Work Text:
i
Kolya has the most embarrassing parents of all, he is sure of it. He is fifteen years old and almost as tall and broad as them, and still they will not let him go to a friend's house without meeting the parents first.
"You know it's not that we don't trust you, Kolyenka," Dad says in that voice that means he's been reading parenting books or listening to parenting podcasts. "Your father and I just want you to be safe, so we need to know where you are and who you are with. You are not even sixteen yet. I know you want to be independent, but you are our baby and meeting the parents of your friends one time is not unreasonable."
"No one else is getting dropped off," Kolya says, crossing his arms. Dad just doesn't get it. He's already the odd one out, with his parents still being the hockey legends that put Ottawa on the (hockey) map, the first (male, as Grandma likes to remind him) active and married (to one another) hockey players, ones of the first to be out and active, and then — most embarrassing of all — still famous enough that half of Kolya's class was crushing on them. His parents! Samantha had brought pictures of Dad's underwear campaign to class last week, had shown them around, like it was a good thing and not the most awful thing anyone could have done. Dad! Modelling underwear!
"I cannot decide how other people want to raise their children, Kolyenka," Dad says calmly like Kolyenka is unreasonable. "But I want to know whose house my son is going to spend time at."
"Whatever," Kolya says, crossing his arms. He has tried so many times to get Dad to cool it, and he knows Asya had to. He had tried getting Papa to agree, because Papa was the only one who could get Dad to change his mind if he was stubborn — sometimes at least — but Papa had only said "your dad is right" and that had been that, forever. Papa was the only one who could outstubborn, Grandpa always says.
Dad parks in front of the house, turning around before they can get out for a moment. It's ridiculous that they still make Kolya sit in the back. He's almost as tall as them now. But the last time he had complained, Dad had made him watch a whole presentation on car safety and injuries in accidents and Kolya had not brought it up since. It had both been embarrassing and horrifying, and even if he'd never tell Dad or Papa — who were the worst, who even made their children look at videos on car safety — the surviors' stories had been horrifying. Kolya likes playing soccer too much.
He can see the Chris's house, normal and smaller than even his grandparents' house, which is surprising. Everyone at school mostly had houses even bigger than them, because Papa said they were irresponsible with their money "not like your dad". Still, Kolya does not get out of the car right away, hand on the door, because this, too, is a compromise.
"I love you," Dad says, like he always does, turning around to face Kolya. "You can call us anytime. We won't ever be mad if you want us to pick us up, no matter if you're just bored or not feeling well or if you feel unsafe. You know what to text your papa if you need him to be bad cop, yes?"
"Yea, Dad," Kolya says, because there was never any getting around this talk and he definitly does not want to have it outside where someone might see or hear.
"Alright," Dad says, squeezing his knee, another compromise because Kolya does not want a hug where his friends can see and Dad and Papa always wanted to hug, like the embarrassing people they were. "Have fun. I love you."
Dad gets out of the car and Kolya follows, grabs his backpack and trails Dad up the path to the house. It's even smaller than he expected, barely any depth to it and the garden was small as well. He feels bad about thinking it a bit, because he still remembers Papa's face when Kolya had been seven and said he needed a new club because the kids at his first soccer practise did not even have a cottage and therefore could not train like he could. Papa had not been scary, not really, he never was, but Kolya will never forget the feeling even if he cannot remember the words Papa had said.
"Hello," Dad says when the door opens to reveal Chris's mother. Kolya echoes him. It's probably good Dad is with him because talking to her on his own would have been embarrassing, he hates meeting adults. "I'm Nikolai's father, Shane, I just wanted to introduce myself."
"Chris!" Chris's mother calls back before shaking Dad's hand. "Nice to meet you, Shane and you, Nicolai. I'm Clara, Chris's mother. I'll definitly try and come to the next PTA meeting, just with the move, I haven't had time." She laughs, a bit nervous maybe, and Kolya is glad when Chris appears behind her, grinning. At least she does not start gushing at Dad the way a lot of adults do, when they meet Dad or Papa. The worst were the women who giggled and tried to touch Dad, which always made Papa touch him more.
"Hi Nick!" Chris says, gesturing him inside and away from the adults.
