Archive of Our Own

In every aspect of his life but one, Shane Hollander needed control. His vice grip on his diet, his career, his public image… everything. His childhood had been marked by a frantic, desperate urge for perfection that always felt just out of his reach. A missed goal, an extra pound on the scale, a flubbed attempt at small talk - each error, no matter how minor or how seemingly insignificant, would chip and eat away at him until he felt hollow, formless, worthless.

And then there was Ilya Rozanov.

Ilya, who his foggy, enamored brain commanded him to introduce himself to over a decade ago in Saskatchewan. He had justified it by telling himself it was just professional admiration, passing respect from one hockey prodigy to another. He had told himself it wasn’t the sharp cut of his jaw, the deep blue wells he called eyes, or the thunderous rumble of his Russian-accented voice. He told himself it was nothing, and he kept telling himself that until he’d let Rozanov touch him for the first time. And then he told himself it was just ‘curiosity,’ just meaningless sex, just pleasure for pleasure’s sake until Ilya had made love to him for the first time. Not sex, but lovemaking - queasy as the word might make him. And he kept on with the excuses and the justifications and the lies until he was bowed over with the unwieldy burden he had been carrying around since he was seventeen, until he nearly crushed himself beneath the weight and crushed Ilya along with him. But it was undeniable, that shift from being the person Ilya Rozanov came to for a good time and no strings attached to the person he let hold him in his arms while he wept in a hotel room in Florida, to the person who could make Ilya drunk on his presence alone, to be the one that got to be told ‘I love you’ by Ilya Rozanov through a glass-shattered voice in the hours before dawn broke.

Being cherished like that, loved as completely as he was sure Ilya loves him, it’s special. It’s holy, almost. A tender, raw thing he has to hold gently in his hands. Because, despite all his bravado and jokes and his bona fide reputation as the league’s professional asshole, Ilya is far more sensitive than most people could ever understand. How can they? They haven’t seen what Shane has been allowed to see: the way he needs to be cradled like a child sometimes after nightmares, the way he trembled when Shane said he loved him back for the first time, the delicate touch he bestows on Shane after they’ve been intimate.

It’s perfect, being with him. Not perfect in the way he thought he needed at seventeen, not ‘perfect’ as in ‘just out of reach,’ or something that needs to devour his entire life just to maintain, perfect like something that can look at Shane, decidedly imperfect, and still find him beautiful, still find him worth a decade of agony, who doesn’t care about ‘Shane Hollander, #24: Hockey God.’ Just cares about Shane. For the first time in his life, he feels like enough. He feels chosen and wanted. He feels worthy.

If he told himself at seventeen that he would find his tiny piece of ‘perfect’ in his arch rival’s arms, he would have been horrified. He would have sprinted for the exit and never looked back. But he’s older now, two years shy of thirty, and that kid he was in Saskatchewan feels like a distant dream, a memory, a character in a story he can only feel sorry for. He wants more than he did at seventeen. He wants something real, something beyond the game they play. He wants to win something he can keep. And he’s found it. He’s sure he’s found it, more sure of this than of anything in his life.

In the beginning, suggesting Ilya move to Ottawa seemed to be a bridge over a previously unpassable body of water. It felt like a lifeline, a breath of air after drowning for years upon years. Maybe it was, at first. Shane got to have it all, everything he wanted. Ilya let him pour his entire being into Monteral and only see him over a select few weekends, on some off-days, quick evening trips where he couldn’t even stay the night.

Even now, Ilya never complains when he has to leave him before sunup, when he has to miss every event with the new team Shane can tell he loves like family, sitting all alone in a new country, a new city, a new everything like Shane’s foreign mistress he has to tuck away for safekeeping. But despite his willingness to go along with whatever Shane wants, whatever is best for him and his all-important career, he can tell it’s been weighing on Ilya. He’d given up everything, and Shane can feel how lonely it is to be his dirty little secret. He can see his bright eyes dimming, his laugh growing hollow; he’s withering away while Shane is emptying everything he has into a sport that can never love him back the way Ilya does.

But it isn’t just Ilya who’s feeling the burden of their separation. With every passing day, the burning he feels for Ilya grows like a fire he can no longer dampen. He doesn’t know how he had done it for all that time before the ice had broken that first summer, their first summer together, at his cottage in Ottawa. But now he feels as though he has gotten a taste of true domesticity, comfort, the luxury of what a real life with Ilya could look like if they were brave enough to grab for it. And it would appear that he has become unsuitable to exist without it again. Every time he has to abandon Ilya for Montreal, it feels like he’s dying. It feels like giving away a little piece of what he could have, bit by bit, until eventually there will be nothing left. Each time it stings a little longer, each time it gets more and more difficult to recover from. The hollowness of Ilya’s absence, which he had been forced to grow accustomed to in their youth when a few short hours with him was the best he could hope for, had become impossible to live with. Sometimes he’d just drive in silence and cry for the full two hours back to Monteral from Ottawa, noiseless, quiet tears rolling down his cheeks as Ilya’s house became a distant speck in his rearview mirror.

He’d never felt burnout when it came to hockey, not really, not until now. But every victory is becoming more and more trivial. The screams of the fans might as well have been muted for the entirety of their most recent season. Even hoisting the cup above his head again the season before felt like playing a part he had become unfit for, watching somewhere outside of his body as Hayden kissed Jackie square on the mouth when she’d come to join them on the ice, knowing Ilya couldn’t even risk being seen in the stadium, and wondering, ‘Why can’t I have that? What am I doing? Who cares about any of this?’

He felt entirely vacant until he’d finally been able to dissolve into a puddle of tears in Ilya’s arms that night at his parents' house, at what was meant to be a victory celebration. Ilya had held him until he’d calmed down, just as baffled and worried as his parents. But they chalked it up to the stress of the season finally catching up to him, and none of them spoke about it again.

For two years, he tried to have it all, to keep his team and Ilya. But there is only one love of his life, and it’s a Russian jackass with a tender heart and capacity for love that can’t be contained even in his massive, muscle-coated body.

It hadn’t been easy to admit, not at first. Giving up the legacy he thought he’d die with, it was misery in the beginning. The preemptive grief felt like a living thing in his belly, gnawing and aching and ripping his innards to shreds. It was months of back-and-forth, of weighing his options, trying to decide what he wanted when he saw a notification that one of his teammates had just posted a new photo. When he opened Instagram, he saw their two hands over a set of roses, sparkling engagement rings fresh on both their fingers.

‘Congrats, man!’ He commented. ‘So excited for you!’

And he was. In a lot of ways, he was. But he was even more heartbroken for himself, and for Ilya. They would never get to make a post like that. But beyond that, they would never get to be young and engaged and in love at the rate they were moving. Moving in together, getting married, raising children together as a family, it was all a lifetime away, and Shane had forgotten what they were even waiting for. It became excruciating. He hadn’t even been able to drive down to Ottawa to see him, like he ached to do, because he had a game the next day. A game they ended up losing.

He isn’t sure why, but that’s what did it. That’s when his decision had been made.

When he first broached Farrah about the possibility of switching teams, moving to Ottawa without being able to give any reasonable excuse for such a downgrade and a pay cut, he had to excuse himself to the bathroom to vomit until nothing but bile came up.

But then the talks progressed, a narrative emerged, the timeline became manageable, and slowly, gradually, he could see light at the end of the tunnel. Bringing glory back to his hometown after an unprecedented run in Monteral and another cup just last season, wanting to be closer to family, the opportunity to focus on the work he was doing for the Irina Foundation with his co-founder, Ilya Rozanov…it was all plausible. It was all survivable. It also laid out a much clearer path for them to come out as a couple, not as rivals but as teammates. It would soften the blow, perhaps, make the reality more comprehensible to fans.

Yuna had taken it even harder than Theriault, but Shane had David had been able to get through to her after many weeks and many more glasses of wine. And even now, he knew it was going to be a difficult pill to swallow for a long time, maybe forever. But he knew she’d come around. Once she saw how important this was to Shane, how much thought he’d already given it, and how he wouldn’t be swayed for anything, she had no choice but to accept it. She loves hockey, she loves Montreal, but her love for Shane easily eclipses all of that.

But how could he explain it, really? How could be truly make her understand the allure of getting to train next to Ilya everyday, getting to go to practice with him, having the chance to win cups with him and retire alongside each other, getting to mentor the rookies and giving up the crushing pressure of the captainicy…getting to wake up in his arms on the weekdays as well as the weekends, reading in bed beside him, making him breakfast, knowing that he’d always be there to take care of him when he has nightmares, raising a family together…

It costs too much to stay in Monteral. That’s the bottom line. He can’t be pulled in both directions; he doesn’t want to be. And if he has to let go of one thing, it could never be Ilya.

The move is still being kept quiet. So quiet that even Ilya himself doesn’t know. Part of Shane hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up if something went wrong, hadn’t been able to even picture the look of heartbreak if he had to tell Ilya he wouldn’t be playing alongside him, wouldn’t be moving in together, after letting the idea take root. Another part of him, though more difficult to admit, is wildly nervous about his reaction. He let this thing go further than he intended without letting Ilya into the loop, but he could say that for a lot of things. He spent years hiding how much he loved him, and he spent two more pretending not to notice how much pain he’s been in. He’s tired of it.

