Chapter Text
January, 2003 – Ottawa, Ontario
Canada is weird. It seems brighter here than in Moscow, despite the fact that Ottawa is lit by the very same sun. The air is easier to breathe here, the culture easier to relax into, and everything, all of it, is so very weird.
The hockey, maybe more than anything else, is very weird.
Ilya has been playing nearly as long as he has been breathing, if not maybe a little before that, somehow. At twelve years old, he has broken records all over Russia; he was the best of his age group in his league back in Moscow, was being scouted already by big, big names. He knows hockey better than he knows anything else in the world.
But this– he does not know what this is.
These kids are awful; they are too clumsy on their skates, too eager on their shots, too slow on their passes. When one player knocks into another, he helps him up after, and the two skate away like nothing happened. When one player scores a goal, the other team claps politely for him. Ilya has never seen anything like it.
Where he comes from, hockey is rough, violent, exciting, even in the children’s leagues. Ilya has probably taken more hits than all of these kids combined, probably double, maybe triple, and has dealt twice more than that. There was not a baby tooth in his head that did not fall out on the ice. He has broken his left arm three times, and his right arm once.
A player falls on the ice before him, lands hard on his knees and elbows, and starts to cry. Ilya does not belong here.
There are multiple reasons, actually, why Ilya does not belong here, and wanting to boo the crying player is not the biggest of them. Ilya is slumped down low in the bleachers of the community rink, watching a team practice that he is not a part of, desperately wishing to join them despite his disappointment in the way the game is being played. He only just moved to Ottawa this month; the rink has quickly become Ilya’s home away from home, the only part of Canada that feels familiar to him.
He likes the hotel, and he likes Ottawa, and he likes the rink, even if he does not particularly like what is being done on it. One of the only things he arrived in Ottawa with were his skates, and between the scheduled practices of various teams of youth leagues around the city, Ilya usually has the ice all to himself. He misses playing on a team, misses playing against another team, but most days, just being on the ice is enough.
The staff at the hotel were helpful with getting Ilya enrolled in school, but Ilya’s English is abysmal still, and he has not made many friends. The girls like him at school; they like to touch his curls and his biceps and they giggle when he tells them, in Russian, that they are fucking bizarre. He does not mind it, not so much, but it would be nice if he could at least talk to them, or understand whatever the fuck they are saying through their giggles.
The boys at school have not seemed to notice that he is there. They have, of course; Ilya stands nearly a full head taller than anyone else in his class, and has at least twenty pounds of muscle mass on even the biggest of his classmates, and, oh, the Russian thing.
He only wears the same three outfits in rotation, and always the same pair of shoes. He keeps headphones in his ears when he is not sitting in a class or attempting to understand an adult. The only time anyone has seen him outside of school is when he is intently watching their hockey practice. Canada is weird, but Canada probably thinks Ilya is weird, too.
The captain of the hockey team is in Ilya’s class. Ilya spends a lot of time watching him, when the other boy is distracted. He seems kind, strong, well-liked but not terribly social. He eats lunch with a few of the other kids on the team, and spends hours at the in-school gym at the end of each day. No one else on the team seems as dedicated as their captain, but Ilya supposes that is why he is the captain– and the fact that he is, like, really fucking good at hockey.
He skates laps around the other kids on the ice, scores on every shot he takes. He is quick, agile, thinks fast and acts faster, and, curiously, is completely nonviolent. He never lays a hand on another player, never shoulders anyone out of his way. He snakes around them, confuses them, disorients them, but never touches them, never gets physical. He is a goddamn ghost, and it is clear everyone attempting to play against him is quite haunted by him.
Ilya’s leg bounces restlessly as he watches the practice wrap up; there are forty-five minutes between the time the team leaves the ice and the time the rink closes for the night, and Ilya intends to spend every second he can on the ice before he is asked to leave.
Most of the parents and siblings vacate the bleachers when the coach blows the whistle to call a team huddle. Ilya snatches his skates off the floor beside his feet and rushes down to the bottom row of the bleachers, hastily changing out of his sneakers and into his skates. As soon as the coaching staff has finished packing up and has vacated the ice, Ilya hops the boards and takes off like a shot.
He does not have a stick or any equipment; sometimes the coaching staff leaves random bits of equipment outside of the locked equipment room for the night, and Ilya has considered stealing from them more than a few times, but the risk of being thrown out of the rink for good keeps him honest. He works on his speed, mostly, his agility, replaying in his mind the practice he just watched and trying to figure out how the fuck the team captain did that goddamn thing with his feet.
