There's a version of the Hollanov story where Yuna has just slightly less self control when it comes to her maternal anxiety spirals. And they're in Montreal but not for Shane-related reasons (David travels quite often for his job with the Treasury department and Yuna can work anywhere with a wifi connection and a horizontal surface to put her laptop on) and maybe Shane said Sorry, Mom, I know you're gonna be in town but I've got plans and Yuna said Of course honey, that's fine, it's only overnight anyway. Only now it's midnight and Yuna is in the same city as her son but she hasn't put eyes on him except through a television screen in months and something is not sitting right in her stomach. And yes she could take a Tums and try to forget about it and yes she could just quietly stew about it like she has in the past but her skin is crawling and she's gotten herself so worked up at this point and at this time of night Shane is probably either back from his plans or asleep so she just--
And on the way she's thinking that Shane doesn't even have to know. She doesn't want him to know! Fuck, this is embarrassing for her and she knows how it'll look if anyone ever finds out but--isn't that kind of the point of being a mother? Being a little insane about your kids? And she promises herself that she'll just poke her head in and see if he's there and if he looks okay and then she'll GO and nobody has to know. And she's also thinking about the hours she spent driving in circles around their neighborhood when Shane was colicky just to get him to stay asleep for longer than a handful of minutes and she thinks about driving back and forth several times a week between Ottawa and Kingston when Shane was fifteen and had just been drafted to his OHL team and she thinks about all the vacations they didn't take and the way that she saw her whole life change form before her very eyes when Shane was eleven and a scout approached her and told her that her son was something special, something very special.
And this isn't any crazier than all of that right?
So she pulls into the parking garage and she takes the back way in, practically tiptoing already like Shane can hear her from all those floors up. And she gets in the elevator and scans the card to get up to Shane's floor and she tiptoes up to that door, too, and tries to make as little noise as possible on her way in.
The apartment is dark, almost airless, and Yuna for a moment wonders if Shane is even here, and if not where he would be at almost one o'clock in the morning. And then she's thinking Don't be foolish, Yuna, he's twenty-four and he lives in Montreal, he could be literally anywhere at one o'clock in the morning, and the voice sounds a bit like her own mother--
And then there is a sound from up the stairs and she realizes that it's music, playing realtively quietly, and she follows the sound of it up. It's coming from Shane's bedroom, of course, and she decides that this is more than enough proof that he is home and safe and alive, but then she hears a laugh and it--
Does not. Belong. To her son.
She's thrown for a whirl. Because what does that mean. There is a man in her son's bedroom who is not her son and what the fuck does that even mean--
Then Shane's voice does appear, just to say, "You're such an asshole," and the laugh comes back, louder this time.
And Yuna knows that she shouldn't. She knows that she's actively betraying her son's trust right now. She knows that she has absolutely no valid reason for moving towards the door when she now has proof that Shane is alive, well, and definitely has company of some...capacity that she doesn't know how to interpret at the moment (Though: Yes, she kind of does. There are only so many ways to interpret it).
But she's also not thinking very much at all, and her feet move sort of mechanically, and then she's peering through the slightly cracked door.
She'll realize, later on, that whatever cosmic accident or greater power formed this scenario did not do so with complete malevolence, because otherwise she could have certainly caught her son in a compromising position indeed. If she'd arrived even ten minutes earlier, she may have.
What she sees is already compromising enough. They are under the thin top sheet of one of the six identical bedding sets that Shane owns, and they are laying side-by-side propped against the pillows, not really cuddling by anyone's standards, but the thin sheet does nothing to hide that their legs are tangled together and the man (MAN) laying next to Shane has his hand in an extremely proprietary position on Shane's thigh. The music is coming from the phone in the man's hand, and they are watching it together, and Yuna--
Yuna is a fucking adult, and she knows what the words post-coital mean and what it looks like. And she is so violently embarrassed and her head is spinning with so many questions and so much regret that she almost doesn't realize who the man laying next to Shane IS.
Almost, because there is no power in the world that could prevent her from realizing that Ilya Rozanov is in her son's bed.
"You see?" Rozanov is saying, and it's absurd that Yuna's first thought is that he sounds different outside of press conferences and post-game interviews. Softer, younger. "This is called music video, Hollander. I know, I know, is very new thing for you, maybe scary-"
Shane snaps out a hand and slaps Rozanov in the shoulder, and Yuna--kind of winces, because that sounded actually pretty hard and she doesn't like the idea that she raised a kid who would treat someone they're in bed with that way--
But Rozanov grins, and Shane grins back, and then Rozanov is--rolling over and--
OH, oh God, she needs to leave.
And before she's out of earshot, she hears Shane say, "Why did this guy even want you in this music video?"
And Ilya fucking Rozanov says, "Well, probably they wanted big famous hockey player and they thought Shane Hollander, eh, too boring to ever be in music video--"
"Asshole," Shane says again.
And Yuna, despite herself, despite racing down the stairs as quickly and safely as she can in socked feet on laminate flooring, can only think, Yeah, asshole. They reached out to us first.
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