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"Fuck," Ilya muttered, peeling himself off Shane's sweat-sticky skin. The pressure in his bladder had gone from annoying to urgent in the last thirty seconds. He stumbled toward the cottage's large bathroom with heavy eyelids, cursing under his breath in Russian.
Relief came fast, but sleep didn't return when he slumped back into bed. Shane had sprawled into his vacated space like a starfish, one arm flung over Ilya's pillow. The clock glowed 5:49 AM. Outside the window, the sky had begun shifting from black to a deep, restless blue, the kind that promised dawn but wasn't in any hurry to deliver it.
Ilya watched the steady rise and fall of Shane's ribs. His lips parted slightly on an exhale, eyelashes casting shadows down his cheeks. Impossible. All of this. The stolen weekends, the way Shane laughed when Ilya pinned him against the boards just a little too hard, the goddamn cottage. How the hell did Ilya deserve all of this happiness?
He traced the freckled path on the back of Shane's neck and Shane stirred but didn’t wake, curling instinctively toward the warmth of Ilya’s body. The sheets smelled like sex and Shane’s stupidly expensive citrus shampoo. Ilya pressed his nose against Shane’s hair and inhaled, memorizing. He’d never been sentimental before. Never. Yet here he was, cataloging every fucking detail like it might disappear if he blinked.
The cold floor shocked his bare feet as he slid out of bed again. His sweatpants lay in a crumpled heap near the door. He stepped into them, careful not to trip and wake up Shane. His cigarettes were still in his pocket. The lighter too. Good. The cottage creaked as he moved through it, past the kitchen where they’d fucked against the counter last night. The front door groaned slightly when he opened it, hinges protesting the early hour. He didn’t look back.
The grass was wet under his feet, the dew soaking into his pants legs as he walked. At first, his steps had no direction—just out, away, into the quiet. Then the rock appeared, big and familiar, and jutting into the lake . He’d sat there yesterday with Shane, their fingers tangled together, Shane laughing at something stupid Ilya had said. He climbed onto it now, the granite rough and chilly beneath his palms. The lake stretched out before him, black and still except for the occasional ripple from a fish breaking the surface.
The cigarette tasted bitter when he lit it, the smoke curling up into the predawn air. He exhaled slowly, watching it dissipate. A thin line of gold had begun bleeding into the horizon. "Mama," he murmured, then hesitated. His throat tightened. He hadn’t talked to her like this in years. He flicked ash, knuckles whitening around the cigarette. "Mama, it's me," he started, then stopped. The words stuck.
Everything crowded in at once: Shane’s smile, the way he bit his lip when he was concentrating, the stupid fucking way he always folded his socks into perfect little triangles. The sound he made when Ilya kissed him just below his ear. The way he’d looked last night, sprawled on the kitchen counter, shirt rucked up, saying Ilya’s name like a prayer. But then—other things, darker things. The last time he saw his father, the way Shane flinched when a camera flashed too close. The lie they both told every time they stepped onto the ice. The weight of it. The fear.
The cigarette trembled between his fingers. "Mama, I..." His voice cracked in Russian. He took another drag, the nicotine sharpening the edges of his thoughts. "I think—no. I *know.*" The sunrise painted the lake in streaks of orange now, the water catching fire. He imagined her sitting beside him, her elbow brushing his, her hair lifting in the breeze the way it always did. "There’s someone," he murmured. "His name is Shane."
A loon called across the water. Ilya watched the ripples spread, his chest tight. "You’d like him," he continued, flicking ash. "Stubborn. Worse than me. Always chewing his mouthguard like an idiot." The corner of his mouth twitched. "And—" His throat closed. He swallowed hard. "And I love him." The words hung between him and the dawn, fragile as the smoke curling from his cigarette.
He hadn’t planned to say it—not in Russian, not in the dark under a bridge after his father's funeral. The confession had clawed its way out raw and unbidden, syllables tumbling like stones. Shane hadn’t understood, though.
The cigarette burned low, stinging his fingertips. Ilya didn’t flinch. The pain was sharp, clean—better than the ache in his ribs when Shane wasn’t there. He pitched the butt into the wet grass. "You would tell me I’m an idiot," he muttered to the golden sky. "But, Mama... I love him so damn much it makes me stupid." The admission hung between his teeth, bitter and sweet.
