Chapter Text
The discharge papers are thinner than Shane expected.
After everything — the machines, the alarms, the nights measured in heartbeats — it feels impossible that their entire exit from that world can be summarized in a small stack of paper clipped together.
A nurse goes over instructions one last time.
“No lifting. Watch for fever. Call immediately if the incision reddens or swells. He’s going to tire very easily — that’s normal. Recovery from trauma isn’t just physical.”
Shane nods to all of it, committing every word to memory whether he needs to or not.
Ilya stands beside him, one hand resting unconsciously against his abdomen. He’s upright, dressed in real clothes instead of a hospital gown, but the effort shows. There is a carefulness to every movement now, like his body has learned the cost of sudden things.
The scar beneath his shirt pulls when he shifts.
He pretends not to notice.
Hospitals are strange — miserable to stay in, frightening to remember — yet stepping outside them can feel like walking away from protection.
Automatic doors slide open.
Cold air meets them.
Freedom does not feel the way Shane thought it would.
The parking lot is too wide. The sky too open.
Every sound is sharp.
A car door slams somewhere and both of them flinch before they can stop themselves.
They don’t mention it.
The drive is quiet.
Not uncomfortable — just full.
The kind of silence where both people are thinking too much and saying too little.
Shane keeps one hand light on the steering wheel, the other hovering near the gearshift, resisting the urge to reach across constantly just to confirm Ilya is still there.
Still breathing without help.
Still alive.
Beside him, Ilya watches the landscape pass with an intensity that suggests he is seeing it for the first time.
Trees.
Mailboxes.
A dog pulling toward the end of its leash.
Ordinary life looks almost surreal after weeks of fluorescent lights and controlled air.
As they turn onto the narrow road leading home, the tension thickens.
Neither of them says it.
But they both feel it.
The cottage comes into view slowly, partially hidden by the curve of trees.
For a moment, Shane considers driving past it.
Just continuing down the road until the world resets somewhere else.
But healing doesn’t work like that.
He pulls into the driveway.
The gravel crunches loudly beneath the tires — a sound Shane has heard a thousand times but that now seems intrusive, exposing.
The house looks exactly the same.
That is the problem.
Sunlight rests peacefully across the porch railing.
Wind moves through the tall grass.
Nothing about it admits what happened here.
Shane kills the engine.
The sudden quiet presses in.
“Still want to?” he asks softly.
It isn’t really a question about walking inside.
Ilya studies the front door.
The place where normal ended.
His jaw tightens slightly, but he nods.
“Yeah.”
The word is rough but steady.
Shane gets out first, circling the car automatically — protective without thinking about it. He opens the passenger door and offers a hand, careful, giving Ilya something solid to leverage against.
When Ilya stands, he pauses.
Not from pain.
From proximity.
Shane sees it happen — the subtle change in his breathing, the way his shoulders lift almost imperceptibly.
Memory lives in the body.
“You don’t have to do this today,” Shane says quietly.
Ilya shakes his head after a moment.
“If I don’t now… I’ll build it into something worse.”
There is truth in that.
So Shane squeezes his hand once.
Together, they approach the door.
Each step sounds too loud.
The lock clicks open.
Shane pushes the door inward slowly, half-expecting — irrationally — the past to still be waiting inside.
But the cottage smells faintly of dust and closed windows.
Exactly like an empty house should.
Police had finished their work long ago. Hayden and JJ cleaned what needed cleaning. The broken window was replaced.
Still, the air feels disturbed.
As if the walls remember.
Ilya stops just inside the threshold.
His eyes move across the room — couch, table, bookshelf — cataloging, verifying.
Then they land on the floor.
The spot is invisible now.
But Shane knows he sees it anyway.
The breath leaves Ilya in a shallow pull.
Shane steps closer without crowding him.
“You’re here now,” he says quietly. “Not that evening. Not that version of this place.”
For a long moment, Ilya doesn’t move.
Then his hand reaches sideways until it finds Shane’s sleeve, gripping lightly.
Grounding.
“I keep thinking,” Ilya admits hoarsely, “what if they'd hurt you, too.”
The unfinished sentence hangs heavy.
What if i died.
