Chapter Text
Ilya wasn't sure when he would be coming back. Honestly, he hoped he would never need to. But he knew that wasn't the case. He was only eighteen. He still had family here. A lousy excuse for family, but family nonetheless.
Just in case he didn't come back though, he was going to say goodbye to the person who mattered.
It was cold. The kind that bit at your rosey cheeks even without the wind chill. Ilya stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of his coat, staring down at the gravestone.
As much as he tried to forget it, Ilya always thought about the day it happened. It haunted him in every corner of the house, in every sunrise, in every bowl of oatmeal. His mother's laughter was painfully absent. The touch of love in her cooking could never be recreated. Sometimes, if he stared in the mirror for long enough, he could see her smile.
Standing in front of her grave made it all feel more real. It always did. Standing in front of her grave brought him back to that moment. Finding her. Shaking her, as if he could wake her up from a nap. Being excited to tell her about his day.
Ilya crouched down, ducking himself out of the wind. He took his hand from his pocket, ignoring the biting cold, and placed his hand on the cold stone. His thumb brushed the cool granite. His brows furrowed as he stared at his mother's name.
Irina Rozanova. Mother. Wife. Friend.
Sometimes, when Ilya remembered that she had been gone for five years, he got a sinking sort of sickness in his stomach. It had passed by so slowly, like cold syrup. But now that it was over, it felt like he had just blinked. For five years he had been so alone.
Well, not alone. In the ways that it counted, he had Shane. Sweet, patient, gentle Shane.
Ilya loved him. He was sure that a part of him always loved him. And, if things didn't work out, a part of him always would.
Shane saved his life. Shane saved him from himself.
”I will not be able to visit for a while,” Ilya said in Russian. ”I am going to America. Well, Canada first. To see Shane. You probably do not remember him. I know I say that every time..”
Ilya sighed. He moved to sit on the ground.
”I think I am scared. Not to leave. I am happy to leave. I know that you would've wanted for me to get out. I wish that we could have gone together. I would have found a way to take care of us both. Or… I'm sure Shane's family would have taken us.”Ilya looked down, fidgeting with a loose string on the sleeve of his jacket.
”I am scared that he is going to leave me. That, when he knows me… when he really knows me, he will go. Maybe he will think I am too crazy like Papa. Or that I am too sad like…”he trailed off. A beat of silence passed, a harsh gust of wind.
”I hope it will be okay. I hope that he… that he loves me enough that it will not matter. I hope he loves me enough that I can be sad with him. But he makes me happy. That is why I am going. I… I trust him. Is that crazy?”
Ilya sat there for a while longer in silence. Staring at his mother's grave, listening to the wind rustle the leaves around him. The cold damp grass was seeping through his jeans and making his skin itch. His cheeks were starting to hurt, his lips were cracked, his ears felt frozen. But still he sat. Still he said goodbye. Just in case.
Saying goodbye to his father and brother was less ceremonial. They didn't hug. They didn't even clap a hand on his back. His father didn't look up from where he was reading the paper. His brother didn't come out of his room, where Ilya could smell the alcohol and weed rotting.
Ilya had to call a car. Neither of them were going to take him to the airport. He had his two bags, his passport, and a lot of hope. Maybe too much, but it was the first time in years he truly had something to look forward to.
It was the first time in years he was running towards something instead of just away. He wasn't just leaving Russia, he wasn't just running from his family. He was running to his family. The Hollanders, he knew, were waiting for him with open arms.
When the time came to actually leave Russia, when he was sitting in his seat on the plane, it all sort of came crashing down on him. He was getting out. He was leaving.
And he should have been elated. Popping champagne and going through a pack of cigarettes. He should have cheered and celebrated with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks.
But when he looked out the window and saw the light snowfall against the gray sky, he couldn't help but mourn. Despite it all, Russia was still home. There were some good memories there.
In the summer, with his Mama. On the ice, away from his father. Sneaking out and partying with Svetlana. Nights alone with Sasha.
Thinking about the few good times he had made him sad. It left a hollow sort of aching in his chest. A part of him couldn't help but think that this was the wrong choice.
Maybe it was selfish to do this. To leave his father, who he knew was getting sick. Dementia, they said.
Maybe it was selfish to leave Alexei to take care of him alone. He was incompetent, useless, dead-weight. Ilya was leaving his father in the worst hands, but he didn't have any other choice.
And maybe it was selfish to get out. When his mother couldn't. When she had died because of it all. And now he was leaving it. Leaving her.
