No Promises

But the thing is, people DO throw themselves at Shane left and right, he just doesn’t realize it.

The Voyagers are at a club and girls are eyeing him like the last steak in a tiger enclosure, but Hayden is about to bang his head on the table because Shane is in his usual Captain mode and paying zero attention to the girls. A few of the bolder ones approach him but he’s like “Hi, can I help you?” and “oh sorry, I’m on duty right now, I can’t leave my team” and Hayden gives up, he just can’t anymore. Jackie will need to step up and find this man a girl cuz Shane ain’t gonna do it on his own.

At brunch with Rose, the waiter is checking him out hardcore and smiling flirtatiously. Rose teases him about it, and Shane is like “???? He’s just doing his job? Isn’t it his job to be friendly?”

Years later, Hayden and Rose are trading war stories of Shane being oblivious to human attraction and Ilya’s just like, *shrug* you just need to be clear and direct with him, and Rose and Hayden both stare at him like “what do you mean?”

lol @calyyypsooo tags

The problem is that Shane can rationalize almost anything. A guy could straight up give him a lap dance and grind up on his dick saying “let’s go back to your place right now, I will do filthy things to you” and Shane would be like “haha, you’re very funny (and this is very awkward)”

Rose: Why didn’t you take him up on his offer?

Shane: What?

Rose: The hot guy trying to ride your dick right here in the bar. In front of everyone. Remember him? From 5 minutes ago?

Shane, blushing, looking away, fidgeting with a napkin: Oh, no, he wasn’t being serious.

Rose: …

Rose: Shane. Honey. If you were a Disneyland ride, that guy would’ve spent the $500 for a FastPass just so he could be first in line.

Shane, huffing with his arms crossed: I’m not a Disneyland ride…..and I’m not interested in guys riding me.

i understand that winning a slam comes with an amount of pedigree within tennis, and it’s an achievement that comes with a lot of publicity and lauding. on this level i understand the frustration with him winning one.

what i dont agree with is the idea that this fundamentally changes anything. zverev is good at tennis, this is not a moral judgement. he has been a serious contender for many years. as much as it feels vindicating to call him a choker, to make fun of him for not winning one- that is ultimately a selfish feeling because it doesn’t serve any purpose. and in some ways directly obfuscates and trivialises the real issue.

obviously, i don’t think making a joke here and there is necessarily wrong, but i do sometimes worry the overwhelming amount of posts treating players beating him like a game is diluting the seriousness. the posts that only ever call him the rat or another nickname, the posts congratulating people for “exterminating him”- i worry these miss the point. he isn’t some funny little issue, he’s a serial domestic abuser. whether or not a player beats him isn’t them doing a favour for women or for viewers who don’t like him, there is no morality in it.

if it’s more important for you to be able to make fun of him for not reaching some arbitrary point of success than it is for him to be recognised and face consequences for being a serial abuser than your priorities are wrong. i don’t actually think anyone is doing this on purpose, but i think it’s easy to get caught up in our own anger, our own desire to feel better short term.

the first allegations came out i believe in 2020, if zverev had won a slam before that it would not have changed the fact that he’s an abuser. if he’d won every slam since it would not change that fact. on the other hand, if he lost every slam first round it would also not change anything. the truth of it though is that he does make deep runs frequently. that’s why he’s been top 5 for so long, and him being top 5 for so long has already made him a face of men’s tennis regardless of his slam success.

no longer being able to say he’s a choker or he’s a slamless loser or whatever insult in that vein you want is not even remotely relevant when the real reason people should be upset is that he is, once again, a serial domestic abuser.

