Chapter Text
By the time they finally returned home, Ottawa had disappeared beneath snowfall so dense and soft it seemed to mute the entire city into silence.
The streets below their condo tower glowed gold beneath streetlamps blurred by ice, traffic reduced to the occasional distant hiss of tires through slush, the world outside transformed into something strangely dreamlike and suspended, as though the city itself had retreated inward for the night. It was well after midnight now. The adrenaline of the game had long since burned itself hollow, leaving behind only exhaustion and bruises and the lingering metallic taste of fear neither of them had fully acknowledged yet.
Inside the elevator, neither of them spoke.
Shane stood beside Ilya with his jaw still tight enough to ache visibly beneath the dim overhead lighting, one hand shoved into the pocket of his coat while the other rested against the small of Ilya’s back in an absent but constant point of contact, as though he physically could not stop checking that Ilya was still there.
Still upright.
Still breathing.
The elevator doors slid open onto the penthouse floor with a quiet chime.
Their condo was dark except for the low amber glow of the kitchen lights they had forgotten to turn off before leaving for the game earlier that evening. Normally, coming home after road trips or late practices carried a certain familiar warmth to it—equipment bags dumped carelessly near the doorway, exhausted teasing over whose turn it was to shower first, Shane automatically putting the kettle on while Ilya wandered barefoot through the apartment complaining dramatically about whatever fresh injury hockey had gifted him that week.
Tonight, however, the condo felt unfamiliar.
Too still.
The silence seemed to hold its breath around them.
Ilya dropped his keys carefully into the ceramic bowl beside the door and immediately winced as the movement tugged painfully at his throat. The bruising there had darkened considerably over the last several hours, fingerprints emerging more clearly against his skin now that the swelling had settled in fully. Every swallow burned. His ribs hurt where he had collided with the boards. His shoulders felt heavy with fatigue.
But none of that compared to the expression on Shane’s face.
That frightened him most.
Because Shane looked calm.
And Ilya had learned a very long time ago that Shane’s calmest moments were often the ones in which he was closest to breaking apart entirely.
“You should sit down,” Shane said quietly the moment the apartment door shut behind them.
His voice sounded oddly careful.
Measured.
As though speaking too loudly might shatter something fragile between them.
Ilya glanced toward him while tugging off his coat slowly. “I am capable of standing, solnyshko.”
“You got strangled six hours ago.”
“Yes, and unfortunately survival requires occasional movement.”
“Ilya.”
That tone again.
Soft, exhausted warning layered over something rawer underneath.
Ilya’s expression gentled immediately.
He crossed the entryway slowly and stopped directly in front of Shane, close enough to feel the residual cold clinging to his coat from outside. Up this close, the signs of strain were impossible to miss. Shane’s eyes were bloodshot with exhaustion. A bruise had started forming near his cheekbone where one of the linesmen accidentally caught him while dragging him off Volkov. His knuckles remained swollen and split despite the medical tape wrapped around them at the arena.
He looked like someone who had survived a disaster and had not yet realized it was over.
Carefully, Ilya reached up and brushed his fingertips against Shane’s jaw.
“You are staring at me like I almost died.”
The words were meant lightly.
They landed horribly instead.
Something sharp and wounded flashed instantly across Shane’s face before he looked away toward the kitchen windows.
“You did,” he said quietly.
The room fell silent.
Outside, snow continued drifting endlessly beyond the glass.
Ilya stared at him for a long moment before speaking again, much softer this time.
“Shane.”
“I’m serious.”
Shane’s voice remained low, but Ilya could hear the strain underneath it now, the dangerous tightness threatening to splinter apart completely if pushed too far.
“When I saw him on top of you—” He broke off abruptly, jaw flexing hard. “I honestly thought for a second that I was watching someone kill my husband.”
The sentence hollowed the air from the room.
Ilya’s chest tightened painfully.