He’s never had to pretend or mask in front of Ilya the way he does other people, but he wants Ilya to know all of him, and he wants to know all of Ilya, without the barriers he can feel both of them keeping in place. Ilya is damaged, badly, from the ever-open wounds of a family that didn’t love him the way he deserved. Shane knows how brave he is to try to reach for something he was never taught how to hold. He hoped that Ilya would start to open up to him more, and he had in so many ways. But it’s still a slow process, slower than it should be, and it’s clear that Shane needs to take charge as he had at the All-Stars game in Florida if they’re going to make any headway.

But he’s ready. He has to be ready. Because the move is happening, he’s going to be a Centaur. He’s going to ask Ilya to move in together, permanently. And then, one day soon, he’s going to ask Ilya to marry him.

He’s made him wait; they’ve both made each other wait for so long. He’s done waiting. He just hopes Ilya is, too.

He gazes at himself in the full-length mirror in his bedroom in Monteral. He spent an hour agonizing over which shirt to wear, and then another thirty minutes debating which color tie goes best with blue. Eventually, he decides to keep it simple and stick to black. Safe. Familiar. Especially since he was diving headfirst into uncharted waters tonight.

He finds that he’s terrified, for some reason. He’s scared out of his mind, and he has no idea if he needs to be. He straightens the Rolex on his wrist and tries to keep his fingers from shaking. What if he misread everything? What if Ilya feels like Shane has been lying to him when he managed to steer the conversation away from the future over the last few months? What if Shane is moving too fast?

He tries to steady his shallow breathing, fixing his hair for the umtenth time that night just for it to look the same as it did before he started messing with it. He feels like a rookie again, putting on a suit like a fool for his first hookup. But more than that, he feels stupid, standing around in the silence. He needs to text Ilya, just to keep from working himself into a panic before he even starts the drive to Ottawa. He takes out his phone, fiddling with his eyebrow for a moment, and finally pulls up Ilya’s number.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jane: Hey baby. About to leave the house. Excited to see you soon :)

Ilya looks down at his phone, the blinding headache he’s been trying to ignore lighting up the screen into a minor supernova. He winces, but still feels the cold wisp of a smile curl his over his lip. A few words and he’s already aching from the inside out. A decade into this, and his heart still lurches like a wonderstruck schoolboy every time he gets a piece of Shane, even a little one like this.

Lily: Just excited to see me? Nothing else? Just dinner and goodnight? The boring has infected your soul, мой помидор.

Jane: Tomato, right?

Lily: MY tomato, yes.

Jane: Am I allowed to ask why I’m YOUR tomato?

Lily: Next time I have you in my bed, I’ll give you a mirror and show you why.

Jane: 😡

Lily: It’s cute, I promise. Face like horny red tomato.

Jane: Gross.

Lily: My little tomato.

Jane: Yes, your tomato, asshole. See you in a couple of hours. Love you.

Lily: я тебя люблю

Ilya sighs, his smile slipping away as he lets his phone fall to the side of him on the couch. Anya is long passed out at his feet, and he knows he needs to wake her, take her on a walk, get in the shower, and get dressed. But he can’t summon the energy to do any of it. He just wants Shane to be here; he wants to fall into his arms and shut the lights off and sleep for a week. He wants to tuck his face into the crook of his neck and breathe in his minty, shape cologne until it cuts away the fabric of the rest of the world. And he wants it to be that way forever.

When they came up with their Ottawa plan two years ago, it felt like receiving something he never imagined he would be offered. Shane - perfect, gentle, earnest, brilliant, kind Shane - loving him? Shaping his future around him? It was too much, overwhelming, and exhilarating. But he never imagined how excruciating it would turn out to be. How painful every goodbye is for another few weeks or even months. He aches, literally, physically aches, without him around. It’s like getting bone marrow stripped from him each time Shane has to slip out in the early morning hours, like a thief in the night. He’s so desperate to be a proper family in a way he knows Shane isn’t ready for, and might never be. He wants to tell him how lonely he is in a new country that can never quite be his home when Shane isn’t there. He wants to go to parties with his teammates and bring Shane along, not feel like he’s something to be hidden, to be ashamed of. But he can’t. He has at least another decade before any of that can happen, maybe longer, and he has no idea how he’s going to survive it. He’s shed more tears over the last two years than he has in his whole life, and he can hardly even reason out why most of the time. Once, when Shane went off for a three-week stretch, he left a Post-It note telling Ilya he loved him with a little sketch of the two of them with Anya. It was cute, it was sweet, and it somehow made Ilya bawl until he couldn’t breathe.

And it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair to him or to Shane. How can he want more when Shane has given him the world already? When Shane has given him David and Yuna, and every drop of his free time, and the promise of a future together? How could he? How dare he? He would never ask Shane to do more than he’s ready for, and he’ll never burden him with the barrage of self-destructive thoughts that plagued him endlessly.

He isn’t sure exactly when or how it happened. But at some point, settling down, not drinking himself into a stupor most nights, not drowning out the endless pit of want for Shane with meaningless club sex, not having to tough out the summers in Russia, it’s made something he had long been running from finally catch up to him. It’s made something he thought was stuck in place forever dislodge. He misses his mother like a phantom limb, one he’s learned how to survive without, but not how to live without. Now he’s staring all that guilt, all that grief, all that hurt dead in the eye, and he has no idea what to do with any of it. The angry man he tried to bury still picks at his brain like a vulture, and he feels like he was constantly on the verge of succumbing to his mother’s melancholy or his father’s rage. He’s sinking into quicksand, and he’s lost as to how he’s meant to escape. He’s thought about seeing a therapist, someone who might be able to mold him into a person worthy of Shane, but that feels like admitting to something he still wants to keep buried.

When Shane is there, the agony doesn’t just evaporate into thin air. It doesn’t vanish, but it is bearable. It’s something he can endure. He needs him like air, as fundamental as water or food or sleep. And he hates himself for it.

Being loved by Shane Hollander is a privilege he can never hope to earn, so he needs to take what he can get, and he needs to be grateful for it. He never imagined himself as the kind of person who got loved back, but he was. He is. Somehow, Shane has managed it, and if he isn’t careful, he’s going to ruin the only thing he would never survive losing. He’s let Shane see parts of himself he never intended to show anyone. He’s let Shane see him flayed, heart exposed, still beating in his chest. But he can’t let him see this, because if he did, Shane would run. And he would be right to run, but Ilya is too selfish to just let it happen if he can find a way to stop it.

So, he takes a deep inhale, swings his legs over the side of the couch, and tries to rally. Anya wakes up sluggishly, stretching in that lazy way that makes Ilya chuckle. He scratches her head when she pads her way over to him, yawning languidly.

“We’re going to see our favorite person tonight,” Ilya coos. “But first we need to go on a…walk.”

He emphasizes the final word in a way that makes her ears prick up before she jumps off the couch excitedly and bounds toward the door. Ilya grins wider, but it somehow doesn’t reach deep enough to feel genuine. And he realizes he’s even faking it to his dog, and somehow that makes him laugh. Even if that feels fake, too.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ilya’s headache only worsens over the next two hours, his mood growing more and more sour as he buttons up his dress shirt, slinging a suit jacket over his shoulders. He tries not to look at himself in the mirror too long, tries not to catch the irritated, ugly look cast over his face like a mask.

What the fuck is wrong with you? he wants to hiss at himself. This is what you wanted; this is a step in the right direction.

Shane is meeting him in public, at a restaurant, and they are going on a date like a normal couple. Well, not a date, technically. And not a couple, for that matter. Shane pre-arranged for them to come in the back way, reserved a table out of sight, and discreetly promised a nice tip for the wait staff to keep their identities to themselves. And even if they didn’t, even if they were recongized, Shane had already planned for that too. It was just a business meeting, in case anyone was wondering, for the Irina Foundation. Plausible. A bit odd, but plausible. And then Shane will stay for the weekend, and then he’ll leave again. Because even though they were both out for the season, Shane is always booked; he always has somewhere to be, he always has people who need his time more than Ilya. And Ilya just has to do this for ten more years. Ten more fucking years, at least.

Ilya closes his eyes, running a hand over his face. He has to calm down. He has to get it together. He can fake being happy; he can fake being alright. He’s done it for so long, what’s one more night? If even Shane somehow always manages to scale the wall of his defenses and break him down like no one had been able to since his mother, he has to be strong. Be funny, be charming, be sexy, Ilya. What else are you good for?

He repeats it like a military drill in his head as the notification that his Uber has arrived pops up. What else are you good for? Make sure Shane has a good time tonight. Make him laugh. Make him comfortable. Make sure he doesn’t regret coming up here. Make sure he doesn’t regret this. Make sure he doesn’t regret you.

He kisses Anya goodbye, locking the door and stepping out into the crisp evening air.

The Uber driver doesn’t speak to him, barely even acknowledges him beyond a confirmation that they are, in fact, headed to the right restaurant. He’s grateful; he doesn’t have any small talk in him tonight. He should have had a cigarette before he left, but he knows Shane hates it when he smokes.

‘It feels like I’m losing you every time you smoke. Just, like, really slowly,’ he’d told Ilya once, tears brimming in his eyes. ‘I’ll never forgive you for leaving me here alone over fucking tobacco, you asshole.’

Ever since then, even the thought of a cigarette makes him queasy. Nicotine gum helps, and he only smokes now when he really, really needs to.

And God damn it, but he really fucking needs to right about now.

He tries not to feel like he’s about to crawl out of his own skin, letting his eyes wander over the city lights as they rush past him. He sits there in a daze until his phone vibrates, jolting him out of his trance. He looks down, unlocking the screen.

Jane: Just got here!

Lily: I’ll be there in ten. Uber drives like old woman.

Jane: Tip well anyway.

