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Scars don’t heal once. The body has to do the continuous work of knitting together wounds to keep them closed, which is why when it is lacking in something, sometimes old wounds reopen.
Ilya knows this, he has been informed many times by various medical professionals that old injuries will likely continue to bother him for years to come and that it will be worse if he does not take care of himself. That’s why healthy food, exercise, and rest are so important.
He hasn’t slept much these days. Maybe that’s why this wound has reopened.
He sighs, staring down at the sleeping boy before him and thinking that he wouldn’t trade this for the world. He’s always been able to bear the pain.
Still, he can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt, thinking of his father.
He folds his arms over his knees and rests his chin on them, unable to bring himself to leave yet. It seems wrong, that his father never got to meet someone who would mean so much to him. But then, he wasn’t sure that his father would have ever understood.
It’s a nonsensical wish, he knows, but still Ilya can’t help but wish his parents had been at his wedding. He loves Yuna and David, and he’s so, so grateful for their love in return, but it also feels so unfair sometimes. If they, relative strangers, are able to love Ilya so fiercely then why hadn’t his own father been able to do the same?
Was it that he did love Ilya, and just felt that the best way to show that love was through constant criticism? Ilya used to think that; it was how he justified his father’s actions for decades. Now though... now he can’t help but feel horrified at the thought of treating a child the way he was treated. For any reason.
Generational difference, he had tried to wave it away as sometimes, but then David was not much younger than his father. Cultural differences, sure, probably accounted for some things, but then Yuna was born in Japan and raised there until she was a pre-teen and Japanese parents were not exactly known for being cuddly. Yuna herself had been known to lean toward being a “tiger mom” sometimes, but for all her pushing Shane to strive for the best, she did always try to build him up. Ilya’s father... seemed more intent on tearing him down in retrospect.
Every dinner or gala he ever attended was a test of endurance for Ilya, an exercise in making himself small and silent. Not just the ones like the gala after the humiliating loss in Sochi, but even the ones that followed a triumph. The summer after he won the Stanley cup he went to a dinner with several of his father’s colleagues where he still spent an hour listening to his father say that the team would have won even without him. No mention of the fact that Ilya personally scored two of the team’s four goals of course.
Sometimes Ilya wonders if it was because he was embarrassed. Rather than being proud of his son’s success, Grigori Rozanov sometimes seemed humiliated that the successes were not his own. Part of Ilya, as the ever-dutiful son, sometimes wanted to try to give him credit. To tell him, “you bought me my first hockey gear, you pushed me to keep playing when I almost quit when I was eight”.
But then he remembers the thousand times Grigori told him he wasn’t good enough, how he was the one who made Ilya want to quit in the first place. He has never forgotten the match in St. Petersburg that his father showed up to without warning. Ilya played brilliantly in the first period, scoring a goal against a notoriously good goalie, but then when he looked up into the audience to see if Mama was watching and smiling, he caught sight of those cold, hard eyes and his blood chilled. After that he stumbled over his own skates like a novice and any hope of another goal left him altogether. The sight of his father in the stands always made Ilya make stupid mistakes, miss passes, lose face-offs. He can’t give his father credit for what he accomplished in spite of the man.
But father did buy him the gear. And he did get Ilya on teams with the best coaches. Those shouldn’t be ignored.
Meager rations to an underfed relationship.
There was never warmth between them, but there was material providing. Does Ilya only miss his father for that? It seems so shallow to miss him for his money, especially when Ilya has plenty of his own now. And God, he wouldn’t want to be missed only for that himself, but then again that probably is exactly what Alexei misses about him. If he misses Ilya at all.
Maybe what he misses is the opportunity. While Grigori was alive, there was always that chance, however small, that Ilya could tell him he was bisexual. That he could have told him he was in love with Shane. He couldn’t imagine that Grigori would have ever taken it well. Ilya can practically hear the string of slurs he would have spat before telling him to cut that shit out, treating it, at best, like a tasteless joke. At worst, well. He doesn’t like to think about that.
He sighs heavily and there is a tiny answering sigh from the mattress that brings a small smile to his lips. Ilya considers brushing the bangs back from his forehead, but doesn’t want to risk waking him.
He was numb when he first got the call, numb on the plane, numb for the funeral. When feelings came back to him, they were awkward and too intense, like the painful return of feeling to a limb that had fallen asleep. His anger at his brother was raw and violent, his longing for Shane was overwhelming and bewildering, and he expected the sadness over losing his father to be crushing when it came.
