Rating:

Not Rated

Archive Warnings:

Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov, Irina Rozanova, Grigori Rozanov, Galina Molchalina

Additional Tags:

Hurt/Comfort, Therapy, Rape Recovery, Past Child Abuse, POV Multiple, Married Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Angst, Ilya Rozanov Has PTSD, more child abuse than is frankly reasonable, worry about Ilya's ACES score, Sibling Incest

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-08-25 Completed: 2026-10-19 Words: 12,633 Chapters: 4/4

he's not coming back as a bird

Summary

Ilya is thirty three and his life is finally settled. Then a call from Russia informs him that Alexei has overdosed and died. This brings things to the surface.

Notes

1) we all clocked the archive warnings?? okay great.
1a) i wrote this for me, but you can read it if you want

2) the rozanovs are such a deeply tragic family. I am so compelled by them, they belong in a literary novel that wins the Giller Prize.

Chapter 1: never going back OR Ilya Rozanov Comes to a Realization

Because of the stupid Instagram reels they had been watching between sets, when his phone rings, it's so loud that it startles both him and Luca. Luca has to help him rerack the weight he’s squatting, but that’s what a spotter is for. There’s an unknown Russian phone number calling him. Ilya hasn’t had a call from Russia since moving to the Centaurs. 

He stares at his phone for a second too long, but manages to hit the answer button. 

“Mr. Rozanov,” the man on the end of the phone says. It’s unfamiliar. Maybe it’s a good sign. Maybe it’s someone calling to inform him that his Russian passport is no longer valid, effective immediately. There’s no way of knowing. Once, his home country had more to it than dread. He lets his fingers reach for comfort of his cross and wedding ring sharing a chain. 

“Da,” he replies, before continuing “Who is this?” At least one of his teammates is looking at him. Luca is deliberately not looking, sipping from his water bottle and fidgeting with the locking feature.  Some people have left, and others are talking. But they don’t usually hear him speak Russian, and never with his voice so low. 

Mr. Sergei Volkov, I am a lawyer for the late Alexei Rozanov.

My brother is dead? Ilya asks, like a fool in his mother tongue. 

My condolences. The lawyer says. I am sorry to break the news. 

How did he die? Ilya asks. The lawyer is quiet for a moment too long. 

Nakhui, he swears. Luca looks up at that, because like everyone Ilya has played or partied with, he had figured out a few Russian swears. Ilya shakes his head at the kid, who grabs the spray to start cleaning up. Bastard overdosed, didn’t he? Ilya continues. 

Well. Yes. The lawyer confirms. 

On purpose? Ilya asks. 

The lawyer hesitates again. Ilya figures there’s no good answer he wants. Either the drugs did his brother in or their genetics did. Not really a shock either way. 

Alright. I am notified. What else do you need from me?

Your niece, Sofia Rozanova. The lawyer starts. Little Sonja, who certainly wouldn’t enjoy that nickname. Ilya has an image of a toddler who could sleep anywhere, but that was before his father died. Still. 

Money will continue. Her’s when she is 18. Unless. Did he leave them penniless? He doesn’t actually think this lawyer will answer honestly. But maybe his brother’s widow wants more. There’s a silence that could mean anything. 

Yuliana Rozanova just wanted you to be informed and invited to the funeral and reading of the will. The lawyer could be reading from a script. There’s no way for him to know. Unless he was willing to go back to Russia to bury the last of his family. He doesn’t think he would want to, and no one would let him. He decides to be okay with it. 

I am notified. I will not be there. 

Ilya hangs up as angrily as the touchscreen will allow. He does the math. It’s November. His brother has been thirty seven since August. He rolls the number around in his mouth like a bitter candy. Their mother was thirty five. That number hurts, especially with how close he is getting to go over. Ilya is thirty three. In his head, he hears some joke about “closest without going over” from Price is Right. Ilya is the last living member of his family. There’s no one left on earth to remember skating with his mama and with Alexei. There’s no one who knows the shape of the very rare, “well done,” from their papa. Just him and some ghosts in the hazy Russian winter. He’s sitting. He doesn’t remember sitting. 

“-Roz, Roz you good?” Hazy is trying to get his attention. English. Ilya has great English. Ilya shakes his head. 

“What?” he asks, sounding more tired than he wants. He wants to be angry or sad or something. He should probably feel something. 

“That looked bad,” the goalie says. Ilya checks, and the four or five teammates are all very quiet and deliberately not looking at him. Luca looks guilty. 

“Perceptive,” he says, vowels wrong in his mouth. 

“That’s my job,” he says. “Seriously. Good?”

“Fine,” he replies. “Where is my Hollander?” 

“Rowing,” Bood interjects, before Hayes finishes a quick scan of the gym. “Want me to get him?”

Ilya wants to say, no, then he will yell at us both. But instead he says “Yes,” and it's wet like a sob. 

Bood is out in a moment. 

“I don't think everything is fine,” Hazy says softly. 

“Thing happened. Not fine, sure. I will be okay though.” He says. His English is lazy. He’s better than that. 

That's when Shane strides over. He crosses the room efficiently. He's sweaty, flushed. His eyes are focused on Ilya in an all consuming way. Shane's hands are on his shoulders and Ilya leans in until his head rests on Shane's chest. He can hear Shane’s heartbeat. It helps. He wants more. He's greedy, but he's adrift and the entirety of his family is right here. He pulls Shane onto his lap, and holds him closer, his head now tucked under Shane's own. 

The Centaurs deal with a lot of PDA, which normally Ilya brags about and gets chirped about. This is intimate in a way that feels almost exposed. Ilya just breathes. 

“What happened?” Shane whispers. 

“Russian lawyer called. My brother is dead," Ilya explains. 

“Oh shit,” Shane says quietly. Ilya can’t really remember what Shane knows. Probably not enough, because he doesn’t even know what he would say to explain it all. He feels cold, probably from the sweat pooling behind his ears and the ends of his curls on his neck. Shane is still talking, asking: “What do you need?” 

Swift and painless oblivion. “Shower. McDonalds. You.” 

He must look pitiful, because Shane doesn't argue with McDonalds. Ilya wipes his eyes, which are damp, apparently. He hates that. His brother doesn't deserve tears. But Lyosha probably didn't deserve the feeling Ilya has tried to forget, of realizing you might be dying and finding out you don't want it for real. 

He stands up, because he cannot start this mental breakdown here.  

Blayt, he swears. Then again. Grabs his towel. Walks to the showers. Shane follows. Shane picks the shower right next to him, which is a lot for him, especially in a basically empty shower room. Ilya must really look like shit. Shane doesn't say anything, which is a relief. Ilya can't start talking about it. 

There's music playing by the lockers when they come back. It's Troy's phone, Charlie xcx, and Ilya manages a neutral expression. Apparently, his friends have decided they are all done in the gym for the day. Bood and Wyatt are on their phones.  They've been talking, obviously. Ilya gets dressed. His legs are slightly too wet still as he pulls up his jeans.

Hazy comes close. “You don't have to talk about it. You need anything-” 

“There was a small trouble in Russia. My husband is taking me to McDonald's about it,” Ilya says. Hazy looks to Shane, then back to Ilya. 

“Well then I won't slow you down before Hollzy comes to his senses.” 

He's distracted enough that he almost misses the opportunity, before he quips, "That's not the only thing he'll -”

“Boo,” says Troy, cutting him off before Shane can. 

“Shut up,” Shane says lightly, but holds his hand. 

Ilya’s first memories on the ice are with his brother. Outdoor rink, probably bundled to death the way all small children are. Ilya remembers lots of shaky moments and falling, and occasional bursts of lightning where the blades sang against the ice. Ilyushenka, called his mother, called his then eight or nine year old brother who occasionally couldn’t catch him on the ice. His brother helped him up every time he fell, or at least it feels that way in his head. 

Aloyshka, Aloyshka, Aloyshka, he called and his brother came. 

Shane drives, which says another thing. Ilya loves driving, genuinely. But he’s willing to admit this is probably not the time. Instead, Shane takes them through the drive thru, and gets him a Coke and a chocolate milkshake, and then Ilya is tearing up. 

They have to eat real food at home, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

Ilya walks through his front door. His husband is carrying the bags and Ilya is balancing the drink tray. Anya approaches happily. They have two shared Stanley fucking cups. Ilya’s life is everything he ever dreamed and more. He has more than is reasonable. 

