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The ice groaned beneath his feet, protesting at the weight of their movements. He was too wrapped up in his boyfriend’s presence to be properly aware. This would be their first Christmas together. Ilya wasn’t going back to Russia over the holidays. After his father died and he cut off Alexie, he wondered if he would ever go back at all.
He would rather spend any break he had with Shane than with a country and a family that only cared about his status and his money. He was still planning on introducing Shane to Russian Christmas (if not for an excuse to extend their holiday even further.
They were at the cottage, which had become a safe haven in a world of secrecy that they’ve built to protect themselves. Here they could just be themselves. Daylight was still hours from disappearing, and Ilya had finally convinced Shane to join him on the ice.
“You know I have a real practice rink here, right?”
“Ugh, Hollander, how do you use synthetic ice when the real thing is right here?” Ilya spun in place, flaunting his agility on the frozen lake like a swan showing off for his mate.
Fresh ice like this always reminded him of the pond his mother would take him and Alexie to as boys back in Russia. It was bittersweet to live inside a memory that didn’t hurt like the others of his family. Sometimes it was easier to just remember the bad days; it made moving on a more painless task. But there was nothing truly painless about grief, and sometimes it looked like the smile reflected in Shane’s face as he skated towards him, so reminiscent of his mother's that it hurt to stare directly at him. Or maybe it was just the glare of the snow on the ice that made him shift his eyes away.
…
The cold came first. Before he registered that the ice had broken, before the shouts on Shane’s lips had made it through his constant translation, before the shock of it had begun to settle- there was the cold.
Ilya thrashed under the water, alarmed by how quickly his snowgear had him sinking, the freezing water shocking his lungs into giving up what little breath he had left. The lake wasn’t dirty, but it wasn’t clean. His eyes burned as he opened them, begging to find the direction where he had come from, unable to discern which way was up.
His body screamed at him for more oxygen that he wasn’t supplying. He was an athlete. He could get through this. Some primal part of him knew that the moment he stopped moving was the moment he lost. He wouldn’t die here. Not for Shane to find.
…
His laugh died in his throat at the snap of ice giving way, Ilya’s blond curls disappearing too fast under the icy waves. The terror and panic threatened to swallow him just like the lake did his boyfriend, but Shane knew he had to act fast. He was reminded of a teammate he had in U12 whose cousin died one winter, sparking a safety lesson from all the parents and teachers. Never walk on ice that has been untested. Never go out alone. Spread out your body weight by laying down to avoid more cracks.
Shane wasn’t sure this was what his mother pictured he would be doing with this information, sliding on his stomach towards the opening where Ilya fell through. The water was dark enough that he couldn’t see clearly, just barely able to make out the shadow of his boyfriend's body below. He watched as it struggled to the top, briefly breaking through the surface only for him to go rigid once more.
Fuck it. Shane didn’t care what happened to him; he was getting Ilya out of there. He reached his gloved hand into the water, grimacing at the numbness as the cold soaked through to his bones. Still starfished on the ice, he pulled Ilya’s head above the water, wishing he had the strength to pull him one-armed the rest of the way.
Shane shifted, the position awkward and unsteady, but the best he was going to get. His main goal was to roll Ilya out without breaking any more of the ice; the last thing he needed right now was a botched rescue. Shit, should Shane have called emergency services already? So they could help right away? He wasn’t even sure if his phone was still in his pocket.
No, he would get Ilya out of the water first. That was the priority. He never thought about how heavy the other man truly was until he was summoning all of his strength to lift him over the lip of ice, rolling Ilya on top of him as Shane slipped his arms underneath his shoulders, scooting as far away from the crack as he could.
Ilya’s lips were tinged blue by the time he had pulled them both off of the lake completely, resting him on the snow covered back while Shane fumbled for his phone. They had just announced the charity last year; a small part of him wondered what the response was going to be when word got out that Ilya Rozanov drowned at Shane Hollander's private residence. He would deal with the fallout later. Right now he just had to make sure that Ilya Rozanov didn’t actually drown in the first place.
He pressed his lips to his boyfriend's, hating that just hours ago they were doing it for fun, and now he was trying to get him to breathe again. It wasn’t fair. His wet hair was already turning to icicles in the cold air, and Shane once again doubted himself. Should he have moved them inside before starting CPR? He knew that he needed to get Ilya warm, but breathing was more important, right?
Another compression, another rescue breath, again, and again, and again. A pattern that Shane could follow. Tears had broken containment on his cheeks, the heat of them a stark contrast to the cold of the rest of the world.
Suddenly Shane tasted lake water in his mouth as he breathed into Ilya once more, this time the man sputtering beneath him, coughing out the rest of the water from his lungs. It was the most beautiful sound Shane had ever heard.
“Hey, hey, baby. I got you.” Shane held him close, the relief of seeing his eyes open unspooling in his gut. “Just breathe. I got you, I got you.”
He waited until Ilya’s breath stopped being panic-infused, but instead just deep and full, before he scooped the other man in his arms, taking both of their now soaking and frozen bodies towards the warmth of the cottage.
His heart was still beating out of his chest from the adrenaline of the fall, the water, the rescue. Shane wasn’t sure that it would ever return to its normal tempo. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to look at his view of the lake the same either. Or the ice. Not when it had almost taken everything from him.
…
Ilya awoke to a heated blanket on his lap, a flat hospital pillow underneath his head. Flashes of the ice and the darkness flickered through his mind before the image of Shane leaning over him took its place. Memories of his lips on his, transferring his life to him breath by breath, filled in the gaps that were left by the initial fear.
“Merry Christmas, Любимый.”
Shane was hunched over in the chair and lurched to attention at the sound of his boyfriend's voice. He smiled down at Ilya with an expression so fond and so pure that Ilya wasn’t sure he would ever be able to look away.