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Ilya Rozanov misses his mother.

This was an inherent fact to him, as inherent as I am Russian, or I am a professional hockey player, or I love Shane Hollander. I miss my mother was something that had been true since the moment he found her lifeless body in her bed when he was twelve years old, and it was something that would always be true until Ilya Rozanov himself ceased to exist. Even then, it would probably persist somewhere in the ether. Ilya is unlucky like that.

In other, more prominent ways (depending on who is asked), Ilya is also incredibly lucky. He has a boyfriend. He plays on a team with one player more accepting and compassionate than the next. He has a real, loving family, complete with home-cooked meals, a father who cares about his successes more than his failures, and a mother who is actually alive—

Ilya shovels more pasta into his mouth to stop that train of thought from derailing. Pasta, he thinks, could solve most of his problems. And it has. It does. A good meal was usually enough to momentarily satiate his increasingly frequent depressive thoughts.

Except he still misses his mother.

“Ilya, honey?”

Ilya’s eyes shift up from his plate to meet those of his mother-in-law, furrowed in concern. A quick once-over of her face tells Ilya that this must not be the first time she’s tried to get his attention. Drisnya. Shit. “Hmm? Sorry,” Ilya apologizes, absently covering his mouth with a hand as he speaks. Ilya may be a lot of things, but at least he has manners. “Lost in thought.” Understatement of the century. He isn’t just lost; he’s twelve miles deep in the mental Hoia-Baciu.

Yuna shakes her head slightly, a small smile easing the tension in her face. Whether it was for his benefit or hers, Ilya didn’t know. “That’s okay,” she says, and really, Ilya should do better than worry this woman, who has done enough worrying already to last a thousand lifetimes. She and Shane are similar in that way. Always a crease in between the eyebrows, always a brain whirring through every worst-case scenario.“I was just asking if you wanted me to boil more pasta. That way, you could take some back home with you. We have more than enough sauce.”

Always so selfless.

Ilya offers her his own smile. This time, it’s more for her than for himself. “Ah, no. Is okay,” he says. He takes a sip of his wine, the dryness of it doing nothing to wet his throat. “I still have leftovers from last weekend. I would not want your cooking to go to waste.” This, in fact, was a lie; within two days, Ilya had all but devoured the extra chicken parmesan he had taken home from dinner at the Hollanders’ the weekend before. How could he not have? Despite his empty fridge, though, he doesn’t want Yuna doing more for him than she already has. He isn’t even her son.

“That surprises me,” David jokes. He leans back in his chair, giving Ilya a grin that almost always hits like a check to the boards. It reminds Ilya time and time again how little he saw his own father’s teeth in any position other than bared in anger. Yet, he could point out in David’s smile every overlap and minor chip, no doubt from his own hockey days. “I told Yuna after you left that we should’ve sent you home with more. Would’ve thought for sure that it’d be gone before you even got back.”

At this, Ilya can’t help the chuckle that escapes him. “Yes, well. I am trying to, ah… give myself only a small amount. So it lasts longer.”

“Ration?” Yuna offers.

“Da. Ration.” The only people Ilya doesn’t mind filling in the gaps in his English are the Hollanders, he thinks.

“Well,” Yuna starts, standing and beginning to clear their plates from the table. As Ilya begins to rise from his chair, Yuna gives him a stern look that he’s come to learn as sit your ass down. He immediately obliges. He’s also learning that the only people he doesn’t mind not saying no to are the Hollanders, as well. “I hope you know that you never have to worry about that with us, Ilya. We’ll always have more than enough for you.”

As she passes his chair—what’s now been established as his chair, when they eat meals together—she reaches out her free hand and places it on his shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze before continuing into the kitchen.

And really, how could Ilya miss his mother so much when Yuna Hollander is right here? When he’ll have triple the amount of time with his boyfriend’s mother than he’ll ever have had with his own?

And yet.

“Why don’t we just go, then?” Shane asks one night while they’re on FaceTime, as if he isn’t opening up literal Pandora’s box— except this box is labeled in Cyrillic and reads, Ne trogay, blyat. Do not fucking touch.

It’s a week after his latest dinner with whom Ilya affectionately dubs The Cool Hollanders, much to the chagrin of Shane. They’re in the midst of their pre-season training, meaning that their time together mostly consists of video calls that last hours at a time, both being too exhausted and booked to make the late-night, two-hour drive. 

Tonight, they cooked with their phones propped up, Shane’s against his smoothie blender and Ilya’s against a rogue, half-empty bottle of vodka. Shane criticized the amount of melted butter Ilya poured on top of his vegetables, and Ilya poked fun at Shane’s bland meal of salmon and brown rice. Flirting while they ate led to moaning each other’s names while they touched themselves, wishing it were the other’s hand. All in all, it was a perfect way to spend his night, Ilya thought. The only way it could have been better is if Shane were here next to him in person.

Now, they lie on their respective couches, Ilya in Ottawa and Shane in Montreal. Ilya had fucked up and let slip that his mother’s been on his mind lately. And well, with the foundation and spending so much time with Yuna, it’s only natural, he rationalizes. But then he mentioned maybe visiting his mother’s grave, one last time before he rids himself of Russia for good (and dammit, hadn’t he already done that when his father died?), and Shane had replied in his characteristically naive yet blindly optimistic way despite the anxiety that tends to swallow him whole.

