Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shane waits another five minutes after Nessa’s breathing has finally evened out against his neck, just to make absolutely sure. He’s half asleep himself, running on little more than fumes, but he keeps up the slow, steady laps around the parlour, humming quietly under his breath. His bad shoulder twinges with every other step, a not so friendly reminder that he’s not actually supposed to be lugging around a good 20 pounds of toddler deadweight, and he’s mentally adjusting tomorrow’s workout to account for the additional soreness when Ilya slips into the room.

He’s in nothing but a pair of sweats, hair still damp from his shower, and he grins when he catches Shane following a stray drop of water that’s making its way down between his pecs. “Insatiable,” he teases, clearly very proud of himself and his word of the day. But then his expression turns softer, tinged with a hint of worry, as he moves closer to peek at their daughter’s face. “She finally fell asleep.”

“Mmh,” Shane says, and tips his head to rest his cheek against the top of Nessa’s head, “a couple minutes ago.”

Ilya smooths a hand down her back. “She was not a happy girl tonight.”

“She’s got bones growing out of her skull, I think she’s earned the right to be a little cranky.”

“Should just get her fake teeth now,” Ilya muses, and flashes his own mouth full of bridges and crowns when Shane rolls his eyes at him. “Is inevitable, anyway.”

Shane quirks a brow at him. “Because she’ll grow up to be a brute of a hockey player like one of her fathers, and get her head knocked around enough to lose most of her teeth and all of her common sense before she turns 30?”

Ilya smiles back at him all sunnily. “Yes, exactly.”

“You’re an idiot,” Shane tells him, ridiculously fond despite his best efforts, his eyes fluttering shut when Ilya leans in to press his lips against his temple.

“Such disrespect,” he whines, but Shane can hear the fake pout in his voice, feel him smile against his skin, “in my own home, from my own husband. So tragic.”

Shane straightens up just enough to brush their mouths together. Unable to resist, he mutters, “Your face is tragic,” and then hisses, “Ilya, stop, I swear to fucking god, if you wake her up again—” when Ilya digs his fingers into the ticklish spot under Shane’s ribs.

Ilya kisses him again, more indulgence than apology, but Shane will take it anyway. “You think she will wake up if we put her down?” he asks, reaching up to rub at Shane’s aching shoulder. Because, somehow, he can always tell. Shane melts into the pressure with a shivery, appreciative groan.

Predictably, Nessa does start fussing when Shane goes to settle her in her own bed, but Ilya’s right there, stroking a hand through her hair and whispering in hushed Russian. Shane straightens up with a grimace—the floor bed was definitely the right choice once she learned how to climb out of her crib, but Shane’s back is decidedly not a fan—and stretches, shaking out his tingling arm as he watches Ilya comfort their little girl.

“No, my love,” Ilya promises, hand cupping Nessa’s impossibly small face with a tenderness that still does all sorts of funny things to Shane’s heart, “you’ll have the best, the sweetest dreams. Full of unicorns, castles, butterflies, princesses—”

“Robots,” Nessa corrects stubbornly, even while more asleep than awake.

“—and robots, of course,” Ilya agrees easily, the corners of his mouth twitching tellingly. He leans down to press a lingering kiss to her forehead. “All the best things, just as soon as you go back to sleep, Inushka.”

It takes some more gentle coaxing, plus the promise of croissants for breakfast—because apparently they’re raising a tiny extortionist—but eventually, Nessa does drift off again. Ilya sits back on his haunches with a noise that’s pure exhaustion, head tipped back and eyes closed. Shane rubs a sympathetic hand over his shoulders, then holds it out and hauls Ilya to his feet with a grunt.

Ilya’s knee creaks loudly. “Fuck.” He winces, an unsteady hobble to his step as they move out of the room and pull the door shut as quietly as possible. He catches Shane around the waist before he can go far, tugging him close, and Shane goes easily, happily, tucking himself against Ilya’s chest with a contented sigh. “We are very broken men.”

Shane kisses the mole on Ilya’s collarbone. “And old.”

“You, maybe,” Ilya huffs, his breath warm against Shane’s ear, “but me? Still young. Sexy. Virile—”

“Okay, casanova,” Shane can’t help but laugh as he leans back enough to be able to look at Ilya’s face, “because one month makes all the difference, huh—”

They both flinch at the unexpected sound of the doorbell, too loud and too shrill in the otherwise silent house. Neither of them moves for a long, tense moment, both holding their breath as they wait, but the universe has apparently decided to give them a much needed break, and everyone stays firmly asleep.

Shane frowns, even as his body starts to relax again.

