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The first time he hears it, he feels stupid, cheeks red with the flame of embarrassment, and he slaps his palm against the radio dial to turn it off. He misses, of course, he does, and it only makes it louder, which makes him really panic, scrambling for the cord attached to his phone, ripping it out as his chest heaves with an uneven breath.
Silence rings around him, somehow louder than the song was, and he lets his head fall onto the steering wheel, his forehead hot against the leather. He risks a glance around, noticing that he’s still very much in his driveway, no one around because he’s obsessed with privacy.
He’s an NHL star; he’s allowed to be, or at least that’s what he tells himself.
He glances at his phone, now screen down on the passenger seat, and it takes him a good four minutes to stuff down the residual embarrassment before he works up the courage to try it again.
Cord goes in, the volume comes down, and he hits play.
‘Ло́жкой снег меша́я
Ночь идёт больша́я’
He hits pause, already feeling defeated. He understands nothing, which he expected, duh. He just—
He told himself that he would learn, for Ilya, but he feels stupid, how couldn’t he? These songs were made to rock infants and toddlers back to sleep, and if it wasn’t clear, he was very much not yet a father.
Or a toddler, though some days he felt like one.
The closest he got to any children was when he was babysitting Hayden Pike’s kids. Still, even then, his boyfriend, Ilya Rozanov, was the one who conjured up the grand stories to appease their imaginations more than Shane ever could.
Ilya would make it an entire production, using various props— a blanket as a cape, a dust broom as a staff, even a pot’s lid as a shield; all of it was to create the stories and songs that captivated all of the Pike children until their eyelids drooped heavy with sleep.
Shane had always sat to the side, the youngest Pike’s child, Arthur, holding his hand as they all listened to the Russian man with rapt attention. Sometimes it would take grand gestures of knightlihood and princesses to appease the oldest girls, a pair of twins so loud and rambunctious that it was a surprise they would nap at all.
Other times, it was a little different: instead of loud courage and armadillo rolls on the ground, Ilya would read to them or hum soft songs, both in Russian or English, to get them to calm down. When Hayden had joked that Amber, his third girl, would start speaking Russian because of it, Ilya had simply shrugged and said—
“Music is good way to learn a language. I see no problem here.”
To which Shane couldn’t fault him, immersion is one of the best ways to learn. It’s culturally one of the most fundamental ways that children learn. It was connection, rhythm alone oftentimes transcending the barriers of spoken communication, and laying the foundation for a new language amongst the beat would be no different.
Cue Shane’s idea—Russian lullabies, though he only ever played them when he was alone, still too embarrassed to ask Ilya to listen along. He’d rather die from discomfort than have anyone find out. He could just blame it on the fact that one of the new rookies spoke Russian, but even that was a stretch.
So, here he sits, a foreign language playing over his car’s speaker, the soft Russian acting as the soundtrack of his drive through the streets of Montreal for practice. He tries to speak softly along with the words, stumbling here and there, trying to pick up the flow of dialogue with startling faults. His singing abilities are even more subpar, enough that he’s sure that the four Pike children would riot if he’d ever attempt the soft rumblings that Ilya sings, but it’s just him in the car—so he tried his best.
He’s been doing this for weeks now, having only felt confident enough to move onto a new song just two days ago, but he still stutters and stumbles far more than he’d like. In all honesty, it has helped; his pronunciations are not so rough, even if the song makes little sense to his adult brain. He, after all, isn’t an infant, nor does he necessarily want to sleep, but the flow and cadence are what he’s after. He just wants to be better—Ilya sometimes struggles with describing his emotions in English, especially when it’s something he’s reluctant to talk about or when the stress of the world is too much. If there’s a way he can help ease that discomfort, or even just make thinking any more streamlined for his boyfriend, he’s going to do it.
Shane wants him to be understood in every version of this lifetime.
It starts with learning the basics, and the growth will come; he just has to try.
For now, he takes his time, feeling far too silly as he stumbles over the pronunciations, but he’s proud every time he remembers the flow, every time he nails the cadence.
He has it turned off by the time he pulls into the Metro’s practice rink, but the soft melody sticks with him, floating through his mind even through the drills and quick skates that leave him breathless. It passes through his mind as he skinks the puck into the left-hand corner during a scrimmage, a buzz of adrenaline fresh on his skin as JJ, his ever-fearless teammate, whoops and gives him a playful shove. It lies across his shoulders, even as he pulls his practice jersey and pads off, the tempo refusing to budge even as he scrubs his skin in the shower.
