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Mother’s day had never been Scott’s favourite holiday, but became downright painful once he was a teenager, after everything happened. A typical mother’s day for Scott was usually spent sleeping in late, visiting his parent’s graves if he felt up to it, day drinking, and maybe crying a little; unless he had a game in which case he slept in as late as he could stand, played like shit, then went home or to his hotel, got drunk, and cried. Father’s day was much of the same, though being it being in the summer meant he didn’t typically have games to play.
The league typically tried to avoid games on mother’s day, but it so happened that in 2010, whichever asshole that made the schedules decided to have an Admirals vs. Raiders game on Mother’s Day. They scheduled the game late, beginning at 7pm so players could have the whole day and dinner with their mothers, and so that Scott had an entire day to kill while stone-cold sober. There wasn’t enough time to drive all the way upstate either, not unless he wanted to get up ridiculously early.
He’d highly considered day drinking anyways-- more than he really should have-- but ultimately decided that drinking before a game so early in his career set a bad precedent, and he’d at least be able to get messy drunk after scrapping with the Raiders.
The Raiders hadn’t been good in years, but this year they had the Russian Pest that was Rozanov who followed Scott around and chirped him about being old. That kid got on his fucking nerves-- especially when Rozanov was stupid good at hockey and typically secured a victory for his team. At least it was a home game; if Scott had to deal with that menace in Boston of all places, he’d day drink, or at least get drunk the night before.
Instead Scott stayed up until well past midnight and began Mother’s Day 2010 by watching game tapes of Rozanov and the Raiders, then tried to sleep away as much of mother’s day as he could. He made it to noon until he couldn’t stand to stay in bed another minute, after which he got up, made himself a smoothie, and read the beginning of a book about a man who got brutally murdered in an alley. He’d been meaning to read the book for a while anyway, and it featured no women, thus having a lower chance of anything having to do with mothers. Still, Scott ended up at the arena early and did an extended warm up; if he tired out his body and stared at the locker room walls for an hour before the team got there, he could push aside his own emotions and greet his team enthusiastically.
It worked, too. Scott asked his teammates about their mother’s day, and looked at photos of them with their smiling, healthy parents and happy wives and kids. With the game quickly looming he was able to tap into the adrenaline rush and gave a rousing speech, telling his team they’ll win as a Mother’s Day gift from all of them and storming out down the tunnel.
All during warm ups, Rozanov kept skating towards Scott, stick held awkwardly horizontal, then skating away, almost like he was nervous-- which made no sense, on account of the fact that everyone and their mothers knew Scott Hunter didn’t have a mother and played like shit every Mother’s Day. Besides, Rozanov didn’t have to be nervous. He was going to trounce Scott and everyone knew it. Even if the Admirals won-- which wasn’t all that likely-- Rozanov would still end up with more points than anyone else.
It was strange, but Rozanov himself was strange; he was quite the playboy according to the tabloids but the rivalry with Hollander seemed a touch homoerotic if you asked Scott. Then of course, there was the gossip among players-- the one and only time he’d punched first was apparently when someone called one of his teammates a cocksucker; he regularly brought his female childhood friend into the Raider’s locker room where she decked one of their defence men; and most notably, the Raider’s accidentally lost him in a Midwestern IKEA on his first roadie. That last one Scott was sure of-- one of the older players on the Admirals asked a buddy of his on the Raiders who confirmed it.
The team ditched Rozanov somewhere around the kitchen section and assumed he was with them until Cliff Marleau’s phone was ringing on the drive out of the parking lot. A group had to go back in to extract Rozanov from the maze, and found him with a basket full of various kitchen utensils, wandering the back storage room. How anyone could forget about someone as loud and annoying as Rozanov, Scott had no idea. The Raiders were protective over their Russian menace though, and endured the wrath of their coach and the resulting bag skate to ensure the rookie got his various spatulas or whatever. Personally Scott would have left him at the IKEA, even if it made him a bad person. Though, he supposed, he might be more friendly to the kid if they were on the same team. He wouldn’t mind seeing some of the defenders on the Raiders get punched either, the assholes.
Scott squared his shoulders for the face off against Rozanov, bracing himself for whatever insult was going to be thrown at him.
He did not brace enough.
Scott did not brace nearly enough, because he froze when Rozanov said, “I miss my mama,” and took off down the ice with the puck.
