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Ilya loved these kinds of lazy Sunday mornings.
The kind where there was absolutely nothing on their schedule. No games to rush to, no doctor appointments to squeeze in, no playdates to coordinate. The ones where time felt slower, and the Hollander-Rozanov house was quiet enough that you could actually hear yourself think.
Days where Ilya could take the boys out to the ice in their indoor rink, not because they had any specific drills to run or skills to perfect, but just because. Just skating for the joy of it, watching them get a little sharper with each lap, teasing them when they got sloppy, laughing when they chirped him back.
The air in the indoor rink in the basement of their house had that crisp, artificial cold that rolled down from the overhead vents in steady waves. The boys were sweating hard despite the cold, hair damp and plastered to their foreheads beneath their helmets. Their blades cut sharp, messy arcs into the ice, breath coming out in visible puffs.
Ilya skated backward in front of them, comfortable as breathing, the cold threading through the loose edges of his curls and the edges of his jacket. He moved with that easy confidence that only came from decades of muscle memory, calling out adjustments with a grin tugging at his mouth.
“Good edges, Niko. Yes. Like that. You see, Max? That is what proper weight transfer looks like. You look like you're trying to balance on a tightrope."
Max laughed despite himself, nearly tripping over his own crossovers as he changed direction too quickly to chase after Ilya.
“You're going too fast!” Max shouted, but it came out more like a whine. His breath puffed out in little white clouds that dissipated almost immediately.
"I am going normal speed," Ilya said, which was absolutely not true. He was skating laps at the speed of the retired NHL center he was—muscle memory firing on all cylinders.
The boys chased him anyway, skates scraping and the sounds echoing into the rafters. Their hair stuck damp to their foreheads, cheeks red, eyes bright with that joy that only hockey with their dads, or being twelve and nine with nothing else to do, could produce.
“Bend, Niko,” Ilya called out, demonstrating dramatically. “Stop skating like you are trying not to wrinkle your shirt.”
“I am bending,” Niko muttered, but bent a little more anyway.
“You’re not,” Max chimed in immediately, breath puffing white in the cold.
Niko spun toward him sharply, nearly losing his balance. "Max, shut up."
Max stuck his tongue out behind the protective cage of his helmet, eyes glinting.
Before Niko could take the bait and actually retaliate, Ilya rapped the end of his stick sharply against the ice. The sound cracked clean through the cold air, echoing off the boards.
“Okay, okay, enough,” he said, voice warm but edged with that easy authority the boys usually listened to. “Save energy for skating. Come on.”
He pushed off backward without visible effort. The boys followed behind him, their blades carving the ice with uneven, slightly chaotic rhythm. Niko, being 12 now, had the clear advantage of longer, stronger strides that ate up more ice. But Max was quicker on his feet, could cut sharper angles. He could pivot faster when he wasn't thinking too hard about it.
For a little while, they fell into a rhythm. Tight figure-eights, backward C-cuts, pivots. Ilya moved fluidly between them, adjusting angles with a light tap of his stick against their skates, correcting posture with a gloved hand to an elbow or shoulder.
But the tension began to simmer between the boys like water just starting to boil.
It started small, the way these things always did. Niko drifting a little too close on a crossover, invading Max's space. Max nudging him aside with his shoulder to reclaim it, definitely harder than necessary. Then the muttering began. Sharp little whispers that got lost and found again in the cold air, carried on visible breath.
“Stop crowding me,” Niko grunted when Max came up too tight on a turn, practically skating into him.
“You're slow,” Max answered back immediately, not even winded, voice light with provocation.
“I’m literally ahead of you.”
“Nuh uh.”
Ilya shot them a look over his shoulder, eyebrows raised in warning. “Both of you skate like drunk little penguins when you bicker. Focus. And maybe keep mouths shut this time.”
It bought him maybe thirty more seconds of peace.
Then it started again. Louder this time, less controlled. Their tempers were syncing up like badly tuned instruments.
“Max, STOP crowding me,” Niko barked again, skidding to an abrupt stop and swiveling around sharply just as Max kept barreling past him without slowing down. "God, you're being so annoying right now."
