Chapter Text
It still feels weird, over a year into this, that they don’t have to hide it from everyone now. Most people, of course - their teams, and management, and the world - but not all of them. Not his parents, or Rose, or Hayden and Jackie. Around them, Shane and Ilya get to just be. No secrets, or hiding, or pretences; just a freedom he never expected to be allowed.
And that means everything to Shane.
It means everything to him that he gets to sit here in his home, with his best friend and the love of his life, and he doesn’t have to pretend.
Even if it’s clear that Hayden wishes he would sometimes.
The Centaurs are in Montreal for a game tomorrow. And while there’s nothing Shane wants more than to spend a full day alone with his boyfriend, after far too many weeks apart, he also wants Ilya and Hayden to get along. He wants for them to be in a room together without actively plotting each other’s demise. It might be wishful thinking, but…he has to try.
Ilya tries - has been trying, since the very first time Shane properly introduced them. He’s a menace, obviously, and he chirps Hayden like there’s no tomorrow, but that’s all it is: chirping. With Hayden, it’s different. It’s hatred, and vitriol, and biting remarks that aren’t even disguised as jokes.
Shane hates it. Shane wants to fix it.
He’s sitting between them on the couch, an ankle tucked beneath his thigh and his bent knee pressing into Ilya’s leg, as they battle through a game of chel.
“You’re still only Montreal’s fifteenth best player in a video game, Pike,” Ilya taunts, as he scores on the animated version of Drapeau.
“Suck my dick, Rozanov,” Hayden scoffs.
Ilya hums noncommittally. “No thank you,” he says. “I only suck Shane’s-“
“Ew, shut the fuck up, man.”
Ilya laughs, and Shane rolls his eyes, but he can feel the crackle of tension in the air. It’s been there since the moment Hayden walked through the door. He’d agreed to come - it’s not like Shane blindsided him with Ilya’s presence - but it’s like he showed up ready to argue. Showed up completely unwilling to even try.
It hurts.
Shane tries to pretend that it doesn’t, but it’s fucking hard sometimes. Hard to act like it doesn’t feel like a knife to his chest every time someone - namely Hayden - questions his relationship with Ilya. It’s hard to overlook the snide comments about the man who makes Shane feel alive, like a whole person, not some half-hidden secret of a man.
“Knock it off,” Shane warns, bumping his elbow into Hayden.
“He started it,” he whines petulantly, and Shane has to fight the urge to rolls his eyes.
It’s kind of insane, how different this version of Hayden is. How he turns into this obnoxious, bitchy person whenever Ilya is around. He’s usually the most laidback, funny, decent guy that Shane knows, but he barely even recognises him like this.
And he knows that Ilya taunts him, but Ilya is joking. It’s never personal, and he’s never mean with it. He’s trying to lighten the mood, loosen Hayden up, and all he does in return is snap.
“Hey, Pike,” Ilya begins, “what’s it like for Jackie, having five kids?”
Hayden frowns. “We don’t have five kids, we have - oh,” he pauses, realising Ilya’s meaning. “Fuck you, Rozanov.”
“I’m just saying, you are acting like a child.”
“You’re acting like a fucking-“
“Stop it!” Shane interrupts them. “Can you just - shut the fuck up, please? For five damn minutes.”
He’s starting to regret this. Starting to wish he was alone with his boyfriend, making the best of the little time they get to steal together, instead of playing mediator between two people who might never get along.
Shane shuffles ever so slightly towards Ilya, his knee pressing harder into his leg as their shoulders bump. He feels Ilya’s body relax at the contact, like Shane makes everything easier for him. Makes everything better. Then there’s a large, warm hand on his thigh, squeezing gently.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Ilya says softly. “We will behave. Right, Pike?”
Hayden scoffs again, but when Shane fixes him with a glare he lets out a resigned, full-body sigh. “Right,” he agrees, begrudgingly.
They play for a while longer, Shane sitting between them, just watching the game unfold as the mostly one-sided chirps gradually get more intense. Ilya is relaxed, his tongue sticking out in concentration as his fingers fly across the controller, and Shane aches a little bit with how much he loves him.
Hayden, however, is growing more tense with every second that passes. He’s grumbling, and huffing, and getting meaner with every word that he spits out.
Just as Shane feels like something is about to give, Ilya’s phone rings out from where it’s sitting on the coffee table. He pauses the game and reaches for it, smiling when he sees whoever is calling.
