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Ilya sat alone on the tallest boulder of the many strewn across the lakeside and took another sip of beer.
It had been such a beautiful day. One of so many so far, but only the second of the days at the cottage after Ilya had watched the entire sky open to them on Shane’s command.
A plan. They had a plan. They had something real, something executable to hold onto and let it pull them into a future Ilya had never thought he’d get to see. They’d sat down at the fire the first evening after speaking their love out loud, and they’d talked steps. They’d decided on both being there when Ilya called his agent to ask for the transfer, and if he got pushback, they’d call Shane’s and get her working on it, because one of the benefits of having a momager was having her line up a team that would throw down for their client at a moment’s notice. They’d even, though it was slightly premature till Ilya had his new contract in hand, talked about real estate in Ottawa, which gave Shane a chance to infodump about the city’s layout and character and triangulate exactly where Ilya would have best proximity to the rink, Shane’s parents, and the more lively parts of town.
Ilya had asked, and Shane had agreed, to stay another week longer at the cottage. Now that it was all out there, they both couldn’t bear to let any potential moment of presence together go by, because the absences were going to be at best annoying and at worst excruciatingly lonely. That was what happened when you found your soul, Ilya supposed. You bore a different kind of pain driven by a feeling of unfairness that you were forced to be far from everything that mattered concentrated into one person, and knowing and hearing they felt the same only made the ache sharper. They’d both have to brace for that when these three weeks were over.
But today, he was here, overlooking the lake as the sun started to kindle the sky into what would be a glorious blaze of a sunset, the kind he’d never thought to marvel at before coming here and now it was all he wanted to do for that particular hour of the day. Because Shane had been there beside him for each one, his angelic features lit by his own quiet joy and the golden radiance of the sky. Because Shane would sigh quietly and close his eyes whenever the breeze whispered by to ruffle his dark hair. Because Ilya really hadn’t ever just stopped to look until he was looking at how much the one he loved belonged to beautiful places and times like these.
He could faintly hear the sounds of plates being loaded into the dishwasher through the open door to the kitchen, and Shane filling in his parents on something related to their planned foundation. Ilya heard his own name come up a few times, always with warmth behind it from whoever was speaking. He pushed away the small bubble of guilt that threatened to grow inside him at being out here doing nothing. Shane had insisted that he should just relax while he and his family cleaned up after dinner.
“It’s really fine, Ilya,” he’d assured him, scratching the curls at the back of his head and casually kissing his temple. “You can just rest, okay?”
“Why do you think I need to rest?” he’d asked, puzzled.
Shane’s eyes had flitted over him and settled on his face. “You just seem tired. I know it’s been a lot these few days. Just let me get it this time?”
Ilya had just nodded. He couldn’t deny he was weirdly tired. Weirdly, because he felt like he’d hardly done anything that day. He’d slept in, lain around and snuggled and fucked Shane at what, for them, was a pretty lazy pace, and then started on prep for dinner while Shane went to town to grab beer. The centerpiece of the whole afternoon had been the Hollanders coming over for dinner, their enthusiasm at seeing both boys a stunning reversal of the harrowing way they’d met just the day before.
Part of Ilya had been bracing himself for some remaining hostility, or at least apprehension, from Shane’s parents, but there had been only “Hi, Ilya!” and a warm hug from Yuna and the offering from David of a brand-new bottle of the vodka they’d shared yesterday. Famously nerve-wracked Shane, who’d wanted the earth to swallow him whole the day before, was beaming and laughing and safe. They all were. And the quickness with which Ilya had found himself welcomed felt like a trust fall – not unpleasant, but also not without its “oh shit” moment before being caught.
He wasn’t quite sure what to do with it all. Peaceful familial love felt like a pair of brand-new shoes, where yes, they fit, but felt stiff against every step until they were broken in. It did feel good, to sit down and eat and joke and talk about things both of consequence and of none. It felt right to go kick around a ball with David while Yuna and Shane watched and bantered from the porch. Ilya had known this kind of contentment before with his mother; they’d even had their own little utopia of a cottage – a dacha in the woods in Kratovo – where Ilya had made some of his happiest childhood memories. His father had sold it after his mother’s death. Ilya had never let that go.