He dug his nails into the granite beneath him. "I tried not to," he confessed. "Fought it like hell." The lake blurred at the edges of his vision. "It went against everything I thought I knew." Ilya laughed, low and rough. "But Shane... he just saw me." Shane’s eyes had sliced through every defense Ilya had ever built. No pretense, no bullshit. Just Shane, seeing him, knowing him, in ways no one ever had.
A gust of wind stole the last of his cigarette smoke, carrying it away across the water. The sky burned brighter now, gold bleeding into blue. Ilya imagined his mother’s fingers carding through his hair like she used to when he was small, when the world was simpler. "I don’t know how to do this," he admitted. "How to love someone without destroying them." His father’s shadow stretched long in his mind—his clenched fists, his sneering mouth. The way love had always twisted into something sharp in his hands.
He flexed his fingers, staring at his palms. They were a hockey player’s hands—scarred, calloused, capable of violence. But with Shane, they trembled. Shane, who flinched at raised voices. Shane, who kissed his knuckles like they were something precious. The thought of Shane looking at him with fear, with hurt.... Ilya’s stomach lurched. He’d rather tear out his own ribs than see that.
The wind picked up, stinging his eyes. He blinked hard. His father’s voice slithered through his memory… “You’re just like me.” Ilya had spent years proving him wrong. But what if the bastard had been right? What if love, for him, was just another kind of wreckage? Shane deserved better. Soft mornings and easy laughter. Not... whatever this was. Not whatever Ilya might become.
He lit another cigarette with shaking hands. The lighter clicked three times before catching. "I told him about you," he said to the water. "Not everything. Just..." He exhaled smoke and smiled faintly. "He said he wished he could’ve met you."
Ilya's fingers found the gold chain around his neck. He twisted it around his index finger, the metal warm from his skin. "You’d tease him," he continued. "About his hair. So fucking perfect all the time." His chuckle scraped raw in his chest. "He’d blush. You always loved making people blush."
The first birdsong of the morning pierced the quiet. Ilya tilted his face toward it. "He would’ve brought you terrible Canadian chocolates," he murmured. "The kind with the weird fruit fillings. You’d pretend to like them." His throat worked. Shane would’ve charmed her within minutes with all earnest smiles and polite questions about her. She would’ve ruffled his hair and called him malysh just to watch him squirm.
The thought ripped through him like a skate blade—sharp, sudden. His fingers clenched around the cigarette. "Fuck!" The shout tore loose before he could stop it, raw and ragged. It echoed across the lake, startling the birds into flight. His breath came fast, chest heaving. His mother would never see Shane’s stupidly bright grin, never tease him about his terrible Russian pronunciation. She would never press her palms to Ilya’s cheeks and whisper, “You’ve found them, haven’t you?”
The unfairness of it hit him like a body check. His lungs burned. "Why?" he snarled at the sky, voice cracking. His cigarette slipped from his fingers, landing in the damp grass with a hiss. "Why did you take her? Why?" He knew better than to scream at the universe—it didn’t answer. It never had. But the rage boiled over anyway, hot and useless. His mother should be here, should be alive, should be rolling her eyes at Shane’s terrible jokes and nudging Ilya’s shoulder about how much he's blushing nowadays.
His fists clenched against the rock. Granite bit into his skin. He wanted to tear something apart—the lake, the sky, his own goddamn ribs where Shane had curled up inside him like he belonged there. Because that was the worst of it, wasn’t it? Irina Rozanova would’ve loved Shane. Would’ve seen right away what Ilya had tried so hard to deny. That Shane was good, in ways Ilya could never be. That Shane deserved better than a man who didn’t know how to love without leaving bruises.
A tear slipped free before he could stop it. Then another. They fell hot and silent into his lap. Pathetic. He swiped at his face with the back of his hand, but they kept coming. "Fuck," he whispered, voice shattered. His shoulders hunched. The wind off the lake chilled the wet tracks on his cheeks. He wanted Shane here.
"He—" Ilya broke off, wiping his nose with his wrist. The words tasted strange in his mouth, sweet and unfamiliar. "Shane, he... he holds me." He clenched his jaw, but the tears came anyway. "Like I'm something actually precious." His laugh was wet, choked. "Me. Can you believe that?" His mother would've snorted, elbowed him in the ribs.
The wind off the lake carried the scent of pine, mixing with the lingering smoke. Ilya remembered the first time Shane's arms had circled him; not during sex, not after a fight, no. When Shane just held him, quiet and sure. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Shane didn't let go. Not once."
