Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

Gen, M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

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

Characters:

Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Hayden Pike, Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Svetlana Vetrova

Additional Tags:

Injured Shane Hollander, Hospitals, Texting, Identity Porn, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Good Parent Yuna Hollander, Protective Yuna Hollander, POV Yuna Hollander, little bit of sexting, Sex Positive Yuna Hollander, Good Parent David Hollander, Angst and Feels, Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry), yuna isn't a perfect person and that's okay, Angst and Humor, Confusion, Coming Out, Yuna Hollander Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, David Hollander Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Mother-Son Relationship, Mommy Issues, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Family, Family Feels, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, POV Outsider on Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Anxiety, 中文翻译 | Translation in Chinese, Medical Inaccuracies, jane and lily, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov Relationship Timeline Reveal

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of heated rivalry social media fics, Part 1 of i need sunshine (Ilya & Hollanders), Part 3 of all dwk heated rivalry fics

Collections:

Stoopid Gay Hockey Players, greenlight, My heart is full, Relationship Reveal HR, Love is forever, Hockey Boyfriends, Heated Rivalry, Heroes hive👀

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-12 Completed: 2026-01-29 Words: 31,720 Chapters: 12/12

where nobody knows you

Summary

After a moment, Hayden pulls back. Then he hands her the phone—Shane’s phone.

“I grabbed this when I was getting his stuff and I saw, well.”

He looks away from Yuna, briefly glances at David, then looks away from him too. There’s an oddly guilty look on his face that has Yuna suspicious at once.

“Um, has Shane told you guys about Lily?”

--

AKA, Yuna and David find out about Lily, Shane’s... girlfriend?, while he's in the hospital. It's a while before they find out about Ilya.

Featuring:
- high Shane
- Ilya angst
- theories about who Lily could be
- Yuna & "Lily" texting
- identity shenanigans

Notes

I haven't seen anyone write a fic where Yuna and David find out about Lily, so... here's my offering! (Btw if you know of any, PLEASE SEND THEM TO ME, I am desperate)

I'm pretty sure in canon this game was played in Boston but just pretend it was a Montreal game okay thankssss jk it was in Montreal lol

Warning for a bit of embarrassment!! I don't think it's too bad but ymmv. Please let me know if I'm missing any tags!

Title from I'll Believe In Anything

EDIT: just want to say that this was NOT written with AI. I hate AI and would never use it even as a spell check. I know this was written very quickly but as you'll see in my author notes I was stuck at home for 5 days & the high of getting so many lovely comments really inspired me ❤️

• Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: 【授权翻译】Where nobody knows you by Wwwwinter

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

Yuna knows, vaguely, that Hayden is in the waiting room when they arrive.

She has no time to worry about him, not when Shane is somewhere in this hospital, injured to an unknown degree and completely alone. So she lets David deal with him, blowing past his tense body and the dozen empty chairs right up to the nurse’s desk.

“Shane Hollander,” she says before the nurse can even open her mouth. “We’re his parents. Yuna and David Hollander. Where is he?”

The nurse is not so urgent. She takes her time to check both Yuna’s ID and Shane’s hospital records which clearly state his parents are his emergency contacts and can know everything. When she finally gives Yuna the room number, Yuna’s insides are trembling with pent-up fear.

Another day, she’ll be glad that the hospital is being thorough. That not just anyone can go upstairs and see Shane, who they see not as her boy but instead as a world-renowned hockey star.

Today, she is annoyed and scared and short. “Thank you so much,” she snaps, and turns to find David.

Instead of hanging back to talk to Hayden, he’s just behind her, and he catches her elbows with soft hands. Concern deepens the lines of his face when he asks, “Do you have his room number?”

She knows she should be soft. She should stay calm, because someone needs to, and it needs to be her. But it’s impossible when every time she closes her eyes, all she can see is her son, her baby, Shane on the ice—still and not moving—surrounded by fighting and paramedics—being put onto a backboard and escorted out— No. She can’t stay calm. She can’t be soft.

“Yep, let’s go.”

They make it upstairs quickly, no time to fuck around. Hayden comes with, a silent, nervous shadow. In his hand, she’ll realize later, he’s clutching Shane’s phone. He keeps looking at it, but Yuna is too busy tapping her foot and cursing out slow elevators in her head to notice.

She explodes out of the elevator the second the doors begin opening, finding the nurse’s station on this floor with ease. There, the nurse tells them that Shane is okay—he’s in surgery, surgery for what Yuna demands, and is told the doctor will be out shortly. Then she tells them where to sit, a more private waiting room for more high-profile patients, and gives them no further information.

The wait is miserable. David and Hayden sit, but Yuna spends half of it speaking to Thierault on the phone, negotiating the statement they’ll have to make, promising to keep him updated. There’s no reason to ask for Shane’s things, because Hayden has it all, his bag and keys and phone.

As soon as she’s hung up with the coach, Hayden stands, shifting nervously on his feet. It’s only now that she’s able to really think about him at all.

First comes the gratitude that he’s here, that Shane has a friend who cares enough to wait with him instead of going home. Second comes the realization of how upset he looks—his face pinched and his head ducked, his hands shaking a little as they clutch onto a phone. “Mrs. Hollander,” he says, exhausted, forgetting that she’s told him to call her Yuna a thousand times. “I, uh—”

Yuna stops pacing, moving closer to him until she’s got her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He has to hunch down the slightest bit, less than Shane but still familiar. A sigh like relief blows through him, his body sagging into her embrace.

“Thank you for being here,” she tells him, squeezing him gently.

Patting his back, she meets David’s eyes over his shoulder. There’s still fear all over his expression, but he smiles at them too. For a moment, just this one moment, they can all breathe.

After a moment, Hayden pulls back. Then he hands her the phone—Shane’s phone.

“I grabbed this when I was getting his stuff and I saw, well.”

He looks away from Yuna, briefly glances at David, then looks away from him too. There’s an oddly guilty look on his face that has Yuna suspicious at once.

“Um, has Shane told you guys about Lily?”

Yuna and David catch eyes again. There’s no recognition from David—he’s just as in the dark as she is.

“No…,” she says, guiding him to sit between her and David. “Is that a friend of his?”

“No. Or, maybe? I don’t know what they are to each other, but. Ugh.” He sighs, running a hand over the back of his neck. “Shane told me before they took him off to text her. And I think she’s texted him a few times too. I was just going to send something but I can’t get his phone open.”

While he speaks, Yuna presses the button to open the phone. Yes, there on the screen are three texts from a contact named Lily, though it doesn’t give any hint as to what the messages might say.

“He asked you to text her?” David asks.

He nods. “Yeah, he said she was probably freaking out.”

It’s odd to think that there’s someone out there worried about Shane, maybe as much as they are, that Yuna has never met. Someone that Shane thought of first, instead of his best friend or his parents.

David says what she’s really thinking: “Wow. We’ve… we’ve never heard about her.”

There’s something a little distant about his voice. Not hurt, not the way Yuna is maybe feeling, just… confused. Shane doesn’t lie to them, or hide things. He never has, not even when he was a child.

“Maybe she’s a new friend,” Yuna suggests, though she doesn’t really believe it.

Hayden winces, shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so. They’ve been texting for years.”

“Years?” Yuna and David repeat as one, both of them shocked.

Yuna’s sure she doesn’t know the name of every friend Shane has ever had, but she does know the name of every girlfriend—Paige in middle school, Jessica in high school, and Rose Landry just a few months ago. The name Lily has never come up, she’s sure of that.

”I don’t know how long, exactly,” Hayden tells them, apologetic. “Shane never talks about her. But I’m pretty sure she lives in Boston. Every time we play there, he… uh, well, he disappears for a while. Going to see her, I think.”

“So a puck bunny,” Yuna concludes. She’s not horrified or upset—maybe there’s even a part of her that’s relieved. Most hockey players have girls in every city, it seems like, but Shane has never really said anything like that. Shane doesn’t talk to them about his sex life, which is fine, it’s not like Yuna wants to know, but… sometimes people need sex! Especially people who are as high-strung as she and Shane are. So it’s almost nice to know that he’s not totally cooped up, that he’s doing something normal for young men of his age.

“Yuna,” David reprimands gently. Like he can read her mind. But he doesn’t say anything about her thinking too much, not in front of Hayden. “Don’t call her that.”

“What? Am I wrong?”

“I don’t think it’s like that, Mrs. Hollander. I think… I think he really likes her.” Hayden pauses after speaking, watching them both carefully.

Yuna frankly does not have the mental capacity right now to react. If Lily was just a person Shane was sleeping with, then oh well, of course he didn’t tell them. But if he likes her? If they’ve been texting for years?

What is she supposed to do with that?

Thankfully, the doctor interrupts before she or David can react. She’s a no-nonsense woman who approaches them directly, saying, “Are you the Hollander family?”

Hayden looks ready to protest, but Yuna’s not having it. “Yes, we’re his parents, this is his brother. What’s going on? Is Shane okay?”

“He’s doing just fine. We just got him out of surgery, and everything went well. We had to set his collar bone, since there was a clean break there, and he’s got a concussion. Once we bring him out of sedation and he wakes up on his own, we’ll be able to bring you back to see him. Do any of you have any questions?”

Ten minutes later, once Yuna has dragged every answer she can get out of the doctor, they’re left alone again. Relief is a welcome feeling, though the worry can’t possibly be fully soothed until she has Shane in front of her. For now, though, she has things she needs to do—things she can focus on instead of the wait.

“Okay,” she says, falling into her seat, fingers already flying over her phone screen. “Hayden, you text your team and let them know. I’ll tell your coach.”

“And Lily?” David asks.

Yuna passes Shane’s phone to him. When Shane got it, he’d added his fingerprints to it for extra security, adding David’s at the last minute. “In case there’s an emergency,” Shane had emphasized, and Yuna had thought at the time that it was a very smart idea.

Shane never said it, but Yuna knows he asked David to do it because he knew David would never—and has never, up until today—breach his privacy. Yuna is secure enough to know she might not be able to do the same. Look at what she’s doing right now, after all.

Once David has pressed his thumb to the button and the screen has lit up, he hands it back to her. With ease, Yuna navigates to Shane’s messages app, finding Lily right at the top.

She doesn’t intend to read any of their conversation, she doesn’t, but it’s impossible not to read what’s right there on the screen in front of her.

And then, later—

“Oh!” She says, her cheeks heating up at once, and slams the phone down into her lap as if that can erase the things she just saw.

It feels like there’s no space in her brain to comprehend the texts, much less react to them. She knows Shane so well, or she thought she did, but this is a side of him that’s completely foreign. Flirting. Wanting someone. This girl in general, speaking to her son in a way she’s not sure she approves of, yet also fearing for his safety.

Shane asked Hayden to text her, she reminds herself. He wants her to know he’s okay.

I need to respect that, no matter how embarrassing it is. Take a breath and deal with it, Yuna.

When she’s able to look up again, she finds David and Hayden staring at her with wide eyes. “What’d she say?” Hayden asks, sounding almost like he doesn’t want the answer.

That she wants to fuck my son, is Yuna’s first, horrified thought.

“Shane was right, she’s very worried,” is what she settles on actually saying. Glancing at Hayden, and sharing a more meaningful look with David, she continues, “I… I don’t know if I should keep using Shane’s phone, though. I don’t think he would want us to.”

It’s the most polite way she can think of to say, I don’t want to find anything else.

Hayden winces again. “He definitely wouldn’t. Um, maybe you could just text her on your phone. That way, you’ll have her number if this ever happens again.”

Yuna manages to hold in her immediate reaction, which is to shout at Hayden for potentially jinxing Shane with another injury in the future, and nods. Yes, that’s what she’ll do. Then she won’t be able to see any more flirting, or god forbid, nudes.

While she carefully looks for Lily’s number, Hayden runs a hand through his hair. “Why don’t I go get us some drinks or something? I can’t keep sitting here.”

“Good idea. Thanks, Hayden. We’ll text you if they let us back there,” David tells him, patting his back as he stands. “Water is fine.”

“Got it, Mr. Hollander.”

So Hayden goes, and Yuna stares at the new contact in her phone, doing something she rarely does: second guessing herself.

Shane will not be happy about this, and she knows it. Clearly this is not something he wanted them to know about.

But what options does she have? Is it worse to potentially read his conversations with this girl? See more than she already has? Or is it worse to take this phone number and add it to her own phone, speak to her without Shane okaying it first?

No, none of them are great choices. But someone has to tell her. If this was Yuna, waiting on news about David, and her in-laws decided not to tell her because of an awkward situation… it would be terrible. She would never be able to forgive them. And despite herself, there is a part of Yuna that doesn’t want this girl to hate them—that knows if she doesn’t do this now, Shane might hate her for it.

That’s what cinches it for her. Taking a breath, she does what she does best, and goes for it.

She curses not having a last name, but oh well. No use lingering on that.

Once the messages are sent, she begins to lower the phone, expecting it’ll be a little while before she gets a response. But before she can even set it in her lap again, it’s buzzing, once, twice, three times.

And, okay. Maybe Yuna is in a state of limbo right now, too worried about Shane to be upset he hid something so big—so serious—from them. Maybe she should hate this girl for keeping this secret with Shane, or the way she spoke to him, or for not being here right now. (Yes, that last one is unfair. Hayden said she’s from Boston, why would she go to a game in Montreal? But still. And didn’t Shane say he was going to see her tonight?)

But… she just can’t. Lily, whoever she is, obviously feels concerned about him. That’s enough for her.

“What is she saying?” David asks, watching her face.

Yuna tries three times to get the words out, but in the end, she pushes the phone in his direction. Let him read it and see for himself how much this girl they’ve never met cares.

It buzzes again in his hands, and they both peer at the screen as Lily continues,

This is what finally breaks the dam she’s been holding onto since she saw Shane fall, limp, onto the ice. It’s what finally puts tears in Yuna’s eyes. A hand comes up to her mouth, a wet gasp falling from her lips.

“David,” she asks, even though she knows the answer. She just needs him to confirm it, confirm she’s not having crazy thoughts. “He’s hiding his girlfriend from us, isn’t he?”

“Yes, honey,” David replies, sounding exhausted. “I think he is.”

Chapter End Notes

Alsoooo I saw in another fic that they'd had Ilya putting his texts in a translator to make them better. I have also adopted that here since Ilya is talking to Thee Hollanders!

--

I could definitely be convinced to write more, because I am so tickled by the idea of the Hollanders deciding they are going to be the best in-laws to "Lily" even if Shane refuses to let them meet her

EDIT: okay everyone I'm gonna write more!! I already plotted out the next chapter lmao 😭 please feel free to put any scenes you might like to see in the comments or send them to me on my socials, I will try to include them!!

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

Hi, I wrote and am posting all of this before work, so if there's any mistakes I'm sorry!! I'll fix them later. For now please enjoy, and thank you so much for all of your wonderful comments <3

EDIT 2/10: changed the timestamps to be a little later

Yuna pulls herself together because there’s no other option.

She texts Lily back, We’ll tell him, and puts her phone in her purse so she can’t reread the messages over and over again, until she’s able to suss out the truth of… whatever this is. Right now, there’s nothing to know. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is Shane, laying in a hospital bed, pale and barely alert.

“‘M’okay,” is the first thing he says, even before Yuna can open her mouth. The words are so slurred they become one, and his eyes drift shut halfway through saying it.

Yuna hurries to his side, the one without a sling, and presses her hand to his chest. There’s movement, breathing, and her eyes sting as she looks at him—bruised, pained, but alive.

“Of course you are, honey,” she soothes him, rubbing small circles over the hospital gown. David comes up behind her, and she leans into him as if some of her strings have been cut. Even just having his scent, his presence is enough for her to shore up a calm Shane definitely needs from her right now. “We’re so glad. We’re so relieved.”

“How… ba’issit?” He stumbles, opening his eyes into slits. Behind them, David steps away and lowers the light without having to be asked.

“We can talk about that in the morning, sweetie,” Yuna says. There’s no reason to tell him he’s out for the season now. Distraction it is. “Hayden, come say hi.”

Hayden approaches on the other side, and Shane smiles at him, loopy. “Hey man,” he manages.

“Finally your turn for a concussion, huh?”

Yuna sits back and watches them talk, though not much is really said with how groggy Shane is. In a moment, she’ll tell the boys to say goodbye for now, that Shane needs sleep. But first—

Shane winces as he tries to sit up some.

“Stay still, son,” David says, too far away to push him back down.

“‘M’okay,” he repeats, falling back into the sheets. He looks so pale that if he wasn’t in a hospital bed, Yuna would scold him for pushing himself too hard and making himself sick. “I just. Hay… did’you tell…”

Shane doesn’t look at Yuna or David when he asks.

Hayden, however, does look at them. David looks placid as ever, neither encouraging or discouraging. Yuna doesn’t know what her face is doing, but it doesn’t seem to matter, because Hayden still nods and tells Shane, “Yeah, man. We told Lily you’re okay. She knows.”

Shane sags back into the bed, his heart monitor slowing. “Ohhh good,” he says faintly, his lips curling up. “Thanks.”

Relief shines so brightly in him, even though the bandages and wires, that Yuna almost wants to throw up. She has to look away, avoiding David’s searching eyes. How is it possible that only just a few words are enough to make Shane react like this? How is it possible that Yuna had no idea about any of this?

They talk for awhile, but it's difficult when Shane is barely coherent. Mostly, Hayden tells Shane about the rest of the game, having to repeat some details multiple times when Shane immediately forgets them. In the end, David is the one who suggests to the boys that Hayden go home for the night. Before he goes, he tells Shane, “I’m just so fucking happy you’re okay, Shane. If you need anything, anything at all, me and Jackie are always available, okay?”

Shane hums, seemingly falling asleep. Yuna lets him, knowing he’ll have to be woken up soon anyway. Switching seats with David, she follows Hayden out in the hall.

As soon as the door is shut, he says, “He looks fucking awful.”

“I know.” And god, does she. Somehow, Shane has never gotten seriously injured, just another perfection on the list. The last time she saw him like this was when he was a kid and his appendix burst. Wrapping her arms around herself, she tells them both, “But he’s okay. The doctors expect a full recovery. He’ll be back on the ice in no time.”

Hayden doesn’t respond right away. They just stand beside each other, staring off into the distance, listening to the low sound of David’s voice behind them.

Then Hayden takes a breath and straightens his shoulders like he’s preparing for the whistle to blow.

“Um, Mrs. Hollander—”

“Yuna,” she corrects.

“Yuna… I just wanted to say thank you. You called me his brother so I could get in there, and you didn’t have to do that.”

Yuna shakes her head at this silly boy. In those horrible moments right after Shane was hit, he was the only one who’d reacted—he was the one who did what Yuna wished she could do, and punched that stupid Raider right in the face. Even if he wasn’t Shane’s closest friend, she’d love him for that.

“Hayden Pike. You stayed here with him when we couldn’t, even if you weren’t allowed up here. He wasn’t alone because of you, and he loves you. You’re family.”

He sniffs, and she pretends not to hear it. “Thanks, Mrs—Yuna.”

She pats his back a few times before saying, “Shane’s safe now, honey. You can go home, be with your wife and kids. We’ve got him.”

