Chapter Text
When the news broke that Shane Hollander was signing with the Ottawa Centaurs, nobody was all that surprised. No, the surprise had been months earlier, in an unfortunate outing via Fanmail. After all, why wouldn’t Hollander want to play in his hometown on a rapidly improving team with Roz, his husband? Especially not if the rumors surrounding Hollander’s split with Montreal were even partially true, which Wyatt didn’t doubt.
The thing was, nobody on the Centaurs was sure how it would go, least of all him. On one hand, Hollander was a great player, his talent matching, if not exceeding, that of Roz’s. The two best players in the league, on one team. On paper, it was the perfect lineup. Who could ask for better?
But Wyatt had doubts. Rozanov and Hollander: legendary rivals on the ice. They may be married—which, like, what the fuck; he’d been to their wedding and still couldn’t quite believe it—but they’d only played together on the same team once before, at an All Stars game five years ago. Their chemistry on the ice had been something else, but it would be irresponsible to just assume the dynamic would stay that way in the long term.
And look, Wyatt wasn’t against their marriage, and he definitely wasn't secretly homophobic or anything, but the idea of a married couple playing on the same team was… concerning; moreso than a married couple playing for different teams. God, he knew he and his wife would go crazy if they had the same job, and such a high-pressure one at that. He and Lisa loved one another, but there was only so long you could hang out with one person.
But apparently, Rozanov and Hollander were a different breed. One of the first things they told the team on the first day of the new season was that they intended to be professional. The announcement made sense; the PR team had probably required some sort of symbolic disclosure of their relationship, even though everyone obviously knew and no one was expecting them to start making out in the locker rooms or whatever.
It was a commitment they followed through on—even though it was obvious most of the Centaurs would give them a free pass for anything so long as they kept playing the way they were—and Wyatt respected that. The two of them were on separate lines, which was one hell of a powerful lineup, and it was clear any team would have a tough time facing them so long as they kept up the hard work and high energy, but Wyatt wasn’t exactly worried about them slacking off anytime soon.
It was obvious from the get-go that despite their relationship, nothing on the ice had changed between them. The two of them were constantly competing, chirping, and aggressively trying to outdo one another, even in what should have been non-competitive drills. At first, it was concerning just how abnormally aggressive they could get, but it quickly became clear they both enjoyed it.
How ramming eachother into the board and being called an asshole was their idea of fun, he had no idea. But they seemed to be having fun, and Wyatt supposed that was all that really mattered.
All in all, having Hollander on the team was surprisingly normal.
Almost a little too normal.
Hmm.
There was something kind of magical about having two equally strong but wildly different lines. It was the kind of one-two-punch that could only happen with two superstars on the same team, which they had. The Centaurs, of all teams. Who would’ve thought?
They were in the middle of playing each other, Hollzy and Roz facing off—what had once been a spectacle had now become so routine that none of them even blinked twice. The two of them battled for the puck, and then Roz had control. He was headed straight for the goal, and Wyatt was geared up to stop the puck when–
Shit.
Roz crumpled to the ice with an audible groan as Haas slammed into him. Hard. Too hard. Haas’s eyes went wide. “Oh, fuck! Roz!”
Suddenly, Hollzy was there, crouching down next to their captain. “Hey, Rozanov? You okay?” No response. He touched Roz’s shoulder carefully. “C’mon, Ilya. Hey.”
Finally, Roz let out a low groan of displeasure. “Ow.”
“Still in one piece?” Wyatt asked as he skated over.
Ignoring the question, Roz squinted up at the ceiling and said absently, “Shane?”
“Yeah?”
“Меня сейчас вырвет,” Roz stated matter-of-factly.
What?
Despite Wyatt’s confusion, Hollzy’s eyes visibly widened. “Shit. Hayes, help me get him off the ice. He’s gonna hurl.”
Oh crap.
With no time to wait for the trainers to come check Roz out, the two of them helped him up. When he didn’t scream out in pain, they shared a glance and a shrug. It was likely nothing was terribly broken, so they quickly guided him off the ice, making it to a nearby trashcan just in time.
It was an unfortunate end to what had been, up to that point, a pretty great practice, and the mood in the locker room was somber. With their captain stuck in the treatment room and Haas glancing around at various teammates—mostly Hollzy—with wide eyes, like he was expecting to be yelled at, the vibes were not great.
Before anyone had the chance to wander off or go sulk in the showers, Bood cleared his throat pointedly to draw their attention. “Right. So I know everyone probably feels shitty after what happened today, but we have a game tomorrow, and this is not the attitude we need going into it. Rozy’s fine, we all know that. Terry said nothing’s broken or even bruised, and he’ll be in the clear to play tomorrow. It was just a nasty hit; we’ve all played with worse. And Haas,” Luca’s head shot up, “–no more of that guilty face you’ve been pulling since we got off the ice. You know, Roz would tell you to cut that out. A shitty end to practice shouldn’t erase how well we were all playing out there today. This team is on fucking fire!”
He got a few small laughs and calls of agreement as the room’s mood lightened considerably. It was no Rozanov speech, but as Alternate Captain, Bood had done his job well.