I think his high empathy is also why people intuitively sense that he is safe. My husband is also high empathy, and when he worked in retail, he would have customers come up to him asking for help finding something and end up telling him their life problems. One lady told him her worries about her teenage son because she just found marijuana in his drawer. Another customer shared worries that their brother was hanging out with the wrong crowd. My husband was like okay, but here’s the Celine Dion CD you were looking for. (This was back when physical music stores were a thing lol)

Depending on how strict their definition of no carbs is, it could mean “no grains” like above or it could mean “no carbs from any source,” which is even more restrictive. Pretty much everything has carbs in it, not just grains. “No carbs from any source” might also mean no or limited beans, lentils, starches (potatoes, peas, corn), maybe even limited fruit. I mean, carrots have carbs in them. Bananas are incredibly carby.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they have to do the Shane thing where they scan a menu when they go out to a restaurant and try not to panic finding something that fits in their diet besides the side salad. No wonder Shane uses a meal service. It’s so much easier and less stressful to get that stuff tailored and delivered to you ready to go rather than making it yourself (*snort* as if Shane has time to grocery shop and cook) or try to find stuff on restaurant menus that fit your diet.

Race absolutely matters. Racism absolutely exists. But different racial groups are stereotyped in different ways, and those stereotypes can produce completely different social expectations.

For example, I’ve seen people criticize Rachel and Jacob for joking about Hudson being unintelligent because he’s a person of color. If Hudson were Black, I would understand that criticism more, because there is a long history of anti-Black stereotypes portraying Black people as unintelligent. But Hudson is Asian. Asian men are stereotyped in almost the opposite way. They’re often assumed to be intelligent, studious, and academically successful. The stereotype is still racist, but it’s a different stereotype. It doesn’t suddenly become an anti-Asian stereotype just because we’ve replaced “Asian” with the broader category of “POC.”

The same thing happens constantly in fanfiction with Shane.

A lot of writers portray Shane as being afraid to fight because he knows he’ll be judged more harshly than white players. I understand where that idea is coming from, but as a black person I’ve never found it particularly convincing.

If Shane were black, that analysis would make more sense to me. Black men are often stereotyped as aggressive, which means behavior that is considered acceptable from white athletes is often interpreted differently when black ones do it.

But asian men occupy a very different place in the racial imagination. They’re frequently stereotyped as passive, non-threatening, weak, nerdy, emasculated, etc. If racial stereotypes were influencing Shane’s approach to hockey, I could just as easily imagine the opposite dynamic: feeling pressure to prove he’s aggressive enough to belong. Maybe he’s fighting TOO much.

But that doesn’t make sense for Shane. He’s the league’s golden boy. He’s polite, media-friendly, and heavily inspired by Sidney Crosby. He’s a superstar. Fighting is often delegated to players lower on the depth chart whose role is specifically to provide physicality. Star players generally aren’t expected to be enforcers. Teams usually want their elite talent scoring goals, not sitting in the penalty box after dropping the gloves.

So Shane not fighting much doesn’t strike me as evidence of racial pressure. It strikes me as evidence that he’s Shane Hollander.

Crosby is a useful comparison here. For years, people mocked him for not being physical enough (and for talking to the refs too much). They questioned his toughness and masculinity. They called him “Crybaby Crosby” or “Cindy Crosby.” Fans edited photos of him in dresses or makeup. The criticism wasn’t really about hockey. The joke was that he wasn’t a “real man.”

And that’s a white player.

Imagine how much worse those conversations could become if the player in question were Asian.

That’s the kind of racial dynamic I could actually see affecting Shane, not him worrying about people thinking he’s too aggressive, but people questioning whether aggressive ENOUGH.

There’s a good chance that if Shane fought exactly like many white players, he probably still wouldn’t be viewed as tough enough. Meanwhile, if a Black player fought exactly like those same white players, he might be interpreted as more aggressive.

People often criticize Rachel for not doing much racial analysis in the books. But sometimes fandom fills that gap with racial analysis that feels disconnected from both hockey culture and the specific stereotypes that affect different racial groups.

Not every POC experience is interchangeable.

A stereotype that affects Black athletes is not automatically a stereotype that affects Asian athletes. A stereotype that affects Latino athletes is not automatically a stereotype that affects Indigenous athletes.

If we’re going to talk about race- and we should- we have to talk about the actual racial dynamics at play, not just substitute “person of color” for a more specific analysis.

