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July 2011, Ottawa
Ilya awoke in a terrible mood and it took him only seconds of consciousness to figure out why. It was raining. Heavily. Cats and dogs, pissing it down. The sort of steady, drenching rain that meant he wouldn’t be able to go outside at all until it let up. No going for a run. No going out for coffee. Even driving wasn’t any fun in this weather. Ilya hated it.
Already he felt antsy, itchy. Even though he hadn’t had any specific plans to leave the apartment other than to go running, the fact that he couldn’t go anywhere even if he did want to made him feel trapped. With a frustrated huff, he rolled onto his back and flung his arm across his face.
He jostled Shane in doing so and heard his husband stir awake. Ilya waited, unmoving, for Shane to say something. His usual morning greeting in that soft, sleepy voice he had when waking up. But Shane said nothing. He was silent for a long moment as rain pattered against the window-glass, then Ilya heard a low, humming sound. The next thing he knew Shane was plastered up against him, his face in the curve of Ilya’s neck and arm around his waist, thigh tucked in between Ilya’s legs.
Ilya blinked in mild surprise. Shane was a cuddler, but normally only after sex. He seemed to like when Ilya hugged him, held him, but he rarely instigated. Mornings he would waken, mumble a sleepy greeting, then get up and begin preparing for his day. He didn’t lounge in bed and he definitely didn’t plaster himself to Ilya’s side like a limpet.
“Shane?” Ilya said. “Are you okay?”
“Mmm,” was Shane’s reply.
O-kay. Well. That was new.
“Is raining,” Ilya said. “Cannot go for run. You want to go work out?”
“Hmm mm.” Shane shook his head and pressed himself more firmly to Ilya’s side. Which, while Ilya certainly didn’t mind it, was unusual enough to spark concern.
“You are sure you are okay?” he asked.
“Mmm,” Shane replied. Then, with an effort that was almost palpable, he produced a word. “Raining.”
“Yes,” Ilya agreed. “It is raining.”
Shane nuzzled Ilya’s neck. “Sleepy,” he said.
“You want to stay in bed?”
“Mmm.”
“What, all day?”
“Hmm mm.”
Ilya considered his next sentence carefully. Whatever was going on with Shane, he didn’t seem inclined to use words for it. Which would make asking open-ended questions a bad idea.
“You will want breakfast?” was what he settled on. Shane was very strict about breakfast. If he didn’t want any, then there was definitely a problem.
“Mmm,” Shane hummed. That clearly meant yes. That was good. Him wanting breakfast was good.
“Smoothie?” Ilya ventured.
Shane gave a small shake of his head. “Hmm mm.”
“Okay. Um. Eggs?”
“Mmm.” He sounded pleased by the suggestion, but made no move to act on it. Ilya felt a reluctant smile form on his face.
“You want me to make them?” he said.
Shane’s “Mmm,” this time had rising inflection at the end, like a question. Ilya interpreted it as “If you don’t mind?”
“Of course,” he said. “I can do this. Now?”
“Hmm mm.” Shane settled deeper into Ilya’s embrace with a contented sigh.
“Okay.” Ilya resigned himself, with very little reluctance, to spending at least a little while longer in bed with limpet Shane. “Tell me when you are ready.”
“Mmm.”
The rain drummed its rhythmless beat on the windows. Shane breathed steadily into his neck. Ilya laid his cheek on his husband’s hair and rubbed it there, gently over the silky strands. Then he closed his eyes and let himself drift into sleep.
Some time later, he awoke again. The rain was still falling heavily and Shane was still beside him, only now he was kissing Ilya’s neck. Small, biting kisses up the cord of his throat then along the line of his jaw.
“This is how you tell me you are hungry?” Ilya guessed. “By biting me?”
“Mmm.”
“Okay. Let me up, then, I will make food.”
“Mmm.” With one final kiss to his chin, Shane rolled away. Ilya watched as he pulled the duvet up and over his head and nestled into it, like he was the filling in a duvet burrito. Ilya observed him in bemusement for a minute, then got out of bed and retreated into the kitchen.
Half an hour later, he had managed to produce passable poached eggs, toast, and sliced-up fruit, which he arranged between two plates, feeling proud of himself. He was about to call for Shane to come eat when Shane appeared. Or, more accurately, the duvet appeared, with part of Shane’s face just visible through its folds.
Ilya regarded him dubiously. “You will eat like this?” he asked.