Forty-five minutes passes all too soon. There is a chime as a voice comes over the intercom system, and Ilya only recognizes the words closing and five minutes, but he gets the gist of the message. He savors one last, lightning fast lap around the ice, making a little more snow than strictly necessary when he stops back at the bleachers and hops back over the boards.
It is not until his skates touch down on the solid floor that he realizes he is being watched. There is a boy just about his age a few rows up, almost exactly where Ilya was sitting earlier, his hands folded in his lap and his eyes locked on Ilya. He flinches and looks down as soon as Ilya makes eye contact with him, and Ilya’s stomach flips nervously. He sits down hard to begin frantically changing back into his sneakers, wanting to avoid as much conflict as possible.
“Ilya Rozanov?” a voice says from behind him. Blyat.
Ilya looks up, fumbling the lace of his sneaker and giving up on it as he straightens up and steels himself for the interaction. He does not speak, just sweeps his eyes over the other boy, who he now realizes as the captain of the team from practice.
Ilya has spent a lot of time watching Shane Hollander, both at school and on the ice, and there is not a lot about him that Ilya has not already been able to observe. His freckles are a new discovery, though, thanks to the proximity, as are his warm, chocolatey doe eyes.
“Shane Hollander,” the boy says, with a goofy little smile. “I wanted to introduce myself.” He extends a hand to Ilya, too close, not quite meeting his eye.
Ilya shakes his hand, nodding once when Shane manages to look at him again.
“You’re an awesome skater to watch,” Shane says, tucking his hands into the pocket of his hoodie.
“Yes,” Ilya says; he thinks Shane is complimenting him. He is not quite sure how to receive it.
Shane laughs, shaking his head and making to turn away. Instead of leaving, though, he sits down beside Ilya on the bleachers, bouncing his leg while Ilya finishes tying his shoes. Ilya is not sure what to do now, what to say, what Hollander wants from him, so he just straightens back up and looks straight ahead at the ice.
“Anyway, I should go, my mom is waiting for me,” Shane says, standing abruptly and thrusting his hand out again. Ilya cannot help but allow a small smile, shaking Shane’s hand again for the second time in less than a minute and standing up as well. Shane nods awkwardly and turns to go, and Ilya grits his teeth.
“Ah, you,” says, too loud, voice echoing around the rink. Shane stops in his tracks, whirling around as if to check that Ilya is talking to him. “Very, ah,” Ilya gestures to the ice, “ah, very good.”
Shane’s smile almost splits his face in half. “Thank you,” he says earnestly, eyes locked on Ilya for just a moment more before he nods again and turns to go. He disappears around the bleachers and Ilya hears the exit door bang open a second later, and then Ilya is alone once again.
It is a fifteen minute walk back to the hotel, but running, Ilya makes it in less than ten. It gets very dark very fast here in Canada, and cold, too, but not nearly to the degree that Moscow gets dark and cold. Running probably is not even necessary here, not the way it would be at this hour in Moscow. Canadians do not stop you on the street to rob or kill you– probably they would offer you a ride, and maybe a sweet.
Ilya has found the quickest and most secret way down to the basement level of the hotel since moving in a few weeks ago; he enters through the back of the hotel, down the service stairs behind the kitchen which takes him under the lobby, and then through the laundry room and into the common area of the housekeepers’ quarters. The door to his room opens with a key card, just like the movies, and Ilya’s breath is still coming in puffs when he swipes the card and shoves into the room.
His mother is stooped over the countertop in the tiny kitchenette, stirring a pot atop a hot plate. She is already smiling at him before he comes through the door, probably having tracked the sound of his heavy footsteps all the way from the service stairs. She is good at things like that.
“Hi, solnyshko,” she hums; her soft voice, her familiar Russian, her gentle smile, they are enough to turn this dark, dreary little hotel room into a home. Ilya drops his skates by the door and rushes over to hug her, peering into the pot in front of her. “Soup in a moment. Go shower first,” she says, pulling a face to suggest that Ilya stinks when he pulls back to look up at her.
Ilya swallows his whine of complaint about soup again; he knows it is one of the only things his mother can afford on her housekeeper’s salary, and they sell it in the hotel lobby, so she can get it discounted. There is a free breakfast and lunch program for low income families at the school where Ilya is enrolled, and he tries to take full advantage of it, stuffing as much fresh fruit and bread into his backpack as he can get away with, but even so, they eat a lot of soup, a lot of cereal, and not a lot else.
