Chapter Text
Shane has always been his mother’s son. From the minute he opened his eyes, he and Yuna have been two intense, loving, slightly obsessive peas in a pod. Shane has always sought to match, then outpace his mom when it comes to commitment and hard work, at and at it at an impressively young age just so that he could follow her around on two tiny, chubby little feet. There’s no question that hockey has been his heart and soul since the second he laid eyes on the ice, but a part of David will always wonder if that initial spark, that excitement, was a contagious thing from her.
He loves Shane’s passion as much as he loves it in Yuna, so when he stops to think about it for more than half a second, is it any surprise that Shane fell in love with the first person to actually challenge him at his favorite thing? Yuna can deny it all she likes, but David is sure he won her over purely out of irritation when he trounced her at cards the first night they met.
The rivalry between Shane Hollander and Ilya Rovanov is the stuff of legends, and while the antagonism might be all manufactured, the competitiveness most certainly isn’t. He doesn’t share Yuna’s concern that Shane has ever let Rozanov win anything. Shane wants to beat Rozanov as much as David imagines Rozanov wants to beat Shane. It’s what pushes them both so far down the path of greatness.
So yeah, Shane is his mother’s son, which is why he won’t take his eyes off her when she steps away from the table and heads outside, even though she squeezes his shoulder as she passes. David knows why she’s taking a beat. It’s the same reason he drove away without saying a word, and he imagines she will soon feel as wretched about it as he does now.
He doesn’t care, she doesn’t care, that their son is gay. He doesn’t even care that he’s picked Rozanov of all men.
What he cares about, and what he knows she cares about, is just how much pain they have caused him. Even with the best of intentions, even with no desire at all to judge or reject him, the knowledge that Shane has been living with such a secret, such a weight, for all these years... His beautiful, clever, intense boy, who already practices and plans and creates a hundred scenarios to run through in his head, and not one of the outcomes he will have played out was worth the risk of following through.
He’s doing that now. Thinking and overthinking, slow and methodical, his own process gives Yuna the time she actually needs to acknowledge her feelings and set them aside for Shane’s sake. They need to talk, even more so perhaps than he and Shane do, but it won’t be a long conversation.
They might need a minute, but once they set their sights on a path, all bets are off. A lane has been chosen, and no act of nature, god, or hockey is knocking them off course.
They’ll be fine. He knows it.
Shane carefully picks up his mom’s button-up and follows her outside.
Leaving David with Rozanov. Ilya.
Hockey’s most controversial and divisive figure, and a man who quite calmly confessed to being in love with David’s son.
He should break the ice, right? Ilya looks relaxed enough, but he’s also looked like he’s wanted to tear someone’s face off with his teeth in some interviews, so what does David know?
He cracks the knuckles on both hands and swings them in front of him in a muted clap. “You like pasta?” he asks, deliberately casual, as though there’s a universe in which a kid Rozanov’s size doesn’t need a boatload of carbs. He looks over his shoulder just in time to catch Ilya’s brow arch, and the almost-smile at the edge of his mouth.
“Of course. You want help?” Rozanov is already on his feet, a surprising amount of grace for a guy who can flatten men twice his size on the ice.
David waves him into the kitchen, a slate of staggeringly deliberate politeness already running in the back of his head. He stirs at the sauce he left simmering, knowing full well that either Shane would be coming over, or they would be going to him. The boy has a bad habit of not eating when he’s upset, something David has long found ways of navigating. When he cooks for his son, he keeps things plain. Simple. Boirng, some might say, but Shane’s always been picky about texture and flavor.
“So.” Rozanov perches by the counter, all six feet of puck-destroying energy tamed behind a posture so stiff David’s worried he might pull something. “What do you want me to do?”
David gestures with the pasta box. “You can throw this in the pot if you want. Salt’s already in.” He slides it down the counter. Rozanov snags it one-handed.
There’s a silence that wants to be called awkward, but really, it’s just the volume turned way down compared to earlier. David watches as Rozanov considers the box, then carefully unloads its contents into the pan.
A man with Ilya’s wealth and position can afford his own chef, but he clearly knows at least the basics of how to cook. That’s good. David needs to teach him Shane’s favorites.
“Shane says you like The New Yorker,” Rozanov says. Which… that doesn’t strike him as the kind of material Ilya would read. But again, what does he actually know about the boy?
David nods, and it comes out more approving than he means. “It’s good reading. Beats scrolling Twitter, anyway.” He works the sauce with a wooden spoon.
Rozanov’s eyes land on the family photos clustered on the kitchen wall. He lingers on the pee-wee hockey picture - on Shane, his smile missing three teeth, and his oversized jersey hanging down to his knees. The look on his face is pure adoration. He catches David’s gaze and startles, guilty that he’s been caught.
“How are you with a cheese grater?” David offers.
Ilya stands tall and nods as he’s handed a block of Parmesan.