Because Shane almost never spoke this openly when he was hurting. Most of the time he carried fear quietly, burying it beneath routine and practicality and relentless self-control until it calcified somewhere deep enough that even he could pretend it no longer existed.
But tonight had cracked something open inside him.
And now all that terror was bleeding through the fractures.
Without another word, Ilya stepped forward and wrapped both arms around him tightly.
Shane held him back instantly.
Not gently.
Desperately.
His hands gripped the fabric of Ilya’s sweatshirt at the waist with enough force to wrinkle it beneath his fingers as he buried his face briefly against Ilya’s temple and exhaled shakily.
For several long moments they simply stood there in silence at the center of the kitchen, holding each other while snow drifted beyond the windows and the city slept around them.
Eventually, Shane spoke again, his voice rough against Ilya’s hair.
“I can still see it.”
Ilya closed his eyes.
“Seeing what?”
“His hand around your throat.”
The confession came out almost helplessly.
“I keep replaying it over and over again.” Shane swallowed hard. “Every time I blink, I just see you on the ice.”
God.
Ilya tightened his arms around him instinctively.
“Hey,” he murmured softly. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, Shane lifted his head.
The fear in his eyes nearly undid Ilya on the spot.
Because this was not abstract fear. Not anxiety over public backlash or league politics or media storms.
This was primal.
The kind born only from almost losing someone you loved.
And suddenly Ilya understood something awful and devastating all at once:
Shane had been just as traumatized by tonight as he had.
Maybe more.
“I’m okay,” Ilya said quietly.
Shane laughed once under his breath.
Not humor.
Disbelief.
“You weren’t.”
“No,” Ilya admitted softly. “I wasn’t.”
That honesty seemed to matter somehow.
Some of the unbearable tension in Shane’s shoulders loosened slightly beneath his hands.
“I should’ve gotten there faster,” Shane whispered.
Immediately, Ilya frowned.
“Shane—”
“I mean it.”
“You crossed half the rink in what was probably world record speed.”
“It didn’t feel fast enough.”
His voice cracked very slightly on the last word.
Ilya’s heart ached.
Carefully, he cupped Shane’s face between both hands and forced him to meet his gaze fully.
“You saved me.”
Shane’s eyes shut instantly.
A visible tremor moved through him.
“You do not get to rewrite this into a failure,” Ilya said softly but firmly. “Do you understand me?”
For a moment Shane said nothing.
Then finally, almost inaudibly:
“I was so scared.”
The naked vulnerability in those words struck deeper than anything else had tonight.
Ilya had seen Shane angry before. Had seen him jealous, competitive, grieving, exhausted.
But fear was rarer.
Fear required surrender.
Required admitting that love had given another person the power to destroy you completely.
Slowly, Ilya leaned forward until their foreheads rested together.
“I know,” he whispered.
And he did know.
Because beneath the bruises and adrenaline and media chaos, underneath even the lingering terror of the attack itself, there remained one simple unbearable truth neither of them could escape:
They loved each other enough now that losing one another no longer felt survivable.
The realization settled heavily between them.
Then, because Shane had always been physically incapable of sustaining emotional vulnerability for too long without imploding from embarrassment, he muttered quietly against Ilya’s forehead:
“You still think the fight was hot?”
A startled laugh escaped Ilya before he could stop it.
“There he is.”
Shane groaned softly. “I’m serious.”
“Yes,” Ilya said honestly. “Extremely hot.”
“You have issues.”
“You punched man unconscious for touching your husband.” Ilya tilted his head thoughtfully. “This is objectively attractive behavior.”
“That’s deeply concerning.”
“Probably.”
Despite himself, Shane laughed weakly.
The sound flooded relief through Ilya so intensely he nearly sagged with it.
Because there was the man he knew again beneath the panic.
Still shaken.
Still frightened.
But present.
Alive.
With him.
Eventually Shane convinced him to take painkillers and sit on the couch while he made tea, though he continued glancing over every few seconds like he expected Ilya to disappear if left unsupervised for too long.