“I’m not sad,” he says out loud, mostly to test it. He isn’t sure if he should be sad, which Galina will probably have shit to say about. It’s convenient that they have an appointment tomorrow. He debates cancelling it. 

Shane stares at him, trying to decode what Ilya has said. “Like at all? Or is double fisting your McDonalds fixing you?” 

“You want to talk about double fisting again?” Ilya tries to joke. Sex would be a great distraction. He would probably feel less like he’s drifting away from his body. 

“Ilya,” Shane says. 

“Shane,” he replies. 

His husband sighs. Shane puts his hands on Ilya’s arms. His hands are warm. Ilya might be shaking. “It would be okay, if you do feel some way about it–” 

“I don’t.” He says it too quickly and they both know he’s lying. He tries to finish the last of the milkshake. The paper straw has disintegrated. He’s trying and failing to stir the melting and separating sludge. He decides he doesn’t want it anymore. Pours it down the sink, rinses the cup.

“Okay,” Shane offers, when he turns the water off. 

He tosses the empty milkshake cup in the garbage. The Coke is still good. 

“I want to shower,” he says, after a long minute. He doesn’t give Shane the option to join him. He doesn’t want to say no. But Shane keeps looking at him, and he needs a moment without eyes. 

He strips and steps into the shower. The Coke comes with him. The cup is sweating, the drink cold against the warm steam enveloping him. The sweet cold liquid keeps him upright. He gets clean. Cleaner. 

He wonders if Alexei did it on purpose. He wonders what drugs it was. Did Alexei set out with a purpose? When did he realize he was staring down the barrel of a loaded gun? Did he lean into an accident, or fail to escape a whirlpool of his own making? Ilya doesn’t think he could do it to Shane, doesn’t think he could do it to a child – pre teen, maybe, maybe she’s twelve – and  Ilya was always their mother’s. Alexei was papa’s. Ilya wishes he could explain any of it. Explain how Alexei was good for papa, was a good son easily. Explain how Ilya brought mama snacks and brushed her hair and she ate for him. He’s not under any impression that his childhood was good exactly, but parts of it worked. 

Lyosha loved Ilyusha, but they have not been boys for a very long time. 

He sits on the floor of the shower. His legs are under the spray. He holds his cup in both hands like a child. Water is dripping all around him. The tile is one he picked out with his husband last summer. It’s herringbone, which Shane brags about. It’s completely unlike his bathroom growing up. 

He’s the only one on earth who remembers the home he grew up in. Any future where he could ask Alexei any questions has been burnt away. The odds were always slim, but now they are zero. 

The drink is empty. He’s been sitting too long. Ilya wants to sleep, but the shower is not the place for that. He forces himself to stand and to turn off the water, and all the other bullshit until he is nominally dry and in underwear and laying on the bed. He’s too tired to crawl under the covers. 

“Hey baby,” Shane says, coming in the room. “Ready for lunch?” His footsteps and voice are gentle. 

“Nyet,” he says, loud enough that it's audible through the pillow blocking his face. “I just want my husband.” 

“You’ve got me,” Shane tells him. Ilya rolls over to look at the man he married. Shane looks worried, but determined, maybe. Ilya pats the bed beside him, and Shane strips his shirt and lays beside him. 

Ilya lets himself be held. More than that, he sinks into the comfort of Shane’s arms, his broad, strong chest, and his steady heartbeat. Shane presses kisses to all the parts of Ilya he can reach. 

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” Shane whispers. His accent has gotten better over the years. Ilya feels like a monster the way he wants more. He wants a family he can share with his beloved and a version of his mama who Shane could love, and fuck, even a version of Lyosha who grew up brave. Ilya tries not to want these things, not when the man who is better at loving him than anyone has ever been holds him, but Ilya is a selfish man.

“I think I am sad,” Ilya says. 

“I know, baby,” Shane says, kindly. 

“He is not worth being sad over.” Ilya tries to explain. “I think I am sad that it ends like this.” 

“Yeah?” Shane asks. 

“He wasn’t born a monster,” he tries. “For a long time he was my brother. He played with me. He helped me with my homework. We used to practice our English together, so he could come visit me.” 

Other stories stick in his chest. Shane doesn't want to hear about Lyosha giving him all his money and helping Ilya buy a replacement ryumka that he broke. Ilya still doesn't know what to think of the hours Alexei sat with their father, drinking and smoking while Ilya helped mama bathe or eat when she was too sad to leave her bed. Was Alexei protecting them? Or even by his teens, was mama too lowly for him? 

He thinks of all the times he couldn't sleep after he found her. How Alexei never kicked him out when Ilya, too old and annoying, crawled into his bed. 

“That must be complicated,” Shane tries.

“I don't want it to be.” Ilya says. He's whining. 

“I can't imagine,” Shane says. His voice is rich in sympathy and it sort of makes him want to throw up, or maybe melt into a puddle forever. If Ilya is melting, then at least he is melting into Shane’s body. Shane welcomes him in, holds him close as Ilya falls away. He thinks he might be too tired to sleep, but he’s drifting off with Shane’s fingers carefully cradling his head.

He dreams of being sad and helpless. Of walking a dark hall. Of lying in Alexei’s bed. Of a creeping dread stalking up his esophagus like vomit. Of hands. 

When he wakes, he’s thirty three and the sun is setting through their curtains and he’s holding his husband and his body is screaming in a way he never listens to, that something bad has happened to him. 

He can’t move, which is fine, because if he could move, he would probably run into traffic. He listens to Shane breathe. What a fucked up thing to dream about. 

What a fucked up thing to know in his bones. 

The night light built into their microwave that turns on at ten illuminates the kitchen. He opens the freezer and that icy glow illuminates his hands. Anya comes trotting, because she wants her ice cube tax. He grabs the vodka for himself. 

His brother doesn’t deserve it, but perhaps Alexei needs one last thing from him. He pours two glasses. They don’t have anything approaching the right kind of bread. There might be a bagel in the freezer, but that seems ridiculous. It's symbolic anyways. Alexei just needs to take his last meal and leave him alone. So after all the money, the last thing Alexei gets is a rice cake balanced on top of his glass. 

Ilya is on his third glass, and Shane is there. 

“Morning, love,” his husband says, even though it’s the middle of the night. Ilya realizes he has tears on his face and Shane has an expression of abject concern. 

“He doesn’t deserve any sadness,” he tries to explain. “He deserves to rot next to our father –” He doesn’t really believe in God. He used to believe in heaven, because it was nice to imagine his mama somewhere she could be happy forever. He wonders if Alexei ever thought of her. 

For the first time since he was twelve, he hopes she is gone, spirit and soul and all. Even an echo of her would probably be heartbroken to have Alexei die like this. He wants her to be somewhere where no Rozanov can hurt her again. 

“I think you can feel however you feel about it,” Shane says. 

“Okay,” Ilya says. His body is heavy. He’s tired. He’s starting to feel the alcohol, because his meds have fucked his tolerance, or maybe he’s getting old, someone in his family should, and he’s so fucking done. He puts the glass in the cupboard so Anya can’t get it, and then looks at Shane, who is valiantly awake. 

“Bed?” he asks. 

“Please,” Shane says, giving him a portion of a smile. Shane is unconscious in minutes. Ilya watches his breathing even out. His shoulders relax. Content. Ilya tries to borrow his peace. 

He intends to sleep. 

He can’t stop thinking about it. 

He would like to stop thinking about it. He would do anything to stop thinking about it. He was probably twelve or thirteen. He started sleeping in Alexei’s bed, after their mama died. 

Lyosha told him, “don’t cry, don’t be a fag about this,” but always let him stay. Ilya didn’t cry, didn’t move, just slept. 

He doesn’t remember why he stopped. Only that their Papa starting bringing home Polina, and she cried and screamed and it reminded him of something, and Lyosha said, “She’s being dramatic, it’s not so bad.” Ilya said, “How would you know?” because Lyosha only maybe was seventeen, and he was good. He wasn’t sneaking out for sex or hiding a girlfriend. 

And Lyosha said, “I’ll show you.”

And. 

And Lyosha touched him. Got him hard. Got on top. Thrust himself between Ilya’s thighs. 

“Watch this,” he said. And Ilya did. He can see it now. Can feel like, sticky cum and stale breath and Ilya didn’t say stop or fight him off. Took it. 

