Archive of Our Own ^beta

Water lapped at the shore gently as Shane sat outside having his morning smoothie. It was always a relief to be at the cottage after a long, exhausting season.

This season, particularly.

He glanced around. He was alone. Of course he was. But, at one point, he had actually believed he wouldn’t be.

He had thought Ilya – Rozanov – would say yes, when he asked him.

Instead, he had broken up with him.

If you could even break up with someone you hadn’t truly been with in the first place.

“It’s just not good idea, Hollander,” Ilya had said, not quite looking at him, when they met at Shane’s place after the game. Ilya had already been there when he arrived, having used the door code that Shane had murmured to him on the ice. It had made his heart beat faster, knowing Ilya would be home waiting for him…

But then everything had grown cold, when he realized what Ilya was really doing.

Shane had truly believed things were different. After he had broken up with Rose, after the All-Star game, after Ilya had lost his father and finally allowed himself to lean on Shane a bit more… the ending seemed so abrupt. They should have been moving forward, not backwards.

Ilya was scared, Shane knew. He had to feel the same, he was just… scared.

And Shane was too, but he had actually wanted to push past the fear, for the first time in his life. He had wanted more.

Instead, he had ended up with less.

He took another sip of the smoothie, but it felt flavorless on his tongue. He stared out at the lake in front of him, and for a moment he couldn’t remember why he loved it so much, why he found it so peaceful.

He had really believed Ilya would say yes. He had thought he would be here, that things would… would be better.

But now, he didn’t even know what the next season would look like, when he had to face Ilya on the ice, knowing everything between them was over.

He would never kiss him again.

He would never touch him again.

It felt as if a part of Shane was being shredded to pieces, it hurt so much.

He had never shared this cottage with anyone, not really. Only his parents had ever visited him here. For the first time in his life, he had wanted someone else in his sacred space.

But Ilya hadn’t wanted him. It was too much, too complicated. All those years together, finally weighing on them, exhausting. All that hiding, all that doubt, all that heartbreak…

Shane closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. He told himself that, when he exhaled, he would push Rozanov out of his system and not think about him again.

He told himself he would succeed.

He had gotten very good at lying the past eight years.

That very first week at the cottage felt odd. Shane filled every available moment with activities: working out, cleaning, reading books on hockey strategy, studying videos of other teams as if he was in the middle of the season and getting ready to face them on the ice right away. He swam on the lake, too, the cold water feeling like a slap against his skin, and ran around the shore until he couldn’t breathe.

Nights, though, were difficult. It was impossible not to notice how alone he was when the only company he had were the cicadas and the loons.

For the first time since Shane had had the cottage built, he considered not spending his entire summer there. He thought about going back to Montreal, where he could hang out with Hayden and Jackie, where he could meet his teammates, where everything would be louder and busier.

Perhaps it would be better, before he turned this place he loved into another miserable memory, one he wouldn’t be able to return to, not without sacrificing the peace it had once given him.

He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain his early departure to his parents, but that didn’t matter now. He just needed… he needed to leave.

As if there was anywhere he could run where the memory of Ilya Rozanov wasn’t going to follow him.

So the next morning, he began to pack. He wasn’t in the mood to go back to Montreal, but he wasn’t in the mood to be here, either.

Shane was in the middle of coming up with an excuse to tell his parents when his phone rang, an unknown number on the screen. He frowned as he picked up.

“Hello?”

The person on the other side of the line addressed him in an American accent: “Good morning. May I speak to Shane?”

Shane tried to figure out who this could be. Anything business-related went through his mother, so this couldn’t be a brand getting in contact for a publicity campaign. He didn’t feel like dealing with anything of the sort at the moment, either. “Yes, uhm, speaking?”

“Oh. I’m calling from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston,” the person on the other end said. “We have a Shane listed here as an emergency contact for Mr. Ilya Rozanov?”

And then it hit him that she wasn’t saying Shane, but Jane.

“What?” He exclaimed, heart already racing in fear. “Is Ilya…?”

“I’m afraid Mr. Rozanov was in a car accident very early this morning. He was brought in around four o’clock,” she explained. Everything in Shane seemed to become paralyzed. None of the words she was saying made sense. “He’s in the ICU at the moment. He hasn’t regained consciousness yet. We suspect a concussion, aside from a few broken ribs…”

Shane’s head was suddenly filled with a fog, and he couldn’t understand anything else. Ilya was in the hospital. He was in the ICU. He was…

Everything in him shivered with a kind of terror he had never known before.

“We couldn’t find any family members to contact,” the woman was saying now. “Are you…?”

“I will be there in a few hours,” he said, before he could actually process it. He went back to packing, but it suddenly was for a very different reason.

By the time Shane had made it to the airport, news of Ilya’s accident had begun to circulate. It was Hayden who texted him first, a link to an article that Shane was afraid to open.

[From: Hayden]: Have you seen this? It’s crazy, man.

When Shane clicked on it, his heart stopped. There it was, one of Ilya’s insane sport cars, the front wrapped around a tree in a way that made it look like it had almost bent in half. There was glass everywhere, and it looked like firefighters had had to cut the driver’s side door open in order to get Ilya out.

He didn’t dare read the article. He couldn’t reply to Hayden either.

He puked in an airport bathroom and wished he was at Ilya’s side already.

The hours until he finally landed in Boston and took a cab to the hospital seemed to stretch themselves like those impossible nightmares in which you seem to be getting closer to what you want only for it to get further away. Shane felt like he was hanging by a very thin thread as he paid the driver and got out of the cab. He hadn’t even bothered to stop by a hotel to drop his luggage – he didn’t want to waste another minute.

Dragging his carry on along, he stepped towards the information desk past the entrance. It was crowded here, people coming and going, visiting their loved ones, getting check ups, going about their days. Shane had put on sunglasses and a baseball cap, but he knew that if there were any hockey fans in the vicinity, it wouldn’t fool them.

He realized, at that very moment, that he couldn’t give a single fuck if someone saw him visiting Ilya Rozanov in the hospital. He just needed to get to him.

The nurse behind the desk glanced up when he stopped in front of her. She had a polite smile and a no-nonsense demeanor, like she was used to dealing with a lot of bullshit. Shane got more nervous than he already was. What if they didn’t let him see Ilya, despite the fact that they had called him?

“Hi. I got a call about Ilya Rozanov,” he said. “Is he… is he okay?”

That was more important than anything.

“Let me see…” She clicked away on her computer. It didn’t take more than a few seconds, but to Shane it felt like forever. He was holding his breath the entire time. “Yes, he’s been moved to a private room. The doctors managed to stabilize him but there are still some concerns, mostly because he hasn’t woken up yet. Are you…” She looked at him and frowned. “Are you family?”

Shane shook his head. “No. But I’m his emergency contact.”

It was still so odd to say that. He didn’t understand why he was Ilya’s emergency contact. They hadn’t even spoken to each other in weeks. The last thing Ilya had said to him was We shouldn’t see each other anymore, Hollander.

It stung. It still stung so badly.

She typed a few more things on the computer. Shane had to bite his tongue not to yell at her to hurry up. He felt like he was on the edge of a precipice, holding tightly to the jagged rock and about to fall. He needed the solid ground under his feet again, and he would only get that if he knew how Ilya was, if he got to see him and make sure he was still in one piece…

“Oh, I see,” she said. “Someone got in contact with Mr. Rozanov’s manager first. Apparently he was the one who had his emergency contact’s information. He was out of town, so he said he couldn’t come and we should contact… Jane, instead.”

She glanced at him, as if realizing he was most certainly not Jane.

“It’s Shane,” he corrected. “S-H-A-N-E.”

“Oh,” she muttered again. “Very well.”

Shane was going to scream. He felt it rising in his throat like bile.

“Just let me confirm, is there no family we can contact instead? We always need to reach out to family first, before we are allowed to give information to…”

“No,” Shane interrupted, hoping to move this along. “No. He only has a brother, back in Russia, and they are not in the best of terms. I don’t think Ilya would want you contacting him anyway.”

“Okay,” she said. She finally stood up. “Follow me, please.”

She guided him to the third floor and down corridors that felt painfully long. Shane followed her, almost tripping on his own feet in his need to hurry up and get to the room. Eventually, she stopped just outside a door marked 356. There was a small window in it that looked into the room, but Shane couldn’t get a glimpse of anything inside from where he was standing. Everything in him was taut with anticipation.

“I’ll let his doctor know you’re here so you can get an update soon,” she said, before pushing the door open. “If you need anything, the nurse’s station is just down the hall.”

“Thank you,” Shane stammered. She nodded and walked away.

Shane went into the room.

His phone had been blowing up with articles about the accident for the past few hours. He’d seen more pictures of Ilya’s car from different angles, had seen how extensive the damage to the vehicle was, had read a few lines here and there about what it had been like to get Ilya out of the car.

And yet nothing had prepared him for what he saw when he approached the bed.

His carry on bag fell on the floor with a loud thud as he let go of it to rush the last few steps. Ilya was bandaged around his chest. One of his legs was in a heavy cast. There was a big bump on his forehead and tiny, ugly cuts all over his face from the glass that had shattered everywhere. There was a bit of blood hidden in his beautiful blonde curls that probably no one had noticed when they had brought him in, when they cleaned him up…

It was all Shane’s eyes could focus on.

“Shit, Ilya,” he murmured brokenly.

He didn’t move or open his eyes or give any sign of knowing Shane was here. He was surrounded by beeping machines, their sounds the only indication that the man in this bed was alive and breathing.

In all the time they had known each other, in all the time they had met up to hook up, how many times had Shane seen him so perfectly still? They never really slept together, never spent enough time together in order to waste precious moments sleeping. Ilya was always… so energetic, so unstoppable, so eager to touch and kiss and fuck. Seeing him like this was like being punched in the stomach, all his breath stolen from him painfully.

Realizing his legs weren’t going to hold him up much longer, Shane reached for the chair close to the bed and pulled it right next to it, as if he needed to kill the distance between them as much as possible without actually climbing on the bed next to Ilya. He sat down heavily and hesitated – he wanted to hold his hand, but he felt like it wasn’t allowed.

Being here didn’t feel allowed. Why was he here? Why was he Ilya’s emergency contact? It made no sense. Ilya had been so clear, had spelled it out for him, how he didn’t want him anymore, how they couldn’t be together, how impossible it all was, just when Shane had been ready to ask for a little bit more…

None of that mattered now. All that mattered was that Ilya woke up.

Shane wasn’t stupid. He knew that not seeing each other didn’t mean their feelings – or at least his feelings – disappeared in an instant. Going to his cottage to lick his wounds hadn’t worked. Focusing on the end of the season hadn’t worked. All he had been able to think about lately was Ilya, and how they hadn’t gotten enough time together. Eight fucking years, and yet it hadn’t been enough. If he counted all the times they had been in the same room – fuck, in the same country – did they even amount to a year? No. They probably didn’t even amount to a month.

