Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Shane was practically vibrating in the backseat. It was ridiculous. Ilya had argued that the car service was a complete waste of money. The shelter was not far. The metro existed. Their legs worked perfectly fine.

Well, Shane’s legs worked perfectly fine. Ilya’s legs worked by some definitions of the word.

Then Shane had calmly informed him the service had already been booked. Unbearable.

Ever since whatever existed between them had shifted from maybe into expected, Shane had become impossible in entirely new ways. He steamrolled directly over sensible decisions with quiet confidence. He kept the kitchen stocked with healthy snacks and then, somehow worse, noticed which ones disappeared fastest and reordered them before they ran out.

He noticed a single limp and spent thirty minutes running his hands over every muscle in Ilya’s leg, massaging him. Didn’t even always get distracted when Ilya pointed out other things that enjoyed a massage.

He replaced both of their toothbrushes at the three-month mark. He was completely unbearable. 

Ilya loved it.

Not that Shane needed to know that. Shane would become absolutely intolerable if encouraged. Still, it felt as though every sharp edge of Ilya’s life was being sanded smooth beneath Shane’s hands, until Ilya no longer found himself bracing automatically against impact.

Outside the window, Montreal dragged itself unevenly toward spring. Snow cluttered the curbs in dirty grey piles, the melt streaming along the gutters. Upcoming playoffs sat thick in the Montreal air already.

Beside him, Shane bounced one knee relentlessly. Ilya reached over and rested a hand on his thigh, and immediately Shane’s hand dropped overtop of it. The muscle beneath his palm slowed. Shane turned toward him with that soft expression that still occasionally caught Ilya off guard. Especially now. Especially after dinner with his parents last week, meeting them, watching Shane look at him like he belonged there.

For a moment, Ilya could only look back at him. His own face softened before he could stop it.

The drive did not take long. The moment they stepped outside, cold spring air swept around them. Shane automatically moved to Ilya’s right side as they climbed the shelter steps, steadying him without saying a word.

Marianne was already waiting inside.

The second she saw him, she let out a sound somewhere between joy and excitement and swept him into a hug hard enough to knock him backward. Shane caught him immediately around the waist before his knee could twist wrong.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she declared into his shoulder before pulling him into another hug for emphasis.

Ilya blinked hard, feeling the stinging behind his eyes. 

It had been too long. Longer than he had stayed away from the shelter since he had started. Longer than he had gone without the dogs, without the strange quiet purpose they gave him, without this place that understood parts of him he still struggled to explain to people.

He looked around at familiar kennels, new faces alongside the old, and felt emotion hit him hard enough to hollow him out for a second.

He knew better than to ask. Still, he heard himself say it anyway.

“How is Louise?”

Marianne stepped back slightly. Something bright flickered across her face.

“She’s doing wonderfully,” she said. “Actually…” Her smile widened. “She’s being adopted today.”

The impact landed directly in the center of his chest. Ilya held himself upright through sheer force, plastering a neutral expression on his face.

“Oh,” he managed. His smile arrived a second too late.

“That is…” He swallowed once. “Very good. She deserves good family.”

His eyes shifted away quickly before anyone could study them too closely. He knew this part very well. Loving them had always meant letting them go.

“She’s going to an incredible home,” Marianne assured him gently, rubbing his arm.

Ilya nodded immediately.

“Yes. Good.”

He absolutely could not look at Shane yet. Not until he got himself under control. Shane would take one look at him, and then would hug him, and then Ilya would weep. 

“I would like to stay,” he said carefully. “Meet family. Explain her routines. Her personality.”

Marianne laughed loudly enough that several dogs joined in.

“Oh, I think they understand her just fine,” she said.

Then, after a moment, “There’s no need to wait. The adoption is happening now.”

Ilya stilled, looking at the front room they used during adoptions. It was empty. Slowly, he turned around. And found Shane standing there looking suddenly nervous for the first time all day.

“I hope you’re not upset,” Shane said immediately, words rushing together. “But I want her to come home with us.”

The shelter noise seemed to pull strangely distant around him. Barking. Metal gates rattling somewhere farther back. His own pulse was louder than all of it, pulsing in his ears.

“Us?” he repeated quietly. Shane stepped closer immediately, like he couldn’t help himself.

“My apartment allows dogs, I checked,” he said quickly. “And Marianne said she’d help if your schedule gets bad during playoffs, and I just…” His face flushed slightly. “I like knowing you wouldn’t be alone when I travel.”

The words twisted strangely in Ilya’s chest.

“I want her for both of us,” Shane said softer now. “I think she already belongs with us anyway.”

Ilya stared at him. Nothing arrived properly. Not language. Not thought. Just the overwhelming sensation of something inside him giving way all at once.

“You…” he started helplessly. “How…”

Shane’s arms wrapped around him carefully, one hand spreading across his back as he pressed a quick kiss beneath Ilya’s ear.

“If it’s not what you want, just tell me,” he murmured. “I don’t want to decide for you.”

That finally broke him completely.

A rough sound escaped his throat before he leaned forward and kissed Shane hard enough to interrupt the rest of the sentence entirely.

“Khochu,” he whispered against his mouth when he finally pulled back. “Da. I want.”

Across the room, Marianne was openly crying. Ilya wiped quickly at his eyes and took several uneven breaths before turning toward Louise’s kennel.

The moment he opened the gate, Louise trotted directly toward him with her usual complicated greeting. A tiny growl. Tiny exposed teeth. Then immediate full body wiggle as she pressed herself against his leg, tail moving so hard her entire back half shook with it.

“There you are, Zlaya,” he murmured thickly.

He scooped her up immediately, burying his face against the warm folds of her neck. Her tongue hit his ear instantly.

“Disgusting little creature,” he whispered, voice breaking around the words.

Behind him, he felt Shane’s arms settle carefully around both of them, and he turned to face him.

Louise made a pleased snorting sound and wedged herself more aggressively between their chests.

Ilya laughed helplessly through tears. He had never allowed himself to imagine this.

Not truly.

Not a future where he remained long enough to become woven into someone else’s life. Not permanence. Not mornings and routines and grocery lists and dogs sleeping in sunbeams and someone waiting for him to come home.

But Shane had done it quietly. Slowly enough that Ilya had not noticed it happening until suddenly there was no space left in his life untouched by him.

And somehow Shane had mastered the impossible balance of giving Ilya room to breathe while never letting him drift too far away.

Nothing inside him broke this time.

Usually happiness arrived with sharpness, already carrying the likelihood it would eventually be taken away. This felt more like pieces being welded quietly back together.

Marianne eventually produced adoption paperwork from her office.

“I’m sorry,” she said while digging through folders. “There are apparently rules about not releasing dogs based entirely on emotional intensity.”

“I disagree with system,” Ilya muttered thickly, still clutching Louise against his chest.

“You and Louise both,” Marianne replied.

She slid the forms across the desk.