Max turned and stopped too, rolling his eyes dramatically. "Oh, so you can steal my puck but I can't skate within ten feet of you?"
Niko raised both hands in exasperation, his stick dangling from one. “I didn’t STEAL the puck, it’s called playing the game, idiot.”
Ilya has been hearing the commotion from his spot on the ice. “Do you two need time-out? Like your 3-year-old sister? Because I will do it. Time out chair, countdown on phone…”
Max and Niko said nothing, but their expressions were hardened, and they weren't looking at each other now. They both turned back to the skating, but the tension was still there, simmering just below the surface.
Then Niko swooped in and “stole” the puck right off Max's stick during the next drill. Not aggressively, but with that casual older-brother ease that made it look effortless. That slightly smug glide forward, shoulders squared, as if he'd just proven a point.
Something in Max just snapped.
Because Max was fueled entirely by impulse. He didn't think about spacing or timing or consequences. He didn't consider what might happen next. He just saw Niko pulling ahead with his puck and reacted the way Max always reacted to everything:
Immediately.
He pushed forward hard, propelled by pure adrenaline, and closed the gap between them in three fast strides. He reached his stick across Niko's path with a quick, thoughtless whip of his wrist. Right in front of Niko’s skates.
Niko tripped on the stick almost instantly.
He went down hard, pads smacking against the ice with a loud, echoing crack that reverberated off the boards and seemed to freeze everything else in the rink.
“Are you serious?” Niko barked, the words cracking out of him as he scrambled up onto his knees. His breath came out in sharp bursts, cheeks flushed. He shoved Max backward with a gloved hand, wild and unmeasured. “What is WRONG with you?”
Max stumbled but came right back at him, shoving with the same reckless force, stick clattering to the ice. “You started it!” he protested, his voice cracking halfway through the word, high-pitched and defensive.
The rink suddenly didn’t feel cold anymore. It felt small and suffocating. Like all the air had been sucked out of it at once.
Niko surged forward again, hands coming up. “You’re being a—”
“STOP.”
Ilya had watched the whole thing happen from a few feet away. His voice didn't come out as a yell—it was sharper than that, harder. It cut through the air and killed every other sound in the rink instantly.
Both boys froze mid-motion.
Ilya very rarely raised his voice at the kids like that. With that particular edge.
This was different. This was something older, something dredged up from a place he usually kept locked down. The boys had heard flashes of it before, but never like this. Never this raw.
He skated toward them with sharp, deliberate strokes. His breath came out uneven, shaking slightly with each exhale. His eyes weren't directly set on either of them, moreso just fixed on the space between them, on the gap where the fight had happened. As though looking at their faces would make the panic clawing up his throat spill out completely uncontrolled.
“What do you think you are doing?" he asked Max, finally meeting his eyes, his voice cutting and jagged at the edges. "You trip your brother? On purpose? You think that is funny?”
Max had the decency to look startled, eyes going wide behind his helmet cage. Not ashamed yet, but definitely caught off guard by the sheer intensity.
“I—he—” Max started, words stumbling.
“It is not funny,” Ilya said sharply, slicing cleanly through Max's attempted excuse. He turned to Niko, eyes blazing. “And you are someone who shoves now? You shove your little brother like that?”
Niko swallowed, shoulders curling in, something uneasy flickering across his face. Because the look on Ilya’s face wasn’t really anger. It was panic.
And neither of them were used to seeing panic on their father.
“You could’ve hurt each other.” Ilya almost didn’t recognize his own voice, with how frantic it sounded, coming out shaking and unsteady.
His mind was racing to the last time he had seen Alexei, all these years ago now, at the funeral. Alexei shoving him against the wall. The venom in his brother's voice when he'd said something cruel about Svetlana. Ilya couldn't even fully remember the exact words now through the haze of rage they'd triggered. Just the feeling of it. The way every muscle in Ilya's body had gone tight and hot.
And then Ilya shoving him back. His fists balled up and his knuckles white, every fiber of him seconds away from actually doing it—who knows what it would’ve been. Beating him to a pulp, maybe. Ilya was probably capable of it, he thought. He probably had that in him.