He’s the one to get Ilya’s number before the kids drive home. He’s also the one to text them both, though it’s Yuna who creates the group chat. They head over, eat more food, drink together, and marvel at how much more like a home Shane’s cottage feels, just by having one extra person in it. Ilya fetches and carries with the easy smile of a man who knows what hills to die on, then calmly manages to veer Shane off a fruit salad-related spiral purely by tugging on the back of his shirt and pulling him back down into his seat.
“Stop fussing, or I will steal your strawberries,” Ilya tells him, right as he steals one of said strawberries. By the time Shane is done defending his dessert, he’s clearly forgotten whatever it was that was working him up.
Yuna is beaming the whole drive home, her thoughts running on full volume a mile a minute as she starts planning worst-case scenarios, how they can host both the boys for Christmas, and how she'll set Ilya up with the best real estate agents in Ottawa.
David tells her that there is no way Shane hasn’t already lined everything up, then opens a private message to Ilya and sends him the recipe for Shane’s favorite protein pancakes.
Four bottles of premium Russian vodka and a bouquet of Montreal blue flowers the size of a small person end up on their doorstep first thing the next morning.
Summer seems to fly by, and before they know it, Ilya Rozenov is both the star center for the Ottawa Centars and the subject of almost unparalleled levels of betrayed hatred from his former team.
At their first home game, David desperately wants to make the drive, show up, and support the kid, but he understands exactly why he can’t. He and Yuna both end up cringing their way through the game.
“Well there’s no doubt it’s true love,” Yuna says, holding up her glass as David refills it. “Poor Ilya.”
Their shared chat quickly fills with reassurances from Yuna, then from Shane. David adds his own two cents, then messages Ilya directly. He’s not sent anything since the recipe.
It’ll get better, I promise.
Ilya reads it immediately.
Three days later, he replies.
Thanks.
Ottawa continues to suck, though if there’s ever an indication that Ilya makes a difference, it’s never clearer than it is come November, when he’s out with the flu. The Centaurs take a battering the likes of which they haven’t seen since last season.
Both David and Yuna send Ilya their best. David offers to drive up to check in, maybe get Ilya some groceries, but the message remains unread, and he doesn’t want to disturb the kid when he’s most likely sleeping. Besides, when it comes to performance, Ottawa might not be great, but Ilya is both their star and their new hope: someone will be taking care of him.
A day later, he takes his weekly trip over to Shane’s cottage to check in on everything. Shane keeps telling him he can get a professional service in, but David won’t hear of it. If he continues to look after the place while Shane is out, then he and Ilya can start actually personalizing it. They already have one picture on the mantlepiece, taken the afternoon of their final family BBQ of the summer. David intends to ensure they have at least three more to add to the collection by the new year.
Most of the drive up is spent listening to a panel of puckheads argue, and David has them on at the lowest possible volume, window cracked to let in the late-autumn chill. He gets to the edge of the lake, headlights throwing weird geometric shadows off the new wind chimes Shane hung over the summer. He’d meant to come up earlier, but a blown-down hemlock and two detoured rural routes delayed him past dark, so by the time he unlocks the broad glass door, the cottage is pitch black, with just the mirrored surface of the water outside to reflect starlight in shards.
It takes him a good few seconds to notice that he can’t hear the usual chirp of the alarm waiting to be disarmed.
Through the glass wall, he scans the kitchen, the stairwell curve, the shadowed living room. The silence is thick, but now that he’s looking, not just listening, he sees the shallow, quick flick and snuff of a blue-white glow. A phone screen, deep inside the darkness, then a second flare as someone shoves it away. He thinks about the baseball bat Shane keeps in the umbrella stand, and then he thinks about the fact that it would never stop a professional thief, or a desperate addict, if that’s actually what this is. All the logic in his head says to back out, call it in, but he’s already halfway across the dark tiles, that one picture Yuna was so proud to frame a nightmare waiting to unfold should the intruder know whose house they are in.
He circles, a panicked, empty ache in his stomach, and finally rounds the end of the kitchen block to see the thing that’s set every hair on his arms to attention.
Ilya is sprawled facedown on the couch. His breathing is so slow and raspy that it barely disturbs the fleece throw half-draped over his back. His phone, the source of the earlier light, lies under one bare hand, battery indicator a thin sliver of red.
He’s never been a shouter. He hovers at the edge of the rug, heart pounding, relief giving way to confusion. Ilya’s face is turned sideways, exposed under a curtain of limp, wet curls, his nose inches from the cushion. Sweat beads along his hairline and hollows darker patches down his jaw and neck. He’s shivering, but the house is fully heated.
David clears his throat once and then again louder. Ilya jerks, spluttering awake, and nearly launches himself off the couch before his obvious exhaustion nixes the move. He slumps onto an elbow instead, gasping, halfway between fight and flight, the garble of Russian following his shock more of one blurred line than any obvious words. David has started learning Russian, but he’s yet to make it past the alphabet.
Panic over. One crisis averted. Now onto the next. Ilya looks terrible.
