Chapter Text
"Shane? Don't forget to grab your lunch from the fridge," Yuna yells from the other side of the house.
Shane sighed as he stared longingly at his desk, wishing he could get away with pretending to be sick so he could stay home and game all day. Yuna would never fall for it, and if he was being honest with himself, he wouldn't be able to enjoy playing anyway knowing he would be missing out on school and hockey practice. At least it was something to look forward to later.
Shane walks out of his bedroom with his school and gear bag over his shoulder as Yuna whips her head out of the door of the bathroom.
"Did you hear me?"
"I know, Mom. I heard," Shane replied in an annoyed but soft tone. He has always adored his mother, Yuna, and appreciated the very direct way she can motivate Shane to push forward. It was days like today, though, when Shane hadn't slept well and wasn't in the mood to be around people that her persistent energy got a little on his nerves.
"Okay, okay," she said as she threw her hands up. "I'll meet you in the car."
Shane walked out the front door, opened the trunk, and placed his bags in the back, feeling distracted and depleted. He always hated when he got into this headspace: the kind where it feels like there's so much on his mind, but he can't seem to bring any particular thought into focus. It's days like this where he feels like he's navigating through fog, running on auto-pilot.
It was his own fault, really. He knew when he looked at the clock at 1am that he needed to be asleep 3 hours ago, but he wanted to spend more time with his new online friend he'd met a few weeks ago.
His parents didn't know—at least he thinks they don't—that he's been playing video games after he was "supposed to be" in bed. Yuna never liked that Shane spent time playing games, but she was also not the type to sit still for long. And if he was being honest, it didn't seem like his parents understood why he liked engaging with them at all.
He'd thought about it a lot himself. Anyone that saw him and the way he was in public would probably think he was just some dumb, quiet teenager obsessed with hockey. For Shane, though, video games provided him with a space where he didn't feel like he had to mask all the time. It was a space that was just his, where he could be whoever he wanted to be, where he didn't have to be Shane Hollander, hockey star that was slated to get into the major leagues. He could just be Shane, saying as little or as much as he wanted.
It's not that he didn't like talking to people, he did. There were just days, which felt like more often than not, that it was just exhausting interacting with people.
His parents are both sociable people. There was nowhere in Ottawa they could go without them running into someone they knew and proceeding to have a 30 minute conversation about some happening around town. Sometimes Shane would ask to stay home from outings just to save himself the energy of having to put on the polite friendly face, where even the grocery store wasn't safe from Yuna and David's charm and ability to make conversation with anyone and everyone.
Shane yawned as his mother got into the driver's seat of the car.
"Did you not get enough sleep last night?"
"Uh yeah, I had a hard time falling asleep. Worried about finals, I guess." Shane hated that he had been lying to them about how he was actually spending his time in the evenings, glued to his mouse and keyboard...and to the sounds of GrigOrGoHome's voice engulfing his ears through his gaming headset.
GrigOrGoHome was Shane's newfound friend and fascination. They had met in one of those Call of Duty lobbies, the kind where the infighting and swearing and throwing slurs at each other makes the game an automatic loss. And it always devolves into homophobic slurs that made Shane wince everytime. Shane thought back to the night they met.
He was getting overstimulated and just about to turn off the game and match voice chat until he heard someone on the other team in the lobby speak in a thick Russian accent.
"Hey, asshole. Next time shut the fuck up and play the game, huh?"
Shane wasn't sure what it was, but something about the way this guy talked piqued his interest.
"Suck my dick. You're the reason we lost." Some random online retorted back.
"Mmm you wish you had lips as gorgeous as mine around you, druzhok."
Shane's mouth dropped wide open as he heard the lobby go quiet, the only sound being a little giggle out of the GrigOrGoHome guy. Shane could tell he got a kick out of making these horrible men uncomfortable, and it...did something to him.
The way those words rolled off his tongue so quickly and so confidently had Shane feeling like he had to get to know him more. Shane sent him a friend request before his brain could even register was he was doing, and he didn't even have time for his anxiety to kick in before the notification popped up:
GrigOrGoHome accepted your friend request.
***
It was 3am, and his brain wouldn't shut off. Ilya had been slamming his head into his pillow for hours now begging sleep to take him until he finally just gave up and booted up his PC.
No point in even trying to sleep now, he thought as the COD lobby music filled his gaming headset.
It had been a particularly lousy day. Once his father had heard he had failed an assignment at school, Ilya felt the brunt of his disappointment in the form of his father's fists.
He hadn't put his hands on him as a younger child. It seems that was something he saved only for his mother, Irina. Once she died, the abuse turned to him. With his brother, Alexei, being four years older, Ilya always figured he was too big for his father to go after.
The plus side, though, is now that Alexei is out of the house and his father is always out or working, he got the house to himself.
He was grateful for this time alone, even though there was a loneliness deep within him he could never quite shake. When that feeling started to creep up, it was usually when he'd run through his little black book for someone to help take his mind off things. There was no way anyone would be up to fuck right now.
Ilya thought he had been more careful about hiding the fact he liked to get with both women and men, but somehow his brother had found out and never let him live it down. Constantly calling him "faggot" or whatever other slur he could think of, but Ilya didn't care.
He never knew why, but Alexei never did tell his father about Ilya's sexual preference. He supposed that was the one nice thing Alexei had ever done for him as he's sure he probably wouldn't still be alive if his father had found out.
Ilya tried to shake the thought out of his head as he turned his attention back to his game and queued in for a match.
He loved this game when he was feeling emotional. COD turned into one of his favorite ways to get his anger and sadness out, when he didn't have hockey to distract him.
He had to admit he took some pleasure in shit-talking men online, who liked to throw around the same slurs his family loved to say to him so much. He was used to it, but here? Here he actually felt safe to fight back, to say something without fear of getting hurt or brutally punished.
So when this match turned into another instance of terrible men throwing around homophobic slurs, his mouth slowly formed an evil smirk.
He waited for his moment, letting them dig a hole deep enough to where he could go in for the "kill shot."
Ilya could see everyone yelling in the lobby except someone with the name Redb1rd, who had remained quiet. That's not to say, though, that Ilya didn't notice this person was the only one actually getting kills on the enemy team. That fact alone had him curious. It wasn't common to find people in COD who don't shit talk in every game.
The game ended with Ilya's team somehow taking the win, a miracle truthfully with all the infighting that was happening. One of the people on his team kept it up in the lobby voice chat after the game and took it a step too far.
"Hey. Faggot. You're so fucking useless, do us all a favor and fucking kill yourself."
Ilya's stomach dropped. It wasn't even directed at him but it somehow hit him harder than his father's fists earlier that day. Then he got angry.
"Hey, asshole. Next time shut the fuck up and play the game, huh?" It's the best he could do after getting shaken up by the comment about suicide, after getting flashbacks to his mother's lifeless body on the floor.
"Suck my dick. You're the reason we lost." The incel spat back.
"Mmm you wish you had lips as gorgeous as mine around you, druzhok." Ilya chuckled as this bitch in the game stuttered and struggled to come back with a response. He left the lobby to go collect himself, his hands shaking.
He wished he didn't get so triggered at the thought of the day he found his mother. He should be used to terrible people online talking about suicide. It was a thoughtless insult these incels liked to say all the time, but no matter how many times he hears it, it feels like his body shuts down.
As he sat in the lobby trying to take deep breaths to calm himself down, a notification goes across his screen.
Redb1rd sent a friend request.
Ilya's heart felt like it skipped a beat. He smiled and accepted, seeing this as a sign from his mother, Irina, that this was meant to be. His mother had always found peace and comfort in bird watching, and Ilya knew there was something special about this one.