Chapter Text
Vienna airport was too clean for waiting badly.
Terminal 3 was all glass, polished floor, green CAT signs, red ÖBB ticket machines, and passengers moving calmly toward baggage claim, taxis, trains. Outside the wide windows, the sky sat pale over the runways. Overhead, the signs kept promising Wien Mitte in sixteen minutes, as if the city were easy to reach just because the train was.
Shane stood near the arrivals board with his suitcase beside him and his phone in his hand, watching German words rearrange themselves into information he did not want. Delayed. Still delayed. Moscow to Vienna, no new arrival time that meant anything useful.
He was supposed to meet Ilya here.
This trip had taken Shane two months to plan and three weeks to pretend he was being normal about. It was for Ilya’s eighteenth birthday, because Shane had turned eighteen in May and Ilya would turn eighteen in June, and somehow that made the trip feel possible in a way it had not before. It was also before the draft. Before teams, cities, reporters, scouts, agents who were not supposed to be agents yet, and everyone else started making official stories out of them.
They had discussed locations carefully.
Paris was too obvious. Venice too romantic in a way neither of them could survive saying out loud. Florence sounded too much like something Yuna Hollander would approve of. Barcelona was too far west for Ilya to justify easily. Prague was out because Ilya had just been there, and the way he said it was beautiful made Shane think he was keeping something about it to himself.
So Vienna.
Formal, close enough, beautiful without requiring either of them to admit they had chosen beauty on purpose.
And after Vienna, the small German towns along the Rhine that Shane had always wanted to see and had mentioned once in an email as if it were nothing.
Ilya had replied, We go there then.
Like that was simple.
That was what Shane had pictured on the flight over, though he would have denied picturing it if anyone had asked. Ilya coming through the arrivals doors with his bag over one shoulder, hair pushed back badly from travel, already annoyed about something. Shane would be waiting. Ilya would see him.
For one second, before they had to move or speak or remember the draft waiting at the end of the month, Vienna would give them that.
Instead, his phone rang.
“Moscow hates me,” Ilya said.
Shane closed his eyes for half a second. “Still delayed?”
“Yes. Plane is here. I am here. Nobody is useful.”
“How long?”
“They say two hours. Maybe forever.”
“I’ll wait.”
“No. Go to hotel.”
“I can wait.”
“I know.” Ilya’s voice softened. “Do not.”
“I was supposed to meet you here,” Shane said helplessly.
For a second, the line only carried airport noise.
“I know,” Ilya said. Then, quieter, “I wanted that too.”
That was worse than if he had joked.
Shane looked down at his suitcase handle. “I’ll check in. Leave your name for the key.”
“Yes. Good.”
“You’ll call when you land?”
“Yes.”
“Go,” Ilya said. “Rest.”
“I’m not that tired.”
“Liar. You traveled fifteen hours.”
“You can’t see me.”
“I know you.”
Shane smiled before he could stop it.
Then Ilya said, quieter, “When I land, I come to you.”
Calgary had started that way too.
Ilya crossing the room first. Ilya looking like he hadn’t meant to and doing it anyway. Ilya coming close enough that Shane had to stay or step back.
Shane looked once more at the arrivals doors.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go.”
“Good.”
The call ended.
For another second, Shane stayed where he was. The doors kept opening for everyone else. A businessman with a garment bag. A woman in a red scarf fixing a child’s hat. Two backpackers laughing under the Ausgang sign. No messy brown curls pushed back from travel. No smirking smile before Ilya had even said hello. No Ilya.
Then Shane picked up his suitcase and followed the green CAT signs toward Wien Mitte.
The train barely jolted. Smooth, efficient, unbearable. Shane sat by the window with his suitcase braced against his knee and watched the airport give way to tracks, warehouses, sound walls, flat fields, then apartment blocks and station platforms. Signs flashed past in German. People got on and off without looking at the arrivals board, without needing anything to happen.
By the time he reached the hotel, evening had started collecting in the city. The taxi turned off a wider street into one narrow enough that it had to pause for a man crossing with a delivery cart. The buildings stood close together, pale stone, tall windows, iron balconies, all of it too old and composed for Shane to know how to look at casually.
The hotel doors had brass handles worn dull where hands had touched them for years. Inside, the lobby was small and polished, with dark wood around the desk, a patterned carpet that made his suitcase wheels go quiet, and a vase of white flowers arranged so precisely it looked less like decoration than instruction.