That was the terrifying part. Shane wasn't supposed to fit this perfectly, like a glove molded to Ilya's scars, like the echo of his own heartbeat. The way he matched Ilya's steps without thinking, how his laughter filled the hollow spaces between Ilya's ribs. Shane, who kissed his bruises without asking how he got them.
"Mama," Ilya rasped, voice thick. His thumb rubbed the gold chain at his throat—her chain. "I miss you. Every fucking day." The admission burned like cheap vodka, searing a path down his throat. He hadn't said it aloud in years, hadn't let himself. Too dangerous. Too raw. But here, with the sunrise painting the lake in pinks and golds, the words tumbled free. "I miss your singing in the kitchen. Miss how you'd smack the back of my head when I was being an asshole." His breath hitched. "I miss you braiding my hair. Even when I told you to stop."
The loon called again, mournful across the water. Ilya pressed his palms flat against the cold rock, grounding himself. His mother would've hated this—him sitting out here alone, smoking himself sick. She'd have dragged him inside by his ear, scolding him in that fond, exasperated way of hers. He could almost hear it, the way her voice would've lifted on his name. The phantom sound of it cracked something open in his chest.
"I still wake up sometimes," he confessed to the empty air, "and for half a second, I forget you're gone." The admission tasted like ash as his fingers curled into fists. It was the stupidest things that undid him. The scent of rose soap in a bathroom. The way women laughed in grocery stores. The ache never dulled, just dug deeper, settling between his ribs like a second heartbeat.
The cigarette burned forgotten between his fingers. He watched the smoke curl upward, imagining it carrying his words to wherever she was. "Remember when you tried to teach me to bake?" His laugh came out wet. "The kitchen looked like a war zone." Flour in her eyelashes, dough stuck to her forearms, her laughter ringing off the tiles. The memory was so vivid he could almost taste the flour on his lips.
"You told me—" His voice cracked. He swallowed hard. "You said I deserved everything I wanted." The wind carried the scent of pine through his hair, almost like her fingers brushing it back. "That I'd get what my soul was missing." His breath hitched. The sunrise painted the lake in pinks now, the water reflecting the colors like spilled ink. "Did you—" He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Did you send him to me?"
The thought seized him, wild and impossible. But what if? His mother had believed in things like that, in signs and fate and the way the universe whispered if you knew how to listen. She'd hummed old folk songs about lovers reunited across lifetimes, about souls recognizing each other. And Shane had felt like that from the start. Shane felt like recognition, like a puzzle piece slotting into place Ilya hadn't known was empty.
The wind shifted, carrying the scent of pine and—rosewater? His breath caught. His mother's perfume. Impossible. His pulse hammered against his ribs. The lake shimmered, gold bleeding into pink, and for a dizzying moment, he could almost see her reflection in the water beside his own. Her knowing smile, her raised eyebrow. “You always were my stubborn boy.”
His throat burned. "Mama?" The whisper ripped itself from his chest, raw and desperate. His fingers scrabbled against the rock, granite biting into his skin. He leaned closer to the water's edge, searching for her face in the ripples. "Please." The word cracked open, half prayer, half plea.
The wind stilled. The lake's surface smoothed to glass. Ilya held his breath. For a heartbeat, nothing. Then warmth. A sudden rush of it against his cheek, like fingers brushing away tears. The scent of rosewater intensified, wrapping around him like the embrace he'd spent years aching for. His pulse roared in his ears. "Mama," he choked out.
He didn't know what he wanted to say—thank you, I miss you, please don't go—but his mouth moved anyway, Russian tumbling from his lips like stones from an upturned jar. "Thank you," he gasped. "For him. For Shane." His fingers dug into the granite. "For letting me..." The words dissolved. His shoulders shook. "For letting me be happy."
The warmth lingered against his skin, feather-light, and in that moment, Ilya remembered the way she'd cupped his face when he was nine and bleeding from a split lip after his first fight. “Don't let them make you cruel,” she'd murmured, pressing her forehead to his. “You're so much brighter than that.”
He'd spent half his life proving her right, and the other half terrified she'd been wrong.
Ilya exhaled slowly, watching his breath mist in the cool dawn air. That was the miracle of Shane, wasn't it? With him, Ilya didn't have to be the snarling beast the league feared or the charming rogue the cameras loved. He didn't have to be the dutiful Russian son or the broken boy from a dead mother's home. He could just... be. A man who burned too hot, loved too hard, held on too tight. And Shane didn't flinch from any of it.