The engine of the plane rumbled to life. Ilya tried to snap himself out of his own self wallowing.
He deserved this. He had earned this. His mother would want this for him. Svetlana wanted this for him, she would wait for him in Boston. Sasha wanted this for him, too. He was getting out soon. Ilya was happy for him.
Ilya reached into his backpack tucked under the seat in front of him. It was childish, and maybe he should have gotten rid of it, but he couldn't. It was the one thing his father and brother hadn't taken from him. The one thing they hadn't destroyed.
While he watched as they tore the letters to shreds and threw them into the fireplace, he kept the stuffed dog clutched in his fist. As he watched his brother cut the threads of the bracelets, Ilya kept the dog hidden under the mattress of his bed.
Now, he tucked it under his arm. Under his coat. Kept it pressed close to his heart. Shane had touched this, he had held it. It was, for now, the closest that Ilya could be to Shane. And as they took off, all he could think about was how he was getting closer. With each kilometer, each minute, they were closer together.
The flight was long. Painfully long. And Ilya couldn't sleep. He had stayed up the night before in hopes that he could sleep through the long fourteen hour flight, but he was so anxious that the idea of sleep was laughable.
He hadn't brought a book. There was no music downloaded to his new phone. There weren't even any old photos to scroll through. All he could do was stare out the window and fidget with the worn fur on the stuffed dog in his arm.
It gave him a lot of time to think. He couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It started off as a good thing, because he just thought about Shane.
He thought about everything, how patient he had been, how long he had waited. Ilya thought about the sweet sound of his voice and his funny Canadian accent. He thought about the photo he used to have of him. The cute freckles on his cheeks and those big brown eyes.
Ilya wished that he still had access to their emails. He would like to read through them all one day. Maybe, he hoped, that Shane still had his email. That he hadn't deleted it. That in the future they could sit down and laugh about it all. How it all began.
Then the thoughts turned sad. Ilya worried that maybe they wouldn't have a future together. Maybe they wouldn't get along in person. Maybe they would actually hate each other, and the rivalry the NHL was setting up for them would be true. Or, worse, maybe the idea of that rivalry would get in the way of their friendship.
Ilya didn't want to think about a life where he didn't love Shane. A life where they weren't best friends. Really, he didn't know if he would be able to handle it. He wasn't sure if he would even be alive right now if it weren't for Shane.
do they know we could never be rivals?
It was true. How could they, when Ilya's love for Shane was seeping out of every pore. Swimming through his letters, his emails, his texts. If he had it his way, he would have screamed it from the rooftops years ago.
Still, he needed to think about how to approach it all. It wasn't just the worry he had that Shane didn't love him back (though it was a very big worry), it was the worry of scaring him away.
Really, it was the only reason Ilya hadn't sent Shane a letter confessing. Why, in his last email, he only said the words once.
He didn't want to be too much. Shane was very particular. And, did he even like boys? He had talked about girlfriends over the years.
Ilya tried to shake all of the thoughts away. He focused on the ginger ale that he was sipping as he stared out the window. Pitch black. He was pretty sure they were over the ocean. A terrifying thought.
He chewed on the pretzel, shifted around in his seat. He checked the time on his phone. The time change was going to be weird. It was hard to calculate how much air time they had left, but he assumed about nine hours. Fuck.
He slumped in his seat and closed his eyes. He counted, thought about boring things like fields of grass and dunes of sand.
At some point he must have fallen asleep. Because someone was shaking his shoulder. The lights were on in the plane. He looked out the window, and they were on the ground. It was snowing, but the sky wasn't haunting and dull gray. It was blue.
Ilya shoved the stuffed dog into his bag again, grabbed his passport out, then stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. He grabbed his suitcase from the overhead bin, and left the plane.
Canada. He was in Canada.
And he was looking for David Hollander. Was he going to have a sign or something? Ilya had only seen a picture of him once, and didn't memorize it very well. David had only seen what he looked like in a photo from… fuck he didn't know. A very old photo.
He checked his phone. There was a text from David saying that he was at the airport, in the waiting terminal, but that didn't narrow it down very much. Ilya shoved his passport into his pocket, now that he didn't need it. He was about to send David a text asking for more information, when-
“Ilya… Rosa-noff?”
Ilya spun, a little wide eyed. “Hi,” he said. “Er. Rozanov.”
“Rozanov,” David repeated. He smiled, very polite. Ilya smiled back. Things were going to be fine.
They walked to the car in silence. They drove for the first few minutes in silence.
“How was the flight?” David finally broke it.
