channel that sap into a soundbite and Roz’ll never let the bear go,” Boodram said, laughing.
“The recording device works best with as little background noise as possible,” Molly said, sensing that Hollander was approaching his limit of teasing. “Maybe the rest of you could take a look at the clothes for a few minutes so there’s no interference?”
There was surprise on Hollander’s face, which quickly gave way to gratitude as his friends dutifully shuffled away.
“Thank you,” he said. “They’re… Sorry, they’re a bit much sometimes. But they’re good guys.”
“You are not the first guy to be bullied, however lovingly, into making a bear for his partner,” Molly explained. “I can always tell which groups mean well and which are just hazing the guy. You’ve got a good bunch, but sometimes it’s just nice to breathe.”
Hollander nodded, already looking more comfortable.
“So, are we going to pretend to record a sound for the bear so your friends leave you alone? Or would you actually like to?”
His eyes going to the wedding ring on his finger, Hollander contemplated for a long moment. “Does it have to be in English?”
“No,” Molly said. She knew Hollander was fluent in French too – she’d seen clips of him speaking to reporters. “It can be French if you want. Or any other language. Just promise me to keep it PG.”
His blush crept down his neck.
“No, that’s not what I—! It’s just sentimental, is all. It’s easier to say in Russian, so I know it’ll only be understood by… my husband.”
Molly wasn’t sure whether he was hesitating because the marriage was still relatively new and it wasn’t the automatic term his brain reached for yet, or because he was unsure how she’d react to finding out he was queer. As if she hadn’t been eavesdropping on the group since they’d walked in. As if he wasn’t one of the most famous faces in Ottawa. She wished she’d finally found time to get a pride badge to pin next to her nametag so he wouldn’t have any doubt, but she settled for a reassuring smile.
“I trust you,” she said.
Molly didn’t speak Russian, so the message Hollander mumbled into the recording device that she passed him went entirely over her head. So many of the sounds were unfamiliar enough that she mostly couldn’t even tell where one word ended and the next began. She only caught the specificity of the very end, when he slowed down to speak deliberately and emphatically.
“Я тебя люблю.”
Whatever it translated as, Hollander definitely meant it.
Once the sound box was carefully positioned in the bear’s paw and Molly had switched on the stuffing machine, the rest of the Ottawa Centaurs seemed to take that as their invitation to hurry back over. Apparently they were willing to give Hollander some space to record a message to Rozanov, but they weren’t about to miss the heart ceremony.
Molly went easy on Hollander. She stuffed the bear’s arms and legs, making sure the sound box was still in place, and filled up its stomach until he was portly and squishy. Then she handed it over to Hollander so he could test its cuddliness. He squashed it apprehensively, as if unsure what he was checking for, but nodded.
“Great, so now you just need to pick a heart,” Molly said, gesturing towards the bin of tiny fabric hearts attached to the side of the stuffing machine.
He dipped his fingers inside and pulled out a shiny red one. “Do I just…?” he asked, moving as if to put it inside the still-open back of the bear.
Molly bit her lip. This was going to be fun.
“Well first, you need to rub it between your hands to warm it up,” she said seriously. “And then you need to give it a kiss to get it started. And then you have to make a wish.”
Hollander blinked at her. “I have to what?”
“Did you really never go to Build-A-Bear as a child?” Harris asked from his place at Barrett’s side. “This is the most important part.”
“I’m injured! I’m supposed to be resting!” Hollander protested, which would have been more effective if anyone at all was asking him to stand up.
“Pretty sure warming up Shane Hollandbear’s heart and making a wish isn’t putting any strain on your ankle,” Boodram pointed out.
“We are not calling it that!” Hollander said. Molly started to wonder if he was ever not blushing.
“We absolutely are,” Hayes said with a grin. “It was Troy’s idea, and it’s genius.”
It was Troy’s turn to blush, ducking his head.
