Chapter Text
All these years later, Shane still hated being in Montreal. The skyline made him tense, the Voyageurs colors everywhere made his stomach turn. By now, sixteen years after the unceremonious non-renewal of his contract (which Ilya still referred to as his "gay exile"), there wasn’t anyone still playing for Montreal that had been on Shane’s team. Hayden and Jackie had moved out of the city and into the suburbs after Hayden’s retirement, now enjoying their empty nest. JJ and his wife lived in a fancy high rise but Shane had never actually seen it, preferring to lure his friends to the Ontario countryside with promises of fresh air and overly-excited children.
Nowadays, the only reason Shane found himself in Montreal was for the week of their summer camps (and the occasional Irina Foundation event). Thankfully, Shane was now driving in the direction of Ottawa, towards the cottage. As a professional hockey player, he’d spent the better part of his life on the road, flying from coast to coast, sleeping in hotel rooms and team buses more often than his own bed. And he’d done it with little to no complaint. Maybe it was old age, but Shane couldn’t stand to be away from home anymore. Hotel rooms were exciting for the first few days (and nights, especially nights), but after a week of unfamiliar sheets and harsh overhead lighting, Shane was itching in his own skin.
Or maybe it was that he finally had a real home to get back to, not an empty apartment filled with throw pillows and abstract art someone else had chosen for him, but one filled with color and laughter and toys and books and children’s hockey gear, a home where his husband made dinner every night and Shane had his vegetable garden and there were careful pencil marks on the wall next to the stairs marking the growing height of his three children.
One of the said children was currently fast asleep in the backseat, head resting comfortably on her grandma’s shoulder (who was also napping but would deny it immediately if anyone pointed it out). Yelena was eight, a fact Shane still found a bit unbelievable, but she’d been prone to naps since she was small. Out of their three kids, Yelena had been the best sleeper. She’d started sleeping through the night incredibly young. It had worried Shane at first, but the doctors (and Ilya, and his mom, and Jackie, and Lisa, and the many websites and forums he consulted, just to be safe) assured him it was completely normal. The habit had continued into childhood. Yelena could fall asleep anywhere, in any environment. She used to fall asleep at Centaurs games despite the roaring crowd, swaddled to Shane’s chest. Once, when she was five and at an Irina Foundation camp in Ottawa, Shane had found her fast asleep on the cold metal bench behind the home goal, entirely unbothered by the raucous slamming of pucks and children against the plexiglass. It was a habit Shane was convinced Lena had somehow picked up from his mother who, ever since Shane could remember, had never been able to sit through an entire movie without dozing off on the couch. And now the pair were snoring softly as Shane drove them home.
Mikhail had been the opposite, often waking up only an hour after being put down, wailing until someone picked him up and rocked him back to sleep. The doctors had told them it was likely due to the several days he spent alone in the hospital after his parent’s death. That wasn’t even counting how neglected he might have been before. They hadn’t been sure exactly how long Mikhail had been alone in that apartment after his mother and father died, a day, maybe two at most, until a neighbor grew concerned and investigated. Just the thought made Shane’s heart ache, like someone was wringing the muscle out in their hands. He felt the telltale pinprick of tears in his eyes and blinked them away. Mischa is fine, Shane reminded himself, breathing steady. He is healthy and happy and probably reading the Crosby biography that was due to the library tomorrow.
This was also the longest stretch he and Ilya had been away from baby Lilia. She’d been born just after their camps ended two years ago, and last year Shane and Ilya had split the week in Montreal, three days for Shane and four for Ilya. Lilia had been born premature and spent weeks in the hospital before they could bring her home. Shane considered those two and a half weeks the most terrifying time of his life, up there with the near-crash of the Centaur’s plane in 2021 and the week Ilya spent alone in Moscow sorting out Mikhail’s adoption. Lilia was fine now, a little small for her age but a perfectly healthy, beautiful toddler. Still, Shane had felt a bit sick at the thought of leaving his tiny baby (who was decidedly no longer a tiny baby) for a whole week. But Lilia hadn’t seemed to mind. She was excited to see her dads’ and siblings’ faces, of course, when they FaceTimed every night (and every morning, and sometimes in the afternoon), but they only held her interest for a few minutes before she was back to her favorite pastime of cuddling Anya’s giant head in her tiny lap or giggling with her best friend, Grandpa David.