Maybe it didn’t happen. Maybe his brain wants something concrete to be angry with. Like the time Lyosha shaved his head or beat the shit out of him or stole millions or anything else isn’t enough. 

It barely was, he tells himself. 

He still doesn’t sleep. 

Light hasn’t starting breaking through their curtains when Shane’s alarm goes off. That’s November. Shane wakes. He finds Ilya’s hand and squeezes carefully. 

“Did you get anymore sleep?” Shane asks. 

“No,” Ilya says. 

“Okay. Do you want to come for a run, or rest until your appointment?” 

“I want to run,” Ilya decides. Shane makes him eat a banana because he is wildly underfed to be running. It’s not a good run, but for thirty five minutes he only feels strain in his legs and his feet hitting the pavement. In his ears, there’s a very loud, wordless EDM playlist from Troy, so he can’t hear himself think. 

Ilya thought he would figure out what to say to Galina before he went to therapy. He didn’t. Not even with Shane driving. 

“I’m going to run to Canadian Tire,” Shane says. “Is that okay?” 

“Of course,” Ilya told him. 

The things he wants to say are swirling together. There’s a tangled knot of things about his fucking family, none of which are clear. Galina’s office is usually a comfort. The walls are familiar. Whenever he tries to cut himself open here, nothing changes, no matter what kind of filth pours out of him. 

“Do people ever completely forget bad things?” 

“Yes. That’s not uncommon for people who have experienced trauma.” He sort of hates the word trauma. Galina has her ‘I’m required to tell you this’ voice on, when she continues. “There are some ethical considerations around purposely trying to recover those memories, especially if there is a legal case involved–”

Ilya can’t help it. He starts laughing. Imagines trying to take his cop brother to court for gay sex. Not sex. He feels like he’s going to throw up. 

“My brother died,” he says, when he catches his breath. In English. Galina would actually understand how complicated even his name has become, which doesn’t help. He can’t make himself choose the cold distance of Alexei or the sickly intimacy and nostalgia of Lyosha. 

“Miracle he made it this long with all the coke that the bastard did.” English flattens, with its million words, each unique and precise. 

“We’ve talked very little about your brother,” Galina tries. 

“Not very much to talk about,” he tries. 

Galina raises an eyebrow. “That seems unlikely, given the other context you’ve shared from your childhood.” 

“I gave him about two million over a few years. He snorted most of it,” he shrugs, a little what can you do? The amount is certainly unfamiliar, but he’s willing to bet she understands sending money back to Russia. He switches to Russian as he continues, “We fought at father’s funeral. I cut him off. We haven’t spoken since. It’s not complicated.” 

“Even if your relationship wasn’t complicated, you could still have complicated feelings,” Galina presses. 

There’s a small window in her office. It’s high up, and has a privacy curtain. He can see a loose thread on the yellow curtain. If he pulled it, it would probably warp the whole piece. 

“I slept with his girlfriend when I was fifteen. He caught me. He kicked my ass and shaved my head.” He doesn’t look at her so he’s not tempted to tell her about pissing blood and crying over his hair. How awful it had been to feel Alexei’s fingers dig into the flesh on his face and head as he took the clippers to Ilya’s head. The burning sting of humiliation, sharp and acidic. How he had still been naked, tufts of his hair irritating sensitive exposed skin. 

“Has there always been violence in your relationship?” 

Ilya can only stare at her. His first memory is Lyosha sharing crackers with him while mama cries in the other room. As an adult, he knows the concept of “marital rape” because Boston gave them a detailed talk about avoiding legal charges. But until then, he didn't. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “I think–” he tries. Galina lets him try in silence. He doesn’t have to tell her. He could shut his mouth and stare at the plant. He could say, “I don’t want to talk about this,” and she’d drop it. But the knowledge hurts, and if she thinks he’s crazy or faking, then at least he’ll know. 

“I might remember something,” he starts. “But I might be making it up.” 

“Okay,” Galina says. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” he tries. “But–” he’s not going to say the other part. The way that he thinks it’s real, despite it all. 

“I went to Alexeis’ bed, after our mama died,” he says. “I wasn’t sleeping.” He could still stop talking. Galina might make assumptions, which would be worse than what really happened. “It doesn’t make sense. He told me not to be pedik about sharing a bed.”

The next bit he has to get right. It wasn’t sex. If he was with a girl, he wouldn’t call it sex. But it was gross. Gross for brothers. Galina is looking at him like she wants to understand, and he doesn’t think she can. He’s going to try anyway. 

“He grabbed mine first. He got off between my thighs, like when you don’t have a condom. It didn’t hurt, but –” 

Galina looks at him. He can’t find a way to finish the sentence. That he doesn’t know if he said no. That he didn’t want to, obviously. That it didn’t hurt. That he might have finished. That he thinks he went back to Alexei’s fucking bed, because at least he slept. 

He’s crying. That’s humiliating. He grabs the tissues. 

“Thank you for telling me, that took a lot of courage,” Galina says. “Victims of –” 

“Stop,” he says, twenty one years too late. “It wasn’t. It didn’t.”

“We don’t have to continue this topic,” Galina agrees easily. The same easy tone she said victims. 

“I want to go home,” he says. His chest feels hollow. It hurts. “I have to text Shane to come get me.” 

Ilya: come get me 

His husband replies almost instantly. 

Shane: now?

Shane: omw

“While you wait, do you want a sparkling water?” Galina has a fridge full of insane sparkling waters, and offers him one that is mango strawberry. It’s cold. It helps settle his shaking hands. 

Galina isn’t looking at him like she’s thinking Victim. “Do you want to look at pictures of Pickles?” Pickles is the one personal detail about Galina Ilya knows, which is her french bulldog. He could go wait in the waiting room, but Galina is offering up very valuable currencies. He must look like shit. 

By the time Shane texts, “here”, Ilya feels less like he wants them both dead. He just has to go face his husband with the knowledge this isn’t something that is going to easily fade away. 

Chapter 2: offer up my bones OR The Short Bitter Life of Alexei Rozanov

Chapter Notes

Okay so this one is weird and a lot. We're doing second pov from Alexei. If you want more info about that, read the chapter end notes.

I'm really proud of this chapter, and I think it adds a lot to the story, but it is not required if you are in need of hurt/comfort, chapter 3 is where the h/c continues.

Your first happy memory is when you are five years old. Ilyushenka in his playpen. The TV  on and your mama has her smoke in hand and is telling you about all the pretty girls on screen. She is telling you they are in France, those lucky girls. They are dancing on the ice.

“Are they your friends?” You asked. You didn't know your mama had friends, but why couldn't she? She's so nice and she's so pretty and she's the best mama ever. 

“I skated with them, yes, Lyosha,” she told you. 

“You did that too?” You asked. The girl on screen looks like she's flying as she jumps and spins. “It looks so fun.” It's boring inside. One of Papa's friends got shot a few weeks ago, and Mama doesn't take you out very often anymore, certainly not after dark, which is so early in January. “Will you show me?” 

Mama didn't say anything, which usually means Papa will decide, which usually means no. But Papa's at work, and Mama takes her time, and your teacher says you are so patient so you wait and eventually Mama says yes. 

“We can go skating tomorrow,” Mama promised. “I will show you.” Then she smiles. “Would you like to see my treasures?” 

You nod, because that's the best possible offer. She picks Ilyuska up, and holds your hand and takes you to your parents bedroom. You never come in here, but Mama leads you fearlessly to the closet and pulls down a beautiful light green blue box. 

“This one is from the biggest competition I went to,” she told you, holding up a massive silver medal. Looking in the box, you see lots of gold medals, pretty ribbons, and dried flowers. She handed you the medal.

“It’s so heavy,” you told her. 

“You are strong, Lyosha,” she teased. She placed it around your neck so you can feel its weight. It's heavier on your chest than in your hands. Mama looks happy. 

She takes you and Ilyushenka skating. You are wearing so many layers you are clumsy on your feet. Mama laces you into skates and puts Ilyushka on a sled.

Your mama glides on the ice like she's flying. 

“Mama can you jump?” You asked. There's no one else on the rink. 

“Hold your brother, Lyosha.” She tells you. You go and sit on the snowbank beside the parked sled. 

“Watch mama,” you told Ilyushenka. He blinks his big baby eyes at you. He's not even two yet. You sit him up so he can see better. He looks around curiously. 

Then he sees your mama, and she's already skating fast around the rink. She spins and jumps and dances around. You think she's made of air or maybe magic. It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. 