Let me start off by saying this is all just my opinion and I would love to hear other people’s. I think Yuna Hollander (from what little we get of her) is a fascinating character. And I would have loved to see more of her, but I understand why we don’t. At the same time, I think she haunts the narrative just as much as Irina does, and this post seeks to explore that.

Immigrant

During the first episode in the Draft Scene, we get soft confirmation of Yuna being an immigrant. “- I am the world’s biggest Metros fan. It’s part of how I came to feel Canadian. My dad would sit us down in the living room Saturday nights.” (I am not an immigrant myself, but I grew up around many, and my grandmother was one. If I get anything wrong, please let me know.)

I think a lot of her worldview and actions become more clear when kept in mind. On the surface level, we could view her as just a hockey-obsessed mother. But when you consider (if she wasn’t lying) a lot of who she is and how she views herself is rooted in hockey. One example would be when going to school (especially elementary), her foods and home life would differ from most other kids, but there was always hockey to bond over. 

One of the first things that made Canada feel like home was bonding with her family by watching hockey games. And depending on both her and her parents’ (and any siblings’) level of English when they first moved to Canada, a lot of her early English vocabulary (and her parents’) would have been hockey-based. It would have been an easy conversation filler when talking to strangers if they spoke little English. 

There is also the French aspect of this. Depending on where she grew up, the language barrier could have been even greater. (I did research into the language statistics of Montreal in this post in the 30.06 - 30.36 He Just Wanted to See His French Boy Speak section.) And since she grew up watching the Metros it wouldn’t be crazy to assume they lived in or around the Montreal area. 

Many children of immigrants end up better at a country's official language than their parents, especially early on. They end up speaking their new language in schools and with their peers and use it for all their classes. The fact that Yuna has no accent likely means she would have been very young when she moved to Canada. Or that she worked hard to lose any accent she had to fit in better. 

I bring up the last point because since the child usually knows the new language better; they end up being an interpreter for their parents. Asking for directions, help, or ordering food could all have fallen to her. (The last one is something to take into consideration, which I didn’t think about until now, with my opinions of her actions in the Rolex/Right up the Butt scene.) This could all be part of what led to much of her ‘take charge’ outlook. 

Racism

There is no doubt in my mind that Yuna wouldn’t have faced some level of racism her whole life. Depending on her parent’s English/French ability, she could have been hearing slurs directed at her parents (subtle or obvious) when acting as their interpreter or just going around. She would have learned to bite her tongue at a very young age. Especially since an important aspect of Japanese culture is politeness and respecting one’s elders. 

She was also likely born in the 1960s - 1970s, and racism was historically worse the further back you go. (If anyone knows what the Canadian view of Japanese immigrants at the time was, I would love to know. I only know what it would have been like for them in America, and it would have been…not good, to put it lightly.) Growing up, she would have faced more racism than Shane likely did on a day-to-day basis. 

But in saying that hockey is a notoriously racist sport. (Here’s a breakdown of POC representation in hockey.) And I can’t begin to imagine the pain she would have felt knowing she was the “cause” of the racism Shane would have faced. She also likely faced it from the other hockey parents (both because of racism and jealousy at Shane’s talent). I can see a world where she faced some level of isolation from the other parents. IE them not inviting the Hollanders to team activities. 

And beyond the general politeness found in Japanese culture comes the aspect that if she was to call anyone out, it would have isolated her/Shane further (no one enjoys being called out on their racism). And if done to the wrong person, it could have cost Shane his future in the sport and later on, his career. 

Since we don’t see Shane interact with Japanese culture in any way (beyond his diet being macrobiotic), it could indicate she subconsciously did everything to give Shane the best chance and in doing so erased that part of herself. IE not sending him to school with Japanese food so he wasn’t picked on and other such things. Since we see Shane be uncomfortable at being considered a representative for other future Asian athletes (and what I think is also probably imposter syndrome), I think she might have “over-corrected” to ensure he didn’t face the problems she did. 

