A / 20-something / Bi, Shy and always at my post limit

Ilya and Shane is at a barbecue at Boods someone does something mildly offensive to Ilya and he’s like: watch out I have connections.

Ilya means that’s he’s big scary Russian with Russian connections not even Ilya knows how true that statement is because both Shane and Yuna would burn the world to the ground for Ilya if he asked.

Shane just snorts shaking his head.: he does not have any Russian mafia connections.

The team looks at him slightly worried when young pipes up: heheee Shane why did you specify Russian and also I find it worrying that you didn’t add a ‘don’t worry’ at the end.

Shane just smiles innocently: well Ilyas always said I’m a bad liar so. And then he shrugs.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/86018431

Ilya and Shane is at a barbecue at Boods someone does something mildly offensive to Ilya and he’s like: watch out I have connections.

Ilya means that’s he’s big scary Russian with Russian connections not even Ilya knows how true that statement is because both Shane and Yuna would burn the world to the ground for Ilya if he asked.

Shane just snorts shaking his head.: he does not have any Russian mafia connections.

The team looks at him slightly worried when young pipes up: heheee Shane why did you specify Russian and also I find it worrying that you didn’t add a ‘don’t worry’ at the end.

Shane just smiles innocently: well Ilyas always said I’m a bad liar so. And then he shrugs.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/86018431

Ilya was annoyed, he was snuggled on the couch with Shane on a rainy day off enjoying British Bake Off when his phone kept ringing from an unknown number. He had sent it to voicemail twice before Shane paused the show and made him answer.

“Ilya! Don’t hang up! Please it is important” the Russian words came frantic and quick over the line.

“Alexei? What the fuck? Why are you calling me? I told you to never speak to me again!” Ilya sat up fully, his body tense.

“I know! I’m sorry but I’m in trouble and I need your help.”

“Of course, money. You always…”

“No! No! Listen! Ilya.”

Ilya stopped, something was wrong. Different. Alexei sounded panicked. It was 2 pm in Ottawa which meant it was 9 pm in Moscow. Not terribly late for his brother, he did not sound strung out or drunk either.

“A lot has changed, I am clean. I have been working. I’ve been promoted. I divorced and remarried and have a second daughter. She is 4, her name is Tatiana. Her mother died a year ago. You’re the only family Tati has left and I think….I think they will kill me soon”

Ilya’s head spun. This was too much information too quickly.

“Who is they? Kill you? What are you talking about? Alexei…”

“I am detective. I found out something I shouldn’t. Powerful people are involved, lots of money, embezzlements. It’s not safe for me to say more this line isn’t secure. But they’re coming for me. I need to get Tati safe. I need to send her to you, I can get her out if I pretend to send her to your Hockey camps” Alexei was speaking faster now.

“Wait, the camps don’t start for a few weeks.”

“There’s no time! I have to send her now. I have a friend who will fly with her. She is too young to go alone. The people after me will never let me go on a plane. I don’t want Tati to see me killed. It’s too dangerous to involve her. She will land tomorrow at 1025 am. I had an international lawyer do all the necessary paperwork. It’s all been signed and notarized, it’s in her backpack.”

“Alexei what paperwork? Slow down you sound crazy! You sure you are clean?” Ilya was pacing in front of Shane now who was watching with concern, his Russian was good enough by now he was catching whatever Ilya was saying but he couldn’t hear the full conversation.

“Guardianship. I told you. Her mother is dead, she is from small village and has no siblings. There’s no one else. I cannot let Tati go to an orphanage and Katerina won’t take her. She said she is already raising one of my daughters alone she won’t take another.” Alexei snorted as if is first wife was being unreasonable.

“Alexei…”

“No listen. I have to go, remember 1025 am I will text you flight number she is already on her way. They will be coming for me soon. I’m sorry I was a bad brother. I was a worse father. I tried to do better. I tried to fix it. But I’m too deep now. It’s too late. Tell her I’m sorry. That I loved her. Don’t let her hate me. I’m so sorry but please, please just love her.” Alexei was sobbing into the phone now as Ilya felt his body go cold. This wasn’t a joke.

There was pounding now. Angry yelling. Alexei swore.