“It is not that simple,” is all Ilya can bring himself to reply. He doesn’t say, my brother hates me, and I hate him, and the thought of being in the same city as him again makes me ill, or I’m not sure I could handle you meeting my mother for the first time while she’s six feet under dirt and nothing but bones. So, instead, he says it’s not simple, which it’s not, and, “I think you have forgotten that Russia is not exactly welcoming of our relationship, moy kholodil'nik.” 

To this, Shane rolls his eyes, the gesture softened by the fact that it occurs behind the glasses that Ilya loves so much, and that his nose scrunches as he thinks of the petname translation. “Refrigerator?” he asks, and Ilya nods. “And I haven’t forgotten, asshole. But Russia doesn’t know about our relationship. Or that either of us, uh…” He sputters and pauses, as if trying to figure out how to complete that thought eloquently. Good thing Ilya has never given two shits about eloquence.

“Suck cock?” Ilya finishes for him with a crooked smirk, just to see how pretty Shane’s cheeks flush at the crassness.

“Well, yeah,” Shane agrees lamely. He pushes his glasses up with a finger, his tell for when his mind is working overtime. “And it’s not like people don’t know we’re friends now. Publicly. I mean, we have a whole fucking charity together. We run a summer camp.”

“That does not explain why I would be bringing you to Russia.”

“Maybe I asked you to,” Shane suggests, his eyes darting back and forth like the idea itself is materializing before his eyes. “Yeah,” he continues, nodding a little, convincing himself of what he’s about to say next. “Maybe I asked you to, and—”

“Or I asked you.”

“That would make no sense in this scenario,” Shane huffs. Ilya continues to smirk, and one glance at his face from Shane earns him another eye roll. “Just— shut up and let me finish, Rozanov.”

Ilya nods, still smiling because how could he not when this man is his, and gestures his hand to his phone, like he’s saying to Shane, you have the floor. He refrains from saying I always let you finish, though it’s on the tip of his tongue in response to Shane’s word choice. And people dare to say that he doesn’t have self-control.

“Anyway.” Shane takes a deep breath, and Ilya watches the way his chest rises and falls with the effort. “Maybe I asked you to take me to Russia to, you know. See your mother. I mean, I’m a part of this foundation with you. It’s named after her. It wouldn’t be so crazy to think that I want to pay my respects, right? It wouldn’t even be a lie.”

Ilya, once again, is struck by the force of how much he loves Shane and by how much his mother would adore the man he gets to call his. To think that Shane—his Shane, his level-headed, private, nonconfrontational Shane—would be willing to face media scrutiny and homophobic Russia all for the sake of sitting at Ilya’s mother’s dismal grave… 

Just to pay his respects.

Ilya always wondered how much of his mother’s fate lay in his own. If not sleeping pills, then Shane Hollander, he figures, is going to be his cause of death. It will either be by his own hand or by the hand of the love of his life.

“What wouldn’t?” Ilya asks regardless. Sometimes Ilya asks questions just to hear Shane tell him the answer.

“Wanting to pay my respects,” Shane says, looking away from the camera like the admission is embarrassing for some reason. Ilya can’t think of anything more opposite. “She— she’s part of the reason you are the way you are today. For better or for worse. And I—” Shane takes another deep breath. On the exhale, he meets Ilya’s gaze again through the screen. “Even if you lost her when you were young, she still raised you. She’s still a part of you and means so much to you. I want… I want to meet the woman who made the man I love. Even if it’s just the memory of her.”

Ilya stares at Shane, and he holds this look for long enough that he can see Shane shifting uncomfortably, as if he said something wrong. As if he could ever scare Ilya off with his honesty.

It’s a few more moments until Ilya nods. “Okay,” he says, his heart impossibly full.

It’s all he has to say; Shane immediately understands. He always understands. A smile begins to creep into the edges of his lips, undoing the slight frown that formed during Ilya’s silence. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Ilya inhales, counts to four, exhales. “I’ll start looking at flights.”

Moscow is a massive city. Despite this, Ilya thinks there is little he can do to obscure his presence within its walls.

Any hotel staff would recognize his name in the reservation and his face in the lobby. The accompaniment of Shane fucking Hollander would do nothing to lessen the publicity. With the loss of his apartment to his ungrateful brother, Ilya doesn’t even have his own residency to take cover in if need be. There’s no place he wouldn’t feel the prying eyes of his home country through every closed door and drawn curtain.

Except.

“Naskol'ko veroyatno, chto vy zakhotite provesti nedelyu v Rossii etim letom?” Ilya asks Svetlana over the phone one night, as he kicks his messily strewn clothes on the floor into a more organized pile in a corner before Shane comes over. He’ll cover it with a blanket or something, or throw the whole thing into his closet for later. How likely is it you'd want to spend a week in Russia this summer? At the very least, Sveta’s just another cover for bringing Shane to Moscow. He promised his Russian friend that he’d introduce her to the NHL’s golden boy, disregarding the fact that Sveta permanently resides in Boston and that she and Shane have met multiple times. 

Stevlana hums on the other end, and Ilya can picture her examining her nails or twisting one of her curls. “Pokhozhe, vy sobirayetes' rasskazat' mne, naskol'ko eto veroyatno,” she says. This sounds like you're about to tell me how likely it is. And dammit, Sveta, for being too fucking perceptive.

