Chapter Text
Arthur scored a goal. There was no siren, but all his friends went to him to celebrate. They were just kids goofing around at the Sharks Ice. Is not the Shark Tank, it's not the big arena where his parents played until a few days ago, but it's open to the public, and in a way, even when it is usually filled with regular people, he feels it more intimate. The Sharks Ice is where the Sharks train almost every day, but also a place where anyone can skate.
He looked up.
This was the last time he was standing here. The last time he got to see this rooftop.
Soon, he felt arms around him. He closed his eyes. Some of his friends were crying. They all grew up together. They are the sons and daughters of other Sharks. The parents are actually skating there, chatting, saying their goodbyes.
Tina, Glen, and Maurizio are the ones who cried the most. His sister was there crying with her friends too. The friends they made on the ice are the only ones they ever had, so this felt a little bit like dying inside.
When he was about to leave the ice, Santi was already waiting for him.
Santiago is his best friend, 4 months younger than Arthur, so, just because of stupid bureaucracy, just because he was born later, even if they were born in the same year, Santi had to wait until next year to become a junior himself. He is the youngest son of the former Shark's captain, Abel Mendoza, who is still a good friend of his parents. Santi and Arthur had been playing together since they were seven.
“I’m going to fucking miss you so much, King,” Santi said.
“Me too.” Arthur said, with his eyes filled with tears, fuck, he was trying not to cry.
“I will catch up with you in a few months.”
“Let’s hope you do, bitch.” Arthur said, hopeful.
Abel wanted to send Santiago to Canada, since hockey was way more competitive at the north, but just because he was the son of a former captain, it didn’t mean he could make it.
There was a 'big' percentage of NHL players with family ties to former NHL players. That’s because they had access and opportunities that most people didn’t have, like excellent coaches or training camps. and yet, if you have zero skills or talent, you would never make it in the league. You still have to play, you still have to participate in the tryouts. You still have to prove you are worthy.
They both have to prove themselves.
Arthur has taken a major step, but only because he is four months older. He tried out for 4 different teams during this summer, and has been trying out for different teams and attending hockey camps for years since he has memory. Sometimes during the spring, staying at his Aunt Stacey’s home in Montreal to attend. Is nothing different from what every hockey boy with privileges does. When you have the money, you do it all.
His dad said that he has to give it all because hockey accepts no less than complete obsession, his father said it was true, you have to commit if you really want it.
Arthur and the rest of his friends stayed talking for a while and then headed to the showers, even Tina, since she didn’t care about boys watching her flat ass chest, and the boys didn’t see her as a girl anyway, but as a hockey player. The other girls were waiting for the boys to finish the shower.
The goodbye game was great. His dads were skating with their friends, and none of the adults were wearing hockey gear either. All of them got hugs and tears at the end. Everybody made promises of keeping in touch.
Santi took him apart and gave him something. It was a golden chain with a weird pendant.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a Cruz de Santiago, you know, for you to remember me.” Arthur snorted because this was so gay, and he was the gay one in this friendship.
“Is it catholic?”
“Kind of… I mean, it’s from the crusades, so I guess it is. But the important thing is that it has my name on it. Also, it looks like a sword, and you are King Arthur, so.”
“You are so silly.” He said, but still putting the collar in its rightful place, his neck. “Now I feel stupid because I don’t have anything for you.”
“Don’t worry, I know you are stupid, so.” He said, opening his jacket to let him see his own collar with the same pendant. A giggle came out involuntarily and Arthur hugged his friend for the last time before his parents announced they had to go.
They said goodbye once more. No one wanted to leave, so they were postponing it as long as they could, but reality was cruel, and the plane was waiting for them.
“Are you okay, guys?” Asked Shane, looking at Amber and Arthur in the mirror of the car. Not their car, a rented car under the name of Cory. They sold their cars a few weeks ago. His father was driving, Pierre and Cory were driving behind them, they were going to keep them company until they had to board the plane, and they were going to take the rented car back.
They both said yes, even when both were crying. Maybe Amber and Arthur weren’t the most compatible pair of siblings of all, but they could agree on one thing.
They were going to miss San José. They were going to miss it so much.
o-o-o-o-o
Flying back to Canada always made Shane slightly nervous, even when it was for work, even when it was to spend the holidays, even if the people had already forgotten about what happened.
It’s been a whole fucking decade, and he no longer sees Jackie in other people's cars, but he still prefers not to drive. He sometimes forgets about his scars, and people in the arenas no longer call him uncle-daddy, but he still doesn’t feel comfortable playing against Ottawa.
Even when Ilya is no longer heartbroken, and the Centaurs are like half the original Centaurs he met, not because they trade their players often, but because they retired or got retired by injuries. Bood, Troy, Wyatt, and Luca are still there. Ilya is still there, and that’s fine, but he would rather not play against them. It makes him nervous about the possibility of them still hating him.
Because they are in different conferences they don’t play against each other very often, but even when they are polite, you can tell the Sharks and the Centaurs don’t fuck with each other, and Shane knows that it has nothing to do with the rage baiter #2 of the NHL, Cory Greengrass.