“What is that? What is happening? Alexei where are you?”

“It doesn’t matter. They are here. I’m sorry.”

Shane on the other hand talked a mile a minute. He was always babbling and bubbling about one thing or another. He was a yapper.

As they got older, Ilya realised that it’s simpler to hide in the spot light and that it’s easier to get away with things when he’s loud. It’s whole another kind of invisibility, hiding in plain sight, everyone sees him, believes they know him, but they only know the parts he allows them to see.

Shane became quiet. He figured out that people didn’t want to listen. He understood people find him more likabke when he’s quiet. So he keeps his thoughts to himself, doesn’t talk, doesn’t make people uncomfortable by having too much information to share and not knowing when to shut up.

Fast forward to the cottage. They’re sitting on the couch, Shane’s legs in Ilya’s lap as he waves in arms around, talking excitedly about something. And Ilya, Ilya just listens. He doesn’t interrupt him, doesn’t tell him to stop talking. He enjoys not having to be the one talking for once, actually. There’s a small smile dancing across his lips as he listens to his boyfriend (boyfriend!!!) yap about beavers, their importance for the ecosystem and how they became the national animal of Canada.

The workers are like “omg you’re petting Gertrude, she hates being pet” and he says “oh she loves it, you just have to prop up her front legs on your lap and leave her back legs on the floor and only pet the back half she doesn’t like her neck or shoulders being touched. Also she’s more okay with you if you pet Molly first she trusts Mollys judge of character.”

Which leaves them most likely piecing things together via context clues with no real confirmation. I can imagine Yuna and David being slightly confused why the charity is specifically for suicide-prevention. I would think a small part of them would be concerned about Shane's (and Ilya's) own mental health when the only explanation offered is that it means a lot to both of them but does not say why (again, he'd probably think it's not his place to tell them, especially if Ilya is not present). But then Shane says the foundation is to be named after Ilya's mother. And the two of them just put those two things together like oh.

So, there's Yuna and David standing with the crowd as the press conference happens. And Shane does his part. And then Ilya says his unplanned part about his mother and it does confirm what they had thought.

But they still don't know about his dad or his brother. They know Ilya's father is dead and they know he never speaks of him. But over time I think they would see small pieces of it. Ilya breaks a dish and Yuna sees him brace himself and look surprised when she's not angry, just helps him clean it up. They both see how cautious he is around David at first, keeping things very formal for a while. They see a kind of tension there when Yuna and David bicker (lightly and playfully to them) about what to have for dinner like he's not sure how far this will go.

Imma fix it.

Hayden watches way Shane’s right eye twitches as Drapeau throws another snide comment his way. It’s not something Shane had before this season, before the video, Hayden’s monumental fuck up, being outed, having his entire life put under a high-powered microscope even more than it was before and—Hayden, I forgive you. It’s okay. You don’t have to freak out about this.

Right. Right.

The twitch started up as the rest of the team treated Shane less like their captain and more like…fuck, what even is this? JJ barely glances Shane’s way anymore; just nods wordlessly at practices. Theriault barks orders at them the same way, but he’s more critical of Shane than ever and far more liberal in his use of “ladies” and “pansies” as insults now. The rookies are quiet, following whatever the veteran players do and laughing at their shit comments.

Drapeau and Comeau are the worst. They were already bad when Shane came out to the team—asking how he played after taking it up the ass, complaining about showering with someone who might check them out. But finding out who Shane’s been seeing makes them so much worse.

They seem to be leading the campaign to push Shane out, and they don’t stop even after the trade announcement. They encourage the rest of the team to get worse. Miitka stops passing to him at practice one day. Then Stedlund, then Olsson, then Gagnon, and then all the rookies within a week. Wilson starts scoffing when Shane calls plays. Berkes rolls his eyes and makes vile hand gestures behind Shane’s back. Schneider removes Shane from the team group chat before Comeau renames it “Real Men Only.”

Shane just takes it. He takes the disrespect, the losses, the notable decline in performance that the press won’t stop asking about. We’re having an off season. Just growing pains. There are big changes coming and everyone’s adjusting to what will be the new normal.

