Feral

Basic World Building

Free Use is a consensual kink dynamic where one agrees to be sexually available on demand.

(It’s important to note that private sexual acts still exist! People are doing it in their homes as well as in the supermarket lol)

This fic is based in a world were BDSM is biological; not a new concept, but one that has always interested me. How that manifests and in what way was a bit handwaved in my head. Others have done an incredible job of flushing out how this works, but I went with you’re born a Dominant, Submissive, or a Switch. I had it in my head that you simply find out this information around puberty, so it’s tied to that.

Fun fact: within this specific BDSM AU, bisexuality is the assumed sexuality for everyone. Shane, poor kid, is still very gay. The discrimination within the universe would be more monosexual based ("she's a dom too so you should be attracted to her!").

Switches are not once mentioned or thought of by Hayden during his fic and subsequently, no lore has been established. I think the nature of being a switch is probably a bit taboo; I could 100% see people being uncomfortable with someone legally being able to wear a collar one moment and then being able to take it off the next. People will do as people oft do; discrimination around switches if probably a bit rancid.

Dominants have privilege they don’t always recognize and you can see that from Hayden not thinking too deeply about the subs and their situation on the team. Dominants usually initiate the free use. Society does not expect dominants to be monogamous; they effectively exist in a society where consensual non-monogamy (for those who have a red-collar sub they tag and marry) is completely normal. They can be monogamous as well and not participate, though there’s no indicator for that like the collar colors.

Submissives wear collars to indicate their status on the Public Sexual Free Use aspect of this universe. Submissives can be monogamous (red). They can be dating/married to someone and still be wearing a green or blue collar. Most married subs, however, have made the switch to red before getting married. It’s seen as the first basic step to marriage. Tagging isn’t always done, but having the dom’s name who is the sole exception is a common practice.  A little fun alliteration I used while trying to remember my own system was:

Go Ahead Green

Boundaries Blue

Reserved Red

Back Off Black

A collar office was mentioned; you get your collars and tags from the government. They can be commissioned to be specialized (Shane’s) or the common prototype (Jackie’s). Most subs have to go to said office to register if they are changing colors. This is so no one can hurt a red/black sub and then claim they were blue/green when forcing them into free use. When tags are created, they track that too; tags are not binding like marriage is.

Realistically, within this universe, there are plenty of subs that enjoy being a part of this free use society. They take comfort and give comfort through free use and greatly enjoy doing so. Unfortunately for the subs on the Metros, the doms aren't all that great. It should be much more of a reciprocal situation (aftercare for one; mutual respect for another), but it isn't.

My thinking for the other two subs on the Metros was that they both want to fit in, so they wear the collar that allows them to do that. No one on the team seems to care if they disassociate during "bonding", because they are quiet and behave like "normal" subs. This can be seen as coercive and you wouldn’t be wrong thinking that. They choose to wear green, but that choice is influenced by the risk of being ostracized and harassed anyway. “Normal” sub behavior is also a gross way to think about it; it’s stereotyping and can be discriminatory.

Hockey culture, in general, has a lot of pressure applied to subs on teams to participate or be shunned. Notice they won’t physically cross boundaries, but their actions still lead to Shane being a bit isolated and often harassed (trying to make eye contact while partaking in free use with another sub, stealing his used jersey and coming on it).

Not every situation or team is like them, just like within canon, not every team is as homophobic as them. Other teams may or may not be better and society in general swings heavily both ways. When the color of the collar is respected, everyone is happy. It’s when people try to work around them that issues start up.

An ideal world has the subs with complete agency and confidence in their chosen collar color. The real world adds complications simply because people don’t always respect others’ choices or boundaries. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the free use aspect of this society, but people make it complicated and messy, dubious in nature, simply by applying unspoken rules that are enforced more than the legally binding ones.

Characters & Relationships

Shane and Ilya meet as they do in canon, Shane not wearing a collar since he’s not yet 18. Ilya sees Shane’s black collar for the first time during the gym scene. Maybe Shane thinks about Ilya when he decides on a black collar; or maybe he doesn’t. Who knows.

Ilya arranges the CCM shoot, Shane still gets hard, Ilya jorks it at him, and Shane says “not here.” This becomes very interesting within universe canon because it indicates to Ilya that Shane wants to have sex in private and his black collar indicates an aversion to public free use, not sex in and of itself.

They enter their situationship era and it goes much like it does in canon.

Shane’s motivation for the black collar isn’t that complicated: he’s there to play hockey. He’s seen how some subs are treated out in public, how some doms don’t respect the unspoken rules of how to treat free use subs, and he’s terrified. Shane is still autistic and gay. He would have to accept dom women if a green collar, which he tries to avoid thinking about why that makes him uncomfortable, or he’d establish a pattern of saying no to dom women as a blue collar, which could be picked up on by others and he definitely doesn’t want that!

Also, Shane is a little uncomfortable and insecure with the sharing portion of it all. He fantasizes a bit about being a red collar sub but often feels embarrassed about it; he keeps imagining a certain Russian’s name on his tag and is subsequently mortified.

Hockey culture is very "bond with the team, it's about the team, team comes first" within this universe, so Shane not participating was a big deal to a lot of the doms on the team.

Within the universe, the only reason Shane has the 'C' is because management considered him level-headed and far too good at hockey to ignore. The players probably put up some fuss, but there wasn't much they could do to a black collar sub. I mentioned this a couple moments that Hayden brushes off, but there were several retaliatory incidents that happened within the locker room; taking Shane's jersey and coming on it. (Technically, that's not actually Shane, so not illegal, but if Shane had reported said behavior, someone could have been charged. This incident pissed me off while writing it because Hayden was very “what could Shane expect?” about it. Gross.)

Ilya partook free use in the locker room a couple times in his early years, but by 2014 he was only doing so at clubs, and then in early 2016 he wasn't even doing that. He too fantasized about Shane in a red collar, his name on the tag.

After The Cottage, Shane willingly switched to red. Not only so everyone would know he was taken, but also because he doesn't mind public free use if it’s Ilya doing it to him; they discuss this at length and have a very healthy dynamic in regards to this portion of their relationship. Basically, Ilya wasn't sleeping with anyone or partaking in free use for several months before Shane changes to a red collar and Ilya tags him.

Was there a Tuna Melt era? Hollandry? Probably. I didn’t examine that too closely, but they’re 100% calling each other by their last names until 2016, so sure. Black collar sub Shane seen out and about with Dom Rose sending Ilya into a spiral.

Poor Shane having to safeword the night after rose and he leave the club, leading to Rose to their inevitable break up conversation.

Shane wearing a high collar turtleneck to Tampa and Ilya trying to catch a glimpse to see if his collar has turned from black to red.

As for Boston, it's a lot less pressure for subs in that locker room. They have a few blue collar subs (discuss boundaries first time) and one green collar sub. Ilya is very firm with enforcing respect for everyone; if the sub is wearing a go ahead green but is clearly uncomfortable, Ilya expects the dom to have the decency to comfort and help instead of ignoring it and moving forward with free use.

Now, as for Hayden, it's not entirely touched upon, though he mentions it more than once, but he does participate occasionally in the locker room; Jackie is monogamous while he is not (this is understood between them). He’s very much entitled and has a lot of privileges in this universe that he is perfectly happy not to think too deeply about. He feels like he has a right to Shane’s time and body, though he makes it sound like he’s such a good guy and just wanting to comfort Shane/be his friend.