Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Jade Pike, Ruby Pike, Arthur Pike

Additional Tags:

Panic Attacks, Relationship Reveal, Post-Scene: Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts in Episode: s01e04 Rose, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Angst with a Happy Ending, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Secret Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Coming Out

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-05 Completed: 2026-07-08 Words: 21,340 Chapters: 5/5

One Day (It Had To Happen)

Summary

Yuna's breath caught. "What did you say, baby?"

"Please." Shane's forehead was still pressed to his knee. "Please, please, please—"

Hayden shifted closer. "Please what? Tell me what you need, Shane.”

Then, so faint that all three of them had to lean in just to catch it. "...I need him.”

Yuna's hand found David's. "Who, sweetheart? Who do you need?"

“Ilya."

 

Or: It's been a month since the tuna melts. Shane's been getting closer to breaking every day, until he finally does, in front of his parents and the Pikes. In the middle of the panic, he blurts out the only thing he needs: Ilya. So they call him.

Notes

Hi! I'm not a writer, just a Loon who had an idea for a fic, and since I couldn't find anything like it out there, I decided to write it myself. English isn't my first language, so please forgive any spelling mistakes or inconsistencies along the way.
I really hope you enjoy it! I do have a rough draft for a continuation, if people like this one, maybe I'll write it up and post it too. 💛

Thank you for being here and enjoy <3

Chapter 1: The Crack Before the Break

The final buzzer had gone almost twenty minutes ago, but Shane still couldn't stop replaying the game in his head. Every missed pass. Every lost puck. Every second he'd spent pretending not to notice that number eighty-one, those familiar dirty blonde curls, never once looked his way.

Not after warmups, not during the game. Not even when the teams lined up afterwards. Nothing.

It had been a month since Boston. A month since tuna melts and impossible promises and "Shane" and "Ilya." A month since Shane walked away because staying had hurt too much. He'd convinced himself that was the right thing to do, that putting distance between them once and for all would make things easier.

Instead, everything had gotten harder. Food tasted like cardboard more often than not. Sleep came in fragments, if it came at all, and every time it didn't, his brain filled the space with things he didn't ask for. The exact way Ilya said his name when he thought no one else could hear. The smell of tuna and bread that still made his stomach turn, even weeks later, even in his own kitchen. Twice now he'd caught himself doing the math on time zones, working out what hour it was in Boston and what Ilya was doing right now before he'd even realized what he was doing.

At least hockey still made some kind of sense. He just played like shit these days. Almost nothing else did, either.

He missed Ilya with a physical ache that had settled somewhere behind his ribs and refused to leave. Walking away had been the right thing to do. It had to be. One day it wouldn't hurt this much anymore. One day he'd stop reaching for his phone after every game, hoping without meaning to. One day he'd stop turning his head at a Russian accent during warmups, every flash of curly hair on the opposing bench. One day he wouldn't wake up already thinking about him. One day he'd stop loving him.

It had to happen eventually. Please make it happen eventually.

The locker room buzzed around him. Teammates showering, laughing, arguing over a missed penalty call. Someone turned a speaker on far too loud.

Shane flinched before he could stop himself. Just relax.

He dressed as fast as he could, tugged the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands, slung his bag over one shoulder.

"Ready?"

Hayden stood in the doorway, already changed, keys spinning lazily around one finger.

Shane nodded.

They walked through the arena together in comfortable silence. Hayden had never been one to fill every quiet moment with conversation, and Shane had always appreciated that about him. Tonight especially.

Outside, the cold evening air hit his face. It should have helped. It didn't.

Everything had been heightened since the day he'd walked out of Ilya's apartment in clothes that weren't his, and every day since, he'd felt a little closer to some kind of breaking point he couldn't name.

His jeans felt too tight around his knees. The seam inside his left sock had twisted somewhere during the walk outside and now rubbed against his ankle with every step. The arena lights behind them seemed absurdly bright against the darkness settling over the parking lot.

He wished everything would just... soften.

"You okay?" Hayden asked as they reached the truck.

"I'm fine." It came out automatic.

Hayden unlocked the truck. Shane caught his own reflection in the passenger window. Pale. Tired. Eyes ringed with shadows. He forced his shoulders down, tried a smile. It looked wrong even to him.

Hayden's hand rested on the driver's door but he didn't get in.

"You've been saying that a lot lately."

Shane stared at the asphalt.

"I'm just tired.” It wasn't exactly a lie.

Hayden studied him a second longer before letting it go.

_______

Mom had insisted on everyone coming over after the game, nothing fancy, just family dinner, since the Pikes happened to be in Ottawa at the same time as Shane and Hayden. Jackie and the kids had come along for the trip, and everyone was staying the night. He had almost said no to the whole thing. But saying no meant questions, and he honestly still didn't trust himself to sit across a table from his mother and pretend for two straight hours that he wasn't quietly falling apart.