Raising an Autistic Child

I won’t touch on this much because autism is a very large spectrum with many facets and presentations. And while we see Shane mask extremely well, the younger he was, the harder things would have been for him. Yuna, being the extremely involved parent she is, would have seen/handled all traits/behaviors he displayed. Since we don’t get any insight into what Shane was like as a child, we can’t say what things would have been like for any of the Hollanders or how the situation was handled.

We also don’t know if Shane was officially diagnosed and, if so, what kinds of treatment/therapy he went through. During the 1990-2000s less was known about ways to help autistic people navigate the world than we know today. Therefore, there were less well-known accommodations to make life easier (weighted blankets, sound-canceling headphones, ect.) 

It also isn’t uncommon that the parents of children who were diagnosed around this time or earlier would elect to keep this from the child and essentially ignore it. If Shane's being autistic were common knowledge, he would have faced many more hurdles when it came to hockey. So either it was kept secret or not known at all. (Here is my post about Autism as it relates to this show.)

"Tiger Parenting"

(Someone mentioned this, and I didn't realize people might not know this but the term does have racist undertones when used as "Tiger mom/mother". Which is why I stuck to using the colloquially used and understood term "Tiger Parent" instead for this style of parenting.)

Something many children of immigrants face on some level is so-called “Tiger Parenting”. Usually, this is driven by the desire to see your children take advantage of every opportunity that most non-immigrant children get without hesitation. They don’t want their children to face the struggles they did, but in doing so, they bring their own problems. And since parenting styles are usually passed down (more so the further back you go, since there were fewer studies into childhood development). So the pressure we see Yuna put on Shane is probably an echo of what she faced. 

I grew up around many such families, so I’ll talk about my experience of it from an outsider’s perspective. Many of the children I grew up with had "Tiger Parents" (specifically Vietnamese), and it affected them deeply in a few similar ways. 

Something common would be that a child would have a slight or true interest in something, and in trying to support that and see their children succeed, they would eventually drain out what joy the child found in that activity/topic. But because so much effort/money/time would be poured into that area of their lives, the children would often see it as ungrateful if they wished to stop. 

Many described something they used to love as becoming soul-sucking. 

It also puts the child in constant competition with their peers. If someone were better at their chosen subject/hobby/sport/instrument, then they were failing. Not just themselves, but all the work their parents put in. 

One of the most devastating versions of this I saw in a friend was them developing first orthorexia and then anorexia from the pressures put on them as a swimmer. It wasn’t until after they fainted in the pool during a meet that they were finally encouraged/allowed to stop. And even now, over a decade later, they are still dealing with the trauma.

I believe Shane Hollander is genuinely obsessed with hockey but I don’t think it’s wild to say that part of why he is so enthralled with Ilya is that when playing against him, hockey is fun again. The conversation with Rose in episode 4 when they first meet, R: “Did it stop being fun?” S: “No. Well, I mean, kind of. I love it, but it got more intense, so I guess I kinda got more intense too, if that makes sense.”

Another thing I’ve seen in these situations is the child flattening anything that makes them stand out so they don’t risk failing any expectations. In Shane’s case, we see this in part by him staying in the closet even with his parents. I think a lot of why Shane doesn't come out is not wanting to disappoint his mother and her vision of his future.

Throughout the series, we see Yuna (never David) multiple times push Shane to be the very best. And I think this is a subtle hint at the “tiger parenting” he went through along with the next point.

Momager

A lot of this section is going to be colored by my experiences and view of the world, more so than most of the topics I write about. 

I think Yuna Hollander being Shane’s manager is a monumental mistake. 

Throughout the series, we only ever see her being mom first, one time, during the “I tried” scene in episode 6. Most of why that scene is so emotionally impactful is because it feels like for the first time in the show Yuna is seeing Shane and not Shane Hollander. They are just Shane and just Yuna at that moment. And moments after that, she was back to full-on manager mode. 

