Work Text:
December 2008
It only takes until he’s behind his closed bedroom door, home from the Prospect cup, to type how to say freckles in russian into the search engine on his computer. Where the internet confirms that Ilya Rozanov had indeed been staring at his freckles.
It takes longer to find the second word. He searches words to describe freckles only to hit a dead end. He sits back in his chair, letting his eyes close, replaying the entire interaction in his head. How Rozanov had blushed when caught, confessing that he couldn’t remember his English. Shane feels tingly at the thought. Was Rozanov flirting with him? He sits up and types, how do i know if someone is flirting with me?
The internet is pro-flirting and he still doesn’t know what to do. He knows he’s not the best at social cues; he really doesn’t want to mess this one up. This isn’t just someone he met, this is someone he will see a lot over his career. It’s stupid really, and dangerous. Neither of them should be flirting, they’re rivals. Or they’re supposed to be, but Rozanov is kind of nice, when he’s not on the ice, and it’s fun to play hockey with him. So Shane is determined not to misread anything. Social cues escape him, but he is good at research, so he opens a new tab and types, how to flirt in russian. Shane ends up on youtube, watching a video aptly titled Romantic words to learn in Russian. It’s four minutes in that he strikes gold. The woman in the video says krasivyye, the word in English appearing next to her: Beautiful. Oh.
Shane pauses the video and reopens the first tab, typing beautiful in front of the word freckles and playing the audio on the Russian translation. Oh. Maybe Rozanov had been flirting with him.
His parents keep exchanging looks with each other at dinner that night. Shane knows he’s being too quiet, choosing to mull over the Rozanov thing instead of chewing his parents' ears off about the game.
“Is everything ok, Shane?” His mom asks, “You’re being quiet."
Shane looks up at his parents briefly, before returning his eyes to his meal. He could ask them, he thinks, without giving too much away.
“How do I know if someone is flirting with me?” He winces at his choice of words, a suppressed excitement filling the air from the other side of the table.
“Well,” His dad starts, “What did she say to you?”
“Huh?” Shane looks at his dad.
“I’m assuming you met someone, right?” Shane nods. “She said something that's making you wonder if she was flirting with you?”
Shane nods again, a cold feeling in his stomach. It occurs to him, in this moment, that Ilya Rozanov is a boy, and Shane is also a boy, and there might be a bigger issue at hand than the whole rivals thing. But he’s already come this far, and his parents are staring at him expectantly, excitedly, for a rare occurrence of him asking for romantic advice. So he lets his parents assume what they want and says,
“Yeah, uh, she,” He hopes his wince isn’t visible, “said she liked my freckles.” He’s blushing, remembering the way Rozanov had said krasivyye vesnushki. Yuna and David exchange another look.
“Well, honey,” says Yuna, “That’s good. A unique compliment. Did you meet her at Juniors?”
Shane can do yes or no questions, he nods again. It’s David’s turn to ask, “Do- do you want her to be flirting with you? Are you going to see her again?”
Shane freezes at that. Yes, he is going to see ‘her’ again. That might be exactly the issue, so he shrugs and manages, “I don’t know.” and ends the conversation. His dad’s other question lingers in his mind as he falls asleep. Do you want her to be flirting with you? Did he? Did he want to flirt with Ilya Rozanov? Shane is aware of several glaring issues, but every time he tries to think past this is a bad idea, he pictures Rozanov’s blush and inability to tear his eyes away from Shane’s face. No one had ever looked at Shane like that, like they didn’t want to look anywhere else. Maybe, Shane decides, he likes the feeling and if Rozanov is flirting with him, Shane will flirt back. It’s harmless, is the last thought he has before falling asleep.
Shane spends his next day off holed up in his room, watching another youtube video called How to pronounce Cyrillic Alphabet. He’s spent the morning looking up different phrases in Russian, remembering the way Rozanov had reacted to his, admittedly, poor attempts. The next time they would see each other was the draft; Shane wanted to be ready. Rozanov was already translating everything into a second language, the least Shane could do was make sure there was no misinterpreting Shane’s attempt at flirting. So there Shane was, practicing the Russian alphabet in the mirror until he was satisfied with each sound. It was how he learned French, a need to perfect something started with the basics. Shane could let his grammar and understanding be poor at first, he knew Russian was an extremely difficult language, but he refused to let his pronunciation suffer.
Shane had moved on to some Russian pickup lines he found on reddit, disliked most of them, but filed the vocabulary away anyway. He ended up back on reddit, under a new account, asking A boy called my freckles beautiful, does this mean he likes me? How do I find out for sure? One answer stood out, you should just ask him. I went up to my now boyfriend and straight up asked him if he wanted to kiss me. Either he was going to say yes and kiss me, or he was going to say no, at least i would have an answer. Good thing i was right, he kissed me and now we’ve been dating for 4 years.
