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Ilya doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t even know why he’s doing it or if he’s saying the right words in the right way, his breath catching every few syllables as he swallows yet another sob.
What Ilya does know is the taste of blood on his tongue and salt on his lips, the burn of his closed eyes, and the ache in his legs long gone numb while he kneels on the cold floor.
The day started like any other.
His alarm rang, and he slowly came back into his body. He woke up in increments, filling his skin and closing his hands while his eyes fluttered against the light slithering through the curtains as he became once again aware of himself. In the past few months this has become Ilya’s favourite moment, the few blissful seconds where he didn’t remember. Where the world was still right and the sun was shining and the birds were singing and his mother was still alive.
After staring at the ceiling for a few endless minutes, Ilya sat up, swallowed the knot in his throat, and went to the bathroom to wash the sleep and the tears off his face. He pointedly ignored the closed door between his bedroom and the bathroom—he tried to open it once and found it closed and didn’t even ask his father why no one was allowed inside his old bedroom—and went back to his room. He got dressed and slowly made his way into the kitchen.
The house was silent and empty, not with physical absence but with something deeper, something heavier than solitude.
Like any other day, Alexei sat on Grigori’s right side, his eyes vacant as he stared at the tablecloth while robotically eating a slice of plain bread. Ilya silently occupied the chair across from him, on their father’s left side.
Alexei lifted his head, and their eyes met. Ilya felt as if his brother was looking through his body without actually seeing him, and he wondered if his gaze looked the same: dark and void and sad, just in a different shade of hazel.
Grigori didn’t acknowledge his arrival. Maybe he didn’t hear him, Ilya’s steps quiet the way a small animal is quiet as they make their way past something bigger and dangerous, something that should not be disturbed.
Or maybe he didn’t see him. Like every other morning, his father’s face was hidden by the newspaper, a small thread of smoke curling towards the ceiling from somewhere behind the grey pages. He always read about politics and the economy and then sports, muttering curses and short comments while he smoked his first cigar and drank the first of many drinks that would accompany his day.
Everyone knew about his loss of control, and no one ever said anything. Because men who grieve are allowed to let loose, to slide a foot a little bit over the line, to let their hands lay a little bit harder on the brat who dares to look like the ghost of a woman who’s never going to leave the premises of their haunted house.
Ilya sat with his back straight and his eyes roaming on the food splayed on the table as he quickly grabbed a slice of bread and a slice of ham and started eating with his head bent down. He ate methodically, with small, quick bites as he thought about the day ahead, the few hours he would get to spend outside of the house where he could finally breathe without worrying about inhaling too loudly or looking directly at his father’s face.
Like most days, he had school and then hockey practice, a sport that had quickly turned from an extracurricular activity to his only saving grace. The only time he was allowed to leave the house without undergoing his father’s scrutiny was when he had class, practice, or a game no one was going to attend.
That morning started like any other. Ilya and Alexei finished their breakfast, and Ilya washed the plates while his brother left without even saying goodbye.
Ilya rushed to put on his coat and his boots, sliding his backpack on his shoulder and grabbing his duffel bag so he could go straight to the rink after class. He stopped at the threshold with his free hand on the doorknob and turned back towards the empty corridor.
“I’m leaving!” For a moment, Ilya was sure a delicate voice would call back, wishing him a good day and gently reminding him to pull his scarf up and hide his nose because winter was getting colder and You don’t want the wind to take away your beautiful nose, do you, my little bear?
But nothing came.
Silence was the only answer he got, and Ilya stood at the door a moment longer. His eyes found the big picture hanging by the entrance, his mother smiling with a hand on her swollen belly and her free arm around the shoulders of a toddler who already had Alexei’s frown and angry eyes.
Ilya took a deep breath and left, willing the tears to go back because Men don’t cry, and she doesn’t deserve your tears. Never forget that.
The day unfurled like any other winter day, with its cold and its wind and its boring classes that never ended and the usual friends that didn’t make him feel happy. Not anymore. Not even when he smiled and forced himself to laugh at dull jokes until his body remembered how to behave and how to properly act in the company of others.