The eye twitch starts after a dismal shutout against Toronto. Shane insists that it’s nothing, like Hayden can’t see it getting worse as their hopes of a fourth cup go up in smoke.

Tonight, though? As Drapeau opens his mouth in the locker room to say something else, to add another drop into the already overflowing bucket? As Shane tries to make his final speech as captain and nobody’s even looking in his direction? The twitch comes and then just…stops. It doesn’t linger the way it usually does, taking a few minutes of uneven blinking to calm down. It comes, causes a few jerky movements at the corner of Shane’s eye, then stops abruptly.

Right as Shane decides to stand on a bench and un-fucking-load.

“Listen up!” The locker room goes silent as Captain Hollander—not Shane, not Hollander, not “ugh, the queer”—commands their attention in a way he hasn’t all season. “You want to act like assholes? Fine! You want to—interrupt me again, Comeau! I FUCKING DARE YOU!”

Whatever hateful jab Comeau started dies in his throat. His mouth snaps shut with an audible “click” and the confident grin on his face slides right off.

“You want me gone? After I gave this team everything? EVERYTHING! THREE cups you wouldn’t have gotten close to without me!”

The door slams open as Theriault bursts in. He looks ready to demand they get their asses in gear, but one look at Shane shuts him up.

“But being in love with the wrong person and suddenly none of that matters! You get to throw me out like trash!”

JJ visibly flinches. Hayden tries not to feel like he deserves to feel targeted.

Shane hasn’t even broken a sweat. He’s screaming, positively bellowing, and he looks like he’s not even out of breath. Like the release valve has been turned as far as it will go and holding all this in was harder than letting it out.

“This is my last game as a Metro,” he hisses, glaring at his teammates. “Because I know your godawful playing means we’re going to lose. There’s no cup for us this year, so this is the last game I get with a team I’ve wanted to play on since before I could talk. The team I thought I’d retire with. You do not get to take that from me!”

He jumps off of the bench, snatching up a helmet as he lands and shoving it at a shell-shocked rookie.

“We will not have another pathetic shutout tonight! You will put your fucking gear on! You will play like you have some fucking sense! You will pass the goddamn puck like you’re not afraid of it being contaminated with gay cooties!”

Miitka glances at Hayden, who offers nothing more than a hard stare in return. He hopes it communicates “this is what we deserve.”

“You want to be assholes? Fine! You want to be a losing team instead of having a gay captain? Fine!”

Hayden’s not sure when Shane picked up a random stick, but he sure as hell notices when it snaps and splinters in half. The entire team watches in terror as their normally calm and cool captain breaks a stick in one hand, then tosses the pieces aside.

“Not at my last game!”

Every last man in the locker room—minus Shane and Hayden—has their eyes trained on the floor. Nobody dares look up. After months of hate, nobody’s got a fucking thing to say.

“We’re not making it to the cup. We can’t, because you’ve all got your heads too far up your asses to do your jobs! But we will score tonight or so help me FUCKING GOD!”

Hayden doesn’t think he’s ever been afraid of Shane. He also doesn’t think that’s the case anymore.

“You will get your asses on that ice and for once, just once this season, you will not fucking embarrass me! Do you understand?”

Complete silence. It doesn’t sound like anyone’s even breathing.

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

A flat, subdued “yes, captain” rolls through the locker room.

And in the blink of an eye, Shane takes a deep breath and just…stops.

He created an account when he first moved to the US, and it was mostly a way to learn about what his Boston teammates were referencing in their conversations. He didn’t really post in the beginning. Not that he’ll ever admit this out loud, but he’d still been learning English and hadn’t been confident enough in his writing skills to make public posts in a new language. Anybody with enough time and curiosity to scroll back to his oldest posts will only find retweets of announcements from the official Boston Bears account.

When he goes from Rising Star Ilya Rozanov to Captain Ilya Rozanov, management asks him to start posting more. For social media engagement, they say. You’re popular; the public loves you or loves to hate you.

They immediately regret that decision. Not because it backfires or anything—it’s actually wildly, exceedingly successful. The regret comes when they realize that Ilya, now mostly fluent in English and American pop culture, has an infinite amount of shit to say, a flimsy brain-to-fingers filter, and not even a whisper of a concept of shame.