Shane had wanted more. He had needed more. Because he had fallen in love with Ilya Rozanov, even if he hadn’t been ready to admit that even to himself.

And now there wasn’t anything for him here, but it didn’t matter. He just wanted Ilya to be okay, even if he had to keep loving him from afar, even if he couldn’t be greedy like he wanted to be and ask for everything he had never thought he could have.

Everything he knew he couldn’t have.

Shane felt the sob building in his throat and struggled to swallow it down.

His fingers itched with the need to reach for him. Instead, he ran them through his hair, hoping it would ease his despair.

It did not.

There was a soft knock on the door. Shane stood up abruptly as if he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. A doctor walked in, a sympathetic and polite smile etched on her lips. Her eyes flashed with something at the sight of Shane there – recognition, probably – but she didn’t comment on it.

“Hello. I’m doctor Jenkins,” she said. Shane hurried to shake her hand.

“I’m Shane. How is he?” Shane blurted out, because that was all that mattered and he couldn’t deal with pointless pleasantries now.

“Well, I’m not going to lie to you. Mr. Rozanov’s situation is delicate,” she said, and it felt like another kick to his stomach. “He has a couple of badly bruised ribs and his leg is fractured. We are currently more concerned about head injuries, though, which we can’t assess properly until he wakes up. We took a few scans and nothing seems to be wrong, but we will only know for sure when he regains consciousness. He’ll have a pretty serious concussion, at least, and that’s honestly the best we can hope for now.”

Shane tried to process the information as best as he could. “How bad is the leg fracture? He’s… he’s a professional hockey player. Will he be able to play again?”

Oh yeah, that was certainly recognition in the doctor’s eyes. “Probably after a bit of physical therapy, yes. It might take him a few months. But, like I said, what we need now is to wait for him to wake up. That will give us a more comprehensible view of his situation.”

“How long will it be until he wakes up?” Shane wanted to know.

Now her gaze shifted to something that could only be called pity. “We don’t know that for sure. It’s a guessing game, usually. Hopefully soon, though. The sooner he wakes up, the more positive the diagnosis will be.”

Suddenly, Shane wished his mom could be here. She was so good at this kind of situation, always keeping a level head, always knowing exactly what to ask. Shane felt like a small kid thrown into adulthood too soon, even though he knew that was far from the truth.

“Oh, before I forget,” she said. She extracted a small plastic bag from her pocket. “These are Mr. Rozanov’s belongings.”

Inside the bag, there was his phone, a set of keys, and that beautiful golden necklace he had worn for as long as Shane had known him. He accepted it.

“We turned the phone off, but surely there are people trying to contact him, if you want to take care of that,” she said. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours to check on him.”

Shane thanked her, and then he was alone again. He bit his lip as he stared at the phone that had just been handed to him. How would he reply to people’s messages and calls? He couldn’t do that. No one could know he was here.

He turned the phone on. He expected a million notifications to pour in, desperate requests for information and good wishes for Ilya’s health.

But the phone didn’t ring, didn’t vibrate, not even once. It lay on Shane’s palm as silent as its owner was on the bed beside him.

Shane ventured out of the room about two hours after he had arrived. He found a vending machine down the hall and he got a granola bar and a cup of awful coffee. He didn’t go anywhere else, just grabbed that and marched back into Ilya’s room, as if in the time he had left him alone, something could have changed. It hadn’t. Ilya was still asleep.

Shane sat back on the chair and bit into the granola bar, which felt flavorless against his tongue. His eyes flitted shortly to the cellphone he had left on the nightstand. No one had called Ilya yet, in the past couple of hours. He had dared to check his messages, but there was nothing there either. The Boston Raiders group chat was quiet. His teammates were probably too busy enjoying their summer to know their captain was laying on a hospital bed.

It was startling to see that Ilya didn’t seem to be in contact with many people. He had expected to find a thousand girls constantly bombarding his phone. Instead, he found that his last three chats had been with his teammates, his friend Svetlana, and Jane. They hadn’t talked in weeks. The last message was Shane giving him his address on that night he thought he was going to get to invite him to his cottage and they had ended things instead.

Shane’s phone had pinged with notifications non-stop since he had got out of the plane. Teammates and friends sending him the articles about Ilya’s accident and asking him how his summer was going. His dad had sent him a picture, too, although Shane hadn’t opened it. The silence on Ilya’s end felt… jarring. Wrong.

Just as he was taking a sip of coffee, Ilya’s head shifted slightly on the pillow, almost making Shane spill the coffee on himself. He stood up quickly, put the coffee down and approached the bed.

“Ilya?” He muttered, and his voice shook.

Ilya shifted again, a little frown appearing on his face, his eyes still closed. He parted his lips slightly, and a weak string of Russian words came out of them.

Shane didn’t understand any of them, except for one – Mama.

An invisible fist squeezed his heart.

“Ilya,” he said again. Fuck it, he thought. He ran his fingers through Ilya’s curls, soothingly. “Hey. Wake up, please.”

“Mama, pozhaluysta,” Ilya muttered again, and then he exhaled and seemed to go still once more.

“Fuck, Ilya,” Shane muttered, the tears clogging his throat. His fingers were still threaded through Ilya’s lovely curls. Had he ever told Ilya how much he loved his hair, how good it felt to bury his fingers in it? And not just in a sexual way, holding onto it when Ilya was blowing him. Shane fantasized with simple afternoons on the couch watching TV, Ilya’s head resting on his lap, his fingers in his hair…

No, of course he hadn’t told him. They never spoke of things like that.

He sat down again and this time, he dared grab Ilya’s hand between his own, cradling it like the precious thing it was.

His coffee went cold, forgotten on the bedside table, as Shane’s eyes never left Ilya’s face.

He must have dozed off at some point, the anxiety and the worry draining whatever energy he had left. Shane’s head had tilted forward, his forehead resting on the knot of hands on the bed, his back in an awkward angle. He thought maybe it was the beeping of the machines that had woken him up.

Then he realized Ilya was moving again.

Shane’s bones protested as he straightened up probably way too fast. He didn’t let go of Ilya’s hand – in fact, he squeezed it a little tighter, hoping to get him to react a bit more.

“Ilya?”

A tiny little groan vibrated on Ilya’s chest. That frowning expression returned to his face.

His eyelids fluttered, like he was trying to open his eyes.

One of Shane’s hands moved without him meaning to and cupped his face, thumb swiping over his cheekbone gently, mindful of the little cuts all over his skin.

“Come on,” Shane muttered, and it sounded like a prayer. “Open your eyes.”

Ilya did, clearly with some effort, but Shane could have sobbed in relief at the sight of those blue eyes trying to focus on him. His frown deepened. His mouth twisted, partly like he was trying to say something, partly like he was in pain.

Shane wondered if he was supposed to get a doctor, a nurse, anyone, but couldn’t bring himself to move, not when Ilya was finally waking up.

“Shane,” Ilya muttered, in a voice that sounded a bit broken. For a moment, his eyes wouldn’t leave Shane’s face, but then he tried to look around, clearly trying to figure out where he was. “Where…”

“You’re in the hospital,” Shane informed him. “Car accident. God, you’re such an asshole for scaring me like this…”

Ilya’s frown didn’t smooth out, only seemed to get more pronounced, like he didn’t understand.

“Okay, hold on. I’m going to get a doctor. Don’t fall asleep again, please,” Shane said, and then didn’t immediately let go of Ilya’s hand. It was harder to do than he thought it would be.

But he forced himself to.

Soon, a nurse and doctor Jenkins were in the room, checking Ilya and asking him more questions than he was clearly capable of answering right now. Shane stood anxiously out of the way, waiting for good news.

Eventually, doctor Jenkins stepped away. “Well, we can confirm the concussion is pretty bad, but he’s responsive and his reflexes are good, so… it’s just a matter of time. This is the best we could hope for at this point. Still, I’ll let him rest tonight and tomorrow we’re getting another MRI scan just to rule out any other complications.”

Relief washed over Shane. He glanced at Ilya to share a smile with him, but he wasn’t looking at him.

An incessant, deep ache spread all over Shane’s chest. He ignored it. That was not what mattered now.

Soon they were alone again. It was late – Shane didn’t even know how long the city had been bathed in darkness outside, having lost track of time as he watched over Ilya. He was so tired and, at the same time, he knew there was no way he was falling back asleep now that Ilya had woken up.

He approached the bed almost cautiously. Ilya’s eyes were fixed somewhere by the window. The nurse had dimmed the lights in the room as not to make the concussion worse. Ilya still looked terrible, pale and bruised. Shane’s fingers once more itched with the need to touch him, but he didn’t dare now that Ilya could reject him.

“Why are you here?” Ilya asked, very quietly.

It still felt like a slap.

Shane must have let out a sound of some sort, because Ilya turned to look at him, finally.

“Did not mean it like that,” Ilya said. “Just… surprised.”

Shane shifted awkwardly from one foot to the next, as if he was suddenly coming to the realization that he had no right to be here at all. “I got a call from the hospital,” he explained. “They told me I’m your emergency contact.”

Something changed in Ilya’s face, like he was going through his own realization. He looked… embarrassed?

“Sorry,” Ilya said, in such a quiet voice it was almost impossible to hear him. “I forgot to change it.”

Shane could only frown. That did not make him any less confused. “I guess I just… I don’t understand why you put me down as your emergency contact in the first place. It’s not like we…”

It’s not like we were ever anything, he was about to say, but he didn’t finish that sentence. It hurt too much.

Ilya took a couple of deep breaths. It looked like they were painful. His eyes slid away from Shane, like he couldn’t bear to look at him. “Did not have anyone else,” he admitted, and now his voice was the smallest Shane had ever heard it, like Ilya was trying to disappear as the words left him. “I’m sorry.”

Shane had not expected that. Ilya’s confession struck him sharply, and he almost reached up to check if it had actually managed to leave cuts on the skin of his face. It felt like it did, at least. It felt impossible, unreal that someone like Ilya Rozanov had no one else but the man he had slept with in secret for eight years.

But then he remembered the silent phone on the bedside table, and it hurt even more being able to believe it.

“What about… your teammates? Your coach?” Shane said.

Ilya shook his head slightly then stopped when it obviously shot pain through him.

“And your… that friend you once mentioned. Svetlana? You said you’ve been friends for a really long time,” Shane said. Ilya had also said they fucked on occasion, which wasn’t something Shane had particularly liked to hear.

“Back in Russia,” Ilya replied. “Her dad started new business. She moved back to help.”

“I see,” Shane murmured.

He did his best not to let it show on his face, how much it broke him that Ilya was so alone.

“You do not have to stay,” Ilya said, still not looking at him. “Sorry you came all this way. Go home, Hollander.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Shane blurted out. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Silence settled between them. For a moment, it looked like Ilya was going to protest, but then he deflated, perhaps like he was too tired to argue.

Or too tired to deny himself this one little thing.

“Okay,” he said instead.

