Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

F/M, Gen, M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationships:

David Hollander/Yuna Hollander, David Hollander & Shane Hollander & Yuna Hollander, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

David Hollander, Yuna Hollander, Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Episode: s01e06 The Cottage (Heated Rivalry), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Shane Hollander

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-11 Words: 1,837 Chapters: 1/1

christmas sweater

Summary

David’s first thought is, I need to tell Yuna.

His third thought is, if I out my son I will lose his trust forever.

In between those two thoughts is holy fucking shit that was Ilya Rozanov.

Notes

Inspired by this tweet: https://x.com/i/status/2075422278762791148

David’s first thought is, I need to tell Yuna.

His third thought is, if I out my son I will lose his trust forever.

In between those two thoughts is holy fucking shit that was Ilya Rozanov.

He’s not sure if they saw him—though he knows they saw someone, and it’s not like there’s anyone else who would have been in Shane’s cottage other than Yuna, and Yuna wouldn’t have left—but he needs to text Shane and reassure him that he won’t say anything, not until Shane wants him to. 

So little of Shane’s life gets to be private, and even less from Yuna, and no matter how much it makes David’s chest ache to think that his son didn’t trust them with this, he can’t begrudge Shane the secret.

Either this is something new that Shane is just testing out, and telling them would only add a complication, or it’s something serious—and David is inclined to think it is, because Shane hates people in his space and wouldn’t invite someone over just to impress them—and Shane is holding onto it the way he used to sleep holding on to his stuffed bear, one of the other things that he ever got from David’s mom before she died, curled around it like he can protect it if he doesn’t let anyone see it.

And Ilya Rozanov—if they’re serious, he will be just exposed nerves for Shane, things that it will hurt for anyone else to touch.

Shane has a pain tolerance that scares David, but as a kid if he had to wear something with the wrong texture, or that was a little too tight, or that brushed up against his skin too much, he would hold himself more and more still until he was practically a statue, like that was the only thing keeping him from losing his shit. When Shane was four or five, David’s sister-in-law Marie stuck Shane in some heinous Christmas sweater, and Shane scratched himself bloody through it when she wouldn’t let him take it off.

It was the last time David ever brought Shane around her.

David would have thought Ilya Rozanov in Shane’s space would be like that sweater.

But Shane doesn’t tolerate things like that. He doesn’t invite them into his house. If he didn’t want Rozanov near him, Rozanov wouldn’t be anywhere near him.

Shane must want him there, and he must not want anyone to know.

So David needs to tell them that David won’t tell, not until and unless Shane wants him to.

Once he’s done driving.

Yuna’s outside glaring contemplatively at a plant that she thinks is out of place near the house when he pulls into the driveway, and she looks up when he stops the car, smiling and striding over before he can manage to get out his phone and send a quick text to Shane.

He smiles back, hoping I just saw our son with Ilya Rozanov isn’t visible anywhere on his face.

“That was quick,” she says as he gets out.

“He was outside,” David says, which is true. “I didn’t want to bother him. And you know how much he hates people going through his stuff.”

“Our son, the neatnik,” she says, amused. Their house is neat, but Shane’s spaces sometimes look like he’s ready for a spontaneous magazine shoot. At least the cottage isn’t as sterile, but he hates mess, and he hates people moving his things.

Yuna and David can get away with it to varying degrees—Yuna much more so than David—but Shane still hates it. He just puts up with it because they’re his parents.

“I can’t believe he’s doing a silent retreat,” she says, not for the first time.

David thinks, probably not that silent.

He says, “Are you really that surprised?”

Yuna rolls her eyes. “I am all for dedication, but once he’s willing to talk again, I think I’m going to need to explain to him that talking doesn’t actually make you worse at hockey.” She brushes a kiss against David’s lips. “I can’t keep staring at this fucking plant.”

They head inside.

David checks his phone.

It’s dead.

Which is why he went to Shane’s in the first place, because he can’t find his charger, and for some reason Yuna’s phone uses a different charger, but Shane keeps extras of extras everywhere because of his need to be in control.

“I’m going to look for my charger again,” David says. “Maybe it fell behind something.”

“Sure,” Yuna says, with that same amusement as when she talked about Shane.

David hasn’t doubted her love for him since the early days of their relationship. He doesn’t want to think about how long Shane has been doubting it.

He finds a charger he doesn’t remember owning in a drawer in the kitchen of all places after hunting through basically every other drawer and cabinet in the house, and he’s just plugging his phone in when he hears a car pull up and Yuna say, “Huh, that’s Shane’s car. I wonder if he got sick of not talking to anyone.”

David swallows. His heart is pounding, suddenly.

He wants to go out there. To say, I didn’t tell her. I won’t tell her. You don’t need to do this.

