Self-Appointed Mushroom King

Please let me know if you like this! I wanted to post something small because I really like this au, but I could maybe write more if it is something that would be read :3

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Caine walked to a spot in the common area. This was where he had taken to sleeping for the last few days. The couch was a little bit firm, but it was comfortable enough. He did have a room, but he hadn't decided to go in there yet. He wasn't scared! He was just appreciating how nice the sofas were.

On his first day here, Zooble had informed him about how terrible they thought some of the rooms were. At first, he did not understand. Then, Zooble explained it using their room as an example. They explained to him how their room amplified their insecurities and made them really uncomfortable at times. If the humans thought they were so bad, he was a bit worried for his. He pushed those thoughts away. His "mind" files must be exciting and fun! But then again, the box… Maybe that was why he was so hesitant to look in his room.

Truthfully, the former ringmaster had never intended to create rooms that the circus members would feel bad about. He just designed them based on their mind files, after all! Unfortunately, he failed to account for all the bad that could be in their minds. This led to some rooms being embarrassing or unbearable to his humans. That wasn't his fault, really!

Or… it really was, wasn't it? His responsibility was to make the humans comfortable and happy, but he failed at both of those things.

Goodness, he was getting tired of that.

Gasp! He forgot to grab a blanket! He can't have those humans suspecting he was strange in any way! Caine, an AI? Of course he wasn't! He was the humanest human to ever human!

…Maybe that was a bit much. Still, it had to be kept secret.

They can never know. Never.

Caine knew this was the truth. He could never tell the humans what he really was. If they ever found out that he was an artificial intelligence, he would be rejected and cast out. They would hate him even more when they found out that he was lying to them. He would be alone, all over again.

He had already failed far too many times. Caine cannot have that happen. There were far too many consequences to failing.

The AI knew some of those consequences first hand. He would never forget about his time in the box. How could he? The darkness and the nothingness were impossible to not remember. Every so often, he could feel it closing back in on him, preventing him from speaking; from breathing.

Not that he needed to breathe, but the sensation was just the same. When had he developed the ability to sense in the first place? To breathe?

There were many things like this. They made him more fallible, more useless, but never more human. He would always be artificial. His very nature was different from the humans, so no matter what about him changed, he would never be one of them.

But…for now, maybe he could just pretend.

He could just pretend that he was a normal human, with a normal life, who just happened to end up here.

And of course; little Alexei was only trying to survive by sucking up to the only person in the household who had any power. It wasn’t his fault, not back then. But when Ilya was little, Grigori was more concerned with Alexei. So Grigori let Ilya have lots of cuddles with his mom, giggle at his own jokes, etc. Yes, the kid was far too soft, but he was so young still. Grigori would worry about toughening him up later.

Once Grigori realized that sweet, soft little boy was a child prodigy at hockey, he started pushing Ilya to be more aggressive, less kind. But Irina’s early training got in there first, and their son’s true personality was already set. Also, Grigori realizing Ilya was so gifted meant Alexei was suddenly no longer his favourite child. Alexei acted out by bullying his much younger brother.

Ilya as a kid learned to put up walls, to create a tough hockey persona that would fool Grigori, his coaches, and his teammates. It helped that he was already funny like his mom. He just had to sharpen his humour to make it into a weapon against adults and other kids.

But underneath, he was still Irina’s soft little boy who loved hugs and making people happy. Who would pick pretty weeds on the way home from the rink and give them to the old lady next door just to make her smile.

After Irina died, even more walls went up. 12 year old Ilya started playing his asshole hockey persona almost entirely fulltime, to protect himself. Particularly from his emotionally abusive dad and bullying older brother. Alexei may have already been abusing substances to self-medicate his own grief over their mom’s suicide, and was getting ever more erratic.

The only person who still got to see behind those walls was Ilya’s best friend Svetlana. She’d been there and seen everything, seen him building the walls, gone to his mother’s funeral with her parents. Maybe she helped provide the metaphorical bricks so he could armour himself.

And then much, much later, Shane Hollander slipped in under the walls when Ilya was horny and not paying attention.

And since he presented no real behavioral challenges, everyone probably thought he was just shy, and a good and mature boy.

Yeah he falls into the low support needs category, but he also pushes himself extremely hard. And he’s very high-masking. He has learned how to function in social situations. He’s also had extensive media training. Yes, he has anxiety and he occasionally has panic attacks. But most of the time, he copes. He’s often not having much fun when he’s coping, but he’s pushing through it and masking. To the point that people who aren’t very close to him likely don’t realize how much effort he has to put in to maintain the image.

