Chapter Text
“All right,” David says.
Ilya swallows. The back door closed quietly behind Shane, and a large, overwhelming silence has remained.
Ilya risks meeting David’s eyes. He doesn’t look angry, at least. But not so happy either. David asks, “Are you serious about him?”
“Yes.” This, at least, is an easy question to answer. “To death.”
“Ah.” David nods, and then looks at his food, and takes a large gulp of his wine.
“Is that…” Ilya nervously twirls spaghetti on his fork. “Not the right way to say it?”
“No, no, it’s just, uh. Very serious.”
“Yes. I am very serious.” Ilya tries to breathe. Shane is the one who panics. In fact, Ilya has been so calm over the past hour. So, so calm. Soooooooo so so so amazingly calm that maybe Shane will reward him with a very nice blowjob later. Ilya has been calm because Shane needs a rock to lean on, but Shane is gone and now Ilya is panicking. This is his only chance to rectify the first, shirtless impression he made on Shane’s father.
“Do you still read New Yorker?”
David laughs in shock. “He told you that?”
Ilya winces, but commits. “Yes, during awards gala in Las Vegas. Sportsmanship award.”
“Oh yeah, you guys hosted.” Then David gets a look on his face that probably means he has realized they fucked after that. “Oh, Jesus.”
Ilya says nothing. He quietly scoops more pasta into his mouth. Swimming in the lake made him hungry.
He sees so much of Shane in this place. He looks so much like both his parents. Ilya’s eyes wander the room. The napkins are the same as the ones in Shane’s cottage. The lights are dim, the way Shane likes them. In the dining room, there is a picture of Shane as a little kid wearing little denim overalls. He looks so, so happy.
Ilya surprises himself when he says, “I still have the selfies.” And then he continues into the awkward silence, hesitantly, “They are only photos we have together.”
David blinks very hard. Maybe he is about to cry. After a moment, he says, “We’ll have to take some pictures of you two when we bring you dinner tonight.”
“Ah—” and Ilya turns to look out the window. His turn to cry. Normally he would not be so ready, so capable of tears in front of strangers, but he has been cracked open by Shane’s cottage. His love. As if seeing Shane in the early morning for the first time in all his life has made Ilya into a sapling, split down the middle by a crack of lightning, the wet chlorophyll insides exposed to air. And, worst of all, David has Shane’s nose.
Quietly, Ilya says, “That is very kind of you.” And, voice cracking, still looking away from Shane’s father into the afternoon sunlight, he admits, “For years I have wished for one more photograph together. Just one.”
“Jeez,” David sighs. “Yeah, kid. I think we can manage that.”
Ilya nods jerkily. He has another sip of David Hollander’s nice Russian vodka, even though it is a bit sacrilegious to drink it with spaghetti. When he looks up, David is smiling at him, and Ilya, surprised at himself, feels very safe.
“You gotta be serious about this,” David says to Shane in the kitchen. They are doing the dishes. Ilya was assigned to find a movie to watch while Yuna folds the laundry, but they’ve taken 20 minutes longer than usual, so now here he is, eavesdropping. “I like Ilya. I think he makes you happy. But if you’re gonna keep it a secret, you could get really hurt if it ever gets out, kiddo. So you gotta be sure.”
Shane stares at the counter. Ilya cannot see their faces but he knows the line of Shane’s shoulders better than anything. He knows Shane is processing what his father has said, and that Shane is sick to his stomach with it.
Ilya wouldn’t risk it all for himself. Ilya wouldn’t live in terror for years and years with the threat of outing over his head for the sake of Ilya Rozanov. He isn’t worth it. But he would do it for Shane, and after all this time, he trusts that Shane would do it for Ilya.
“Of course I’m sure,” Shane grits out eventually. He dries the pot his dad has scrubbed. “Heavy stuff for movie night, Dad, Jesus.”
“Okay, sorry,” David says lightly. “I just worry about you. Lots on your plate.”
“Well.” Shane puts the pot away in the cabinet and starts on the next one. “Ilya helps me carry it.”
Ilya can’t help the lovesick sigh that comes out at that. He is so utterly ruined by Shane that it’s embarrassing. Both of them whip around.
“Sorry,” Ilya says sheepishly. “I wondered where you were. TV is ready.”
“No problem, I was just having a moment,” David says, clapping his hand on Shane’s shoulder. Shane grins at his dad. Ilya’s stomach hurts to look at them. “We can probably leave the rest of these to soak overnight, huh?”
