Work Text:
Laval, Quebec — Friday, January 2017
The snow started falling before they even reached the cottage.
Shane drove with both hands on the wheel, his knuckles white, while Ilya sprawled in the passenger seat and critiqued his driving in increasingly creative ways.
"You drive like old woman."
"I'm driving the speed limit."
"Speed limit is suggestion."
"The speed limit is the law."
"In Russia, we have saying: rules are for people who cannot think for themselves."
"That's not a saying. You made that up."
"Maybe." Ilya grinned, the kind of grin that made Shane want to either punch him or kiss him. Usually both. "But is still true."
The cottage was small—two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen that opened onto a living room with a wood-burning fireplace. Shane's parents used it as a getaway, a quiet place to escape the noise of the city, and they'd stocked it well: canned goods in the pantry, firewood stacked by the back door, extra blankets in the hall closet.
Shane hadn't told them he was bringing anyone. He hadn't told anyone anything. That was the point.
"Is nice," Ilya said, looking around. He'd brought a duffel bag that was mostly vodka and a grocery bag with ingredients for tuna melts—the one meal he'd volunteered to make when Shane had mentioned they'd need to bring food. "Small. Cozy."
"It's practical."
"You would say that." Ilya dropped his bags on the kitchen counter and started opening cabinets, taking inventory. "Your parents have good taste. Many cans. Many pasta. We will not starve."
"We're only here for the weekend."
"Still. Is good to know."
Shane busied himself with bringing in the rest of their things—his own overnight bag, the cooler with perishables, the case of sparkling water he'd bought because Ilya had once mentioned he liked it. Not that he'd admit that was why he'd bought it.
They'd been doing this for six years now. Meeting in secret, in hotel rooms and rented apartments, in the building Shane had bought specifically so they could have somewhere safe to be together. But they'd never done this—a whole weekend, just the two of them, with nowhere to be and nothing to do.
It felt dangerous. Like standing on thin ice, waiting for the crack.
"Snow is getting worse," Ilya observed from the window. The flakes were coming down thick and fast now, blanketing the already-white landscape in fresh powder. "Maybe we get stuck."
"We won't get stuck. The plows run all night."
"If you say so."
Shane unpacked the cooler—tuna, cheese, bread, eggs, some chicken breasts he'd planned to grill—and tried not to think about how domestic this felt. How easy it would be to pretend this was their life, that they were just two people spending a quiet weekend together instead of two rival hockey players conducting an affair that could end both their careers.
"I have to fly to Florida on Monday," he said, because the silence was getting to him. "Morning flight."
"I know. You told me three times."
"I'm just making sure we're on the same page."
"We are always on same page, Shane." Ilya turned from the window, his expression unreadable. "You worry too much."
"Someone has to."
"Why? Worrying does not change anything. It just makes you tired."
Shane didn't have an answer for that. He never did, when Ilya got philosophical. It was one of the things that infuriated him most about Ilya Rozanov—the way he could be so cavalier about everything, so relaxed, while Shane spent every waking moment calculating risks and anticipating disasters.
"I'm going to start a fire," Shane said, turning away. "It's cold in here."
"Good idea. I will make dinner."
"It's four in the afternoon."
"Early dinner. I am hungry." Ilya was already pulling things from the cabinets—pasta, olive oil, a jar of something Shane couldn't identify from across the room. "You have preference?"
"Whatever's fine."
"Whatever is not preference. Whatever is giving up."
"Then I'm giving up."
Ilya made a disgusted sound but didn't argue. Shane escaped to the living room and focused on building a fire, grateful for a task that required concentration. The logs were dry, the kindling plentiful, and within ten minutes he had a respectable blaze going.
From the kitchen, he could hear Ilya banging around, humming something in Russian. It was oddly soothing, that hum. Familiar in a way that made Shane's chest ache.
Six years. They'd been doing this for six years, and Shane still didn't know what to call it. Didn't know what they were to each other. Didn't know if Ilya thought about him when they were apart, or if this was just... convenience. Proximity. Two lonely men who happened to be attracted to each other.
He didn't ask. He was afraid of the answer.