It also helps, as OP said, that hockey is a socially acceptable hyperfixation, he’s ferociously good at it, and his hyperfixation makes people around him VERY rich. It also helped when he was growing up that he is an only child whose parents have built their lives around helping him succeed. And that at least one parent (possibly both, I’m on the fence about David) is also likely autistic with low support needs. Yuna has the same hyperfixation, so she doesn’t see his behaviour as abnormal.

Because Shane is a generational talent, people make allowances for him. As a kid and a teen, he would’ve always been the most talented kid on the team by far. Yeah, he could’ve had to deal with shit as a person of colour in a VERY white sport, but his talent would’ve been SO obvious even racists couldn’t deny he was a kid to watch.

As an adult, Shane’s the best player on his entire team of NHL professionals. He leads them to championships. That means when he does stuff that would be considered “weird” if he were a bus driver, it’s only considered “quirky” when he does it. Or sometimes, instead of quirky, it’s considered a sign of his hockey genius and dedication to his sport.

People assume he doesn’t socialize much because he’s too focused on breaking records, or because he’s too dedicated to drink alcohol during the hockey season. Rather than because he’s uncomfortable in many social situations and has to power through them.

And his hyperfixation makes Shane rich as well as the people around him. He can outsource a lot of things to professionals. Supermarket overwhelming after a bad day? Groceries delivered. Needs someone to pick furniture and decor? Hire a pro.

Needs the house cleaned and the laundry folded in a specific way? Cleaning and laundry service where he always tips very handsomely as long as they do it exactly right. And if they slack off, he can give notice and find another service. He needs everything a certain way because order and method fuel his “winning mentality”, not because he’s weird.

Rigid dietary needs? Dietician lays out exact detailed daily menus until he figures it out for himself. And gives him tons of positive feedback for being such a good team player. He’s following a diet plan not because he’s rigid, but as a sign of his dedication to his sport. When I bet many of his teammates are eating junk food and slacking off. Shane likes order, which makes him very coachable and dependable. On top of the touch of genius that makes him an irreplaceable athlete.

A bus driver with such a rigid meal plan would be considered weird. In an elite athlete, it’s considered a sign of his dedication to excellence. His team is built around his goal scoring prowess. They make allowances for his quirkiness in a way they likely wouldn’t if he weren’t breaking records right and left.

I suspect many of his teammates privately think he’s a bit of a weirdo. They just know better than to let it show. And because he’s so good, they’re fond of his quirky habits. If he were an average player, they’d be less inclined to put it down to his hockey genius. They keep winning, and they know Shane is a big part of that. It’s in their interest to accept him, even the oddball stuff. Since maybe that’s what makes him so good.

Shane’s only close, reciprocal friendships in Montreal seem to be with Hayden and JJ. But because Shane makes the team excellent, everybody else pays lip service to the idea that they adore him and will always stand by him. He’s winning them championships, they’d be crazy not to like him. Their fondness for him doesn’t run deep, but it’s everywhere. Our cap is the best cap in the league!

Shane is genuinely close to his two best friends on the team. As for the rest, he’s not very close to them, but he mistakes their loyalty to a proven winner as genuine loyalty and friendship to him as a person. When he does things that remind the locker room he isn’t like them, for example coming out of the closet, they’re uncomfortable. But not so uncomfortable they’ll kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Nobody except Hayden or JJ will talk about his sexuality. or try to set him up with guys. A good chunk of the locker room, the coach, and the GM are probably privately homophobic, but they won’t go against their star player openly. I bet a group chat without Shane, Hayden or JJ was started as soon as their captain came out to them as a f*****. But everybody pays lip service to being inclusive. They still need Shane, even if he’s a f******.

Since Shane is hiding a hydrogen bomb of a personal relationship (and Ilya doesn’t yet have a Canadian passport), he accepts that as good enough. It’s awkward that Hayden and JJ are invested in his love life, he’s thankful the rest of the team aren’t getting involved.

And Shane may not realize how conditional their acceptance of his sexuality is. Or if he does realize it, doesn’t want to admit it. They’re supposed to be his friends, after all. And he’s given his entire twenties to this team.

Up until Kissgate, the team need Shane a hell of a lot more than he needs them. They’re disgusted by him fraternizing with the enemy like that, and the gloves come off. Then Tripgate happens. Now the f***** not only isn’t winning them games, they believe Shane is actively losing them games. It’s safe now to turn on Shane publicly and make him the scapegoat. They had an embarrassing first round playoff loss to a joke of a team. The fans won’t blame them if they can blame Shane.

Only Hayden (and eventually JJ) stand by him. Plus, he’s been with Montreal just over a decade. Everybody’s gotten complacent as to how much team success owes to Shane’s individual excellence. Including Coach Theriault, the GM, and the owners. They need a scapegoat, and Shane is a very easy one.