He thinks it’s for the best, really, because even as he stumbles his way through a Russian for Beginners book later that night, his practice sentences come out a little less choppy, a little less butchered.
He smiles despite how awful he sounds, and he knows Ilya would be laughing at him if he were here. He shakes his head, happy to keep this slowly adapting skill to himself for now. He didn’t want to give Ilya any real kind of hope just quite yet because Ilya still likes to tease and test Shane by calling him random objects. His favorite so far is ‘lawnmower’, but the Canadian didn’t really know how deep that desire went for Ilya.
Sure, Ilya had Russian teammates, joking back and forth with an ease that never really seemed to click for him in English. Or, when Ilya spoke with his good friend Svetlana, Shane could see the easy set in his shoulders, the Russian flying off his tongue in a way that their shared language never would. It was his mother tongue after all, and Shane wanted that same ease to be found in their own home, no matter how long it took for him to become fluent.
And if there’s one thing Shane Hollander is stubborn about, it's meeting and exceeding the goals he sets for himself.
After another successful chapter, he bookmarks his page, but it isn’t the end quite yet. He grabs his phone, taps through a few apps, and scrolls until the phone starts playing one of the first Russian podcasts he can find. He has no idea what the topic they’re discussing is, but he picks up broken and fragmented conversations, simply thankful to grasp onto them where he can.
Ilya had already given up so much for him, for them, and helping to give something back is the least that Shane can do, one stumbled word after another.
—
It takes him a few months before he can even remotely feel comfortable just listening, let alone speaking. He practices every single day during the odd moments he has by himself—in the mirror while he brushes his teeth, in the shower as he scrubs his hair clean, even in his mind when Ilya is buried deep inside him. All of the repetition benefits the slow and steady speech he builds on.
It’s Friday, a bi-week between games for Montreal, but Ottawa had been on the road, a good split that Ilya would surely be happily frustrated with. The Russian is already on his way, a rare weekend off for both of them, and they’d already promised each other a night rolling around in bed before doing anything productive.
That’s why Shane is choosing to clean the kitchen now, knowing that once the storm that is Ilya Rozanov breaks into the house, things like scrubbing the cupboards fall to the wayside in favor of soft touches and quick kisses that always turn into more. He’s already knee deep through the bottom cabinet, rarely used dishes and pans set to the side as he tries to scrub a particularly tough corner spot.
Back and forth the cloth goes, a spray of all-natural cleaner here and there, and his mind leads him easily into welcome distraction. It’s rhythmic, easy, and soon, his shuffled playlist switches over to the soft Russian lullaby he’d been trying to perfect for weeks. When it comes to an end, he doesn’t restart it; instead reaching over to pause the next queue. He waits for the silence to fill the house before he tries his best, stumbling over the first syllable, before his voice rings out in the quiet kitchen.
‘Ло́жкой снег меша́я
Ночь идёт больша́я
Что же ты, глупы́шка, не спишь?’
Mixing snow with a spoon,
The big night is going,
Why aren't you sleeping, silly?
It’s shaky at first, the repeated syllables are easy enough until his shoulders drop as the familiar rhythm snakes around him.
Спят твои́ сосе́ди
Бе́лые медве́ди,
Спи и ты скоре́й, малы́ш.
Your neighbors - white bears
Are sleeping,
And you too go to sleep, baby.
On and on he goes, until the final lines cross his tongue. He does it without fault, not a single stutter within the silly string of syllables.
He begins it again.
And again.
And again, soft and sure as he scrubs and scrubs, gentle Russian syllables falling from his lips until he pulls himself away from the cabinet, satisfied that it’s clean enough. The warm kitchen light pulls all kinds of shadows across the room, one shifting to the left, and Shane startles for a moment, not believing his eyes as he turns—
Because there stands the love of his life, Ilya Rozenov, looking far more broken than Shane had ever hoped to see, the remnants of soft Russian lullabies hanging heavy in the air.
—
When Ilya Rozanov was very, very young, he was the picture of agony, a colicky infant through and through. He would go day after day with his face red with sobs and irritation that could rarely be soothed, despite his loving mother’s best efforts. He craved physical touch, even as he grew, always needing to hold his mother’s hand, or grasp his father’s pant leg, though the latter often shook him off, leaving him more frustrated than before. The need for more often left him feeling like there was a gaping hole in his chest, like he was designed always to be yearning for more, though he did not know for which he sought.
His mother had called him tender-hearted, had said it as she pushed his curls aside, the same shade as those that fell into her face, her blue eyes.