The woman at the front desk smiled when he gave his name.
“Mr. Hollander. Yes. Your room is ready.”
“Thank you.”
“I see two guests on the reservation,” the woman at the desk said.
“Yes. Two.” Too quickly.
He heard it after he said it and looked down at the pen beside the card reader.
“The other guest is arriving later. His flight was delayed.”
“Of course. Would you like us to hold a second key for him?”
“Yes, please.”
“And the name?”
Shane picked up the pen. It was only a name. That did not help.
He wrote Ilya Rozanov letter by letter, as if bad handwriting could make it any less real.
There was no reason for that to feel difficult. He had seen the name on rosters, packets, tournament sheets, video files, and emails. He had written it before. Still, standing in a Vienna hotel lobby with the second key waiting beside his passport, it felt different.
The woman glanced down. “Thank you. We will keep this at the desk for him.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“And welcome to Vienna.”
“Thanks.”
In the elevator, he looked at the closed doors and waited for his face to stop feeling hot.
The room made him stop just inside the door.
It was nicer than he had expected, though he had chosen it himself and had the confirmation to prove it. High ceiling. Dark parquet floor. Tall windows with heavy cream curtains pulled half open to the street below. A brass lamp on the writing desk, two upholstered chairs near a small round table, and a bed made with white sheets so sharply tucked it looked almost formal. There was a narrow mirror in a gilt frame by the wardrobe and a vase with three pale flowers on the desk.
It felt like Vienna. Controlled. Beautiful. A little too much.
Shane stood there with his suitcase handle in his grip and thought Ilya would look good in this room.
Then he hated himself for thinking it so clearly.
He set his suitcase near the wardrobe and unpacked only enough to look less temporary. Shirts into one drawer. Toiletries into the bathroom. Chargers by the desk. He left space for Ilya, then looked at the empty half of the wardrobe and realized how obvious that was.
Fine.
The folder came out after he had unpacked.
Shane set it on the writing desk under the brass lamp and opened it because checking the plan was better than standing in the middle of the room waiting for the phone to ring. Printed confirmations. Train time tables. Reservation numbers. A folded map. The spreadsheets.
It looked worse in Vienna than it had in Ottawa. Too earnest. Too exact. Too much evidence.
He shut the folder and set it square with the edge of the desk. Then he opened it again, checked one reservation number for no reason, and shut it harder.
The gifts were still in his suitcase. He checked them once, only to make sure they had survived the flight. Plain paper. No ribbon. Hidden under a sweater. He touched the edge of one wrapped package, smiled despite the nerves sitting high in his chest, and put everything back before he could start rearranging it.
Ilya would be here soon.
Or not soon. Eventually.
Shane showered because standing in the room doing nothing was starting to feel insane.
The bathroom had warm stone floors, brass fixtures, a glass shower door heavy enough to shut with a soft click, and towels folded into a neat white stack beside the sink. It was quiet in the way expensive rooms were quiet, built to make privacy feel deliberate. He stayed under the hot water long enough for the mirror to fog at the edges, then dried off and dressed in a clean T-shirt and sweatpants.
He opened his book, failed to read the first paragraph, and put on his glasses anyway. That made him feel more himself and somehow less prepared.
An hour later, Ilya called from Vienna airport.
“I landed.”
Shane sat up too fast. “Okay.”
“I am waiting for bag.”
“Okay.”
“I will be there soon.”
The line went quiet for half a second. Shane could hear airport noise behind him, a voice over the speakers, the scrape of wheels somewhere near Ilya.
“Okay,” Shane said again.
“Rest,” Ilya said.
“I am.”
“You sound awake.”
“You called me.”
“Yes,” Ilya said. “Probably a bad strategy.”
Shane smiled.
When the call ended, he sat against the pillows with a paperback open in his lap and tried to read. He read the same paragraph three times, then looked at the desk, the folder, the curtains, the door. Every sound in the corridor pulled his attention up. Every time it was not Ilya.
The streetlights came on outside. The lamp on the desk turned the folder’s blue plastic into something softer than it deserved.
He took his glasses off once, rubbed his eyes, and put them back on.
He would hear the door.
He was sure he would.
At some point the book slid lower. His hand stayed on the page, holding a place he had stopped reading. Jet lag came for him slowly at first, then all at once.
By the time Ilya reached the fourth floor, he was running on irritation and the kind of exhaustion that made every light too bright.