The domestic familiarity of it all felt strangely emotional tonight.
The quiet clink of mugs.
The hum of the kettle.
Shane moving around the kitchen in sweatpants and bruised knuckles while snowstorm light reflected dimly through the windows.
Ordinary things.
Safe things.
Ilya watched him carefully from the couch, chest aching with sudden overwhelming affection.
“What?” Shane asked eventually without turning around.
“You are very beautiful when homicidal.”
Shane looked genuinely offended.
“I wasn’t homicidal.”
“You absolutely were.”
“I was protective.”
“You tackled man like missile.”
“He was choking you!”
“Yes,” Ilya said patiently. “Which made it romantic.”
Shane stared at him for several long seconds before burying his face briefly in one hand.
“I married an insane person.”
“And yet you seem weirdly happy about it.”
“That’s the concerning part.”
Later, long after the tea had gone cold and the adrenaline had faded into heavy exhaustion, they finally made their way toward bed.
The bedroom remained dim except for pale city light filtering through the curtains in soft silver lines. Shane moved carefully around him while they changed clothes, his gaze repeatedly catching on the bruises darkening around Ilya’s throat before darting away again with visible distress.
By the time they climbed beneath the blankets, fatigue weighed so heavily through Ilya’s body he could barely keep his eyes open.
Shane immediately curled closer.
One hand rested instinctively against Ilya’s ribs.
Protective even in sleep.
“I love you,” Ilya murmured into the darkness.
Shane’s thumb brushed slowly against his side.
“I love you too.”
Then sleep finally claimed them both.
At least for a while.
The nightmare began with arena lights.
Blinding white brightness flooding endless ice while thousands of faceless voices screamed around him in distorted echoes. Ilya skated alone through the noise, lungs burning strangely with every breath, his skates cutting sharp frantic lines across the ice that never seemed to end.
Then suddenly someone hit him from behind.
Pain exploded through his spine.
He crashed hard against the boards—
And a hand closed around his throat.
The pressure felt horrifyingly real.
Air vanished instantly.
“You embarrass us.”
Volkov’s voice echoed through the darkness.
“You embarrass Russia.”
Ilya clawed desperately at the hand crushing his airway but his body refused to move properly anymore. His lungs burned. His vision blurred black around the edges.
The crowd kept screaming.
Laughing.
Watching.
And suddenly he was seventeen again in a freezing Russian locker room listening to teammates joke casually about queer men being beaten to death while he stood there silently pretending none of it terrified him—
Then he woke violently with a choking gasp.
For one awful disoriented second, he genuinely thought he still couldn’t breathe.
Beside him Shane jerked awake instantly.
“Ilya?”
The panic in his voice cut through the nightmare immediately.
Ilya curled forward hard, one hand flying instinctively to his bruised throat while he struggled desperately to steady his breathing.
“Hey—hey, look at me.”
Shane was beside him immediately.
One arm wrapped carefully around his back while the other cupped his jaw with heartbreaking gentleness.
“You’re home,” Shane said urgently. “You’re okay.”
Ilya squeezed his eyes shut tightly.
His entire body trembled faintly now that the adrenaline had fully crashed away.
Nightmare.
Just nightmare.
But his throat still hurt.
And somewhere deep inside his chest, old fear had awakened with ugly familiarity.
Shane switched on the bedside lamp.
Soft amber light flooded the room.
Enough to chase away the shadows.
“You had nightmare,” Shane said quietly.
Not a question.
Ilya nodded once.
Shane’s expression twisted painfully as his gaze dropped toward the bruises on Ilya’s neck.
Immediately, rage flickered behind his eyes again.
“I should’ve killed him.”
The words came out low and vicious enough that Ilya blinked in surprise.
“Shane.”
“I mean it.”
His breathing sounded uneven now.
“He could’ve—” Shane stopped abruptly and dragged a shaking hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ, I can’t stop thinking about what would’ve happened if nobody got there in time.”
