Shane is mortified.

He makes a point of avoiding gossip magazines, articles, or truly anything that drifts too far from actual hockey and a bit too close to the personal life of the players. 

Shane likes to have control over his life, and that extends to his image to the public. Fans, opposing players and sponsors alike should have a view of his character that is reflective of how good of a hockey player he is.

Articles of this sort tend to shake this equilibrium that he spends so much time maintaining. It makes him vaguely nauseous, imagining how so little can shift how everyone looks at him. So, the less he knows about it all, the better. 

Out of sight, out of mind. If something truly important happened, someone would let him know.

Which is exactly how he ends up seeing this article, and clicking on it, and reading it all as soon as he had woken up. Still half asleep, as the first thing he sees are the few messages he got from Hayden during the night.

Shane is upright before he fully processes what he’s reading, heart slamming in his chest like crazy at the mention of girlfriend juxtaposed with the looming "RIVALRY TAKEN OFF THE ICE, OR HIDDEN LOVER?" article title taking all of his attention. 

No. No, surely not. If something had actually leaked, if anyone found out about Rozanov and himself and shared it with no care for the entire world to see—

No, it can’t be that bad. Shane doesn’t think Hayden would be reacting like this, if he found out.

He thinks Hayden would be reacting much worse, in that case. That doesn’t really make him feel better, but still, it proves that his worst nightmare isn’t happening right now.

With some dread still clawing at his throat, Shane opens the link, and gives the article much more focus than it deserves this early in the morning.

He reads every line twice, brows furrowing at some of the phrasing about himself, about all of this situation, the theories, and really, why is this topic even enough to warrant a full article? Shane went to his first hockey camp as a coach earlier this summer, why not share how much of a fun, instructing experience that was? 

When he’s done reading it all, there’s so much anger coursing through his body that he ends up throwing his phone on the other side of the bed. 

Shane exhales hard, once, twice, dragging air into his lungs like he does after a bad shift on the ice.

Slightly calmer, he moves around his bed to pick his phone back up. He ignores Hayden’s messages, and opens a different conversation thread.

As he does so, he imagines driving his fist straight into a certain head with blond curls with a smirk.

The triple texting must have been enough to get Rozanov’s attention right away, because he gets an answer as soon as he’s done typing.

Shane imagines punching him again. He imagines doing it off the ice, going to Rozanov’s stupid house, watching him open the front door and simply punching him before he can get a word in.

Shane is not the most online person. When he takes his phone it’s either to message his team (or, as it keeps happening more often, Rozanov), to post something hockey related online, or check YouTube for hockey videos or to see cute animals. 

So, he has never been particularly fluent in Internet slangs, unlike some of his teammates. He simply picks things up from the people he talks to. Someone will send him a text with an acronym or an abbreviation that doesn’t quite make sense to him in the context of the conversation, and because he doesn’t like not knowing what people really mean, he will ask about it.

And while texting, Shane always tries to match the person he's talking to. It’s not something he really thinks about, more of an instinct than a conscious effort, but it makes conversations smoother in his head. If someone is casual, he tries to be casual. If their sentences are short, he keeps things short. It makes his mind happier, to know he’s matching their energy, make sure he’s going right with the conversation. 

It makes things easier, is all.

So yes, over time, he’s picked up habits from the guys. The guys, meaning mostly Rozanov.

Because they’ve started texting more as the months and years go by, and so Shane had the opportunity to see more fully into Rozanov’s personality, when they’re not playing or fucking.

The article got one thing right, at least: Rozanov doesn’t really use that kind of slang on his public accounts. Shane doesn’t know the reasoning behind it, but he simply doesn’t. 

In private text, though, he loves those brackets.

So inevitably, early on Shane had asked what does ")))" means, and didn’t think twice about the explanation he got, which is pretty close to the one in the article, with the one difference that Rozanov never specified that it’s more of a Russian language thing. 

He didn’t say anything like “not for your stupid english, hollander”, so Shane had just assumed it was more of an international slang that younger generations use, hence why he hadn’t seen anyone around him use it. And surely, it would make sense for Rozanov to know things like that.