Maybe he could now. This cottage, Shane had told him last night in bed, was Ilya’s home, too. It would be theirs to share and to find solace in for the rest of their lives. Ilya had kissed him through tears, because Shane had no idea how Ilya had believed he’d never be home again, how long he’d stuffed his desire for peace deep away in his heart, and Shane had given him this regardless. He’d given him everything Ilya was too afraid to ask the universe for.
To say it was hard to believe all this was really happening was a massive understatement.
“Hey,” Shane’s voice broke through the quiet beside him. “Mom and Dad are gonna head out. There’s something they meant to bring over and forgot, so I’m gonna follow them over and I’ll be back soon.” He cocked his head slightly as he looked up at Ilya and grabbed at his fingers. “You gonna be okay here, or do you wanna come?”
“I think I’ll stay. Will come see them off, though.” He slid off the rock, his palm magnetizing to the small of Shane’s back as it had begun to do in the last few days. They walked up the steps together to where Yuna was waiting at the door with an adoring smile. Shane hugged her first, the familiar squeeze and “Love you” of a son and his mother, and then moved on inside to his father near the door. Yuna turned her eyes to Ilya, who stood back a pace or two on the landing, and opened her arms in invitation.
Ilya stepped into her embrace carefully, not wanting to presume or cross lines of familiarity too early, but Yuna pulled him tight to her with both arms and swayed him a little like she already treasured him, like he was her own. Ilya felt his breath leave him and let his arms circle around her tiny figure, hesitantly at first, then with more firmness as she kept him held tight in the kind of embrace he had been bereft of for the last fourteen-odd years of his life. He let his eyes close. He let himself remember and let it fill a part of him that had been nothing but a void for more than half his life now.
“Thank you for loving my son,” Yuna whispered, and she meant it. She could see it. He wouldn’t have to worry about proving he did.
Ilya’s chest tightened painfully and his jaw trembled. “Thank you for making him easy to love.”
He heard Yuna exhale an even bigger smile, and then she stepped back to hold his shoulders, regarding him with… was it pride? Affection? It seemed too soon for it to be those things. But the love in her face was plain as day. Had he somehow earned this already after she’d spent years hating him from a distance?
It was a hell of a thought to leave him with, but Yuna was completely unaware she was doing so as she turned back into the house to head toward her shoes and the door. David clapped Ilya on the back warmly and pulled him into more of a bro-hug than anything else, but the physical gesture wasn’t meant to be limiting, as Ilya realized when David pulled back still squeezing his shoulder. “I really hope you enjoy your time here, Ilya. We can’t wait to see you in Ottawa in the fall.”
“Honey, did you remember to…?” Yuna nudged David as she went past them. He startled slightly with recognition. “Oh! Shoot, yeah. Here,” he said as he reached in his pocket for his phone and unlocked it, handing it to Ilya. “Put in your number. I’ll add you to the family group chat when we get home.”
Ilya was so floored he had no words, so he nodded dumbly and typed his contact information in. He added his email for good measure – he didn’t know why, but maybe it would come in useful in the future somehow. He managed a smile as he handed the phone back to David, even though his insides felt like a pot about to boil over. “Thank you,” he said in what he hoped was a steady enough voice.
Shane was the last to pass by him on the way out the door, and his brow creased in concern as he met Ilya’s eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked softly enough that his parents wouldn’t hear, raising a hand to hold one side of Ilya’s face.
Ilya swallowed and nodded, sharing a smile with Shane that they only ever let each other see. He knew he looked vulnerable – he felt it, felt raw in a way that was a little frightening. But he pressed his hand to Shane’s over his face and leaned into it. “I think it’s good I’m staying behind right now. Just need to…” Calm down? Smoke about it? Scream a little? Sleep? Ilya had no idea what the end of that sentence should be, but he suspected he’d soon find out.
Thankfully, Shane didn’t press him on it. He knew Ilya too well for that. Instead he just stepped in to kiss him softly, comfortingly, and rub his thumbs along his cheekbones. “Do you want me back here later or sooner?”
Ilya’s view of Shane started to blur and shimmer as he drew in a breath. “Sooner.” His voice was already breaking.
“Okay.” Shane kissed him one more time and made to leave. There wasn’t a protracted goodbye this time, not just because it wasn’t needed, but because Shane knew Ilya was just barely keeping at bay what he needed his silence for.