He lost the face off bad, but what the fuck kind of chirp was that? Even for players like Rozanov, it was generally uncouth to bring families into the chirp game-- especially so early in the game, and especially when everyone knew someone’s parents were fucking dead. Sure, Rozanov was a menace-- it was kind of his whole thing-- but dead mother chirping was far, even for him. Making fun of someone’s dead mother was for lower calibres of hockey and guys with no morals. If any MLH player were to make such a comment it would be a third or fourth line pest, not the fucking star centre.
Rozanov got an assist thanks to Scott’s stunned inaction, and they bent down for the face off at centre ice again.
This time, Scott started speaking first. “What the fuck was that?”
Infuriating as always, the Raiders’ favourite player shrugged and one the face off. He was so goddamn punchable.
Always the enigma, when a few defenders began fighting during second period Rozanov slid up to Scott and put an arm around him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Scott asked, slinging his arm over the other player. The kid was punchable, so fucking punchable, but he wasn’t going to fight him. Not yet, anyways.
Rozanov shrugged and looked down at the ice. “We are same today.”
It struck Scott that Rozanov was really just a kid-- he was eighteen, in a new country, speaking in a new langauge, and apparently, lost his mother. Scott could relate to that; he’d been younger, off in Quebec and blundering his way through the French language while desperately missing his parents. He was a teenager then, and he was probably an asshole; if Rozanov was being serious, well, there was a little reason to feel sympathy for him. Not a lot of sympathy, no-- but some. It made the first chirp less punchable and more sad than anything.
“She’s...” he wanted to make sure he understood, but he wasn’t sure how to tactfully phrase it in a way an English Language Learner could understand. “Dead?” He asked, abandoning tact. Russians didn’t do tact in his experience anyways.
“Yes. You say you too.” His voice wasn’t all that difference, but it certainly lacked some of its usual bravado.
“Yes.” Scott didn’t know what the fuck to say.
“I miss her,” Rozanov said, a startling amount of vulnerability his his voice as their teammates got pulled away from each other.
“Me too kid, me too.” He patted his shoulder, and the refs called for penalties.
There would be no power play; both defenders were equally guilty.
After a few shift changes, Scott found himself next to Rozanov who told him, “Is lonely, today.” He didn’t want to feel soft and mushy towards Boston’s shiny new toy that never shut up, but he was seriously starting to wonder if this kid was okay. They weren’t really even on speaking terms nor did they seem to like each other, but that didn’t mean Scott wanted something bad to happen. The last thing he wanted Rozanov to do was see him crash and burn-- he was a dick on ice, but he seemed fine enough off ice. At the very least, women he’d slept with said he always asked for consent and reciprocated acts, which was unfortunately better than many other players.
During third period, Rozanov said “People do not get,”and lost the face off.
Scott was getting concerned. He hoped the kid had a support system, a buddy on the Raiders or even a hookup who got it, but the more sad comments he made the less likely that seemed. The Russian was starting to sound like Scott was in high school, when he’d tell teachers his parents died and he missed them to get out of having to turn in the homework.
While he was predictably off his game, so was Rozanov-- the Admirals ended up winning 2-1, with no star centres scoring a point. Scott stood back from the fray, watching from afar as his team starting calling their moms and WAGs on the ice. Vaughnny had the idea to buy flowers for the team to give to the mothers in their life, and while sweet, it only made Scott’s isolation sting further.
When he looked across the ice at the Raiders who also had some mothers on the ice, Rozanov looked just as despondent as Scott felt. The Rookie was standing alone, gloves still on and stick on the ice, staring frozen at the blue line.
Fuck. He really didn’t want to be Rozanov’s support system, but none of the Raiders were doing anything and Scott was quite possibly the only person on the ice who got it. Skating across the centre line and waving the Russian Pest over felt signing himself up to be stung by a hoarde of angry bees, but he couldn’t just leave the guy. Scott knew the feeling, and he knew the look of someone that could do something stupid when they were alone. If news came out that Rozanov got drunk and crashed his car or something, Scott would never forgive himself for not intervening.
Goddammit.
“Look, kid,” Scott said, already regretting the words before they left his mouth. “If you don’t have anyone else and you can’t be alone, wait for me by the player door. I’m always the last to leave.”
Rozanov nodded. “I might wait.”
Cryptic as usual, but Scott had done his good deed for the day. He couldn’t stand the kid, but he knew all to well how shitty it was to be alone on a day like this, in a foreign country where he barley spoke the language. Maybe the invitation was really for his former self; fifteen year old Scott, missing his mom in Quebec, desperately needed someone to acknowledge him, to sit with him. Rozanov was like a younger version of him in that way, if Scott had chosen to be a goddamn menace to everyone around him.
