Chapter Text
The campsite was almost in sight when the grey and ominous sky cracked open above them. Rain cascaded from the sky in sheets, and they were soaked almost before they could comprehend what was happening. Ilya grabbed Shane's hand and bolted forwards, almost sprinting, rucksack jingling, dragging him under the boughs of a nearby oak tree. The foliage afforded them some level of protection from the rain, and Ilya jokingly pinned Shane against the trunk of the tree, holding his wrists in place above his head. He watched the water run in rivulets down Shane's face, mesmerised. Shane grinned, and, taking advantage of Ilya's momentary lapse in concentration, deftly freed himself and flipped them round. Ilya found himself with his rucksack pressed against the solid bulk of the tree. Before he could gather his thoughts Shane leaned forward, a mischievous smile twisting in the corner of his lips, and licked a drop of rain from the end of Ilya's nose. Ilya gasped -
"Shane...! You are a pervert!"
Shane shrugged easily, looking up at the sky.
"I think this is just a shower. Probably it will pass soon."
Ilya leaned forward and shook his head like a dog, water droplets splashing against Shane's already glistening face and he smiled in satisfaction as Shane spluttered.
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The campsite lay near the banks of the loch, and they pitched their tend in an isolated corner of the field, by a wooded area. There was only one other tent nearby -a small, dark green tent, which was obviously old. It looked heavy, made of a canvas type material, although it had obviously been meticulously looked after, bearing no marks aside from the weathering of age. They had showered immediately after pitching the tent, Ilya stripping out of his wet clothes with almost comedic haste, while Shane strung up a makeshift washing line between their tent and a tree. Ilya raised one eyebrow -
"I see why you brought all that string now." He stated. Shane just smiled, smugly. He stripped quickly, pulled on loose shorts and a T-shirt before pulling a set of clothes pegs from his bag and efficiently pinning his sodden trousers and vest to the line.
"Clothespins too - Shane, you have thought of everything!" Ilya walked over, carrying his heap of clothing, stopping short as Shane held out an arm in front of him in warning. "Please...? Dry mine too?" Ilya asked hopefully.
Shane laughed, amusement radiating from his features. "Yes, of course, Ilya. I'm not going to refuse to help you dry your clothes" Ilya smiled. "But first" - Shane's eyes gleamed - "tell me how good I am at packing."
Ilya's smile widened. "Yes, Shane, you are perfect at packing, just as you are perfect at everything you do - including extortion." He added, teasingly, leaning forward to plant a soft kiss on his forehead. Shane rolled his eyes, and reached his arm out to take Ilya's clothes, his face contorting in exaggerated disgust as they dripped over his feet.
"Where did you even learn the word extortion?" he murmured.
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The early evening sun had broken through the clouds, and they could feel the warmth of it on their faces as they sat on a large rock by the tent, looking out across the water. They sat in silence, listening to the rhythmic sound of small ripples lapping against the rocky shore, punctuated only by the piercing cry of a nearby Oystercatcher. They each clasped a tin mug filled with coffee.
"Remember when we went to my parents' house? After my dad saw us?"
Ilya's mug froze on the way to his lips. His eyes met Shane's and he nodded, slowly.
"My mom said that they had thought I might be gay. That they'd thought thought that for a while. Why do you think she never said it to me?"
"I don't know. Probably, they thought they didn't need to, thought it was something you would tell them when you were ready. " Ilya shrugged. "Probably they never thought that you might worry that they wouldn't be okay with it."
Shane let out a long sigh, unable to force his eyes to meet Ilya's. In a small voice, staring just beyond Ilya, he muttered,
"Well I wish they had thought, and I wish they had said it. Because then I might not have spent eight years trying to convince myself that I wasn't gay, trying to pretend I didn't care when I read tabloid articles about you fucking half of Boston."
"Shane, that is not fair. Not to me, and not to your parents." Ilya's voice was quiet, but Shane could hear a barely disguised note of pain. Fuck. He hadn't meant to hurt Ilya."That your parents love you is obvious, and that their love is unconditional is also obvious." To Ilya it had always been obvious - cripplingly, suffocatingly obvious. Even the first time they met, the contrast between his own stoic, undemonstrative father, and Shane's enthusiastic, if over-zealous, parents, had caused a steady ache to bloom in his chest. When he could feel his father's grip around his shoulders, a vice like grasp, there only to remind him to stay in line, he could see across the room David's relaxed arm resting over Shane's shoulder, there only out of affection and pride for his son. If Ilya were a different person, this contrast could have caused a gnawing and envious resentment to take root inside him, growing and mutating - but instead he channeled his hurt into hockey, in a futile attempt to make his father proud of him. His father's pride was all that he could bring himself to hope for, having long ago abandoned any expectation of love, unconditional or otherwise. Ilya never knew whether his father loved him, and after his mother died it ceased to matter. Because whether his father loved him or not was of no consequence if he would neither show it with his actions nor speak it with his words.
Ilya could no sooner have told his father that he was bisexual than fly.
"I think you're right. I think I always knew that they would be fine with it. But I still wish they would have said it - if they could have met me halfway it might not have felt like such a big deal to admit, either to them or to myself. I can wish things had been different without it being a criticism of them. "
Ilya nodded slightly, allowing himself to take a small sip of his coffee.
"And I'm sorry for what I said about you fucking half of Boston. I know I had no reason to be jealous. I still was, though. Still am, a little, maybe." He admitted, pulling his eyes away from the bar to meet Ilya's momentarily, before they flickered down to the floor nervously.
Ilya shrugged, lifting his arms out to the side slightly.
"Was not half of Boston. A quarter, at most!" He laughed, a slightly forced laugh but nevertheless genuine, and Shane visibly relaxed. "I don't mind that you were jealous. Maybe I like it, even. But do not assume that I was unaffected by the thought of us, and by you, just because you were not there to see me. That I was having lots of sex at other times did not make what we did together any less important to me than it was to you."
Shane exhaled slowly, the weight of Ilya's admission settling into his bones.
"I get that. I'm sorry for thinking that it was more special for me than it was for you."
"Don't apologise - there's nothing to be sorry for. I just wanted to you to know, that's all. Besides, I'm the one who got a fucking alert on my phone when you started dating Rose Landry! "