The door clicked shut and Ilya listened for the crackling of tires on gravel and the fading sound of two engines as he dug his fingers into his own arms. He could hear the shuddering of each breath in his chest. As soon as there was no more sound, no more presence, he turned on his heels and made a beeline for the bedroom.
The light was warming into gold now. It lit the blue resin of the headboard like a clear river. The sheets were still disheveled; they’d forgotten to make the bed when they’d realized they were cutting it close with getting ready for dinner, and it still held the shape of their love. Ilya turned to look at the lake, an expanse of molten gold stretching endlessly beyond, rippling in the summer breezes, framed by the swaying of the magnificent old-growth trees that Shane had catalogued for him on one of their first days here. The world sat in front of him, open and huge and offering all of itself for the stitching up of his soul.
This was paradise. This was everything. This was home.
Ilya’s knees hit the floor as he collapsed in wretched tears.
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Shane arrived home twenty minutes later to serene silence and dusky pink light.
Ilya’s half-finished beer still sat on the boulder outside. Ilya didn’t.
Shane shed his shoes and began moving quietly through the foyer, listening into the emptiness.
An audible, damp sniff came from the left end of the house.
Of course Ilya would have gone to their bedroom. The whole property was idyllic, yes, but Shane knew how intimidating the bigness of it all could feel sometimes. Bedroom was a little more contained. Smaller in a way that felt protective. Like a den for a bear to crawl into.
He made his way up the stairs quietly, but then announced himself with a mid-volume “I’m back.” Shane had long ago calibrated for himself the levels of any given sensory input that were acceptable during rough moments. Moments of overwhelm, when big was too big and slightly annoying became unbearable. Though he wasn’t yet sure of what Ilya’s own grades and safe zones might be, he figured that his own modalities had to be a good enough starting point.
Thankfully, it seemed to work for this. He heard a hitched breath from the next room and a tiny, broken “In here.” He picked up his pace just a little so he could be by Ilya’s side that much quicker.
His boyfriend was curled up, knees to chest, on the floor, but with a loose heaviness to his posture that told he was already half-spent from an intense fit of crying. His watercolor eyes stared unfocused toward the horizon, still spilling relentless tears that left his face raw and reddened. Ilya wasn’t wailing or sobbing, at least not anymore, but every breath was effort, was heaved out of him audibly and stuttering with no discernable rhythm.
He looked absolutely shattered, and Shane, to his horror, had no idea why.
Had his parents said something unintentionally cruel or hurtful? Had he? Had Ilya just stretched himself to his limit having to care for Shane through his multiple freakouts in the last couple of days? Was he somehow regretting all of this? Regretting coming here? Regretting loving Shane…?
Nope. Don’t send yourself down that path. Not when he asked for you. Not when he needs you.
So Shane left all the questions and the panic at the bedroom door, and he came over and lowered himself to the floor next to Ilya, and he waited. He, as he’d heard his mom call it before, held space, and didn’t push, and trusted that it was enough.
It didn’t take long. Ilya’s lost gaze found its way to Shane, and he looked at him like a beleaguered sailor finding port in a storm. Without a word but with all of his limbs trembling visibly, he crawled between Shane’s legs and curled into a ball against him, burying his face in the crook of Shane’s neck. The other man wrapped his arms tight around Ilya, who sank heavy against him and began sobbing in earnest, like he hadn’t been safe enough to until this moment. With the sun disappearing into milky twilight, Shane became sanctuary personified, body compressing Ilya’s shivering form into a contained shape, lips marking pressed points of comfort among his sand-colored curls.
At length – Shane wasn’t sure how long, it didn’t matter – Ilya seemed to exhaust himself into quiet. The trembling ebbed from his body, leaving him slack in Shane’s hold. He might have fallen asleep. If he had, Shane was prepared to do the same, to hold him here all night if need be. Whatever would keep Ilya feeling cared for, whatever would help him find his way back to being okay, Shane wanted to do nothing else than that.
