Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Ilya meets Anya on a cloudy day in April.

It’s a pretty shitty time all around considering it’s his first season in Ottawa and the Centaurs are so far down the scoreboard that even dreaming about the playoffs feels ridiculous. It’s also cold and wet, and other than watching Shane play and spending time with his would-be in laws there’s not much to do.

Ottawa isn’t, exactly, the most interesting city he’s learned and leaving behind Boston has come with trying to leave some of his more unsavoury habits behind too so—less smoking, less partying and, most importantly, less driving around in his very expensive cars. He’s sold most of them, actually, which sparked a bit of an online debate—though most of the things he’s done lately seem to spark one. All of this means though, that he has nothing to do during the day when Shane is at training or on his way to an away-game—and Yuna has said he should look into some new hobbies so—

Running.

It’s as much a coping mechanism as a way to get away from it all. Phone on airplane mode and do not disturb—though it’s not like anyone besides the Hollanders ever even try to reach him anymore, still it’s nice to pretend—music on and the rest of the world far, far away. It’s a great way to explore the city too, and after the first couple of kilometres it gives him the same sort of high pushing the speed limit in his stupidly expensive cars used to give him.

And it’s after one of those runs that he finds Anya behind a convenience store. 

He’s not even sure how he ends up there. He sort of stumbles his way past the store, and reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants for—his phone or his pack of cigs he honestly isn’t even sure yet—when he hears—

Something.

He pulls his headphones off.

They hang from his neck as he slowly comes to a complete stop—hand braced against the brick exterior of the store, trying to catch his breath. For a second he thinks he’s just imagined it. Back in Boston, Svetlana would let herself into his apartment at the oddest times of day (or night) and sometimes he’d hear her calling for him even if she wasn’t actually there—some odd, auditory hallucination caused by his headphones and music and the perpetual loneliness of having a big-ass apartment and nobody really living in it.

Ilyushka, he’d hear and pull his headphones off and then he’d call back something like yeah? or Sveta? or Did you say something? and there’d be no response. And then he’d put his headphones back on, only to hear it again a few seconds later. Sometimes he’d have to walk around his apartment just to make sure she wasn’t actually there and just playing a prank on him.

And then he hears it again.

It’s something between a whimper and a whine. Something that sounds decidedly not human but distressed all the same. A lost toy, maybe, he thinks or a particularly big rat—and he almost keeps walking before he hears it again. More insistent. Louder.

Before he can even really think about it, he’s moving towards it.

In the back of his mind he can hear Shane—annoyed the way he gets every time Ilya takes a stupid risk and he doesn’t want to sound worried—saying something like if you get fucking rabies I’m breaking up with your ass and he chuckles a little at the thought. And then he rounds the corner—into a tight alleyway behind the convenience store and the Shane that lives in his head says something like if you get stabbed to death I’m also breaking up with you and also killing you myself.

Fortunately for him, there’s no giant rat or horror movie serial killer waiting for him. In fact, the alley is completely empty except for a couple of dumpsters and a pile of soggy cardboard.

Maybe he actually is losing his mind, hearing things that aren’t there.

And then the whining starts up again and Ilya realizes it’s coming straight out of one of the dumpsters and again—he’s moving before the thought even really registers in his mind. It takes a bit of effort but the dumpster swings open and he honestly sort of still expects to find a rat so it’s a surprise when he finds a dog instead.

No, a puppy.

Some sort of mutt, Ilya thinks, with scruffy brown fur dotted by small white spots, curled onto it’s side. It’s—small. Smaller than Ilya’s palm maybe, and it’s eyes are closed and it’s breathing hard and it’s whining for it’s mother.

It’s eyes are closed and inexplicably, Ilya finds himself tearing up.

“Oh, malyshka.” He breathes and moves to reach of it, before flinching back—unsure.

He’s so—big, in comparison, and this is a baby and what if he hurts the poor thing by touching it? What if he makes it worse? What if it’s mother is just around the corner and—rejects her baby, if Ilya—

But no, he thinks. If the mom was still there then this baby wouldn’t be laying in a closed dumpster all alone. Still, he pulls off his jacket—immediately starts shivering both due to the fact that it’s objectively cold and that he’s, essentially, wet with sweat—and gingerly wraps the puppy in the fabric.

The puppy lets out a little yip—maybe?—and immediately starts sniffling at the fabric.

