parttimehuman

Are you kidding me, wow

“Lily can’t get pregnant!” Shane shouts at him, throwing his towel against his locker. The wet sound snapped everyone’s eyes at him.

Their captian never yelled. Never.

Hayden had been ribbing him all practice in his usually, puppy like ignorant way, where he couldn’t, or perhaps wouldn’t, see how his words tore Shane apart.

Shane snapped.

“How many times have I told you that Lily and I are casual. Friends. Not everyone wants to get married and have five kids before 30,” Shane grumbled as he picked up his towel. Not everyone can, he thought selfishly.

Hayden stood completely still, like a prey animal who knew it had been spotted. “I was just — ”

“I know you were just, you always just. No matter how many times I tell you to drop it, to stop setting me up with Jackie’s friends, to stop asking when I’m having kids, you just can’t stop.” Shane closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the cool locker door. He forced himself to breathe in and out. Focus.

“Lily and I are not in a relationship. We’re both very focused on our careers right now, and franky I don’t want kids while I’m only 24. Neither does Lily. And even if we might one day want to have kids, we can’t…” Shane hated lying, he hated saying Lily instead of Ilya. He hated that he had to conceal his love from his best friend.

For all that they were brothers, Hayden had a tendency to irritate him with his childlike, happy- go-lucky personality. He didn’t know what it was like; He drafted 17th overall, he was white, a decent player with a decent family background, a beautiful wife who was happy to forgo her education to raise their kids.

Hayden wasn’t half asian. He wasn’t an immigrant. He was the poster card hockey player; the white man, with a white wife and their four (beautiful and amazing) kids, who advertisers would never second guess publicly endorsing.

Hayden and Jackie was everything Shane and Ilya could never be. And at times Shane hated them a little for it.

“Even if we might one day want to, it wouldn’t matter. Lily is only in America on a work visa, and as she can’t get pregnant naturally we would have to look into adoption or surrogacy, something that’s practically impossible for us right now with our jobs. And her family isn’t…too happy about me.”

“Her family’s racist?” Comeau piped up from his seat. “And why would her workplace care who she’s dating?”

“Jesus christ, man. Racism is a thing. Xenophobia is a thing. I’m half asian and she’s an immigrant. If the wrong person hears about our relationship and decides to be a little bitch about it, her employment could be cut and she’d have to go back to…a very shitty place.”

“But that’s illegal,” JJ mumbled to himself but looked down as soon as Shane set his eyes on him. JJ knew personally that just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen.

They’d both been on the receiving end of racist remarks by coaches and players without any support from the higher ups. It was a known ‘don’t speak about it’ issue at the Montreal enterprise.

“Yeah, but it’s also reality.”

Forcing his breath to stay even, Shane threw a hoodie over his head and tried to picture Ilyas beautiful smile. He had to protect him above all. Protect them. Opening his eyes he noticed that all his friends had theirs set on him.

The whole team knew about Boston Lily. They knew he was quiet about her, that she was the only girl he’d been with for years, and that it might be serious. She had become somewhat of an urban legend amongst them. No one knew anything, and it had to stay that way.

“It’s safer for us, for our future even, if we keep it under wraps for now.” Shane turned to look at Hayden, who to his credit looked heartbroken and slightly ashamed. Shane hated that it filled him with a sense of satisfaction.

“If we one day decide to make a go for it, she’d have to apply for a permanent residency in America or Canadian citizenship, which will take years. If we want kids that’s a whole other issue. A whole other five to seven years of background checks, biological testing, etc.”

It was clear from the way Hayden sunk into himself that he had never even considered this possibility. That he and Shane lived in two very different worlds.

“I probably won’t be a father until i’m near 40, and even then, I plan on playing for as long as possible. Lily too, wants to focus on her career. Your kids would finish high school by the time any of ours are even born. That’s if we’re lucky enough to have them, which isn’t a guarantee.”

A soft ‘fucking hell man’ was heard from the back of the room, but he couldn’t pick out who it was. It didn’t matter though, as all the guys looked at him with pity. Shane fucking hated pity. As did Ilya.

“Right now we’re both happy with our arrangement because that’s all we can be.” Shane pretended no one could hear how his voice wavered. He forced himself to sound harsh as he put his foot down.

“So just, back off. Stop asking about Lily. Stop setting me up on surprise blind dates and asking when I’m having kids. It’s not gonna happen for us, I mean me, for at least another ten to fifteen years so. Just. Back off.”

