Work Text:
There is a box that Ilya doesn’t recognise in the bottom drawer of Shane’s cupboards. Ilya had never seen this box before; charcoal grey, plain and nondescript. Instinctively curious, Ilya removes the box from the drawer, standing back up to his full height as he inspects the outside. As much as he would like to open it, he respects Shane’s privacy. After all, it could be a gift… his birthday was coming up next month and Shane was nothing if not organised.
“Ilya?” Shane calls, “Where are you?”
“In here!” He answers, turning to face the door.
Shane freezes as he enters the bedroom, his gaze flickering between Ilya and the box in his hands. “What have you got there?”
Ilya shrugs, trying to act nonchalant whilst practically buzzing with interest. “What is in the box?” Ilya asks.
“N- nothing,” Shane stutters, feeling his cheeks begin to warm. He averts his gaze to the box held so carefully in Ilya’s hands.
Ilya’s curiosity piques further. He ignores the familiar flush of heat that spikes through him at the sight of the blush across Shane’s cheeks. Ilya gives the ordinary box a light shake, hearing something move inside. He doesn’t miss Shane taking a step forward, his hand outstretched as if to remove the box from Ilya’s grasp.
“Is nothing bad, right?” Ilya questions; a slow smile stretch across his face. “What have you been hiding from me, moy solnyshko?”
Shane shakes his head, looking mildly affronted at the very suggestion. “No!” He all but shouts, holding his hand out for the box once more. “Give me the box and I’ll show you.” He sits on the edge of their bed, holding the box so carefully that Ilya wonders briefly whether Shane has a hidden life, kept secret within the box.
Ilya perches next to his beloved husband; thighs pressed together, Ilya wraps an arm around Shane, pulling him into an embrace that would help calm the man down. “Whatever is inside,” Ilya whispers after pressing a kiss to the top of Shane’s head, “will be nothing like your mother discovering the lube we kept in the living room.”
“You’re such a dick,” Shane groans before laughing at the memory. He couldn’t laugh then; the mortification was felt far too deeply within his bones that he couldn’t look Yuna Hollander in the eye for close to a week after the incident. Now, though, he just made their hiding place much more discreet.
Ilya smacks a kiss to his husband’s cheek, nuzzling at his cheek after. “Ah, but it got you out of your head, yes?”
Shane sighs, leaning further into his husband’s embrace, revelling in Ilya’s warmth and steadiness in this moment. “I love you.”
“I love you too… Now open the box,” Ilya demands, slapping his hand on the duvet cover. His curiosity becoming far too much for him to handle.
“You do it,” Shane mutters, pushing the box into Ilya’s hands, rethinking most of his life choices.
Ilya doesn’t hesitate. He pulls off the lid, throwing it behind him where it lands on the pillows with a small thump. His brows furrow as he takes in the contents of the box. Confused, Ilya shuffles back on the bed, settling crossed legged in the middle before upending the box, emptying its contents.
Scraps of paper flutter out, landing soundlessly as Ilya casts a questioning glance to his husband. “Is just pieces of paper…”
Shane shakes his head. “Not just pieces of paper, they never have been.” He shifts on the bed, facing his bewildered husband with a fond smile. Tentatively, as if handling something incredibly precious, Shane reaches for one of the many pieces. He unfolds it silently, handing it over to Ilya without uttering a single word.
Immediately, Ilya recognises his own handwriting. The familiar scrawl in blank ink standing out starkly against the white paper. “You kept these?” Ilya whispers, his accent thickening and his voice hoarse with emotion.
Again, without saying a single word, Shane nods.
No more words are spoken as Ilya begins to go through the notes he had left Shane over the years. Ilya rushes through the written words, like an addict needing their next fix, he pours over the words his younger self had once written.
‘I love my trophies… but I love you more.’ Ilya snorts. They were both competitive, their shared trophy room proved this, but Ilya would give every one up for Shane… or at least, would accept less trophies in favour for Shane. However, Ilya would happily tell anyone who would listen that he has, and would again, give up his stellar hockey career for his husband who he adores more than life itself.
‘I’ll make every moment last, as long as you’re mine.’ Ilya chuckles at the memory of this note. Wyatt had introduced him to the Wicked soundtrack after going to see it on Broadway with his wife. Ilya resonated with this particular song, listening to it on repeat for weeks – in the shower, at the gym, in his car where he would sing both Elphaba and Fiyero’s parts.
‘My home is with you.’ Ilya wrote this after sending in his application for Canadian citizenship. Ilya had known for a long time that he was never to return to Russia; he had made peace with that, he had no other choice if he was to love the man he had wanted from the moment they shook hands. Ilya had written this to settle Shane’s worries. Shane had worried that Ilya would regret his decision, that he would miss Russia with such ferocity that he would come to regret his life with Shane. Ilya laid these worries to bed, both figuratively and literally. After leaving that note, Shane never broached the topic again.
‘Falling in love with you was the best decision I made.’ Ilya remembers writing this only a week ago, leaving it on the kitchen countertop as he left the house before Shane, needing to get to the arena for a meeting with Coach Wiebe. Ilya hadn’t given the note a second thought; falling in love with Shane had been as easy as breathing once he had accepted his fate to himself. He never imagined that Shane would keep his ramblings, his love notes.
‘See you next time, Hollander.’
This one, Ilya notices, is older than the rest. The paper is beginning to show its age, browning slightly along the edges and the ridge of the fold is so deep as if it had been folded and unfolded too many times to keep track.
“That’s my favourite one,” Shane whispers, his voice loud in the previously silent bedroom.
Ilya meets his husband’s gaze, ignoring the rest of the notes he still needed to read. “Why?”
Shane clears his throat, trying his best to remove the lump that had settled there. “It was the first note you left me.”
Ilya furrows his brows, flicking through his countless memories of the love of his life, wondering why Shane had felt this note needed to be kept.
“I wasn’t sure whether I should have kept it,” Shane continues, his voice sounding far away as if in a different time to Ilya. “You slipped away early, needing to return to your room before flying back to Boston, but you left me this note. I thought about throwing it away, tearing it into tiny pieces so it could never be put back together again. But… I kept it, tucked away in my wallet for years. I don’t even know how many times I’ve read it over the years.”
Shane breaks off with a self-deprecating laugh, knowing full well how foolishly in love he was with the man sat across from him. “I think I knew, even back then, that we were meant to be something more. I think I knew that I was only ever going to love you, and only you.”
“Moya zhizn…” Ilya whispers. He doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know what else to do. Shane’s sentimentality had surprised him; the depths of it, the layers to it. Instead, he does what has always been instinctive to him. He hauls Shane in for a kiss, cupping his cheek and pouring every emotion so fiercely felt into every second. Shane melts against Ilya; his body fitting so perfectly as if they were made for each other.
They lose themselves in each other; hands wandering, laughter sounding that soon turn into moans. All the while, there in a pile of paper, in the middle of their bed, the years of their love stands and continues to stand against the test of time.