Chapter Text
September 2015
Russia was home. Ilya Rozanov had long loved and hated it in equal measure. But these days, he was starting to hate it a little bit more each time he had to go back.
It had been a long summer. Moscow was unusually hot through all of July and August, with a mid-summer heat wave that brought a series of oppressive forty-degree days. The nights offered little respite, not cooling down enough to be of any relief.
Boston was probably not much better, but it almost definitely was not worse. Cliff hadn’t been the one to spend all summer bitching about the heat in their text exchanges. Ilya was a bit surprised that someone had put up with all of his complaining, actually. Cliff was a good friend.
It wasn’t really about the weather. Ilya knew this, and Cliff probably could sense it, too.
Ilya’s father was getting worse. Grigori Rozanov had spent years in a sort of limbo state. Not quite there anymore, not quite himself; not quite gone yet, either. Since Ilya’s last extended stay in Russia a year prior, though, it was clear that his father’s health had taken a turn. He was surprised most mornings when Ilya came to see him, confused that his son was in Russia and not Boston. In the evenings, sometimes he flew into a rage. Ilya usually spent his afternoons at the local rink and returned to his own apartment well before sunset, but he often got calls. From his father, demanding to know where he was. From Alexei, berating him for not being there.
“You’re gone all fucking year,” his brother had snapped at him the night before, “and then don’t bother to spend more than an hour at a time with Papa now that you’re in Moscow.”
The worst was when he started asking for Ilya’s mother. Calling Irina’s name, as though she were just out of sight, merely in another room of the house. Ilya wanted to shake him sometimes. His father had not been kind towards Irina when she was alive. Why was there such a soft lilt to his voice when he said her name now?
On his final day in Moscow, Ilya woke shortly before seven. In the last weeks, many mornings he’d needed to drag himself from bed, force his body to merely go through the motions of the day. That morning he got up easily – buoyed, perhaps, by the knowledge that it would be some ten months before he had to resume this torturous routine.
He brewed himself a pot of coffee and wished that he could call Svetlana. She had spent a few weeks of July in Moscow, but had returned to Boston at the start of August. Ilya missed her, but he didn’t think she’d be receptive to a phone call so close to midnight on a Tuesday. He set his phone down and drank his coffee, watching the city awaken from his window.
He found that he did not often miss Moscow while he was away, but on mornings like this he sometimes wished to soak in the city. As if each glimpse of it might be his last – a final sunrise over the familiar skyline of his childhood.
When his father was gone, Ilya thought he might never return to this city. These days, it didn’t seem like a far-off prospect.
Ilya’s father was sleeping late nowadays, so he allowed himself a slow morning. After he’d finished his coffee he took a run through the neighborhood, taking advantage of the morning sun, not yet at its full and suffocating strength. Then he took a long, hot shower, water soothing against his skin.
He kept one car in Moscow – a practical thing by his standards, nothing compared to the more flashy ones that awaited him in his garage back in Boston, the ones he loved. He drove slowly to his father’s, taking a route that was longer than strictly necessary to get there.
Ilya had begun to hold his breath each time he stepped through the front door of his childhood home. It wasn’t something he did intentionally, but had become a nervous force of habit over the years. As though if he held his breath, the house’s occupants might not notice he was there.
Alexei had decided to show up that morning, too, much to Ilya’s chagrin. He had hung up on his brother yesterday, and ignored his attempted calls afterwards. It had been too much, to hope that Alexei might have let it alone – let Ilya leave Russia in peace for once.
Ilya’s father only glanced up at him when he entered the room. He was seated in a plush armchair by the window, newspaper spread across his lap and what Ilya knew to be an overbitter cup of coffee on the side table beside him.
Alexei was waiting, seated stiffly on the couch across from their father. He stood when Ilya entered the room, sparing their father just a glance and then grabbing him by the elbow.
“We need to talk,” he hissed as he pulled Ilya towards the kitchen, out of their father’s line of sight.
Ilya let himself be pulled. It was better to get this conversation over with than have his brother blow up his phone for the rest of the day or – god forbid – show up at the rink or his apartment later.
Still, he shrugged off his brother’s grasp as soon as he could. “What do you want now, Alexei?”
“I need money,” his brother said. Predictably. Casually, as though he hadn’t been turning Ilya’s pockets out all summer.
“Again?” Ilya cursed under his breath. “I just transferred more. Where the hell did that go?”
Alexei shrugged. He was leaning back against the counter now, running one finger against the edge of its chipped tile. Ilya was nearly a full head taller than Alexei, had been for years, but his brother somehow always managed to look down his nose at him. “I have a family to take care of.” He waved one hand in some meaningless gesture. “Not something you would know anything about.”
Ilya gritted his teeth. Was that not what he’d been doing, ever since he’d signed with Boston – supporting his family? He paid for everything. Always gave into the demands for more. But it was never enough. Alexei blew his money on drugs, and then accused Ilya of not caring.
“I don’t have more,” Ilya said. “Figure it out.”
He took a step back towards the living room, determined to spend the rest of the final visit with his father. Maybe he really would only spend an hour there that day; suddenly the prospect of a long morning in this house was unbearable. But Alexei was between Ilya and the door, and he stopped Ilya with a firm hand against his shoulder.
“You’ve seen how he is,” Alexei said furiously. “You’ve seen how much worse he’s gotten. Do you have any idea what it’s like here, every day–”
“I don’t have more for you,” Ilya repeated. “And if you already spent what I gave you last time, that has nothing to do with Papa’s condition. It’s your own damn fault.”
