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The cottage was quiet in that way it only got after midnight. No boats on the lake, no distant motors, just crickets and the soft slap of water against the dock. The sky was that deep navy that never quite went black out here, stars pricked sharp above the tree line.
Shane and Ilya threw on sweats and hoodies after a shower that had been more kissing than washing. Now they sat shoulder to shoulder on the back steps, bare feet on the cool wood, sharing a plate balanced between their thighs: apple slices, cheese, crackers, a little pile of chocolate squares.
Shane nudged a slice of apple against Ilya’s mouth. “Bite.”
Ilya took it obediently, catching Shane’s fingers between his teeth just enough to make Shane huff a laugh and yank his hand back. “Menace,” Shane said fondly.
“Is in my blood,” Ilya replied around his mouthful. He tipped his head back, breathing in the night, hoodie half-unzipped, throat marked up from sex. “Mmm. Smells like good summer.”
Shane watched him for a second, the way his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks, then asked, “So… how’s Russian summer different? Like, your summers. Growing up.” He hesitated. “If you wanna answer. I don’t mean the…” he waved a vague hand, trauma “...I mean the normal stuff. Weather, what you did. Good bits.”
Ilya chewed, swallowed, thought.
“Is… different,” he said finally. “And same.” He took the plate, set it on the step between his feet, and laced his fingers with Shane’s, thumb brushing his knuckles. “Here, everything is… softer, I think. Air is sweet. Smells like trees, water… sunscreen.” He sniffed pointedly at Shane’s hoodie, which definitely still smelled faintly like SPF. “In Moscow, city in summer is… loud. Heavy. Asphalt gets so hot you can feel it through shoes.”
“Yeah?” Shane shifted, interested. “Like… Toronto-hot? Or worse?”
“Worse,” Ilya said without hesitation. “Less wind. More concrete. Metro is like sauna if air conditioning breaks. You come out of station and it is like being slapped with hot towel.” He mimed it, flinging a hand at his face. “But also, I don’t know… there is something nice about it. Roads dusty, sun reflecting off windows. Ice-cream kiosks on every corner.”
Shane perked. “What kind of ice cream?”
Ilya’s eyes got that particular fond-lighting they always did for food and good memories. “Oh, best kind. Small waffle cup with vanilla ice cream, very creamy, little bit icy. Or plombir, more fat, more flavour.” He kissed his fingers like a chef. “In Soviet-style wrapper. You rip it open, eat walking, it melts down your fingers. Kids have sticky faces.”
Shane grinned. “So basically Canadian summer but Russian branding.”
“Da. Less maple, more… whatever,” Ilya waved. “Also kvas on street. And berries everywhere later in summer. Old ladies sit with buckets of strawberries, raspberries, shout for people to buy.”
“Did you guys ever go, like… out of the city?” Shane asked. “Cottage equivalent?”
“Dacha,” Ilya said, accent curling around the word. “Little house outside city. Not ours, my… grandmother’s sister, actually. Very small. Garden, chickens, weird neighbours.” His mouth tilted up. “We went sometimes when I was little. Was my favourite thing. You wake up to smell of dill and wet earth. Mosquitoes everywhere. Birch trees. And stars, so many stars, like here.”
Shane squeezed his hand, heart tugging at how soft his voice had gone. “What’d you do there?”
“Hmm.” Ilya’s eyes went distant, but not dark, just remembering. “Pick berries. Grand-aunt made jam. Like, big pot on stove, whole kitchen smells like sugar. We would eat fresh bread with still-warm jam and sour cream. Then you go outside all day, only come back because you are covered in dirt and grandma says you are disgraceful.” He chuckled. “We swam in lake that was… honestly, very questionable.”
“Questionable how?” Shane said, horrified and delighted.
“Could not see bottom. Probably some Soviet secrets there. Maybe old submarine.” Ilya shrugged. “But to us, was best. Water was warm on top, cold like death if you go deep. We would jump off little pier, make contest who makes biggest splash. At night, we sat on steps like this, but wood was falling apart.” He kicked their very solid Canadian step with his heel. “And there were fireflies sometimes. Not always in Moscow region, but sometimes. Little lights floating in dark.”
Shane went soft at that. “You never told me that part.”
“You did not ask,” Ilya said simply. “Also, when I think of summers before you… I have to… sort through what is nice and what is not.” He shrugged one shoulder, not letting the mood drop. “But some things are very nice. Dacha was nice. My grandmother’s little balcony in city. She had so many plants, you could not open window fully. In summer she put chair there and gave me book and ice tea and told me to be quiet.” His eyes crinkled. “Was heaven.”
Shane smiled. “What’d you read?”