We see little of their relationship, but the switch is so quick I can’t imagine most of their relationship isn’t this business overtaking familial time/responses. Because of this, Shane never has the chance to confide in his mother without anything he says or confesses being measured for PR reasons. It would make talking to her about anything stressful. 

I honestly think if Yuna was just his mom and not his manager, most of his internal struggles would be lessened or gone altogether. If he can’t even come out to his parents, of course, he can’t come out to his friends. If anyone he might want to be serious with would be seen through a PR lens, he might as well just keep things casual so he doesn’t have to deal with it. 

Yes, Shane is a grown man and his mistakes are his own, but I think Yuna’s biggest mistake is being her son’s manager. I acknowledge that early on this was probably the best thing she could do for Shane. From what we see, Yuna and David love Shane, and her taking on that role for him kept him from being taken advantage of as a child. But this also made their relationship muddy to the point where by the end of season one it almost feels like the bond they could have had as mother and son is almost entirely overshadowed by talent and manager. 

There are three major problems with breaking such a relationship.

Yuna is genuinely amazing at her job. There is no denying this, and it is unlikely Shane would find someone better than her. Her drive is in part due to her wanting what is best for her son. 

Yuna is a good parent in the sense that she would never take advantage of Shane’s fame or money. Something managers/agents too often do in real life.

There is no easy way for Shane to end this business relationship without hurting Yuna and damaging what little of a mother/son relationship they have left. The only chance they have of separating this is for Yuna to be the one to do it. 

There are a few inherent problems with your management team being your parents. 

There is no easy way to fire a family member. Unless you cut them off completely afterwards, they will continue to be part of your life, and after ending a business relationship, it will forever shadow your future interactions.

Depending on how young a person is when this crossing of boundaries starts, it becomes hard for the child (and later adult) to say no to their parent’s plans for their future. We see Shane being extremely uninterested in any of the partnerships/shoots Yuna sets up. We don’t know if he is really okay with doing them, and even if he isn’t, there is no good way for him to say no.

It seems to be extremely easy for the separation between parent and manager to disappear. Things like child stars going to late-night events. From a parent’s view, it’s a bad idea, but from a manager’s, it would be good. And because adults often forget what being a child was like, they are less likely to see such things as problems once they start crossing that barrier. The sexualization of child stars is a good example of this. 

We constantly see Yuna protecting Shane Hollander the brand and not Shane Hollander her son. Constantly pushing him to work with more brands is good for his professional reputations but seems to be extremely taxing on him emotionally/mentally. 

For her part, there are some very good reasons why Yuna is so intense. 

The average hockey career is only 5-6 years long, and the top 12% of players average 12 years. And once your career is over, most athletes tend to fade into obscurity, and those who don’t are usually the ones who made the most of their time in the spotlight to build their brands. 

Why is this important? Because most sports come with the risk of major injuries and lifelong medical problems. And hockey being as intense and violent as it is, ages a player's body way past its years and leaves lifelong care needs. 

Hockey has one of the highest rates of concussions. Hell, Shane’s line of “We all get our bell rung eventually, right?” is a terrifyingly casual thing to say about a brain injury. That it is just expected in some sports that playing at a professional level comes with an expectation of at least some brain damage should alarm everyone. Too many or a single bad enough concussion can lead to lifelong disability. There is no getting around it. There is no medication or surgery to correct brain damage. The money he makes now needs to be able to cover all his future medical problems.

Another thing players as famous as Shane have to deal with, especially in a hockey-obsessed city like Montreal, is security. While not as bad as some other famous careers, athletes do still have stalkers and fans who push the boundaries. During the height of his fame, it would be necessary for Shane to be careful about where he lives and where he goes.

That security comes at a monetary cost. High-end security systems and living in a secure building aren’t cheap. Though being a brand ambassador would make this problem worse in some ways. And depending on how successful Yuna is, it dictates how long Shane is in the spotlight and has a need for such security. 