Kolya goes, glad to leave the adults behing. He toes off his shoes and turns to his dad, because he needs to say goodbye or Dad would embarrass him even worse. "Bye, Dad."
"We'll pick you up before dinner, Kolya," Dad says and Kolya nods and follows Chris inside, away from the chatter of the adults, relieved to have survived without anything else.
"Kolya?" Chris asks and Kolya huffs, rolling his eyes, glad to finally be able to let out just how embarrassing his parents are.
"It's what my parents call me," he says, because he does not want Chris to get any ideas. "It's short for Nikolai."
"Okay," Chris laughs, clearly finding it ridiculous but he doesn't say anything else about it, goes straight to talking about Fortnight.
Kolya's cheeks still burn slightly. Different again, because of his embarrassing parents. But at least Chris was nice about it.
ii
Papa always comes to soccer practice. He is strangely proud of Kolya for choosing soccer, refuses to call it soccer because he is awfully European sometimes still, and shows his enthusiasm by coming to every game and to as many practices as he can. Kolya is too old to have a parent watch his practice. He's fifteen. Most of his friends get dropped off and get picked up after, parents glad to be rid of their teenagers for two hours every other day.
At least Papa stays quiet on the bleachers, watching and working on his tablet, sometimes on the phone, but always there and always with Potato at his feet.
It's embarrassing, especially because Papa is also a coach and sometimes he talks to Kolya's coaches afterwards like they are colleagues, like it makes sense, talking to high school soccer coaches when he coaches an NHL team.
It's embarrassing because he calls for Potato by her name, like Asya and Kolya should have been allowed to name her as babies. Half his teammates still laugh when Papa calls Potato to heel.
Kolya loves soccer, though, and he loves talking to Papa about it afterwards in the car. Loves watching games with him at home, even or especially because Dad always complains about the amount of money Papa spends on subscriptions to be able to watch the European teams. He loves how different the endurance is when you are on the pitch for 45 minutes and then again instead of for only half a minute again and again. He could also never sit on the bench and wait for his turn again. He still doesn't understand how Papa or Dad ever could, because they are both way too bossy and pushy for it.
He also never liked how annoying it was to get dressed for hockey, how the pads stank, how wet everything was. Again, he does not understand how Dad, who is so particular about everything, could ever stand it.
After, he is not sure if it happened because he had been lost in thought. But his teammate, on the other team for practice today, tackles him and Kolya trips and something — burns. He screams before he can catch it, going down and clutching his ankle, pressing his head into the grass and trying not to sob like a baby, tries to breathe like Dad has taught him.
Papa is there before the coaches, kneeling by Kolya's side and cupping his cheek. "Sunshine," he says, brushing his hands through Kolya's hair. "What hurts?"
"My ankle," Kolya sobs, even if he tries not to. "It burns, Papa."
"Okay," Papa says, pulling Kolya's shoes off and taking the cooling pack the coach hands him, putting it on Kolya's ankle before picking him up into his arms.
"Papa!" Kolya protests, mortified at being carried like a baby, but Papa is ignoring him, saying something to the coaches Kolya can't hear because his cheeks are burning with embarrassment and his ankle hurts and everyone saw him cry like a baby.
"Sorry, Nick," Matt says quielty, following Papa a few steps.
"Yea," Kolya says because that's nice, even if stuff like that happens and he is far too embarrassed by being carried to really care how it happened.
"Potato, come!" Papa calls as they leave the pitch and Kolya hides his face in Papa's shoulder and then lets himself relax into it, into Papa's familiar smell, cheeks burning, ankle throbbing. Now that no one can see, it's nice, safe, being in Papa's arms again.
He clutches Papa's hand all the way to the hospital, says "I'm fine, Dad," when Papa calls Dad and Papa has to talk Dad down from a panic attack, does not think about how everone saw him carried like a baby.
Papa grabs a wheelchair to wheel him into the hospital and Kolya can't help but grab his hand as soon as Papa is next to him again. Embarrassing, but this time it was his own fault. There is no one he knows here anyways.