Ilya leaves his mother be, and stoops to retrieve his pajamas from the end of the bed where Irina, at some point, folded them. There is a fresh towel waiting for him in the bathroom, which consists only of a shower stall and a toilet, and he kicks the door closed while he pulls his sweater off over his head.
He inspects himself in the mirror for a bit while the shower heats up. There is the faintest of marks left behind on his cheekbone from the injury he sustained the night he and Irina left Russia, but other than that, he is not sure his skin has ever been so clear, so unblemished and unbruised. His chest is more defined than ever, starting to look more like a man’s chest than a boy’s. He has been sneaking into the hotel gym whenever he has trouble sleeping, which is often. He is stronger now than he ever has been, but the nightmares do keep him up.
The room is small, cramped, dark, but Irina has done her damnedest to make it cozy. She draped an extra bedsheet over the empty wall beside the bed to create the illusion of a window, and she has collected a multitude of lamps and knickknacks from street corners and from the hotel’s forgotten objects room. Neither of them want to call this room home for very long, but for as long as they have to be here, it definitely could be worse.
The soup is ready by the time Ilya has finished his shower. There is no table for Irina to set for dinner, but she makes a point, every night, of propping the coffee table up on Ilya’s school books to make it an appropriate height for eating at, and pushes it between the bed and the sofa so that she and Ilya can sit across from each other over their steaming bowls of sugar and carbs to talk about their days.
Ilya pulls the towel off of his head and hangs it over the back of the bathroom door, settling down on the edge of the bed just as Irina carries over two bowls of steaming soup.
“Did you get time on the ice today, solnyshko?” she asks, blowing delicately over a spoonful of soup.
“Yes, a bit,” Ilya says. “The team from my school was practicing, but there was a little time for me when they finished.”
Irina turns her eyes down to the bowl in front of her as he speaks. Ilya knows she is disappointed that she cannot afford to pay for Ilya to join the team, but Ilya has never asked, and never would. It is not something they talk about.
“You had fun?” Irina asks meekly.
“Yes, very much,” Ilya nods. “I spoke to the captain of the team before the rink closed. He complimented my skating.”
“Oh, the captain?” Irina says. “You said he is very good, yes?”
“Very good,” Ilya confirms. “He only would be better if he had any real competition. He is so much more talented than anyone else on the team.”
“I bet he would find his match in you,” Irina says. “Ilyusha, next year—“
“He is very nice,” Ilya says quickly, anything to get his mother to not finish that sentence. He loves hockey, but he loves his mother more, and he does not want her feeling inadequate about anything, surely not her inability to allow him to play on a hockey team, of all things. She saved his life, that will always be enough for him.
Irina seems to know exactly what he is doing, but she allows it gratefully. “You should befriend him,” she says. “Maybe he will play with you some night when he does not have practice.”
“Maybe,” Ilya says. It is unlikely that he will befriend Shane Hollander. As nice as it would be to play against someone of his skill level, Hollander is much too nice, and Ilya does not quite know what to do with that. The language barrier would also be an issue; Ilya has already decided to hold off on trying to make any friends until he has at least a slightly better grasp on English.
“He could help you with your English, maybe,” Irina offers. She has always been so good at reading minds.
“Yes, maybe,” Ilya says again, quieter. Still unlikely. He crushes a noodle against the side of his bowl with the back of his spoon, and then smiles for the peace of mind of his mother, her eyes conducting a thorough search of his face. “How was your day?”
“Oh!” Irina gasps, springing up from the sofa and rushing to the kitchenette. Ilya watches her, amused, slurping carefully on a spoonful of broth. “I found this today, for you, little one.” She presents Ilya with a small toy sports car, electric green, only the size of his thumbnail. She places it down on the table and pushes it, and the tiny thing rumbles messily across the table to Ilya, moving feebly on its lame little wheels.
Ilya smiles as he picks it up. He is not a child– well, not small enough to still play with toy cars, anyway– but he has always had a fascination with sports cars, and is touched by the gesture.
“It was left behind in the lobby,” Irina explains. “I am supposed to turn it in, but it is so small, I could not imagine it would be terribly missed. And I know how you love cars, and I thought…” she trails off, smiling embarrassedly, like she always does when she brings Ilya some tiny treasure left behind in the hotel.
“Thank you, Mama,” Ilya says, rounding the table to plant a kiss to Irina’s head. He looks around the room, which really is not much to look at; the bed takes up most of the room, and the sofa takes up what is left of the space. There is a tiny kitchenette just inside the door, and the bathroom beside that. There is a ledge that separates the kitchenette from the door, and Ilya shuffles to it, placing his new toy car amongst the other knick knacks Irina has displayed there, a place of honor.
