Chapter Text
November 11th, 2007
Shane gets the phone call while he’s sitting on the couch with his parents, watching some not-very-good movie with them about a red blooded American saving planet earth from an asteroid. He’s surprised by the call, when he gets it, and doesn’t answer it immediately, even after pulling out his Blackberry and seeing his coach’s number on the home screen.
“Who is it?” his mom asks, and Shane frowns, finger hovering over the accept call button.
“Coach,” he says, casual, as if it’s normal for his junior hockey league coach to call him at 11:30 PM on a school night.
“Why the hell is your coach calling you at 11:30 PM on a school night?”
His mom’s incredulous, annoyed voice echoes Shane’s own thoughts as if they’re pulled out of his head.
“I dunno. Gotta take this.”
He gets up, flipping the phone open and trying to ignore his parents’ concerned looks as he walks out of the living room.
In truth, he can’t blame them. Shane may be the captain of his U-20 team, but he’s still only 16 years old, and it’s strange that the adult actually in charge of their teen league is trying to contact him close to midnight on a random Tuesday when he very well could already be in bed.
Shane only even got a cell phone a few months ago, after being made captain. His parents didn’t think he needed one, before that, and frankly, Shane had mostly agreed.
Since being given the captainship, though, the number of responsibilities he has to juggle has ramped up, as the seriousness of what used to be a recreational activity for him has intensified. He knows, as do his parents, that it’s all but guaranteed at this point that Shane is going to go professional. It’s the goal of all the teenagers in Canada’s tier 1 U-20 league, but it’s only kids with Shane’s level of talent for whom that future is already all but set in stone.
There isn’t really anyone else with Shane’s level of talent, truthfully. Though Shane would never admit this out loud, not wanting to be rude.
But he knows he deserves the team captainship, even at his young age, and he knows he’s better than most of the rest of the tier 1 U-20 players combined. He knows he’s better than most of the professional NHL players combined, and has been for a while. He was 11 the first time hockey publications started calling him a prodigy, and 14 when he was moved from the U-16 league to the U-20 league, when his exceptional talent had deemed him skilled enough to play with older teens and young adults.
Some of his teammates resent him for it. Most respect him. Shane tries to be a good captain.
He tries not to let all the precocious promotions and scouting and teenage-targeted sponsorships offers and hockey publications about his talent turn him into an arrogant asshole. He tries to handle the responsibilities he’s been given respectfully, and treat his teammates and coaches with the respect they deserve.
Even when they blow it on the ice, sometimes. Even when tracking down players missing practice and giving pep talks to 19 year olds gets kind of tiring, on some days.
It’s the price that comes along with having his talent at hockey recognized, and it’s a price Shane is more than willing to pay.
Maybe sometimes he feels lonely, at the top, knowing that even once he gets into the NHL, there isn’t really going to be anyone to challenge him, other than through how much he has to make up for his own team’s weaknesses. Maybe sometimes he feels more like a kindergarten teacher wrangling a bunch of children, than a serious athlete among equals. But. Shane figures if he didn’t want to deal with alpha posturing bullshit and fist fights and territory nonsense, he should have gone into one of the beta and omega dominated sports, like figure skating. It’s not his teammates’ fault so many of them have brains and bodies driven by animal instinct they can’t- (or, maybe, aren’t expected to make much effort to)- control.
Sometimes Shane catches his own thoughts meandering down paths of judgment he has to pull them back from. He thinks his frustration with how many stupid posturing fights he has to break up at every practice might be making him a little alpha-phobic, which he needs to get under control.
After all, alphas might make up 39% of professional athletes and 54% of players in the NHL- but they only make up 18% of the population. Shane, a beta, is part of the vast majority here. Society gives a lot of privileges to alphas, and they’re often kind of unfairly respected, but. There are also stereotypes, and prejudices. Shane doesn’t want to be someone who contributes to something like that.
He picks up the call as he makes his way from the living room and into the kitchen, shaking his clouded thoughts from his head as he brings the cellphone up to his ear.