He takes chirping off the ice. Scott Hunter gets called ancient at least twice a week, and Hayden Pike trends almost exclusively under “15th Best Player.” The Metros’ legal team makes threatening calls when Gilbert Comeau’s mother gets doxxed. Ilya claims no responsibility for that, by the way. All he said was that maybe Comeau should produce his birth certificate and prove that he didn’t “sneak past God and onto Earth with a face like that.”

He Tweets streams of consciousness about everything from a dream he had about talking bacon (“It asked me how I could be so cruel to pigs. I asked why it had the nerve to be so tasty with lettuce and tomato.”) to ranking Beyoncé songs (“Love on Top is the obvious winner, but Signs is an underrated hit. I will not explain further unless The Queen herself asks.”). The social media team fields calls from politicians and pundits when Ilya live-Tweets his commentary on the 2012 Presidential debates (“Binders full of women? Corporations are people? Barack, call Michelle. She deserves to slap this man.”).

The public learns that he claps back at anyone and everyone—viciously, with no mercy. His Twitter fingers are rated E for Everyone. Fans (“I’ll be so mad if I go to this game and Roz doesn’t beat somebody’s ass.” “Then don’t come.”), haters (“Rozanov sound like he barely speak English bro. I don’t care what he got to say lol” “English is my FOURTH language, and my grammar and punctuation are still better than yours. Read a fucking book before you critique me, troglodyte.”), commentators (“Captain Rozanov sluggish in the ice?” “Raaah! Polly want a fucking cracker? You’ve Tweeted the same thing 3x. Get a fucking life 😒”), even friends (“Bruh. I thought we were COOL 😭” “Marley, you insulted my cooking. I must roast you. There is no other way.”). Anybody can get it.

When he and Shane are outed? It’s not an ideal situation, obviously, but there’s the tiniest silver lining: Ilya can finally abandon his filter entirely and Tweet about everything. The Centaurs social media team realizes that Ilya Rozanov’s Twitter in his Boston Era is what he looked like with restraint.

Ilya is Slavic. That’s really all there is to it. There is no deeper explanation and he will not provide one. If you keep being weird about it, he’ll start giving you made up reasons just to fuck with you. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why. Who just goes around asking people to explain their faces? Rude.

Shane is Shane. He’s a neurodivergent baddie who’s in his own head a lot. No, he’s not pissed off; that’s just his face. No, I promise you, he’s not plotting a murder. That’s seriously just his face. Yes, he knows, we’ve all mentioned it at least once because we thought we did something wrong. That’s just his default face.

Post-outing, Ilya’s Slavic stoicism and Shane’s…Shane-ness don’t magically go away, but the public notices a shift as they stop hiding their relationship. They show up places together now, holding hands and existing in each other’s personal space without having to excuse it with the Irina Foundation. Their respective reputations for Resting Bitch Face take a major hit when their default faces start popping up less and less in pictures. IG comments document the change.

Ummm…anybody else notice Rozanov’s always smiling now? 🤔

I thought Hollander was a robot. I ain’t never seen robots smile.

Look at them! They’re so happy 🥹

When will happiness like this find me?

Is this what married sex do? Just rewire your brain?

Bro’s Slavic face? Gone. Perma-smile.

Demons on the ice, gummy bears in real life.

Have Hollander’s teeth always been so white? I don’t think we’ve ever seen them this much.

How much you wanna bet Roz has been a loverboy this entire time? Yes Shane, anything you want Shane, anything for you Shane. 😂

Did we know Roz had a dimple on his left cheek? Holy shit.

Got Shane “RBF” Hollander smiling like it’s candy and rainbows around here…Ugh, I hate them both so bad.

- Actually or…?

- Fuck no, I love smiley Hollanov. I hate that I don’t have someone to be this cute with!

It’s funny until one comment makes Ilya squawk indignantly.

Rozanov - Looks like he’ll murder you, is actually a cinnamon roll. Hollander - Looks like he’ll murder you…probably will, just happily now.

“They know I am soft,” he whines, not doing himself any favors as he throws himself down on the couch and pouts dramatically. “My reputation is ruined! A whole career as the sleep paralysis demon of hockey players worldwide, destroyed by a beautiful man with beautiful freckles. I will never recover, Shane!”