Those two small, almost insignificant syllables echoed in Shane’s chest as if it was empty, as if even his heart had taken a leave of absence. So simple, so brief, and yet it seemed to throw him back in time, and he was suddenly outside a rink in Saskatchewan, looking at Ilya for the first time, how his blue eyes settled on him with something close to distrust, his lips curling slightly only when he started teasing him, not quite a smile, but the ghost of one.

Maybe Shane had fallen for him then, and had not realized that twisting in his gut wasn’t excitement for the competition but the thrill of love spreading through him, sure and unbeatable.

Shane’s reverie splintered when Ilya shifted on the bed and immediately hissed in pain and discomfort. Before he could stop himself, Shane was reaching for him, helping him settle against the pillows again.

“Careful,” he said. “Your ribs…”

A tiny little whine escaped past Ilya’s lips. He kept his eyes closed. He was so startlingly beautiful, even like this, even bruised and battered and pale in a hospital bed.

The most beautiful man Shane had ever met. How foolish he had been to think he would be able to get over him.

Ilya murmured something in Russian.

“What?” Shane asked. Not for the first time, he wished he had actually bothered to learn more than the most basic words. Maybe if he had been able to understand him properly, fully, Ilya wouldn’t have walked away, and now they would both be safe in Shane’s cottage.

Ilya’s mouth opened and closed several times, in that way that betrayed when he was having trouble with English. Eventually, clearly frustrated, he settled on a single word: “Tired.”

“Just sleep,” Shane said very quietly. “It’s alright. You need the rest. You’ll feel better soon.”

For once in his life, Ilya did what he was told. He stopped fighting the need to sleep and slowly sunk into a not quite peaceful rest. Shane watched as his eyelashes fluttered against his cheekbones. He wanted to kiss every little cut on his face until they faded away.

Instead, he took a few steps back, where it was safer, where it was easier to stop himself from touching him, and sank back in the chair.

It didn’t take long until he fell asleep, too.

It was probably the pain in his ribs that woke him up. Even breathing felt difficult. Maybe whatever pain killers they had him on were wearing off.

Or maybe the reason Ilya blinked his eyes open in the middle of the night was the man sleeping uncomfortably on a chair that was clearly too small for his big, muscular frame.

His heart thumped at the sight of him. Shane looked as exhausted as Ilya felt, his face contorted in what Ilya could only describe as a frown, as if he was having unpleasant dreams. From where he was sitting, too far from the bed for Ilya’s liking, he couldn’t see the freckles on his face. For some reason, that one thought almost made Ilya burst into tears.

It had to be the painkillers. Or the concussion. His head was foggy.

Ilya had felt a little lost when he first woke up. He’d had no idea why he was in the hospital or why Shane was there at all. Now… now it all started to come back to him, how stupid he’d been.

Ever since the season had come to an end, with no hockey to occupy his mind, Ilya had felt like he was going crazy. There were no distractions from having said goodbye to Shane, from having ended the one thing that had felt right in his life. He knew it was his own fault – he’d gotten scared after relying so much on Shane when his father died, after realizing he could no longer push down the inconvenient feelings that kept him company, silently, over the course of nearly a decade. But they weren’t silent anymore. They had started to scream at him, desperate to get him to act on them.

And Ilya couldn’t. He just couldn’t..

So he had said goodbye to Shane even though it was the last thing he wanted. He booked his plane ticket to head back to Russia. He thought it was time to stop playing around, to stop letting himself get distracted like this.

But when he had gone to the airport, he hadn’t been able to get on the plane. He had stood by the window and watched it take off without him. What did he have in Russia? What reason was there to go back? His father was dead. His mother would not reproach him that he didn’t visit her grave. His brother hated him. Svetlana was busy, surely she wouldn’t mind if Ilya didn’t go.

There was nothing for him in Russia, but there was also nothing for him here. In Boston. Or anywhere, really. All he had was a stellar hockey career that most aspiring athletes would envy… and yet he found himself restless and thinking there had to be more, there had to be something else, this couldn’t be all his life would amount to…

Missing Shane was a physical pain. He couldn’t stop thinking about him. He went out partying and tried to find someone to distract him from it and couldn’t. Eventually, he realized he wasn’t going to find what he needed there, either. But staying home, the walls of his house closing in on him, didn’t seem like an option. It would make him go insane.

Instead, every night he got into one of his cars and drove. He drove at the highest speed he dared, until all he could feel was the rush of the wind and all he could see was the empty road ahead. He drove until he was tired enough to head home and fall asleep. Most of the time, that only happened as the sun started rising in the horizon. Sometimes it didn’t happen at all. Sleepless nights began to pile on him, exhaustion wearing him thin.

He had been so stupid. Or maybe he had known exactly what he was doing, just didn’t let himself admit it. He’d been so reckless. He could have hurt someone. It was lucky he hadn’t.

Ilya wasn’t sure what he was going to do now. He hadn’t asked how bad his injuries had been. He didn’t know if they would affect his career, or if he would need help or physical therapy or anything at all. A part of him told him he was lucky to be alive, the other part (the larger one), scoffed at that.

He made the mistake of trying to move his leg to get more comfortable. The pain reverberated all over his body, and when he tried to sit up as if pressing his hands to his leg would stop it, his ribs protested and the pain increased.

Shane stirred at once, blinking in confusion for a moment until his dark eyes settled on him. He was on his feet in a second, sleepy and concerned. “Are you alright?”

His hands hovered over Ilya, not touching him, like he wasn’t sure whether that was allowed.

“Yes,” Ilya replied, but it came out like a groan as it still felt like he had taken a hammer to his side. “Just moved. Stupid.”

Oh, he could see his freckles now. Everything in Ilya seemed to loosen up, like that was enough to help him relax, like the freckles were some sort of painkiller…

“You’re not stupid,” Shane said quietly, as if he was chastising him. “You must be so uncomfortable. Do you need help sitting up? Or should I get more pillows?”

Ilya shook his head. “I’m fine.” His gaze momentarily shifted away from the freckles, enough to notice the dark marks under Shane’s eyes. “You’re tired. You should go. Sleep in real bed.”

“No,” Shane said instantly, stubborn and wonderful. “I told you I’m not leaving.”

“You can’t stay here. Who knows how long I’ll have to stay? You can’t sleep in uncomfortable chair,” Ilya protested. He didn’t know why he was trying to convince him to leave when what he wanted the most was for him to stay.

“I don’t want you to be alone, Ilya,” Shane said.

It hurt. It hurt because it was true. Ilya was alone.

“I can call someone else,” Ilya replied. “Marleu. One of the guys. I will be fine. There are hundreds of doctors and nurses here, too.”

Shane’s jaw was clenched, tight. “Do you… are you saying you don’t want me here? Is that what this is about?”

Oh, it was unfair of Shane to ask him this question when Ilya was lying in a hospital bed, too weak to keep all his barriers up.

Hadn’t he ended up here because he had denied himself the one thing he wanted? Maybe what Ilya needed was to start allowing himself to have it, instead.

If the worse that could happen to him was rejection, that was fine. He’d survived worse.

“No. Of course I want you here,” he said, and his voice came out softer than he meant to.

That smile blooming on Shane’s lips made his heart pick up pace. The damn monitors he was hooked to betrayed him as they began to beep quicker.

“I’ll make you deal,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant, hoping that would mean Shane wasn’t going to notice the crazy beating of his heart, the increased pulse. “I will let you stay all you want, but you have to go get some rest. Just few hours.”

Shane bit his lip, clearly considering it. “I… I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to go to some hotel in Boston. If someone takes a picture of me…”

“Go to my house,” Ilya said. He shrugged, which he regretted immediately. “Sleep, shower, eat something. Then you come back.”

Please, come back.

Shane still hesitated. “The doctor said they’ll check on you by nine, run some more tests…” He glanced towards the window, seeing it was still dark outside. “I could… are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ll probably go back to sleep. I’m still tired,” Ilya said.

“I could get you some clothes, too. Your toiletries…” Shane was in planning mode. Ilya secretly loved it when he did that, his lovely face all scrunched up and focused on the things he wanted to do, the problems he wanted to fix.

“See? It’s good idea,” Ilya said.

He could see that he had convinced him. After only a few more seconds of biting his lip in a way that made Ilya want to kiss him, Shane let out a little sigh and nodded, like he was reluctantly admitting it was a good idea. He reached for something on the bedside table, and Ilya quickly recognized it as the keys to his house. Shane paused, before he also grabbed Ilya’s phone and pressed it to his hand.

“Keep this close to you. Call me if you need anything, if you change your mind, if…” Shane said frantically.

“Hollander,” Ilya interrupted, before he could talk himself into a panic attack. “Just go. You still remember the code for the door?”

Shane nodded again. For a moment it looked like he was either going to reach for Ilya’s hand or maybe even lean in to drop a kiss to his cheek or forehead, but then he didn’t. Promising to be back soon, he simply turned on his heels, grabbed his carry on, and left the room, as if he needed to be quick about it or he would change his mind.

Ilya stared at the door for a long time after he left, until sleep claimed him again.

It felt odd to let himself into Ilya’s house.

Shane had never been here without him before. Honestly, he hadn’t been here often enough, either. And yet the house felt familiar, stepping past the front door felt like a rush of relief, like he was finally home and he could relax. It was silly, really, because nothing was fixed: Ilya was in the hospital and they were still a mess, but just being here, being in the space Ilya called home was enough to make things a little bit better.

Until he turned the lights on and saw the state of the house.

The sink was full of dishes, there were clothes strewn all over the floor, half-finished cups of coffee forgotten on almost every surface. The amount of empty bottles of vodka was also shocking in the worst possible way. Shane remembered the times he’d been here before, how tidy everything had been, and if it wasn’t because it was Ilya Rozanov, Shane would have thought he was trying to make a good impression.

Everything in Shane urged him to clean up, to put the trash out, to recycle the glass bottles. But he was bone tired. He needed a shower and a couple of hours of sleep, and he wanted to be back in the hospital in time for the doctor’s updates.

So he forced himself to walk past all that mess and towards the bedroom. It was, of course, as much of a disaster as everything else. The bed was unmade, the cover hanging over the edge of the mattress and spilling onto the floor. There was another empty bottle of vodka on one of the nightstands.

Shane’s heart squeezed painfully in his chest.

He did tidy up here a bit. He straightened the blankets and put some of the clothes on the floor into the laundry basket, and then settled his luggage on a chair. He stepped into the bathroom and took the quickest shower he could. He put on clean underwear and then slipped into bed. The smell of Ilya’s skin hit him at once, and he almost whined. He buried his face in one of the pillows and inhaled sharply.

As he reached for the other pillow, wanting to curl up around it to sleep, he noticed there was something underneath, a sheet of paper of some sort…

He found his own face staring back at him. It was a page clearly cut out of a magazine, one of the latest photoshoots he’d done for Rolex. It was crinkled, like it’d been handled often.

Shane felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t want to make assumptions about what this meant, but it felt pretty obvious.

God, they had been really stupid, hadn’t they?