Instead, he had gotten relief, like there was some sort of administrative error in whatever part of his brain processed emotions. There was so much relief, he was practically giddy with it when he returned to the United States. It bubbled through his veins, making him laugh too easily at stupid jokes, probably sounding unhinged to the poor airline stewardesses and taxi drivers that dealt with him on his way home. It probably should have been obvious that it wouldn’t last, but it was a strange kind of high at the time. Ilya had never done drugs, but he assumed the strange, hyper present yet completely disassociated at the same time feeling must be similar.
It had been seeing Shane lying limp and lifeless on the ice that brought everything crashing down on him at once. The sudden horror at the idea of losing Shane, of remembering he had lost someone else he should have loved, of what it meant to be alone. Ilya shut down. He still doesn’t remember what had happened for the rest of that game, only that he moved automatically like he was sleepwalking.
When he woke the day after the game, he found himself in a new nightmare, flooded with guilt for everything. Guilt for not taking care of his father, guilt for having distracted Shane, guilt for having felt so relieved at his father’s death, guilt for having punched Alexei, guilt for not loving Svetlana the way she deserved, guilt, guilt, guilt.
There is a small snuffle and the rustle of pajamas against sheets for a moment and for a second, Ilya feels that guilt crash down on him now too, guilt that somehow he woke him by staring too loudly or something.
The dark lashes lying against soft cheeks are still, and he hopes it’s a sign of peaceful sleep for one of them at least. Ilya wishes he could count them, that he could memorize the exact shape of their curl and tattoo it on his heart, somewhere it will never ever fade. He wants to remember the precise pout of those lips, the sweep of those bangs, to have them buried so deep that even if his mind goes someday, disintegrating a little at a time, he will never lose this.
It had never occurred to him to wonder if it had ever killed his father, when his memory returned, to realize he had forgotten his own son’s face sometimes. Ilya wonders if it’s selfish of him that he only ever saw it from his side, his own pain at being forgotten. Pain that he couldn’t even blame his father for, because it wasn’t his fault. He tried so hard to remind him too, switching to “Papa”, instead of “Father” when he was having an episode because sometimes older memories were easier for Grigori to access. Sometimes he couldn’t place the grown man before him, but Ilya was still familiar to him as a child.
Ilya grips the edge of the crib harder than necessary, needing to ground himself in some way. He desperately wants to see this boy grow up, wants to see the man he becomes. He never wants to forget this soft, innocent creature who can barely sit up on his own, yet smiles like a sunrise every time he sees Ilya’s face. But Ilya also wants to see the mischievous toddler he will be, the grumpy teenager, the hopeful young man, everything.
He wants it so much, he left hockey early. It shocked his teammates, the fans, Yuna and David, because everyone knew that the knee injury that took him out of the playoffs wasn’t that bad all things considered. He could have gone back after the summer. It was just that lying around healing gave him time to think and little way to escape his thoughts, which was often a bad thing but in this case it brought a lot of clarity. Maybe it was because he had Shane and Galina to talk to this time.
They had planned on adopting from early on, but knew it would not be realistic to do so before retirement. After all, how would they have cared for a child when they were at practice or games at the same time? Parenthood existed for them in some amorphous future era so neither he nor Shane had given too much thought to its exact shape. It had been a box of gloves that had led to Ilya beginning to imagine it more. Shane had fussed at him for picking it up, saying that it was too much to lift but Ilya was trying to help load the spare gear for their hockey camp into the car so that Shane would have one less thing to worry about. Instead, the worry had transferred from the gear to Ilya himself lifting too much with his knee not quite recovered. Ilya was distracted from Shane’s fussing by the passing thought that if he wanted to be able to pick up a child to put them in the car, he would need to have functioning knees for that too.
The thought didn’t leave him for the next several weeks and he realized that he had a choice- spend the rest of his time and his health on hockey and give whatever was left over to a child, or stop now and have more to put toward their family. He knew what mattered more to him, and he wondered what his father would have had to say about that.