The woman at the front desk had made him confirm his name twice. He had done it because Shane had left him a key, and because the paper sleeve really did have his name written across it in careful handwriting.
That was the first thing that got him.
The fact that Shane had stood there in this hotel, tired and probably too serious, and made sure Ilya could arrive late without having to solve anything.
Ilya let himself into the room quietly.
At first he saw only the shape of it. The tall windows. The curtains. The soft lamp left on at the desk. Shane’s suitcase near the wardrobe. The folder placed neatly under the light.
Then he saw Shane.
Asleep.
Ilya stopped with his bag still in his hand.
Shane was half propped against the pillows, glasses still on, paperback open. His fingers rested on the page like he had tried to keep reading until the last possible second. His hair had fallen messily over his forehead. One foot had slipped out from under the blanket. His mouth was relaxed in sleep, softer than Ilya ever got to see when Shane was awake and bracing himself against the world.
The glasses were unfair.
During the day, Shane’s face had too much discipline in it. Even happy, even shy, even wanting, he held himself like someone who had learned early that people were always watching. Asleep like this, with his glasses crooked and his book still open, he looked younger. Unguarded.
Still Shane.
Ilya put his bag down without a sound.
For a moment he considered waking him. Shane shifted slightly in his sleep, just a turn of his shoulder, and Ilya decided he could wait.
He moved through the room quietly. Shoes off. Bag by the wardrobe. Jacket over the chair. He glanced once at the folder on the desk but left it alone. Shane had set it too neatly. Ilya could be terrible later, when Shane was awake enough to defend himself.
He went to shower.
He kept it quick. Hot water, hotel soap, hair washed badly because patience had left him somewhere over Austria. When he came out, steam followed him into the bedroom, and Shane had shifted onto his side.
Ilya stopped again.
Shane’s eyes opened halfway.
For a second he looked lost, caught between sleep and the room. Then his gaze found Ilya standing there in clean sweatpants, damp hair falling forward, towel in one hand, no shirt.
Shane blinked once. Then he was awake.
“You’re here.”
“Yes. I am here.”
Shane pushed himself up on one elbow. The book slid toward his hip. He reached for his glasses, remembered they were already on, and adjusted them badly.
Ilya sat on the edge of the bed, close enough for the mattress to shift. Shane did not move back.
Ilya lifted his hand and straightened the glasses for him. His fingers touched the frame, then the side of Shane’s face, lightly.
Shane went quiet under it.
“You didn’t wake me,” Shane said.
“You were sleeping.”
“I was waiting.”
“I know.”
Shane’s hand came out from under the blanket. He did not reach far.
Ilya looked at it, then took it.
Their fingers fit badly at first, because Shane was still half under the blanket and Ilya was sitting at the edge of the bed with a towel in one hand. They fixed it without saying anything.
A tram bell sounded faintly below the window. The room stayed still
Ilya leaned in before either of them could make the moment any safer.
The kiss did not start cleanly. Shane’s glasses got in the way almost immediately, pressing against Ilya’s cheek. Shane made a sound, half laugh and half embarrassment.
Ilya pulled back just enough.
“Problem.”
“My glasses?”
“Yes.”
“You fixed them.”
“I made mistake.”
Shane laughed, soft and almost breathless. Ilya kissed the sound before it got away from him.
This time Shane’s hand came up to the damp hair at the back of Ilya’s neck. His fingers slid in, then tightened when Ilya made a quiet sound against his mouth.
The kiss stayed soft until Shane’s other hand found Ilya’s bare side. After that, it wasn’t.
Ilya’s towel slipped onto the blanket. They let it go.
Ilya kissed him again, softer this time, then drew back enough to look at him.
“You fell asleep.”
“I waited.”
“You fell asleep waiting.”
Shane looked down at their hands. “I wanted to be awake when you got here.”
Ilya’s thumb moved once near his wrist. The amusement left him slowly.
“I know. I saw.”
Ilya kissed his cheek, close to the freckles there. Shane’s breath changed. The laugh went with it.
“You’re counting them,” Shane said.
“No.”
Shane looked at him.
Ilya’s mouth touched another freckle. “Maybe checking.”
“You have a look.”
“I don’t have a look.” Ilya’s mouth brushed the corner of his jaw. “I am being thorough.”
Shane’s hand tightened at the back of his neck.
