Work Text:
The fire is glowing bright and hot, keeping the late evening chill from seeping into Ilya’s bones. As it crackles quietly, Ilya finds himself getting lost in the hypnotic flicker of the flames - the way they jump, and dance, and sway in the slight summer breeze. He’d joked about it at first, but he’s maybe starting to see the appeal now; there’s something about watching the firelight chase away the darkness that is actually kind of mesmerising. It’s hard for him to look away.
It makes him feel warm, too. Not just from the flames, but inside himself. A simmering heat sparking to life just beneath his ribs. Though he thinks that might have something more to do with the man sitting next to him, honestly.
He still can’t quite believe he’s here, even a full day into this tiny pocket of time that they’ve carved out for themselves.
Ilya keeps finding himself staring at Shane. He watches the way his eyes crinkle at the sides when he smiles, and the way his cheeks flush pink beneath Ilya’s attention, and even the way Shane holds himself, more relaxed here than Ilya has ever seen him before. He notices all of these small, insignificant details that he’s never had enough time to notice before, and he can’t get enough of them.
He drinks them down greedily, like he’s afraid they will be snatched from him - like he’s afraid he’s going to wake up and none of this will be real.
He can’t believe he’s here, at a cottage in Ottawa, with Shane Hollander. The man that Ilya loves with every fibre of his being, and yet has no idea if he’s even allowed to - no idea if Shane could ever love him back. He hopes so, thinks maybe, but he can’t be certain, and he’s far too scared to ask.
So he sits here, in this quiet stillness, watching the flames dance as he appreciates that Shane is sitting right beside him. That they’re close enough for their legs to touch, out in the open, and they don’t have to worry about who might be watching. They don’t have to flinch away from how they’re feeling, because there’s no one around to analyse the way it’s written all over their faces.
There’s a buzzing sound, and Ilya watches as Shane picks up his phone, reads whatever is on the screen, and lets out a quiet huff of laughter. It makes something twist inside Ilya.
“It was just Rose,” Shane says.
And the thing twists tighter, uglier, like blood-soaked barbed wire tightening around Ilya’s lungs.
“Hmm, just Rose,” Ilya repeats, childish and bitter. Jealous in a way he’s only ever felt a few times before, and only ever about Shane and just Rose.
“She’s just checking in,” Shane says, defending her before Ilya has even had the chance to attack.
He hates it.
He knows it’s ridiculous, and pointless, and unnecessary. They’re not together anymore, and Shane is gay, for fuck’s sake. He’s here with Ilya, in his safe haven that he chose to welcome Ilya into, not Rose fucking Landry. But that doesn’t change the weight pressing down, down, down on Ilya’s chest.
He looks at Shane, so devastatingly beautiful in the firelight, and Shane looks back: shocked, disbelieving, knowing.
“You’re not jealous, are you?”
“No,” Ilya lies. Shane sees right through it.
“Ilya, I’m gay.”
Shane tells him as if Ilya doesn’t already know. As if they didn’t sit in that tacky Florida hotel room and bare their fucking souls to each other after almost a decade of keeping their feelings clutched tightly to their chests.
Ilya knows Shane is gay. He knows she isn’t a threat to, well, whatever it is that they have. This isn’t about that, it’s about…
“Yeah, not so gay you can’t fuck Rose Landry,” Ilya tosses out there, petulant and unnecessary.
He braces for Shane to get mad at him, to call him out on his ridiculous bullshit, but instead Shane laughs easily at Ilya’s childishness.
“Oh my god,” Shane scoffs. “It was like twice…and both times were complete disasters. I’m not sure she’s looking for a repeat performance.”
And that - that makes Ilya feel a little bit better, actually. It’s just, that’s still not the issue. Not really. It’s a relief to hear, of course, and honestly Ilya thinks he’d quite like to hear more about it, actually, but. It doesn’t settles the frantic buzzing beneath his skin, like there are bees in his bloodstream.
“Oh, disasters like how?”
“I’m not going into details,” Shane says, a relaxed smile stretching out across his face.