Only he knew how difficult it has been not to turn into a sobby mess every time he’s heard her voice through the phone asking him if he’s ok.

But it would be easier, he told himself, to disappear into the noise of a full house than to be alone with his own head for one more night.

He climbed into the passenger seat.

Pulling his phone from his pocket to silence the notifications vibrating against his leg, his grip slipped.

It hit the concrete edge of the parking space with a sharp crack.

"...Shit."

He crouched immediately, picking it up. For one absurd, lurching second, his first thought wasn't the screen, it was what if he calls and it doesn't ring. What if, after a month of nothing, this was the night the phone finally lit up with that name, and it never got the chance.

The screen had splintered corner to corner. When he pressed the power button, nothing happened.

Hayden leaned over from the driver's side. "Damn, buddy, that doesn't look good."

Shane turned the phone over once in his hands. The jagged crack under his thumb made his stomach twist, and he hated how much of that twist had nothing to do with the phone itself.

"No."

"Want to stop somewhere tomorrow? Get it fixed?"

Shane slipped the dead phone into his pocket, the feel of the splintered glass making his skin crawl. Deep breaths.

"I'll deal with it."

Hayden looked like he wanted to argue. He didn't. He just nodded and started the engine.

The drive to their parents' house filled with the quiet hum of the heater and the local sports station picking apart the loss.

Shane watched the city pass by through the window. Every few minutes, without thinking, his hand drifted toward the useless weight in his pocket. He'd known, every single time, that there wouldn't be any messages waiting, phone shattered or not. His hand reached for it anyway.

He closed his eyes for the rest of the drive and tried to focus on the darkness.


_______



The familiar two-storey house was already glowing with warm light by the time Hayden pulled into the driveway. Every downstairs window was lit, shadows moving back and forth behind the kitchen curtains while laughter drifted faintly through the glass.

Shane kept his eyes closed for just another second and took a breath before opening the truck door.

Usually, coming home felt easy. Tonight, it felt exhausting before he'd even stepped inside. Hayden grabbed their bags from the back of the truck and waited for Shane to fall into step beside him, neither of them feeling the need to fill the silence.

Before they reached the porch, the front door swung open.

"There you are!" Yuna smiled, pulling Hayden into a quick hug before turning to Shane. Instead of hugging him, she absentmindedly straightened the front of his hoodie and rested a hand against his cheek, something she'd started doing years ago, after realizing he wasn't always comfortable with being held.

"Honey, you look exhausted."

"I'm okay."

She gave him a look that said she didn't quite believe him, but let it go.

"You boys played well."

"We lost."

"You still played well.” Shane didn't argue.

The warmth of the house hit him all at once, garlic, soy sauce, something sweet baking in the oven underneath it all. The television murmured from the living room. Pots clinked against the stove. Somewhere close by, a baby babbled contentedly, and small feet, two sets, pounded down the hallway toward them.

His shoulders tightened before he could stop them, and it took real effort not to reach up and cover his ears.

"Uncle Shane!"

Jade and Ruby arrived at a dead sprint, nearly identical and equally uninterested in stopping in time, and collided with his legs hard enough to nearly knock him off balance. Shane caught himself against the doorframe, smiling despite himself, one hand landing on each small head.

"We saw you on TV," Ruby announced, like it was breaking news. "You fell down."

"I did," Shane agreed.

"It was funny," Jade said.

"Thanks."

Jackie appeared behind them, Arthur balanced on her hip, gnawing thoughtfully on his own fist. "Girls, let him get in the door first." She smiled at Shane. “Sorry. They’ve been asking about you all afternoon.” She put a hand on Shane’s shoulder.

"It's okay."

David glanced up from the game on the TV just long enough to nod at him. "Hi, son. Tough one tonight."

“Yeah." If he just knew how fucking tough.

"You'll get them next time."

"Hopefully."

The conversation ended there, easily enough that nobody seemed to notice Shane hadn't offered anything more.

He drifted into the empty kitchen and let himself grip the edge of the cool marble counter for a second, just to have something solid under his hands. A moment to pull himself together.

"Came to help me?" Yuna asked from behind him.

Shane flinched. Small, but enough that he had to force his shoulders back down before he turned around, tilting his mouth into something like a smile. "What do you want me to do?"

She handed him a cutting board, a knife, and a few carrots.

He lined them up neatly, side by side, before he started slicing. He was glad for the task. The steady rhythm of it, the small repeated motion, settled something in his chest that nothing else had all night.

"You've gotten fast," Yuna said.

"I cook more now.” He hadn't cooked a proper meal in weeks.

"I like hearing that."