---
Dinner was pasta with olive oil, sautéed garlic, scallions, and—
"Are those snails?" Shane stared at his plate.
"Escargot," Ilya corrected. "Is French. Very fancy."
"They're canned snails."
"Your mother has good taste in canned goods." Ilya twirled a forkful of pasta and ate it with obvious pleasure. "Try. Is delicious."
Shane poked at a snail with his fork. It glistened unpleasantly in the olive oil. "Where did you learn to cook with snails?"
"I did not learn. I improvise." Ilya shrugged. "Pasta needs protein. Snails are protein. Logic."
"That's not logic. That's insanity."
"Try it, Shane. Stop being baby."
Shane tried it.
It was—unexpectedly good, actually. The garlic and scallions carried most of the flavor, and the snails added a pleasant chewiness that wasn't entirely unlike clams. He would never admit this to Ilya.
"Is okay?" Ilya asked, watching him with barely concealed amusement.
"It's fine."
"Fine is not compliment."
"Fine is accurate."
"You are so difficult." But Ilya was smiling, that crooked half-smile that made Shane's stomach flip. "Always so difficult."
They ate in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds the crackle of the fire and the wind picking up outside. The snow was still falling, heavier now. Shane tried not to think about Monday, about the flight to Florida, about the game against Tampa Bay that he should be mentally preparing for instead of sitting in a cottage with his—
With his what? His rival? His lover? His something-he-couldn't-name?
"I can hear you thinking," Ilya said.
"I'm not thinking anything."
"Liar. Your face does thing when you think. Little crease." Ilya touched his own forehead, between his eyebrows. "Right here. Very serious. Very Shane."
"I don't have a crease."
"You do. Is cute."
Shane felt heat rise to his cheeks. "Don't call me cute."
"Why not? You are cute. Cute little Canadian boy with cute little worry crease."
"I'm not little. I'm five-eleven."
"I am six-three. Everyone is little to me."
"That's not—" Shane set down his fork, suddenly irritated. "Can we just eat? Without the commentary?"
Ilya's expression flickered—something like hurt, quickly masked. "Sure. We eat. No talking."
The silence that followed was heavy, uncomfortable. Shane hated it. Hated that he'd caused it, hated that he didn't know how to fix it, hated the whole situation—the cottage, the snow, the proximity that made everything feel too big and too close.
This was why they didn't do weekends. This was why they stuck to hotel rooms and quick fucks and carefully scheduled encounters that had clear start and end times. Because when they had more than a few hours, things got complicated. Shane got complicated.
"Sorry," he said finally, the word forced out through gritted teeth.
Ilya looked up. "For what?"
"Being difficult."
"You are always difficult. I am used to it."
"That's not—" Shane sighed. "I'm not good at this."
"At what?"
"This. Being... here. With you. For more than a few hours."
Ilya was quiet for a moment. Then: "Me too."
It wasn't much. It wasn't a declaration or an admission or anything close to the things Shane wanted to hear. But it was honest, and that was something.
"Okay," Shane said.
"Okay," Ilya agreed.
They finished their snail pasta in slightly more comfortable silence.
---
After dinner, Shane washed the dishes while Ilya dried. It was the first time they'd done anything so mundane together, and Shane found himself hyper-aware of every accidental brush of fingers, every moment when Ilya reached past him to put something away.
"You have VHS tapes," Ilya said, peering at the shelf beside the television. "What is VHS?"
"It's how people watched movies before DVDs."
"Before DVDs? What, in Stone Age?"
"In the nineties. My parents never updated the system out here." Shane dried his hands and joined Ilya by the shelf. "They've got some classics. Home Alone. Caddyshack. Ghostbusters."
"I have not seen any of these."
Shane stared at him. "You've never seen Home Alone?"
"Is American movie. I grew up in Russia."
"It's a Christmas movie. It's iconic."
"Many things are iconic that I have not seen. The Grand Canyon. The Mona Lisa. Your penis."
"You've seen my penis."
"I know. Was joke." Ilya grinned. "Your face. So serious."