They hug again before he leaves, promising to come by again tomorrow. As soon as he’s gone, she sags into the wall and tries to breathe.

Tonight, a thousand impossible things have happened. It’s overwhelming, but it’s only the beginning. Shane needs her to be strong, to take care of everything while he can’t.

Slipping her phone out, she pulls up the text thread again. There’s a new text from Lily.

Yuna takes a few slow, steady breaths. She can do this for Shane.

She could have tried, though, and she knows that. It might even make Shane feel better to know that Lily is thinking of him too. But when she imagines telling him, the words dry up in her throat. Honey, I know you’ve got a concussion and a broken collarbone, but can we talk for a second? Yeah, your girlfriend I’ve never even heard of is sorry she can’t be here right now. What do you want me to text her for you?

No, it’s ridiculous. He just got out of surgery. It’s not time for that conversation.

Tapping her finger against the side of her phone, she stares at the screen. She doesn’t want to end on that note, even if it’s true—it just feels like there’s more to be said. For a moment, she considers what she would want to be told if this was David. Then she thinks about Shane, here with them, and of Hayden, who’s gone home to his family.

Where is Lily? In Boston? Here in Montreal? “I’ll be there when I can” is not a good indicator of location.

Lily doesn’t respond for a long time. Long enough that Yuna sighs and puts her phone away, stepping back into the room where Shane is now asleep and David is watching over him.

He doesn’t have to ask if everything’s okay. He just steps away from the bed, meeting her halfway. She sinks into his arms, wrapping her own around him tightly.

Face smushed into his chest, she says, “I invited Lily to come stay here with us.”

“What did she say?” He rubs her back, swaying them slightly.

“Nothing yet.” Letting out a breath, she says, “And I’m glad for that, because I have no idea what the fuck I’ll say to her when we meet her. I have no idea what I’ll say to Shane when he’s less doped up.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. Yuna knows by now, after nearly thirty years of marriage, to let David have some time to think. She uses it to breathe, inhaling the scent of her husband and hockey arena and hospital disinfectant. They’re fine. Shane is fine, and they’re with him, and maybe she’s got the wrong idea about all of this and Lily really is just some long-term fuckbuddy of her son’s.

Not even she believes that, but she can try.

Finally, David sighs. “What can we do but accept them?”

“David, you didn’t see the way they were texting each other. I don’t know if they’re… she said she likes being mean to him.” Okay, that’s not exactly what was said, but Yuna can read between the lines.

“Then we’ll talk to Shane. Find out what this is, and why he didn’t think he could tell us about her. But you saw how he responded to just her name, Yuna.”

She did, fuck she did. And it was Shane, wasn’t it, who wanted to see Lily, who didn’t deny he liked it when she’s mean to him.

Hayden had said he really thinks that Shane likes Lily, that it’s serious. Now, Yuna has seen that with her own eyes, and she’s seen how much Lily is worrying, how much she seems to care.

“I’m not going to just accept her because Shane likes her,” she says. “We need to make sure she’s good for him first. But… if she is, then fine. I still don’t know what to say.”

“We have all night to figure something out,” David says reasonably. “Come sit down.”

She does, but once she’s off her feet, the weight of the day comes with her, weighing her down like a mountain. Usually she’s better about multitasking, and thinking of everything, but god. Her son is in a hospital bed. She doesn’t want to think anymore tonight.

Her phone buzzes in her purse, and she pulls it out with a sigh.

Chapter End Notes

Let me know if there's any scenes you might like to see!! I want to hold onto the identity porn for a while yet >:)

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

once again, I pretty much wrote this, briefly glanced over it, and am throwing it out into the world. if there's any mistakes please let me know!

and thank you, so so so so much, for all of the incredibly sweet comments. I am Bad:tm: at replying but you guys are all so lovely. I promise I WILL find a way to include the things you guys are suggesting (something to look forward to: flowers from Lily, a phone call with Svetlana, and Yuna and Ilya meeting in person. probably not in that order)!!

The hospital doesn’t dare kick them out, even though the visitor’s hours are long over.

Shane has a private room, and Yuna has a unique ability to politely yet firmly raise hell. The head nurse says they can stay tonight, and that’s it. Yuna smiles at her, thinking, We’ll see about that.

What matters is that they get to stay. And while the chairs aren’t the most comfortable, Yuna and David manage to get some sleep, tucked just out of the way of Shane’s bed, hands clasped together.

Her dreams are weird, fragmented memories—the Boston player who slammed into Shane, the fighting that broke out, the way Rozanov hovered over him and argued with the refs like he was upset he couldn’t kick him while he was down. Shane not getting up. His mouth moving as they took him off the ice. Then they turn weird, twisting away from real life—instead of Hayden, there’s a woman in the waiting room, not one Yuna recognizes, with long blonde hair and muscled arms, who sees them and says blandly, “It was an awful hit.”

In the dream, Yuna knows this is Lily. Gorgeous but non-descript, a bored look on her face. There’s a pit in Yuna’s stomach but still she asks, “Do you want to come up with us? See that he’s okay?”

Lily shakes her head. “No. I need to go.”

David says, “Wait a second, now,” and Yuna scowls, which in the dream feels bigger and meaner than it does in real life. “What do you mean, you need to go?”

But Lily is already walking out the door. And even though there are floors between them, dream logic means that Yuna can hear it when Shane calls for her, voice rough with pain and drugs, and gets no response because Lily is gone.

Every time the nurse comes in to wake Shane, the sound of it wakes Yuna too—which is fine, she needs to know what’s going on more than she needs rest. Maybe it’s a blessing, even. She doesn’t want to stay in a dream like that.

Shane is fine, the nurse tells her each time. Pupils reacting as expected, no concerning spikes in pain, and he’s still more or less aware of himself and what happened. He doesn’t speak much, answering the questions sleepily with a too-large smile. Every time he recites the year and what he was doing before he got hurt, relief shoots through her.

If that smile wasn’t because her son had gotten so badly hurt, maybe Yuna would think it’s cute. Instead, she can only feel glad that he’s not in any pain with all the medication flowing through him.

By the time the sun is coming up, Yuna is awake, too awake to even pretend to relax. David is asleep, his neck at an angle that will hurt, and with a pinch of her brow she tries to rearrange him. Takes off her coat and puts it under his head. He sighs, snuggling into it.

David taken care of, she stands and stretches, moving to Shane’s bedside. He’s passed out, his mouth just slightly open, covered in bruises and bandages that she can’t look away from. Gingerly, she sits on the edge of the mattress.

In the quiet, with only the sound of machines and both of her boys’ breathing, she feels like she can think things through finally.

Shane has a friend, or a girlfriend, who he’s never told them about. All of the details are shrouded in confusion—Yuna doesn’t know anything at all, except that Shane clearly cares about her.

And, for some reason, has kept her a secret.

If Yuna is being honest with herself, there’s really only so many reasons why Shane would hide something like this, and they all boil down to one thing: her.

Yuna knows that she’s too intense, and she knows it sometimes hurts Shane. But it’s not something she can turn off, nor does she want to when it’s served her so well time and time again.

It was how she survived her parents, her strict father and overbearing mother—if she threw all of herself into something, she could use it as a shield. They could never say she wasn’t trying. That she didn’t know what she was doing.

When her parents saw David, a nerdy white boy who didn’t say much and let Yuna do all the negotiating, they told her it would fall apart. At her wedding, they told her that David would regret her, and they wouldn’t pick her up when she fell. And when, years later, she told them over the phone that she was putting Shane into a peewee hockey class, they told her she was setting him up for failure.

At the time, she’d been so offended she hung up on them, slapping the phone back into the receiver. A headache pulsed in her temples. Shane, all of four years old, had begged to be picked up so he could kiss her on the forehead.

Yuna loves her parents, but she has never wanted to be like them. She vowed to herself in that moment, with Shane in her arms and his baby-slobber on her skin, that she would always be an open door to him, that he would never feel unsafe with her.

But somewhere along the line, that unraveled. It must have.

Sure, it’s possible still that Lily really is just someone he hooks up with, and then there would be good reason for Yuna not to know. But that ship has sailed, she thinks.

So why? Does he think she won’t approve?

There’s only so many things this Lily girl could do that Yuna can think of. Is she married? Does she have a child? Is she a celebrity? But how can that be, when Shane just dated one of the biggest stars in the world right now? Briefly, she considers that if this has been going on for years, then there might’ve been overlap. Shane isn’t a cheater—she feels certain about that. But maybe… emotions can be messy. And god love him, but Shane doesn’t have a clue sometimes when it comes to matters of the heart. Maybe he didn’t want to admit to her and David that he had made a mess of things.

To be honest, even if none of those things are the case, Yuna isn’t sure she does approve. The texts she saw keep flashing in her mind. She has concerns, serious ones. Paige, and Jessica, and Rose, they were all nice girls. Paige lasted only so long, and Yuna has forgotten a lot, and Jessica… she was so polite. Held Shane’s hand under the dinner table, and didn’t kiss him goodbye in front of them. But she hadn’t cared much about hockey, so she was never going to be the right person for him.

Rose, Yuna never got to meet. But from everything Shane said, she’s a lovely girl, made him feel comfortable and laugh a lot. She went to his games when she could, and followed his career like it mattered to her. He’d looked a little happier with her.

Lily isn’t like that. She teased Shane about losing a game, for fuck’s sake. She didn’t care that he cursed at her. Worst of all, she’s not here.

Yuna sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. Part of her feels bad for thinking all of this when she truly knows nothing about Lily, except for the few words they’ve shared. It’s obvious there is some kind of emotional connection between her and Shane. She’s the only one blowing up Shane’s phone, even texting Yuna, a stranger, just to ask about him.

And… okay, it’s not that Yuna wants to think about him flirting, but she can’t say she’s ever seen him talk quite that way. Playful, less anxious than she’s come to expect from him.

Letting her head fall back, Yuna lays her hand on Shane’s leg and can only think: I love you, baby. I want you to be happy. Whatever that looks like.

Her eyes burn with tears, and for a little while, she lets herself feel it. The shock and pain of seeing Shane get hurt, all of the waiting and concern that has followed. When he finds out he’s out of the game, he’ll be so upset, and she and David will have to hold him up. The future weighs heavily, just as much as this whole Lily thing does.

But eventually the nurse comes back, and Yuna pulls herself together. There will be time to be upset, but it’s not now.

Yuna pulls out her phone, checks her emails, checks the headlines. The MLH has released a short statement about Shane—just that he’s stable and will be missing the rest of the season.

She finds herself, after a while, back on the text thread with Lily.

Thank you, but I can’t. What does that mean? Whatever their secret is, is it so big that it will keep her from seeing Shane?

Where is she? Yuna remembers, briefly, that Shane had expected to see her. So she must be here in Montreal. But where? Is she waiting in a hotel room right now, with a view of the hospital out her window? Or is she at Shane’s apartment, are they serious enough for that? But if they were, wouldn’t she want to be here?

Yuna begins to type. She knows she shouldn’t push it, but she needs to.

There. See what she has to say about that. It’s not like Yuna will know just by looking at her whatever the issue is—if she’s married, or helped Shane cheat, or something. Unless she’s a celebrity, or… a new thought hits Yuna with some horror. Could she be pregnant?

Thankfully, Lily replies before she can go any farther down that rabbit hole.

There is silence for a while after that. Yuna chews on her lip, staring at the conversation, the Read: 5:11 AM.

If she were a better person, she would leave it be. Tell Lily that Shane is okay and drop it. But Yuna is herself, and she’s a mother who is realizing that somewhere, she went wrong. Somewhere, she made Shane feel like he couldn’t come to her with whatever this is.

She wants whatever is best for him. She needs to make sure that Lily is worth it. That she’ll stand beside Shane when he needs her to.

The typing bubbles come up and disappear several times before there’s an actual response.

Yuna isn’t sure what response she expects. She wants Lily to suddenly say, “Yes, of course I’ll come, and I’ll answer all of your questions, and I’ll be the best girlfriend your son has ever had.” Which is ridiculous and extremely unlikely. There’s no part of her that actually believes that—really, it’s more likely that Lily will just stop responding.

But that’s not what happens.

No, what she actually gets is a barrage of messages, more than Lily has ever said to her up to this point. By the time she’s done reading all of them, she knows she has overstepped, and regret spreads throughout her whole body, makes her hands shake.

Chapter End Notes

please imagine me laughing evilly >:3

and don't worry! Shane will wake up in the next chapter :)

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

me: I like heated rivalry a normal amount I think
also me: sure I'll double upload why not

thank you to Boop_Ba_Doop and syndores for their comment thread that inspired part of this chapter. also to sparklespiff whose comment on chapter 2 inspired a line too!!

the comments on chapter 3 were so funny (half of you want to kill me for the ilya angst and the other half are laughing at poor ilya's "NOT THE DICK PICS") that they immediately inspired me to write more. I have the next two days off work and these chapters basically write themselves so 😭 I may have more right away idk we'll see!!

What the hell is she supposed to say to that?

It would be so much easier if she was in front of Yuna, if she could see the reaction instead of having to read between the lines. Is she upset as she sounds? She must be. Yuna takes a slow breath, swallowing down the maelstrom of bad feelings roiling inside of her. She needs to remember that this isn’t a business email where she can get away with being pushy—this is so much bigger than that.

This is, maybe, she’s realizing, her future daughter-in-law.

“Fuck,” she says, low and sharp, and backs off.

Lily goes silent after that.

Not that Yuna can blame her. Today, or the last twenty-four hours really, have been hard enough. Now Lily is having to deal with an invasion of privacy and having to rely solely on Yuna for updates on Shane. She almost wants to text again to apologize, but she knows better—and she wants to talk to Shane again before she says anything else, and makes an even worse mess of things.

David wakes up some time later, when the sun is just barely above the horizon. Because Yuna has some self-control, and because she’s still stinging with guilt, she waits until after he’s used the restroom and brought them both coffee before she says, “I think Lily might be pregnant.”

David chokes and sets his coffee down immediately, the cup smacking loudly against the plastic. Finally, he manages to wheeze out, “What?”

Yuna gives him her phone, open to Lily’s messages. The screen is shivering for some reason. Are her hands still shaking? They are. Because oh god, what if this girl is pregnant?

Yuna’s breathing isn’t normal. She knows that, but can’t do anything about it. She continues, “Or maybe she already had a baby? I don’t know, I can’t tell. David, I fucked up. I really did, I just—Shane doesn’t know that I—”

David grabs her hand in one of his own, squeezing just hard enough to make her pause. “Slow down,” he tells her, firm. “Should I read first or do you want to tell me?”

She has no idea what to say, how to explain. “Just read them.”

Yuna watches him scroll, her chest tight. She doesn’t let go of his hand, needing the stability badly. Her mind is whirring with thoughts of Shane hiding a pregnancy—or god, is there a child already? Lily said both of us, didn’t she?

Does that mean there’s a child? Does Yuna have a grandchild somewhere? Is she hyperventilating right now?

David notices, because he knows her, and helps her calm her breathing. She tries, but it’s hard when he looks the way he does—pale, his expression frozen into a slight frown. His shoulders are stiff where she leans against one of them, and his knuckles are white against her phone case.

Yuna lets out a shaking breath. “Did I make Shane feel like he can’t tell me something so... so…?”

She can’t finish the sentence. God, this is such a nightmare. And Shane still hasn’t fully woken up, so she can’t even make sure he’s really, truly okay before she has her latest panic attack.

“Honey, please. It’s… it’s possible that there’s a baby. But we shouldn’t jump to that conclusion. She might have meant ‘both of us’ as in her and Shane. Maybe there’s some other reason why she can’t come by. It’s not necessarily that she’s pregnant or that they have a child.”

But it’s still possible. And all of the other theories she’s come up with don’t quite fit the same, don’t make the same amount of sense. If there’s a baby, and Lily is from Boston, then would she have a babysitter? What if Lily is married to someone else and can’t be seen hanging around Shane’s hospital room with the child? What if she is a celebrity, does Yuna know of any celebrities who’ve recently had a child and that Shane might’ve interacted with?

“Mooooom? Wha’s wrong?”

Yuna gasps, her and David’s heads both coming up to meet Shane’s slightly-glazed eyes.

He blinks at them rapidly, shifting on the bed. He clearly tries to enunciate properly when he asks, “What the fu-hell happened?”

Yuna is on her feet and at Shane’s side in seconds. Sniffling, she says, “Everything’s fine, honey. Don’t worry about it, okay? How are you feeling?”

Any other day, he wouldn’t drop it so easily. But today he just makes a face at her before answering, “Okay. Normal. My head kin’a hurts?”

Despite herself, Yuna lets out a little laugh. “Yes, sweetie, that’s the concussion.”

“Ohhhhyeah, that makes sense.”

“We’re so glad to see you awake, son,” David tells him, hovering beside her. “Do you think you’ll want to nap again? Or are you up?”

Shane visibly takes stock of himself, his eyes sliding somewhere behind them. “‘M up, I think.”

“Let’s call the doctor in then, okay?”

Shane babbles a little while they wait, talking about, for some reason, the faceoff last night. “O’course I won, Rozy’s good but I’m bet-ter, hah.”

“You are,” David and Yuna happily agree. They share a look, wondering why that’s what’s on his mind of all the options in the world. Oh well, as long as he’s not in any pain, right?

Once the doctor arrives, she checks Shane over again, administers more tests. No memory issues, it’s normal for him not to remember exactly what happened. His body is reacting normally. They just want him to stay for observation, make sure the concussion doesn’t get worse. Yuna listens, could recite it all back, but she’s too mixed up inside to fully absorb everything being said.

“Bye bye,” Shane says when she leaves, grinning at her in a way he never does. After, he keeps glancing at the door, though part of Yuna thinks he’s probably not waiting for the doctor to come back.

Yuna manages to wait, she thinks, an impressive amount of time before she brings it up.

She has to pace, standing at the end of Shane’s bed with her arms crossed. David is standing at the head, both of her boys watching her with matching concerned expressions, though Shane is much less restrained than normal.

“Shane, sweetie. I know this is the wrong time, and I am so sorry for that, but I have to ask you a question. Do you—?”

Delayed, Shane says, “You okay, mom?”

David winces. “Yuna, I’m not sure—”

“—Do you have a child?” Yuna can feel her breathing go shallow again as she asks it. She’s kind of losing her mind right now.

But Shane isn’t nearly so freaked out. First, he says, “What.” Then, “A child? Like a baby?” And before Yuna can say anything to that, he continues, “No? What the fuuuckk, did someone say I hav’a a baby? Do I have one? Dad??”

David shakes his head, squeezing Shane’s good shoulder. “It’s okay—”

“Is there a bay-bee here?”

He looks so confused and unprepared that Yuna’s whole body releases tension. Not all of it, but some. Surely, if he had a secret child, he would be more concerned about it even while drugged, right? Trying to clarify, she says, “No, Shane—well, maybe, it’s a hospital, but no. I just thought that Lily might be, um—”

This is what causes him to actually panic. Even with all of the drugs, all of the shit that’s happened in the last day, just acknowledging his girlfriend is enough to break through all of it. His whole face drops, his body shrinking back into the bed. Voice cracking, he says, “Who’s Lily? Haha. Ha. I don’t know a Lily.”