For a few minutes neither of them spoke, and it almost helped. The knife against the cutting board was the only sound in the kitchen, steady, and he found himself focusing on it, on the small clean thud every time the blade met wood, until even that started to feel too loud, too present, filling up more space in his head than it should.

Then Jade shrieked with laughter somewhere in the living room, sharp and sudden, and it was like the sound cut straight through him. The knife slipped against the carrot, the cut coming out crooked enough that Shane had to look away from it.

"You okay?" Yuna asked, gentler this time.

"I'm fine." Again. Lies. Lies. Lies.

He scraped the last of the carrots into the bowl faster than he needed to, set the knife down harder than he meant to, and was in the living room before he'd fully decided to leave the kitchen.

Dinner followed the same comfortable routine it always had. David carved the chicken while Jackie wrangled Arthur's highchair into place at the end of the table and Jade and Ruby argued quietly over whose turn it was to sit next to Shane. Hayden needled their dad about a bad referee call until Yuna rolled her eyes, assured him the referee knew what he was doing, and told everyone to sit down before the food got cold.

Conversation moved easily around the table. Hockey, school, road trips, Ruby's firm opinion that her class hamster was "probably a genius." At some point Hayden mentioned a team they were playing next month, and someone else asked if it was the one with that rink, the loud one, and someone else said no, that was Boston.

Shane's hand stilled around his fork for half a second. Nobody noticed. He picked a piece of chicken off his plate he had no intention of eating and moved it to the other side.

Boston. Of course it would come up. It always came up. Hockey was the one subject in this house that he couldn't avoid, and usually he was glad. But today, his brain went to Ilya so fast ate the mention of it embarrassed him.

Who is she kidding? His brain always went to Ilya.

A rink, a road trip, a stupid throwaway line, and suddenly he wasn't at his parents' table anymore, he was thinking about a penthouse kitchen and the particular way Ilya said his name when it was just the two of them and no one else could hear it.

He listened more than he spoke. Nobody questioned it. He answered only when someone spoke to him directly, lips tight, tried to smile in the right places, even though he knew his face was surely betraying him. Every sound in the room seemed to be competing for the same small space in his skull. The scrape of cutlery, the TV still going in the other room, the overhead light that felt about two shades too bright, Arthur's babbling rising and falling somewhere to his left.

His hoodie suddenly felt too warm against his neck. He reached for his water.

Arthur flung his spoon off the highchair tray with the sudden, gleeful violence only a baby can manage. It hit the hardwood with a sharp, clattering bang.

Everyone laughed.

Shane flinched hard enough that his glass jumped in his hand, water sloshing over the rim and across his fingers, and for one disorienting second the sound of the spoon and the sound of a very different kind of crack, glass on concrete, a phone screen splintering, his heart… Shane. Ilya. merged.

The sounds jumbled together in his head until he suddenly couldn't tell which one he was reacting to.

His hand wouldn't stop shaking. Not here, not now, please.

_____

Hayden frowned. The water had only spilled a little, but Shane was staring at it like he couldn't work out what had just happened, like the glass belonged to someone else's hand.

"Shane?" Hayden leaned in, close enough that only Shane would hear him.

Shane blinked. Swallowed. “Yeah?" His voice came out wrong, too flat, like it was traveling from somewhere further away than across the table. His chest had gone tight in a way that had nothing to do with the water. He could hear his own heartbeat now, loud, too fast, drowning out the table noise in slow, thick pulses. He put down the glass, or dropped it? with a loud thud.

Yuna looked up from the other end of the table, a worried frown on her face. "Sweetheart?"

He closed his eyes, head down. "'m okay. " The words came automatic, worn smooth from overuse. “Just need a minute.”. His breath was already climbing, shallow and quick, catching somewhere high in his chest instead of going all the way down.

David reached for the bowl of rice and passed it down the table like nothing had happened, figuring it would be best if they let Shane work it through on his own and give him space. For half a second, the ordinary motion seemed to almost steady things. Then the table went quiet in that particular way that meant everyone had noticed something and no one wanted to say so. That something being Shane's breathing picking up again.

Into that quiet, Jackie said the first thing that came to her mind, responding to the quiet pleas from everyone around her to just say something to distract him, something for him to focus on.

"So... how was Boston, anyway?"

Boston.

The word landed somewhere behind his sternum and everything after that happened too fast for him to follow. His grip tightened around his fork. His lungs stopped taking in air properly, quick little sips of it that didn't reach anywhere. The room tilted, sound going strange and tunnel-shaped, and he heard his own voice from somewhere far away, trying to answer, trying to say something, trying to make words come out in the right order.

"I didn't—I—" A breath, too fast. "—Ilya, he—“. He couldn’t breathe.

He didn't even know what he'd meant to say. The name just came out, dropped into the middle of a sentence that made no sense, and he watched, distantly, as it landed wrong on every face at the table. Shane. Ilya, I can’t do this, tuna melts, Boston. What have I done?