“It’s Haas,” he says. “It’s okay if I take it?”
“Of course,” Shane says. “Take your time.”
Ilya stands, but before he leaves he bends back down, curling a hand around the back of Shane’s neck as he presses a kiss to his forehead. Ilya whispers, “Ya tebya lyublyu,” so quietly Shane barely even hears it, then he disappears into the kitchen.
The tenderness of Ilya’s gesture isn’t lost on Shane. The way that he is sweet, and affectionate, and loving, even in front of Hayden - someone who not only doesn’t like him, but who doesn’t like that he’s with Shane. Ilya doesn’t care, though. He doesn’t hide when he doesn’t have to, and he refuses to be shy about loving Shane. He refuses to shrink.
It makes Shane love him back even more. It makes him wish, desperately, that he could be braver for Ilya.
Hayden sighs, then he turns slightly towards Shane and grins at him.
“You know it’s not too late to get rid of him, right? Jackie has plenty of gay friends I could-“
“Are you fucking joking me right now?”
Shane is…he’s exhausted.
He’s spent close to a decade hiding this part of himself - hiding Ilya - and all it did was make him more awkward, and withdrawn, and lonely. After all, it’s hard to be yourself when a huge part of that is something that no one else is allowed to know. It’s hard to let people truly see you when you have to hold pieces back.
And now, finally, this is the one fucking place where Shane doesn’t have to hide, where he doesn’t have to pretend to be something he’s not, and Hayden still makes him feel like he’s not allowed.
Like he’s wrong for loving Ilya.
He makes Shane feel like he’s wrong for wanting this life that he is building for himself.
Hayden laughs. “Come on, man-“
“No,” Shane says, voice soft but certain. “No, I’m sick of this. I’m sick of the way you treat him, the way you talk about him.”
“Shane, bud, it’s Rozanov. He’s-“
“You don’t know him!” Shane exclaims.
He jumps up from his position on the couch.
He needs to stand for this, needs to be able to move. He needs to not be so close to Hayden, because he might actually hit him.
Shane has let so much slide these past few months. He got it, at the beginning. The only version of Ilya that Hayden knew was the one on the ice, the terror who lived to make everyone miserable by outshining them in every single capacity, and running his mouth while doing so. Shane knows Ilya better than anyone in the world, so he knows that he can be an asshole.
It’s hard to see past that, at first.
It’s why he’d given Hayden the benefit of the doubt - why he’d let the comments, and the insults, and the not-quite-jokes go unchecked, because Shane figured Hayden would come around. He figured he would get to know the real Ilya, get to see the version of him that Shane knows and loves, and he would understand.
But-
“You don’t know anything about him, because you refuse to even try.”
“I know that he’s a dick,” Hayden says, as if it’s a fact. “That he’s slept with half of Boston, and probably half of Ottawa, too.”
“Fuck you.”
Shane doesn’t shout it; his voice is low and rumbling, like the thunder rolling in right as a storm hits. It’s a threat wrapped in barbed wire. It makes Hayden’s eyes widen, surprised because he’s never heard Shane like this before. Never seen him like this before, either.
But disrespecting the man Shane loves brings out a whole different side of him.
If Hayden thinks he gets to say that about Ilya - that he’s a bad person, that’s he’s a fucking cheat - then he’s about to have a rude awakening. One that’s a long, long time in the making.
“Don’t you ever talk about him like that again. I mean it, Hayden.”
“Shane, buddy. Why can’t you see what he’s like?” Hayden asks, as if he knows a goddamn thing about Ilya.
Shane has known Ilya since they were teenagers. He has seen every version of him.
He knew the frightened kid who moved halfway around the world all by himself, and he knew the rookie who hid his insecurities behind arrogance. He even knew the barely-a-man-yet who was so patient, and gentle, and tender with Shane - who checked, over and over again, if Shane was okay, if he felt good, if he still wanted it.
He saw the man who tried so fucking hard to not need anybody, to not rely on anyone but himself because that’s all he’s ever known how to do. And he also saw the man who broke down in Shane’s arms as he grieved a father who wasn’t even gone yet - as he grieved a version of him that never even existed.
He’s ran his hands through Ilya’s hair as he talked about his mother, and then held him tightly as he confessed that he was scared of becoming like her.
That he was scared of becoming like his father, too.