Ilya purses his lips in annoyance as he disentangles himself from Shane. “It’s eleven in the fucking evening.”

“I’ll be right down,” Shane says, patting Ilya’s chest, “I’m just going to check on everyone real quick.”

The bell rings again when Ilya’s halfway down the stairs, but luckily before Shane has had the chance to open Mari’s bedroom door. When he does crack it open, she’s sprawled out diagonally across her bed, limbs akimbo and mouth wide open, curls an absolute mess and absolutely everywhere. Resembling Ilya so much, Shane has to take a minute to just—look at her, take her in, blinking rapidly against the moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes.

Almost two decades of being together in some capacity or other, and going on ten years of being married, and Shane’s just as weak for Ilya Rozanov as he was at 17. Possibly even more so, with the girls added to the ridiculous chaos that is their life. Shane wouldn’t have it any other way.

Their bedroom is quiet when Shane passes it, as is the baby monitor he’s got tucked into the pocket of his pajama pants, so they are, Shane thinks almost giddily, three for three for possibly the first night since they brought Yana home from the hospital.

Go team, go them.

His good mood lasts him until the bottom of the stairs. Ilya’s words, once he’s close enough to hear, are terse and clipped, harsh like Shane’s rarely ever heard him speak to anyone, and Shane’s sure the only reason Ilya closes the front door with some restraint instead of slamming it shut is because of the girls. “Hey, what—”

Ilya shakes his head jerkily when they meet in the entryway, jaw clenched and nostrils flaring. “I don’t—” he swallows hard, sniffles angrily, “Can’t. I can’t. Sorry.”

The bell rings yet again.

Upstairs, Yana starts crying.

Ilya’s hands are trembling when he lifts his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I—fuck, I don’t know.” He swallows hard, and wipes a hand over his face. “Do whatever, I—I can’t, I’m sorry.”

Shane blinks, mildly confused and immediately concerned, and is about to follow Ilya back upstairs when the knocking starts. Because, right, someone’s still at the door. Someone who’s just reduced Shane’s generally unshakable husband to actual tears. Shane can count on both hands the times he’s seen Ilya cry in all their years together, including the births of their daughters, and on one how many physical fights he himself has instigated in his whole life, but he’s sorely tempted to increase that number by one right about now.

The knocking grows more insistent.

“All right!” Shane calls out, taking the few steps necessary so he can rip open the front door. “I don’t know what you think is important enough to warrant any of this, but I’ve got my children sleeping in here, and I don’t—oh.”

It takes him most of his rant to actually recognize the man on their porch since he’s only ever seen him in the background of old childhood photos, but once he does, the urge to throw a punch increases tenfold. Shane doesn’t do it, because it would be stupid and unproductive—and incredibly satisfying, probably, but that’s beside the point—but mostly because of the kid standing shyly behind the man, watching the scene unfold with wide eyes.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” is what his whirling mind settles on instead. He winces as soon as the words have left his mouth, glancing guiltily at the kid. Or possibly teenager, though he doesn’t look older than twelve, maybe thirteen, but definitely not old enough for Shane to be cursing at what he assumes must be his father like this, not right in front of him.

Shane bites back the automatic apology that wants to slip out, because he might’ve decided against starting an all out brawl with Alexei Rozanov, at least for the time being, but he’s not about to say sorry to the asshole, either.

They stare at each other, neither of them saying anything for a minute. Shane’s asked his question, and he’s just about petty enough to not make this easy or comfortable for Alexei, who ends up being the one to break first. “I want to speak with my brother.”

Shane doesn’t give a single shit about what Alexei wants, frankly. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Pretty sure your brother doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Alexei grits his teeth, blowing a frustrated breath out of his nose. “Is, uh, family. Family thing.”

“Ilya’s my family,” Shane says coolly, raising both brows challengingly, “not yours. Not anymore.”

Alexei opens his mouth, then quickly closes it again, visibly reeling himself back in. He puts a hand on the boy’s back, urging him forward. “Is about Dmitri.” Then, as if it pains him, he adds, “Please?”

Shane sort of wishes he’d choke on the word, because the kid’s clutching his backpack tightly to his chest, looking tired and scared enough for Shane to step to the side and gesture them inside. Dmitri only moves when Alexei gives him a little push, shoulders hunched as he passes by Shane. Alexei goes to follow, but Shane stops him with an arm braced against the doorframe, blocking his way.

“One chance,” he says, low in the hopes that Dmitri won’t hear, “that’s it. One. And then, if Ilya wants you gone, you go. Do you understand?”

Alexei nods curtly, just once.

