Chapter Text
He cut the video call, leaving his agent mid-goodbye. He would probably text her later to apologize, but Shane couldn’t stand listening to her for another second.
On one hand, he felt a bit better now that he was alone again and the silence of his penthouse enveloped him. On the other, he was so angry he didn't know how he would face the final playoff series.
The season was about to end. He was four games away, if he was lucky, from the Stanley Cup belonging to the Metros once again. For the second time since he had joined the team.
He didn’t need luck, he thought then. He just had to keep giving it his all and push his team hard enough so they would leave everything on the ice for the next four games.
Because if there was one thing he was absolutely sure of right now, it was that the last thing he wanted was to reach Game 7. Not with everything that was coming down on him.
He couldn't believe what his agent had just told him. He didn't understand, either, how it couldn't have waited just a little longer, with the off-season so close to starting.
“I’m sorry, Shane. It came as a direct order from the Prime Minister. It will be made public soon, but everyone required to participate had to be informed today, no matter what.”
Fuck the Prime Minister. And all of North America, for that matter.
Because if the situation in the US were any different, Shane would be seriously thinking about leaving the Metros right now and doing whatever it took to sign with an American team. That’s how badly the information he had just received hit him. He hated it so much that he was already betraying his team in his own head just to escape what he had to do.
But in the end, that’s all it was. A fantasy in his head. Because if Shane wanted to keep playing hockey, he had no other choice but to obey the new rule that had been established.
Against his better judgment, he headed to his home gym.
Bad, terrible idea, his rational side told him. But he needed an outlet for all the feelings swirling around inside him.
He shouldn’t be exhausting himself like this with the next game only two days away, he told himself. Yet he had already been on the stationary bike for forty minutes, right after a whole round of his regular-season exercises. Routine he hadn’t touched since the playoffs started.
His phone rang, and he tried to ignore it. But when the ringtone ended and started right back up again, cutting through the relaxing music he had put on to help him calm down, he decided it was better to answer and just get whoever it was off his back.
"What," he snapped, without even checking the number.
"Wow, buddy, easy. From your tone, I'm assuming you already found out."
"Hayden," he began, lowering the resistance on the stationary bike to the absolute minimum.
"Let's meet up tomorrow, an hour before practice? To talk," Hayden said, at least going straight to the point.
It sounded like the worst idea in the world. All Shane wanted was to forget the news entirely and focus on what truly mattered. Hockey. He didn't want to be too blunt in his answer, though, so he started telling him he wasn't sure if it was a good idea. Basically saying no, but in a polite way.
"Shane, please. I need to talk to my best friend. Jackie is... I don't know, man. I just need to talk about this with someone, and I don't know who else."
His pedaling stopped instantly, and a wave of guilt washed over him.
Of course Hayden needed to talk to someone about it. Soon, he would have someone under his care. An adult. Probably a woman. It was normal for Jackie to be... He hadn't said how she was doing, but he could imagine it. Insecure. Angry. Or at least, that's what he would feel if he found out his partner, the father of his three kids, suddenly had to shift their attention to a complete stranger. If Shane were Jackie, he would feel selfish, not wanting to share the little time they still had to themselves with an outsider.
"Fuck, Hayden, yeah. Of course, I'm sorry."
They didn't talk much more after that. In the end, they agreed to meet an hour and a half before practice at their usual coffee shop.
He was grateful the call had snapped him out of his self-destructive thoughts. He didn't know how much longer he would have stayed in the gym otherwise.
He left the room, ready to take a shower and relax a bit. He decided to pull his head out of his ass and be grateful that, at least, his situation wasn't as bad as Hayden's.
Another stab of guilt hit him as he realized he was trying to make himself feel better at his best friend's expense.
God, Shane was a mess most of the time, and his home was the only place where he could allow himself to actually be a mess without much repercussions. Sometimes, at least. And now, all that peace he had managed to build was going to disappear. The silence he loved so much would be constantly interrupted by the voice of someone demanding things he might not even be able to provide.
And that was the biggest problem. Because he would have to do it anyway, right? There was no way he could be negligent with the person assigned to him and get away with it in the end. All of that would just lead to trouble, and he'd end up unable to play the sport he loved.
He forced himself to go through the rest of his routine as normally as possible, unable to stop thinking about how a new person would even fit into it.
The only good part was that, at the very least, this new addition would have to adapt to him and his rules.
..........
Once he was with Hayden at their usual table, coffee in hand, several minutes passed in silence until his friend couldn't take it anymore and just started vomiting word after word.
He forced himself to really listen, to nod at the right moments, and to ask the questions that popped up along the way.
They complained about the incredibly soft stance the MHL was taking on the matter. They were hockey players, for God's sake, not fucking social workers.
When Canada had implemented the regulation years ago, it was optional. And it hadn't been a bad idea, or at least it hadn't seemed like one back then.
Any citizen could participate in a sort of lottery. The system consisted of matchmaking people under TPE contracts.
On one hand, for the people who needed it, it was a way to solve practically all their problems. They wouldn't have to worry about a thing anymore. Someone would take care of them, feed them, support them, and look after every single one of their needs. In exchange, they only had to give up their autonomy and their right to make decisions. They would have food, yes, but only what the person newly in charge of them decided to give them. They would have money for pretty much whatever they wanted, but they could only use it if that person deemed it appropriate.