Shane has seen Ilya posturing, and he’s seen him vulnerable. He’s seen him laugh, and seen him cry. He’s seen him angry, and embarrassed, and hurt, and happy, and he has loved - and will continue to love - every single version of him.
There is no one on this earth who sees Ilya more clearly than Shane does, which is why there is no one on this earth who could possibly love him more.
“It’s you who doesn’t see what he’s like,” Shane insists. “You who refuses to look past a few chirps to see who he really is.”
“We know who he is, Shane. We’ve always known, because he never stops fucking showing us! Always parading around, acting like he’s god’s gift to humanity.”
Shane laughs in disbelief. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubs until he can see kaleidoscopes, just to give himself a moment - to borrow a few seconds of time so he can compose himself.
He doesn’t want to send Jackie’s husband home with a black eye, but he’s so fucking close.
His eyes flicker towards the kitchen, just to check Ilya isn’t back yet - to make sure he isn’t being forced to listen to any of this bullshit - then he fixes his gaze on his so-called best friend.
“Do you get what it costs him to keep showing up here, knowing you’re going to treat him like this every time?” Shane asks, breathless with poorly contained rage. “But he still does it. Every fucking time. Because I ask him to, and because he loves me.”
Hayden rolls his eyes at that, and Shane wants to fucking scream. Wants to the flip the coffee table. Wants to make Hayden fucking hurt for this.
Because there’s a lot that Shane will bite his tongue for, a lot that he will tolerate for the sake of keeping the peace, but he will not ever allow anyone to doubt how much Ilya loves him. It’s almost laughable, anyone daring to question Ilya’s complete and utter devotion to Shane.
“Do you even know how much he loves me? Like, do you get it? What he gave up so we could have a chance? What he’s risking?”
“Shane-“
“He gave up Boston to play on the worst team in the league for me,” Shane continues, voice shaking. “And don’t even get me started on the risks if we are outed.”
Even the thought of that makes Shane nauseous.
They’d talked it through one night, fully and thoroughly, because they both needed to understand what was at stake. It had ended with both of them crying. Because Shane had thought he understood how bad it could be in Russia for people like them, but he hadn’t. Not really. Not until Ilya had explained exactly what was on the line.
“It’s a risk for you, too!” Hayden argues. “If you’re outed it could end your career. He’s selfish, Shane. It’s not all about him.“
Selfish?
“You don’t get it!” Shane whisper-yells. “If we get outed, the absolute best case scenario for Ilya is that he doesn’t get to go home again, Hayden. The place he was raised, the place his family is from, the place his mother is buried…he never gets to go there again.”
Shane swallows, the anger and the fear and the grief thick in his throat, like a weight he can’t quite breathe around. Hayden’s eyebrows twitch.
“And worst case? He gets forced out of the league, loses his work visa, and is deported to a country who would throw him in prison - or fucking kill him - for loving me. And he’s still here, Hayden! He’s here.”
“Shane…”
Shane silences him with a wave of his hand. He has to turn his back on Hayden because he can feel the tears flooding his eyes, feel the sorrow etched into the lines of his face. No one gets to see him like this, not even his parents. No one except Ilya, who’s somewhere in the kitchen or back garden, completely unaware of what’s transpiring just a few rooms away from him.
Ilya - his sweet, kind, good Ilya - who loves Shane so very much.
He would do anything and everything for Shane. He gives and gives and gives, and sometimes it feels like all Shane does is take. He takes his love, and his honesty, and his trust, and he hoards them like the gifts that they are - curls himself around them like a dragon protecting its treasure.
But what does Shane give back, except secrecy, and ten-year plans, and people who doubt their relationship?
But Ilya still stays.
And it’s insane that Hayden doesn’t think Ilya is good enough for Shane, when Shane is absolutely certain it’s the other way around.
He takes a breath to steady himself, and then another, and he turns back around to face Hayden. He’s still sitting on the couch that Ilya helped pick out, with his socked-feet buried in the rug that Ilya bought for Shane after they spilled orange juice on the last one.
Ilya is all over this house; he is the reason that it’s a home.
Shane’s voice is low and venomous as he says, “You don’t get to come into the one place we get to be ourselves, and make him feel uncomfortable.”
Hayden’s brows furrow, and for the first time since the argument began he actually looks concerned. Good. He should be.
Shane isn’t soft; he never has been. He’s 6ft tall, and 200lbs of pure muscle, and he knows exactly how to use his body on the ice. Just because he chooses to be gentle, it does not mean that he is weak. And when someone - anyone - comes for the man that he loves, he has no problem putting them in their place. Even if it’s Hayden.