There had been so many moments growing up when Ilya was certain Alexei wanted him dead. Or at least hurt him badly enough that the message would stick. Sometimes it wasn't even from their physical fights. Sometimes it was just from the way Alexei looked at him. With that particular expression of pure disdain. Like Ilya's very existence was an offense Alexei had to endure.
Maybe that's how Max and Niko were starting to see each other now. Maybe this was how it started.
Max took a tiny, uncertain step backward on his skates, eyes wide. "Papa, we were just—"
“You don’t treat each other this way,” Ilya interrupted, his words unsteady, accent thickening. His heart was beating fast. “You do not hurt each other. Brothers do not hurt each other.”
His voice was definitely shaking now, wavering on the last word. Which is what made the boys go completely silent. Because Ilya didn't shake. Not even when he was dealing with three kids melting down simultaneously. His voice stayed level. Steady.
Max's eyebrows knit together in confusion and dawning worry. Niko was studying Ilya's face carefully, trying to read what was happening, but clearly had no idea what to say or do to fix it.
Ilya pressed a hand against the boards for a moment, breath hitching like he’d been punched.
The door to the rink creaked open, breaking through the heavy silence.
“What is going on?” Shane's voice carried across the ice as he stepped through the doorway. Mila was perched on his hip, half-asleep, her cheek smushed against his shoulder, dark hair falling in messy wisps across her face. She was wrapped in her favorite fleece blanket, the pink one with stars. “I heard shouting from the—”
He stopped mid-sentence the moment he actually saw Ilya's face.
Because Ilya’s face, usually open and steady around the kids, had drained of color beneath the rink lights, his jaw locked tight. Shane could see the muscle ticking along the side. His eyes were wide and unfixed, not really seeing the ice or the boys or Shane—just looking through everything, stuck somewhere far.
“Okay,” Shane said slowly as he moved closer to them, his hand instinctively sliding to Mila’s back. “What happened?”
Max looked down at the ice like it was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. Niko looked at Max, then away quickly. Neither of them looked at Ilya. Ilya didn't look at any of them either.
Ilya took one uneven step back, his blades scraping rough and crooked against the ice. His eyes were fixed somewhere on the far boards, not quite blinking enough, breathing too fast.
“I need—” he managed, the words tight and thin. “One minute. Just…one minute.”
He skated off mechanically, pushing through the open gate, stepping out into the brisk morning air. He didn’t close the gate behind him. Once he was out of their field of vision, he took off his gloves were off almost immediately, hastily yanked free, and leaned against the railing of the deck.
Ilya rarely got overwhelmed enough to leave a room. He almost never walked away mid-moment. He never did it in front of the kids.
Shane knew exactly what it meant when Ilya did. This wasn’t about whatever happened in the present.
He hiked Mila up higher on his hip. She was practically dead weight in his arms now, completely zonked out. Then he turned to face the boys, expression calm but serious.
“What happened?” he asked again, softer this time.
Max couldn't answer. His chin wobbled once. That was always his telltale sign that appeared right before he cried. He tried sucking in a breath, but it juddered badly and came out as a strange hiccup instead.
Niko noticed instantly. He pulled his helmet off and stepped closer to Max, his shoulder brushing his even though neither of them acknowledged it directly. He tried to speak for both of them, even though his own voice shook slightly with leftover adrenaline.
"Max tripped me during a drill," Niko said quietly, eyes flicking downward to the ice, then back up to Shane's face. "We were being stupid. Fighting." He swallowed hard. "I think Papa got…scared? I think that's what happened."
Max's face crumpled completely at that, the words hitting him like a physical blow. His brown eyes overflowed before he even seemed to realize he was crying, beginning to spill down his rosy cheeks.
"Max," Shane murmured gently, shifting Mila's weight and bending down so he was at eye level with him.
Shane reached out, steadying him with a warm hand between his shoulder blades. He rubbed slow circles, grounding him while keeping Mila propped securely with his other arm. “Hey. Maxie. You’re okay. It’s okay.”
Max lifted his chin, lip trembling hard.
Shane softened his voice even more. “You didn’t make Papa scared of you,” he said gently. “Not even for a second.”