Shane grabbed the Home Alone tape and shoved it into the VCR with more force than necessary. "We're watching this. It's non-negotiable."
"I did not negotiate."
"You were going to."
"Maybe." Ilya flopped onto the couch, taking up far more space than was reasonable. "This is nice couch. Very comfortable."
"Move over."
"No. You sit on other end. Like civilized person."
Shane sat on the other end, leaving a careful distance between them. The fire crackled. The movie started. Outside, the wind howled.
Twenty minutes in, Ilya had migrated to the middle of the couch. Thirty minutes in, his leg was pressed against Shane's. By the time Kevin was setting up his booby traps, they were tangled together, Shane's head on Ilya's shoulder, Ilya's arm around Shane's waist.
Neither of them acknowledged it. That was the rule. Don't talk about the soft things. Don't name them. Just let them happen and pretend they didn't mean anything.
"This child is psychopath," Ilya observed as Harry and Marv suffered through another increasingly violent trap.
"He's protecting his home."
"He is torturing two grown men. For fun."
"They're burglars."
"They are also humans. With pain receptors." Ilya winced as Marv stepped on a nail. "This is children's movie?"
"It's a classic."
"Americans are very strange people."
Shane didn't argue. He was too comfortable, too warm, too aware of Ilya's heartbeat beneath his ear. This was dangerous territory. This was the kind of thing that led to feelings, to expectations, to all the complications they'd spent seven years avoiding.
He didn't move.
---
The movie ended. They watched Caddyshack next, which Ilya pronounced "completely insane but in good way." By the time Bill Murray was hunting the gopher, the snow outside had piled up past the windowsills and the wind was rattling the shutters.
"I think we're snowed in," Shane said, peering out the window.
"I tell you this would happen."
"You said 'maybe.' That's not the same as a prediction."
"Is same thing. I predict maybe, and maybe happens." Ilya stretched, his shirt riding up to reveal a strip of stomach. "Is problem?"
Shane watched a snowdrift climb higher against the glass. "The plows should come through tonight."
"And if they don't?"
"Then we wait."
"Mmm." Ilya's hand found Shane's hip, pulled him closer. "Waiting is not so bad. We find ways to pass time."
"Like what?"
Ilya's answer was a kiss—slow, deep, nothing like the frantic couplings they usually had in hotel rooms with one eye on the clock. This was leisurely. This was a kiss that had nowhere to be.
Shane let himself sink into it.
---
Saturday
Shane woke to an unfamiliar weight across his chest and a long moment of disorientation before he remembered where he was. Cottage. Laval. Snowstorm.
Ilya.
Ilya, who was draped across him like a very large, very warm blanket, snoring softly into Shane's neck. Ilya, whose leg was hooked over Shane's thigh and whose arm was wrapped around Shane's waist like he was afraid Shane might escape in the night.
Shane lay very still and tried not to think about how good this felt.
They'd fallen asleep on the couch, too lazy to move to one of the bedrooms after... after. Shane's body ached pleasantly in places that would make skating interesting on Monday. If he made it to Monday. If the snow ever stopped.
Carefully, he extracted himself from Ilya's grip and padded to the window. The world outside was white. Completely, impossibly white. Snow had drifted up past the porch railing, past the first-floor windows, transforming the landscape into something alien and beautiful.
The road was invisible.
"Fuck," Shane breathed.
Behind him, Ilya stirred. "Mmm. What time?"
"Almost nine. We're definitely snowed in."
"Good." Ilya rolled over, burrowing deeper into the couch cushions. "Come back to bed."
"This isn't a bed."
"Come back to couch, then. Is cold without you."
Shane hesitated. This was the moment to reassert boundaries. To remind them both that this was just a weekend, just sex, just two people killing time until they had to go back to their real lives.
He went back to the couch.
---
Breakfast was a problem.
"We did not bring breakfast food," Ilya said, staring into the refrigerator. "Only lunch food. And dinner food."
"My parents have cereal in the pantry."
"Cereal is not food. Cereal is disappointment in bowl."
"Then what do you suggest?"
Ilya considered. "Tuna melt?"
