Chapter Text
The adoption process had been a labyrinth of forms, interviews, and sterile waiting rooms. For a year, Shane had lived in a state of suspended animation—every home visit, every psych eval, every stack of paperwork a performance he nailed with practiced ease. Their adoption agency had loved them. Stable. Loving. Financially secure in every sense of the word. Two athletes, one retired, the gay husbands of the hockey world, paving the way for queer youth countrywide.
Shane had done what he had to do.
He had even helped paint the nursery a soft, quiet sage green—a color he chose based on hours of careful research, sitting cross-legged in bed during Ilya's away games, reading up on the psychology of color. What would be tranquil for a developing mind. What would feel safe. He had even let himself be photographed putting together a crib that cost more than his first car, shirtless and giving the camera his best confused, endearing squint, posting it with a caption about "next chapters" that their PR team had drafted. The comments had flooded with hearts and crying-face emojis.
It had been easy to pretend, because deep down, in the quiet, terrified center of himself, Shane had known it wouldn't actually happen.
The system was notoriously slow. Bureaucracy was a tangled, indifferent mess. Young kids were hard to place, backgrounds were scrutinized, and biological families contested placements for years. Ilya had wanted to adopt a newborn. Shane had gently, carefully redirected validated the decision. It was perfect, he thought. The demand for newborn babies was so high compared to the supply. And felt immediately nauseous at his own phrasing. Supply. These were children. Beautiful, innocent children who had done nothing to deserve being factored into his escape calculations. He'd bitten his thumbnail sitting at his laptop and quietly, carefully estimated they would have three to four years before an actual placement would materialize.
That was time. He didn't know for what yet. Something. Anything
So the prospect of a child had been a distant, abstract performance piece that kept Ilya satisfied and pliant, a phantom weight that hadn't actually settled on Shane's shoulders.
That was until the barbecue.
Team events always made Shane a little sick. Not just because of the creeping strangeness of no longer being a player—being identified instead as a sort of WAG, a term everyone found hilarious to apply to him and that made his jaw tighten every time—but because of the houses themselves. The perfect golden retrievers sprawled on lush lawns. The perfect wives, laughing over rosé and beer. The perfect kids shrieking through sprinklers. Watching Ilya's eyes track it all with that hungry, boyish yearning, his hand squeezing Shane's side like a promise. What bullshit.
Shane was folded into a white garden chair, tucked under the heavy weight of Ilya's arm, a paper plate piled obscenely high on his thigh: grilled chicken, a burger dripping juice, charred corn, coleslaw he hadn't touched. The Bears sprawled around them, loud and loose with summer heat and beer, cracking jokes that made Shane roll his eyes a little.
"Rossy, you've got Hollander practically welded to the damn chair," Connor huffed, shaking his head as he and his wife approached. "No one's trying to steal your man."
Ilya lifted his head slowly from Shane's shoulder, and Shane caught the territorial glint in his pale eyes before it smoothed into theatrical offense. "Ah, you have never seen true love, Connie. You have a beautiful wife, but you are not touching her?"
He sighed dramatically and yanked Shane deeper into his side, fingers spidering quickly and viciously across Shane's ribs. He sighed theatrically and pulled Shane deeper into his side, his fingers finding Shane's ribs with a quick, vicious tickle that wrenched an involuntary yelp-laugh from him against his will.
"Ilya." Shane smacked his shoulder, brow furrowing.
"No, no, Courtney—you cannot stand for this. I know a lot of handsome men with lots of money I could introduce you to."
Courtney scoffed, folding her arms, one brow arching sharply at her husband. "Rozanov's right, you know. Where's my hug?"
"You've got me in the doghouse already, you—" Connor grinned at Shane. "Hollander, beat him for me, yeah?"
Shane flashed a small, closed-mouth smile over the lip of his beer bottle. "Oh, I will. Don't you worry."
Then the screaming started. A wave of cooing and shrill, delighted noise rolled across the porch, and Shane's eyes drifted past the conversation to the glass door sliding open. Cliff Marleau emerged first, then Sam right behind him, rocking a small, bundled weight against her chest.