Irina watches him with a smile on her face that Ilya recognizes from Moscow, but it feels so different, so much more natural, more real. His mother did not smile often in Russia. No one did. Ilya returns the gesture, and the rest of the soup goes down like the best meal he’s ever eaten.
***
Shane has grown quite tired of the slander against the new kid.
Sure, he does seem a bit odd on the surface; he’s quiet, doesn’t smile often, hardly speaks even when spoken to and even then, it’s usually just little grunts or one word answers. He clearly struggles with English, and he’s insecure about it, so he keeps to himself. That’s not so weird– these kids are just mean.
His team, especially, has been quite insensitive toward the poor kid, especially during practice. The new kid can often be found in the bleachers during their practices, just watching silently, with a pair of skates at his feet, and nothing else. Shane’s teammates shout rude things at him, sometimes, call him names, but Ilya either does not care, or does not know what they are saying. Last night after practice was not the first time Shane has stuck around to see what Ilya does when they all leave, but it was the first time he approached him, at the advice of his mother.
“He’s probably lonely,” Yuna had said just the other night, over a grand dinner of grilled fish and homemade vegetable risotto. “You should talk to him, find out what his deal is.”
Shane didn’t tell her that he’s seen Ilya skate, and that he’s better than any skater Shane has ever seen. He didn’t tell her that he’s worried Ilya might be even better than Shane himself; Shane is the number one youth player in Ottawa, currently, of any age group. He’s broken every youth level record there is, and even created a few new ones. Ilya Rozanov might be able to give him a run for his money, and that’s as exciting as it is terrifying.
Shane has never been challenged much at hockey. He’s not allowed to play with the older kids, because he’s so small, but the kids his own age are painfully average, boringly predictable, and so fucking slow. All his life, he’s been wishing for someone like Ilya Rozanov to come into the picture, but now that he’s here, he’s a bit worried it might be too much.
Ilya doesn’t talk to anyone at school, doesn’t have any friends yet, and he’s been here almost a month. Shane watches him almost every day from his usual seat in the cafeteria at lunch, noticing the way he nibbles at a bit of his cafeteria food and then packs most of it away in his backpack, like he’s saving it for later. Shane is fascinated by him.
Today, he manages to catch Ilya’s eye when Ilya looks up from taking a small bite of his pasta. Ilya looks away immediately, but turns back a couple seconds later, a slight flush to his cheeks.
Shane waves, a gesture that goes unanswered. He raises his hand again, turning it around and waving toward himself this time, beckoning Ilya over to him. Ilya shakes his head minutely and becomes very interested in the plate of pasta in front of him.
One of Shane’s friends is trying to ask him something, probably about practice or the game they have this weekend, but Shane stands abruptly and gathers his things.
“Where are you going?” Joe asks, indignant. “Hollander! I’m trying to— what the hell?”
Shane is already gone, marching across the cafeteria with his backpack and lunchbox. Ilya is still determinedly not looking at him, but when Shane drops into the seat across the table from him, Ilya finally looks up.
“Hi,” Shane says, offering Ilya a friendly smile. Ilya returns it confusedly. “Can I sit here?” He says it slowly, annunciating each word very clearly and pointing to himself, and then the seat.
Ilya hesitates and then nods, his smile fading into a smirk that makes Shane’s face heat.
“We met last night,” Shane says, in case Ilya doesn’t remember.
“Yes,” Ilya says, his smirk growing.
“Yeah,” Shane says. His confidence dwindles the longer Ilya stares wordlessly at him. “Cool.”
“Cool,” Ilya repeats, eyes flickering to Shane’s mouth. “I am, ah— English is not,” he waves his hand indiscriminately near his head.
“Yeah, I figured,” Shane says, confidence renewed. “Russia, right?”
“Russia,” Ilya says. “Moscow.”
“Moscow,” Shane nods. “Um, Ottawa,” he says, gesturing to himself.
Ilya nods. The vibe turns awkward again.
“So, um, do you play hockey?” Shane asks slowly. “Or just skate?”
“Hockey,” Ilya says. “Very different in Russia.”
“Oh, really? How so?” Shane asks.
“More, ah,” Ilya flounders, and then makes a fist.
“Oh,” Shane chuckles. “Yeah, well.”
“How do you say?” Ilya presses, gesturing to his fist.
“Violent?” Shane offers. “Aggressive?”
“Vio—“ Ilya tries, and frowns. Shane repeats it slower. “Violent,” Ilya says, and then repeats it a few times under his breath. Shane’s heart swells.