Something else to consider is that Shane starts his MLH career at around 18-19. While other people his age are going to college and getting their first bits of job experience, Shane is missing that. By the time his hockey career ends, Shane’s only job experience will be linked to hockey. He has no other career prospects. If he does go to college, he will be older than most other students, which would isolate him. 

All of this is important because…

Hockey players also have a 78% bankruptcy rate within 5 years of retirement. 

That’s right, with all these problems hockey leaves a player with when they retire, most of them accidentally blow through their savings. 

This all means the remainder of Shane’s life’s comfort level might rest entirely on what he earns/builds now. Yuna pushing him so hard is a way for her to ensure his future. The role Yuna Hollander plays for Shane is absolutely necessary. 

But by being the best manager, Yuna is sacrificing her ability to be the best mother. 

Here’s a Wikipedia article going further in depth on the topic of athlete bankruptcy. 

Episode Analysis Master List

Discussion: Autism

Discussion: Russia

Discussion: Disordered Eating

Ok but OP ur brain is so brilliant. Liek genuinely this is phenomenal analysis. It's exactly how I feel about and view Yuna as a person and as Shane's mother. This explains it so well, but one of my biggest pet peeves is when Shane speaks Japanese. Like no hate to anybody who likes that headcanon, it's just not for me. I see it as a maybe he learns as an adult when he is healing and has space to find himself and settles in his own skin. But with the emphasis that ha sbeen placed on him needing to conform to what Hockey expects of him I really do not think he would have learned as a kid. And it's also something I personally hold close to tm heart as someone who is really just devastated my parents never taught me my mother tongue. English is my first language and I speak my partner's language because I studied it as a second language in school. But I don't speak my mother tongue and I don't know anything about my own Indian culture. I can't tolerate spice. The imposter syndrome that I feel sometimes is crazy and I can imagine Shane feeling like that. Because he's been turned into the poster boy for an Asian Hockey Player, but he doesn't feel "Asian enough" for it to ring true in his mind.

Parent’s proficiency in the language: do we know how fluent Yuna is in Japanese? We never hear her speak it, so it’s unclear how fluent she is. Who would she even speak it to? We don’t know if her parents are still alive or if she has any siblings or relatives close by with whom she would speak Japanese. I’m Chinese-American and my immigrant parents spoke Chinese with me at home, so I grew up fluent bilingual. However, as I got older and spoke more English with friends, with my sister, with my cousins, I started losing some of it. My husband is white/Hispanic, so I don’t speak Chinese with him. Basically the only occasions I had to speak Chinese for the last 25 years was when talking to my parents, so like a few times a month. I am fucking rusty and it sucks. This is a big reason why I haven’t passed the language down to my kids even though they’re half Chinese just like Shane is half Japanese. I just can’t, because I don’t feel proficient enough. Most of my Chinese-American friends are in the same boat. We grew up in the US speaking English, and while we can still have simple conversations in our various dialects with our parents, none of us have passed the language to our children. Yuna may have also started out fluent but then lost proficiency due to lack of use. Or maybe her parents encouraged her to speak more English so as to assimilate faster. Who knows.

English was likely the primary language in a biracial household: unless David speaks fluent Japanese, which we have zero evidence of, he and Yuna most likely spoke English at home and with Shane. This is another huge reason why I haven’t passed Chinese down to my kids: my husband doesn’t speak Chinese, so if I was determined to teach the kids Chinese, I would have to do everything in two languages: talk to the kids in Chinese and then tell my husband what I just told them in English. That would be fucking exhausting. I’ve read about bilingual households where one parent speaks to the kids 100% in one language and the other parent speaks 100% in another language. More power to the people who can do that, but damn that sounds hard.

Child’s desire to learn language: of course Shane could take it upon himself to learn Japanese if he felt like it was important. We don’t have any indication of this. If anything, we never hear him speak any Japanese, so it’s probably unlikely that he pursued this. (However, we do see him take an interest in learning Russian!)

