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Never before have two weeks felt this short.
Ilya has his face nuzzled in the crook of Shane’s shoulder, his warm breath only interrupted by soft kisses, grazing his skin. They haven’t even had sex today. They’ve just been...cuddling.
And Shane doesn’t ever want to stop. He runs his fingers through Ilya’s curls, keeping his other arm wrapped around his torso. Skin on skin.
Had he known that this is how it could’ve been had they only been better at communicating their feelings, maybe they could’ve gotten here sooner. Maybe then the world wouldn’t be as aching anymore.
Shane doesn’t want the time to pass, and yet, his eyes are glued to his watch. Every passing minute is excruciating and makes him want to hold Ilya even closer. His weight is heavy on his body, somehow a manifesto of the two weeks they spent together. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be okay without that weight again.
“Your flight is soon,” Shane hears himself say against every yearning fiber in his body. “We should go.”
Ilya hums in protest and buries his face deeper in Shane’s neck.
Shane exhales, kisses Ilya’s curls, and holds him tighter. “I know,” he murmurs. “Me either.”
Ilya lifts his head, wincing at the loss of contact. “I will stay,” he says. “Forever.”
“I wish you could.” Shane reaches up, dragging his thumb over Ilya’s perfect jaw. He knows that they both would stay like this until the end of time if they could, but Ilya needs to feel it even more than he does. He needs to be held and he needs the attention. Pure, focused, undivided attention. He won’t have that in Boston, and even less so in Russia.
“I love you.” Ilya’s voice breaks, and he settles against Shane’s bare chest again. Now that they’ve said it once, they can’t stop saying it. Over dinner, out on the lake, after every shower, or mumbled while brushing their teeth.
“I love you too.” Shane closes his eyes, inhaling Ilya’s scent—his shampoo, and something much deeper he can’t name as anything other than Ilya. “But you’ll miss your flight, and we both have commitments to get back to.”
Ilya groans and shakes his head again.
“I’ll send you a nude photo of me once you land,” Shane suggests half-heartedly.
“I have you nude here,” Ilya argues.
“Ilya.” Shane meets his eyes, and to see his boyfriend this unwilling to move simultaneously breaks his heart and fills him with love. “I wish we could stay here forever. But we really need to go. And I’ll fly to Boston as soon as I have a free couple of days, okay? I promise. I’m not gonna be able to make it without you for long.”
Convincing himself to get up is the hardest part of the goodbye. Once Ilya is dressed and Shane slips on his shoes to drive him to the airport, they linger.
“Do you have everything?” Shane asks hesitantly, searching for any excuse to stay.
Ilya nods. “I left my shirt. For you.”
“I’ll wear it as soon as I get back here,” Shane promises. He enters Ilya’s space, leaning their foreheads together. “We can’t kiss goodbye at the airport.”
Ilya takes the invitation to surge forward, meeting Shane’s lips with a desperation and urgency that leaves them both wanting more, but there really is no time, this is all they have. His kiss is searching and longing, imprinting on Shane’s mouth and mind equally.
They’ve never had a goodbye worse than this. Even when they secretly missed each other and waited for the next game that would put them in the same city, it was never like this. Now they know what they could have all the time, if the world was any less unfair.
When they part, Shane exhales slowly. “Let’s go,” he mutters, brushing his hand against Ilya’s cheek. He quickly kisses him one more time before opening the door. “We have to get going.”
The drive to the airport is long and silent. Soft music playing on the radio doesn’t improve the mood, and Ilya keeps stroking over Shane’s hand. When Shane puts the car into park, he looks at Ilya, who is still holding onto his hand like it's his lifeline.
It’s incredibly hard not to climb into his lap and kiss him senseless right there. Ilya is wearing his sunglasses and a cap, a disguise that would not protect him from hardcore fans, and grazes Shane’s knuckles.
“I don’t want you to go.” Shane turns his head, leaning against the headrest of his seat. “I really want to turn around and keep you with me.”
“Yes.” Ilya nods softly.
“I don’t want to see you leave. It’s gonna hurt me too much.”
Ilya glances around as if to check the surroundings, but there are too many people here to kiss safely. They really need to invest in dimmed windows for their cars. “Okay,” he says finally. “I have an idea.”
“Yeah?”
Part of Shane hopes that the idea is I will move to Montreal for you right now, screw Boston, screw our teams, let’s be publicly happy and married, but he knows that’s an insane thing to hope for.
Instead, Ilya reaches into the glove department where Shane keeps his emergency noise-canceling headphones and hands them to him. “You put these on,” he says. “And you close your eyes, and you believe that I am with you for as long as you don’t look. You will not know when I leave, you will only see it when I am already gone.” He slightly leans in. “And then you sell your weird car and buy a less boring one with dark windows, yes?”
Shane can’t help but chuckle at the remark, though it burns with unshed tears. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah. I wish I could kiss you right now.”
“Next time,” Ilya says, and blinks a few times. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I will stay a little longer. Keep your eyes closed.”
Shane puts the headphones one, catches one last glance at the love of his life, and closes his eyes.
He sits like that for a while. It’s hard to say for how long he lets Ilya’s uncertain presence linger over him. He replays the last two weeks in his mind; swimming together, cooking together, frankly a ton of absolutely incredible sex, introducing him to his parents, morning cuddles, and shared showers. He pictures their kisses, their fingers laced together, the warmth of Ilya’s arm slung around his body, the baths taken as aftercare and the endless pleasure Ilya provided him with.
When Shane opens his eyes, Ilya is gone.
The drive back to the cottage is even worse. Shane sits in his car, not even daring to enter the house that now holds so many memories, when his phone buzzes.