Shane rolled the idea around in his head, he was almost positive that Rozanov at least liked him. If he asked, then this person was right, he would have an actual answer. It was better than stewing in it, and if it went poorly, at least they wouldn’t have to see each other. He turned to his computer and pulled up the translator page he found, do you want to kiss me?
He has four months to practice.
—
It works, and it’s such an ego boost, Shane can’t find it in himself to remember why the day had been disappointing. He got second draft pick, was going to play for the Montreal Voyagers, and he had kissed a boy for the first time. Not just a boy, the number one draft pic. And then that boy had asked for his phone number and kissed him again.
And to top it off, he had remembered his Russian.
So the second time it happens, he realizes there is credence to Ilya forgetting his second language around him, because when Ilya Rozanov descends down those stairs and crowds into his space promising a prize for a game well won, Shane promptly forgets how to say the most basic things he spent months learning.
He gets to ask Rozanov instead, which is almost better. He knows he got the grammar wrong, but his point got across and he got a mind-blowing kiss out of it.
—
It’s not a language thing, but it is a Russian thing, Shane notices next. He noticed when Ilya would stop replying, or clam up over text. The one and only time Shane asks, he thinks he’s messed everything up, the three hours it takes Ilya to respond is spent googling Russian culture, realizing that learning the language is a stopgap to understanding Russian, and, more importantly to Shane, Ilya. By the time he gets the response russia is hard topic, Shane is versed in several Wikipedia articles about queer law. He recognizes the moment for what it is, Ilya is saying please don’t ask, so Shane just tells him it’s none of his business if he doesn’t want to talk.
—
Shane doesn’t like surprises, never has. They stress him out and he doesn’t appreciate being told that he’s going to like a surprise. Except he does like this surprise, especially after finding out Ilya was the one to arrange it.
Watching Ilya masturbate next to him in the shower should have surprised him, but, he was learning, he liked Ilya Rozanov surprises. He forces himself to say, “Not here.” before he does something stupid in a public fucking shower. Because giving out his room number and inviting Ilya over isn’t stupid, he reasons, it’s just the next step in this game they’re playing. Rozanov sets this up, Shane gets to decide how far it goes.
Maybe giving himself an hour between dinner and nine was too much time, or not enough. Shane calms himself by repeating several Russian phrases over and over again, trying to decide where he draws the line, if he even wants to. Shane is under no illusion that Ilya is going to be in his hotel room soon so they can have sex.
When Rozanov arrives all he can think to say is, in Russian, can I kiss you? Shane should really stop being surprised when it works. Through the rest of the night he gets to use fuck off and kiss me again. He gets to listen to Ilya say more compliments in Russian that Shane can’t quite translate, but recognizes. He’s not sure why he invites Ilya to spend the night, they shouldn’t, but Ilya freezes right before he invites Shane to stay before realizing they’re in Shane’s room. Shane let’s himself make one more dumb decision.
—
The next set of Russian vocabulary is all sex related. He learns I want you to fuck me only for Ilya to beat him to it, secretly thrilled he was able to translate. He tried to download language learning apps, but finds none of them carry Russian as an option, so he settles for secretly ordering a few workbooks and a beginners textbook. It’s slow going, between hockey, hiding his new hobby, and the actual difficulties of learning Russian. He perseveres and Ilya rewards him with each new phrase.
Hand in hand with learning the language, comes understanding the culture. It’s not just the documentaries and the Wikipedia articles, it’s Ilya confessing on a rooftop that he doesn’t want to go home to a disappointed family. Ridiculous, because if Shane can be proud of his rival, even after losing, Ilya deserves to have family proud of him too. This is a moment, Shane knows, like that first time, where he just presses himself maybe a little too close to Ilya’s side and says nothing.
Back at the hotel, Shane tells Ilya to fuck him.
—
Shane has never been so immeasurably grateful that he started learning Russian five years ago, because having enough grasp of a language to say your wedding vows, to understand your husband's vows, is a feeling Shane wishes he could bottle and keep forever. It’s something extra special about them, fluency in half-learned languages. Fluent in putting in effort, he supposes. The six weeks they have together after they’re married, but before either of them have to show up for the preseason, are spent teaching Shane more Russian. Shane tells his husband one day to only speak in Russian, so Shane could practice, after all, they weren’t doing anything else. It eventually turns into mornings of Ilya narrating himself going through his routine, or narrating Shane; his husband getting to exist in his own tongue while Shane assigns concepts and grammar to old and new vocabulary. It helps, this kind of immersion, and Shane feels his Russian improve in bounds. It’s simple time spent together.