Ilya sighs, resigning himself to being caught. “My s Sheynom…” He runs a hand through his hair, already anticipating the lecture that Svetlana is undoubtedly brewing. If there’s anything that she and Shane bond over, it’s their lectures. “My s Sheynom planiruyem poyekhat'. Navestit' moyu mamu.” Shane and I are planning on going. To visit my mother.

While Ilya braces himself for the onslaught of reasons why this is a bad idea—and he’s probably thought of every single one of them himself—he’s greeted with nothing. Instead, he hears Svetlana take her own deep breath and some rustling as she shifts her position on her bed. Ilya’s about to ask if she’s suddenly gone mute or even deaf when she says, “Khorosho.”

Ilya blinks, his rearranging of his room’s mess momentarily paused. A T-shirt freezes a foot away from his pile. “Khorosho?” Ilya repeats, disbelieving. Okay? “Eto vso, chto tebe nuzhno skazat', khorosho? Net, ‘Ilyushka, o chom ty dumayesh? Ilyushka, Sheyn chto, vysosal vse tvoi mozgovyye kletki iz tvoyego chlena?’” He pauses again, waiting for Svetlana to interrupt with a comment about the inaccuracies of his mocking tone. No, ‘Ilyushka, what are you thinking? Ilyushka, has Shane sucked all your brain cells out of your dick?’ He presses, almost desperately, “Prosto, khorosho?” 

Just, okay? Somehow, he finds the word offensive. 

As if a deep, subconscious part of him hadn’t been hoping that she would attempt to talk him out of this.

He’s about to voice his offense, if only to give his brain something else to latch onto, when Svetlana answers, “Da, vso v poryadke.” Ilya thinks she sounds exasperated, like she’s talking to a child. Yes, just okay. She often adopts that sort of tone with him, he figures. He opens his mouth to argue—and, okay, maybe the patronizing tone is warranted when he acts like a child—but then she continues, “Il'ya, ty dazhe ne svodil menya na mogilu svoyey materi so dnya pokhoron.”

And… oh.

Ilya, you haven't even taken me to your mother's grave since the day of the funeral.

Her tone isn’t accusatory; Ilya knows her well enough, and for long enough, to know this. No, it’s… impartial. Ilya could imagine the same tone like she were commenting on the weather or the score of a game in another division. He knows what she’s saying to him, though: he loves Shane more than he hates to grieve his mother.

There isn’t much Ilya can say to this, not without bearing the fleshy innards of his soul to Svetlana on a Tuesday night. So he opts for, “Ya znayu.” I know.

If Svetlana were here, Ilya knows the simple omission would be enough to make her smile.

Ottawa’s 4-1 loss against Toronto prevents them from qualifying for the playoffs, something that Ilya cannot find it in himself to act surprised about. What he can act surprised about, though, is Montreal losing 5-4 in the fifth game of their playoff series against Detroit, officially barring them from the Cup this season.

Dating Shane teaches Ilya all about mutual inclusivity: he can be both disappointed at his boyfriend’s end of the season and ecstatic that their summer together starts a few weeks early.

The prospect of packing for their trip to Russia, however, pops this elation like a fucking balloon.

“Is it cold in Moscow?” Shane asks for probably the tenth time in a span of three days, as he shoves another long-sleeved shirt into his suitcase. Instead of at the cottage, where Ilya would love to be skinny dipping in the lake and admiring the way that water droplets fall from Shane’s jaw onto his chest, they’re at Shane’s apartment in Montreal. Ilya is sprawled on Shane’s bed in a way that would be successfully seductive if Shane weren’t so focused on the logistics of rolling his clothes into neat little cylinders while packing.

“Is Russia,” Ilya says in lieu of an actual answer, like that explains everything. Shane shoots him a glare that is more adorable than intimidating, to which Ilya half shrugs instead of pulling his boyfriend on top of him to fuck him senseless. “You have been there before, no? Or are we… conventionally forgetting about Canada’s silver medal?”

Shane throws a pair of bunched-up socks at Ilya.

“It’s conveniently. And I was there in winter, asshole,” Shane says, dodging the socks when Ilya tosses them back his way. He bends down to pick them up, purposefully aiming his ass away from Ilya. As if Ilya wouldn’t notice or as if that action would keep him from misbehaving. “How would I know if the summers there are hot or not? The way you talk about it, you’d think it’s constantly covered in a sheet of ice.”

“No, most of the ice is from the Russians’ personalities,” Ilya says, earning a chuckle from Shane that Ilya can’t help but feel proud of. “Temperature is warm in the summer. Not much different than here. Maybe a little cooler. It was always nice after the harsh winter.”

“Huh,” Shane muses as he rolls up another pair of pants for his suitcase, but the slight quirk of his lip tells Ilya he has a smartass comment bubbling up. “I thought you were a hard-ass Russian. Didn’t need the warm weather.” Ah. There it is.

“And I thought you were nice Canadian boy who wouldn’t like it so rough up the ass, but,” Ilya immediately retorts with a laissez-faire quirk of his arms, “I guess we were both wrong.” 

Shane shakes his head a little in mock disappointment, a flush creeping up into his neck and face, and Ilya considers this a greater victory than any Stanley Cup win. They fall into a comfortable silence then, Shane rolling up seemingly every clothing item he might possibly need during a week’s trip, and Ilya watching him with a lovestruck gaze he would never deny.