“Everything.” Ilya sighed dramatically. “Adventure books where boys fall into magic worlds, science fiction, hockey magazines, classic Russian novels I pretended to like at thirteen because I wanted to seem smart.” He nudged Shane’s knee.
Shane hesitated. “What about… later? When you were older. Before the NHL.”
“Summer hockey camp,” Ilya said wryly. “Just like you. Wake up early, go to training, smell of stale sweat and cheap coffee. Come home, eat everything in fridge, fall asleep dead. Repeat.” He smiled more softly. “Sometimes we went to Black Sea. Sochi, once. Water so warm you can swim at night. I liked that. Everything is salt and noise and… happy drunk people.”
Shane leaned his head on Ilya’s shoulder. “You like swimming at night.”
“Is best.” Ilya kissed his hair. “You? What is little Hollander summer?”
Shane huffed a small laugh, looking out at the lake. “Pretty much… this. Cottage, always. Same dock. Same trees. Waking up to Dad making pancakes and Mom yelling at spiders on the ceiling.” Ilya snorted. “Hockey camps, too, yeah. I was that freak kid who did land drills in the driveway even when it was thirty degrees.”
“I would have had crush on you,” Ilya said immediately.
“You already did, later,” Shane pointed out.
“Da, but I would have had early crush. Pre-teen crush. Worse.”
Shane rolled his eyes, but his mouth was soft. “We’d swim all day. My skin would smell like the lake for weeks. We had bonfires, roasted marshmallows until they caught fire and then argued about whether that was ‘ruined’ or ‘perfect.’ I always liked walking around at night when everyone else had gone to bed. Just… listening. Feeling the air. It’s different in summer. Heavy but nice.”
“Mm.” Ilya stole a piece of chocolate, popped it into his mouth. “Yes. You are right. Air here is nicer than in Moscow..”
“High praise,” Shane muttered, but he was smiling.
They sat quietly for a bit, sharing the plate back and forth. Fireflies really did show up, tiny green pulses over the grass. Somewhere far across the lake, someone laughed, sound carried thin on the water.
“You know what I like about Canadian summer?” Ilya said after a while, voice low.
“Hm?”
He squeezed Shane’s hand. “That now, when I think about summer, I think about this first. Not Moscow. Not dacha. Not Black Sea. I think about you in stupid shorts,” he nudged Shane’s bare knee with his own, “And raccoons stealing our snacks and…” he paused, softer. “You. Always you.”
Shane swallowed around the lump in his throat. “You’re gonna make me cry over tuna melts and fireflies.”
“I am very romantic man,” Ilya said gravely. “Also, tuna melts are emotional experience.”
Shane laughed, shaky but genuine. He turned his face into Ilya’s shoulder, breathing him in - soap and smoke and lake air - and let himself relax fully, weight resting against him.
“Hey, Illy?”
“Mm?”
“I’m glad your summers brought you here.”
Ilya pressed their joined hands to his mouth, kissing Shane’s knuckles. “Me too, solnyshko,” he murmured. “Me too.”
For a while, they were silent. The night had settled properly by then, warm and thick and smelling like lake and cut grass. The plate was empty except for a smear of melted chocolate and one sacrificial apple slice.
Shane had migrated - he was now sprawled on the long outdoor lounge, head propped on a cushion, legs stretched out across Ilya’s lap. His hoodie had ridden up just enough to show that strip of warm skin above his waistband.
Ilya lit a cigarette one-handed, the way he always did, lighter cupped in his palm, flame briefly painting his features in orange. He took a drag, leaned back, and then set his free hand on Shane’s ankle, thumb rubbing idle circles.
“God, that’s nice,” Shane muttered, wiggling his toes.
“Is because you are old,” Ilya said serenely. “Need foot massage after big day of being dramatic in the lake.”
“Fuck off,” Shane said, but he melted when Ilya’s fingers slid under his heel and started working into the arch. “You’re the dramatic one. You literally dove headfirst into a full line brawl last game.”
“Was necessary,” Ilya said, as if that settled it. He exhaled smoke toward the dark, then shifted, really getting into it, thumb digging into a knot, knuckles rolling along the sole. “You carry so much tension here. No wonder your knees hurt.”
“That’s just being a hockey player over twenty-five,” Shane pointed out, groaning when Ilya hit a particularly good spot. “Oh my god, do that again.”
Ilya obeyed, eyes crinkling. “You sound like when I fuck you,” he noted.
Shane made a strangled noise. “You cannot just say that under the stars like it’s normal small talk.”
“Is normal,” Ilya said, utterly unbothered. “Fucking your boyfriend senseless is normal.”
