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Shane never thought himself to be the most observant of people, especially when it came to social interactions and reading intentions. But he sometimes he still noticed things, even the small ones.
Often they were hockey related, like when Holmberg was struggling with the new tactics, so Shane stayed an hour longer and they practiced it together. Sometimes it had nothing to do with hockey at all, like the time Luca forgot a wipe for his glasses, so Shane lent him his.
One of his recent discoveries had little to do with hockey, but had revealed itself after one of the practices.
Now, Shane wasn’t the type to gawk, but he played a sport and they had to shower after games and practices and after a few years, most people just get used to it. So as much as he would never admit it out loud, after a while you get to know how your teammates bodies look like, no matter how much you’d like to avoid it.
Most hockey players Shane had met had scars, hell he had quite a collection of them, it simply came with the sport.
But some of Troy’s scars just seemed a bit too neat.
They looked like they followed a pattern and Shane was very good at recognising patterns. They were small, mostly not longer than three centimetres and appeared in clusters that clearly varied in age, mostly in places that were usually covered.
It was something that didn’t want to leave Shane alone since he’d first seen it a few weeks ago. None of the other Centaurs seemed freaked out about it or anything, so he did his best to not stare or be weird about it.
But Shane had been finding it increasingly more difficult to be normal about it; and while he really hoped Troy hadn’t noticed his weirdness yet, it was only a matter of time. And Shane really didn’t want to screw up the relationship with his husband’s best friend, before it even properly started.
But somewhere inside, it kept eating at him, because he knew, Troy probably made those scars himself.
He desperately wanted to talk about it with somebody, but as he thought about it the list grew shorter.
Interrogating Ilya about his friend seemed like an invasion of privacy. Most of the team was still too new to him, which would just make it awkward and he couldn’t know for sure who had noticed it and who didn't.
That left his parents, who would probably try to fix the situation, before Shane even knew if it needed fixing and Rose, who could probably give him some sound advice, but was currently in South Africa filming a project she actually didn’t hate.
But most of all, it didn’t feel like a subject to discuss behind somebody’s back.
So he had no choice but to go to the source and ask Troy himself.
Thankfully the opportunity presented itself rather soon. Bood decided they needed more team bonding, even though this was definitely the most bonded team Shane had ever been on, and announced another BBQ at his house. It was probably going to be a bit smaller than usual, because the flu season was kicking off and a lot of the players had sick kids or were sick themselves.
Harris said he’d bring some cider, which basically confirmed Troy would be there also. Now Shane just needed to find him alone at some point and he could start this world’s most unprompted conversation.
Shane also knew Troy liked to hide at the first turn of the stairs that led to the upper floor in Bood’s house, when he felt a bit overwhelmed or simply needed a second, so cornering him shouldn’t be that difficult.
The plotting did make Shane feel a bit like an evil mastermind, but the alternative was to bottle everything up, until it explodes like a Tesla that encountered a minor inconvenience.
The BBQ started out nice and after the first round of food people started grouping off. Bood, Ilya and Nick were standing next to the grill. Wyatt was sitting with some of the ladies discussing the problems of child care during the busiest parts of the season, while the kids themselves were running around the garden screaming getting chased by the younger members of the team, all being filmed by Harris.
The only person unaccounted for was Troy.
Shane slinked away from the main space towards the stairs, just to find Troy exactly where he expected him to be, sitting on the second stair resting his feet on the first. Looking a bit lost in thought.
He was wearing a black jumper and dark knee length shorts, because apparently if you grew up in Vancouver, that was normal. The pant leg had slid down revealing some of the scars.
Shane couldn’t help but look. And Troy caught him staring right away.
Their eyes met and for a couple of seconds they remained locked in place.
Troy moved first pulled the fabric of his shorts over the scars and looked away while red blushed across his cheeks.
“Don’t worry. I haven’t done it in a while,” he said.
Not the greatest of starts, but at least now Troy knew Shane knew. And Shane truly hoped a while meant a few years not a few months or God forbid weeks.
“I used to do something like that too,” Shane said quietly.
Troy looked up at him in surprise.
Shane moved to sit down next to him and Troy scooted to his right to make space, apparently realising this was going to be a sit down kind of conversation.