Jesus, kid.” He doesn't mean for it to come out that way, just a father’s instinct tripping on itself, but Ilya flinches like he’s been shot. The instinct in him is to reach out, but he holds back, lets his hands stay visible and empty.
“I’m fine,” Ilya manages. He’s doubled over, coughing raw, but he powers through it, and tries for a grin that just shows more teeth. “Sorry, sorry. Is not-” He wipes his nose with the hem of the blanket, then seems to remember himself and snatches his hand back. “I wash. I clean. Sorry, sorry, sorry.” The words fall out of his mouth like loose screws. “Will not be long. You want I go.”
He tries to sit up, only to list sideways, the room spinning under him. “Not want to mess. Not burden. Please, Mr. Hollander-”
“David,” he says automatically. “It’s just David here, kid.” For a second, his throat fills up at the angle of Ilya’s head: the blank, open terror that hardens into pleading.
“I just need water,” Ilya whispers, “is okay. Will be better. Please. Not to tell… don’t tell. Not…” He forces his eyes shut, and there’s a tremor in him now, poorly masked by the way he hugs the blanket tighter. “Is just flu.”
David has a lot of questions, not least of which is why Ilya is here and how on earth he made the trip in such a state. Instead, he shelves them. Ilya is nothing like Shane, but David knows how to take care of sick kids. Not that Ilya is a child, of course not, but he’s Shane’s boyfriend, which makes him David’s kid by default.
He heads to the kitchen, turns on the cabinet lights so he can see a little better without blinding Ilya in the process. Water, first, then he needs to get a baseline on what he’s dealing with.
“One thing at a time,” he says, as soft as possible. “If you fall off that couch, I’m calling an ambulance whether you like it or not.”
He sets about filling a glass in the kitchen and brings the water over. Ilya drinks it in two shuddering gulps, then immediately tries to hack up a lung. He tries to stand again, but David plants a deliberate palm on his shoulder. “Sit,” he says. “Now.”
Ilya goes immediately still. His hands twist where David can see them, the skin of his knuckles near blue-white. “Sorry,” he says again, smaller this time. “Is very stupid.”
“How long have you been sick?”
Ilya frowns. “Day is it?”
“Friday.”
“Hmm. Wednesday?”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“Yes, Is just flu. Will be better tomorrow.”
“I don’t think you’re going to be better by tomorrow,” David says carefully. Telling a man like Ilya something is or isn’t going to happen is just going to trigger a wall of stubbornness.
He reaches for the back of Ilya’s neck to check his temperature, but Ilya winces and jerks away from the touch. David freezes, hand suspended. “Hey,” he says. “Just checking for a fever. That’s all.”
“I don’t…” Ilya’s voice is so small and so at odds with his size and personality. “It’s fine. Not so bad.” He’s got a white-knuckle grip on the blanket, and his shoulders have hunched so far in that his head’s nearly level with his chest.
David makes himself move slowly. No sudden moves. “Okay. Let’s see how you go, yeah?” He heads back to the kitchen. “Have you eaten anything today?”
Ilya shakes his head so carefully it’s almost imperceptible.
“Right.” David finds half a tin of emergency soup in Shane’s pantry and sets about heating it up, doing his best to keep everything noisy and obvious, so there’s no chance for Ilya to freak out again. “You want TV?” he asks.
Ilya shakes his head again, straight into the cushion.
He keeps himself angled so he can see the kid out of the corner of his eye while he stirs the soup. Ilya’s breathing is bad, but he doesn’t cough unless he thinks David isn’t paying attention. The effort to look presentable is almost funny, in a heartbreaking way. David tries to lighten the mood. “You’re making yourself at home, at least,” he says. “You want some Gatorade too?”
“I pay for…” Ilya starts, but then the words trip up, and he ducks his head lower. “Sorry. I clean up. After. I’m not to… to cause work for you.”
David brings a bowl over, the soup piping hot. He wishes he had some bread to mop it up. He has no idea how long Ilya intends to stay, but makes a plan to get fresh groceries in for tomorrow at the very least. “Shane would kill me if I let you starve. I’m pretty sure he’d murder both of us, honestly.” That gets a twitch of a smile, not quite reaching Ilya’s eyes, but it’s there. “Eat what you can.”
Ilya’s hands tremble when he takes the bowl. He cradles it in the blanket, then ducks his head. He’s so very careful not to spill a drop.
He watches Ilya tip the last bit of soup into his mouth, eyes squeezed shut across the effort. “You want to sleep?” It comes out softer, gentler than David intends, and he tries to close the gap by bustling over, taking the empty bowl before Ilya has the chance to get up and try to clean.
It’s been a good few years since he’s had to put someone to bed, and Ilya’s significantly bigger than Shane was back then. Still, he holds out his hand and waits patiently until Ilya takes it. The heat radiating off the kid is insane.
“I’m fine,” Ilya says, then almost faceplants on the floor. He’s heavy as hell. David has always winced in sympathy whenever Rozanov has taken someone down on the ice, has raged internally when that someone was Shane, for all that he understands the game. The reality of trying to manhandle the kid up to the bedroom, despite Ilya’s attempts to be helpful, leaves them both out of breath.