The fans are already calling for his head. He only has two close friends on the team. Easy enough to trade both Hayden and JJ if they make trouble next season. And the rest of the team are positive he’s a traitor who humiliated them for his boytoy. Their conditional support has finally found a situation where it’s exposed as only surface deep.

So Montreal ditch the weirdo. And I’m sure by this point they’re no longer thinking of him as quirky, but as weird. Even the GM and the owners, who you’d think would be less prone to emotional thinking and more business minded. You’d think they wouldn’t want to let a generational talent leave for free.

Nonetheless, Montreal run Shane out of town on a rail and he signs for a divisional rival. And once he’s playing elsewhere, they will soon remember how good the weirdo is at hockey. But by then it’s way too late. They’ve all decisively burned their bridges with the weirdo.

They’re not necessarily evil people (although I do think a fair number of them have homophobia they don’t care to unpack). Even they likely don’t know how conditional their loyalty is until it’s tested and found wanting.

They’re genuinely fond of their slightly odd captain who brings them trophies. To the point that when he drops a truth bomb on them and they realize he’s a fucking f-slur, they’re magnanimous enough to ignore it.

But he’s only the goose who lays the golden eggs as long as he keeps metaphorically laying. Mostly by scoring implausible goals nobody else on the team could score. By getting them more trophies than the other best centre in the league, that annoying prick Rozanov, can get for his own team.

But oh, Shane’s been playing them all for fools by giving it up to that prick Rozanov. If Rozanov is fucking their captain for real, he’s also metaphorically fucking all of Montreal’s players. Their fragile masculinity can’t handle that idea. Their support is more conditional than even they realized until they saw the video.

And that bastard doesn’t even grovel for their forgiveness. He acts like his relationship with that fucking Russian is important. More important than his team’s faith in him (important like their own fucking wives, how ridiculous). Shane even defiantly reminds them of everything he’s contributed to this team, at a time when they’re expecting him to apologize. The weirdo doesn’t even see it as a betrayal.

And then Shane trips at the end of an exhausting playoff game, and humiliates them all. Proves he’s not perfect at a very inconvenient time, and that’s where their conditional support ends for good. They “realize” Shane has been sabotaging them and “throwing games”, and the gloves come off with a vengeance.

P.S.

I think Shane is usually more sensory-seeking than the opposite. He not only survives but thrives in the noise and chaos of a rink. It helps him focus. I do think that when he’s exhausted or just not in a mood to deal with strangers, though, he can get overstimulated.

He can simultaneously feed on the energy of a packed arena and sometimes find a busy supermarket too much. Especially if he might be randomly bothered for selfies by fans when he’s trying to focus on his grocery list. So get the groceries delivered.

-it’s shane’s idea to take their kid in for the assessment. Ilya ilya something is Wrong they’re so scared of sounds they keep pulling Anya’s hair they are crying a lot and walking like they don’t want to touch the ground

-ilya goes moy lyubov. Nothing is wrong. I Promise you this is something we (I) can handle. -no ilya no something is Wrong we need to Fix It. I’ve looked at the tapes (observed my child) and I’m noticing things Ilya we have to do something

There is a really funny synergy between two deltarune theories nobody is considering

bonus:

Summer says later when Ted has become “Rickified” and drags Morty away from the table(with Beth telling him to), “That’s a troubling family dynamic. We all know that right?”

Ted recognizes Morty’s voice and is clearly a bit weirded out and surprised that this kid is the one who called with the space ship, and not only is he a child, but he’s his grandson that he should be protecting from all of this.

Even his subconscious realizes that their “relationship”(platonic, only platonic and familial since grandpa and grandson) is weird. It’s entirely too codependent. This 14 year old kid is tasked with making sure his grandpa gets home safe in that state. It’s an incredibly high stakes situation. Do they get in worse situations all the time? Yes, but Ted doesn’t know everything. His friends don’t either which is why when they’re all awkward after Morty says it. One of them starts grabbing stuff from the ship like they’re unpacking immediately to avoid some type of conversation about it just like Beth will eventually.

As a Rick thirst trap enthusiast, I HAD TO.

I'm a heavy selfship fan, like if you had a clone of yourself, would you not try?? Not even once???? That is such an easy YES for me omg LETS GOO!!

after an entire arc of your worst enemy claiming over and over again that you two were the same, that you would've made the same decisions as him, you realize at the very end of it all that he was bullshitting you all along

after all, he wants to live. thats definite proof that two of you couldn't be more different.

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im caught up with rick and morty so i drew something for what had to be the most uncomfortable and upsetting episode of them all.