"For breakfast?"
"Tuna has protein. Protein is breakfast food."
Shane couldn't argue with that logic, mostly because he was too tired to try. Ilya made tuna melts—surprisingly competent ones, with the cheese perfectly melted and the bread toasted golden—and they ate standing at the kitchen counter, looking out at the snow.
"Your parents have many board games," Ilya observed, nodding toward the shelf in the living room. "Monopoly. Scrabble. Operation."
"They like game nights."
"We should play."
"Monopoly takes forever."
"Not Monopoly. Operation. I am curious about American surgery."
"It's not real surgery. It's a children's game."
"Even better. I will be very good at children's game."
Ilya was not very good at the children's game.
"You touched the sides again," Shane said, as the buzzer sounded for the fifth time in a row.
"The holes are too small! This is impossible!"
"It's designed for children with small hands."
"Then children should play it, not grown men with normal-sized hands!" Ilya threw down the tweezers in disgust. "This game is rigged."
"The game is not rigged. You just have bad fine motor control."
"My fine motor control is excellent. I am professional hockey player."
"Hockey doesn't require you to remove a plastic wishbone from a tiny hole without touching the sides."
"Hockey requires many things! Precision! Accuracy! Not touching sides of things!"
Shane retrieved the wishbone with steady hands, not touching the sides even once. Ilya glared at him.
"You are showing off."
"I'm demonstrating proper technique."
"Proper is boring." Ilya crossed his arms. "I demand different game. One that does not discriminate against people with large hands."
"We could play cards."
"Cards are boring."
"Strip poker?"
The words were out before Shane could stop them. Ilya's eyebrows rose.
"Strip poker," he repeated. "You want to play strip poker."
Shane felt his face heat. "Forget it. It was a stupid suggestion."
"No, no. I like this suggestion." Ilya was grinning now, that predatory grin that made Shane's stomach flip. "I am very good at poker. You will be naked in twenty minutes."
"I'm also good at poker."
"We will see."
---
Twenty-three minutes later, Shane was down to his boxers and one sock. Ilya was still fully clothed.
"You are cheating," Shane said.
"I am not cheating. I am winning."
"You haven't taken off a single thing."
"Because I am winning." Ilya laid down his cards—full house, queens over tens. "You lose again."
"How is this possible? You bluff constantly. Your poker face is terrible."
"My poker face is excellent. You are just..." Ilya waved a hand. "Distracted."
"By what?"
"By me. Obviously."
Shane threw his remaining sock at Ilya's head. Ilya caught it, laughing.
"Take off boxers," he said. "Rules are rules."
"I'm not taking off my boxers. I'll freeze."
"Then come here and I warm you up."
Shane hesitated. The fire was burning low, casting flickering shadows across the room. Ilya was lounging on the couch like he owned it, still fully dressed, looking at Shane with an expression that made his mouth go dry.
"This is a bad idea," Shane said.
"All our ideas are bad ideas. This is not new."
Shane went to him anyway.
---
Later—much later—they lay on the floor in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket Shane had pulled from the closet. The couch hadn't been big enough for what they'd wanted to do.
"I should make lunch," Shane said, not moving.
"Is only two o'clock."
"I'm hungry."
"You are always hungry after sex. Like clockwork."
"Cardio burns calories."
Ilya snorted. "I do not think what we just did qualifies as cardio."
"It absolutely qualifies as cardio. My heart rate was elevated for at least thirty minutes."
"That is because you were anxious, not because of exercise."
Shane turned his head to look at Ilya. "I wasn't anxious."
"You are always anxious." Ilya's hand found Shane's under the blanket, squeezed. "Is okay. I am used to it."
Shane didn't know what to say to that. He wasn't used to this—the casual intimacy, the easy affection. Usually they fucked and then retreated to their separate corners, maintaining the careful distance that kept things manageable. But here, trapped by the snow, there was nowhere to retreat to.
"I'll make ramen," he said, sitting up.
"Ramen is not lunch."
"Ramen with an egg is lunch."
"Ramen with egg is still not lunch. Is sad college student meal."
