this ask from @finecowboys has me in a right tizzy sooo
Shane comes home to a rarity in their house: Yelling. Actual, angry yelling.
Noise isn’t new; the twins don’t have any sense of volume control, and they tend to bicker about anything and everything, but it never has this much vitriol. A door slams, and Shane hears Ilya grunt and start padding back downstairs.
By the time he reaches the kitchen, Shane has shucked his jacket and shoes and started unpacking the groceries; vegetables in the crisper, eggs in the top drawer, oat milk stacked beside the soy milk. He keeps going, carefully putting everything away and tucking the paper bags into the recycling can while Ilya stews against the counter.
When it becomes clear that Ilya isn’t going to speak, Shane sighs.
“He’s a teenager. Weren’t you doing, like, cocaine at his age? He wasn’t even drinking. He just wanted to be with his friends.”
Ilya’s mouth drops open. Shane had expected that, but he didn’t expect the flicker of panic in his hazel eyes. His beautiful husband, father of their children, former captain. Ilya has a white-knuckle grip on the marble kitchen island, brows deeply furrowed. Shane wants to kiss away the lines on his forehead, but he holds back, for now.
“He is out at past midnight, Shane. No oxygen tank, because it is too uncool. Now he is pale, and very tired, and in a lot of pain, but he is trying to hide it. Won’t take any medications, just yells at me.”
“Dima yells at you all the time,” Shane points out, “Zhenya yelled at me, like, this morning.”
Ilya waves a hand. “Is different.”
And maybe that’s the crux of the issue. The twins are only two years younger than Aleks, close enough that Shane is sure the double-standard stings. He can admit that it is a double standard, even if it’s to keep Aleks safe, even if Aleks himself knows that there are things his siblings can do that he just can’t. But Ilya looks like he’s about to break into a thousand pieces, so he keeps all that to himself. For now.
Shane pushes off the counter, crowding into Ilya’s space. He kisses the side of his jaw, tangles his hand in the curls at the nape of Ilya’s neck.
“You’re a good dad,” Shane says, because it’s true and because he thinks Ilya probably needs to hear it. “I’m gonna talk to him. Start on dinner?”
“Okay,” Ilya lets him go with a parting kiss, then calls after him, “Prepare to be yelled at!”
Shane shakes his head as he heads up the stairs, so impossibly fond.
“Knock knock,” Shane says, rapping his knuckles on the sticker-covered wood of Aleks’ bedroom door. Ilya hates it when he does this; why knock if you are coming inside anyway?
As expected, the lights are off in Aleks’ room, the curtains drawn. They redecorated last year, painting over the blue walls he’s had since he was seven and replacing them with a deep olive. Not that it matters, really; pretty much every inch of wall-space is covered with posters, photographs, or trinkets.
“My blood oxygen is fine,” Aleks snaps, not even bothering to turn around. His bed is pushed up against the window, and his fifteen-year-old frame is curled up beneath the quilt Marlene Drover had gifted them when he was born. Shane can just about see his brunette curls, so similar to Ilya’s blond, spilling out over the rabbit-patterned pillowcase.
“I know,” Shane sighs. “I checked this morning. It’s a little low, bud, but I’m not worried.”
“Yeah, like I said. It’s fine.”
It’s still a little unusual to hear that snappish, teenage edge in Aleksandr’s voice. Shane supposes they ought to get used to it; that’s it until he turns twenty-five, his mom had said. Ilya had laughed, and Shane had rolled his eyes. Still. Aleks is a good kid, cheerful even in the face of things most kids wouldn’t even have nightmares about, so yelling at Ilya is cause for concern.
Shane takes the lack of go away dad as a sign to come in, so he does; he takes after him in his organisational skills. Aleks likes everything just so, and even if they didn’t have a housekeeper, Shane’s willing to bet the pale green carpet would be just as spotless as it is now.
The mattress dips when Shane sits down, and he can’t tell if the creaking comes from the springs or his knees. Maybe both.
“Papa said you weren’t taking your meds,” Shane tries to for nonchalance, but sounds concerned even to his own ears. Well, maybe that’s on him; he can’t remember a time where he managed to achieve nonchalance when he wanted to.