Hollzy was first out the door, grabbing his bag and Roz’s and calling out a quick goodbye, but the rest of the team lingered. They always hung around a little longer the day before a game, chatting and generally goofing off. It was so different from how things were on other teams; the Centaurs truly were one of a kind, unlike any other team in the league. Normally, Wyatt would participate in the chatting, but today his mind was elsewhere…
“Uh oh, Hazy’s doing the face.” Barrett’s voice cut through the chaos, catching everyone’s attention.
Wyatt rolled his eyes. “C’mon, guys. There is no face.”
“Oh, there’s definitely a face.”
“Yeah, what ya’ puzzling through, bud?”
“I’m not… puzzling through anything. I’m just thinking,” he protested weakly.
“Uh-huh,” Dykstra sounded disbelieving.
“Fine, think what you want. But I’m not doing anything.”
“Sure, just let us know when you're done processing, and your brain spits out an answer, huh?”
“Sure,” he said, rolling his eyes and allowing a small, amused smile to cross his face. They weren’t entirely wrong. There was something he was missing…
Rozanov and Hollander.
Hollander and Rozanov.
Up until Roz got hit, he’d never once heard Roz or Hollzy call each other by their first names. Sure, maybe at the wedding, but in all the months since? Never. Every practice, every game, every team event, even during informal hangouts, they stayed Rozanov and Hollander. It had taken Roz getting hurt for Hollander to become Shane and Rozanov to become Ilya. And since when did Hollzy understand Russian?
If he could just figure out…
Oh.
Oh, shit.
There it was.
Wyatt finally knew what about the whole thing had been bothering him so much, and the worst part was that it seemed so obvious in hindsight. He honestly should’ve figured it out months ago.
Rozanov and Hollander weren’t just professional.
They were uncomfortable.
Roz and Hollzy didn’t touch each other, and not just the romantic stuff. They made the absolute minimum physical contact with each other. And it was just between the two of them, the rest of the team got plenty of fistbumps and slaps on the back from Roz, and Hollzy was always comforting someone with a hand on the shoulder. But they basically acted like the other one had the plague with how they avoided touching.
Damn it.
Once he’d noticed one thing, it was impossible not to notice more. He’d really been underestimating just how professional Roz and Hollzy were being; they seriously never once brought up their personal lives as they related to one another.
For example, through talking to each of them individually, Wyatt was able to piece together that they were both visiting Hollzy’s parents over the long weekend, but they hadn’t made it easy. Hollzy had told him about visiting his parents, and Rozy had mentioned going up to his cottage to relax, but he’d had to piece together that they were staying at their shared cottage to visit with Hollzy’s family (Roz’s in-laws).
They were impressively stubborn in their refusal to acknowledge that they spent any time together outside of team-mandated events. For fuck’s sake, the only sign that they lived together was that they took the same car to practices and games, and even that wasn’t always the case.
He supposed the reason it had taken so long to piece everything together was that Roz, at first glance, was so much happier and more open than he used to be, like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders, which must be true, to an extent. He was obviously happier and more comfortable than he’d been before, but that had created a blind spot for the team, and none of them had noticed that he was still holding back.
As for Hollzy, it wasn’t like any of them really had a frame of reference for how he was before, since none of them had ever played with him before, and it was just so easy to assume…
Oh, fuck.
The showers.
Roz and Hollzy were never in the showers at the same time. It was easy to miss because they were both incredibly subtle about it, but Hollzy always showered immediately after getting off the ice or finishing a workout, faster than anyone else on the team. Wyatt had just figured he hated being gross and sweaty, but now…
Once Hollzy was done, Roz would leisurely wander into the showers. Roz had always taken his sweet time getting into the showers, chatting with everyone else, and goofing off at his stall. And sure, they were different people with different routines, but there had never once been an overlap. That, in and of itself, was very telling; and fine, the argument could be made that they were more comfortable showering separately when their teammates were around, but Wyatt was having serious doubts that that was why they were doing it, given all of the other shit he’d been picking up on between them.
God, the team was made up of idiots, himself included. They’d all heard the rumors about Hollzy’s split with Montreal. They’d just assumed that because their team was so obviously different (better) than Montreal, there wouldn’t be any problems, but of course, Hollzy’s prior experiences would affect him in Ottawa. Why wouldn’t they? And more importantly, why had the team assumed they wouldn’t?
Since he’d noticed their dynamic, it’d become glaringly obvious how much worse things got when they were playing other teams. Roz and Hollzy barely talked to one another during games, not even the banter they seemed to absolutely love during practices. Furthermore, they never spoke to the media together and refused point-blank to talk about one another in any context not relating to the game or the Centaurs. Not necessarily a bad strategy on their part, but it was still just another thing on top of the ever-growing pile of crap Wyatt was piling up in his brain.
Their first road trip made the issue even more apparent when they flat-out refused to room with one another. Roz and Hollzy were married for fucksake, it was ridiculous! If that was a boundary they wanted to set, that would be one thing, but combined with everything else, it painted a pretty shitty picture, and it was obvious to Wyatt—who was admittedly watching them a little too closely—that they hated rooming with other people.
Wyatt was honestly at a loss for what to do. He couldn’t just sit back and let his two teammates keep going on like this; they were going to burn out at this rate. Something had to change, and he was clearly the only one who was going to do anything to fix it. He needed a plan.