"My ramen is good. I add scallions."
Ilya made a face but didn't argue. Shane wrapped the blanket around himself and shuffled to the kitchen, suddenly self-conscious about his nakedness in a way he hadn't been five minutes ago.
The ramen, he had to admit, was not his best work. But Ilya ate it anyway, sitting at the counter in nothing but his jeans, and pronounced it "acceptable, for sad college student meal."
"High praise," Shane said dryly.
"I am generous man."
---
The afternoon stretched on, slow and strange. They tried to watch another movie, but the VCR ate the tape halfway through Ghostbusters and refused to give it back. Shane spent twenty minutes trying to extract it with a pair of needle-nose pliers while Ilya offered increasingly unhelpful advice.
"Maybe if you pull harder—"
"I'm not going to pull harder. I'll break the mechanism."
"Mechanism is already broken. What is difference?"
"The difference is my mother loves this VCR. She's had it since 1992."
"Your mother has very strange attachment to outdated technology."
Shane finally freed the tape—mangled beyond repair—and sat back on his heels, defeated. "We killed Ghostbusters."
"Ghostbusters was already dead. We just... assisted."
"That's not comforting."
"Was not meant to be comforting. Was meant to be accurate."
Shane put the tape in the trash and tried not to feel like a murderer. "What do we do now?"
"We could have sex again."
"We've had sex three times in less than twenty-four hours."
"Is this problem?"
"It's not a problem. It's just..." Shane searched for the word. "A lot."
Ilya's expression shifted, something flickering behind his eyes. "You want to stop?"
"No. That's not what I—" Shane ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "I just don't know what to do. When we're not having sex. I don't know how to be with you like this."
The admission hung in the air between them, heavier than Shane had intended. Ilya was quiet for a long moment.
"Me too," he said finally.
"You too what?"
"I do not know how to be with you like this. Without the—" He gestured vaguely. "Structure. Rules. Knowing when we leave."
"We're supposed to leave tomorrow. If the plows come."
"Yes. And then we go back to normal. Pretending we are strangers."
"We don't pretend we're strangers. We pretend we're rivals."
"Same thing with you." Ilya stood, moving to the window. The light outside was fading, the short winter day already giving way to dusk. "I hate this part. The pretending."
Shane's heart clenched. "Ilya—"
"Is fine. I know why we do it. I know what happens if people find out. I just..." He pressed his palm to the cold glass. "Sometimes I wish things were different."
Shane didn't know what to say. He wished things were different too—wished they could hold hands in public, wished he could introduce Ilya to his parents as something other than "my rival," wished the world was a place where two men who played hockey could love each other openly.
But it wasn't. And wishing didn't change anything.
"I'll make dinner," he said, because he didn't know what else to offer.
---
Dinner was a salad. Shane's salad—chicken breast he'd grilled on the stovetop, boiled eggs sliced thin, lettuce and tomatoes and cucumber, everything arranged neatly on two plates.
Ilya stared at it like Shane had served him a plate of insects.
"This is dinner?"
"It's healthy."
"It is leaves. With protein on top."
"That's what a salad is."
"Salad is not dinner. Salad is what you eat before dinner, to pretend you are making good choices before you eat real food."
"Just try it."
Ilya picked up a piece of chicken with his fingers, examined it suspiciously, and ate it. His expression remained skeptical.
"Is fine," he admitted. "Chicken is good. But—" He stood and went to the refrigerator, returning with a bottle of ranch dressing. He proceeded to drown the entire salad in it, until the lettuce was barely visible beneath the white.
"That defeats the purpose of eating a salad," Shane said.
"Purpose of eating is to enjoy food. I am enjoying food." Ilya took a bite of ranch-covered lettuce and made an exaggerated sound of pleasure. "See? Delicious."
"You're impossible."
"I am Russian. We do not eat leaves without sauce."
They ate in silence for a few minutes. The fire crackled. Outside, the wind had died down, and the snow had stopped falling at some point during the afternoon. Shane found himself hoping, against all logic, that the plows wouldn't come tonight. That they'd have one more day.
"Shane," Ilya said.