Shane had known they were fostering. He'd texted Sam his congratulations when the placement came through. Him and Ilya had planned to go visit when she was ready, but Sam had wanted to wait until the baby had settled. He watched Sam navigate carefully through the crowd, the easy, liquid way she moved around the baby, and something in his stomach contracted.
He slid out from under Ilya's arm, raised a small wave as he went, and padded across the warm deck toward them.
"Shane, hey." Sam tilted her head, the soft smile she always had for him appearing. He liked Sam. She was quiet and soft-spoken, red-haired and freckled across the nose, and out of all the Boston partners, she was the one who made Shane feel the least like a performance piece.
"Hi, Sam. Thanks for hosting, by the way. Your home is beautiful." He leaned to peek at the bundle she was cradling, and his voice dropped without deciding to. "And she's beautiful."
Sam brushed a dark curl away from the baby's forehead. "Isn't she just perfect? Her name's Bea. My little bumblebee."
Shane bit his lip. He hesitated. He wasn't the best with babies, or at least he'd always told himself that. Babies were these soft, sweet, impossibly fragile things that seemed to sense something wrong in a person and recoil from it. Him and Jackie and Hayden had had long, meandering conversations about raising kids, over coffee or beer or late-night diapers when Hayden would stay up with a screaming infant, and Shane would keep him company on the phone just to hear a familiar voice. Raising a person was intuitive and contextual and terrifyingly personal, not reducible to any number of parenting books. How could he do something like this, in this house, with this man—
"Can I hold her?" he whispered.
Sam nodded, and carefully transferred the weight.
Bea was impossibly warm. She curled immediately against Shane's chest like she'd done it before, her small fist rising to press against his collarbone, her mouth moving in a reflexive, seeking little purse. Her eyes, dark and heavy-lidded and not quite focused, drifted up toward his face. Shane exhaled a long, shaky breath through his nose.
Beside him, he heard Ilya and Cliff's voices drift over. "The process—it seems so quick for you. Adoption is very grueling for us. I am getting a little impatient."
Ilya had materialized at Shane's shoulder. Silent. Shane felt the warmth of him without looking.
"Oh yeah, Sam and I decided against it." Cliff was saying, rocking back on his heels. "We're fostering instead. She's sixteen months, came to us in about six weeks. It's kind of scary, not knowing what's coming next, but at least she's home and—"
"Six weeks?"
Cliff nodded. "Yeah. You guys should definitely look into foster care. So many kids out there, stuck in unhappy homes, you know? It's Better than waiting."
"I know."
Ilya's voice. Low and certain and already decided.
Shane kept his eyes on the baby. Bea blinked at him, slow and unhurried. Her fist tightened infinitesimally against his shirt.
He felt the trap spring closed around him right there, standing in the summer heat of a backyard, with a borrowed baby tucked against his chest and Ilya's hand settling heavy and warm on the small of his back.
That was when it was decided.
It was a Saturday evening. The summer sun had just started setting over Boston, pouring through the large dining room windows like melted butter, catching their perfectly curated home in a heavy, toasty red light. It made the hardwood floors glow like embers and cast long, distorted shadows across the white oak table.
Shane was staring down at his plate, gently, aimlessly prodding at a piece of sweet potato with the tines of his fork, glancing up at Ilya every few seconds through the dark fringe of his lashes.
Ilya had been so quiet tonight. A heavy, brooding, atmospheric silence that radiated from his side of the table and terrified Shane down to his marrow. His wrists had already started aching with phantom pain in pure, reflexive anticipation. He slipped his free hand under the table, resting it on his thigh, and gently scratched at the faint, puckered pink lines circling his skin—a bruised brand that had faded in color but permanently scarred his nervous system.
Ilya's eyes were fixed past him, staring right through him and out the large glass doors into their sprawling, manicured garden. He was looking at the empty patch of grass where he had spent the last two weekends meticulously measuring, sawing, and building a wooden swingset. His pale eyes were glossed over, distant and unreachable, a muscle in his sharp jaw jumping in a steady, rhythmic twitch that Shane usually associated with impending violence.
