Chapter Text
Shane sits on the floor of the hotel bathroom and tries to remember how to breathe. On the other side of the wall, Vegas nightlife hums. Shane should be out there, at some afterparty. He should be soaking up his win. Rookie of the Year is no small feat. He should be proud. Shane should be proud but he isn’t because the only thing he remembers from the past five hours is some veteran player passing him a shot, “don’t be a fucking fairy, Hollander.”
Shane had escaped the bar as quickly as he could, but then Rozanov had been on the roof, and had kissed him, right there, where anyone could see. And maybe Shane is a ‘fucking fairy’ because he had kissed Rozanov right back.
It’s kind of completely horrible because Shane loves hockey. He loves hockey more than anything else in his life. But this past year, playing professionally, the only thing running through Shane’s mind has been what will happen when they find out. The fact that there even is something to find out. The fact that this massive part of him has to be a dirty little secret.
Shane won Rookie of the Year over Rozanov and he should be happy, but the Shane Hollander that accepted that trophy isn’t a version of himself that he recognizes. Or likes. His hockey persona is necessary and Shane knows that, but he also knows that the person he pretends to be for the cameras is not the person he wants to be.
It's too late now, though. Now that Shane is a known entity in the hockey world, second overall draft pick, Rookie of the Year, already someone Montreal is building around. He’s stuck here. In hockey. In locker rooms where slurs fly freely, and with guys who would never look at him again if they knew the truth. He can never escape, even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t. Hockey is everything. Shane had played other sports, and been good at other sports, but from the moment his mom had laced up his skates and beamed at him on the frozen lake behind the cottage, Shane has known that this is his destiny. Shane Hollander plays hockey. That’s just how it goes. No use in fighting it. No use in being upset about the things he can’t control. The guys in the locker room are homophobic and racist but that’s just hockey. It’s just hockey. And Shane is supposed to love hockey. Loving something means loving its faults too, and so he has no reason to be upset. This is the price. This is what he has to sacrifice to play the game he loves.
This is the third time this month that Shane has been like this. On the floor, half naked, of some hotel bathroom. Forcing his panic to be quiet so that nobody notices the magnitude of just how much he doesn’t belong. He strips off his constricting dress pants and doesn’t even fold them before sinking back down onto the cool tile, now clad in only his underwear. Calvin Klein. Because that’s what he has to wear, because he’s one of their brand reps, and because they’re paying him more money than he can ever see himself needing or wanting. Because Yuna thought it’d be a good move.
Shane wonders desperately if everyone has this. Not the gay part, probably, but the rest. The pressure coming in from all sides. The resentment, almost, that the game that was once fun is now wrapped in with so much not-fun that it almost-
No. Shane loves hockey. He can’t not love hockey.
Shane wonders if Hayden Pike ever sits on the floor and cries because he wishes hockey was fun like it had been before. He wonders if Rozanov ever misses the way that hockey used to be simple and exciting. He wonders how many of the hockey greats, whose numbers now hang in arenas across the country, ever sat in their contractually mandated underwear and struggled to breathe with how much of their lives was controlled by other people and fear.
That’s probably what it comes down to. Not enough control, and too much fear. Yuna started managing him at sixteen, when he finally dropped his summer sport of baseball to focus on hockey full time. He could have dropped hockey instead, but knowing his mother, that hadn’t been an option. Not really. Not for Yuna Hollander. Hockey would make him more money and give him more influence and for reasons Shane doesn’t fully understand, these are things he’s supposed to want. Maybe he does. Probably he doesn’t.
Shane wonders what Yuna would say if she found out that he’s gay. He wonders what that would do to his brand. Absolutely trash it, probably. There aren’t any out players in the league for a reason. He wonders what she would say if she knew that Shane isn’t even proud of his season because of how far from himself he’s fallen in only a few months.
Shane wonders what Rozanov would say. Nothing, probably. Maybe he’d laugh. Maybe he’d be sympathetic. Maybe it doesn’t actually matter because Rozanov clearly hadn’t wanted anything to do with him tonight; whatever weird thing they’ve been doing is over anyway.
The cool of the porcelain tile isn’t doing enough anymore, warmed by Shane’s own body heat. He isn’t grounded and he isn’t calm and he isn’t any of the things that the lady on the hotline told him to be, that one time. She had also told him to drink water, if he could. Shane could probably drink water right now. He could also probably call the hotline again. But calling a crisis number once is a fluke. Twice is a pattern. And the only patterns Shane can have are ones that build his career and his game and his reputation.
It’s not like Shane’s having a crisis, either. He’s just not breathing very much at all. On the floor. After what should have been one of the greatest days of his life. It’s fine though, Shane knows from experience that if he doesn’t get it under control he’ll pass out, and in the absence of his brain’s running commentary, his body will regulate. It’s fine, he’s fine, Shane Hollander is not a person who can afford to be anything less than completely, entirely, perfectly fine.
His body burns with lack of oxygen. Is this what dying feels like? Shane remembers wondering that before, so it probably isn’t. Fuck it.
Shane’s hands shake and he reaches for his phone and who even cares because this time will be the last time he has to call the hotline and it did genuinely help before. Something about a soothing voice talking him through what he has to do. Maybe it’s telling but Shane had saved the number in his phone. No contact name, but that in itself is unique, a series of digits in a sea of Firstname Lastname (Relationship).
The number is right at the top of his contacts, by default. It sits directly below the frequent contacts.
Shane can’t keep his fingers still, body vibrating with tension and panic and all the things he can’t let himself feel if he’s going to survive this life he’s trapped himself in.