"Yeah?"
"This is nice. Being here with you." Ilya wasn't looking at him, focused intently on his ranch-drowned salad. "I know I said I do not know how to do this. But... I like it. Learning."
Shane's throat tightened. "I like it too."
"Maybe we do this again sometime. When we have weekend off."
"Maybe."
"Is not commitment. Just... possibility."
"I know." Shane reached across the table and touched Ilya's hand, just briefly. "I'd like that. The possibility."
Ilya finally looked at him, and something in his expression made Shane's breath catch. It wasn't love—neither of them was ready to call it that, to name it and make it real. But it was something. Something that felt like a beginning.
"Good," Ilya said. "Is settled."
"Nothing is settled. We just agreed to a possibility."
"Possibility is first step to settling. This is how things work."
Shane didn't argue. He was too busy memorizing the way Ilya looked in the firelight, the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the way his hand felt under Shane's.
Tomorrow, the plows would come. They'd dig out the car and drive back to their separate lives. Shane would fly to Florida. Ilya would fly to New York. They'd go back to pretending, to hiding, to the careful dance they'd perfected over seven years.
But tonight, they were here. Together. And that was enough.
---
Sunday
The plow came at 2:47 PM.
Shane heard it first—the rumble of the engine, the scrape of metal on asphalt—and felt something sink in his chest. He'd known it was coming. He'd checked the weather reports on his phone all morning, watching the roads slowly reopen across the region. But knowing didn't make it easier.
"Plow is here," Ilya said from the window, unnecessarily.
"I heard."
"We should probably..." He gestured vaguely toward the door.
"Yeah."
Neither of them moved.
They'd spent the morning like the day before—lazy, unhurried, pretending the outside world didn't exist. Shane had made breakfast this time (eggs and toast, nothing fancy) and Ilya had done the dishes, and then they'd ended up on the couch again, tangled together, not talking about anything important.
Not talking about Monday. Not talking about what this meant. Not talking about the fact that Shane had woken up with Ilya's name on his lips and a feeling in his chest that he refused to examine too closely.
"I need to pack," Shane said.
"Yes."
"And clean up. My parents will notice if we leave the place a mess."
"I can help."
"You don't have to—"
"I want to." Ilya turned from the window, his expression careful. "Is least I can do. For the weekend."
Shane nodded. They cleaned in silence—Ilya washing, Shane drying, just like before—and packed their bags and made sure the fire was completely out. The cottage looked the same as when they'd arrived, as if nothing had happened here.
But something had happened. Shane could feel it, even if he couldn't name it.
"Ready?" Ilya asked, his duffel bag over his shoulder.
"Ready."
They walked out to the car. The plow had cleared a path down the driveway, and the road beyond was passable, if still slick with packed snow. Shane brushed off the windshield while Ilya loaded their bags into the trunk.
"Shane," Ilya said, as Shane reached for the driver's door.
"Yeah?"
Ilya kissed him. Right there, in the driveway, in broad daylight, where anyone could see. It was reckless and stupid and exactly like Ilya—impulsive, heedless of consequences.
Shane kissed him back anyway.
"For luck," Ilya said when they broke apart.
"We don't need luck. We need to not get photographed."
"Always so practical." But Ilya was smiling, that crooked half-smile that made Shane's chest ache. "Thank you for the weekend, Shane Hollander."
"You're welcome, Ilya Rozanov."
They got in the car. Shane started the engine, pulled out of the driveway, and turned toward the highway that would take them back to Montreal, back to reality, back to the lives they'd been living before this weekend.
In the rearview mirror, the cottage disappeared behind a curtain of snow-covered trees.
"Same time next month, maybe?" Ilya asked.
Shane glanced at him—at this impossible, infuriating, beautiful man who'd spent the weekend making him snail pasta and beating him at strip poker and sleeping pressed against his back like he belonged there.
"Same time next month," he agreed. "Maybe."
Ilya reached over and took his hand. Shane let him.
They drove the rest of the way in comfortable silence, hands intertwined, not talking about what this meant. They'd figure it out eventually. They had time.
For now, this was enough.