So yes, Shane Hollander hated Montreal, and he couldn’t wait to get home.
—
Yelena (and Yuna) woke up as Shane pulled into their driveway. This was Yuna’s car and the plan was for Yuna to drive the 20 minutes back to her house while the kids took baths here, and then meet back at Yuna and David’s for dinner and to finally pick up Lilia and Anya.
What wasn’t on the agenda was Shane getting nearly tackled to the ground by his son.
“Woah!” Shane huffed as the wind was knocked out of him, barely out of the car. He tried to get a look at Mikhail’s face but it was buried in his jacket. He still had his backpack on, hockey stick and bag forgotten in the gravel drive, skinny arms squeezing tight around Shane’s middle.
“Why is Mischa being weird?” Shane heard Yelena ask as Yuna pulled her out of the car. Shane just gave his mother a shrug as she led his daughter into the house.
Ilya was standing by his car, unloading their bags from the trunk. He came around and picked up Mischa’s things. Shane gave him a questioning look, as in ‘what the hell is up with our kid?’ Ilya returned with his own patented parenting look, ‘everything is okay. we’ll talk later, when they’re distracted.’ Shane just nodded, and Ilya took the bags inside.
“Hey buddy, let’s put this down, yeah?” Shane said softly, and he carefully unwrapped Mikhail’s arms from around him just enough to slip his backpack off and set it on the ground before hugging his son properly, tightly and with the pressure evenly distributed across his torso, like he knew Mischa liked.
Mikhail didn’t hug Shane back this time, but that was okay. Ever since he was small, he liked to be held like this, arms tucked against his own chest and wrapped up in Shane like a cocoon, even now as an “almost teenager.” Shane tried and failed to remember the last time he collapsed into his parents’ arms like this. It had to have been at least 10 or 15 years ago. He hoped Mikhail never stopped.
“Did something happen?” Shane near-whispered, the fluffy hair on Mikhail’s head tickling his nose. He was going to be so tall, taller than Ilya maybe. He was already big for his age. Shane made a mental note to make sure he was eating enough for the growth spurts that would inevitably keep coming.
Mikhail didn’t respond, not really. He shook his head and made a sound into Shane’s chest that sounded close to a no. Well, that was obviously a lie. So Shane tried again.
“Do you know what’s upsetting you?” Again, no words, just a little shrug in Shane’s arms. And then a sniffle. He could feel his shirt getting wet. Shit. It’d only been two hours since Shane had last seen his son, but then again he hadn’t seen much of him today at all, having been preoccupied with coaching the younger kids team. But Ilya said everything was fine, so they must have talked about it in the car. Okay.
“Did you and Papa talk about it?” That got Shane a nod. Good. “Do you wanna talk to me about it too?” A long pause, then another nod, and a shaky deep breath. Still no words, but that was fine.
“Okay, we can talk. Now?” Head shake, no, later. “Later is good too. How about a walk after dinner, just you and me?” Shane rubbed his hand in big, firm circles across Mikhail’s back, the same way he used to do when he’d carry him against his chest, trying to soothe the crying baby back to sleep.
That got Shane a response. “Okay,” Mikhail breathed out, still hiding his face.
Shane leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “I love you, Mischa.” He mumbled something close enough to I love you too into Shane’s shirt. Shane slowly unwrapped his arms from around his son, holding onto his shoulders for a second just in case Mikhail was a little unsteady on his feet.
Shane didn’t force him to meet his eyes yet, just kept his voice soft, “Why don’t you go inside and take a shower? You can use our bathroom. We’ve got plenty of time before we need to leave for dinner.”
That got Mikhail to look up at him, a small smile on his face. His cheeks were tear-stained, nose red, and he’d been chewing on his lip. Shane’s heart ached again. But there was no use pressing the issue now. They’d talk this evening, when Mischa was ready.