His father had called him soft with spittle dripping from his lips, the vein in his forehead pulsing with an angry fluctuation that fell in step with the way his fist flew.
Either way, Ilya would lie down to sleep, one eye blackened, or an arm bruised, while still feeling that hole—that space where more tempted but never settled. His slumber was often far too fitful in favor of the fear of the man whose surname he carried. Oftentimes, he would find himself awake at odd hours through the night, simply staring at ceilings, paint chipping in the far corner, despite his father’s growing bank account.
The aura of richness masks the rot, though the decay reeks beneath the layers.
As he grew, that same frustration always lingered, his body feeling far too small for his yearning, though his limbs grew strong, his backbone sharpening beneath verbal steel. There was rarely a time he was comfortable within his own home, his footing only sure within a rink and a hockey stick in his hands. His solace has been established, a silent scream into the night in thanks, as his soul seemed to have settled.
His mother takes him out on the ice, shows him how to hold his footing, how to slide across the surface as if it were as easy as breathing. On the ice, there is more love and laughter upon that which can shatter than the solid foundation of what he considers family.
Out there, with her, he grows wings, taking flight, and his chest loosens. The ache is replaced with purpose, the holes suddenly filled and rounded off, sanded to fit a mold in which he had never known. He gains the eyes of teams, his father’s favor landing hard, but it had always been his mother who pushed him with gentle fingertips, who smiled softly from the stands.
She gave him a gift, hockey, and he clutches onto it with both hands, knuckles white, and prays that this is the one thing that his father could never take away.
—
Ilya’s nightmares begin before he’s old enough to drive, before he’s old enough to be a man, before he’s old enough to know the full extent of his father’s cruelty amongst snow-ridden days. He wakes far too often with sweat caked on his brow, half a scream choked off in his throat, and his limbs thrashing this way and that. He cannot control himself, not as his breaths come in thick, terror-ridden heaves, and he’s sure that he wakes his brother in the room over.
He just prays that it isn’t enough to rouse his father.
Dear God, not his father.
A knock comes at the door, and he freezes, the sound reverberating around the room until it centers in his chest, his heartbeat hammering in time with the terror that twists his ventricles until he cannot circulate.
The door cracks open, a fraction, a breath—
Ilya is already half out of his bed, trying desperately to stuff himself beneath the small twin frame his mattress sits on because his father cannot reach the far wall beneath, no matter how hard he tries.
A step sounds, soft and slow, like someone afraid of their footfall in the dark—
His arm goes first, easily, his boyish frame still small enough to endure the squeeze, though he’s beginning to see changes within him that he’s unsure of.
A creak in the floorboard, a few feet away, but already he is panicking, his fingernails clawing at the books and boxes that crowd the floor around him.
He ducks his head, pushing and pulling his body, his left knee smacking into the wooden frame, though he doesn’t shout out in pain. The bruise will be added to the collection.
He sees the way the shadow moves, a looming presence, as he wants to sob in terror.
He begins praying desperately that he’s able to get the remainder of his body beneath before he got to him—before the anger came, before—before—
A hand reaches out, and he wants to scream.
“Ilyusha, my little bear, why do you hide?
Ilya freezes, relief flooding his body, but rarely does hope survive in this household, and he holds his breath, waiting, half beneath his bed, half ready to receive the lashes his father is so fond of.
“Mama?” He breathes, something far too soft blooming in his chest for this world, something he isn’t sure if he wants anyone to see.
“My soft bear, are you afraid?”
It's her.
It’s his mother’s voice, her thin hand curling around his bicep in a way that feels like a lifeline rather than a suffocation. He lets himself be led from the floor, lets her hold him as she settles his awkward pre-teen body against her shoulder.
He lets her wrap her arms around his frame, lets her soft scent of lavender and honey help leech the fright from his thundering heart.
Ilya lets his mother see the softness in his chest, and only then does her gentle voice waft through the room, faint as smoke, more warming than the first spring sun.
‘Спят твои́ сосе́ди
Бе́лые медве́ди,
Спи и ты скоре́й, малы́ш.’
‘Your neighbors - white bears
Are sleeping,
And you too go to sleep, baby.’
‘Мы плывём на льди́не,
Как на бриганти́не
По седы́м суро́вым моря́м.’
‘We're floating on an ice floe
As on the brigantine
In the gray severe seas.’
‘И всю ночь сосе́ди
Звёздные медве́ди
Све́тят да́льним корабля́м.’
‘And all night, our neighbors -
Star bears
Shine to distant ships.’