He switched to the other foot, cupping it warm in his palm, thumbs pressing into the ball, the pads, working up to the ankle. Shane’s whole body gradually unlocked, shoulders dropping, mouth softening.
They fell quiet again, Ilya’s cigarette burning down to a bright stub between his fingers. Somewhere on the far shore, an owl hooted.
After a while, Shane said, half-drowsy, “Hey, can I ask you something kinda… random?”
“Mm?” Ilya stubbed the cigarette out in the little ceramic ashtray he kept on the side table and went back to Shane’s foot like he hadn’t stopped. “You can ask me anything.”
Shane hesitated, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Back in Moscow,” he started, “when your mom… when she was sick. And now with, like, your dad and everything. You talk about church a lot when you tell those stories. Candles. Priests. You wearing that little necklace.” He glanced down at Ilya’s chest, where the thin chain with his tiny gold cross glinted just visible at the open collar of his hoodie. “I… never really asked. Are you… religious?”
Ilya’s fingers slowed for a second.
Then he nodded once. “Da.”
Shane blinked. “Like… actually?”
“Like actually,” Ilya repeated, a smile tugging at his mouth. “I know, shocking. Ilya Rozanov goes to church and does not burst into flames. Media would be so disappointed.”
“I just thought…” Shane flailed a hand. “I don’t know what I thought. You make so many jokes about priests and icons and grannies with headscarves, I figured it was more like… cultural.”
“It is cultural,” Ilya said. “But also… not only.” He shrugged, eyes dropping briefly to their joined hands. “I am… believer, yes.”
Shane processed that, feeling something tilt slightly in his mental picture. “Huh,” he said brilliantly.
Ilya huffed a laugh. “That is very Hollander response.”
“I mean, I’m…” Shane scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. “You know I’m not, right? Like. At all.”
“Atheist,” Ilya said, nodding. “I know.” He dug his thumbs into the base of Shane’s toes, making him groan again. “You have very science brain. Cause, effect. No magic man in the sky.”
Shane snorted. “Something like that, yeah.” He twisted his mouth. “Does that… bother you? That I don’t believe?”
“No.” Ilya didn’t even have to think about it. “If you started quoting Bible at me, that would bother.” He tipped his head. “As long as you respect that I do, it's fine. I am not trying to convert you. Is not my job.”
Shane relaxed a little. “Okay. Good.” He frowned. “So… what does it mean to you?”
Ilya leaned back against the cushion, looking up at the sky for a moment, like he was picking the words from somewhere above the pine trees.
“When I was small,” he said slowly, “Church was just… place adults went to whisper and look serious. Smelled like candle wax and dust and incense. I liked icons because they were pretty. Gold, colours, stories. My babushka made me cross myself and kiss them and be quiet. I did not think too much.” His thumb drew lazy patterns over the inside of Shane’s ankle. “Later… when things got bad, it became place where I could sit and… not be hit for breathing too loud. You know? You go in, light is soft, people are praying, no one is screaming. Even if you do not believe anything, it feels… different inside there. Heavier, but good heavy.”
Shane listened, the knot between his brows slowly easing.
“In my worst times,” Ilya went on, voice quieter now, “after games I would go sit in church sometimes. Late, when no one was there. Just me and saints looking at me with these big eyes.” He huffed a breath at himself. “I did not know what to say, so I just… sat. Sometimes I would say, ‘Okay, if someone is up there, if there is anything, I need help. I need something that is not pain all the time.’” He looked at Shane then, eyes very green in the low light. “And then, some time later, there was you.”
Shane’s throat went tight. “You think… God sent you a horny Canadian hockey rival?”
Ilya laughed, soft and bright. “Maybe He has chaotic sense of humour.” He spread his hands. “I don’t know. I don’t… pretend to know how it works. I am not perfect Christian. I swear too much, I drink, I have sex with my boyfriend on every surface, I hit people. But when I woke up next to you here for the first time,’” he shrugged, a little helplessly, “my brain goes, ‘Okay. Maybe Someone helped with that.’ When plane does not fall from sky even though everyone is shaking and whispering all their worst fears, maybe Someone is listening. Maybe not. But it helps me to think there is… something gentle over us. Something that wants us to be okay.”
Shane stared at him, heart doing that stupid painful squeeze it did whenever Ilya said something accidentally devastating.
“I always thought,” Shane admitted, “that if there was anything, it wouldn’t want me. Because of the whole…” he gestured vaguely at himself. “Gay, anxious, swears a lot thing.”
Ilya’s hand slid higher, squeezing Shane’s calf. “If there is God and He does not want you, I am starting fistfight with Him,” he said flatly. “I am serious. First thing I do when die is throw hands at the gates.”