What if you had died.
What if both of us—
Shane turns toward him immediately.
“Don’t.” His voice is gentle but firm. “We are not rewriting that night with worse endings.”
Ilya exhales shakily.
The tension in him is visible — not panic, not quite fear — but a body braced for something that is no longer happening.
“Listen to me,” Shane says, stepping closer. “The people who did this are gone. I already told the police about your brother. We got a restraining order. He will be arrested the second he tries to enter canada. The locks are new. I installed a security system that could probably guard a museum.”
A faint breath of almost-laughter escapes Ilya.
Almost.
Shane lifts a hand, hesitates only a fraction of a second, then cups the side of Ilya’s face.
Warm.
Alive.
“I’ve got you,” he says softly.
The words have become a promise now — not just comfort.
Something in Ilya eases.
Not fully.
Maybe not for a long time.
But enough that his shoulders lower.
Enough that he leans, just slightly, into Shane’s touch.
After a moment, his gaze drifts toward the couch.
“…missed this place,” he murmurs.
“Me too,” Shane admits.
They stand there a while longer before moving deeper inside.
No sudden motions.
No turning their backs on open space.
Just quiet reclamation — step by step, breath by breath.
When Ilya tires, Shane guides him gently to the couch. Sitting still costs less than standing; recovery teaches that quickly.
A blanket waits folded over the armrest.
Shane doesn’t remember putting it there.
He drapes it across Ilya’s legs anyway.
Domestic muscle memory returning.
For the first time since arriving, the cottage begins — very faintly — to feel like shelter again instead of a crime scene.
Ilya reaches for Shane’s hand.
Holds it.
“Home,” he says.
The word trembles.
But it doesn’t break.
Shane presses a kiss into his hair, lingering there.
“Yes,” he whispers.
Not the same home.
Not the same people who left it.
But still theirs.
Night settles differently here than it did in the hospital.
There are no monitors now.
No quiet staff voices drifting through hallways.
No machines breathing reassurance into the dark.
Just the cottage — old wood, soft wind against the windows, the occasional creak that houses make when temperatures drop.
Silence, Shane realizes, is much louder.
He moves carefully around the bedroom, turning on only the lamp closest to the bed. Too much darkness feels unkind tonight.
Ilya sits on the mattress, shoulders slightly hunched, conserving energy the way recovering bodies instinctively do. The bandage beneath his shirt pulls when he shifts.
“You okay?” Shane asks quietly.
Ilya nods.
Too quickly.
It’s the same nod he used in the hospital when something hurt more than he wanted to admit.
Shane doesn’t challenge it — not yet.
They lie down slowly, choreographing the movement so nothing jars the healing wounds. Shane stays close without pressing in, one arm resting lightly across Ilya’s waist — protective, but loose enough that it won’t trap him if he needs space.
For a while, it almost works.
The mattress is familiar.
The sheets smell like home.
Ilya’s breathing begins to lengthen.
Shane listens, counting the rhythm without meaning to.
One breath.
Two.
Three—
Ilya jerks.
A sharp inhale tears into the quiet.
Shane lifts his head immediately.
“Ilya?”
No answer.
His body is rigid, muscles locked hard enough that Shane can feel the tension through the mattress.
Then it starts.
A fractured whisper.
“No— no— wait—”
The words are trapped somewhere between sleep and memory.
Shane pushes himself upright.
“Ilya. Hey.”
But the nightmare has him.
His head moves faintly against the pillow, breath coming faster.
“Don’t touch him—”
The plea shatters something in Shane’s chest.
He understands instantly which moment the dream has dragged back.
Not the hospital.
Not the aftermath.
That night.
The living room window shattered.
The smell of mud tracked across the floor.
The stranger’s voice — controlled, almost conversational.
The second man behind Ilya.
Knife at his throat.
Shane forces the memory down before it can root.
He reaches carefully, resting a hand on Ilya’s shoulder.
“Ilya, wake up.”
Ilya flinches violently.
His hand comes up as if to fend something off, striking Shane’s wrist hard enough to sting.
“No— please—”
Shane turns on the bedside lamp.
Warm light spills across the bed.