That afternoon, practice ran a little late. Their coach spent a few extra minutes talking about something extremely important. He went on explaining that some people were going to attend a few of their practices, men who worked for the Russian League and who were scouting young players, looking for fresh talent. When he said that, his gaze found Ilya, standing at the edge of the group with his helmet under his arm and his cheeks still flushed from exertion.
Ilya understood immediately the importance of what Coach was saying. Those men Ilya had seen sitting in the stands were looking for someone, a player who could stand out with his talent and his abilities. And even a blind man could see Ilya had talent.
But more than that, he had a hunger no one else had. He was hungry for victory, for praise, for the adrenaline that always came when the puck went into the net and everyone clapped so loudly he could feel the cheers reverberating through his bones. He loved flying on the ice fast enough that the whole world blurred away, disappearing with its lies and its fists and its pills and everything else that sometimes made waking up in the morning extremely difficult.
Ilya thought about the posters filling the walls of the locker room, about the players’ names he often heard on the radio when his father listened to the broadcast of some hockey game and allowed Ilya to quietly sit on a chair and enjoy the game without uttering a single word.
Maybe one day his name could be among them. Maybe he could become a star, so big and bright that he would burn the sky and be impossible to ignore. Ilya thought about winning and becoming so famous that people would stop him on the street to ask for his signature on a piece of paper or a shirt with his name on the back.
Maybe he could make his father proud. Maybe he could see him smile his way. Maybe, if he won enough games and trophies and medals, his father would tell him he loved him.
The hope curled around his ribs, warming his body against the cold as he walked home. He took the long way back, the one that slithered inside a park that was mostly empty during the evening except for strays looking for food and some young couple that always sat on the same bench, cuddled together as they spoke in white clouds of condensation between a kiss and a giggle.
Ilya stopped under a lamppost and looked up, watching the snowflakes gently fall and dance in the light. It was cold, but not too much, and the wind was gentle as it caressed his cheeks and his nose, the only portion of his body uncovered in the face of winter.
He wondered if his mother was proud of him.
Not for the first time, he wondered if she was somewhere in the sky, or if God had punished her for what she had done. Ilya knew it had not been an accident, but he didn’t like thinking about his mother suffering, even if sometimes he hated her for leaving him behind. For not trying harder. For not wanting to be his mother.
But there were days when he almost understood what she had done and why. Days when Alexei would spend the night out and Ilya would be the only one left in the house to endure the weight of Grigori’s drunken rage. He never left marks in visible places, and even if someone saw, no one ever asked. Those nights, Ilya cried and thought of his mother, wondering how long it took for her to finally decide she had enough of living such a torturous existence.
One night he finally realised that she had been so tired she had chosen eternal punishment over living another day in their house. And he almost wished she had taken him with her.
That day, when Ilya arrived home, everything was quiet.
He took off his boots and his coat, leaving them in the entrance alongside his bag and backpack. They needed to dry before he could bring everything to his room or his father would get angry upon seeing the puddles of melted snow on the carpets.
Ilya turned on the light and his stomach dropped when his eyes automatically ran to his mother’s picture and found nothing but a bare wall. He stood there, frozen in fear and confusion while his mind took in the discolouration on the wallpaper, the space the picture occupied when he had seen it that same morning.
As he tried to make sense of the missing portrait, Ilya’s ears finally registered the noise. It was his brother’s voice, muffled and distant as he screamed words he could not understand. Ilya followed the sound and reached the kitchen, his bare feet carrying him to the back door that led into the garden.
Ilya’s hand was trembling when he opened it. The wind howled for a moment and he closed his eyes against the cold. When he reopened them, he was confused and didn’t understand what was happening.
There was no light in their backyard, but the scene was impossible to miss: his brother kneeling on the ground next to a pile of dirt and their father smoking a cigar while he stared at the sky. After a moment of befuddled silence, Ilya watched his brother raise his gaze and find him where he stood.
Ilya wondered why Alexei was there. Why had he endured their father’s rage.
Alexei’s left eye was closed and swollen, there was blood running from his nose, and his hands—palms open to the sky in a silent prayer—were trembling maybe in fear or maybe in anger. His eyes found Ilya’s and Ilya didn’t know if the person looking at him was his brother or some kind of empty body with no soul. The only time he saw Alexei’s gaze turn so dark was when they were standing together as the earth swallowed what remained of their mother, the body that was nothing more than an empty shell of what she used to be.