Jane: Oh and come in the entrance on the left side of the building. Paul knows you’re on the way.

Jane: The waiter :)

Lily: First name basis with the waiter already. Should I be jealous?

Jane: Ilya

Jane: I can’t find the eyeroll emoji but pretend that’s what I just sent.

Jane: This one 🙄

Jane: See you soon.

Ilya smiles in spite of himself, and it feels real.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Shane goes over what he wants to say one more time in the brief period before Ilya is set to arrive, glancing over to the door as though Ilya might teleport to the restaurant. He straightens the napkins, fiddles with the cutlery, and picks up and puts down the menu. He can’t believe how wrecked his nerves already are before anything can even get started. But he has to be brave, like Ilya believes he is. He has to show him that he hasn’t been oblivious to everything Ilya has done for Shane, and how he’s willing to make sacrifices, too. Major ones and still be sure with every bone in his body that Ilya is worth it - that they are worth it.

He feels like his heart literally lunge in his chest when the deep rumble of Ilya’s voice breaks through the quiet air of barely half-filled restaurant, cutting even more sharply into the reserved corner Shane scouted for them. It’s perfect. Quiet, secluded, no distractions. Their own little bubble for Ilya to digest such a massive acceleration in their plan.

He looks gorgeous, like always. He might as well be a work of art wandering through a museum. And he looks tired, too, as he usually does these days. His eyes do something strange when they meet Shane’s, widening and then going dull within a moment. As though something turned on before Ilya manually switched it off, and he gives Shane one of those easy, coy smirks he hands out like candy. Shane has grown accustomed to something more tender from him, more open and intimate. It feels odd to have Ilya look at him the way he looks at most everyone else. He isn’t used to that anymore. But he tries to chalk it up to the fact that they’re in public, and perhaps he’ll get one of those smiles he’s come to covet as his alone later when they have more privacy.

Shane stands up, moving around the table to embrace him, when Ilya sticks his hand out and clasps Shane’s palm hard against his own.

“Hollander,” he says, a little too loudly. “Good to see you, buddy. They kick you out of Montreal, eh? Having too much fun up there? I must be rubbing off on you after all.”

Shane tries to laugh, his brow furrowing as he lets Ilya shake his hand more firmly than he needs to, melting down awkwardly into his seat after Ilya takes his own. He glances around, nodding to Shane without meeting his eyes.

“Nice place. Fancy. Perfect for business meeting.”

“Ilya -”

“And don’t worry, I bring cyanide pills in case someone discovers us. Just give me the signal if you think Paul is starting to catch on,” he snarks, patting his jacket pocket.

“I’m not worried about Paul.”

Ilya raises his brow, twisting his lip. “Oh, we trust Paul? Did you give him a little smooch out back as payment?”

“Jesus Christ, Ilya.”

Ilya chuckles, reaching over to pinch the soft skin under his cheekbone between his fingers. It doesn’t feel playful. It feels taunting. Shane can’t bring himself to smile.

“Did you bring folder or something? Notepad? I can pretend to look at it in case anyone walks by.”

“No, I…” Shane trails off, suddenly embarrassed, like he’s shown up naked to a costume party. “I mean, the excuse was just a precaution.”

Ilya holds up his hands. “No, no, is smart. I get it. I wouldn’t want to be seen in public with me either.”

Shane goes cold, his stomach churning in that specific way he hates. He swallows hard, a sense of impending doom reaching out to thoddle him. He left Ilya alone for too long; he can see that now. All these months, he’s been preoccupied with organizing the move and in that chaos, Ilya has fallen to the back burner. He abandoned him without meaning to, and now his haunches are up. He senses the brick wall Ilya is building up between them, and suddenly telling him what he wants to tell him feels like a feat more daunting than inviting him to his cottage for the first time. The speech he has been rehearsing begins to disintegrate in the back of his throat, which he clears, and looks down at the menu like he doesn't have it memorized.

“I’m don’t - I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you, Ilya,” he grinds out, sounding rougher than he meant to.

“Shane, I'm joking,” he hears Ilya say without looking up to face him, his voice teasing but not relinquishing the sharp edge that helped earn him the title of Professional Asshole internationally. “A few weeks of celibacy and you've lost your sense of humor, apparently.”

Shane knows it's a defense mechanism, but it still stings to hear it directed at him after all these years. He thought they had evolved beyond this, but apparently, he was wrong.

Shane swallows hard again, forcing back the unjustified wave of tears that threatens the back of his eyes. He's being overly sensitive and too emotional, especially for what he has to get through tonight. But he needs Ilya, his Ilya, affectionate and soft and mature enough to see that Shane is teetering on the edge, not this facade he deploys as a survival mechanism.

He needs Ilya, not Rozanov. But he doesn’t know how to explain that in the mental state he's in without crumbling into rubble at his boyfriend's feet.

Ilya sighs when Shane doesn't respond, fanning out the menu in front of himself theatrically. “You’re in a mood.”

“I'm in a mood?” He repeats incredulously. “Seriously? You just shook my fucking hand instead of -”

“Instead of what, Hollander? You want me to give you big, wet kiss in front of all these people? You want me to get on my knees and suck your dick so Paul can watch? What should I have done? You tell me,” Ilya bites, though he had the decency to do it under his breath.

“I just -” his voice sticks. “Jesus, I just wanted to hug you. Fuck.”

They're silent for a moment that stretches too long, until finally he feels Ilya’s warm, calloused hand wrap around his wrist. He strokes his thumb over the delicate skin around his pulse point.

“Hey,” He all but whispers. “Look at me.”

Shane takes a long breath to try and steady himself, finally cutting his eyes at Ilya through a piece of his hair that had fallen over his forehead. And there he is, Ilya, not Rozanov, his tender gaze looking back at him where there had been only hardness seconds before. Shane could have wept with relief.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s been…hard without you here.”

Shane’s heart sinks. “I know. I’d have gotten away sooner if I could. I had a lot of business I needed to take care of.”

It feels shitty, an excuse like that. But he doesn't know what else to tell him without divulging more than he’s ready to at this point in the night.

Ilya offers him a wry smile, weariness all but etched into his face. “I know. Mr. Businessman, yes? It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. Not if you needed me here sooner.”

Ilya looks surprised at that, and then suddenly guilty. “You shouldn’t have to drop everything because of me. I don’t want to be a burden.”

“You could never be a burden to me, Ilya. Never.”

Ilya’s eyelids flicker for a moment, and Shane scoots his chair a little closer to his.

“Talk to me. Please.”

Ilya shrugs, hesitating before finally muttering out, “I feel like I’m - like I’m failing everyone. The team thought we had a real chance this year, and so did I. Every time I think we’re getting better, something happens. Like, ah, I can’t think of the phrase in English. One step forward…”

“Two steps back,” Shane completes for him, his voice still a little shaky as he tries to push off the guilt of letting Ilya sacrifice his career so eagerly for the countless time. “One step forward, two steps back.”

“Right. Yes. But this is nice, cолнышко. It is. And I know it’s scary, being out in public like this. I know you’re trying. I just…fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know, it doesn’t matter.”

“No, tell me,” he says, reaching out to wrap his fingers loosely over a few of Ilya’s. He’s terrified, but he has to push past that.

Ilya lets out a sigh through his nose, his eyes bouncing over Shane’s face for a moment before shaking his head a little. “I’m not…”

He stalls, and for a moment, Shane can feel him shattering under his gaze as he usually only allows himself to in the safety of their bed. He looks vulnerable, impossibly young, and desperate for something only Shane can give him. It makes Shane want to scoop him up and carry him away to their cottage for the rest of their lives, not to let anything or anyone else that has the power to hurt get near him again. It makes him want to rip out the teeth of anything that has ever bitten him.

“What, baby?” Shane mutters, leaning in so his voice stays resolutely between the two of them. “What’s wrong?”

Ilya’s lip trembles, and Shane’s stomach flips. “Shane, I’m -”

“Hello, gentlemen, welcome to The Silver Spoon. My name’s Paul, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening.”

Shane’s hand shoots away from Ilya’s in a moment as Paul comes up beside them, a wide grin on his face and a notepad in his hand. It was instinct, as involuntary as a flinch, but he regrets it the moment it happens. Paul’s voice is drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears as he watches that frightened look on Ilya’s face schools itself back into something hardened and cold. His hand curls back in on itself. The distance between them all at once feels like an ocean as Ilya nods a little, looking resigned, as though this was the response Shane was always going to have for the rest of their lives.

God, he feels sick.

Somewhere, over the static in his head, he hears Ilya request a double vodka, neat. And Shane manages to choke that ginger ale will be fine with him.

Ilya’s brow cocks up once Paul has left them alone again, giving him a grin that feels more like a sneer. “Going to let me drink alone, Hollander? Very rude.”

“Hey -”

“So much for Canadian politeness. At least I know my ex-rival will get me home safe. That’s one thing I never had in Russia, or in Boston, actually - a personal driver.”

“Ilya, tell me what you were going to -”

“I had everything else except a personal driver, and now I have one. I move to Canada, I give up my life, and look at all I get in return. I am captain of a farm team that will never stop losing, and I have a dog. I have a dog and this huge, empty, Canadian house for her to run around in. And a driver - I mean, boyfriend, I see when it's convenient for him. What a trade, huh?”

Shane feels like he’d been slapped. He would rather Ilya slapped him; it would have hurt far less than that. He sits back in his chair stiffly.

