Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

F/M, Gen

Fandom:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationships:

David Hollander/Yuna Hollander, Shane Hollander & Yuna Hollander, Yuna Hollander & Original Character(s)

Characters:

Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Shane Hollander, Original Characters

Additional Tags:

POV Yuna Hollander, Magical Realism, Good Parent Yuna Hollander, Protective Yuna Hollander, Non-Linear Narrative, yuna does not fuck around with the magic shit, she loves her family so fucking much though

Language:

English

Series:

Part 30 of heated rivalry masterlist, Part 6 of ghostly ghouls get game

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-13 Words: 3,800 Chapters: 1/1

got a shadow to erase

Summary

When Shane is born, Yuna buries her face into the soft tuft of black hair he was born with and tries her hardest not to cry.

I love you, she thinks, and worries, and knows. And it will not be enough.

OR: Yuna and magic don't exactly get along. Good thing she's not magical.

Notes

Yuna doesn't tell anyone—not even David, in the aftermath—but her greatest fear from when she's six years old until she's seventeen is waking up one day, and finding out that she has suddenly been tied tight to a branch of thaumaturgy.

There is something, still, even as an adult, that is so unwieldy and frightening about the potential weight of it; she doesn't know how anyone survives under the agony of the arcane.

Of course, just because she doesn't understand it doesn't mean that she doesn't respect it.

That would be stupid, and foolish, and a whole host of other insidious things that would leave her isolated in a world that half runs on the damned thread.

She's many things—prideful, overbearing (on occasion), hungry, wary—but she isn't a goddamn idiot.

If she was, she'd never have made it so far.

***

When she's six, her older cousin—though not that much older, despite what Miyu proclaims—brings her to the altar that sits in the woods behind their house.

It's granite, mossy with age, and soaked through with an exhausted aura, as if it has very politely asked to be done, and still is being put to use.

"We're not supposed to play out here," Miyu says gleefully, stepping up to the stone and patting it with both hands. "But I like it."

Under the slap of her palms, Yuna can hear the creak of rock, the slide of stone tumbling down the mountain, the rushing clatter of pebbles scattering under a landslide.

"You shouldn't," she says, and stills at the sound of her voice piercing through the glade. It rings with too many voices, an echo of everyone who has ever said those words before condensed into her throat. "Miyu."

"You're a baby," Miyu retorts, not stepping back. She pats the altar faster, an avalanche of noise rattling out from under her fingers. "What are you going to do? Cry?"

Yuna blinks back hot tears, her face screwing up. Scream, she wants to say. If you don't stop, I'm going to scream until everything stops.

She doesn't, though.

She backs up, carefully, until her feet have left the copse of trees, and reality snaps back into place. Miyu's hands still pat at the stone, but the reckoning underneath it has vanished, the noise culled down to exactly what is expected.

"You're a baby," Miyu says again, laughter in her voice. Her voice shivers, as if there is an echo underneath. All Yuna would need to do is step back into the circle of trees to hear the full throttle of those words, that magnificently horrifying chorus. "Baby, baby, baby."

The Yuna of Before—the Yuna of Ten Minutes Ago—would have stamped her feet, thrown a fit, demanded Miyu take it back. The Yuna of Now, simply steps backwards, again and again and again, tripping over roots and rocks, branches scraping her cheeks, burrs clinging to her tights, until she's out of the woods, staring up at the imposing trees.

"No," she says, very clearly, unsure if anything is listening. And then, because her parents have raised her to be polite, "No, thank you."

***

When Shane is born, Yuna buries her face into the soft tuft of black hair he was born with and tries her hardest not to cry.

I love you, she thinks, and worries, and knows. And it will not be enough.

***

David is a miracle.

He's kind and friendly, handsome and devoted; soft-spoken in public, though, once they're alone he has opinions.

"No," he says, as soon as he sees the flowers she's displayed on her table, set into a crystal vase from her mother. He got them for her two days ago, and she's been diligent about taking care of them, for all that she has a black thumb. She even went to the library and read a goddamn horticulture book, just to figure out how to keep them alive as long as possible. When they start to die, she already has plans to dry them above her kitchen sink, and press a set of petals between two of her thickest books. So to hear an immediate no, is unbelievably aggravating. "Those need to be in a window."

She blinks at him, her mouth twisting into an annoyed moue, but he's already moving, the soft, velvet petals rustling as he sets them on the table she has by her back windows.

"They'll get sick," he says, brushing a finger over the leaves. The sun will slant over them as it sets, making the colors pop even more than they already do, and she hates to admit it, but the room already feels better, a tightness unwound from the very air. "And it'll make you sick." He turns to look at her, a faint smile on his face. "We can't have that, Yuna. Not when you're so close to finishing this semester perfectly."