After a moment, Ilya saw Alexei’s face twist into a snarl, his expression furious like he had never seen before. He stood up so quickly Ilya barely registered the movement, and in the next blink, his ass hit the ground after his brother punched him square in the face. Ilya raised his hand, his mouth filling with blood as he leaned to the side and spat on the grass.
“Where the fuck were you?” Alexei’s fist closed around the front of his sweater and he lifted Ilya so easily he was suddenly reminded his brother was older and stronger and bigger than him. “Where were you?!”
“At practice!” Ilya closed a hand around his brother’s wrist, raising the other in a trembling act of surrender. “I had hockey practice!”
Alexei deflated upon hearing the genuine fear in Ilya’s voice. His eyes took in the blood running down the corner of Ilya’s mouth and his hold loosened enough for Ilya to stand on his feet. Ilya watched his brother fall on the ground like a broken doll, as if someone had cut the last string holding him upright and he had nothing left inside of him. No rage, no fear, no life.
“He burned it all…” Alexei looked down at his palms and Ilya frowned as he tried, in his panicked haze, to make sense of what his brother was saying.
Alexei’s hands were smudged and Ilya noticed a black stain on the front of his sweater. He touched it and his fingers turned black with a substance that looked like cinder. Despite what everyone taught of him, Ilya was smart and it didn’t take him long to put together the pieces of a puzzle he didn’t want to complete: the closed room, the missing picture, the smell of smoke and gasoline permeating the air, the cinder on Alexei’s trembling hands.
The answer hurt more than the bruise blooming on his jaw, and Ilya looked up from Alexei’s crumpled body to their father’s back. He was standing a few feet away, the smoke of his cigar curling towards the sky as he lazily brought it to his lips and inhaled.
“What… what did he burn?” Ilya asked in a murmur. His eyes stung as he tried to hold back the tears, his vision blurring while he swallowed a sob that was desperately crawling its way up his throat.
“Mama… her pictures, the letters… everything.” Alexei shook his head in a slow, mechanical movement. His eyes dazed and lost on his black hands.
Ilya’s feet moved. His brain did not register the cold snow drenching his socks, nor the flakes falling on his hair and shoulders, nor the breeze freezing the tears running down his face. He stood next to their father and stared at the pile of dirt that, upon a closer inspection, was a high pile of ashes. All that remained of their mother’s possessions.
Ilya fell on the ground, uncaring of the dirt and the mud on his pants as he reached out a hand and grabbed the corner of a picture that turned into dust between his thumb and forefinger.
He remembered Grigori telling them that one day he would get rid of everything Irina had left behind. Upon hearing that promise—his father's voice calm and steady, smoke curling in front of his face as he talked about what remained of his late wife as if it were nothing more than an issue to be solved—Ilya had imagined boxes full of things stacked inside a dusty room, clothes thrown into garbage bags, and jewellery sold to the pawn shop down the street.
He never thought his father capable of such cruelty.
He wondered if Grigori had searched their rooms, if he had found the small wooden box Ilya had hidden on top of his wardrobe, behind a stack of old books. Inside he had put his mother’s latest journal, a single picture of them together when he was a baby, and the only earring left of her favourite pair. Maybe those were safe. Maybe those, he would get to keep.
Something glinted into the night, and when Ilya raised his head from his black hands, he saw his father’s fist in front of his face. He gulped and braced for an impact that never came. The fingers loosened and a cross slipped out, dangling on a golden chain that glimmered with the little bit of light from the street beyond their garden.
Ilya physically felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach when he recognised the pendant.
“This is worthless. Perfect for you.” Grigori released the words with a puff of smoke, his eyes looking down at Ilya without actually seeing him. “So you can remember what a disgrace that woman was.”
Ilya didn’t say anything. He opened his palm and accepted the necklace, closing his fist in fear that his father might change his mind and snatch it away.
Without another word, Grigori turned and walked inside the house, probably in search of something to eat or something to drink or something to punch. Ilya didn’t care.
The snow kept falling, covering the mountain of ashes in the middle of the garden. Ilya knelt in front of it with tears filling his eyes and the edges of the cross digging into his closed fist. He felt his brother move without seeing him, the air shifting when he stopped next to where Ilya was quietly mourning their mother for the second time in the span of a few months.