He wasn’t quite asleep, though, Shane realized, as Ilya lifted his head just enough to reposition it on his shoulder to where he could breathe more openly. He sniffled once more, sighed out a breath that sounded like the last of a miasma leaving his body. “Sorry,” Ilya said weakly.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Shane replied, curling his fingers so gently in Ilya’s hair as not to cause his frayed nerves any more upset. They sat there in the gathering dark, a heavy bundle of limbs intertwined and slowing breaths synced to each other, a measured pulse of life marking out time in the solitude of the wilds. Marking out another shift in the transformation that the cottage had given them space to embark upon. Yes, this was heavy, and sad, and scary. But it was important, and they were brave. Ilya was brave enough to let Shane be his anchor through whatever gauntlet he was running in his body and mind.
“Everywhere I go,” Ilya said in the smallest of voices, “I am always ready for a fight.”
Shane said nothing. He just nodded. I hear you. Speak out what you need to. I have you.
“Russia was a fight. My family was a fight. Being foreign in America is a fight. Trying not to love you, trying to make people hate me so they don’t see me…” Ilya let his head fall against Shane again, like he couldn’t bear the mass of all these things anymore. “I have been fighting my whole life. Everywhere, Shane.”
God, he hated that. That someone like Ilya, someone so kind and generous and capable of such profound love and loyalty to those who gave him even half a chance to show it, had been made to constantly guard himself from assault by less worthy people, by ghosts he’d had no part in creating… it was unbearably unjust. The wrongness of it all hit Shane square in the heart as he now cradled the spent figure of the love of his life. It became clearer with each layer Ilya peeled back to show him just why it had taken him so long – every new revelation opened an old wound. He bore more of them than any boy should have to.
Right now, it seemed like every hurt was coming to the surface at once. And Shane didn’t know what to do except stay with him through it.
“Since you brought me here,” Ilya continued, “I kept waiting for the fight to find me again. Even today, I thought maybe your parents…”
“No. They wouldn’t hurt you. Nothing’s going to hurt you here, Ilya. Nothing.”
“I know.” Ilya sniffled, nodding against Shane’s chest. “I know that now. Today I finally…” A stuttered breath escaped him and he nuzzled further into Shane. “I finally felt that I’m all the way safe. That with you, with your family, I don't have to fight. It's... peace. And that is so much. I don’t know what to do with peace. My heart wants it but my body doesn’t understand. Is like I just woke up from the longest nightmare ever and it still feels like that’s all there is.”
“Oh, my baby,” Shane sighed, leaning his head into Ilya and rocking him slowly. He’d never called him this before but it seemed the right thing for this moment. “I’m so sorry. God, I’m sorry that it’s been like this for you for so long.”
Ilya didn’t move from Shane’s hold at all, his body now fully dead weight in his arms. It was like every ounce of adrenaline and every molecule of tension had drained from him completely and his body was now an empty vessel. One that Shane hoped would little by little be able to accept the peace it had been offered. That Ilya needed and deserved.
“I’m so tired.” Ilya’s voice was barely audible even in the silence. Shane could hear the double meaning in it: his body completely drained of energy from the intensity of its breakdown, ready for rest; his soul completely ready to walk away from the hardened vigilance it had been forced to assume.
He could do both. Shane could help him do both.
“Let’s get you to bed,” he whispered, pressing a long kiss into the crown of Ilya’s head and feeling him nod faintly in agreement. Shane stood with Ilya in a bridal carry and moved to the side of the bed to set him down on it gently.
He helped Ilya strip out of his clothes down to his underwear and tossed them into the laundry, folded him into the sheets, got him a glass of water that he helped him sit up to drink. He brought the softest washcloth he had from the bathroom and wiped all traces of salt, snot and sweat from Ilya’s face and neck. Finally, he stripped himself down and climbed in next to him, rolling Ilya to lie on top of his chest.
“Still awake, love?” Shane asked him once they were settled, quietly enough that if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t cause him any disturbance. Ilya gave a small nod with a “Mhm,” eyes remaining closed.
Shane smiled to himself and kissed his forehead. “I’m here with you. Always. Okay? You did something really, really hard today. You’re so incredibly brave. And I’m so proud of you. I love you so, so much.”
He felt it. A small, fatigued, but blissfully peaceful smile crossed Ilya’s features where they lay against his heart. He would be all right. He would be better than all right. Morning would change things, and each morning a little more after that.
“I love you,” Ilya whispered back, and whatever ghosts remained let go of him as he fell into the deepest sleep of his life.