Hollander turned to Molly for help, but she just shrugged. Everyone had to go through this little song and dance to make their bear. Usually if people were visibly anxious or uncomfortable, they would dial it down, which was why she wasn’t making him jump up and down and spin around to give his bear energy. Well, partly because she was being nice, and partly because his ankle was strapped up. But he could kiss a fabric heart. It wouldn’t kill him.
When he realised he wasn’t getting backup, Hollander huffed and rolled back his shoulders like he was about to step out on the ice.
“Fine,” he said, but then he turned back to look at Harris. “You are not allowed to film this. This is going absolutely nowhere near the Centaur social media accounts.”
Harris held up the one hand that wasn’t holding Barrett’s, showing it was phone-free. “I wouldn’t dare.”
Hollander took an unnecessarily deep breath before sandwiching the fabric heart between his palms and rubbing them together a few times. When he opened his hands to reveal the heart, he pressed a tiny kiss to one side of it, and then squeezed his eyes shut to make what looked like a surprisingly sincere wish.
Molly grinned at him as she held out Hollandbear for him to drop the heart inside. Pulling at the loose threads already tied into the back of the bear, she tightened the closure like lacing a corset before tying off the end.
“Did you wish for us to win the Stanley Cup?” she heard Hayes asking.
“I can’t tell you what I wished for. Then it won’t come true.”
Molly suspected the wish had been a little more personal, based on the way Hollander’s smile was small and secret.
“Hollzy doesn’t need to wish for that. It’s already happening,” Boodram insisted. “We’re fucking unstoppable this year.”
“Jesus, Bood, don’t jinx it,” Barrett protested. “One of our star players is already on IR.”
“I’ll be back soon,” Hollander promised. “I’m doing everything the doctors said.”
Hayes patted him on the shoulder. “We know you are, Hollzy. And we’ve got this until you get back.”
Molly finished snipping off the extra thread, schooling the amused smile from her face before she looked up to hand Hollander his bear. They were an entertaining bunch, the Ottawa Centaurs, and they were surprisingly sweet for a group of hockey players. Even following them online and going to their games, they still weren’t like how she’d expected them to be in person. Louise was going to be absolutely delighted to hear about all of this when Molly got home.
“We found the hockey outfit,” Harris said, holding up a tiny cardboard hanger displaying a bear-sized hockey jersey and shorts.
Hollander swivelled in his chair so he could see. When his eyes found the outfit, he froze, tension suddenly flooding his shoulders. It proved how relaxed he’d been thus far, despite his teammates’ ribbing, but Molly wasn’t sure what had caused it. Until Hollander looked away from the red, white and blue outfit, scuffing his uninjured foot against the floor.
“It’s Metros colours,” he mumbled softly. “I’m not… That’s not my team anymore.”
And oh. Yeah. That made sense. Louise had explained the entire Hollander/Rozanov debacle to Molly at length when it had all come out several months before. It was a spirited, rather one-sided discussion that had involved the phrase ‘fuck Montreal’ at least eight times, so Molly knew all about Hollander’s former team and the way they hadn’t been accepting of his relationship with another player.
“We don’t have any other colours,” she said apologetically.
“No, that’s okay,” Hollander said, clearly trying to shake himself free of some difficult memories as he shook his head. His grip on the bear in his lap tightened. “Maybe we find something else to put the bear in?”
“The hockey uniform is the reason we’re here,” Barrett said. “That was the whole point, wasn’t it?”
The group went silent for a moment. Molly sifted through a mental catalogue of Build-A-Bear clothing components, trying to work out if there was anything they could put together that might even slightly resemble the black and red Centaurs uniform. In the end it was Boodram who spoke up.
“What about clothes for a baby? Do they fit?” he asked Molly.
She hummed. “They’re usually a little big, but they do work. People do it a lot.”
“They make Centaurs jerseys for newborns. I got one for Milo when he was born. So maybe we get Hollandbear one of those?”