"It'll be fine, sunshine," Papa says, kissing his forehead and rubbing Kolya's arm and Kolya can't bring himself to push him away, presses his face into Papa's shoulder, warm and soft, until they are called.
iii
Kolya doesn't have friends over often. It's not because he isn't allowed to, he knows his parents would never actually not let him have something he really wants. Unless it was unsafe in any of Dad's categories at least. But he has seen how Asya's friends behave when they come over, looking at everything too long, staring at the pictures, starting at Papa and Dad, giggling and whispering.
It's not really better when Kolya brings friends over, because they always want to look at the trophy room — and worse, take pictures there — and stare. He knows they judge him for not having his own Playstation, instead having to share one with his family, for not having a tv in his room. They have bigger rooms and Nintendo Switches and Playstations of their own, often both, and Connor even has three rooms of his own, one of them with huge screens on the wall so they can play tournaments. It means they go to Connor's place usually, which is good because then Kolya doesn't have to invite them and deal with them being fans.
But Chris is new and Chris is fun to hang out with, just one-on-one, and Chris does not have a Playstation or a big room or a big garden, so Kolya invites him. It's only fair. And Chris is not that into hockey and had never said Kolya's last name like anything special.
"Sunshine, how was school?" Papa asks when they follow Dad into the kitchen after school. Dad had already made Chris take off his shoes , while Chris had still been staring around. Kolya was buzzing with embarrassment. He does not have friends over often so he forgot how embarrassing his parents are. How they are just always there and talking to them. "Hello, Chris," Papa adds, looking up from his tablet.
"Good," Kolya shrugs, goes to wash his hands in the sink so he can have a snack. He doesn't realise why Chris has frozen until he realises his parents are kissing, Papa's hands cupping Dad's face as he gives him an embarrassing amount of pecks.
"Urgh," Kolya makes, annoyed at their mushiness and hopes Chris is not too put off by their weirdness. Why can't his parents be more like everyone else's parents and just not touch. "Dad, what snacks do we have?"
"Kolyenka," Dad sighs, leaning back against Papa. "Your eyes work, open the fridge."
Kolya scoffs at them, rolling his eyes. He was just asking, it's not like Dad can't just tell him. Dad always knows what they have, he's obsessive like that. He pulls open the fridge and pokes around a bit. There is always loads but he doesn't know what to offer Chris. He doesn't just want veggies with hummus but it's probably weird to snack salmon, right?
"Er," he makes, grabbing the hummus and turning to Chris. "What do you wanna eat?"
"Dunno," Chris says, staring awkwardly past Kolya into the fridge. "Whatever's fine."
"Kay," Kolya says and then grabs a bag of carrots and some cheese. That would be nice, maybe. He also grabs the salmon and then sees left over sushi from last night, with veggies and smoked salmon so that's fine to eat so he grabs that and then he sees the carrot cake Asya had made on the weekend because she was in her weird baking phase so he grabs that.
"Kolya," Dad sighs, taking him by the shoulders and pushing him towards the kichen aisle gently. "Go put it down before you drop it," he says and Papa is just grinning at him, elbows on the kitchen aisle.
"So nothing exciting happened at school?" Papa asks, helping Kostya arrange the snacks and handing each of them a glass of water. "No more gossip with Samantha and Lydia and Juno? Or Manuel?"
Dad starts making open faced sandwiches with Papa's favourite bread and pickles and ham and tuna in addition to the cheese and salmon and Kolya snags one with ham from the board before Dad has finished, getting an exasperated look. Which is unnecessary because he gives half to Chris anyways.
"Juno and Lydia got into a fight," Kolya shrugs, grabbing a pickle before shoving the jar towards Chris. "How were morning skates?" he asks, because Papa was always the funniest when talking about a flirtation in his locker room.
Papa waggles his eyebrow. "They're going on a date this weekend," he says. "Well, they don't call it that, but it is."
"Ilya," Dad says, pushing the board between Chris and Kolya and cleaning up a bit. "You shouldn't gossip about your rookies."
"But it's funny, my love. They're almost as clueless as you were and there is no me to save them from themselves. I mean there is me —"
"Do not get involved, Ilya," Dad says warningly.
