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1
First Ilya feels tiny hands trying to shake him awake, then he hears a child’s voice doing a terrible impression of a whisper in his ear. “Papa…papa… papa…”
“Dimochka?”
“Let’s chat.” Ilya takes a moment to process his son’s words. He needs to bring back the rule that his son only speaks to him in Russian, because something has surely been lost in translation.
“What?” He asks, switching to Russian.
“Let’s chat. I can’t sleep.” Dmitri answers, a little too patiently. It’s moments like these when Ilya has to wonder who raised this kid. Ilya opens his eyes to check his phone and has to hold back a curse.
“Do you know what time it is?” Ilya turns the phone to him to show him that it’s a little after twelve in the morning.
“Papa, you know I can’t read.” His son says, starting to get annoyed, and Ilya can’t help but be a little amused at the way he doesn’t bother looking at the phone.
“It’s midnight.”
“I can’t sleep. Let’s chat.” His son says it again, more firmly, and switches back to English.
Ilya sighs and gets out of bed. He’s clearly not getting any sleep anytime soon. “Let’s go back to your room; Dad is still sleeping.” He says as a sleeping Shane changes positions next to him.
Dmitri takes Ilya’s offered hand without fuss and stops whispering as soon as they are out of his and Shane’s bedroom. Not that it made a difference but he’s sure Shane would appreciate the thought if he weren’t dead to the world right now. “Can Anya come too?” He asks as soon as the door closes.
“Anya is sleeping,” Ilya responds with a yawn that goes unnoticed.
“What about Baby sister?” He asks as more of an afterthought, earning him a soft chuckle from Ilya.
“She has a name.”
“Yeah, Baby sister,” Dmitri responds looking up at Ilya like he’s grown a second head making Ilya snort in amusement at the act. “Can she come? You can make us tea.” He talks as if he is doing Ilya a huge favour. Ilya still has no idea whose son he is.
“Everyone is sleeping, like you should be.” He says as they reach Dmitri’s bedroom earning him a tiny sigh. If Ilya weren’t already convinced that he is the best at everything he certainly would be now. Not only is he the best at hockey but he is also the best at parenting. He cannot imagine waking up his father in the middle of the night to even save his own life.
“Can’t sleep too excited, I’m gonna ask Dad if I can take the Cup to show and tell.” Ah, tomorrow is their day with the Stanley Cup, he almost forgot with it being ungodly o’clock.
“Why don’t you ask me?” Ilya asks him, knowing very well what the answer is. It will never cease to amuse him how obsessed with Shane their son is. Dmitri lets out a long-suffering sigh and rolls his little eyes, apparently offended by Ilya’s question. If his vocabulary weren’t so limited the kid would definitely be telling him to fuck off. This is definitely Shane’s son.
2
Ilya has no idea how long he has been holding onto his last bit of sleep for. Long enough that Shane’s once-warm side of the bed has grown cold. He had never been one for a morning routine before. His job was one thing but outside of that he has always liked to play each day by ear. His boring husband however, is nothing without his equally boring routines, and as a result, their son, Shane 2.0, is just as boring.
Every morning Shane wakes up before sunrise for his morning workout. To this day Ilya wonders why he bothers to make sure his alarms are set every night. The latest Ilya has ever seen him wake up is four whole minutes before the alarm.
Dmitri always wakes up at the same time every morning and stumbles out of bed and looks for Shane to say “Good morning, Dad. I slept well.” He never bothers with inane questions like ‘how are you?’ or ‘how did you sleep?’ Dmitri will just tell you how he’s doing and then leave you to decide whether you want to share as well or not. Ilya thinks it’s hilarious. Shane hasn’t noticed yet.
Dmitri will watch Shane wrap up his workout and then Shane will tell their son to go wake Ilya up. Sometimes Ilya will already be up and about to get out of bed but Dmitri will deliver his dad’s message anyway.
Today, Ilya can hear Dmitri’s voice followed by Yelena’s walker coming down the hall, and Ilya briefly wonders if their son will still tell him that he needs to wake up if he is out of bed by the time he opens the door. A question for another day, because Dmitri is already opening the bedroom door. “Papa, Dad says to wake up.”