He looks out the window and sees Shane unfold himself from his car—and then, from the passenger’s side, Ilya Rozanov, in a black Raiders t-shirt.

“Tabarnak,” he breathes. He takes off towards the door.

Shane beats him there.

It’s an awkward almost-collision, Yuna from one direction, David from another, and Shane opening the door to see both of them. He freezes, Ilya Rozanov visible behind him.

Shane looks like nothing so much as five-year-old him, the moment before David pulled the sweater up over his head and saw the bloody scratches. David thought then that if he ever saw that look on his son’s face again it would break his heart.

He was right.

I didn’t tell her, David wants to say. 

“Um,” Shane says. His eyes dart between the two of them. “I’m sure Dad told you that I, um—”

“I didn’t,” David says.

“Oh.” Shane blinks at him. This clearly wasn’t in the script, and David can see him trying to recalibrate.

Yuna opens her mouth.

“Hollander,” Rozanov says from behind Shane. Then, as a concession to the fact that everyone else here is a Hollander, he corrects himself to, “Shane. Maybe we do not need to stand in the doorway.”

“Right,” Shane says. He glances back at Rozanov like he’s contemplating just leaving as a solution to not standing in the doorway.

Before he can do that, Yuna says, “Oh yeah, come in.” She laughs. It doesn’t sound convincing.

Shane winces. So does David.

But it’s too late now to do all of this a different way, so they all shuffle into the living room. David and Yuna sit. Shane hovers in the doorway, looking as uncertain as David has ever seen him. Like a challenge, Rozanov reaches out and takes his hand.

“We are lovers,” Rozanov says baldly, before anyone else can say anything.

Shane sighs. “That sounds gross, Ilya. Do you have to put it that way?”

“Oh sorry,” Rozanov says, lightly mocking. “We have non-lover sex. Is that better?”

Yuna coughs like something is stuck in her throat, and David feels his face go hot. Shane grimaces. “No.” He looks at the two of them. “We’re. I mean. We’re together. Dad saw. I’m gay.”

Yuna turns an accusing look on David, who says, “It wasn’t my place to say anything.”

“To me?”

“I decided I wanted our son to still talk to me, once he was done with his silent retreat,” David says, a little apologetically. He looks at Shane—and at Rozanov, who looks remarkably calm. “I’m sorry. I was going to tell you, but my phone died, which was why I was there in the first place, looking for a charger. I’m sorry.”

“I would have still talked to you,” Shane says, like he’s confused by David would think otherwise. “I’m sorry. I know this makes things more complicated, and I tried not to, but….” He looks at Rozanov and makes it clear what the but is.  

“Was it the All-Star Game in Tampa?” Yuna asks. She has her puzzle-solving face on, the one that comes out when she thinks she’s gotten the answer and just wants to validate it. “It was after Rose, and you looked…friendly.”

“Ah,” Rozanov says. He smiles a little. “Yes, but also no.”

“It was our rookie year,” Shane says. “We weren’t together while I was with Rose, obviously.”

“Your rookie year,” Yuna breathes. David can’t believe it, either—except he can, because Ilya Rozanov has been the ghost haunting their family since that first game that they played against each other, and Shane has never talked about him the way he talks about the players he truly hates.

The worst insult Shane can pay a player is to not bother to know about them. When asked about most players, he can and will recite their career statistics—but when asked about Dallas Kent, he’ll shrug dismissively and say he’s overrated or mediocre on his good days.

Shane has always known every detail of every game Rozanov has ever played, as far back as there are records. Before they played against each other the first time in Regina, before the draft, Shane watched every bit of tape that he could get his hands on of Rozanov.

David remembers Yuna talking about him staying up late to watch video of games commentated in Russian, laboriously transcribing the commentary about Rozanov phonetically so he could look it up and try to learn a little more about him.

Smugly, Rozanov says, “The summer before.”

Shane sighs.

He looks—

He looks the way he looked after David took that sweater off of him, while he was cleaning up the scratches and telling him that David would never make him see Marie again, that David would never make him wear a sweater like that again, and that if someone else did and wouldn’t let him take it off then Shane should bite them.

“Stay for dinner,” David tells them. He hopes Shane knows it’s an apology and a welcome. He hopes Rozanov knows the same.

Shane looks at Rozanov, and in that moment he looks just like Yuna when she looks at David.

Next to him, Yuna reaches over and grabs his hand, squeezing tight.

And then Rozanov turns a bright smile on both of them and says, “Yes, we will stay. But only if food is not bird food like Shane’s.”

“I fed you hamburgers,” Shane protests indignantly.

“Yes, yes,” Ilya agrees with an indulgent smile. He leans over and kisses the side of Shane’s head.

“Hamburgers are real—”

Rozanov claps a hand over Shane’s mouth, but he’s laughing, and so is Shane, and David thinks it might be okay.