Alexei grabbed at the front of his shirt, anger twisting his face into something ugly. Ilya stumbled, pushed him back.
Ilya didn’t quite know how it happened. One moment he was standing in front of Alexei, regaining his balance, fixing a glare on his brother’s face. The next, there were hands on him again, but they found better purchase this time – Ilya didn’t quite register how hard Alexei had shoved him until he was crashing into the hardwood kitchen cabinets. His shoulder hit an edge in a strange way and for a moment Ilya felt searing pain.
He swung at Alexei. Alexei swung back. For all the fights that Ilya had gotten into on the ice, he had never quite mastered this opponent. Never quite managed to get the upper hand over his elder brother. They grappled with each other. Ilya was cornered, crowded uncomfortably against the cabinet he’d hit when Alexei pushed him.
“Are you– fucking kidding me?” His mouth tasted like blood. A split lip, his mind vaguely registered. “Everything I’ve given you. Can’t you give it a rest for once?”
“Oh, so I should be grateful now?” Alexei sneered. “You’ve always been such a–”
A sharp voice cut through their curses at each other, and both men froze in place.
“What’s going on in here?” And there was their father, and if Ilya and Alexei were angry at each other Grigori was furious. Ilya thought he could hear his own heartbeat, in the quiet that descended.
Alexei let go of his grip on Ilya’s shirt, shoving him away and taking a step towards their father. “Papa–” he began.
Ilya only noticed that Grigori was carrying his cane when it cracked against Alexei’s jaw, swung with rapid, practiced precision.
“How old are you two, fighting in my kitchen like this?” Grigori demanded, and he turned his attention to Ilya. Ilya instinctively raised his hands to protect his face, but his father aimed low. The air was knocked out of him as the wood made contact with Ilya’s ribs – once, twice, three times.
Ilya stumbled, sank down to his knees. The tile was cool against his skin, strangely grounding.
His father was saying something, but Ilya couldn’t capture the words. Couldn’t focus over the rush of blood in his ears, the ringing that came with sudden pain. He looked up instead and Alexei was already ushering their father back into the main room, speaking placatingly in a low voice.
Ilya had taken the brunt of it, maybe, but he saw a shining red spot on his brother’s jaw before he turned away, evidence of his father’s backhand. The knowledge that Alexei had been hurt, too, wasn’t satisfying. It never had been. Ilya only felt hollow.
This wasn’t a new feeling. His father’s tempers were extreme and short-lived. This was a fact of the world, learned early in their household. The sky is blue. Moscow is cold in the winter. If you breathe the wrong way in his direction, Grigori Rozanov might take it personally.
Alexei had always been better at talking him down; he was not a dissimilar man from their father. Ilya, on the other hand, was a great irritant to him. Like a fly buzzing in his ear. If Ilya tried to speak to him during one of these episodes, it only made things worse. His father had always hated it when the brothers fought. Both would be punished, but somehow it always ended up Ilya’s fault.
When the voices had receded, Ilya picked himself up off the kitchen floor and left the house entirely without saying a word to anyone.
His body ached all over. He made it back to his apartment, but didn’t remember the drive at all.
In the privacy of his bedroom, curtains drawn, Ilya gingerly peeled his shirt off, hissing in pain when he had to lift his arm. He didn’t have to look in a mirror to know what the early stages of the bruise blooming across his abdomen looked like. He prodded at his ribcage with gentle fingers. Nothing felt broken, only bruised.
He was well enough to wait, he thought, until he reached Boston to see a doctor. He would have to – he’d have to report to his team that he’d be starting the season with an injury. He’d be able to play, most probably, but it would still be a disadvantage on the ice. And how the fuck was he going to explain how he’d gotten this?
Coach was going to be furious.
Ilya hadn’t been planning on going to the rink that day anyways, but he hadn’t exactly intended to spend his last day in Moscow sulking across his apartment. He avoided mirrors, knowing that he’d see a split lip, the purpling of bruises across his brow where Alexei had struck him. He didn’t think he’d have a black eye, at least.
He turned off his phone and packed quickly, haphazardly, even though his flight wasn’t for another twenty-four hours. He couldn’t wait to be free of this place.
☼
The following morning, Ilya went to the airport absurdly early. He checked his bags, ignoring the airline staff’s intrusive stares, and went through the security gates without a glance back.
Ilya’s father called an hour before boarding. He’d moved through the terminal quickly and was seated in a lounge across from his gate. His earbuds were in, but he wasn’t listening to anything. He had pulled up his hood, hoping not to be recognized. That he might blend into the scenery of the terminal.
He picked up his father’s call on the third ring.
“Where are you?” There was never any greeting. “Why aren’t you home yet?”
Ilya took an unsteady breath. “Papa, I left. Don’t you–” remember?
Ilya couldn’t get the word past his lips. It always upset his father – and Ilya knew the answer, anyways. No. He didn’t remember. Of course he didn’t.
“I’m in Boston,” Ilya lied. “The preseason training begins next week.”
Ilya’s father scoffed. “You could have been a great player, you know. If only you had stayed in Russia.”
Ilya listened. He didn’t know why he listened. He let his father say his piece like he always did. The man never watched any of Ilya’s games, but always had something to criticize about his playing.
Finally – “When will you be back in Moscow, then? After the season?”
Ilya was suddenly, bone-deep tired. It hurt to speak past his split lip. Each breath he took sent a new twinge of pain thrumming through his ribs. Still, he nodded as though his father could see him.
“I’ll see you next summer, Papa.”
☼