“You’re the boss.” Shane puts down the cloth and brushes past Ilya toward the living room, resting his hand on Ilya’s stomach for just a moment, a hot and intimate touch.
Maybe it is Shane’s hand. Maybe it is a feeling of being opened-up, skin bare despite his shirt and his sweatpants. Maybe it is the vast expanse of trust in Ilya’s chest, a great plain opened up to him that he had never thought to want before. Maybe it is the way Ilya’s eyes trail after Shane and do not track David coming from the sink.
Whatever it is, it makes him unguarded and off-centre. And so when David walks past him too, he puts a hand on Ilya’s shoulder, and Ilya flinches.
“Oh,” David says, taking his hand back, and Ilya hates himself.
“Sorry,” Ilya mutters, “sorry, it was— you surprised me.”
He can’t see David’s face while he’s staring determinedly at the wall behind David’s head, but he hears David’s quick exhale. “My fault,” David says. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Is okay,” Ilya replies, suddenly desperate to leave. “No problem.”
“Okay,” David says. And then he says, a strange but pleasant non-sequitur, “I really do like you, Ilya. I think you’re good for him. You make him happy.”
Ilya nods, like one of those horrible bobblehead sports figurines the MLH insists on producing. “Thank you.”
“And no matter what, you’re... well, you’re welcome here.” David pauses, consideringly. Awkwardly, he adds, “I hope you always feel safe in this house.” And with that, David leaves Ilya there, blinking at the wall.
Ilya knows he looks ridiculous. He usually spends the off-season with the Hollanders while Shane goes off to film his commercials and worry about his horrible diet. Right now, he is crouched next to a coffee table with David working on a puzzle while Shane sleeps off the stress of his latest Rolex meeting in his bedroom.
The puzzle picture is of a Canadian loon swimming in a lake. Ilya still doesn’t like the look in its menacing red eyes.
“Shane can do a pretty good loon call,” David says.
Ilya shudders. “Yes. I heard.”
David chuckles. He heard all about the wolf birds, which is probably why he picked this puzzle. David is a cruel, cruel man.
Ilya manages to put together three pieces in a row, which is something of a victory for him. He is not very good at puzzles—at least, David always assures him, not yet.
“Do you think we might ever meet your family, Ilya?”
When Ilya looks up, David is looking down at the table, fitting pieces together. Ilya watches his hand skim along the surface, looking and feeling for something that might complete his corner of the puzzle.
“I don’t think so,” Ilya says. He doesn’t feel afraid or nervous, exactly. Just strange and unmoored, the way he feels whenever he thinks of his family and his homeland.
He will never go home. Most times, he’s happy about it, but in some moments it cuts him deep. Three weeks ago he played in Toronto and spent an hour inside St Vladimir’s, looking at a gilded portrait of the Virgin Mary and digging his crucifix into his thumb.
In the end, someone had asked him if he wanted to stay for mass, and he had shrugged it all off and played the game.
“Ah, shit,” David says. Ilya thinks perhaps he has messed up his puzzle, but David is looking at him with a wry expression on his face. “I’m sorry, Ilya. I remember your dad passed away.”
“Yes.” Ilya swallows. He can already sense the question David will not ask: Do you have any other family? Perhaps out of a sense of accommodation, or just a desire to share the truth for once in his life, Ilya says, “There is only my brother left. He would not come to see me.”
David nods, and Ilya figures this is the end of it. He goes back to sorting background pieces from the bird’s wings.
After another few minutes of quiet puzzling, David says, “Well, son. I’m really glad you’re in our family.”
Oh. Ilya nods. He feels small and young.
Before he can reply, the sound of socks against the carpet interrupts him. Ilya looks up to see Shane rubbing his eyes sleepily. Half of his hair has been flattened against his face from his nap. Ilya wants to throw up from how good he looks. “We are doing puzzle,” Ilya says, unable to look away. “Your father is very boring man.”
“That’s what you like about me,” David laughs.
Ilya laughs, too. “You guys are so annoying,” Shane whines, flopping on the couch behind Ilya, which gives him a reprieve from his beautiful face. “What’s the puzzle of?”
“Loon,” Ilya says grumpily, staring at the mess of puzzle pieces in front of him.
“Ah.” Shane scrubs his hand through Ilya’s hair once, and then lets it rest on the floor. “You’re a loon.”
“That’s what you like about me,” Ilya tries, catching David’s eye. David winks. Ilya finds the last piece of the bottom edge of the puzzle, and slots it into place.