Up close he realizes, he was right, too—it is smaller than his palm, which means he has one hand free to look up the nearest vet and book himself an uber there all while pressing the puppy against his chest, muttering little endearments.

The driver does a double take when he gets in—eyes wide in recognition, as he stares at Ilya through the rearview mirror—but whatever he sees on his face must be enough to keep him from idle small talk, because he doesn’t say anything beyond a quick hey and bye have a nice day once they reach the clinic.

Inside, he’s checked in by a nurse—do vets have nurses even? are they called something else?—that ushers him inside of an examination room.

“What a precious little thing,” the vet says. She’s maybe Yuna’s age, with kind brown eyes and dark, curly hair and a gap between her front teeth and a lot of tight lines around her eyes. She smiles and coos and the lines get deeper as she carefully unwraps the puppy. “You found it in a dumpster?”

“Yes.” Ilya says and feels—not scared, exactly, but nervous maybe. Anxious. A bit like he does before getting on the ice now. His accent sounds heavy and foreign even to himself. “It was making noise.”

The vet nods and smiles at him—and then leans over the puppy, presses her stethoscope against it’s belly. “Well, she is very lucky you found her! Just a little longer outside in that cold and she probably wouldn’t have made it to us!”

The puppy—she, apparently—whines again, loud and sad, and Ilya wants to cradle her again—almost moves to do so before realizing that he’d only make it worse, keep the doctor from working.

“Is very young, yes?” he asks instead. “Eyes still closed.”

The vet nods, enthusiastically. “Considering her size, I’d guess she’s a week old at most, if that—difficult to say with mixes like these. There’s maybe some border-collie in there, considering her fur but really it’s just too early to tell.”

She moves the stethoscope. “Her lungs sound great, actually! I think she wasn’t outside all that long, thankfully. Puppies cannot regulate their body temperature yet when they’re this small. Good thinking wrapping her in your jacket.”

Regulate, Ilya mouths.

Context tells him she means she can’t keep her temperature up—maybe. And regulate sounds close enough to regulirovat anyways. Still, he makes a note to look the word up later.

“I did not want to hurt her,” he says. “She is very small.”

“And you are very big!” Another blinding smile, and then she carefully picks the puppy up and sets her down in a bowl. The little worm curls up even tighter—shivering even in the warm office—and Ilya watches as the doctor takes the bowl and sets it down on a little scale.

“Ten-and-a-half ounces,” she says. “That’s a bit on the smaller side but not quite alarming yet.”

Then she looks up at him, eyes fixing him in an almost uncomfortable way—like she’s looking through him rather than at him. “Are you going to adopt this puppy, Mister Rozanov?”

“Ilya,” he says on instinct. “Please—just call me Ilya.”

“Ilya,” she agrees, but continues to stare. “Will you adopt her?”

He wants to say yes.

It’s—dumb and irresponsible—completely and utterly stupid—but he wants to say yes. But she’s so small and she’d be dependent on him and even though the Cents’ didn’t make the play-offs he still isn’t home enough for this to be fair to her, even once she’s bigger and healthy. Besides—even if he does say yes—who’d ever give something as precious as this puppy to someone like Ilya fucking Rozanov?

God, he hasn’t even talked to Shane about all this. What if he’s fucking—allergic to dogs or something?

The puppy sniffles and whines and it feels a little like getting the air knocked out of him. A bit like how he felt when Marlow punted Hollander out of the way and he wouldn’t get up. He watches, spellbound, as her nose twitches—as she moves her head, just a little, just enough that she’d be looking directly at him if her eyes could already work.

“Yes.” He says, because that alone feels almost as magical as being able to wake up next to his boyfriend. Boyfriend. “If you’ll let me?”

Ilya has to tear his eyes away from her to look back at the vet. He’s almost prepared for her to laugh him out of her clinic—is almost prepared for her to call him a stupid brat—but all she does is beam at him, hands absentmindedly stroking over her fur. “Oh, great! Most shelters probably wouldn’t have taken her, considering how small she still is.”

“Don’t worry,” she continues. “I’ll teach you everything you need to know!”

Ilya leaves the clinic with a how to take care of your puppy!-guide and a two page long shopping list and without his new dog.