Jackie went still, knowing she said something wrong, but also confused. “...What?”

"Sorry, honey, what did you say? Shane, breathe” David glanced at Yuna.

Jackie started, voice dropping into a whisper without her seeming to notice, "did he say Ilya.. as in Ilya Rozanov?"

Yuna's eyes cut sharply to Hayden, her face full of worry and confusion, eyes wide. Hayden didn't even acknowledge her. He was watching Shane's chest rise and fall too fast, watching his knuckles go white around the fork.

"Hey, buddy." Hayden kept his voice level. "You're okay."

But Shane wasn't tracking any of it anymore. Too many faces. Too many voices, overlapping now, confused, asking each other things in hushed tones like he couldn't hear them, and somehow that was worse, being talked around instead of to. His throat had closed around anything else he might have said.

He pushed his chair back so hard it caught on the rug.

"I'm jus—“ I can’t breathe.

He didn't finish. He was already turning, already walking, out of the dining room before anyone had a chance to stand.

For a second, nobody moved.

"What just happened?" David asked quietly.

Hayden was already on his feet. "I got him.”

Chapter 2: I'm Coming

Chapter Summary

Yuna calls the only person who might help Shane while he is falling apart. The only person he asks for. Ilya doesn't need to be asked twice.

He found Shane less than thirty seconds later, curled on the floor beside the living room sofa, knees pulled tight to his chest, forehead pressed against them so hard Hayden wondered if it hurt.

"Shane."

Nothing.

Hayden crouched a few feet away rather than reach for him. "Hey."

Shane's breathing had gotten worse, not better, ragged and fast enough that Hayden felt his own chest tighten just listening to it. Behind him he heard footsteps, Yuna, David, Jackie. Arthur and the girls were still in the dining room. Jackie glanced back once, understood, and turned toward the stairs instead. "I'll take them up."

Yuna murmured a thank-you she probably didn't feel. Her eyes hadn't left Shane.

"Buddy." Still nothing. "It's okay. You're okay."

Shane couldn't have said what okay meant right now. His chest had turned into something too small for the air he needed, every breath in going nowhere, every breath out gone before it did any good. Somewhere underneath the panic a smaller, exhausted part of him was just waiting for it to be over, however that happened. His vision blurred.

"Can you look at me?"

He flinched. Small, involuntary, more reflex than response.

Yuna knelt beside them, her face pale. "Sweetheart... did something happen?"

Nothing.

"Did you get hurt tonight?"

Nothing.

David tried, gently. "Is this about hockey? Did Rozanov hurt you? That’s what you were trying to say?“

Nothing. Ilya, oh god, Ilya. I can’t deal with this anymore.

And then, slowly, something in him snapped and started to give out. The hyperventilating didn't stop all at once, it just began to lose its shape, the fast desperate pulls of air thinning into something quieter, and quieter, until Hayden realized with a cold drop in his stomach that Shane wasn't calming down. He was shutting down. Going somewhere Hayden couldn't follow him to.

"Shane?" Sharper now. "Hey, stay with me."

For one terrifying stretch of seconds, Shane didn't so much as twitch. Everything about him had gone still except for the slow, small rock of his body back and forth.

Then, so quiet it was barely a shape of sound at all. “Please.".

Yuna's breath caught. "What did you say, baby?"

"Please." A little louder, but only just. His forehead was still pressed to his knees, his voice muffled into the fabric of his own jeans. "Please, please, please—"

It kept going like that, small and steady and awful, a word worn down until it barely meant anything anymore, just something for him to hold onto while everything else came apart.

Hayden shifted closer, close enough now that his knee almost touched Shane's. "Please what? Tell me what you need, Shane.”

“Honey, we’ll give you what you need, just talk to us.” Yuna was desperate now.

The please stopped.

For a moment there was nothing at all, no sound, no movement, and Hayden's chest seized with the fear that he'd lost him completely. Then, so faint that all three of them had to lean in just to catch it —

"...I need him.”

Yuna's hand found David's without either of them looking away. "Who, sweetheart? Who do you need?"

Shane's lips moved before any sound came out. When it finally did, it was barely there at all, less then a breath.

“Ilya."

_______

Hayden stayed on the floor with him.

Shane hadn't moved since the whisper, still curled into himself, still rocking that same slow rhythm that seemed to be the only thing holding him together. His head was still tucked in between his knees, his body curled into a ball ridiculously tight for a 6’1’’, 200 lb hockey player. Hayden kept his hands to himself, after trying to put a reassuring hand on Shane’s back and being rewarded with a flinch and a pained sound, and didn't try to make him talk again.