“You can have the necklace.” Alexei’s voice was neither angry nor sad. He talked like someone would talk about the weather: clinically, detached, and uncaring. “I don’t even believe in her stupid God.”
The breeze carried away his words, and Ilya shivered as he tightened his fists.
Alexei turned around and left.
He stopped in front of the door and said, so quietly Ilya almost didn't catch it, "You were her favourite anyway."
After a few minutes, or maybe hours, Ilya heard the front door open and close, and he knew he had been once more left alone with their father’s anger and their mother’s ghost.
When his body started shivering and the snow slithered under the collar of his sweater, Ilya finally rose and went back inside. He took a hot shower and went to bed without bothering to look for food or water. His stomach was so small he wouldn’t have been able to eat even if he had wanted to.
As he lay under the covers, with the knowledge that all he had left was a cross, a picture, a single earring, and a notebook drenched in sadness, Ilya thought of his mother talking about God and His infinite goodness and kindness. She would pray every single night before going to sleep, kneeling next to the bed with the cross dangling from her clasped hands and her back curved over the edge of the mattress.
God was the only thing Irina was allowed to share with her sons.
Grigori never believed in a power that could stand above him.
However, having been raised by a religious woman, Grigori understood the importance of faith. Of believing in something that told you leaving your husband would stain your soul and condemn you to hell. That when someone slapped you in the face, you had to silently turn the other way and let the hand fall again, staining your skin and your mind and your body to save your soul.
So he allowed it.
He allowed his wife to dress up their sons and bring them to mass. He allowed her a few minutes of muttered prayers and blessing before she went to bed. He allowed all the quiet things that meant Irina would stay in her place, small and silent and afraid.
But Irina never complained and she was always happy when Ilya would ask her questions about faith and God and believing into something that went beyond the sky.
Ilya remembers his mother telling him that God is generous and caring and He has a plan for all of His children. She also told him that God only gives them burdens they can carry, because He knows their strength even when they themselves can’t see it. Sometimes Ilya thinks that maybe He put something too heavy on his mother’s back, doing nothing as she broke and shuttered under the weight.
And despite everything, he does believe in God.
Ilya sits up and blinks in the darkness. He pushes the covers away and shivers when his bare feet touch the cold ground. He sinks on his knees and props his elbows on the mattress, the cross dangling from his clasped hands as he closes his eyes and tries to remember the words of a prayer he has not recited in a long time.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it nor if the words are right as they tumble down carrying blood and tears and sobs that make his chest feel tight and painful with every other breath.
He says the Lord’s Prayer, the words steadier and surer when he says it a second time and then a third. When he finishes—a muttered amen and his hand quivering as he crosses himself—Ilya feels something warm in his chest, a peace he hasn’t felt in a long time. With his eyes closed and his head tilted back, he can almost feel someone running their fingers through his hair and gently calming his racing thoughts, just like his mother used to do when he had a nightmare he could not forget and shake off his skin.
His mind drifts and he thinks of hockey and Coach looking at him with pride as he talks about scouts and talent and opportunities. A small flicker of hope is still coiled around his ribs, and Ilya reaches out and digs his fingers inside it.
He crosses himself and prays again, and when he finishes he keeps his eyes closed and his hands clasped and his head bent.
“Please, Lord,” he says in a whisper, tears dry on his face and the taste blood still heavy on his tongue. “Make me the biggest star the world has ever known and take me far, far away from here. Please. Please, I will do anything.”
He recites the Lord’s Prayer again, his voice small as he feels his heart settle into an emotion that is not quite hope, but something more careful. Something that thinks about winning but also knows there is a chance he may loose.
When he lays back under the covers, with the gold chain around his neck and the cross resting on his sternum, he wonders if someone is truly listening to his voice. If someone may be able to grant his one and only wish.
The next time Ilya opens his eyes, the sky is clear and dark and turning pink above his head.
He’s not laying in his bed, and his body sways in a way that makes his stomach twist and the whole sky tilt sideways. He tries to sit up and his fingers dig into something that is clearly not a mattress.