Yuna swallows roughly and rubs at her chest, her heart hurting for him, guilt filling her all over again. How could she have done this, let him get to this point? How could she have not noticed?

Gently, she says, “It’s okay, Shane. We—I talked to her already. She’s worried about you.”

Shane stares at her like he’s never seen her before. “You talked to…?”

“Well, I texted her. I’ve been giving her updates. Do you remember asking Hayden to do that? To make sure she knew you were okay?”

Shane’s breathing picks up now, and David is right there, rubbing his good shoulder and bicep. “No,” he nearly whispers. “I di’n’t, I woul’n’t have… Lily’s not…”

Again, she and David share a look. “Not what, sweetie?”

But he doesn’t finish the sentence. To her horror, his eyes fill with tears, and he looks away from both of them, clenching his jaw so hard that she can see it where she stands at his feet.

Oh god, Yuna thinks. Nothing accompanies it, too worried for Shane to consider any of the thousand reasons why thinking of Lily might make Shane cry.

David says, “Oh, bud,” and leans down. He’s careful with Shane’s bad arm, but pulls him halfway into a hug, Shane’s head falling into the crook of his neck naturally. Yuna watches as David pets the back of his head, murmuring, “You have nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Whatever’s going on, we love you, son. Nothing can change that.”

When she makes it to his other side, she finds that Shane’s back is shaking. Not because she can see it through her blurry eyes, but because when she touches it, he jumps under her palm, shivering as he swallows down sobs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I didn’t mean to upset you. We love you, forever. No matter what.”

Shane cries for a long time. When David shifts, his back obviously hurting him, Shane clings to him so much that he finds a way to sit on the edge of the bed. They murmur things to him, whatever they can think of, but it doesn’t seem to help.

The sun is higher in the sky by the time he’s able to pull away, his bruised and broken face even more puffy now. His eyes are so red, Yuna’s heart constricts in her chest. Tiredly, he says, “Hurts.”

Yuna lets go of him, and goes to find a nurse. They give him a new dose of medication, and he sinks back into the bed, finally loosening his fingers from David’s shirt. Once they’re alone again, all three of them stay silent, not sure what to say.

Finally, Shane sighs, his whole body sagging. “S’rry. S’rry, Mom, Dad.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” they say at once. Yuna continues, “We could never be mad at you, especially not for…,” well, that, she wants to say.

“Bu’ I’ve b’n lying t’you,” he stumbles. Even now, he looks devastated, refusing to meet their eyes.

“No, son, it’s okay,” David soothes.

“It doesn’t matter. But let’s talk about that another time, okay?” It’s absolutely not the time, not now. Not when he looks so sad, and he can’t get his thoughts straight. Yuna remembers last night when he asked Hayden about Lily, the way he smiled. Maybe… “Will you tell us about her? Lily?”

Shane closes his eyes and doesn’t reply right away. Yuna fights to keep herself calm, wondering if she’s just making things worse. But after a moment, Shane says, “Yesss. I’ll tell you ‘bout Lily.”

Yuna and David settle down on either side of him, making sure he knows they’re both there. That they aren’t leaving, no matter what he’s about to reveal.

But he doesn’t start out with saying something like she’s my secret k-pop idol girlfriend or I’m helping her have an affair or anything like that. He says, “Lily is… the best. My fav’rite. So funny, fuck, ‘specially when ‘m trying to sleep… and so hot. Ohhhh my god. Think ‘m dreamin’ sometimes…”

The expression on his face transforms, just like Yuna had hoped. A smile blooms, wider than she’s seen in a long time.

“And she’s a secret?” David asks gently.

“Yeah. No one c’n know. But is okay.” He says the last two words in a funny accent, and laughs about it to himself. The drugs must be kicking in more now, or maybe he’s getting sleepy—his eyes are shut, his head rocking back and forth.

Yuna swallows. She has to ask. No matter how much he seems to like her, she has to ask.

“Does she treat you well? Are… are you happy?”

“Sooooo happy, Mom. And yes, they do, they treats me so good. Got me ginger ale. Takes care of me. I want to invite Ily-Lily to the cottage this summer.”

“That’s pretty serious, son,” David says, meeting her equally-surprised look. “Are you sure?”

Shane opens his eyes, blinking at the low light. He looks defiant, his eyes going hockey-intense. “‘M positive. ‘M gonna ask ‘em when they come.”

Yuna remembers, suddenly, what Lily asked of her last night. “She hasn’t been able to make it in, sweetie, so she told me to tell you something. She said she’s sorry she’s not here, and she’ll come as soon as she can.”

Briefly, Yuna fears this will upset him again, but it doesn’t. He lets out a soft, short laugh. “My baby said that?”

They’ve never seen him like this. He’s never called anyone that, not even Rose Landry.

Later, when they’re heading out to get a late breakfast, Yuna is still reeling. But she makes sure to text Lily, keeping it short no matter how much she wishes she could forgo all of the polite distance, and ask her what she did to make Shane open up so much. To look so happy.

They leave Shane half-napping in his hospital bed. Yuna hopes Lily will come, even if they don’t get to meet. It doesn’t matter—it can wait until Shane is ready. But she knows with the same certainty she knows everything else that he needs to see her.

They can take a bit extra time to eat, if that’s what Shane and Lily need. It just gives them more time to come to terms with, well, everything.

Chapter End Notes

i luv u shane hollander

also if you write a hollanders & lily fic, please don't be shy and share with the class (me)... I need MORE!!!!!

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

............ here we are again..............

guys holy shit. 100+ comments on the last chapter. yall are insane in the best way. I love you, I hope I can keep providing fun identity porn <3

I hope you enjoy this one hehe

David suggests they skip the hospital cafeteria, so that’s what they do. Yuna doesn’t like leaving Shane behind, part of her revolting at the idea of him sitting there alone. But he’s fine. The doctor said so. And Lily needs time to visit. So, they find a coffee shop not too far from the hospital, and Yuna makes herself be normal.

Being Montreal, and being Yuna Hollander—a somewhat-recognizable face to the very dedicated hockey fans out there—they find a corner to sit in, farther away from the other patrons. David gets them coffees loaded with sugar, “To make up for all the sleep deprivation,” he says.

For a while, they sit and don’t say anything. Being away from Shane hurts but it also helps her clear her mind a little bit.

She’s being overbearing. That needs to stop, and more importantly, they need a plan.

When Shane was younger, they used to do this a lot more. Make a list of steps to take so that the situation, whatever it might have been, didn’t go straight to hell. It was stability that not just their son, but Yuna herself needed badly.

Since Shane’s grown up—he’s already twenty-six, god she feels old—they haven’t had to do it as much. He lives on his own and handles things his own way, while she and David no longer have a young child to keep in mind at all times. But—fuck, if there was ever a time to need this routine again, it’s now.

With a sigh, she sets her drink down. Across from her, David tunes back in, reaching out to take one of her hands in his own. She says, “We can’t fuck this up.”

The any more than I already have goes unsaid, of course. Yuna is self-aware but that doesn’t make it any easier to acknowledge out loud.

Thank god for David, who doesn’t push her to say it. He just nods. “We don’t want to freak him out again.”

Yuna winces. “I’m not sure if that’s possible, knowing him. But we can mitigate it, at least. No more crazy questions, not until he’s off the drugs at least.”

“Right. Maybe we don’t bring … hmm, Lily up again. Not until he does first.”

“What was that?”

“What was what?” He takes a sip of his coffee.

“You paused. You said ‘hmm, Lily’. Why?”

David gives her a look then, one she’s seen before only a few times. Trust, always trust, but a hesitation too. It’s only come up before when they were talking about Shane’s relationships. The possibility that he might not like girls as much as other boys do is something they’ve only discussed in absolute privacy—and neither of them care, but there’s always going to be that moment of questioning. Of thinking, fearing, will you change your mind? Will you turn your back on him?

Neither of them could ever do that. He’s their baby, their son, the light of their lives. Even if he wakes up tomorrow, sober from the medication, and tells her that he’s been helping Lily cheat, she wouldn’t be able to hate him. Nothing could ever make her stop loving him.

But sometimes, that fear is there. For both of them. It can’t be helped, not in situations like this.

He squeezes her hand gently. “Yuna, honey. You heard what he said. Or, what he didn’t.”

Yuna doesn’t have to ask what he means, nor does she plan to say it out loud. Just because they’re in the corner of this coffee shop and more or less private citizens, this is not something she’d ever want to get out on accident.

He means, of course, that Shane didn’t say ‘she’ once.

A year ago, Yuna would have been all over that, wondering if it meant it was true. That Shane is… something other than straight, whatever it might be. But then Rose happened, and he was so happy with her. Or, maybe not so happy, but definitely happier.

He told them it didn’t work out because of their busy schedules, but she knows they still talk. Whenever Rose’s name comes up on his phone screen, Yuna sees the way he smiles.

It doesn’t make sense. The pieces just won’t fit together in her head. Shane didn’t protest calling Lily ‘she’, but then, he’s in no place to correct that kind of thing right now.

“Okay,” she says, leaning in and whispering, innocently blocking the view of her mouth from the rest of the room. “Maybe Lily is, um, what’s the word? Trans? Non-binary?”

Yuna’s not really knowledgeable about these things, beyond a surface level. But she knows these terms at least, and knows that it could be something that would make Shane want to hide—something perhaps even more reasonable than the secret child or mega-celebrity route.

The MHL is a mess, frankly. Abusers never get removed, no matter how evil they are off the ice, and dirty players always come up on top. On the other hand, there’s a real problem with diversity—Shane remains the only Asian guy in the whole league, even years later. If he is LGBT, then it would only get worse.

David’s face does something complicated. “Maybe. And that’s fine, if that’s the case. We’ll buy some books and make sure they both know we accept them. But… we shouldn’t jump to any more conclusions. Not until he can tell us what’s going on for himself. It could just be the drugs talking.”

Yuna takes calming breaths. Yes, that’s true, and she didn’t think of it at all. It’s entirely possible it was just part of his slurred, more relaxed speech. She can’t keep jumping to one answer and treating it like it’s a fact.

But one thing is for certain. Though she loves Shane with all her heart, she will be furious if he is helping Lily cheat. She would much prefer that Lily be a man, or non-binary, or really… anything over that.

“Right. Right. It could be anything. She—I mean, Lily could be… anything.”

She feels awkward talking about it, not wanting to say anything wrong. Is it okay to still use ‘she’? Should they be using ‘they’ instead, like Shane did?

“We’ll handle it,” David says firmly. “But let’s get through getting him out of the hospital first. Whatever the truth is, we’ll get there when we get there.”

Fuck, Yuna is so grateful to have him. Maybe they can sit in the car for a while before they get back, just take a moment to be alone so she can cling a bit. Decompress before she has to contact Thierault, and his teammates, and Lily.

When she suggests the idea to him, he agrees quickly. As they head out, she checks her phone—no call from the hospital, which is a good sign. But there is a new text from Lily.

It’s simple, and Yuna isn’t sure which part she’s referring to—the update on Shane, offering to get out of the room, or the apology. There’s also part of her that revolts at being called so formally by someone who feels like she—they?—shouldn’t be a stranger. But Lily is a stranger, and Yuna still hasn’t met them. She can’t approve yet.

David catches her expression, so she explains it to him, stumbling over the confusing feelings. This girl, person, is Shane’s “favorite”. He called them his baby. They treat him well, and he’s happy. She wants to be close to people who make Shane this happy.

But… there’s a block. She can’t do it, not yet. The texts she saw flash back to her mind—and really, she knows they’re not that bad. She’s said much, much worse to David. But. Until she can talk to Shane, really talk, and ask if he’s… okay, if he wants the kind of relationship she saw play out there, then… she can’t.

“Leave it for now. You can reply once we get back,” he suggests. Probably, he can see the stress and confusion pulsing in her head.

“Yes,” she sighs. “Good idea.”

So, that’s that, for a while. They do sit in the car and discuss other things like what groceries they’ll need, how long Shane might need to stay, how they’ll help him deal with being out of the game for so long. It’s not exactly peaceful, but it helps.

When Yuna walks back into the hospital, she’s feeling a bit more alive. She smiles at the nurses, doesn’t stomp to the elevator like she had last night. They have to wait a moment for one to arrive, which is no problem.

Then the doors open, and Ilya Rozanov is standing right in front of her.

Her first thought, truthfully, is: wow, he’s tall. Her second is to wonder what the hell he’s doing here.

Yuna doesn’t particularly keep up with Rozanov, not anymore than she does other players. It’s hard when he and Shane’s careers are so connected, but she just doesn’t like him. He fights dirty and often, and unlike Shane, everyone he works with says he’s a jackass. He’s good on the ice, sure, but he’s not as good as Shane.

Despite all of that, Yuna can still see that he looks… off. With pale cheeks, broken up only by his moles, his red-lined eyes stand out more. Especially because they widen when he sees who, exactly, is standing in front of him.

The elevator doors start to close, so he quickly slaps a hand on one side, halting it for them. He steps aside, his head down, like he expects them to go in.

Yuna does not go. Crossing her arms, she asks, “What are you doing here?” It comes out maybe a little sharper than she intends.

Slowly, Rozanov takes his hand back. The doors shut, and then it’s just the three of them, nowhere to go in this quiet hospital hallway.

“It was a bad hit,” he says, straightening out his accent. Every word is deliberate, and Yuna doesn’t trust any of it. “I wanted to say sorry. For my teammate.”

Yuna blinks, not expecting that. Good sportsmanship from Rozanov? Unlikely is an understatement. But… “Yes, it was,” she says civilly. “Thank you for coming.”

He swallows, nods. “Yes.”

It’s not much of an answer. Frowning, Yuna peers closer at him, trying to find any hint of wrongdoing in him. He’s an asshole, yeah, but would he really come to the hospital just to get one last jab in? She doesn’t know. What she knows is that… he’s tearing up?

“Rozanov?” David asks, evidently having caught that too. “You… alright?”

He pulls himself to his full height, keeping his head turned away. Sniffling, he clearly fights to keep his voice steady as he says, “Fine. Allergies. Um. I hope Hollander get better quick. Goodbye.”

“Wait—” Yuna calls, but Rozanov is already walking away. He doesn’t stop, and the last they see of him is him rubbing his eyes, avoiding an incoming crowd with his head down.

“That was weird,” Yuna says once they’re in the elevator, tapping her foot. “Why would he be here? Why wouldn’t Marlow come instead?”

David hums. “Captain to captain, it looks better.”

“I guess….”

Briefly, she remembers when Shane went down. Rozanov had been right behind him. While Hayden fought, Rozanov just stood there, looming over her son. He argued with the refs, and just yesterday, or this morning?, Yuna had thought—it looked like he wanted to make the injury worse.

Maybe… that’s a little bit unkind of her. He’s never really been like that, and she knows it. In all their years of rivalry, he and Shane have never actually gotten into a fistfight.

Sighing, she feels a headache coming on. Whatever. As long as Shane isn’t too upset, she doesn’t have the brain capacity right now to question his motives.

On Shane’s floor, they pass by one of the nurses who’s been taking care of their son. Yuna puts on her best smile and asks about seeing Shane’s visitor’s log.

The nurse can’t show it to them, exactly. But she says, “I only see one name, an Ilya Roz—uh, Rovanoff?”

She and David both frown.

“Are you sure?” Yuna asks. Because they were definitely gone long enough that Lily could have visited. Of course, she—they didn’t say they would, but… some part of Yuna just expected they would anyway. “No one named Lily came by?”

The nurse looks again, so quickly that it’s obviously a formality. “No, just Mr. Rozanoff.”

So Yuna is maybe, slightly, a little upset when they return to Shane’s room. His girlfriend or partner or whatever didn’t come, but his archrival did? She honestly expects him to be crumpled up on the bed, possibly even more upset than earlier.

He’s not. When they walk in, his head lifts up fast, his eyes shining brightly at first—until he sees it’s them. His smile doesn’t go away, but it does get smaller. “Heeeeyyyyy,” he says, “Mom, Dad. Hiiiii.”

“Hi, honey. How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

“‘M’great,” he replies. “Ever’thing is awesomeeee.”

In the face of his giddy happiness, even though or maybe especially because he’s doped up, Yuna’s annoyance slips away quickly.

“We heard Rozanov came by,” David offers, closing the door behind them. “How’d that go?”

Shane grins and says, “I can’ believe he came.”

“It was very kind of him,” Yuna says reluctantly.

Head falling back slightly, Shane makes some kind of humming noise with his eyes shut. “Yeahhhh,” he breathes out. “He’s no’sso bad.”

Yuna’s not sure she fully agrees there, but there’s no point in arguing it. She’s sure they’ll get back to their regularly scheduled rivalry once Shane is more healed up.

Chapter End Notes

honestly yall right now I have it planned out that the reveal doesn't happen for a while (unless the muse decides differently while I'm writing, rip). is that good with yall? would you rather it happens sooner? lmk! 😎

ETA: thank you for all your thoughts!! ❤️ I finally sat down to outline everything and while I don't have it quiteeee finished, I'm thinking we'll have 9 chapters (maybe/probably 10). we'll see how that goes 🤡

Chapter 6

Chapter Notes

I stayed up late to write this so.... I will fix any typos/errors tomorrow, I prommy

I hope you enjoy <3

EDIT 2/7/26: I've updated the translations in this chapter (many thanks to everyone who has helped with the French, you are all lifesavers!!!! I haven't replied to everyone yet but I appreciate it very very much)

AND! because of this awesome workskin by smugrobotics you can now hover or click on any French words to see what they mean. please let me know if this is glitching or not working at all, ty!!

The rest of the day is full of Montreal players coming to check on Shane.

Yuna and David stay out of the way as much as they can. Instead of waiting around the hospital, David goes by Shane’s apartment to gather anything he might need. Yuna stays behind, sitting outside Shane’s room and making sure no one overwhelms him.

J.J. Boiziau arrives fashionably late in the early afternoon, and he only spares Yuna brief greetings before heading to the door. “Mon amiMy friend,” he calls out emphatically, “you are awake!”

“OuaisYep, I am!” Shane replies happily. “Ça va,How are you, J.J.?”

“Non, non, non.No, no, no.” Yuna hears more than sees J.J. sit himself beside Shane in the bed, the blankets crinkling. Shane giggles, and Yuna smiles at the wall, so relieved to be able to hear his joy. “Tabarnak,Fuck, Shane, that was terrifying! Ah, and look at you, you are so hurt…”

“Heh, I’m really okay. Seeee? ‘M fineeee. Didn’ even break my neck.” Shane sounds oddly proud of that.

“And we are so glad for that, mon amimy friend. But… I know you were going to see your Boston Lily, hmm? So, what about your di—”

“J.J., fuck, my m-mamanm-mom is righ’ outside! Ta yeule!Shut your mouth!”

Yuna stops listening right about then, forcing herself to get up and give them some privacy, no matter how curious she is about the person they’re talking about. So, J.J. knows about her—fuck, them, she has got to remember that—too.

