Chapter Text
Shane Hollander knew there was something wrong with him.
He had known it for as long as he could remember, though the exact shape of the wrongness had shifted over the years. When he was nine, his mom found a backpack underneath his bed. It was filled to the top with pens.
Not just any pens. Shane could still remember the way they felt lined up in careful rows inside the fabric pocket—black ink only, medium point, smooth barrels that didn’t dig into the side of his finger when he wrote. The plastic had to have just enough weight to it. Too light, and the pen skated across the page. Too heavy, and his hand cramped.
Writing helped his brain be quiet. But he could only write if he had the right pen. So he had started collecting them.
He’d taken one from the classroom supply cup when no one was looking. Another from the lost-and-found box near the gym. A few from the front office, carefully slid into his pocket while pretending to read the announcements taped to the wall. He hadn’t meant for it to turn into a whole backpack. That had happened slowly.
But he’d kept them all.
Just in case. Because if he ran out—if the pen in his hand stopped working mid-sentence—his thoughts would start crowding in again. Loud and messy and fast. Writing kept them lined up in order, one after the other, like players rotating through a drill. His mom had knelt on the floor when she found the bag.
“Shane?” she’d said gently.
He’d stood in the doorway of his room with his shoulders pulled tight and waited for the moment she told him it was strange. Or wrong. Or that he needed to stop. Instead, she’d taken one of the pens out of the bag and rolled it between her fingers.
“Are these your favorites?”
Shane had nodded. She’d paused. Then she had zipped the backpack back up and slid it under the bed again.
“Okay,” she’d said simply. “We’ll make sure you always have some.”
Even now, years later, the memory still sat in his chest like a warm stone. His mom had always tried.
At fourteen, he’d learned not only to build that quiet space in his mind, but also how to protect it. If he gave his mom at least four solid sentences when she asked How was your day? she stopped asking follow-up questions. Anything less than four sentences from Shane meant Yuna would keep poking at him—gently, patiently, like a good, interested, thoughtful parent—until she felt sure he was okay.
What happened in English? Did practice go well? Did anything funny happen today?
She loved him. So she asked.
But after school or practice, Shane’s brain felt wrung out and shapeless. Every sound felt too loud. Every question felt like another thing to sort through when his thoughts were already stacked too high.
He craved quiet. So he counted. Four sentences. If he gave her four real sentence, not one word answers, she would nod, satisfied that he had shared enough of his day with her. Then she would leave him alone.
“Practice was good today. Coach said my skating looked faster. Math was boring, but I finished the homework.I think we might have a game next Thursday.” Four sentences.Then he could go upstairs and close his door and sit in the quiet until his brain settled again.
It wasn’t lying. It was just… efficient.
By his twenties, he had discovered another trick. At parties or team events, if he held a coffee cup, a glass of ginger ale, even an empty bottle, he could breathe. It gave his hands somewhere to go. Something solid under his fingers while voices layered over each other and bodies shifted too close and laughter cracked through the room in unpredictable bursts. An anchor.
Without it, sometimes, he felt like he might sink into the floor.
So yes. Shane knew he was a little different.
He had spent most of his life learning the quiet systems that helped him move through the world without making those differences anyone else’s problem. He planned around them. He adjusted. He paid attention to how people reacted to him and made small corrections until things ran smoothly again. It worked most of the time. And it kept him from doing anything embarrassing.
Especially now.
Standing in the middle of a smoky dive bar while his boyfriend talked to his coworkers, Shane leaned back against the sticky wood of the bar and focused on keeping his breathing steady.
The room smelled like stale beer, fryer grease, and something sharp and sweet that burned in the back of his nose. Music thumped through the floorboards in an uneven rhythm. Every few seconds someone shouted over the noise and the sound bounced across the room like a ricochet. Shane kept both hands wrapped around his glass of ginger ale. The condensation had dampened the napkin underneath it. The paper stuck slightly to the bottom of the glass when he lifted it. That was good. It gave him something to feel.