Not trapped. Shane Hollander loves hockey. Shane Hollander is dependable. Shane Hollander is the guy you want on the ice to make plays and score goals and
And Shane finally hits something and he presses the call button. He shoves the phone against his ear, and as soon as the call connects, it just spills out of him.
“I know I’m not dying but it really fucking feels like I am.”
A beat.
“Shane? Honey? Where are you? Are you safe? Are you okay?”
Fuck. That is not the voice of a hotline worker.
Shane wonders if there’s a way he can play this off to his mother as something it isn’t.
He must have clicked the wrong contact.
His breathing only gets worse. He can’t hear anything over the frantic beating of his heart. Shane feels like puking. This is horrible. Out of all the people who could have found out about this, Yuna is maybe one of the worst options. She’ll see this as a problem. A fixable problem. She won’t understand that what is wrong with Shane isn’t fixable.
He hangs up.
Maybe Yuna won’t come looking for him. Maybe she will just brush this off. Maybe Shane won’t have to show his mother all the messy ways he’s been letting her down for months. Longer, if he’s being honest.
He digs his fingernails into his arms hard enough to leave tiny, crescent shaped bruises. Tears flow down his face unbidden, now.
There is no way that Yuna doesn’t come here. There is no way she doesn’t use the spare key he gave her. There is no way she doesn’t see the ugly truth that Shane has been steadfastly ignoring all season in the hopes it would suddenly stop being real.
Shane Hollander loves hockey, but hockey is killing him.
He can’t do this. He can’t go through his career trying not to flinch when men he’s supposed to trust throw around slurs like it’s nothing. He can’t live his life according to what other people think about what he eats and what he wears and when he sleeps and where he goes and who he’s seen with. It’s too much. It’s all way too much.
His mom is going to be so disappointed in him. She’s never been disappointed in him before.
A knocking at the door. Urgent. “Shane? Open the door please, I -”
Not surprising. Shane lets out some sort of pitiful groan, heaving in a breath.
Be normal be normal be normal be normal be normal.
The lock clicks.
Footsteps. Shane knows that the room outside this bathroom is dark. He never bothered to lock the door. The handle turns.
“Sha- oh.”
Yuna sounds like she got the air punched out of her. Shane doesn’t look up from the floor. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to see her. He squeezes his eyes shut around tears and takes in another shuddering, ineffective breath.
Yuna moves closer, and Shane can feel it in the air. She doesn’t say anything, and he can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not.
Then there’s a hand on his shoulder and it’s gentle but Shane still flinches back violently, as though it were a hot poker. His head collides uncomfortably with the wall.
He hopes, at this point, that his body will do him mercy and let him pass out.
“Shane, baby, you need to calm down,” his mother says.
No fucking shit.
Shane risks opening his eyes, and he’s met with his mother’s concerned face. She’s crouched in front of him, hands hovering awkwardly as though she doesn’t know what to do with them. Shane imagines that he must look pathetic like this, mostly naked on the floor, but he can’t bring himself to care anymore.
He swallows thickly once, twice. He was supposed to get water. That helps sometimes. Shane doesn’t think he can move.
“Water?” he gasps out, and Yuna stares at him blankly for half a second before springing into action. She stands, and disappears for a moment, before reappearing with Shane’s water bottle.
He takes it with both hands and a grateful nod. Small sip. Breath. Small sip. Breath. Repeat.
Either five minutes or an hour later, Shane feels almost like a functional human being. His mom is still there. She’s sitting on the ledge of the bathtub and watching him with an indecipherable expression but at least she is still here. She must not have written him off entirely.
“Sorry,” Shane whispers eventually, and her head jerks, their eyes meeting for the first time. Shane looks down again. “I didn’t mean to call you, I just- I can usually handle this on my own.”
He stops talking.
Yuna lets out a long breath. “Usually? This has happened before?”
Shane nods.
“If I-” Shane takes another sip of water, “if I say something, will you promise not to be upset?”
“Of course, honey,” she says, and her voice is so soft and it’s something Shane hasn’t heard in years.
“I kind of… don’t want to play hockey next season.” There. He said it. In for a penny in for a pound, or whatever.
The bathroom is silent except for the sound of Shane’s breathing.
“But you love hockey,” Yuna says, sounding genuinely confused.
“Yeah,” Shane replies, “I do. But this past year… I don’t think I love hockey when it’s like this.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with you Shane, or what just happened, but you can’t let a rough day get in the way of everything we’ve worked for. You just won Rookie of the Year! I mean-”
“It’s not just today,” Shane interrupts quietly, “it’s every day. Every practice and interview and everything.” He finally looks back at her. “I’ve had panic like that almost once a week. All season.”
The confession sits heavy in the room.
“All season?”
“Yeah.”
Shane watches something not unlike grief cross his mother’s face. “If I don’t take the rookie exit clause in my contract now, I’ll be locked in for five more years and I don’t think-” Shane bites his lip, “I don’t think I can survive five more years like this.”
Yuna stares at him like she’s seeing him for the first time.
“How long have you been thinking about this?”
“A while. Since January, probably.”
“And you’re sure?”
“I’m really sorry,” Shane says, pressing his palms into his eyes, “I know how excited you were when I got drafted but I just can’t… I just can’t.”
“No, Shane, don’t be sorry. I can’t pretend I understand where this is coming from, but I am glad that you told me. I just want you to be happy.”
“Yeah,” he mutters, “but you’d prefer if I was happy playing for Montreal.”
“This is your life, not mine.”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m working on.”