She spends the day teaching you to stop with the side of your skates, and how to build speed. She explains how to spin on skates and you can't do it, you fall down lots but mama is smiling so big it lights up her whole face. 

Ilyushenka gets to start skating when he’s three. He won’t sit still even a little, no matter where anyone puts him. Your mama sighs when you get to the rink and he refuses to get in the sled. She sighs and rents the littlest skates you’ve ever seen, and straps them to his feet. You skate laps around the rink. You can cross your feet over each other and skate backwards and stop hard, even when you’re really fast. Papa said he can put you in hockey next year. 

You asked if you could do figure skating. Papa seemed angry. But then he looks at your mama. Smiles. 

“Because your mama is so good?” Papa asked, gentle and understanding. 

“Yes,” you tell him. He believes you. He nods. 

“Lyosha, you cannot be like your mama. Figure skating is not for boys like you,” Papa says, and that should be the end of it, but you were still curious at seven. 

“Why not?” you asked. 

“Because you are my son,” Papa told you. This time, in the voice where if you kept asking questions you’d only get spanked. You hate being spanked. 

“Yes, Papa.” 

“You will like hockey,” Papa said. 

On the ice, Ilyushenka is learning to skate by falling on his butt every few seconds. Each time, he stares at you, watches carefully, then stands up and tries again. By the time it's time to go, your little brother is clumsily skating. He stops mostly by sitting on the ice. But you show him how to position his feet so he can move further each step. He has your mama’s smile. It takes over his whole face. 

You notice the way mama gets sad around the time Ilyushenka starts hockey. Your little brother has so many emotions, it is exhausting. He is like mama that way. Also like her, and also like you, he is happiest on the ice. He is happy when he is racing, he is happy when he is chasing the puck,and  he is incandescent when he scores. Your team has practice first, and whenever you look to the stands, he and mama are laughing together. He must use up all her smiles, because when it's your turn to sit with her, she is watching your brother, sometimes smiling, but often just vacant. 

You decide it’s fine if she likes Ilushenka better. Papa likes you better. That’s fair enough. 

You realize mama is not only sad. One day, after school, you are playing your tetris game. You don’t have a Sega, but you think papa might go for it if both you and Ilyusha do well in school this year. The little handheld machine is very fun. And it’s completely yours. Papa gave it to you for your excellent school report. Ilyusha talked too much to get full marks. 

Mama was cooking when you and your brother came home. 

She comes to you as you are playing on the couch. Ilyusha is in his room. “Lyosha,” she says. “Give me the game.” 

You argue, because you are eleven. Because you were a silly boy who missed the way your mama’s hands were shaking and how the look in her eyes was just as scared as it was scary for you. You say that you did your chores and that you were good and her face falls. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, synok. The game is not safe.” 

“Mama, it’s just blocks. Papa gave me the batteries.” You’re whining. You’re too old to whine. 

“Please Lyosha, I need to see it.” Your mama might cry. If you make your mama cry, you don’t know what will happen. You don’t want to find out. You hand the game over. Mama slips the batteries out. You don’t know why she’s taking it from you. You haven’t even fought with Ilyusha this week. 

You’re still trying to figure it out. Mama doesn’t seem to see you anymore, now that she has what she wants. She puts the console on the counter. You think about asking for it back after dinner. 

And then mama smashes it with a cast iron pan. 

You yell. “Stop! Mama, please!” 

Mama brings the pan down multiple times. She holds the pan, breathing heavily. You think you might be crying. 

Finally, she turns to you. “Synok,” she says. “It was listening to us.” 

You don’t know what’s happening. You know you don’t want to be in the kitchen with mama and the pan and the broken game. 

“Yes, mama.” You say. It’s a safe thing to say. She nods. She goes back to making dinner. 

There isn’t any specific moment that teaches you that you are your fathers son. He shares you a sip of vodka on your tenth birthday. He informs you that if it wasn’t for him, your mama would be a whore. He spanks you as required. The last time, you don’t cry and the next day he praises you for it. You have to work very hard to be a good son. When you are twelve, he drops the bullshit and just smacks you across the face when you fuck up. The worst part of that is that he punishes mama the same way. The shame of sharing a remediation with her stays in your stomach much, much longer than the pain on your face. 

After Papa tells you that your mama would have been a whore if not for him, you take things less personally. Mama doesn’t smile at you, but she cries over potatoes. Mama spends a Saturday laying on the coach smoking, and you walk Ilyushka to practice. 

“Mama is sick,” you tell him. That’s what Papa said to you when he carried her to their room last night. You don’t think you’d fuck your wife when she’s sick, but hopefully your wife won’t cry so much. 

Ilyusha is at practice and Mama is screaming at you. You aren’t certain why. She cries when she yells. 

“Mama, does your leg hurt?” You ask. Often, not every time, but often, when you ask, Mama will remember that it does, and that papa got her medication that helps. You’re not certain if it's actually a painkiller, or if Papa got it from a doctor. But it calms Mama down and she sleeps, and she’s sweet with Ilyusha when she wakes up. 

It also means you will have to make dinner, which you are not very good at. You burn yourself when oil from the potatoes you fry splashes out and burns your wrist. Your brother comes home and eats hungrily. He runs mama a bath, and after several minutes of soft pleading, she shambles from her bedroom to the bathroom. She whispers something to your brother's curls, the ones that match her own. 

She does not eat your dinner. Your father sighs when he sees the kitchen. 

You play your last hockey game when you're fifteen. You’re far off the competitive path Ilyusha is on, but he’s only eleven, so he might fall off soon. He is much better than you. Sometimes you go to his games. He’s the best on his team, which is currently the best team in Moscow. 

“It’s shitty you aren’t going to play anymore. I’m going to play in the NHL, Lyosha,” he tells you. You’re walking home after a game with a hat trick from your baby brother. He’s carrying his heavy bag and you’re smoking, because you aren’t competitive and that’s fine. 

“Don’t let Papa hear that,” you say. Last time your brother talked about playing for the Americans, your father curtly informed him that the KHL is better in every regard. But Ilyusha is much worse at being Papa’s son. His face falls. Last weekend, Papa made it to Ilyusha’s game, where his team lost. His scathing critique was punctuated with, “you can’t be so stupid to get this wrong.” 

Your father hadn’t come to one of your games in years. 

“Whatever,” Ilyusha says. “When I go to America, where do you want to live?” 

“You don’t get to pick your team,” you tell him. 

“I know,” he says, annoyed. He’s eleven. “But I will have millions of American dollars and there’s no hockey in the summer. We could live in New York or California or anywhere.” He’s looking at you like he really believes it. Maybe he does. 

“Okay,” you say, because you’re not an asshole. “I would like to go to California.” 

“Maybe LA will sign me,” Ilyusha sighs. “We could learn to surf.” 

You let yourself imagine an American city that welcomes you. There’s no snow in California, just the ocean and an endless beach. Ancient trees. You let yourself pretend there is a space for you there. 

Ilyusha finds your mother’s body. He cries at the funeral. He cries all the other days too. Your father cries, once. Your brother is at practice, as always, and you can’t imagine papa knows you are home. He is drinking at his place at the table. He is staring at his hands. He is crying. You didn’t know he loved her enough for her to hurt him back. 

Ilyusha isn’t sleeping. It takes a few weeks before he snaps at your papa, who punches him in the stomach. He retches and the sound hurts. When he stumbles into your bed, hastily wiped tears on his cheeks, you raise your covers and tell him, “don’t be a fag about this.” 

He looks so much like mama. Unlike mama, he keeps choosing you. You can’t decide if he is trapped here with you, or if you are trapped here with him. It makes your jaw ache. 

Your papa has a new girlfriend. Her name is Polina. She is 21. She is a bad cook, but she is consistent. She cries a lot when your papa fucks her. You do your schoolwork, you smoke and drink with your friends, you do not go to the clubs, because papa will not overlook that no matter how good your grades are. You set your sights on the military. Papa’s service records will probably ease your way to the officer program at Moscow State. Eventually, you will have to leave home, probably Russia entirely, to make good money. But Ilyusha will be an adult by then. He will be his own man. Maybe then, your life will be your own. 

You are nineteen and papa likes your girlfriend. Lara comes to family dinners. You call your fathers new wife Polya now and Ilyusha calls her Polina. Lara is polite but warm to your papa. 