After several minutes, Shane’s voice is barely above a murmur when he asks, “Are you nervous?”

Ilya doesn’t have to ask him what about; their couple’s telepathy has been on a steady incline ever since confessing their love a couple of summers ago. Still, the question gives him pause.

“I think yes,” Ilya answers eventually, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. In the past, Ilya would have deflected with silence or an insensitive joke about Russians not getting nervous, or even feeling much besides anger and lust. Now, in a committed relationship and aware of his unstable emotions more than ever, he feels like he owes his boyfriend the honesty. After all, finally confronting honesty is why they’re even able to love each other to begin with. He confesses, “I am nervous about you seeing my city. And my mother’s grave. I am also nervous about how I might feel when we are there, visiting her. It has been a while, and I am not sure if you being there will make it better or worse. I am thinking maybe both. Probably both.” He inhales deeply, focusing his attention on the calluses on his hands. “I want to see my niece, but she is still so young, so there is no way for me to get time with her without my brother. I am also nervous about this probably being the last time I visit my mother. I—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head slightly, trying to quell the bundle of tears that has gathered in his eyes. “Is stupid.”

The bed dips as Shane settles next to Ilya, and one of Ilya’s hands ends up in Shane’s own. Their shoulders touch as Shane leans into him, and the contact alone is enough to convince Ilya to continue.

“It’s not stupid,” Shane amends softly, his free hand coming up to gently grab at Ilya’s chin, forcing his head up and their eyes to meet. “Whatever it is, Ilya, it’s not stupid. What are you thinking?”

Ilya’s eyes scan the freckles that dust Shane’s cheeks, the freckles that Ilya has already spent countless hours studying, counting, and mesmerizing. He sees the universe there, an infinite number of constellations and possibilities, and when he meets Shane’s eyes again, he sees that there, as well. He’s heard that everybody contains the remnants of exploded stars; it was in some science documentary he watched with Shane months ago, but he’d rather believe that every dust particle and star fragment conjoined simply to produce the man in front of him. Shane is the sun, and Ilya is the moon, whose light solely depends on that of his lover.

Without Shane, there is no Ilya.

“I am thinking…” Ilya begins, and Shane’s thumb brushes over Ilya’s cheek, smearing the tear that managed to escape. Moye solnyshko. My sunshine. “…I do not want my mother to think I forgot her.”

Ilya’s face crumbles at the admission, and Shane is quick to pull him into his arms, a hand on the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in his short curls there. Ilya clings to Shane and lets his tears fall freely, and the part of him that hates letting Shane see him so weak is smothered by the part of him that loves how Shane welcomes his vulnerability. 

And despite Shane’s reassurances, it is stupid. Ilya knows this. His mother is dead and has not had a cognizant thought for almost twenty years, and most likely since even before she lay breathless on her bed. Ilya doesn’t know what his thoughts are on an afterlife, but still, he feels her presence everywhere: in the sun’s mosaic reflection on the lake at the cottage and the strong warmth of Yuna’s hugs, in the cheers of a winning goal and the comfort of a home-cooked meal, in the cool pressure of her cross against his chest. He feels her, and he does not want her to think that he doesn’t long every day for those inferred moments to be physical.

“She would never think that,” Shane mumbles into Ilya’s hairline, his words accentuated by the small kisses every brush of his lips leaves. It’s too similar to how his mother would hold him after he bruised his knees falling during his first practices. 

Ona tozhe zdes. She’s here, too.

“I know I don’t know her,” and the way that Shane uses the present tense doesn’t slip past even Ilya’s English, “but I know her through you. What you’ve told me. You carry so much of her with you every day that there is no way anybody could ever think you’d forget her. Let alone your mother herself.”

Ilya nods, untrusting of his voice to say anything in response. And for the first time since booking the trip, the knot in Ilya’s chest loosens, here, against Shane’s body with his face pressed into his boyfriend’s neck and tears dampening their skin.

When the plane finally lands at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport after a full day of travel, the world doesn’t immediately implode as Ilya half-expected it to. As he looks over at Shane asleep with his head against the window, he realizes with something akin to a minor heartbreak that this is the first time they’ve ever been on a plane together. 

And it’s to visit his mother for the last time.

The cab ride to Svetlana’s apartment is uneventful, their baseball hats and sunglasses doing an embarrassingly good job at concealing their identities for now. Ilya itches to reach his hand over the center seat and rest it on Shane’s thigh, to provide some sort of comfort for both his boyfriend and himself. He knows, though, where they are and what it would cost to even allow that small of a selfish gesture. For this reason, they’ve barely said more than the necessary words to each other; you could never be too safe.

Before they even reach the door of Svetlana’s walk-up apartment, the door is thrown open by the owner herself. Her curls are pulled up and out of her face haphazardly, and she looks less put together than she usually does, but the grin on her face is nothing but genuine.

“In, in,” she beckons, and in English for Shane’s sake, Ilya figures. They clamber in, suitcases and all, and as they each pass her, she kisses them hello on the cheek with a murmured, “Privet.”