Did he mean that? Is he - are they - really not worth it? He knew it had gotten bad for Ilya here alone, but he hadn’t known it was this bad. Maybe he can’t fix this. Maybe he doesn't know how. Maybe Shane moving to Ottawa is just cementing something Ilya never really wanted in the first place. Loving each other, that was one thing. Settling down, forcing Ilya to lose his high-indulgent lifestyle, going beyond ‘boyfriends’ into something more permanent - maybe it isn’t enough. Or maybe it’s too much. Too much change, too much sacrifice, too much boredom. Maybe when Ilya calls him ‘boring,’ it’s meant to cut deeper than Shane realized. Maybe a boring life with him isn’t actually something Ilya wants after all, and Shane has blown up both of their lives over nothing.

“Ilya…”

“Господи, Shane. Do I have to apologize again? You’re exhausting tonight. What do you want me to say? What other things should I say sorry for? Sorry big, bad waiter scares you. Sorry I am making you take me somewhere in public. What a sacrifice. Sorry you just lost the season to fucking Toronto. Sorry my cock ruined the Golden Boy of Hockey’s chance to be normal, and now you have to sit in the back of a shitty fucking restaurant in the middle of bumfuck Canada with an asshole like me, when I’m sure there is a very expensive photoshoot waiting for you somewhere. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Shane. Your life is a living hell with me. I know. You’ve made that very clear. I can’t say it’s much better for me, either.”

Shane feels his heart break, a pain like a fractured bone reverberating throughout his entire body as if he had just been slammed into the boards. He feels himself shut down like he isn’t used to doing around Ilya, hovering somewhere beyond himself as Paul brings their drinks. He doesn't even realize that he's being asked about an entree until it's been repeated several times, and he's forced to look up at Paul. Something in his face must have spoken for him, because Paul mutters something about, “take your time with the menu, I’ll check back in a few minutes,” before he hurries off.

He already planned to order the chicken parmesan before they arrived. It was rare for him to indulge in pasta, but he hoped it would remind Ilya of the day they came out to his parents. He hoped it would spark that same sense of commitment and assurance Ilya had shown in front of David and Yuna. He built a whole section of the speech he thought he would be giving tonight around it - about how he’s ready now, too. He isn’t going to make them wait to start their lives anymore. How sad it would have been, waiting until they retire. And how he’s scared, but Ilya helps him feel brave enough to go for this. But even the thought of eating makes him sick to his stomach, and he can’t tell if he’s overreacting. He had no idea what to do, or what to say, or how to feel.

He watches Ilya pour his vodka down the back of his throat like it was water, and suddenly a vicious combination of anger and grief courses through him like lightning.

Fuck him. Fuck this.

Shane stands up abruptly, startling himself and Ilya with the scraping of his chair against the tiled floor. He throws his coat on, trying to calm his breathing and swallow down the barbed wire wrapping around his throat.

“What are you doing?” Ilya asks, having the gall to look genuinely confused.

“I’m leaving,” Shane spits back. “You can stay or go, but I’m leaving.”

Ilya watches him dig around in his wallet to pay for the drinks, in an apparent state of shock, before scoffing. “Come on, Hollander. Relax. Sit back down, and we’ll -”

“Shut up,” he snaps. “Are you coming with me or not? Because I’m going, Ilya. I’m not doing this with you. Not here.”

For an agonizing few seconds, neither of them moves, let alone breathes. Shane can feel how precarious this is, the daggers in their eyes cutting the air between them. Then, finally, Ilya takes the bullet. He stands, pulling them both back from the ledge they were about to fall from, and slings his jacket over his shoulders. Shane tries not to show how much that relieves him, like an antidote, tossing more than enough money on the table to pay for what they ordered. He can almost feel Ilya say something about it, but the look Shane shoots back must be enough for Ilya to clamp his jaw shut.

They exit out of the same side door they’d entered through, and Shane doesn’t even have the wherewithal to check that there’s no one coming before having a beeline to his car. He unlocks it, bundling himself inside before he can feel Ilya doing the same in the passenger seat beside him.

They sit in the charged silence for a moment before Shane breaks it by turning on the ignition. He doesn’t speak to Ilya as he pulls out of the parking lot into the street. He doesn’t turn the radio on. He doesn’t try to fill the quiet at all. He lets them stew in it. He lets them fester. He watches the city fall away beside him and tries to figure out in the world he’s meant to do, how he’s ever meant to fix something he didn’t know could break. Maybe he had been stupid, assuming that no matter what, they could find a path through anything that came their way. Maybe it had been naive. Maybe because that’s the way he felt, and he’d never really thought to ask Ilya if he felt that way, too. He would have given up hockey if it came down to it. If Ilya had made the ultimatum, he would have chosen him. But now he doesn’t know if Ilya would even bother asking at all.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ilya keeps his gaze resolutely on the highway, his throat too dry and his heart too shredded with guilt to even try to speak.

He’s fucked up with Shane before, he’s treated him abominably, and somehow none of it feels as bad as what he’d done tonight. If he’d been able to quell the venom on his tongue for longer than a minute, he does not doubt that Shane would have been receptive to what he’d been desperate to tell him almost since he arrived in Ottawa.

I’m dying, Shane. This is killing me. I can’t do this for another ten years, I can’t even do this for another ten months. I’ll retire, I’ll sell the house, I’ll move with Anya down to Monteral, and you can keep me locked in your house during the daytime until you’re ready to let me see sunshine again. I don’t care, I’ll do it. You’re worth it. You’re worth anything I need to give up. I don’t need it like I need you. Please, please, please…

But instead, he’d been bitter and cold and hard. He’d been an asshole, just like everyone always says he is. He’d been cruel in a way he couldn’t be cruel, not with him. Not with this. Shane wasn’t meant to be handled like he handled his other problems. He wasn’t meant to be roughed up and tossed aside once a victor had been declared. He hadn’t grown up where that was asked of him, and Ilya was so grateful he hadn’t. But it makes him feel like a gorilla, a brute, something that wasn’t equipped to indulge in a delicacy as sweet as Shane without spoiling it.

He bites down on the inside of his cheek until it bleeds, and stays quiet until they've reached his house. He stays quiet as Shane walks ahead of him down the driveway. He stays quiet as Shane unlocks the door with the key Ilya had given him. He stays quiet as Shane greets Anya, trying to muster up some enthusiasm, taking her out, and then putting him to bed in her crate in their room since she was already half asleep by the way they got back. And he stays quiet as Shane kicks off his shoes and places them neatly on the rack in the entranceway, untying his tie and loosening the Rolex from his wrist.

Say something, he wills himself.

“Don’t you think that was a bit of an overreaction back there?” is what comes out of his mouth.

God damn it. God damn him.

Shane scoffs, but if he intended to look angry, he's failing miserably. He just looks crushed.

“You told me moving here wasn’t worth it. You told me being with me is a living hell. What else was I supposed to do? Eat pasta and watch you get drunk?”

‘A living hell?’ ‘Not worth it’? No, Jesus, that’s not what he meant. Is that what he said?

It's true that he didn’t quite believe Shane recognized the magnitude of what he’d given up; it's true he feels abandoned sometimes. It's true he didn’t know if Shane would choose him or hockey if it came down to it. But not worth it? A living hell? Never. That could never be true. He would do it all again if he had the chance. He could die tomorrow, and the lifetime of pain would have been worth Shane telling him he loved him even once.

Say that, you idiot. Why can’t you tell him that?

“That's not what I meant, Shane. I’m just tired, my head hurts, and English is -”

“Hard, I know. I know, Ilya. And I know it’s been difficult, and I know you’ve given up a lot. I…I know you’ve given up everything, okay?” his soft voice breaks, and Ilya wants to cleave himself in two. “I get it.”

Ilya laughs bitterly, an ugly sound. And the hurt he’s been stewing in erupts from somewhere he can’t hold back.

“Really? Do you get it? Do you get what it’s like for me here? Do you even think about that when you leave at 2 A.M. to go back home and leave me? Because it feels like I’m just a little tiny piece of your life when you’re my whole world. I did give up everything for you, Shane, and I’d do it again if you asked me to. But don’t pretend you get it, you don’t. Because I know for a fucking fact you wouldn’t do the same for me.”

Shane blanches before steeling himself, swallowing hard like he has sandpaper in his throat. “I didn’t…Ilya, you suggested joining a Canadian team. I thought this was what you wanted. It’s not like I kidnapped you and forced you to come down here. It was our decision for our future!”

“Our future, right. Sure, Shane. Your version of our future is just doing this forever, until we physically can’t anymore. Until our dicks don’t work and we're too old to raise children and my brain starts to look like my fucking father’s! That’s your perfect life. Because you can survive it, apparently. And when you're finally ready, I’ll hobble in on my cane, and we can invest in a good retirement home together, and maybe you’ll even work up the nerve to tell the nurses that we used to kiss when we were young. This is enough for you; you want your image, your career, and your team. And maybe me too, a little. But not more than you want to keep being Shane Hollander #24, hockey god. I’m not worth giving it up, and I just wish you’d say that. I wish you’d admit it.”

“No, that’s not…that’s not true. Tonight, I was going to tell you that -”

“Fuck, you can’t even touch my fucking hand in front of a waiter! It looked like the thought of it made you want to vomit, which I guess might be difficult since that would require having something in your stomach for once in your life. So I don’t know what I expect you to do, and I don’t know what you expect me to say. Do you want me to say oh, thank you, Mr. Hollander. Thank you for saving me from evil Mother Russia to become Canadian concubine you drive up to fuck whenever you feel like it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. If you’re expecting that, then maybe I should have just stayed in Boston after all. Married a nice girl, settled down with someone who wasn’t ashamed to be seen with me. Maybe that would have been better for you, captain. Maybe that would have been better for us both. Maybe I was an idiot for thinking you were brave enough to love anything more than being the savior of Monteral!”

