Chapter Text
Shane was going to kill him. He was going to give him the laser eyes. But in Ilya’s defense, the events that led to him hiding in the bathroom at the cottage with his phone were not his fault.
“Ilya, come on. Dinner was done like ten minutes ago.” Shane called from the kitchen, the open layout of the place letting his voice float easily toward the master bath.
“Fuck,” he muttered, swiping his phone and yanking the door open aggressively. His feet thudded softly against the wood but Shane noticed the change in his normal gait. He gave Ilya a strange look when he appeared in the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Ilya shrugged and waved his hands as if he were trying to come up with an excuse in English. “It can wait.”
Shane huffed and crossed his arms, leaning a hip against the counter. “You practically stomped in here after hiding in the bathroom for fifteen minutes.”
“Oh, so you are timing me in the bathroom now?” Ilya made an annoyed face.
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Rozanov. Just tell me.” Shane wasn’t really annoyed at his attempt to dodge the subject. It was an old habit and with Ilya, those died hard apparently. Even after years together.
“What is for dinner?”
Shane forced out a disbelieving laugh and went back to bringing things to the table. Ilya watched him and sat, pulling an empty plate toward himself. His wedding ring clanged against the edge as he fidgeted. Shane was hypothetically smoking him out. He had set the room on fire with his casualness and was waiting for Ilya to need air. Back and forth he went in silence until he finally sat and started spooning things onto his plate. Ilya was unfamiliar with this tactic. It was new. He knew couples therapy would bite him in the ass one day.
“Fine,” Ilya sighed, pushing both hands through his golden curls. “There is something I need to tell you and you are going to be upset.”
Shane stopped what he was doing right away and turned toward his husband. “Really? I couldn’t tell,” he shot back with an eye roll and soft smirk. “What did you buy? A car?”
Ilya looked offended, scoffing as he took a bite of chicken. With his empty fork pointed at Shane he answered, “You know I am…what is word? Impulsive! I am impulsive sometimes and no, Hollander, I did not buy a car. We have to cancel our vacation.” He spit the last part out quickly and filled his mouth with more chicken.
“Why would we cancel our vacation?” Shane asked without any of the annoyance that Ilya had expected.
Ilya sniffed, a sign that he did not want to be the bearer of what he thought was bad news. “My brother’s wife called. Earlier. She is having trouble with Anna.”
Anna was Ilya’s niece, who was in her early teens, and Ilya hadn’t seen her for years. His brother had died in a work accident a few years after they got married but even then, he hadn’t been back to Russia. Shane didn’t know why his sister in law would be calling him about a child Ilya barely knew. Especially after all the time that had passed.
Shane leaned back in his chair and cocked his head in confusion. “Okay, wait…having trouble with Anna? How does this have anything to do with our trip? Please,” he pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. “I’m not upset so just tell me everything.”
“She is not coming home sometimes. She is not following her mother’s rules. These sort of things. Maybe she found the wrong friends…I do not know.” His blue eyes met Shane’s brown and stayed there, betraying how he really felt about the call, concerned.
“You want to bring her here,” Shane said. It wasn’t a question because he knew his husband and he knew his heart. Family was a sore spot, even family he barely knew. A soft smile curved the corners of Shane’s mouth. “I would cancel a vacation for this with no problem.”
Ilya looked ready to defend himself but stopped, mouth open. He wasn’t surprised, no. He knew Shane would do anything for him but sometimes the old trauma and the doubt muddied his mind. “Yes. I said we would take her for the summer. Try to help. I think, maybe, she needs…”
“...a positive male influence?” Shane finished.
“Yes, this.”
“Well, I think I have that covered but what about you?”
“Fuck off, Shane,” Ilya shot back. He laughed and the visible tension in his shoulders relaxed. “You are okay? We don’t know anything about teenage girls but how hard could it be?” If Ilya knew anything, it was that Shane was going to buy a disgusting amount of books on the subject and be an expert in a week.
Shane continued eating his dinner, chuckling softly to himself. “Of course I’m okay, Ilya. She’s your family and I can tell it’s important to you.”
“It is,” Ilya said, nodding. “She lost her father and I know what that is like…losing a parent. Maybe it has been hard on her.” He flung his hand away, making a sound of dismissal in his throat. “Whatever it is, we will fix.”