Ilya signed first awkwardly one handed while Louise groaned, probably at the indignity of paperwork. Then Shane stepped beside him and signed underneath.

Their names sat there together in clean black ink. It looked so official. 

The thought landed painfully in Ilya’s chest, and suddenly tears were in his eyes. And then they were running down his face.

He had not cried in front of another person since he was ten years old, when he sobbed beside his mother because Andrei had broken the hockey stick he bought with a year’s worth of savings.

Shane did not pull away from him now. Didn’t look embarrassed. Didn’t give him distance. His hand kept finding Ilya’s automatically, every single time.

Eventually Marianne disappeared briefly and returned carrying an enormous box. Shane accepted it with both hands.

“What is this?” Ilya asked suspiciously.

Inside was an absurd amount of dog supplies. Food. Bowls. Sweaters. Toys. Blankets. Multiple leashes. A little dog bed.

Marianne set a brand new travel crate beside it. Ilya stared at Shane in disbelief.

“You bought all this?”

Shane looked suddenly sheepish.

“I didn’t know what she’d need,” he admitted. “And I didn’t want it delivered to the apartment in case…” He gestured vaguely. “I wanted it ready.”

A startled laugh broke out of Ilya before he could stop it.

They finally made it back to the SUV, which Shane had kept waiting for them, with Louise tucked carefully into her crate surrounded by blankets and approximately fourteen unnecessary toys.

“Home soon,” Ilya promised her softly through the crate door.

Home. The word settled strangely in his chest.

Shane had been saying it naturally all afternoon. Without hesitation. Without correcting himself afterward. Like there had never been any question where Louise belonged. Or where Ilya did.

Beside him, Shane suddenly went very still.

“Shit,” he said.

Ilya turned toward him.

“I didn’t even think about your apartment allowing dogs,” Shane said, words immediately beginning to tumble over each other again. “I mean, obviously you could stay with me. Permanently. If you wanted. I just…” He rubbed a hand hard over the back of his neck. “I realized I never actually asked.”

He reached over, pressed two fingers lightly against Shane’s lips, and leaned in for a brief kiss.

“We’ll figure it out,” he murmured.

From the floor between their legs, Louise let out a dramatic little huff like she already had strong opinions about the arrangement.

Shane laughed helplessly. And somehow, impossibly, it sounded like home.

Hayden stood outside Shane’s apartment. Playoff season had swallowed the city whole. Game four was tomorrow, Montreal buzzed with the energy. This afternoon was precious and rare downtime during the madness, but coming today was a priority. He knocked twice.

Three weeks earlier, he and Shane had been walking out of the Bell Centre together when Shane had said, completely out of nowhere, “I adopted a dog.”

Hayden remembered looking over immediately.

“You what?”

“A dog,” Shane repeated. “Well, technically we adopted a dog.”

We.

At the time, Hayden had assumed there was a woman somewhere in Shane Hollander’s life Hayden simply hadn’t met yet. Which honestly already felt unlikely considering he and Jackie had tried setting him up with every available female that they were aware of. Shane had just never been interested.

“You and your girlfriend?” Hayden had asked.

And Shane had flinched. Just a tiny movement, barely there, but Hayden noticed it. He noticed everything. Just like Shane, the physical observation was part of the job.

“No,” he’d said. Then, quieter, “He’s my boyfriend.”

Hayden remembered the exact look on Shane’s face afterward. Shane had shoved both hands into his pockets immediately after saying it, shoulders tight beneath his team hoodie.

Hayden had known him long enough to understand what this actually was. Shane was the most controlled person he knew. Nothing happened by accident. He didn't accidently drink too much. He didn't make unintentional calls by accident. And he certainly didn't say words by accident.

Something had already rooted itself too deeply to stay hidden.

“You happy?” Hayden had asked finally.

Shane’s answer came too fast.

“Yeah.”

And that was all there was to it. Hayden had bumped his shoulder once while they walked.

“Cool,” he’d said. “Now tell me about the dog.”

The apartment door opened, and christ, Shane looked exhausted. Playoff exhausted, probably exactly like he looked. A slight stubble darkened his jaw in uneven patches. His hair still looked damp from a shower. Sweatpants instead of jeans. Compression sleeves abandoned over the back of the couch behind him.

And still somehow, Hayden had never seen him look lighter.

“Hey,” Shane said, stepping back to let him in. He immediately noticed Shane's sweatshirt, worn out and dark blue, something in Cyrillic on the front.

The apartment smelled differently from the last time he had been here. Coffee and dog and some sort of egg dish. And looking at it, shit. It looked lived in. There was no denying that this place was occupied. Hayden recognized it well. He couldn't take five steps inside his own home before stepping on a toy. And here, in Shane Hollander's apartment, tiny stuffed animals had apparently colonized the hardwood floors. They were fucking everywhere.

With them, there were shoes near the door that clearly did not belong to him and that were half-heartedly tossed in a heap. A dark green hoodie draped over the counter. Half folded laundry abandoned on the couch. Hayden smiled largely. What the hell had happened to Shane Hollander?

From somewhere deeper in the apartment came the sound of a low male voice murmuring steadily in a language he didn't understand. Then, “You are very elegant creature,” the voice said calmly.

Shane immediately chuckled, a smile lighting up his face. They rounded the corner into the kitchen, and Hayden recognized him immediately.

The Russian guy from the shelter. The volunteer Shane had spent the entire afternoon unconsciously orbiting while pretending not to. Hayden really hadn't thought too much about it at the time. Looking back... signs might have been there. He had thought Shane looked completely insane because he was out of his element around dogs. That may not have been it.

Ilya stood barefoot near the kitchen island wearing black joggers and one of Shane’s Reebok hoodies, sleeves shoved up his forearms. Louise sprawled dramatically across his arms, eyes half-closed, looking like a woman dying of consumption, while he scratched slow circles into the folds of her neck.

The dog looked deeply questionable. Long body. Tiny legs. At least five extra neck rolls. The tiny growl she directed at Hayden sounded wildly ambitious for something roughly the size of a baguette.

Ilya looked up. His green eyes were sharp at first, and then immediately softer once they landed on Shane. The change happened so fast Hayden suspected Shane probably no longer noticed it.

“Oh shit,” Hayden said before he could stop himself. “You’re shelter guy.”

Ilya blinked once.

“Ah,” he said. “Hockey friend.”

Shane laughed quietly under his breath; not the typical polite laugh Hayden was used to getting at approximately seventy-five percent of his jokes. It was real and full of quiet affection. It startled him more than anything else in the apartment.

“Hayden,” Shane said after a second, “this is my boyfriend, Ilya.”

There it was again. Boyfriend. Shane was saying the word directly, but Hayden still caught the tiny tension underneath it. Shane’s shoulders tightening slightly afterward like his body still expected impact even now.

Then, Louise sneezed directly into Ilya’s face. The tension shattered instantly.

“You see what I endure?” Ilya asked dryly, wiping his cheek with the sleeve of Shane’s hoodie.