“It’s like that here, too, but not at this level,” Shane says. “Kids, y’know?”
“Boring,” Ilya smirks again, popping a noodle into his mouth.
“Yeah, kinda,” Shane laughs. “Why haven’t you joined the team?” Ilya falters, looks down at his pasta again. Realizing his overstep, Shane backtracks. “You’re probably too good,” he shrugs.
Ilya looks up at him through his eyelashes and winks. Shane can’t figure out how he feels about that.
“Do you want to play sometime?” Shane says. “With me?”
Ilya blinks at him. “I do not, ah, have,” he holds his hands in front of him like he’s holding a hockey stick.
“A stick?” Shane says. “Oh, I have extras. I can give you one.”
“Yes,” Ilya says quickly, and then looks mildly ashamed. “Ah, thank you.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Shane says. “After school? Today?”
Ilya grins. “Yes. Cool.”
“Cool,” Shane agrees, hiding his own grin behind a bite of his turkey sandwich.
He watches Ilya take another small bite of pasta and then put his fork down, covering the container the school serves the pasta in and trying to figure out how to pack it into his backpack without making a mess. Shane quickly dumps the apple and protein bar out of his lunchbox, offering the whole thing to Ilya.
“Here, use this,” he says, taking the container from Ilya when he makes no move to do it himself. “There’s an ice pack. It’ll go bad just sitting in your backpack all day.”
Shane packages up the lunch box and zips it closed, sliding it back across the table to Ilya, who looks like he has been slapped across the face. Shane worries he’s overstepped again, but Ilya reaches for the lunch box and cocks his head. “You do not need?”
“You can give it back to me later,” Shane says. “At the rink.”
Ilya nods, ducking his head in an attempt to hide his shy smile. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
“Where do you live?” Shane asks, in an attempt to redirect the conversation.
Ilya flushes, inexplicably, and pretends not to understand the question. Shane repeats himself slower, trying to mime the words with his hands, but the bell rings to end lunch before Ilya can continue to avoid the question.
“See you later?” Shane confirms, as they both stand up from the table.
“Later,” Ilya nods. “Hockey.”
Just like that, he’s gone, tucking Shane’s lunchbox under his arm and hunching his shoulders in as he attempts to disappear into the throng of kids leaving the cafeteria. He doesn’t blend in well; he’s taller than every single other kid in the school, and he walks the way an arrow flies from a bow, straight, fast, and intimidating. Shane catches up with the boys from the team, brushing off their questions about his lunch date with the Russian kid, and spends the rest of the day thinking about which stick he’s going to give to Ilya.
***
Ilya does not miss home. He does not miss a single thing about it, he does not ever want to go back to Russia as long as he lives. This, this is where he belongs, this is his true home, the only home he will ever need.
Shane’s hockey stick is very slightly too short for Ilya, but he makes it work, feeling every tap of it against the ice like the very beat of his heart, thrumming through his veins and keeping him alive. The ice under his skates, the puck in his control, this is home, this is Ilya, and he has been away for so, so long but fuck it feels good to be back.
Even better than playing again, it feels downright incredible to have found such an even match in Shane Hollander. They are two very different players, that much is apparent from the moment they step onto the ice, but it makes the game interesting, makes it fun, makes it so good that Ilya wants to bottle it and keep it forever.
Shane is fast, but so is Ilya. Ilya is an excellent shot, but so is Shane. They keep each other on their toes, laughing and swearing at each other and calling out insults and compliments, each of them giving it their all, both of them thoroughly impressed with the other.
They have been at it for well over an hour, but they’ve got to wrap up soon; practice for the peewee league starts in twenty minutes. Shane is the one to call it, eventually, skating over to the boards and snatching his water bottle to take a long pull.
Ilya takes a couple extra shots, just in case he does not get a chance to do this again. He does not know when the next time will be that he gets his hands on a stick and a puck, he wants to savor this, wants to milk it for everything it is worth.
Shane is watching him when Ilya finally collects the puck and skates over to meet him at the boards. Ilya reaches for the Gatorade his mother proudly gave him the money for when he told her he was, after all, going to play hockey with Shane Hollander, and Shane watches him take a few sips, still panting and drenched in sweat.
“Wow,” Shane says, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “You are, like, insane.”
Ilya frowns into his Gatorade. “Insane?”
“Talented,” Shane corrects himself quickly. “Really talented. Not, like, crazy.”
Ilya does not really understand him, but he thinks it is a compliment. “I was best, in Moscow,” he shrugs. “You are very good.”
“Thanks,” Shane chuckles.