Anya—he’s decided on the name while the vet (“Call me Anika”) showed him how to bathe her and feed her and help her with going potty as Anika put it—is going to stay in the clinic for another day or two, just to make sure she didn’t catch anything while dumpster diving. She can’t get any vaccines until she’s at least six weeks, which places her at a very high-risk for infections.

And while Ilya would love to have her home already, Anya staying at puppy-hospital for a bit longer does give him the opportunity to get everything he’s going to need to take proper care of her.

There’s the big, obvious stuff of course—like a carrier and brushes for her fur and a collar for when she’s bigger and puppy-mats until he can take her on walks. But then there’s also the smaller, less obvious things—like formula and bottles and cotton balls and a heating lamp.

Honestly, he sort of blacks out at the pet store and wakes up almost a thousand dollars poorer and his living room a lot more cluttered.

By the time he’s built up the heating lamp and sets up a little enclosure with the mats and a cozy little bed, the sun is already setting and Shane is calling for his pre-game check in.

He’s playing the Admirals and he’s probably still in his hotel room because it’s just a voice call rather than their usual face time—but he sounds happy and relaxed and that is enough for Ilya to exhale in—relief maybe.

“Hey baby,” he says and Ilya is a weak, weak man, turning into a puddle on his rug. “What are you up to?”

He sort of looks around the chaos that is his living room—cartons strewn around, bubble wrap at his feet, the formula sitting on his kitchen counter—and opens his mouth to say I adopted a dog.

“I am pregnant,” is what comes out instead, almost a little hysterical. “You are the father.”

Shane makes a choked off sound on the other side of the line and starts coughing—violently. In the background, Ilya can hear a voice—Pike, maybe?—asking if he’s okay before the coughing slowly breaks off.

Ilya starts giggling.

There’s a sound like a door sliding open and then—wind. Did he step out onto a balcony? “What?!”

“Hollander,” Ilya says. “What do you think of Anya for girl?”

“Ilya,” Shane answers, voice still a little tight from all of his coughing but not—upset. “Talk. Please.”

“I found baby dog today.” He explains, and leans back into the bottom of his couch, lets his head rest on one of the seats. “Tiny baby dog. Took her to vet. Going to adopt her, I think.”

“Of course you will.” Shane sounds painfully fond on the other side. “Do you have a picture? How are you going to deal with it when the next season starts?”

He shrugs. “For now, I just want her to grow big. She’s smaller than my hand.”

“Oh,” Shane says. “Oh baby-baby dog. Now I get why you’ve told me like you’re trying to baby trap me.”

“Baby trap?” Ilya asks, amused. “What is baby trap?”

“When someone gets pregnant to trap someone else in a relationship.” Shane says. His voice turns teasing. “Nobody’s told you this? Despite your—uh—more promiscuous activities?”

And Ilya wants. Wants to tease back—already has a response forming on the tip of his tongue—wants to crawl through the phone and look at Shane—really, look at him and not through the screen, pixilated by shitty connection—watch as he smiles and blushes, count out all of his freckles, his eyelashes—wants wants wants

“Send me a picture of her,” Shane says, before Ilya even has a chance to reply. “Hyd is waving at me through the window, I’ve gotta go.”

“Love you,” Ilya says, quickly. Both in English and in Russian. Shane whispers it back, just as quickly and then he’s gone and Ilya is alone. Again.

Anya needs to be fed every two hours and weighed daily.

Anika gave him a little booklet to fill out—by the end of the week she’s supposed to have almost doubled her weight. By week two, she only needs to be fed every three hours and she’ll maybe open her eyes. By week four he can start to introduce water and softened puppy food.

She’s going to need help with going potty. She’s going to need help keeping warm. She might not feed from a bottle so Ilya goes out and buys syringes instead.

There’s so much that can go wrong and he’s terrified of messing up.

He ends up visiting Anya even before he’s allowed to take her home, and it feels like she recognizes him because she’s sniffing wildly whenever he comes near her little cage. Anika takes pity on him and gives him her phone number (“Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything!”), and while he saves her in his contacts he takes a couple of pictures of Anya through the bars to send to Shane.

He doesn’t see the text until Ilya is already back home and taps back with a heart.

Adorable, he texts. Then She has your nose.

Ilya is halfway through typing something like hope she has your eyes before he deletes the whole thing. you really don’t mind?

Shane texts back a single question mark. Then: What do you mean?

adopting her

without talking to you about it first

I know how much you love dogs

I always knew it was just a matter of time before you got one

is not dumb i got her?