A slow, acidic thought creeps up on Yuna. Was it only she and David that Shane didn’t feel comfortable telling about Lily?

But, no, didn’t Hayden say that Shane “never” talks about them?

Yuna shakes her head, forcibly turning her thoughts away. She can’t do anything about the Lily situation right now, and thinking over every single new thing she learns won’t help. Of course, the thoughts don’t erase themselves, but her mind quiets down when she focuses on other things.

There are calls to make and paperwork to do, promising the hospital that yes, they will take Shane home, and no, he will not be left without supervision for the next week at least. He’ll be coming home with them. In other circumstances, Yuna would have offered to stay at Shane’s apartment, but it’s better this way—since he’ll be out for so long, she doesn’t want him to have to be alone. It would be all too easy for him to spiral like that.

Of course, it might’ve helped if Lily had come to visit….

No, Yuna. Stop that.

Taking a breath, she decides now is as good a time as any to call Farah. Surely she’ll have something Yuna can help her with.

Thankfully, there’s always PR work to be done. Yuna ends up pacing in the waiting room, making endless calls and sending endless emails. When J.J. leaves, she’s the one who only offers distracted goodbyes.

After dinner, when David has returned and gently suggested that she maybe eat something and take some breaths to get rid of the vaguely spinny feeling in her head, Hayden and Jackie Pike arrive.

Shane is dozing, so for a little while, they all linger out in the hall, just talking. Hayden stands still, half holding up a heavily-pregnant Jackie, and tells them about how the Metros team and staff are reacting.

“Hayd,” Jackie says after a while, “I’m going to go sit with Shane.”

Yuna glances in the room, though it’s hard to see if he’s awake or not. “He hasn’t gotten much rest…”

She doesn’t mean it to discourage Jackie, but after the words are out, she realizes how it sounds. The Pikes have come here to see him, have arranged for childcare and dealt with all the security around being able to visit Shane.

“I mean…,” she touches a hand to her chest. Now that the day is winding down, the lack of sleep is catching up to her. It’s all like all of her stress is converging behind her ribs. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Of course you can go sit with him.”

Shane always says that Jackie is a saint. Smiling, she says, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hollander, I understood what you meant. I won’t wake him up, but I think he’ll want to anyway so he can say hi to his newest niece.”

“I’m sure he will,” Yuna agrees, smiling back. Watching Jackie go inside, she can’t help but feel grateful that her son has such lovely people around him. Ones who come and visit him, who claim him as their family, who see him for who he really is.

“Let’s sit down,” David suggests. He guides her, and she lets him, plopping down into one of the uncomfortable yet now-familiar chairs. Just like last night, and god was it only twenty-four hours ago that they first arrived?, both of them sit down with her.

“Why does this feel like an intervention?” Yuna asks, only half-joking.

Hayden throws his hands up. “No, no, it’s not! You just look a little pale, Mrs.—Yuna.”

“I’m fine,” she says to him. Then she looks at David, whose face is blank and innocent, and repeats, “I’m fine, honey.”

David doesn’t say anything, just presses a simple kiss to her hair. Despite herself, Yuna does relax a little at the feeling.

Then Hayden starts talking and ruins it all.

“Right, no worries. Honestly, I was wondering about…,” Hayden looks around, lowers his voice, “Lily.”

Yuna takes a slow breath. “Things are okay there. We’re in contact with—her.”

She stumbles over the last word, but with no clue on what pronouns Lily actually prefers, Yuna is not going to out her son. Not even to his best friend.

“Did she come see him yet?”

And isn’t that a loaded question. Sharing a quick look with David, Yuna considers what to say. No, Lily hasn’t come yet, and apparently will not be coming at all. There’s something going on here that makes it impossible and I’ve already pushed them too far, I’m not going to do it again.

Yuna isn’t happy that Lily hasn’t come. It’s not a feeling she can push down or get rid of with a snap of her fingers, even knowing how upset Lily was when they texted about it. Whatever it is that’s stopping them, fine, Yuna can acknowledge it’s probably a good reason and that it’s better Lily stays away. But on the other hand, this is her son, and the person her son loves is not here when he needs them.

Even when she was trying to distract herself, Yuna’s thoughts swirled in an endless loop. Is Lily so recognizable it would cause a scene? Is Lily actually trans, or nonbinary, or a man? Are they pregnant after all? At one point, she even wondered—slightly hysterically—if Lily could be some kind of professional dominatrix. At least it would make that ‘you like it when I’m mean’ text make sense!

Underneath all that was the ultimate question: does Lily, or do both Lily and Shane, think that Yuna and David won’t approve? Is the truth, whatever it may be, really enough to keep Lily away right now?

But these thoughts aren’t productive. She can’t do anything with them. And Hayden has enough to worry about without getting caught up in the riptide of her anxiety.

That’s why she says, “No, but we’re working on it.”

Hayden doesn’t look pleased by that answer, but there’s really nothing to say. None of them know anything about this person, and Shane is surrounded by loved ones even without Lily around.

“Well… great.” He sighs, rubs his hands on his thighs. “I’m gonna go sit with Jackie and Shane for a while.”

They let him go without complaint. Once they’re alone, David asks her about mundane things like what groceries she’ll want and if their show is airing a new episode this week. They don’t listen to the low murmuring coming from Shane’s room, giving the three of them some privacy, and giving Yuna a moment to unwind.

Even under the fluorescent lights, Yuna starts drifting off. She never actually falls asleep, or she doesn’t think she does anyway, but once the Pikes come out, she wakes herself up to say goodbye.

Visiting hours are almost over by now, and the hospital staff already gently, but firmly, told Yuna that there was no reason for her and David to stay another night. Yawning, they go back to Shane’s room to at least spend the last few minutes with him.

He smiles at them when they step through the door, not quite as loopy this time. Relaxation clings to him, softening every part of him that they can see.

“Did you have a good day, son?” David asks, settling down in one of the chairs.

“Mhm, the best,” Shane says a little dreamily. “Jackie said she wants me to be the baby’s godfather, can you believe that?”

“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful.”

“Yeah, it’s, uh,” he pauses, his eyes sliding to the door. The light shifts, and Yuna looks behind her too, finding a delivery man standing there a little awkwardly. In his arms is a large bouquet of flowers.

“Shane Hollander?” Wide-eyed, he stares at Shane a bit too long.

Yuna steps forward, putting herself between Shane and the man. “I’m his mother, I can sign for those.”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Here, can I get your name?.... Y-U-N-A? Okay, perfect. Um, could I get a pic—?”

Flowers in hand, Yuna reminds him, “He’s in a hospital bed. No pictures.”

She could be nicer about it, but she frankly doesn’t have the energy to. Nor does she have any intention of letting a stranger get close to her son right now.

Once he’s gone, David scoffs, shaking his head. “Really, some people have no manners.”

“Right?” It’s honestly rude. Why would Shane be okay with people he doesn't know seeing him like this?

Her thoughts are interrupted after only a moment. “Mom…”

At the sound of her son’s voice, she turns back to him and finds Shane staring happily at the flowers. Lifting his good hand, he reaches for it, asking, “Those’re for me?”

Taking a few steps over to his bedside, she hands them over gently. There’s a card, and she watches as he reads it, his mouth forming around the words.

I wish I could be with you right now. Until next time, Lily.

Shane lets out a little puff of a laugh, looking up at her and David with big eyes. “Lily got me lillies,” he giggles, happier than Yuna has seen him in a long time.

David pats his leg. “That’s wonderful.”

Yuna doesn’t think about it when she pulls her phone out. She wants to immortalize this smile, always be able to look back and remember the time that Shane was bruised and broken, but still so full of joy.

She’s taking the picture before she even realizes it.

Pouting, Shane almost whines, “I wanna say thank you. Can I have m’phone?”

“No screens, you know that, Shane.”

“But Daaaaad….”

“Nope. You can call them in a few days, say it then.”

“Shane, honey,” Yuna interrupts, waving her phone a little. “I can tell h—them, if you want me to.”

“Would you? Please? Don’t want ‘em to worry I don’ like it. I love it,” he says seriously.

“I’ll tell them, baby.”

Sitting down, she opens the text thread with Lily. After that last message, there’s been silence all day, neither of them trying to reach out any further.

If she sends this picture, will they respond? From the bed, Shane watches her hopefully.

Surprisingly, the reply is immediate.

“Moooom, what’d they say?”

Yuna can’t help but laugh as she relays the exact wording—and as Shane rolls his eyes, sinking into the bed and clutching the flowers like a lifeline.

“So unfair,” Shane complains non-sensically.

Yuna chews on the inside of her cheek. She doesn’t know if she’s being too informal with Lily, if she’s swinging too hard in the other direction after upsetting them so badly last night. But when she tells all of this to Shane, he seems so happy about it all that she can’t regret it.

Plus, she can’t possibly hate anyone who also knows just how cute her son is. It’s impossible.

Soon enough, however, her eyes are drooping and Shane is flagging too. David laughs at them both, the same fond laugh he always had when he caught them taking impromptu naps when Shane was young.

“We should get going, Shane. We’ll be back in the morning, okay? Do you need anything?”

Shane thinks on it for a moment, before sleepily asking, “Can’you get the black hoodie outta my bag?”

Yuna is closer, so she steps over and carefully leans down to unzip it. Inside is a nebulous mass of dark clothing, though if Yuna knows her son at all, she knows it’s all clean. Sticking her hand inside, she gropes around to feel for a zipper or those little plastic bits at the end of a drawstring, and when she touches something plastic she pulls it out.

It’s a bottle of lube. Yuna blinks at it for a moment, completely confused about how this item could be in her hand when she was looking for a hoodie.

Then she reads it.

“Shane, what? Chocolate flavored lube?”

David chokes, but Shane only says, “Yeah?”

“But you don’t like chocolate, I thought.” For some reason, it’s the only thing she can think to say.

“‘S not for me,” Shane says. “Lily likes it.”

For someone who, only two days ago, would’ve never told her anything about his sex life, Yuna suddenly has a good deal more information than she would like to have. “Oh, well. If Lily likes it.”

Shane doesn’t reply, already slipping into sleep. He’ll be embarrassed in the morning, but Yuna has no intention of bringing this up, not unless he wants to talk about it first. All she really cares about is if he’s happy and safe; clearly, he’s enjoying himself, and that’s good enough.

“Jesus,” she mumbles to herself, putting it away. “Stop laughing, David. Help me find this hoodie so I can go to bed. Please.”

He comes to help, and though they try very hard not to snoop any more than she already inadvertently had, they also find a box of condoms before David finally digs the stupid hoodie out.

They’re both a little surprised, but Shane’s an adult. It’s fine.

They lay the hoodie over his chest before they go, which makes Shane grin in his sleep. Yuna can’t help it—she has to take another picture.

Chapter End Notes

I put all of my 6 years of french classes into this one (jk I don't remember shit)

there used to be translations here but now they're above so, ❤️

Chapter 7

Chapter Notes

everyone say 'thank you snowstorm' for allowing me to stay up late again and write some more <3

also, I will say this every time, but thank you all so much for your comments. I can't reply to them all but I cherish every single one. you are all so kind and I'm so glad you're enjoying my lil fic 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Yuna sighs. What is she supposed to say to that? “I know”? Well, she doesn’t.

Tapping her fingers against her phone case, she looks up and peers out the windshield, trying to come up with anything, anything at all, to reply with. Every new option feels wrong—she could say “Shane understands”, but as far as she knows, he hasn’t spoken to them in days and might not understand after all. “Are you sure we can’t get you a plane ticket?” would be too pushy. And “Is work more important than my son?” is just downright not happening. It’s just her stress talking.

David reaches over the center console to place a hand on her thigh. Like clockwork, one of her own hands goes to rest on his. It means she can’t keep tapping on the phone, whose screen has gone dark.

In the backseat, Shane is sitting with his head tipped down, eyes seemingly shut. His breath is even, just loud enough she can hear it over the sound of the road. This morning exhausted him.

Opening her phone again, Yuna decides that Lily will just have to deal with being left on read for a bit. There’s something else she needs to do, and with David’s grounding touch and Shane sleeping behind her, she finally has a moment to do it.

In her e-book app, there are a lot of options for parents of LGBT kids.

Yuna’s heart pounds as she scrolls through them. It’s possible that she and David are completely off-base with this, and she’ll be wasting her money. But at the same time… she glances at Shane again. Swallows.

Mothers know their children, and Yuna knows Shane very well, excluding this whole secret partner thing. So she knows it’s not impossible.

The problem is that a lot of the books are for LGBT youth. As in, children. Which Shane most certainly is not.

Still, she finds a few that look good. One about supporting your trans family members, which isn’t quite what Yuna needs, but close enough, and another about how parents can support their LGBT children. She makes sure it covers all ages before she buys it.

“I found a few books,” she tells David vaguely, though of course he understands what she’s referring to. He’s the one who’s been sending her articles. “I’ll add them to your tablet once we get home, okay?”

“Mmm, thank you, honey.”

She squeezes his hand. For a while, the car is quiet, soft jazz filtering through the speakers. Yuna begins reading the second book, trying to absorb every word.

When Lily texts again, Yuna has to blink a few times, her mind shifting gears slowly.

“Mom?” Shane’s voice floats up to the front seat. Yuna looks over her shoulder, surprised to see him awake, and finds him staring at her with slightly-too-big eyes. “Who are you texting?”

Yuna tries to sound as casual as possible when she says, “Lily.”

Shane inhales sharply and looks away. His voice is wobbly when he asks, “Who’s Lily?”

This morning, the doctor said it would be possible that Shane had forgotten things that had happened immediately before and after the concussion. It’s normal to be unclear on the details of what happened while under strong pain killers, too. So Yuna pushes down the stab of fear that rises at that question, tells herself this is not a bad sign, and squeezes David’s hand again.

“Your friend, honey. You told Hayden to text them, do you remember? We’ve been texting them updates the last few days.”

David adds, “Those flowers are from Lily, son. They couldn’t make it, so they sent those instead.”

Yuna watches as Shane peers at the flowers, strapped delicately into the seat beside him, with a look on his face she can’t parse at all. “I thought…,” he mumbles. Then, still not looking at her, he asks, “You’ve been talking to h—them?”

“Yes.” Twisting around to face him more, she remembers the moment she first texted Lily and wondered which breach of privacy was worse. If Shane would hate her for overstepping, for speaking to someone he clearly wanted separate from them. “Is that okay? Lily’s been… very worried about you.”

Shane doesn’t reply right away. Snuggled up in his hoodie, one arm in a sling and his face still bruised, he looks small and tired. His expression is… the only word she can think of is ‘haunted’. He avoids her eyes like he’ll catch on fire if he doesn’t.

He looks, honestly, terrified.

Yuna takes a breath, and forces herself to not react. To wait until he says or does something first. The urge to protect him is so strong, but what can she do?

She doesn’t know why he’s hiding from them, though it must be something they’ve done, something she’s done. Pushing him right now is the worst thing she could do, but at the same time, she just wants to blurt out, you can tell us anything. We love you! Even if the cheating theory is correct, the scolding could come later. Once Shane knows, again, that he will always be safe with them.

Finally, he glances at her, just a skimming of his eyes over her own. They land somewhere over her shoulder, and he does not speak.

It’s David who cuts into the moment. Gently, he says, “Shane, it’s okay, really. We already know that Lily exists and is important to you. You told us a few things about them, and they sound lovely. There’s no need to panic.”

Shane’s whole body goes impossibly still. “I told you—what did I say? I can’t remember. Was it, did I—”

Though it’s uncomfortable and probably quite unsafe, Yuna reaches a hand into the back seat. She touches his knee, feeling how tense he is under her palm. He jumps, then minutely relaxes. His eyes are wet.

“You told us really nice things. You said that sh—they are beautiful and funny and take care of you. That’s all.”

“And that they’re your favorite.”

David is clearly going for a smile, but Shane doesn’t crack. Working his jaw, he doesn’t speak for a long moment, looking between them fearfully. Yuna can’t hide the way her own eyes are shining, but she can put on a smile, something that hopefully tells him he has nothing to worry about.

Finally, he says, “Yeah.”

Just yeah, but that’s okay. It’s better than terrified silence.

Carefully, she squeezes his knee. Her arm is twinging from the position, but she won’t let go until he’s ready. “That’s wonderful, honey. I can see why you like them.”

Shane sniffles a little, staring up at the ceiling of the car. “What… what have you been talking about?”

“Just you, how you’re doing, that sort of thing.” Of course, that doesn’t cover most of it, including the ways Yuna overstepped. She’s not trying to hide it, they’ll have to talk about it sooner or later, but now is not the time to bring it up. “Lily was just asking me to text when we get home.”

She watches his face, and though he doesn’t smile that same carefree grin from the hospital, he does soften. Under her hand, he relaxes further.

“They really care,” she says.

“Yeah, um, yeah they do. Thank you for doing that, Mom. For texting Lily, I mean. It… it means a lot.”

Yuna sniffs, nodding her head. She thinks again about what she would do if David was in hospital and she had no way of seeing him, being with him—if her only lifeline was texts from a stranger. “It’s no problem at all, honey.”

Hesitantly, he asks, “Is… are they okay?”

“I think so. They’re back at work, it seems like, but they’re still asking about you. They were making jokes earlier, actually.”

When he only nods, Yuna glances at David, who seems content to let them talk this out. Both of his hands are back on the wheel, but his eyes are warm when they meet.

Taking a breath, she turns back to Shane. “Can I ask? … How long have you been together?”

Maybe it isn’t fair to ask it, maybe it should wait until they’re home and Shane isn’t trapped in the car with them. But she hopes he can see in her face that she’s only curious, that she won’t press him to answer if he doesn’t want to.

It’s just, among all of the questions that have arisen from this, all of the things that have plagued her—this is something she wants to know almost more than anything else. How long has this been going on?

Shane huffs out a little laugh. “Years. It’s been years, sort of.”

Yes, Hayden said that too. But—“How long is years?”

The words come without permission, too quick, too much. She opens her mouth to take it back but Shane is quicker. For just a moment, he meets her eyes and says, “Since rookie season, Mom.”

Fuck.

It feels like her heart stops in her chest for one, two, three painful beats. All the air leaves her lungs. Just like Shane had before, she goes still.

She knew it was serious. She did. But… rookie season? He’s known this person since then, loved them since then?

“I don’t… my head hurts,” Shane says after a moment where all three of them are completely silent. “Are we almost home?”

David clears his throat. “Yep, just about ten more minutes.”

“Okay,” he mumbles, and closes his eyes, leaning up against the window.

Yuna doesn’t have to be asked to take her hand back. Turning back around in her seat, she watches familiar trees and bends in the road go past, and thinks, over and over again, Since rookie season…

It’s only once they’re inside, Shane getting settled into his old bed and David pulling out their luggage from the car, that Yuna is able to really react.

Stepping onto the back porch, she pulls up Lily’s contact, and rereads every message they’ve sent in the past 48 hours. Reconsiders it all with this new information, and can’t wrap her head around it. Since rookie season?

She doesn’t think, doesn’t consider how stupid it is or how upset Shane will be, and hits the call button.

