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Shane's bedroom in the cottage has never felt quite so lonely.
From the moment he'd retreated to his room and closed the door, he'd known that agreeing to spend the night away from Ilya was a mistake. But his mother had insisted — it's bad luck for them to see each other before the wedding, and heaven help anyone who tries to stand between Yuna Hollander and her 'traditions'. She is, by far, the most superstitious of the Hollander clan, which is really saying something, considering that her son still sticks to the same pre-game rituals he's had since he was fourteen.
The season has only been over for a few weeks, but Shane has already grown accustomed to spending his nights tangled up with Ilya. The prospect of not falling asleep to the sound of his soft snores and the feeling of his strong arms around him is…immensely dissatisfying. Now that they're both signed to Ottawa, it's unlikely that Shane will have to spend too many nights away from Ilya in the future, but even that knowledge isn't enough to mollify him as he climbs into bed alone.
He should be used to it after so many years of making do with the odd night here or there, but all of the practice being apart from Ilya just makes him miss his presence even more. The sharp scent of his aftershave lingers on the cold sheets, which is only making it worse — like he's being teased the tiniest reminders of him, when Shane is greedy for the whole damn thing.
He rolls over with a groan, punching his pillow into a more comfortable position and resigning himself to sleeping very poorly tonight. His mother will probably have a fit when she sees the dark circles under his eyes come morning…
Oh well. Serves her right.
The first time he hears the gentle tapping sound, he chalks it up to some nocturnal critter outside the cottage getting ready to raise hell for the evening. Or maybe it's one of their many house guests. He can't remember a time when the cottage was ever quite so full of people, so the odd sound here or there really shouldn't be a surprise. Which is why he writes it off the second time he hears the strange noise.
By the third time, the gentle tapping has morphed into an insistent knocking that can no longer be ignored. He moves closer, searching for the source of the sound before realizing it's coming from the window, slightly muffled by the heavy drapes he pulled shut before getting into bed. He yanks them open again, unsurprised to find a smirking Ilya on the other side of the glass, leaning against the frame, his knuckles raised and poised to continue knocking.
With some difficulty Shane pries open the latch, unsure if this window has ever actually been opened before. He lets out a soft grunt as he pushes up the pane, making room for Ilya to rest his elbows on the sill, leaning in through the open window and looking mighty fucking pleased with himself as he does it.
"Miss me?"
Shane ignores the question, though he's sure his poorly concealed grin is giving away exactly how pleased he is by this unexpected visit. "You know, in Canada it's customary to come to the door, not the window," he gripes. "You should know that if you're going to be a citizen."
"I learned this from all the mushy movies you watch and pretend you do not like," Ilya shoots back, dropping his chin to rest on his palm and looking up at Shane through his dark eyelashes.
"This is bad luck, you know."
Ilya rolls his eyes. "You and your superstitions."
"It's not about superstitions! It's about the very real fear of what my mother will do if she finds you out here."
"Come on, Hollander! You used to love sneaking around!" Ilya gives Shane a gentle shove, his fingers lingering on his hip longer than is strictly necessary. "What's happened to you? You've gotten too old?"
Shane grumbles something mostly unintelligible in response, but they both know he's never been able to resist a challenge, especially when it's coming from Ilya. He pointedly does not look at Ilya's face as he climbs through the open window, knowing without seeing it that there's definitely a self-satisfied little smirk there. Unfortunately, he stumbles slightly on the dismount, earning himself a mercilessly amused laugh from the other man. Shane tries to shove him away, but he's still unbalanced, and Ilya easily gets the best of him, wrapping an arm around his neck and gently biting the exposed skin of his shoulder.
"Quit it," Shane chides, smoothing the sleeve of his t-shirt back down. "Big day tomorrow. I have to look pretty."
"You always look pretty," Ilya observes, and Shane is almost overwhelmed with how glad he is that he's here. Right up until he adds, "like a little doll."
"Fuck you."
Ilya clicks his tongue at him, reproving. "Not until we are married."
Shane laughs, warmth bubbling up in his chest when he thinks about how little time remains until that is the case. "I think the ship has sailed on us saving ourselves for marriage."
