Chapter Text
Shane's parents
Shane’s heart gets on the plane with Ilya when he leaves the cottage. He wishes that he could kiss him in the car, but he'll have to live off the kissing that they did before they left for the airport. Well, that and the facetime calls they are going to have when they get home. They've decided to do that nightly now. When they can of course. It's going to be a scheduling nightmare when the season starts, but for now it's six o'clock every night, so that they can have dinner with one another. Tonight it will be a little later. Give Ilya a bit of a chance to unpack first.
He's half way home when he decides that he has to tell his parents. That he can't live any more without them knowing, at least part of it. He's so lonely. His secret has separated him from anyone.
Ilya encouraged him to tell them. About the gay part. That's it for now. There will be other chances to tell other parts of the story. He'll get them used to it. Slowly.
When he parks he pauses to text. "Hey, I'm gong to tell my parents. About me. I think. But . . . I wanted to know how much of a disaster it would be if they found out . . . about you too. I know that they'd never tell."
"You can tell them if that is best. Good luck. Call me when you get back to your place."
Shane smiles at that.
When he comes into the house both of his parents are turning to him with a wide smile on their faces. "Shane! It's so good to see you again. I don't think we've ever gone this long in the summer without seeing each other," his dad says.
"How was the silent retreat?" his mom asks.
"Can we . . . ah sit down?" he asks.
They pick up on how nervous he is, and they shuffle to sit down. "So, I lied about that. I had a guest."
"A guest?" his dad repeats, stunned.
"A girl?" his mother asks. His dad glares at her.
"Um . . . not exactly." Shane says looking down. "Um . . . a boy. Actually . . . um . . . he's my boyfriend now." He looks up again, with his stomach twisting. They are both smiling at him.
"Thank you, for telling us," David says. Shane lets out a breath. He looks at his mom.
"Can we meet him?" she asks.
Shane laughs, "Um . . . not right away for sure. He doesn't live around here."
"How long have you known?" David asks.
"Um . . . I only knew for sure that I was gay since Rose. I ah . . . hoped I liked both. Like he does, actually," Shane chuckles. "But um . . . I guess I know that I was into men for sure since I was seventeen. But um . . . I kind of knew before that. I just. I tried. Really hard, for a really long time not to be gay. But um . . . I couldn't help it."
"Oh honey," his mom says, coming over to sit beside him on the couch and wrap him up in her arms. "It's okay. Honey. I'm so sorry that you felt like you had to fight it. Okay? Everything is fine now, and we'll figure out how to let you be open. Okay?"
"No," Shane says shaking his head. "That's not a real possibility."
"It's been working out really well for Scott Hunter. I've been studying the media strategies he's using, and I think there are some things that I can take and add too, and . . . " Yuna says.
"Wait, you've been studying Scott Hunter's coming out?" Shane says.
His dad smiles, "We thought this was a posability. We know you pretty well, Shane."
He nods his head slowly. If it wasn't for Ilya maybe he would have shared this a long time ago. Maybe everything would have been easier.
No. He'd probably not even want to come out if it wasn't for Ilya. He's not sure he would have ever learned how to want without him.
"Um . . . what hints were there? Because I should probably work on that," he laughs a bit nervously.
Yuna looks sadly at him, "You're planning on staying in the closet for a long time?"
"Yeah, it's not going to be as easy for me as it is for Hunter. It's . . ." he sighs, unable to finish that sentence without explaining who he was dating, and that was not something that he was willing to do.
"I don't think that any of the things I see would give you away to the general public. You are such a private person.” His dad says. “Can I ask? Michael, your teammate back when you were 11 or 12?"
"You mean the one that mom bullied into quitting, yeah?"
"Did you like him?" David asks.
"Oh," Shane blinks. "Well, that was for sure in the time when I was trying to ignore the fact that I might be interested in men as hard as I could. But yeah, probably?"
David turns to his wife with wide eyes. Yuna throws her hands up, "I didn't KNOW David!"
"I'm sorry, have you guys argued about guys you thought I was into?" Shane asks.
"Just the one, really," David says. "Like I said you were discrete."
"Um . . . I suppose that is because I haven't um . . . liked that many guys. It's mostly just been . . . the one since I was seventeen."
"You've been in love with this boy since you were seventeen?" Yuna asks.
Shane chuckles, "No, I . . . ah I don't know when the love bit started. Certainly way before I actually noticed. Just um . . . " his cheeks flush.
"Okay," David says softly.
Shane swallows.
"Honey, we need to meet someone who has been important to you for your entire adult life," Yuna says.
Shane's lip quivers. "I'm afraid that you are going to hate him. I'm afraid that you are going to hate me when you find out who he is."
"Honey, nothing could ever make us hate you," Yuna says.
"Is he not nice to you?" David asks.
"Yes! Nicer to me than anyone else. But also . .. no. I mean we kind of chirp each other. But I like it. Like . . . I got assigned a personality when I was seventeen years old. I'm the golden boy, and I don't get to chirp or fight or drink or do anything that isn't a perfect representation of a good Asian and if I came out? I'm going to have to be the ideal gay person too. But him? He was assigned asshole at seventeen. And he is, you know. But with me he doesn't have to be, and with him I don't have to be good either."
Yuna is crying.
"I"m sorry mom. I tried really hard to be the person that you needed me to be."
"No. I'm sorry, Shane. Look at me," she says. He tries to turn his head away, but she grabs him by the chin, and forces him to meet her eyes. "I am so proud of you, and I love you so much. I am so sorry that I ever made you doubt that. Okay?" Shane nods. "You don't have to be anything. Just you."