Shane woke up early despite still being tired. He could have stayed in Ilya’s bed for hours, just resting and letting himself be lazy, but he wanted to go back to the hospital, and he also needed to tidy up the house a bit.

He made some progress in the kitchen first, washing the dishes and wiping the counters. Then he made himself a little breakfast – it was obvious Ilya hadn’t been grocery shopping in a while – and was about to start picking up the dirty clothes when his phone rang.

Shane was almost glad no one was here to see him run to it. He had left it plugged on the kitchen counter and he almost tripped in his rush. What if it was Ilya, what if something was wrong, what if…?

It was his mom.

“Good morning, honey. We haven’t heard from you in a couple of days, so I just wanted to check in,” she said.

“Morning,” he echoed. God, what was he going to say to her? “How are you guys?”

“We’re good. I’m actually heading into town for some errands. Do you need me to pick up anything for you? I know you like to stay at the cottage when you can, so…”

“I… I’m actually not at the cottage anymore,” he said. He knew she would need a proper explanation. It was odd, to say the least. Shane was always so eager for summer to arrive so he could escape to his little corner of paradise.

There was a long pause.

“Did something happen?” She asked, clearly alarmed. “What’s going on, Shane?”

Shane was so tired. And not just because of the little sleep he had gotten lately. It wasn’t a physical exhaustion, exclusively. He was tired of lying, of hiding himself, of keeping everything so private it felt like he was being pulled down into quicksands until it reached his chest, until he couldn’t breathe…

“I’m in Boston,” he said.

“Boston?” Yuna repeated, clearly not understanding. “What…?”

“I came to see Ilya. Rozanov,” he clarified, as if it was necessary. They didn’t know any other Ilya. As far as Shane was concerned, he was the only Ilya in the entire universe “He had a car accident. He’s in the hospital.”

“Oh, I saw the news. I texted you a link to… but what are you doing there?” It was obvious there were so many questions Yuna wanted to ask that they spilled out of her before she could process them. “Is he alright? Why are you…?”

“We’re friends,” he said, because there was no other way to explain it, not right now. He couldn’t tell her he loved him so much that the thought of almost losing him had almost ended his own life. “He needs someone here, and I…”

“And he doesn’t have anyone else?”

The question hurt in a way Shane couldn’t quite get over. “No, mom. He doesn’t.”

Sympathy clearly won. Yuna made a little sound of distress, and swallowed back all the rest of her doubts. She got into business mode. “What do you need? Should I send you anything? Do you need me to come to you? Does Rozanov need anything?”

“I think we’re good, for now,” Shane said. He didn’t know what they needed. “If you could just… I don’t know if the press is going to get difficult, so if you could maybe be ready to handle that, just in case…”

He didn’t need to explain to her what he meant. Shane Hollander dropping everything and traveling to Boston to be at Ilya Rozanov’s side in the hospital… there was no way it wouldn’t start rumors. Rumors Shane had once cared too much about. Now… now all he could think of was Ilya looking impossibly small in a hospital bed, not waking up, calling for his mother.

“Shane,” Yuna said, when she clearly couldn’t help herself. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

He wondered if she was asking what he thought she was asking. He didn’t have the energy to deal with it, not now.

“I need time, mom,” he said. “I… I promise to tell you everything as soon as I can, but for now… it’s too much. I need to make sure Ilya is okay first.”

Ilya. If that wasn’t a confession in and on itself, then Shane didn’t know what was.

But his mom always gave him space when he needed it. She never pushed. She trusted him.

“Okay. Please keep us updated,” she said.

The conversation didn’t last long after that. Shane busied himself tidying up the rest of the house, and then got ready to head to the hospital.

Ilya had been in a mood most of the morning. He was uncomfortable and whenever he finally managed to ignore the pain and doze off, a nurse would walk in to check on him. He hadn’t been here long and he was already fed up with being handled and with medical terms he couldn’t understand. He knew his English had gotten better in the past few years (Shane had told him so several times), but he was really struggling with it now, especially with a concussion.

However, his bad mood faded away like it hadn’t even been there as soon as Shane walked into the room, a few minutes before nine.

He hadn’t realized, until this very moment, how scared he had been that Shane wouldn’t come back at all.

“Hey,” Shane said. He came towards him so quickly, he almost tripped on his own feet. This was Shane Hollander, captain of the Montreal Metros, one of the most talented athletes of his generation, and he looked so clumsy now that it was endearing. Ilya smiled a bit. “How are you? Any news? Feeling okay?”

“Hollander, calm down,” Ilya said.”Everything’s fine. I’m still here. Doctors are annoying as shit. You didn’t miss anything.”

Shane looked good, even if he was obviously still tired. They were both going to need twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep once this was all over, Ilya thought.

He would like that very much, getting to sleep next to Shane for as long as they both needed to.

How stupid Ilya had been, to think he could walk away from this man.

“Good, good,” Shane said. He put down the duffel bag that Ilya assumed contained his clothes and toothbrush, among other things. “Have you eaten anything?”

“They brought breakfast like two hours ago. It was awful,” Ilya said.

“I’ll get you something else later, if that’s okay with your doctor,” Shane said.

He was trying to keep a handle on things, to control stuff. Ilya knew him well enough now to know what that meant.

“What is going on?” He asked. Shane looked at him as if he didn’t understand. “You’re freaking out. You want to be on top of everything. Which is ridiculous because we both know you’re best as bottom…”

Shane spluttered awkwardly, as if he hadn’t been expecting a joke based on his sexual preferences right now.

“So something is wrong. Tell me,” Ilya said.

Shane sat on the chair. Ilya wished he had pulled it closer. “There’s some press outside. They didn’t see me, but it’s still… you know, inconvenient.”

Ilya guessed it was inevitable. He was a famous hockey player and he’d been in a pretty stupid accident. It was going to affect his career, even if he hoped it wouldn’t actually end it. Of course the press was here.

If they saw Shane, though… that would change things. It would be difficult to explain why not a single one of the Boston Raiders was here, but Shane was.

Ilya glanced away. “You should go back to Canada, before they see you. There’s no point in risking everything.”

He almost mentioned that he had called Svetlana earlier. She had immediately threatened to be on the next flight out of Moscow to come take care of him. There was no need to tell Shane that Ilya had stopped her, had told her it wasn’t necessary, that his Jane was here taking care of him already.

Svetlana had seemed relieved. “It was about time,” she’d said.

Shane did drag the chair closer now, and grabbed Ilya’s hand. With all the intimate touches they had shared over the years, this one shouldn’t have made Ilya’s breath catch in his throat, but it did. Shane’s thumb brushed gently over his knuckles. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not going anywhere? And anyway, if they see me, it’s fine. I already asked my mom to come up with something to tell the press if they do.”

Ilya frowned. He hated this concussion. He was so confused. “Your mom?”

“I told her I was here with you,” Shane said. Was that a blush? Oh yes, it was. It made his freckles look even darker on his cheeks. So beautiful. “I didn’t… I didn’t tell her everything. Just that we are… friends.”

Friends. God, it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Ilya shifted his hand so he could tangle their fingers together just right. He never wanted to let go. “Okay,” he said. He was tired, and this was too much to think about now.

The corners of Shane’s lips tilted upwards, his eyes were shiny, like he was holding back tears. Ilya’s chest ached and this time it had nothing to do with his bruised ribs.

It was so hard to keep his distance, to pretend he didn’t want Shane, that he hadn’t agonized over every moment they hadn’t spent together. Ilya had always denied himself everything he wanted – sex was probably the only thing he never denied himself, but when it was meaningless, what did it matter? He had denied himself things that would give him genuine happiness because everyone had always told him that what he wanted was wrong, that who he was wasn’t enough, that he was only good when he was useful.

Maybe it was time to stop doing that. Maybe he needed to walk away from this near tragedy with the knowledge that life was too precious to keep making himself miserable for other people’s benefit.

Maybe Ilya did deserve some happiness of his own.

Before he could say anything – like perhaps apologize to Shane for having broken things up with him when what he should have done was tell him how he felt and that he wanted more, not less – there was a quick knock on the door and doctor Jenkins entered.

“Good morning! Ready for some tests, Mr. Rozanov?” She asked.

Ilya grumbled a little protest under his breath, but nodded.

The next few days happened all very much in the same fashion. The doctors prodded and tested Ilya non-stop until they were sure he was healing well, until they could reassure him that he hadn’t suffered a career-ending injury, until they ruled out every complication they’d had to watch out for. Shane slipped out of the hospital and to Ilya’s house a few hours every day, just enough to catch some sleep and shower, and came back as soon as he could. Ilya always smiled when he saw him, wider and wider every day.

Shane lived for that smile.

The press, inevitably, caught side of him on the fourth day he spent with Ilya at the hospital, just as he was leaving for the night. Pictures of him flooded social media and news sites. Most of the articles said he was showing good sportsmanship, stopping by to check on his long-time rival. That was okay. That was manageable.

The problem was when they pictured him coming back in the next morning.

“What do you want me to do?” Yuna asked him, after having sent him the links to the articles, all of them in varying degrees of confusion.

Shane had been pacing up and down the hallway outside of Ilya’s room, not wanting to give him more reasons to stress out, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he had to tell him what was going on.

Now he stopped, and took a look inside. Ilya was sitting up against the pillow while a nurse settled his lunch in front of him. He smiled at her in thanks, sweet and gentle in a way very few people got to see him, despite the fact that he had hated every hospital meal so far.

“Don’t do anything,” he told his mother. “There are more important things going on right now.”

It was obvious Yuna was anxious to know more. She had bit back every question since she had found out Shane was in Boston. Shane owed her so many explanations, and he was so grateful that she wasn’t pushing for them.

“Are you sure?” She said. Her voice was tight. “Shane, if you don’t address this in any way, you could lose your deals. You could…”

“Mom,” he stopped her. I love him, he wanted to tell her. He almost died in that fucking accident and I could have lost him before I got to tell him. Do you really think I’m scared of losing business deals right now?

He couldn’t say that, though. Not yet. But once Ilya was out of the hospital, once they could actually focus on other things…

It’s just not a good idea, Hollander, Ilya had told him, when they broke things off.

It had to be a lie, though, right? Ilya wouldn’t look at him like he did, wouldn’t reach for his hand at the first opportunity, if he still thought it was a bad idea.

He wouldn’t sleep with a picture of Shane under his pillow, if he didn’t care about him.

Later that day, when doctor Jenkins came to check on Ilya once more, she smiled at them and said: “How would you like to get out of here, Mr. Rozanov?”

Ilya looked about ready to jump out of the bed and leave right now.

Suddenly there were new things to consider: Ilya couldn’t be alone, not while he still healed. Once his leg healed properly, once his ribs stopped hurting every time he so much as took a deep breath, he would need physical therapy, but for now, he needed to take it as easy as possible.

Shane already knew he would be the one to take care of him – there was no question in his mind. Even if there had been people lining up volunteering for the job, there was no way Shane was going to leave him now.