The two of them lapse into comfortable silence, Shane following Ilya away from the house and out into the darkness. At first he thinks he's leading him toward the practice rink — that would be very like Ilya, to challenge him to a little one-on-one competition the night before their wedding. They're all but guaranteed to get too competitive with each other, and the night will probably end with them both sporting bruises and scrapes that will need to be covered come morning. But when they reach the well-worn path that leads to the outbuilding, Ilya stops and turns to face him.
"Close your eyes," he instructs.
"No," Shane retorts — his knee-jerk reaction to any order from the other man. Well, almost any order…
Ilya gasps, his hands coming up to cover his heart dramatically . "You do not trust me?"
"To lead me blind through the dark? No, not really."
"Come on, don't make me blindfold you," Ilya threatens. "You like that too much, and I have other plans."
Shane sighs, unable to really argue against that, given that it's embarrassingly true. Instead, he makes a big show of obeying, covering his closed eyes with a hand to prove that he's not peeking. Ilya wraps an arm around his waist, slowly leading him on down the path.
The darkness and now his own blindness are a bit disorienting, but Shane is fairly certain he's being led toward the water, though he can't imagine why. He thinks about spreading his fingers and stealing a quick glance, but whatever they're doing is clearly important to Ilya, so he resists the temptation.
After walking for a minute or so, the sound of water lapping against the beach reaches Shane's ears. So definitely headed for the shore, then, but why? While the quiet ebb and flow of the waves is a nice soundtrack, it will be too dark to see much of anything out here this time of night. What could Ilya possibly have in mind that requires them to come out here?
"You know, if you want to collect on that life insurance policy the Centaurs gave me, you have to wait until after we're married to drown me."
"Oh no," Ilya deadpans. "There goes my evil plans."
Shane laughs, leaning a little more heavily against Ilya's side as they walk. Their progress is slow — even though he really does trust Ilya not to let him fall on his ass, trekking around outside without the benefit of seeing where he's going is still a little nerve-wracking. The soft rolling of the waves onto the sand grows steadily louder, and eventually Ilya squeezes his side, murmuring to him to be careful. He takes a few more tentative steps, and the texture of the ground under his feet changes from the soft sponge of the mossy lawn to the hard wooden planks of the dock. Shane is still bewildered as to what they're doing out here, but something niggles at the back of his mind. A memory of something Ilya said to him years ago, the very first time Shane ever brought him here…
But no. Surely not.
Ilya stops walking, releasing Shane from his embrace. The urge to open his eyes grows stronger with each passing second, as the memory of that day all those years ago takes shape in his mind. Ilya's hands are on his hips, positioning him just so before letting go of him entirely and stepping away.
"Okay, you can look now."
Shane drops his hand to his side and opens his eyes, already blinking hard against the tears starting to well there. Ilya is a few feet in front of him, illuminated by the soft orange glow of what looks like every candle in Ontario. The lights flicker in the warm evening breeze, casting shadows across Ilya's face as he drops to a knee.
"Ilya…"
"Yes, Shane?"
Shane laughs shakily. "You know we're already getting married tomorrow, right?"
Ilya grins. "Are we? I suppose this is good timing, then."
"But—"
"Shh, is my turn to talk," Ilya says. "You beat me to the proposal the first time, so I did not get to say all the things I wanted to say."
"Because you were busy crying," Shane reminds him, blatantly ignoring the fact that he is doing exactly that right now.
"It was very manly crying."
"Sure."
"Somehow you are still talking," Ilya scolds, arching an eyebrow at him. Shane raises his hands in surrender, then swipes away a few tears that have spilled over and down his cheeks.
"Shane Hollander," Ilya begins, adopting a deeply seriously expression. "Since the first day we met, you have been a gigantic pain in my ass."
Shane scoffs, but Ilya's answering glare warns him not to interrupt again.
"You were so annoying. And you were always just there. From the very first time we played against each other, I could never get away from you. It was always Rozanov-and-Hollander this, Hollander-and-Rozanov that.