Ilya sits on Shane’s bed, takes a deep breath, and pretty much goes boneless, leaving David with the practicalities of tucking someone his size under the covers. He knows nothing about the boy’s parents, other than that they are both dead, but he can read between the lines of the charity they are founding, and besides… Ilya is in his care now. David will look after him as he would hope another father would look after Shane.
He leaves the bedroom door ajar and heads back to the kitchen to clean up. Once he’s done sorting through things in his head, he calls Yuna.
“Everything okay?” Ever practical, she skips right past the greeting. He’s been gone a lot longer than expected.
“I’m still at Shane’s. Ilya is here with a bad case of the flu.”
As expected, she is immediately in crisis management mode. “Does he need a doctor? What’s his temperature? Does Shane know? I’ll be there in half an hour…”
David leans against the countertop and rubs at the back of his neck, phone pinned between his shoulder and cheek. “He’s out like a light. Besides, I think he’d try to run for the hills if he knew anyone else had seen him so rough. I’ll crash here tonight and keep an eye on him.” He scans the kitchen, keeping half an ear cocked for any movement from the back of the house. There’s nothing but the distant growl of the heater and the faint tick of the fridge.
“You’re sure?” Yuna isn’t buying it, but she’s also running on motherly instinct, and her “Are you sure?” comes sequined with every possible implication. Hospital? Air ambulance? Court-ordered IV fluid?
“I’m sure. Maybe bring him over some groceries in the morning?” he suggests. She already has a go-to list for Shane. He bids her goodnight and leaves her to it.
David spends the rest of the night with a routine. He sits on the couch and reads one of Shane’s paperback biographies of great hockey players, and checks on Ilya. Rinse, repeat.
There’s not so much as a whisper from him until close to midnight, when a guttural, choked shout splits the silence. David’s halfway off the couch before the echoes fade. He finds Ilya half-sitting, tangled in the duvet, blue t-shirt soaked from neck to waist. The boy’s whole body trembles, and sweat glistens at his scalp, dark along his temples.
He waits, a habit from years of parenting: the instinct not to startle a waking kid, to let them register your presence before crowding them with concern. But Ilya’s eyes are wild, and the words spilling from his mouth are a breathless, rapid-fire cascade of Russian.
“Hey,” David says, keeping his voice at just above a whisper. “Hey. Easy. You’re okay.”
For a second, it’s like talking to a sleepwalker: Ilya’s gaze slides right past him, lands on the window, then the ceiling, his breath hitching in shallow staccato bursts. David grabs the glass of water from the side table and sets it where Ilya can find it, then, after a pause, sits gingerly on the edge of the bed.
“You’re at Shane’s,” he says, extra careful, the same way he would if Shane were the one lost midway between night and memory. “You’re sick. The flu, maybe worse than that, but you’re safe.”
The Russian stops, replaced by a thick, desperate silence. Ilya blinks. “Sorry,” he manages, voice raw from coughing. “Sorry. Sorry.”
David waves it off, but stays seated. “Happens to the best of us. You want more water?” He pushes the glass closer. Ilya drinks without comment, not looking up.
“Where did you think you were?” It’s a dumb thing to ask, more the work of empty space than curiosity, but once the silence returns, David can’t not fill it.
Ilya’s lips pinch together. The glass trembles in his hands. “Home,” he says.
Somehow, David doesn’t think he means Ottawa. Or Boston.
It doesn’t take long to get the kid down again. David’s not sure he’ll even remember waking.
He naps on the couch, on and off, the bedroom door wide open just in case, but Ilya doesn’t stir again, and when David checks on him at seven the next morning, his breathing is slow and even.
He’s halfway through a mug of coffee when headlights sweep the kitchen in a strobe of white. There’s a hissing, then the front door opens. He meets her at the entry, gesturing for quiet, and she nods solemnly. In the yellow half-light of the kitchen, she looks even smaller than normal, cheeks scuffed pink by the cold, hair banded in quick, practical loops. She practically drops the groceries. “Where is he? Is he okay?” she breathes.
He points upstairs. “Out cold. He looks better this morning.”
Yuna frets, clearly wanting to see for herself that he’s okay. “I got it,” he says, running soothing hands up and down her arms. “He’s no more trouble than Shane was.” Far less, actually, and Shane has never once looked at him the way Ilya did last night. “How about I see how he is later, and you come over for dinner?” He’s not about to overwhelm the kid when he’s clearly wanting to hide from the world, but if there was ever anyone in need of some good maternal fussing, it’s Ilya.
Reluctantly, she leaves, no doubt counting down the hours until she can come back.
It’s a while before there’s any sound from upstairs, and later still before the plumbing in the walls starts up with the hollow thud of a running shower. David has refilled his mug with coffee three, already knowing he will regret it later. He’s thinking about making pancakes when the bathroom’s white noise cuts out, and footsteps start their slow, heavy way down the stairs.
