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Ilya had imagined what a good father could be like many times in his life. He had imagined it for the first time when he had been five, shaking in his bed, terrified because of a nightmare he couldn’t even remember anymore.
His mother had been away - a trip, his father had said, disapproval laced with anger in his words. It took Ilya a long time to learn what those trips had really been. That they weren’t what his young mind imagined them to be, wished for them to be.
His mother hadn’t gone to his grandmother or to his aunts. She did not go to the mountains or to the sea. She had been sent to a cold institution with direct orders to come back fixed.
Even at five years old, Ilya had known he couldn’t go to his father’s room and ask him to shoo away the monsters, as he could with his mother. His mother had been kind. His father was not.
If Grigori had been a good father, Ilya would have slept peacefully that night. He would not have cried quietly till he tired himself out.
Ilya liked to imagine a good father was a type of person who consoled their children. Who played with their children, who saw them as more than just heirs to their broken dynasty.
He had a game his whole life, what a good father would be like.
He played it when he was twelve, when his father shoved him out of a room where his mother was. Where the last piece of happiness was.
The game had been a tedious one. A masochistic thing Ilya did to himself, reminding himself of what he did not have.
It had also been fairly simple. He just had to see what Grigori did and ask himself what a good father would do instead.
Example - when a twelve-year-old child went to search for his mother because she wasn’t in the living room like every time after his practice, and found her unresponsive and grey in her bed, would a good father grab their child, hug them, and shield them from the tragedy unfolding, or do what Grigori had done? Which was not a lot. Ilya had fallen on his butt as Grigori pushed him out after hearing Ilya’s broken cries echoing in their cold, empty palace of a home.
Grigori did not dry his tears. He did not kiss his head like his mother used to do. He did not do a lot of things. He did yell. Told him to call it an accident.
Even at twelve, Ilya knew that his mother was not prone to accidents. Accidents led to consequences.
A good father would have done a lot of things.
After that night, Ilya had stopped playing the game for two long years. And then he started again, almost by accident.
After that, it became a comfort. Imagining this figure who would protect him. Lead him. Love him.
When he first met Shane Hollander, he could tell that Shane had been raised by a good father. One who asked questions and listened to the answers. Shane liked his father, something so unfathomable to Ilya that he almost laughed the first time he figured it out. Shane looked up to his father. Another thing that to Ilya had to be fake. Fathers were not to be liked or proud of. They were there to be terryfingy. to be admired.
David Hollander, to Ilya, seemed like a myth.
And then David Hollander went to grab a charger in the cabin, and for a split second, Ilya forgot about everything he had learnt about Shane and his relationship with his father. For a split second, Ilya had been ready to fight a man if that meant protecting Shane.
Because Shane was everything and nothing at all like what Ilya had spent his whole life chasing. He was Ilya’s whole life, and he would not let anybody hurt him. Not even his own blood.
And then the reasonable part of his brain started working.
David Hollander was a good man. The kind of good father Ilya imagined a person could be if they cared.
He would not hurt them. He would not hurt Shane.
Ilya kept repeating that in his mind as he watched Shane follow his mother outside, leaving Ilya alone with David Hollander at the dining table.
The man had a kind face. A type of face Ilya imagined a good father would have. His father had a mean face. He looked the part, Ilya mused. His brother looked like their father. Ilya was his mother’s son. He wondered sometimes, looking at himself in the mirror, if that was why his father hated him so much.
Shane was a mix of his parents. But apparently, the face he made when he was thinking too loudly was inherited from his father.
“So,” David Hollander said, fiddling with his half-empty glass of vodka.
“So,” Ilya replied, downing the rest of his own vodka. When he let himself imagine meeting Shane’s parents, he imagined it would not start with one of them walking in on them.
“How is Boston?”
“Boston is fine,” Ilya said, nodding. “How is, um, Ottawa?”
“Fine, fine…” the two of them trailed off, each looking in a different direction.
Ridiculous, Ilya told himself, you are being ridiculous.
“So, only one person?” Ilya almost gave himself a whiplash with how fast he looked back at David.
“What?” he asked, trying to buy himself some time to figure out what that meant. He had heard of the term shovel talk. He had never been with a person long enough to receive it, though. But maybe this was it, maybe now David will tell him that he will hurt him if he ever hurts Shane.
