Chapter Text
Ilya Rozanov is sitting in David’s dining room unable to meet his eyes. The last time David saw him, he was pressing Shane against the window of his cottage, gripping handfuls of his ass and dripping lake water over his towel, which for a moment was the most surprising part. And David had frozen and buffered then got in the car and driven home. What an idiot. That Yuna hadn’t killed him was a testament to her benevolence.
When he walked through the door his wife was already waiting, phone in hand, face marred with panic and buzzing with the nervous energy that has carried them through many a crisis.
“What’s going on? Shane just called, he said he’s coming over? Did something happen?” David isn’t sure what to say, so he stays quiet. Gapes and opens his mouth like a fish before turning to look at Yuna.
“Kind of? He’s okay, and nothing is wrong, I don’t think, but he’ll want to tell you himself,” Yuna levels him with the kind of look that would turn lesser men to stone. Luckily, David is well-accquainted with this particular glare and shakes his head as he takes her hand.
“He’s alright, Yuna. But he needs to speak to us and I want you to hear it from him,” She’s still concerned and her face shows it. But she trusts David and leans into him, letting him wrap an arm round her shoulder and nodding.
Ilya Rozanov, hulking hockey menace with a mean backhand and a meaner scowl. Ilya Rozanov, first draft pick and Shane’s greatest competition (the only player who really holds a candle to Shane). Ilya Rozanov, who one hour ago was mouthing at Shane's neck and holding him with the easy familiarity that can only come from knowing someone for a very, very long time. Ilya Rozanov, Boston Raiders captain, is perched at the table looking like the house will crumble around him if he moves too sharply.
He is slouched over and trying to seem smaller. He tries to take up as little space as possible and wilts under David’s inquisitive stare. He looks nothing like his on-ice persona, all tactical moves and controlled aggression. He looks even less like his off-ice persona: charming and dangerous and wild, fucking his way through every city with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. From the minute they made eye contact through the floor to ceiling windows of Shane’s cottage, Ilya has looked at David like a threat he’s still assessing. When he put his hand on Shane’s shoulder and told his parents they were lovers, Shane had winced and groaned, but Ilya stood steadfast behind him. Now, as Shane follows Yuna outside, Ilya has grown inexplicably fascinated by the pattern of knots in the wooden dining table. David just looks at him.
What do you say to the man you’ve known since he was a teenager but never actually spoken to? Who loves your son and can talk him down from the edge like a trained hostage negotiator in a way you’ve never quite managed? What do you do when at every opportunity to make a good impression you’ve fumbled and dropped the puck?
Dinner would probably be a good start.
“Do you cook?” Ilya’s head shoots up. He shakes it back and forth.
“Not much, but I know some recipes. I can make a tuna melt,” he gives a wry smile that David doesn’t understand, “and some Russian foods. I can do pasta as well.”
"That's good enough for me. Come give me a hand in the kitchen.”
Ilya waits for David to move and follows him to the stove, where he sets about sous chef duties with the single-minded focus he brings to the ice.
“So,” David starts. Ilya doesn’t try to fill the quiet, just waits, “what do you think of Ottawa?”
“It’s nice. Quiet. Boring-” Ilya’s eyes widen “-not in a bad way. Just quieter than I am used to.”
David nods. He doesn’t want to push too far.
“No, it’s true. It is kind of boring. But not in a bad way.” Ilya’s shoulders unclench minutely.
David pulls tins of tomatoes from the cupboards and sets a pot to boil. He hands Ilya a knife and an onion and the hulking hockey player attacks the vegetable with clean, precise cuts. The diced onion hits sizzling oil with a shriek and a splatter. Ilya looks at him as if he’s waiting for a commanding officer to give him his next move. Uncertain about that level of authority over a near-stranger, David passes him the cheese grater and busies himself portioning out spaghetti. They work in silence: the only sound is the bubbling of frying onions.
They bask in the quiet, neither feeling the need to break it. Until Ilya takes an almost inaudible breath and stills his hands. He still doesn’t look David in the eye.
“You played hockey for McGill?” David nods and Ilya relaxes a touch as they tread on familiar ground. This, they can do. Awkward hockey small talk is both of their bread and butter.
“I did. Nowhere near as good as Shane or yourself. But it was fun,” Ilya tilts his head and a little crease appears between his eyebrows.