Shane shows them where to put down their bags and coats, then leads them to the kitchen. He considers putting on some coffee since he’s fairly sure neither he nor Ilya are getting much sleep after whatever this will turn out to be, but then decides fuck it, and grabs the bottle of vodka from the freezer instead to pour himself half a finger. He doesn’t offer Alexei any.

He does smile at Dmitri, though, small but as real as he can muster up right now. “Would you like something to drink? Water, pop? Hot cocoa?”

Dmitri turns to look at Alexei.

“Ah,” Alexei says, “no English.”

“Sorry,” Shane tells Dmitri, who perks up at the Russian, despite Shane’s atrociously anglophone accent. “Do you like hot cocoa?”

Dmitri gives him a timid nod.

The cocoa’s the instant kind, so Shane switches on the kettle and, on a whim, grabs the jar with the tea cakes Ilya gets from the Russian bakery downtown every week. He puts a couple on a plate, pours the water once it’s boiling, and carries both the plate and the mug over to Dmitri.

“We have a television in the other room,” he offers, pointing at the parlour with his elbow, “you can watch something, or play some games?”

Because while Shane’s still in the dark about why Dmitri and Alexei are here, he can say with complete certainty that he does not want the kid around when Ilya and Alexei inevitably get into it.

Dmitri glances at Alexei again, then actually smiles up at Shane when Alexei tells him yes.

Shane settles him on the couch with the cookies and cocoa, gets him one of the fuzzy blankets Ilya loves to swaddle himself in for naps, and turns the TV on for him. “We have Russian channels, here,” he explains, putting one on, then shows him how to navigate to Netflix, Disney, and the Xbox. “You can call for me if you need anything else.” Then, because he realizes all of a sudden that he has zero idea what Alexei might’ve told him about who Shane is, he tacks on somewhat lamely, “I’m Shane.”

“Thank you,” Dmitri says politely, and reaches for one of the cookies.

Alexei’s standing by the fridge when Shane gets back, looking a million miles away as his eyes move over the photos Shane’s put up. Shane picks up his glass and takes a measured sip, watching him.

“You speak Russian,” Alexei says eventually, still focused on the pictures.

Shane answers in English. “I’m still learning, but my husband and my children are Russian, so yeah. Of course I do.”

That gets him a look, though Shane couldn’t figure out exactly what kind even if he wanted to. “What about Ilya?” Alexei’s tone doesn’t give much away, but it’s not exactly nice. “He’s always been lazy, bad at school. Did he learn, uh—”

Shane waits him out, letting him flounder for a moment, because fuck him and his inaccurate, offensive narrative, honestly. “Japanese. And no,” he says when Alexei awkwardly averts his gaze, “I’m not fluent myself. I speak mostly English to the kids, he speaks mostly Russian with them, and we use both between the two of us.”

Alexei doesn’t have anything to say to that. He turns back to the fridge, pointing at one of the photos. “You still play?”

It’s the most recent addition to the collection, taken only last month at center ice right after the Cens’ cup win. Shane hadn’t even noticed Harris taking it, too busy crying happy tears into Ilya’s neck, Ilya’s lips pressed to the crown of his sweaty head, Mari in Shane’s arms, Nessa in Ilya’s, and poor Yana squished between them in her sling, strapped to Ilya’s chest, conked out despite the cheering crowd and yelling hockey players.

Shane shakes his head. “This was my last season, I’m done.” It’s still strange to say, and even stranger that saying it doesn’t come with any sadness or resentment, only excitement for what’s in store for them now. He joins Alexei, only a little reluctantly, tapping at another photo. Shane’s on Ilya’s shoulders in this one, both still in their full gear except for their helmets, Shane hoisting the cup up high while he presses a sloppy kiss to it. “Ilya retired five years ago, after we won together the first time.”

“Because of his knee?”

“Yeah,” Shane says, surprised Alexei knows as much. Although he probably shouldn’t be; Ilya’s a pariah in his home country, sure, but the news still love reporting on him, even if it’s rarely anything positive. They would’ve surely been all over his career ending. “And because we wanted to start a family.”

Alexei’s gaze wanders over the other pictures. “You have three children?”

“Yeah.” Shane smiles, because, well. That’s his family they’re talking about. The loves of his life. He’s allowed some sappiness. “Marika,” he points, at a photo from last summer of her and Ilya in the lake at the cottage, her laughing in delight as Ilya’d tossed her up in the air, “she’s four now. That’s Inessa,” he moves his finger to a picture of her cuddled up with Chiron by the fireplace at the Drover family home, “she just turned two this spring. And Liliyana,” he points again, at the picture from the hospital of him sitting in an armchair with her cradled against his bare chest, Ilya crouched behind him with his arms around them, both of them smiling widely, “she’s three months.”