“Okay? I’ll get your bag. Go, before your sister uses all the hot water.” That was a lie. Shane had gotten an extra large water heater installed at the cottage after Yelena was born, so they never ran out of hot water, even when Shane and Mischa took extra long, extra hot showers. But Ilya insisted it was important for character-building, to instill the fear of cold water, so Shane played along.
Mikhail nodded seriously at that before dashing into the house. Shane watched through the large windows as he took the stairs two at a time before disappearing down the hallway that led to his parents’ bedroom. Shane chuckled to himself, gathering the remaining bags from Yuna’s car. Mikhail hadn’t stopped in his own room for fresh clothes, which meant he was going to dig through Shane’s closet for something to wear that was way too big for him. Shane was pretty sure half his old Centaurs t-shirts were in Mischa’s room anyway.
Yuna was coming down the stairs as Shane exited the garage, having deposited all the kids’ hockey gear and the extra camp equipment in their designated bins. He could hear Ilya in the kitchen.
“Lena is in the shower. I’m going to head back and help your Dad with dinner,” Yuna said as she slipped on her shoes.
“Okay, thanks Mom. We’ll be over in a couple hours.”
“Is everything okay?” Yuna asked, taking her keys from Shane.
“Yeah, just – big feelings, you know,” Shane shrugged. He wasn’t sure what had happened in the car, but this wasn’t a breakdown, and the look Ilya had given him told Shane that there wasn’t anything immediate to worry about.
“Probably just the intensity of camp catching up to him.”
“Yeah, probably.”
Yuna smiled softly and rubbed Shane’s arm before grabbing her purse and heading out the door.
—
Shane found Ilya in the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher they’d run before leaving for Montreal last week. He stopped when Shane walked in, shutting the machine door with his foot before leaning back against the counter. Ilya looked tired, and Shane knew he probably looked the same. Running these camps could be exhausting, especially as they’d grown over the years. More coaches’ schedules to coordinate, more children to corral. But it was also one of the most fulfilling things Shane had ever done. He loved watching how much young kids could improve with just a week of dedicated attention. He loved that he, his husband, and some of their best friends were creating a new generation of hockey players, boys and girls, that took inclusivity and diversity in their locker rooms as a given, not something they needed to fight for or dream of. And Shane knew Ilya felt the same. So being a little tired was worth it, to make hockey a little better for their kids. And it was especially okay because they had the whole next month to spend at the cottage before Mischa and Lena started back at school in September.
“He’s showering in our room. We’re going to talk after dinner.”
“Good, that is – I told him he should talk to you. He cried a lot in the car.” Ilya stated. He had a far away look in his eyes, like he was remembering how much Mischa used to cry when they first brought him home. Shane was remembering it too, remembering the echoing wails and sleepless nights and how, one time, Ilya had come home from the store to find Shane huddled up on the ground, rocking a screaming Mikhail back and forth in his arms as Shane sobbed too because he couldn’t figure out how to get their new baby to finally feel safe.
“What happened?” Shane asked, trying and failing to shake the memory loose.
“He asked me not to tell you, wants to talk to you himself,” Ilya explained, eyeing Shane carefully, like he knew exactly what secret, never verbalized feeling this would bring up in Shane.
Shane tried to keep his expression neutral but he couldn’t help the twinge, felt deep in his heart. He didn’t feel it often, almost never now that Mikhail was older, and he’d talked through it extensively with his therapist, parsing out the feeling until Shane could recognize and dismiss it as unfounded and untrue. But still, sometimes, it crept back in like an old, aching wound.
Maybe there really was something to it, something about shared blood. Maybe it was unconscious, not anything either of them would be able to recognize, but as the outsider, Shane was particularly attuned to it. Maybe something about sharing blood with Ilya made Mikhail feel closer to him, more connected, safer.
But no, no that wasn’t true. It had never been true and it never would be. Shane had read about this before, that it was perfectly normal for kids to sometimes be drawn to one parent over the other for whatever reason, and for it to switch on a dime. It had nothing to do with blood relation, nothing to do with some inherent, indescribable, deeper connection to one parent over the other. It was just kids being kids.