He’s panting as he feels the final force of his tirade expel past his lips. He feels himself coming back into his body, as if someone else had just yelled at the love of his life like an animal. He waits, waits for the thunder to follow his lightning. He waits for Shane to spit back all that vitriol and outrage back at him. He waits for something, anything.

But Shane just stares. Shoulders suddenly hunched, arms hanging limp at his sides like a marionette whose strings had been cut. His breathing is uneven and shallow, like he’s forgotten how to pull air in without doing so manually. His face, wet with -

Ilya blinks, his entire body freezing over in record time.

Fuck. Oh, fuck. He’s crying. Shane’s crying. Ilya made him cry. When had that started? When had he done that? How far into his rant had he gotten before tears started dripping from those pretty brown eyes? How the fuck hadn’t he noticed?

Suddenly, what he just said reverberates in his mind like a mantra.

It was too far, his brain suddenly comprehends. He’d gone too far here and back at the restaurant. He’d gone far too far. He’d brought up every fear, every insecurity, everything Shane trusted him enough to keep safe, and he’d thrown it back in his face like it meant nothing. Like it didn’t matter. Like he didn’t matter.

He stands there like an idiot until Shane finally collapses on the couch just under him, his gaze empty and vacant as he stares at the wood floor below. His elbows rest on his knees, his hand dangling between his legs. Fat tears continue rolling down his cheeks like rain he doesn’t bother wiping away, and for a moment, Ilya wonders if he even knows he's crying.

“Shane…” he breathes, his voice like a plea. He stumbles in his haste to reach him, dropping to his knees before him and swiping frantically at his face with his thumbs. His heart pounds wildly in his chest.

“Shane,” he chokes. “Sweetheart, I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry, cолнышко. I didn’t mean any of that, you know I didn’t. You’re my life, I didn’t mean to…Fuck, I am a beast. I am the stupdiest man alive, Shane. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He keeps repeating it, keeps apologizing in English and Russian, but he isn’t sure if Shane can even hear him. He isn’t sure if Shane even wants to hear him. He feels like he’s speaking to a corpse he just shot through the chest, willing him back to life. He presses a barrage of frenzied kisses to his fingers, the backs of his hands, his palms, his knees, his thighs, his chest, his neck, and up to his damp freckled cheeks, landing with his lips slammed against his hairline like he can force the weight of his apology through his skull.

“Shane?” he gasps out against his forehead. “Ангел мой.”

He leans back a little on his heels, finding it difficult to relinquish even the slightest hint of space between them, to look Shane in the eye. He still looks hollowed.

Look at him, Ilya wants to scream at himself. Look at what you’ve done to him. Look at what you’re still doing to him. The best person you’ve ever met makes that mistake of loving you, and this is what you do.

“Shane?” he asks again. “Can you hear me? Please, just say something. Anything.”

Shane’s eyes finally lull sluggishly back over to meet his, as though he’d been drugged. But it was something. He’s coherent enough to respond to his voice at least. Ilya can’t help but surge onto the couch next to him as Shane’s silence continues, hauling him into his lap when Shane doesn't push away. He cradles him carefully in his arms, cupping the back of his head and guiding him gently to hide away in the crook of his neck. His other arm wraps securely around his back, anchoring him as he begins to rock them back and forth like Shane had done for him all those years ago in Florida.

“I am so sorry. That wasn’t fair, I know that wasn’t fair, Shane. I’ve been so fucking lonely and angry and sad, and I took it out on you. But I didn’t mean any of it, okay? I love you more than anything, more than the world. I don’t want to be back in Boston. I don’t want to marry anyone who isn’t you. I don’t want to raise a family without you. I know why you’re scared, sweetheart. I understand how much I’m asking of you. You’ve already done so much, and I’m so proud of you. You are so, so brave. I don’t want anything you aren’t ready to give, truly. I’ll wait for you. If it’s five years, ten, fifteen, you’d be worth every second. You’re my heart, Shane. Okay? Angel?”

He tries to pull back a little to look Shane in the eye again, try to gauge his mental state. But suddenly, like he’d been jolted back to life with a surge of electricity, Shane pulls in a hysterical gulp of air and throws his arms around Ilya’s middle. He latches onto Ilya and squeezes hard with the muscles that have been designed to move the athletes across the ice over the course of a lifetime. Ilya, momentarily surprised by the change, is flooded with relief the next second. He envelops him in his arms as completely as he is able, as though he can shield Shane from Ilya himself. But any comfort he receives dissipates almost instantly as the next exhale of air Shane attempts is punctuated with a sob, and then another, and another, until Shane is weeping into his neck like Ilya has never seen him do before. He’s seen him cry, but never like this. Never gasping, hiccupping for breath, pouring tears against the collar of his shirt. He’s never seen him let go so completely. He’s never had to. Not until Ilya pushed him past his breaking point.

God, it hurts. It hurts worse than almost anything else to know that this is his fault. It burns his lungs like there’s a fire poker nestled inside them. It makes him sick. It makes him despise himself in a new, fresh way he hadn’t even known he was capable of. He feels a wrecked expression pass over his face, and he buries it deeper into Shane’s hair, trying to block out anything that isn’t Shane, isn’t his hurt, isn’t the pain Ilya has inflicted on him. He shuts out the rest of the world and makes himself feel it all, every little shudder and whimper and every hot tear against his skin. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying too until he tries to breathe, and it feels like agony, all at once noting the dampness leaking into Shane’s ebony locks.

Ilya doesn’t loosen his grip even by a fraction, not until Shane’s wrung out and clinging to him like melted candle wax. He just keeps rocking him, apologizing until the words feel like they are liquefying on his tongue, dissolving into gibberish in his mouth, and he doesn't know if what he’s saying is in Russian or English at a certain point. They’re both shaking by the time the tears run dry, and Ilya isn’t sure if it’s him or Shane that’s trembling. He isn’t sure it matters.

When Shane finally moves to pull back, Ilya tightens his hold instinctively. The thought of any space, no matter how small, between them feels intolerable at that moment. But Shane tries again, and Ilya forces himself to relinquish his grip, which he realizes suddenly was so tight it was almost bruising. He isn’t sure how Shane was able to breathe at all.

Shane slides out of his lap, burying his face in his hands before Ilya can get a good look at him. But Ilya manages to keep a hand solidly on the back of his neck, massaging his nape gently. He gives Shane a long moment to catch his breath before he even attempts to make Shane say anything; their sniffing the only sound for a few agonizing moments.

After he feels Shane start to take real breaths instead of spasming gulps of air through his fingers, he tries inching closer, pressing his thigh to Shane’s where they sit beside each other on the couch.

“Shane? Are you okay?” he attempts, his voice weaker and more wrecked than he had expected it to be.

Shane takes a minute before nodding almost imperceptibly, his face still hidden between his palms. But Ilya does manage to hear a tiny, “Sorry,” that Shane mutters out, sounding about as miserable as Ilya feels.

Ilya shakes his head even though Shane can’t see him doing it, moving his hand from his neck to stroke slowly down his back. “No, no, cолнышко. You’ve done nothing wrong. This is my fault, all mine.”

After another excruciating few seconds of silence, Ilya finds that not looking him in his eyes feels completely unbearable, and he moves to wrap his hands gently over Shane’s wrists. “Can you look at me? Please?”

Ilya tentatively eases his hands back from his face, scooting closer to try and get a proper look at him. After a moment, Shane finally looks back. His watery brown irises affix to Ilya’s, pain radiating off of him like a fever. All the carefully constructed fortifications Shane always tries to keep in place have fallen away, leaving him raw and leaking a sorrow so sharp Ilya can almost taste it. And he’s looking at Ilya like he’s the only one who can cure him, like he would crawl inside his ribcage and make a home there if Ilya allowed him to. Ilya didn’t think it was possible to love him more than he already did, didn’t think his heart could manage it. Somehow he finds a way, his entire body burning with the desire to produce any remedy that would stop him from looking like that. He’d cut open his chest himself; he'd let Shane burrow and rest inside if he thought it would give him even a moment's relief.

“Oh, Shane…” he whispers, brushing away the last of the salty streaks with the back of his hand.

Suddenly, Shane shudders, his face crumbling for a moment like he might burst into tears again, before he lurches off the couch and out of Ilya’s hold. He barrels toward their bedroom, murmuring something that sounds like, “Sorry, I just need to, um, sorry…” before rushing past the doorway and closing it behind him.

Ilya sits there in shock for a moment, his hands still grasping for something that isn’t there anymore, before he finds himself pulled like a magnet towards the shut door. He hovers in front of it awkwardly, unsure if he has any right to try and open it or if it would be better to give Shane a few minutes alone.

He, all at once and against his will, remembers walking into his mother’s bedroom in Russia, a few weeks after his twelfth birthday. He remembers calling for her, over and over, and walking in to find her slumped in front of her vanity, the pill bottle still clutched in her right hand. He asked her if she was hurt, and he remembers the way the world began to shift on its axis the longer she didn’t respond. He remembers running away to fetch someone, anyone. Anyone who could fix this. He remembers his father yelling, his brother screaming. He remembers curling up in a ball and smelling his mother’s perfume for the last time as they took her away in a body bag.