Looking over the other pictures, and snorting once he spots it, Shane moves the frowny emoji magnet off Scott’s face and back to the corner of the photo of him and Kip with Yana where it belongs. Then he checks the picture of Hayden and Jacki with Mari, because he knows his husband, but decides to leave the clown magnet where it is sitting on Hayden's face for him to find when the Pikes come up for their next weekend visit.

“So,” Alexei asks, looking back over the photos, “you have only girls?”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean, only girls?”

Shane startles at Ilya’s barked question. He turns quickly enough to nearly spill his drink, and sets it down on the counter before he actually drops it.

“It was only a question, no need to be so sensitive about it—”

“One chance,” Shane reminds Alexei, making him snap his mouth shut with an audible click. He rounds the counter towards Ilya, hands already up and hovering. “Ilya—”

The gentle admonishment makes the frown slide right off Ilya’s face, at least. His eyes crinkle affectionately, and he lifts the arm holding Yana up higher. “She is fine, she likes it.”

Which is true, unfortunately, and also the main reason Shane tries not to freak out every single time he catches his husband carrying their youngest around like she’s a damn football. His stomach still swoops unpleasantly, though, even as Yana grabs for his thumb, and he sends a grateful smile up at Ilya when Ilya expertly transfers her into his own arms so he can cradle her against his good shoulder.

“Sorry, sorry, I know she’s okay,” he says with a wince, because it’s not like he doesn’t trust his husband to handle their children, it’s really not, “and I know I’m being stupid—”

“Mm, not stupid.” Ilya’s hands land on Shane’s hips, squeezing reassuringly. “Little bit overprotective maybe. But you are lucky, because it’s very cute.”

He leans in to kiss Shane, grunts a protest when Shane attempts to keep it casual due to their audience, and deepens it instead, giving Shane’s bottom lip a quick, cheeky nip. And far be it from Shane to keep Ilya from showing them off, or from making a point in front of his bully of a brother, so he pushes up on his tiptoes, presses two, three more kisses against Ilya’s mouth, and then a softer one to his cheek before finally pulling back.

Not too far, though, and he’s careful not to dislodge Ilya’s hands. He searches Ilya’s face for a moment, notices the tension in his neck and the redness of his eyes, and can’t help but brush another kiss over his jaw. “I’m right here with you,” he murmurs, dropping his forehead against Ilya’s, “no matter what happens. Yeah?”

Ilya closes his eyes. His hands flex against Shane’s hips. “Yes. I know. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Alexei’s staring at them when they separate and step apart.

Shane’s skin prickles unpleasantly, resentment heavy and bitter in his throat. He’s fought too hard—the public, his former team, people he used to call family, himself most of all—to move on from all the internalized negativity only to now feel ashamed in his own home, of all places. For something as normal and human as comforting his husband. And he could give Alexei the benefit of the doubt, he doesn’t actually know what Alexei’s thinking or why he looks like he’s swallowed a lemon, but Shane’s on edge, he’s tired, and he just simply doesn’t want to.

“Come on,” he nudges Ilya towards a barstool at the counter, and tops up his glass from earlier, sliding it over to Ilya. He grabs a second one from the cupboard for Alexei, not because he’s feeling particularly generous, but the situation’s tense enough already without Shane being openly antagonistic and rude. He puts it down by the stool furthest from Ilya and gestures Alexei towards it.

Then he busies himself with preparing a bottle for Yana, doing his best to ignore the hostility brewing behind his back.

“Ilya—” Alexei starts, only to be immediately cut off by a waspish, “What the fuck do you want?” from Ilya.

Shane screws the bottle shut once the warmer beeps, shushes Yana and kisses her head when she gurgles impatiently, and takes a steadying breath before turning back around.

Alexei’s eyes dart over to Shane. Shane stares him down, utterly unimpressed.

“Can we talk alone?”

“I’m not keeping secrets from my spouse,” Ilya says, heavy focus on the ‘my’. “You can speak in front of Shane, or you can shut the fuck up. Guess which one I’d prefer.”

Shane bites the inside of his cheek. Considers for the nth time what it might say about him and his preferences that he never finds his husband more attractive than when he’s being a dick. Especially if it’s deserved dickishness.

“Where is Tania anyway?” Ilya continues, one brow quirked sardonically, and takes a long sip of his vodka. “Or has she finally had the good sense to leave you for good?”