Ilya watches him for a moment, fascinated by the twinkle in his eye. “Can we, ah, again?”
“Um, I think there’s a practice starting soon,” Shane frowns. “So I don’t think—“
“Later?” Ilya asks. “Ah, different day?”
“Oh!” Shane lights up. “Yeah, hell yeah! I’d like that.”
Ilya beams, nodding his agreement. He takes one last sip of his Gatorade and then caps it, regretfully moving to hand his borrowed stick back to Shane.
“Oh, you can keep that, if you want,” Shane says, pushing the stick back toward Ilya. “It’s just a spare, I have plenty.”
Ilya could cry. “Yes?”
“Yes,” Shane says, laughing softly at him. “All yours, man.”
Ilya hugs the stick to his chest like a little kid. “Thank you,” he says, so earnestly that Shane looks a little confused.
“You’re welcome,” Shane says anyway, offering him another smile. “So, um, about the team—“
“I, ah,” Ilya points toward the door of the rink. “Home.” He cannot let Shane know that he cannot be on the team because he cannot afford to be. Shane will pity him, or offer to help, or something, and Ilya cannot allow that. He would sooner never play hockey again than become a charity case.
“Oh, right, of course,” Shane says. He looks disappointed. “Will you sit with us at lunch tomorrow, at least? I think you’d like the other guys,” he says, his unguarded optimism hitting Ilya in a weird place.
“Maybe,” Ilya says tightly.
Shane nods, ducking his head. “Well, thanks for playing with me. See you tomorrow.”
He turns to go, but Ilya uses the stick in his hand to tap his hip before he gets far. Shane turns back, eyebrows raised.
“Thank you, Hollander,” Ilya says, his accent exceptionally thick.
Shane grins. “Any time, Rozanov.”
Ilya runs home again, not out of fear, or out of habit, but sheer joy. Irina is still working when he gets back to the hotel, so Ilya keys himself into the room and takes his time in the shower. He retrieves his leftover pasta from the refrigerator where he stashed it earlier and transfers it into a pot, setting it on low heat on the hot plate so that it will be ready to eat whenever Irina gets back.
He grabs Shane’s hockey stick— well, his own hockey stick, he supposes— and settles down on the bed, inspecting the tape on the blade. It is old, used and worn, but Ilya finds comfort in the fact that Shane did not give him a brand new stick. Second hand kindnesses are easier to accept than outright gifts.
Irina comes into the room almost silently; she has moved as quietly as a mouse for as long as Ilya can remember, floating around their home back in Moscow like a lovely apparition. She looks exhausted, but she still manages to offer Ilya the warm smile she keeps on reserve just for him.
“Hi, Mama,” he says.
“Hi, moy lyubimyy,” Irina says softly. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes,” Ilya lies, nodding toward the pot on the hot plate. “I brought it from school.”
“Darling boy,” Irina coos, peeking into the pot. “How was your day?”
“Excellent,” Ilya says, sitting up quickly. “Mama, look.”
Irina turns from where she is spooning a bit of pasta into a bowl, eyes widening at the hockey stick Ilya is brandishing at her. “Ilya,” she says sharply, voice low. “Did you steal that?”\
“No, Mama,” Ilya scoffs. “It was a gift. The captain of the hockey team asked me to play after school, and brought me an old stick to keep.”
Irina’s lips tighten into a perfectly straight line. For a long, terrifying moment, Ilya thinks she is going to make him return the stick to Shane, but then she crosses the room and hands him a bowl of pasta, despite his lying about having already eaten.
“It is old?” Irina says, taking the stick from Ilya’s hands and turning it over in her own. “You are sure?”
“I am,” Ilya says. “I tried to give it back, but he did not want it. He says he has others.”
“He is very kind,” Irina says, placing the stick down against the wall next to the door, just beside Ilya’s skates. “You thanked him?”
“Yes, twice,” Ilya says.
Irina crosses back to the kitchenette to spoon the rest of the pasta into a bowl for herself. She looks at Ilya expectantly once she gets back to the sofa. “Well?” she says. “How was it?”
“It was amazing, Mama,” Ilya gushes. “He is incredible. We had so much fun. It was not easy, but it was not easy for him, either. We are going to play again sometime.”
“That is wonderful, Ilyusha,” Irina says. “I am so happy for you.”
“He wants me to join the team,” Ilya says, before he can stop himself. He regrets it immediately; Irina’s eyes turn impossibly sad.
“Moy lyubimyy,” she says to her pasta. “I–”
“I know,” Ilya says quickly. “I know I can not. And I do not want to,” he lies. He has never told a lie that his mother has not seen through.