When he walked out to his car, Rozanov was waiting for him with a small, ratty looking travel bag slung over his shoulder. Scott barely suppressed a sigh. He had invited the kid after all, and that’s all Rozanov was-- a kid, missing his mom.
“I’m not taking you to a club,” he warned immediately. He himself couldn’t handle a club at the moment; Rozanov would call him old for it, but he didn’t have the energy. And he didn’t have the energy because it was fucking Mother’s Day and his mother was fucking dead.
“I do not want,” the Russian said, following Scott to his car. “I want ee-op.”
“What the fuck is an ‘ee-op?’”
“Is...” Rozanov scrambled for something in his bag and pulled out a notebook, flipping through at random.
Scott very strongly considered asking him if it was a diary but didn’t, because he was a very kind and virtuous man, and because Rozanov might try to fight him if it was.
“This,” Rozanov said, and pointed to the word ‘ihop’ amidst a list of other chain restaurants.
Scott laughed at him. He laughed at him and he didn’t even feel bad-- the kid deserved to get shit for that. “I hop,” he corrected, laughing. “You want to go to IHOP?”
He nodded.
“Fuck it, let’s go to IHOP.”
Rozanov ordered some sort of sugary crepe monstrosity alongside normal breakfast food.
“What’s your team gonna think of that rook?” He chirped, when Rozanov’s plate of sugary crepes was placed down among the rest of the breakfast food.
The little fucker shrugged. “Is okay. I am young, not like you.”
Scott had to laugh at that. “I think you mean that you’re a child, and I’m a normal adult.”
“I am still teenager. You are what, 40 years?”
“Fuck off and eat your disgusting pancakes.”
They ate in relatively awkward silence for a bit-- the restaurant wasn’t empty per se, but it wasn’t exactly hopping at 9pm on a Sunday. People with families had better places to be than fucking IHOP.
“In Rusia, this is Blini,” Rozanov offered, saying the name of his home country like Ru-Sia, presumably it’s name in Russian.
“Does it taste similar enough?” Scott knew quite a bit about food not tasting right, even if Quebec and New York were much closer together than Boston and Russia.
“More... not real food here?”
“That’d be good ‘ol American preservatives.”
Rozanov moved his lips as if he was trying to remember the word.
“If you’re going to eat American food, you’ve got to try the syrups,” Scott said and pushed the line of disgustingly sweet syrups near the Russian.
Scott watched as the kid poured far to much of all the syrup flavours onto a basic pancake, the sticky liquid dripping off and mixing with the unseasoned scrambled eggs. It reminded him of the movie Elf, where a tall, curly blond haired, utterly deranged man poured syrup on all kinds of regular foods to create an unholy concoction. The one raised in Russia at least had the sense to pull a face at the taste.
“Terrible country, blyattfuck.”
He laughed. “Regretting IHOP?”
“I read Americans make zaf... morning food for Mother Day. I wanted same.” That was surprisingly sweet, actually. “Even if is terrible American food.”
He could deflect all he wanted, but Scott saw the vulnerability there and fuck it, maybe he felt a little bad for the kid. “Did she make you those... what did you call those?” He asked, pointing to the mostly eaten plate of crepes.
“Blini.”
“Blini, yeah. Did she make you Blini?”
Rozanov nodded, a small, longing smile crossing his face. Even with the Slavic stoicism, the missing your dead mom look was universal. “She give jam, inside. She made Blini on special days, when she... when she could.”
He smiled. “Mine did the same. Couldn’t cook for shit though, so they were half burned.”
They laughed-- not all out laughter, but enough to acknowledge the humour, even if it was coated in sadness.
“You know, miracle it wasn’t a kitchen accident that took her out,” Scott mused. It was the kind of joke no one on his team would understand; instead of laughing, they would give their sympathy and tell him that she shouldn’t have died at all, that it must be so hard, and every other phrase he’d heard a thousand fucking times.
Roz on the other hand, chuckled as intended.
Dead mom jokes weren’t something he could say to the team. Yes, Scott was thankful for their condolences, and yes he agreed his parents died too young, but they had died. As shitty as it was, he’d been orphaned at twelve and there was nothing to be done about it; no amount of condolences or wishful thinking would bring them back, nor would it fill the hole they left in his heart. In some ways, all the sympathy and heartfelt condolences just reminded of the loss all over again. It tainted any humour or flaw or happy thing that happened before age twelve and twisted it into a terrible tragedy.