Yuna gave herself a few seconds to process, she didn’t understand anything that jus happened but she knew her baby needs her. Hayden could see the wheels on her head turning, a similar expression he has seen on Shane so many times. Then she was quickly standing, her face set in the particular kind of calm she got when she'd decided to be useful instead of afraid. "Marie will have it," she said, mostly to herself, already reaching for her own phone. "She does the team's family liaison thing, she'll have every player's personal line on file for emergencies." She was dialing before David had finished nodding.

She stepped into the kitchen to make the call. Nobody asked her to explain what she was doing. Nobody needed to.



_______



Ilya was halfway through making coffee when his phone started vibrating on the kitchenette counter.

He barely glanced at the screen before reaching for the kettle again. Unknown number. Probably another reporter. Or someone trying to convince him to appear on yet another hockey podcast he had no intention of saying yes to.

The phone stopped ringing.

He poured the water into the French press and leaned both hands against the counter, staring absently out of the hotel window while he waited. Ottawa looked grey this time of year. Cold. Boring.

A month ago he would've complained about it to Shane.

A month ago Shane would've rolled his eyes and reminded him that Ottawa and Boston had almost the same weather. The memory made his chest ache. Stupid.

The phone started ringing again.

Same number. Ilya let it ring. If it was important, they'd leave a message.

He rubbed a hand over his face and chest instead, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the familiar heaviness that had settled somewhere beneath his ribs over the last month. Hockey was becoming harder. Sleeping was becoming harder. Existing without hearing Shane laugh at something stupid he'd said was, apparently, harder than he'd ever imagined. He still couldn't believe he'd been stupid enough to ask Shane to stay. They weren't supposed to ask for things like that. They weren't supposed to need each other. He'd broken every rule they'd ever had. Fuck.

The ringing stopped.

A second later, another vibration. This time it was a text.

Please answer. It's about Shane.

Everything inside him went still. Then cold, all at once, like the floor had dropped an inch beneath him. He was already calling back before he'd fully registered what he'd read.

The line connected almost immediately.

"Hello?" The woman's voice was unfamiliar.

"I got your message."

A shaky breath met him from the other end. "Is... is this Ilya Rozanov?"

His stomach dropped. "Yes."

"My name is Yuna Hollander.”

Ilya's grip on the counter tightened until his knuckles went white. He didn't answer. He couldn't. The room, already small, seemed to shrink another size around him.

"I know this must seem strange, but..."

"What happened?" The words came out much sharper than he'd intended. He couldn't think straight.

Another pause.

"It's Shane."

His grip tightened around the phone. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Please let him be okay, mama.

"What happened?"

"He's..." She hesitated, as though she wasn't sure how to explain it to a complete stranger. "He's having a really hard time, and..."

Another silence.

"He said your name. He was just mumbling please over and over again and somewhere along those lines he said your name. I don't—" Her voice wavered. "I don't fully understand what's happening. But I think he needs you."

For a moment, Ilya genuinely thought he'd misheard. "...What?"

"He needs you here. If you can come."

He closed his eyes. Already moving. ”Is he hurt?"

"No."

"Can he talk?"

"...Not really."

"Is he conscious?"

"Yes."

Another pause.

"He just asked for you. And now he just shut down.” Yuna said, her voice cracking ever so slightly on the last word.

Ilya had already put the phone on speaker and called for a driver before she'd finished the sentence.

"Send me the address.”

The phone buzzed.

“I just texted you.”

"I'm coming."

He was pulling his shoes on one-handed now, the phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear, his heart going so fast he could feel it in his throat.

"I'm coming," he said again, like saying it twice would make the car arrive faster.


______


Nobody moved for a long moment after Yuna ended the call. The only sound in the room was Shane's breathing. Or what was left of it.

He hadn't lifted his head again after whispering Ilya's name. His forehead rested against his knees, his fingers twisted tightly into the sleeves of his hoodie, knuckles almost white beneath the fabric.

Yuna lowered herself back onto the floor beside Hayden, still holding her phone in one hand.

"He's coming," she said quietly.

The words felt strange in the silence. David frowned. "I don't understand."

Neither did she. She looked at Shane, at the way he'd folded into himself so completely he almost looked smaller somehow.

"I've never seen him like this," she admitted.

Hayden hadn't taken his eyes off his friend. His brother. "I have."

Yuna looked at him sharply. "When?"

Hayden swallowed. "One time, in his rookie season. After he came back from Vegas for de MHL awards. We were sharing a hotel room. He just... froze, sitting on the edge of his bed. Wouldn't answer me for almost an hour."

Shane seemed to make a pained sound after the mention of Vegas, but it was so subtle Hayden asked himself if he’d imagined it. Silence settled over the room again.

Yuna nodded slowly. "I haven't seen him like this since he was twelve."

David stared at them both. "I don't remember it being this bad."

"It wasn't this bad at the hotel," Hayden said quietly.