“By next year, maybe,” Irina says. “I will find a second job, or–”
“No,” Ilya says. “You work so hard already. I do not need to be on the team.”
“Solnyshko,” Irina shakes her head. “I am so sorry.”
“Do not be.”
“I am,” Irina says. “I did not give you a choice. I pulled you from your home, your life, hockey, your friends– all because I could not bear it.”
“Mama,” Ilya says, putting his bowl down on the coffee table and all but crawling over it to arrive at Irina’s side. “You saved me,” he says softly, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I have never been happier in my life, hockey or no. It was killing us. He was killing us,” he breathes.
“Oh, my love,” Irina says, close to tears, pressing her face into his hair. “You are too small to be saying such things. To have lived through such things.”
“I love you, Mama,” Ilya says. “More than hockey, more than Russia, more than anything.”
“I love you, precious boy,” Irina tells the curls in his hair. “I love you more than life.”
When the pasta is gone, the bowls rinsed clean, and the day’s laundry done, Ilya climbs into bed and receives a multitude of forehead kisses from his mother. She has insisted since they arrived at the hotel that Ilya take the bed, as growing boys require proper rest and comfort. She claims to be very comfortable on the sofa, and the way she falls asleep almost immediately upon resting her head on the pillow does not betray her, but Ilya is well aware of the sacrifices she makes for him, and is well aware that there are sacrifices she has made that he cannot even begin to comprehend.
One month in Ottawa has damn near undone all of the suffering that Ilya faced back in Moscow. He falls asleep wondering how long it will take to do the same for his mother.
***
The hockey team practices twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday nights, for an hour at a time. There are optional practices on Saturday mornings, but Shane is usually the only one who shows up consistently for those. He loves his team, he really does, and is so proud to be their captain, but he’s kinda, like, bored.
Playing with Ilya is the best thing that’s happened to Shane in recent memory, if not ever. Shane has never been challenged like this, hasn’t had to work this hard since he was first learning to skate, and it’s exhilarating. They have been meeting up after school every day that Shane doesn’t have practice, and sometimes even on those days, too, when Shane is still fired up after practice is done and Ilya’s waiting in the bleachers for his time to shine. The other players have noticed, and some have even tried to join in, but none of them can keep up with Shane and Ilya, and none of them stick around very long.
Every day is a constant struggle to not drop to his knees at Ilya’s feet and beg him to join the team, but he’s sort of learned his lesson about that. Ilya shuts down every time Shane brings it up, and it’s definitely not just a language thing. Ilya avoids all mention of the team like the plague, despite sitting at the end of their lunch table every day now, smiling and nodding politely when they speak too fast and too much for him to keep up.
It does not go unnoticed, to Shane, at least, that Ilya has only worn three different outfits in the entire month and a half he has been here. He has two different pairs of jeans, both ragged and worn, and a pair of sweatpants with a tiny hole in the seat that has been obviously sown shut several times. He has one sweater, one t-shirt, and one hoodie, one pair of shoes, and one coat. He eats approximately one third of his lunch each day, and meticulously packages the rest to bring home. The headphones he constantly has in his ears are not actually plugged into anything, the cord tucked into his otherwise empty pocket. It’s not hard to connect the dots; Ilya’s family cannot afford basic essentials such as clothing and food, there is no way they’d be able to afford the hockey team’s fees.
As Ilya’s sole friend in the whole of Canada, Shane feels a certain level of responsibility for him. He can’t imagine Ilya would be terribly receptive to outright charity, but there has got to be a way to include him in the team without having to pay to be there. He’s much bigger than Shane; even the stick Shane gave him was a bit of a stretch, there is no way Ilya could fit into any of Shane’s other equipment. Equipment aside, though, there are fees to cover the cost of renting the rink, transportation to travel games, and probably even more things that Shane has never even thought about.
Luckily, the head coach of Shane’s team is his very own father, David Hollander, and there is no better place to discuss team matters than at the dinner table.
“So,” he says, pushing a steamed pea around his plate. “You know my friend, Ilya?”
“Your friend, Ilya, who you talk about every single day and spend every waking moment with after school?” Yuna teases. “I think we’ve heard of him.”
Shane smiles, embarrassed. “I, um. I kinda have a problem.”
Yuna’s teasing smile falls away. “With Ilya?”
“Not with Ilya, exactly,” Shane says.
“Did he do something?” Yuna asks. “Did you do something?”
David places his hand over his wife’s where she’s clutching her fork. “Let him talk, Yuna."