Suddenly, he imagines entering their bedroom and finding Shane the same way. Eyes still cracked open, but empty. Those perfect, rich, chocolate spheres sapped of all their color and staring at nothing. He imagines Shane curled in on himself and -

He inhales sharply, squeezing his eyes shut and manually forcing the picture out of his head by sheer force. Shane would never. He couldn’t. The world didn’t need to keep running if Shane Hollander wasn’t in it. It wasn’t worth anything without him. Everyone knew this, surely. Ilya certainly did. Shane had to know that, too. He had to know that wherever he went, Ilya would not be far behind. So he’d never…he’d never…

Before he can think twice, Ilya finds himself pounding on the door as calmly as he is able. “Shane? I - I need to know you’re okay. Can you please answer and tell me -”

“I’m fine, Ilya. I just need a minute, okay?”

He all but collapses with relief, letting his forehead rest against the door for a moment and listening until he hears the shower switch on from their en suite bathroom. Okay, this is okay. Shane is just taking a shower, collecting himself. This is fine. He’s fine. Shane is still here and safe and alive. As long as those three things are true, Ilya can work with this. This is something he can survive.

Once his legs regain enough of their strength to carry him away from the door, he heads toward the gym. He slips out of his scratchy dress shirt, still damp with Shane’s tears, and throws on a clean t-shirt and sweatpants he keeps as a spare. Shane doesn’t need reminders of his breakdown when he comes back out. He heads to the kitchen after that, rinsing his face with too hot water.

What can he do? How can he be useful to Shane? How can he take care of him?

Food, he thinks. He didn’t eat dinner - as he remembers well with that shitty comment he made about vomiting up nothing. Made even shittier by the fact that he knew food was a sensitive topic for Shane. He tries to shake off the still-fresh memory, opening his refrigerator and peering into the macrobiotic ‘Shane’ side he makes sure to keep well-stocked. He pulls out a container of pre-prepared ingredients for miso soup, the first dish he learned how to prepare for Shane when he moved to Ottawa, and prepares it to heat up on the stove. Then he sets out about making him a cup of brown rice, the feeling of being helpful to Shane soothing something bone-deep inside of him.

He'll eat, they’ll talk this out, and they’ll be fine.

They have to be fine. He can’t endure anything else.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Shane shuts off the shower, toweling himself dry slowly before slipping on a fresh set of boxers and making his way into their bedroom. He absconds with one of Ilya’s shirts and a pair of his sweatpants to wrap himself up in, taking a few deep inhales of his scent to ground himself. Anya is still fast asleep in her crate, blissfully unaware of the shitshow she narrowly avoided witnessing. He sits down on the edge of their bed for a moment and lets the cool, dark room soothe him before he has to go out there and face his boyfriend, who he has no doubt will be out of his mind with worry.

He hadn’t meant to react that way; shattering like a child during a thunderstorm the moment he came face to face with the weight Ilya had been carrying around, the depth of how much he was suffering. But goddamn if Ilya doesn’t know how to cap him at the knees when he wants to. He knows it’s just a survival mechanism, a coping strategy cultivated from growing up in a dog-eat-dog household. Any other night, he probably would have been able to fend it off and stay on track. He would have been able to see beyond the sharp words and into the deep hurt hiding behind Ilya’s eyes. Any other fucking night except this one, when this mind was already operating at significantly less than 100%. Instead, he had fractured, and now he has no idea what he’s going to say when he walks out of this bedroom. Part of him wants to leave it until the morning, but he knows Ilya won’t be satisfied with that. In some ways, he’s surprised Ilya hasn’t broken down the door already. But he isn’t sure he won’t if he doesn’t leave soon. So, he closes his eyes for a moment, takes a final steadying breath, and stands up.

The first thing he notices when he opens the door is that Ilya has dimmed the lights. The bright overhead L.E.D. bulb has been extinguished in favor of soft, orange-tinted lamps Shane purchased when Ilya first bought the house. He knows Ilya didn’t care about them, but Shane does. It always smooths his frayed nerves, warm lights instead of harsh, cold ones. Ilya knows that, and he made sure to switch them over before Shane got out of the shower. The second thing he notices is the smell, savory and familiar and unobtrusive. Miso soup and rice. His staple, his go-to. His comfort meal, in some ways. And finally, he notices Ilya. He changed his clothes, too, Shane notes absently. His curls are a bit wild, but fluffy in that way Shane loves. He's taking the brown rice out of the rice cooker and dumping it into a bowl, a look of concentration on his handsome, furrowed brow as he checks the miso soup on the stove.

Shane has to swallow down the lump forming like a rock in his throat, because he cannot have another meltdown over his boyfriend turning on some lights and making soup - no matter how appealing that might be.

Any nervousness he might have felt suddenly evaporates, the trust he places in Ilya overriding it all. He’s still hurt, but he also knows Ilya’s apology was genuine. And it’s easy, so easy to forgive him. He approaches slowly, like Ilya is an animal he's trying not to spook, and finds himself smiling a little when Ilya is so concentrated on the food that he doesn’t even register his presence.

“Ilya?” he finally ventures, straightening the elastic waistband on his - on Ilya’s - sweatpants awkwardly.

Ilya looks up sharply, like he had been startled, his eyes instantly welling with tears as he abandons his work in the kitchen to rush over to him. “Душа моя…”

He stops himself just before reaching Shane, shoving his hands down beside himself like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to touch. Shane's heart drops, and he opens his arms a little in invitation. Ilya takes it in a moment, wrapping his arms around Shane like a vice. Shane tucks his head back into the crook of Ilya’s neck, taking in a deep inhale of the spicy cologne that still makes his stomach flutter after all these years. They stand there for a while, Shane isn’t sure how long, swaying a little. He could have stayed there all night, the rest of his life, if he had been allowed to. Finally, he feels Ilya kiss his neck, and he shivers in response.

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya rasps. “I am so -”

“Shh,” Shane hushes him, smoothing down some of his tousled curls gently. “Shh. It’s okay.”

It wasn’t, they weren’t. Not completely. Not yet. But it would be. They would be. Shane was sure of that.

Ilya shakes his head against his neck. “It’s not. I am an asshole, the biggest asshole on the planet. You should be furious with me.”

Shane might have smirked at the dramatics if he couldn’t hear the obvious distress still openly present in his voice, the way he's struggling to even get words out.

“I forgive you, Ilya. I mean, it stung, a lot…” Ilya lets out a little whimper beside him. “But I forgive you. You trust me, don’t you?”

Ilya nods. “Of course, but -”

“Then trust me when I say we’re alright. I’m here. I’m not leaving you, and we’re going to be okay. I promise.”

He feels Ilya collapse in on himself like a dying star in his arms, fisting his hands in his shirt like Shane will evaporate if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.

“Oh, baby…” he whispers, turning to press a kiss into Ilya’s temple and rubbing his palm in slow circles over his back. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, baby.”

He pretends not to feel the tears soaking the fabric under Ilya’s eyes; he just holds him and waits for it to sink in. Shane isn’t going to be scared off that easily. He isn’t going to abandon him like damn near everyone else in his life. He’s in this for good. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, and any other cliches he could think of.

He waits until Ilya is calm enough to pull back, pressing their foreheads together as his bottom lip quivers just slightly. They search each other’s eyes for a moment, Shane thumbing away the wetness on his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Ilya whispers.

“I know. It’s okay.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Ilya stares at him for another long moment before giving him a small nod. Shane knows he isn’t quite convinced yet; his guilt complex would never allow such an easy fix. But at least he doesn’t appear to be actively torturing himself anymore.

“You know,” Shane starts, a little coy smile on his lips. “You haven’t properly kissed me all night.”

Ilya blinks, his eyes bouncing before Shane's face before darkening just a hint.

“Can I?” he asks earnestly, still obviously shaken enough to think he needs express permission.

“Of course you can.”

Ilya cups his face, tracing over his cheekbones for a moment before leaning in to press his lips to Shane’s sumptuously, like Shane is a glass of fine champagne meant to be savored. He can’t help but moan into his mouth, threading his fingers through Ilya’s hair and letting his hand take root there. Ilya kisses him as if he’s the only drop of water in a desert, like he’s starving for it. It makes Shane dizzy with want. He licks his tongue into Ilya’s mouth, trying to pour everything he doesn’t know how to say between their lips. I love you. I see you, and I can’t breathe without you.

They don’t break away until Shane’s stomach grumbles, the absurdity of the sound startling them enough to lean back and chuckle a little.

“Sorry,” Shane murmurs, grinning sheepishly.

Ilya shakes his head, arms tight around his waist. “Don’t be silly. Do you think you can eat something? I have your favorite boring soup and boring rice. I can even get you a boring ginger ale to wash it down.”

Shane nods, letting Ilya kiss him chastely one more time before he allows himself to be led to the counter. Ilya sits him down, fetching his meal for him as though Shane were an invalid. But he doesn’t complain or protest. Something tells him this is soothing Ilya, taking care of Shane, and he won’t deny anything that calms him down right now. It also gives Shane a few moments to piece his thoughts together - to try and work out what to say next and how to get into what they’re about to get into.

Shane takes a few spoonfuls of soup and rice before he notices Ilya’s eyes all but piercing his soul where he sits on the countertop stool beside him.

“Are you going to stare at me the whole time I’m eating?” he asks, taking a sip of his ginger ale.

Ilya cocks his brow and shrugs, running his hand down the back of his head and neck. “Maybe. My boyfriend is very handsome. He deserves to be stared at. By me, of course. No one else.”

“That’s creepy.”