Chapter End Notes

I hope the emotions aren't too roller coastery but I can't help it 😭 Shane tells me it's time to cry and I say yes sir on it sir

also this will def be more than 10 chapters bc this was just ONE of three things I originally had put in this chapter so. -throws my hands up-

EDIT:
Yall I feel actually evil 🤣😭 I'm sorry for this cliffhanger but I imagine I'll be able to post tomorrow so it won't be for too long ❤️

if you want just a little spoiler for the next chapter, click here!

so. This is actually not the reveal yet 🙂‍↕️ but we are getting there! There's just still a few more pieces to put together. And I promise there will be a happy ending ❤️

Chapter 8

Chapter Notes

see? I told you it wouldn't be a long wait! (I woke up at 3 am and read all of your comments and laughed so much it woke up my cat fkjdhfjah)

please don't kill me for this chapter 🤣😭 I really like it and I hope you will too!! we are SO CLOSE to the reveal yall!!

more thoughts at the end <3

It rings for a long time. Long enough that Yuna thinks Lily won't pick up at all.

It gives her time to consider that she’s still concerned about this—Lily has been very … attentive, kind, they don’t feel like the right words, but they’re true in a way. Very concerned about Shane. Very familiar, in that text exchange she saw. But… all of the secrecy is just blowing her mind in a bad way. This is someone she’s never heard of, someone she’s never even had an inkling that they might exist, and Shane has loved them since rookie season.

She doesn’t know what she hopes to accomplish with this call. As it rings, some awareness comes back to her and she knows she shouldn’t have done it. But… it’s already done, the call will already show up on Lily’s phone. And she needs to know.

It's only at the last second that the line picks up, and then there's a feminine, accented voice saying, “Hello?” in Yuna's ear, out of breath.

Yuna can’t reply right away, reality hitting all at once. For the past two days, Lily has been a spectre almost, real but not real, present but not present. In her dream, Yuna imagined them as a tall, beautiful, blonde woman, but truthfully, she has no idea what they look like.

Not that it matters, Yuna doesn’t care if Lily is short or tall, skinny or fat, blonde or brunette. What Lily looks like is probably the least important part of all of this. But without any concrete image of them, only words on a screen and Hayden’s brief knowledge, Lily had not seemed fully real.

Now they were in her ear.

She’s gone too long not speaking. Urgently, Lily asks, “Is something wrong? Is J—Shane okay?”

Yuna inhales. “He’s fine, I’m sorry, he’s okay—I just. …Lily?”

There is silence for a moment, unnatural. Like she’s been muted. Yuna clutches her phone tightly, her own breath loud in her ears.

There’s a hushed click. “No,” says—Not Lily, breathing slowing down now. “No. I’m, um, I’m Lana. Lily’s friend.”

Her mouth moves faster than her brain. She knows she sounds upset, too sharp. She knows, and she can’t stop it, can’t take it back. “Why couldn’t Lily talk to me herself?”

Lana hesitates. “Ah—she’s sick now, bad cold from someone on the plane. Voice sounds all wrong. Not good first impression, we think.”

Yuna’s not sure she believes that. Not all of it at least. “So Lily’s back in… Boston?”

There’s rustling on the other end. “Yes, made it home safe,” Lana says. “We have been watching ESPN since she got home.”

Despite herself, Yuna relaxes slightly at that. “She’s not alone, then,” she says, more to herself than to Lana. Though she feels so conflicted about all of this, she hates to think that Lily was alone at all during this—not when Shane had Yuna and David at his side the whole time. “Good, that’s good.”

Silence again. Yuna looks up at the sky, hiding behind a thousand trees, just peeking out in the cracks. She should hang up, and she knows she should.

“Lana, I know this is inappropriate, and that we only just met,” she says directly, “but can I ask you something?”

Lana hums. “Yes, go ahead.”

“Did you know that Lily and Shane were together?” Was it only us that Shane was hiding this from?

“Ah, no, not really.” Yuna can’t read her tone, both light and oddly… soothing. “I knew she had a partner, that is all. Just a name.”

“So you didn't know how long it's been?”

“I don't know when it began, but I know it has been years.”

Yuna’s heartbeat slows gradually as she speaks. It’s the same as Hayden, then. Vaguely aware of a relationship, but not much more.

Finally, she’s able to sit in one of their deck chairs, peeking in through the sliding glass door. David and Shane are in the kitchen, and David is making Shane some kind of smoothie it looks like. It’s so normal, that if Shane’s arm wasn’t in a sling she might’ve thought this was just another of Shane’s visits home.

But of course, things aren’t normal. She has Shane’s secret partner’s friend on the phone. A little shakily, she stumbles over her words, “Lana, do you think… are they…”

She doesn’t know what exactly she’s trying to ask, what kind of answers she wants. Under the layer of shock and concern, she knows she doesn’t deserve to ask, that if anyone should be telling her these things, it should be Shane. But Shane is inside, in pain, and Yuna doesn’t want to scare him again, make him cry again. She just can’t stop herself from having to know.

Somehow, Lana understands, even when Yuna doesn’t. “You want to know if they are good for each other. If they are happy.”

With a sigh that makes her whole body slump, she says, “Yes. I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t dump this on you, but I’m worried about Shane. I’ve never heard about Lily, I don’t know anything about them. I just have to make sure…” that he’s happy, and safe, and doesn’t need help getting out of a situation he can’t escape on his own.

Lana hums and doesn’t reply right away. Yuna presses a hand to her chest, digging her knuckles in so she has something to focus on.

“Mrs. Hollander, I haven’t met Shane,” she says carefully. “But Lily is always much happier after seeing him or speaking with him. Lily, her ah, her father passed not so long ago. Shane was very kind to her. Took care of her even though they could not be together. So, I cannot say anything for sure, but I like Shane for Lily. I think… you have nothing to worry about.”

There’s so much there, good things, answers that send relief skittering through her bones. But Yuna can only focus on one part of it—“Lily’s father passed?”

Throughout this whole conversation, Lana had mostly spoken softly, hesitantly, like she was thinking over every word she said. But now, her voice changes, a little louder, a little firmer. “Yes. It has been a very bad few weeks. So I hope you will not be angry with Lily. It was hard enough for her to see J—Shane fall like that.”

Jesus Christ, Yuna thinks, pressing harder on her chest. “Is—is Lily there? Can I talk to them?”

Rustling again, hushed voices, and yes, one does sound rougher than the other. Finally, Lana says, “I put on speakerphone.”

Yuna takes a deep breath, watching Shane through the glass again. He’s going to be so upset when he realizes what she’s done, who she’s talking to right now.

“Lily, honey, I… I’m so sorry. For your loss and for everything that’s been going on with Shane. I know I haven’t made this easier for you, and I am so sorry for that. I won’t keep pushing, but please, if you need anything, anything at all, you can reach out. I mean it. I’m sorry again for... all of this.”

It feels woefully inadequate. She didn’t know what to say when David lost his father, either, but at least then she was able to make comfort foods for him, hold him close, reassure him that he wasn’t alone. Of course, this situation is lightyears away from that one in just about every way.

She feels sick while she waits for them to respond. It goes silent again, muted. When Lana comes back with a click, Yuna is ready to apologize all over again.

But Lana is quicker. “Lily says thank you. She will text you. Everything is okay, hmm?”

“Of course,” she says, making herself sound calm. How did this end up with her son’s partner’s friend comforting her? “Lana, thank you for your help, I’m sure this isn’t what you wanted to have to deal with today.”

“I would do anything for Lily, Mrs. Hollander. Just like you would your Shane.”

The words aren’t said unkindly, but they still sting.

After somewhat awkward goodbyes, it’s hardly a moment before Yuna’s phone is buzzing with texts.

The more Lily says, the worse Yuna feels. Are her hands shaking?

She’s spent so much time questioning Lily, not just who they are but if they’re good enough for Shane, and this is how Lily responds. With kindness. With forgiveness. Even though their father just died and then their partner got seriously injured, and she made things worse, Lily can say these things.

Scrubbing her face, Yuna wishes for a time machine, or a strong drink. Preferably both.

After, Yuna sits outside for a long time.

The past two days have been endless, non-stop moments of stress. From the moment that Shane fell, it’s like her heart has been caught in her throat, pounding so hard she can’t think about anything else. Shane being hurt morphed into Shane having this second life, something she knows nothing about, and it shouldn’t be worse than his injuries, but….

Hockey, she knows. Hockey, she guided him through for years. She drove him to every practice, every game; she knew all of his coaches and teammates and their parents. All of his brand deals and all of the PR, she’s had her hands in it. And that’s been his life for so long that maybe it felt like that was all there was. Whenever they call, he says he’s hanging out with teammates, or reading hockey books, or on his way to practice. He wears his Reeboks and takes pictures with fans and never, ever forgets the impact he has—the only Asian MLH player in the whole league. The only representation a whole lot of children have.

Hockey is Yuna’s domain, but personal relationships? David’s always been better at that.

She’s always tried to be supportive either way. When he began dating Rose, she told him about all of the things David did for her when they were dating. She made sure to ask about her and listen attentively when Shane answered, committing it all to memory. But then they drifted apart, and Yuna has waited patiently for Shane to say something about it, to come to them with his problems.

But why would he? Clearly, Yuna only makes things worse.

When she stands, her legs are stiff and her cheeks are wet. Wiping them quickly, she goes back inside, hoping to find Shane right away so she can try to make this up to him. He’s no longer in the kitchen, though David is.

Spotting her obvious signs of distress, he stands up straighter and comes around the island in just a few steps. Cradling her face in one hand, he asks, “You okay?”

His softness feels painful. She pulls away gently, shaking her head. “David, I really think I fucked up.”

“Yuna—”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to talk about it yet. Where’s Shane?”

David, her lovely, sweet David, doesn’t press her. “I think he’s in his room, honey. I just helped him call Lily. Don’t worry, I didn’t let him look at the screen at all.”

Taking a breath, Yuna fights with herself over what to do. He hasn’t been able to talk to his partner in days, not since before the game, and she knows she shouldn’t interrupt. But at the same time, Lily would understand, right? If Yuna has to, she will help Shane call them back at any hour of the day.

David doesn’t tell her what to do, just presses a kiss to her forehead. “It will be okay, Yuna. You love each other. And he was relieved you texted them, he said that himself.”

“I called them, though. I just—Shane said rookie season and my brain went on autopilot. I have so much to tell you, but I really think I should talk to Shane first. It’s waited long enough.”

He doesn’t disagree. Yuna slips down the hall towards Shane’s room, hearing his muffled voice through the wall.

She intends to knock right away, to apologize for interrupting, to ask to sit so they can talk. Then she hears what Shane is saying.

His voice doesn’t sound like she’s ever heard it before, like steel wrapped in wool. Sweet, but angry. “I’m just fucking scared, I can’t believe they’ve talked to you… is she being nice to you? You can be honest. …. She means well, sure, but I’m still sorry. … No, it’s not okay— … I know she loves me. They both do. And I love them. But if they’re making you uncomfortable…, you don’t have to defend her. Baby—”

Shane is silent for a longer moment than before, though Yuna hardly notices, regret clouding her thoughts.

“I don’t remember saying that, but… Is that what you want? Hah. Okay, baby. You’ll have to teach me how to say it in R—”

Yuna steps away, not wanting to eavesdrop any longer. Anxiety courses through her, making her feel sick and lightheaded. As soon as she’s in her own room, she slumps down onto her bed, and resists the urge to scream.

As soon as he’s off the phone with Lily, Yuna tells herself, I’m going to speak with him. It can’t wait any longer.

Her own parents never apologized. If Yuna was upset, then she just had to get over it. Her family has never been good at communicating, showing it all through expectation and disappointment. Yuna had wanted to be better than them. She’d wanted to take their mistakes and correct them. She’d wanted to do everything right.

She has to fix this.

Chapter End Notes

my Thoughts™️on shane, yuna, and ilya

I'm really enjoying reading everyone's thoughts on her/her headspace and your own experiences (hugs for everyone who also has difficult relationships with their parents 🫂). I know there are lots of ways to interpret what's going on here and it's crazy to me that I get to like, see that first hand (this is my most popular fic like ever lol)

soooo maybe this won't be a surprise but I have my own mommy issues LOL. I keep wanting to defend Yuna in the comments even tho I'm the one making her do all of this... and if I was Shane, I would be so freaked out I don't know how I would actually react. I am writing Yuna to only have good intentions, but it doesn't negate the harm she's inadvertently putting both Shane and Ilya through. to me, Yuna has just had a terrible 2 days, and would normally NOT be quite this bad....

the other thing is that I really think Shane *is* actually grateful, to a degree. I know that sounds crazy but like, he knows that Ilya just lost his father. he knows Ilya had to see him get hurt in person and couldn't be with him after. he knows that Ilya has no way to get information and no support network really (not in mtl anyway), so... knowing that his parents did take the time to keep "Lily" up to date is important. he's scared and he's going to be angry but someone at least tried to show Ilya some care while he couldn't, y'know?

(and Ilya..... he doesn't have a mom, or a father who ever gave a shit enough about him to act like this. it is NOT okay that Yuna is acting like this, but I think he can see past the hurt and just sees... Shane's Mother Who Loves Him. and who is treating Ilya like he's Shane's, even if she's going about it wrong and hurting him in the process.)

this fic isn't meant to be anti-Yuna, and at the end of the day, I want good things for Shane, which in this fic will include having his family around him. I think it would be so interesting to see a fic where Shane decides differently, and cuts them off or goes low/no contact (and if you write one pls share) but... yeah. I'm going to try to earn our happy ending here ❤️

idk, that's really rambly and isn't required reading at all dksjfahj this was originally going to be a oneshot (lmao) so I didn't go into it really thinking of the quencies or the emotional fall out. ... I am now tho! 💀

not sure when the next chapter will be, and that /11 is tentative, but I promise we are really close! thank you all for sticking around this long ❤️

Chapter 9

Chapter Notes

yall, I am STILL off work. all hail 2026 snow storm, I guess.

btw I keep forgetting to say this, but several of the scenes in the last chapters were requested by commenters!! ... I did not save their usernames so I'm sorry, I can't credit the exact people, but specifically seeing Ilya in the elevator, "Lily" sending flowers, and Svetlana answering the phone were all ideas from commenters, not me. thank you sm for the ideas yall they were bangers <3

I listened to 'some protector' by role model and 'we hug now' by sydney rose the entire time I wrote this chapter, and yes, I cried. good luck yall <3

Shane and Lily talk for a long time.

Yuna doesn’t listen in, but the sound of his voice drifts down the hall. She can’t stand to lay in bed for long, so she gets to her feet and throws herself into tidying, dealing with all of the laundry that got piled up over the days they were away. And she listens.

Whatever he’s saying, his voice is low and soft, unlike she’s ever really heard it before. He sounds—he sounds like David. Like how David has spoken to her, in moments where her stress rose to unmanageable levels and she needed his help to calm down, or all those nights she spent in hotel rooms while Shane lay bruised and dead asleep in the next bed over.

He sounds like an adult.

Obviously he is one, and Yuna knows that. He’ll always be her baby, but he’s grown up—he’s made a place for himself in the world separate from her, from them, and he can stand on his own two feet. He has a job and a house and a life.

And now a partner, too. Someone who has been kind to Yuna, even through all of this stress. Who is real and is out there somewhere, unable to be with him. At least in part because of Yuna herself.

Yuna has to sit down, clutching a shirt almost as old as Shane as she considers it. Somewhere along the way, he’s learned to be more than just himself. What had Lana said? Shane had taken care of Lily even though he couldn’t be with her.

Did he ever have questions? Did he ever feel unsure? Did he ever wish he could ask them for advice? He had, with Paige and Jessica and Rose. But never Lily.

Something niggles at the back of her mind, and she knows that’s significant. If she goes down that train of thought, she thinks she could figure out what it might mean. But…

No. She’s going to wait. Let Shane tell her in his own time, instead of pushing again.

After a while, it goes quiet. Yuna finishes folding the last of the clean clothes, and steps into the hallway, pausing in her doorway to take a deep breath.

It catches in her throat.

Nervous energy fills her whole body until she feels like she’s buzzing. She feels like she’s wading into unknown territory, no clear end in sight. No clear next step. All of the uncertainty of the past few days is compounding, rolling itself into a ball in her chest.

Some part of her, a more logical part, tries to remind her that this is her son. They’ve argued plenty of times in their lives, because he’s just too much like her sometimes and it chafes for them both. There have been arguments where he ran and slammed his door, where Yuna had to go on a drive to cool down, where David had to step in and tell them they were both being stubborn for no good reason.

But really, those fights have been few and far between. Shane has always been a good kid. Yuna has never fucked up like this.

There are pinpricks in her fingers and palms when she knocks on his door. There’s a sound on the other side, and then it’s swinging open.

Shane, her Shane, stands there with an arm in a sling and his face still a little too pale, his expression completely blank.

“Mom,” he starts to say before she can open her mouth. He doesn’t follow it up with anything, not quite looking at her, his body tense.

She did this. She caused this mess.

“Do you want to come sit outside with me?” She asks. “We should talk.”

He nods, just an incline of his head so he won’t make the headache worse. “Okay.

Together, they pass through the house. David is in the living room, and he watches them with eyes that seem to say, I’m right here. You’re okay. She doesn't know who he means it for—probably both of them.

On the back porch, neither of them decide to sit. The sun is going down slowly, and though there are more clouds now, it’s still bright enough that Shane has to squint a bit against the light.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t think… we can go in,” she says.

Jaw clenched, he says, “No, I’m fine. Let’s just talk.”

“Okay, yes, let’s do that.”

For a moment, neither of them speak. Shane glances at her before turning his eyes to the wood under their feet.

Yuna knows she needs to go first. Fess up to everything that’s happened while he was in hospital, apologize, and let him react however he will. But where is she supposed to start? There are a hundred things she could say, and they all scramble out of reach the second she thinks to pick one.

Ultimately, Shane takes the choice from her.

“You called… Lily,” he says directly. His good arm hangs limply by his side. He just sounds—blank.

Yuna swallows. This is it. She cannot fuck this up. “I did. I shouldn’t have, and I know that, Shane. I wasn’t thinking when I called her—fuck, when I called them—and I didn’t think about the position it would put any of you in. I’m sorry.”

Shane lets out a scoffing laugh. “Clearly, Mom. I love you, but I—Lily doesn’t need to deal with… you right now. There’s enough on their plate without having to answer all of your questions about us and trying to, what, force them to come see me?”

Yuna stiffens, looking away as her eyes fill with tears. She knows she’s too much, but it never hurts less to hear it. Even when she knows she deserves it.

Don’t be like your parents, Yuna, she tells herself. She could have never spoken to them like this, even at his age. It’s only now that she barely speaks to them at all that she feels she could snap at them.

Some foolish part of her hopes that means good things, that Shane still feels like he can get angry.

“That was wrong of me,” she says, trying to keep her voice even. “And I know that. But I didn’t want you to be alone, Shane.”