Papa tells Ilysuha he needs a haircut. Lara says the curls are handsome. 

When you get home from class early, Lara’s hands are buried in those same curls as your brother makes a meal of her cunt. The anger that erupts from your chest floods the room. You pull him off, and Lara is screaming, and you tell the whore to leave and not come back. You press your brother against the wall, hand on his fucking throat. He’s fighting back, but you are not boys anymore. This is a man's fight, and you will not lose to some shithead fifteen year old.

You pummel your fights into Ilya’s guts under he vomits. He’s about to be taller than you, but he isn’t anywhere near stronger. How fucking dare he try to take from you. He’s crying. You tell him how pathetic he looks. You kick him on the floor of his bedroom, and you return with the hair clippers. When you sit on his chest he stops fighting back. You buzz off his fucking curls. He stops crying, stops begging. He must understand, at some point. 

It is annoying when your papa is right, but your brother acts incapable of learning except through the most painful lessons. It probably helps his hockey. It certainly doesn’t help anywhere else. 

You leave him on the floor of his bedroom. You pour yourself a drink. You smoke two cigarettes back to back, lighting the first off the second. Polya eventually starts on dinner. 

“I didn’t touch the whore,” you say to her, because she does not even greet you. You will be very lonely in this house if Polya hates you too. 

“I know. I let her borrow a jacket to get home.” 

“I hope it wasn’t a nice one,” you say. 

When papa notices the haircut, he compliments your brother for finally being organized enough to manage his appearance on his own. 

Papa celebrates when you get into the officer program at Moscow State. You are his son. 

Papa celebrates when Ilyusha makes the National Junior team. Your brother is something else. 

Yulianna is a surprise. She is so beautiful. She is funny. She is charmed by roses you cannot really afford. She speaks French and English better than you. She is studying chemistry. She travels often for conferences. She is brilliant. 

For a few years, you think things will be different for you. Ilyusha actually might go professional. He is looking like he will make the NHL draft after all, given the camps and scouts he talks about as you eat Polya’s terrible food together. He may even go professional, even if your father rants about how Ilyusha is risking getting stuck on some farm team in some American town. You are good at the officer training program. You will get to be deployed – which will mean leaving Papa and Yulianna, but Papa has Polya and Yulianna has her sister and mother – and you will make so much money abroad, so much more than a police officer in Moscow. 

You have just been recruited to the military police when Yulianna miscarries. One day you trying to figure out how to tell your papa, what you’ll tell Ilyusha, how quickly you can get married, and then you are driving her to the hospital as you are certain she is bleeding out in your arms. 

She lives, but you are too focused on her to petition the hospital for the pile of limbs that could have been your son. Less than 22 weeks and he is medical waste, cremated before Yulianna is even conscious. It takes six months for either of you to be normal again. By then, you close the door on leaving Moscow. You are very well qualified to join the police, your service and records speak loudly, because you are your fathers son. 

Your colleagues share confiscated coke with you. It’s a shitty thing to have be yours, but Yulianna is pregnant again and you want a child with her so bad but if you are scared around her, you are going to become someone you hate. Vodka and cigarettes aren’t enough. The drugs are. 

Police work is exactly as you imagined it. No one gives you a thing, anything you need has to be taken. 

Ilya becomes the fucking NHL’s number one draft pick. Your papa flies out with him. Maybe it’s a celebration. Maybe it’s a warning. Ilya is going to make it out of this city. Ilya is going to do it wearing the cross their mother used to hold and stare at while she didn’t respond to you. Ilya is going to make millions, his signing balance alone is more than you will make in five years. 

He is so simple to take from. 

Chapter End Notes

thank you for reading if you are still here.

Death of the author and everything, but to get ahead of a few questions and to explain what I am doing here:

1) Why did I write from an abusers POV? Am I trying to make Alexei sympathetic?

In my experience, abusers are not only abusers. Alexei is many things to Ilya, and vice versa, part of which I tried to depict through the names they use for each other. Alexei is also a victim of his dysfunctional and abusive family. The fact that he perpetuates abuse is not a statement about this being inevitable. He experiences their parents very differently than Ilya, in ways that create different harm and outcomes. I thought it was very interesting to make Alexei someone who found some safety in aligning himself with Grigori. Obviously this doesn't work out for him or for Ilya, but children in abusive homes make all sort of rational to explain and understand their lives. The fact that aligning with Grigori ends up making him internalize an entitled, misogynistic, and violent attitude is fairly in line with canon (don't call Svetlana a whore at ur dad's funeral) and are much more potent factors in him perpetuating abuse than simply being a victim.

2) Why did I not depict the abuse? Am I implying Ilya DID imagine it?

My hope for this chapter to see the way violence shapes their understanding of power. I hope I have done enough to explore Alexei's relationship to power and violence that establishes he was more than capable of hurting Ilya in that way. As far as I am concerned, and more importantly, as far as Ilya is concerned, he is not imagining it. Most simply, I didn't want to write CSA from the abusers perspective. It's not a moral statement -- there are many stories that do depict rape from the rapists POV to very strong effect -- just about my own comfort. This is a pretty personal story for me. Secondly, from a storytelling perspective, it's important to me that the audience does not get the clarity that Ilya wants so desperately and cannot have. He is not real, but I am interested in uncertainty as a overreaching theme. The information we learn this chapter is about how Alexei could become someone abusive, as well as better understanding the context of Ilya's abuse.

3) Did Alexei kill himself or was it an accidental OD?

You could read it either way. This is the other piece of uncertainty I don't want give the audience more clarity on than Ilya. Either way, Alexei's story is of someone who is (tragically) unable to ever have real agency over his life, probably until his father dies. I don't imagine his life gets more stable or easier to navigate without a powerful father or financial support from his brother.

4) What is going on with Irina's mental health?

I've been pretty compelled by the folks on tumblr doing schizophrenic!Irina, which definitely influenced my potrayal of Irina. This fic does not contain enough to diagnose her. I wanted her to have "scary" mental health struggles because I love people who have "scary" mental health. It also narratively adds a lot to the dynamic between Alexei and Ilya for them to have different experiences of their mother and her mental health. All that said, Alexei is not a reliable narrator. By the time Alexei is starting to understand Irinas mental health, he is doing so through the lens of What Grigori Wants. I find Irina deeply sympathetic, but Alexei does not.

Alexei does not have adults who can provide consistency or safety, and he has (correctly) identified his father as the one with power, and is hoping to build himself safety in that relationship. This is bad for everyone, and has the worst consequences for Ilya, but simply aligning himself with his father is not an inherently evil choice for someone in this situation to make. Alexei absolutely does cross the line into objectively evil behaviour through his abuse of Ilya, (Not to mention whatever he is doing in the military and police force.) But my intention is to show a complex person who might have had some off ramps to be different, and is systematically denied them.

Anyways. None of that is required reading, but I spent like three weeks thinking about this guy and if you have opinions or thoughts, I have More To Say

Chapter 3: leave kinder words by the door OR Shane Hollander and the No Good Very Bad Evening

Chapter Notes

Yes, the chapter count went up! I should just assume that when I plan for 3 chapters, i will be writing 4.

Shane POV! Also, the most comfort so far!!

Shane hadn’t thought about Ilya’s brother since their wedding. A moment of anger at the sheer injustice that Ilya had no family of his own. A moment where Shane thought about the unimaginable amount of love in Ilya’s body, and how it had so little places to go for so long. How when he said he vows, he couldn’t stop thinking about how determined he was to build a forever home with his husband. 

Selfishly, Shane hadn’t even considered Alexei dying. Never crossed his mind. In comparison, last summer they sat and expanded his parents' wills to include Ilya. It wasn’t a fun week, they made plans and legal arrangements if Shane is unavailable and Ilya has to do it alone. They both know what Yuna and David Hollander want when they are dying. There’s a plan and they are both able to carry it out. It wasn’t easy to think about. One day, his parents are going to die, and he doesn’t know what that is going to do to him. Not for the first time, he was floored by how strong Ilya is. 

There was no Alexei plan. They didn’t discuss what obligations Ilya’s might have, because those belong to his wife, who Shane couldn’t have named at any point in their relationship. They didn’t discuss the fact that Ilya wouldn’t be returning to Russia. How his red Russian passport sits in their safe, in letters Shane can finally read. It’s the only document that puts Ilya’s name in Cyrillic first. They haven’t discussed Alexei in years. 