Staying in Boston didn’t feel like a good idea. Until they decided what to do about the press, the sight of Shane Hollander wandering around the city would bring too much attention to the questions they hadn’t yet answered. Shane needed someone he could lean on while he took care of Ilya, too. Someone who might help him when he couldn’t go grocery shopping or to stay with Ilya for a while if Shane needed to leave for any reason – although he couldn’t see himself leaving, not for brand deals, not for any obligations whatsoever.

Still, there was one place where they would both get what they needed.

So Shane allowed himself to ask Ilya the same question he had asked him right before everything ended between them: “Would you like to come to my cottage?”

Back then, he had imagined Ilya would give him a vague reply, that he would smile and deflect and find an excuse not to go, in the end. Still, Shane had been willing to ask. Had wanted Ilya to know he wanted him there, in the place he loved the most.

This time, though, Ilya looked at him, blue eyes trusting and sweet, and said: “Okay.”

Shane didn’t leave the last night Ilya spent at the hospital. It seemed silly to go to his house only to have to pick him up in the morning and drive him back there so they could pack a bag for the rest of the summer. Or at least that was what Shane told himself. It was just inconvenient. It wasn’t because he was afraid that being alone with time to think would make Ilya change his mind about coming with him to the cottage.

“Hollander, don’t be silly,” Ilya had told him. “You can’t stay in uncomfortable chair all night.”

They bickered for a while. That was what they did. For years, it had been almost like their own version of foreplay: they would chirp at each other on the ice, or would text each other scathing remarks, or would call each other assholes, and then make out passionately as soon as they were alone in the same room. It was easy and familiar.

Shane wasn’t sure that was what was happening this time, though. And he wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted, either. It had all been so… superficial. They had never talked about their feelings, had never been truly honest with each other. Had never allowed themselves to be vulnerable, which sounded like a fucking nightmare, really, but one he thought they both needed to get better at if they wanted to be… to be… something. Anything.

Together.

It was too much to hope for, wasn’t it, after everything? Shane usually got what he wanted when he was on the ice – cups and recognition and goals and admiration. Off the ice… he had denied himself things for so long, he wasn’t sure it was possible to ask for them anymore.

But he wanted to try.

They were interrupted by Ilya’s phone ringing. It wasn’t the first time someone tried to contact him. It hadn’t been completely silent for a few days now. But it still caught Shane off guard. He knew his friend Svetlana checked in on him from Russia often, and a few of the Raiders had reached out, too, eventually, almost like an after thought: oh yeah, captain, we heard you’re in the hospital, you alright? It made Shane angry. Ilya didn’t seem to mind, as if he hadn’t been expecting even that.

This time, it was his agent. Shane gestured that he would give him some privacy, but before he could even get out of the (yes, frankly uncomfortable) chair, Ilya gestured back to indicate he should stay put.

Shane tried to distract himself, not wanting to eavesdrop despite the fact that Ilya hadn’t wanted him to leave. Still, he heard enough. Ilya’s words were clipped, harsh. He sounded upset.

When he hung up, he let out a few words in Russian that Shane guessed were curses.

“He was just checking in,” Ilya said. “He’s out of town, couldn’t make it to see me. Says he called the hospital for updates often, and the Boston management kept in touch with him, too. They’re probably worried they won’t have a captain once the season starts.”

“You’ll be back on the ice in no time,” Shane told him.

“I know. Is going to be a while, though,” Ilya muttered. He didn’t seem as bothered about it as Shane had expected him to be. If it had been him, Shane would have gone insane. Ilya was… oddly calm about the whole thing. “They will have to get replacement, at least for beginning of season.”

Shane nodded, unsure what to say. It didn’t look like Ilya was looking for words of comfort.

“You’re still upset. Is it not…” Shane said, tilting his head as he regarded him, trying to understand. “I thought it was about not getting to play hockey right away, but it’s not about that, is it?”

Ilya shook his head. “One week in the hospital and I get no call until now. He doesn’t even ask how I am, just gets down to business. I’m tired, Hollander.”

The bitterness in his voice surprised Shane enough that he stood up and came to sit on the edge of the bed instead. He considered grabbing his hand, although he had been so careful not to do it over and over again almost all week, since Ilya had regained consciousness, since he had started doing a bit better. It felt dangerous and forbidden.

Instead, because he couldn’t help himself, he ran his fingers through Ilya’s soft curls, and then down the line of his jaw, until he could cup his cheek. As if that was better, easier, and not simply so much more intimate.

“Then it’s a good thing you get to rest now, right?” He murmured.

Ilya tilted his head into the touch and let his eyes flutter closed. “Yes. Is good thing.”

God, there was something here, wasn’t it? Shane knew it was stupid to doubt it, after everything they had shared over the years, but this time it felt more real, more solid than anything they had shared before. New. Exciting.

Suddenly possible in a way Shane hadn’t allowed himself to consider before.

The press was still outside. For the first time in his life, he didn’t care what they would catch with their cameras pointed at him.

For the past week, Shane had been driving one of Ilya’s cars. The tamest one he had managed to find in his garage, the one he probably drove when it was snowing or when he wasn’t in the mood to show off one of his death traps, which clearly wasn’t often. He had left it in the parking lot the previous day, when he’d arrived, as close to the entrance as he could. It had still given the press the chance to follow him, cameras flashing in his eyes, questions being thrown at him that he ignored as if he couldn’t hear them.

When Ilya was released from the hospital at last, Shane came out briefly, just to get the car right at the entrance to make Ilya’s departure quicker. All the reporters outside immediately came to attention, crowding him as much as they could. Shane hadn’t checked what kind of things they were writing about him, what people were saying on social media. He had gotten a few texts from teammates who didn’t understand what was going on, but Shane hadn’t replied, either, except to Hayden, telling him he would explain later. Everything else, he ignored. He couldn’t deal with it now, and he trusted his mom was taking care of the worst of it.

Shane had tried to prepare Ilya for the pandemonium that would greet them when they stepped out of the hospital. Ilya had wanted to walk out on his own, with crutches, of course, because he would need them to move for a long time, but the doctors insisted on a wheel chair. He glared at all of them but sat down on it anyway, only relaxing when Shane squeezed his shoulder.

He wheeled him out. The cameras went off, the journalists screamed at them in a way that made Shane wince. They crowded so close that they made it hard to get to the car. Some of the hospital security came out to help, but it didn’t make much of a difference.

Ilya must have realized they had to give them something, otherwise they would never let them leave. He latched onto the simplest question repeated over and over again.

“Rozanov, how are you?”

“I’m good,” he said begrudgingly. “Happy to be alive. Was stupid accident.”

“What does this mean for your hockey career?” Someone else asked.

“Changes nothing. I just need to do physical therapy and heal. Will be back on the ice in a few months,” he replied.

“Why is Shane Hollander here?”

“Hollander is a good friend,” Ilya said, and his words almost made Shane freeze. “He knew I was hurt and didn’t hesitate to come help.”

The questions increased, as if now that they had gotten some answers they got greedy for more. They wanted to know how long they had been friends, if the rivalry was just a publicity stunt, what this meant for their careers.

Ilya covered his eyes with one hand. He was wearing dark glasses, but he still sounded pissed when he said: “Can you stop flashing camera in my eyes? I have fucking concussion.”

That made Shane finally intervene. He had given the press the silent treatment every day since they had showed up, but now he couldn’t keep that up.

“Everyone, please, let us get to the car. You got your answers, and that’s all you’re getting,” he said firmly. He took the baseball cap off his head and put it on Ilya’s, lowering it enough that it would help cover the flashes.

He realized that would probably look more intimate than necessary belatedly. Louder than any answers he could have given them verbally.

He didn’t care. Not right now.

His mom was going to give him hell for it, though.

It was hard work, getting a man as big as Ilya, settled into the back seat, his leg extended at an angle in order to fit with the cast. He put the crutches in the front seat, the duffel bag in the trunk, and thanked the security people as they took the wheel chair to go back inside. The press was still shouting questions. He ignored them once more and got in the driver’s seat.

“What a fucking nightmare,” Ilya mumbled, as Shane drove out of the parking lot.

It didn’t take long to get to the house. It actually took longer to get Ilya from the car to the front door, unsteady on his crutches. It would take some time for him to get used to them. It was lucky that one of them was a patient man, and that Shane’s patience seemed to rub off on him, when it mattered.

“Are you okay?” Shane asked him when he was safely sitting on the couch.

Ilya exhaled heavily and let his head fall back. “Yeah, just didn’t think it would be such an effort,” he said. Then he glanced around. “Did you clean?”

“Of course I did. It was a mess, Ilya,” he scoffed, but it was only half-hearted. It had been a reflection of Ilya’s state of mind, after all. The accident wasn’t as surprising, in hindsight. It was fucking painful to think about it, really. “You couldn’t really expect me to sleep with the mess, right?”

He saw horror suddenly rising on Ilya’s eyes at the mention of sleep. He was probably thinking about the crumpled magazine cut-out under the pillow.

“Alright, get some rest and we can start packing in a bit. Do you want me to get you a glass of water?” Shane asked, deciding to give him an out.

Ilya simply nodded, probably using it as an excuse to have a moment to collect himself.

Shane packed his bag, with input from Ilya shouted from the couch. It didn’t take long before they were ready to go, and they just needed to kill time before it was time for their flight. He sat next to Ilya on the couch and tried not to think about that day Ilya had invited him over and made him a tuna melt after fucking his brains out. It hadn’t ended well for them, despite how lovely the day had been otherwise. Shane still remembered it with a tinge of guilt.

The good thing about having more money than they knew what to do with was that it solved problems easily. Thinking about how to get Ilya to Ottawa safely, with a cast on his leg, and ribs that still screamed in pain at him, wasn’t simple. Shane had considered driving, but it would be too long to have him sitting in a car, even with breaks. Flying there would be more convenient, but with how the news had been surely buzzing first with the accident and then with Shane’s presence at the hospital, it probably wasn’t wise.

So they booked a private flight, instead.

They took a cab to the airport, and Shane was grateful that the driver didn’t comment or ask them anything, even though he could see him glance at them through the rear view mirror non-stop, clearly shocked that he was driving famous hockey rivals Hollander and Rozanov, particularly with Ilya having to lean slightly on Shane’s side in order to fit comfortably. Shane wondered if the man was going to tell everyone about it as soon as they made it to their destination. He couldn’t control that, although he tried, tipping generously enough that it could only count as a bribe.

The flight went without a hitch. The small crew was discrete, probably used to catering to people more famous than they were and surely more interesting, too. Ilya rested, eyes focused on the clouds passing them by outside his window, and eventually dozed off, tired after how hectic his first hours out of the hospital had been. Shane worried about what was coming next, because he couldn’t help himself.

Soon the plane was landing and Shane carefully shook Ilya awake, unable to bite back his smile at the sight of him adorably disoriented for a moment and then letting out a sleepy grin when he saw Shane leaning over him.

Shane’s heart thumped in his chest once, very hard.