He expects the same shuffling, hunched-over kid as last night. Instead, Ilya looks… not better, exactly, but upright, the big frame bundled in a navy hoodie, hair flattened against his head. His eyes are sunken and bloodshot, but he’s moving under his own steam.
He’s halfway to the kitchen before he sees David and freezes like he’s hit an electric fence. For a second, no one says a thing.
He tries to pull himself up, stand straight, but his legs betray him and he sways, grabbing the counter. “Shit. Sorry. I thought... Sorry, I’ll be leaving soon. I didn’t think you were…”
David can’t help but let out a long, slow breath. He sets his mug down casually as he can. “You’re not going anywhere. Not today, at least,” he says. He tries to keep his tone light. “You’re going to take a couple Tylenol, eat something, and you’re going back to bed. Or, you can crash on the couch and binge six hours of garbage television with me. Doctor’s orders.”
Ilya stares at him for long enough that David starts to worry. Then he carefully positions himself on the edge of the couch.
Good. That’s good. He can stay there while David cooks.
Mostly, Ilya sleeps. Through the afternoon and into the evening. He makes an effort when Yuna shows up, but if he folded for David, he’s absolutely putty for her. She puts him right back to bed, tucks him in, and kisses his forehead.
David takes the guest room that night, but worry has him stirring a little after three am.
He has six missed calls from Shane and one message in the group chat, which makes it clear he’s worried by the radio silence.
Yuna and Ilya are together on the couch when David checks in, the TV volume turned down to a murmur. Yuna’s fingers are slowly combing through Ilya’s hair, lifting curls and letting them fall, the way she used to do with Shane when he was small. Ilya’s head is in her lap, dead to the world and completely unguarded.
Another message from Shane pops up in the chat.
David takes a photo of Yuna and of Ilya sleeping so peacefully in her arms and sends it to him privately.
Don’t worry, son. We’ve got him.
Chapter 2
Summary:
David doesn’t need Google Translate for that one.
He’s not a quick man, not like he used to be, but he is efficient. He steps in, and with every part of his body weirdly tranquil, cocks his fist and drills Alexei Rozanov square in the mouth.
Notes:
If it's just a second part to an existing story, then it counts as the same fic, right??
Still just two, as a treat...
Today has been terrible, and tomorrow I have surgery, so have some more protective Hollanders, now with a side of Svetlana...
Chapter Text
When your son is an athlete at the level David’s is, you get used to joining in on the odd event. It’s always a source of pride for him and never a bother. He can, and would frankly quite enjoy, listening to people say nice things about Shane for hours on end.
He knows Shane is a lot more confident in his own skin now. He doesn’t need his mom and dad at his side just to face a room without shutting down. They don’t go to nearly as many galas, press events, or publicity spectacles as they did when he was younger, so in many ways it’s nice to be back into things. Hoping on a plane to DC for a fundraiser is hardly the worst way to spend a thursday Night.
It’s even nicer to actually be here with a specific purpose. Being on the board of the Irina Foundation is one of life’s great privileges, and he’s more than happy to be Yuna’s wingman while she wines, dines, and adeptly convinces very wealthy men and women into enthusiastic donations.
What he’s less keen on, and what he can’t quite get his head around, is the current spiral Shane seems to be veering towards.
The Foundation means everything to him. The work he and Ilya have done over the last year is nothing short of phenomenal. And because it means so much to Ilya, Shane locks in like he does on the ice. Very little makes a dent in that focus, leaving no room for panic.
But here Shane is, clutching a glass of non-alcoholic bubbles in a white knuckled grip.
All three of them, in full formal armor, are arrayed together at one of the best tables, holding court. Half the guests are people like them, folks there with a charity of their own, the unifying focus of mental health bringing them all to a very well-stocked table. The rest are there to preen and to be charmed into giving themselves tax breaks.
Shane can’t stop checking the ballroom for sight lines and gaps in the crowd he can use to stage an assault. Ilya, who has arrived before them and not made a single attempt at a hello, has scattered himself to the four corners of the room.
David is still getting to know the kid, it’s true, but despite all public evidence to the contrary, Ilya Rozanov isn’t a rude man. This is the longest David has been in the same room as the kid without clocking him looking longingly in Shane’s direction.
He tries to make friendly talk with the wife of the Swiss ambassador, but half his brain is busy clocking Ilya’s movements. Every few minutes, the kid makes hard eye contact from across a literal sea of donors in suits, but the second anyone in the Hollander party approaches, Ilya bolts.
All the excuses he might have used in the past hardly stack up when he and Shane are co-founders of the foundation they’re actually here for.
Something, or someone, has that boy spooked.
The last time he’d seen anything like it, it involved a feral kitten Shane tried to rescue from a construction site when he was eight. Shane had left out bowls of milk, offerings of tuna, and even dragged a sleeping bag onto the back porch, but the animal would slink only as close as needed to snatch a bite, then vanish for days.