Papa huffs, rolling his eyes, grabbing Dad and pulling him into a hug. "But, sweetheart," Papa says, pressing wet smacking kisses to Dad's face and neck. "Don't you want to go on a date with me this weekend? Maybe we'll run into someone we know?"
"No," Dad says firmly. "Kolyenka," he adds, ignoring Papa making a nuisance of himself in the most embarrassing way. They should just be normal. Chris is being all weird about it, probably because he did not have to watch his parents be all mushy at home. "Do you have any assignments? I want you to do your homework before you play that awful game."
"Dad!" Kolya says, groaning as his cheeks flush hot. "Oh my god, I'm not five, I can do it later! Chris isn't here to do homework!"
"Kolya," Papa warns and Kolya huffs, shoving the last sandwich into his mouth and glaring as he cleans up quickly, making sure to bang the board against the sink as he rinses it off, to show them how embarrassing they were.
"It's not even that much!" he argues.
"Then you'll be done quickly," Dad says, undeterred. "You can take a piece of cake with you, if you want. Do you like carrot cake, Chris?"
"Yea," Chris says, fidgeting. It is so awkward, his parents being all there. Markus's parents never were tere after school, at Markus's they could just do what they wanted.
Kolya huffs and grabs his backpack and the two plates of cake Papa hands him and glares for good measure. "Come on," he says to Chris and stomps up the stairs. "Sorry for them," he adds once he's slammed his door shut. "They're dumb about homework."
"It's okay," Chris shrugs, but he sounds weird.
Kolya clenches his jaw and pulls out his math homework, annoyed his parents have to be so embarrassing.
iv
Papa always comes to Kolya's games. It's okay, even if he always was too loud with cheering and sometimes cursing out the ref. The other parents were just as bad and they were used to Papa by now.
No one is really used to Dad yet, because Dad usually used the time Kolya was playing to have some time to himself. They had a yearly talk about it as well, which thankfully no one outside the family knew about, Dad always wanting to know if Kolya wanted him to know, always telling him it was not that he did not support or love Kolya and all that. It was annoying. He is just glad none of his teammates knew how awful Kolya's parents are. He bets Connor's dad does not talk to Connor about not coming to his games when he had to travel to work.
It alsomeans that on the rare occasions Dad did join Papa in the stands, people were being weird about it, including Kolya's teammates. Because even soccer players in Ottawa worship Shane Hollander. The hockey legend. Like he was not old and boring.
And worse. Dad and Papa were in love despite being old, and they showed it, always touching and kissing and looking at each other.
"Congratulations," Dad says, hugging Kolya tightly, still tucked under Papa's arm. It means when Papa goes to hug him it looks like they're in a group hug like weirdos.
Kolya huffs and steps back, scowling at them.
"Your pass was really neat," Dad says, like he understands soccer.
Kolya rolls his eyes and then stops because Papa raises an eyebrow at him. He never complains when Kolya does with him but for Dad he did not tolerate even a deserved eyebrow. It was awful. A hypocrite, too, because he rolls his eyes at Dad plenty.
"Chris has joined the team?" Dad continues, waving over Kolya's shoulder. "That's his mother," he tells Papa and ignores Kolya groaning. "Do you want to take him to get ice cream with us?" he adds like Kolya is five! Yes, they go get ice cream after games. But that does not mean he has to talk about it! It's just their thing, but it's not a thing.
"Dad!" Kolya whines. He is not going to go to Chris and ask him if he wants to have ice cream with him and his parents. He's not. Except it would be nice. He's barely had time to talk to Chris about Fortnight because Chris had had to go visit his grandparents and Kolya had had to go with his parents to Boston because apparently he could not stay home alone even if he was almost sixteen.
He scowls and glares when Papa smirks at him, like he knows exactly what Kolya is thinking. Papa was awful like that.
"Want me to ask, little mouse?" Papa asks and laughs when Kolya turns away quicky, mortified.
The awkwardness propels him all the way to Chris, regretting it as soon as he meets Chris's mom's gaze.
"Hi," he says because he is not a coward. "Do you wanna gone get ice cream with us?" he mutters, cheeks burning. He feels like a little child but he wants ice cream and he actually likes Chris and it would be nice, hanging out some more and he just hates that his parents are just — there all the time, wanting to do stuff with him and telling him stuff.