Shane smiles softly at the comments and tangles his fingers in his husband’s wild curls. “How tragic. The world knows you’ve got a soft, gooey center.”

Ilya continues pouting (“That is lie, liar told you that.” “I can see you with my own eyes.” “Your eyes lie. Russians do not pout.” “I mean…you’re Canadian now.” “…Shane. SHANE. How can you say this?!”). He huffs and crosses his arms petulantly.

“Easy for you to say,” he grumbles, eyes drooping in relaxation as Shane massages his scalp. “They still see you as a threat. I am Mister Cinnamon Roll now.”

“Then I’ll threaten them enough for both of us, baby.”

Ilya smiles sleepily and puckers his lips, wordlessly demanding a kiss. Shane obliges without hesitation.

Shane and JJ started speaking French with each other when they first met, but Shane noticed something strange. Well, no, not strange—different. That’s the appropriate word.

Every once in a while, JJ’s accent would change and he’d use a word that didn’t sound familiar. Ak instead of et. Dlo instead of eau. Manje maten instead of petite dejeuner. A tone and inflection change that didn’t sound like what Shane was used to hearing.

Shane’s not exactly known for his social skills, but he’s a wiz at pattern recognition. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on. JJ’s got three languages tumbling around in his head and sometimes it’s easier to slip into the default when the words get jumbled in the others. Sometimes Creole slips out because he can’t find the right word in another language. Sometimes, when he’s comfortable, he shares this piece of himself that feels like home.

They don’t talk about it. Over the course of their friendship, it just becomes the norm for them. JJ eventually realizes he’s doing it, but also notices that Shane’s responses in French and English make complete sense. He understands what’s going on. He doesn’t make a face or ask for translation—he hears the new word or phrase, integrates it into their own personal lexicon, and keeps it pushing. He learns a whole new language for his best friend.

Over time, JJ uses more and more Creole. Full sentences, minutes-long rants about his mom calling him in the middle of the night, explanations of a movie he saw that Shane might actually take a break to watch. Shane gets a thoughtful look on his face and always, always responds. Sometimes it takes him a second, but he absorbs the new knowledge, incorporates it into the special three-way language they’ve built together, and smiles back when JJ lights up.

The rest of the team hasn’t picked up on it. Not even Hayden, their third musketeer. JJ and Shane don’t talk about it. It’s…it is what it is. They know why. They just don’t need to talk about it. They both get it.

Maybe that’s why it hurts so badly when JJ finds out about Rozanov.

He’s not homophobic—never, never would he do that to Shane, or anyone else. But Shane, fuck. We’ve been close for years. I share my language with you. I share my culture with you. You made me feel at home when nobody else would. You’re a Haitian brother from another mother to me. I trust you with parts of me that nobody else we work with has ever bothered to understand! We’re the only non-white people in here, we stick together like glue!

Hear me out. Lemme rant.

Shane is a man of color, a gay man, and a talented man. This means that in his youth, he was a child of color in a majority white country who also may not have known he was gay or actively resisted thinking about what his body’s reactions to certain stimuli meant—and on top of those things, he’s in the Gifted/Talented Child nexus, in a majority white sport that doesn’t have the kindest history toward anything outside the Heterosexual Manly Man archetype.

Shane never stood a chance.

His clean-cut, camera-ready, squeaky clean public persona isn’t just for the endorsements. He’s an outwardly, obviously different cog in an otherwise uniform machine. He walks into a room and everyone knows one of these things is not like the others and WHY. His racial and ethnic difference means that he has to work twice as hard for half as much; conversely, he only has to fuck up an eighth as hard for three times the backlash.

Any conscious racial minority can tell you what that means. You keep your head down. You smile and nod. You grind and you work harder than everyone else to prove that you deserve to be here. You straighten your hair, or you cut it to fit what’s “in” with the majority crowd. You code-switch and keep your tone soft, volume low. You watch the shows and listen to the music they like—not because you enjoy it, but because the majority culture expects you to know about these things. They’re the default and you’re expected to know this stuff. Anything to fit the mould and make sure you’re safe; safe to the majority and safe from them.