“He’s, like, incredible at hockey,” Shane says. “Like, Mom, incredible. Dad, you should see him play, it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“This doesn’t sound like a problem,” Yuna whispers to David. “Has he gotten to the problem yet?”
Shane laughs, rolling his eyes playfully at his mother. “He can’t afford to join the team. Or, well, his family can’t, I guess, and he won’t admit that that’s why he won’t join, but I know that it is.”
“Oh,” Yuna says, slumping back in her chair. “That’s so sad.”
“We can cover his fees,” David shrugs, like it’s that easy. “If he’s as good as you say.”
“I don’t think he’d accept it,” Shane says. “He kinda shuts down whenever I bring it up.”
“There are scholarships,” Yuna says.
“True, all he’d have to do is write an essay,” David says.
Shane rubs at his face. “He barely speaks English, he’s not going to be able to write an essay.”
“You could help him,” Yuna says. They’re really not understanding the depth of this problem.
“Nevermind,” Shane says quietly, turning his attention back to his peas. “Thanks anyway.”
“He wouldn’t let you help him?” Yuna asks.
“I don’t think so,” Shane shrugs.
“Well, we’ll create a new scholarship,” David says, but the exaggerated wink he gives Shane tells him that this idea likely wouldn’t be admissible in a court of law. “The, uh, Transplants Scholarship, or something. The season’s halfway over, anyway, so the fees can be reduced, and he can participate in some sort of special try-out for eligibility for the scholarship, which might just conveniently cover the rest of the costs…”
“Really?” Shane says, sitting up a little straighter. “You can do that?”
“We’ll think of a better name for it first,” Yuna says, side-eyeing her husband.
“Thank you,” Shane gushes, grinning so hard it squeezes his eyes shut. “Thank you, thank you!”
“Easy now, kid, he’s still gotta meet the requirements of eligibility,” David says.
“David, you just made it up on the spot specifically for him,” Yuna says.
“Jeez,” David sighs. “Tough crowd.”
Shane is so excited about the prospect of Ilya joining the team that he almost can’t sleep that night. He’s not very good at lying, so hopefully Ilya will just take him at his word tomorrow when Shane tells him about the “scholarship” and he won’t ask too many questions.
He doesn’t see Ilya until lunch, but he doesn’t want to bring it up in front of the rest of the guys, in case Ilya doesn’t take it as well as Shane is hoping. He waits until the bell rings to send them back to their classrooms for the afternoon, and then presses close to Ilya’s side to walk with him out of the cafeteria.
“Hey, I meant to tell you something,” he says, desperately hoping to sound casual. Ilya hums, and Shane takes it as an invitation to keep going. “I was talking to my dad last night– oh, my dad is the head coach of the hockey team, did I tell you that before? Anyway, I was talking to him about–”
“Shane,” Ilya says, touching his arm gently. “Slow.”
“Oh, sorry,” Shane says, just as quickly. “Sorry,” he says again, slower. Ilya smiles. “My dad, he coaches the hockey team,” Shane repeats, much slower this time, waiting until Ilya nods in understanding. “I told him about you, how good you are.”
Ilya looks down quickly, like he already knows where this is headed. Shane barrels on.
“He said there’s a scholarship, um, like, a contest?” Shane says, watching Ilya’s face. Ilya nods sharply. “And if you qualify, you can be on the team without having to pay.”
Ilya becomes very interested by the group of students to his right. Shane elbows him from his left.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes,” Ilya says.
“Do you, uh, understand?”
“Yes,” Ilya says again. “Is free money.”
“Uh, sorta, I guess,” Shane shrugs. “Not really. You just get to play for free.”
Ilya nods, lips twitching. Shane can’t tell if he wants to smile or shout.
“Think about it,” Shane says, a hair short of pleading. “Will you?”
Ilya shrugs. “What is… to qualify?”
“To win it,” Shane says. “It’s skill-based, I think. Um, if you’re good at hockey, you win,” he says. “So. You’re probably over-qualified.”
Ilya loses the battle against his smile. Shane’s shoulders relax a little. “How?” Ilya asks.
“How do you apply for it?” Shane clarifies. “I don’t know, I’ll talk to my dad.”
Ilya nods again, still not looking at Shane, but it’s fine, Shane can deal with that. Ilya might join the team! “Okay,” Ilya says simply.
Shane spends most of the night up with his parents, constructing a reasonable, subtle, but challenging list of skill-based requirements which Ilya will have to complete in order to prove his worthiness to waive his fees to play on the team. Even if there was a possibility that Ilya could not qualify for the scholarship, Shane still thinks he’d totally nail it.