So Mischa going to Ilya first with his big feelings was fine, and Shane would never begrudge his child for it. Logically, he knew it was okay, and that this feeling was irrational and transient, as long as–
“I didn’t do anything to upset him, did I? I know I wasn’t able to pay as much attention to him today but I thought that–”
“No, no moya lyubov, no.” Ilya was in front of him in an instant, gathering Shane’s hands in his and kissing their tangled fingers. His eyes were boring into Shane in the way he did when he needed Shane to really internalize what he was saying. “It was nothing you did, I promise.”
Shane closed his eyes and sighed, letting his head drop, lightly knocking his forehead into Ilya’s. Ilya kept their hands together and tilted his head forward a bit so their noses brushed. “I know how much it tortures you to see them hurt, I know lyubimyy. But he’s okay, we talked a lot in the car and he’s okay. I reminded him how much we love him, how much you love him, and how that will never change.”
Ilya stepped even closer and untangled one hand to tilt Shane’s head up so he could look him in the eye. The intent stare was still there, deep blue eyes, same as Mikhail. Shane regretted, for maybe the millionth time, that they did not have any pictures of Ilya from his childhood.
“I think it would help him, to explain how he is feeling to you, and to hear that all again, but coming from you. And he asked me to let him tell you himself.” Yeah, Ilya definitely knew about the twinge. No matter how deep Shane banished it, no matter that he’d never said it out loud to Ilya, Ilya knew. He always knew Shane.
Ilya smiled softly, and Shane was once again struck by how lucky he was to have ended up with Ilya Rozanov as his husband. Ilya was a natural father and had known, definitively, that he wanted children the second Shane broached the topic for the first time. They hadn’t even been married yet, and Ilya was sure. It had taken Shane some more thinking (and spiraling) before he knew for sure too. It wasn’t that Shane didn’t want a family of his own, he really did. He just hadn’t been sure if he had it in him, with all of his own shit going awry in his head, if he could give a child 100% of himself all the time, like they deserved.
It had been Jackie who talked some sense into him. She explained, in her patient, mothering way, that no one could possibly give 100% to anyone, even their own child (and especially more than one). That’s what partners were for. Somedays it was a 50-50 split. More often it was 60-40. Sometimes it was 90-10. And on the days when neither parent could give enough, well that was what grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends were for.
That had made Shane sure, that if he was going to have a family with anyone, it was going to be Ilya. There was no one else Shane could trust enough to make up for his 90%, to be there always, steady and constant.
Ilya reached up with his free hand and smoothed out the furrow in Shane’s brow that he hadn’t realized was there. Shane tried to relax, relishing the warmth of having Ilya so close. “He enjoyed camp though, right? I mean, he had fun?”
“Yes, he had fun. After he finished crying, he spent rest of car ride talking about you know who,” Ilya said, a little conspiratorially as he wiggled his eyebrows at Shane.
Ah yes, Shane knew exactly who you know who was. Ronan Drover-Barrett was one year older than Mikhail, and their son was undeniably besotted with them.
Ilya sighed dramatically and fluttered his eyelashes in a bad impression of a lovesick teenager. “Ronan said they liked my book and Ronan showed me how to braid their hair and Ronan and I switched sandwiches at lunch because they know I don’t like ham and–”
“Okay, shhh, I get it. I have eyes too, I saw it myself.” Shane whispered, glancing over at the stairs, as if there was any way Mischa was out of the shower so quickly. He rolled his eyes at Ilya, but he wasn’t really exaggerating. Over the past year or so of hockey practices and Centaurs games and backyard barbecues, Shane had, more than once, caught Mikhail gazing at Ronan like they were the only person in the room. It was sweet.
“Hmm, Drover-Barrett family will have to pay high dowry for the eldest Hollander son. He is catch, you know!”
“Who the hell pays dowries anymore, Ilya?” Shane questioned, looking at his husband like he was crazy. Then after a second, because he couldn’t help himself, “And why wouldn’t we also pay a dowry?” Shane didn’t know the particulars of how dowries worked, but Ronan identified as non-binary and used they/them pronouns, so maybe they would not want to be called the bride in this highly fictional wedding Ilya was cooking up in his head.