****

It’s that once it gets out that Shane is an omega—hockey god Shane fucking Hollander, with his immaculate skating and unbelievable endurance and beautiful face and highest hockey IQ—every single alpha in the league will be looking at him and thinking about fucking him and breeding him. I mean, can you imagine the offspring he would produce? Every alpha is thinking about it, and there are a LOT of alphas in the league. It would be a total frenzy. Absolute chaos. Maybe they wouldn’t actually attack him on the ice—they wouldn’t do that in front of the fans and cameras—but there are enough entitled, aggressive alphas in the league that it wouldn’t be safe for Shane to be alone in a locker room. He could probably fight off one, but if there was more than one, then….

That would be Shane’s biggest fear, and why he absolutely cannot let that secret get out.

He other secret fear—the one he doesn’t even tell Ilya or his parents—is that he knows that he wouldn’t be safe even in his own locker room. There are absolutely players on his own team who he knows he cannot be left alone with if they knew his secret.

Ilya’s biggest fear is similar to Shane’s, that someone will try to attack Shane and he couldn’t do anything about it because he’s in Boston and Shane’s on his own in Montreal. It makes Ilya furious and helpless and vicious to all the other players. Shane is his, how dare other alphas even think about Shane. Shane belongs to Ilya; only Ilya is worthy.

I have a lot of thoughts about this.

listen, most of my newer hr followers don't know this but I wrote a huge omegaverse series for another fandom, so omegaverse is always welcome in this house! <3

I also have a lot of thoughts about omegaverse HR.

#MyOmegaverseShane is out just bc in #MyOmegaverse (god i love this #myxyz thing it's so convenient) it's kind of impossible to long-term hide your secondary gender. And the league is Dealing With It (barely) by putting so many rules and regulations in place that it's just so fucking uggghhh for Shane bc he just wants to play fucking hockeyyyy and while the league would love to not be inconvenienced by having him, or any omega, there, he's just so good that there's no way around it. So now Shane always has separate changing rooms and showers, scent dampeners are required etc.

And Shane really does not want to fucking think about the implications because of course. OF COURSE he knows how the alphas talk about him behind his back. he's not stupid. The things they want to do with him. How well they'd fuck him, so hard that he couldn't play the next day. Discussing the color of his pussy. Making bets on when he'll get knocked up and finally be out. Joking about MHL breeding programs.

It's a reality for Shane, that, doing what he does means he's at a much, much higher risk of assault, basically.

But on the other hand they hate him, because he’s better than all of them at hockey, at the one thing they all grew up being the best at. They’re used to being the best, the biggest, the strongest player on their teams growing up, but Shane skates pasts them like a falcon in full flight, fast and precise and deadly and beautiful. He makes them feel slow and gangly, clumsy. They’re used to omegas and betas deferring to them, placating them because they are the most aggressive, but Shane won’t. Shane doesn’t back down, and that just makes them want to put him in his place, but they can’t. Not on the ice, anyway.

Except Ilya can. Only Ilya can keep up with and even beat Shane. If Shane wasn’t so cosmically pissed about falling into every omega stereotype when it comes to Ilya, he might realize sooner that Ilya is perfect for him. After all, who else would he let knot him and bite him? Some third line center from Buffalo? Fuck no.

But the thing is, people DO throw themselves at Shane left and right, he just doesn’t realize it.

The Voyagers are at a club and girls are eyeing him like the last steak in a tiger enclosure, but Hayden is about to bang his head on the table because Shane is in his usual Captain mode and paying zero attention to the girls. A few of the bolder ones approach him but he’s like “Hi, can I help you?” and “oh sorry, I’m on duty right now, I can’t leave my team” and Hayden gives up, he just can’t anymore. Jackie will need to step up and find this man a girl cuz Shane ain’t gonna do it on his own.

At brunch with Rose, the waiter is checking him out hardcore and smiling flirtatiously. Rose teases him about it, and Shane is like “???? He’s just doing his job? Isn’t it his job to be friendly?”