“It’s a good school. Did you teach Shane to play?” David preens a little under the praise for his alma mater. He is Shane’s dad first, but a hockey fan and player a close second. He laughs and immediately regrets it as Ilya wilts in front of his eyes.
“Sorry, it’s just - Shane surpassed my hockey abilities when he turned 7. I taught him how to hold a stick, but on the ice, that’s all him. And Yuna of course,” Ilya softens and a fond smile flashes across his face. David makes a note to pull out the old family photo albums sometime and show Ilya the pictures of a knock-kneed Shane grinning through his visor and holding a peewee hockey trophy aloft. There’s one that squeezes his heart where Shane is skating determinedly towards Yuna standing with her arms out, cheering, grinning, ready to catch their son as he barrels towards the boards.
Ilya’s spine straightens and he picks up the cheese again to grate with stilted but efficient movements. It gives him something to do with his hands as he starts to speak. His voice is soft and David gets the feeling something sacred is about to be shared with him. He keeps quiet and lets the words fill the space between them.
“Shane is very important to me. Possibly the most important person in my life.” David’s breath catches.
“That’s really good to hear, son. Pass me that pepper?” Ilya obliges.
“I am sorry you found out that way. It’s not-we did not want it to happen like that. But I am… glad that you know.”
Words stick in his throat. He wants to say, you are taking care of something very special to me. He wants to tell Ilya that Shane is so wonderful and so loveable and I am trusting you to do right by him. He wants to say not many people are privileged enough to enter the complicated and righteous world of Shane Hollander. He wants to shout my son is focused and intense and he is particular and I love everything about him and it seems like you do too. He really wants to say I’m so sorry for barging in and shattering your peace and forcing this revelation and I will always carry three spare phone chargers and never enter without knocking or texting or sending a carrier pigeon with a warning or tapping out an intricate password on the door so you know it’s me.
“Let’s have a drink,” is what he settles on. Good enough for now.
David sets another ginger ale on the table by Shane’s plate, pulling out a new glass and adding the two ice cubes his son will be too polite to request but will absolutely want. Canada Dry, only the good stuff. Ilya smiles at it.
“You know Shane. He likes his routines,” David says wryly. Ilya nods.
“He does. I can’t believe he’s eating pasta and bread today. Not very macrobiotic,” the word is stilted and accented on Ilya’s tongue and David’s answering laugh rings clear through the house. He wonders if it will reach Shane and Yuna, in whatever world they’ve crossed into.
“Well, it’s been a bit of a day. I think we can let up the macros for a bit. Indulge a little,”
“Shane’s not exactly the indulging type, Mr Hollander,” Ilya replies with a timid smile.
“Call me David, kid. And that’s Shane. He’s-” Highly strung? Intense? Particular? Single-minded, so focused on hockey that he’s never had time to indulge in anything? A model son, a perfect captain, every parent’s dream? Keeping a secret so long it must have seeped into every cavity of his body and entered his bloodstream and crushed him slowly, relentlessly? Difficult?
Shane isn’t difficult. At surface level, figuring him out is easy. He’s polite and accommodating, dedicated to his career, a once in a generation hockey talent who’s as strong on the ice as he is off it. He’s Canadian in every way that a man can be Canadian. From the tips of his toes to the top of his head, he would bleed maple syrup if it wasn’t so high in sugar. But there’s something underneath: buried and subdued by this secret none of them knew he was carrying. To be let into Shane’s world is a privilege. And David needs to know what Ilya Rozanov plans to do with that gift.
“He’s particular. He likes routines, likes to be in control. I’ve never seen him think about a future that isn’t just hockey. And he’s my son, and he’s so easy to love, so I always wondered why he’d never brought anyone home or told us about a girlfriend. Which makes sense now but you’ve been in the news a lot, Ilya, and never by yourself, so I just-” he cuts himself off before he can dig this hole any deeper. Ilya just looks at him. Eyes clear and focused as if David is a particularly challenging play or a defenseman he’s sizing up.
At least he’s finally meeting David’s eyes. Sitting up straighter, his height is more obvious, and David can see the Boston Raiders logo splashed across his chest. He wonders if Shane had anything to say about the t-shirt choice: he knows his son well enough to be able to answer that question.
“I know he’s… particular. I like that,” Ilya shrugs a shoulder, like it’s nothing, “I like knowing his routines. Means I know him. Means I’m part of his life. I want to be a part of his life.”