“Yeah,” Shane agreed, though he didn’t think it was going to be that easy. He had seen the beginnings of young women in Hayden’s twins but Anna was older and more…hormonal. At least, he assumed. “When is she coming? What’s the plan? I’ll have to get some things for the downstairs bedroom for a young girl.”
Ilya grinned at his husband. This is the Shane he knew would show up. The planner. “She will be here next week and we will take her shopping. Easy.” His hand slid across the table to link with Shane’s. “Thank you, moya lyubimy. This will be a good thing.” He pulled Shane’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. “You will see.”
*****
Anna’s room was as ready as it could be without her in it. Ilya had been adamant about letting her choose her own bedding and decor so she would feel more at home. It couldn’t be easy to fly to a foreign country to live with an uncle she didn’t know and his husband who she also didn’t know. Ilya could recall the fear in his gut when he’d arrived in Canada before the draft and how scary it was to only understand some of the language. Still, it must be bad if her mother was willing to be away from her for so long. He tried not to think of that part.
Shane had been the perfect person to lay out all of the details. His mother, who very obviously wanted grandchildren some day, was more than happy to help them both. She didn’t seem so convinced that they were prepared for Anna and her teenage mood swings but she let them live in their delusions. A child was welcome no matter what in Yuna Hollander’s mind.
Ilya went alone to the airport the day Anna arrived. Her mother had come with and would go back to Russia in a few days. She handed Anna off to him with a firm nod, a kiss to her daughter’s cheek and warnings to behave in mumbled Russian. Then, she was gone.
“How good is your English?” Ilya asked the girl in Russian as she watched her mother disappear into the crowd.
Her eyes traveled to him slowly and she stared. “I speak it fine,” she said in heavily accented but pretty good English. He was a little surprised but didn’t let it show.
Ilya took a hesitant step forward and gave his niece an awkward hug. The last time he’d seen her was his father’s funeral but Anna wrapped her arms around his waist and easily hugged him back. “Well, we have a little bit of a drive. Shane is waiting at the cottage. His mother too. Yuna. They are excited to meet you.”
She nodded, much like her mother had and motioned for him to lead the way. It caught him off guard but he gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile and turned toward the baggage claim.
It was awkward. Ilya felt like he might crawl out of his skin. There were invisible beetles traveling up and down his arms but he was an adult. He had to guide the situation like Yuna suggested. She should have come instead because Ilya was failing miserably. “So, uh, what do you like to do for fun?”
Anna side eyed him and then sighed softly, resigned. “I like to read. I liked to go out with my friends but there are none of those here.”
He could hear the annoyance in her voice. “You can make new ones. And Shane likes to read. His shit…stuff is boring though, so don’t ask for opinions.”
“Uncle? Should I call you Uncle here?” Anna smooths the hair framing her face and puts on a pair of sunglasses. “You do not have to entertain me. It is fine.”
Ilya started to respond but she’d slid on a pair of noise cancelling headphones before he could. He was out of his element and suddenly there was a knot in his stomach. Maybe he’d reacted too quickly in saying yes. Maybe he’d just ruined everyone’s summer.
*****
“Hey, come here,” Shane murmured as he pulled Ilya into him, using the wall to brace them both. “It’ll be fine, okay? It’s fine. We’re fine.”
“The more you say fine, the less I believe you,” Ilya growled softly and poked Shane in the cheek with his index finger. “It was not good. I could barely talk to her in the car.”
The fact that Yuna was the only one she seemed to connect with did give Shane some pause but this was Yuna Hollander. She could warm the coldest of hearts and if not, she’d kick ass instead. “Do you think it’s because we’re, you know, together? Maybe she’s uncomfortable.”
Ilya shook his head before burying it in the warm skin of Shane's neck and gnawing gently. “No. I just think we are two idiot guys who don’t know how her brain works. Now stop talking and distract me, Hollander.”
Shane laughed softly. His hands traveled up the back of Ilya’s shirt and he grazed his nails along his shoulder blades. Ilya reacted immediately, as he always did, and pushed Shane tighter against the wall. This was good. It took their minds off the new person occupying space in their downstairs guest room. Clothes started to come off and breaths grew heavier until a loud wailing startled them both. It broke the quiet and both men jumped back, faces flushed, clothes half off.
“What,” Ilya asked, chest heaving, “the fuck is that sound?”
“Metal? Sounds like a guitar…” Shane stuck a finger in his ear and winced. “She’s got to turn it down. Fuck, that’s loud.”