Ilya looks down and frowns when he notices he’s laying in some sort of cocoon made of cloth, something he saw once in a movie where rich people spent time sunbathing on an island with white sand and clear waters. He can’t recall the name of this thing that is not a bed but is used to sleep under the trees.
He tries to sit up and the world spins upside down and he's meeting the ground face first with a groan and a muffled curse, the grass soft and slightly wet with dew under his cheek.
“Hey! Who are you? This is private property!”
Ilya’s heart stops and he falls back on his ass when he tries to stand up and the world tilts again. There’s a man walking towards him, tall and large and built like a wall of bricks. When the man stops in front of him, Ilya’s eyes run up from his shoes to his head, taking in his grey sweatpants and the simple black shirt, and then his face. The stranger has a thick beard and curly hair that falls into his eyes, his gaze full of confusion but also something that maybe is kindness or sadness or maybe both. When the faint light shines on his face, they remind Ilya of his mother’s eyes.
“You’re…why are you here?” The man is saying something in a language Ilya doesn’t understand. He sees his expression morph, mouth opening in surprise while his eyes widen and the colour disappears from his cheeks.
Ilya moves backwards, and the man snaps out of his daze. He crouches down and leans forward, his shoulders hunched as if he’s trying to appear smaller while he reaches out a hand, palm open and eyes flickering to Ilya’s face with an expression that appears open and gentle.
“I think… I believe I was waiting for you,” the stranger says in Russian. He licks his lips and then he adds in a murmur, “Ilya.”
“What…” Ilya’s body goes rigid and he gulps around a knot of fear and confusion. “How… Why do you know my name?”
“Because this…” The man smiles and swipes a hand around. Ilya turns his head to follow the movement. “It’s your dream.”
He finally notices the lake and the trees and the big house behind the man’s back. He sees a shadow in the window but it disappears when he blinks. There’s a gentle breeze caressing his face, cold as the darkness surrounding them.
“This is… a dream?”
“Yes… but no.” The man moves closer but stops when he sees Ilya’s hands tighten into fists at his sides. “You asked for a miracle, yes?”
Ilya raises one hand and wraps his fingers around the cross on his chest. He licks his lips before nodding, his eyes searching the men’s for answers to questions he cannot conjure. The man smiles and raises his own hand, slowly pulling a golden chain from under the hem of his shirt. When the cross slips out, it shines against the black cotton of his t-shirt.
Ilya can’t breathe.
His eyes run from the pendant around the man’s neck to his own hand, tight around the same cross, and then back to the hazel eyes and the curly hair and the faint, white line on the man’s jaw that he had not seen before with the light on his face. Ilya raises his other hand to touch the small scar on his own jaw. The one he got two weeks ago when his father threw a tumbler at his head, the one made of crystal with the chipped edge that was one throw away from shattering in a million pieces.
“What… you are—“
“This is the answer to your prayer. This… ” The man waves a hand at himself. “Is your future.”
Ilya looks at the man, eyes running up and down his body, and then he looks around and finally takes stock of the beautiful scenery. There’s a dark lake, the fist rays of sun light shining like diamonds on the surface gently being broken by the breeze. He moves his gaze to the trees surrounding them and then to the house behind the man. His thoughts are a jumbled mess, and Ilya tries to take a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart.
Nothing of this is real. This is just a dream, a figment of his imagination.
Or maybe someone heard his plea and now he’s being shown his future. What his future may become if he makes all the right choices.
“So this is… the future? My future?” He asks tentatively, letting his eyes roam over the man’s—his—body. “And you are…”
“I’m thirty.” The older version of himself—Rozanov, Ilya thinks in his head because it makes his mind hurt less— tilts his head and smiles, sitting cross-legged on the grass. “I turned thirty two months ago.”
“Oh, so you’re like… old enough to be retired and in hospice, yes?”
“What?” Rozanov’s eyebrows raise and he looks genuinely surprised. After a moment, his face breaks into a smile and he shakes his head with a chuckle. “I forgot about this fucking attitude… No, kid. I’m still playing. And I will play for many years to come.”
“Playing? You mean hockey, yes?” Ilya lets go of the pendant and leans forward, legs crossed and hands splayed on his thighs. “Do we get to play hockey? Like… for work?”