Shane barked out a laugh, startled and delighted. “You can’t just beat up God, Illy.”
“Watch me,” Ilya said. “Will suplex Him into clouds.”
Shane was laughing properly now, the knot of weird tension in his chest unspooling. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Maybe.” Ilya sobered slightly, eyes steady on him. “But I mean it when I say… I don’t think whatever is there hates you. If there is something, it watched you take care of me in hospital and thought, ‘Oh. Good. He found his person.’” He smiled, small and crooked. “Also, if we are going by my babushka’s rules, you are basically saint. You take care of sick boyfriend, feed him, love your parents, give very good orgasms. Top tier behaviour.”
Shane flushed, half laughing, half choked. “You can’t say ‘saint’ and ‘very good orgasms’ in the same sentence.”
“Why not?” Ilya’s shoulders lifted. “Sex is also gift. Your body, your pleasure, what we do together… That is holy to me, Hollander. Maybe not Church-approved, but my personal religion is you, this house, my stupid team, your stupid team, your parents. Things that make life worth living.”
Shane went very quiet.
The night wrapped around them. Crickets. Soft water. A stray cat that used to hang out on the cottage’s porch pounced on some invisible enemy and skittered away, offended.
Finally, Shane said, “I still don’t… believe. I don’t think my brain can.” He swallowed. “But I… like that it’s… like that for you. That it helps. That you feel watched over instead of alone.”
Ilya nodded, accepting that without argument. “Is enough,” he said simply. “You don’t have to believe same things as me. You just have to believe me when I say I love you. The rest is… bonus.”
Shane’s eyes stung suddenly; he blinked hard. “That part I believe,” he said, voice a little rough.
“Good.” Ilya squeezed his foot, then bent over and pressed a kiss to the inside of his ankle, lingering there, lips warm against skin. “Then we are fine.”
Shane slid down a bit so he could reach, caught the back of Ilya’s neck, and pulled him in for a soft, slow kiss that tasted faintly of smoke and chocolate and something sweeter.
When they broke apart, foreheads resting together, Shane whispered, “If there is anything out there, I’m glad it brought you here.”
Ilya’s eyes flickered, something tender and raw there, and he smiled, that small, private one that was only for Shane.
“Maybe,” he murmured, “He heard about you instead.”
Shane had no words for this, his throat tight and full of glass He just kept absently rubbing his thumb over the inside of Ilya’s wrist, watching the ashes in the firepit crumble to faint orange.
“Okay,” he said after a minute, dropping the heavier topic. “Tell me a Russian tradition that would put me in a coma.”
Ilya’s mouth curved. “Only one?”
“Start with the mild ones,” Shane said. “Work up.”
“Hmm.” Ilya tipped his head back, thinking. “Okay. Orthodox Easter.”
Shane blinked. “Isn’t that just, like… eggs and candles?”
Ilya actually snorted. “You think my church does eggs and candles and goes home? No, solnyshko. You stand. For three hours. Minimum. At midnight service. Whole church full, everyone packed inside, incense everywhere. The priest sings the whole liturgy, then walks around church outside with cross, bells ringing. You follow. Still standing.” He lifted a brow. “You, my dear Canadian, would pass out twenty minutes in.”
Shane pictured it - jammed between strangers, stuck standing, incense smoke in his throat - and actually shuddered. “Yeah, no. I’d die. They’d have to drag me out by my parka.”
“You are not allowed parka inside church,” Ilya said solemnly. “Is disrespectful.”
“Even worse.” Shane groaned. “What else?”
“Russian New Year,” Ilya said. “You think Christmas is big, but for us New Year is… everything. Whole country stops. You cook for two days straight, table breaks from salad, meat, herring, vodka. You eat and toast until morning. Then you go to other people’s houses and do it again.”
Shane stared. “Two days of cooking?”
“Two days of babushkas cooking,” Ilya corrected. “You chop so much that your fingers forget how to be straight, just like you. And if you do not eat everything, you insult the whole bloodline. My aunt once made me eat fourth plate of salad because she thought I looked ‘too thin for NHL.’ I was seventeen.”
“Explain to me how you aren’t dead,” Shane said. “Just from your aunt alone.”
“I am very stubborn,” Ilya said. “Also, I secretly gave half of the salad to dog.”
“Monster,” Shane murmured, but he was smiling.
Ilya’s eyes gleamed. “Also, Russian sauna.”
“The… banya thing?” Shane asked. “With the… sticks?”
“Not sticks. Venik,” Ilya corrected, scandalized. “Special bunch of dried birch or oak branches. For health.”