The fear in his voice felt unbearable.
Slowly, Ilya reached up and pulled Shane down toward him until their foreheads touched.
“But you did get there.”
Shane shut his eyes immediately.
“You don’t understand how terrified I was.”
“I do.”
“No.” His voice cracked softly. “I saw him hurting you and for one second I genuinely thought my life was ending.”
Ilya’s chest hurt.
Because there it was again.
That terrible beautiful honesty Shane almost never allowed himself to speak aloud.
Carefully, Ilya guided Shane’s hand against his heartbeat beneath the blankets.
Strong.
Steady.
Alive.
“I’m here,” he whispered.
Shane’s fingers curled tightly against his chest.
For several long moments neither of them moved.
Then Shane leaned forward suddenly and kissed him with aching tenderness, like he needed proof that Ilya was real and warm and alive beneath his hands.
Ilya kissed him back slowly, one hand sliding into Shane’s hair while the other rested over his wrist.
Eventually Shane’s breathing steadied again.
“I love you so much it scares me sometimes,” he admitted quietly against Ilya’s mouth.
Ilya smiled sadly.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I know.”
The next morning arrived gray and cold beneath heavy snowfall.
When Ilya woke again, the first thing he noticed was the ache in his throat.
The second was Shane already sitting upright beside him staring grimly at his phone.
Something in his expression made exhaustion vanish instantly.
“What happened?”
Shane looked over slowly.
Then handed him the phone without speaking.
The headline glowed starkly across the screen.
PHILADELPHIA PLAYER SERGEI VOLKOV ARRESTED FOLLOWING ON-ICE ASSAULT.
Below it, in colder bolder letters:
ATTEMPTED MURDER CHARGES UNDER REVIEW.
Ilya stared at the article silently while sleep drained completely from his body.
Arena security had provided footage directly to police. Multiple witnesses—including players from both teams—had given statements describing the attack as intentional and life-threatening. Volkov had reportedly resisted officers after the game and was being held pending formal investigation.
Attempted murder.
The phrase looked surreal attached to hockey.
Beside him, Shane exhaled slowly through his nose.
“The league suspended him indefinitely.”
Ilya kept staring at the screen.
Snow drifted quietly beyond the bedroom windows while somewhere outside their condo the hockey world apparently tore itself apart again.
But all Ilya could think about was the feeling of Shane’s hands dragging him back from the ice.
The sound of panic in his voice.
The look on his face afterward.
Slowly, he lowered the phone and looked toward his husband.
Shane was already watching him anxiously.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
Ilya studied him for a moment.
Then moved closer beneath the blankets until their knees brushed together warmly.
“Yes,” he said honestly.
Because despite everything—despite the bruises and nightmares and violence and fear—Shane was still here.
Still reaching for him automatically.
Still looking at him like he mattered more than anything else in the world.
And somehow, impossibly, that still made Ilya feel safe.
“Yes,” he whispered again, threading their fingers together tightly beneath the blankets. “I think I am.”
—
The first panic attack happened on an otherwise completely ordinary Tuesday afternoon, which later would feel almost cruel in its normalcy.
Not during a game.
Not while watching replay footage.
Not while answering invasive questions from reporters or sitting through grim meetings with lawyers and league officials or reading the endless stream of commentary online dissecting the attack frame by frame like entertainment instead of trauma.
No.
It happened in the cereal aisle of a grocery store while Shane argued with him about peanut butter.
“I am telling you,” Ilya said, standing beside the cart with exaggerated seriousness while holding up two jars for comparison, “North Americans fundamentally do not understand peanut butter. Why is all of it sweet? Peanut butter should taste like peanuts, not dessert.”
Shane pushed the cart slowly beside him, one hand hooked casually over the handle while snow fell softly beyond the front windows of the store. “You grew up eating boiled potatoes in Siberia. I don’t trust your standards for joy.”
“I did not grow up in Siberia.”
“Emotionally, maybe.”