They got to the airport, and Pierre and Cory helped them with their suitcases. Two suitcases, each one. It’s all they have, they sold, they donated, they dumped things... they couldn’t take much anyway, the weather was so fucking different in Canada and California that not even clothes were important anymore. The good thing is that they already sent to Canada all that really mattered. Books, trophies, art, Shane’s favorite lamps… Jessie and Esther, her wife, were already setting up their home.
They arrived in Montreal, Jessie and Esther were waiting for them at the airport with stupid signs that weren’t necessary at all, but they all were ridicule people. When Hayden and Jessie saw each other, they hugged like they hadn’t seen each other in years, when in reality Jessie had been living in Canada for less than a week, but Shane understood. It was a big new adventure.
“Stacey and the girls are at home, making some food and stuff.” Said Esther.
“Did she bring Theo with her?” Asked Hayden.
“Yeah, Patrick is not there, by the way.” Answered Jessie.
“Oh no, so sad.”
“Stop being a dick towards Patrick,” Complained Shane. “He literally does nothing.”
“He is always a dick with me. I just give what I get.” Shane rolled his eyes. Patrick wasn’t a dick with Hayden, but sometimes he was a dick with Stacey, and that made Hayden furious, because in his logic, and honestly was everybody’s logic at this point, was that if Patrick treated Stacey that way in public, he was way worse when they were alone, and Hayden could be a lot of things, and say unfortunate things about women from time to time when locker room gossip happened, but he never allowed anyone disrespecting his sisters or his daughters.
Shane’s husband was often compared with a golden retriever, always smiling, high energy, not very smart (Shane did not find his husband stupid, but he liked to play stupid a lot), good with children, the thing was… Golden retrievers were hunting dogs, and people seemed to forget about that.
When they arrived at their new home, there was a series of hugs that made him realize he was finally there.
His older daughters were there, his sisters-in-law were there. Rose and J.J. texted him; they were on their way.
Finally.
He was back in Montreal.
Shane looked at the window from his bedroom while putting down his suitcases. There was big ass pool right there. Hayden wanted one in this house, too, even if there was no warm weather to run from, but he wanted one because it would freeze in winter, which meant a free skate rink in the backyard without having to shovel snow.
Shane smiled, playing nervously with his fingers. He had exactly the life he wanted in California, yet he missed Canada. Now he was in Canada, setting a new start, and he wanted to be here, truly, Canada was the place where he was born, the place where he wanted to die. He just wished he could recreate what he had in San José. Good friends, nice fans, good team, gentle press.
He inhaled and exhaled.
Please, nice fans, and gentle press. He just wanted to play hockey and live quietly, and for people to leave his family alone.
Please. Montreal, it’s been ten years. Let us be happy here too.
Arthur came out of nowhere, as he always does; he had very soft steps.
“Are you okay, Dad?”
“Yeah… How about you?” Arthur shrugged.
“I can’t precisely go upstairs and unpack.”
“You could. You could leave all your stuff here, and then we can buy you new clothes for Ottawa, you have to buy new things anyway. And this is a new phase, an important one.” Shane caressed Arthur’s hair. “And you entered a great team. You deserve to start it all new.”
Arthur did a great job pretending to be humble, but his smile gave him away.
Arthur knew he was a great hockey player. He was so shy off the ice, but he was damn confident on his skates, pretty much like Shane.
“Great. I’ll go to unpack then.” Shane nodded and let him go.
Hayden appeared with a bottle of water and a can of ginger ale, looking for his son to go to his own bedroom. He gave the can to Shane and kissed him in the temple.
“God, I feel so old. I can’t believe he is starting his first training camp as a Junior next week.”
“At least you are not crying as you did with the girls.”
“It gets easier but still feels like shit.”
Jade and Ruby had been living in Canada for the last two years. It wasn’t planned, and they actually wanted to move back then, but each twin got accepted into different Junior teams, boys hockey teams, and were so far apart from each other that there was no reason to move.
The reason they played in male hockey teams was that both Shane and Hayden agreed that it was better for their development. Jackie never wanted that for them for their physical security, but after the PWHL was created both knew that their daughters had to be there, and the only way to ensure that was to treat the girls like they were boys. They already did, they were in a boys team after they moved to California, but while most girls stopped playing in boys teams when they reached puberty, because obviously boys started getting bigger and stronger, they shoved their daughters in the most competitive boys teams around, hoping they got bigger and stronger too.
Jade and Ruby had always played with boys, they had developed the same swag, the language, the sense of humor where you can’t get mad at insults or nicknames, or misogynistic jokes because you don’t want to be perceived as different, or hypersensitive, and of course it was hard when Jade came home one day angry because of some idiot harassing her in the locker room, but when Hayden did the question, ‘do you want to change to a girls team?’ she cried harder, because she didn’t want that.
She liked her hockey, and she liked her boys. And she wasn't going to step aside, she was not weak. Besides, in hockey, you have to make sacrifices. You have to give it your body and soul.