“Ah yes, you are very correct, wise husband. I will consult ancient texts to determine how many goats we must trade.” Ilya was grinning now, clearly very much enjoying his little bit and that Shane was, albeit reluctantly, playing along.
“Okay village elder, you do that. In the meantime though, we should get changed and head over soon. I miss our baby.” One mention of Lilia was enough to send Ilya into action. He kissed Shane loudly on the cheek before turning out of the kitchen.
“Me too. I will check on them upstairs. You sent Mischa to our bathroom, so he is probably still in there.”
Ilya started up the stairs, taking them two at a time just like his son, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Children! Your Auntie Sveta is calling, wants to hear all about camp! Whoever is done with bath quickest gets to talk to her first!”
Shane just smiled to himself and finished unloading the dishwasher.
—
Dinner with the grandparents was an uncharacteristically calm affair. Usually, Mischa and Lena would devolve into bickering five minutes into the meal, with Ilya chiming in only to rile them up further and Lilia (with her impressively advanced language skills – everyone said so, not just Shane) chattering excitedly from her seat as if she was an equal participant in the wicked fast conversation between her older siblings.
Tonight though, Yelena was practically falling asleep into her chili bowl. Mikhail spent most of dinner pushing food around his plate and giving one-word responses to his grandparents’ gentle questions about how he liked the last few days of camp and if he was excited to start Grade 7. Lilia, for her part, was largely quiet too. As disinterested in her dads she had seemed over the phone, she was uncharacteristically clingy tonight, and insisted on spending all of dinner in Shane’s lap (but Shane was not complaining).
Usually their most squirly child, Lilia now rested calmly in Ilya’s arms, playing with his necklace, as he chatted with Yuna in the kitchen about their barbarous new HOA president in Ottawa. Yelena, who had insisted on starting a puzzle with her grandfather, was now asleep with her head in his lap in the living room. Mikhail had disappeared.
Shane gave Ilya a questioning look and he just nodded his head toward the back door.
Mikhail sat on the back porch steps, chin resting on his knees with Anya dutifully stationed at his side. Shane held up Anya’s leash.
“Ready for our walk?”
—
“Try holding it with these two fingers,” Shane repositioned Mikhail’s fingers so he was gripping the flat rock with his thumb on top and index finger on the edge.
He tried tossing a rock again, and again it sank with an unceremonious plot. Mikhail let out a frustrated groan and stomped his foot a little. “This is dumb!”
“Yeah? Your Papa said the same thing when he couldn’t do it either,” Shane responded calmly before tossing his own stone and watching it skip four times before sinking into the water.
They’d ended up by the lake, in a pebbly area where Shane had once, many years ago, unsuccessfully tried to teach Ilya how to skip rocks. Ilya had been terrible but insisted that the rocks were Canadian and therefore did not respond well to his Russian touch.
It’d taken about 10 minutes to reach this spot and Shane had stayed mostly quiet the whole way, hoping the silence would prompt Mikhail to start speaking. It didn’t. He spent most of the walk with a dour look on his face, like Shane was forcing him into this. Anya had trotted along beside them, oblivious to the gloomy mood.
God, he was so much like Ilya sometimes. In taking failure at simple things like skipping rocks as a personal affront, and in taking his emotions as a personal affront too.
Shane watched the ripples in the lake from where his stone landed dissipate. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mikhail reach down for another rock. But instead of flicking it across the surface of the water, he chucked it into the lake as hard as he could.
“That’s just not how you do it at all.”
“I don’t want to play this stupid game!”
Shane had to force himself not to laugh. It wasn’t funny, not really. But it was like looking at a mini Ilya, the way Mikhail crossed his arms over his chest with a huff and glowered at the water like it had insulted him, lips set in a comically perfect frown. He was even wearing one of Ilya’s old Raiders shirts, the baggy clothes making him look smaller and younger than he was.
“Okay. Do you want to tell me what you wanted to talk about instead?” That earned Shane a signature Rozanov glare, as if he’d just tricked Mikhail into a new topic of conversation.