“That is offensive.”
“It’s accurate.”
Ilya rolled his eyes and reached upward toward the top shelf, fingers brushing the lid of another jar while fluorescent lighting hummed softly overhead and somewhere nearby a child whined dramatically about wanting cookies.
Everything about the moment felt harmless.
Safe.
Normal.
And maybe that was why his body betrayed him so completely only seconds later.
Behind him, suddenly, a man laughed loudly.
Deep voice.
Too close.
The sound cracked through the aisle sharply enough that something primal inside Ilya’s nervous system snapped awake before conscious thought could catch up.
One second he stood beneath bright grocery store lights holding peanut butter.
The next, his lungs stopped working.
The shift happened with horrifying speed.
His pulse slammed violently against his ribs hard enough to make him dizzy. Heat rushed through his body all at once, sharp and nauseating. The air in the aisle seemed to vanish entirely, sucked out of the world without warning.
Someone behind him.
Too close.
A hand around his throat—
The jar slipped from his fingers.
It shattered against the tile floor with a violent crack.
Shane turned immediately.
“Ilya?”
The concern in his voice arrived instantly, but already the world had started tilting sideways around the edges.
Ilya froze completely.
His body no longer understood where it was.
Bright lights became arena lights.
The hum of refrigeration units became crowd noise.
His throat hurt suddenly with phantom pressure so vivid it nearly made him choke.
He could not breathe.
Oh God.
No no no—
“Ilya.”
Shane was in front of him now.
Moving fast.
Too fast.
The grocery store blurred indistinctly around the edges while panic swallowed everything else whole. He became dimly aware of people staring. Someone nearby muttered something startled about the broken glass on the floor. The smell of peanuts suddenly turned nauseating.
But mostly there was fear.
Massive.
Animal.
Humiliating.
“Ilya, look at me.”
Shane’s hands settled carefully against his arms, grounding without trapping, gentle enough that it was immediately obvious he had been learning how to do this through painful repetition over the past several weeks.
God.
That realization hurt almost as much as the panic itself.
Because Shane knew this routine now.
Shane had learned how to manage him.
“I can’t—” Ilya tried.
The words collapsed halfway out of his mouth.
His chest tightened harder.
Shane’s entire face changed instantly.
Fear flashed openly through his expression now, quick and raw and devastatingly familiar.
Not fear for himself.
Never for himself.
Always for Ilya.
“Okay,” Shane said softly, immediately abandoning any attempt to keep them there. “Okay, we’re leaving.”
“I’m fine.”
The lie sounded pathetic even to him.
“No, you’re not.”
Shane’s voice remained calm, but Ilya could hear the strain beneath it now, the tightness wrapped carefully around every word like restraint stretched too thin.
Without another second of hesitation, Shane guided him firmly out of the aisle, one hand steady against the center of his back while the other kept hold of his wrist as though afraid he might disappear if let go.
The cold outside hit like a slap.
Sharp winter air flooded Ilya’s lungs hard enough to interrupt the spiral slightly, snow drifting lightly across the parking lot beneath a gray February sky.
Still, his breathing refused to steady.
His hands shook violently now.
The panic sat inside his chest like trapped electricity, nowhere to go, every nerve in his body still screaming danger danger danger despite the empty parking lot and the snow and Shane standing directly in front of him looking terrified.
“Ilya.” Shane cupped his face carefully between both hands, forcing his attention upward. “Breathe for me.”
Ilya tried.
Failed immediately.
His lungs felt too tight.
Like someone had wrapped steel around his ribs.
Shane’s eyes darkened with immediate heartbreak.
“Oh, baby.”
The endearment nearly destroyed him.
Because underneath the panic now came something worse.
Shame.
Hot and suffocating and impossible to escape.
This was ridiculous.
Pathetic.
He was thirty years old. A professional athlete. Team captain of the Ottawa Centaurs. He had survived Russia and the closet and Boston media and years of being afraid of his own life.