He shakes his head, wincing right after. “I wasn’t. I get that you were trying to be nice, but you shouldn’t have done that.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.” Closing her eyes, she starts, “It’s just, I knew if it was me, if your father was the one in that bed, I would stop at nothing to be with you. I didn’t know why s—they weren’t coming, I thought maybe they just needed a ride or something—”

He blows out a breath. “No—”

“—and I knew they were in the city, because of your texts—”

“I can’t believe you read those,” he says heatedly. “Mom, that was private, you shouldn’t have—”

“It was an accident Shane, I wasn’t trying to snoop!” She tries to lower her voice, can feel this going wrong but has no way to stop it.

There’s a nagging voice in her head that says she was only doing her best. What else could she have done in that situation? Lily clearly isn’t his puck bunny or whatever she called them at first. She knows now that there’s some reason why they couldn’t come, but this was before that—when all she knew was that her son’s random partner could have come and been with him, and was choosing not to be.

How can she make him see that? How can she get him to understand that she was just concerned for him? She wasn’t thinking of Lily in that moment, she was only thinking of him.

“Hayden told us that all you cared about right after you were seriously injured was texting this, this person neither of us knew anything about. So we did, and I am sorry I saw those texts, I didn’t mean to, but I still shouldn’t have read them. I was only looking because I was trying to get their number, and I saw them.”

“Why couldn’t Dad have done it?” He demands.

Yuna doesn’t have an answer for that, not one she can confess to and not one Shane will like. Things would have been much simpler if David had been the one to text, but with their son in a hospital bed and still no way to see them—she’d wanted control of any part of the situation she could get. She’d wanted to be the one who informed everyone, Coach and his team and his Lily, that he was okay. Because saying it made it more real, and because it’s her role in his life, his manager, the person who keeps everything running smoothly.

And because, maybe, for once she wanted to be the one who got to see the inside of Shane’s non-hockey life. She wanted to see what the other side of him is like.

“Does it matter?” She snaps instead of saying any of that, and she can hear her own mother in her voice, the deflection of blame, and she can’t stop it.

Shane sighs sharply through his nose. “Uh, yeah it does, because at least he probably wouldn’t have made Lily feel like shit for not being able to come!”

“I wasn’t trying to—I just couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t want to be there,” she tries to defend herself. “I know it’s serious between you two—”

“Of course they wanted to be with me.” He scrubs his face with his good hand, grimacing. “Fuck, Mom. And I, I wanted them there too, but there are just some things you don’t understand. Do you get that?”

His voice cracks on ‘understand’, betraying the emotions she can see—with just a glance at his now-wet eyes—that he’s trying to keep a hold of. All at once, the fight drains out of her.

What the hell is she doing? He has a fucking concussion and she’s out here arguing with him instead of apologizing. Letting her feelings take over instead of fixing this like she should be.

“I guess I don’t,” she says, muted.

Shane slumps against the wall of the house like he, too, has lost the will to keep going.

Monotone, he goes on, “Lily told you I wouldn’t want them there. That it would be too complicated. And you kept pushing.”

“I’m sorry, Shane. I should have listened.”

“Yeah, you should have.”

They’re both quiet for a moment, staring out into the yard in front of them. It’s darker out now, the sky a beautiful, broken-up wash of colors. The persistent buzz of bugs in the trees isn’t loud enough to cover up the slightly-laboured sound of Shane’s breathing.

“I shouldn’t have made you come out here,” she says. I shouldn’t have done any of this. “Let’s go in.”

Shane doesn’t do what she expects, which is to agree and immediately bail on this conversation so he can rest in his old bed. Instead, he says, “No. No, there’s still… there’s still more we should talk about.”

Sniffling, Yuna nods. “If you’re sure. We could talk inside.”

“I don’t want to disturb Dad,” he says, his head turned away. She watches as he walks over to the chairs, taking the one she had sat in earlier, his body slumping slightly once he’s off his feet.

This is a terrible time to have to deal with this, and they both know it. But it has to happen. She follows him to the chairs.

Once she’s sitting down, sideways so she’s facing him, she takes a deep breath and looks. He’s staring straight forward, only flicking glances in her direction.

He’s nervous. She hates herself for it.

“I’ve gone about all of this the wrong way, honey.” She shuts her eyes and shakes her head as if it can shake the guilt away. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry, not keep making it worse.”

He doesn’t reply right away, and Yuna’s insides coil, waiting for his anger or disappointment. Either one would be completely justified.

But, again, he doesn’t react like she thinks he will. Finally, he makes a noise, and when she looks at him, there’s a small, sardonic smile on his face.

“We’ve both been having a shitty few days,” he says, an olive branch.

She wants to take it, wants things to go back to normal like an Etch-a-Sketch, a clean slate like nothing happened at all. But she knows what that’s like, and how it never actually fixes anything. It just lets things fester, unspoken of and unacknowledged, until suddenly you’re eighteen years old and throwing yourself into any chance you can find to get away from your parents.

Yuna doesn’t want that for them. She doesn’t want Shane to feel like he has to run away from her, ever. They can’t let this fester.

“We have, but that’s no excuse. Just because I’ve been stressed out doesn’t mean I should have done any of that to Lily. Or to you. I know… I know it doesn’t mean much, Shane, but if you want me to stop texting them, I will. I can apologize to them again. And I won’t push anymore.”

She’s said that to herself multiple times already, but this time, she will make it be the truth.

When she was a little younger than Shane, first becoming an adult on her own and dealing with a whole new set of problems, she had an iron fist of control around herself. Everything she did, she did with a purpose. Even at home, alone in her shitty little apartment, she didn’t loosen up.

It was only once she met David that she learned that she could relax, at least with this one thing. That there were people, a new family, that she could be herself around. Work was still work, and as the years passed, eventually hockey became work too.

But family… she can do this for Shane. She can back off.

She can be not too much.

Her eyes are hot. Her hands are shaking, a little. She hides them in her lap so Shane won’t see.

But Shane does see. He’s turned himself towards her, and with a little sigh, he reaches out his good hand to take one of her own.

“Mom, no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re not too much. No—don’t do that,” he says when she shakes her head. “It was wrong. Yeah, I’m upset with you, but I shouldn’t… I didn’t mean it. Okay?”

“This isn’t about me, honey,” she says. “Not like that, anyway. I’m the one who messed up, not you.”

“I have, though.” He squeezes her hand, his voice going rough. “I’m mad that you called Lily without asking. You really scared h—them. They thought something was wrong with me. And I really, really wish that you hadn’t read any of our texts. But…”

When he trails off, Yuna takes the opportunity to say, as sincerely as she can, “I am sorry about all of it, Shane. I know I overstepped.”

Shane swallows. “Thank you. You did, but… ugh, it’s not okay, but at the same time… I’m glad that there was someone who was able to keep them up-to-date. Lily told me that if it weren’t for you, they wouldn’t have known anything, not even what hospital I was at.

“There’s—we have reasons for not being, like, public, but still… that’s something I was worried about. I wanted them to know if I was okay or not. So, thank you for that. And for… trying to give them time to see me without you guys hanging around, and sending that picture of me. I know it wasn’t all bad. I know you were probably just really shocked, and stressed, and you were trying your best.

“I don’t want to be upset with you, Mom. I love you. Just, please don’t…” He inhales, and it hitches in the middle. “You really scared me, okay? I know that probably doesn’t make sense but it did.”

“I love you, too,” Yuna sniffles, trying to suck her tears back inside and failing miserably. Shane’s no better, tears beading up on his lower lashes. “I can’t say I’m sorry enough, Shane. I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t thinking about that at all. Please forgive me.”

Shane nods, just enough for her to see. “I forgive you, Mom.”

“You’ve grown up so much,” she whispers, using her free hand to cup his face. He leans into it, shutting his eyes. Tears streak down both of their cheeks. “I don’t know when it happened, but I’m so proud of you, Shane. So, so proud.”

“Mom,” he complains wetly.

“No, I’m serious, honey. I—that was the other thing I wanted to apologize to you about. No, just listen to me,” she says when he starts to protest. “You and this Lily… you didn’t tell us about them. You don’t have to tell us everything, but I guess I thought you did anyway. So when we found out… I was surprised and I was upset. Which wasn’t fair of me.”

“It was,” he says tearfully, defiantly. “I’ve been lying to you for years—”

She rubs his tears away, squishing his cheek just a little. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t, because I know you, and I know you wouldn’t do that without a good reason, okay?”

“Mom….”

“I know that I’m the reason you didn’t feel like you could tell us,” she confesses, somehow able to keep her eyes dry. Some superhuman sense of this is not about me.

“That’s not fair, you weren’t…,” he trails off.

“We both know it wasn’t your father.” When he has no rebuttal to that, she continues, “I don’t know where I went wrong, but I’m sorry for that, too. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t come to us, to me. We will always be in your corner, okay? No matter what you do. No matter what the reason is to keep this secret. We love you.”

A sob slips out of Shane’s mouth before he can stop it, and then she’s leaning forward and he is too, until his head is tucked under her chin like he always used to do.

She cradles him against her, and now her own tears come again, more this time, as she listens to him mumble I love you too into her neck.

Over his shoulder, Yuna sees David suddenly appear through the glass door, watching them with a sad look on his face. He lifts his hand to the door handle, an offer to come out. She shakes her head once, and he nods, stepping back.

Rubbing Shane’s back, she says anything she can think of. She presses kisses to his hair. She wonders when the last time they did this was.

“My head fucking hurts,” Shane whines after a while. “And I’m so mad. I wanted to see I—Lily. I want to stop fucking lying.”

It feels like her heart is breaking. “I know, sweetie. I know.”

She doesn’t know how long they sit there. Until it gets dark, at least, the sun completely hidden below the horizon. Until David has come to check on them three more times. Until it’s definitely time for Shane to get more pain medication.

There shouldn’t be anything nice about that moment, both of them crying out all of the fear and stress and pain of the last few days. But Yuna is pathetically grateful for it anyway. She gets to hold him, let him fall to pieces and show him that she’s still there, that he can lean on her and she will take care of him. He’s forgiven her. Things aren’t irrevocably broken between them.

Eventually, David comes and tells them he’s made dinner if they’re ready to come in. Shane pulls away, keeping his face out of their sight as much as he can, sniffling still.

“We’re ready,” he says. And then, like he’s trying to be strong—“Um, Mom, Dad. I really can’t do it tonight, but. Tomorrow… tomorrow, I’ll tell you about Lily.”

Chapter End Notes

thoughts again ~

when I was outlining this (in my friends' dms lol) I had originally planned for Yuna to Not react to Shane blowing up. I thought, Shane's been having a Shit Time too and this is like his first and only outlet to get any of it out. but... I started writing and it felt wrong. I haven't been basing her off my mom but here I thought about it and like, she is stubborn. even when you're more flexible, it sucks to be told you've done something wrong. so that is why I had her fight back a bit

it's not an easy situation for either of them... which is also why I had Shane be Not Perfect Either (not that he could be with a concussion ofc... or ever bc he's a mess, lovingly). but he is her son!! they are two sides of the same anxiety-riddled coin!! in trying to protect Shane, Yuna pushed too much ; in tying to protect Ilya, Shane said something shitty. I really enjoy their dynamic so much even if this is the chapter that finally broke me into crying dksfhdksjah

(this is also my fantasy of having a mom who realizes they're fucking up and then calms down about it lmao)

okay phew. someone get the chocolate lube back in here, we need a laugh stat 😭 see you next time!!

(also bc I'm nosey, if this fic has been shared anywhere I'd love to know!! thank you!)

Chapter 10

Chapter Notes

please don't kill me :')

EDIT: -taps 'happy ending' tag- please don't worry too much!! everything is okay I prommy

Dinner is a quiet affair. David doesn’t ask either of them to talk about, well, anything really. He talks, in his slow calm voice, about the shows he’s watching and what his coworkers did while he’s been away from work. When Shane decides to go to bed, David follows, helping him get dressed for bed around the sling.

Yuna waits for him in their bedroom, doing her nightly routine and just taking in the muffled sound of her boys talking. A headache has taken hold, though whether it’s from all the crying or just the general stress of the day, she doesn’t know.

She’s in the bathroom taking pain killers—over the counter, nothing like what Shane has to take—when David comes. He steps up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and pressing their bodies together, and Yuna melts into him at once.

For a while, they stand there, and they don’t speak. It’s nice to take a moment to just breathe, just relax. Shane is home safe, hurt but it could be worse. They’ve both taken a few days off work to take care of him, so there’s nothing urgent happening tomorrow.

Except finding out about Lily, of course.

Maybe David can feel Yuna’s thoughts, because he rubs her arms gently and says, “Bed?”

Yes, bed. It sounds wonderful. She relaxes again without realizing she’d ever tensed up.

They go through their routine of pulling back the blankets, moving the pillows, refreshing their cups of water. It’s only once they’re both under the covers that David asks, “What happened today?”

God, where to start?

“I spoke to Lily’s friend on the phone,” she starts.

By the time she’s finished relaying everything to him, and they’ve debriefed on the big things—and talked about how they’ll handle tomorrow—Yuna is half-asleep.

David doesn’t laugh at her, but she can feel his amusement anyway. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he says, “Let’s sleep. We can talk more in the morning.”

Yuna yawns, nods, and tries to keep her thoughts slow and calm and not at all about her son’s seven-year-long relationship. Before long, she’s dead to the world.

In the morning, Shane doesn’t come out of his room for a long time. Sitting together at the counter, Yuna and David can both hear when he starts speaking to someone, his voice so muffled they can’t hear anything he’s actually saying.

“He looked at his screen,” Yuna concludes worriedly into her coffee. It’s not that she wants to take his phone, he’s too old to be punished like that, but doesn’t he care about his health? The doctors said no screens for a while—and the day after being discharged is not anywhere close to a while.

“We’ll talk to him about it later,” David soothes. “He probably wanted to let Lily know first. Or ask them what they’re okay with us knowing.”

And, well. Yuna can’t be too mad about that, even if she’d rather Shane have asked for help again.

They spend the morning normally. Yuna makes breakfast, leaving enough for Shane if he wants any, though he doesn’t come out even after she and David are done eating. David does the dishes while she watches a bit of morning news. Outside, the sun shines.

When Shane finally comes out, he looks like he’s about to face a firing squad. Stiff, pale, and hardly breathing.

Voice shaking already, he tells them, “I’m ready.”

“Okay,” says David. “Let’s sit down first. Watch some TV.”

Shane blinks but lets David guide him to the couch to sit between them. “What? No, I need to tell you about….”

Yuna, sitting on his bad side, can only pat his knee. She doesn’t want to straight up tell him he looks terrified and on the verge of a panic attack, because that definitely won’t help. So instead, she says, “We have all day. It’s just us, sweetie. Everything will be okay, so let’s relax first, don’t you think?”

He almost protests—she can see the way he frowns, shooting them both looks—before he sighs a little wetly and says, “I guess.”

Yuna and David meet each other’s eyes. They don’t need to drag this out long, just enough that Shane calms down a little bit. So she switches it over to a morning cooking show that Shane likes, and they hold onto him and wait for his breathing to slow down. The host’s soothing voice fills the room, and Yuna takes the time to tell herself, firmly, not to fuck this up. Even more than last night, she cannot be too much. She has to get this right.

Eventually, sounding a little stronger, he says, “We can stop stalling now.”

Yuna and David don’t deny it. Shane stands and moves to sit on the coffee table, facing them. Of course, not all of his nerves have gone away, but he does look slightly less like he’s going to shake apart in front of them.

“Um,” he starts, “I’ve been thinking about how I should go about this and I still don’t really know. I keep thinking—you said I talked about, um, them in the hospital?”

David nods. “You did, but like we told you in the car, it was all nice things. Nothing too personal.”

“Well, maybe a little personal,” Yuna says before she can think it through. At Shane’s expression, she clarifies, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—we found, uh—”

“You found what?” He squeaks.

“It doesn't matter,” Yuna tries, waving her hands in some kind of cutting motion.

“No, now I’m worried. What was it? Dad?”

David looks a little flushed. “Listen to your mother, it doesn’t matter.”

It’s like Shane’s head is on a swivel, the way he looks between them. Yuna is embarrassed, and she doesn’t want to admit it, wishes she’d kept her mouth shut, but. What’s done is done. Shane will keep freaking out about it, and that’s the last thing she wants.

So she forces herself to sit up straighter, to say normally, “Honey, the last night you were in the hospital, you asked for a hoodie out of your bag. I found your… lube. It was an accident, but still, I’m sorry, that’s private and I shouldn’t have—”

“Oh god, please stop.” Shane’s whole face is flaming.

Yuna’s isn’t much better. She doesn’t care if Shane is having sex, but there are just some things they never learned to talk about together. “Yep, stopping.”

“This is so embarrassing,” Shane says, ducking his head.

“It’s kind of funny,” David offers in that bland tone he usually has. “I don’t think I’ve seen chocolate flavor before.”

“What—is that what you care about?” Shane chokes, and he looks so scandalized that Yuna can’t stop her laugh. It breaks the ice, a smile spreading on David’s face, Shane letting out a shocked chuckle.

David answers, “It’s just new to me, Shane, I thought it was all, I don’t know, fruit flavored?” and Shane squawks, “Why do you know what flavors of lube there are? No, I don’t want to know, oh my god.”

And even though it’s not that funny, being able to laugh after the last few days is something they’re all grateful for. Yuna leans into David, who mutters things about how they’re all adults, and gets set off again every time Shane makes half-despairing, half-giggled noises.

It takes a few minutes to calm down, but that’s okay. Still red, Shane takes a few breaths before he tries to get them back on track.

“Right. So. That’s all you know? That Lily’s, like, hot and funny? And the other thing, I guess. We don’t need to talk about that ever again.”

Yuna and David share a look again. Whatever leftover amusement they felt slips away as Yuna realizes what needs to be said next.

“Well,” Yuna starts cautiously, “we also know that Lily is maybe not… ‘Lily’.”

It’s not all that she plans to say, but Shane interrupts to ask, “What do you mean? You know who they are?”

“No, no. We know they’re a secret, but that’s it. We don’t know who they are. What I meant was, in the hospital, we thought Lily might be your…,” Yuna doesn’t know if she’s supposed to say it, is it offensive? But how else can she explain? “Girlfriend. But you didn’t say that, and when you spoke about them, you used, well, they/them. So I guess… David, what am I trying to say here?”

“We know that Lily might not be a girl,” David finishes for her.

Shane looks between them, face so blank that Yuna knows there’s a storm raging in his head.

Quickly, Yuna adds, “And that’s okay. Whatever Lily identifies as, it’s okay.”

“Absolutely,” David agrees, taking her hand in his own. They link their fingers together tightly. “We love you no matter what, son. It doesn’t matter to us as long as you’re happy.”

“Oh,” is all Shane says.

Yuna’s heart constricts as she watches his eyes fill with tears. She has to do something.

“Oh, honey, it’s okay,” she soothes. “Really. I was worried that Lily might be married, and we’d have to get them away from their horrible husband so that you wouldn’t be a homewrecker. We don’t want that for you. So if Lily is trans, or non-binary, or—or a man, that’s okay. That’s a lot better.”

Shane lets out a short, teary laugh. “Mom, no, Lily’s not married. And he’s not trans or non-binary.”