When his phone buzzed violently against the table, rattling the silverware, Ilya didn't even blink. He just kept staring out at the swingset.
Shane furrowed his brow gently, a tight, anxious V forming between his eyes. He slid his hand out from his lap, reaching tentatively across the expanse of oak to brush his fingertips feather-light against Ilya's knuckles.
"Ilya. Your phone." Shane cleared his throat and instinctively leaned back further into his chair the very second contact was made, putting distance between them.
Ilya blinked, the spell breaking. He dragged himself back to the present with a soft, distracted "Hm?" before glancing down at the glowing screen.
Shane watched him pick up his linen napkin, wiping his mouth. Ilya's gaze stayed fixed on the screen, and slowly, a smile began to grow on his face. It wasn't the sharp, predatory smile he saved for when he backed Shane into a corner, or the manufactured, blindingly charming grin he flashed for the sports media. This was something else, something he hadn't seen before.
Okay, no. Shane had seen this smile before. He had seen it when he’d finally broken down and agreed to marry him. He’d seen it when they signed the papers for this massive house. He saw it on those humiliating, devastating occasions when Shane's traitorous body sought comfort and initiated sex. It was soft at the edges, genuine, almost reverent. His pale eyes lit up with a terrifying, boyish wonder before the smile itself even fully stretched his lips.
Ilya slid the phone to the center of the table, directly between their plates, and tapped the screen to answer it on speaker.
"Mr. Rozanov, good evening! It's Brenda from the agency."
The social worker's voice was bright, chipper, entirely unaware of the air suddenly thinning in the dining room, unaware that the oxygen was being sucked straight out of Shane’s lungs, leaving him dizzy and hollow.
"Good evening, Brenda. Happy Saturday. I hope this is good news," Ilya chuckled. He was trying to sound relaxed, casual, like any eager prospective father, but the heavy oak table was vibrating slightly. Shane could feel the erratic, anxious bouncing of Ilya's knee thumping beneath the wood.
"I have wonderful news. We have a placement for you. A three-year-old boy! The paperwork cleared this afternoon."
Shane stopped chewing.
The sweet potato in his mouth suddenly tasted like dirt, thick and gagging on his tongue.
"He's ready. If you're still prepared to move forward, you can come pick him up tomorrow morning. Let's say, nine?"
Ilya let out a deep, shaky exhale—a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob caught thick in his chest. He reached across the table, covering Shane's hand entirely with his own massive palm. His skin was hot, slightly sweaty, and impossibly heavy, pinning Shane's trembling fingers flat to the wood like a trapped insect.
"We are very prepared," Ilya said. The thick, rolling cadence of his accent slipped heavily through his English as his voice actually shook with emotion. "Thank you, Brenda. This is... this is our dream. We will be there."
The line clicked dead.
Shane kept his eyes fixed firmly on his plate. His jaw was trembling so violently his teeth clicked together in a faint, castanet rhythm. His eyebrows furrowed deeper and deeper as a cold, paralyzing horror flooded his veins, icing over the summer heat. He slipped his hand out from under Ilya's crushing, affectionate grip and picked up his knife. He started pushing his steak away from his potatoes. The red juices from the meat were bleeding all over them, staining the bright orange into something that looked like a crime scene.
His heart was beating excruciatingly slow, heavy thuds against his ribs that felt like a countdown.
A real, living, breathing three-year-old boy.
"Shanya."
Shane stabbed at the steak.
A child who would look up to him and expect safety.
He stabbed at the meat again, harder this time, the blade squeaking against the plate.
A child who would bind Shane to this house, to this man.
He stabbed it one final, violent time. The force of it sent the piece of meat flying across the edge of the plate. The metal prongs of the fork scraped hard against the ceramic with a high-pitched, agonizing screech that tore through the quiet room and made Shane want to scream right along with it.
A child. A chain that couldn't be picked or broken without destroying an innocent life in the process.
"Shane."
Ilya repeated his name, the soft wonder completely gone, replaced instantly by a sharp edge of command that cut through the haze. Ilya leaned entirely over the table, his broad chest eclipsing the sunset. He grabbed Shane by the wrist, his grip iron-tight, and easily pulled the fork out of his rigid, white-knuckled grip.