“Only creepy if you are sleeping and I watch you like vampire.”

“I know you do that sometimes.” Not that Shane could say he didn’t do the same.

“Prove it. Is lies and slander until I have photographic evidence.”

“Okay. I’ll set up a camera in our bedroom, then. Like ‘Paranormal Activity’.”

Ilya’s eyes sparkle at that. “Oh, camera, eh? I can think of much more exciting things we could film instead of just sleep.”

“Yeah? Like what, pervert?”

Ilya all but growled as he leaned in to kiss his throat, nipping the delicate skin playfully. Shane grinned wider, pushing him away.

“Quit, I’m eating.”

“I am vampire, Hollander. Yes? I am only trying to eat, too.”

Shane lets him indulge in his antics for a couple of moments more, because there are few things more addictive than the tickle of Ilya’s mouth on his neck, before he pulls back and forces eye contact between them.

“Seriously,” he says, running his hand up Ilya’s pec to his shoulder. “Have you eaten anything?”

“Vodka. That is enough.”

Shane frowns. “Ilya…”

“I’m fine, Shane. I’m not -”

“Ilya,” he repeats, firmer this time.

He drops his spoon back in the bowl, sending a clear message. Eat, or I stop eating. He knows it’s a dirty play, leveraging Ilya’s desperation to make sure he’s alright against him, but he isn’t above it to make sure Ilya gets something in his stomach. Finally, Ilya sighs, groaning dramatically like the big baby he is, and retrieves a protein bar from the cabinet. Better than nothing, Shane thinks, and they go back to their meals. Shane hooks his ankle around Ilya’s under the table, needing the contact even at this minor distance, and feels Ilya tap the side of his foot gently.

They eat in amiable silence for another few minutes until Shane reaches the bottom of his bowls, and Ilya crumples up the empty wrapper in his hand. Shane lets his boyfriend clean up the dishes, taking another long pull of his ginger ale as he realizes that all distractions have been removed. They have to address what happened, and they have to get into what Shane wanted to get into with him from the beginning. No more running, no more avoiding it.

Shane can feel the same anxiety settling over Ilya as they both stare at each other, Shane still sitting at the countertop and Ilya standing parallel on the other side of it.

Shane takes a deep breath, reaching out his hand to let Ilya tangle their fingers together.

“Shane -”

“Wait, just let me - let me talk for a minute, okay?” he begins.

Ilya hesitates, but nods, stroking his thumb over Shane’s palm. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Shane agrees, unsure if he was trying to convince Ilya or himself. “So, I…I know you didn’t mean everything you said earlier, and at the restaurant.”

“Any of it,” Ilya interrupts. “I didn’t mean any of it, Shane.”

Shane cocks his head at Ilya, giving him a look. Because he knows he did. The viciousness may not have been earnest, but the fears behind it were.

“It’s alright, Ilya. Look, I know it’s been hard. I know the Centaurs are…rough around the edges,” that makes Ilya scoff out a laugh, which helps put Shane at ease a little bit.

“I know I didn’t force you to come here, I know it was our idea together. But I don’t think I recognized how unfair it was of me to ask you that, not at first. I was just so desperate to have you here, to have a plan, a future. I remember when you brought up marrying Svetlana - I know it wasn’t meant to be cruel, but it hurt, Ilya. It hurt really badly. I would have done anything to get you here, anything that didn’t involve you marrying someone else. A woman, especially. Someone who can give you an easy way to be normal, like I can’t. Everything is so much extra effort with me. That’s why it hit so hard, I guess. What you said tonight. Because I’m fucking terrified that one day you’ll realize you were right. I wasn’t worth the hiding and giving up what you had in Boston. I wasn’t worth the wait. It scares me so much sometimes I can’t -”

His voice starts to shake and catches in spite of himself, and Ilya is at his side in a moment. He squivels the countertop chair so he can stand between Shane’s legs, wrapping him up in his arms and letting Shane bury his face into his shoulder.

“Sweetheart,” he chokes out roughly. “Never, never in a million years could I regret you, or this. Never, Shane. You’re worth the whole world. I don’t regret leaving Boston. It was worth it, every second with you is worth it. Even when you’re not here, it’s still worth it. I’d give up hockey, I’d move again, I’d do anything if it meant getting to be with you. ”

“But I don’t - I don’t want you to,” Shane manages to get out into his shirt. “I don’t want you to keep making sacrifices while I go on living my life like normal. I don’t want you to feel like my - fuck, like my fucking ‘concubine I drive up to fuck whenever I feel like it.’ The fact that was even a thought you had makes me sick, Ilya. I know this isn’t working, I know it isn’t fair. I just wish I’d realized that before it got this bad for you. I needed, I don’t know, time, I guess. But I miss you, constantly. Every day we’re not together, I miss you so much it hurts. I know you’re lonely, because I’m lonely too. I know you’re lying when you say it doesn’t bother you when you have to go to all of your team events alone because it bothers me, too. It kills me, pretending you’re nothing to me when you’re everything. And I know it wasn’t right of me to ask you to wait until we retire to do anything together as a couple. Fuck, I was just so scared. Because, yeah, hockey used to be my life. I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t the captain of Monteral. But I can live without that, I can’t live without you.”

He thinks he hears Ilya whine a little, and then he feels his lips press all down his temple, his jaw, his throat. He lets himself be soothed for a moment until he can catch his breath, leaning back to look Ilya in the eye. He’s staring at Shane like he’s the moon, the brightest light in the darkness, and Shane has no idea what to do with being looked at like that, with being loved as fervently as Ilya clearly loves him. It feels like being the object of worship, of reverence.

“What do you want to do?” Ilya asks, his voice fractured but hopeful. “Do you want to come out?”

Shane swallows, his eyes flickering away for a moment.

“Soon, yeah. Maybe not right away, but soon.” Ilya smiles, trying to disguise obvious disappointment, which Shane is quick to chase away. “But to your teammates? That could work, I think.”

Ilya’s whole face brightens at that, looking like the sun, giving Shane one of those wide, toothy smiles he so rarely allows himself to wear. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, baby. For sure.”

“So, maybe we could…maybe we could go out with the team sometime? I trust them with my life; they’d never tell anyone. And they think you’re god on skates, so…”

Shane laughs, nodding a bit. “I think we could manage that.”

“боже мой, Shane,” Ilya gasps, close to tears again. He surges forward to kiss him hard, and Shane feels his breathing tremble against his mouth. His pleasure at such a simple acquisition gives him the courage to say what he’s about to say next.

“And, I mean, it would be pretty strange if I didn’t want to hang out with my own teammates.”

He doesn’t feel nearly as calm as he sounds, and his stomach begins to tangle itself into knots when Ilya stills against his mouth. He pulls back slowly, his bright eyes suddenly flushed with an emotion Shane can’t quite place, and he frames Shane’s face with his hands. For a few long, terrible moments, they just stare, Ilya trying to understand what Shane means and Shane trying to gauge Ilya’s reaction to what he needs him to understand.

“Shane,” Ilya breathes, the sound alone making Shane break out in goosebumps. “What are you saying?”

Shane tries to blink back tears, lifting his hands to clasp over Ilya’s wrists. His voice comes out in a whisper. “I want to come home. I want to come home to you every night. I don’t want to win against you; I want to win with you. I want to build a team that’ll be a legacy for us both. A fucking dynasty. We can do it together, I know we can. I want you as my captain, my partner - not just in hockey, but in everything. And…Jesus, I want you as my husband someday. I want to raise a family with you and grow old with you. I want to be with you forever, Ilya. But I figured teammates was a pretty decent place to start.”

Shane watches as Ilya’s eyes seem to rush through a thousand different emotions within seconds. Neither of them moves, nor do they blink or breathe. Panic starts to flare in his gut. “I - I mean, if that’s okay with you. I know I should have told you sooner, I just didn’t want to get your hopes up in case something -”

Ilya doesn’t let him finish before he gathers Shane into a kiss so deep it’s almost painful. Teeth gnashing against teeth, Ilya’s hands digging into the meat of his chest like he wants to pull his heart out and feast on it. Shane’s whole body seems to deflate, the fear he’d been carrying around all night finally dissipating as though it was never there at all. They kiss, and kiss, and kiss, until Shane tastes something salty. His eyes flutter open, and he leans back a little.

“Hey,” he coos, wiping newly fallen tears from under Ilya’s eyes. “You okay?”

Ilya nods frantically. He looks wrecked, ruined, shattered. But not in a bad way, not like he’s been destroyed, but like he’s been rebuilt. Shane presses his mouth to his again, wanting to taste and swallow all of it. His tears, his pain, his joy. He can’t get enough of whatever Ilya will give him. He keeps their lips together until he feels Ilya fall to his knees before him, watches him take his hands and kiss them with a gentleness he only ever let Shane see. He stares in awe as Ilya presses Shane’s fingers to his forehead, leaning against them like he’s paying homage to a deity. When he finally gathers himself enough to look back up at Shane, it’s with his cheek resting against Shane’s thigh. He looks at him with all the adoration of a sinner kneeling at an altar and has just been granted forgiveness after a lifetime of begging for it.

Shane tries to smile, but with the fountain of emotion soaring through him no doubt makes it an ugly thing to witness. But if it is, Ilya’s face doesn’t tell him that. He’s still gazing at Shane in wonderment, his eyes shimmering with it.

“Are you sure?” Ilya finally asks, his voice sounding like it’s been dragged through shattered glass. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Shane nods, more sure of this than of anything in his life.

“Yes, baby. Fuck, yes, it’s what I want.”