“Hello?” he says, flipping the kitchen lights back on as he speaks. Trying not to sound judgemental, or confused at being called so late.
He’s, like, almost an adult now, or something, with almost adult-like responsibilities. Probably this is normal, and it’s Shane who has to get used to being available to work 24 hours a day.
“Hey, Shane.”
Coach, when he speaks, doesn’t sound as falsely casual as Shane is trying to come off as. He kind of sighs, as he speaks, like he’s aware that he shouldn’t be calling a teenager in the middle of the night.
“Sorry to bother you so late,” the man says. Shane just shrugs, even though Coach can’t see him.
“No worries. What’s up?” he asks, feeling both worried and curious. There isn’t any panic in Coach’s voice, and he isn’t, like, crying or something, so Shane figures it can’t be that anyone blew up the hockey center, or that one of his teammates was killed.
Coach sighs again, after Shane asks the question. Shane can almost see him, in his mind’s eye, rubbing a hand down his face.
“What isn’t up,” he says, dryly. “Look, Shane, I know it’s late, but I’ll cut to the chase. We just got confirmation from the IIHF this morning. There’s gonna be an omega playing for the Russian team at World Junior’s. We sent out an email a couple of hours ago, informing all the players on our team.”
Shane’s eyebrows lift up so far that when he catches sight of his warped reflection in the metal of the fridge, he feels embarrassed for himself and his biases.
“Oh,” he says, uncertain. “That’s..okay. Thanks for letting me know, I guess.”
He’s not sure what else to say about it.
It’s…weird. More than weird. He’s never heard of an omega playing hockey.
But he also doesn’t really know much about omegas to begin with. They only make up about 11% of the population, and male ones are, like, less than one fourth of even that.
The number 1.6% floats into his head, and he thinks maybe he’d learned that in health class. He’s not sure, though. He might be making it up. He’s never paid much attention in their awkward secondary gender seminars the gym teacher would intermittently put them through- he’s not an alpha or an omega, and, unlike many of his peers, has never deluded himself hopefully into believing he might present as one. Shane is a beta, and he’s happy with that. More than happy. The dick-measuring contest of masculinity that alphas always come out on top of is so so not worth the insane posturing nonsense Shane’s alpha teammates put themselves, and everyone else, endlessly through.
It’s all so stupid. They say it’s instinctual, in alphas, and they can’t help it. Shane isn’t so sure about that.
And if it is true, that alphas just…lose control of themselves, are so wildly driven by animal instinct to mark their territory and challenge other alphas to fights over women and the occasional omega- then all the more reason to be happy Shane isn’t one. Shane has no idea why anyone would want to be put through something as tiring as an existence like that.
“So you’re okay with it?”
His coach’s voice comes through the line again, tinny and distant.
“There being an omega on some other team we’ll have to play once, maybe twice, if they win? Yeah, why would I care. Not my problem.”
Not, Shane thinks, as he pulls the fridge open to peer inside of it, curious- anyone’s problem, really. Except the omega’s.
Shane knows omegas have been soft-banned in hockey since forever, though no one’s ever really challenged the ban, as far as he knows. It must be a headache, to do so, and to deal with the inevitable alpha posturing bullshit on the ice as a result of it. In theory, Shane knows, omegas are banned for their own safety, but everyone knows it’s more about stopping alphas from beating each other up like animals over a potential trophy wife who wouldn’t even give them the time of day.
Or trophy husband, Shane figures, since if this omega has been signed on to play at Men’s World Juniors, he’s got to be a man.
“Is someone else on the team throwing a fit about it, or something?” Shane asks his coach, as he pulls out a container of what he thinks is a leftover ham sandwich. Shifting to hold the phone between his shoulder and ear as he uses one hand to hold the tupperware and the other to peel the plastic top off so he can look inside.
“Yeah,” Coach says, sounding tired. Shane prematurely gets it. “Yeah. That’s why I’m calling. I’ve been dealing with the fallout all day.”
Frowning, Shane closes the fridge with his shoulder as he plops the tupperware onto the counter next to it. Ignoring his midnight snack for the moment.