At the airport, in the private terminal, waited Yuna Hollander. She was the picture of elegance and nonchalance, her bag tight in her rip, sunglasses on top of her head, her lips in a straight line. She looked like she was ready to get down to business. Shane had seen it a million times, but this was the very first time it made him this nervous.

He felt Ilya tensing next to him as he struggled step by step on his crutches. Shane needed to get him to the cottage already, so he could properly rest and elevate that leg a bit.

Yuna held Shane as soon as they were close enough, her arms wrapping around him with practiced ease, something relieved about the way she sighed once she had her son close again. Shane hadn’t thought about how hard this past week must have been for her, how much he had put on her shoulders. He hugged her back, just as tightly.

“Are you okay?” She asked quietly. Shane only nodded as they pulled away and her attention fell on Ilya. “Mr. Rozanov. Glad to see you on your feet. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay, thank you,” Ilya said. He was perfectly polite but clearly on edge.

Shane could see the questions in his mom’s eyes, ready to be blurted out, ready to demand an answer that had been delayed for several days now. She wasn’t the kind of woman who liked to be kept in the dark. The fact that she had accepted helping Shane and Ilya while being told practically nothing about what was going on was enough of a proof of how much she was willing to do for her only son.

Ilya wobbled slightly, clearly too tired to keep standing there on crutches he wasn’t used to having to depend on. Without thinking, Shane sneaked his arm around his waist, keeping him upright, and Ilya leaned on him, a quick, grateful glance thrown his way.

Yuna’s breath left her in a gasp.

It was probably a miracle they had managed to hide this in front of so many people over the past eight years. Shane knew how obvious it was, especially now that the pieces of the puzzle were all laid out nearly in the right order.

“Okay,” she said, and her business-like demeanor returned, the perfect mask. “Let’s get you two home.”

She grabbed their bags before Shane could protest, putting them on a cart to roll them out of the small terminal and towards where her car was parked. Shane helped Ilya, one step at a time, and then into yet another car. God, what a long day. He just wanted to throw himself on his couch and not move until the morning. If he was this tired, he couldn’t imagine what it was like for Ilya.

To Shane’s surprise, it was Ilya who broke the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them once his mother drove out of the parking lot and towards the cottage. He was spread as comfortably as possible in the backseat, dark sunglasses to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun, Shane’s baseball cap still on his head.

“I appreciate your help, Mrs. Hollander,” he said. He didn’t sound anything like the Boston Raiders main asshole right now. Shane knew, after all these years, that Ilya wasn’t as bad as he tried to pretend he was. But it was still a bit of a surprise when he let that softness shine through. “I did not mean to be such bother for everyone.”

Shane was about to protest, but his mother beat him to it.

“It’s not a bother at all, Rozanov,” she replied, eyes on the road. “I guess I’m just… confused.”

“Ilya, please,” Ilya corrected softly, like he didn’t want to be Rozanov, not now, not in front of these people, and that embarrassed him a little.

“Ilya,” Yuna nodded, but the word sounded stilted, wrong, like maybe she would have preferred to stick to his last name. “I didn’t know you two were friends. I didn’t think you liked each other much, honestly.”

So this was as far as her patience was going to go. Shane couldn’t blame her, really. He knew how crazy this must to look to everyone.

Ilya didn’t say anything now, and Shane chanced a glance over his shoulder. He was biting his lip. His eyes did something complicated as they settled on Shane, and Shane realized he was struggling to find something to say that wouldn’t also out him to his mother.

Shane took a deep breath. So many years being careful, so many years repressing the words, and now they blurted out of him like they were nothing but air between his lips: “I’m gay. Ilya and I… saw each other, for a while.”

In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to say that when his mother was on the wheel and swerving into the highway. The car curved a little into the incoming traffic before she managed to get it back where it was supposed to be, horns blowing around them as if in warning.

“Shit, Hollander,” Ilya said, his hand gripping the back of Shane’s seat, knuckles white. “I did not just survive one car crash to get into another.”

“Sorry!” Shane exclaimed.

“I’m sorry,” Yuna echoed, and she sounded like she was in a daze. Maybe she shouldn’t be driving. It was a little late for that, though. “Sorry. I… I think I might just…”

“Mom,” Shane murmured, when she failed to say anything that made sense or showed what she was really feeling. “I should have probably said something. But I couldn’t. And I understand if you have questions or if this is too much or…”

“Honey,” she interrupted, when it was obvious he was starting to work himself into a panic. “I… I think I need a minute. To wrap my head around it and drive us safely at the same time. It’s not every day I find out my son was… involved with his biggest rival. Who is currently in my car. Wearing a Montreal Metros baseball cap.”

There was a small pause.

“What!” Ilya said from the backseat. Shane turned around enough to see him rip the hat from his head and look at it, squinting a bit. “You put a fucking Metros hat on me? People took pictures, Hollander!”

“I’m sorry,” Shane said for what felt like the millionth time in just a handful of minutes. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Of course you weren’t thinking. I’m going to get so much shit over this,” Ilya said.

“Just wanted to protect your eyes,” Shane said numbly.

“I will make you wear a Raiders shirt and take picture of you,” Ilya practically growled. Shane would have felt heat rising in his belly at the tone, if he wasn’t so fucking afraid right now.

“Fine, whatever,” Shane muttered absently. He wanted to lean down and put his head between his legs and try to remember how to breathe.

“Don’t you even joke about that,” Yuna said, firmly.

Silence settled in the car once more. Shane thought he might actually die if no one said anything. If his mother didn’t say anything.

I screwed up, he thought. He felt dizzy, like when he had gotten car sick during long drives to junior hockey tournaments when he was a kid and his dad had to stop the car on the side of the road for him to heave against a tree.

He was tempted to ask his mom to stop now, too, but it was pointless, wasn’t it? It wouldn’t change anything.

It felt, simultaneously, like it took forever and just five minutes to get to the cottage. Soon her mom was stopping the engine and Shane was practically bolting out of the car. He would have gone inside and lock himself in, but there was a 6”3 Russian man in the backseat that needed his help. So he tightened his jaw to keep himself in check and helped Ilya out of the car and towards the front door.

“Is nice,” Ilya said, very softly, as he looked around while they made their way to the couch.

“Careful with the steps,” Shane said, as he held him more tightly and supported his weight to get him down the two steps that took them from the kitchen area to the living room.

Ilya sat heavily down against the cushions, letting out a small groan like this had taken more out of him than he thought. His blue eyes settled on Shane’s face, and for a moment it looked as if he was searching for something there.

Shane glanced away. His mom hadn’t followed them inside. “I… I’ll get the bags, and… my mom…”

“Okay,” Ilya nodded slowly, a little crease appearing between his eyebrows.

For a moment, Shane thought he would go outside and find that his mother had driven away, their luggage dumped on the front door in a haste. But her car was still there, and she was standing with her hands on her hips, head tilted slightly up as if she was taking in the fresh air.

“Mom?” He said, unable to keep the slight tremor from his voice. “Can we talk?”

It was the last thing he wanted right now, but he knew it was inevitable.

When his mom turned around to face him, she was wiping away tears. Shane’s chest tightened.

“Oh,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. I…”

“Shane,” she interrupted. “Stop apologizing. You have nothing to apologize for.”

“It kind of feels like I do. I lied for so long, and I know you never liked that, that you taught me better, but I just… I guess I was hoping it would go away. That I could change what I was feeling. That if I ignored it, then I wouldn’t be… be this,” Shane knew he was speaking too quickly, working himself up even more, but he couldn’t stop. “I tried so hard. I promise I did…”

“Shane,” she said again, a little louder this time, to break through his diatribe. She placed her hands on his shoulders, centering him a bit. “You are absolutely perfect exactly as you are. I don’t care if you’re gay. All I care about is that you’re happy. And I’m so…” her voice broke slightly before she pushed through it. “I’m so sorry that I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me. I couldn’t be prouder of you. I’m the luckiest mom in the world.”

Yuna pulled him into a hug that felt a little bit like a miracle. Shane felt the weight of the entire week dragging him down into her arms, and he allowed himself to cry softly, face hidden in her shoulder. He had been so scared. He was so tired. He was so desperately in love and lost.

When they finally parted, she cupped his face. “I still have questions. So many of them. But I don’t feel right getting all the answers without your dad here. So… I’m going to leave now. You two will rest. And tomorrow night, your dad and I will come over for dinner and… talk.”

“Okay,” Shane said. All he had energy left for was agreeing to her plan.

“Call me if you need anything. Anytime, okay?” She said, and only pulled away completely when he nodded. “Tell Rozanov… Ilya, that it was nice to meet him and I will see him tomorrow.”

It sounded sincere. Still odd, like the combination of words and Ilya’s name wasn’t something Yuna had ever expected to use to form a real sentence. Shane couldn’t quite blame her. Ilya Rozanov was not an easy person to spring on anyone.

But what a nice surprise he was when you gave him a chance…

After grabbing their bags and Ilya’s crutches and leaving them by the entrance to take them inside, Shane allowed his mom to hold him once more, letting relief wash over him.

“I know there’s a lot you two need to talk and think about now,” Yuna said quietly. “But we’ll have to deal with the press soon. And I have a feeling we’ll be getting calls from the Metros management.”

Shane took a deep breath. “I know. Tomorrow, okay? Today has already been… exhausting enough.”

Yuna kissed his cheek. “Fine. Call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, mom.”

Shane stood outside as she drove away, breathing, just breathing, forcing himself to calm down. He couldn’t believe this had happened, but after this week… well, everything felt like it was different. Shane felt like his perspective had shifted. Any other time, he would have been panicking about what the press was saying and what this would mean for his career.

Right now, he just wanted his parents to accept him. And he thought he might get what he wanted.

He finally made his way back into the cottage. He dropped their bags in the hallway – he would take them upstairs in a minute, but first he wanted to check on Ilya, and it was almost time for his painkillers…

Everything was so quiet that, for a moment, Shane thought maybe Ilya had fallen asleep. But when he finally made it into the living room, he found his eyes open, staring at the lake outside.

“Everything’s fine,” Shane said, as if replying to a question Ilya hadn’t asked. “My parents will come over tomorrow for dinner. We’ll… talk strategy, I guess. I told her to give us today, to rest and figure out what we’re going to say.”

“Okay,” Ilya said, but it didn’t look like he had heard much of what Shane had just told him.

Shane extended the orange bottle of pills he had just fished out of his bag. “Here. It’s time for your meds. I’ll get you some water.”

For a second or two, Ilya stared at the pills with a troubled expression on his face. Then he shook his head sharply. “You hold onto them. Give me pill when it’s time. Don’t let me have them.”

Shane definitely found that odd. He opened his mouth as if to ask why that was necessary, but there was something about Ilya’s eyes that stopped him. They had darkened, and not in that nice way they did when they were together in a hotel bedroom.

He went into the kitchen for a glass of water and then returned to sit next to him on the couch. He gave Ilya the glass and the pill and watched as he swallowed it down.