“Papa would know about skipping meds.” Aleks mutters, and that’s crossing a line.
“Aleksandr,” Shane frowns; he knows what he wants to say— That’s not fair, don’t talk about your papa like that. Instead, he takes a deep breath, and puts a hand on the pile of blankets covering his son’s shoulder. “What’s going on, bud?”
Aleks huffs out a sigh, and Shane knows he’s struck gold. Because he knows his son, and he knows how good he is, how sweet and kind and thoughtful. How tired, and hurt he is; how badly he wants to be normal. And this is, uniquely, something Shane can relate to. At least on some level.
A sniffle, and then Aleks is rolling over, peeking up from beneath the pile of blankets. His green eyes are red-rimmed and puffy; so he’s been crying. This, too, Shane had expected; Aleks is very sensitive. If he yelled at Ilya, he almost certainly cried about it. The sight of it breaks Shane’s heart clean in two, the same way it did when he was a few months old and crying his heart out. It’s awful; Shane hopes he never stops feeling heartbroken over his kid’s sadness.
“I just,” Aleks starts, and then cuts himself off with a frown. He wiggles around beneath the blankets, freeing his arms and scooching up until he can sit comfortably against the headboard. Shane notes, silently, the wince of pain when he moves. He doesn’t say anything else for a few seconds, and Shane doesn’t rush to fill the silence; Aleks is a quiet kid, a sensitive kid, and he needs space to find his words.
“We weren’t even doing anything!” Aleks sighs, the words coming out in one sharp, frustrated huff. He keeps his eyes pinned to the quilt, fingertips tracing the shape of a stitched apple. “Like, we just… Боже. Я даже не знаю. Denny and Louise wanted to hang out at the canal, and I wanted… I wanted to.”
The way his voice cracks at the end makes it sound like he’s confessing to a crime, and Shane can feel something ice cold crawling up his spine.
Shane swallows. “That’s allowed, Lyosha. You’re allowed to hang out with your friends. That’s not why papa was upset.”
Upset, and not mad. It’s an important distinction, and one Shane is eager to make. Neither of them are angry that he wanted to spend time with his friends; Ilya is upset because his son is sick, and he was scared because he stayed out past curfew.
“I wasn’t even smoking!” Aleks’ head falls back against the headboard with a soft thud, and Shane stops in his tracks.
“No-one said anything about smoking.”
Aleks’ pale cheeks quickly flush pale pink; his circulation has always been bad, and a pale flush is basically his version of turning completely crimson. He looks exactly like Ilya used to when Shane would catch him smoking outside a hotel, or a bus, or once on the deck at the Cottage.
“Papa didn’t tell you?”
“Nope.”
“Denny was smoking when papa came to pick me up, but I didn’t even try one, I swear,” The words spill out of him like water from a faucet, and Shane believes him; Aleks got a heart transplant five years ago. His lungs are already incredibly compromised, less than half the volume most kids his age have; Even teenage curiosity isn’t enough to outweigh that. “And papa wasn’t even mad at me, he was just sad, Я думала, он сейчас заплачет или что-то в этом роде. But he doesn’t freaking get it! I’m not seven anymore. I just… I wanted to feel normal. Just for a few hours.”
He’s starting to get breathless just talking about it; Shane recognises it as soon as it happens. But he tamps down on the anxiety immediately, tries desperately not to let it show on his face. It’s one of the hardest parts of being a parent, at least to Shane: knowing when to nag, and when to trust that his kid knows what he’s doing.
That’s a total of never, for the twins. But Alex is older; he’ll be sixteen, soon. Old enough to drive. When Shane was his age, he was living with a billet family in Kingston.
When he’s sure that Aleks is done talking, Shane takes a deep breath, and squeezes his son’s hand.
“Papa isn’t mad at you,” He starts, reaching out with his free hand to push a curl from Aleks’ forehead. “He’s just worried. I know you want to feel normal, kiddo. You are normal, it’s just…”
“It’s just that I’m a freak. Yeah, dad. I get it.”
“You’re not a freak, you’re my son,” Shane corrects, levelling him with a pointed look, “Uncle Harris had surgeries too, at your age. You don’t think he’s a freak.”
“That’s different.”