“You literally beat each other with them,” Shane pointed out. “Naked. In a room so hot my eyebrows would melt off.”
“Is massage,” Ilya said, deeply offended. “Good for circulation. You go in, you sweat, someone hits you with venik, then you run outside and jump in snow or ice hole.” He looked Shane up and down. “You would freeze to death in one second.”
“I would have a heart attack,” Shane said. “My heart would just leave my body.”
“Maybe we try one day,” Ilya mused. “Very good for recovery. Also very fun to watch you scream.”
“Absolutely not,” Shane said. “I barely survived cold plunges with the team.”
“You survived sex with me,” Ilya said. “You can survive banya.”
Shane flushed hot. “That is not the same.”
“Is hotter,” Ilya agreed cheerfully, and resumed kneading his foot.
Shane kicked him lightly with his free heel. “Okay, next turn. Canadian traditions that shocked you.”
Ilya’s eyes went distant in that way they did when he was lining up a chirp. “First time I saw people saying ‘sorry’ when other person walked into them,” he said. “I thought maybe whole country has brain damage. You apologize for existing.”
“That’s just manners,” Shane protested.
“That’s neurosis,” Ilya said. “Also…” He pointed accusingly at the house. “Maple syrup on everything. When your mom poured it on bacon I nearly called priest.”
Shane laughed. “You literally drink pickle brine and call it juice.”
“Is delicious and medicinal,” Ilya said. “And then… poutine.”
“You like poutine,” Shane said. “You inhale poutine.”
“I do,” Ilya admitted. “But first time I saw it, I thought, ‘Ah, they took beautiful french fries and murdered them with brown gravy and cheese that squeaks.’ I was offended.”
“And now?” Shane prompted.
“Now I will fight child for the last bite,” Ilya said. “Character development.”
Shane smiled, soft. “What about Thanksgiving?”
“Whole country eats giant bird and thanks… who? The land?” Ilya spread his hands. “We do not have this. First time I went to my teammates’ house and there was giant turkey and stuffing and his wife made everyone say what they were grateful for, I thought I was in American movie.”
“You cried, probably,” Shane said.
“I did not cry,” Ilya protested, then winced. “Okay, maybe a little. She made very nice speech about me being part of the family. My eyes got… sweaty.”
“Your soul got sweaty,” Shane said, grinning.
“Shut up.” Ilya nudged his calf affectionately. “Anyway, your traditions are not so bad. I like your Thanksgiving. I like watching hockey outside on frozen pond and drinking hot chocolate from thermos. I like that you put tiny lights on everything in winter so it feels less dark.”
Shane’s fingers curled gently around the back of his neck. “I like your stuff too,” he said. “Even the insane New Year food marathons. Even the weird salads with ten layers.”
“‘Weird salads’ is hate speech,” Ilya muttered. “But I appreciate that you try them.”
They fell quiet for a moment, just listening to the loons call and the lake lap softly against the dock.
Then Shane said, “Kind of wild, actually.”
“What is?” Ilya asked.
“That we’re sitting here in… whatever this is,” Shane gestured vaguely at the dark, “ talking about Easter and poutine and sauna beating, and it all somehow… fits. Like this weird Canada-Russia Frankenstein life we built.”
Ilya watched him for a long heartbeat, something warm and steady in his eyes.
“Is not Frankenstein,” he said quietly. “Is… patchwork. Quilt.” He squeezed Shane’s foot. “Little pieces from everywhere. From my childhood, from yours, from teams, from cities, from hotels, from wolf-birds. Sewn together. Ugly on the back, maybe, but warm on the front. Good to sleep under.”
Shane’s chest went hot and aching. “You’re getting poetic on me, Rozanov.”
“Shut up and let me be romantic for once,” Ilya grumbled, but he was smiling.
Shane for his part slid his legs off Ilya’s lap and moved, crawling on his knees across the lounge until he could settle practically in Ilya’s lap instead, one leg thrown over Ilya’s, his arms looping around his shoulders.
“You’re my favourite tradition,” Shane said into his neck.
Ilya’s hands came up immediately, palms spreading over Shane’s back, holding him close. “You are my favourite everything,” he murmured into Shane’s hair. “Even when you ruin my life with maple syrup.”
Shane huffed a laugh against his skin.
They stayed like that for a long time, wrapped in each other and summer air and the faint smell of smoke, sharing stories about childhood summers - Shane’s pond hockey and sticky popsicles, Ilya’s endless Moscow nights and his mother bringing watermelon down to the courtyard, kids running wild until two in the morning.
Some memories hurt around the edges; some were warm all the way through. They held both, passing them back and forth like something precious, stitching another row into that strange, shared quilt between them.