“Yes, you—“ Rozanov nods, but before he can finish his answer, a bark echoes in the air.
They both turn their heads towards the sound, one of them frowning in confusion and the other smiling in surprise. There’s a blur running towards them, and Ilya sees the dog only when it jumps on Rozanov’s lap.
The dog is medium-sized with floppy ears and long hair that is all splotches of white and brown and also grey. The small thing puts its small paws on Rozanov’s big shoulders, licking his face while he caresses the dog's back with both hands and whispers sweet nothings in both Russian and the other language that Ilya cannot understand but that sounds like English.
Ilya always wanted a dog. Grigori never allowed animals in the house because they are dirty and require too much time and effort, and there is nothing to gain from having another mouth to feed. Sometimes Ilya wonders if a pet would ever survive in their house. When he thinks about it, he’s happy he never got a dog.
“Her name is Anya.” The dog barks and Ilya smiles. As if sensing his presence, she turns and jumps onto his lap. Her eyes are big and brown and she looks so sweet as she tries to lick his face.
“Oh, what—“ Ilya raises his hands and leans back, not knowing what to do.
“It’s okay, she’s a very good girl.” Rozanov get closer, stretching a leg and petting the dog with both hands. “Aren’t you? My sweet, sweet girl? Yes, you are my good girl.”
Anya barks and Ilya feels the vibrations echo in his body. He smiles and lowers his hands on Anya’s back. She’s soft and warm, and she feels so fragile under his touch. Her tail moves against his chest when she licks Rozanov’s face as he keeps caressing her.
“You have a dog?”
“Yes.”
"This is so cool."
Ilya smiles and looks down, absorbing the new piece of information. He watches Rozanov gently glide his hand through the fur and mimicks his touch on Anya's other side. After a few moments of silence, Ilya opens his mouth to speak and his voice dies in his throat when something in Anya's fur catches the light of the rising sun.
Ilya blinks and takes a deep breath, his hand twitching on top of Anya's soft fur.
Noticing his sudden stillness, Rozanov glances up and frowns at his expression. Ilya wonders if he looks as flabbergasted as he feels.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s on the wrong hand.”
“What?” Rozanov frowns and follows Ilya’s gaze, finding his wedding band as it glints in the morning light. “Oh, I—”
“You are married.” It’s not a question, but Rozanov nods anyway.
“Yes.”
“And that is your ring.”
“Yes.”
“On your left hand. It’s the wrong—”
“We are not in Russia.” Rozanov interrupts him.
“What?” Ilya looks up at his face. His jaw is set and he’s clearly avoiding his gaze as he keeps petting the dog without actually moving his hands as much as before. It’s like a light has gone out from inside of him.
“We—I am never going back. To Russia.” Rozanov clarifies with a slow sigh. “There’s nothing left for me back there.”
Ilya looks down at the dog, at the beautiful ring on Rozanov’s finger and lets the meaning of his words settle into his bones. If there is nothing left, then maybe—
“Papa is dead?” Rozanov’s hands stop and cradle Anya's face. He scratches behind her ears, her big eyes closing in bliss.
“Yes, he is dead.”
“Good.” Rozanov’s hand twitches and stops again as he slowly meets Ilya’s gaze.
Maybe he remembers being on the other side of this conversation, or maybe he doesn’t know anything because it’s all a dream and this man and his dog and his house are all figments of Ilya’s desperate mind. Either way, Ilya watches Rozanov’s pensive gaze study his face, from the way his curls fall on his eyes to the cross resting on his chest, a burden too big for a boy still so young. Ilya doesn’t know if he can see the traces of Alexei’s punch or if he knows what Grigori has done earlier that afternoon, but he doesn’t look particularly surprised upon hearing the venom in that one single word.
Good. I hope he rots in hell.
Rozanov nods without saying anything and keeps petting the dog in Ilya’s lap.
The air is heavy, but then Anya barks and Ilya tilts his head with a curious glint in his eyes. He asks Rozanov how he met Anya and the man lights up like a child on Christmas Eve, all warm smile and gentle eyes as he talks about some guy and his farm of apples full of dogs.