She softens, the outrage that had been building in her sternum collapsing under his gentleness.

"You sure that's the only reason?" she asks, extending hand out, smug, as always, as he ambles over to her immediately. He flushes, the same kind of pink that's smeared across the dusky winter sky outside, and doesn't answer, pressing a kiss to the back of her knuckles. "Oh, I see."

He grins at her, broad and sly, the smile only she gets, and his eyes sparkle as he meets her arched gaze.

"Well," he starts, terribly clever and pleased with the opening she's left him, but before he can even start, she's already darting in, kissing the laughter off his mouth.

***

The drive is long, David missing from her passenger seat as she cruises down the relatively barren highway to New Hampshire.

Shane and Wormy, who he is very insistent upon taking with them everywhere, are quiet in the backseat, pointing at red cars every so often, but mostly just looking.

Her stomach twists.

She'd thought long and hard about it, weighing the potentials in her mind, before deciding: the witchcraft was sound, and humble, enough for her to risk it.

She doesn't want Shane to grow up afraid of the arcane—not like she was—but she doesn't want him seeking it out.

This is fine.

They'll go, and find their fortunes in the snow and sap, and then maybe, maybe, she'll know enough about how to get Shane everything he wants.

She'll know enough to protect him from the horrors of the world. To keep him safe. To build a home that is perfect for him.

Or, she thinks five hours later, resettling in the car, I get confirmation of something I already know to do.

She bites back a sigh, turning the key and meets Shane's eyes in the rearview mirror, before he immediately darts them away.

"You ready?" she asks, and smiles at his enthusiastic nod. "I love you," she says, just like she does every night. "To the moon and back, Shanebug."

"Stars, too," Shane says, following the same script. "All the stars, too, Mama."

"And I love you with the might of all the stars," Yuna says. "You ready to go home and see Daddy?"

"Uh huh," Shane says, stroking carefully over the rings of stitches that circle Wormy's body. "I'm gonna tell him I saw six cars today."

"Six?" Yuna repeats, as she back up. "You saw six whole cars?"

"Yes!" Shane crows, and she can see him grinning down at his lap, her perfect, perfect son, and she burns at the thought of having to be told to listen to him.

I could listen all day, she wants to say, to prove. Watch me. Annoyance lingers on her tongue, though it fades the further they get from the sugar shack, Shane's cheerfulness a balm against her fraying nerves.

"Mama," Shane says, hours into the journey. They're nearly back, the roads dark and quiet. "I love you to the moon and earth and all the stars too, okay? I can do it, too."

"Of course, baby," Yuna murmurs. Her headlights illuminate the road in front of them, the silver moonlight streaming in from her sunroof when she glances back, Shane's eyes glinting, pewter lining the crown of his head. "You can do anything."

***

Shane Hollander echoes with that golden gleam of power in every voice that says it. She flips through broadcasts, her pen and paper set beside her, ready for any notes—because she will not let him be taken unaware by any shifting changes now, not after he's come so far—but the urge to keep track fades with every voice that says her son's name.

Shane Hollander, the television croons, and all Yuna can taste is blood from her bitten raw lips. Boy-Savior of Montreal.

***

Being a mother is hard.

She knew this. Knows it. Wanted it regardless.

But she doesn't—and, sometimes, when she catches herself thinking this way, she does feel bad, for the judgment it casts—but she doesn't cut corners.

She doesn't let Shane chase after charmed toys or watch enhanced TV shows or hang out with children whose parents talk loudly about their enchanted playpens.

It helps, in some ways—because more control always does—but it hinders in most; they've got a reputation for being stuck-up, for thinking themselves better than other families.

Those arrogant, uppity Hollander's, she pretends she doesn't hear. Too good for the common folk.

Well, she catches, the words a blaze of censure, spilling down from the worst of them, as she bites her tongue against the tireless swell of ire that rises deep in her chest. What do you expect, with a mother that's so controlling?

Poor Shane, people murmur, tsking after her and her perfect son. Poor little Shane.

Fuck you, she wants to snarl at them. Fuck you, for letting your children chase after monsters that pretend to be friends. Fuck you, for letting the stitching of the world grow a little tighter, for thinking yourselves better for having the flashiest toys, even as you try to pretend you're the highest of highs in society.

Fuck you, she wants to spit. There's a reason the wealthiest of people rely on actual human help, and it's not because it looks good. It's because they know the dangers of arcana, it's because they know that there's a cost, and they're unwilling to let their children pay it.

She knows it's a fucking blessing to not have to rely on those magical means. She knows. But none of the other parents understand; she's fucking terrified.

She's lucky, too, because Shane also doesn't want to. He has no interest in following after the masses and following enchantments around. Truly, it makes all the difference in the world.