They couldn’t just go and make a big fuss about it, because it could affect the twins; they could make a whole mess, get the boy expelled, but then the parents would complain, they would ask for the twins to get expelled too.
They had seen it multiple times in Canada while they were kids, girls being ditched from teams just because one parent or two thought girls shouldn’t compete in boys' teams. They would say the girls were tempting them, that Jade was lying because she liked the boy and he rejected her, and this was her revenge or some shit like that.
Hayden opted for something quite illegal. To this date, Hayden hasn’t talked about it. Shane doesn’t want to know the details, but apparently, a couple of guys jumped the boy getting out of some private skating lessons and gave him the beating of the century. They broke his ankles, and of course, they took the boy’s money, equipment, smashed his phone, and told him that it was for harassing ladies.
Of course, it went back to them; the police questioned them before that. Hayden had told them to pretend they knew nothing, and to the twins, he asked them to say they never said anything about what happened in the locker room because they were scared or something. Shane didn’t like that. He asked why he had to lie, and Hayden said that it was to protect them. He was genuinely surprised when the police showed them photos of the beating, but Hayden just said.
“Oh, my god. I’m sorry that happened to him. But what does it have to do with us?”
That’s when looking like someone who had no idea about anything paid well.
“The aggressors told him that it was for harassing girls.”
“I still don’t know what you mean…”
“Well. The boy told us he had some… nasty incident with your daughter, Jade.”
“Are you saying… that this guy did something to one of MY daughters? And he is the victim? What the fuck did he do? Huh? He touched her? That’s what he did?!”
“Sr., please.”
“I want to talk to my girl. I want her to tell me what he did so I can go beat him myself. I’ll might as well kill him.”
He was really convincing. The girls were convincing. Shane wasn’t as convincing, but then Hayden said.
“Please, don’t overstimulate him with questions. He is autistic.” And then the officer looked at him like he was retarded. (Shane hated that, hated the r-word too, but hated people reacting to his diagnosis way more)
Shane was mad about that. So mad at everything. At that boy ruining everything, at Hayden lying and making them lie, at Hayden throwing his autism around like an alibi.
“Love, I’m sorry, I panicked, you are so bad at lying when people ask you directly.”
“Did you do it? Did you send those guys after him?”
“Well, of course I did. He is lucky he just touched her boob. If he had done something else, he would be a vegetable right now.”
“Please don’t talk like that, it's like… listening to Cindy talk, and she scares the shit out of me.”
Hayden fell to the ground and hugged Shane’s legs.
“Please, forgive me. I know I’m scary sometimes, but I try to be good. I just don’t want to anyone to hurt my kids. And you know how those kids are, we played hockey with guys like that. They just get worse. He was testing the waters to see how far he could get before facing any kind of consequences.”
And Shane knew he was right.
He stayed mad at Hayden for weeks, but they got over it. Shane’s love was only a little bit bigger than Hayden’s love for him, and he couldn’t stay mad at someone who always treated him with love.
One year after that incident, their girls moved to Canada in a billet family program, entered, to everyone’s surprise, Ruby got to Oshawa Generals and Jade to London Knights, and two years later both were drafted to their PWHL teams. Jade went to the Toronto Spectres and Ruby to the Vancouver Goldeneyes, so, in the end, it was worth it. They made it. Now Arthur was playing for an OHL team, now he had to fight for it, as everyone else does. They had to focus on Amber, who was going to be the one still living under their roof.
This household was a shit show. Not just because of the kids but because of the adults.
Maybe Hayden fucked it up sometimes. But so did Shane. During those ten years, there were moments when Shane feared Hayden was going to leave him, because Shane was just a difficult person to be around. Maybe it was because of his autism, or his perfectionism, or his anxiety, but Shane knew that sometimes Hayden wanted to bury his face in a pillow and scream. He sometimes did. Sometimes he walked away in silence.
On those occasions, Shane used to cry into a pillow himself, asking God for Hayden to never stop being in love with him. Sometimes it was Hayden who begged, but never to God, always to Shane directly. Which was funny because Hayden was the one coming from a religious family.
And then they made love or played hockey, which was basically the same but with clothes and a public.
Shane looked outside, looked at the clouds, they were thick and grey, winter was coming, hockey was coming. He will play for this city again; he will retire in Montreal.
“Can you believe we are back in Montreal?” He asked his husband.
Hayden looked out with his eyes so big and bright, reflecting the clouds, and smiled. Shane knew his man loved winter.
“O Canada!” He started to recite, slowly, weirdly soft, weirdly sexy. “Our home and native land! True patriot love in all of us command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise. The True North strong and free! From far and wide. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.”
Shane laughed his ass off. Just Hayden made him laugh like this, and for something so dumb.
They kissed. Hayden grabbed his ass. Shane groped his growing dick.
This time, it was Shane the one on his knees, begging for something so much better.
Hayden's dick was free, and Shane's mouth watered.
Oh, fuck, he loves this man.