And now he could not survive grocery shopping.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely.
Shane looked physically pained by the apology.
“No.”
“I ruined—”
“No.” Shane’s grip tightened slightly against his jaw, not harsh but firm enough to interrupt the spiral before it deepened further. “Don’t apologize to me for being traumatized.”
The word landed heavily between them.
Traumatized.
The therapists used it too.
PTSD.
Acute post-traumatic stress response.
Clinical language for something that still felt deeply humiliating to Ilya because some stubborn frightened part of him still believed surviving violence should have made him stronger somehow instead of leaving him frightened by crowded aisles and sudden noises.
Shane’s thumbs brushed gently beneath his eyes.
“You got attacked,” he said quietly, like he needed Ilya to hear it clearly. “Your brain is trying to keep you alive.”
“This does not feel helpful.”
“I know.”
God.
The sadness in Shane’s voice nearly undid him completely.
Because Shane looked at him now like he was something wounded.
Something fragile.
And Ilya did not know how to survive becoming fragile in front of someone he loved this much.
—
The following weeks settled into something difficult and exhausting and frighteningly unpredictable.
Trauma, it turned out, was not dramatic most of the time.
It was repetitive.
Small.
Accumulating.
Some mornings Ilya woke feeling almost normal, sunlight spilling softly across their bed while Shane kissed his shoulder absentmindedly and complained about early practice and for a few precious moments life seemed untouched by what had happened.
Then someone would brush too close to him in public.
Or a stranger would grab his arm unexpectedly.
Or he would hear shouting somewhere behind him.
And suddenly his nervous system would ignite all over again.
The panic attacks arrived without logic.
A crowded elevator.
A slammed car door.
One particularly awful incident triggered by seeing a replay of the attack accidentally playing on a television in a sports bar when the team stopped for lunch after practice.
That one ended with Ilya locked inside the restaurant bathroom shaking so hard he nearly dropped his phone trying to text Shane.
The worst part was the unpredictability.
He never knew when his body would betray him next.
And Shane—
Shane changed too.
At first the protectiveness almost seemed temporary. Adrenaline. Lingering fear after the attack.
Then the weeks passed, and it only deepened.
It became instinctive.
Constant.
Shane watched rooms now the second they entered them. Positioned himself automatically between Ilya and strangers. Rested a hand against his back in public nearly all the time like unconscious reassurance. During team events, his attention tracked Ilya continuously even while carrying full conversations with other people.
At restaurants, he insisted on seats facing entrances.
On sidewalks, he always walked nearest the street.
At games, if opposing players got too aggressive near Ilya after whistles, Shane appeared almost immediately with frightening calmness and terrifying eyes.
It would have been overbearing from anyone else.
From Shane, it was heartbreaking.
Because Ilya understood exactly where it came from.
Fear lived inside Shane now too.
One afternoon after practice, Troy finally cornered Shane near the locker room while the rest of the team filtered slowly toward the parking lot.
“Okay,” Troy said carefully, glancing toward where Ilya laughed quietly with Haas near the equipment room, “I need you to know you’re doing this thing.”
Shane frowned. “Doing what?”
“You keep staring at him like you’re a retired military dog.”
“What?”
“I’m serious.” Troy lowered his voice dramatically. “You look one inconvenience away from biting someone.”
Shane glanced automatically back toward Ilya again before answering.
“That reporter yesterday touched his shoulder.”
Troy blinked.
“…Okay, but you understand that sounds insane, right?”
“He startled him.”
“You tracked a journalist across an entire hallway because he startled your husband.”
Shane looked completely unapologetic.
“Yes.”
Troy stared at him for several long seconds.
Then sighed heavily.
“That is honestly the most psychotic act of devotion I’ve ever witnessed.”
Across the room, Ilya caught Shane watching him again.
Their eyes met instantly.
And despite everything—despite the exhaustion and panic and nightmares and lingering fear—something warm still unfurled low inside Ilya’s chest at the sight of Shane looking at him like that.