All he wants to do is hockey and to skate and hockey and to skate some more.

It makes it easy. He makes it easy.

***

"You know," David says, when they're lying in bed, sweaty and sated four days after she's proposed. "My mother is a hedgewitch."

Yuna blinks at him, all her thoughts on round two disappearing as she cranes her neck to find him already staring down at her.

"You don't like magic," David says, into the terrible quiet. "So I understand if you want to call this off."

"I love you," Yuna says, as her hand tightens where it's resting on his ribcage. Her mind races; why the hell is he bringing this up now? They've just agreed to get married—she sort of thinks that if there is a real problem, he should have either brought it up earlier, before she proposed, or sucked it the fuck up. Bringing it up now feels cruelly insane. "That's enough."

"Yuna," he says, soft and quiet. His face is open, for all that he sounds tentative, and for a moment she gets lost in the murmur of desire that's always running through her when she's with him. "It's not something I can turn off."

She blinks at him. "I know that," she says, faint indignance rising in her voice. Does he think she's an idiot? "I don't want you to."

It's his turn to blink at her.

"Your mom and I have talked about magic before," she says, louder than she means to be. "You've scolded me about flowers and plants almost every time you came to see me before we moved in together and you regularly greeted the trees we passed on our walks around McGill like they were your old friends." She stares at him. "Did you think I didn't know?"

"You never said anything," he says, and she balls up her hand and thumps him in the thigh, scowling when he groans exaggeratedly.

"It's your magic," she says, rubbing her thumb over the spot in quiet apology, though she knows she'd thump him again if he's an idiot. "You're the one who deals with it, not me! And what the hell even brought this up?"

He shrugs. "I was just thinking about what it would mean for our kids," he murmurs, his gaze sliding off of hers to settle on the ceiling. "It might be a part of them, too."

"Well," she says, after thirty seconds of staring at him. They've discussed children—had, in fact discussed them on the fifth date, because she was nothing if not a planner—but hearing those words now make it all the more real. "Well that's—" she sniffs, meeting his eyes. "I mean, they'll be our kids," she says. "And I love you. I don't see how that would change, even if you infect them with your—" She waves a hand at him, hiding a smile when he grins brightly at her. "Your whole thing."

"Well, okay then," David says, and then his warm palms are sliding up her spine, and everything dissolves back into heat and love and laughter.

***

"And, the Montreal Metros pick Shane Hollander!"

Oh, god, Yuna thinks, even though this is what she's been dreaming for Shane for years. This is what he wants, she reminds herself. She'll just have to—fuck. She and Farah will need to go over his contract—oh, god—his capital C, Contract, with a fine-toothed comb.

It'll be fine, she tells herself, as she sweeps him into a hug. He'll be fine.

He has to be.

***

"You know, people say that these are wishes made real," Shelby says, as Yuna stares at the firefly caught in her palm. The June sun has just set, the start of their summer between seventh and eight grade a miracle that Yuna is only sort of glad to have. She's certainly not going to tell anyone, but she already misses the structure of her classes, the comfort of knowing where exactly she needs to be for hours of a day.

In Shelby's fenced-in backyard, a flurry of bugs flickers in and out between the leaves of bushes. Shelby had reached out and plucked one out of the air with a freaky sort of ease. Yuna sort of wants to see if she has that same sort of accuracy on the ice. Light flares from between her loosely closed fingers, Yuna staring at the impossible glint of light as Shelby continues, "My mom says that magic was supposed to be a light for all, but then people got weird about it, so magic made lightning bugs to remind 'em that it's supposed to be good."

"That's stupid," Caroline says, from where she's fiddling with her necklace. Jake, her boyfriend from a whole grade up—which Caroline will not shut up about, despite it being unimpressive since Jake's a dumbass (though, Yuna's not supposed to use that word since it's apparently "too harsh" or whatever, but she's also not a liar so it's been a cold war of friendship for the past week and a half)—gave it to her two weeks ago, and it's stained her skin an odd, sickly green shade. "Magic is dumb."

"I mean, I'm not going to say that," Shelby mutters, and opens her hand. The firefly lingers, the pulse of its light hypnotizing. "But if you want to piss it off, go right ahead."

Yuna shakes her head, but stays quiet. She's not getting involved. She wishes Shelby hadn't brought up magic. She wishes it wasn't so easy to use. She wishes people could just leave it the hell alone.

***

It's the purring, that makes Yuna realize that something is off about the room.

Shane's been curled up in a ball, face pressed tight against his knees, hands sealed over his ears, stuffed into a corner of the couch, his head hardly visible even over the arm of it. He'd only gotten there after David had picked him up from where he was shivering on the tiles.