All of this to say, Shane is not qualified for whatever the fuck is happening to his husband. He’s had a fraction of the loss Ilya’s faced, and his dad’s parents passing was a fairly uncomplicated thing. His baachan and jiichan were more complicated. Shane had never been great at languages, but he used French daily, and his Japanese in halting sentences once a month over the phone. They lived long, complicated, but ultimately satisfying lives. If Shane wishes he has been different, well, that’s on him. 

What is happening to his husband is beyond what Shane knows. This is beyond any previous mental health breakdowns his husband has had. At his previous worst, Ilya’s eating and sleeping was affected, sure, but in a lethargic, empty sort of way. Ilya is frantic this time, nervous energy occasionally coming to a boil, but mostly his husband cannot relax, cannot calm down enough to eat meaningfully or rest. Shane is keeping him upright and somewhat functional with Nutella smoothies. 

Ilya is entitled to some bereavement leave, and Wiebe will give him whatever he needs, but Shane isn’t sure if anyone on earth knows what Ilya needs. He wouldn’t even be jealous if someone came up with something, not at this point. Not when his husband is stumbling like a ghost and flinching at shadows. 

It’s Sunday night, and Shane is home with his husband. Ilya showers and dresses in pajamas, which is odd, even in November. But he comes to bed. Progress. He lays on top of the covers, and he reaches out a hand for Shane’s and Shane waits for Ilya to take it. Ilya is still running his thumb in soothing circles on Shane’s hand when he falls asleep. 

When he wakes up, the bed is wet and cold. Ilya is long gone. The shower is on. It takes him a few seconds to put all the pieces together. Ilya had an accident. Should he call it an accident when it's a man in his thirties? Maybe it's a sex thing. Piss has appeared in their sex life, some having escaped Shane while being fucked. Ilya thought it was hot. Shane thought it was hot. Another time drunk in the shower, Shane watching naked relief on his husband's face as he pisses down the drain. Maybe this is an aborted attempt at a sex thing. Ilya will come out of the shower with a half sorry grin. Or. Maybe Ilya has bladder cancer. Or prostate cancer. Prostate cancer at their age has a high risk of being aggressive. He thinks they would have noticed a change in either of their prostates, but maybe this is the thing to notice. They could navigate prostate cancer. Shane doesn't want to have to navigate prostate cancer. A sex thing would be the easiest to navigate. 

Shane turns the bedside lamp on, because he isn’t dealing with the big light and piss in their bed. 

Shane almost never uses the laundry machines in their house, but he is capable of it. He strips the bed, including their waterproof topper, because they had to buy three mattresses in their first fourth months living together, and Shane can’t explain that to his fucking parents. He gives himself a moment to yawn, to listen to the shower still on, and then remakes the bed. He feels grateful for their housekeeper Jo for her organizational skills, because the sheets are right where it makes sense. 

The easy problem is fixed. Shane has had all the time he can justify to put his thoughts together. Now he has to find his husband. The door to the ensuite is still closed, but the shower is off. Anya has curled up in front of the door. 

“Good girl,” Shane mutters, patting her just above her tail where she likes scritches. He needs to do a good job of this, and there’s no plan. 

“Baby?” he calls against the door. He instantly regrets his most used petname, if Ilya will feel infantilized after pissing the bed. Especially because he is really doubting it is a sex thing.

“No,” Ilya says. His voice sounds hollow. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Shane says. “I just want to see that you’re okay. Then we can go to bed.” 

Then’s a very long silence. There’s a part of him that wants to open the door. He doesn’t want to have it where he can’t see Ilya’s face. 

“I can’t,” Ilya calls out. His voice low and sad. “I’m not okay and I can’t go to bed.” It’s shockingly blunt. Ilya can barely admit when his depression is kicking his ass, and that’s a recurring conversation between them. 

Last he checked, it was nearing four in the morning. Ilya sounds destroyed. Shane would do anything for them to be able to sleep. Not an option. Okay. What's the play, Hollander?

“How about the couch?” 

“In the den?” The den is the second, smaller living room, equipped with a very soft sectional. It’s where they play video games or host movies. It’s got fun LEDs that are hooked up to bluetooth. 

“Of course,” Shane tells his husband. He waits agonizing seconds for Ilya to come out of the bathroom. Ilya’s eyes are red. His hair is damp at the bottom, like it gets when he showers but doesn’t wash his hair. He’s just got a towel on. His husband changes in record time, his own joggers, boxer briefs and t-shirt, but one of Shane’s crewnecks on top. 

He does not look at Shane in the bedroom. Shane tries to keep his face even anyway. Ilya pads down to the den. Sits crisply on the edge of the couch. Anya climbs on and puts her head on his lap. 

“I’m sorry,” Ilya says, still without looking at him. “Thank you for cleaning up.” 

“I don’t care about cleaning up. I care about you.” It’s not his best work, but he’s not at his best. He wants to do a good job of this for Ilya, who is going through something beyond what Shane can understand. Ilya frowns. His hand in Anya’s fur stills. She wiggles her head for attention. Shane sits on the couch, a careful space between them. Ilya can close it if he wants. Shane hopes he wants to. 

“I don’t want you to have to,” Ilya says, testing out each word. 

“Baby–” he starts. 

“Don’t–” Ilya interrupts. They are left in silence. “I’m sorry,” his husband tries again. He still won’t look at Shane. 

“I want to hug you,” Shane says. Finally, Ilya looks. Clocks the space between them on the couch that Ilya didn’t automatically close. Ilya nods. Closes his eyes and pulls Shane onto his lap. Shane is finally able to tuck Ilya’s head under his own. Ilya’s arms wrap tightly around him. His breathing is uneven, choked. Shane can’t tell if he’s crying. 

He should say something. He isn’t going to try a pet name, he’s not going to suggest things are okay, no matter how desperately he wants them to be. 

“I’m here,” he tries. “I love you, and I’m here.” He repeats the words a few times, and then Ilya is certainly crying, because Shane can feel the front of his shirt getting wet, can feel the heaves of Ilya’s chest. It takes a long time for it to stop. The pain radiates off Ilya like heat from a fire. 

“Ilya. I’m really worried about you. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Ilya’s body shudders as he breathes, and Shane assumes that it’s a no. 

“I don’t know,” Ilya says. “I have these bad memories. Now, all of a sudden, they are big and trying to – I don’t know.” 

Shane wants to be gentler than he’s ever been. “Is it to do with your brother?” There’s another long silence. He’s pretty sure this is Alexei’s fault, but again, it’s unclear. 

“He was my brother,” his husband tells him. Begging him to understand something. Shane thinks back to 2017, the last time his husband was in Russia, talking about a man who is terrible when scared. Of Ilya shame faced when they talked finances after the wedding, the holes in places there should have been exponentially bigger savings where Ilya said, “Alexei.” They fought about it.  Shane pulled out the words “financial abuse,” from a Reddit thread.  Ilya said rude things about Shane not understanding a family needing him. Maybe Shane should have pushed then.

“Of course. But he hurt you,” Shane says, trying to put pieces together. It’s almost a question. Shane knows Ilya’s father was cruel to them all. But there’s so much more that he knows he doesn’t know. For an awful moment, he thinks Ilya isn’t telling him because he can’t. That there aren’t words for any of it, not in Russian, not in English, and Shane is destined to simply have to figure out the painful places through the way their bodies understand each other. He doesn’t want Ilya to have something painful in him that Shane can’t help carry. 

And then Ilya starts laughing. It’s dark and humourless, and it’s one of the scariest things Shane has ever heard. 

“Galina thinks he molested me,” Ilya says. 

Right. And now what the fuck does Shane say to that? 

He lands on: “What do you think?” 

“I wouldn’t have forgotten if it was real. He hit me. I hit back. We fought as kids and we hurt each other when we were older.” Ilya’s voice catches on something. “There’s no reason for him to do other things.” 

Okay. He doesn’t have time to process everything in there right now. The most important detail is that there’s not actually a denial in there. “Why does Galina think he molested you then?”

“Because I can’t stop thinking about the times I think he did.” Times, plural. Christ. Jesus. Someone. 

Shane is pretty sure his line is supposed to be, “I Believe You,” but not one button or infographic or Centaurs yearly consent lecture has ever prepared him for when the victim doesn’t believe themselves. For when Ilya doesn’t believe himself. 

“I keep remembering things,” Ilya says. 