Shane didn't react. Not to their voices, not to the movement around him. Not even when Yuna reached out and gently brushed a strand of dark hair away from his forehead.

Normally, he would've leaned away, flinched, anything. Today, nothing.

She pulled her hand back almost immediately. "I don't like this."

Hayden agreed. He'd stopped counting how long it had been since Shane had said anything. Twenty minutes. Maybe more. The silence coming from him scared Hayden far more than the panicked breathing ever had.

Minutes passed. Then more.

The doorbell rang. For one absurd second, they all simply stared at the front door.

Hayden was the first to stand. "I'll get it."

The man standing on the porch was still wearing dark suit pants and a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled hastily to his forearms beneath a Boston Raiders jacket that looked like he'd thrown it on without thinking. His curls were damp, like he'd run his hands through them a dozen times on the drive over.

Blue eyes met Hayden's immediately.

"Where is he?"

Chapter 3: I've Got You (The Truth, Simplest Part)

Chapter Summary

Ilya comes back to him. They talk. Everything else can wait.

Chapter Notes

Hayden stepped aside before he even realized he was doing it.

Ilya was already inside, his attention fixed somewhere beyond the hallway, barely registering the worried, shocked faces staring back at him. He shrugged the Boston jacket off his shoulders as he walked, letting it fall over the back of a chair without breaking stride. His hands were steady. He'd made sure of that in the car, made himself breathe through it, because whatever was waiting for him inside this house, Shane didn't need to see him fall apart too.

"How long has he been like this?” His eyes were frantically searching the room for Shane.

"About twenty minutes," Hayden answered, falling into step beside him.

"He talking?" Ilya's voice came out rougher than usual, his accent thicker than it had been in months, the way it always got when he was trying too hard to sound calm.

"He asked for you." Ilya's jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly, something complicated moving behind his eyes too fast to name.

"Before that."

"Not much."

"Breathing fast?"

"He was," Hayden said. "Not anymore."

A small nod. "Good." He kept walking, even as good felt like the wrong word for it. He knew better than most what the quiet after the panic could mean.

"What happened?"

Yuna exchanged a quick glance with Hayden. "We were having dinner," she said quietly. "Everything seemed... fine. Then Jackie asked about Boston."

He sucked in a breath. For the briefest moment, something flickered across Ilya's face. Regret. Pain. Guilt, maybe, sharp and familiar. He knew exactly what that word could do to Shane right now, because it was doing the same thing to him. He closed his eyes for half a second before he could stop it.

"Did he leave the table on his own?”

Hayden nodded. "Came straight in here."

Ilya stopped just outside the living room before quickly stepping inside.

Shane was exactly where Hayden had left him, curled tightly against the side of the sofa, forehead pressed to his knees, his whole body folded in on itself like he was trying to take up as little space in the world as possible. His chest rose so faintly that if Ilya hadn't spent seven years learning every version of this man, he might have missed it altogether. Oh, my Shane.

Something in his own chest cracked quietly at the sight of it. He didn't let it show.

He exhaled slowly and reached for the TV remote, turning it off without asking. The room went noticeably quieter.

"The lights?" He glanced around.

Yuna hesitated only a second before switching off the overhead light, leaving just the small lamp in the corner burning. Shadows settled softly over the walls, replacing the harsh brightness that had filled the room only moments before.

Nobody spoke.

Ilya crossed the room slowly, giving Shane every chance to hear him coming, and lowered himself carefully onto one knee a couple of feet away. He didn't reach for him. Not yet. He'd learned, a long time ago, that the worst thing he could do right now was rush.

"Hey, Shane." Barely more than a breath. I’m here, moya lyubov’.

Nothing. Shane's expression didn't change. "I know you can hear me.” Come on, give me something.

Still nothing. Behind him, Ilya could feel every pair of eyes in the room fixed on his back, confused by how steady he seemed. He ignored them. Right now there was only one person in this house that mattered, and none of the rest of it, the staring, the questions he knew were coming later, the fact that an entire family had just watched him walk in like he belonged here, none of it touched him yet.

He shifted a little closer, slow enough for Shane to track the movement.

"It's me." His voice dropped even quieter. "I'm here, solnyshko."

This time, something moved. The fingers twisted into the sleeves of Shane's hoodie loosened, just slightly. Enough that Ilya let himself breathe again. Here you go.

He reached out carefully and rested two fingers against Shane's shoulder. No weight behind it. Just enough to be there, in case there was any part of Shane still listening for him.

Shane flinched, not away. Toward him.

A shaky breath caught somewhere deep in his chest.

"Ilya..."

It came out so quiet that no one else in the room seemed sure they'd heard it at all. Ilya had. Something in him that had been holding perfectly still since the phone call finally let go.

"I'm here. I’m here.” His voice came out more desperate than he intended. His thumb brushed once, gently, over the worn fabric of Shane's hoodie. "You're okay."