Max sniffed hard. “But I was bad.”
“You made a mistake, honey. It happens.”
Max had always been a sensitive kid. He felt everything intensely and completely. Which was something both Shane and Ilya absolutely loved about him when it was channeled properly. When Max was happy, he was practically vibrating with it—throwing himself into hugs hard enough to knock the wind out of you, laughing so loud it echoed through the whole house. But when he got angry or frustrated, it could escalate to 100 in seconds flat. That same intensity that made him so joyful also made him reactive. He had already racked up more penalty minutes for retaliation and emotional outbursts than Niko ever had at his age.
Max was definitely not a bad kid. He just felt things, and sometimes those feelings moved faster than his ability to control them.
Shane exhaled slowly, feeling the weight of Mila's little body against him, the soft rise and fall of her breathing anchoring him as he carefully chose his words.
“I think sometimes,” Shane began, brushing a thumb across Max’s blotchy cheek. “When something happens with you and Niko, like when you fight or when someone gets hurt, it reminds Papa of things from when he was younger.”
Niko shifted closer immediately, helmet dangling forgotten from his fingertips, eyes fixed intently on Shane's face.
Shane continued, voice low but steady. “Papa didn’t have a brother who treated him kindly. And he went through things that weren’t fair.”
That was putting it extremely lightly. Shane felt his jaw tighten involuntarily at the thought of how Ilya had been treated by his brother, by his father. “Things that hurt him," Shane continued quietly. "And he loves how close you and Niko are. It makes him really, really happy to see you two together. So I think when he sees you not being kind to each other, it brings up big, scary feelings for him."
Max’s eyes widened a bit. “So we made him sad?”
“It’s not your fault,” Shane said quickly. “You didn’t know. And Papa isn’t upset with you guys. Something in his brain just pulled up an old memory, I think.”
Max was fidgeting with his stick now, turning it over in his hands. "I wanna say sorry to him."
“You will,” Shane said, smoothing a hand over his curls. “And he’ll be so glad to hear it. But just give him a minute to breathe, okay?”
Max’s throat bobbed as he nodded, the motion tight and careful.
Shane pulled Max in close and kissed his cheek—something Max had been starting to retaliate against recently, squirming away with exaggerated groans—but right now he leaned into it without complaint. Shane then reached over and brushed back some of Niko's messy black hair from his temple. "Go back inside, okay? Change out of these sweaty clothes and get comfortable.”
When the boys went back inside, Shane readjusted the blanket around Mila, tucking it more securely around her small body. She was drooling slightly, the way she always did when she was deep in sleep, completely boneless against him. He shifted her weight carefully and headed out to the deck to find Ilya.
Ilya stood there braced against the railing, shoulders hunched, head bowed. His hands rested flat on the wood, fingers splayed wide.
“Ilya,” Shane murmured, voice careful as though approaching a startled animal.
Ilya shook his head before Shane could touch him. “I don’t want them seeing me like this,” he said, words thick and trembling. “I don’t know what’s…wrong with me. I yelled at them, Shane.”
That hit Shane right in the chest. The shame in Ilya’s voice was sharper than the words themselves.
Shane adjusted his hold on Mila, settling her more securely on his left hip where she could rest her head against his shoulder. She was snoring softly into his neck. Then he stepped up behind Ilya without hesitation, pressing his chest gently against Ilya's back, letting the warmth of his body bleed slowly into the trembling, rigid lines of Ilya's frame. Shane slid his free arm around Ilya's waist, slow and deliberate, giving him time to step away if he needed to.
Ilya didn’t step away. After a beat, he eased backward into Shane's hold. Let himself lean into it. Let his head drop slightly, tipping back until it rested against Shane's shoulder, like gravity had finally won and he didn't have the strength to fight it anymore.
Ilya could see Mila's peaceful face nestled against Shane's neck, her small features completely relaxed in sleep. He reached out with one unsteady hand and gently tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering for just a moment against her warm cheek.
“They told me what happened,” Shane said quietly, his breath warm against Ilya's temple. “They already feel terrible about it.”
Ilya let out a harsh, shaky breath. “They are scared of me now.”