“I am making coffee for both of us.” Ilya says, “Do you want milk?”
“Yes, I want milk. Just a little, thank you.”
—
Their first wedding anniversary arrives weeks after they’ve settled into the cottage for their first summer in Ottawa, essential for Ilya’s residency requirements, and necessary after spending the last six months mostly apart. Shane hadn’t forgotten about the envelope he received in Russia during the Olympics, it had just found a safe place, hidden, where it remained until after he married Ilya. He found it right before Ilya was set to fly into Montreal for their drive up. Shane remembered there were recipes inside, and he assumed other memorabilia from Ilya’s childhood. Shane hadn’t meant to keep it away from his husband, just slipped his mind, but their first anniversary would be a good time to present it, maybe.
What Shane found in the envelope resolved any lingering doubts. He was glad they had all summer, because Shane found not only a stack of hand-written recipes, but also pictures of a woman who looked so much like Ilya, there was no doubt who she was. He tenderly replaced both stacks in the envelope, intending to go through them with his husband later, when he saw something else inside. He pulled out three more pictures, polaroids, that were not as old as the rest of the contents. They were all side profiles of Shane and Ilya in Russia, taken by Sofya. The first was of Ilya with his hand in the air, smiling freely at Shane, who had his head thrown back in laughter. The second was Shane leaning across the table like he was whispering a secret, Ilya’s head also leaned towards his. The final was Ilya, resting his chin in his hand, eyes visibly soft, even in a picture, while Shane had just taken a clearly good bite of food, pleasure written on his face while he looked at Ilya.
Shane barely catches the tears before they fall. Sofya took these pictures. She gave them to him—to them—along with recipes and pictures Ilya would want. She must have known, to give them to Shane. There’s something else about the pictures that loosens something in Shane. Proof that they had been together, and been together in Russia, despite the fear. Shane thought they only had professional photos taken of them, until their wedding. But here were three pictures, proof, of Shane and Ilya.
Shane dried his tears and packed the envelope away, he had a husband to pick up from the airport. He packs up the car and locks down the apartment until his return in the fall.
Ilya knows something is up the whole drive, shooting him glances between making conversation, but Shane doesn’t budge. Until he gets cornered after dinner, Ilya sitting in his lap on the couch and refusing to move.
“You are bespokoyny, why?” Shane sighs and taps Ilya’s thigh, insistently, until his husband lets him move. He doesn’t go far, just to the hall where he’s left his backpack. Ilya is confused when he returns with the envelope, but pats the seat next to him.
“I was going to wait until our anniversary next week, but maybe I should give this to you now.” Ilya takes the package curiously; Shane keeping a hand on it for a moment to explain, switching to Russian, confident he has enough to hold this conversation, “Do you remember when we were in Russia? For the Olympics?”
Ilya nods, “Da.”
“When you cleared the table, Sofya told me she was friends with your mom.” Ilya looked at him in surprise, “She told me she was saving this for you, but that you would never ask for it, so she gave it to me. She told me you looked happy again, that your mother would be proud of you.”
Ilya is weeping now, silently, looking at the envelope instead of Shane. He slowly opens the envelope, gently sliding each stack of paper out. Shane takes the empty envelope and sets it aside, “I was going to ask her for the recipes so I could try to make them for you, but she already had these.” He watches his husband thumb through the cards, taking in the Cyrillic, before handing them to Shane and picking up the pictures, the ones of his mother. Ilya doesn’t even look at one before letting out a loud sob. Shane takes the pictures and sets them aside with the recipes and straddles Ilya’s lap, pulling him into his arms, face tucked into Shane’s neck while he rocks them. Ilya pulls away, not fully put together again, to say, “Spasibo, ya tebya lyublyu, spasibo.”
Shane kisses him, and tugs him closer again, “You don’t have to look at them now, if you don’t want to.” only to get a nod, “Ok, my love, ok.”
He gets off Ilya to put everything away, pausing when he finds the three newer polaroids. He leaves those in his hand once he’s put the envelope on the kitchen counter, and returns to Ilya’s lap. He held up the polaroids, “I think you should look at these. They are the first pictures of us.”
His husband looks up at that, tears tracks shiny on his face. Ilya takes the pictures from Shane, who falls to the side to sit next to Ilya on the couch. He watches Ilya absorb the photos.
“She knew.” He says, quietly. Shane nods.
“Yeah, I think so.” Ilya smiles.
“We will put these on the fridge. Our real first date, not hockey-related.” Shane has neither the energy, nor desire to point out, technically, they were there for the Olympics, because he understands what Ilya means.