Neither Yuna nor David miss that ‘he’.

Scrubbing his face with his good hand, Shane looks at both of them—in the eyes, lingering in a way he usually never does. “Mom, Dad. I’m gay. Lily is a guy.”

And maybe it wasn’t unexpected, but still, all Yuna can think to say is, “Oh!”

Everything is rewriting itself in her brain. Shane’s relationships with Paige and Jessica, which she thought were just awkward, youthful blunders; his relationship with Rose that Yuna will have to ask more about, because it wasn’t so long ago, but Shane has been with Lily since rookie season? So if he’s gay, then how does that work? But—

“Shane, thank you for telling us,” David says, squeezing her hand gently. Telling her to get out of her head.

When Yuna tunes back in from her brief mental detour, she sees Shane in front of her still—how scared he is, looking like he’s waiting for a blow. Fuck. Her questions and confusion can wait. Sitting up, Yuna says, “Yes, thank you. Thank you for trusting us with this. I know we, I, haven’t made it easy but—no. We can think about that another time. We love you, Shane. No matter what.”

David is the one who reaches out, who pulls Shane up and back into their arms. He goes willingly, collapsing between them, sniffling. Yuna cradles the back of his head, rubbing on either side of his neck in a facsimile of a massage.

“I love you guys too. I’m sorry I never told you,” he says through tears, clearly trying to keep them down. “Honestly, I’ve been really scared.”

Yuna’s heart breaks inside her chest. Weakly, she asks, “About telling us?”

“About telling anyone.” Shane lets out a little groan. “It wasn’t just you guys. Lily and me, no one knows the truth. Not all of it. Well, maybe his friend does now, I don’t know. It’s just been us for so long that I didn't know how… I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to face… people’s reactions. If they found out I’m gay, or about us being together.”

“Oh, Shane.” A whole new aspect of this, one she’s never let herself consider much before, slides into place. Yuna knows what hockey is like from the outside, and she has a pretty good idea of what it’s like in the locker room, the ice.

Would he be safe if he was out to his teammates? To the world? Her fist curls in her lap thinking about it.

“He’s not out either,” Shane explains. He starts speaking a little quicker, like he’s trying to justify himself. “We’ve both been trying to just, fuck, exist. Without it being a thing, without getting caught. I’ve never told anyone about Lily, so when you guys said you’d been talking to him, I freaked out. I’ve been freaking out since yesterday. I didn’t think you guys would like, hate me if I told you, but I still... I’ve never….”

“That’s okay,” David soothes, rubbing his back. “Coming out is a big deal. It’s scary, even if it’s family.”

Shane sniffles. “How do you know that?”

“We got some books on how to support, um, queer family members,” Yuna says. “We’ll have to get new ones, I think, but—”

Tears slip down Shane’s cheeks, and Yuna gently wipes one away. “You would do that?”

“Yes, Shane, of course we would. We love you so much. Nothing you do can change that.”

Shane crumples at that. They just hold him for a while, the only sounds being Shane’s crying, their soothing words, and the birds chirping outside. Yuna slips away just briefly, to wipe her face and get them all cups of water so they can rehydrate at some point.

When she gets back, Shane is a little more calm. He takes the cup with a mumbles, Thanks, and for a moment, all three of them sit and sip their drinks. Yuna’s mind races with a thousand, a million thoughts, but she pushes them all down. They’ll have to wait.

Finally, David is the one who breaks the silence.

“I hope you know how proud we are of you,” he says. “I’m sure it wasn’t an easy position to be in, having to hide your sexuality and a boyfriend all this time. It would scare anyone.”

Shane makes a weird face then, just a flash of expression that both of his parents catch.

“What, what is it?” Yuna asks.

And that’s when their son—who has always been so straightforward, an open book to them both—blows their minds for the god-knows-what-time that week.

“Um,” he sniffles, looking anywhere but at either of them. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

It’s like time slows down. Yuna’s body heats up as a barrage of emotions falls onto her. She looks at David, whose eyes are wide with surprise, and realizes the extent of how badly she has fucked up.

“Shane,” she says faintly. “If you’re about to tell me you’re married to this man….”

“What?” He seems shocked too. “Guys, no. Didn’t I just say he’s not married?”

“Not married to someone else,” David says, eyebrows raised. “It could’ve been you.”

Shane lets out an incredulous noise, then winces as if it hurts. “Jesus. No. We’re not married. I meant, he’s not my boyfriend because we’re not even dating.”

“Honey, now’s not the time for jokes,” Yuna says, but really, she knows he’s telling the truth. A week ago, she would’ve said he’d never lied to her in his whole life.

“I’m not joking. I’m being serious.”

“We believe you,” David says faintly. “But, I—how is that—”

Yuna can’t wait for him to finish before she’s asking, “Shane, what? They’re—I mean, he’s in love with you. What do you mean you’re not dating?”

Of course, Lily never said as much, but he didn’t have to. Everything he has said to Yuna, even when she was concerned about his ‘I like being mean to you’ text, has told her that they’re close, that they like each other. Just yesterday, Lana said something like Lily is always happier after speaking to or seeing Shane. He speaks about him like a partner would, so what on earth is Shane talking about?

“He doesn’t…,” Shane denies, flushed. His eyes are still wet. “He’s not in—that—with me.”

“You know him better, of course,” she concedes, because she doesn’t want to upset him more. “But I’ve been talking to th—him for the past few days. Even when I thought maybe he was a bit toxic, I knew he cared about you.”

Shane’s head bobs up, a pissed look on his face. Good job, Yuna. That’s one way to distract him. “You thought what?”

Yuna winces. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be done apologizing for the mess she’s made of this. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought—”

“Okay. Okay, I don’t even want to deal with that right now. He’s not toxic—he’s, he’s the best.” Shane says this so emphatically that there’s no room for disbelief. Yuna and David can do nothing but agree. It’s just a fact: Lily is the best.

To Yuna, it sounds more like, I love him. But she won’t press him on that, not right now.

“But you’re not together,” David cuts in questioningly.

Shane clutches his cup like a lifeline and mutters to himself, “Fuck, dammit.” Then, louder, “We’re not. I invited him to my cottage this summer so we could talk about it.”

“I don’t understand, are you broken up?”

“We were never together, Dad.” And there on his face, Yuna can see the truth. Mouth turned down, his eyes bottomless, the twitch in his cheek. “I really like him, but no, for a long time it was just…”

When he trails off and doesn’t finish his thought, Yuna asks, “Just?”

“Um, you know, just…”

“Just what?” David looks between them, confused.

“Hanging out,” Shane manages to answer tightly, avoiding their eyes. “Whenever we were able to meet up.”

“Ohhh, yep, okay. Got it.” Yeah, she’s sure it was just hanging out. Right.

“God, I hate this. If he was here, he’d probably be laughing and making it worse.” Though the words are annoyed, he says it so fondly, and Yuna is reminded of a few days ago when even just the mention of Lily made him smile so wide.

Whoever he is, Yuna can feel her reservations slipping away. She still has questions and doesn’t quite understand how they could be not-together for seven years, not when he talks about Shane the way he does. But seeing how happy Shane is… it’s all just background noise.

Thank god for David, who clears his throat and asks, “Is that something you’d want? Him to be here?”

Shane’s leg starts moving up and down, not very fast but enough that they both notice. A little weakly, he says, “I… maybe? I don’t know. It’d be kind of weird to meet the parents of someone you’re not even in a relationship with, right?”

And Jesus, that still makes no sense to her. “But if you were, honey. Could we ever meet him?”

Shane swallows. “Um. If he’d be okay with it, maybe. There’s, there’s more to the story, I guess, that would make it hard—”

“Shane, it’s okay,” Yuna says gently. “We know he’s not out. It’s okay if the answer is no.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just, he’s not some random person, you know?”

“We can be normal if he’s a celebrity. We were normal about Rose, weren’t we?”

Shane shakes his head. “Mom, please. Listen to what I'm saying. I really think I… this is serious, for me. So if he’s someone that you don't expect, or wouldn't like, can you please just let that go? For me?”

Yuna stares at his face, eyes scanning the way his brow furrows, the wet sheen of his eyes, the clench in his jaw, and knows she needs to back off. “Of course, honey. Of course I can. Your happiness is all that I care about.”

“Thank you.” He turns his cup around and around in his hands as he avoids their eyes. “I… I want to tell you who he is, and he said I could, but I just—this was already a lot. I’m not trying to hide him from you guys. It’s just—a lot.”

“It’s okay. We can take this one step at a time.” David gently pulls Shane towards him, and their son goes easily, falling into his arms. “As long as you know we love you.”

Muffled, he breathes out, his whole body sagging like there’s a weight off his shoulders. “I do. I know,” he says. “I love you guys too. I love you so much.”

Chapter End Notes

I PROMISE THE REVEAL IS NEXT CHAPTER !!!!! I'm going to go start writing it as soon as I post this!!!! there will be no more reveal edging after this chapter!!!!

I really thought about making THIS the reveal chapter bc it makes sense that Shane would say "btw I'm gay, and I'm gay with Ilya Rozanov" but... this is pre-cottage. and I didn't want to give up a few more identity porn scenes I have planned. AND it just seemed like too much all at once. I have no idea if I like how this conversation turned out honestly but it felt like a necessary stepping stone between "Shane is maybe queer; Lily is Shane's random partner" and "Shane is gay; Ilya Rozanov, Shane's Hated Rival, is our son-in-law" you know? I think that here, Shane is already dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety, and that's an extra layer he just cannot deal with right now. coming out is already hard e-fuckin-nough.

so, let me apologize now for tricking you guys again (I didn't mean to 😭) and reassure everyone once again we WILL get the reveal (and more Ilya!!!) NEXT CHAPTER thank you

Chapter 11

Chapter Notes

this is update 1 of 2 today!!

I started writing. it got longer and longer and longer. so now we have 12 total chapters. I hope you enjoy!!

After their conversation, Shane is so worn out that he decides to take a nap.

Before he makes it out of the living room, Yuna’s phone buzzes with a text. She checks it out of habit, but once she sees Lily’s name, asking how Shane is, she quickly closes the screen. Under different circumstances, maybe she could wait to broach the subject with Shane, at least until he’d gotten some rest. But as it is, she doesn’t think Lily would be okay with waiting.

“Honey, real quick,” she says, walking over to him so he won’t have to turn his head to see her. “Lily texted me, asking how you’re doing. If you want me to stop texting him, I will.”

Shane shuts his eyes briefly, then shakes his head. “No, no. It’s okay. I think he likes talking with you, Mom. Being able to check on me and everything… so it’s fine. Just don’t… ask him who he is, okay?”

“Of course not,” she says, a little hurt, even though she knows deep down that Shane has good reason to ask that. “I’ll be on my best behavior. Now, you go get some sleep. We’ll come check on you after a while.”

“Okay,” he mumbles. “Thanks, Mom.”

Once he’s out of sight, Yuna goes back to the couch and opens her phone up again, unsure of what she can and can’t say. Lily obviously knows that Shane came out to them, or that he planned to, but does he know it happened this morning? Is he asking about Shane’s health, or about how it went?

Deciding to play it safe, she gives a somewhat vague answer.

Later, after Shane’s nap and after Yuna has had a minor panic attack in the ensuite bathroom, Lily texts her again.

A few days pass like this, much less stressful than his first two back home. Without any major emotional conversations hanging over their heads, Shane crashes, sleeping more often than not. When he is awake, he’s usually on the phone with Lily, though a few times, he says Lily is busy with work and he ends up talking with Rose or Hayden, or joining them in the living room.

Slowly, Shane relaxes. The tension caused by the injuries and secrets slips away.

All three of them need the quieter time to come to terms with everything that’s happened.

Yuna and David don’t really talk about it with each other. Okay, that’s not true—they look back on their lives and consider a lot of things in a new light. She can see how her own behavior could have, must have, hurt Shane, though she doesn’t bring it up to him, not wanting to put him through even more emotional turmoil right now.

She spends a lot of time thinking about how she can make it up to Shane. Cycling through different ideas gets her nowhere beyond what she should have been doing the whole time: listening to him. Not putting so much pressure on him. Letting him live his life, and decide how much of it he wants to share with her.

When it comes to who Lily could be, that’s what they don’t really touch on. David is often the one helping Shane call Lily, and while he says he doesn’t know who it is, Yuna begins to suspect he’s got an idea. One that he doesn’t share, and she doesn’t ask him to.

It feels like a step too far. And, okay, Yuna knows that’s rich of her to say, but dammit, she’s committed to not pushing anymore. She’s caused enough pain, and she promised Shane she wouldn’t do it again. So she doesn’t think too hard about the clues, and doesn’t ask Lily for any more details than she already has.

Mostly, Yuna and David do what they can to show Shane that it doesn’t change anything. He’s still their baby. Their pride and joy. He can take however much time he needs.

Though they don’t bring up Shane’s coming out themselves, neither Yuna or David shy away from it when Shane brings it up. Which isn’t much. But there are a few times where he’s so tired, or his head is so messed up, that he gets a little emotional and asks, “You guys really aren’t mad?”

Yuna holds him close, shaking her head and rubbing his back. “Mad at you? For what, falling in love? How could we be upset with you for that?”

He doesn’t deny it, though he still acts like they’re crazy for thinking Lily reciprocates his feelings. As if Yuna’s phone isn’t blowing up with that boy asking after Shane at all hours of the day. (Not that she minds, of course. It’s nice to see how loved her son is.)

On Monday, when Shane is feeling sick and doesn’t want to be left alone, they sit in the living room with him. He’s taken one of the chairs, so they’re close but not on top of him, and they take the time to just… talk.

“I know you guys said you kind of guessed, but you’re really taking this better than I thought,” he says, head ducked down to hover over his bucket.

“We didn’t guess, son. We thought it was a possibility, that’s all.” David puts down his New Yorker to give him a sympathetic look. “It’s surprising, but not in a bad way.”

“I think it’s nice. We get to know more about you now.” She doesn’t say get to know the real you because it seems like a bad idea. And it’s not like they didn’t know the real Shane before, they just didn’t know everything.

She’s been trying to come to terms with the fact that they will likely never know everything again, the way they did when he was young. It’s fine. He’s an adult. He deserves his privacy. She’s lucky he felt comfortable enough to share as much as he has.

“You’re really okay with me being… gay? Being with a guy?”

“Of course we are,” they both say. And they mean it. Yes, Yuna has vaguely imagined having a daughter-in-law in the future, but never very seriously. Really, it hasn’t been a big adjustment to change her future plans, future dreams, to include a second son instead.

Trying to cheer him up a little, she jokes, “You’ll be proud of me, honey. I’ve even accepted that he’s probably a Raiders fan.”

For some reason, that makes Shane laugh a lot, one of his first real laughs in days. “How magnanimous of you, Mom.”

Teasing, she adds, “He’s not, though, right?”

“Don’t get your hopes up.” Shane hesitates for a moment, making an unhappy, sick little noise into the bucket. “I do want to tell you. But every time I think about saying it, I feel sick. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not,” David says, sitting up a little so he can help if Shane does start throwing up. “It’s okay to be scared.”

“I’m not scared. I just feel like… once I say it, I can’t take it back. And I don’t even know if he lo-likes me back or not,” he says miserably. “It’d be easier if you guys could just already know so I wouldn’t have to say anything. Or if he and I had ever fucking talked about this.”

Sharing a look, they silently agree that that last comment hadn’t been for them, and also that Shane and Lily are completely in love with each other. There’s no way they’re not. But it’s not something they can reassure Shane about—that’s up to Lily himself.

On Tuesday, David has to go into work to deal with a few pressing projects, though he’s not fully back to his normal schedule. Yuna’s hours are much more flexible, so she’s able to stay home with Shane. She turns on movies he’s seen a hundred times and doesn’t say anything when he occasionally peeks at the screen. She knows he’s bored, and his head has been a little less achey today.

Without conscious decision, her thoughts turn towards Lily.

He’d been happy to hear Shane was feeling even a little better when she texted him earlier. In that moment, she’d stared down at her phone and thought about how nice it would be once they could know him in person.

She’s been trying to stave off her curiosity. Really, it’s been somewhat easy when caring for Shane was taking up so much of her attention. But that one thought had reminded her of what Shane had said about him—that he’s ‘not some random person’.

Lily is probably a celebrity. Which is fine, obviously. But there was just something about the way Shane said it….

He’s worried about how she’ll react. Like she, specifically, will not like Lily for some reason.

Yuna hasn’t exactly given Shane good reason to think otherwise, but she meant what she said. As long as he’s happy, she can accept anything.

Looking over at Shane, mostly-asleep on the couch, she thinks about what she can, or maybe should, do. If she should do anything at all. She doesn’t want to know who Lily is, not until Shane is comfortable telling her—but if she can make it a little easier for him, then shouldn’t she try?

Lily had also texted that he’d be busy tonight, but maybe there’s still time to catch him.

He doesn’t respond right away, which maybe Yuna should have expected. But as it is, prickles of anxiety seep through her as she waits to see what he’ll say. If she’s gone too far again.

That night, after David has returned home and is in the kitchen, Shane asks, “Can we watch the game tonight?”

Yuna looks at him like he’s crazy, because he is. When has she ever said no to watching hockey? Even if it is a game between Boston and Toronto, arguably her least favorite teams.

“Of course we are, Shane,” she says, flicking the channel over. “But you can’t watch too much of it. I will be watching you.”

“I’m supposed to be introducing screens by now,” he complains. “I barely even got a headache last time.”

“Don’t care. I will turn it off if you start getting sick.”

Shane rolls his eyes, though he’s smiling a little. “Fine, Mom.”

The game starts not long after, and Yuna makes sure the volume is up so both Shane and David can hear it. Hockey is hockey, and hockey is their life. All three of them are invested, even if this is a matchup between Rozanov (ugh) and Kent (yuck).

Yuna notices, distantly because she’s too focused on the TV, that every time Rozanov scores, Shane turns his head to watch. The corners of his mouth turn up as Rozanov scores, as he falls obnoxiously into cellys, as the commentators sing his praises.

She doesn’t mean to think about it. Really, she doesn’t. She gets all the way through dinner and the first two periods without thinking about it. But during the commercial break right before the game is going into its last period, her thoughts drift.

Lily is a celebrity, who seems to speak English as a second language. She’s never asked, but she’s pretty certain of that. He and Shane have known each other for, what, eight years? Shane likes him. Thinks he’s funny and beautiful and the best.

There’s a thought lurking just below the surface, and Yuna doesn’t look at it too closely. She just watches Shane half-watch the game, only interested when Rozanov scores or makes an assist or ends up in the penalty box.

And then the game ends. The Guardians win. A deeply annoyed look settles on Shane’s face, half-illuminated by the TV.

Leaning against the doorway of the kitchen, David says casually, “I know we don’t like Kent, but at least it wasn’t Rozanov, right?”

Shane doesn’t respond right away, no immediate insult towards Rozanov the way Yuna herself has done a hundred times. He just says, grumpily, “I guess.”

Yuna meets David’s eyes by accident. But she knows what she sees there: satisfaction. Like he’s realized something and he’s proud of himself for it.