She feels utterly useless in these moments, the ones where she's searching for anything that could bring her baby a modicum of relief. But Shane is—not impossible, because he could never be—but he's unable to communicate in a way she's still somehow completely unprepared for, despite this not being a new situation.

But the purring.

The purring is new.

She lifts herself up from the kitchen chair, careful to step on the quiet pieces of the floor—the first time Shane had whined at the creak of wood under her feet, she'd wanted to rip the all of the pristine maple flooring up and make it sawdust, for its crime of existing—and makes her way into the living room, blinking at the sight of Smokey sitting on top of Shane, his little chest rumbling like a raspy engine.

Shane's hand is off his ear, pressed into the soft fur, and she's so fucking relieved that it takes her too long to understand: Smokey shouldn't be here.

"Ah," David says, startling her from behind as she swallows down her shriek, whirling to find him peering at the couch. "Smokey's visiting?"

She blinks at him, waiting for him to meet her eyes and give her an explanation. Instead, he stares back serenely, seemingly unconcerned about his parent's cat mysteriously appearing out of nowhere.

"Yes?" Yuna finally answers. "And this is… expected?"

David shrugs, and she fights back the urge to shake him. "I mean, he's a cat and he adores Shane," he says, like that's an explanation for anything. "He's going to visit."

Yuna waits, but he doesn't say anything more as he leans placidly against the doorframe, his gaze fixed back on Shane. She, very carefully, turns back to the couch and resists the urge to throttle every Hollander—besides Shane—she's ever met.

***

"And, this is our greenhouse," David's mom, Anna says, gesturing at the building set off in the back. She's beaming when Yuna glances at her, a floppy sunhat on her head, a smear of dirt streaked across her nose. There’s a shallow tin pail of blueberries clenched tight in Yuna's hands, her fingers stained with blue from where she offered to help with the bushes. "But it's not important, Yuna! Tell me about your life instead, sweetheart. Is David driving you insane yet?" She clicks her tongue, shaking her head. "You know this, of course, but Mark and I were astounded when he brought you home. I mean, golly, look atcha! So smart, so beautiful, so strong, and frighteningly good at hockey—we thought, well, look at this one! David's found himself a real perfect person, huh? And I don't say that to put some pressure on you—"

Anna continues talking, her voice lilting and kind, rambling down the type of conversation that doesn't need Yuna to respond as they settle in on the wicker chairs that decorate the elder Hollander's back porch. Smokey, who's been following them all afternoon, saunters into the shadows of the table, before seeming to remember himself, and hops up into Yuna's lap.

She buries a hand in his fur, and lets the rumbling engine in his chest lull her into a state of warm, liquid ease.

"—and I said to myself, now, what do we think David thinks about this whole mess? Because, of course, you know, we didn’t want to add to his plate when he was just starting university, but it's still a family matter, which is why I'm telling you about it—"

The sun is warm on Yuna's skin, the July heat pleasant for once, and Yuna lets herself lean back, uncaring of the dirt on the blueberries as she snags a handful, nodding along every so often when Anna glances at her.

The hearth-wards hum in the distance, magic lapping at her temples, and for once, she feels at peace, listening to her soon-to-be mother in-law talk —not for the first time—about David's initial foray into baking.

***

"Mom," Shane says, a quiet solemness to his voice that she's never heard before. They're debriefing at his apartment after his game in Boston, with the two of them curled up on the couch and David out on Shane's balcony, checking in on the holly bush thicket he planted for Shane when he moved in five years ago.

Boy-Savior of Montreal, David had muttered, looking almost annoyed for once in his life. He'd been all sappy fondness, though, as he reached out and ruffled Shane's hair. You think they know he doesn't do the dishes?

I don't like the texture and you know that!, Shane had squawked, so indignant that Yuna had started to laugh, the sound of it echoing off the empty rooms that were waiting to be filled.

Shane's shift in his tone is enough of a change that she drags her eyes upwards, startled at the directness of his gaze, before he drops his eyes, his socked feet landing on the floor.

"Mom," he repeats, like he needs to ready himself for something, like he's scared, and Yuna's already rising out of her seat, dropping down to her knees as he curls in on himself like he hasn't since he was ten years old. "Mom," he says for a third time, directly into his kneecaps, and this time she can hear the weight behind it, the three-name invocation of some binding that he shouldn't need to talk to her. "I need help."

Oh god, Yuna thinks, before a wave of understanding crashes through her. She knows the higher-power Shane has been sworn to; she knows some of the weight of his crown. There is no mistaking what this is.

"Shane," she says, as rage begins to build under her tongue. She doesn't need sorcery to untangle this web of betrayal; she feels like she's been waiting her whole life for this. Venom is in her mouth, acid pooling in her stomach, wrath sinking into her veins. "What have they done to you?"