Ilya started to pull his shirt back on and headed downstairs without waiting for Shane, who was scrambling behind him with one leg in his gym shorts. “Ilya, just ask her nicely to turn it down. It’s not a big deal.”
“I am sorry. I cannot hear you over my ears bleeding.” He half yelled. The closer he got, the worse it was. Ilya knocked firmly on the door but who could hear it over the sounds of torture coming through the walls. “Anna!”
“She can’t hear you,” Shane said, finally dressed and smoothing his hair. “Maybe we should have just had sex. She wouldn’t have even known.” His finger twirled in the air, motioning to the noise.
Ilya gave Shane an exasperated look. “You sound like me and I would laugh but..” He jerked a thumb toward the door. “Anna, if the door is unlocked I am coming in!”
“Ilya you can’t go in there without her permission! What if she’s like, not decent? Or something.”
“This is ridiculous. I can barely hear you.”
“I said don’t go in there.”
“I know what you said, Shane!”
“But you just said you couldn’t..”
The door flew open and Anna stood there with both brows raised, studying the two men in the hall. She reached over and the music stopped. Shane shook his head to stop his ears from ringing in the sudden silence. “Yes?”
Ilya started to talk to himself in Russian and turned away. Shane smiled awkwardly, because, yeah, the whole thing was making him want to go to his parents house and drag his mother back. “Could you maybe turn the music down? It was really loud and there’s not really any neighbors to disturb but it was just really loud.” He’d said that twice. She was going to sniff out his fear and eat him alive.
“I am sorry, Uncle Shane. That is what I call you, yes?”
“Uh, sure. Yeah.” Shane’s face heated a little because he liked the sound of that. It was what Hayden’s kids called him but he’d known them their whole life.
“Okay well, my headphones died and then disconnected. You see?”
“It took you that long to realize your headphones were dead?” Ilya clocked back into the conversation and Shane poked him in the side as a warning not to start something.
“Just, keep it at a reasonable level. It’s fine.”
Ilya gave Shane a glare that said it was most certainly not fine but the first rule Yuna had given them was to always remain a team in front of Anna. Ilya didn’t want to be on Shane’s team at that moment. “Is fine…no problem. Just scare the shit out of me and every animal in the forest…” Ilya mumbled as he went back upstairs.
Shane laughed weakly. “He’ll get over it. Dinner will be ready in a few hours but if you need anything in the meantime,” he motioned toward the upper level of the cottage, “you know where to find us.”
Anna smiled and Shane could see the triumph there in the curve of her lips. “Thank you, Uncle Shane.” She closed the door before he could respond.
Shane stood there staring at the closed door and sighed. He covered his face with both hands, letting out a frustrated groan. One stubborn Russian was enough. Now there were two stubborn Russians and he wasn’t sure he had the fortitude to play referee all summer.
Climbing into bed was more of a reward than it had ever been before. Dinner had gone okay but only because no one really talked. Ilya stabbed at his plate like the meat wasn’t already dead and Anna spoke when spoken to but it was too forced. Shane felt mentally exhausted.
“That was not what I expected,” Shane admitted. He turned on his side to play little spoon for Ilya who instinctively wrapped him in his large body.
“I think she is testing us,” Ilya replied. “I know these actions because I was in her spot once.”
“You didn’t handle it so well today.”
“Yes, well, I said I know what she is going through, not that I know how to talk to her. Not yet. I thought it would be easier.” Ilya kissed Shane’s temple gently. “When my mother died I was angry at the world. I put it into hockey, you know?”
“Yeah,” Shane answered breathily. “We’ll try again tomorrow then.”
“Shane,” Ilya almost whispered.
“Ilya.”
“I cannot fail her. My brother failed her. I think maybe life has failed her and she is so young. Only fifteen.” His voice broke a little but he continued. “Whatever we have to do, we will do it.”
Shane rolled to face his husband. “Hey, I’m right here with you. We’ll do this together and you aren’t going to fail. Got it?” Ilya ducked his head but Shane forced his eyes back up to meet his.
“Got it.”
“Good.”
There was a beat of silence and then Ilya spoke again. “Maybe we should let her turn the music back up so I can fuck you.”
Shane rolled away with a groan but it turned into a laugh and he shoved Ilya playfully. “Go to sleep, asshole.”