He can’t help but see the pattern again tonight… Shane is desperate to get close, and Ilya is apparently unable to do anything but keep his distance. Even Yuna, whose powers of persuasion have deflated more than one obstinate billionaire, has given up trying to lure Ilya over. She’s settled for watching with the same tenacity as a surgeon scrubbed in for a long, complex operation.
David tries to relax. There are almost as many men wired up for security as there are donors. There are no members of the press present.
And again, Ilya has a perfectly valid reason to talk to all of them without tongues wagging. It's pretty safe here.
It’s all a bit of a puzzle.
A puzzle that gets extra complicated about three seconds later, when the crowds seem to part way with biblical timing, and a woman makes her way towards them.
The effect she has on the room is instantaneous, which is the kind of social power David suspects you can’t buy, even with three trust funds and a seat on the Met’s advisory board. He watches her make her way through a group of eager Euro-diplomats, her stride unhurried and her copper hair gleaming in the chandelier light as she floats across the ballroom directly toward Shane.
She stops at the edge of their table.
“You,” she says, “are Shane Hollander.” Her voice glides up, accented in a way that might be Tatar or the legacy of five generations of Baltic smugglers. It’s the only time all night he’s seen Shane physically recoil from anything.
“Holy shit,” Shane mutters, immediately raising Yuna’s eyebrow.
The woman smiles. “You know who I am.”
“You’re Svetlana,” Shane says. Yuna finishes her conversation and steps up to David’s side. The look she shoots him is questioning, but all he can do is shrug. Maybe Svetlana is like Cher. Or Beyonce. No last name, and no reason for someone with David's outdated cultural playbook to recognize.
“I am Svetlana,” she agrees. She doesn’t look unkind, or even aggressive, but David gets the distinct impression that she and Shane are both sizing each other up.
“Are you… are you here for Ilya?” Shane clears his throat.
“Yes. But he is being very stubborn and avoiding me.”
“Join the club,” Shane mutters. “He didn't even want me to come tonight.”
Curious...
Svetlana’s smile is sharp but not quite predatory. She doesn’t bother to lean in. “He is upset,” she says. “He should not be here, and he never listens.”
Shane draws a line on the crisp linen with the tip of one finger. “He has as much right to be here as anyone,” he says. “The Foundation is his as much as it is mine.”
She considers, eyes narrowing only slightly, then tips her head, a concession of sorts. “Yes. That might be the problem.”
David is years past the point of wading into Shane’s battles, but he knows exactly how the kid will respond. Shane never has much patience with prevarication. “Why the hell won’t someone just tell me what’s going on?” His voice isn’t loud, but it’s pitched as a puck flipped edgewise into plexi. Yuna gives him a look, a warning, or a reminder, that there are people listening… always, always listening. Even here.
Svetlana laughs, the sound quiet and not unkind. “Ilya loves you very much. But family business, it is for family.”
Shane glares at her. “We are his family.”
At this point, David would usually consider making a subtle exit, leaving Shane to talk without his father listening in through his ear.
He’s too distracted by what is happening over Svetlana’s shoulder, as he catches sight of Ilya in the reflection of the window. The kid is half-hidden behind a pillar, eyes wide and fixed on their table, a rabbit caught in a predator’s sight and too far from cover.
Shane pushes away from the table, glass clinking, and his suit pulling tight across his shoulders. “Excuse me,” he says to no one in particular. He heads toward Ilya, who doesn’t so much retreat as he does spin on his heel and practically run away.
David looks at Yuna for direction. Are they… do they get involved? He’s a little out of his comfort zone here.
She doesn’t look much better, holding her hands up helplessly.
Svetlana’s voice follows after Shane, floating under her breath but meant to carry. “He will not thank you, Shane.” She doesn’t sound cruel. No, if anything, it looks like she’s achieved exactly what she wants.
When she looks back at David and Yuna, she’s all soft charm. “Mr and Mrs Hollander.” She extends a manicured hand, her smile transforming her face.
Yuna's lips barely twitch upward as she takes it. "Hi."
“Perhaps you might want to follow them,” she suggests, smiling softly.
“I think they might prefer some privacy,” Yuna says.
Svetlana shrugs, curls bouncing. “Yes, probably, But see -” she points across the room to a man roughly David’s age. He’s in full regalia, medals on his chest. Two men in dark suits hover at his flanks, their eyes constantly scanning the room. "My papa," she says simply. "Russian Minister for Sport." David is ninety percent certain he was also Sergei Vetrov the hockey player... he isn’t sure where she is going, but listens anyway. “He comes with lots of protection. Police, mostly. I call Ilya to tell him this. I tell him not to come. He does not listen.” Her annoyance looks fond. “He thinks I cannot endure all this,” she gestures at the grand room with a twist of her wrist, “without him.”
“I’m sorry,” Yuna says, “I’m not sure I am following.”
“Papa has four police with him tonight,” Svetlana offers.
David frowns. “I can see three.” Behind the other two, he can just about make out a lurking mountain and figures that’s the guy.
“Yes,” she says. “Fourth is Alexei Rozanov.”