It’s a little unnerving, Shane discovers as he watches the instant fury on Alexei’s face being tempered back into something less volatile, how effortlessly Shane can read a perfect stranger. Ilya and Alexei don’t much look alike—Ilya’s never said so outright, but Shane’s long suspected that one of the many reasons for Alexei’s resentment is Ilya’s resemblance to their mother—but they’re unmistakably related. Someone else might not be able to spot it straight away, but it’s obvious to Shane in the way they move, hold themselves, hold themselves back, behaviours and motions clearly learned early and ingrained over decades.

“She stayed in Moscow with Dasha,” Alexei grits out, hand clenched around his glass. “It doesn’t matter. This is about Dima.”

Ilya waves his hand in an impatient ‘get on with it’ motion that Alexei, who’s glowering down at his drink, doesn’t catch. Which is probably for the best.

“Dima, he.” Alexei licks his lips. Knuckles at his eye. Then, finally, looks at Ilya, face pale and voice a hoarse whisper. “He’s like you.”

Shane sucks in a sharp breath.

Ilya goes very, very still. “Like me how?”

Alexei glares. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m many things. Handsome. Successful. The best hockey player of my generation—”

“He’s a fucking homosexual, Ilya, okay?”

“I’m not gay—”

“Gay enough to suck—”

“That’s enough.” Shane doesn’t raise his voice, but his tone slone has both men fall silent instantly. Yana makes another unhappy noise, and Ilya’s face crumples at the sound. He looks wrecked. Shane checks the temperature of the milk, then moves back around the counter, settles Yana in Ilya’s arms and hands him the bottle. He puts a supportive hand on the back of Ilya’s neck, and kisses his bare shoulder when Ilya immediately relaxes into the contact.

Only then does he acknowledge Alexei again. “What do you want from us, here?”

Alexei throws back the rest of his vodka before answering. “I don’t—I didn’t expect this. Any of this. I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe,” Ilya says, deceptively casual, eyes never leaving Yana, “start by not calling him a broken, disgusting faggot his entire childhood, I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”

Shane seriously reconsiders his earlier stance on putting a fist through Alexei’s face.

“He’s my son!” Alexei has the audacity to sound offended, which prompts a derisive snort out of Ilya, but at least makes Shane hopeful that Dmitri’s been spared the worst of the emotional abuse Ilya’s had to endure back in Russia. “I wouldn’t—he’s my son!”

Ilya readjusts Yana, pulling back the bottle when she starts gulping it down, and kisses her temple when she fusses at the movement. “Ssh, we’re good, it’s okay. Here you go, slow now, Lilochka. Slow and steady, my sunshine.”

There’s none of the warmth he speaks to her with left when he addresses Alexei again. “So you experienced some character growth and developed half a conscience, congratulations. That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“I didn’t think, I just acted.” Alexei slumps against the counter, rubbing both his hands over his face. “My child was in danger, that’s all I cared about in the moment.”

That’s enough to have Ilya look at Alexei, properly, for what Shane realizes might be the first time. “In danger how?” he demands, accusation more than clear in the clipped way he’s shaping his words. “What did you do?”

Alexei glares. “Nothing. Well, I tried to fix it, but,” he shrugs, trailing off, practically radiating discomfort.

“Okay,” Shane says, and makes the incredibly mature decision to postpone being absolutely furious at Alexei and his complete inability to talk about his son’s sexuality in a mature manner to some later point in time. What they need right now is clarification, information. Quite possibly a lawyer. “How about you tell us what happened, Alexei?”

Alexei seems shocked and a touch insulted by Shane’s use of his name, but Shane’s a rapidly developing stress-migraine away from being able to care about that. “Dima was, uh," he pauses, drums his fingers against the counter nervously, “he was careless—”

Ilya bristles. “He’s a child—”

Shane brushes his thumb across Ilya’s neck. Because while he agrees that whatever happened was, in all probability, not at all Dmitri’s fault, arguing parenting methods that are based on highly different cultural principles will only lead them into another, unproductive fight that won’t solve anything. So, instead, Shane takes a guess that, “He did something that could be a legal issue?”

Alexei grimaces. “He—the other boy’s father, he saw them—they were—”

“He caught them kissing?” Ilya finishes for him, chuckling humorlessly. He puts the empty bottle on the counter, and pulls Yana up against his chest, gently rubbing her back. “You can talk about two boys kissing without turning queer yourself, don’t worry, it’s not contagious.”