"Sure," Chris says after darting a glance at his mom.
"Cool," Kolya says and turns around, jerkily.
He sits between Chris and Papa on the way to the café Dad likes because they do sorbets and vegan ice cream and Dad believes in car pooling and hopes Chris won't tell anyone about how Kolya had to sit in the middle seat next to his Papa like a baby tomorrow and how Papa makes the most embarrassing jokes to make Chris's mom laugh.
v
Margot and Yasmin wanted to go to a café. Kolya does not really care for coffee or tea so he's never really seen the point of it, but Margot's hair looks like cooper in the sun and Yasmin had the prettiest dark eyes Kolya has ever seen, so he can't really find any reason why they shouldn't.
Connor is with them, loud and funny, making Margot and Jasmin giggle and getting to touch them because he was bold and just put an arm around them. Kolya could never imagine just doing that. What if he smells? Papa always calls him stinky when Kolya forgets to shower for a day. And what if the pushed him away? In front of everyone as well.
But Yasmin is vegan and Kolya knows a lot of vegan places around Ottawa because Dad tries to get them to eat vegan more often than not.
He is not funny or bold like Connor but Papa — in one of his embarrassing Sex and Dating Talks, as Dad called them — had talked about how listening was more important than anything. Listening and showing you were listening by asking questions. Kolya does not quite understand why that was anything important. It's easy listening to Yasmin talk about the K-Pop band she follows — she is so funny — and it's easy asking questions because he does not understand what makes them different from the K-Pop band Asya is obsessed with. Their current era does seem cool, he wishes he could just have a leather jacket phase but when he wears Papa's leather jacket he looks like he is playing dress-up, it's frustrating. Papa always coos at him when he does as well, which is even worse.
"Omg Nick," Margot says, loud and excited, ripping him out of watching Yasmin gesture widely. Her headscarf is colourful today, matching her blouse and he wonders if she payed more attention to it today, like he did, asking Papa to make sure he looks nice and not too weird. "Is that your dads?"
Kolya turns, dreading it. Of course it is his parents, holding hands. Papa is smirking at him when Kolya meets his gaze, Dad oblivious as he pays for them, and Kolya scowls before he can help himself, only making Papa grin wider.
Thankfully, Dad turns and catches sight of Papa, turns to follow his gaze. Kolya tries to shrink into his seat when Dad smiles at him, like Kolya is a little baby always needing to be smiled at by his parents so he would go back to playing even though he hasn't needed that in years, before he seems to remember the promise he made Kolya and turns away, slapping Papa's arm.
"Mr Hollanders!" Connor yells, too loud, like a fan. Kolya sinks further down. "Mr Hollanders!"
Papa is grinning again. "Connor," Kolya hisses, embarrassed.
"Dude, your parents are so cool," Connor says as the come closer. "Hi Mr Hollanders."
"Hello," Dad says, evenly. "Are you having fun?"
"Dad!" Kolya hisses, mortified. Fun. Like they are five. They are on a date. Maybe.
"Sorry, Nikolai," Dad says, looking more amused than anything. "How's the coffee?"
Kolya flushes, looking down at the cappuccino he ordered because it sounded so grown up, except the bitter taste of the coffee could not be covered by the taste of the oat milk and Margot had talked about how addictive sugar was yesterday — she made so much more sense than Dad always did — so he hadn't wanted to add any. And Yasmin had also ordered a cappucino, so really, there hadn't been any other way.
"Good," Kolya says, and tries not to notice how Margot is flushing when Papa smiles at all of them, nice and sweet like he was not trying to figure out who Kolya found most interesting and could interrogate him on later, and how Yasmin was staring at Papa with wide eyes.
Kolya groans as realisation dawns that Papa would have another Talk with him — Dad had read somewhere that continuous conversations were better than one-off, Papa had explained last time, which is why he and Papa had had several conversations about things Kolya never wanted to speak to his parents about. It was unfair too, because Asya had gotten to have some of her talks with Sveta or Rose, who were so much cooler than their parents, and probably talked about helpful and cool things and didn't just say things like: "Listening is important, my little rabbit" and "I know everyone says condoms are to make sure no one gets pregnant, which is true, Kolyenka. But let me tell you about STDs. Wait, Dad looked for pictures."