“What do you mean? It’s a lot of the guys?”
“Oh, it’s basically all of them.”
Shane turns around, grabbing the phone again with his hand as if the seriousness of the conversation can be communicated by how he holds it to his ear.
“What, like, they’re emailing you to complain about it? It’s not like it’s your decision.”
“Try telling them that.”
“Okay. Well, I can talk to them tomorrow at practice. We don’t want to have bad energy going into internationals.”
“A lot of them aren’t going to be at practice tomorrow. At least, that’s what they’re claiming. We’re down six guys. Harold, Arman, Daveed, Jasper, Henry, and Sam.”
Five of the twelve alphas on their team of twenty two, and one beta who’s still deluding himself that he might be a late presenter.
Shane’s eyebrows shoot up again.
“I don’t understand.”
“They’re saying they’re gonna boycott. If an omega is playing, they’re not. That’s why I’m calling. We can’t afford to lose six players. I’m hoping you could call them, tomorrow, as a fellow player. Get them to come around. They won’t listen to me.”
Leaning back against the counter, Shane blinks in perhaps-underserved shock at the kitchen island. Absently sliding his hand against his thigh several times, looking for a pocket, before he remembers he’d changed into his pajamas hours ago.
He’s not the biggest fan of any of the guys Coach just listed, though they all like Shane, more or less, though he’s also heard them muttering about how only an alpha should be the captain.
It’s not the nicest shit he’s ever heard about himself and his secondary gender, but he also had no idea their prejudices ran this deep. Like, deep enough that they might shoot themselves and their careers in the foot to make a point.
“Holy fuck,” he says, impolitely, because he can’t think of anything else he can say. “NHL scouts are gonna be there. Daveed and Jasper are twenty, they’re aging out of juniors at the end of this season. Their careers will be over if they don’t show up?”
“I’m hoping they’re just throwing a tantrum. That you’ll be able to talk sense into them. You were always good at that.”
Shane was not, in fact, always good at that. He had to get good at it, as his talent at hockey got him handed more and more responsibilities that have nothing to do with playing hockey at all.
Like managing a team of 16-20 year old guys filled with alphas, and betas who want too badly to be alphas and are mad about not being one. It’s kind of surreal, to Shane, that, as popular as he is as a captain, the biggest complaint from any of his teammates about his authority has always been that they don’t like getting bossed around by a beta, rather than that even after two years of playing, he’s still one of the youngest players on the team.
It feels appropriate, in that moment, to mimic the image of his tired Coach that he’d had in his head when this conversation had started. Wondering if he even has the appetite anymore to eat his sandwich, Shane runs a hand down his face, and lets out a long, long sigh.
“Yeah, of course, I’ll- I’ll try to talk some sense into them tomorrow. I’ll even stop by their houses if I have to.”
“Thanks, Shane, you’re a lifesaver.”
“Don’t worry about it, Coach. I’m sure they’ll come around.”
He is not, in fact, entirely sure about that, considering he would have never dreamed that these guys would risk their careers before playing an omega. But, he is pretty sure he can at least talk Daveed and Jasper off the edge, as well as the one tag-along beta, Sam. Which would at least bring them back up to the numbers they need to qualify as a team.
“I’ll let you go. I know it’s late.”
“Coach, wait,” Shane blurts. “This is- I’m really surprised the IIHF let this go through.”
“You and me and the rest of the world, Shane, but it isn’t my decision.”
“I didn’t mean I had a problem with it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Sweden and Germany have already pulled out of the competition, in protest.”
“What? Like, the whole team?”
“Yep.”
“Jesus christ, it’s not that big of a deal.”
It really isn’t. Coach doesn’t say anything at the other end of the line, and Shane feels a swooping sense of disappointment in his gut as his perspective of the man, and perhaps the entire world, drops a bit very fast.
Like the feeling you get as you rush down the side of a roller coaster.
“Seriously, Coach, it’s not. Just because he’s an omega- I mean, he’s gotta be crazy good, doesn’t he? If they’re bending the rules just for him.”
