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The cottage was quiet in the way only summer places could be—wood creaking as it cooled, lake water lapping softly somewhere beyond the trees, a screen door tapping now and then in the breeze. The world felt far away here. No cameras. No flags. No anthems. No expectations stitched into every breath.
Just the couch. Worn cushions. Shane’s arm draped heavy and warm over Ilya’s shoulders.
They’d been like this for almost an hour—not talking, just existing. Shane tracing slow, absentminded lines along Ilya’s arm. Ilya pretending that the tightness in his chest was just leftover exhaustion from training, not the weight of words he’d swallowed for years.
“I should’ve told you,” Ilya said suddenly.
Shane didn’t flinch, but his hand stilled for half a second. “Told me what?”
Ilya kept his eyes on the window, where late sunlight filtered through leaves. “Why I disappeared. Why I treated you like that. Years ago. At the Sochi Olympics.”
Shane exhaled through his nose. Not annoyed. Not surprised. Just bracing. “Okay.”
That softness almost broke him.
Ilya shifted, turning so he could see Shane’s face. The freckles. The careful eyes. The boy he’d met at seventeen and never, not once, stopped wanting. “You thought I stopped caring.”
“I thought,” Shane said carefully, “that maybe I cared more than you did.”
The honesty landed gently, but it still hurt.
“I cared too much,” Ilya whispered.
Shane frowned, confused.
Ilya swallowed. “You don’t grow up where I did and believe love is just… safe. Or private. Or only yours.” His fingers twisted in the fabric of Shane’s t-shirt, right over his heart. “When you become visible—really visible—everything stops being just yours.”
Shane stayed quiet. He knew this part wasn’t interruption territory.
“They watch people,” Ilya continued. “Athletes. Public figures. Especially during big events like the Olympics. You don’t have to be arrested to feel it. It’s just… there. Phones acting strange. People asking questions that mean something else. Someone always knowing where you were the night before.”
His jaw tightened, old muscle memory.
“You learn early not to trust regular messages. SMS? Easy to read. You assume calls are listened to. You keep your devices with you all the time because you’re scared to leave them in a hotel room in case someone… adds something.” He gave a humorless smile. “Paranoia becomes normal. You don’t even notice it happening.”
Shane’s hand slid up into his hair, steady.
“And even if no one is actually there every second,” Ilya said, voice quieter now, “you feel like they are. Especially if you’re captain. Face of the team. They don’t need to threaten you directly. You just… understand the rules.”
He was waiving his hand in the air, trying to make the point clearer.
“What rules?” Shane asked softly.
“Be a hero,” Ilya said. “Smile. Win. Don’t embarrass the country. And don’t ever make your private life public if it doesn’t fit the story they want.”
The lake breeze pushed through the screen. The sound of water filled the pause.
“They don’t care what you do quietly,” Ilya went on. “But if you are famous? If you are someone kids look up to? Then it matters. Then you can be reminded. Intimidated. Or people around you can.”
Shane’s arm tightened.
“I’d seen it,” Ilya said. “Singers. Actors. People who were obviously gay but never said it. Suddenly they are on TV praising the government. Or they adopt kids and then rumors start that maybe the state could take them away. You understand the message without anyone saying it out loud.”
Shane’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t interrupt.
“And then there was you,” Ilya whispered.
He looked down at Shane’s chest, then at the thin chain resting against his own chest, his mother’s cross pressing cool into his skin.
He needed to direct his eyes back to Shane.
“You were the only thing in my life that felt… real. Not performance. Not obligation. Just—” His voice faltered. “You.”
Shane’s thumb brushed his cheek.
“I thought if anyone ever realized what you were to me—if loving you became a weakness they could use…” His breath caught painfully in his chest. “I wouldn’t survive that.”
“So you decided to end it first,” Shane said quietly.
“I decided to make you hate me,” Ilya corrected, a wet laugh escaping. “I stopped answering. I was cold. I was cruel when you came to talk to me. I told myself I was protecting you.”
Shane’s eyes shone, but he held steady. “You could’ve told me.”
“Not there, I couldn't. But—I was scared you’d stay anyway,” Ilya said. “And when have I ever been brave about feelings? I can fight anyone on the ice. But this?” He pressed a hand weakly against his own chest. “This makes me twelve years old again, trying not to make noise in my own house.”
Shane’s expression softened at that, understanding the ghosts without needing them named.