Shane gasped, a sharp intake of air, and his head snapped up. He blinked rapidly, his face frantically unfurling from its panicked scowl, smoothing out into a mask of pure, desperate appeasement. "Sorry. Sorry. What did you say?" he asked, his voice breathless, forcing his hand to go completely limp as Ilya began to stroke his thumb possessively, warningly, over Shane's knuckles.
"Our son," Ilya murmured. His eyes looked so incredibly soft again, catching the fiery red of the sunset behind Shane’s head, bathing him in an angelic, terrifying glow. They were brimming with genuine, unadulterated excitement.
"Yeah," Shane managed. The word felt like it had been scraped from the very bottom of his throat, raw and bloody. He forced the corners of his mouth up, fighting a losing battle against the violent tremor starting in his jaw. "Wow. That was... fast."
"Fourteen months is not fast," Ilya corrected mildly. He finally let go of Shane's hand, sitting back in his chair to pick up his own knife again. He looked at Shane, his pale eyelids dropping slowly, studying him with sudden, calculating scrutiny, as if just noticing the erratic, twitchy behavior hiding behind the smile. "The steak is personally offending you? I can make you your gross tofu. You need to eat, or you will be so tired tomorrow."
Shane just shook his head. He tried. He really, really did. He picked his fork back up, pierced a piece of potato with shaking fingers, and brought it to his mouth. He chewed. He forced himself to swallow.
But his throat was practically closing shut with blind, suffocating panic. The red-lit walls of the dining room were inching closer and closer, pressing the air out of the space. If a child walked through that front door tomorrow—one hand securely held in Ilya's massive grip, the other small, trusting hand reaching up for his—stumbling around the house that Shane had spent months dutifully babyproofing like a good, obedient partner...
The tiny, desperate fantasy Shane had kept buried deep in the darkest, furthest corner of his mind. The secret, impossible fantasy that helped him wake up and perform every single day without putting a gun in his mouth. The fantasy of escaping.
It would be dead forever.
You don't leave a child alone with a monster. You stay. You let the monster have you, so he doesn't touch the boy. You become the shield. Forever.
Shane gripped the edges of the marble vanity, the polished stone biting cold against his sweating palms. He stared at his own reflection in the mirror. His pupils were wide and blown out, swallowing his irises entirely until they looked like two black holes swimming in the bloodshot whites of his eyes. His cheeks, usually dusted with a healthy, freckled flush, were drained to a stark, sickly white.
Ilya stepped into the bathroom behind him. His large hand brushed a casual, proprietary path down the arch of Shane's spine as he passed, pulling his t-shirt over his head in one fluid motion. The massive span of Ilya's scarred back eclipsed the mirror's reflection. Shane watched the topography of him—the huge, defined trap muscles sloping into broad shoulders, the ripped biceps tapering down to corded forearms. And then his hands. Those massive, calloused hands that could easily palm a basketball, hands that were probably the exact size of a three-year-old’s head.
Ilya tossed the shirt lazily into the wicker hamper and reached for his toothbrush.
"We can't do this."
The words tumbled out of Shane's mouth before his brain could command his tongue to stop. They were barely a whisper, breathless and trembling, spoken downward into the porcelain whirlpool of the sink. But in the tiled, echoing acoustics of the bathroom, he might as well have screamed them.
Ilya paused. The toothbrush stopped halfway to his mouth. He lifted his chin slowly, finding Shane's reflection in the mirror. His face was entirely unchanging. His pale eyes were completely unreadable.
"Excuse me?"
Shane spun around, his lower back pressing hard against the lip of the vanity. The blind panic he'd been trying so desperately to swallow all through dinner erupted, clawing its way up his throat like a living thing.
"Ilya, we can't. I can't." Shane shook his head frantically, his hands coming up to grip at the short strands of his own hair, pulling at the roots. "I can't have a baby. I'm not doing well right now. I'm—I'm scared. And you'll be gone half the time because of hockey—I can't do it alone. What if I mess him up? I'm such a fucking... fuck."
