Chapter 1: Once in Russia, Now a Canadian

Shane’s phone rings. Ilya's not supposed to drive up to the cottage from his place in Ottowa until tomorrow, and they had just talked an hour ago. He wonders what this could be about.

“Hi.”

“Hello. I have news.”

“Oh, what’s the news?”

“Citizenship. Letter just came in. It says approved.”

Shane clutches his phone, as if squeezing it was equivalent to squeezing Ilya into a tight hug.

“Ilya, that’s amazing. I knew you could do it.”

“Yes, I did it, and it’s done. We celebrate yes? You’ll stock more vodka?”

“Obviously, there’s vodka, you practically can’t live without it. We still have a bottle from last weekend.”

“That’s last weekend. I want new vodka. Fresh vodka. Canadian citizen vodka.”

Ilya wants Canadian vodka? Shane did not know what to make of this. Just the other week Ilya got into a rant about what brands were best and how they were all Russian and no other country could possibly come near making good vodka like Russia.

“You want Canadian vodka? Ilya-”

“No no no. Shane-ichtka. No. That’s not what I meant. Of course I don’t. Gross. Can Canadians even make this? I mean me, I want to drink with the lips of a new man from new vodka. Boring Canadian ex-Russian man.”

“This sounds like an insult.”

“No, no, it’s not. I want to be boring. I love boring.”

“Sure…”

“No I mean it. You are boring. I love you. So I love boring.”

Shane can’t help but smile. Even when Ilya’s obviously trying to make fun of him, he is still being sweet.

“I love you too.”

“Shut up. I see you tomorrow. Kisses, love you. Bye.”

“Bye. Oh wait!”

“What is it?”

“My parents, can I tell them? I mean, that you got your citizenship. I’m sure they’d love to celebrate you-”

“Tell them. We have dinner. Bye.”

Shane texts his parents the news. They reply immediately, telling Shane to send Ilya their congrats and they’ll prep dinner for tomorrow. It’s sweet, how fast they’ve accepted Ilya as part of the family, how much they’ve supported both of them through this life transition. It reminds Shane how loved he is, and how many people truly have his back. People that matter.

Ilya drives into the Hollander family’s driveway, with his nice new Canadian license-plate on his nice new car. Shane had texted him to drive straight over to his parents, rather than the cottage, so they could all have dinner and celebrate. He leaves the driver’s seat and swings the car door closed with a thud. As he approaches the house, a familiar smell comes over him. It's like he's not in Canada at all, but across the ocean on a cold winter day, his mama by the stove with a ladle in her hand, stirring and humming a lullaby.

He makes his way to the entrance. He doesn’t have to knock, Shane is already at the doorway, embracing him, connecting their lips and holding him close. Being awashed with love distracts Ilya for a moment, from the memories. But the smell is overwhelming.

They walk in the door, to David and Yuna making some final preps. David, setting the table, Yuna over the stove with a ladle, stirring. The resemblance to his memory of mama makes him dizzy.

“Is that…?”

Yuna smiles at him. She looks nothing like his mama. She doesn’t. And still his chest hurts.

“It’s borscht! We thought it’d be a nice way to celebrate you. I hope we made it right, there were so many steps! I’ve never made something like this before.”

“I’m sure I will love it.” Ilya says softly.

Ilya and Shane offer to help, but Yuna and David gently but firmly tell them to relax and take a seat. Ilya and Shane sit at the table, next to each other, so they can touch knees and hold hands until it’s time to eat. Yuna and David help eachother transfer the soup from pot to bowls. It’s all so domestic, and tender. And the smell! Ilya squeezes Shane’s hand, and leans on his shoulder, so Shane could pet him. They are like this until a bowl full of that red goodness is in front of them, and Yuna and David sit down, and it is time to eat.

“Is there sour cream?” Ilya asks.

“Is there what?” Shane replies.

“Oh! The recipe did say something about that. I’m sorry. I don’t think we have any.” Yuna says.

“Is ok.”

“Does it usually come with sour cream?” David asks.

“Sometimes,” Ilya replies. “Not always. Optional.”

“Interesting,” says David. “Haven’t heard of that before.”