It’s obvious Alexei wants to say something biting back, but ultimately, in the first sensible move he’s made tonight, he decides not to engage. “He called me up, threatened me. Made it sound like the whole—the whole thing was Dima’s idea. I paid him off, and he’s promised not to report anything, but he’s a азартный игрок, so who fucking knows.”

Shane gets the gist of it, that whoever’s making trouble for Alexei’s family can’t be trusted to keep quiet, though he’s unfamiliar with the words themselves. Ilya, with his almost uncanny ability to read Shane and understand him better than he does himself, sometimes, must sense his confusion, because he cranes his neck to glance up at Shane and explains, “He likes to play games. Like Las Vegas games.”

“He’s a gambler?”

“Yes, that.”

Which could definitely pose a problem later on. “You’re afraid he’ll ask for more and more money?” Shane asks Alexei, who nods miserably enough that Shane’s almost tempted to feel the slightest sliver of sympathy for him.

“Шантажировать,” Ilya concludes, then translates for Shane’s benefit, “Illegal asking for money, uh, blackmail.” He sighs, sounding resigned when he asks Alexei, “So, what? You came to ask me to pay the man off?”

“No, I’m not stupid—"

“Debatable—”

“I don’t have a plan. My only priority was getting Dima out before something bad could happen.”

And that, at the very least, is something Shane knows him and Ilya both can relate to on a primal level. They’re fortunate enough to be raising their girls in an incredibly open, diverse and supportive environment, and despite their fame and the privacy limitations that come with it, the Canadian government is generally on their side, and they’re wealthy enough to afford certain protections to make up for whatever the law might not directly cover.

It’s something Shane’s never treated lightly or taken for granted, and witnessing Alexei’s helplessness in the face of the injustices his son has to struggle with is a stark, sobering reminder that not everyone’s been awarded the same privileges as them.

“We can contact our lawyers,” Shane offers, feeling off-kilter and, well, icky. Because Ilya’s right, Dmitri’s only a child, for crying out loud. He should be able to experience first crushes and first kisses without shame and fear. “The ones that helped with all of Ilya’s visa stuff? I’m sure they could help with whatever your family needs as well.”

But Ilya’s already shaking his head before Shane’s even finished speaking. “It’s different for them. Rules are even more strict now. And Alexei is—”

“Police,” Shane recalls with a sudden sense of dread, remembering bits and pieces from a conversation years and years ago. “He’s police.”

An integral part of the system of oppression. Not an ideal candidate to be asking for permission to relocate his family to North America in a time when Russia’s more desperate than ever to close its borders and isolate itself from the West, when it’s struggling to keep the current generation from leaving and prevent a complete societal and economical collapse.

And the only conclusion Shane can draw from that is, “He wants to leave Dmitri here?” Which is a horrifying enough concept that he actually switches to Russian to demand, to make absolutely sure there’s no miscommunication, “You’re abandoning your child?”

Alexei doesn’t say anything.

Not that he needs to; the tortured expression on Ilya’s face is answer enough.

Sometimes, despite all the years of therapy and work and unconditional love from the people around him, Shane still gets overwhelmed enough that he shuts down. Loses himself in the tangle of his thoughts, gets stuck in a spiral of anxiety, overthinks to the point of paralysis, but even more rarely? Shane gets angry. Truly angry. Angry enough that—

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he spits, dully aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, of how vicious he sounds, “You cowardly piece of—”

Ilya’s hand reaching back to touch his side is, thankfully, enough to snap him out of the storm of fury before it truly takes hold. “Shane, baby. Take a deep breath for me, please.”

Shane deflates instantly.

He takes a moment to calm himself and regulate his breathing before he dares to look down over Ilya’s shoulder at their daughter. Yana, bless her and the nonchalance she’s definitely inherited from Ilya, is fast asleep and entirely unperturbed by Shane crashing out. Small mercies.

Alexei, to his credit, looks appropriately cowed. Exhausted. Entirely defeated. “It’s not about wanting. What I want is to take Dima home, forget this ever happened, move on with my life. For my son to be normal—”

“Oh, fuck you,” Shane tells him, with feeling.

“Think whatever you want of me, I don’t care.” Alexei inclines his head at the bottle of vodka, and pours himself another glass when Ilya nods. He downs half of it in one go. “But you can’t blame me for trying to keep my child from getting hurt.”

In that, loath as Shane is to admit it, Alexei is regrettably correct.

There’s plenty of other things, though, that Shane’s not about to forgive and forget.

“How did you get out of Russia?” Ilya demands suspiciously, which is a question Shane hasn’t even considered yet. “You alone, maybe. Both of you together? This quickly? Doesn’t seem possible.”