“Are you okay? Are you in too much pain?” Shane asked him. “Or are you worried about what’s going to happen now? I’m sorry I wasn’t more discrete. And I’m sorry about the baseball cap, I really didn’t mean anything by it, I just wanted to…”

“Shane,” Ilya interrupted, and it didn’t fail to send a shiver down his spine, his name on Ilya’s lips. He didn’t say it enough. He seemed to have reverted back to Hollander lately. “I’m tired. I don’t think I can think about any of this stuff right now. It’s just…”

Shane blinked, and waited for Ilya to continue, but Ilya seemed reluctant.

“You said saw,” Ilya finally said.

It made no sense. Shane replayed the words in his head, trying to dissect them, but found himself unable to. “What?”

“When you told your mother about us,” Ilya said. His eyes were very pointedly fixed on something outside, not even flickering to Shane’s face. “You said we saw each other for a while.”

Oh. Out of all the things he had expected Ilya to say, that was nowhere near the top of the list. Or on the list at all.

“We did,” he said, like it was obvious. He frowned at him. “I mean… I know you told me we weren’t… that we couldn’t be anything… but… was I wrong to say that? I didn’t know how else to explain it. I wasn’t about to tell my mother we hooked up clandestinely for eight years.” He fell his own face fall. “Unless… oh. You didn’t want me to tell her at all. I just… there was no reasonable way to explain that I spent an entire week at the hospital with you…”

“Is the past tense,” Ilya interrupted, like he couldn’t hold it back any longer. “What bothered me.”

It had been a hell of a long week. Shane couldn’t be blamed that it took longer than was probably necessary to understand what Ilya meant. Or perhaps he just didn’t let himself hope for it.

He swallowed. He found his throat and mouth were incredibly dry. He grabbed the glass he had handed Ilya and stole a sip of water, a secret thrill at knowing their mouths had been pressed to the same spot, stupid as it was. With him, Shane had learned to get thrills from the little things, because they so rarely got to experience the big ones, the loud ones.

“I wasn’t sure what else to say,” Shane admitted. “It’s never been… easy, between us. And the last time we talked, you said…”

He didn’t repeat Ilya’s words. He found that he couldn’t, even if they still sounded familiar in his head, even if they had been there day and night since Ilya had uttered them, like a kind of company he had never asked for, unannounced guests he was too polite to kick out of his house.

“I said what I said,” Ilya muttered, like he wasn’t eager to repeat the words, either. “And yet they called you from the hospital, and you come to me? You spend whole week there and bring me back to your cottage, even though it’s risky and people have seen us?” He finally turned his head and looked at Shane. His expression was still guarded, but crumbling by the second. “Why?”

Shane’s chest felt so tight, it was so hard to breathe. “You know why,” he said in such a quiet voice he wondered if Ilya had heard.

Ilya’s gaze didn’t waver. He was sunk into the cushions, curls still a little flat from having worn Shane’s hat, sunglasses hooked to the collar of his shirt, leg in a cast extended in front of him. There were dark marks under his eyes, and there were still so many little cuts all over his face from the glass shattering during the accident, the bump near his temple discolored.

And he was the most beautiful man Shane had ever seen.

“Telling you that it was best not to see you again was hardest thing I have done in my life,” Ilya said, and Shane’s heart stuttered. “I thought it was for the best. I was feeling… things I didn’t think it was smart to feel. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get dressed and get out the next time we fucked. It was not enough anymore.”

“Ilya…” Shane muttered.

But Ilya continued. “Biggest mistake of my life, thinking it would be easier to do that. Out of view, out of mind, yes? That’s how it goes?”

A tremulous smile appeared on Shane’s lips. He knew his eyes were filled with tears. He did not care. “Out of sight, out of mind,” he corrected weakly.

“Yes, this.” Ilya paused. It should have been unnerving, how steadily he was looking at Shane now. It made him feel naked. But he never wanted him to look away. “But you were not out of mind. You were there all the time. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think. I would grab my phone and fight urge to call you ten thousand times a day.”

“I wish you had called,” Shane said, remembering his own miserable days.

“Me too. I would not have driven like crazy person if I did, just to feel something. Something else,” Ilya said. “I was stupid. You are not something I can drive away from.”

Shane’s heart thumped once again. Poor thing, he had put it through so much lately. “Can I ask you…?” He started. He hesitated. He remembered all the vodka bottles littered everywhere in Ilya’s house. “Were you drunk? When you got in the car?”

But Ilya shook his head, immediately stopping when it was obviously painful. “No. I’m stupid, but not that stupid. I did not mean for this to happen, either. Could have hurt someone.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Shane whispered. God, he was. He really was.

“Me too,” Ilya said.

They paused, like they were tilting on the edge of the precipice. Falling didn’t seem like a bad idea at all.

“I missed you,” Ilya said, surprising Shane. His eyes were shiny now, in a way Shane had only seen them once, in that hotel room in Tampa, after their last All-Star game. “When I woke up and saw you, I couldn’t believe it. Thought I would only see you when we played against each other, but there you were. And you stayed with me, despite how stupid I was. No one else came. Not my teammates, not my agent, not the little family I have left. No one cared. You did.”

Shane couldn’t stop himself any longer. He moved closer, wishing he could climb onto his lap as he had that last time he had needed to comfort Ilya, but he couldn’t now, not because it didn’t feel allowed, but because he had to be mindful of Ilya’s injuries. Very carefully, he curled into his side, making sure he didn’t put too much pressure against his bruised ribs, his face finding its home in Ilya’s neck.

“I missed you, too. So much. God, Ilya…” Shane mumbled into the perfect column of his neck. He wanted to mouth at the skin, to kiss every inch of him. “You scared the shit out of me.”

He was alive, alive, alive, and warm against Shane.

Ilya mumbled something into his hair, something in Russian. Shane wished, not for the first time, that he could understand.

Shane considered telling Ilya he loved him, but he wasn’t sure he had the energy in him to continue being vulnerable. Not right now.

It had been a long day.

Maybe that was why they both drifted off without noticing, arms around each other, as birds chirped on the trees outside and the lake lapped gently at the shore.

For the first time in weeks, it felt like things might be alright, after all.

It was usually the pain in his ribs that awoke Ilya these days, and today wasn’t the exception. He let out a little groan but didn’t move, not wanting to disturb the man sleeping on his shoulder. He had to pee really badly and he had no idea how to get to the bathroom or where the bathroom even was, but he didn’t care. He looked down at Shane, unable to believe he was here.

That they were both here. Together.

There were many things they hadn’t said yet. Ilya felt them on the tip of his tongue – in English, at least, because they had already spilled out in Russian today, and even before then, too. He was scared, even after this week. He hadn’t been loved in a very, very long time. Not really.

He felt like he was maybe being unfair to Svetlana, but knew it wasn’t the same. Yes, they loved each other and would be in each other’s lives forever. But with Shane…

Forever might not be long enough, when it came to Shane.

It was scary. But it had been even scarier to think he would never get to have this again.

He ran his hand through Shane’s hair, then let his fingertips graze his beautiful freckles. Ilya had never felt lucky before – he had worked hard and sacrificed so much for every little thing he got – but he did feel lucky now.

Ilya wanted to kiss him. It was possible that a car accident had not been enough to kill him, but another few minutes of not kissing Shane Hollander would.

Shane stirred slowly, dark eyelashes painting shadows on his freckles as he blinked and glanced up at Ilya.

“Hi,” Ilya said. “I like you.”

Oh the smile. It was so devastating and beautiful and enough reason for Ilya to be alive for as many years as he could.

“I like you too,” Shane said simply, as if it wasn’t the nicest thing anyone had said to Ilya in a very long time.

Ilya couldn’t hold back anymore. It physically hurt him – more than his bruised ribs, more than his fractured leg, more than the awful concussion – not to kiss this man. So he cupped his cheek, and brought him closer, and ignored the slight complaint rushing through his body as Shane’s weight shifted and pressed on parts of him that were tender and healing very slowly, and finally, finally let their lips graze together, so soft at first. A gentle re-acquaintance, as if either of them may have forgotten…

Both of them had thought of little else.

The kiss grew in intensity almost at once. Ilya could never resist the urge to slip his tongue past Shane’s lips, seeking the warmth of his mouth, the minty taste of him, rewarded by the breathless, tiny sounds Shane made in the back of his throat. They kissed like it might be the only thing that could save them, and just as the heat was growing in Ilya’s belly, Shane pulled away, but only enough to press the smallest of kisses all over his face: his eyelids, his cheekbones, his jaw, his forehead, and every part of him he could reach.

A kiss had never made Ilya feel like crying. It did this time.

He must have gotten a little too eager, because he reached for Shane and tried to pull him closer, which was a big mistake. They broke away when Ilya hissed in pain, and Shane jumped to his feet, almost guiltily.

“Sorry!” He said, because he was Shane Hollander, and that was usually the first word out of his mouth. Although sometimes it was fuck me, please, and that was Ilya’s favorite. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Ilya reassured him. He breathed heavily through his nose. “Don’t worry.”

Shane glanced around, realizing the cottage was almost completely dark, the sun only a thin line in the horizon, not enough to illuminate anything anymore. He reached for one of the lamps and turned it on.

“I should make some dinner,” he said.

Ilya’s stomach grumbled as if he had heard. “Yes. I need to use the bathroom, though. Would you…?”

“Oh, sure!” Shane helped him up, grunting a bit under Ilya’s weight.

“It will not be very sexy, you helping me while I pee,” Ilya said, scrunching his nose.

Shane chuckled. It was a beautiful sound. “It’s alright. I will also have to help you shower, so… I’ll consider that my reward.”

“You are creepy man,” Ilya said, but he was grinning very widely. “But it is okay. I will let you wash my hair and other parts, too.”

“Yes, I’m sure you will hate every second of it,” Shane deadpanned.

Ilya would not. They both knew this very well.

It was so odd to share the same bed without the intention to fuck. They had never done that before – and it wasn’t like the desire for more wasn’t there, they just needed more time, Ilya needed to feel better, they needed to figure out a way that wouldn’t cause him more pain.

Shane found that, as much as he loved when Ilya fucked him and made him come his brains out, he didn’t mind this. He didn’t mind lying there, tangled in as many ways as they could while being mindful of the cast on Ilya’s leg and the pain in his ribs. His hair smelled like Shane’s shampoo, and his eyes were gorgeous in the moonlight that streamed through the large windows.

It almost felt like this was some sort of dream.

They talked. They had gotten better at it by the end, but now was the first time they did it openly, feeling like they had all the time in the world, both of them realizing there was no need to hide behind invisible walls anymore.

Shane told him about how Rose had helped him finally come to terms with who he was, how her kindness and patience had made him feel like coming out could be easier. He kissed Ilya’s forehead when Ilya scoffed lightly at the mention of their brief time dating, and Shane would never admit this, but it gave him a tiny, secret thrill that Ilya wanted him so much, he was jealous because of a woman, someone Shane could never truly be with, not happily, not completely.