He knows Ilya’s parents are both dead and takes a wild stab in the dark at a brother.
“His parents are dead. And I think his brother might suck. Ilya doesn’t have anyone,” Shane told them, shortly after they first met him.
“He has us,” Yuna had said stubbornly.
As ever, she’s three steps ahead of David and already hurrying after Shane. He catches up quickly.
They find Shane outside the men’s bathrooms, pacing a rut into the thousand-dollar carpet. For once, luck is on their side, and it seems like no one else is around.
Shane doesn’t bother to keep his voice down. “Rozanov, I swear to fucking god, if you don’t open up, I’m knocking the door down.” It wrenches something inside David, the same way it did when Shane missed his first penalty shot, and the whole arena watched his face crumble on the Jumbotron. If Shane is this worried...
Shane shouts, “Ilya, open the door!” and David catches up just in time to see the expression on his son’s face. He’s half a second away from a full panic, but not in any way that David has seen before.
Yuna catches up, her heels clicking with each step, her dress still perfect, her hair more or less holding up, and in the moment, David is so grateful for her, grateful that she’s here to see what’s happening and, if necessary, to back him up against the oncoming freight train that is Shane’s sense of purpose.
There’s a sudden burst of two very angry Russian voices from behind the door.
“Fuck it,” Shane says, and then promptly reminds the world that he’s a wall of solid muscle by kicking the door down.
Instead of scolding him, Yuna, somehow, manages to enter the bathroom first.
David doesn’t beat Shane in, but he’s close behind. There in time to clock, Ilya, shaking and furious and, blessedly, unharmed. He follows the whole journey the kid’s face makes, through surprise and anger to fear, and then, finally, stone-cold fury. Within a heartbeat, he’s in front of Shane and Yuna. Not towering over them, but standing in front of them, a brick wall dividing the room and blocking the approach of a man who is, stunningly, even taller than he is.
Alexei, David presumes. He looks nothing like Ilya.
Alexei’s gaze flicks to Shane, then back to Ilya, disrespect laced sharply with every millisecond of appraisal. He says something in Russian, fast and low, but even without words, his meaning is clear.
Ilya doesn’t budge.
Alexei doesn’t even try to mask the violence brewing, and in the space between heartbeats, David is back in Shane’s cottage, waking Ilya from a fever-soaked nightmare and trying to understand the abject terror in his eyes.
Alexei scoffs. He glances at Shane. Rakes him down and up, leers at his brother, and says something short and sharp in Russian before taking a step forward.
David doesn’t need Google Translate for that one.
He’s not a quick man, not like he used to be, but he is efficient. He steps in, and with every part of his body weirdly tranquil, cocks his fist and drills Alexei square in the mouth.
It’s been what, twenty years since his hockey days? More? Goddamn that hurts!
Shane actually yelps. Yuna puts a hand to her mouth, and for a second, even Ilya looks poleaxed. Somewhere between the shock and the adrenaline, David registers a rather surreal sense of satisfaction.
Maybe… maybe he should be regretting it. He’s not a violent man and never has been.
But all he can think is Christ, that felt right.
Ilya is on his brother before Alexei even starts to recover. He hauls him up with both hands in the lapels of his jacket, barking at him in a firecracker string of Russian and all but throwing him through the doorway into the hall.
Aware that he might have actually frightened his family, David coughs awkwardly. “Right, er… sorry about-”
“I have never been more attracted to you than I am right now,” Yuna announces.
It has the dual effect of stroking David’s ego and grossing Shane out of his stunned silence.
“Oh my god…” Shane whispers, clearly about to tip over the edge until Ilya returns alone, flustered and pasty, and the need to provide comfort overwhelms the instinct to shut down.
Shane doesn’t give Ilya much of a choice before engulfing him in a hug. Ilya responds by folding right into him.
Shane rocks Ilya a little, whispering something that makes the big man sag. Their hug doesn’t soften, not for a second, and for a moment, David’s half-afraid they might both topple over. Then Shane gets his hands up, bracing Ilya’s jaw, and pets his face with the rough, clumsy affection of a collie being gentle with a newborn lamb. The effect is equal parts intimate and completely unselfconscious.
David averts his gaze. Not because it embarrasses him, but because watching his son turn into a man, right here, is like looking directly at the goddamn sun. He never deserved to be this lucky, and if the universe is about to try to tip the scales against them, it can suck it.
Eventually, Ilya untangles himself. He cups Shane’s cheek, checking him for an injury he never had the chance to receive, then drops a fond kiss to his forehead.
Then he steps around him to face David with the expression of a man facing a firing squad. “I am sorry," he says carefully. "I did not intend to involve you in this. I did tell Shane not to come.”
“Maybe next time, tell me why you don’t want me to do something,” Shane says, all of Yuna’s sternness in one squared jaw. "Then I can tell you exactly why you're wrong."
Ilya practically scuffs his heels. “Yes. You are right. Yes. I did not want… Sveta told you?”