Like Ilya wouldn’t do the same if he ever did that.
Maybe being a good father did not mean he was a good person. Maybe because he was a good father meant that he would have to be mean to Ilya if it meant protecting his son.
“You only ever loved my son?” David elaborated. “That is…a heavy thing to admit.”
“It’s the truth.”
Ilya knew Shane. Better than most and not nearly enough, but he knew how much Shane loved his family. Ilya needed David Hollander to like him. Or at least trust him.
“Hm,” David said. “It was the same for me. It is the same. With Yuna.”
“Oh,” Ilya said.
“I met her, and I knew nothing else could matter as much,” David continued, his eyes softening. “She’s not angry or disappointed. She’s just - angry at herself, I guess. I know I am at least.”
Ilya was lost. Honest to god lost. The feeling reminded him of his second week in Boston when Marleu forgot about him in a supermarket, and he had to navigate his way back home with broken English, no phone, and no idea where the fuck he was.
David Hollander seemed just as unbothered by it as Marleu was when Ilya finally returned to his apartment after four whole hours.
“Shane is our only child. And to learn he was hiding something this big from us - “
“He did not want to,” Ilya interrupted. His heart was beating a mile a minute because interruptions were not tolerated. But he had to make sure that David knew Shane did not wish to hurt them.
“I know, I know.” David waved him off. “But we must have done something wrong if he had even a sliver of a doubt about how we would react.”
Ilya stayed silent.
Grigori would have yelled. Called them names. Beat them till they saw reason. Or till they died.
A good father would listen. Would see that it was his fault as well for the secrecy. Would see how complicated it was to love as they did in a world so cruel to people like them.
A good father would be proud, would be happy for them. Sad too, for the secrecy awaiting them. A good father would -
“I wish he could have trusted us with this.”
“He does too,” Ilya said carefully. “Maybe now, you could all learn from this.”
David smiled, nodding as he moved to pour them each another glass of vodka. “Don’t tell Yuna. She does not like it when I drink too much.”
“Shame. This is good vodka. Shane did not tell me you have good taste.”
Alright, he told himself. The threats will start now. The distrust. The -
David raised his glass for Ilya to knock with his own. He did that with oddly steady hands. “You won’t hurt him, will you?”
It did not sound like a question. David sounded so sure of that statement, like it was one of the rules of the universe. Grass was green, sky was blue, and Ilya Rozanov, the player notorious for being an asshole, would not hurt David Hollander’s only child.
“No, sir. No, I will not.”
David nodded.
“You want to help me make pasta?”
Ilya had gone through so many different emotions in the span of four hours that he felt like sleeping for seven days.
“Pasta?”
“Yes, pasta. You have that in Boston, too, don’t you?”
Ilya nodded. “You will not threaten me not to hurt him?” he asked, only half aware he was speaking.
David looked at him, amused. “Do I have to?” He almost sounded bored. “I think getting to know you might be a better use of both of our time.”
When Ilya stayed quiet, his mouth opening and closing like he was a gaping fish, David clapped his hands and got up from the table.
“Pasta it is then. Now, tell me, did Shane ever tell you he wore braces in high school? I’m sure Yuna has pictures somewhere.”
Ilya followed, lost but also less so. He laughed as David kept on talking about Shane in high school.
A good father, Ilya thought, was a man like David Hollander.
If he were 12 or maybe even 18, he would have gotten jealous because what did Shane Hollander have that he didn’t, that he deserved to grow up with a good father. But he was older now, and he was so in love with Shane Hollander that he could only be happy that Shane had grown up with the figure Ilya could only imagine having in his life.
As David tasked him with cutting onions, Ilya imagined himself and Shane years into the future. For the first time ever, Ilya felt certain that he would have a place in the Hollander family.
Maybe it was too early, maybe it was too risky, but something made him less afraid to dream.
Maybe it was the fact that David Hollander was talking to him like they had known each other for ages, like he was not Ilya Rozanov, Boston player, but simply Ilya, his son’s boyfriend. Or maybe it was the smile Shane sent his way as he and his mother returned inside.
Whatever it was, Ilya had decided to rename his game. What would David Hollander do had a nicer ring to it.