"And then, of course, I was very hot and very good at sex. So you wouldn't leave me alone off the ice either."
Shane makes a sound of protest. "You can't just make me stand here quietly while you insult me!"
"Of course I can. This is what you are signing up for. Now hush."
Shane sighs, crossing his arms in front of his chest, which is starting to feel too small for everything it's holding inside.
"What I'm saying is, I always had a plan for how my life would go. I would leave Russia, come to NHL, be best hockey player in the league. Only Ilya Rozanov — no 'and'. No one else."
Ilya rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand, chasing away the tears threatening to fall. Shane doesn't bother doing the same — he's already a mess, and he knows it.
"But then there was you," Ilya says, his voice as soft and adoring as Shane has ever heard it, even after all these years. "You ruined all of my plans. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because I did not know… I never thought I could have this much."
Shane wants to fall to his knees, into Ilya's arms. To tell him he deserves every good thing he's fought tooth and nail for. That he deserves everything, the entire world served to him on a silver platter, and that Shane can't wait to spend the rest of his life giving it to him.
"I love you so much, moy luchik. I love our whole life. There is not a single thing that I would change. Not even the fact that I have to have Hayden fucking Pike at my wedding."
Shane rolls his eyes, but he's grinning so hard it feels like he may never stop, so he doubts it carries much weight.
"I never want to be only Ilya Rozanov ever again," Ilya says, taking Shane's hands in his. "I want to always be 'and'."
Instead of intertwining their fingers like Shane expects, he feels the other man tugging off his ring. As soon as it's free from his finger, Ilya holds it up, offering it back to him with a cheeky grin.
"Shane Hollander," he says in his best serious tone, which isn't convincing in the slightest. "Will you marry me?"
"You're an idiot," Shane says, inhaling shakily and scrubbing at his wet cheeks.
"Is yes or no question, Hollander. Is not hard."
"Yes. Of course."
Ilya's answering smile is blinding as he replaces Shane's engagement ring on his finger. He rises to his feet, sweeping Shane up in a crushing hug in one swift motion. His toes barely touch the ground as Ilya holds him close, kissing the tears away from his cheeks.
"Shane Rozanov," he says between loud, smacking kisses. "Has a nice ring to it."
"Absolutely not."
"Rozanov-Hollander, then."
"Not a chance," Shane murmurs, wrapping his arms around Ilya's neck, fingers brushing the warm skin that's exposed above the collar of his Centaurs t-shirt. The one Shane has always liked stealing from him, because something about seeing Shane wearing his team's gear never fails to get Ilya going. Of course, now that Shane will be wearing the uniform year-round, that's probably going to be more of a liability than anything.
Ilya sighs. "We will talk about it later. Rozanov is good name. You will change your mind."
He sounds so certain it makes Shane laugh. "What's wrong with Ilya Hollander?"
Ilya hums, pretending to think it over before pulling a face, his nose wrinkling in disgust. "I would change it, but there is this asshole hockey player with same last name. Plays for Montreal. Can't fucking stand that guy."
"I heard he got traded to Ottawa," Shane plays along, stepping out of Ilya's embrace and intertwining their fingers. He leads Ilya to the edge of the dock, outside the ring of candles, and sits down, letting his toes dip into the still warm water.
"Fuck! Just when I fixed that team. Made them Stanley Cup material," Ilya groans, taking a seat next to him. "Can't do anything without that fucking guy stealing my coattails."
Shane snorts, shaking his head.
"Not right?" Ilya asks, sporting the small indentation between his eyebrows that always appears when he's especially bewildered by English idioms. "Riding my thunder?"
"Close enough," Shane says, smoothing that spot between his eyebrows with a kiss. Ilya catches his chin between his forefinger and his thumb, tilting his face down until he can reach his lips. The kiss starts slow, but it's not long before Shane is licking into his mouth, hoping they're reasonably well hidden from view of the house.
"How committed are you to the no sex before marriage rule?" Shane asks between kisses, already embarrassingly out of breath.
"Has been a difficult six hours, but I think I am in it for the long haul," Ilya replies, undercutting the words somewhat by scraping his teeth over the sensitive stretch of skin below Shane's ear.