Ilya moved back to his lips, and Shane met him properly this time, glasses still slightly in the way, both of them tired enough that the kiss kept turning clumsy at the edges. It made it sweeter, somehow, because neither of them could make it smooth.
Shane’s fingers slid into Ilya’s damp hair, and Ilya made a sound that he would absolutely deny later.
“Don’t,” Ilya said.
Shane did it again.
This time Ilya caught his lower lip between his teeth, careful and not careful enough, and Shane forgot whatever he had been about to say.
They broke apart breathing, noses touching, Shane’s glasses slightly crooked again between them.
Ilya looked at them and made a frustrated sound.
Shane laughed.
“Take them off,” Ilya said.
“You take them off.”
Ilya did. He folded them with too much concentration and set them on the nightstand.
When Ilya turned back, the teasing had thinned out of his face. Shane felt the shift and stopped smiling.
Ilya looked at him for a second too long. “I wanted this so much. It has been too long.”
Shane’s breath caught, but Ilya kept going before the sentence could get too large.
“In Regina,” he said. “After the final. If your parents had not come.”
Shane understood at once. The hotel. The room. The hours they had not gotten.
“We would have,” Shane said.
Ilya’s eyes stayed on his.
Shane held the certainty for another second. “Maybe not.”
Ilya frowned. “Why?”
“I lost. You won.” Shane looked down at their hands. “I might have been insufferable.”
“You are always difficult.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes. When you win, you say all the correct things and pretend you are humble. Very professional. Very boring.” Ilya’s mouth moved. “It is worse.”
Shane looked away, smiling despite himself.
Ilya caught his chin with two fingers and brought him back. “I would have come to you anyway.”
Shane’s smile faded.
“Final, no final,” Ilya said. “I play hard. Win, lose. I come to you.”
Shane looked at him for a moment.
Then he said, quietly, “I’ll come to you too.”
Ilya’s face changed.
Shane kept his eyes on him, shy now but not backing off. “Whenever I can.”
Ilya kissed him then, slower than before.
For a while that was all it was. Mouths, breath, Shane’s hand at the back of Ilya’s neck, Ilya’s fingers resting loose at his side. Then Ilya shifted closer, and Shane’s fingers slid once into his damp hair and stayed.
Ilya answered by kissing him deeper.
Shane let him. For a minute, maybe longer, the room tipped toward that old helplessness again. Ilya’s towel slipped farther across the blanket. Shane’s hand moved from the back of his neck to his bare shoulder and held there. Ilya made a sound, low and tired, and Shane pulled him closer before he could think.
Then he did think.
He felt it in the weight of Ilya against him, the slower way Ilya breathed through his nose, the heat of him from the shower and the fatigue under it. Ilya wanted him. Shane knew that. He wanted Ilya too badly to pretend otherwise. But Ilya had been stuck in airports all day, delayed in Moscow, dragged through Vienna half-awake, and now he was kissing Shane like wanting could outrun the rest of his body.
Shane turned his face just enough that Ilya’s mouth found his cheek instead.
Ilya stopped.
“What?”
Shane’s hand had not moved from Ilya’s shoulder. That made the answer harder.
“Maybe not further tonight.”
Ilya looked at him, breathing unevenly now. “Why?”
“Because you’re exhausted.”
“I am fine.”
“Your eyes are barely open.”
“I am fine enough.”
Shane’s thumb moved once under his eye.
Ilya’s mouth tightened, then eased. “Okay. Maybe not.”
“And,” Shane said, then stopped.
Ilya caught it at once. “And?”
Shane looked away, embarrassed now in a way that had nothing to do with wanting less. “You’re not eighteen yet.”
For one second, Ilya only looked at him, caught between disbelief and amusement. Then his eyes moved to the clock on the nightstand.
“In Moscow,” he said, very carefully, “I am eighteen.”
Shane almost laughed. “We’re not in Moscow.”
“No,” Ilya said. “You are being very strict about geography.”
Shane’s thumb moved once at the back of his neck. “I want Vienna to count.”
Ilya stayed quiet long enough that Shane looked back at him.
“I fly from Moscow. I wait forever. I arrive in Vienna. I find you sleeping with glasses.” His eyes moved once over Shane’s face. “I am very patient.”
Shane’s face warmed. “The glasses are not relevant.”
“They are to me.”
Shane laughed despite himself.
Ilya looked at him, still flushed, still too close, tiredness sitting plainly in his face now that he had stopped using kissing to hide it.