As he listens to the man speak, Ilya thinks about the thousand of questions he wants to ask, the million things he wants to know about his future self, sitting right in front of him. He wants to know if he’s a good player, if he won anything worth mentioning, and if he got married because he was in love or because he got some girl pregnant and decided to stand up and be a responsible man.
He wants to ask if it’s normal wanting to kiss boys like he sometimes wants to kiss girls, if it’s alright that no one is really his friend because maybe one day he’ll find someone who will be a real friend, or if he finally understood why his mother didn’t want to be his mother anymore.
His mind burns, and Ilya can almost feel the temperature of his body rise as he tries to pluck one of the many questions from the avalanche of words filling his skull. He stops petting Anya, his fingers trembling on her sides, and stares at Rozanov’s face.
He’s looking down at his dog and his smile widens when she licks his palm, his hands gentle where they curl on her neck and around her paw. His eyes are circled with lines probably carved by time and too much frowning. His gaze is soft and his whole body is relaxed.
Ilya cannot remember seeing someone so loose and happy before.
His mother’s back was usually bowed over the stove or rounded on the side of the bed when she prayed before sleeping. His father is a rigid line of anger, never bending if not to hit one of his sons after they fall onto the ground. His brother is also a curve, one made of sadness and loss and so much grief with nowhere to go but onto his young shoulders.
But this man is happy.
He looks happy with his dog and his ring and his lake and his house where the person he loves the most is probably waiting for him to come back and do whatever couples are supposed to do together.
Ilya feels something warm expand inside his chest, an emotion he doesn’t recognise but that feels part happiness, part envy, and part joy. If this is truly a future he can live, he needs to know what happened for him to get here.
“Was it hockey?” He asks in a whisper.
“Hockey?” Rozanov asks back with a confused expression. His pronunciation is rounder, different than the Russian vowels that feel hard on Ilya’s tongue. “What about hockey?”
“You arrived here, you are—you left Russia and got married and you have her,” Ilya says, scratching the Anya’s ears. She’s laying between his thighs, her head resting on his knee. “You have everything because of hockey, yes?”
Rozanov opens his mouth to answer, but then he closes it and looks over his shoulder, towards the house and the silhouette of a person that’s barely visible through one of the windows on the ground floor. He turns back towards Ilya with a smile so gentle and a gaze so bright it makes something in his chest squeeze painfully. His mother used to look at him with this same expression when she tucked him under the covers and told him she loved him more than anything in the world.
Maybe he will marry for love, after all.
“Yes, hockey is the reason I left Russia the first time. You like it and you have talent, and everyone will notice you are good at it. But when I decided to stay, it was because of... someone. And I don't have to hide anymore who I am.” Ilya tilts his head, frowning in confusion. Rozanov huffs a laugh and waves a hand in front of his face. “It’s not important now. You will understand. One day, when you’re older.”
Ilya nods, accepting the answer for what it is: a gift wrapped in a riddle it may take years to solve.
He looks around, letting his eyes roam over the lake and the sun crawling its way up towards the clouds. The trees sway with the breeze and Ilya is sitting on the grass with a dog in his lap, her fur soft and warm under his hands. Rozanov is looking at him with an expression that is half understanding and half expectant, as if he knows what’s going to happen but doesn’t actually remember how.
“I have to go now, yes?” Ilya asks in a whisper.
He doesn’t know why he knows it, but he’s sure he’s going to wake up. He can feel it like he can feel his lungs breathe and his blood rush and his mind think. He simply knows it without knowing it.
“I am afraid so, yes.” Rozanov’s mouth twist in a grimace and something passes on his face. He leans forward and his hand is big and strong as it closes around Ilya’s nape before he can move away from the sudden hold.
“What—“
“Remember,” Rozanov touches his forehead to Ilya’s, talking in the small space between their faces. His eyes are so close and there is a fire in them that would scare Ilya if he didn’t know who this man was. “There’s a key in his studio, first drawer on the right side. Get it when he’s not home and you’ll be able to close yourself in the old bedroom when he's having a bad day. He never looks there. And if you can't escape watch out for the right hand, he always swings first with his right arm.”
Ilya’s eyes sting as he nods and murmurs, “Thank you.”
Rozanov’s mouth twitches into a smirk and his hand squeezes his neck and then everything—the lake, the house, the dog, the trees, and the smiling stranger who is probably his future self—melts away like watercolours being washed away by the rain.