“Mmm.” He watched as the duvet took a seat at the dining table, heaved and shifted for a bit, then Shane’s hands appeared. Ilya felt no less dubious.
“You will spill,” he said.
“Hmm mm.” The duvet shifted in a manner that suggested Shane had shaken his head.
“You are sure?”
“Mmm.”
“Okay.”
He set a plate and silverware in front of Shane, then watched, reluctantly impressed, as Shane got a bite of egg and toast into his mouth without making a mess of it, despite the duvet that remained bunched around his arms. The visible portion of his face looked at Ilya and smiled.
“Mmm,” he said, which this time very clearly meant yum. Ilya smiled back as he sat down and dug into his own breakfast.
It wasn’t bad.
They ate in silence, and when they finished Ilya cleared the plates away. He was rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher when the Shane-powered duvet nestled against his back and squeezed him around the waist.
“Mmm,” it hummed. Thank you.
Ilya’s heart gave a stutter and he had to swallow back the words that flooded his mind in response. Words like of course and anything you need and other, far softer expressions which he permitted only in the privacy of his own head and native language. Words he could barely allow even there but which pressed regardless against the back of his throat and stuck like a bite of dry bread, stuck in that way you still felt even after the bread had long been washed down.
“What will you do now?” was what he said.
The duvet shrugged, squeezed him again, departed. Ilya heard the sound of the television turning on. He finished loading the dishwasher then went into the living room where he found Shane flicking very slowly through channels, a frustrated frown on his face.
“Is hard to choose, sometimes,” Ilya observed. “When options are so many.”
“Mmm,” Shane agreed.
Ilya hesitated. Shane was obviously still Shane, regardless of this odd mood he was in, and Shane was the most capable person he knew. Making him breakfast at his request was one thing, making entire decisions for him something else entirely.
Shane stabbed at the remote with his thumb. The frustration on his face intensified. Fuck it, Ilya thought, and plunged in. “You want me to choose?” he asked.
Immediately, Shane’s face relaxed. His “Mmm” this time sounded grateful.
Ilya sat beside him and took the remote, which he relinquished easily, then wrapped both arms around Ilya and laid his head on his shoulder.
“Mmm,” he said. Nice.
“You want hockey?” Ilya asked him. There was always game tape to watch. But Shane shook his head.
“Hmm mm.”
“Movie?”
Shane nodded.
“Okay.” Ilya opened Netflix. Most of the recommendations there were geared to him, since he watched more movies than Shane. “How about Fast and Furious movie?” he suggested, mostly as a joke. “Big action, fast cars, many explosions. Very peaceful for rainy day.”
“Mmm.” Okay.
Ilya laughed. “Really?”
“Mmm.”
He shook his head as he pressed play. “Possibly you will regret this, but okay.”
As the movie played they drifted, slowly, from sitting to lying down. Shane lifted the edge of the duvet and Ilya snuggled beneath it, wrapped himself around his husband’s body in its place and held him tight. Shane hummed happily.
It was… nice. Really nice. Too nice, a warning voice whispered through his mind. Far too nice for a thing that was, by its nature, temporary. All of this was temporary. He knew that it was.
So why was that becoming harder and harder to remember?
By the time the credits rolled, the rain had stopped.
“That was one of the dumbest things I think I’ve ever seen,” Shane said. “You like this shit?”
Ah, Ilya thought.
“You are back,” he said.
“Yeah.” Shane shifted in his arms so Ilya loosened them, though something deep within him protested the loss of Shane’s warmth. Unnecessarily as it turned out, since he only rolled over until they were facing each other, still tucked in close together on the sofa. He made assertive eye contact with Ilya’s chin. “It’s the rain. It makes me, I don’t know.” He shrugged, in a way that attempted to appear careless but did not entirely succeed. “Funny.”
No, Ilya thought. Not funny. Soft. Adorable. Precious. Never funny, and definitely not the way Shane seemed to be defining the word.
“It has rained before,” he pointed out, and Shane nodded.
“It’s only a certain kind of rain. Which is good, I’d be fucked if I got like that every time a drop fell. In fucking Montreal.” He paused, then still without meeting Ilya’s eyes said quietly. “Thanks for not being weird about it.”
The way he said this suggested that “weird about it” was the reaction he expected, and for some reason that made Ilya furious. What kind of people did he have around him, who would make him feel bad for something that was just… part of him? Just one more enthralling facet of who he was.