He let the half-truths slip out, a smokescreen of normal anxieties hiding the rotting core of the real terror. His head shook back and forth, the bright bathroom lights tilting and smearing with his gaze, turning the room into a dizzying, unrecognizable haze.
He heard Ilya let out a soft, indulgent sigh. A gentle coo. Ilya stepped forward, bridging the gap, and then Shane felt the solid, immovable wall of Ilya's bare chest as his head was pulled forward and pressed against it.
"Moya lyubov, you will be fine. More than fine. A great father." Ilya whispered the reassurance into the top of Shane's hair, planting a lingering kiss against his scalp. "And you will not be alone. I will be here until the season starts again. And if it is too hard, Yuna said she can come, like we talked about. But we will... ah, cross the road when it's there."
"No, you don't understand," Shane pleaded, his voice cracking violently. He brought his hands up and actually pushed—shoving against Ilya's chest to break the embrace.
The first tear spilled over his bottom lash, tracking hot and humiliating down his pale cheek. He hated crying. He loathed it. But the terror had bypassed his pride completely.
"I don't want this. Please. Please. Please, Ilya."
Ilya's eyes widened a fraction in genuine shock. He took a half-step back. Shane watched the manufactured, paternal empathy physically drain from Ilya's face, replaced swiftly by a cold, prickling annoyance. His lips pulled down into a deep frown, and he wiped a heavy hand over his jaw.
"You are just nervous. It is natural."
"I'm not fucking nervous! I'm telling you, no." Shane's voice hitched, breaking into a desperate, raw, ugly sob. He was fully begging now, his body sinking lower against the counter, his chest heaving frantically as he felt the adrenaline washing the strength right out of his knees. "I don't want a baby. I can't do this. I refuse. Please don't make me do this."
Ilya took another slow step back.
He looked down at Shane. He watched him half-crouched against the floor, watched the tears streaming unchecked down his flushed, terrified face, listened to the pathetic, gasping sobs echoing wetly off the expensive subway tile.
The indulgent, patriarchal warmth Ilya had worn like a tailored suit all through dinner vanished. Even the annoyance evaporated. It was replaced, instantly, by the cold, dead-eyed predator that always stalked just beneath the surface of his skin.
Ilya nodded slowly. A chilling gesture of perfect, terrifying understanding. "You refuse."
Shane squeezed his eyes shut tight. He pressed the back of his hand hard against his own mouth, as if trying to physically force his gorge back down, nodding frantically. "I'll do whatever you want, anything else, just please—"
Ilya's fist cracked across Shane's jaw.
Shane's head snapped violently to the side, the back of his skull smacking hard against the mirror glass. His teeth clacked together with a sickening crunch, hard enough to chip the enamel. A blinding, atomic burst of white light exploded behind his retinas, wiping out the bathroom entirely. He crumpled instantly, his knees giving out, but before his body could even hit the floor, Ilya's massive hand shot out. He fisted the fabric of Shane's shirt and hauled him brutally back up to his feet.
"You think you can fucking decide that? Fucking change your mind like that?" Ilya hissed. The words weren't yelled, they were a gritted, snarl vibrating right in Shane's face.
He slammed Shane backward. Shane's spine hit the sharp edge of the marble counter with a wet, bone-deep thud, driving every ounce of air from his lungs in a high, whistling wheeze.
Shane couldn't even raise his trembling hands to defend himself before Ilya hit him again—a lightning-fast, brutal backhand directly across the opposite cheekbone. The delicate skin split instantly over the bone. Hot, thick blood welled up immediately, sliding fast down Shane's cheek to drip onto his collar.
"Please—" Shane gurgled, choking on the heavy, metallic taste of copper flooding his mouth.
"I give you everything," Ilya whispered. His voice dropped an octave, scraping low and guttural. He stepped fully into Shane's space, pinning Shane’s hips against the vanity with his own crushing weight. He grabbed a thick fistful of Shane's dark hair, yanking his head backward so violently that Shane's neck popped audibly. "I build a life for you. A family. And suddenly you refuse?"