“Five more minutes,” Ilya responds in Russian, making a show of squeezing his eyes shut. Yelena babbles something in response, prompting him to open his eyes to help decipher his daughter’s words.
“She says that Dad says no.” He translates seriously with a shake of his head speaking half in Russian. Ilya is tempted to ask his son how he would know seeing as he didn’t bother asking, but much to his delight it’s neither of their first day being someone Shane loves.
“Are you Dad’s or Papa’s?” Ilya asks instead, the competitive spirit in him rising a little to the surface. Dmitri, like always, refuses to answer, sighs deeply before taking his sister’s hand and leading her out the door. Music to his ears. “Okay okay. I’m up. I’m up.”
3
“Papa… Papa… wake up please.” Dmitri’s voice breaks through his dream about Shane just as it was about to get good.
“Dimochka, do you have a sleep allergy?” Ilya asks him with a tired groan. On the bright side, ever since Ilya told him that he can only wake him up in Russian, Dmitri’s Russian has finally started to surpass his French.
“When’s my birthday again?” Right into it this time. These midnight chats are starting to become a routine. Ilya had better figure out a way to break this soon. He and Shane are going on a short trip for their anniversary soon and the last thing he needs is for their son to wake the Pikes up in the middle of the night demanding a chat. Hayden will still be Montreal’s fifteenth-best player either way but he would rather not do that to Jackie if he can help it.
“It was two weeks ago,” Ilya answers softly to not wake Shane, getting out of bed. Might as well check on Yelena while he’s at it. She is long supposed to be sleeping through the night by now but she is starting to develop a sixth sense for when her brother is awake without her.
“Ah.” Dmitri nods in response. Ilya doubts he has enough of a grasp on time to understand what two weeks even means but then again he wouldn’t be surprised if he did. This is Shane Hollander’s son after all.
“Ah.” Ilya echoes in amusement as he reaches Yelena’s room and softly opens the door. Dmitri holds a finger up over his mouth to silently gesture to Ilya to be quiet so that they don’t wake up his sister. Ilya smiles silently in amusement. So he does understand the concept of sleep. Good to know.
As he expected though, Yelena is already standing up in her crib as if she were waiting patiently for someone to arrive. “Papa!” She happily babbles once she sees them.
“When’s your birthday?” Dmitri asks as soon as he realises that he is no longer in danger of waking his sister up.
“Same day as yours,” Ilya answers, taking Yelena into his arms who immediately settles her head on him.
His son nods silently as he takes in the information that he will likely forget in five minutes. “And Yelena?” He asks, quickly moving on.
“August,” Ilya answers simply, giving him an assessing look at the use of his sister’s name.
“When is that?” He asks as they walk out of the room and heads towards the stairs instead of his room like they usually do.
“Why so many questions, Zaychik?”
“Bad dream. Can’t sleep.” Dmitri says, reaching out for Ilya’s hand first to help him down the stairs. Ilya shuffles Yelena in his arms to his side to take Dmitri’s hand. It’s been over a year since his son started insisting on tackling the stairs by himself. From time to time he’ll take his or Shane’s hand if it’s offered to him, but it’s been quite some time since he has reached his hand out first.
“What happened?” Ilya asks him gently in concern.
“Dad made me eat tomatoes.” His son answers, sounding annoyed at the memory and Ilya has to hold back a laugh as his shoulders sag in relief.
“That is a very bad dream.” To be fair, Dmitri will eat almost anything. He’s been like that since he was a baby. Yelena is the pickiest little princess. One time Yuna tried to feed her the wrong formula and to this day she only lets David feed her whenever they visit their grandparents. Dmitri will eat anything as long as it’s not a tomato or a cucumber. So if he thinks about it for longer than a second, it makes sense that his son would be shaken up over the dream. Does not make it any less funny though.
“Will you make me some tea?” Dmitri asks, looking up at him with pleading eyes when they get to the bottom of the stairs.
They both know very well that eating this late is against the rules. “What flavour jam do you want?” Ilya asks, when he really means to say no.
“The good one, Papa,” Dmitri answers as if it should be obvious. He is Ilya Rozanov’s son, so actually it is.
+1
Shane is woken up by his son loudly whispering “Dad” in his ear followed by a small hand gently squeezing his.