Masculinity and sexuality add to the nexus of assimilation for Shane. He has to check himself and his mannerisms, what he says, how he looks, for anything that might be perceived as feminine or gay. He spends years offering a tight smile as his teammates talk about picking up women or their hookups after a great game. He does his skincare routine in secret after away games and acts like he doesn’t know what the fuck toner is, because apparently caring for his body’s largest and most protective organ is feminine behavior. On the rare occasion he joins the Metros at bars, he drinks when he doesn’t want to because he can only refuse so many times before “Hollander must be on his period” starts up.

So much of Shane’s public behavior is meant to put his straight, white male colleagues at ease around him. It’s been an unfortunate necessity to build his career thus far, but it’s also fucking exhausting. He’s tired.

That’s why, after he comes out to Ilya and Rose and his parents, he starts changing things. Small things at first, but they grow over time as he realizes how much of himself he’s shoved down over the years.

He stops hiding his skincare kit in hotels. It’s rare for him to share a room with anyone as captain, but if he does? He’s in the room by 9, oil cleansing by 9:15, deciding between a sheet mask and a wash-off mask by 9:20, and gently patting in his moisturizer by 10. Retainer in, reading glasses and jammies on, travel humidifier running on the nightstand—because it’s good for your pores. You can look 50 when you’re 30 if you want, Hayden, but I choose moisture.

He hires a stylist after breaking up with Rose and starts experimenting with clothes. It occurs to him one night that everything he owns is comes in neutral, muted tones. He tries bright, bold colors. Ruby red, royal blue, emerald green, obnoxious highlighter yellow. He tries different cuts and silhouettes, and pointedly ignores stares from Comeau when he strolls into an early practice in black jeans that look painted on instead of sweats.

For the first time ever, Shane buys accessories other than sunglasses and his fitness-tracking watch (and the Rolexes—no, Mom, I haven’t forgotten). He treats himself to things that catch his eye without regard for what the guys will think. Nobody notices when he starts wearing a gold bracelet. Nobody knows that the diamond choker he’s wearing in the latest Versace shoot is his, kept in a special box on his dresser for special occasions with Ilya. No one has a clue that he got his ears pierced at the end of one season so they’d heal before the next one started.

But the crowning achievement? The pièce de rèsistance? Shane grows his hair out.

At first, he tells his parents that he just hasn’t found time for a cut. Busy schedule, Dad, no time. It’s a lie, and one that he almost fesses up to when he gets past the awkward shaggy phase and his mom won’t stop looking at him anxiously. He tells them a half truth instead; that he’s just trying something new. He’s almost 30 and tired of looking the same. Plus, Mom, you saw the reactions on Instagram. People love it!

The truth, the full truth that Shane has only ever admitted aloud to Ilya, is that he’s done. So fucking done. Years of bending and stretching and contorting himself into the perfect player, teammate, captain, man, and he’s completely over it. He’s proven that he’s the best (second best, if you ask Ilya). He’s shown time and time again that he’s not just that one Asian guy or a blip on people’s screens. He’s a force to be reckoned with and regardless of how he looks, be it the manly man presentation everyone expects or an undefined look of his choosing, his skills are never in question.

“Chopping carrots with Ilya,” Shane sings under his breath. “Making salad with Ilya.”

Yuna smiles softly from the dining room. This is one of her favorite things about her son. From the time he could (barely) talk, he made up little songs about anything and everything. The first time he’d done it, he’d been strapped into his car seat and watching cars go by. When he’d caught Yuna’s eye in the rear view mirror, he’d smiled with all 8 of his little teeth and waved.

“Dwiving,” he’d sung, all of 18 months old and barely able to say the word properly. “Dwivin’ wi’ Mama. Wuv Mama.”

Yuna’s not sure if it’s Shane’s way of processing the world around him, just A Thing some people do, or something special about her baby boy. All she knows is that from the first time he’d made up a little tune about Driving With Mama, everything turned into a song. When he’s comfortable and feeling at ease, Shane turns little things around him into music.

Learning to tie his shoes? “Daddy’s teaching me to tie my shoes. One lace over the other. Make the bunny ears!”