Yuna looks guilty. “Oh, I should’ve-”

“No, it’s ok. Promise. It smells great. I love borscht. I can’t wait to eat.”

He dips his spoon into the bowl and scoops up some of the red liquid. He brings it to his lips.

It doesn’t taste at all the same, but it doesn’t matter. He is sent back to his 11 year old self, his mother and the ladle, a wooden table, a bowl of borscht, a scoop of sour cream…

He sinks into his memories and eats. Yuna and Shane start talking about next season, David contributing here and there, before the topic of citizenship is broached.

“So Ilya,” David starts. All of a sudden Russia vanishes, his mother vanishes, and Ilya is here, with this family in Canada, miles away from home, eating foreign borscht.

“How does it feel being officially Canadian?”

Ilya looks at David, then Yuna, then Shane, then stares at his bowl, like it would hold all the answers to the internal turmoil he was feeling at this moment.

Something in him breaks, like an overfilled dam, and he melts, like ice on a hot day. The tears first roll slowly down Ilya’s cheeks before he covers his hands with his face, and lets the grief overtake him.

“Hey, hey baby. What’s wrong?” Shane looks at his boyfriend worriedly and gently pries Ilya’s hands away from his face. Shane caresses Ilya’s cheeks and turns his tender tear-filled face away from the bowl so Shane can look into Ilya’s eyes. It scares Ilya, to be seen by eyes filled with so much love.

“Sorry,” Ilya’s voice cracks. Shane embraces him and Ilya cries on his shoulder.

“Don’t be,” Shane says tenderly, playing with the threads of Ilya’s curls.

It takes a minute, but the tears eventually stop, and Ilya’s breath softens.

“Sorry,” He says again. He pulls away and turns back to his soup, and starts eating again. Shane rubs his back for a while. The table is quiet.

“Soup that good, huh?” David pipes up.

Ilya laughs, “Yeah, it’s very good. Thank you.”

“You are very welcome,” Yuna replies.

The table returns to some semblance of normalcy. The conversations continue and the bowls empty. David and Shane volunteer to clear the dishes. Yuna invites Ilya to the living room to watch TV and share a couple shots of vodka.

The sports channel is surprisingly boring at 8pm on a Friday night. Golf. Yuna hands him a shot. They sit in silence for a bit, with the sounds of golf pucks and dishwashing, before Yuna excuses herself and brings back from the kitchen a dessert box and two plates.

“I got these for you,” says Yuna. “It’s from a Turkish bakery nearby,” Yuna opens the box that holds an assortment of baklava. Ilya takes one.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Yuna asks, as the sweetness of the pastry hits Ilya’s tongue. It’s like this household is swallowing him whole with all this consideration and love.

“I’m not sure,” Ilya says. He takes a moment.

“My mother is an immigrant,” Yuna shares. “She never complained when I was a kid, but I know she worked hard to make sure we had a life here. And when she’d talk about Japan, I could tell she had a lot of fond memories, and she missed it.”

“I don’t have many…how is it you said, fond memories,” Ilya says. “But I miss it. And I miss things that aren’t there anymore.” Like his mother, and her borscht.

“It must feel difficult to know one day you won’t come back.”

Ilya considers this.

“I thought it wouldn’t be. I hate Russia. I hate it, and everything there. But I am attached. It is hard for me to say. In English.”

Ilya thinks fondly of the last time he was in Russia, on the phone with Shane, able to share his feelings in his mother tongue, and even if Shane didn’t understand, it felt good, for once, to feel listened to and cared for.

David and Shane enter the room, the dishes washed and put away. David takes a seat next to Yuna, and Shane embraces Ilya on the couch. They all sit in silence for a bit, allowing Ilya's thoughts to wander. Ilya takes another piece of baklava. After a minute, Yuna speaks up again.

“What if you wrote yourself a letter? When I have strong feelings, and feel like no one can understand me, I like to write to myself, get everything on the page. You could write to yourself.”

This idea confused Ilya. Writing to yourself seemed like a silly thing to do.

“And what would I do with this? This letter?”

“Well…I like to bury mine. Somewhere in the woods, where no one would find it. It’s like giving my feelings back to the Earth.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but this sounds stupid. Earth cannot read. Or take feelings”

“Ilya,” Shane says sternly, and gives him a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t call my mother stupid.”