“No,” Mikhail huffed, back to looking at the lake like it offended him.
“Do you want to go back to the house?”
Silence. And then, so quiet Shane could barely hear it, “I don’t want to make you sad.” Mikhail met Shane’s eyes, finally, and there was something so earnest in his expression, so serious and yet so childlike at the same time, as if hurting Shane terrified him to his core.
“Oh baby, it’s okay. You can tell me anything, even if you think I will be sad. I want you to tell me what’s upsetting you, please?” Shane wanted to fold Mischa back up in his arms, wrap him up in blankets and carry him like he was a baby again, so nothing could ever get past Shane to hurt him. But Mischa wasn’t a baby anymore, something had already hurt him, and Shane needed him to keep talking, so he resisted the urge to smother his kid in kisses and carry him all the way back to the house.
Shane watched Mischa pick up another rock and grip it in his fist. He took a deep breath, waited, and then breathed out. And then again, just like they practiced. And then he flicked the stone across the water and it skipped once, twice, before sinking. Then he started to talk.
“One of the other boys, in the locker room this morning, he wouldn’t believe me when I told him that Lena was my sister. He said we didn’t look like brother and sister.”
Shane had never felt homicidal towards other people, not really, and certainly not towards a child. But he was starting to get why Ilya sometimes threatened to punt kick kids from the other team at Mischa’s peewee games.
“But then Ronan came over and told him he was being ignoriant and that obviously we were brother and sister because both of our jerseys said Hollander,” Mikhail continued in a matter-of-fact tone. Shane didn’t miss how his face lit up when mentioning Ronan.
“Ignoriant? Do you mean ignorant?”
“Yeah! Ronan said it means he was being a stupid idiot.”
That had Harris Drover written all over it. “That’s not exactly–”
“And then they– they, um,”
“And then they what?”
“Uh, they kicked one of his pads across the room – but please don’t get them in trouble they were just sticking up for me!” Mikhail rushed out the second half of the sentence in one breath, looking at Shane with wide, pleading eyes.
Shane tried (and this time failed) not to laugh a little at that. Kicking a teammate’s gear across the room wasn’t exactly the kind of locker room behavior they were trying to encourage but he’d let this one slide. And okay, Ronan was definitely Troy Barrett’s kid. “Is that what upset you? Not Ronan kicking the pads, I mean what that kid said about you and Lena?”
“No, he was just being um, what was that word?”
“Ignorant.”
“Yeah, that. So I wasn’t mad at him, because he just didn’t know. And plus he said sorry later and gave me half his banana.” Mikhail tried another stone. He got two skips again before it sank into the lake.
“That’s nice of him,” Shane responded. He handed Mikhail a larger, flatter stone. But he didn’t toss it yet, turning it over in his hands and rubbing at the smooth surface.
“Yeah. But then…” he trailed off as he tossed the stone. Three skips this time.
“But then, um, when I was getting more water later, I heard Uncle Troy and Uncle Wyatt talking. And they were talking about me – but I don’t think they saw me! – and they were saying my shot was good. Uncle Wyatt said he couldn’t believe I made that wraparound shot – You know! The one yesterday!” Mikhail looked at Shane for confirmation that he’d seen the shot, as if Shane hadn’t shaken Ilya by the shoulders and cheered so loud his throat hurt when he’d seen it. Shane just nodded, smiling, and Mikhail continued.
“Uncle Troy said of course I made it, that I’m Shane Hollander’s son. And that made me feel good, that they thought I was like you.” He glanced at Shane again, eyes bright.
“But then we lost the game. And one of the other kids, Sophie – I don’t think she was trying to be mean because she was laughing and she’s actually really nice and she helped me line up my rainbow tape – she said that she thought we were for sure going to win because we had a Hollander on our team.”
Shane kept quiet, tucking his hands into his pockets and looking out at the shimmering water painted gold from the sunset, giving his son the space to keep talking at his own pace.
“I think I just– I started thinking about– like, what if I do play in the NHL? But then I miss a shot, or lose a game, or lose the cup, and then everyone will know it’s not real, that I’m not really your son, that Shane Hollander’s real son never would’ve played like that?”