“I didn’t just push you away because of politics,” Ilya said. “Or surveillance. Or fear for my family. I pushed you away because loving you makes me reckless. I stop thinking about consequences. I start wanting things. And wanting things felt dangerous my whole life. And it just—what is the word—grew. Got worse. After that night. Six months before the Olympics.”
“You really thought I’d be better off without you,” Shane murmured.
“I thought you’d be safer,” Ilya said. “Freer. Able to love someone without this shadow.”
Shane huffed softly. “Idiot.”
Ilya let out a shaky breath that almost turned into a smile.
“You don’t get to decide what’s worth it for me,” Shane said. “You don’t get to take the choice away and call it protection.”
Ilya nodded. Because that was fair. Because it was true.
“I was scared,” he said again. “Not just of governments or rumors or being watched. I was scared of how much you mattered. If I lost you for real, I didn’t know if I’d survive it. I barely survived even while I had you,” he said, voice cracking—and Shane broke with it. Ilya watched his husband’s face carefully before continuing. “And losing you felt inevitable if I let myself have you.”
Shane leaned in, resting their foreheads together. “You already had me,” he said. “You were just the last one to admit it.”
Something in Ilya’s chest loosened then, like a knot finally giving way.
“I’m still scared,” he admitted.
“Yeah,” Shane said. “Me too.”
Ilya blinked. “You are?”
“Loving someone always means there’s something to lose,” Shane said. “I just decided you were worth the risk. Even the scary parts. Especially those.”
Ilya stared at him, eyes glossy, heart wide open and aching.
“You think I’m here for the easy version of you?” Shane added, softer now. “I’m here for all of it. The loud, annoying asshole. The soft one. The scared one. The one who runs. I’ll just keep catching you.”
A broken laugh left Ilya, and he buried his face in Shane’s neck, arms wrapping tight around his waist.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For the silence. For the cruelty. For trying to protect you by breaking you.”
Shane held him just as tight. “You don’t have to do it alone anymore. And hey—,” Shane sought Ilya’s eyes, making sure what he said next truly landed. “Your feelings aren’t a weakness. They never were. You’ve always been brave about this stuff. Not just starting therapy, but everything you did before and after the Olympics too. One cruel comment doesn’t erase that. I’d rather have a sharp word than another six months of silence.”
He squeezed Ilya closer. “And if you ever have to leave again for your—our—safety. I’ll understand. I just hope next time you take me with you.”
They stayed tangled together while evening slipped in through the windows. The lake turned silver. The air cooled. Crickets began their steady chorus.
Ilya’s breathing finally slowed, syncing with Shane’s, his fear still there but no longer sharp and lonely.
“The long game,” Shane murmured into his hair.
Ilya nodded against his chest, fingers curling into Shane’s shirt like he was anchoring himself to something solid and chosen.
“The long game,” he agreed.
And for the first time, it didn’t feel like a distant promise.
It felt like home.
—
Morning arrived quietly at the cottage.
Not all at once—not with alarms or traffic or the sharp intrusion of the real world. Just light, thin and gold, slipping through the windows in slow inches. The lake outside was still silver-blue with dawn, mist hovering low over the water like the day hadn’t fully decided to begin yet.
Inside, everything was warm.
The air held the faint scent of old wood, laundry soap, and the ghost of last night’s fire in the stone hearth. Somewhere outside, a bird—a loon—tried a few experimental notes, then committed to the wolf-like song.
Shane woke first.
He didn’t move right away. Years of early practices and travel had trained him to surface from sleep carefully, quietly—but this morning there was no rush behind it. Just awareness returning in layers.
Warmth. Weight. Breathing.
Ilya.
He was half on top of Shane, one leg thrown over his, arm tucked between them, face pressed into the curve of Shane’s neck like sometime in the night he’d burrowed closer without waking. His hair was a mess, soft and sticking up in the back, breath slow and even against Shane’s skin.
Shane smiled into the ceiling.
There was something about mornings after hard conversations. The world didn’t feel different exactly—but the space between them did. Less crowded. Less guarded.
Ilya made a small sound in his sleep, not quite a snore, more like a soft huff, and tightened his arm instinctively.
Shane slid his hand up Ilya’s back, slow and warm, just resting it there. Feeling the steady rise and fall. Counting breaths without meaning to.
Last night’s words lingered, but not like wounds. More like stitches. Tender. Healing.
I was scared you’d stay anyway.
Shane pressed a quiet kiss into Ilya’s hair.