Once the door closes, Ilya practically throws off his stupid fucking hat and sunglasses, running a hand through his hair to fix the undoubtedly flattened curls as Shane, ever the Canadian, says to Svetlana, “Seriously, thank you for letting us stay.” Shane takes off his own disguise, and Ilya can’t help the magnetic pull that automatically brings him into his boyfriend’s space. He grabs Shane’s hand, the first skin-to-skin contact they’ve had in over 24 hours. He squeezes; Shane squeezes back. “I told Ilya we should pay you or something, but he said—”

Sveta cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “Ah, is not a problem,” she says, her eyes flicking down to their hands and a small, knowing smile gracing her lips. “Ilya bought my plane tickets to and from. That is more than enough.” She gestures for them to follow her as she leads them further into the apartment, and as Ilya walks towards her guest room with Shane in tow, he can’t help but think that he would like nothing more than to sleep for the next 12 hours curled against his boyfriend.

“Here is the guest room,” Svetlana says, opening a door that leads to a simple yet elegant spread that Ilya himself has never stayed in. He tries not to think about the many nights he’s stayed in Sveta’s bed, instead. He leads Shane inside, though, immediately discarding his suitcase in the corner and flopping onto the bed with a groan. “I have no doubt that Ilya will act like he owns the place,” Sveta comments, and Ilya lifts his head only enough to shoot her a glare that she ignores. “But please, Shane, make yourself at home. I will leave you two to get, ah, situated. Ilya, shall I order from Varenichnaya?”

Ilya groans again, this time at the thought of actual vareniki, and not whatever overboiled lumps of shit dough the Russian restaurant in Ottawa claims is vareniki. “Da. Please,” he says, before adding, “Vy mozhete zakazat' dlya Sheyna salat? I, mozhet byt', borscht? Bez smetany.”

He suspects, at least, that Shane will eat a salad and borscht. 

Svetlana makes a face at the request for no sour cream, though, but nods her assent before stepping out and shutting the door behind her. Shane perches on the edge of the bed, visibly uncomfortable with keeping his outside clothes on, and Ilya props his head up on a hand to better look at him. He reaches out and tugs on Shane’s arm, knowing that his boyfriend most likely won’t be initiating contact this trip out of sheer overthinking, and with a reluctant sigh, Shane lowers himself down next to Ilya, relaxing when Ilya pulls him into his side.

“What did you say to her?” Shane asks, shifting to better position himself against Ilya. He smells like recycled airplane air and home, Ilya thinks.

“Oh, nothing. Only to not pay any mind to sounds she might hear.”

This earns him a swat to the hip and a mumbled, “Oh, fuck off.” They lie in silence for a few breaths, and Ilya tries not to dwell much on having his boyfriend in his home city, albeit homophobic and traditional as it is. It’s a jarring sensation and a reality that would equally have his father rolling in his grave and his mother at peace in hers. “What did you really say?” Shane practically whispers against the crook of Ilya’s neck.

And Ilya hates to deny this man once, let alone twice.

“I asked her to order you a salad. And Russian soup. Borscht,” he admits, his hand finding its way into the short, straight stands of Shane’s hair. “For your diet.” Shane hums.

“That was nice of you.”

“Mmm, yes. I live in Canada now, you know. Next, I will apologize for existing.”

Shane laughs against him, and Ilya breathes it in deep, savoring the first happy moment he’s had in his birth country in years.

It’s two days later when a Russian article about their whereabouts goes live. 

They’re sitting at the table in Svetlana’s kitchen, drinking coffee before Ilya plans to show Shane Krasnaya Ploshchad and other classic Moscow must-sees. He already took Shane around most of his childhood staples—the back alley he’d sneak into to smoke during practice, his favorite bakery, the street corner he threw his first-ever punch—so he figures that today can be more of a tourist day. This itinerary begs for rescheduling, though, when the Google News alert pops up while Ilya’s scrolling on his phone, Shane’s name bolded next to his own: NHL Soperniki Shane Hollander i Il'ya Rozanov byli zamecheny vmeste v Moskve

NHL Rivals Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov Spotted Together in Moscow

And honestly, Ilya’s more surprised it took the media this long to catch on.

“Blyat,” Ilya still curses under his breath at the same time, Shane goes, “Shit,” his own phone in his hand, no doubt the same Google News notification coming in.

Sveta, who’s standing at the sink, glances over her shoulder and asks, “Chto?”

“Media,” Ilya answers distractedly, his thumb pressing the notification and opening the article. He quickly scans its contents, more of the same bullshit he’s read about them since announcing the foundation and his transfer to Ottawa. This time, with the added question, Why are they in another country together?

“Mom’s already messaging me,” Shane sighs, his own thumbs frantically typing away and completely unsurprised by the fact that his mother is on top of her son’s media coverage even with an eight-hour time difference. “She thinks we should put out a statement. So it doesn’t look suspicious.”

Svetlana pulls out a chair and sits, her hands warming around her own fresh mug of coffee. “Would not be a bad idea,” she offers. “It is not like you are doing anything wrong. Be honest and say it is for the charity.”

“That’s what my mom is saying,” Shane says, still typing away. Ilya takes a sip of his coffee and tries not to think about what else those thumbs were doing last night in their guest bed while Svetlana ran out late with errands. “We can just say we wanted it to be a private thing out of respect for your family, Ilya.”

“Not like there is much family left to respect,” Ilya mutters with a shrug, but waves a hand. “Is good idea, though. You can tweet something, and I will repost.”