“You’re not a freak. You’re just… Fifteen. And you have some health differences, and that sucks. But it doesn’t make you weird, or abnormal. In fact, I think breaking curfew and yelling at your papa is the most normal thing a teenager can do.”
Finally, finally, Aleks lets out a small, sad laugh. Shane’s chest nearly bursts open with pride.
“That said,” Shane shoots for stern but lands somewhere between joking and relieved, “I want you to say sorry to papa for yelling at him. And I want you to at least take your blood thinners. I won’t make you take a painkiller if you don’t want to, but—“
“I want to,” Aleks admits, sullen again, “I just didn’t wanna prove papa right. He’s so annoying when he’s right.”
“Well, I’m not gonna argue with you there,” Shane snorts, and squeezes Aleks’s hand again. “I’ll go and get ‘em. I’m gonna send papa up in the meantime, okay?”
Aleks nods. He looks acceptably sheepish, now, an expression Shane could swear he pulled from his own fifteen-year-old features; it shocks Shane, sometimes, when he remembers they don’t actually share any DNA. He looks so much like Ilya some days, pulls faces that take Shane back to the many, many albums his mom keeps in the garage.
Shane grunts when he stands up, knees stiff from sitting still for too long, and takes advantage of his sore back by leaning forward and pressing a kiss to Aleks’ curls.
“Love you, kiddo,” He says, catching his chin in his hand before turning around.
“Yeah, whatever, old man,” Aleks mutters, and Shane tries not to grin; it’s as good as saying it back, he thinks. But then, as he reaches the doorframe, Aleks calls out again, “Dad. Thanks. You’re not, like, awful.”
sorry to alekspost again but i think his pacemaker is connected to an app that Ilya and Shane both have on their phones that also tracks his blood oxygen etc but they constantly fight over whether it's an invasion of his privacy to check it
in my mind shane retires the year that aleks gets his heart transplant because he is so sick and he’s basically just living in the hospital at that point and shane just. does not have a passion or a want for hockey anymore. he wants to be with his baby. he wants to read with him and he wants to play mario kart with him and it makes him sick that when the centaurs do their visit to the childrens hospital his fucking son is there.
and ilya is doing so much with aleks and with the twins, and they have a huge support network, shane is at home as much as he can be, wiebe scratches him from as many low-stakes games as he can but it’s just not enough. shane wants to be there. and the media and the fans are largely sympathetic; they do everything they can to keep the kids out of the media but there are always gonna be paparazzi and leaks, so they know the whys of it, if not the specifics.
and i think ilya spends at least a month waiting for the other shoe to drop but it just. doesn’t. shane has no bandwidth left to worry about retiring because he’s so fucking worried about the kids— not just aleks, but how it’s affecting the twins, etc.
once he gets his transplant and is out of the toughest part of recovery shane gets more involved with the Foundation, and eventually he joins the centaurs coaching staff on a part-time basis, but he never ever regrets retiring. ever!
Now I’m imagining ilya on those two nights going to the chapel in the hospital because he doesn’t know what else to do and talking to his mom. He’s not praying per se but he’s basically praying.
he’s on the kneelers just like “mama, I don’t know what to do. I would never leave my boy, but I never even thought he might leave me. What do I do?”
Or he’s just going on and on like “He needs something I cannot give him. Please mama, just…look after him. Please no matter what happens, just look after him.”
SCREAMING CRYING FOAMING AT THE MOUTH…….anon ur so correct about this…..shane sent yuna with him because. obviously he’s not going to let ilya go anywhere alone atp. shane sent him out because they started taking turns, and ilya had intended to start working on what they were going to say to the twins but just. ended up at the chapel. feeling like a kid again.
and yuna sort of trails behind, keeps quiet, mentally joins in. she’s not religious but she can approach irina mother-to-mother, can’t she? she can think oh, irina, look at our boy. he’s such a good dad. he’s suffered so much. i don’t think i can forgive you for leaving him. please look after our grandson anyway.
when aleks is out of the danger zone and they get told that he’s being moved up the transplant list ilya goes back and he’s like. “thank you mama. thank you for making him stay, thank you mama for waiting to meet him.”
im gonna throw up……oh myilya…..he loves their son so much……..