Shane had been shocked when he first broached the subject, then terrified that this was Ilya spiraling into a depressive state. To Shane, losing his passion for hockey was unimaginable, so of course he assumed something terrible must be happening for Ilya to say he just didn’t care about it as much. Ilya had needed to drop the conversation for the time being and return to it the next day when he had had a chance to come up with a more coherent explanation for what he meant. He had to emphasize that it wasn’t that he didn’t care about hockey so much as he cared about this more. So much so that it surprised even him.
Ilya wonders if his father had desperately wanted him and Alexei like this. He was older than Ilya is now when he married their mother; had he felt the clock ticking and thought he was running out of time to really have a family? Did he ever regret waiting so late?
Again, there was the sense of lost opportunity. Ilya could never ask him now, not that Grigori would have deigned to answer these kinds of questions when he was alive. He would have found it sentimental drivel.
Ilya had talked to Galina at length about his mother, and the fear that adopting a child would bring up a lot of lingering feelings around losing her. Shane wasn’t done with hockey yet, so it was agreed that Ilya would be the one staying home with their child at least at first and something about realizing he would be the primary caregiver did strike a small chord of panic in him. Ilya loved babysitting the Pikes’ kids and his teammates’ children but that was different. He still struggled with depression sometimes, what if being home with a child all day sent him spiraling? Galina and Shane had both made him promise to talk to them if things started to get bad again, reminded him that he wasn’t alone like his mother had been. It had helped a lot, even if he still worried a little about it.
Strangely it had never occurred to him to worry he would become like his father. What if he does? What if instead of triggering a spiral into depression, this triggers some sort of nasty, competitive streak in him? He is competitive by nature, that has always been a part of his relationship with Shane after all. What if one day their son turns out to be a prodigy of some sort and Ilya spends decades resenting his successes, bitter that he left hockey early himself just to be surpassed by this boy? He wants to believe he would be proud; he already feels a sort of imaginary pride at the thought of his son’s imaginary skills, but when it comes down to the moment, will he still?
He wants to ask Shane to warn him if he ever gets like that, but Shane has a game tomorrow, and Ilya is loathe to wake him.
For a second he wishes he could forget about his father, then a wave of nausea hits him at the horror of that wish. He takes it back immediately, even if he never said it out loud. He hopes that if there is some sort of divine entity they know he didn’t mean it and never would. For better or for worse, his father is part of him and it’s important that he not forget. Please don’t let him forget.
He suddenly wishes he could talk to his father. That he could tell him all the things he never said, and let his father bear the burden of ending their relationship if that was what he would do. It seems so unfair that Ilya had to be the one to walk away.
He knew as a teenager if he ever wanted to escape his home life he needed to get far away and hockey had allowed him to do that. He knew he was lucky that it was even an option. Still, it was hard to move across an ocean to a country where his grasp of the language was tenuous at best. Doing so alone as a teenager did not make it easier. Maybe it doesn’t make much sense but he hopes his son is strong enough to be able to do hard things like that, but never in a position where he has to. Ilya hopes he takes on difficult challenges because he wants to, not out of self-preservation.
What if his father hadn’t disowned him though? What if Ilya had told him he loved Shane and they had gotten married and adopted a baby together and his father had begrudgingly accepted it? Would the baby matter? Would Grigori find more kindness in his heart for his grandson than he ever did for his sons?
Ilya suddenly recalls the first time he saw his father hold his niece, how shocking it was to see him smile at her. He didn’t see his father interact with Sofia a great deal, but when he did it was... not quite warm, but certainly more patient than he ever acted otherwise. Watching him pretend to make a doll dance for her once as a toddler was so disorienting that Ilya began to wonder if he had imagined all the abuse of his own childhood. Surely this was not the same man who had terrorized him for years? But then he looked up and told Ilya off for standing around and not helping his brother with his suitcases, berating him for his laziness, and Ilya was at least reassured that he wasn’t losing his mind.
Was it because Sofia was a girl? Would he treat Emil like he treated Alexei and Ilya because he felt boys should be toughened up? Then again, he was cruel and demanding toward Ilya’s mother, and was not much kinder toward Polina.
Would he use Emil as a proxy for Ilya? Punish him for Ilya and Shane’s relationship? Ilya already feared Emil would be mocked or harassed by strangers for having two fathers. How much worse would it have been if he had gotten it from his own family? Maybe it’s a quiet blessing that they never met.