Ilya lets out a little sob, turning his face to press his forehead into Shane’s knees. He caresses the back of Shane’s calves.

Shane can hear him muttering where he’s still kneeling before him, like a prayer, “Сердце мое. Ангел мой. Душа моя.” My heart. My angel. My soul.

It’s almost unfathomable, being all of that at once for Ilya. What has he done to earn it? How has Shane Hollander, who almost everyone thought of as aloof and compulsive and peculiar, become such an invaluable resource for this beautiful man? And how can all those people not see what Shane sees? How can they not see his tenderness, his kind heart, how soft he is with everyone he loves? It baffles Shane, it infuriates him, that the world has been so monstrous to Ilya. Ilya, his baby, and his blind spot. The goddamn air he needs to breathe. He feels like his lip wobble as he reaches down to pet over Ilya’s golden curls, ignoring the hot tears he vaguely registers escaping his eyes.

For all the brutality he has faced in his life, Shane will be the opposite. He’ll show him what it’s like to be handed love gently, willingly. He’ll ensure that Ilya knows he’s at least one person’s first choice, a priority. He’ll show him that he’s priceless. Any doubts he may have had about leaving Monteral vanish like mist as he watches Ilya weep in his lap and venerate him in Russian, which he can only partly translate. How could anything be more valuable than this? More precious? How could anything compare to the swelling in his chest that feels like what he imagines a supernova must be like?

It can’t, he realizes. And he feels pity, only emphatic condolence, for that seventeen-year-old before he found his way to a parking lot in Saskatchewan. He mourns any version of himself that didn’t catch on in time to rescue them both from drowning in the oceans that have kept them apart in the past.

He sniffles, shifting off his chair to enfold Ilya where he's still kneeling on the ground. He straddles his lap and shushes him softly, lips buried in his hair as Ilya hides away in his chest.

“I’m here, okay? I have you now, Ilya. I’ve got you. I know I’ve left you alone, but that’s done. Anything that happens from here, we’re in it together. Alright?”

Ilya tries to catch his breath before responding, shaking his head against his shirt. “What if I’m not worth it? Shane, there's no way I can ever deserve you…or this. What you’re losing, what you’re giving up. What if you wake up one day and realize I wasn’t -”

“Never, Ilya,” he says, repeating exactly what Ilya had told him when he voiced the same fears. God, they’re so stupid. How hadn’t they been able to see that they’d both been battling the same demons all this time? “If I regret anything, it’ll be the years I wasted pretending you weren’t the most important thing in the world to me.”

He sounds like a ruin, voice clogged and gummy from too many tears shed in one night. But Ilya sounds the same, and he’s glad in some ways. He isn’t sure he would be able to say all this so easily if the rawness of their emotions hadn’t left them both bare and stripped open.

“But…Shane, there’s - I think there’s something wrong with me. I didn’t know how to tell you, I don’t even know what it is. Sometimes I think I’m…like my mother. I get sad, lost, maybe, like she did. I’m so scared of hurting you again. Like I did tonight, like I know I’ve done before. Of making you waste your life on me when it might get really bad. Or of going crazy, like my father. What if you end up stuck taking care of me like a fucking nurse? You’d hate me; I’d rather die than you hate me. I don’t -”

“Ilya, breathe. Breathe, baby.”

He lets out a sob that sounds more like he’d been stabbed, curling deeper into Shane’s body. Shane aches. It kills him to know Ilya has been fighting this alone and hasn’t been able to go to him for comfort. He hates that it had to come to what it came to tonight to see how much he’s been suffering. But he knows this hurt runs deeper than he can ever possibly understand, at least right now. And it isn’t as though he’s completely taken aback by this. From the first time Ilya told him the truth about his mother’s death, from the first night Ilya had opened up to him about his father’s dementia, he knew they would need to revisit this. But it doesn’t make him doubt. He searches for it, for the fear. For the worry that he isn’t equipped to help carry the baggage Ilya has been unfairly burdened with. But he can’t find it. It isn’t there. All he feels is determination and strength enough to keep them both afloat. The same tenacity to win, to fight for victory at all costs, that same drive that has made him a champion at his sport is poured into another well. And perhaps, he thinks, he has been preparing for this his entire life.

“We’ll get you help. We’ll talk to someone. A therapist or a psychiatrist. There are options. Medication, treatments, we’ll figure it out. We’ll find something that works.”

“But what if nothing -”

“We’ll find something, Ilya. I won’t stop until we do. I don’t care if it gets hard; there’s nothing in the fucking world harder than being without you. We’ll figure it out, and I’ll be right here while we do. I won’t leave you as long as you promise to never leave me. Okay?”

Ilya doesn’t answer for a moment, and Shane furrows his brow. He pulls back, taking in Ilya’s face, damp with tears, as he gazes up at Shane desperately.

“Okay?” he asks again. “Just promise me that. Please.”

Ilya sniffles, letting out a shaky exhale. He searches Shane’s face, and he wishes he knew what he was looking for. He would give it to him. He would hand it over in an instant. But all he can do is wait and hope that Ilya can find it on his own.

Finally, the ghost of a smile appears on Ilya’s lips, and he nods just a little.

“Okay, cолнышко.”

Shane sobs against his will, a fear he hasn’t even known was there unleashing him as he crashes into Ilya’s mouth, their tear-slick faces sliding against each other. And they kiss as though reuniting after decades of separation, fingers dipping into each other’s skin through the fabric of their clothes, breath melding together until even the air they breathe is one and the same.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Shane wakes to late morning sun pouring through their white curtains. One of the windows has been cracked open, and soft, warm air dances into their bedroom. Shane runs a hand over his face, the skin there still feeling a bit too tight from crying as much as he did yesterday. But, besides a slight headache, he feels strangely good. Scoured. Emptied, but clean. Relieved of an ineffable burden. He closes his eyes for another brief moment, reaching behind him to feel for Ilya. His eyes open and widen again when he realizes his side of the bed is empty. He sits up, suddenly noticing Anya curled up by his feet. If she’s already out of her crate, Ilya must have gotten up and walked her without Shane even stirring. He supposes he didn’t realize how exhausted he was last night. But the fact that Ilya had been forced to carry him to bed after they’d calmed down was probably some indication that the evening had taken everything he had to give.

He strokes Anya’s silky back, smiling when she stretches and turns over to reveal her stomach. He pets her for a few more minutes before finally getting up, running a hand through his hair. He lets her shift to curl up against his pillow, which he usually doesn’t allow. He still feels too raw to be strict with her today, or with anything for that matter. The only concrete thought in his mind is that he needs Ilya. He needs to physically see him, to touch him. He imagines he’ll let Shane be as clingy as he wants today; he feels he’s earned that.

After he brushes his teeth and gets a drink of water, he goes toward the patio, where he’s almost certain Ilya will be. He loves it back there, a good view of the treeline that he knows reminds both of them of their cabin. He’s proven right when he finds him there, sipping a cup of coffee on the cushioned porch swing. He looks so much steadier than he had at any point in the night yesterday, his blue eyes clear and bright like Shane hasn’t seen them in months. His curls are soft, shifting slightly as the wind blows through them. He looks so deep in thought that he doesn’t initially notice Shane coming up beside him. But once he does, his whole face breaks out into a smile that makes Shane feel like he’s glowing. How does he do that? How does he make Shane want to weep just by grinning at him?

He sets his cup on a little side table, opening his arms for Shane to crawl into, and Shane takes him up on the offer immediately. Shane is relieved he doesn’t need to explain, to justify needing an anchor this morning. But by the way Ilya envelopes him, tucks him into his body like they might melt together if he just squeezes hard enough, Shane thinks he might have needed the same thing.

They don’t speak for a few moments, Ilya rocking them languidly on the porch swing and kissing the side of Shane’s face. They take their time; they don’t rush. They don’t worry about squeezing the juice out of every possible minute. Because they don’t need to. This is one morning of many where they’ll get to do this. This is the start of the rest of their lives.

Shane looks up at Ilya from where his head is pillowed on his shoulder, reaching up to run his thumb over Ilya’s jaw.

“Good morning. I love you,” he rasps, his voice still a bit sore from yesterday and heavy with sleep.

Ilya smiles wider, his face agonizingly soft, and whispers, “Good morning, my sweetheart. Я тебя люблю.”

Shane cranes his neck a bit to kiss him, and Ilya meets him halfway.

“Are you okay?”

Ilya nods. “You?”

Shane nods back. “Were you…Were you talking to your mom? Before I came out here?”

Ilya hums in confirmation, and a pang of guilt shoots through Shane. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You could never. I was telling her about you, anyway.”

“All good things, I hope.”

“Hmm, afraid not. I have to complain about you to someone.”

Shane chuckles and slaps him playfully, nuzzling down into him so his nose brushes against Ilya’s neck. “Shut up.”

Ilya laughs, the deep rumble vibrating throughout Shane’s body.

“Of course all good things, Shane. You’re the best thing in my life. I’ve been telling her how happy you’ve made me. How happy I’m going to make you. I just wish…”

Shane knows. Of course he does. He squeezes Ilya’s bicep and leans in to kiss him on the neck. He makes sure to swallow down the lump forming in his throat before he tries to speak again.

“Me, too. But I feel like I do know her, a little. Through you. But I know that’s not enough. I wish it were.”

Ilya tilts his chin up to look at him, stroking the backs of his fingers across Shane’s cheek. And he smiles at him.

“It’s enough, cолнышко,” he says softly. “This morning, it’s enough. It’s perfect.”