Chapter Text
There had been something in the air the whole dinner. A silent excitement. Only Ilya and Shane knew what it was, but all four of them were waiting to see who’d break the silence first. Shane took a breath.
“Mom…. Dad… me and Ilya have an appointment tomorrow with an adoption agency”
Yuna and David’s forks dropped and they looked up in surprise. Ilya squeezed Shane’s hand assuredly under the table, watching as their parents' faces melted to tears of joy. Sounds of skirting chairs filled the room as they got up from the table to hug.
“Oh you’re gonna be so great.” Yuna sniffed.
“We don’t know how it’s gonna go. They could tell us we’re too—“
“It’s going to go great.” David said as him and yuna swapped sons to hug. “Ok? Look at me? You and Ilya will make the best dads, and they will see that.
“And if they don’t,” Ilya said grazing Shane’s jaw with his finger tips to make him look at him, “we just steal one of Hayden’s.”
This made Shane’s body relax for the first time since yesterday’s yoga session, and even then he really had to try. He finally joined the rest of them in tears.
“It could take years,” Shane said calming down, “you know, to find the right fit? But we’re both hopeful.”
“We are not going to be too picky. You know with age or whatever. We just want someone who will have all needs met by us… And they must have freckles.” Ilya joked, dragging his thumb across Shane’s cheek.
“We talked about fostering, but with hockey we don’t think that’ll work out. We’d need more time than what we could give.” Shane explained, “but if we match with an older kid we will likely have to sort of foster at first anyway, which may mean taking a hockey break unless it happens over the summer, which I doubt will happen by then because it takes months just to get approved to adopt.”
“We will make it work.”
“And you’ve already got two babysitters here.”
“I love you guys so much”
“We love you, too. Both of you.” Yuna finished wiping one of Ilya’s tears.
The initial appointment went great. Everyone was so kind and from what Shane and Ilya could see, a little star struck. No one said anything, however, figuring there was some sort of rule there. They were told that foster parent registration would make the process faster. So they did. And they were thrilled.
But the next appointment was also good.
And the next one.
And the five following appointments were all “promising.”
“This is taking forever.”
“I know.” Shane said beating the eggs a little harder.
“How hard is it to find baby? Or child, or even almost grown up?”
“I know, my love, we’ve just gotta stay patient.”
“That is worst fucking part.”
“I know, the waiting is bad, but we’ve waited before.”
“No, not that.”
Shane’s eyebrows scrunched over the frying pan. “Hm?”
“Is that… out there… there are so many kids who need a home. So many.” Shane stopped scrambling brunch as his heart ached. He turned to meet Ilya’s crumbling expression. “And we have home. And money. And love-” his voice broke. He sniffed. “So much love Shane. I don’t know what to do with it.”
Shane walked around the kitchen island, “Come here Ilya.” Ilya leaned into Shane’s hug, nearly falling off the bar stool. “Me, too.” Shane sniffed out, “Me, too.”
Another month passed with swearing after each ended phone call with the agency. Usually they’d make themselves feel better with screwing. “We have to make up for it. When our kid is here, we won’t have much time.” They’d reason. But tonight was different.
Ilya stared out into nothingness, laying on his side away from Shane. His eye leaked onto the pillow, from prolonged irritation to the pillow fabric or the hole in his heart, he didn’t know which. Probably both. His dissociation was interrupted yet again by his phone buzzing the bedside table.
“Блядь!” He threw his phone at the chair across the room. The chair he’d imagined sitting in, reading aloud a colorful book with his kid on his lap. He’d imagined it every night.
“Ilya?!”
Ilya returned a sob. And Shane wrapped him up tight in a spoon.
“Это мой брат. ~It’s my brother.” Ilya managed “~He’s been calling me all fucking day.” Shane took their hands and tucked them in close to Ilya’s body “he makes me want to..”
“~Want to what?” Shane replied in his developing Russian.
“It makes me think about my mother.”
Oh…
Shane’s breath couldn’t move. He gave Ilya a big squeeze before getting out of bed (he didn’t even remake it after he got up) and marched over to Ilya’s phone which had just started ringing again.
“~Finally he fucking answers”
“~What the fuck do you want?”
Ilya shot straight up.
“~You are not Ilya… you must be the boyfriend that my brother continued his faggotry with.”
Ilya staired bullets ‘Shane’ he mouthed seriously.