Shane’s text bubble pops up and vanishes repeatedly for a bit. Ilya watches—sometimes he needs a couple of minutes to think of the right words—but a reply never comes. Instead, Shane calls.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. He sounds hurried—with the game in New York over, he’s probably already on his way to the next one—Detroit. Once that’s over he’ll have almost a week off and is going to be back home—back with Ilya—where he belongs.

“Nothing is wrong, Hollander. You call me, remember?”

“Shut up.” Shane says. “You never hesitate like that. Of course it’s not dumb you got her. What’s wrong?”

“Just.” He says. Thinks about the words, he wants to say. Translates and rearranges. It’s almost easier in English—feels less vulnerable. “What if I do it wrong?”

“What?”

“I’m not good with—” he gestures, vaguely. “taking care.”

“You take care of me all the time,” Shane says, in the same voice he uses to talk about the weather and hockey stats. The same voice he uses for absolutes. “You are so good at taking care. Anya is going to be the best taken care of puppy in the whole world.”

He looks at the new scale he bought. It measures in pounds and not in kilogram because the booklet is in pounds and the instructions for the formula also calls for pounds—or cups but that seems incredibly inaccurate—and a new measuring cup because the instructions also call for ounces and not liters.

And he looks at the new blankets he got. The cleaning supplies that claim to kill 99.9% of all bacteria.

“Most spoilt, maybe.” He says and laughs.

“And,” Shane says. “If it gets too overwhelming I can help. And I’m sure my parents would love to help too. Pretty sure my dad’s been gunning for a puppy for years now but…”

“You help?” he asks. “You don’t like messes.”

And Anya’s going to be full of messes, at least for the first months of her life. Ilya’s going to have to teach her everything.

“Yeah but I like you,” Shane says. “A whole lot, if you haven’t noticed yet. And this is the first things that’s….” he breaks off. Ilya can tell what he hasn’t said. Made you happy. Since Boston. “Your messes don’t bother me Ilya.”

“You will spoil me, Hollander.” Ilya whispers back. “Ruin me for anyone else.”

“Good.” Shane says and Ilya can hear his smile even from 400 miles away. “As I should.”

“I love you.” He says. “So much.”

“I love you too.” Shane replies. “Now tell me about Anya.”

Later, he’ll blame it all on a momentary lapse of judgement.

He’ll blame it on the loneliness maybe—on the fact that, despite never having been physically closer to Shane this consistently in his entire life—that despite regularly getting dinner with Shane’s parents—that despite finally having found what he’d spend his entire life searching for he’s also, somehow, never felt more alone.

He’ll blame it on Cliff not texting him back since he’d signed with Ottawa. He’ll blame it on Sveta, face pulled into a perpetual frown during every facetime call.

Or maybe he’ll blame it on Anya—sweet, beautiful Anya—who’d been just a little too cute not to share.

He’s honestly—probably—a little too old for tiktok. Maybe? He’s not that old, but his…feed? doesn’t seem to be made for him, at all because he mainly gets book recommendations and dancing videos to perky, cheerful music.

But his Instagram and his twitter account are both very public, and a part of him is sort of scared this is going to be linked back to him—like someone will see sweet, adorable Anya next to him and decide to rescue his puppy from himself. And not having a public tiktok, lowers the risk of accidentally posting pictures to the wrong account.

The first couple of videos he posts—Anya on her stomach, Anya curled up on his chest, Anya asleep with a pale pink tongue sticking out of her mouth—barely even gather any traction beyond a handful of likes and a few scattered comments filled with emoji.

And it’s—nice. Being able to share something without people dissecting his every word or speculating or—

By the fourth or fifth video—Anya is already one-and-a-half weeks old and her eyes are gradually opening already, two pin-sized dark glossy things hidden under furry eyelids—he’s actually gathered a decently sized audience of people ready to coo over Anya and to cheer along with every new milestone.

Anya took few steps today, he posts as the caption under one video and gets sent gifs of people dancing and love hearts and I would die for Anya does she know this.

Anya is down to one feed every three hours today! He posts and gets a wave of likes and shares.

Her little tongue, someone writes. She’s so precious, someone else comments.

Thank you for taking such good care of her, someone sends him in his dm’s, which is such an improvement from the messages he gets on his official profile he almost tears up.

Once Anya officially hits the three week mark, the comments shift a little though.