“When I was a child, sometimes I would just get so overwhelmed I would bite my arms or hit things just to feel in control,” Shane started, he felt like he had to, he did initiate this conversation after all.
“I mostly hid it from my parents, but I know they sometimes suspected something wasn’t quite all right. My mom would sometimes see the marks, but I’d just tell her they were from hockey or some other sport we played at school,” Shane said and turned towards his teammate.
Troy nodded slowly and shifted his hands so they were resting in his lap.
“How did you stop?” he asked eventually.
“I don’t really know to be honest? At some point I think I just grew out of it, found other things to distract myself, when I felt like I was spinning out of control, “ after a moment he added “Sometimes I still get the urge to do it, but it’s never as strong as it was when I was a child.”
It felt important to tell the truth, the whole truth, not just the parts that felt good to share. If he was going to pry around Troy’s personal life, the least he could do was open up to him as well.
Troy nodded slowly again, shifting uncomfortably.
“I think I did it for the first time when I was like sixteen?” he pauses to take a breath, “I knew a girl in our class was doing it and I really couldn’t understand it at first. But then, the pressure just kept piling on, my father was demanding results and I felt like everything hurt all the time. Suddenly it just made sense?”
Troy’s voice was barely above whisper.
“Because it gave you a sense of control?” Shane asked.
Troy nodded.
“Everything already hurt so much, at least this pain I could control.”
He shifted again to cover the bottom of his face with his hands. His eyes were becoming glassy.
“And then I got drafted to Toronto and I thought it’d be better,” he paused to sniffle, “and it was for a bit. But the atmosphere there ... I could feel myself becoming a horrible person, but I was too scared, too weak to do anything about it, just followed along what everybody else seemed to be doing.”
Shane saw the first tear slid down Troy’s face and had to fight to keep his own at bay.
“Sometimes I’d just hate myself so much and it felt like I deserved the pain so I just made sure I received it. If no one on the ice was willing to do it, a razor would do just fine,” Troy continued.
Shane reached out and placed his hand over Troy’s arm. He wasn’t entirely sure whether physical contact would help, but after a second Troy seemed to relax a bit.
“I’m not surprised you figured it out,” he admitted. “I used to think I was so good at hiding it, switching places on purpose, always somewhere that would be covered up. But it turns out I was never that sneaky they just didn’t care.”
Shane knew exactly who they were. He doubted the Guardians were big on mental health. It briefly made him wonder what the reaction in Montreal would be like if they found out.
Hayden would be worried and then try to help, so would JJ probably, only he’d likely be much more awkward about it.
“But the Centaurs know?” he asked. He was pretty sure they did, but just to be sure.
Troy nodded and a little watery smile stretched across his face.
“Yeah. I think they figured it out pretty soon. Wyatt actually tried to talk to me about it after the third or fourth practice maybe? But I managed to shoo him away without being too big of an asshole. I hope. Ilya was the next to corner me and I’m pretty sure he imposed an embargo, on trying to discuss it with me, if I didn’t initiate the conversation first.”
Troy sounded grateful about it. It would probably feel incredibly uncomfortable if every few days another person on the team you didn’t know all that well came up to you and tried talking to you about your deepest darkest secrets.
“I don’t want to pry” Shane said, like that wasn’t what he was just doing, “I know you said you haven’t done it in a while. But in case you feel like that again, do you have a plan?”
“Yes, I made it with my therapist after I told her about it. It’s written down in my notes app and there’s a copy in my wallet. And Roz wanted a copy as well, I’m pretty sure he made copies and distributed them amongst the players and staff,” Troy huffed, but he didn’t sound annoyed, more like he couldn’t really believe it.
“Do you have a plan?” he suddenly asked and Shane was kind of touched by the concern in his voice.
“Not really. At least it’s not written down. But I know that if I ever start feeling like that again I can go to Ilya or my parents or Hayden or any of the Centaurs really,” Shane said with complete certainty.
He knew this conversation was now more or less concluded, so he stood up.
“You know you can also come to me?” Shane heard from below.
He nodded.
“You coming?” Shane asked.
“I’ll be there in a bit,” Troy promised him.