Shane nods, and it’s not long before Ilya’s phone pings again, this time with a Twitter mention from Shane.

@shanehollanderhockeyplayer ✔️

Yes, @ilyarozanov81 and I are in Moscow together. With the work we are doing with @TheIrinaFoundation, it felt right to pay my respects to the foundation’s namesake. I hope that the Russian media can grant us privacy as we remember those lost to mental health battles.

Ilya retweets it and thinks again and again about how much his mother would have adored this man.

“Eto ty, Il'ya?”

They’re standing in front of Ilya’s grade school, the yard empty due to the summer holiday. Ilya was pointing out to Shane where he and Sveta had a blowout argument one year, and their mothers had to physically carry them away from each other, when the question cuts him off.

Ilya turns to the sound of the voice and sees an older woman standing there, with round glasses perched on her nose and wispy white hair framing her face. One of his teachers, he knows it is, but for the life of him cannot remember the name of. One too many checks to the boards, he guesses.

“Ya dumal, eto ty,” she says, continuing to walk up to Ilya and Shane. I thought it was you. Ilya catches Shane glancing at him from the corner of his eye and shakes his head slightly, answering the silent question Shane was asking: Is this someone to worry about?

Ilya opens his mouth to stumble his way through an introduction when the woman beats him to it. “Shane Hollander,” she says, her eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement and fixed on Shane, who shifts his weight anstily. Her foreign tongue wraps oddly around his name, but her gaze is anything but malicious. She turns her gaze back onto Ilya. “Ya slyshal, chto ty byla v gorode vmeste s nim.”

I heard that you were in town with him.

Not for the first time, Ilya mentally curses the goddamn tabloids.

“Uh, privet,” Shane says, awkwardly holding his hand out in greeting, the dialect clunky in his mouth. “Rad vstreche.”

The woman smiles, returns the pleasantry, and shakes his hand, her eyes flicking back to Ilya. “On deystvitel'no takoy vezhlivyy, kak vse o nem govoryat.” And well, Ilya can’t help but laugh, not the first time he’s let one out in front of this school building.

Shane looks at him, his eyebrows pulled together in the way Ilya always wants to smooth the creases away with his lips. “What did she say?” he asks quietly, as if not wanting to offend the woman by not understanding.

Still smiling, Ilya repeats, “She said you are as polite as everybody says.”

“Oh,” Shane responds, turning back to the woman. His cheeks heat to that pretty red that Ilya loves so much, the color that causes his freckles to stand more stark against his skin. He shoves his thumbs into his pockets, a default stance Ilya has learned he does when he’s mildly uncomfortable. “Uh, spasibo.” It’s the woman’s turn to laugh, and Ilya can’t help his own chuckle at Shane’s proving of her point. 

“Ya rad videt', kak khorosho u vas idut dela,” she says then to Ilya, and the sudden sincerity in her voice catches him off guard. “Ty dostavlyala mne nemalo khlopot, no ya vsegda znala, chto ty sovershish' neveroyatnyye veshchi. Nekotoryye studenty vydelyayutsya imenno etim.” 

Ilya swallows and nods his head, his throat suddenly working overtime, the compliment unexpected in a city that would hate him if they knew the truth. “Spasibo. Eto ochen' mnogo znachit.”

She smiles, and as she continues to walk past them, she reaches up and rests a hand on Ilya’s shoulder, her hand frail in comparison to the bulk of his arm. “Tvoya mama by toboy gordilas.”

As she walks away, Ilya hastily blinks back tears and avoids Shane’s gaze. If he already wishes to stand even an inch closer to his boyfriend at the compliment of a near stranger, how is he supposed to weather the grief at his mother’s grave?

“Are you alright?” Shane asks, almost tentatively when she’s far enough out of earshot. As if she would have understood what he said. “Should we go back to—”

Ilya stops him with a shake of his head. “No. Is okay.” He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and takes a deep breath, willing his eyes towards the sky. The sun seeps through some of the clouds, creating a halo of light that Ilya thinks would look not too far off from the gates of heaven. 

Even still, she’s here.

There are only so many more days that Ilya can put off the actual act of visiting his mother. So, on the day before they’re set to head back to Canada, Shane and Ilya trek to the cemetery, their arms laden with vodka, three cheap glasses, and a loaf of black bread as well as a bag of Kara-Kum candies and a bouquet of peonies, which were his mother’s favorites. 

“Is your dad buried next to her?” Shane asks, juggling the vodka and glasses in a way that makes Ilya think something is going to be dropped at any moment. For a professional hockey player, Ilya finds that Shane is oftentimes as uncoordinated as a one-legged flamingo.

“No,” Ilya answers, leading Shane down the all-too-familiar path to his mother’s grave. He could probably name every plot they passed by family name. “Another plot. I would rather have her alone than forced next to that man, even when dead.”

Shane nods as if he understands the concept of parents not loving each other, but Ilya loves him all the more for trying.

They walk in companionable silence, something they’ve become more comfortable with after so many months of dating. They no longer need to fill every lull with idle chat to avoid feeling anything real; they let the emotions take up space like a third party, an acquaintance they make room for. 