“She’s obsessed with him,” Shane said.

“She hates me,” Ilya corrected. Louise growled either in debate or approval.

Hayden held out a hand. “Nice to officially meet you.”

Ilya shifted Louise one handed and shook firmly.

“You also,” he said.

Louise immediately attempted to bite Hayden’s hoodie string. Ilya resumed scratching beneath her folds while murmuring softly in Russian again.

“What’re you saying to her?” Hayden asked.

“Mostly lies," Ilya said. “I tell her she does not have sausage-shaped body,” he explained. “And she only has two neck rolls.”

Hayden snorted. Louise made a pleased little groaning sound.

The apartment settled around them easily after that. And that more than anything kept catching Hayden off guard. It wasn't the boyfriend part. It was how at ease Shane was. He moved differently here, like he was looser somehow.

He drifted unconsciously toward Ilya during conversation like gravity worked differently here. A hand brushing briefly against his back while passing behind him. Shoulder touching shoulder near the counter. Fingers catching automatically at Ilya’s wrist once while reaching around him for his phone. It was small contact, but it was constant.

And Ilya never startled from any of it. At one point Shane was half listening to Hayden complain about defensive coverage and Ilya passed him a bottle of water before he even asked, movements overlapping so seamlessly it felt practiced.

They seemed so settled, like this wasn't new.

Hayden looked around again slowly. The apartment itself had changed too.

Recovery boots sat beside the couch. Game footage paused silently on television. Protein powder lined the counter beside Russian tea tins and coffee pods. The place was a little disastrous in ways that he never could picture with Shane, but here was Shane looking completely relaxed. 

Hayden’s attention caught on the wall dividing the kitchen from the living room. Framed photographs hung there, and he was pretty sure he hadn't seen them last time.

Montreal staircases twisting upward between brick buildings. Fire escapes striped in winter shadows. Puddles reflecting low restaurant light in narrow alleyways. Metro platforms with a blur of train. Bare trees against snow-clouded skies. A plain door behind a brick building.

Nothing dramatic. Still impossible to stop looking at.

“Those are really cool,” Hayden said.

Shane glanced over briefly. “He sends them to me,” he said.

“You took these?” Hayden asked Ilya.

Ilya shrugged immediately like the answer barely mattered.

“Mostly while walking.”

Hayden looked over at Shane. Something in his expression had softened again without him seeming aware of it.

“Especially when we were first talking, he’d send me, like…” Shane gestured vaguely toward the wall. “A staircase. Or an alley. Or some puddle behind a restaurant.”

“Very glamorous,” Ilya muttered.

“But then you look at it and it’s…” Shane stopped briefly, searching for the right word.

Hayden waited. Shane glanced back toward the photographs.

“He notices things most people walk past,” he said finally. “Makes them feel important somehow.”

Hayden looked toward Ilya then. And found Ilya already looking at Shane. Unreadable at first glance, his gaze almost looked blank. But the longer Hayden watched, the clearer it became that Ilya looked at Shane the way people tilted their faces toward sunlight after winter. Like warmth had become something worth wanting again.

Ilya dropped his eyes first, returning his attention to Louise.

“Mm,” he said softly.

Hayden looked away immediately after that because suddenly the apartment felt intimate enough that he should probably apologize to a wall or something for being in it.

And just like that, Hayden understood something that probably should have been obvious earlier. He had come here half expecting to worry about Shane. But what he could see was that this wasn’t fragile. Whatever existed between them had already settled too deeply into the structure of Shane’s life to be temporary.

Hayden looked over at Shane one more time. At the playoff exhaustion still wound tight through his body. The performance pressure that could come from the city waiting outside for him constantly.

And underneath all of it, maybe for the first time since Hayden had known him, he looked so fucking at peace.

The apartment was different without Shane in it, but not empty. Ilya had expected emptiness. The strange feeling of waiting inside someone else’s space until they returned and life resumed around you again.

Instead, he had gotten used to the apartment slowly over the past few weeks.

The shower warmed faster when the water was turned on through the faucet before the shower head. Louise made tiny grumbling sounds in her sleep when she dreamed hard enough. The kitchen cabinet beside the stove stuck slightly unless pulled from the bottom corner first.

When he opened the windows, the streets were quiet tonight. If he didn’t already know, that alone would tell him the Voyageurs had lost.

Louise lifted her head briefly from the brown couch as Ilya left the second bedroom, unofficially now known as the rehab room, and slowly made his way downstairs. She followed along behind him.

The couch looked deeply ridiculous inside Shane’s apartment, even being in the spare room.

Everything else in the space carried Shane’s particular brand of expensive restraint. Clean lines. Neutral colors. Furniture that looked selected after extensive online comparison research and six hours of review analysis.

Then there was Marianne’s couch.

Brown, scratched up, worn from years of use. Louise had claimed ownership within fifteen minutes of its arrival.

It had been the only thing Ilya kept from his apartment.

The rest had gone to a refugee support center in Parc-Extension. His bed frame, the kitchen table, dishes, lamps, the microwave. Everything.

“You could have sold some of it,” Shane had said afterward while helping him tape ice around his knee later that night, strained from the lifting.

Ilya remembered shrugging.

“Somebody needs it now. I don’t”

And that had been that. Shane understood when things mattered enough to leave untouched.

Over the past few weeks, Ilya had started arranging his Wolfbird shifts around the playoff schedule almost without thinking about it. He worked during away games. Long travel nights. Evenings Shane would not be home until well after midnight anyway.

The rhythm settled naturally between them. On game nights at home, Ilya stayed in. On road games, he worked.

Simple.

A few nights earlier, he had come home from Wolfbird just after twelve in the morning to find the apartment dark except for the city glow leaking dimly through the windows. Louise had greeted him with outraged little sounds from the couch before demanding immediate back scratches.

He had showered slowly afterward, steam easing the lingering effects of work from his body while Louise waited directly outside the shower door.

His work clothes now hung beside Shane’s clothes. That still occasionally surprised him. Not because Shane minded. But because Shane didn’t.

There had been no hesitation when Ilya explained he intended to keep working at Wolfbird, even without a stupidly expensive Montreal rent.

Just Shane’s soft “Okay.” And later, quieter, “Do you still like it?”

The answer had surprised him slightly in its own certainty. Yes.

Not every client. Not every night. But the work itself still belonged to him. The structure of it. The control. The intimacy of guiding another person carefully through vulnerability without allowing harm inside the space.

This was where he worked. And maybe for the first time in his life, keeping one part of himself no longer felt incompatible with building another.

He stopped in the kitchen and crossed the living room barefoot, now carrying a bowl of popcorn. One of Louise’s ears rose. The other stayed folded backward.

“You judge me for emotional eating,” he informed her as they both settled on the giant sectional. Her tail thumped once against the cushions.

Louise stretched dramatically as Ilya settled beside her, bowl balanced on his stomach. The television glowed low in the darkened apartment, postgame analysis still cycling endlessly through highlights and replay breakdowns.