“You should not thank me for this,” Ilya said, more sharply than he intended. “You should expect it. From everyone.”
“Yeah, well. That’s not realistic, is it?”
It should be, thought Ilya viciously. It was the fucking least that Shane deserved.
“Listen,” he said. He wasn’t at all confident he would be able to say this as he wished to, what with the way English skittered away from him whenever he tried to make it express any kind of subtlety, so he kept the message simple. “You are you, and what you are is”—perfect—“not anything that needs excuses. Is not for other people to say what is right or wrong or funny, when you do it. Who are they? You are Shane Fucking Hollander.” Ilya tucked a finger beneath Shane’s chin and tipped it up until their eyes met. “Do not forget this.”
Shane was silent, perfectly still and staring at Ilya, for a drawn-out moment. Then he dove into Ilya’s arms, impossibly, as the space that separated them measured perhaps ten centimetres. Still, Shane dove across it and squeezed Ilya so tightly it was difficult for him to breathe. He didn’t care. Who needed oxygen anyway, when they had Shane’s smile pressed against their neck? Cowards, probably. Not him.
“I’m ready to work out now,” Shane said.
“Okay.” Ilya inhaled carefully. “Running or gym?”
“Neither.” Shane’s lips pursed on Ilya’s neck, his tongue darted along the seam of them. Ilya inhaled sharply.
“Let’s go to bed,” Shane said.
Ilya had no objection to that.
April 2016, Boston
The weather alert pinged on his phone while Ilya was on the stationary bike, halfway through his off-day afternoon workout in the Raiders’ gym. He had set them up for every hockey city just in case; though none he’d received had yet been relevant he felt better knowing. On this particular afternoon Shane was in Tampa, right as a tropical storm was brewing off the Gulf coast. Ilya frowned at his phone as he read the alert. The storm was far enough away that winds wouldn’t be too bad but heavy rain was forecast for the next twelve hours. When Shane had a game that evening.
Fuck.
With his phone clenched tightly in his fist, Ilya hopped off the bike and left the gym without cooling down. He’d pay for that later, he knew. It didn’t matter. He hurried to his car, got in it and shut the door, then typed a hurried message.
Calling you in ten minutes, he wrote. Have phone ready.
Precisely ten minutes later, he hit the button to call Shane. The call was answered immediately and though Shane said nothing, Ilya could tell by the cadence of his breathing he was there. And also that the rain was already falling.
“Lyubimyy,” he said gently.
“Mmm.”
“You have a game. Will the rain be done by then?”
“Hmm mm.” Shane’s hum was high-pitched and distressed.
Ilya’s heart pounded roughly but he fought to keep his voice low and soothing. “Shhh, shhh, solnyshko. Will be okay. You are at your hotel?”
“Mmm.”
“Is Pike there?”
“Mmm.”
“Is he being an asshole?”
Shane huffed. “That means yes,” Ilya interpreted. Fuck. “Okay, listen to me my Shane,” he said, still soft, still low. “You are listening?”
“Mmm.”
“You have game to play. You do not want to play it. You want to curl up in duvet and watch dumb movie. Yes?”
“Mmm.”
“Okay. Okay.”
Ilya was thinking fast. He wished more than anything he were there with Shane now, curled around him and holding him close while rain pattered on the windows and mindless movies played on the television. His chest ached with how much he wanted that, and if the wanting hurt him how much worse must it be for Shane? Trapped in a hotel in fucking Tampa with no one but Hayden fucking Pike there with him. Hayden fucking Pike who thought Shane got “weird when it rains.”
Fuck.
Ilya closed his eyes and willed his voice to project the steady calm that Shane needed now. “I want you to imagine I am there with you,” he said. “Okay?” He paused a minute, then, “You are imagining?”
“Mmm.”
“Good. Very good. Now. Lie down on the bed. Get under the blanket. If Pike says something, ignore him.” Another pause as rustling sounds joined Shane’s breathing in his ear. When they quieted, he asked, “Are you under?”
“Mmm.”
“Okay. Close your eyes, lyubimyy. Imagine my arms around you. You can feel them, yes? They are holding you so tight.”
“Mmm.”
“You are safe, solynishko. Wrapped in duvet and in me. We are breathing together. Yes?” He matched his breathing to the sound of Shane’s. “We will stay like this all day, okay? Until the rain stops.”