Shane's breathing hitched. For a moment nothing else happened. Then, slowly, almost like it cost him something, he lifted his head.

His eyes were red-rimmed, unfocused, searching the room for something before they found what they were looking for. I’m here. The moment they landed on blue, everything in his face seemed to change at once, like the last month had been a held breath finally let out.

His shoulders shook. Once. Twice.

Ilya saw him crumbling before it happened and opened his arms slightly, inviting him in if he wanted to. Come here, baby.

Then whatever he'd been holding together, badly, for four weeks came apart all at once.

A broken sound tore out of him as he crawled forward without a second's hesitation, closing the space between them and collapsing against Ilya's chest like his body had simply stopped taking instructions from anywhere else.

Ilya caught him automatically, already sitting back against the sofa as if he'd done this a hundred times before, because in some form, he had. One arm wrapped securely around Shane's back. The other came up to rest at the nape of his neck, not pulling him closer, just present, just there, because Shane had come to him and that had to be enough for both of them right now.

“Shh, it's okay," he murmured against Shane's hair, his own voice thinner than he meant it to be. "Я здесь, солнышко."

Shane pressed his face into the curve of his neck, fingers clutching the front of his shirt like letting go might undo something. "I'm— I'm so sorry, Ilya. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—" The words kept coming, smaller and more broken each time, until they weren't really words anymore, just sound.

"Hey. Hey, breathe." Ilya's own eyes had gone hot and wet without his permission, one hand moving in slow, steady circles over Shane's back. "Let it all out. I've got you. I'm not going anywhere.” I would be here forever, holding you, if you let me.

Nobody in the room moved. Yuna's hand found David's without either of them noticing they'd reached for it. Hayden stood frozen by the doorway, unable to look away and unable to explain, even to himself, why it didn't feel wrong to be watching this.

It wasn't the embrace that stunned him. It wasn't even that Shane had asked for Ilya Rozanov, of all people, in the worst moment Hayden had ever seen him in.

It was how certain they looked together. Not like two men figuring something out for the first time, but like two people who had done this before, quietly, for years, long before anyone in this room had known there was anything to find.


_______


Almost twenty minutes passed before Shane's breathing finally settled into something that resembled normal. Neither of them had moved much. Shane was still curled against him, straddling his lap with his face hidden against his neck, hands gripping the front of Ilya's shirt as though letting go might somehow make him disappear again. Every so often another shaky breath escaped him, followed by a quieter sniffle, but the sobs themselves had stopped.

At some point, everyone else had quietly left the room. Ilya hadn't even noticed them go.

The house felt strangely peaceful now. The television stayed off, the lights stayed dim, and somewhere upstairs soft whispering could be heard. Ilya's hand kept up its slow, absent rhythm along Shane's back, more for himself than for Shane at this point, something to do with his hands so he didn't have to think too hard about how close he'd come, twenty minutes ago, to not knowing what he'd find when he walked through that door.

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

Eventually, Shane's fingers loosened slightly where they'd been fisted in Ilya's shirt.

"...I'm sorry." His voice came out raw, scraped thin from crying. His hands moved slowly to Ilya’s back, making them hug properly now. Ilya finally let out a full breath.

"You say that a lot." Ilya let out a small, tired laugh, more breath than sound.

"That's not what I me—"

"I know what you mean." He did. That was the problem. He felt the sting of tears again, sudden and unwelcome, and blinked hard against them.

Shane swallowed, and silence settled back between them, easier this time. After a moment he lifted his head just enough to look up and pulled back a little, eyes still swollen, cheeks blotchy and raw.

"I didn’t…” His voice caught. "I didn’t think they would call you. I didn’t even know it was possible, I’m sorry. And thank you for coming, I didn’t know how much I needed you until you were here.”

Something inside Ilya cracked clean through. He looked away first, blinking fast, before he could make himself meet Shane's eyes again.

"You really thought that I ever wouldn’t come if you called?"

Shane didn't answer. Couldn't, maybe.

“And I was angry," Ilya admitted quietly. "God, I was so angry with you. Maybe I still am.” A short, bitter laugh escaped him, and he wiped at the corner of one eye before the tear gathered there could fall. It didn't work. "You broke my heart, Shane." One tear slipped free anyway.

Shane's face crumpled all over again. "God. I'm so sorry, Ilya.” Please forgive me. How can I make you forgive me? I don’t deserve you.

"I know." Ilya reached up, brushing his thumb gently beneath Shane's eye, catching a tear before it could fall any further. "But I still came."

A fresh one slid down Shane's cheek regardless. "I know."

They sat like that for another minute, neither one needing to fill it with anything more. Then Ilya rested his forehead briefly against Shane's shoulder, breathing him in like he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed to.

"We need to talk."