Across the room, Clayton stood at a table surrounded by coworkers. Clayton was perfect. He didn’t even have to try. He walked with purpose, spoke to strangers with ease, and carried a kind of effortless charm that made people lean toward him when he talked. Broad shoulders. Dark hair cut into a perfect fade. Sharp eyes that seemed to catch everything happening in a room at once.
Right now Clayton had his head thrown back in laughter, one hand braced on the edge of the table while the people around him cracked up at whatever story he was telling. Shane couldn’t look away. Neither, apparently, could anyone else at the table.
Clayton’s voice rose above the music again as he launched back into the story, gesturing wide with his drink while everyone leaned closer to listen. For a moment, Clayton looked almost luminous under the dim bar lights. Shane felt the familiar swell of admiration in his chest.
It made sense that Clayton didn’t notice he’d drifted away from the table. Clayton was interesting. Magnetic. People wanted to be around him. Shane… was quieter. That was fine.
He rubbed absently at the dull ache in his shoulder. The muscle there felt tight and tender under his fingers. He would make a joke about it in the locker room tomorrow.He ran through the script in his head.
Someone would ask what happened.
He’d shrug.
Caught a weird hit into the boards yesterday.
Maybe laugh.
Sam would probably chirp him about getting old.
The image played out easily in his mind.
The familiar rhythm of locker room teasing felt steady and predictable, like skating drills he’d done a thousand times. Shane focused on that. On the plan. On the comfortable future interaction waiting for him the next day.
He did not think about Clayton’s hand gripping his shoulder. He definitely did not think about the way that same hand had pinned his wrists against the mattress the night before. The memory tried to surface anyway. The dark apartment and the pressure. The way Shane’s shoulder had twisted at an angle that made his breath catch. He pushed the thought away immediately. If he thought about it too long, something in his chest might start to shake.
And if he panicked—
If he drew attention to himself—
Clayton would stop having fun. And Clayton had been excited about tonight. Shane didn’t want to ruin that. So he stayed where he was and sipped his ginger ale, replaying game film in his head.
The Ottawa game from the night before slid easily into place in his mind. Defensive rotations. The pattern of passes through the neutral zone. The way Marco had hesitated half a second too long on a breakaway. Hockey was clean and ordered. It grounded him the same way the cool glass in his hands did.
“You know,” Clayton’s voice cut sharply through Shane’s thoughts. Shane blinked and turned. Clayton was standing directly in front of him now, and Shane wasn’t sure when that had happened.
“I brought you here tonight to show you off.” Clayton’s smile stretched easily across his face, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And you stand over here like a fucking statue all night.”
“Oh.”
Shane straightened immediately.
“Sorry,” he said, the word coming out softer than he intended. “I just got a little—um—it was kinda loud. I needed a sec.”
Clayton’s hand landed on his shoulder. Hard.
The pressure sank directly into the sore muscle Shane had been rubbing earlier. A sharp spark of pain shot down his arm before he could stop himself from flinching.
“Shane,” Clayton said quietly. Too quietly. “You’re the captain of a professional hockey team.”
His fingers tightened slightly.
“You command a whole team of angry fucks while fans scream at you every night.” Clayton leaned closer. “You can handle a fucking bar.”
His hand slid forward and suddenly Clayton’s fingers were gripping Shane’s jaw, thumb pressing into the hinge near his ear. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough.
“Man the fuck up.”
The smell of liquor rolled off Clayton’s breath, and Shane swallowed.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. He forced himself to meet Clayton’s eyes for a second before looking down again. He didn’t know exactly what he had done wrong. But he knew he had.
“I’ll be better.”
Clayton studied him for a moment. Then he squeezed Shane’s jaw once more before letting go.
“I know you will, Shane.”
Clayton stepped back first.
The shift was small, but Shane felt it immediately. The pressure of Clayton’s attention eased just enough that he could breathe again.