“No,” Shane said instantly, firmly. “They're not. It's humanly impossible for those kids to be scared of you, Ilya. They adore you.”
“No,” Ilya whispered, his jaw working. "I scared them. Because all I could think of was Alexei. And how maybe one day—” His voice snagged painfully, breath catching on the memory like a hook. "Maybe they will hurt each other the way he hurt me. The way I hurt him, too. And I—”
He stopped abruptly, jaw tightening, eyes clenching shut against the sting.
“He tripped him,” Ilya forced out. “On purpose. Just to make him fall. To hurt.” He swallowed hard. “And Niko shoved him back so fast. It was quick, but—”
He paused again, breath catching in his throat.
“For one moment, it felt like I was back there, Shane. With Alexei. And I—” His voice cracked. “I don’t want them to ever look at each other the way he looked at me. I don’t want them to hate each other.”
Shane turned Ilya gently, guiding him until they were fully facing each other. He guided Ilya’s head down so his head rested against Shane’s free shoulder, the one not occupied by their drooling toddler. From that angle, Ilya could see Mila more clearly: her round, rosy cheeks, lashes clumped from sleeping, her tiny fist curled tight in the knit of Shane’s sweater.
Shane slid his hand up to the back of Ilya’s neck as he settled against him, thumb finding the tense muscles there and working slow, steady circles into them.
“You’re not there,” Shane murmured, voice low but sure, lips brushing Ilya’s temple. “You’re here with the family you made. Who loves you.”
Shane could feel the thud of Ilya’s heart against his own chest. He felt like he was trying to calm a bird trapped in a window.
“Niko and Max love each other,” Shane continued, fingers tangling gently through Ilya's curls at the base of his neck. “I know you know that. They fight, yeah. And they're competitive as hell. They have our DNA, they're basically genetically engineered for it.” Shane smiled a little at that. “But they forgive each other just as fast. Every single time.”
“And you,” Shane added softly. “You’re the reason they even know what forgiveness looks like. What kindness looks like.” He paused, making sure Ilya was listening. “You are nothing like your brother, Ilya. You give our kids something you never had. Safety.”
The rigid tension in Ilya's shoulders began to ease. He reached his hand out and rested it gently on Mila's back, fingers spreading over the curve of her tiny spine through the blanket. She didn't stir, just kept breathing deeply against Shane's neck.
Ilya's thumb moved in a slow, unconscious circle against her back, and Shane watched something in his expression soften further at the contact.
After a long while, he whispered, “I don’t want them to think I’m angry at them.”
“They don’t,” Shane said without any hesitation. “They saw you panic, not rage. There’s a difference. And they’ll understand when you talk to them. Whenever you’re ready.”
Ilya nodded once against Shane's shoulder.
The creak of the sliding door pulled both of their attention upward.
Max stood in the doorway. His face was still a little blotchy. He hesitated on the threshold, one hand gripping the doorframe, like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to interrupt or if he'd make things worse.
"Papa?" he said quietly, voice small and wavering.
Ilya straightened immediately, turning toward him. Something in his expression crumbled at the edges when he saw the tear tracks still wet on Max's cheeks.
Shane squeezed Ilya's shoulder. “I'll take Mila inside,” he whispered. "Give you two a minute."
He brushed a kiss against Ilya's temple, then headed toward the door, pausing briefly to cup Max's chin as he passed.
The moment the door clicked shut, Ilya opened his arms. Max crossed the distance in a few quick steps and crashed into him, wrapping his arms tight around Ilya's waist, face pressing hard into his chest.
“I’m sorry,” Max said, voice muffled.
“Shh,” Ilya murmured, immediately gathering him close, one hand cupping the back of Max's head while the other rubbed firm circles on his back. “I know, solnyshko. It’s okay.”
Ilya held him tight, pressing kiss after kiss to the top of his sweaty curls, rocking him slightly like he used to when Max was much smaller. “I'm sorry I got so loud,” he whispered. “That was not fair to you and Niko.”
"It's okay," Max mumbled into his jacket.
They stood like that for another moment, Ilya just holding him, one hand rubbing slow circles on his back.