It was practically the only way a low-income person or someone with fewer opportunities could gain access to a life of luxury, stability, and protection.
Now that he thought about it more carefully, he wasn't sure how good of an idea it actually was. The person willing to go through that had to be pretty desperate to find the trade-off worth it.
On the other hand, for people in positions of power and money, it was a way to give back to society for everything life had handed them. Or at least, that's what was said. As if those people had gotten there by the grace of the holy spirit and not because they had sacrificed everything to achieve it. Shane knew exactly how much it had cost him to make a living playing the sport he loved.
In general, it was actually very well-regarded for someone to participate in the system as Dom/Master. Such a person was seen as having a high sense of responsibility, as someone trustworthy, and it was also assumed that they would never abuse their power. Neither with the person under their care nor at their jobs.
Because if there was one thing everyone was sure of, it was that even though a TPE agreement was signed, the well-being of the submissive person came above everything else.
So sure, the Master could feed them whatever they wanted, but it couldn't be scarce, and it had to be varied enough to meet a person's nutritional needs. And the same went for every other aspect. If the person already had a job and wanted to keep it, the Master had to provide whatever was necessary for them to maintain it, unless they presented concrete evidence as to why they believed their slave's request should be denied.
But at the end of the day, that's all it was, Shane thought. Requests from the submissive/slave person and a Master who believed they knew what was best for them.
And Shane would somehow have to manage to be that person.
The government believed that all of this made rich people more human and grounded. More connected to reality. As if they weren't handing them even more power.
Maybe that had been the idea from the very beginning? It wasn't enough for them to have everything humanly possible anymore, they also wanted to legally own a person.
But no, that couldn't be it, because that was actually what had gotten them all into this mess in the first place.
Somehow, people in privileged positions understood the power being handed to them, they didn't take it lightly, and most chose to reject it.
So much so that the demand list grew longer and longer, without a wide enough supply to match it. Because, after all, social hierarchy had always been a pyramid, and there weren't enough people at the top to take care of everyone's needs.
But the government wanted to keep washing its hands, refusing to actually take responsibility for solving the root problems so people wouldn't be desperate enough to resort to this kind of solution. So, what were they doing instead? Passing a law that made it mandatory for everyone in a position of abundance to take charge of at least one person society had cast aside.
If anyone dared to reject the idea entirely, now that it was mandatory, they would be stripped of the position of power they held, under the claim that they didn't deserve it in the first place, and their assets would become state property.
And what would Shane do then, if he couldn't play hockey for a living?
It was what he had been doing professionally since he was eighteen, but he had been skating practically since he learned to walk. He hadn't even studied past what was strictly necessary.
What kind of fucked-up society were they turning into?
He and Hayden, it seemed, were the only ones actually thinking that, since the general population had been protesting heavily over the last few months about the low participation of powerful people in the system.
The protests had been violent enough for things to come to this conclusion.
Wasn't it like shooting themselves in the foot? Shane thought as well.
The people making these kinds of laws would clearly be among those obligated to take charge of someone. Or maybe that was what they wanted from the very beginning?
He forced himself to hold back the sigh threatening to escape and kept listening to his friend.
If Hayden, who had a wife and three kids, couldn't find a way out of it, then there was no hope for Shane.
"So, we came to the conclusion that we’ll buy them a house, give them a monthly allowance of a few thousand dollars, and that's it. Maybe you can do the same."
Hayden knew how freaked out Shane was about his routine. That was probably the best thing that could happen to the poor bastard or woman who ended up matched with his best friend, anyway. No one deserved to go through the diet Shane forced himself to follow, or the strict schedule he had established for every single day of his life, including every stage of it. Pre-season, regular season, playoff season. The two weeks when he would completely vanish and no one could contact him...
Hayden loved him, of course, but even to this day, he was looking for a way to help him and make his life a little less... miserable. And out of the affection he had for him, he wasn't going to let him make someone else's life miserable, only to end up in trouble with the government.
"Oh. That actually sounds like an excellent idea. But what about... you know..."
Hayden definitely didn't know, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know what was going through his friend's mind at that moment.
"It's just, I thought there would be..."
He was going to make Hayden ask him, wasn't he?
"I'm not really sure, I haven't done enough research on it yet because I was in denial and..."
Shane kept talking for a long time, beating around the bush over and over, until Hayden couldn't take it anymore and demanded he just spit out whatever it was he wanted to say.
"Rules. And punishments. And sex. I thought that was part of the whole contract too."
Oh my god. That was something he and Jackie hadn't considered. They thought they would just have to take care of the person's basic needs. Was sex considered a basic need? Based on Shane, his lack of sex, and how he lived his life, apparently yes, it was something pretty basic, and the lack of it could have really negative consequences.
"Fuck. I think we’re going to have to do a lot more research, buddy. Jackie is going to kill me."
"Yeah," Shane replied.
And so, they spent the remaining half hour they had before practice digging up as much information as possible on how the system actually worked. And how they would manage to make sure it impacted their professional lives (and in Hayden's case, his family) as little as possible.