Lily: I love you.
Lily: Boarding now. I will call later.
Shane quickly types his response.
Jane: I love you too. Safe flight.
He stares for a moment longer, then shoves his phone back into his pocket, and turns the car around.
“Oh, baby,” are the first words out of Yuna’s mouth when Shane shows up unannounced, looking like he’s about to have a mental breakdown.
The lump in his throat is too big to swallow, and so he lets her pull him into a hug. “I can’t talk to anyone else,” he manages finally, trying to suppress his tears. “I miss him so much.”
Shane doesn’t register when David joins them in their hug, holding his son like his life depends on it. “It will be alright,” he says. “You will see him again soon.”
Shane carefully breaks away from them, wiping over his eyes, which have spilled tears despite his best attempt at keeping them in. “It’s not just that, it’s...” He sighs, covers his face with his hands for a moment, exhaling into them. “It’s everything? Sort of?” He lets himself be guided to the living room couch, and the moment he settles down, Yuna is already pulling a blanket over him. “If it was any regular long-distance relationship, it’d suck,” Shane says. “But it’s different. It sucks so much more for us. And now that I had him...” He leans against the backrest, closing his eyes. “I have to wait months until we play against each other again. It’ll be weeks until I have a free weekend to fly to Boston while he’s also there. And I can’t even tell anyone about it, I just have to be normal about it and pretend like it’s fine.”
He keeps his eyes closed but feels David placing a warm mug in his hands. For a moment, he’s grateful that his parents know him this well. No matter what he needs, they will know, and they will help him get there.
Well, except for when he needed Ilya for the better part of a decade and didn’t even know it himself.
“I’m sorry,” Shane breathes and opens his eyes. He stares at the tea in his hands. “I know this may still be weird for you.”
“Oh, no,” Yuna disagrees. “Ilya is part of this family now.”
“He had my vodka,” David adds. “Anyone who compliments my drink choices is part of the family.”
Shane chuckles under tears. “I feel like things are so new between us. But they really aren’t. I don’t think I can ever go back to how things were before the cottage.” He looks at his parents, who watch him with sad eyes and furrowed brows. “I love him so much it’s unfair.”
A few weeks later, Shane can’t help but refresh his notifications every two minutes, never receiving another text from Ilya. It’s been too long without contact, and he’s desperately praying that the evening will arrive quicker so he can call his boyfriend in the privacy of his apartment.
During his next game, Shane is completely distracted. Phonecalls between games and discreet messages aren’t enough to keep his mind off Ilya and what he’s missing out on right now. He plays worse than ever before, missing goal after goal, and accidentally tripping one too many times.
They’ll never win the season at this rate.
“What’s wrong?” Hayden asks after a particularly bad practice in the locker room. “I’ve never seen you mess up so much.”
“I’m fine, just...” He gestures at nothing in particular. “Distracted, I guess.”
“Gotta pull it together, man,” JJ adds. “I know you can be better.”
“Anything you need to talk about?” Hayden adds. “Maybe it’d help you to get it off your chest.”
“Uh, nope.” Shane pulls his shirt over his head and stuffs his underarmor shirt into his bag. “Like I said, I’m just a little distracted, I guess. It’s nothing to worry about.”
He feels Hayden’s eyes lingering on him as he checks his phone. No new notification. Lily hasn’t texted him all day. Maybe he’s too clingy. Maybe Ilya is not constantly thinking about him and losing games because of it. The conversation of the other players blurs together as Shane stares at his notifications, trying to will Ilya’s contact to appear, until someone says the name Rozanov.
“What?” Shane whips his head around maybe a little too quickly.
“Rozanov,” the other guy repeats. “Media is going a little crazy. He basically ran out after his last game, didn’t give any interviews even though Boston won, and nobody knows where he went. You haven’t seen?”
“No, I haven’t.” Shane clears his throat. “I don’t exactly check in with Rozanov.” He tries his best attempt at keeping a steady voice and pretending that he doesn’t care.
But on the way home, he googles him. Ilya Rozanov. News.
What if something happened? What if Shane is an absolutely selfish asshole who can’t think of anything but Ilya pressing him into the mattress and fucking his brains out, while his boyfriend has gone on some manic trip and never shows up again? No information, no text messages, no calls.
Online articles claim he disappeared quickly, seeming distraught, and not speaking to anyone. Not even to Shane, apparently.
He tries to call him four times. This is Ilya, I will never listen to your voicemail.
Thanks, Ilya.
His eyes glued to the phone, Shane exits the car and heads up to his apartment, anxiously chewing on the strings of his hoodie.
Jane: Text me.
Jane: Did something happen?
When he enters the apartment, the lights are already on, and Shane nearly drops his phone.
“Surprise.” Ilya holds out his arms, and Shane doesn’t need to think twice before rushing into his embrace.
“What the fuck, Ilya,” he mumbles into his boyfriend’s shirt. “Media is saying you straight up vanished.”
“Mh, no, I had flight to catch,” Ilya says and wraps his muscular arms around Shane’s body. “It was very short waiting time after game, so I had to go quickly.”
“You didn’t text me.” Shane inhales his scent, trying to grasp the concept that Ilya is here, in his apartment.
“Would not have been surprise otherwise,” Ilya claims and reaches up to grab Shane’s chin. He drags his thumb over his lips. “I am here now. Until Sunday. Cancelled a practice. I missed you too much.”
“You asshole,” Shane says and laughs with tears in his eyes, which Ilya seems to accurately translate as I missed you too. He kisses him, wrapping his arms around Ilya’s neck, and relishing his taste.
He would never, ever, let go again if it was up to him.