"Okay, bye," Kolya says, mortigied at the memories, interrupting Dad mid-sentence.
"Oh, right," Dad says, looking slightly awkward, as he should be. It was bad enough that he talked about nutrition at home, he should not do so with Yasmin, who would think Kolya was as weird as Dad now. He had been good for knowing a vegan café right away, Dad could not ruin it now. "Bye."
"Bye, my little crocodile," Papa says, a warning in his voice.
Kolya flushes, muttering "bye" again and feeling a bit bad. But they were leaving and Kolya would not have to die of embarrassment. Dad would survive with Kolya being a bit short with him.
"Your dads are so cool," Yasmin says and Kolya can't even argue because she was always so right, even when she made no sense.
+i
Kolya loves being out with his friends. It's always just fun, hanging out, just joking around, especially before soccer practice when they have time to kill before getting to play.
"Dude!" Lars laughs, slapping Chris's back. "That's awesome!"
"I know, right?" Chris says proudly. Kostya grins at him even if he thinks the reaction is a bit over the top just because Samantha agreed to go out with him.
"Chris!" someone snaps, angry in a way Kostya does not hear often. He flinches at the tone, looking around in confusion until he catches sight of the man, storming towards them.
Chris has gone awkward. "Dad," he says weirdly, taking a step back before stopping. "Hi!" He sounds almost scared, like he got caught doing something he shouldn't have, except they're just waiting for soccer to start like they always do.
Kolya doesn't really know why but he grabs his phone, sending Papa a text with just 🚨🚨🚨. He has never used it, never had to and he is not even sure if Papa is even here because sometimes he would arrive just in time for practice and not early enough to take Potato on a walk around the school.
"Hi Mr Jones," Kolya says because Chris looks terrifed actually and Papa had once said that people were easily distracted by politeness in weird situations. "I'm Nikolai, Chris's friend."
"Okay," Chris's dad says, throwing him barely a glance before grabbing Chris by the arm and tugging hard enough to make Chris lose balance.
Kolya does not know what to do. Lars and Joey are just as quiet, frozen and watching with large eyes. It's weird. Kolya hadn't even known Chris had a dad and Chris always hung out with them before practice, it wasn't like they were sneaking around or making trouble.
"Hello," Papa says from behind Kolya and Kolya just sags in relief, somehow, turning around. Papa had come.
Papa cups his cheek for a moment before he hands Potato's leash to Kolya and stepping past him.
"Who's that, Chris?" he asks, still calm, ignoring the things Chris's dad is saying, harsh and awful.
Kolya is glad to see that Papa is taller than Chris's dad and stronger as well, because something was so very off, he could not even understand.
"M-my dad, Mr. H-hollander," Chris mumbles, shoulder curled up where his father holds him. "He's not supposed to- ," he adds and Papa shifts and is suddenly much bigger. He has done that only a few times that Kolya remembers, when people were getting too close to Asya or him or Dad or Grandma.
"Why don't you let go of Chris," Papa says, in a voice Kolya has never heard him use, and when Chris's dad only keeps pulling at Chris, he moves. Kolya does not quite see what happens, but Chris is stumbling towards him and Papa is in front of Chris's dad, shoving.
Chris's dad is cursing, awful things Kolya can't wraps his head around, like something out of one of those movie he wasn't supposed to watch, and Papa has to duck a bit to avoid a punch. But Papa knows how to fight, Kolya has watched his fight compilations on youtube with his friends often enough, and it looks almost easy, how quickly Chris's dad is lying on the asphalt, with Papa twisting his hands behind his back and holding him.
"Kolyenka, call the police," Papa says, ignoring the man's swearing.
It's a weird blurr after that, even if nothing else happens. Papa talks to the police — something about a retraining order, why did Papa know that and not Kolya — and then tells Kolya to call Chris's mother and then to hug Chris. Kolya does, even if they have never hugged before, because he kind of wants a hug himself and Chris is shaking a lot. Lars and Joey huddle close as well, and when the police arrive Papa hugs Kolya and Chris and talks to them with both Kolya and Chris tucked under his arms, warm and big. Kolya doesn't really listen, just presses his face into Papa's shoulder and lets him take care of it.