“~ It’s husband actually.” He pronounced ‘husband’ perfectly. Ilya’s shoulders relaxed and his breath released. ‘It was fine. We’re fine.’
He couldn’t quite make out his brother’s small voice coming through the phone by Shane’s ear, but it was panicked and mumbly. So mumbly Shane began to look a little lost, but when it came through Shane and Ilya locked eyes and the world froze.
“~Nadia- she took off. Her phone last placed her at the airport in Paris. The bank shows the plane ticket to Paris then to Ottawa. That was 6 hours ago. Ilya please”
“~Please what?” He yelled loud enough for him to be heard with no speaker phone, but he was already grabbing his keys and pulling on socks to go.
“~Just convince her to come back, Ilya.”
“~We’re going.” Shane said firmly. He hung up.
They hurried to the car, shoes barely on.
“So what else did he say?” Ilya asked
“He was very disheveled, but I think he said that his wife died, something about an accident, then a fight. I couldn’t understand much, I’m sorry.”
“No, no. Is ok lyubov… thank you.” He tried to get himself together so he could drive, but tears were filling his vision. He blinked and the tears fell. “Блядь.”
“Hey I’ve got you, ok? I’ve got you.” He said gripping Ilya’s shoulder. “We can switch and I can drive. Her plane left 6 hours ago so she’s not here yet. We have time.”
“No, I think I could need the drive.” Shane squeezed in response.
They pulled into the airport parking lot, and Shane opened the car door.
“Wait…” his voice broke. and then after a few seconds, so did the flood gates. “He hit her. He hit her, Shane, I know he did. I told her when I left… when she was 10, that she could come to me if anything happened.” He tried to pull himself together, strengthened by Shane’s hands on his. After deep breathing, he stated: “We can’t send her back Shane. We can’t.”
“Then we won’t.” He squeezed his hard
“Мне жаль.” He sobbed
“Hey no, you have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing”
“~I should have made sure she was ok before I left. Or fucking taken her with me. Or just fucking killed him. I fucking hate him I hate him so much. She’s so lovely and that bitch hurt her… I could have saved her. I could have fucking saved her and I didn’t.” Tears soaked Shane’s shirt. He didn’t care.
“~We’ll get her now. And no one will ever fucking lay a hand on her again. She’s safe. You’re safe”
‘I will not let him hurt her like he hurt you’ Shane thought to himself.
They’d waited just outside the security gates of the airport for three hours before they finally saw her. She had smudged eyeliner down her cheeks and her face in her phone. And a beanie that swallowed her head. She was walking towards the glass doors that opened to a line of cars picking people up. Ilya reached out and grabbed her shoulder and spun her to face him, which made her jump but when she saw his face she melted into him. Her face was squished to his chest.
And Shane’s heart melted.
“~I called an uber.” She said all smushed
“~Cancel the uber.” Ilya sniffed. He pulled back to look at her and put a hand to her cheek. “~Are you ok? Are you hurt?”
“~I’m ok.” He knew that was a lie.
“~Are you sure?”
She stared up at him and her lips wobbled and her eyebrows knit together. He just pulled her in tighter.
“~Do you need a hospital?” She just nodded. And Ilya’s heart broke and his tears fell. Shane placed a hand reassuringly on Ilya’s shoulder blade.
“~Oh um..” Ilya pulled away, “~This is Shane. He um… he—“
She looked up to Shane and smiled. “Thank you. For making my uncle happy.” She said heavily accented.
Relief flooded Ilya. Thank God he didn’t need to come out. She didn’t hold it over him. That was his biggest fear: that his selfishness to pursue Canada, to pursue Shane, would make her think that he didn’t care about her.
“~Of course.” He responded in Russian, which took her by surprise.
The midnight car ride was quite barring the excessive amount of sniffing. They were going home, with the plan of visiting the hospital first thing in the morning. Ilya could catch winces of pain in the rear view mirror. Nadia had pulled the seat belt so it ribboned in her lap instead of pulled tight along her hips. “~Can you wear your seatbelt properly.” Ilya broke the silence.
“~It uhh… it hurts a lot.”
Ilya turned the car around
“~We’re going to the hospital now.”
“~I can wait”
“~The seatbelt only weighs like 2 ounces, if it hurts that bad you need a doctor.”
“~Ok.” she sobbed out. They all started crying.
The emergency room wasn’t crowded. They checked in quickly, but it took a while to be seen. Around 15 minutes in, Nadia was visibly hot, but wouldn’t remove the winter gear. It wasn’t till a bead of sweat rolled into her eye that she finally thought “fuck it” and removed the beanie to reveal a really terrible and choppy short haircut.