Years later, Hayden and Rose are trading war stories of Shane being oblivious to human attraction and Ilya’s just like, *shrug* you just need to be clear and direct with him, and Rose and Hayden both stare at him like “what do you mean?”

Hayden snorts and looks at Shane, who has his face buried in his hands.

“Seriously?!? You think that’s just a guy doing his job?”

“I didn’t want to assume!” Shane protests. “You know how often service staff get harassed on the job. I’m not going to be one of those people.”

Hayden scoffs. “Yeah, dude, I get that, but there’s making assumptions and then there’s missing a huge fucking billboard that says ‘Do You Want to Fuck, Yes/No’.”

Shane groans and Ilya sniggers, eyes bright with amusement.

“No no, you see, Shane is tricky to flirt with,” Ilya explains, rubbing a hand over Shane’s back fondly, “because he will make up all these reasons why he might be misunderstanding, a million excuses why maybe you aren’t really flirting with him, because he doesn’t want to make a mistake and get embarrassed. So you have to make it so he has no chance for misunderstanding.”

Shane leans into his side and buries his face in Ilya’s shoulder, hiding, but Ilya can feel his smile pressed against his shirt, so he knows Shane’s feeling embarrassed but not mortified.

Rose grins in delight and says, “Then how did you do it, Mr. Clear and Direct?”

Hayden catches on as well. “Yeah, actually, you never did say exactly who made the first move and where and how. You just said it was the summer before rookie year.”

Shane stills. Ilya’s pretty sure they’re both thinking about the same moment all those years ago. He drops a light kiss on top of Shane’s head, part question and part reassurance. After a moment, Shane relaxes, settles himself more comfortably with his temple pressed to Ilya’s shoulder, and gives Ilya a light squeeze on the leg in assent.

Ilya grins at Hayden and Rose, permission granted.

“Technically Shane approached me first, outside the rink at World Juniors, flirting in his very polite Canadian way.”

“I was not flirting.”

“Yes, you were flirting, solnyshko, clear as day. You smiled at me with your cute freckles and you shook my hand twice.”

“I was showing good sportsmanship! It’s polite to introduce yourself to the other players.”

“Ah, so you introduced yourself to my teammates as well? All of them. Whole team.”

Shane paused. “Well, no, but you were obviously the best player on the team and the media was already talking about us as rivals, so it makes perfect sense to introduce myself to you but not your teammates.”

Ilya gives Rose and Hayden a look as if to say, “you see what I have to deal with?”

Shane shoves Ilya.

Rose laughs. “You are lucky, because I had to go up to Shane and introduce myself.”

Hayden snorts. “I had to do that too, and I wasn’t even trying to date him. I just wanted to get to know him better as a teammate.”

“You guys…” Shane groans and shakes his head.

“Okay, so Shane makes the first move,” says Rose, turning back to Ilya, because she is like a bloodhound when it comes to good gossip. She ignores Shane muttering “no, I didn’t” and presses on. “But obviously nothing happened then, because I cannot picture Shane getting down and dirty on the first date”—she ignores his “That wasn’t a date” as well—“What did you say to actually get through to him?”

Ilya glances from Rose’s eager face to Hayden’s I’m-curious-but-I’m-kinda-afraid-of-what-I’m-about-to-hear expression and shrugs nonchalantly.

“I did not say anything.”

He sees both of their scrunched expressions and forces down his grin.

“What? What do you mean?” says Rose, eyebrows creased in confusion.

“I did not have to use any words,” Ilya says, casual as can be.

“Oh my god,” says Shane, hiding his face again.

“But—but you just said that you were very clear. How did you, um—“

Rose has the most expressive face, Ilya could completely see why she was an actress.

Ilya shrugs again.

“I did not need words to be clear. We were in the shower after a photoshoot at a rink, and I see that Shane is interested in me, so I turn to him and show him that I am interested too, is very clear that I am interested. I put on a little show for him—a big show, actually—look him in the eye, and baby teenage Shane says ‘okay yes, I want that for rest of my life.’ See? Is easy.”