Ilya is about to say something else, about to try and explain the real reason why his chest aches at the mention of Rose - why he had wanted to take Shane’s phone and toss into the flames the second his ex girlfriend messaged him - but then there’s a sound. It cracks through the silence like a wolf howling at the moon, and scares Ilya half to death.
By the time Shane has finished teasing him about the stupid Canadian wolf bird, Ilya is almost done being pissed about Rose Landry. Almost. But then-
“You really don’t have to be jealous, you know?” Shane says, his voice barely more than a whisper. “She’s just a friend.”
Ilya hums. “You two looked good together.”
He hates to say it, but it’s true. They did look good. They looked right. Two beautiful, famous people finding happiness with each other. That’s what it had seemed like to the rest of the world, at least.
Shane scoffs, but not dismissively. “It was a lot of tabloid noise. Those pictures…they didn’t show what it was really like with us.”
“But the club did.”
The words are heavy, gun-shot loud in the quiet of the night.
They’ve never talked about that night, not once. Ilya had folded it up as small as he could get it, and then tucked it way back in the furthest corner of his mind - the place where he sends things to disappear. He had wanted to forget it even while it was still happening, wanted to erase it from his mind so he never had to relive it again.
Every single moment of that day was just…hell.
He’d woken up that morning in a crappy hotel room, knowing he would have to see Shane for the first time since Ilya had offered him his heart and Shane had tossed it on the floor and stomped on it. He’d laboured through a terrible practice, then he crawled his way through an abysmal game - maybe even the worst of his career.
All Ilya had wanted to do was let go, to forget about Shane fucking Hollander, with his perfect smile, and beautiful freckles, and his elite hockey IQ. He’d wanted not to care.
He’d wanted not to miss him.
And then, like a figment of his worst fucking nightmares, Shane appeared like a goddamn apparition in the same club as Ilya. Shane, and his movie star girlfriend, and her entourage of even more beautiful people for Shane to surround himself with.
Ilya had wanted the ground to swallow him whole.
It felt like his chest was being cleaved open, like the remnants of his heart were being plucked from beneath his ribs, piece by broken piece. He was angry, and he was jealous, but most of all…most of all, Ilya was just hurt. Desperately, agonisingly. More than he could remember being in a very, very long time.
So he’d grabbed the first interested woman he could find, and he’d tried to forget.
“God, that night was awful.”
“It didn’t look it,” Ilya remarks.
Shane’s lips curl up into a half-smile. Not happy or humorous; if anything, it’s kind of sad.
“It didn’t look it for you, either.”
Ilya shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t remember any part of that night that didn’t involve Shane. He doesn’t remember the woman’s name, or what she looked like, or even why he didn’t go home with her. All of that was insignificant, a blur that faded into nothingness.
He only remembers Shane, and then the absence of him.
“She was all over you,” Ilya reminds him.
“So you danced with that woman?” Shane asks. Not accusing, just curious.
“Mhm. Yes.”
Shane sighs, leaning back against the couch like he’s making himself comfortable for this conversation. Ilya copies him, letting their shoulders, and hips, and thighs press together as they sit side by side in the firelight.
Ilya wants to reach out and take his hand like he had done in the car, and the cottage, and while they were eating burgers, and as they walked down to the lake. Ilya is finding that he wants to touch Shane all of the time, now that he’s finally allowed to. A compulsion, or a calling, or just two halves of one whole desperately trying to slot themselves back together again.
He doesn’t hold Shane’s hand, though. Not right now.
“You were doing it on purpose,” Shane says. It isn’t a question. “Dancing with her like that, while looking right at me.”
“Yes.”
Shane nods, solemn and sad and understanding, all rolled into one. Ilya can’t bear to look at him.
“Why?” Shane asks.
Ilya takes a breath. He’d promised Shane that he would be honest for the next two weeks, about what he thinks and how he feels. And Ilya might have joked around, but he didn’t make that promise lightly - he didn’t do it just so he could get Shane naked and writhing beneath him.
They’ve spent the better part of a decade hiding, from the world and from themselves and from each other. Here, in the middle of nowhere with only themselves and the fucking loons for company, Ilya finds that he wants to be honest with Shane. He’s not sure if this will ever be anything more than what it is right now - he has no idea if that’s even possible - but he wants to know that he gave this his all.