A squeak slips out of Yuna’s mouth before she can stop it, and they both turn to look at her with confusion.

“You okay, Mom?”

Trying, and failing, to sound normal, she says, “Yep. Just glad to see Boston lose.”

She stands, keeps a smile on her face, and goes to the bathroom at the other end of the house.

Ilya fucking Rozanov.

It has to be, doesn’t it? Lily has to be Rozanov. It only makes sense. His father just died, like Lily’s. Yuna’s pretty sure he has a friend named Svetlana, or maybe she’s an ex-girlfriend or something. He’s not out, either, and he’s definitely not some random person. And—god, yes, he’s a Raiders fan. Yuna almost wants to laugh.

Any amusement dies quickly, though. Because something else dawns on her right after, something she hasn’t thought about in days.

He came to see Shane.

All this time, she’s been upset with Lily for not coming, for not even trying to see him just because of their secret. Once Shane came out, she understood more, of course his boyfriend couldn’t come without outing them. But—he did. He did go. And he’d been so upset when they saw him outside of that elevator, but Shane had been so happy, so so happy.

Yuna clutches the sink, and spends the next several minutes trying, and failing, to stave off a panic attack.

Chapter End Notes

so how are we feeling? :D

Chapter 12

Chapter Notes

this is update 2 of 2!! if you haven't read chapter 11, go back now <3

It takes everything in Yuna to calm down, go back out to the living room, and be normal.

Somehow, she manages it. It’s nearly impossible not to say anything to either of her boys—to ask David how long he’s known, or suspected; to ask Shane if she’s way off base here and he’s actually not-really-but-definitely-dating, like, some mega-famous tennis player instead. Through superhuman effort, she keeps her mouth shut.

If she goes to bed a little earlier than normal, whatever. And if she brushes off David’s concern, so what. She just—she needs a minute to think.

Yuna has spent the last eight years hating Ilya Rozanov.

She doesn’t know him as a person, really. Has never wanted to. He’s always been the thorn in her side, the comparison the hockey world could never let go of. Shane won an award, Rozanov won the next. Shane played the best game of his career, but Rozanov was still leading on the scoring race. Shane is a generational talent, but he’s never been a once-in-a-generation because Rozanov was always right there next to him.

They’re rivals. They’re practically enemies. Everyone knows how much Shane and Rozanov don’t like each other. They chirp each other all the time in interviews, and Rozanov is always the one pushing it farther, saying meaner things, making Shane look like a saint in comparison when he only says, “Rozanov really fumbled that game,” or “It would’ve been nice to see Rozanov on the ice today.”

So how… how is it possible that Ilya could be Lily?

Lily, who has spent the last few days constantly checking up on Shane. Who has apparently been talking him down from freaking out about coming out to them. Who receives every picture of Shane with joy, thanking her like it’s a real present instead of just some pixels on a screen. Who, Jesus Christ, was right there when Shane got hurt, why didn’t she think of that before now?

Who Shane is in love with.

Yuna shuts her eyes, sick of staring at the dark ceiling above her. Her head is pounding. She can’t stop picturing Rozanov in the hospital and regretting every stupid word she ever said.

She’s awake half the night, rewinding her memories and seeing everything in a new light. Again. For the fifth or sixth or tenth time in the last week. Jesus Christ. It’s possible that she’s being crazy, that she’s completely wrong, that Shane just feels some kind of professional admiration for Rozanov and they’re friends.

Even she can’t make herself believe it.

In the morning, she’s half-dead and irritable, so she avoids Shane like the plague. He does not need to deal with her right now. Luckily, David is both used to her and loves her, so he only kisses her forehead fondly.

“Do you work today?” She clutches her mug and tries not to sound annoyed with him. How can she be upset that he guessed about Rozanov if she doesn’t even know if Rozanov is actually Lily? It’s ridiculous, especially because they silently agreed not to talk about it together, but she’s still grumpy.

“Not unless they call me back in,” he says, taking a sip of his own coffee. “Regular hours start on Monday. Shane should be doing better by then.”

Sighing, she says, “Okay. Do you mind sitting with Shane today? I have some calls I need to make.”

Shane doesn’t actually need to be watched over every second, but David is more than happy to make himself available if their son wants company. Yuna takes the chance to go back to their bedroom, where she pauses for a moment, unsure of what she wants to do.

A decision comes to her quickly, and she ends up in the bathroom again, going through her morning routine as she speaks to Theriault, Farrah, and the hospital. Everything is fine—the team understands Shane is out, the fans are upset but more so with Marlow than Shane. The hospital is just calling to schedule a check up appointment.

As that call ends, Yuna is putting on her makeup. Lowering the mascara wand, she meets her own eyes again, less frantic and shocked than they were last night. Then she taps on her phone screen, and calls her mother.

She doesn’t know why she does it. They don’t talk often, or really, almost at all. Even after Shane got hurt on international television, her parents didn’t reach out. But she doesn’t press the button to hang up.

It picks up after several rings. Yuna is the one who speaks first. “Okaasan?”

Yuna’s mother sighs. “Yuna. Why are you calling?”

It’s so hard not to get angry right away. She has no illusions of how this call will end—with Yuna furious and regretting ever reaching out, and her mother bored and annoyed to have been disturbed. As soon as Yuna detached herself from them, her mother gave up on her entirely.

They don’t have productive conversations. If Yuna was smart, she would hang up right now. Instead, she says, “I just wanted to let you know that Shane got hurt in a game a few days ago. In case you were concerned about him.”

“And you thought to call me just to say this? Yuna, I am busy.”

Yuna sharply taps her brush against the powder’s case. “Too busy to care about your grandson?”

Muttered curses in two different languages filter through the phone. “Of course. Did you only call to argue?”

Yuna never calls to argue—it just happens. But maybe it’s a fair question, since she has no idea what her goal is here. Just to torture herself?

She can’t help the snippy tone. “I just wanted you to know that Shane is okay. I guess I shouldn’t have bothered.”

They argue for the next forty-five minutes. Yuna finishes her makeup and ends up pacing in her bedroom, listening to her mother complain about how awful and bothersome she is. How dare she accuse them of not caring about their grandson, who they haven’t seen or spoken to in years? Every defense is met with more insults. There’s no concern for Shane, no care for the fact that Yuna is her daughter. Just resentment on both sides.

Finally, Yuna spits something about how at least she hasn’t completely pushed Shane away—she doesn’t even know exactly what she said, or how they got there in the first place—and hangs up.

David finds her sprawled on their bed maybe five minutes later.

He doesn’t have to ask if that was her mother, because there’s no one else in this world that Yuna argues with like that. She can keep her cool with everyone else, can be firm and direct and not give up a single hint of her anger. Except with her Okaasan.

Voice low, he asks, “What do you need?”

A reset button. A new mother. Some wine, and a night without their adult son living just down the hall, for fuck’s sake.

“I feel like my head is going to explode, David.” It’s not an answer, but she can’t think of anything else to say. “She’s awful.”

“She is,” he soothes, laying down beside her and wrapping an arm over her stomach.

“And Shane is in love with Ilya fucking Rozanov.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“And you knew.”

“I didn’t,” he denies. “It’s just… it can’t be anyone else, can it?”

“No, it can’t. But… it’s Rozanov.”

“He’s a surprise, that’s for sure.”

Yuna’s eyes go hot. “Shane’s going to hate me.”

“He’s not, he doesn’t. He loves you.”

“I’m fucking up. I keep fucking up.”

“Shh, it’s okay.”

“What are we supposed to do? I can’t take back all of the, Christ, years I hated him, David.”

“I know. All we can do now is support them going forward.”

“I don’t know if he’s good enough for Shane. I keep thinking about all of the times he’s checked him or said shitty things about him to reporters. But then I remember those flowers he sent, and how happy Shane has been, and I just. Ugh. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

“Let Shane tell us in his own time. Maybe we’ll get to meet the kid, and see for ourselves how he treats him.”

“I guess….”

“I have a good feeling about him, honey. Don’t you? It’s obvious he cares.”

“I guess,” she says again, but she knows he’s right. Sniffling, she sits up, her hair falling into a mess around her shoulders. “Goddamit, my makeup.”

David shakes his head. “You look fine, Yuna. It’s not that bad. Just a little smudged.”

He’s lying to her, definitely. She probably looks like she’s coming off a bender, but he’s too nice to say it. Falling into his chest again, she lets herself be held. Deep down, though she doesn’t want to admit it to herself, she knows why she called.

She needed a reminder of what’s at stake here. At what she has, and what she doesn’t want to lose.

Okay, fine, Ilya Rozanov. Whatever. She can work with that. As long as Shane is happy.

Later, after Yuna has fixed her makeup and downed the cup of water David pushed into her hands, she finds herself in the living room again. Maybe today they can get out of this house, and Shane can get some more fresh air.

Though he doesn’t look particularly bothered, laying out on the couch with his phone in his hand. Chewing on his lip, he looks up when she comes in and gives her a big, sad-eyed look. “Mom. You okay?”

He knows what her mother is like, though they don’t talk about it much. It’s too exhausting.

“I’m alright, sweetie,” she says, patting David’s shoulder as she passes his chair. “Just going to do some work out here, is that okay?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Um, before you get started.”

Yuna and David both turn their heads towards him. He sounds nervous, but—she knows his Captain voice when she hears it.

He sits up, not an easy feat with only one arm but he’s mastered it enough to not need help. Squaring his shoulders, he says, “So. Uh, Lily has the next few days off.”

Yuna sits, thinking she can see where this is going. Yes, Rozanov would have a few days free—Boston doesn’t play again until the end of the week.

Shane swallows, looking at both of them anxiously. “I told you guys that I was going to invite him to my cottage this summer and, you know, talk. About us. But that’s still like, two months away, and after everything that’s happened… I don’t want to wait anymore. Can I invite him here? So we can see each other before he gets really busy?”

Yuna and David share a look, but they both already know the answer. “Of course, sweetie. Of course he can come.”

Relief seeps through Shane, his hand trembling a little in his lap as if he really thought they would say no. It’s a bit of a stretch, but she reaches over and touches his wrist, smiles at him when he looks up at her face.

"It’s okay, honey. He’s always welcome here, okay?”

“Th-thank you, Mom. Seriously.”

Yuna is not going to cry again, goddamit. She can only nod, her throat tight.

“I agree,” David adds. “As long as you boys realize you’re in love with each other. Otherwise, he can’t stay.”

Thank god for David. Shane squawks, embarrassed and in denial, and Yuna has a second to calm the hell down.

Once Shane has stopped unsuccessfully attempting to convince them, David sets down his New Yorker, leaning forward a bit. “Now, son, I’m not trying to push you, but you know this means we’ll have to meet him, right?”

He’s going for teasing, but Shane straightens up. Flipping his phone over and over in his hand, he takes a few deep breaths. “Right. Yeah. I don’t really know how to say it, but I know I need to. He can’t just—show up at our door and it be totally fine.”

“Sure he can,” Yuna says bracingly. “Why not?”

“I’m not trying to give either of you a heart attack,” Shane says bitchily. He lets out a breath, dropping his phone so he can scrub a hand over his face. “I just don’t know how….”

They both give him sympathetic looks. Despite the slight amusement in the air, it’s clear how nervous Shane still is. David moves closer and Yuna takes Shane’s hand into her own, squeezing it.

Encouragingly, Yuna says, “Just rip the bandaid off. It’ll be okay, Shane.”

“Okay. Okay, yeah. I have to. I have to just do it, it can’t wait any longer.” He swallows, nodding his head a few times to hype himself up. Then—“It’s Ilya. Ilya Rozanov, I mean. That’s my—he’s Lily.”

For a second, Yuna worried that she wouldn’t be able to react properly since she’d already guessed. But it turns out she was wrong. Hearing it from Shane’s own mouth is a shock all on its own—confirmation that her crazy idea wasn’t crazy at all.

Ilya Rozanov and her son. All this time. And no one, not a single person, ever knew.

Heart pounding, she doesn’t speak, too shocked to form words. Neither does David, who only inhales sharply, nodding his head just like Shane just did.

Trembling a little, Shane looks between them, his leg starting to jerk up and down.

“Can one of you please say something?” He asks, strained. “Do you hate me now?”

“No,” bursts out of both of them at the same time. Yuna continues, “Jesus Christ, no, Shane. It’s just—surprising.”

“He’s not that bad,” Shane says at once, speaking quickly. “He’s not bad at all, actually. I mean, okay, he’s kind of an asshole, but he’s a good guy. I—”

“Shane, Shane, it’s okay. We’ve already gotten to know him a bit, remember?” David pats his back. “He’s the reason you’ve been smiling so much lately. Of course he’s not bad.”

At that, Shane bursts into tears.

Yuna gets up, sits next to him, and envelops him into her arms. Cupping the back of his head, she says anything she can think of to soothe him, to tell him they aren’t mad, they don’t hate him and never could. They already like Lily—so Rozanov, Ilya, has nothing to worry about.

Eventually, after a lot of back rubs and reassurances, Shane texts Li—fuck, Ilya, can she call him Ilya?—whatever his name is back. She sees his screen when he sends it, since he’s still tucked in between them.

He doesn’t say something like ‘they said okay’. No, he says: Please come.

“Does he need the address?” Yuna asks, resting their temples together.

“Ah, no, he said you sent it to him already?”

It takes Yuna a second, but then she remembers, and has to laugh.

“What is it?” David asks, amused.

“He said he wanted to send a care package,” she giggles. “I guess he meant himself.”

Shane rolls his eyes fondly. “I like him, son,” David says approvingly.

It’s about a five hour drive from Toronto to Ottawa, which gives them all time to prepare. For a while, though, they stay there on the couch just talking.

Shane tells them things he’s never told anyone else. Things Ilya has done, jokes he’s made, kindnesses he’s shown Shane. When David mentions the last All-Star Game, Shane gets this dopey smile on his face that Yuna is beginning to think of as his Lily Smile. Or his Ilya Smile. Whatever.

It’s nice. It’s so, so nice. He speaks so openly, so happily. With every minute that passes, Yuna can see the difference. She doesn't know how she never noticed how much he’s been repressing himself, how much he’s pulled away from them these past years.

Through it all, Shane can’t stop saying his name. Ilya this, Ilya that. When David points it out, not teasing or upset at all, just noticing it, Shane blushes.

He says, “I never realized how much I… I wished I could’ve used his real name. Now I can. That’s all.”

Finally, when Ilya’s an hour and a half out, David and Yuna get up and insist on making Ilya Rozanov the best homemade dinner he’s ever had. Shane follows them to the kitchen, embarrassed and pleased in equal measure.

“You don’t have to try so hard,” he mumbles.

“Of course we do, this is our future son-in-law!”

“Yuna, honey, they aren’t even dating yet.”

“Oh, right. We have to lure him in with good food then, so he’ll never want to leave.”

Shane is so red. It’s adorable. “I regret telling you guys that so much.”

“Too late,” Yuna shrugs. “Now, does he like pasta?”

When the doorbell rings later, all three of them pause for just a second, looking at each other. Shane doesn’t wait long, though, and stands to hurry towards the door. Where Yuna and David are standing, they can’t see the moment that Shane and Rozanov, Ilya, whatever meet again. But they can hear it.

“You are okay,” comes an accented voice. Yuna briefly wonders how she didn’t realize his friend’s voice was obviously Russian, but decides to worry about it another time.

“I’m a lot better now that you’re here,” Shane says in a tone she’s never heard before. Low, private, fond.

Ilya says something under his breath, and then there’s the sound of a kiss, lips smacking together wetly.

Yuna and David share an amused, joyful look. Their son is in love. It’s a wonderful feeling.

“Okay, boys,” David says eventually. “Shane, do we get to meet him sometime tonight?”

“I’m a little busy,” he calls back, a little breathless.

But it’s only a few more seconds before Shane pulls Ilya into sight, their hands clasped together. The smile on his face is so bright it almost distracts her from Ilya, who looks much healthier than the last time they’d met. His curly hair is a little messy, and his cheeks are a little too pink, but he’s grinning too. He keeps looking at Shane.

“Uh, sorry, let me introduce you,” Shane says. “I know you kind of know each other already, but I don’t care. Mom, Dad, this is Ilya. Ilya Rozanov. Ilya, baby, these are my parents. Yuna and David.”

“It is very nice to meet you again,” Ilya speaks carefully. Then he lifts his free hand, revealing a bottle of wine. “My teammates said I had to bring a gift. I hope you like it.”

David takes it, making approving sounds. “You have good taste.”

“Dad,” says Shane.

“I mean, hello, nice to meet you again too. You know, we have some vodka here too, if you’d prefer that.”

“David,” Yuna laughs.

“What? Wine is nice, but I have the good stuff. I thought maybe he’d like it.”

Hesitantly, Ilya says, “Yes, I would like to see.”

“There you go,” David says proudly. “I’ll go get it now.”

Shane shakes his head, smiling. “Can Mom say hi first? Can we eat?”

“Fuck, sorry, Shane,” Yuna says. “Hi Ilya. Can I call you that? Is that okay?”

“Yes, is okay.” Ilya moves closer, neither he nor Shane letting go of their hands. Shane follows like a lovesick puppy, though he watches her a little warily, ready to defend his not-boyfriend. “Mrs. Hollander—”

“Yuna,” she corrects.

Ilya nods. Like this, he looks so serious, his mouth downturned in thought or concentration maybe. “Yuna. I want to say… I am very grateful to you. Thank you for your texts. They helped when I could not be here.”

“Ilya,” Shane starts.

Yuna matches Ilya’s tone. “You’re welcome. I know I made a mess of things, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Yes. But maybe we can talk about that another time. Not tonight. Tonight is happy. I am meeting the Hollanders. I get to see where he gets his boring from.”

“Ilya,” Shane says again, glancing between her and David nervously.

“Is okay, Shane. I like your boring.”

And really, Yuna thinks, watching the way Shane’s whole body melts under Ilya’s gaze, how can they not approve? How could they not like Ilya?

The four of them move to the dining table. Ilya, it turns out, loves pasta and sings their praises while they talk and eat. He calms Shane down when reality hits and Shane starts freaking out. After dinner, they both decide to go sit out on the back porch together, and Yuna hopes they’ll finally talk—that when they come back, she won’t have to call Ilya Shane’s not-boyfriend anymore.

It will take some getting used to, and she won’t pretend otherwise. But… her baby is happy. That’s enough for her to be able to overcome any lingering weirdness.

Through the glass backdoor, they watch Ilya guide Shane to the chairs, taking care of his injured arm.

Yuna and David walk away, giving them their privacy, content that Shane’s safe with Ilya.

With his Lily.

Chapter End Notes

I am not Japanese nor do I speak the language, so if I've gotten this wrong please correct me!! But as I understand it,
okaasan = mother
Thank you to Raelien and SomewhereSomeday for the help 🙏🙏

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I don't have good words to say thank you to everyone for the love you've shown this fic. I'm kind of in shock lol. I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, and I hope this chapter did our faves justice <3

(also, if you have any missing scene ideas, please feel free to share!! I'm thinking about adding some Ilya POV so 👀)

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