Especially if it’s Hayden, because he knows Shane, and he should trust him, but instead…this.
“So, I need you to leave our home,” Shane says. “And I don’t want you to come back until you get a fucking grip and start treating him with respect.”
Hayden almost chokes.
He finally stands up, taking a step towards Shane, but Shane holds a hand out to stop him. He steps backwards. He doesn’t want to be near him, doesn’t trust himself not to lash out if he says one more fucking word about the man that he loves.
“Shane, come on,” he laughs nervously. “It’s not that big of a deal, is it? I mean - we’ve spent years ragging on Rozanov.”
“That’s not the same thing, Hayden.”
Hockey is one thing. It’s fine on the ice, where the animosity belongs, but here - in their home - Shane won’t tolerate it for a single second longer. Honestly, he kind of hates himself for letting it get this far, and for forcing Ilya to endure it while Shane waited for Hayden to rein it in.
“It’s Rozanov,” Hayden says again, like that is supposed to justify it. “He’s been a fucking dick to us for years. You can’t just expect me to-“
“If I treated Jackie the way you treat Ilya, would that be okay?”
Hayden scowls, pointing a finger at Shane as he says, “That’s different and you know it.”
Shane wants to scoff, wants to laugh at the absurdity of it, but he doesn’t. He won’t disrespect Jackie or their relationship like that. He’s not that kind of person, and he refuses to sink to Hayden’s level.
“Why?” Shane asks. “I’ve loved him longer than you’ve known Jackie, so what is so different, Hayden? Please, enlighten me.”
Hayden blanches, recoiling as he takes a step backwards like he’s just been dealt a physical blow.
Maybe it puts things into perspective, hearing it spelled out so plainly.
Shane was seventeen years old when he shook Ilya’s hand for the first time, and he didn’t know it then - he didn’t know it until years later - but, looking back, that’s the exact moment that he started to fall. And by the time Ilya walked out of that hotel room in Toronto - before they’d even played a single NHL game - Shane was done for.
While Hayden was drinking and partying and sleeping around, Shane was waiting for a text from Ilya. While Hayden was falling in love with Jackie, Shane was already holding everything he felt for Ilya behind clenched teeth and a rattling ribcage.
The only reason Hayden has a marriage and children, and Shane doesn’t, is because Hayden is allowed to - because Hayden has never had to hide.
He doesn’t get to make their relationship seem like less, not when Ilya is everything and more to Shane. When he’s the whole entire universe.
“Just get out, Hayden.”
“Come on, buddy. It doesn’t have to be like this,” Hayden argues. “Listen…”
“I’ve listened enough, now it’s your turn,” Shane tells him. “You are my friend, Hayden, but he is the man I am going to spend to rest of my life with - he is the man that I love. I will choose him over you, every fucking time.”
Over anything and everything, Shane would choose Ilya. Even over hockey, if it came to that. There’s no doubt in his mind, no question about it.
Losing hockey would hurt, and Shane would grieve it, but it wouldn’t kill him. It would be an ache he could live with. Losing Ilya is not something that Shane could ever survive. They’re so tangled together - so intertwined - that to lose Ilya would be to lose himself.
You can’t live without a heart, and if he lost Ilya it would be like having his torn from his chest.
“I’m just trying to look out for you, Shane,” Hayden says, and Shane hates that he is being honest. That he actually believes what he is saying.
Shane hates that his best friend is so determined to hate his boyfriend, that he can’t see how good Ilya is for him. He can’t see that, right now, the only thing Shane needs protecting from is Hayden.
“I’m not a child. I can take care of myself,” Shane tells him. Then, with a weary sigh, he gestures towards the front door. “Now leave.”
“I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Too late. Get out.”
“Shane, man, c’mon-“
“He asked you to leave,” Ilya says, his voice startling them both.
Shane and Hayden both turn to where Ilya is standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He has a blank expression on his face, one that Shane knows well enough by now; it’s to conceal his hurt, and his anger, and all the other too-big things he doesn’t let anyone but Shane see.
“You don’t get to fucking tell me what to do, Rozanov. This is all your-“
“Do not finish that sentence,” Shane warns him.
He steps in front of Hayden to block Ilya from his line of sight, and when Hayden meets Shane’s eyes he has the audacity to look hurt. But Shane won’t have Hayden pin this on anyone other than himself, especially not Ilya.