He wants to at least be able to say that he tried.
“It hurt, seeing you with her,” Ilya whispers. “It hurt me more than anything had in a very long time.”
It had felt like ash in his lungs, like fire licking at his heels. It was searing, and blistering, and white-hot fucking agony, watching Shane dance with her like it was nothing. Like it was easy. Like it didn’t cost him a damn thing to be open, and honest, and free.
And Ilya isn’t mad at Shane for that - not now, and not even then - he’s just…mad at the world. Mad that they’d spent years stealing secret moments in darkened, anonymous hotel rooms, when it only took a couple of weeks of knowing Rose for her to earn a night out in public.
Ilya was - is, might always be - mad that they can’t be out, and proud, and free like that. Mad that he will always be Shane’s secret.
“It was cruel, probably, but I wanted to hurt you back,” Ilya confesses guiltily.
Shane lets out a shuddering breath then says, so quietly, “It worked.”
It makes Ilya want to cry a little bit. Because while he’d wanted to hurt Shane then - in a haze of his own hurt, and anger, and frustration - he certainly doesn’t want it now. Shane doesn’t deserve that. He never did. It was the very worst of Ilya rearing its ugly head, gnashing its vicious jaws, as if that could protect him from the pain.
“I am sorry,” Ilya says, listing sideways to press their shoulders closer together. “Is just, seeing you with her - seeing you open with her - I…hated it.”
“I’m sorry, too. I didn’t - I didn’t want that, Ilya. You get that, right? The only thing…the only thing I wanted that night, was you.”
It’s nice to hear, even if Ilya had already suspected it for a while now. It quells some of the simmering jealousy, to know that even while Shane was with a beautiful movie star, all that he wanted was Ilya.
He hates that he has to be Shane’s secret. It’s stupid, really, because Shane is his secret, too. Feelings aren’t always rational, though, especially bitter ones like jealousy.
It’s just - it had been okay when most of Shane’s life was a secret, when he was an extremely private person who never let anyone know his business. But then to have his relationship splashed all over the tabloids for the world to see, and for Ilya to witness Shane at that club, dancing all over his girlfriend in public…it had absolutely gutted Ilya.
He got to love her in the light while only ever fucking Ilya in the dark.
It was a reductive, unnecessary way of thinking. He knows that; he isn’t stupid. But it doesn’t change the way it had felt like claws tearing into his flesh. And while it’s nice to know that Shane had been wanting him too, it doesn’t make Ilya feel any better to know that he was also suffering.
“That night, with her,” Shane whispers, almost like he’s hesitant to talk about it. “I thought about you, y’know? I had to, or else…”
He trails off, not needing to finish the sentence because Ilya knows exactly what he means. Maybe once upon a time that would have made the egotistical, arrogant side of Ilya puff his chest out with pride. But now - now he’s just desperately sad for the man that he loves.
“I went home alone,” Ilya tells him, since tonight seems to be one for confessions.
“That woman - you didn’t…?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“She wasn’t you.”
He hears Shane’s breath hitch, feels the slight change in his body language where their sides are all pressed together. And he can sense Shane’s eyes on him, so Ilya turns to look at him. He catalogues the way his freckles seem to dance in the flickering light of the fire, the way his bottom lip quivers, the way his beautiful brown doe eyes fill with tears he won’t let fall.
Ilya’s heart aches.
He shifts in his seat, tucking one of his knees up onto the seat cushion so he can turn to fully face Shane. Shane’s body tenses minutely for just a moment, then he takes a breath and relaxes like he’s making a conscious effort to do so - like he’s reminding himself that he doesn’t have to brace for impact, not with Ilya. It feels like a gift Ilya isn’t sure he deserves - the kind of unflinching trust that Shane gives - but he’s determined to be worthy of it all the same.
He reaches out a careful hand, taking Shane’s chin in his grasp. Steady and certain, but not controlling - not moving Shane anywhere that he doesn’t want to go. And, just like he always has done, Shane melts into the touch; his eyes flutter closed as softly as the wings of a butterfly, and his head becomes heavy and relaxed in Ilya’s hand.