“I’m so sorry,” Shane says. It feels like nothing. Worse than nothing. Like eating cardboard after a heavy skate. 

“You didn’t do anything. I am sorry you have to deal with this,” Ilya tells him.

“Hey. Shut up. You’re the bravest, strongest person I’ve ever known.” He certainly shouldn't be telling his victim husband to shut up, but his husband is Ilya fucking Rozanov, and his shoulders relax some fraction as he hears Shane tell him to shut up. Maybe it's fine. Maybe Shane can do this without making it worse. 

Ilya shakes his head, once, twice, violently. “Then why am I like this?” 

“Because something bad happened to you,” Shane says. That he is certain of.

“Maybe something bad happened,” Ilya tries to correct, the argument sounding weak. 

“I don’t think you’re making this up,” he says, just a touch more firmly. 

The words hang heavy between them. 

“It’s not what you think,” Ilya says. “He didn’t hurt me. He didn’t rape me.” He puts emphasis on it. Alexei did hurt his husband, the evidence is right in front of him. Whatever else he did, Shane thinks he should probably let Ilya name it. Shane can decide what he’ll call it in the privacy of his mind later. 

“Okay,” Shane tries. “Do you want to tell me? You don’t have to.” 

“I don’t know,” Ilya says. “I went to his bed. It was after mama died.--”

Twelve, then. Maybe thirteen. Is Alexei five years older? Four? Shane remembers being twelve. Too good for AA and playing travel in the summer and failing to finish horror movies at sleepovers and occasionally sitting in the passenger seat and drinking slushies with his dad. 

“-- If it happened. He just touched me. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything like what we do.” It sounds like an apology. It would not be enough to kill Alexei again. 

“Don’t say he just touched you. Ilya.” He sounds angry, he thinks. Demanding. Begging. 

There’s a long silence. Ilya ducks his head. Stills, his breathing is off. “I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is quiet. Shane never wants to hear it like this again. Doesn’t want to have to think about what made Ilya learn that tone. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Shane says. There’s tears in his eyes, which feels wrong, given that this should be about his fucking husband, who is barely speaking. 

Ilya takes some deep breaths. “Okay,” his husband says. Shane wants to make him say it. But Shane is never going to feel okay making Ilya do anything, possibly ever again. So instead he kisses Ilya’s forehead, as gently as he can. 

“You didn’t do anything worse,” he repeats, gentler. Ilya flinches under him. Maybe it’s too gentle. Maybe it’s too much. 

There’s still time before either of them have to get up for the day. Shane turns the TV on, flips over to that strange ocean documentary his husband adores. It washes their den in a flood a blue. He can feel Ilya’s breathing get steadier. The familiar music plays. The fish swim in easy, colourful schools. 

Best of all, he feels when Ilya’s head nestles into his shoulder, and his husband’s body relaxes into his own. Shane turns off his alarm so he can hold up the love of his life as long as he needs. 

Chapter End Notes

thank u for coming here with me <3

things are going to get easier for Ilya

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

Today is heavy. The sky is resigned to a flat shade of grey. Shane has practice. His alarm goes off, and Ilya is already awake. Ilya is on bereavement leave. He’s also too nauseated to be skating. His whole body is acting out alongside his brain. He struggled through a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios while Shane ate an actually substantial breakfast before skating. Shane held him for several long seconds, deliberately placing kisses all over his face before returning to his lips. This at least, they are still sharing. Then, his husband left and Anya watched from the window. Finally returned to him, delighted that her papa is home. At least someone is happy about it. 

He's loading the dishwasher and gets a text. 

Harris: Taking a personal day. Pine Grove? 

Harris is prone to doing so much overtime during the season he gets forced to take off personal days. Ilya is certain this one is for his benefit. Fortunately, Ilya loves Pine Grove. Anya loves Pine Grove. Chiron loves Pine Grove. Harris loves Pine Grove, especially since on the trails, no random dogs are allowed off leash. 

“How are you doing, buddy?” Harris has such a strong Ontario accent when he says buddy. 

The answer is bad. He let Harris order him an overly sweet latte, just to add to his daily energy. He’s still not eating enough. It’s stressing everyone out. It would stress him out if he had the energy to worry. Today he’s doing better at eating than usual, but he has the metabolism of a professional athlete, and so things are not promising. The fact is that he is physically sick with the things that are wrong in his brain, and he hates it. It’s embarrassing. His body carried him through the first three decades of his life, and now its falling apart over nothing. 

Well, maybe not nothing. 

“It is very annoying,” Ilya manages. “Everyone knows my whole family is dead. I cannot get out of anything ever again.” 

Harris, because he appreciates a dark joke more than anyone bothers to appreciate, laughs. 

“You can always make up Anya emergencies,” Harris suggests. 

Ilya pretends that it doesn’t shake him to his core to imagine anything happening to Anya. He gazes at her, happily walking into Chiron as they make their way through the forest. “Hm. Yes.” 

He should probably say more, but he would have to figure out what to say. All the words seem to trudge through thick, sticky snow on their way to his mouth. 

“Really though? How are you?” Harris asks. He sounds so genuine. He sounds worried in the way everyone is worried about him these days. Harris has a good family. Harris doesn't want to know. No one wants to hear the word for this thing. Ilya would rather not think it, if given a choice. 

If Harris knows about it, it will be like Shane knowing about it. He won’t be able to unknow it. He won’t ever look at Ilya again without being reminded of something Ilya still worries might not be true. Ilya doesn’t want to tell him, and Harris doesn’t want to know, even if Ilya is the only one of them who understands that. 

“Bad.” Ilya manages. Anything else he might have thought to say about it succumbs to the snow. 

Harris sighs. “Well, I'm happy you know that. You look like you're doing bad.”

“Am I not handsome?” He’s trying for a joke, he really is. 

“You just look like you're struggling.” It’s said with an endless amount of kindness. 

“Mh,” he mutters. 

A squirrel crosses the path and both dogs freeze, ready to pounce. The opportunity ends. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Harris asks. 

“It isn't a nice story,” Ilya replies. He thinks he wants to say No, but the word doesn’t fit in his mouth. 

“Ilya. I know I don't look tough, and no one punches me at my job but. I watched multiple of my hospital friends in the ICU growing up. My best gay friend killed himself when we were sixteen after his parents put him in conversion therapy. Whatever shit is in your head isn't going to break me.” Harris is probably being honest. His voice is wet. Ilya can’t help him. 

Ilya sighs. He lets them walk in silence a little longer. The forest's bugs are gone, but there is still plenty of noise. Anya and Chiron breathing. 

The words are heavy on his chest. Tangled. Clinical fragments from Galina and incognito browser searches. Terror without pain. Shame, more of it than he can fight through. There's probably somewhere on him someone could cut and it would all seep out. 

He couldn't tell Harris even if he wanted to. There's a part of him that wants to. He shakes his head anyways. 

“That's okay,” Harris says. “I'm here for you, and so are a lot of people. And if you ever want to try, I’ll listen.” 

Ilya didn't tell Shane when his mama's birthday was until the first year in Ottawa. Shane had wanted to set up the Christmas  tree on December second, and so they got in the SUV and went to the Christmas tree farm Shane had gone to as a child, and  picked out a tree together. The whole house smelled like pine. 

After they laid in bed, and he couldn't hold it in. 

“It's her birthday today,” he told his husband. Shane hadn't asked if Ilya had wanted to do something. 

“I'm glad we could spend it together,” Shane said simply.

This year, everything about his family is so close to the surface. 

“I want to tell you about her,” he says. There’s nothing else on the agenda today. Ilya’s knee is taped. Shane’s shoulder. They are getting old, for hockey players. 

“Anything,” Shane says. He probably thinks he means it too. But Ilya has things in his head that no one would agree to know if they actually knew what they were agreeing to.

“She was a figure skater,” he starts. “She came second at World Juniors when she was seventeen.” 

“Oh good, we already have something in common,” Shane says. 

Ilya laughs, despite himself. His husband gives a little grin. Proud and clever. Ilya loves his husband. 

Shane wants to ask another question. Ilya can see it on his face. Shane knows competitive sports, knows Russia’s reputation. He wants to ask what happened to a Junior Champion. Ilya thinks about the handful of photos of her in a pretty dress. He can’t remember her voice, but he knows she was so proud of those photos. 