“I have certain connections,” Alexei says, then adds, more quietly, a little bitterly, “And a massive dent in my savings, now.”

Ilya shakes his head with a disgusted huff. “Putting a prize on your child’s life; you’re truly father of the year material.”

“Hold on,” Shane says, before Alexei gets the chance to react and derail the conversation again, “how did you get our address? We’re not publicly listed.”

Or they shouldn’t be, at least. And if they are, someone’s screwed up, and Shane will have to make some calls as soon as possible.

Alexei jerks his head at Ilya. “He gave it to me.”

“The fuck I did!”

“You sent me an email. A birth announcement for, uhm, your oldest? Marika? It was in there.”

Ilya’s face scrunches up in confusion. “No?”

“Did you just click ‘select all’ in your address list?” Shane asks, because it wouldn’t be entirely unprecedented for his husband, but it would be an explanation Shane could live with and not have to worry about. There aren’t any people with access to Ilya’s personal email address whom Shane doesn’t also trust with protecting their privacy, present company not included. “Like when you sent half the team that white chocolate mousse recipe you wanted to show my dad?”

“Maybe,” Ilya allows after a moment, mouth pursed sheepishly. Then he shrugs, and cranes his neck to smile dopily up at Shane. “I was very excited.”

Shane hides his own smile by kissing the top of Ilya’s head.

Their little moment of levity is short-lived, however, because despite the relief that their house isn’t about to be overrun by the media trying to get a rare picture of their girls, there’s still a much more pressing matter at hand; what is going to happen with Dmitri?

Ilya is obviously thinking along the same lines. “If you bribed someone for—what, a passport for Dima? Visa papers? Whatever it was, you must’ve also paid them to help you get back.”

It’s not really a question, but Alexei understands well enough. “My flight leaves on Sunday.”

“The day after tomorrow,” Shane clarifies automatically, albeit unnecessarily. “Two days, you—you dragged your child halfway across the world to leave him with complete strangers, in a place he doesn’t know, in a country whose languages he doesn’t speak, and you’re going to fuck back off home after two days?”

The look Alexei directs at Shane is pure vitriol. “It’s not as if I had a choice—”

Shane doesn’t care enough for his useless excuses to let him finish. “And never mind the emotional trauma that being abandoned by his father is going to cause, how did you expect this to work? Are Dmitri’s papers even real? Will they hold up under legal scrutiny? I doubt Canada would send him back, given the circumstances, but we can’t guarantee they’d let him stay with us, familial relation or no. What if he ends up in foster care, or—”

“His passport’s real,” Alexei says stiffly, still glaring. “I made sure of it. I paid to get around the restrictions of obtaining one, but it is real. And I’ve got a letter, signed by a notary, asserting that both my wife and I agree that my brother and his—his husband are the people we trust to look after our son.”

Shane presses his hands against his face, laughing shakily. Maybe a touch hysterically. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, not sure where to go from here. Because, “This is—it’s not something people just do, you realize that, right? And even if, by some miracle, we’d be allowed to keep Dmitri here with us, what would that look like? How would it work? What about—”

“I think,” Ilya says as he stands, mindful of Yana still snoozing against his chest, “that it is late, and we are not going to find a solution tonight.” He oh so gently pries one of Shane’s hands away from his face to kiss his knuckles, then tangles their fingers together. “We will sleep, yes? And tomorrow, we will call our lawyers, look at options, find a way to help Dima. Okay?”

Shane gives his hand a grateful squeeze. “Okay. Yeah, okay, that’s probably for the best.”

Hopefully, someone with more insight into the legal side of this whole mess will be able to accurately convey to Alexei how absurd—and incredibly crazy and cruel—what he’s asking of them is. And once he’s wrapped his head around that fact, they’ll all sit down together, and work out how to actually keep Dmitri out of harm’s way.

Lifting Ilya’s hand up, Shane presses a kiss to the back of it, then lets go so he can put Yana’s bottle away in the sterilizer and return the vodka to the freezer. Ilya grabs the two glasses and puts them in the dishwasher, never more than a foot of space between them. Shane’s too exhausted, physically as well as emotionally, to tell if he’s doing it for Shane’s benefit or his own comfort, but Shane appreciates it all the same.

Dimitri’s fast asleep when they go check on him, the TV still on in the background, tuned in to what looks like some Russian cartoon. “The other couch pulls out,” Shane inclines his head at it, whispering as to not wake the kid up, “or there’s several guest rooms down here as well. Bathroom’s at the end of the hall, across from the kitchen.”