Shane had been right there only an hour earlier. Hair damp with sweat beneath his helmet. Eyes exhausted. Hayden had scored late in the second period. Shane had taken a hit hard enough along the boards that Ilya’s stomach still twisted every time the replay appeared.

He muted the television and the apartment felt better. His phone buzzed against the couch cushion.

SHANE: Still awake?

Ilya snorted quietly. As if Shane did not already know the answer.

He sent back a picture instead.

Louise lay upside down beside him now, all four legs pointed vaguely toward the ceiling, neck folds compressed into complete disappearance.

ILYA: Your daughter waits for you.

The typing bubble appeared right away.

SHANE: Media finally done, heading home now.

Warmth settled over Ilya’s body.

Home. It no longer startled him the way it had at first. Ilya living there had happened the same way snow melted in Montreal. Unevenly and then all at once.

A second toothbrush. Then closet space. Then a drawer. Then a box of memories from Ilya’s apartment. Then resistance bands left permanently beside the couch that used to reside in his apartment and now was here.

Earlier that morning, half awake and still limping slightly, Ilya had opened the wrong dresser drawer looking for a shirt. Not wrong anymore, apparently. His own clothes filled most of it now. T-shirts folded beside Shane’s, items migrating constantly between drawers.

Ilya had stood there staring at it for several long seconds while Louise snored aggressively into the blankets behind him.

Louise snorted awake suddenly and scrambled upright, paws slipping briefly against the couch cushion.

“You hear elevator?” Ilya asked. Her tail wagged once violently. Apparently yes.

By the time the lock clicked open two minutes later, Louise had already stationed herself directly beside the door.

Shane stepped inside looking exhausted enough that it physically hurt to see. Ilya had begun noticing how much the playoffs took from him now. The way Shane carried tension home. The constant pressure wound through his shoulders. The public ownership of him and all the expectations that came with it.

Outside the apartment, Shane belonged to everyone. Inside, he became himself again slowly.

Louise immediately growled at his shoes.

“Hi, baby,” Shane said tiredly. He dropped his bag beside the door and bent automatically to scoop her up.

“You watched?” he asked Ilya.

“Mhm,” Ilya said, narrowing his eyes immediately. “How bad was the hit?”

Shane sighed. “Not good.”

“You looked like crash test dummy.”

“Helpful.”

“I am supportive boyfriend.”

That finally pulled a tired laugh from Shane’s chest.

God. Ilya loved that sound.

The realization came quietly now, no immediate instinct to shove it back down before it became dangerous.

Shane crossed the apartment toward him, still carrying Louise, and leaned down automatically until Ilya tilted his face up for a kiss. Cold air still clung faintly to Shane’s skin.

“You eat?” Shane asked against his mouth.

“Yes.”

“Real food?”

Ilya considered lying. Louise stared at him closely like she was willing to testify in court.

“…Mostly.”

Shane made a quiet sound of disapproval and started to walk toward the kitchen.

Ilya stood quickly, grabbing his hand. 

“Sit,” he said. “I’ll heat meals.”

Shane sunk down with Louise, a tired sigh dragging out of him. Ilya moved through the kitchen, heating bowls of chicken with brown rice and vegetables.

When he returned to the couch, a meal in each hand, Shane was frowning down at the abandoned popcorn bowl.

“You’re forty percent raccoon,” he informed him.

“Is very efficient animal.”

As they sat on the couch, eating a late meal together, the domesticity of it hit Ilya a little bit sideways.

It wasn’t just that Shane took care of him. They both took care of each other. But what still frightened him sometimes, when it lingered in his mind, was that nothing between them seemed carefully measured anymore. Neither seemed to keep score.

Weeks earlier, during one of the rare afternoons Shane had been home before practice, the two of them had sat side-by-side on the couch with an immigration lawyer pulled up through video call on Shane’s laptop.

A different lawyer this time, one who survived Shane’s intense research. She was older, more experienced, and less blindly optimistic than Ilya’s had been.

She had listened quietly while Ilya explained expired visas and work permits and Andrei’s increasingly frequent demands for money. And then the threats.

The lawyer had gone very still after reading through translated screenshots. Refugee claim had entered the conversation after that.

Not guaranteed, but a possible avenue. The sexuality. Threats. Exploitation concerns. Fear of returning due to brother’s ties to the police.

Ilya remembered staring at the laptop screen feeling strangely detached from his own life while Louise slept across both their legs.

“You don’t have to decide immediately,” the lawyer had said carefully.

Shane’s hand had found the back of his neck then. Just there.

Tonight, Shane finished his meal, Ilya taking his plate along with his own to the sink, and collapsed sideways onto the cushions with exhausted heaviness. Ilya joined him, stretching beside him.

For a while, none of them spoke. The television stayed muted.

Shane’s socked foot bumped lightly against his beneath the blanket. It was a small contact, but heat moved through Ilya anyways.

Early in playoffs, Shane had announced very seriously that athletes were supposed to avoid sex during postseason runs.

This declaration had lasted approximately twenty minutes.

Ilya had listened respectfully while Shane explained focus and recovery and discipline, all while stretched half asleep across his chest after morning practice. Then Shane had kissed him halfway through the lecture and immediately abandoned the entire position.

Now, weeks later, Ilya understood it had never really been about sex anyway. It was about relief.

About Shane arriving home wound so tightly sometimes he barely seemed fully inside himself at first. Jaw clenched, eyes distant, shoulders rigid with exhaustion.

And then Shane would slowly unwind again beneath touch.

Shane’s head tipped back against the couch cushion now, eyes mostly closed while Louise snored tucked into the corner cushion.

“You okay?” Ilya asked quietly.

“Mhm.”

Liar.

Ilya shifted carefully, moving down onto the rug, shifting between Shane’s legs. Shane’s eyes opened immediately.

“You don’t have to take care of me every time we lose,” Shane murmured, voice full of exhaustion.

“I know.” Ilya said. “I do it when you win, too.”

Shane smiled softly.

Ilya leaned in, kissing him slowly first. Letting Shane settle into it. One hand slid into the damp hair at the back of his neck while Shane exhaled quietly against his mouth, tension easing by degrees beneath his palms.

Shane’s hand found his fingers on the other hand and held there.

Ilya kissed along Shane’s jaw slowly, feeling the light playoff stubble scrape lightly against his lips. Shane made a low sound in his throat then, tired more than anything else, and let his forehead rest briefly against Ilya’s shoulder like the effort of holding himself upright had finally become unnecessary.

Shane allowed himself to be tired here. Allowed himself to be held. It caught in Ilya’s throat.

Ilya’s fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his sweats slowly, giving Shane enough time to stop him if he wanted.

He didn’t.

Instead, Shane’s hand tightened in his hair as Ilya kissed lower, lingering at the warm skin beneath his ribs, along his stomach, listening carefully to the way Shane’s breathing changed beneath his mouth.