“Dmitri?” He asks, sitting up with a yawn and rubbing a tired hand down his face. He shakes his head to wake himself up a bit when he looks at his out-of-focus son.
“Can I wake up Papa?” Dmitri asks him politely.
“Why?” Shane asks once he can see him clearly.
“It’s midnight,” Dmitri responds as if that is an answer enough.
“How do you know that it’s midnight?” He asks him, intrigued. Shane knows that he won’t remember this conversation later but he knows enough to remember that his oldest cannot tell the time yet.
“I woke up.” Is the kid’s matter-of-fact response. Shane has no idea if that is supposed to make sense.
“And why did you wake up?” He asks hoping for some clarity.
“It’s midnight snack time,” Dmitri answers simply and Shane has so many questions.
“It's midnight snack time.” He echoes slowly.
“Yeah. I wake up and then Papa makes me tea. Sometimes Baby sister comes too but Anya always sleeps.” Shane has lots of questions and so few answers.
“Is that why there’s never any jam?” He asks, suddenly much more awake.
Dmitri nods, oblivious to the fact that his Papa is going to get an earful from him in the morning. “But I have to talk in Russian or Papa says no.”
“So that’s how your Russian got so good all of a sudden.” Shane is learning a lot tonight.
“Papa needs to sleep so I’ll make your tea.” Shane offers, sitting up and already knowing that his son will decline.
“Papa says I can’t have your bad Canadian tea,” Dmitri answers, but the face he’s pulling at the thought of anyone other than Ilya making his tea is too comical for this hour.
Shane chooses to ignore that and gets out of bed. “Why did you wake me up first, today?”
“I always wake you up first, Dad,” Dmitri says it as if Shane should know this already.
“You do?” Shane takes hold of his son’s hand to take him back to his room.
“Yeah.” Dmitri gives him a firm nod. “You always say okay then go back to sleep. Why aren’t you sleeping today?”
“I don’t know, Son.”
“Dad, where are we going?” Dmitri attempts to change direction as soon as he notices where Shane is taking him. “We have to get Baby Sister.”
“Why?”
“It’s the routine. We can’t fuck with the routine Dad.”
Shane closes his eyes with a sigh and counts to three before responding. “Where did you learn that word?”
“From great grandpa Scott,” Dmitri says seriously, making Shane snort in surprise.
“You can’t call him that.” He tries to sound stern but he blames the late hour for being unable to hide his amusement.
“But Papa says to aspect my elders.”
“Respect. Papa says to respect your elders.”
“Respect.” His little boy says, committing the word to memory.
“Good job. I promise to check on Yelena after you go to bed.” Shane says crouching down to Dmitri’s eye level before holding out his arms to pick him up.
“But the routine Dad,” Dmitri whines, shaking his head.
‘Whose son is this? And why is the answer always Shane Hollander?’ Shane has to wonder to himself as he puts his arms down and pretends to think.
“How many times have you done this?”
“Maybe eleventy,” Dmitri answers after thinking about it.
“Sorry bud, maybe eleventy one times is what you need for a new routine.”
“Oh, okay.” Dmitri takes in Shane’s words with a nod and immediately walks himself to his room.
“Dad, did you know Papa used to play for Boston?” Dmitri asks as he climbs into bed.
“Yes, I did. But he came to Ottawa to be closer to me, even though Ottawa was not a good team.”
“The Centaurs are the best Dad. Everyone knows that.” Dmitri says rolling his eyes
“It’s good now but not back then.”
“Okay, Dad.” It’s clear that he doesn’t believe him but he’s too tired to argue now that he is back in bed. “Tell Papa we can have our tea in the morning.”
“I will. Anything else you want me to say to him?”
“Tell Papa that I love him this much,” Dmitri says, opening his arms out wide.
“Do you love Dad or Papa more?” Shane asks him with a cheeky grin as he tucks his son in.
“Papa,” Dmitri says firmly because he loves to annoy Shane.
“Liar,” Shane says, making Dmitri giggle.
“I’m Dad’s. Papa can have Baby sister.” He says, closing his eyes.
“Yelena. Her name is Yelena.” He blames their son’s refusal to call her by her name on his husband.
“I know, Dad,” Dmitri says before falling back asleep.