“The sofa is good,” Alexei says, in English. An olive branch Shane doesn’t really feel like accepting, but acknowledges with a quick nod.

Ilya’s already turned to leave, but he stops without turning back around when Alexei quietly calls out, “Ilyusha.”

Ilya’s whole body tenses up, Shane can see it even from halfway across the room, but his voice comes out steady and flat when he says, “What.”

“Thank you.”

Ilya shrugs. A stiff jerk of his shoulders. “I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing it for my nephew.”

“I know.” Alexei smiles down at the floor, small and sad. “I knew. That you would. Which is why I came to you.”

Ilya walks away without another word.

Shane follows.

He closes their bedroom door while Ilya carefully lowers Yana into the crib at the foot of the bed, murmuring softly to her when her face scrunches up in the process. Shane goes to use the bathroom first, and then, while Ilya’s busy brushing his teeth, Shane clicks off the overhead lights and switches on his bedside lamp, turns off the baby monitor and puts it away in his bedside drawer, before finally flopping down on the bed with a long, weary sigh, letting his limbs sprawl out.

What a fucking night.

He lets his eyes fall shut, absently keeping an ear on both Ilya’s movements and Yana’s snuffling breaths, and tries to mentally shake off the tension of the last couple of hours. It’s an unsurprisingly futile effort, what with no resolution anywhere near in sight, but by the time Ilya’s finished with his nighttime routine, Shane’s at least managed to talk himself out of needing to do something right this minute.

His parents are still in town for a while before they leave for the retirement celebration vacation Shane’d nearly had to force them to go on, and he’s sure they wouldn’t mind driving over to come get the kids for the day tomorrow, to distract—and undoubtedly spoil—them while Ilya and him confer with their legal team on how to proceed from here. He’s mentally debating if it would make sense for Dmitri to join them, to minimize the risk of him getting caught in the middle of this whole shitshow of a situation, or if handing him off to people he doesn’t know would do more harm than good, when Ilya returns from the ensuite.

"Hey, so, I was thinking,” Shane starts as he pushes himself up onto his elbows, and then promptly forgets the rest of what he was going to say the instant he gets a proper look at his husband. “Oh, Ilya.”

Ilya’s biting his lower lip so hard it’s turned almost white, and he’s shaking his head a little even as he angrily wipes a stray tear off his cheek. Never fully ready to show what he still perceives as weakness, even after all this time, even in front of Shane, and even though weak is the last thing Shane’d ever think when looking at his beautiful, resilient, and so very, very brave husband.

Sitting up fully, Shane holds open his arms. “Come here, sweetheart.”

Ilya crashes into him with a strangled sob, his knees hitting the mattress on either side of Shane’s hips with enough force to almost topple them both over. He immediately hides his face away in Shane’s neck, trembling hands desperately clutching at Shane’s back. Shane pushes one hand into his hair, scratching through his curls, and strokes the other up and down his spine, slow and steadying. He doesn’t offer platitudes or make hollow promises he might not be able to keep, just holds his husband and offers him the silent, unconditional support and reassurance he so obviously and desperately needs.

Rocks them back and forth soothingly, and peppers tiny kisses across every inch of Ilya’s head and shoulder he can reach.

“I hate him,” Ilya says wetly, after what might’ve been hours but was probably only minutes, voice still thick with tears. He sucks in a ragged breath, nosing deeper into Shane’s neck. “I do. So much. But also, I—I remember when he was not like this. When he used to drive me to practice because our parents were both working, and how he used to buy me cheeseburgers from McDonald’s on the way home and made me promise not to tell Mama. It was our secret. I remember—I remember how much I loved him, and it makes me hate him even more now.”

Shane’s only saving grace is that Ilya’s still tucked away and can’t see the tears that Shane isn’t quite able to hold back himself. He has to swallow around the lump in his throat several times before he can form the words to tell Ilya, trying for levity, “I nearly punched him when I saw him standing there on our porch.”

The snort-sob-laugh that prompts is possibly the most unattractive thing Ilya’s ever done, but Shane’s never loved him more.

“Mmh,” Ilya manages hoarsely as he moves to sit back in Shane’s lap, his grin weak but showing at least the spirit of its usual cockiness, “yes, please, talk dirty to me.”

“Dumbass,” Shane chuckles, cupping Ilya’s face in his hands. He rubs his thumbs over his damp cheeks. “We’re in this together. Always. Forever.”

Ilya sniffles but nods, the corners of his mouth tugging up into a small smile. “Yes. Always and forever.”

Shane kisses him. “I love you.”

Ilya boinks their foreheads together, his eyes fluttering shut. “I love you, too.”