“Hmm mm.” Shane’s voice rose again and Ilya hastened to soothe. “No, no, shhh. We will stay like this, you and me. For as long as the rain stays.” He paused, just breathing together with Shane. Then, so gently, he continued. “But you can imagine, can’t you, that you go to the rink tonight and you play a hockey game. You can imagine this, yes?” he pressed, as Shane made another high sound of distress. “Like a movie. We are watching, you and me. Every time you close your eyes we are together. At the cottage, in the rain. No one else. Just us. Then you open them again and you imagine you are hockey superstar Shane Fucking Hollander and you go and play a game. But only in imagination. On TV screen. You are not there. You are with me.”
Silence, then Shane said softly, “Mmm.”
“Yes? This is okay? You can imagine?”
“Mmm,” Shane said again, with confidence this time. Ilya released a long, slow breath.
“Good. This is good.” He took the phone from his ear just long enough to check the time. “You leave for the rink in one hour,” he said. “Imaginary you. Until then we will breathe together. Remember I am holding you. Your chest moves when mine does. You can feel my breath in your hair. Do you feel it?”
“Mmm.”
“Good,” Ilya crooned. “You are so good.”
He kept talking, kept breathing in a rhythm with Shane until he heard Pike’s voice in the background shouting that Shane was going to be late.
“Imagine you are hanging up the phone,” he said. “Because in the movie you are going to go play hockey. Is not real, though. You are with me. When you close your eyes you know that you are with me. Remember to close them, any time you need to. Yes?”
“Mmm.”
“Good. Go watch the movie. I will not leave you.”
I will not leave you.
Ilya thought about this as he drove home, his muscles tight and cramped after not cooling down and then sitting in his car for over an hour. He stretched them the best he could then poured himself some vodka and lay on the sofa to watch Shane’s game.
He played brilliantly, because of course he did. All Ilya could do was laugh. “That’s some movie you are watching, moya lyubov,” he said aloud to his empty apartment.
Mid-third period with Montreal up 5-2, the camera focused on Shane as he sat on the bench, stick in hand and eyes closed. He almost looked like he was asleep. Then, as the camera lingered, his lips curled into a contented, happy smile.
Ilya wanted to cry.
I will not leave you.
He would, though, wouldn’t he? And soon. His citizenship application was still pending but it shouldn’t be long now. Another few weeks, Emily estimated, then they would know. And if the news was good and he became Canadian, well. That would be the end of him and Shane.
Everything within him recoiled whenever he would think such thoughts but still he forced himself to think them. He needed to get used to them, he needed to prepare. He needed to be ready for the day Shane left him or else that day would break him. Divorcing Shane would break him. Seeing Shane with someone else would fucking end him.
And Shane would be with someone else, eventually. He was too beautiful, too hot, too lovable and perfect to be alone for very long. Ilya only hoped that whoever he found would know how to take care of him when he needed caring for. He hoped they would know what Shane needed when it rained.
Ilya could be happy for him then, would be happy for him. Just so long as he knew Shane had that.
Shane called him back in the early hours of the morning. Ilya had been asleep. He’d texted Shane after the game and received a thumbs-up emoji in response so he knew that Shane was fine. When he saw his husband’s name on his phone screen he knew the rain in Tampa must finally have stopped.
“How do you know?” Shane said without preamble, when he answered. “You always know.”
“Know what?” Ilya mumbled as he tried to focus. His brain was far too sleepy for this.
“What to do,” Shane said, as though that clarified anything. “How do you know what to do when it rains?”
“Oh. Um. I don’t know. I just do.”
Ilya had never really thought about it before. He just—did what Shane needed and he knew what that was because… because why, exactly?
Intuition, probably, or his innate understanding of people. The same attributes that made him so infuriating on the ice, repurposed for good. Though the truth was he didn’t understand, not really, why rain affected Shane the way it did, he never had. He’d never felt a need to understand it because to him the why didn’t matter. Shane’s rainy-day self was just a part of who he was and Ilya loved every part of him. Anything Shane needed that was in his power to provide he would give, and gladly, because that was what Ilya Rozanov did for the people he loved.
It was as simple as that.
Well you see, I am deeply in love with you and attuned to your needs even when we are apart was not something he could say to Shane of course, so he changed the subject.
“Is late,” he said. “You should get sleep.”
“I don’t know if I can.” There was an edge to Shane’s voice that Ilya recognised. “Now the rain’s stopped I’m too energised.”
Ilya glanced at his clock. Two-thirteen a.m. Oh well, he thought. At least his morning practice was optional.