When he wakes up, the room is dark and heavy with a silence that he knows well. It’s the one build around all of the things that are still cradled in sleep. Life put on hold for a few moments that allow him to exist in the in-between, in that small space that is not night nor day nor anything he can describe with one single word or thought.
Ilya doesn’t wake in increments, like it usually happens. Today, he wakes all at once, as if something has pushed his consciousness into his body and dumped a cold bucket of iced water on is head to startle him awake from a sleep that flees his mind and leaves muddled thoughts behind.
He sits up and forces his lungs to slow down while he runs a hand down his face and through his hair. He shivers when his bare feet touch the ground, and he stares at the wall for a long moment, lost in a thought that maybe is a memory or maybe nothing at tall.
After taking a deep breath, he’s up and moving, walking out of the room and down the stairs and into the living room, where the windows are big and the sun is more visible as it slowly crawls its way up the horizon. The sky is still black, the light quickly melting it into what will probably be a beautiful day as the birds chirp from somewhere behind the glass.
Ilya stands there, his feet curling on the cold tiles and his hand raising to gently touch the cross resting on his chest. He thinks of a dream he remembers in blurred shapes and echoing words of comfort that sit warm on his sternum. He doesn’t know what the dream was about, not really, but he knows it was some kind of promise, an emotion that slithers around his bones and settles like the dust after a collapse. Inevitable, gentle, and heavy as it sits down and stays.
He feels the sudden warmth before it reaches him, arms sneaking around his middle and crossing in front of his stomach. There’s a kiss being deposited between his shoulder blades, followed by a muffled complaint that should be words but that comes out as a sound between a mewl and a groan against his bare skin.
Ilya tilts forward when Shane leans his weight against his back, his hand automatically raising to grasp the one splayed on his sternum, their rings catching the morning light and shining like the precious treasure they are.
“You’re up early,” Shane murmurs after a long moment of silence.
Ilya hums and doesn’t say anything, his thumb caressing the back of Shane’s hand. They don’t need words to share these things anymore, the heavy emotions that sometimes have no name and no shape except for the exhaustion they leave behind, visible in empty eyes and hunched shoulders.
Shane loosens his hold and moves to stand next to him, eyes full of sleep squinting against the first rays of sunlight as he rests the side of his head on Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya raises his arm and pulls him closer, marvelling, even after years, of how perfectly he fits against his side, as if the space between his arm and hip had been carved with Shane’s height and shoulder width in mind.
“Bad day?” Shane’s question is a whisper that dies in the kiss he leaves on Ilya’s jaw.
Ilya closes his eyes and takes stock of his body: the cold under his feet, the lukewarm sun on his face, the warm body pressed against his side, heavy and present and real. He feels light, as if he finally got a full night of rest after years of tossing and turning in a bed that was never the right one.
He thinks about being twelve and waking up with a swollen lip and his mother’s cross held in his fist. He remembers opening his eyes and suddenly deciding that hockey was the way out, that getting better and being noticed was the only path that would lead him to freedom and happiness and safety in a place that would be warm, not in the weather but in the heart.
He didn’t know where the sudden motivation had come from, but now part of him knows that something bigger—maybe God, maybe the universe, maybe his mother—was listening to the first of many prayers he recited through the years before he was finally safe, far, far away from his father’s rage and his family’s darkness.
Now he’s married to the love of his life and he has everything he ever wanted and more.
Ilya raises his free hand and touches the cross on his chest while taking a deep breath that settles into his bones. When he opens his eyes, Shane is looking at him with a crease between his brows that melts away the moment Ilya leans down and kisses his mouth. It’s barely a contact, light as a butterfly resting for a brief moment before flying away, but it’s enough to make Shane’s face relax while his freckles are heightened by a beautiful blush.
“No,” Ilya finally says with his forehead resting against Shane’s. “I think it’s a beautiful day.”
“Yeah?” Shane’s eyes twinkle with relief and care and so much love Ilya can feel himself choke on it.
He lets the emotion take over and envelops Shane into a hug, one hand around his back and another in his hair as he whispers softly against his ear,
“With you, it’s always a beautiful day, my sunshine.”