Mikhail had been quiet and somber for most of the evening, having exhausted all his big feelings in the car with Ilya. But now there were slow, silent tears falling down his cheeks as he stared down at his feet.
The twinge deep in Shane’s body that had been silently throbbing all evening suddenly split open into a canyon of pain, with rivers of blood and tears for rain. For the first time in his life, Shane Hollander wished he had never played hockey, had never been a professional hockey player. If this was the kind of grief playing in his shadow caused his baby, his first baby, Shane would return every Stanley Cup in a heartbeat to make it all go away. Because it killed Shane, it killed him, to think that anyone could joke or question or imply that Mikhail wasn't his son. As if his kids' names weren't tattooed on his heart, as if not sharing DNA meant anything when Shane could hardly breathe when his babies cried, as if Mischa and Lena and Lila weren't fragments of his own soul.
And the worst part was, Mikhail was right. People would say those exact things. Maybe not his teammates or his coaches, maybe not even the press or the commentators, but definitely anonymous faces on social media. Because they didn't know them, because they were ignorant. Shane needed to kill the internet.
Shane couldn’t help but think of the trip that had preceded his gay exile from Montreal. The online chatter had been horrific. It was an occupational hazard, getting torn apart on the internet by people hiding behind usernames and anonymizing profile pictures. He’d dealt with it for his entire career. But after the video of him and Ilya had leaked, after the trip, the attacks had gotten so personal. The journalists and commentators didn’t say it outright, but the internet had no qualms. Even racial attacks, which Shane had been lucky enough to avoid for much of his career up until that point, now seemed fair game. It was as if, if they were going to openly hate him for being gay, they might as well throw his race in there too.
The thought of Mischa experiencing even a fraction of that cutting, personal animus from people who had no idea who he was and how hard he worked, well it made Shane want to grab his son, march to the bottom of the lake, and build them a house there where nothing could ever hurt him again.
Mikhail’s hands were fisted at his sides. Shane reached out and took his left hand, unfurling his fingers and holding it lightly. He used his free hand to gently wipe the tears off his perfect face.
“I’m going to be honest with you, because you’re a big kid now and I think you can handle it. People are probably going to say things like that, maybe things that are even worse. They’ll say it because they don’t know you, because they don’t have to say it to your face or because they’re hiding behind screens, because, for some sad reason I will never understand, it makes them feel better to hurt someone else. Because they're ignorant stupid fucking idiots." Shane knew he shouldn't be cursing in front of his 12 year old son, but all rules had exceptions.
Shane did his best impression of Ilya's intent listen to me stare. “But they’ll be wrong. I’m telling you now Mischa — and I’ll remind you every time you forget — you are my kid. My first baby. I knew it from the first time I saw you. Papa sent me a picture of you, sleeping on his chest, and I knew then that I would love you more than I’d ever loved anything in the world, because you were ours. You’re a part of me, a gift I didn’t deserve.”
Shane was crying now too, but he didn’t move to wipe his face. He kept one hand in Mikhail’s, the other one cup his cheek. For once, Shane forced him to keep looking at him, needing Mikhail to hear exactly what he was saying.
“I love you, Mischa, and you will always be my son. If you quit hockey tomorrow, if you played shitty hockey for the rest of your life, you would be my son, and I would still love you as much as I did the first time I held you, as much as I do right now. Hockey isn’t what makes you my son,” Shane moved his hand from Mikhail’s cheek to tap once over his heart, and then placed his hand over his own heart, holding it there. “It’s something special, lives right here, and it’s never going away. Okay?”
Mikhail’s tears had stopped, his eyes glistening like the surface of the water. He sniffed once, and then in a whisper, “Okay, Dad.”
Shane pulled him in for a tight hug, rocking them back and forth a little. He buried his nose in Mikhail’s too-long hair, inhaling the achingly familiar scent of the curl cream he and Ilya shared. Everything was going to be okay.
—
They started the walk back to house and Shane’s heart felt lighter at the slight skip in Mischa’s step.
“Dad?”
“Yes, bud?”
“What are genetics? Papa said to ask you.”