"Nikolai," the policewoman asks, smiling kindly at him when Papa rubs his head and makes him look up. "Your father said you told him to come because there was trouble. Can you tell me what made you call your dad?"
"I don't know," Kolya says, feeling stupid and pressing himself closer to Papa. "Just that Chris was scared. You're not supposed to be scared of your dad."
She smiles at him like he said something clever and Papa presses a kiss to his hair and then Chris's mom arrives, sobbing, and Kolya gets to hide in Papa's arms all by himself for a bit, feeling five years old again as Papa whispers Russian endearments into his hair.
"You wanna stay for practice?" Papa asks and Kolya nods, a bit embarrassed about how childish he is being. "We can go home, sunshine," Papa says, brushing his hands through Kolya's hair.
"No," Kolya says, stepping away and flushing when he meets one of the police officer's gazes. "I wanna play."
Chris doesn't stay for practice and Lars and Joey are quieter than usual as well, but Kolya also feels weird, still shaky even if nothing really happened.
On the way home in the car, Papa brushes a hand through Kolya's hair. "I'm very proud of you, Kolyenka."
"I didn't do anything," Kolya mutters, ducking his head, face burning. He plays with the hem of his hoddie and hopes Papa won't say anythign embarrassing.
"You told me when you were not feeling safe," Papa says, rubbing his thumb over Kolya's ear. "That was the only thing you were supposed to do."
"I guess," Kolya shrugs. He fidgets. "Why did you know to call the police? I just thought Chris didn't have a dad but you knew he had a restraining order."
"Ah," Papa says. "I know because his mother told your Dad in case Chris's dad tried to pick him up from our house."
"Is that why Dad always wants to meet my friends' parents?" Kolya blurts.
Papa laughs. "No," he says, then hums. "Maybe. We did not think of this exact scenario, but — " He shrugs, running a hand through Kolya's hair. "Sometimes it's just making a net so if there is anything, you catch it. Even if you don't know what it could be. You understand?"
"I think so," Kolya says, biting his lip. He doesn't think he quite understand, but then. Maybe he does.
Papa rubs a thumb over his temple and pulls into their street.
Dad is waiting by the door when they get out of the car, looking worried. He pulls Kolya into a hug, pressing kisses to his cheek and forehead and hair. Kolya squirms but Dad is strong. "I'm very proud of you," Dad says, a little like he is about to cry.
"I didn't do anything," Kolya says again, whining a bit. It's just so embarrassing.
"Hm," Dad makes, letting him go. "Your papa told me all about what you didn't do," he says, like he is amused.
Kolya scowls at him, cheeks burning. He kicks off his shoes and then puts them away when Dad raises an eyebrow at him, pointed. "I'm gonna shower," he huffs.
"You do that," Dad says, amused now, but still with wet eyes, leaning back into Papa and tilting his head to the side to get a kiss. "We're having lasagna for dinner, 20 minutes."
"Lasagna?" Kolya asks, surprised. Dad rarely made something like lasagna. Papa and Kolya usually had to beg for it, like they Dad didn't make it boring anyways.
"Yes," Dad says. "Go shower."
"Okay," Kolya says, glaring at them slightly because they were already kissing again and he wasn't even on the stairs. They were the worst.
He feels bad as soon as he thinks it, especially after today. He scrubs a hand over his face and shakes his head. Maybe he'd say something later. Maybe they could watch a movie together, they always liked when Kolya stayed downstairs after dinner, especially now that Asya was away at university.
It is nice. They have lasagna and then Dad opens up the snack drawer and Papa and Kolya get to indulge in chips and chocolate without getting lectured about nutrients. They watch one of Dad's old favourites, something that was only fun because it had been a staple of Kolya's childhood, not because it was actually funny.
"Love you," Kolya says before going upstairs, not meeting either of their eyes, embarrassed to be such a baby.
"Love you, too," they echo easily and Papa catches him to smack a wet kiss to his cheek. Kolya scowls slightly but lets him, mutters another "love you" before fleeing upstairs.
They might not be the worst but it is still awful, having parents.