Chapter Text
I say, you say, what’s the deal?
It’s a very short life with no appeal.
- “Everything You Do” - The Happy Fits
+++
Shane Hollander is good at a lot of things. Hockey, school. Bending the truth just enough that it doesn’t quite qualify as a lie. Even things he doesn’t like he’s good at, like math, and breaking the rules and getting away with it. Socializing.
It’s like destiny, written out for him: Shane is perfect, and his life is perfect, and it will continue to be perfect, because he has parents who love him (two of them!), and they have money (always enough of it) and they are Canadian (read: very nice) and while Shane is half not-white, it’s cool, because that’s cool now and totally not annoying and weird to be reminded of in 85% of his conversations (this is because everyone Shane knows in his tiny suburb outside Ottawa is all-white and they are all very, very nice).
Shane is good at a lot of things, which makes his perfect life very easy, and if Shane didn’t mind it, he’d probably be miserable. As it is, Shane is very content, very happy, really, because while Shane is good at a great many things, he is terribly, horribly, cripplingly bad at change. Which really isn’t as big a deal as it seems, as long as Shane sticks to all of his routines and performs perf– he’s perfect, so there is never any reason to do anything any differently than he’s always done it. And there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that Shane’s life won’t go according to plan: school, graduate, hockey, and then more hockey. Hockey forever.
“Russia?” Yuna Hollander says, because she’s never speechless.
David’s expression is not grave (because really, Russia can’t be that bad), but it isn’t his signature brand of lackadaisically amused either. He looks a little guilty, as he maybe should.
He nods. “Only until the next general election,” he clarifies, as if the last one didn’t just happen, “And then I’ll come right back home.” Yuna is not pleased. “And– and– I’ll visit regularly,” he scrambles. “And maybe–” David looks so quick at Shane that Shane pretends he doesn’t notice– “maybe you can come visit. Occasionally. When there’s not hockey, or school, or you don’t visit your parents for the holidays–”
“So never,” Yuna snaps, and then she looks guilty and David looks properly conflicted. Yuna sighs, and because she’s a good woman and a good person and a good wife, she takes David’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m very proud of you.”
David smiles, just a little bit. “The Prime Minister asked me personally,” he boasts, just a little bit.
Shane thinks the Prime Minister can suck his dick, but he doesn’t say that. He takes, passively, another bite of his spaghetti. And then, because his parents are looking at each other with so much love, and Shane remembers how perfect he is, and because he hates himself (just a little bit), he finishes chewing, and swallows, and says,
“Russia has has some great hockey teams.”
So, really, six months later, it’s Shane’s own fault that he’s freshly fifteen and freshly stepping onto the tarmac of Шереметьево (say it with me now: share-’em-yeet-yay-vah).
But hey, at least he’s good at languages.
+++