A veiled hush weighs heavily on the grounds. The cemetery is unbusy, but Ilya figures he’s never exactly seen the place bustling. He supposes that’s half the reason he always spent so much time here. The stillness quieted his own head. Eventually, they reach the lone plot where Ilya’s mother lies under six feet of earth. Two Russian hawthorns stand guard on either side of the low fence, and a bench that Ilya had installed on what would have been his mother’s fortieth birthday perches parallel to her grave. Her portrait etched on the headstone depicts her smiling, and it’s easier for Ilya to imagine that’s how she always was and not the sad, lonely woman lying dormant under it fifty years before she was due.

“Privet, mama,” Ilya murmurs as they cross the fence entrance, and he feels rather stupid now that someone is here with him. Shane, unsurprisingly, stays silent, definitely waiting to follow Ilya’s lead. Ilya sits on the bench, setting down his items at his feet. Shane follows suit, sitting close enough so that their thighs press together. To anybody else, it would be inconsequential; to Ilya, it’s the difference between floating and sinking.

Ilya grabs the vodka from Shane, twisting open the bottle. Shane holds out the glasses for him, switching them out as Ilya pours a fingerful in each. He bends over and places one of the glasses next to the headstone.

“This is typically done during Radonitsa,” Ilya explains, opening the bread and picking out three slices. He hands Shane his slice and leaves one on the ground next to the glass of vodka. “Sort of like Mexican Day of the Dead. I am not sure the next time I will be here for Radonitsa, so.” He trails off, but the rest of his sentence goes without saying. 

For the next twenty minutes, they drink their vodka and eat their bread, Shane much more hesitantly on the drinking part. Ilya carefully props the bouquet up against the headstone, thinking that his mother would appreciate his rare eye for color. They open the bag of Kara-Kums, leaving a few unwrapped next to the bread that will go untouched, and Ilya even laughs when Shane offensively compares the taste to a Ferrero Rocher. He doesn’t think he’s ever laughed while here.

They fall into yet another silence, until Shane quietly says, “You can talk to her, you know.”

Ilya doesn’t have to ask what he means. It’s true; Ilya has come here for hours at a time, rambling about everything and nothing, using his mother’s eternal smile as the receiver of his problems. He’s told her about the World Juniors, being drafted first, about his father’s mental decline. She was the one who listened to him lament about the 2014 Sochi Olympics and about someone named Jane, whom he wasn’t sure deserved his fucked-up love. About Alexei. About living up to his father’s expectations. About his anger, his sadness, his loneliness. How he wishes he didn’t have only a gold cross to hold onto when he wants a hug from his mother.

And maybe it was fucked up of him to burden his dead mother with his problems, but then he thinks if his mother had done that to someone, then maybe she’d still be here.

“I know,” comes Ilya’s reply, and he presses his thigh back against Shane’s. 

“Do you want me to give you a second?”

Ilya shakes his head. “No. I want you to stay.”

Shane nods, and Ilya takes a deep breath before opening his mouth.

And he talks.

He talks to his mother in Russian about transferring to Ottawa, about leaving the team that drafted him for a subpar center with a weak backhand. He talks about Christmases with the Hollanders, and how Yuna always seems to know what to get him, even though he struggles for months to buy gifts for her and David. He talks about Svetlana, about his new teammates, about Scott Hunter’s big gay display and how his boyfriend is too hot for him. He talks about how badly he wants a dog and all the breeds he’ll never adopt. 

He talks to her about how scared he is. About how he has bad genes, between his father's dementia and her depression. About how there are some days he doesn't get out of bed and some days he feels nothing and everything simultaneously. He talks to her about how he's always wanted to be like her in the way she was caring and radiant and beautiful, not sad and lonely and hurting. About how, sometimes, he worries he isn't strong enough to see the light at the end of his darkest days, about how he pushes through for Shane, about how maybe living wouldn't have been so hard for her if she didn't have to be so strong on her own.

And he talks about Shane. He talks about Shane, even though he’s right there and can probably pick up a word or two of what he’s saying, about how he’s never felt safe before until he’s felt his boyfriend’s arms around him in bed. He talks about how Shane always wants three ice cubes in his glass of ginger ale because it feels “even,” but will never outright ask for it, about Shane’s freckles, his eyelashes, the one crooked tooth next to his bottom left canine. He talks about how Shane is the best thing to ever happen to him, about how he wants to marry this man if it’s the last thing he does, about how he wishes every day that she were here to meet the one person he can confidently call home.

When he finally finishes, he realizes with a dull sense of horror that his cheeks are damp, and it seems that this whole trip has been cursed with firsts, because he cannot remember the last time he cried at his mother’s grave. Not for a lack of sorrow, but for perhaps too much of it, that if he let any seep through the cracks, the floodgates would crumble under the pressure, and he’d be left in the ruins. With Shane, though, everything becomes easier. Better.

Before he can let himself think too much about it, he pushes himself to standing, brushing the bread crumbs off his pants. “Alright, Hollander,” he says, his voice half as commanding as that same statement would’ve been on the ice or in his bedroom, “time to go.”

When Shane doesn’t stand, Ilya turns to him to find Shane diverting his gaze. This would not be uncommon, except for the way he downs the rest of his vodka in one fell swoop with an ill-concealed grimace.

“Hollander.”

“I, uh…” Shane starts, and Ilya doesn’t miss the way he fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. “I actually, um… had some things I wanted to say, too. To her. If that’s okay.”