“I stayed,” he murmured under his breath, not to wake him, just to say it out loud.
Outside, the light shifted a little brighter.
Ilya stirred with it, brow furrowing faintly before smoothing out again. His fingers flexed in Shane’s t-shirt, like he was checking something was still there. Shane let his thumb trace a lazy line along Ilya’s spine.
“Mm,” Ilya mumbled, still asleep.
“Morning,” Shane whispered.
Ilya made a vague, displeased noise that meant too early in any language.
Shane huffed a quiet laugh. “You don’t even know what time it is.”
“Don’t care,” Ilya muttered into his skin.
His voice was rough with sleep, deeper, unguarded. Shane felt it all the way down to his ribs.
They stayed like that for a long time—not asleep, not fully awake. Just breathing each other in. The kind of stillness that only existed when no one was performing strength or pretending not to need something.
Eventually, Ilya shifted enough to blink one eye open.
Light filtered across his face in pale gold. He squinted at it, then at Shane, clearly trying to orient himself. For a brief second, there was that flicker—that old reflexive check of where am I, who’s here, what version of me is required?
Then he saw Shane’s expression.
Soft. Certain. Still there.
The tension left his face like a tide going out.
“Hi,” Shane said quietly.
Ilya studied him for another moment, like he was making sure this wasn’t a dream he’d wake up from alone. Then he leaned forward and pressed his forehead into Shane’s shoulder.
“Hi,” he replied.
His voice was smaller than usual—thick accent back in the morning. Not weak. Just honest.
Shane slid his hand up into Ilya’s hair, fingers combing gently through the mess of it. “How are you feeling?”
Ilya considered that for a while. Long enough that Shane thought he might not answer.
“Like I ran a marathon,” he said finally. “Emotionally.”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “That tracks.”
“But…” Ilya hesitated. His thumb rubbed absent circles against Shane’s ribs. “Lighter. I think.”
Shane smiled. “Good.”
They fell quiet again, but it wasn’t heavy.
After a while, Ilya shifted, pushing himself up onto one elbow so he could look down at Shane properly. His eyes were still soft with sleep, lashes casting faint shadows on his cheeks.
“You’re still here,” he said, like he was stating a scientific observation.
Shane raised an eyebrow. “Was there a chance I wouldn’t be?”
Ilya shrugged slightly. “Brain doesn’t always use logic in morning.”
“Good thing you married someone stubborn,” Shane said.
That got the smallest smile out of him. The real kind. The one that showed teeth.
Ilya leaned down and kissed him—slow, unhurried, no desperation in it. Just warmth. Just presence. Just I am here and you are here and we are allowed to be.
When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against Shane’s. His right hand drifted, drawing little circles beside Shane’s freckles.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“For what?”
“For not letting me decide things for you,” Ilya said. “Even when I thought I was protecting you.”
Shane brushed his thumb along Ilya’s jaw. “Anytime.”
A comfortable silence stretched between them.
Then, quietly, like it cost him something but he was choosing it anyway, Ilya said, “I want to be open. More open than we have already been. I don’t want to run anymore. Be scared.”
Shane didn’t react dramatically. Didn’t squeeze too tight or say something big and cinematic. He just nodded once, steady.
“Okay,” he said. “Then we don’t.”
Ilya’s shoulders loosened in a way Shane had never fully seen before.
Outside, the sun finally cleared the trees, light spilling brighter into the room. Dust motes drifted lazily in the air. The day, ordinary and gentle, waited for them.
Eventually, Shane nudged him lightly. “Coffee?”
Ilya made a face. “You are cruel.”
“You love it.”
“…Yes,” Ilya admitted, and rolled off him with theatrical reluctance.
Shane watched him shuffle toward the tiny kitchen, hair a disaster, wrapped in yesterday’s t-shirt, moving slow and unguarded in a way he never did in public. Domestic. Safe. His.
Ilya paused in the doorway and glanced back.
Shane was still looking at him.
“What?” Ilya asked, self-conscious but fond.
“Nothing,” Shane said. “Just memorizing.”
Ilya held his gaze for a long second—understanding exactly what he meant—the fear of forgetting. Shane’s came from old anxieties about planes; Ilya’s from the fear of becoming like his father. Then Ilya disappeared into the kitchen, the soft sounds of cupboards and the kettle filling the quiet cottage.
Shane lay there a moment longer, listening.
No crowds. No anthems. No watching eyes.
Just morning. Just them. Just the long game, already in motion.