Shane sniffs.
"Shane, is your man another player?" Davis asks.
Shane nods his head.
Yuna smiles, "Honey, we're not going to be mad at you for dating another player. If anything that makes you more safe. If he is a player too, that means that he's not going to go to the press."
"Yeah, that's not a risk," Shane says. "But, um . . . what if he played for Boston?"
Yuna's eyes bulge. David's face shows no emotion, but in an eerie way that makes Shane's skin crawl.
"Please tell me it's not Rozanov," Yuna says.
Shane flinches.
"But I thought you hated him!" she exclaims.
"No, I don't. Actually? I love him," Shane says.
"How does he feel about you?" David asks.
"Oh my God dad! He was literally the one who said ‘I love you’ first!"
"Okay, okay," David says, putting his hands up in the motion of surrender. "I'm sorry for asking. It's just . . . he's been with a lot of women over the years. You can't blame me for asking."
"Well, he likes both. And that was fine for most of the time we were together. Almost all of them were . . . you know people that he saw one time, and then never again. Meanwhile me and him . . . a decade you know. Besides, he's the one that decided to stop seeing other people. I didn't ask him for that. I mean, I probably never would have asked him for it," Shane says.
"That's sad," his mother says.
Shane shrugs, "Like we get that's it's messed up. When he started this we didn't plan on it actually . . . becoming anything, so it wasn't a big deal. We were just going to meet each other when we happened to be in the same town a couple of times a year, and that was going to be it. The whole feelings things kind of snuck up on both of us. We get that this is . . . impossible, and unwise, and probably a dozen other things like that. But it's kind of too late to worry about all of that now."
"Okay," his mother says slapping her thighs, "So what is the plan? It can't just be to continue to hide all of this until you retire, because that would be to sad."
"Mom, it's more complicated for him. If we came out he could never go back to Russia. If he did, they could put him in prison. So, we've got to be careful. We talked about him moving to Ottawa next year, and then starting a charity. So, then everyone would know that we were friends and not rivals or whatever. Then I don't know, maybe a long time down the road . . . "
"He needs citizenship," David says.
"Yeah," Shane agrees. "It would probably be easier for him to get it in America, because he's lived there a lot longer. But he really wants Canadian citizenship."
Yuna nods, "I'll have to do some research on the safest way to do that."
Shane laughs, "He was talking about marrying someone for a green card."
His parents stare at him.
Shane's cheeks go red. "Don't worry! I let him know I didn't want him to do that."
"Shane, I think he was hinting that you should offer to marry him."
Shane feels as if every nerve in his body is sending a thousand messages a minute, and he doesn't know what any of them are. "Really?"
Yuna nods her head at that.
"Oh. Um. Thanks for telling me that," Shane says. "I thought he was just rage baiting me. Don't ah . . . plan the wedding quite yet," he jokes.
"No, I think we should probably meet our future son-in-law first. Can you call him with us?" David asks.
"Um . . . yeah sure. He knows that I'm talking to you, so he probably wants to know how it is going." He dials the number. "Ilya, I've got you on speaker with my parents." Shane says all the words really quickly, because he knows he's got to say something before Ilya says something about his dick or something.
"Hello Hollanders."
"Hello, Ilya. It's nice to get to talk to you," David says warmly.
"Yes, it's nice," Ilya agrees. "You did a good job raising him."
Yuna raises her eyebrows, but it's David who voices her thoughts, "That's very sweet. Not exactly the personality that I was expecting. You're very different off the ice."
"Hollander. Tell them this is not so! Explain to them that I am an ass hole, yes? Very Russian."
Shane laughs at this, "I mean, you keep telling me that I’m the ass hole, so . . ."
"What do you do?" Yuna says shooting her son an alarmed look.
"He chirped me," Ilya says, sounding proud over the phone.
"Ilya, I know you probably don't celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. Maybe you don't even celebrate the American one. But we usually put something together with Shane. Not always on the day as you don't get those things off. But maybe we could find a time in the schedule where you both could make it."
"Mom," Shane blushes, "there is no way that's going to work."
"Okay, well a phone call then. But you'll be coming up for Christmas. I know that you do get those days off," Yuna continues.
"Um . . . yes, if Shane wants me too."
"Yeah, that would be nice," Shane agrees somewhat bashfully. "You know . . . I've thought about you guys meeting. Face to face. It will be like . . . these two parts of my world that are usually so far apart coming together. It will make everything seem real."
"Is real, Shane," Ilya says on the other side of the phone causing Shane to visibly melt.
"Okay, well, this makes sense now," David says with a smile.
"Yeah, I say we skip the thousand step plan and just make a couple videos of you guys being all cute and sweet with one another, and no one is going to have any questions about how and why this works."
Shane snorts a laugh out at that.
"I'm the reason it's so complicated," Ilya says.
Shane's face melts again, but in a completely different way. "Ilya, you're not the reason. I mean, Russia is a part of the reason for sure. It's not like the league or the fans or our teammates would be jumping for joy to find out that we were together. But also your country's homophobic laws are not your fault."
"Yes, but Shane has plan. My Shane thinks ahead about what is going to happen with the two of us," Ilya says proudly.
"He does," Yuna agrees, "But I might have a couple of ideas of things that we could add onto that plan."
"I'll go get the chipboard," David says.
"Mmm, thank you dear, also my computer," she says.
Shane lets out a groan at that, but Ilya is grinning. "Are you going to momager me?"
"Where did you hear that word?" Shane objects.
"I would love to be your momager," Yuna replies.