“Get the fuck out.”
“He’ll only end up hurting you,” Hayden says.
He talks about Ilya like he is empty space, the words not even bending to go around him. They hit him full force, and Shane watches as Ilya flinches at the impact of the remark.
It makes him want to weep.
“The only person hurting me is you.”
Hayden looks at Shane, then at Ilya, and then he shakes his head and walks away. He stops in the entryway to slip his shoes on and grab his jacket, but he doesn’t look back as he leaves through the door and slams it closed behind him.
The tension follows him out of the house, and silence settles in the emptiness that’s left behind.
Shane turns around to face Ilya, only to find that he hasn’t moved. It’s like he’s frozen in the doorway, fingers melding into the wooden frame because he’s gripping it so tightly. And the expression on his face…it makes Shane want to chase after Hayden, just so he can punch him. So he can make him pay for causing Ilya to look like that.
He heard the argument. More than just the end of it. Of that, Shane is certain.
“Baby?” He says, voice quiet and steady.
“Sorry,” Ilya says, his eyes finally flickering to Shane.
He removes his hands from the doorframe, blood rushing back into his lily-white knuckles. Oddly, Shane wants to kiss them. He wants to kiss every part of Ilya, until he’s laughing and happy and not even a little bit hurt. He wants to take all of that pain away from him.
Shane frowns. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You fought with him because of me,” Ilya says. “I didn’t want that.”
“I didn’t fight with him because of you, Ilya. I fought with him because of him.”
He wouldn’t let Hayden pin the blame on the Ilya, so he’s sure as shit not going to let Ilya pin it on himself.
He hasn’t done a single thing wrong.
From the very beginning, Ilya has tried. He gets along great with Jackie, and even the kids love him, but Hayden refuses to give him a chance - refuses to accept that what he thought he knew about him wasn’t the whole truth. And no matter how much effort Ilya puts in, no matter how hard he tries for Shane’s sake, he can’t do it all by himself.
Shane should have stepped in sooner, should have put an end to this before it could even begin. He just - he thought it would work itself out because you can’t know Ilya and not love him.
But if Hayden refuses to even try, well.
“I should have said something sooner,” Shane says. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t, Ilya.”
Ilya looks at him, eyes wide and wet, and he smiles sadly. Shane knows that face; Shane hates that face. It’s the one Ilya wears when he’s shutting down, when he’s putting up walls, when he’s trying to pull back.
“Baby, tell me what you’re thinking.” It’s not a request, and Ilya knows it.
“I am thinking that I am costing you too much,” he begins, and then, gesturing at the door Hayden just walked out of, he continues, “This - it’s too high a price to pay. I’m not worth it.”
It feels like Shane’s heart falls from his chest and shatters into a million pieces on the floor at his feet.
There’s no world in which Ilya wouldn’t be worth everything, no price that Shane wouldn’t gladly pay for the chance to build this life with him. He hates, hates, hates that Ilya could ever doubt that - that Shane hasn’t made it so abundantly clear to him.
Shane knows that his fears around coming out are hard for Ilya, especially when he’s willing to take the same - if not bigger - risks, far more easily than Shane is. But they’ve talked about it. Shane thought that he knew. He thought Ilya understood that, while Shane hopes he doesn’t ever have to choose between Ilya and hockey, he would pick Ilya every time if it came down to it.
He’d choose him over Hayden, and the Voyageurs, and hockey, and the whole goddamn world.
Suddenly it feels like there is too much space between them, an aching, endless cavern that Shane can’t bear to be on the other side of. He lets out a quiet, wounded sound as he crosses the floor towards his love, his life.
The moment Shane reaches him, he presses himself into Ilya’s space and burrows his face in Ilya’s neck. He winds his arms tightly around his waist, and Shane shudders in relief when Ilya’s own arms wrap around Shane’s shoulders.
He smells like Shane’s shower gel, and like ginger ale, and like home.
“You’re worth everything, Ilya,” Shane promises, his lips brushing against Ilya’s throat.
“He’s your best friend.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“He’s looking out for you,” Ilya argues, and Shane scoffs.
He pulls back, not far enough to leave the circle of Ilya’s arms, but enough to look him in this eyes while they have a conversation that is clearly long overdue.
“He’s not looking out for me, Ilya. He’s trying to control me because he thinks he knows me better than I know myself.”