"Too bad," Shane says, his breath hitching. "I hear just-engaged sex is pretty hot."
Ilya hums with his lips against the hollow of Shane's throat, and he could swear he feels the vibrations through his entire body. "You've convinced me."
A goal now in mind, they make quick work of putting out the candles. They start by blowing them, out until Ilya has the brilliant idea to douse the flames with water. They splash handfuls of water up onto the dock, half-soaking themselves in the process, but they get all of the candles out in record time, the air around them heavy with the smoke of the dying flames.
Shane takes Ilya's outstretched hand, letting him lead him back down the dock toward the house, leaving candle clean up until the morning. There's very little light pollution out here, as removed as they are from even the nearest single stoplight town, which puts the constellations above them on full display. The grass is cool and damp under Shane's bare feet, and he's struck by the desire to drag Ilya back, to slow their progress toward the house, and hang onto this moment for as long as they can. He still hasn't gotten used to the fact that they're going to have more moments. As many of them as they want. A whole lifetime's worth. Not just stolen hours in hotel rooms and too short nights between road trips. Maybe in a few days, once everyone is gone, Shane will try to talk Ilya into a little backyard camp-out. They can spend the night under the stars, and listen to the loons cry — a sound that, strangely, doesn't seem to bother Ilya anymore.
"What was your plan if I said no?"
Ilya pulls Shane closer, letting go of his hand in favor of draping his arm over his shoulders, taking full advantage of the few inches of height he has over him. It doesn't bother Shane too much, though — he doesn't mind feeling small at Ilya's side.
"You would not say no," Ilya says confidently. "Too many people here already. You would not disappoint them."
"And also I want to marry you."
Ilya's slow smile is so soft it could almost break Shane's heart. "Yes. That, too."
They lapse into silence as they make the trek back up to the house, neither of them especially in a hurry to go back inside. Shane has a feeling that they're going to get a lecture from Yuna in the morning when she finds out they shared a room tonight, reminding them of the importance of following traditions and avoiding bad luck, but he can't really bring himself to care. There's absolutely no way he's sleeping without Ilya tonight — or ever again, for that matter. Maybe they'll just have to wake up extra early in the morning, and Ilya can sneak out of his room before sunrise, like in the old days.
"Isn't it a tradition," Ilya asks as they hit the front walkway, seemingly reading Shane's mind. "To carry the bride over the doorstep?"
"First of all, that happens after the wedding," Shane says. "And secondly, you took me out the window, remember?"
"That didn't sound like no," Ilya observes, raising an eyebrow at him.
"No," Shane says, but Ilya's eyes don't lose their challenging spark.
Shane has never once told his soon-to-be husband this — and he never will — but Ilya has a tell. It's subtle, the way his eyes telegraph his movements before he makes them, both on the ice and off. A quick glance to the corner of the net he's planning to shoot for, or in this case, down to Shane's waist where he intends to grab him and haul him up into his arms.
Shane makes use of his split second of advance warning and darts out of reach, the tips of Ilya's fingers just grazing the fabric of his t-shirt. Ilya's eyes are practically glittering, his lips curving into a challenging grin as Shane takes off like a shot across the yard.
Shane may be the faster skater, but on dry land Ilya's longer legs give him the advantage. Even with the head start, Shane can hear Ilya gaining on him as he loops behind the house. They're both laughing loudly enough to wake everyone inside, but Shane couldn't care less. He's within a few meters of the driveway when Ilya catches up, his strong arms encircling his waist and stopping him dead in his tracks. Ilya drops to the ground, pulling Shane down on top of him. Shane squirms against his hold, but Ilya is in no hurry to let him go, instead rolling them over so Shane is pinned to the dewy grass, trapped under the weight of his body.
"Too slow," Ilya murmurs, kissing the tip of Shane's nose. He can feel Ilya's heart pounding through the thin fabric of his shirt, beating in time with his own.
There's quite literally no place on earth Shane would rather be.
"I let you win."
"Sure you did, sweetheart."