“You’re safe,” he says firmly, grounding his voice in something steady. “You’re home. It’s just me.”
Ilya’s eyes snap open.
But for a second — a terrifying second — there is no recognition in them.
Only raw survival.
His chest heaves.
He looks past Shane, toward corners that hold nothing.
Listening for footsteps that are not there.
The panic builds instead of fading.
“Ilya.” Shane shifts closer, but slowly, giving him time to track the movement. “Look at me.”
It takes effort.
Shane can almost see Ilya dragging himself upward through layers of memory.
Then —
Focus lands.
Recognition follows.
The change is immediate and heartbreaking.
His face crumples.
Air leaves him in a broken exhale.
“Shane…”
“I’ve got you.”
Shane gathers him carefully, mindful of every injury, until Ilya’s forehead presses against his shoulder.
Ilya is shaking.
Not subtle tremors — deep, uncontrollable ones that come from somewhere far below conscious thought.
“I thought—” His voice fractures. “I thought they were going to kill you.”
The confession is raw, pulled straight from the nightmare without defenses.
Shane tightens his hold slightly.
“They didn’t.”
“I couldn’t move,” Ilya whispers. “He had the knife— I could feel it— and you—”
His breath stutters.
“I saw him holding you and I couldn’t do anything.”
Shane closes his eyes briefly.
There it is.
The piece Ilya carried out of that night.
Not just the pain.
Not just the fear.
The helplessness.
“You don’t ever have to protect me like that again,” Shane murmurs.
Ilya pulls back just enough to look at him, eyes bright with leftover terror.
“I would.”
No hesitation.
Even now.
Emotion climbs Shane’s throat so fast it almost steals his next breath.
He cups the back of Ilya’s neck gently.
“Listen to me,” he says, voice low but steady. “You survived. We both did. That night is over.”
Ilya’s gaze flickers toward the bedroom door.
His body is still listening for danger.
Shane follows the look.
Then, without a word, he reaches across the nightstand and switches on the hallway light. A soft glow spills beneath the door — proof that nothing is hiding in the dark.
“I checked the locks twice,” Shane adds quietly. “The alarm is on. No one is getting in here.”
The shaking begins to ease.
Not gone.
But loosening.
“I keep seeing it,” Ilya admits after a moment. “Every time I close my eyes.”
“That’s normal,” Shane says gently. “Your brain is trying to understand something it never should have had to.”
He brushes his thumb back and forth across Ilya’s arm — slow, repetitive.
Grounding.
“Stay with me,” Ilya whispers.
The words are so quiet Shane almost misses them.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Shane shifts lower against the pillows and guides Ilya with him until they’re lying face to face, close enough that their foreheads nearly touch.
“Try this,” he murmurs. “Just focus on breathing with me.”
He exaggerates the rhythm slightly.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Gradually, Ilya matches it.
His heartbeat — still too fast — begins to slow.
Minutes pass.
The kind that don’t feel measurable.
Eventually, Ilya’s hand slides across the mattress, searching until it finds Shane’s shirt, gripping a handful of fabric like an anchor.
Shane covers his hand without comment.
Outside, wind moves softly through the trees.
The cottage creaks — but now it sounds less like a warning and more like an old structure settling.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya whispers thickly.
“For what?”
“For bringing this into our home.”
Shane doesn’t even let the idea take shape.
“You didn’t bring anything. Your brother and his "friends" did. And they don’t get to take this place from us too.”
He presses a slow kiss into Ilya’s hair.
“We reclaim it. One night at a time.”
Ilya exhales — long, trembling — and some of his weight finally yields into the mattress instead of hovering above it.
"I love you, Shane."
Shane presses a soft kiss to Ilya's lips and grins.
"I love you, too."
Sleep returns carefully after that.
Not deep.
Not dreamless.
But softer.
And every time Ilya stirs, his hand tightens just slightly to confirm what the dark can’t erase —
Shane is still there.
Alive.
Within reach.
By morning, they will both be exhausted.
Healing, Shane realizes, is not the same as surviving.
It is quieter work.
Slower.
But as he listens to Ilya’s breathing gradually even out again, one steady thought settles in his chest:
They are still here.
Together.
And that is where healing begins.