Shane melted apart slowly beneath his hands. When Ilya finally took him into his mouth, Shane exhaled sharply and folded forward with a quiet curse against his hair, mixed with exhaustion and relief.

Ilya moved slowly at first, savoring the gradual unwinding of tension more than anything else. Shane’s breathing. The occasional helpless shift of his hips. His fingers pulling weakly through Ilya’s curls.

By the time Shane finally came apart with a broken moan against the top of his head, most of the strain had disappeared from his body entirely.

Afterward, Shane stayed half folded around him on the couch, breathing slower now, one hand still buried lazily in Ilya’s hair 

Shane sighed softly against the side of Ilya’s neck.

“C’mere.”

Shane’s hand slid beneath the waist of his pants. Always offering. Ilya caught his wrist gently.

“No,” he murmured softly against Shane’s mouth. “You need sleep.”

Shane opened his eyes enough to look at him. Ilya brushed his thumb once across Shane’s knuckles.

“I’m serious,” he said quietly. “Come to bed, moy khoroshiy.” My dear.

And later, with Shane already asleep against his chest, breathing deep and heavy beneath the blankets while Louise occupied an unreasonable percentage of the mattress, Ilya found himself thinking that maybe love was not always loud declarations or sweet promises.

Maybe it was just in simply knowing the shape of someone. Their needs, and how to carry them when someone no longer could alone. 

The Voyageurs training facility felt hollow without playoffs in the air. A week earlier, the season had ended in overtime.

Now the building was quiet in a way Shane was still trying to adjust to. End of season usually had this effect on him.

Just cold air and ice. No media, no crowds, no constant push.

Shane nudged the rink door open with his shoulder, skates hanging from one hand while Ilya followed beside him carrying two coffees and looking deeply unimpressed by the concept of consciousness before eight in the morning.

“I still think children should sleep until at least noon,” Ilya muttered.

“Grant’s kids have been awake since six-thirty.”

“Horrifying.”

Shane laughed quietly and glanced at him. The last few months had done something that destabilized him emotionally. Tiny things kept catching him off guard now. Ilya stealing his hoodies. Him feeding Louise tiny pieces of salmon while pretending not to. Falling asleep during movies with one hand still tangled in Shane’s shirt.

Domesticity had turned out to be embarrassingly attractive. Unfortunately, so was everything else about him.

Including Ilya now, hair still messy beneath a black beanie, carrying mugs with sleepy irritation written all over his face.

They stepped out toward the rink. The arena lights had only partially come up, reflecting across untouched ice.

Ilya slowed immediately. Shane felt the change beside him before he even looked over.

Complete stillness. The last time Ilya had worn skates, his knee had still worked like it should. Shane set his skates down near the bench before reaching into the equipment bag he had brought.

“I got something,” he said.

Ilya glanced over distractedly, then stopped completely.

The skates sat black and silver in Shane’s hands, blades freshly sharpened. For one Very long second, Ilya just stared.

“You…” His voice caught slightly before he cleared it. “Shane.”

“I talked to Grant,” Shane said. “He thinks you can do this safely if you take it slow. No insane stops. No trying to relive your glory days.”

“I never had glory days.”

“I’m not buying that for a second,” Shane said.

Still, Ilya didn’t touch the skates immediately. His expression had gone unreadable in that way that Shane was learning meant emotion too large to show cleanly.

“You don’t have to,” Shane added softly.

Green eyes lifted toward his.

“I want to.”

When they finally stepped onto the ice twenty minutes later, the rink still sat empty around them.

Ilya moved tentatively at first. Shane stayed beside him while they skated slow circles near the boards. Just getting used to the movement.

The first few strides looked awkward enough to make Shane’s stomach knot.

Then Ilya’s balance dropped instinctively lower. One shoulder relaxed. His edges caught correctly. His body stopped fighting the motion and started listening to it again.

It was like watching years of instinct waking up.

And Shane forgot how to breathe for a second.

Jesus Christ.

He had never seen Ilya skate before. This was watching something living reassemble itself in real time. Ilya pushed slightly harder across the ice, probably just testing the knee.

Shane’s entire nervous system lit up in response.

“Oh my god,” he muttered.

Ilya laughed as he circled back around.

“What?”

“You are being deliberately attractive right now.”

“I am literally skating.”

“That is, unfortunately, the problem.”

Ilya laughed again, brighter this time, momentum carrying him into a smooth turn that was still careful but graceful enough to make Shane briefly consider dragging him into the locker room immediately. He checked his watch to see how much time they had.

The cold air had flushed Ilya’s cheeks. His curls dampened slightly beneath the beanie. His mouth had gone soft. 

And underneath all of that, joy. Shane felt almost dizzy watching it.

Ilya skated back toward him slower this time, stopping close enough their skates knocked lightly together.

“You are staring again,” he said quietly.

“You’re beautiful.” The words escaped before Shane could stop them.

Something vulnerable flickered across Ilya’s face.

“I forgot this part,” he admitted softly.

Shane kissed him before thinking too hard about it. Right there at center ice. Cold noses, dry lips. Gloves awkward between them.

Ilya made a surprised sound against his mouth before immediately kissing him back harder, one gloved hand catching automatically at Shane’s jacket.

Then Shane heard movement.

“OH, FOR THE LOVE OF...”

Grant’s voice echoed dramatically through the rink. Shane groaned into Ilya’s shoulder while he broke away laughing.

Behind the glass doors, Grant stood holding two hockey bags while his husband Michael nearly folded in half laughing beside him.

Two children bounced around them at dangerous speed.

“Okay,” Grant said loudly. “I can see we are already making memories.”

“That’s literally Shane Hollander,” Michael interrupted immediately, staring at Shane with complete delight. “Holy shit.”

Grant looked betrayed.

“You have seen him before.”

“Not kissing a hot Russian guy at center ice!”

“You somehow made that worse.”

Meanwhile Nora and James had gone completely still.

“You’re actually him,” James whispered.

“You’re on television,” Nora said with awe.

Michael was still staring like he’d accidentally wandered into a religious experience.

“I watched every playoff game,” he admitted. “Every single one.”

Ilya had gone very still beside Shane in the specific way he did whenever too many people arrived at once, like he was busy assessing the entire environment.

Grant seemed to notice too because his voice softened slightly during introductions.

“This disaster is Nora,” he said, pointing. “That one’s James. And this is my husband Michael, who apparently plans to embarrass me professionally today.”

“I’m thriving actually.”

James’ attention shifted abruptly toward Ilya.

“You’re Russian?”

“…Yes?”

“My dad said you’re mean to Shane.”

Grant looked horrified immediately. “I said sarcastic!”

“Daddy said you called him crash test dummy,” James told Ilya.

Shane pointed accusingly at Grant. “You tell your children everything?”

Ilya pointed accusingly at Shane. “You tell physiotherapist everything?” 

“This explains a lot honestly,” Michael muttered.