Protective.
Fierce.
Like loving Ilya remained the most important instinct in his body.
Shane walked over moments later carrying both their bags automatically.
“You ready?”
Ilya studied him quietly for a second.
The tension remained visible beneath his calmness now almost constantly. Tiny signs most people would never notice. The way his shoulders stayed subtly tight in crowded spaces. The way his gaze flicked instinctively toward sudden movement. The exhaustion gathering slowly beneath his eyes from weeks of sleeping badly because every nightmare Ilya had dragged Shane awake with him too.
All of this had hurt Shane more deeply than he admitted aloud.
And suddenly Ilya wanted very badly to ease even a fraction of it.
So instead of answering immediately, he leaned forward and kissed him softly right there in the middle of the locker room.
Shane blinked in surprise against his mouth.
“What was that for?”
“You looked sad.”
Something unbearably tender crossed Shane’s face then.
“Yeah?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.”
Shane’s hand slid instinctively around the back of his neck.
“You okay?”
There it was again.
Always that question.
Always checking.
Always watching him like something precious enough to lose.
And God, Ilya loved him so much it hurt sometimes.
“Yes,” he whispered honestly, even if it wasn’t entirely true. “I am now.”
—
The nightmares became worse before they became better.
Some nights Ilya woke gasping and disoriented with phantom pressure still wrapped around his throat while Shane held him through shaking panic in the dark. Other nights the fear manifested differently: sleeplessness, restlessness, the awful certainty that if Shane left the apartment something terrible would happen to him.
Once, after Shane arrived twenty minutes late from practice because of traffic, Ilya became so overwhelmed by panic he nearly vomited from relief when the front door finally opened.
Shane realized immediately.
And the expression on his face afterward haunted Ilya for days.
Because beneath the relief there had been guilt.
As though Shane blamed himself for leaving at all.
One night nearly a month after the attack, Ilya woke from another nightmare to find Shane sitting upright beside him in darkness, staring toward the bedroom doorway with the stillness of someone keeping watch.
Moonlight spilled pale silver across the bed, illuminating the exhaustion carved deep into his features now.
“You’re doing it again,” Ilya murmured sleepily.
Shane looked over immediately. “Doing what?”
“Guarding.”
A pause.
Then Shane looked away.
And somehow that tiny movement hurt more than denial would have.
Ilya pushed himself upright slowly despite the lingering heaviness in his chest and reached toward him immediately.
“Come here.”
“I’m fine.”
“You have not slept properly in weeks.”
“I sleep.”
“You hover unconscious for brief periods.”
A weak laugh escaped Shane despite himself.
Still, he eventually relented and allowed Ilya to pull him closer until he rested heavily against Ilya’s chest, all long exhausted limbs and hidden tension finally sagging slightly with relief once held.
For several quiet moments, neither of them spoke.
Ilya slid one hand slowly through Shane’s hair while snowlight drifted silver across the room.
Then finally Shane whispered:
“I keep thinking about how close it was.”
The confession barely sounded like sound at all.
Ilya’s fingers stilled briefly.
“Shane—”
“If I had reacted slower…”
“You didn’t.”
“But if I had.”
The fear in his voice felt raw now. Unprotected.
“I saw him on top of you and for one second I genuinely thought I was about to watch you die in front of me.”
Ilya shut his eyes.
Because there it was.
The truth neither of them could fully escape.
The attack had not ended when Volkov was dragged off the ice.
It lived on now inside both of them in different ways.
For Ilya, it became panic.
For Shane, vigilance.
Neither knew yet how to put themselves back together properly.
So instead Ilya simply wrapped both arms around him tighter and rested his cheek against Shane’s hair.
“We figure it out slowly,” he whispered.
Shane laughed softly under his breath.
“You always sound so calm saying devastating things.”
“It is gift.”
“It’s terrifying.”
“Yes.”
And despite everything, Shane smiled faintly against his chest.