“~Woah went a little crazy with the scissors did you?” Ilya said, trying to keep things light. Nadia was visibly extremely nervous about it. “~Hey it’s pretty cool, we can go get it cleaned up tomorrow unless the choppiness is what your going for.”
“~You mean it’s ok?”
“~It’s just hair.” Ilya smiled, a little confused.
“~It’s not just hair.” Nadia croaked out, and began to sob. Ilya didn’t take long to put the pieces together, he recalled similarities to stories his and Shane’s mutual friend, Max told while working at the hockey school in the summers. He didn’t want to put words in Nadia’s mouth, though.
“~Ok, whatever it is it will not keep you from getting the help you need here. Not while me and Shane are here. I love you, ok? Bad haircut or something more.”
For the first time, Nadia seemed to take a breath and relax.
“Nadia?” A nurse called out.
“~Do you want me to come with you?” Shane asked.
“~We probably need help with the English medical words,” Ilya started, “but they may have translators here to help.”
“It’s ok, Shane, you can come.” Nadia said.
Nadia needed multiple X-rays, one covering her pelvis and one that was deemed necessary after Nadia’s purple and swollen elbow was revealed once the coat came off. Once the poor kid was wheeled away, a nurse talked to Shane and Ilya.
“So we need to call a social worker.”
“We figured we would. I’ve got one lined up here unless the hospital has separate ones.”
“Ok can we go over the details? You guys are her uncles, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Do you guys have custody?”
“Well, that’s what the social worker is for.” Shane said matter of factly. Ilya’s gaze shot to Shane, mouth agape.
“~Custody?” Ilya’s heart began to melt; he stared at Shane with the most adoration to ever be contained to one person “~Are you sure?”
“~Well yes, it seems like the clear next step, if you want it and of course if Nadia wants it.”
Ilya squeezed his hand and gave him the first genuine smile of the night.
“Do you guys need to talk about it more?”
“Oh sorry, didn’t mean to code switch on you.” Shane said, although he was kind of lying.
“No, we are on same page here.” Ilya said.
“Ok, then can you tell me what happened?”
“Well we only have pieces of the story.” Shane began, “She just flew all the way from Russia, where Ilya’s family is from… From what we can tell, she had a big fight with her father and we’re assuming he hurt her. He didn’t even notice she was missing until a couple hours ago, the fucking prick… er sorry, language.”
“Well, if that story holds true it’s warranted.” The nurse said.
“Ok well there’s definitely been physical violence, from what I can tell. Do you think it’s possible there was sexual violence of any kind?”
Ilya turned deathly pale. They were both speechless. The nurse looked up from his clipboard.
“I think I'm going to throw up.” Ilya said, getting up, panicked and gasping. He got across the exam room to the trashcan in just two steps, Shane close behind to comfort him.
“I can come back.” Shane nodded in agreement.
Nadia came back a couple minutes after the nurse left.
“~I’m sorry to ask, but the nurses are asking us for the details on what happened. You can talk to them about it, or us, but I think they need to know so they best know how to make you better.” Shane said, with Ilya still practically catatonic.
Nadia looked panicked again.
“~Hey. I need you to know that whatever you say, we are here for you. Nothing you say will turn us away. Ok?”
“~Ok,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “~It started when my mom died a couple of months ago. I guess he didn’t have her to take things out on, so he switched to me.” The tears turned to full on sobs, and Shane could understand much between the gasps, but Ilya was locked completely into what she was saying. “~I didn’t think he’d care about the haircut so much. It’s not like I told him the whole truth of it, anyway. Many girls have short hair in my school, I thought he’d be glad I was following a trend for once. But he saw right through me. He said “if you want to be a boy so bad I’ll show you what it means to be a man.” Then he threw me to the ground and kicked the shit out of me.” Nadia almost laughed, “~I never should have been so hopeful…” Ilya finally moved a muscle and got up to hug Nadia, careful to not touch the physical injuries but deep enough to dress the emotional wounds.
“~I always remembered what you said Ilya. So I booked a flight with dad’s card. I would have called, but he would have checked my phone to cover his ass.”
“~I am so happy you remembered. So so happy. I love you, my nephew.” The acknowledgement sent Nadia over the edge and he completely broke down. “~I love you.” He continued to whisper, taming Nadia’s violent sobs.