“You still want?” he asked.
Shane’s amusement faded.
“Yes,” he said. “Obviously.”
That steadied Ilya more than any teasing could have.
Shane touched the side of his face. “But you’re tired. And I have the full day planned for you tomorrow.”
Ilya’s eyes narrowed a little. “No.”
“No?”
“I am staying in this room all day with you.”
Shane’s mouth gave before he could stop it. “You can’t.”
Ilya made a low, displeased sound and dropped his forehead briefly to Shane’s shoulder.
“I can.”
“It’s your birthday trip.”
“It is my birthday. I choose room.”
Shane’s hand moved into his damp hair. “We can still stay in bed a little too long.”
Ilya lifted his head.
“And then I take you out,” Shane said. “I want to hold your hand and walk on the street like all the other tourists. Look at all the money people wasted building beautiful things.”
Ilya looked at him.
Shane did not mean churches or palaces. He meant daylight. Streets. No coaches. No team buses. No scouts pretending not to watch.
He meant walking beside Ilya as if it was allowed.
Ilya understood. Shane saw the exact moment he did.
At the end of June, hockey would take them apart and give them back to the world in uniforms, rankings, questions, and future rivalries other people were already preparing to sell. Neither of them hated that life. That was the difficult part. They wanted it. They had worked for it. They would keep working for it.
But here, in Vienna, they could be tourists.
Ilya’s hand settled over Shane’s wrist.
“You make it sound romantic,” he said.
“It is,” Shane said. Then, after a beat, “In my way.”
The complaint left Ilya’s face by degrees.
“You know I can’t say no to you,” he said.
Shane’s fingers slowed in his hair. For once, he did not look away.
“I know,” he said. “Am I too greedy?”
Ilya leaned in and kissed him again, slower this time.
“No,” he said. “I like this about you.”
The wanting didn’t go anywhere. It just sat differently, the long day in it, the delayed flight, the shower steam, and the fact that they had finally reached each other without stealing time from a tournament clock.
Shane’s fingers loosened in Ilya’s hair. It was still damp under his hand.
Ilya’s hand moved once at his side, not pulling, only holding.
“Sleep,” Shane said, voice low. “You’re barely awake.”
Ilya turned his head slightly. “No. I want to stay here. With you.”
“You are here.”
“I know.” Ilya’s eyes moved over his face, still not used to being allowed that much. “I mean awake.”
A quiet laugh almost reached him. “It’s your birthday trip. You don’t get to skip it.”
“It is not my birthday yet.”
“Close enough.”
That made Ilya’s mouth change.
Shane reached for the towel where it had fallen across the blanket. “Come here.”
Ilya looked at him. “Why?”
“Your hair is still wet.”
“It will dry.”
“Not on my pillow.”
Ilya looked like he wanted to argue, but he came closer anyway. Shane sat up enough to fold the towel over his hand and work it through Ilya’s hair, then slower when Ilya went quiet under it.
“You are doing this seriously,” Ilya said.
“I do most things seriously.”
“Yes.” Ilya’s voice had gone lower. “I noticed.”
Shane rubbed once more at the damp curls near the back of his neck, then let the towel fall aside. His hand stayed there a second longer than it needed to.
Ilya shifted closer until they were lying badly against the pillows, still half on top of the blankets. Shane should have fixed that. He did not.
“Shane,” Ilya said.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t believe we get to stay.”
Shane turned his head. His eyes were heavy, but still on him.
“I wanted this for so long,” Ilya said. His hand found Shane’s, fingers settling over his. “I feel calm.” A pause. “And nervous. Both.”
“Same,” Shane said.
The key was at the desk. The lamp was still on beside the bed. The door was closed. No flight to catch. No room check. No one coming before morning.
Ilya’s shoulders dropped. His hand went heavier over Shane’s. Even his breathing changed.
Shane leaned in and kissed him. Slow, nothing left to prove in it. His lips stayed a beat longer before he pulled back, hand moving into Ilya’s hair again, lighter now. Dry enough. Still warm from the towel.
Ilya’s eyes closed.
Shane’s fingers slowed. Rested. His thumb brushed once near Ilya’s temple.
Then he kissed Ilya’s forehead and reached back without looking, fingers finding the lamp switch.
The room went dark.
The curtains held the streetlight. Ilya’s arm settled across Shane’s side. Shane leaned into it.
That was all.