Eventually, without noticing the influence the other had on him, Shane started using them back.

Shane is mad. And mortified, still. And most of all, he is painfully so, so embarrassed. 

Because this whole situation could have been avoided. Anyone he talks to regularly could have mentioned it, could have told him that it was odd, but no one did. And Shane does knows why.

He’s not the best at reading people, but he’s not oblivious to the way he’s perceived. He knows that people already think of him as a little off, sometimes. It has always been the case.

So they probably didn’t want to push. Didn’t want to risk offending him over something that, to them, was just another one of his quirks. Which makes it much worse, to imagine that people have been talking to him with some sort of kid gloves, and now he’s the last one realizing that he was, indeed, a little strange. 

And Shane can’t help the pang of shame he feels, because he also, simply, liked to incorporate the little brackets into his texting. 

Texting has never really been something he particularly enjoys. The more he does it, the more aware he is of how much can be misread. How difficult it is, sometimes, to tell if someone is joking or serious, if they’re being sarcastic or actually annoyed, if there’s something behind their words that he’s missing. And, in turn, he worries that he cannot express himself well enough, and that he is putting the person he is texting with in the same uncomfortable situation.

Emojis help to emote, they're fine, but sometimes he doesn’t know which to choose to be the most appropriate one to go with his message, and does everyone interpret the little smiling emoji the same way? Is it better to put the one with the bigger smile? And also, so many of his teammates use things like “lol” or “lmao” in condescending, dismissive ways rather than simple laughter, that he doesn’t want to offend anyone by doing the same without meaning to.

So the “Rozanov alternative”, truly, was so much better. One bracket, or two, or maybe three, depending on a simple smile or a real laugh. Closing for something positive, opening for something negative. It’s a small system, and Shane likes those. Easy to use, easy to read.

So seeing this article and Hayden's messages, realizing that to anyone else it is all weird enough to justify writing theories about it, make Shane feels shame so hot he feels his ears burn. 

Shane closes his eyes for a moment. Rozanov fucking sucks, but he’s not really wrong. The article is a bunch of nothing, a pile of speculations stretched so far that it’s simply ridiculous to think about, and even more so to imagine that it could lead to the truth beneath it.

If he lets the initial panic go for a moment, he can admit to himself that it is… nice, to share something like this with Rozanov. Joyful. Sharing parts of your language, even something as small as this stupid thing, feels dauntingly intimate. It makes Shane feel closer to the other. It feels like something he shouldn’t allow, at all.

But Rozanov only speaks in Russian with this friend of his (that Shane is bravely stopping himself from asking more about), which means…

Which means, what? Means that he doesn’t laugh the same way, doesn’t joke the same way, cannot express himself the same with his friends or teammates? That they never bothered to ask him about his texting habits, his language, or that he never wanted to share any of it with them?

That would mean that Rozanov is truer to himself when he talks to Shane, right? More at ease, closer to home?

Which means… Fuck, what does that all mean, really?

His phone buzzes in his hands, the sudden sound putting a stop to his spiraling.

Shane kind of did. He gets angrier at himself for that. 

He would be, he thinks. The more he cogitates on this tiny, quite insignificant thing, he thinks protectively this is a small thing between us, it's ours, it’s ours, it’s ours. And it’s mine, too, and I like texting like this, and it makes sense to me, it makes sense to him. I’m understood, he knows me.

It’s stupid, how kind of a big deal he realizes it is. It shouldn’t be, but it is. 

Shane stares at the conversation for a moment longer, thumbs hovering uselessly over the screen. He then closes the tab he had opened with the article, deciding to firmly ignore it, and hoping that it will blow over quickly like Rozanov seems so certain it will.

Before calling the other man, he switches back to his messages with Hayden. The last text is still sitting there, painfully enthusiastic.

There. He doesn’t think that Hayden will pry much or share information if he asks him not to (Jackie excluded), so it should be fine like this. It’s only to make him feel a little bad about letting Shane dig his own grave of embarrassment. 

Later, he’ll tell him to deny it all, if he’s ever asked about it. Just to be sure.

For now, he just mutes the conversation without waiting for a reply, and opens his ongoing thread with Rozanov again.