“Come on,” Clayton said, already turning back toward the table. “They want to meet you.”
Shane nodded quickly.
“Yeah. Okay.”
He took one more sip of his ginger ale before following. The drink was almost gone now, just a thin line of sweetness at the bottom of the glass. For a second, he considered ordering another one, something to keep in his hands, but Clayton was already halfway across the room. So Shane set the empty glass on the bar and pushed himself upright.
The walk to the table felt longer than it should have. The music was louder out here. Someone bumped into his shoulder on the way past and Shane jerked slightly before catching himself. The room felt too bright and too close all at once, like the walls had crept inward while he’d been standing at the bar.
Clayton slid back into his chair easily, dropping one arm across the back like he owned the place.
“This is him,” he said, gesturing lazily toward Shane. “My boyfriend.”
Several heads turned at once.
“Oh shit,” one of the guys laughed. “The Shane Hollander?”
Shane nodded automatically.
"Last I checked,” Shane smiled as brightly as he could, hoping it looked natural.
Someone stood up to shake his hand.
“Man, I watched the game last night. That play you made in the third period—holy shit.”
Shane smiled for real at that, something easing in his chest. He could talk about hockey.
“Thanks, the team had fun, especially there at the end.”
Another person started talking before the first one even finished.
“So what’s it like being captain? That locker room must be insane.”
“Do you guys actually fight during practice or is that just a TV thing?”
“Do you know that goalie from—”
The questions stacked on top of each other. Shane tried to follow them. He nodded when he thought it was appropriate. Answered when he could. Laughed half a second late when everyone else did. The first guy was a real fan, and Shane was loving his genuine enthusiasm to talk about Ottawa's defense.
But the noise kept building.
Glasses clinking. Music thudding. Voices overlapping until none of them had clear edges anymore. He clasped his hands together under the table. Without the ginger ale, he didn’t have anything to anchor them.
Across from him, Clayton watched the whole thing with a small smile.
When Shane hesitated too long answering a question, Clayton cut in smoothly.
“He’s being modest,” he said easily. “He’s the best player on that team by a mile.”
The table laughed. Shane smiled again, because that seemed like the correct response.
His shoulder throbbed where Clayton had grabbed it earlier. He rolled it gently, trying to be subtle. He shifted slightly in his chair, trying to ease the tension in the muscle, but the movement only made the ache flare sharper down his arm.
It was fine. He just needed to get through the night.
A woman at the table leaned forward.
“So do you go to all of his games?” she asked Clayton.
"Some," Clayton's grinned back at her with a smirk. "When I have time."
“Is it weird dating someone famous?”
Clayton snorted.
“He’s not that famous,” he said, waving a dismissive hand.
The table laughed again. Shane laughed too. He knew he wasn’t famous famous–only hockey fans knew who he was.
Someone shoved another drink toward him.
“Here, man. Let me get Ottawa's captain a drink.”
Shane stared at the glass for half a second. The liquid inside was amber and sharp-smelling. He glanced automatically toward Clayton. Clayton was watching him. Not smiling. So Shane picked up the drink.
“Thanks,” he said quietly.
The first sip burned all the way down his throat.The table cheered.
Clayton clapped him once on the back—hard enough that Shane’s shoulder screamed—and Shane felt his smile stretch wider, automatic and practiced. He could do this.
He just had to keep answering questions. Keep smiling. Keep Clayton happy.
Across the table someone launched into another story and the group erupted into laughter again. Shane nodded along, trying to follow the thread of the conversation, but the words had started to blur together. The room felt hotter now. The music thudded harder.
His hands had begun to tremble slightly under the table, so he curled them into fists and pressed them against his thighs to hide it. No one was looking at him anymore.
Clayton was already telling another story, the table leaning toward him again like sunflowers turning toward light. Shane sat beside him and nodded at the right moments. He stayed and smiled and drank and listened.
And somewhere behind his ribs, something small and fragile started to crack quietly in half.