“Was fine. Ah, very long. Could not sleep,” Ilya said. He kept his focus out the window, trying to memorize everything passing by. The buildings, the trees, the road signs.
“I get it. I can never sleep on planes,” David laughed. “Is there anything you need from the store? We can stop on our way if you want.”
“No,” Ilya replied quickly. Stopping at the store meant delaying seeing Shane. If he really needed something, he was just going to have to suck it up. “I have everything. Thank you.”
They made small talk from there. Ilya would ask a question about something, David would answer and give a little history lesson. By the time they parked in front of the house, Ilya knew far too much about Ottawa for only being there for an hour. He loved it.
During the drive, Ilya had finally texted Shane back. There was a string of texts that had been unanswered due to airplane mode. And they made him smile. His Shane. His Shanya. So smart.
:)
Sitting in front of the house now, Ilya felt stuck. Glued to his seat. David wasn't getting out of the car. Ilya was supposed to go first. Knock on the door. Wait for Shane to answer. That was the plan.
It was his plan, and now he felt like he couldn't go through with it. His stomach was churning and his body felt frozen. His heart was beating so fast it was like it was trying to jump out of his very chest. His breathing was rapid, his leg was bouncing, his hands were sweating, his-
“Hey,” David's voice cut through his panic. “He's really excited to see you. He's been really excited. You don't need to worry,” he said.
And it almost made Ilya want to cry. He swallowed around the forming lump in his throat and he nodded. Carefully, with shaking legs, he got out of the car. It was colder in Ottawa than it had been in Moscow. But Ilya was so nervous it felt like his blood was running hot and boiling him from the inside out.
He carried his bags to the front door. He set them down. For another minute, he just stood and stared at the door. Seven years had all come down to this moment.
Seven years ago, he would have laughed at the idea of this. The idea that he flew all the way to Canada for a boy. A boy he had never really met, but who he loved. Who was his best friend in the entire world.
Seven years ago, he never would have believed it. But now he wouldn't change a thing. Even the bad parts, because it all led to this. Finally, a euphoria.
Ilya raised his fist and he knocked.
Then he waited.
Counted.
Waited.
He could hear footsteps on the other side. The door handle went down, and the door swung open.
Shane was shorter than him. Barely. But it was something that Ilya was definitely going to brag about later. Something he was going to celebrate.
But he would be lying if he said that was the first thing he noticed.
The first thing was Shane's freckles. Much more prominent in person than they were in the photos. Ilya could only imagine how dark they got in the summer. He wanted to touch them, to feel them.
Then, his eyes. Shane was staring at him like a caught animal. Wide eyed, shaking slightly, disbelief. Ilya could only imagine he was staring at him the same way.
Yuna, Ilya assumed, was standing behind Shane with a camera. But he didn't have time to really process that before-
“Oh my god.” And a body slamming against his own.
Ilya wrapped his arms around Shane immediately to catch him. He barely stumbled.
Their arms locked around each other in a way that just felt right. Ilya felt like a puzzle piece finally finding the set he belonged to. He pressed his face into Shane's shoulder and breathed him in, squeezing his eyes shut so tightly to keep the tears at bay.
Not because he was embarrassed (maybe a little), but because Shane was crying. What was he supposed to do if they were both crying?
“Shhh. Shanya,” he murmured, his hand rubbing up and down Shane’s back slowly. It was how his mother used to calm him down, and it had always worked for him.
Ilya wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he would have stood there for hours if it meant he got to hold Shane forever. He never wanted to let him go. Now that he had him, he wasn't sure he was ever going to be able to.
Shane drew back, and Ilya followed suit. Not too far. He kept his hands on Shane in some way.
He looked at him closer now. He could almost count the freckles littering his skin. Ilya could see his long lashes, wet with his own tears. He could see how shiny and glossed over those beautiful eyes were.
I love you. Do you know that I love you?
“Hi,” Ilya said quietly.
“Hi,” Shane whispered, smiling up at him.
They just sort of stared at each other. Ilya was aware that they were being watched, filmed, but he didn't care. When they looked back on this in a couple of years, maybe Shane would finally be able to see just how much Ilya loved him. How it seeped out of him in every way possible.
A gust of wind made him shiver. “Are you going to let me in? Is cold, Shane,” Ilya murmured, unable to stop himself from grinning.
When Shane let go of him so they could go inside, Ilya mourned the loss of touch. But he knew it wouldn't last long. Not with the way Shane seemed to gravitate into his space as soon as he was able.
Maybe Shane loved him too.
Maybe Ilya didn't need to be so scared.