Ilya talks to his mother sometimes. Not praying like one would to a god, or speaking out loud like there’s a ghost present. Just sort of sending his thoughts into the universe and hoping she can hear him. He can’t visit her grave anymore, a fact that he tries not to think about too much, but he can hold on to her necklace and still feel close to her that way. He did that a lot when they were in the process of adopting and when they first brought Emil home. He felt like it was important to introduce him to his grandmother. The image of Yuna brushing past both of them in her haste to pick up the baby every time she came over now amuses him, but also sometimes makes his throat tighten with the reminder that his mother will never do the same. Still at least she knows Emil, in a way, or so he liked to believe.
He’s never spoken to his father like that. Never wanted to. Should he? Would it help?
He rolls the idea around in his head, trying to imagine how he would broach the subject. Maybe it would be better to ease him into the idea, explaining from the beginning, or maybe it would be best to be direct and blunt. Make it clear he isn’t asking for permission, but telling him like it is.
With a deep, steadying breath, he tries to begin, but chokes immediately. He doesn’t even know whether to begin with “Father,” or “Papa,”. This is too much. Before he can decide, there’s a shuffle of bare feet behind him.
“Ilya?” Shane appears in the doorway, yawning in a sleep-rumpled t-shirt and shorts. At the sight of Ilya he freezes, bleary eyes suddenly wide and alert. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Ilya whispers back, surprised by this alarm.
Shane is by his side in a heartbeat, staring down at Emil with concern, a hand on his back as if checking his breathing, then on his forehead. “Does he have a fever?”
“No, no, nothing is wrong with Emil, I just couldn’t sleep.” Ilya gently pulls Shane’s hand away and kisses the back of it.
“God you scared me.” He whispers to Ilya then pulls his hand free to wipe at Ilya’s cheek.
Ilya hadn’t even realized his face was soaked with tears.
“Sorry.” He quickly tries to dry them himself.
“No, it’s okay.” Shane rubs his arm soothingly. “Talk to me.”
Ilya tries to explain, having to pause when the tears well up again, letting Shane’s soft shushes and tender embraces gently bring him back to the present moment. At one point he asks if Ilya would rather go back to their bedroom but Ilya shakes his head. The faint smell of baby powder is helping, oddly. Like part of him knows he needs to stay calm because Emil is here even when the memories threaten to pull him under.
Shane understands on an intellectual level but not an emotional one. Other times that has frustrated Ilya in the past, the fact that Shane just cannot conceive of his parents being the ones to destabilize him and make him feel unsafe. Right now, he’s grateful for that difference between them as it allows Shane to remain steady and a little distant from the subject. Ilya doesn’t have to self-regulate to keep Shane calm, instead letting himself feel everything at once, all the grief, and the anger, and the frustration, and the sadness, all the flotsam and jetsam of a shipwrecked adolescence.
When it’s done, he feels exhausted, panting to catch his breath as if he’s been fighting for his life here and in a way he supposes he has. Shane is silent in that particular way that means he is thinking, not that he is ignoring him. Ilya waits patiently to hear what he has to say, knowing that if Shane is putting this much careful thought into it, what he says will be invaluable to him.
“You can’t introduce Emil to your father.” He slowly begins at last. “I know you know that, but you will never know what he would think of our son.”
Ilya’s heart still skips a beat on “our son” even after six months of this. He wonders if it always will.
“But you can introduce your father to Emil.” Shane continues cautiously.
This takes Ilya aback for a moment. “Is the same, no?”
Shane rubs at Ilya’s knuckles, keeping him grounded. “No. I mean you can tell Emil about your father. You can’t know what he would have thought of Emil, but you can see what Emil thinks of him based on what he knows growing up. You can show him photos and tell him what he was like. The good and the bad.”
“I don’t want to tell him the bad, I don’t want to scare him.” Ilya whispered.
Shane’s lips press together for a moment. “Maybe... maybe not all the details. And maybe when he’s a bit older. I think if you do it right, he won’t be scared. He’ll realize how brave his Papa was.” Shane gives him a sad smile and raises a warm hand to Ilya’s cheek. “I would want him to know that.”
Ilya closes his eyes and presses against the hand.
Emil begins to fuss, and Ilya realizes it’s about the time he starts getting hungry again. Shane volunteers to get the bottle ready while Ilya picks up the boy and focuses on steadying his own breathing and heart rate to keep him calm, remind him that he’s safe and loved while they wait.
He can’t change the past, he knows that. So he does the next best thing.
He looks to the future.