Like, Shane thinks, the federation had bent the rules for Shane, two years ago. Letting him join the U-20 league two years early, just because of how obviously talented he was.
It’s not like this shit is the law, or set in stone in any way. Rules change, especially as reality confronts them in ways that make them not make sense anymore.
Most people don’t think omegas can play full contact sports like hockey. Or that they really want to.
Clearly, though, that’s wrong, so. So he doesn’t see what the big deal is.
“Yeah, that’s what they’re saying. His name is Rozanov. They’re saying he’s a generational talent, like you.”
It’s a nice compliment, but it feels cold to Shane, as he’s hit with the idea for the first time that he could have been an omega, and been treated like this.
It really had never been something he’d thought to worry about. There are so few male omegas to begin with, and what people say about them- well, it’s never really very nice. It’s not like with female omegas, where they’re highly sought after, and usually marry rich. Male omegas- Shane doesn’t know. He’s met them, of course, it’s not like they’re isolated from society, at least not in Canada- but the names they’re called, the way they’re spoken about…Shane has never liked it, and always told people to cut it the fuck out, but the insults and stereotypes had felt so foreign to Shane that he’d never thought to see himself reflected in them.
Because omegas are. Delicate. Gentle. Beautiful, always, and usually smaller than other men or women. They, as far as Shane has heard or encountered, tend to be sweet and submissive, to like children, to gravitate towards homemaking or just lazing about being a trophy for a wealthy alpha who provides for them.
There’s…some tiny part of that, perhaps the…sexual role, and element, that people say omegas enjoy playing, that Shane does maybe…relate to, a little, but….
But not much, and not in any way he’s ready to think about. Like. Ever. Much more relevantly, he’s so fucking driven and determined and career oriented, and tall, and physical, and so fucking strong for his age…
Shane isn’t in any way effeminate, or inclined towards lazing around and decorating houses and cooking for some weird alpha. So even the vaguest thought that he might present as one of the very few male omegas just never occurred to him at all.
Now, though, it’s like he’s seeing a parallel reality, one in which he’s screaming at the sky for respect, and being ignored.
Maybe omegas do have the inclinations Shane had always heard they do, and maybe male omegas are no different, though that gets them mocked and hated for failing to meet the expectations of their primary gender. Clearly, though, even if there is some truth to the stereotypes, they’re not universal. This Rozanov guy is apparently great at hockey, and must love it, must really, really love it, like Shane does, to be willing to put up with the bullshit Shane is only now seeing clearly for the first time.
“It’s too bad the Swedish and German players won’t be meeting him, then. They haven’t gotten past the round robin tournament in World Juniors for over a decade- they could use the practice, since they never get to practice with anyone good.”
Coach laughs, like Shane is joking, which he isn’t. But. It’s probably better that Coach thinks he’s just chirping. It’s out of character for Shane to say something so vicious that bluntly, and Shane wouldn’t want the man to think he’s getting so bent out of shape over some omega he doesn’t even know.
That’s alpha-like behavior, theoretically. Which Shane is not usually impressed by.
It’s half the alphas on the team who are apparently willing to blow up their chance at playing for the NHL because they’re so offended by an omega.
Maybe Shane isn’t being a neanderthal. Maybe he’s just starting to feel like he has an obligation to be offended for this Rozanov guy, if no one else is going to point out how insane this all is.
Shane spins around again, frustrated. His socks let him turn like a top on the linoleum floor.
“Listen, I’ll talk to the guys,” he says. “I’ll deal with it. They’re over reacting.”
Speaking in a clipped voice as he pulls a plate out from the above cabinet. He wants his sandwich.
“Okay, thanks, Shane. Oh, one more thing, I didn’t mention in my email. Might help you get through to them. He’s mated.”
Shane blinks. Clacks the ceramic dish onto the counter a little harshly.
“Wh- mated? Like, claimed by an alpha?”
“Is there some other definition of mated you’re aware of?”
“No.”