—
Yuna Hollander arrived carrying soup.
Three containers of it, actually, because she fundamentally believed emotional devastation could be softened through aggressive feeding.
David followed behind her balancing grocery bags while trying unsuccessfully to stop her from criticizing Shane before they fully entered the condo.
“I’m just saying,” Yuna informed him briskly while removing her gloves near the doorway, “if my son vacuumed occasionally perhaps I would not fear for his health.”
“I vacuum,” Shane said immediately.
“Once per geological era.”
“That’s not true.”
“It absolutely is.”
For the first time in days, genuine laughter escaped Ilya before he could stop it.
The sound filled the condo warmly.
Yuna froze.
Her expression softened instantly.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
And suddenly Ilya realized they had been frightened too.
Not casually worried.
Terrified.
They had watched the attack happen on live television.
Watched Shane lose control.
Watched Ilya nearly die.
The realization struck unexpectedly hard.
Because David and Yuna had never treated him like an outsider. Not once. From the beginning they had simply loved him with such uncomplicated warmth that sometimes it still startled him. They folded him naturally into holidays and family dinners and old stories and arguments about hockey and terrible sweaters at Christmas until eventually he stopped feeling like Shane’s partner around them and started feeling like someone’s son.
Now Yuna crossed the kitchen without hesitation and cupped his face gently between both hands.
“You look exhausted, sweetheart.”
The endearment nearly undid him instantly.
Because nobody had spoken to him like that growing up.
Nobody had touched him with easy parental affection before the Hollanders entered his life.
And suddenly, standing there beneath warm kitchen light while Yuna looked at him with such obvious love and worry, emotion surged painfully into his throat.
“I am still very beautiful though,” he managed weakly.
Yuna narrowed her eyes critically. “Mm. Debatable.”
“Cruel.”
Then her thumb brushed gently across one fading bruise beneath his jaw.
“How are you really doing?”
The softness in her voice shattered something inside him completely.
For one dangerous second he genuinely thought he might cry.
Instead he looked away sharply.
“I’m trying.”
Yuna exchanged a glance with David over his shoulder.
The kind married people perfected after decades together.
Then David stepped forward quietly and rested one warm hand against the back of Ilya’s neck.
“You don’t have to recover immediately,” he said softly.
Simple words.
But Ilya had spent his entire life believing survival meant endurance. Silence. Independence.
The Hollanders loved too openly for those defenses to survive intact.
That evening unfolded slowly around all four of them in a way that felt almost healing.
Yuna cooked despite Shane insisting repeatedly that they already had food.
David helped Ilya fix the broken record player sitting untouched in the living room for months.
At one point Shane fell asleep on the couch with his head in Ilya’s lap while a hockey game played quietly in the background, exhaustion finally overtaking him completely.
Ilya looked down at him silently.
Even asleep, tension still lingered faintly around his eyes.
Yuna noticed too.
“He loves you very much,” she said softly from the kitchen doorway.
Ilya’s hand moved slowly through Shane’s hair.
“Yes,” he whispered.
His chest hurt with it sometimes.
The depth of it.
The terrifying beautiful weight of being loved this completely by another person.
“I know.”
For a moment silence settled warmly through the condo.
Then David cleared his throat thoughtfully from across the room.
“You know,” he said carefully, “the unconscious violence thing was a little alarming.”
Shane opened one eye immediately without lifting his head from Ilya’s lap.
“Dad.”
“I’m just saying.”
“He strangled my husband.”
“Yes,” David agreed calmly. “And then you briefly transformed into a medieval warlord.”
Yuna sighed dramatically. “Honestly, I was a little proud.”
“Mom!”
“What?” She pointed her spoon toward him. “You defended your husband. Very romantic. Terrible for legal proceedings, emotionally excellent.”
Ilya laughed so hard his ribs hurt.
And for the first time in weeks, the condo stopped feeling like a place where terrible things had happened.
It felt like home again.