He told him about how hard it had been to be at the cottage only a week ago, thinking about how Ilya had rejected his invitation, how he had ended things instead, how Shane had been about to leave to go back to Montreal just as he got the call from the hospital, and Ilya kissed every inch of his face and mumbled apologies that weren’t necessary, not really. Not anymore.

Shane told him how much he loved hockey, how integral a part of him was, and how scared he was that he would no longer be allowed to play if he was honest about who he was.

In turn, Ilya told him about having bought a ticket to Russia and then standing in the airport, unable to leave, knowing there was nothing for him there anymore, feeling like losing Shane and having to be somewhere he hated at the same time would have eaten at him until there was nothing left.

He told him about Svetlana offering to come take care of him and how Ilya had declined, because now that Shane was there, it was all he could possibly want.

“Your brother…” Shane started, uncomfortably. “Does he know? About the accident.”

Ilya shrugged and regretted it when it made his ribs ache. “I guess. It must have been on the news there, too. He didn’t call or text, though. After my father’s funeral… we are not in speaking terms.”

Shane ran his fingers through Ilya’s curls. “I’m sorry your family is so awful.”

There was a small pause. Then Ilya said, eyes staring up at the ceiling as if he was seeing something Shane could not: “My mother wasn’t awful.”

His voice showed a sort of vulnerability that Shane was still not used to find in Ilya Rozanov. “Tell me about her.”

For a moment, Ilya didn’t say anything else, but that was alright. Shane would not push him to talk about this if he wasn’t ready. But he had the certainty now that they would have time to talk about this, in the future.

The future suddenly sounded like something they both could hope for now, even if they hadn’t actually said it yet.

But Ilya surprised him – Shane should have been used to that by now. When he thought Ilya would retreat, he got closer instead and opened up. It was lovely to see.

“She was… beautiful. Smart, funny.” Ilya paused. “She was so sad. My father was very hard on her.”

“How did she die?” Shane asked quietly.

“By accident,” Ilya replied in a monotone, like the words didn’t quite belong to him. Shane’s first thought was a car accident – oh, what if her son had met a similar ending? But then Ilya said: “She accidentally swallowed a whole bottle of pills.”

Something went very cold inside of Shane, very fast.

“Ilya…”

“I found her. I came home from school and there she was. I tried to shake her awake even though I could see something was wrong. I sat with her for a long time, waiting for her to…” Ilya stopped suddenly, shook his head.

Shane moved in and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “How old were you?”

“Twelve,” Ilya closed his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” Shane whispered. How lonely it must have been for Ilya, after that.

“That’s why I don’t…” Ilya said, then blinked a few times, as if the right words had escaped him for a moment and he needed to find them again. “I don’t like pills. For sleeping or for pain or for anything. They can do more damage than good in the wrong hands.”

Shane swallowed past the knot in his throat. So that was why Ilya had asked him to be in charge of his painkillers. He couldn’t blame him, but it hurt so badly that Ilya felt the need to ask this of him.

“Have I told you yet how fucking relieved I am that you are okay?” Shane said.

Ilya shifted slightly on the pillow so he could look at him. His smile was still a little sad, like the thought of his mother was still wrapped around him. “I’m happy to be here with you, Hollander,” he whispered, and then added, even quieter, even sweeter: “Shane.”

Shane turned so he was facing him, his hand coming to cup his cheek, and he leaned in for a kiss. “Ilya.”

There it was again, the soft Russian words pressed against Shane’s lips, against his skin, against every inch of him that Ilya could easily reach. Shane closed his eyes tightly, as if that would help him find the meaning of them.

He didn’t have to wait long. Ilya translated them for him.

“I love you.”

Briefly, Shane wondered if he had fallen asleep and dreamed this. He didn’t think his dreams had ever been this daring, though. For so long, he hadn’t allowed himself to imagine that Ilya Rozanov could love him. And yet here they were, tangled together after one of the scariest weeks of their lives, together again against all odds…

And Ilya loved him.

“I mean…” Ilya said, clearly in a panic, when it took a little too long for Shane to react. He glanced away, already retreating into himself like he had made a terrible mistake.

“I love you, too,” Shane said at once, because he didn’t want him to retreat. He didn’t want him to go anywhere.

The relief in Ilya’s face was nearly heartbreaking. It looked like he was about to burst into tears, so Shane moved in, holding him as tightly as he dared, and pressed their faces together, little kisses here and there, inhaling the scent of his skin and his own shampoo on those glorious blonde curls, and let Ilya cling back to him.

It had taken them so long to get here – it had nearly killed them.

But it finally started to feel like all the pain and the doubts had been worth it.

“God, I love you so much,” Shane said, foreheads pressed together.

A week ago, he thought he would never get to see this man again unless it was on the ice. Six days ago, he thought Ilya would never wake up. Five days ago, he thought that despite how terrified he had been that Ilya wouldn’t make it, they still wouldn’t be able to work things out.

And now they were here. Everything they wanted, everything they needed… finally within reach.

Nothing else mattered.

They held each other and whispered their love in as many languages as they knew until they finally fell asleep.

Ilya wanted to swim. It was impossible not to wish for this while staring at the calm, cool water of the lake. The sun reflected on it like a mirror. Everything here was beautiful.

Shane had helped him outside for a bit of fresh morning air. He had set Ilya down on a comfortable chair, a little pillow at his back, his leg propped up on a small bench. Any other day, Ilya would have felt irritated at the constant pampering, would have barked that he was fine and he could take care of himself, fuck off.

He didn’t now, though. He liked this. He’d had no one to take care of him since he was twelve years old. Before that, even. His mother hadn’t been great at taking care of him, those last few months. She had been too sad. Ilya had tried taking care of her instead – he often wondered if he could have done more.

Shane came outside with a tray. He settled it down on the table and took the other available seat, also facing the lake. He handed Ilya a cup of coffee. Ilya accepted it with a smile that almost felt alien on his face.

He was happy. It could be an odd feeling.

“Mom just texted to confirm they’re coming over for dinner tonight,” Shane said after taking a sip of his own coffee. He sounded nervous but not as freaked out as the previous day. “I have a feeling she will want us to discuss things. How we’re going to deal with the press and stuff.”

Ilya reached for a piece of toast. The bread was wholewheat and he spread some cream cheese on it. He then handed the toast to Shane, who seemed taken aback by the small gesture. He accepted it gratefully, though, and took a bite out of it. Shane had been so great at taking care of him the past few hours – hell, the past week – and Ilya wanted to do something, too, small as it was. One day, he would not be as limited, once his ribs healed and his leg was out of the cast, he would be able to do more.

“I will do whatever you think is best for you and your career,” Ilya replied calmly. Shane’s eyes snapped towards him. “You risked everything for me, Shane, to be with me when I needed you. I cannot ask more of you. Whatever you decide is fine.”

Shane frowned. “But I don’t want… I mean, it’s going to affect your career, too, you know,” he said.

“I almost died. Last thing I care about now is my career,” Ilya said. “In fact, I’m not very excited about going back to Boston. I think… I’m free agent soon. I may look for another team.”

Shane seemed surprised at this. “Really?”

“I don’t belong there anymore. I’m thinking maybe a Canadian team? So I can be closer to you? Would be easier to see you even when we aren’t playing against each other,” Ilya explained. He drank his coffee. He squinted a bit behind his dark glasses – the concussion really was a son of a bitch. “I need citizenship. I’ll take any team so I don’t get deported, but I would like it if it was closer to you.”

Now that they had admitted how they felt, Ilya did not want to hold back anymore. He was in this, completely. He wasn’t going to lose Shane again.

“I will change agents, too. Need to find someone new, someone who… understands me,” Ilya continued. He’d woken up very early that morning, long before Shane, from the pain, and had laid awake listening to Shane’s breathing and thinking about what he wanted. It all seemed to make sense now.

Shane nodded slowly, considering this. “Well… I dared take a little look at what people are saying online, while I waited for the coffee to brew. It’s going to be really hard to play this as us being just friends after the pictures they took, and that video of us leaving the hospital.”

Ilya already knew that without the need to look at any pictures or videos. After all, no one had gone to the hospital to see him. No friends, no family. Only Shane. You had to be very stupid not to know what that meant.

Still, he really wanted Shane to be the one to make this decision. “So… what do you think?”

For a moment, the only sound around them came from the breeze in the trees and the water. There was a bird on a branch, too, making a pretty little sound, not quite a song, but still a lovely melody. Ilya waited.

“I think eight years hiding how I feel about you was already long and hard enough,” Shane said at last. “And I think it would be really, really difficult to build a believable narrative to hide this. It’s too much effort. I almost just lost you, Ilya. I don’t want… I don’t want to hide. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

How he loved him. Ilya had thought he wouldn’t ever be able to feel love like this. For so long, he had felt so cold and empty inside.

Now he felt so full, so warm, as the cracks in his chest after all his loss and heartache had been filled with sunshine.

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” he muttered, and saw the recognition in Shane’s face, the words already familiar. “I don’t want to waste time, either.”

Shane reached across the table for his hand, lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss to his open palm. “Then we don’t.”

By the time his parents arrived later that day, bags of groceries in their arms, both Shane and Ilya were calm and happy with the decision they had made. Shane opened the front door, Ilya hovering awkwardly in his crutches right behind him.

“I think…” Shane said. “We should probably do introductions properly now.”

Yuna and David looked at him as if in confusion, but nodded, giving him the space he needed.

“Ilya, these are my parents, David and Yuna,” he said, rather unnecessarily, but that was okay.

Ilya smiled. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“And mom, dad… this is Ilya. Rozanov. He’s my…” Shane glanced at him, as if needing one more confirmation.

“Boyfriend,” Ilya completed. They’d tested the word out earlier, knowing it was finally time to decide what they wanted to be.

It’s still felt like an impossible dream.

David seemed a bit taken aback. Shane wondered what his mother had told him about their conversation after she picked them up at the airport. Maybe she hadn’t given him all the details.

Still, he recovered quickly. His father extended his hand to Ilya. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

Ilya shook it, something a lot like relief in his face.

“Well,” Yuna said. “Let’s get started on dinner. I think we have a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “Yeah, we do.”

He was done hiding things from them. He was done hiding things from everyone.

He was so, so ready to love Ilya loudly, after so many years of silence.

That evening, after Yuna and David had left (not without giving Ilya a hug, telling them how happy they were that he was okay, finally understanding what he meant to their son), Shane and Ilya sat outside and watched the sun as it slowly sunk on the horizon.

Shane stepped away for a moment, and snapped a picture. He posted it to his Instagram without taking too much time to think about it, only stopping enough to check what the Cyrillic characters were for the words Ilya had been whispering to him since yesterday.

He left his phone on the table and went to join his boyfriend, ignoring the incessant calls and messages and comments, the news clearly blowing up.

It didn’t matter. They would deal with it. Together.

They watched the sunset pressed side by side and didn’t worry about tomorrow, not when today was still theirs, still so precious.

Shane kissed the curve of Ilya’s shoulder and breathed out a sigh of relief.