—
Their phone calls become an odd mix of Russian and English. Sometimes, Ilya will speak Russian while Shane responds in English. Others, Shane has slipped somewhere he can’t be heard so he can speak Russian without being overheard. Revealing his fourth language to his therapist is a happy accident when she reveals right back to him that her wife is Russian and she has been fluent in the language for years. Shane tentatively asks if they can alternate sessions in different languages, partially to practice, and partially because Shane is starting to recognize when he needs to find a word that doesn’t always exist exactly in the language he’s speaking. It’s an odd realization, that he’s become almost fluent; to the point he thinks in two languages, something he had never done when learning French or Japanese.
He asks his mother if she still thinks in her first language, or if she thinks in multiple, or just English. Her answer makes him a little sad, wishing he had paid more attention growing up, and wished he knew more Japanese. He vows, mentally, to never let Ilya forget. His husband has already given up so much, however willingly; Shane will make sure he keeps as much of his home as he can. As if it could be a sacrifice, to learn to know the man he loves better.
—
Sometime between getting engaged and getting married, Shane called him Ilyusha for the first time. The diminutive lingered in the back of his mind longer than he’d ever admit, waiting until the perfect moment. He doesn’t realize it’s slipped out the first time. Maybe because he’s already speaking Russian when he does. Hand me your plate, Ilyusha.
The second time, he only notices because he’s sitting directly on his husband's lap and Ilya freezes, which makes him freeze.
“You called me Ilyusha.”
“Yeah, I don’t have to-“ Shane tries to backtrack, mistaking the stunned silence for something else, to be cut off with a kiss.
“I thought it was mistake, last time. You called me Ilyusha yesterday. I don’t think you noticed.” “Ilyusha.” Shane rolls the word around in his mouth, watching the effect it has on his husband. “Ilyusha. Ya tebya lyublyu, Ilyusha.”
—
Translating Cyrillic is near-impossible, only because it needs to be perfect. Shane is stressed, trying to save each Russian recipe he’s been given in English so he can learn to make them. Maybe one day have made each food so much, he won’t need a recipe card, translated or not. The honey cake, medovik, is Ilya’s favorite, he knows, but his eyes are blurring now, trying to write out each ingredient phonetically in an alphabet he knows better. Ilya’s birthday is soon and he wants to make his mother’s recipe from the stack Sofya gave them.
It’s a project he’s been hiding, no not hiding, just working on when Ilya probably won’t catch him. Shane considers just asking his husband for help, but shoots the idea down for the umpteenth time. He’s been trusted with this, he’s going to make it perfect.
The medovik doesn’t turn out perfect, in fact its layers are inconsistent in size and it's a little crispy, the cream not quite absorbing into the cake, but the look on Ilya’s face when he sees it is worth every bite. Ilya has only compliments to give him, thanking him again and again, just for trying, promising they will make it together next time. He takes Shane straight to bed after dessert, determined to properly thank the chef.
Medovik is not the last Russian food Shane makes for them. He attempts borscht next, a food he’s surprised to find he enjoys immensely. Not even the threat of sour cream—he’s working on it—can scare him away from the tasty blend of vegetables. It’s the first Russian recipe he memorizes without realizing it. Until he’s made it so many times, he doesn’t realize he forgot to pull the recipe card out.
Each meal gets added into a rotation, whenever one of them is having a bad day, or they’re together longer than 48 hours, or feeling lonely. One of them will make soup, or pelmeni, or pirozhki. For special occasions, Shane will let Ilya get away with making them both blini, which Shane still refuses to let them eat in bed.
—
Ya tebya lyublyu is the Russian phrase either of them say the most. Shane remembers the first time he looked it up—actively looked it up, not just blushed when it came up in a youtube video about how to flirt in Russian.
Ilya dragged on his goodbye as long as either of them ever could, pushing the boundaries of curfew and airport meeting times, still early on in their careers and (totally not talking about it) relationship. When Shane had gone back inside to move the laundry through, he pulled up the phrase on his phone and just stared at it. It was crazy, he thought at the time, staring at the three Cyrillic words on his tiny screen for fifteen minutes before he worked up the courage to listen to the robotic voice pronounce them.
Ya tebya lyublyu.
Shane closed his eyes and let himself lean against his headboard. Ya tebya lyublyu. It was crazy, probably stupid, and dumb. Just like the rest of this was, but Shane memorized the words anyway. Practices the words in his head only, an invisible boundary. Until he slips up; he’s surprised he does so in English with how often he thinks the words in Russian. But Ilya says them first, ya tebya lyublyu. So Shane repeats them back to the man that would, in fifteen minutes be his fiance, and would, in less than a week, be his husband.
Ya tebya lyublyu.