Shane screamed. Pure, unadulterated terror and blinding physical pain, a ragged, breathless, tearing sound that shredded his throat. His entire body was shaking uncontrollably against the counter. His vision had become a smeared, bloody blur, the bright bathroom melting into simple, dizzying shapes. Ilya had transformed into this huge, looming, monstrous shadow, surrounded by black spots dancing at the edge of Shane's vision.
Shane couldn't hear the pleas and begging he was trying to force past his bleeding lips over the high-pitched, deafening ringing in his ears. All he knew, all that was real, was Ilya's hands on him—heavy, merciless fists burying their knuckles deep into Shane's soft tissue.
"—my house," he felt Ilya spit the words onto his face, felt the hot saliva bleed into the blood already tracking down his jaw. "My life. My fucking son."
Ilya grabbed Shane by the throat with one hand, his fingers easily wrapping all the way around his windpipe. He pulled him close. So close that their noses brushed. Close enough that Shane’s blurring eyes could finally focus on his face again.
Tears were rushing down Ilya's face.
He was crying. Rapid, massive, silent tears tracking over his cheekbones. His mouth was pulled back into a grotesque, devastated grimace. His pale eyes pierced into Shane's with a horrifying, volatile mixture of pure disgust, unfathomable anger, and deepest heartbreak. Shaky, wet sobs burst through Ilya's lips every time he tried to pull a breath.
"You are a fucking father now," Ilya hissed, his voice breaking on the sob, shaking Shane violently by the throat until his brain rattled in his skull. "You will smile. And hold him. You will love him. You will not fucking abandon him, or I'll kill you—I'll fucking slam your head into the sink—"
Ilya abruptly released his grip. He staggered a step back, wiping a bloody hand across his own wet face.
Shane collapsed instantly. He hit the cold tile floor like a bag of wet cement, curling immediately into a tight, defensive fetal ball. He clamped his shaking arms over his bruised ribs, gasping desperately for air that felt like inhaled glass tearing his lungs apart. Thick drops of blood dripped steadily from his split cheek, splattering stark and bright onto the pristine white grout.
He couldn't speak. He couldn't move a single muscle without white-hot pain flaring. He just tracked his terrified, blown-out eyes from Ilya's bare feet, slowly up to his face.
Ilya was pacing back and forth across the bathroom rug. He was clenching and unclenching his massive fists, running his blood-smeared hands repeatedly over his own face, tearing at his blonde curls. Frantic, rapid-fire Russian was spilling out of his lips in an endless, feverish stream.
He had stopped crying, Shane noticed dimly through the haze of pain.
Shane did his best to retreat, whimpering softly as he dragged his broken body backward, pressing his spine flush against the bottom cabinets, desperately trying to put even a few inches of distance between them.
Ilya stopped pacing. He let out a long, shuddering, ragged inhale, dropping his hands to his sides.
"Ty v Bostone. Ty doma. Ty s Shaney. Vy lyubite drug druga, i u vas budet rebyonok," Ilya mumbled under his breath, a rapid, hypnotic incantation. A man manually rebooting his own warped reality. You are in Boston. You are home. You are with Shane. You love each other. You are going to have a baby.
Ilya crouched down slowly, his knees popping in the quiet room. He loomed over Shane’s curled, bleeding form. He reached out with one hand. His thumb gently, carefully swiped a smear of blood away from the swelling purple skin under Shane's eye.
"I know you don't mean it," Ilya whispered softly. "I know you are just scared. And confused."
The touch was horribly, grotesquely, nauseatingly tender.
"Please, Shanya," Ilya begged, his voice cracking into that small, damaged boy again. "Say yes."
Shane squeezed his eyes shut tight. A fresh, hot wave of tears slipped out, mixing with the blood drying on his face.
He was so stupid. Even without the baby, even before the phone call, there had never been a way of escaping this.
His cracked, bleeding lips moved. The voice that came out was a ruined, hollow, rattling whisper.
"Yes."
Ilya smiled, it was this soft, genuine little thing. He leaned down, burying his face in Shane’s hair, and pressed a long, soft kiss to his bruised and throbbing temple.
"Thank you. I love you."