The kids, however, had already lost interest in adult betrayal and were instead attempting to stand upright on the ice without dying.

Shane crouched automatically beside Nora.

“Okay,” he said, slipping easily into instruction mode. “First thing we’re going to work on is edge stability. You want your weight centered over the balls of your feet, knees bent, chest up. If your hips lock, your edges slide and then you lose balance correction.”

Nora stared at him blankly. James blinked slowly.

Michael whispered to Grant, “I think he’s speaking hockey.”

Shane frowned. “No, this is easy stuff.”

“Okay,” Ilya said immediately beside him. Shane looked over. “First thing they learn is how to fall.”

The children looked alarmed.

“You are going to fall anyway,” Ilya informed them calmly. “So now it becomes less embarrassing.”

Grant huffed out a laugh.

Ilya dropped carefully onto one knee, then tipped sideways onto the ice with exaggerated drama.

“See?” he said from the floor. “Still alive.”

James looked fascinated immediately. A few minutes later both children were intentionally dropping onto the ice with increasing enthusiasm while Shane tried unsuccessfully to maintain instruction.

“Okay,” Shane said eventually, helping Nora back upright. “One knee first. Push through your stronger leg.”

“Like tiny old man getting off floor,” Ilya added helpfully.

“That is not what I said.”

“It is exactly what you said.”

Michael had to grab the boards because he was laughing too hard.

Once everyone managed standing consistently, Shane tried again.

“Alright. Skating forward. Full extension through the stride. You want controlled pushes initiating through your inside edges.”

James looked alarmed. Ilya skated slowly in front of them.

“See,” he said simply. “You push ice behind you like angry penguin.”

“Oh,” James said immediately.

Shane looked betrayed. “That somehow made sense to you?”

“Yes.”

“Your teaching style is terrible,” Ilya informed Shane.

“I play professional hockey.”

“Yes. Terrible.”

Grant started laughing hard enough to choke on his coffee. The lesson dissolved steadily into chaos after that.

James attached himself shamelessly to Ilya’s sleeve while skating. Nora demanded increasingly impossible demonstrations from Shane. Michael kept asking Shane increasingly deranged questions about playoff superstitions while also very obviously trying not to look too excited about standing beside an NHL player.

Meanwhile Shane could barely focus on any of it because Ilya on skates had apparently become a serious personal problem.

The knee had changed things, obviously. Shane could see the caution during certain turns. The slight hesitation before pivoting.

But underneath that, grace. Years of movement still living permanently inside his body.

At one point Ilya pushed harder across the rink while racing James toward the boards and Shane felt immediate visceral desire slam into him so hard he missed whatever Michael had just asked him.

“You okay there?” Grant asked dryly beside him.

Shane did not look away from Ilya.

“Nope.”

Grant followed his gaze. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah, fair.”

And Jesus Christ.

Watching Ilya laugh on the ice nearly hurt.

Because hockey had always meant pressure to Shane. Survival-through-excellence. And now here was Ilya. Laughing with wobbling children on little skates beneath fluorescent lights.

Like hockey belonged to joy too.

A little later, James froze halfway across the rink, lower lip wobbling dangerously after falling twice.

“I can’t do it,” he muttered.

Shane started instinctively toward him.

“Your weight’s too far back,” he began automatically. “If you engage your core more and shift your center of gravity forward, correcting your balance gets easier.”

James looked moments from tears. Ilya skated over gently.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

James sniffed.

“You do not have to be good immediately.”

The little boy looked down at his skates.

“You just have to be brave enough to look silly for a while. Then you learn.”

Silence settled briefly after that. Even Shane felt it.

James nodded slowly. “Okay.”

Ilya tapped lightly at his knees.

“Also you are staring at your feet.”

James blinked.

“If you stare at feet, body follows feet,” Ilya explained. “Then everybody crashes together like shopping carts.”

That finally pulled a laugh out of him.

“Now,” Ilya continued. “Strong stomach.”

“That’s literally core engagement,” Shane muttered.

“It sounds nicer my way.”

And somehow it really did.

Shane watched him help James push forward again slowly, patient and endlessly calm, and he felt something cave open inside himself.

Because this wasn’t just Ilya surviving hockey anymore. He was reshaping it. Making space inside it for patience, for failure without punishment. For joy.

By the time they finally stumbled off the ice nearly two hours later, Nora’s cheeks had gone bright red from cold and James had developed aggressive hero worship.

Mostly toward Shane, but increasingly toward Ilya too.

Grant disappeared briefly toward the lobby while Michael removed what felt like hundreds of child accessories.

Then Shane made the mistake of sitting down. Immediately both children descended on him like starving wolves.

“Can you sign my stick?”

“My helmet too!”

“My glove!”

“Not the glove,” Michael said immediately. “You still need the glove.”

Shane laughed helplessly while taking the marker Grant handed him.

“You all know I’m just some guy, right?”

“No,” James said honestly. 

By the time Shane finished signing the stick, helmet, notebook, and somehow one tiny pink skate guard, James had drifted uncertainly toward Ilya.

“Can you sign too?” he blurted suddenly.

Ilya blinked. “What?”

“The helmet,” James clarified nervously. “If you want.”

For one second, Shane watched genuine surprise move across Ilya’s face.

“Why me?” he asked quietly.

James looked confused by the question.

“Because you’re Shane’s person,” he said simply. “And you’re really good at hockey.”

Shane felt something in him fall apart. 

Ilya took the marker slowly. His signature looked careful beside Shane’s on the helmet.

Smaller, but still there.

Shane checked the Jeep one more time even though everything had already been checked at least twice. His suitcase sat in the back beside Ilya’s. Beside those were what appeared to be approximately twelve separate bags for Louise.

Extra blankets. Extra food. A tiny raincoat Ilya had ordered after hearing the word “lake.” The ridiculous hockey puck toy Ilya remained convinced Louise would eventually play with despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Bottles of water. Sunscreen. Bug spray. Ilya’s crutches, just in case. Shane had also packed every piece of physio equipment Grant had ever handed them, just in case something went wrong during the two weeks they planned to stay at his parents’ summer cottage on the lake outside Ottawa.

He was so excited he could barely stand it.

He had spent every summer of his childhood there. Swimming until his lips turned blue. Skipping stones with his dad. Sitting on the dock listening to birds he still knew how to identify by sound alone.

Loons. He remembered hearing them for the first time as a kid. The cries had terrified him against all that dark water and empty night.

His dad had laughed softly and pointed out toward the lake. They’re just finding each other.

The cottage had always felt separate from the rest of Shane’s life somehow. Like time slowed down there long enough for everyone to remember themselves and get to know each other again.

And now he was bringing Ilya into it.

Three days earlier, Shane had dragged him shopping under the excuse that he “desperately needed summer clothes.”

This had only been partially true. Ilya had seen through him almost immediately while Shane casually started handing over linen shirts and soft cotton pants in sizes that did not belong to him.