Ilya just looks at him for a moment, appreciating how absolutely gorgeous Shane truly is. It makes his breath catch in his lungs. Then he moves his hand upwards, smiling when Shane’s head drops slightly now that Ilya is no longer holding it up. He traces the constellation of freckles that dust his nose and cheeks, follows the bow of Shane’s lips and the curve of his jaw.
“No one compares to you,” Ilya whispers into the comfortable quiet of the night.
Shane looks heavenly like this - soft and sweet and peaceful, aglow from the light of the fire. He looks like every one of Ilya’s dreams come true, and Ilya isn’t sure where to put all of the love he has for Shane. It’s too big to fit inside him now, and too heavy to be spoken out loud. Not yet, when everything is still so fragile between them.
They’re building the foundations of something, but it isn’t set yet; it isn’t ready to hold the weight of Ilya’s love.
“You understand me?” Ilya asks, as his fingers sink into Shane’s silky, black hair.
“Yes,” he whispers. “I understand you.”
Then Shane is tipping forwards, their foreheads bumping as they come to rest against each other. Shane’s breath is warm on Ilya’s skin, and he finds himself wanting to breathe it in - wanting to hold a part of Shane inside of himself, keep it safe and protected and never let it go.
They sit like that for an unknowable amount of time. Maybe seconds, or minutes, or even hours. Time doesn’t exist for them here, where - finally - they do not have to rush. There are no games to play, or flights to catch, or secrets to keep; there is only them, and the crackle of the fire, and the next two weeks stretching out endlessly in front of them.
Shane’s hand is gentle when it comes up to cup Ilya’s cheek, and he’s so careful as he pulls away and tilts Ilya’s head backwards. Ilya doesn’t have time to open his eyes before Shane’s lips are on his, the kiss slow and tender, and honest in the way they struggle to be with words. Then he kisses the corner of Ilya’s mouth, and his nose, and then the centre of his forehead.
Ilya sighs out a shuddering breath.
He rests his forehead on Shane’s shoulder, turning slightly to the left so his cold nose presses against the warm skin above Shane’s collar bone. He trails his hand from Shane’s hair, down his neck, along his shoulder and his arm, until he finds Shane’s hand and tangles their fingers together.
Safe in the knowledge that his face is hidden from Shane’s knowing eyes, Ilya opens his mouth to speak.
“I…” he pauses, takes a breath. “I’m really happy I came here.”
He means: I love this. I love you. I want it forever - for the rest of our lives.
Ilya feels Shane’s shoulder tense beneath his head for just a split second, and then it all drains out of him in an instant. He feels rather than hears Shane sigh, and then there’s a hand sliding up his back, squeezing the base of his neck, tangling in his hair and rubbing his scalp. Shane turns to press a kiss to Ilya’s hair, then rests the side of his head against Ilya’s.
“I’m happy, too, Ilya,” Shane says. “So fucking happy.”
He wishes they could stay here forever. Wishes the rest of the world could just freeze, remaining completely stationary as their lives here at the cottage continue on. He already misses this place and these quiet, vulnerable moments with Shane; he doesn’t know how many more they’re going to get, or if - after these next two weeks are over with - he will get any more at all.
His mama always used to tell him not to go borrowing trouble, though - not to worry about things before they even arrive. So he’ll take her advice, and simply allow himself to enjoy the peace that being tucked away with Shane has brought to him.
“I like it out here. I like the fire,” he admits.
He half expects Shane to tease him, to chirp Ilya over his earlier comments about just sitting and looking at the fire. Canada is fun. But Shane is sweet tonight, with his guard down and his armour stripped back. So he cards his fingers through Ilya’s hair, presses another kiss to the delicate point of Ilya’s temple, and says:
“Do you want to lie down for a while?”
“Yes, please.”
Shane pats his thick, hockey thighs in invitation. And Ilya is a strong guy, but he’s not strong enough to resist such an alluring offer. So he steals another kiss from Shane - just a brief, chaste peck of their lips - and then he wriggles and manoeuvres himself until he’s lying down with his head in Shane’s lap.
As he stares into the fire, Ilya thinks this is maybe the closest thing to perfect he has ever known.