“Sorry. I will think about it.”

“Good,” Yuna gets up and takes the pastry box, closes it, and hands it to Ilya. “You should take this back to the cottage with you. And I can pack up some leftover borscht, if you like.”

“Yeah it’s late. We should probably get going. Let’s take my car. We can pick up yours some other time,” Shane gives Ilya another kiss on the cheek. “That’s fine mum, right?”

“Fine with me,” David replied. Yuna gives a nod and heads to the kitchen to pack up the soup in a container.

David stands up and follows her. “I’ll go help your mother.”

Shane and Ilya sit in silence for a moment, Ilya holding the pastry box, Shane holding Ilya.

“Did you have a good conversation with my mom?”

“Yes,” Ilya turns his head towards Shane so they can kiss. The kisses are soft and honey sweet. Ilya breaks away before he starts melting again. Plus, it would be rude to get a hard-on on the family couch. “She was very helpful.”

Chapter 2: The letter

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes I think about the language I'll never get to live in again. The loneliness I feel is not understood. By you, nor anyone else.

It’s been wonderful, here in Canada. The cold in winter is not so rough. The people are not so jaded, and hard, and uncaring. I still have to hide things, but not everything, and not so tightly to my heart.

I love Shane, but I still miss it. It is trading a whole culture, and a whole life for a boy. A boy I love. I think about him constantly, and it still feels like I’m yearning for him, even though our hearts are together and we’re building this life. It’s like I don’t trust this is real. That I have him. He is mine, and I am his.

If I went back in time and told myself nine years ago that I would dedicate myself to this boring Canadian hockey player, the man nine years ago would laugh and tell me to go fuck myself. That me was comfortable in the hurting. He knew how to have fun, with boys, and with girls, and didn’t know there was more to these things, that there was a deepness that had yet to be felt.

Now I am hurting in a different way. I have left behind my old self, and with it my obligations, my candor, my way of going about the world. I was like a robot, doing hockey and pleasing my dad and kissing girls at clubs and drowning it all out with vodka and doing it all over again, every day for years. Without him, without the robot who could just do it all, I am left with the deepness I’ve tried to drown out. The sadness that seeps under my skin. Is it possible to be so in love, and yet feel so lonely?

It is not Shane that makes me feel this way. It is the rest of the world. Shane has shown me care. His parents show me care. And it is being shown how much I am loved, how much I am cared for, that makes it all hurt. How much I was not cared for before. How much I was not loved. I want to be happy, but I can not stop feeling this suffering of the me who could not have this, the me that did not know love and care would ever enter his life like this.

I once shared this with Shane’s mother, Yuna, a time at dinner, how I have been feeling. It was when I got my Canadian citizenship approved. Yuna learned how to make borscht for me to celebrate, and brought baklava from a local Turkish bakery. But instead of being happy, I was sad, and began to cry. Yuna pulled me aside and she let me share with her my grief.

She told me I should write this all in a letter, and bury it. I told her that sounded stupid, but I am doing it anyway. Maybe if I give these things to the Earth, I will be able to let it go.

To the me who didn’t know love, I love you, I am sorry. I am letting you go.

-Ilya Rozanov

Chapter End Notes

Ilya's letter is actually the first thing I wrote. The rest came after.

End Notes

I've noticed a lot of Russian-speakers tend to give their lovers, friends and family's pet names by adding a little -ichka to the end of names. So my headcanon is Ilya sometimes calls Shane "Shane-itchka" I don't really know how to anglicize it well "Shanitchka? Shaneichka?" so if any Russian-speakers have suggestions around that please type in the comments. Ilya's relationship with Russian and English really moved me in the show. I am a second gen who never learned my mother's language, and I was constantly exposed to Russian without ever understanding it. Ilya's case is different, obviously, but his loneliness and difficulty to express himself in certain spaces due to a language barrier was very relatable. I wanted to convey some of that, and also how it must feel to really settle in a new country, and the grief that may come with it. And also, all that mushy chosen family stuff, and the joy and grief that comes with being (truly) loved! Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!