“You are subtle like brick through window,” Ilya had informed him. Still, he’d tried things on without much complaint.

It was a strange balance between them sometimes. Ilya expected nothing, and Shane had learned quickly that pushing too hard made him retreat. But quiet offerings Ilya accepted more easily.

Louise, meanwhile, had been freshly brushed into smooth shining perfection for the trip. Ilya had changed her into a lightweight harness patterned with tiny sailboats.

Shane stared at it for several long seconds. “You bought nautical dog clothing.”

“She is summer girl now.”

Ilya kissed her three times on the head before settling her carefully into the travel crate and promising they would stop for a walk soon.

The drive itself stretched and the city disappeared behind them. Shane talked through most of it.

About summers at the lake. About waking up to cold water and fog sitting low over the shoreline. About his father teaching him bird calls. About bonfires and thunderstorms and quiet mornings on the dock before anyone else woke up.

His hand stayed on Ilya’s thigh most of the drive, fingers tangled together loosely between them. When they finally turned down the winding gravel road toward the cottage, Shane felt his entire chest loosen.

The blue house sat exactly where it always had overlooking the lake, late afternoon sunlight catching against the windows. His mother was already outside before the Jeep fully stopped.

“You’re here!” Yuna yelled, hurrying down the driveway.

Shane barely got the door open before she wrapped him into a hug. David followed slower behind her, smiling in that quieter way he always had.

Meanwhile, Ilya had already been absorbed directly into Yuna’s orbit.

“How is your knee?” she demanded immediately while hugging him hard enough to nearly lift him off the ground.

“It survives,” Ilya assured her solemnly.

David peered toward the backseat. “Where’s my granddog?”

Ilya pulled Louise’s crate free and opened it carefully onto the lawn. Louise stepped out, sniffed the air once, spotted a goose halfway across the yard, and immediately lost her mind.

The goose, unimpressed by her emotional state, hissed directly back at her.

David tossed a tennis ball across the yard for her. Louise watched it bounce through the grass. Then she looked back at him with complete disinterest.

She barked once at the mailbox, once at the goose, sniffed David’s shoe suspiciously, then trotted into the cottage like she personally owned waterfront property.

David watched her disappear inside.

“I think she owns the place.”

Later that afternoon, it did become clear that Louise had developed immediate violent opinions regarding waterfowl.

Geese especially. Unfortunately, the geese did not care.

One particularly humiliating chase attempt ended with Louise tangled in shoreline reeds after an angry goose chased her, Ilya moving so fast to rescue her he nearly fell off the dock.

After that, Louise redirected her energy toward rolling and perfuming herself in goose shit instead.

Yuna nearly cried laughing while Ilya carried her squirming little body toward the outdoor hose like a criminal being transported to prison.

They settled into the rhythm of the cottage quickly.

Mornings stretched slow and quiet. Afternoons dissolved into swimming, card games, and lounging in the sun while cicadas buzzed lazily through the trees.

Yuna took Yahtzee with horrifying seriousness. Ilya discovered this approximately ten minutes into the first game.

“No mercy,” she informed him while shaking the dice cup aggressively.

“You already have full house twice,” Ilya pointed out.

“That is because I am blessed.”

Three rounds later, Ilya rolled a second Yahtzee. Yuna accused him loudly of cheating while Shane nearly choked laughing beside them.

Most evenings, Ilya drifted outside beside David while dinner cooked. At first Shane assumed they were talking. Mostly they just stood side-by-side at the grill quietly drinking beer while David explained increasingly serious opinions about charcoal temperatures.

Ilya listened with complete sincerity. By the fourth night, Shane found them both staring critically at burgers.

“This one needs another minute,” David announced.

“I agree,” Ilya said. Shane had never seen his father look so pleased.

At night, the four of them sat out on the porch while the lake darkened slowly around them. And every night, Shane watched Ilya soften a little more. The constant alertness easing.

He looked peaceful here in ways Shane had never fully seen before.

At night they slept tangled together in the tiny full-size bed Shane had used since he was a child, bodies crowded close beneath old lightweight summer blankets.

Shane had originally decided this trip would involve absolutely no sex whatsoever because he refused to traumatize himself permanently by having sex in his parents’ house.

This resolution lasted approximately ten minutes into the first night. Mostly because Ilya had immediately turned it into a challenge about who could stay quieter.

It was deeply unfair.

Ilya was relentless. Slow on purpose. Patient in the exact way Shane never survived well. Every muffled breath felt amplified by the possibility of being overheard, every involuntary sound dragged carefully out of him until Shane ended up folded into him, biting hard into Ilya’s shoulder to keep from making noise.

Which only made Ilya laugh quietly against his skin.

“Cruel,” Shane whispered afterward, wrecked and breathless beneath him.

“Da,” Ilya agreed easily. “Very.”

Every morning Shane washed the sheets, hoping his mother didn’t know what was happening.

She absolutely knew.

There was one more thing he had not figured out how to tell Ilya yet. His parents already knew. They had known for a year but he had sworn them to secrecy.

Which was how he found himself driving around the lake alone with Ilya a week later while Louise remained behind at the cottage being overfed pieces of hotdog by David.

Shane parked beside the gravel shoulder and killed the engine.

Ilya looked over immediately. “What are you doing?”

“You’ll see.”

Suspicion narrowed his eyes, but he followed Shane out anyway.

They crossed the road together and headed downhill through the trees, Shane automatically keeping himself on Ilya’s right side while the woods opened slowly around them. The lake flashed through the trees ahead.

Wind moved softly through the leaves overhead. Bird sounds drifted through the trees, and Shane found himself identifying them automatically as they walked.

“That’s a white-throated sparrow.”

Ilya glanced over.

“You really know birds.”

“It’s my dad’s fault.”

The shoreline finally opened fully in front of them, lakefront curving along the water.

Ilya slowed immediately. Shane watched him take it in.

“What do you think?” Shane asked carefully.

Ilya looked around slowly.

“It’s beautiful.”

Shane’s pulse started hammering hard enough he could feel it in his throat.

“I bought this land last year,” he admitted quietly.

Ilya turned toward him immediately. “You bought this?”

Shane nodded.

“I wanted something here eventually,” he said. “Not huge. Just…” He let out a nervous breath. “Something of my own to come back to in the summers.”

Ilya stayed motionless beside him.

The breeze moved through the trees while Shane pointed vaguely toward the rise overlooking the water.

“I thought maybe the cottage could go there.”

He hesitated. God, his heart was pounding.

“And maybe…” Shane rubbed once at the back of his neck. “Somewhere over there…”

He stopped again, suddenly feeling stupid for even saying it out loud.

“I thought maybe there could be something here for your mom too.”

Ilya went completely still. Frozen like something had hit him directly in the chest.

Heat climbed into Shane’s face.

“Not in a weird way,” he rushed out quickly. “I just mean…” He laughed once under his breath, nervously. “You don’t really have somewhere to go visit her.”