David relaxes from the defensive stance he hadn’t realised he’d entered. Maybe this kid is more perceptive than he lets on. Maybe he does deserve entry into the guarded depths of Shane’s life. The way he talks about Shane makes loving him sound like the easiest thing in the world.
“Sorry, kid. I’m not trying to attack you. It’s clear how much you care about him. But he’s my son. And I worry.”
He worries about Shane all the time. Far more than he lets on. It’s hard to square the gap-toothed little boy wearing an oversized McGill jersey and ill-fitting skates with the solid, stoic young man his son has grown into. To David, he’ll always be a kid that needs his laces double knotted and insists on piggybacks after each practice. Who can’t keep the grin out of his voice when he dissects a play he made and who begs Yuna to let him stay up just a bit longer to watch a game and provide a running commentary. Who doesn’t cry even when his eyes are glassy with unshed tears, just squares his jaw and stares into the middle distance and holds himself together. It’s easy for other people to forget just how young Shane is, but not David.
“I’m glad he has you both. He is very lucky,” David notes with a sinking feeling that even when Ilya was a rookie he’d never seen a Mrs Rozanov. The three Hollanders had stood together as an unflinching family unit: a team, all playing their parts. He remembers a younger version of Ilya with neatly tamed curls and a black suit that looked funereal in the crowded Los Angeles venue.
He recalls an intimidating, pale eyed man standing next to Ilya. How he’d worn his military dress and maintained a soldier’s perfect posture. The air around him seemed colder, frozen, standing to attention. They didn’t look like a team, not like Shane and David and Yuna - even despite their height difference it was clear they were on unequal footing.
And he’d heard about Grigori Rozanov’s death; felt that twinge of sorrow unlocked by hearing about a distant passing. Ilya was a cocky, dirty player (Yuna’s words, not his) but he was still a young man far away from home whose father was gone. Even if their relationship had seemed distant, it still had to hurt to lose your last remaining parent.
“We’re lucky to have him. Shane is really special,” Ilya nods and smiles softly, privately, worrying his lip between his teeth, “but I think you know that. I think we’re in agreement.”
Ilya nods vigorously and his answering smile is a true grin, like a floodlamp over the ice, like the sun on the lake outside the cottage, like a beam of bright light that pierces right through David’s gut. The unnatural whiteness of his false teeth sticks out in the warm glow of the dining room. David fights the urge to ruffle his hair and squeeze his shoulder, sticking with hitting a palm on the table and standing up even as his joints give a squeak of protest.
“Let me get that drink. I don’t want to stereotype, but I have a nice Russian vodka in the cupboard…” Ilya somehow grins even brighter. His eyes crinkle and he laughs, clear and relaxed as he sinks into his chair.
Later Yuna and Shane will sit down for a lunch cooked by David and the man their son is in love with. David will sit back and look at his family and wonder if after today it will be a little bigger.
Ilya Rozanov is sitting in their kitchen having lunch. They’re making plans to go to dinner at the cottage, something they rarely do because Shane doesn’t usually have a reason to host. They are promising to text and knock and be respectful of privacy, although Yuna is confused. Ilya Rozanov is gently holding the back of Shane’s neck with just the right amount of pressure to anchor him back to Earth. He is holding Shane’s chin and bringing their lips together and David’s highly strung, tightly wound son is smiling and relaxing into a kiss in front of his parents, and murmuring “Boyfriend?” with an awestruck voice that slightly confuses the timeline for David. He opts to ignore it and bask in the loved up glow emanating from the pair. It’s strange to see Shane so affectionate. Not bad, just different..
When his son heads to the car, Ilya follows and casts another brilliant grin at David. Even as they pull away from the house he can see their hands interlocked and the way Shane’s shoulders sag at Ilya’s touch and how the tension and secrecy his son has carried for so long ebbs away slightly. He is looking at the road but his body is angled towards Ilya; always seeking that familiar touch and his solid presence.
He exchanges a look with Yuna. What a day. The course of their lives has changed dramatically in one afternoon. This morning he had stumbled onto his son's greatest secret: tripped and fumbled his way into a private moment and sent Shane’s carefully constructed lie careening to the floor. Now they were picking up the pieces and cobbling together something new. Fragile, but precious.
Now Ilya Rozanov is inextricably intertwined into their lives. David has a feeling this is a very, very good development.