Gearing up for practice when he was 8? “Going to practice. Gonna be great. Gonna score a goal!”

Studying for a science test? “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Everyone says it because it’s true. Moving on—organelles and cell walls.”

Gearing up for his first Metros game as captain? “Taping my hockey stick. Going out on the ice. Gonna kick some ass.”

It’s something so uniquely, adorably, perfectly Shane.

Today, though? As Shane’s in the kitchen preparing a salad for lunch? For the first time, someone else sings along. For the first time in Shane’s life, someone hears the tune and lyrics that only exist in his head and joins in.

“Making salad with Shane,” Ilya croons along, hooking his chin over his boyfriend’s shoulder and wrapping strong arms around his waist. “Preparing lunch with my love.”

Shane smiles and sings back as Ilya nuzzles his neck. “Being domestic with my boyfriend. Thinking of boring things we can do together.”

Ilya laughs and kisses his ear before finishing the song. “I love to be boring with yooouuuu.”

Shane pauses on the other line, breath catching as he holds back overwhelming emotion.

“Mom,” he croaks. “I…fuck.”

Yuna stays calm. She mentally takes stock of the situation. Ilya’s fine—he just texted her, a few seconds before Shane called, to warn her of the incoming storm. David’s fine—he’s sitting right next to her, confused and alarmed as their son has some manner of episode on the phone. She’s fine. So what’s—

“—wi’ Dada!”

…oh. Oh.

It’s soft at first, but picking up in volume. Tiny pit-pats in the background accompany the most beautiful little voice Yuna’s heard since Shane made up his first song, Driving With Mama, from his car seat all those years ago.

“Eating,” the little voice sings in the background. It’s garbled by what Yuna assumes are half-chewed remnants of an afternoon snack; probably organic peanut butter on apple slices. “Eating wi’ Dada. Eating wi’ Papa. Dada on phone! Who on phone, Dada?”

There’s wet laughter in the background, further from the phone. “Oh God, Shane. It’s genetic. She’s a little you!”

More tearful laughter, this time from Shane. “That’s not—she’s adopted, Ilya.”

“I don’t care what the papers say. She is you. Listen to her, she is perfect. She must be part you, sweetheart.”

“Chopping carrots with Ilya,” Shane sings under his breath. “Making salad with Ilya.”

Yuna smiles softly from the dining room. This is one of her favorite things about her son. From the time he could (barely) talk, he made up little songs about anything and everything. The first time he’d done it, he’d been strapped into his car seat and watching cars go by. When he’d caught Yuna’s eye in the rear view mirror, he’d smiled with all 8 of his little teeth and waved.

“Dwiving,” he’d sung, all of 18 months old and barely able to say the word properly. “Dwivin’ wi’ Mama. Wuv Mama.”

Yuna’s not sure if it’s Shane’s way of processing the world around him, just A Thing some people do, or something special about her baby boy. All she knows is that from the first time he’d made up a little tune about Driving With Mama, everything turned into a song. When he’s comfortable and feeling at ease, Shane turns little things around him into music.

Learning to tie his shoes? “Daddy’s teaching me to tie my shoes. One lace over the other. Make the bunny ears!”

Gearing up for practice when he was 8? “Going to practice. Gonna be great. Gonna score a goal!”

Studying for a science test? “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Everyone says it because it’s true. Moving on—organelles and cell walls.”

Gearing up for his first Metros game as captain? “Taping my hockey stick. Going out on the ice. Gonna kick some ass.”

It’s something so uniquely, adorably, perfectly Shane.

Today, though? As Shane’s in the kitchen preparing a salad for lunch? For the first time, someone else sings along. For the first time in Shane’s life, someone hears the tune and lyrics that only exist in his head and joins in.

“Making salad with Shane,” Ilya croons along, hooking his chin over his boyfriend’s shoulder and wrapping strong arms around his waist. “Preparing lunch with my love.”

Shane smiles and sings back as Ilya nuzzles his neck. “Being domestic with my boyfriend. Thinking of boring things we can do together.”

Ilya laughs and kisses his ear before finishing the song. “I love to be boring with yooouuuu.”

It’s the best song Yuna’s ever heard.