“Yes,” Hollander said, nodding. “Please. That’ll be better. Ilya doesn’t like the Metros anymore than—” He caught himself seemingly before he could admit to his own resentment. “Ilya doesn’t like the Metros.”
That was an understatement, and Molly was pretty sure everyone there knew it. She and Louise had watched the last Ottawa/Montreal game on TV and Rozanov had played the entire thing with a hard-set jaw and a death glare.
“Okay,” Hayes said cheerfully, “tiny Centaurs jersey it is. But the bear is still going to need pants.”
Boodram smirked. “Does it? Roz probably prefers Hollzy without them.” That earned him a glare from Hollander, but his resulting “Sorry” did not sound particularly apologetic, especially when combined with a wide grin.
Fifteen minutes later, Molly was ringing everything up for Hollander at the counter. One Shane Hollandbear, complete with birth certificate, one pair of bear-sized plain black trousers, one tiny pair of felt ice skates, and one tiny pair of glasses.
“Thank you for all your help,” Hollander said. “I’m so sorry we descended on you like that.”
“Oh please don’t apologise. This has been the highlight of my day. Possibly of my year, actually,” Molly admitted.
“Are you a hockey fan?” he asked a little tentatively, like he was really hoping the answer was ‘no’.
Molly considered lying, but this was also the perfect opportunity to let him know he was safe, he’d been safe the whole time.
“My girlfriend is a huge fan, so I have to be,” she said.
Hollander’s eyes went wide. “Girlfriend like friend, or like…?”
“No,” Molly said with a laugh. “Girlfriend like I love her. Don’t get me wrong, I am a hockey fan too, now, but she’s the one who got me into it to begin with. She was so happy you joined the Centaurs.”
It was the first time she’d let on that she knew exactly who Shane Hollander was, but she was happy to see he was still grinning at her, even if he turned a little bashful at the compliment.
“Thank you. I appreciate that. Would she like something signed? I mean I don’t have anything on me, but—”
“She would love that!” Molly jumped at the chance. It had seemed unprofessional to just ask, but truthfully Louise would have killed her if she’d gone home empty handed with nothing but the story to tell. “Here, how about…”
Molly grabbed a blank Build-A-Bear certificate from the stack they kept behind the counter.
“That’s a first, but it works,” Hollander said, laughing. “What’s her name?”
“Louise.”
Molly handed Hollander a pen and he flipped over the certificate so he could write on the back. Before he could, he paused and looked up at her.
“Would she want autographs from those idiots, too?” he asked, gesturing to where the rest of the group was waiting near the exit.
“That would be amazing.”
“Be right back.”
Hollander shot her a smile that could have launched a thousand ships, finally relaxed. Molly was very much a lesbian but she could tell exactly why Rozanov had thought a secret affair with his rival was worth it. Hollander was kind, earnest, and hotter than he seemed to realise. He took one crutch from where he’d lent them against the front of the counter and made his way over to the group. Molly watched as he explained and shared it around to be signed. When he brought it back a few minutes later, he passed it back face down against the counter.
“Thank you, for all your help,” he said. “And please, god, keep as much of this off social media as possible.”
“Louise is the only one I’ll tell,” Molly promised, and she was treated to another one of those genuine, completely unguarded smiles.
Once Hollander had paid and Hayes had come over to carry the little cardboard house that Hollandbear had been packed into so Hollander could manage his crutches, Molly waved them all out. As soon as she finally had a moment of peace, she finally reached for the autographed certificate. Flipping it over, she found it had been made out to ‘Louise and Molly’, and that every player had signed it. Even Harris has added an inelegant signature, with the note ‘(not a Centaur, but Troy and Shane insisted)’, which Louise was going to be thrilled with. She’d loved following all of his social media content.
Below their names but above the signatures, Hollander had added something else. ‘Thank you for your help and your discretion. Give your names at Will Call for the next home game I’m back on the ice and there will be two tickets for you’, he’d written.
Molly grinned, already pulling her phone out to text Louise. This was the best shift swap she’d ever agreed to.