His family had made jokes that his mom would in a loony-tunes style kitchen accident before she actually died, but if Scott tried to reference that, to bring up a warm, normal memory of his childhood, everyone got real sad real fast. When Scott thought about those jokes, when he thought about the times his mom set off the fire alarms trying to make dinner, he wasn’t trying to think of the terrible night when they died. He was trying to remember her as she was, not as how she ended up; but other’s just heard ‘mom’ and ‘death’ come from Scott’s mouth and went into condolences mode.
Ilya Rozanov on the other had, got it. It was refreshing to be able to talk about his mom with someone who got it, as annoying as Rozanov was.
“It was a car accident. Drunk driver.” It was also nice to bring up the cause of death on his own, even if it was on his Wikipedia page.
“Fast, no time for goodbye, no?”
“No,” Scott said, pushing his scrambled eggs around the plate. They tasted a little like Styrofoam-- maybe the syrup concoctions would help the taste. “I got home from school one day, and they never did.”
“I understand. Me too, when I came home.” Rozanov’s voice was softer, more human than Scott had ever heard him sound.
“My last words were at least a ‘love you, bye.’ I would have meant it more if I knew it’d be the last time.” Scott said those words every day before leaving out of habit, a habit he hadn’t quite found cringy yet at twelve, something he was eternally grateful for.
Rozanov visibly swallowed and nodded. Neither of them were in the mood to eat anymore, as cathartic as it was talking about their parents. “Me too. I tell her I love her, she gives me hug, and then no more.”
“Mother’s. It’s almost like they know sometimes, huh?”
That turned out to be the wrong thing to say, because Rozanov frowned and look down at the table, swallowing harshly. He steeled his face quickly though, and nodded.
“What happened to her?”
Another swallow. Roz looked at a point over Scott’s shoulder, concentrating intensely on something. It could have been the language, but it almost seemed like he wanted to say something else.
Scott hoped the kid hadn’t lost his mom in something tragic, like a murder.
“Accident,” he said hesitantly, like that vague answer had narrowly won out over something more specific.
It was functionally a non answer, but Scott knew better than to push. He let them sit in silence, half wondering if the kid would say more.
“I think they’d be proud of us,” Scott said after a long bought of silence in which they both put their plates to the side. “Or are.”
Rozanov shook his head, and fuck if that wasn’t devastating.
He shouldn’t feel a pang in his chest for the Russian Menace. He shouldn’t feel so paternal to the guy who practically terrorized him not five hours ago, but unfortunately he did. Anyone would be heartbroken to see the doubt in his eyes and the shake of his head-- Scott wasn’t going soft as he aged, no matter what the man in front of him might say.
“Hey, she should be,” he said, trying to make eye contact with Rozanov who was stubbornly looking at the table. “You made it to the States, to the MLH. You’re one of two options for Rookie of the year, and you’re already a top player. There’s plenty for her to be proud of.”
He half expected Rozanov to ask him if the MLH had even been formed before his parents died.
“Before I left, she said Веди себя хорошо, ИлюшаBehave yourself, Ilyusha. Be good, Ilyusha.” He said instead. “I do not know if I have been good.”
God, that was heartbreaking. Everyone suspected the peacocking was for show, but he wouldn’t have expected a kid like Rozanov to have such low self esteem. “You’re top of the fucking league and Boston loves you. You’ve been good kid.”
“I know I am best at hockey Hunter. Best in league.”
Scott laughed. “Are you fishing for complements? God, you’re an asshole.”
He shook his head. “No, I do not know if I am good off ice.”
Oh. Scott felt like the asshole now. “Every kid parties when they get to America. I’ve heard women say you treat them right too. You’ve been good.”
That prompted a small smile out of the kid, but he still shook his head. “I try. I do not have word but is ah, difficult. Many things.”
“Complicated?” He offered.
“Da. Yes. Too complicated for your old body.”
“I think it’s time to get the bill,” Scott said instead of dignifying that with a response.
The Russian pulled out his wallet, despite the plates not being cleared yet.
“Uh no, I’m paying. I’m the adult here.” He wasn’t getting emasculated by Rozanov.
“No no, you are close to retirement. You need to save for 401k.”
Scott laughed. “How the fuck do you know what a 401k is?”
“I know many things. Like I am paying.”
“You’re not.”
“I use bathroom,” Rozanov said quickly and got up.
In retrospect, Scott should have seen the obvious ploy for what it was. Unfortunately, he realized exactly what had happened when Rozanov came back with perfectly dry hands and a grin on his face as he held up a receipt.
“I paid!” He gloated, waving the bill. “And tip.”
“I’m leaving you on the side of the highway,” Scott promised and followed him out.