Okay. Well. That’s fine. Shane figures- well, U-20 is called U-20 for a reason. He must be at the older end of the age range, though 20 still feels a little young, to him.
But Shane’s not a hyper desirable omega who’s been flooded with high-value proposals since his 18th birthday. As he knows regularly happens in Canada, to the women, at least. Maybe it’s like that for the men too, in Russia. Maybe over there, they’re less prejudiced.
After all, they’re the ones pushing ahead to let this Rozanov guy play his sport.
“I just thought I’d mention it, seeing as I know from the several angry emails I got that some of your teammates are worried about- about getting scent drunk, and about territorial bullshit getting dangerous.”
Right. Nonsense excuses that would mean nothing to anyone with a modicum of self control or respect. It’s such a joke. Omegas can just wear blockers like everyone else, if they’re so worried about it, but god forbid the alpha dominated league acknowledges that.
It’s true that mated omegas don’t give off the same appealing come hither scent to alphas as unmated omegas do, but any actual safety concerns could be addressed with basic dampeners from the grocery store- or you know, fucking suppressants.
But god forbid you say the S-word in a public forum like a major sports league broadcast that is watched by middle America and rural Canada. You’d think people were suggesting bombing the United Nations, the way even mentioning basic omega healthcare puts you in the center of a political firestorm.
Shane sighs. Moves his sandwich to his plate, going through the motions as if he still has any interest in eating.
“Alright, yeah. Thanks for telling me. I’ll mention it.”
“It’s the only reason he’s being allowed to play. According to the IIHC. Apparently mating makes him ‘hormonally stable.’”
Coach says the term like it’s some kind of voodoo excuse, instead of a biological fact. It’s clear the man isn’t as up in arms over this as a lot of the hockey world is, but isn’t exactly thrilled by the development either.
Usually, Shane would tell himself to hold back his judgement. Usually, he’d remind himself again to respect those with more experience instead of letting his outsized talent get to his head.
Right now, he doesn’t tell himself shit. Except that his Coach is a fucking idiot, apparently.
“It’s getting late,” he says, finally. Wanting to get the man off the phone so he can go stare at the ceiling angrily in bed for no reason.
“Sure, Shane. I’ll let you go. See you tomorrow at practice.”
“Mhm. See you then. Bye.”
He hangs up.
Glares at the clock on the wall, and the fridge, and his hands.
His sandwich stares judgementally back up at him. Shane feels like he should have told his Coach to go fuck himself.
Maybe he’s a coward.
Maybe, he thinks in the back, back, back of his head. Maybe you’re an omega.
Because, apparently, omegas can love hockey more than breathing. And he knows… Well. He’s heard. What they also like, or want, more than breathing, is being fu-
Being-
Having an alpha to pin them and bend them over and, and-
Shane shoves the thought away, hands shaking. Telling himself, firmly, that he’s glad he’s a beta, that he’s glad he’s 16, and probably, definitely, out of the presentation woods.
Annie Wang presented at 18 this past year, he remembers, thinking of his school’s last valedictorian.
She’d been an alpha. It was- extremely, almost freakishly late, to present, but everyone said-
That they should have seen it coming. Because she was so talented, and driven, and smart, and ahead of the game- all the things people claim, and want alphas to be.
All the things he does not usually see in his teammates. All the things he, truthfully, sees in himself.
And, probably, will see in someone as driven as Rozanov.
Fuck.
He’s not gonna eat this fucking sandwich. Without thinking about why he’s lost his appetite, he grabs his uneaten snack and dumps it back into the container it had come from.
Claps the plastic tupperware top over it firmly, like he closes the box of his turmoiled subconscious.
Shane is good at compartmentalizing.
He’s good at a lot of things.
Opening the fridge, he tosses the plastic container back in on some random shelf without looking. Shuts the door again.
“I’m heading to bed,” he calls out to his mom and dad, without bothering to stick his head back into the living room.
If his parents acknowledge what he’s said, Shane doesn’t hear it. He’s halfway up the stairs before the words are even out of his mouth, and he crawls under the covers in his bed immediately, feeling like a five year old looking to hide.