With a loud slam of his locker, Shane marched out of the room, head down, hands clenched tight in his pockets.

Tomorrow would be better.

Tomorrow he would show up and be the captain the team deserved.

(He’d most likely get a talking to from Theriault for exploding like this, and he’d apologise like the good boy he is, and he’d leave all his personal problems at home, and focus only on hockey.)

But first, he needed to go home and cry in the shower.

Ten to fifteen years.

Ten to fifteen years before he could live a full life with Ilya.

But it would be worth it.

Hockey was worth it.

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Some important things not shown in the teaser:

you say it out loud on accident. he doesn’t say it back. he runs away.

when he comes back around, it’s with a woman on his arm. she’s gorgeous and brilliant and witty and cutthroat. she takes no shit. she scares you. she’s perfect for him in every way. he looks at her the way he used to only look at you. and you can’t take it. you drop out. you do everything you can do make the draft that season and you never see him again.

and then it’s twenty years later. you’re at the draft for the year chatting with teams and owners trying to find a coaching job. and the name you’ve been running from for three decades is blaring at you from all sides. hollander. hollander. hollander.

the draft picks are announced. second overall goes to montreal - the city where you buried your innocence forever. the screens fill up with faces and you can’t breathe.

he has the stunning woman’s eyes. her dark hair. her smooth skin. but he has his father’s nose. his stubborn chin and perfectly angled jaw. and there she is, that stunning woman that still strikes fear into your heart, clapping and dabbing tears from her eyes as her son heads up to accept his jersey. and beside her…

you never let yourself think about what he would look like, twenty years removed from the last time you saw him. but he looks like his father - a man you met once when he brought you home for christmas because you couldn’t afford a ticket back home and he didn’t want you to be alone. he doesn’t have the hard edges of the other man, though. and his eyes are still the same piercing blue. his smile is still wide and easy and genuine.

you watch their son step into the league. you watch him instantly dominate the sport in a way you never could. he’s perfect. it had to happen this way, you realize, or else he wouldn’t exist. you keep hearing the name over the years, keep seeing the face as you take your first coaching job with the worst team in the league. you want to hate him, but you can’t. you wanted to hate his father, too, when he didn’t say those three words back, but your heart simply won’t allow you to.

then one day, your team doesn’t suck anymore. suddenly, you’re rich with talent. you’re winning. you’re going to the fucking playoffs. and just when things look perfect, a video surfaces online.

two men tangled in each other’s arms. smiling between deep, loving kisses. a moment never meant to be seen, let alone recorded and blasted to the world. you feel stripped to the bone when you see it. despite how sick and sad it makes you, you can’t help but notice that he laughs just like his father.

you brace for the worst. you confide in the other man in the video, tell him your secret in as few words as possible. you name no names. you had a thing with a teammate. it didn’t end well. you, too, are bisexual. you see him. you support him. but still, you’ve seen how this story ends. you already know what comes next. you wait for one of them to run away. for them to break each other’s hearts. because that’s what happens to loves like these. loves like yours.

except they don’t run away. they don’t fly apart. they stay together. they make it through. they get married.

and when the dust settles and the season ends, the boy with his mother’s eyes and his father’s laugh signs to your team. he becomes your responsibility. you love him at once, because you are damned to know only love for anyone with the name hollander.

you finally see the man who broke your heart again, now thirty years later.

you promise to take care of his son, his only son, his shining paragon of a legacy. you promise to take care of both of them. to do whatever you can to protect their right to love each other as loudly as they want.

if only you and he hadn’t been born too early. if only you hadn’t loved each other too soon. the world you needed to grow that love in safely didn’t exist yet.

i find it hot

they’re comparable generationally talented first line center professional hockey players

positioning shane as smaller/shorter/daintier than his white dom top boyfriend perpetuates racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes

i personally find it REALLY hot

when he chooses to, shane can physically overpower ilya (hockey, shoving ilya into walls i.e. vegas rooftop and stairwell scenes) but when he wants to submit in bed, he allows himself to be pushed, carried, held down, etc. because they both like it and want it

feminist scholar jane ward: "queer circuits of desire do not rely on the erotic encounter of opposites"

they can wear each other's clothes in a cozy boyfriend hoodie "give. i miss your boring laundry smell" "why the fuck are all your clothes dry clean hand wash only" long distance yearning way or post-game sweat damp base layer horny way or "gross now i have cum on my sweats i'm stealing yours" "okei yay ♥" fondly annoyed way