The Upside of Down

Give me Shane "hates clubbing and bars" Hollander not minding Kingfisher in the afternoon but refusing to go at night. Give me Shane never understanding the slang (he's never online) and being overstimulated by drag brunch (it's so LOUD and nothing fits his diet even once he loosens it a little and brunch as a concept throws off his entire routine) and utterly bored by any TV show that isn't the latest game replay (is this reality TV? Is it a drama? He can't remember and he can't tell the difference but honestly he'd rather be watching hockey) and unable to remember the difference between Lady Gaga and Cher (he never listens to music anyway) and completely disinterested in changing his wardrobe (for fancy events he wears whatever his stylist tells him to but not anything adventurous, because he just wants to look acceptable not make a statement).

Give me Shane feeling alienated from gay culture the way he sometimes feels alienated from Japanese culture and being so frustrated that being himself, exactly as he is, still isn't good enough for anyone.

Give me a Shane Hollander who doesn't want to be "the gay hockey player" the same way he doesn't want to be "the Asian hockey player" but he'll suck it up because he's such an inspiration, don't you know how many kids look up to you? Don't you know how much it matters to them to see you out there loud and proud?

Give me Shane finally snapping at Ilya that clearly he's not "super gay" if he's so bad at it, because he's sick and tired of everyone being disappointed that he's not up on whatever the latest queer culture trend is and he does not want to be a "gay icon," he just wants to play hockey and love his husband, and he's not magically a different person now that everyone knows he's gay.

Give me Ilya reckoning with how coming out has only put more expectations on Shane's shoulders and noticing the roles Shane is always forced into - the Asian player, the gay player - and understanding a bit more why privacy seemed like a better guarantee of freedom to Shane than openness.

One day it randomly comes up as Ilya says something about a time he acted like a dick and Shane is just like “Eh it’s ok, looking back I understand now that you were in a ‘I’m going to hurt you before you can hurt me’ mindset and that’s why you acted like that.”

And Ilya is staring at him and Shane asks what’s wrong and Ilya goes “I hurt you?” And Shane’s just like well yeah but it was forever ago don’t worry about it. But Ilya is worrying about it because back when he’d done the various hurtful things he’d been in downward spirals where he was convinced he didn’t have the ability to hurt Shane because he didn’t matter enough to Shane to hurt him, so he didn’t think the way he acted had any negative effects. And now he’s turning pale and his eyes are getting big as he’s realizing that oh god when he did those things he hurt his favorite person and he hadn’t even realized it

He makes Shane tell him the different times it happened and Shane doesn’t really want to because clearly this is just going to upset Ilya more, but hiding it or lying is probably also going to make things worse in the long run so it’s better to get it out now. So he mentions Ilya ghosting him after they had sex, and then how Ilya acted in Sochi, and that whole night in Vegas, and “I like you… Not as a person, obviously”

And the whole time Ilya is silently nodding and looking like he wants to throw up because no no no those weren’t supposed to be things that hurt Shane, those were supposed to be things that bounced off Shane without affecting him because they were only ever meant to hurt or protect himself, Shane was never supposed to have been hurt by those and fuck how did he not see in the moment the way that he was actively hurting Shane by doing that

And now it’s even worse because Shane won’t even be mad at him about it, he keeps insisting on being understanding and not upset and trying to make Ilya feel better when in fact Ilya is the worst most awful person in the world who should be punished for eternity for making 22 year old floppy haired baby Shane SAD like some kind of MONSTER

bc while yes they r sweet and soft and tender w one another they are also boys at heart and incredibly jock4jock

they’re running down the hallway with each other in a headlock after dinner w yuna and david laughing and pushing at each other until they accidentally knock a picture off the wall and yuna has to put them in a time out

Not seeing Rozanov is not an option, so instead Shane picks out a few other cities to regularly go out by himself in. He'll go for a long walk, maybe sit down somewhere for a drink, and then catch a taxi back to the hotel an appropriate amount of time later. It's honestly pretty nice, unwinding by himself in this way, and now disappearing after games is not a thing specific to Boston! It's just another strange Hollander quirk!

Unfortunately, he fails to account for the guys on the team jumping on the most obvious explanation for all these disappearances, which is that Shane now has a girl in every port.

Word about this starts to spread quick, because it is so out of character for Shane, and pretty soon half the league is under the impression that he's some secret playboy.

@scunthotter

I hope he struggles to look Hayden in the eyes sometimes because he can't stop thinking about that fucking video. He doesn't want to, that's his best friend and it was an honest mistake, but God, would it have killed him to watch it back? He was so close to getting to come out on his own terms. So fucking close.

I hope he's bitter about how nice the Centaurs are because how is that fair? Why didn't he get to have that in Montreal? Why was it so impossible for them to give him this? Why do the guys in Ottawa make it seem so fucking easy? Even Troy Fucking Barrett's nice here?! What the hell's in the water?

I hope he looks up at the rafters when they play Montreal and all he sees is where his jersey should have been retired and he just wants to scream. I hope when fans burn their Hollander jerseys, he's not able to laugh it off as absurd extremist homophobia. He's fucking livid.

He looks at his body, at his legs that will be shot before 50 and every bone he's broken and every injury he's played through, all to be tossed aside because, what? Because he fell in love? Because he tripped, which players do all the fucking time?

I hope he's angry and then angry at himself because this is supposed to be his happily ever after. He's supposed to be happy. Why can't he just be fucking happy? Why can't he just hold Ilya's hand and kiss him in public? Why does that still feel like a death sentence? Why can't he get his brain to understand that he's free now?

And I hope we see Ilya loving him at his most bitter self, whispering reminders that he doesn't have to move on just yet. That he's spent a decade carefully controlling every single emotion and he's allowed to feel them now, even if they're not pretty.