The realization settled between his ribs like sunlight. He'd met Shane because Shane was the only one who could bear the weight of him—not just his anger or his hunger, but the quiet, tender parts he kept locked away. The parts his mother had nurtured. Shane didn't just tolerate those pieces; he cherished them, polished them until they shined.
A rustling in the grass startled him. He turned, expecting a rabbit or a fox, but it was Shane with hair sleep-mussed, wearing nothing but Ilya's discarded t-shirt. The hem rode up his thighs, exposing the bruises Ilya had sucked into his skin last night. His eyes were soft with sleep but alert, searching Ilya's face like he could read every word unspooled into the dawn.
Shane brought a woven blanket—the one from the couch, the one they'd wrapped around themselves while watching terrible horror movies and laughing too loud. And also two cups of coffee for them. He hesitated at the rock's edge, barefoot in the dew. "You left," he said, voice graveled with sleep. Not an accusation. Just a fact.
Ilya wiped his face with his sleeve, but the tear tracks were probably still visible. Shane didn't comment. He just climbed onto the rock and gave Ilya their cups to put beside them, the blanket drapped over his shoulder, and settled beside Ilya. The warmth of him seeped through the cold granite. The blanket was rough against Ilya's knees as Shane draped it over their shoulders.
"You okay?" Shane asked, nudging his bare foot against Ilya's ankle. His toes were cold.
Ilya exhaled sharply through his nose, staring at the lake. The sunrise had painted everything in gold now, the water shimmering like melted metal. He'd never felt more sure about anything—not his first NHL contract, not the slap shot that won him the Stanley Cup, not even the decision to buy his current home. Shane belonged here, beside him, in ways that defied logic or reason. The realization settled in his bones like gravity.
Shane nudged his foot again, insistent. "Ilya?" His voice was softer now, edged with concern.
"Yeah," Ilya murmured, staring at the lake. The water was still now, mirroring the sky’s slow bleed from blue to gold. "Everything is perfect now." He flicked Shane’s silence stretched, patient. Always so goddamn patient.
Shane shifted closer, his thigh pressing warm against Ilya’s. The blanket pooled around them, trapping heat. He didn’t ask what Ilya had been doing out here. Didn’t pry. Just waited, like he always did, until Ilya was ready.
"I told her about you," Ilya said finally, watching a dragonfly skim the water’s surface. His voice sounded strange to his own ears, raw and scraped clean. "My mother."
Shane stilled beside him. Ilya could feel the weight of his gaze, but he kept his own fixed on the lake. The confession hung between them—too big, too fragile. He’d never told Shane about these talks with his dead mother. Never admitted he still had them.
Then Shane’s fingers were on his jaw, warm and sure, turning Ilya’s face toward him. No words. Just Shane’s palm cradling his cheek, his thumb brushing the damp track of a tear Ilya hadn’t realized had fallen. Shane traced the line of Ilya’s throat with deliberate slowness, fingers skating over stubble until they found the gold chain. The pendant—his mother’s—was warmed by his skin. Shane pressed his palm over it, right where Ilya’s heartbeat thudded wild and uneven.
Ilya inhaled sharply. Shane’s hand stayed there, steady as a promise, as if he knew the weight of what he was touching. As if he understood this was the last piece of her Ilya had left. Shane didn’t ask. Didn’t need to. His silence was its own kind of confession— “I see you. All of you.”
The wind picked up, rustling the trees behind them. Shane shivered, goosebumps rising along his bare thighs. Ilya tucked the blanket tighter around him, pulling him closer. Shane smelled like sleep and the shampoo Ilya pretended to hate. The scent anchored him, real and warm and alive against his side.
Shane didn’t speak—didn’t fill the silence with platitudes or empty reassurances. He just leaned his head against Ilya’s shoulder, the weight of it solid and grounding. Ilya breathed in deep, exhaling slowly. The words sat heavy on his tongue, but they didn’t choke him anymore.
The lake shimmered as the wind carried the scent of rosewater again and Shane wrinkled his nose. "Smells like flowers," he murmured, voice rough with sleep. He didn’t pull away, didn’t question. Just tightened his grip on the blanket, fingers brushing Ilya’s neck.
Ilya exhaled. The weight in his chest didn’t vanish, but it shifted, settling into something softer. Shane’s thigh pressed against his, warm and real. Here. His breath fogged the morning air in steady puffs, syncing with Ilya’s. The universe had given him this: this man, this moment. And for once, Ilya didn’t fight it. Didn’t question. Just leaned into the solid press of Shane’s shoulder, the way he always did.