Then, Ilya pulled back just enough to look at him properly, hands moving to Max's shoulders. “Come. Sit with me for a minute, yes?”
He guided Max over to the wooden bench against the deck railing. They settled onto the cold surface together, close enough that their shoulders touched. Max leaned into Ilya's side without hesitation, tucking himself under his father's arm.
Ilya pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "Do you remember," Ilya began slowly. “When your costume broke? The night before your school play?"
It had been a few weeks ago. The play was some kind of fairy tale production that was somehow also educational and incorporated the food system into it in a way that made absolutely no sense to Ilya, but both he and Shane had gone full theater dad mode nonetheless. Max had been cast as a knight and had been practicing his lines obsessively for months, driving everyone slightly insane with the constant repetition.
Shane had made the costume himself—partly because nothing online even came close to doing Max’s vision justice, and Shane wanted his little star to shine. There wasn’t a single thing Shane wouldn’t give 110% for when it came to their kids. If anything, he’d probably also wanted to prove to himself that he could make the damn thing. And, to his surprise, it had actually been fun—him and Max hunched over the kitchen table late into the evening, surrounded by scraps of fabric and cardboard armor, the two of them taking the project far too seriously for an elementary school play.
Max wrinkled his nose. “The whole side kept collapsing.”
Ilya smiled a little at that. “Yes. And you remember how you got upset because you thought whole play was ruined? That you thought you wouldn’t get to be a star on stage and all the practice was for nothing?”
Max nodded. He had come into Shane and Ilya’s bedroom that night, holding the broken cardboard, talking a mile a minute and fighting back tears.
“And then,” Ilya continued, tapping Max lightly on the chest. “Your dad fixed it. Because he is magician like that. Learned how to reinforce cardboard armor with craft foam by watching YouTube video on 2x speed.”
Shane could learn anything if he put his mind to it. It was genuinely unfair, Ilya thought, not for the first time. Shane could now speak English, French, and Russian after all. Always an overachiever. If Shane ever decided it was necessary to protect their family, Ilya was convinced he could learn how to build an atomic bomb.
“He told me to practice my lines while he worked,” Max said fondly. Shane had done that mostly to distract Max, who had been hovering over his shoulder the entire time, sputtering about how it’s ruined.
"Yes. You ran through your lines a million times,” Ilya agreed, his lips curving into a small smile. He smoothed a thumb beneath Max’s eye. "Your dad stayed up late, and he fixed it even better than it was before. And in the morning, you thought the whole panic from the night before was silly. That you had worried over nothing."
Max’s shoulders slumped, but in a relieved way. “Yeah. I remember.”
"Well," Ilya said, voice dropping softer, more careful. “My brain today…it did the same thing yours did that night. It panicked. Saw you both fight and brain jumped to worst case scenario." He paused briefly. "But I didn't stop to let anyone fix it first.”
Max looked up at him with those deep brown eyes. The one’s identical to Shane’s. "Because you got scared."
“Yes,” Ilya said simply. “Because I got very scared. Of something that wasn't even really happening.”
“Because your brother wasn’t nice,” Max said, quieter.
Ilya hesitated for a moment, thumb stilling against Max’s cheek. “Yes,” he admitted, the word coming out heavier than he intended. “But you and Niko…you are nothing like that. You love each other. Even when you fight.”
Max nodded slowly. “I shouldn't have tripped him like that.”
“No,” Ilya agreed gently. “You shouldn't have. That was dangerous and not very kind. And you will apologize to him, yes?”
“Yeah,” Max said immediately. “I will.”
“Good.” Ilya pressed a kiss to the top of his head and stood, pulling Max up with him. “Now come. I'm sure your dad is making big breakfast spread. He always does when we cause commotion.”
Max laughed—a real laugh this time. Lighter. “He probably already has, like, five different types of fruit cut up.”
“Probably,” Ilya agreed, slinging an arm around his shoulders as they headed toward the door. “Arranged in perfect little rainbow on the plate.”
“I love when he does that,” Max said, grinning.
“I know you do," Ilya said, squeezing him. "He knows too. That is why he does it.”
And finally, Ilya felt like he could breathe again.