“Just that your brother was here. What did he want?” Shane asks, softening again, so much sadness for Ilya in his eyes that David is half tempted to go hunt Alexei down for another swing.
Ilya shrugs. “What he always wants: money. I did not go home last summer. He lost his chance to plead his case.”
Yuna steps forward and puts a hand on his elbow. Ilya startles, then leans into the touch, just as he always does with her. “Did he hurt you?”
The question clearly surprises Ilya, who then thoughtlessly confirms David's worst fears. “Hurt? No. No, I am not fifteen anymore.” He lifts his gaze from Yuna back to David. “I am sorry, though. You should not have been involved.”
David shrugs. He probably does need some ice… “Pretty sure I can guess what he said. And I know when a fella is about to start swinging.”
Ilya looks stricken. “No, no I would have not let him hurt any of you, I swear it.”
“Yeah, he’s talking about you, idiot,” Shane sighs, rubbing a hand down Ilya’s back.
David gets the impression that Ilya’s rapid blinking is as much confusion as it is an attempt to hide his tears.
He pats Ilya on the shoulder. “How about we head back to the hotel, yeah? I’m feeling the need for pizza.”
Ilya looks deadly serious when he says, “I will buy you all of the pizza. You will have pizza for rest of your life.”
Shane shakes his head in adoring despair. “Which will be a lot shorter if he eats pizza every day.”
“Let’s go with a large for tonight, yeah?” Having seen how intensely Ilya handles gift-giving, David is struck by the horrifying image of his entire house, floor to ceiling, filled with pizza boxes.
“If that is what you like,” Ilya shrugs in a way that suggests he’s a little disappointed. “Do you need doctor for your hand?”
David shakes off his worry. “Not the first punch I’ve thrown,” he says, smiling at Ilya in the hope of reassuring him out of that rigid fear.
Ilya nods seriously. “Yes. McGill. I hear is very good school.”
Shane snorts. He rests his forehead to Ilya’s shoulder and presses a quick kiss to the fabric of his jacket.
Yuna hesitates, slipping her arm into David’s and squeezing. “Do we need to worry about your brother, or-”
Svetlana appears in the shadow of the broken bathroom door. “It is handled,” she says breezily, looking Ilya up and down. “Take him back to your hotel, Shane Hollander. Keep him occupied.”
“Er,” Shane blinks, his blush rising.
“Sveta,” Ilya growls.
“Breakfast, Solnishko,” she beams back. “Your hotel. Nine thirty. You are paying. Bring your co-founder and his parents. I will be making a donation.”
“Sveta!”
Whatever they say next is lost to the rest of them, but Ilya deflates with a look of a man who knows he’s not about to win the argument and isn’t really sure it’s worth trying.
“It was nice to meet you!” Svetlana says before heading back to the party, hopefully with a damn good excuse for why her father is one guard short and the bathroom is missing a door.
David insists on paying the coat check in the lobby while Yuna orders their Uber. Shane and Ilya both have drivers they can use. David just hopes they take the one car, though he understands why they might not.
Yuna doesn’t say anything while they wait, which is how David knows things have gotten serious inside her head. Normally, she narrates every errand and stray thought, and always has. They'll talk about this. About Shane, obviously, but about Ilya, too. He's forseeing a trip to the local library. They'll have some good books that might help them better understand what Ilya needs from them.
The boys linger at the edge of the stairs. He watches Shane study Ilya carefully, waiting to step in and be what is needed the best he can while they’re in public.
Ilya has something of Yuna’s stillness, too, in the way he plants his body like a barricade in front of Shane, but bends his head to catch every word from him as though it’s the axis of his whole night. David wonders if other parents watch their children from across rooms and see not themselves, but someone else’s blood making a second pass through time.
Yuna’s at his elbow, her arm looped tight through his before he even offers. He’s always loved that about her, how she doesn’t bother pretending she needs him for most things, but never hesitates to claim him as hers.
He tells the boys to get moving, but Ilya hesitates just long enough for David to catch his arm, quick but careful. “Hey,” he says, and is surprised by the crack in his own voice. Ilya turns, confusion flickering through that wall-of-masonry face, and David feels the sudden need to be absolutely clear.
He opens his arms, and it’s not at all awkward, just natural, just as he’d done with Shane all his life. Ilya folds down into him at once, and David can feel the heat of him, muscle heavy and shivery under his hands. It’s a crumpling hug, over in three seconds, but Christ, David is surprised how much better he feels after. He hopes Ilya does, too.
“Good job, kid,” David says. When he lets go, Ilya’s smiling, all the shadows of his face lit up with something fragile and unpracticed, and David thinks that maybe this is what it feels like to be proud of someone not for what they’ve done, but just that they’re alive to do it at all.
The boys take the same car back to the hotel. No doubt they’ll make a big play of going their separate ways in the lobby.
When his and Yuna’s ride arrives, he holds open the door and follows her in. As soon as they are shrouded in the dark, Yuna kisses him on the cheek.
“Need ice for that hand?”
David finally allows himself a grimace. “God yes.”