Shane doesn’t like saying it - doesn’t even like thinking it about someone who has always been so loyal to him - but that doesn’t make it any less true.
“He doesn’t want to be wrong about you, so he refuses to see what you’re really like.”
“Shane.“
“But I see what you’re really like. I know you, baby, and I know your heart. And I love you more than anything.”
“More than Pike?” Ilya asks.
He’s trying to lighten to the mood, but Shane thinks the weight of it is important. This moment deserves to be heavy.
“More than Pike, more than hockey, more than anything, Ilya.”
Ilya isn’t used to being chosen. Not really.
Shane knows that Irina loved him so much, and Shane loves her for giving him Ilya, but he hates her a little bit, too.
He hates her for leaving Ilya alone in that house, for choosing to go instead of stay. And he knows it’s not her fault, of course he does, but he looks at Ilya - his halo of curls, and his hazel eyes, and the heart he wears so plainly on his sleeve if you know just what to look for - and Shane’s heart breaks for the little boy inside of Ilya who still thinks he wasn’t enough to make his mama stay. He can’t imagine having any part of Ilya, and then choosing to leave him behind.
Ilya’s father chose power, and hockey, and hatred over his own child. And his brother chose money, and drugs, and corruption.
The Bears chose him, and the Centaurs, too, but they chose him for hockey. They chose Rozanov, not Ilya. For his hands, not his heart. And though Shane knows how dearly Svetlana loves Ilya, between Moscow and Boston, she has her own life that Ilya is not a part of.
Ilya deserves to always know how much he matters. He deserves to have someone who always puts him first.
“I choose you, Ilya,” Shane promises him. “In any and every universe.”
“Even if we were worms?” Ilya asks, his voice wobbly and broken.
Shane chuckles, leaning forward to bump their noses together. He can feel Ilya’s soft breath of laughter fan out across his skin, and it feels good to hear him laugh again. It feels right. He doesn’t deserve to feel sad in their home.
“Even if we were worms, baby,” Shane confirms, a smile playing at the corners of his lips.
And then Ilya closes the distance between them and kisses him.
It’s soft, and chaste, and as slow and sweet as honey. Every press of their lips is intentional, a confession and a promise and a vow, all without words. Shane puts every ounce of love he feels for Ilya into the kiss, makes sure he feels it down to his toes, his blood, his soul.
He wants his love imprinted onto Ilya, wants it etched into his very bones.
“Thank you, Shane,” Ilya whispers. His voice is so shrouded in emotion that his accent sounds thick, and heavy, and perfect. So much like the seventeen year old boy that Shane fell in love with, that it almost makes him cry.
“What for?” Shane asks.
He brushes Ilya’s curls back from his face, and kisses the mole on his cheek. It makes Ilya smile and lean into the touch, his eyes fluttering closed again. Shane sees the opportunity and takes it: he rolls up onto his tiptoes and presses featherlight kisses to both of Ilya’s eyelids.
Ilya hums softly, a sweet smile curving the corners of his mouth upwards. “For being on my side. For defending me.”
“Oh, Ilya,” Shane sighs. “Me and you? We’re on the same side. I’ll always defend you.”
He feels Ilya melt into him, like any lingering tension just seeps out of his body. He bumps their foreheads together and Shane just laughs, tilting his head so he can kiss Ilya wherever he can reach - above his top lip, the corner of his mouth, the spot just above his jaw.
“I love you so much, Shane,” Ilya whispers into the millimetre of space between them.
“I love you, too. More than anything.”
Ilya holds him so gently, his hands on Shane’s waist, then his arms, and his neck, and tangled in his hair. Sometimes he still touches Shane like he can’t believe he’s allowed to, like this is all a dream he’ll have to wake up from.
Shane thinks, maybe, that Ilya still struggles to believe that this is for keeps. He worries that one day Shane will wake up and decide none of this is worth the effort of protecting it. But Shane vows - secretly, just to himself - that he will spend the rest of their lives proving those worries wrong.
“My baby,” Shane murmurs.
Ilya hums, burrowing in closer and pressing his face into Shane’s neck, where he just breathes him in. Slow and steady and certain.
He’s always so impossibly sweet in moments like these, where the rest of the world has faded away and there is no one around they have to perform for. Ilya doesn’t have to be Rozanov, and Shane doesn’t have to be Hollander, and instead they just get to be two people in love.
Shane thinks, perhaps, that’s his very favourite thing to be.