He remembers being on the ice with her. Watching her twirl. Racing her. They are fuzzy and hard to place. He wants to be greedy with the little scraps. His husband is so generous with the warmth of his family. But Ilya only has a scrap of threadborn blanket, and he’s equally scared of the cold and that Shane might mistake it for garbage. 

“I don’t know why she stopped competing. She had a knee injury, it bothered her sometimes.” Ilya does not want to tell Shane about the painkillers, the way they kept her in bed all day. The way she seemed so weak, so helpless. How as her Ilyuska, he tried to take care of her. How he brushed her hair and learnt to braid it. 

Shane nods. “Her family was poor,” Ilya continues. He doesn’t think about Alexei calling her a whore, or about the funding for elite athletes. 

Shane nods again. “And then she married my father. Had Alexei.” He’s pretty sure Shane wants the numbers. “She was nineteen when she had Alexei, and twenty three when she had me.”  He’s done the math himself, stared at himself in the mirror at nineteen and twenty three, wondered what the fuck he would do in her position. Doesn’t think he would survive as long, surely. 

“She was young,” Shane says, finally, trying for neutral. “She would be fifty seven?”

“Fifty six, today,” Ilya replies. 

“Shit.” Shane swears. “I’m so sorry,” he says. 

“She was the best,” he says. It feels like he’s lying. He thinks of crawling into the closet with her, try to convince mama everything was okay. How Yuna has a story about finding Shane scared in a closet after his cousins watched a much too scary movie. Ilya didn't need that. 

He was so good at taking care of mama. And he can't tell his husband, because that isn't what parents are supposed to do. 

“I wish she had left him,” he says. He had been angry about it once. Mother's day, his rookie year. If she had left and taken Ilya and Alexei, she would be alive and happy and they would be a family. The thought was so cruel he started drinking warm shots of vodka in punishment. He puked during the skate the next morning.

“Me too,” Shane says. “You didn’t deserve that. Any of it.” 

Shane says it, a word that is so heavy in their home. That sits in Ilya’s throat and bleeds filth into his skin. Okay. He didn’t deserve it, sure, teenagers don’t deserve that. But he is not a teenager anymore. He is a man in his thirties who has been ignoring a mould problem in his chest for two decades. Okay. Fine. 

Another morning, nauseous, home alone. Maybe knowing this has broken him. He’s been sitting at the breakfast bar half heartedly eating a banana, and his husband comes home and Ilya flinches at his touch on his shoulder like a goddamn stereotype. 

“Bad day?” his husband asks. 

“It’s fine,” he replies. It’s not significantly worse, and yet it feels endless. 

Shane pauses, studying him within an arms reach. Sighs. Stares more. Shane wants to ask him something but doesn't can’t find the words. They don’t talk about it, they talk around it. Shane and Anya heard him to couch. 

“You said you lost your virginity at fourteen,” his husband manages. Ilya hasn’t managed to relax into the comfy leather. This statement from his husband doesn't help. 

“Are you upset I did not tell you the truth?” he asks. He doesn’t know what information Shane wants. Shane can have it, probably. Whatever disgusting horrors that are hiding in his brain are probably unspeakable, and the rest of him already belongs to the man whose feet are in his lap. 

“What? No. Harris keeps saying virginity isn’t real anyways,” Shane has to pivot to this. Interesting. 

He brings his face into a pout as he asks, “I don’t have your virginity?” 

“I did things with girls before you.” Shane starts. Ilya pouts more. “Of course you can have it.” Shane says, rolling his eyes. “It’s not real, but you can have it.” 

“You are too good to me,” he says. Shane was not scared. He had been nervous, but not scared. It had taken Ilya’s fucking breath away, the easy way Shane gave himself over so completely, so wrapped up in pleasure. How Shane wanted, so clearly, with every fucking cell in his perfect body.

The Shane in front of him takes him from the memory. “That’s not what I wanted to talk about. You started having sex when you were fourteen.” 

“Yes,” he confirms. It's good phrasing. Ilya started having sex at fourteen. What Alexei did before then wasn't something he was doing. It just happened, apparently. 

“Was it – Were they older than you?” Shane asks it carefully. Too carefully. It sets off alarm bells  under Ilya’s skin. 

Ilya isn’t sure if he knows what his husband is trying to get from this information. He doesn’t know what kind of gentleness these answers should have. 

“Some of them. Usually my age, maybe a year or two older. I fucked Alexei’s girlfriend, she was nineteen. A few friends of guys I played Juniors with, some of those girls were twenty. I was older then.” 

Shane is looking at him. There’s pity in his voice. Maybe Shane isn’t doing it on purpose. Maybe that’s just part of this. It would be better if he didn’t know. 

“It’s not like that.” He sighs. “I like having sex. You know this. Everyone knows this. It helped.” 

“If Luca had slept with a fifteen year old his first season, would you have been okay with that?” Shane asks. 

The thought makes him feel sick. 

“It would have been a crime,” Shane says. It's so gentle. It feels like poison. 

“I've done a lot of illegal things, Hollander,” he manages. “You have too, the underage drinking alone.” 

“Ilya. There’s a fucking difference,” Shane says. He sounds angry. That would be normal. 

“Because it’s sex?” Ilya barks back. For no reason. “The facetime sex we had last time I was in Russia was not exactly legal, Shane.” 

A lot of emotions flash across his husband's face. Shane pauses. It's not exactly comforting. His hands are shaking. 

“Why are you so angry?” Shane asks. His voice is soft and even. 

You are acting like he broke me, Ilya thinks. Didn't he? His brain suggests. The thought is repugnant. 

“Apparently my husband is mad that I was a slut,” Ilya throws back. 

Shane furrows his brow. “That's not what I'm saying, and you know it.”

“You think I am too stupid to understand you now too?” It’s mean. It’s unclear who he wants it to hurt more. 

His husband stares at him. Just looks, with his big beautiful eyes, a small shock of pain in them. Ilya did that. 

“Okay. Fine. We don’t have to talk about it,” Shane says. That fucking it. 

Despite the fact he has what he wants, Ilya hates the silence and stillness that falls over them. 

Whatever. Ilya grabs the current illicit pack of cigarettes and the lighter, and goes out to the back porch. The sun has set. Anya runs into the backyard, probably to do her business, but Ilya can’t think about it right now. 

Smoking helps. It hurts more than it used to. He’s out of practice. 

He finishes the second smoke and manages to not light a third. Mostly because he feels nauseated. The door opens and Shane steps onto the porch. 

“Hey,” his husband says. 

“I’m sorry,” Ilya tells him. He is sorry. He’s also a lot of other things, but nothing else he can name. Whatever he is, it’s like he’s trapped in one part of an iceberg, and the rest of him is vast and unknowable.

“I know. I’m sorry too,” Shane says easily. “I know things are hard for you.” 

“You ate?” Ilya asks. 

“Yeah. You hungry?”

“No,” Ilya doesn’t say it cruelly, but he lacks the energy to give it anything else. 

“Yeah. I made you pasta.”  His husband seems bothered by Ilya’s listlessness. 

Ilya shrugs. His beautiful husband made him pasta. Ilya is going to at least try to eat it. He follows Shane inside. He allows himself to be sat on the couch. Shane tucks the fuzziest blanket around him. Kisses him, even though he must reek with smoke. It would be a good reason to avoid kissing him, Ilya figures. His body feels disgusting. There’s rot under his skin, and it's not clear if it can be cut out. 

Shane brings him a bowl of pasta. His husband is not an incredible cook, but Ilya is happy. Food sticks in his throat, but its easier on the couch, Shane’s warm and safe bulk beside him. It takes him a long time, but he finishes the ambitious portion Shane set for him. 

“Thank you, baby,” Shane says. Clears the bowl. Comes back and sits on Ilya’s lap, chest to chest. 

“I love you,” Ilya tells him. The words feel insufficient, but Shane can hear his heartbeat like this, and hopefully knows just how instrumental he is in keeping it going. 

“I love you too,” Shane replies, easily. As if any of this is easy.

Shane sits on him until his body feels more settled. He stills feels a level of bad, but it’s the most tolerable it’s been in a while. When they stumble to bed, he feels satiated enough to fall asleep. Anya is a calming presence at his feet. His body can’t find any cracks in the peace, and is too tired to keep trying. 

He sleeps through the night. 

Chapter End Notes

it's unclear to me if this is a satisfying ending or not, but I need to stop looking at the draft

let me know <3