“Things you wanted to say,” Ilya dumbly repeats, his legs sitting him back down of their own accord. And oh. Oh, he is so gone.

“Mhm.” Shane unfolds the paper in his hand, and a glance over shows Ilya that everything is written in Russian. Granted, it’s phonetic and not in the Cyrillic alphabet, but still. Russian. Shane catches Ilya staring at it, because of course he does, and shyly admits, “I figured I should speak to her in her own language. I just… knew I wouldn’t remember everything.”

And Ilya is so close to risking it all and kissing Shane on the spot, respect for the dead be damned. If he wasn’t positive that it would put Shane in danger, too, he would.

Ilya gestures permission for Shane to carry on, not trusting his voice, and Shane clears his throat before beginning, his pronunciation even more choppy because of the nerves. “Privet, Irina. Menya zovut Shane Hollander,” he starts, and Ilya blinks away the blurriness from his vision. Of course his boyfriend would still formally introduce himself to his dead mother. He is so fucking in love with him, it’s suffocating. Shane gives a quick glance around, checking for straggling visitors, before continuing, “Ya prosto khotela skazat', chto ya ochen'… lyublyu vashego syna. On— on luchsheye, chto yest' v moyey zhizni, i ya khochu poblagodarit' tebya za to, chto ty podarila mne yego. Zhal', chto ya ne smogla poznakomit'sya s toboy lichno, no mne kazhetsya, chto ya uzhe eto sdelala. Cherez Il’ya.”

Ilya wipes away the tears that have fallen despite his efforts, and for once, he is certain that his mother is somewhere else, smiling his same crooked smile as Shane stumbles through broken Russian.

“Nadeyus', on zastavlyayet tebya gordit'sya im tak zhe, kak i menya kazhdyy den',” Shane presses on, his own voice growing thick with emotion. “Ya obeshchayu zabotit'sya o nem, lyubit' yego i pomogat' yemu chtit' tebya kak mozhno luchshe.” He swallows and folds the paper back up, shoving it into his pocket as he wipes his cheeks. 

“You did not have to do that,” Ilya all but whispers, his chest constricting from both the love and pain he feels in this moment.

“I wanted to,” is Shane’s simple answer. “Felt… right.”

And if this is the last time Ilya sees his mother, he thinks that having it be with the love of his life at his side feels right, too.

Leaving Russia is easier than Ilya anticipates. Thinking that the last time would be the last time gives him some ambiguous, scary sense of hope: nothing is for certain.

They make it through both airports relatively unscathed, and it isn’t until they’re back in Shane’s ugly fucking car that Ilya allows himself to finally breathe. As they merge onto the highway, Shane reaches over and grabs Ilya’s hand, squeezing once before lacing their fingers together.

“Okay?” he asks, glancing over at Ilya.

As Ilya looks over, the afternoon sun cascading down through the windshield and casting an arc of light across his boyfriend’s face, he thinks, yes. Everything will be. 

It’s a week later, while at the cottage, that Shane brandishes a small jar of dirt like he’s presenting Ilya with a piece of the moon. Ilya barely glances up from his phone.

“What is this?” he asks, and it’s only then that he notices the strange contortion on Shane’s face. “Hey, hey.” He sets down his phone and sits up, arms coming up to rest on Shane’s waist. His thumbs brush under the hem of his shirt, rubbing soothing circles onto his newly summer-tanned skin. “What is wrong? What did this dirt do to you?”

“I was going to save it for your birthday, but I started thinking too much about it, and—” Shane starts, before Ilya cuts in, recognizing the start of a mental spiral when he sees one.

“Ah, yes.” He pulls Shane down to sit next to him, wrapping his arm around Shane’s shoulders and pulling him into his side. “How did you know that soil is what I always wanted?” He gives Shane a loud smack on the forehead, thoroughly confused, but trying not to show it when Shane looks as distressed as he does. “You pay such good attention, moy tsvetok.” My flower.

This gets a shaky laugh out of Shane and a shove, and the creases in between his eyebrows sink away, which Ilya will always consider a win. “No, that’s not—” He sighs, frustrated. “It’s… it’s from—”

Suddenly and all at once, realization dawns on Ilya, and he sits Shane up to look at him properly. The sheepish smile Shane gives him is equal parts apprehensive and shy, his rosy cheeks doing nothing to hide his embarrassment. Ilya has a million words on the tip of his tongue—the most prominent ones being how and this is probably a crime—but before he can say any of them, Shane says, “Remember when I said I left my phone on the bench?" Ilya nods, eyebrows pinched together as he remembers Shane quickly running back to the gravesite when they were halfway out of the cemetery. How Ilya didn't notice a fucking jar on his boyfriend is beside him, but he supposes a lot was on his mind that day. "I figured I could play off the dumb foreigner for once instead of you. If I needed to.”

The grin that splits Ilya's face visibly eases any overthinking Shane would have continued to do.

“Oh, Shane,” Ilya all but purrs despite every other sappy and love-ridden praise he wants to sing. His boyfriend risked committing a crime in a foreign country for him. He would be an idiot not to find that hot. “You do like being bad.”

And now, when Ilya misses his mother, he sits by the Russian hawthorn sapling and peony bushes planted in foreign soil, sipping vodka and watching the sun rise on the lake. His boyfriend sits beside him, and he thinks, for the first time perhaps completely truthfully, that he is home.