There was silence other than the lake moving quietly below them.

“I thought maybe a bench,” Shane continued more softly. “Or one of those little stone garden paths. Just…” His eyes dropped briefly toward the shoreline. “Someplace that belongs to her too.”

Ilya barely looked like he was breathing. Then Shane watched emotion hit him so hard it almost looked physical.

His mouth parted slightly like words tried to come first. Nothing came out. His eyes turned toward the water instead, blinking, jaw tight enough Shane could see the muscle shifting beneath the skin.

One hand came up suddenly to grip the back of Shane’s shirt, holding there, like he needed something to hold on to for a second.

And God, that almost undid Shane completely. Before he could lose his nerve, he forced himself to keep going.

“I was hoping maybe you’d help me figure out what all this should look like.”

Ilya looked back at him slowly. “You want me to help plan it?”

“I want this to be ours.”

The words hung there between them. Shane exhaled shakily.

“This place has always been important to me,” he said. “And now when I picture it, I don’t just see myself here anymore.”

His eyes lifted carefully toward Ilya.

“I see you too.”

Ilya swallowed hard.

“You don’t have to even think about it right now,” Shane rushed on immediately. “I needed you to know that when I think about the future now, it’s you in it.”

For one moment, Ilya just stared at him.

Then suddenly Shane was being pulled forward hard enough to stumble slightly against him. Ilya buried his face against his shoulder.

Shane felt a sharp breath catch hard against his chest.

God.

His arms wrapped around him instantly.

“I love you,” Shane said quietly into his hair. “I suck at saying things right, but I know that part.”

Ilya leaned back just enough to look at him. His eyes had gone bright. And then softly, voice wrecked with emotion,

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” he said.

Shane felt something cave in his chest. Ilya kissed him immediately, fingers sliding into Shane’s hair while Shane pulled him closer beneath the trees.

Against his mouth, quieter now, “I love you too.”

Shane closed his eyes hard. He had not realized until that moment how terrified part of him had still been. They stayed like that for a long time while sunlight shifted slowly through the branches overhead.

Eventually Shane went back to the Jeep for the cooler and blanket Yuna had packed for them.

They spread everything out near the shoreline and ate sandwiches beside the water while talking lazily about where rooms might go.

“This could be the bedroom,” Shane said eventually, motioning toward the rise overlooking the lake.

Ilya looked out toward the water for a long moment.

“Dangerous view,” he murmured.

“Why?”

“We would never leave bed.”

Jesus Christ.

Shane barely remembered pulling him close before they were kissing again. Bug spray lingered faintly against Ilya’s skin. Somewhere overhead, branches shifted softly in the breeze while Shane laughed quietly against his mouth after nearly elbowing himself directly off the blanket.

“Professional athlete,” Ilya murmured.

“Shut up.”

The sunlight drifted slowly across their skin while they tangled together lazily beneath the trees, kissing until Shane lost all sense of time entirely.

He reached for Ilya almost blindly, hands finding his waist and pulling him down against him across the blanket. Ilya settled over him slowly, both of them laughing quietly for a second when the uneven ground shifted beneath them again.

And then Ilya moved against him once, slow and intentional, and Shane let out a helpless sound, one he had been holding back during all their quiet nights together.

Their clothes disappeared in pieces after that, distracted and tangled together between kisses. At one point Shane caught sight of small foil packets dropping out of Ilya’s pocket onto the blanket.

He stared.

“You brought travel lube and condoms to a romantic property reveal?”

“I did not know was romantic property reveal. Was prepared.”

Shane laughed hard enough he had to bury his face briefly against Ilya’s shoulder.

God, he loved him.

The laughter dissolved quickly once Ilya kissed him again. Shane melted beneath him by degrees every single time they touched. No walls around either of them anymore. Just heat and summer air and Ilya’s attention fixed entirely on him.

The first touch lower made Shane’s breath catch hard. Ilya knew exactly how to move him apart slowly until Shane stopped thinking entirely and just felt, Ilya slipping fingers into him, opening him.

Shane’s head tipped back into the blanket while Ilya kissed along his throat between quiet praise in Russian that Shane didn’t understood but felt all the way down his spine anyway.

And without the walls around them, without needing to stay quiet for anyone, every sound Shane made escaped freely now. Ilya seemed wrecked by that too.

Their bodies slid together slowly against the blanket, heat building between them until Shane was already trembling before Ilya finally pressed his cock in fully.

The stretch of it pulled a rough sound straight out of Shane’s chest. It was too much and perfect at the same time.

His entire body arched upward while Ilya held him there through it, steady and devastatingly focused.

“There,” Ilya murmured softly against his mouth. “Good.”

Shane could barely breathe. The feeling of him was overwhelming like this. Not just physical. Wanting someone enough to let them see every helpless part of you and realizing they handled it carefully instead of using it against you.

Shane’s wrists were guided gently into the blanket above his head. Held there. The reaction moved through him instantly. His pulse jumped hard beneath Ilya’s grip while pleasure rolled hot and dizzying through him at the simple weight of being held like that. Wanted enough to be completely undone.

Shane pulled instinctively against his grip while Ilya fucked him, earning a sharper inhale from Ilya that nearly finished him immediately.

“Jesus Christ,” Shane gasped. Ilya kissed him harder.

The movement between them lost rhythm after that, dissolving into something rougher and more desperate while Shane clung helplessly to every sensation until there was nothing left in the world except Ilya.

And when they finally shattered apart together beneath the trees, Shane felt Ilya tighten hard around his wrists like he couldn’t bear to let go yet either.

Afterward, Shane stayed there breathing hard beneath him, completely boneless while Ilya collapsed slowly against his chest. Their skin stuck warm together in the cooling air. 

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

Eventually Ilya rolled reluctantly onto his side beside him, and they lay shoulder-to-shoulder on the blanket while the lake moved quietly below them and the sky slowly deepened toward evening.

Then a loud cry hit sharply across the water.

Ilya startled upright immediately. Shane laughed softly and caught, pulling him back down against his shoulder.

“It’s a loon,” he murmured.

The sound echoed hauntingly across the lake again. Ilya listened for another moment.

“It sounds horrifying,” he said. Shane smiled into his hair.

“My dad used to tell me they do that to find each other.”

Ilya looked over at him.

“One calls out,” Shane said quietly, eyes drifting toward the water. “And another answers back so they know where the other one is.”

The lake rippled beneath the sun.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Shane turned his head toward him.

Ilya’s gaze stayed fixed out across the lake, distant in that way it sometimes became. His fingers tightened slightly around Shane’s hand over the blanket.

Far across the lake, another loon cried out into the evening. A second call answered softly somewhere deeper across the water.

Shane squeezed his hand once.

After a moment, Ilya answered back.

Meet Sasha Louise, my little stray who made her way into the heart of this story while I was writing it. She shares a profound dislike of enrichment activities and a deep commitment to harassing waterfowl.