‘И всю ночь сосе́ди
Звёздные медве́ди
Све́тят да́льним корабля́м.’
‘And all night, our neighbors -
Star bears
Shine to distant ships.’
‘Что же ты, глупы́шка, не спишь?
Спят твои́ сосе́ди
Бе́лые медве́ди,’
‘Why aren't you sleeping, silly?
Your neighbors - white bears
Are sleeping,’
“Why don’t you sleep, my little bear?” She asks him, already knowing the answer, her hand carting through his curls until his breathing deepens, his eyes heavy with sleep, but he refuses to give in.
He wants to live in this moment for the remainder of his life, his mother’s touch upon his brow, his heartbeat slow.
“I’m sorry for waking you, Mama.” Ilya mumbles, his syllables slurring with sleep, and it’s nearly impossible for him to keep his head upright. He’s nearly completely dead weight, but she shoulders it without a second thought, more strength in her bones than he’d ever believed.
She helps him settle, to pull the covers up to his chin. She kisses his head and calls him little bear one more time, and Ilya Rozenov is snoring within minutes. The door is shut softly behind her, and he’s asleep by the time the latch clicks.
When he wakes, the night feels more like a memory, riddled with the darkness of the room and muddled with the remnants of a nightmare, but his mother’s touch was far too soothing to have been dreamt. Her soft voice was far too alluring for him to have imagined it. The glint of her crucifix in the moonlight had been too startling to have been ignored, and he hears the lullaby when his father screams at him just hours later.
He tries to tell himself that he’s strong enough, that he can be the man he’s destined to be—soft enough to protect his heart, powerful enough to withstand his father’s fury.
His mother takes her life, three weeks later, her hand far too pale to cart through Ilya’s curls, and he knows that he’ll never sleep through the night again.
—
Ilya holds onto the memory, clutching onto it in the same way he does hockey, and he tries to face the world with bloody knuckles turned white from the longing in his chest that doesn’t ever seem to go away.
Until now.
Until Shane Hollander.
Until Shane Hollander is singing the same lullaby that Ilya’s mother sang to him all those nights ago, the one she had gifted him in the same month that she created the greatest gap of sorrow within Ilya’s chest.
“Fuck, Ilya, are you alright?” Shane is scrambling to his feet, knees clicking awkwardly as he pushes himself upright, not even caring as he kicks a stack of dishes that wobble dangerously close to toppling over.
Ilya presses a hand to his mouth, hard enough that it hurts in the thick hinge of his jaw, but he doesn’t care. It’s all he can do to withhold the sob that grows within his chest, the same that presses at the base of his throat, behind his eyes.
“Ilya?” Shane says, exasperatingly pressing into his syllables as he stumbles forward, the cleaner bottle scattering across the floor, but his eyes, his beautiful, brown eyes, are trained on Ilya with such love and concern that the Russian isn’t sure if he’s still breathing.
“мой мишка,” Ilya gasps out, arms extended as tears fall across his cheeks in fat, thick gobs, and his chest rises and falls with such a heave that the crushing sound of it starts them both.
“What– Fuck, Ilya. What happened? Is it Sveta, or–or did you get hurt? I saw the last game, but I didn’t see anything. Or, was it the drive, did something happen?” Shane keeps rambling on, his hands pressing all over Ilya as if he were made of glass, but Ilya cannot string words together—not in Russian, certainly not in English.
He can only stare at the man he loves, knowing that his mother met Shane in her own way.
“I am fine,” Ilya tries, his voice thick with love, though it comes out as sorrow. The grief for his mother translates like that, always pulling at his heart while pushing him forward. He thanks her for this gift too, though he holds Shane far more gently than th others.
“I’m fine, Shane, I am,” He says it with more conviction, hands sliding up his boyfriend’s biceps as a sad smile creases his face. “You are learning Russian.”
Shane’s face goes red, caught, but he cannot deny it, “I am.”
“For me?” Ilya asks, though neither needs the confirmation. He just wants Shane to say it.
“Well, it isn’t to talk to Svetlana,” Shane quips, and Ilya lets out a clear laugh, the snot and sorrow and grief and love all wrapped into that one beautiful sound.
“You learned Russian, for me, Shane Hollander,” Ilya assures him, assures himself, and the softness of the moment, of the lullaby, has his mother’s tender touch all over it. He feels her soul in this moment, in the weight of the crucifix against his throat, in the way Shane goes pink with embarrassment—
In the way that the room fills with love, more than he’d ever dreamed that he’d be able to have.