“Is Pike asleep?” he asked, in a low tone whose intent Shane could not mistake.
He didn’t. His breath caught sharply and his tone too was low when he replied, “Yes.”
“Mmm, good. Still, you will have to be very quiet. Scott-Hunter-in-the-next-room quiet.”
“Hayden-in-the-next-bed quiet,” Shane said with a low snicker.
“Yes, which is even quieter. Hayden Pike is bad at hockey but unlike New York’s favourite dinosaur he does not require hearing aid.”
“You’re such a dick.”
“Yes, yes.” Ilya dismissed this unnecessary observation with a wave of his hand that Shane couldn’t even see. “Bite down on something, lyubimyy, and shut the fuck up while I tell you what this dick of mine will do to you.”
“Mmm,” Shane said, and this time it was a moan of pleasure.
August 2019, rural Ontario
It was Anya who noticed first. Ilya had seen the forecast, he knew that the rain could only just have started when she came to him, nuzzled her cold nose against his cheek and licked his face until he woke up.
“What is it, my princess?” he muttered sleepily. “Is too early for breakfast. Do you need to go out-side,” he concluded on a breath of understanding, as he opened his eyes to the shimmer of raindrops on window-glass in pre-dawn light.
“Oh,” he said. “Okay?”
Anya gave his chin a final lick then bounded over him to where Shane was still asleep. She burrowed beneath the covers, did a U-turn, then emerged with her little face just poking over the top of the blanket, resting on Shane’s shoulder. Shane, without waking, shifted the angle of his body to accommodate her. His hand came to rest in the curly fur on the back of her neck, his lips on the extra-soft spot just above her eyes. He hummed. Ilya suspected that if Anya were able to purr, she would.
“Replaced by my own dog,” he grumbled as he pulled the covers back up over himself and rolled over to snuggle up as close to Shane as he could get. He grumbled so that he wouldn’t cry, a real danger when his heart felt so full it might burst from his chest. Because Anya knew. Like him, she just knew.
He woke up a few hours later to find himself a loose top slice of bread in the Anya sandwich their bed had become. Shane had pulled most of the blankets around himself and the dog; though his hand was curled around Ilya’s hip to keep him close, it was Anya who occupied his arms. Ilya tried hard to be annoyed about this. He did not succeed.
“Time for breakfast,” he announced, but got no response from either of his bedmates. “Fine,” he said with a loud sigh. “I will make breakfast for me. If either of you decides you want some, you know where to get it.”
He got out of bed and pulled on some sweatpants, waited until he was nearly out of the room and then he said, “She will need to go outside soon. Before she gets ideas.”
He paused in the doorway and looked back to see Shane, fully awake, eyeing Anya warily. She licked his nose and he grinned, hugged her and kissed the top of her head. Then he nudged her away and she seemed to understand. She wriggled out from under the blankets, hopped off the bed and trotted over to Ilya with an expectant look on her face.
“Oh, I see,” Ilya said, hands fisted on his hips. “Now you come to me. Now you want your papa when you need to go outside.”
Yes, her expression agreed.
Ilya heaved another, notably dramatic sigh and went over to the sliding door that led to the deck, Anya at his heels. “Is very rainy out,” he warned her. “Go do what you must then come back before you are too wet.”
He opened the door and she trotted through it, looked slightly alarmed at the volume and weight of the rainfall, then darted out into the yard. Ilya watched as she did her business with quick efficiency then ran back in, where he caught her and carried her to the bathroom to dry her off before she could track muddy paw prints through the house.
Then he made them all breakfast.
Later, the three of them formed a Shane sandwich on the sofa, Ilya at the back with Shane pressed up against him and Anya curled in the dip of their hips. Shane was buried in a hoodie, one hand laced with Ilya’s and the other tangled in Anya’s fur. On the television was Fast and Furious… something. Ilya had long since given up trying to keep track of them all. People were driving cars at high speeds, occasionally something exploded. Shane would have Thoughts about it when the rain stopped but for now he was content. They all were.
Ilya tuned the movie out and let his mind drift on memories of rainy days past. From the first they’d shared, when his love for Shane had been so new he couldn’t even see it, through hoodie sex and painful distance to now, to this bone-deep contentment and happiness he was no longer afraid to feel.
He nuzzled at the tender spot just below Shane’s ear, pressed a gentle kiss there. “I love you,” he said.
“Mmm,” Shane hummed in response. The hum that meant I love you too.