Shane nodded immediately. "I know."

"A real conversation."

Another nod.

"No running away this time."

"I won’t."

A beat, and then, quieter, almost to himself: "Please don't run away this time.” I don’t think I can handle it.

"I won't." Shane nudged him gently until Ilya lifted his head to look at him properly. "I promise I won't run away this time, Ilya."

For the first time that night, for the first time in a month, if he was honest, Ilya let himself believe him.

A soft knock sounded against the doorframe.

Yuna stood there holding two steaming mugs, her expression gentle enough that neither of them felt any urge to pull apart.

"I hope I'm not interrupting."

"You aren't," Ilya said quietly.

She crossed the room and set the mugs down on the coffee table, looking between them for a moment before Shane slowly slid off Ilya's lap and settled beside him on the couch instead, one hand still fisted loosely in Ilya's sleeve, like he wasn't quite ready to test the distance yet.

"It's getting late." Yuna's smile was small, tired around the edges. "I don't think either of you should be up much longer tonight."

Neither of them argued. She looked at Ilya.

"The guest room's made up."

He hesitated. "You don't have to."

"I want to." The answer came so easily, so naturally, that it caught him off guard more than anything else that night had. She glanced at Shane, still leaning into Ilya's side, head tilting softly towards his shoulder, before looking back at Ilya. "I think my son would sleep better knowing you're still here."

For the first time since she'd opened that front door, Ilya didn't have a single word ready.

"...Thank you."

She smiled again. "You can explain everything tomorrow, both of you." Then, to Shane: "I left your old phone charging on your nightstand, sweetheart. It's set up with your card, should be working fine."

"Thanks, Mom." Shane managed something close to a real smile.

She turned to go, then paused at the doorway.

"And Rozanov?"

He looked up. “Ilya, please.”

“Right, Ilya.” A soft pause. “Thank you for coming."

She was gone down the hallway before he could find an answer for that either.

The room settled back into quiet. Shane let his head drop fully against Ilya's shoulder, and for the first time all night, neither of them felt the need to move.


____



The house had settled into silence by the time Yuna wished them both goodnight.

She showed Ilya the guest room at the end of the hallway, apologized twice for the mismatched sheets because she'd made the bed in a hurry, and smiled when he insisted it was perfect. The sheets looked perfectly matched, and Ilya wouldn't have noticed it at all if she hadn't brought it up.

Shane lingered awkwardly in the hallway while she walked towards her own bedroom.

"You should try to sleep," she told him softly.

"I will."

She looked at him a second longer. "I mean it."

"I know."

She kissed his forehead before slipping behind her door. Shane let himself lean into her touch and murmured a soft "Thank you, mom… Really.” She smiled softly and was gone.

The hallway fell quiet. Shane looked at Ilya.

"...Goodnight, Ilya."

"Goodnight, Shane."

Neither of them moved. Eventually Shane turned and walked to his old bedroom, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.


_______



Yuna barely had the door closed behind her before the tears came, sudden and complete, like something she'd been holding together with sheer will for the last hour finally gave out the second she was alone.

David was there before she'd even turned around, arms coming around her without a word, the way they always did after twenty-eight years of knowing exactly when words weren't going to help.

"Hey," he murmured into her hair. “Hey… Shh”

She pressed her face into his shoulder, shaking. "I failed him."

"You didn't—"

"I did, David." She pulled back just enough to look at him, eyes red, voice cracking apart. "He's been sitting at our table for a month, falling apart right in front of me, and I told myself he was just tired. Just stressed about hockey. I let him say 'I'm fine' as many times as he needed to say it, because it was easier than pushing." A shaky breath. "And whatever's actually going on, whatever's really underneath all this… He didn't feel like he could tell me. His own mother."

David guided her gently toward the bed, sitting her down before lowering himself beside her. "Yuna. You've never once made that boy feel like he couldn't come to you."

“Didn’t I? Then why him?" Her voice broke properly now. "Why did he ask for Ilya Rozanov, of all people, before he'd say a single word to either of us?”

David didn't answer right away. He reached over and smoothed a strand of hair back from her face, the same absent, familiar gesture she did to Shane a hundred times a night without noticing.

"I don't know," he admitted quietly. "But I know what I saw down there. And it wasn't a stranger walking in to calm down a panicked friend." He paused. "That was recognition, Yuna. On both their faces. Like they'd done this before. Like they know each other deeply.”

She let that settle, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. "You think there's more going on there."

"I think," David said carefully, "that it's not our business to guess at tonight. And I think whatever it is, it's not about you failing him."

Yuna huffed out something that was almost a laugh, watery and tired. "When did you get so wise."

"Forty years of practice being married to you." He kissed her temple, and she let herself lean into it, some of the tension finally starting to bleed out of her shoulders.

He carefully helped her put on her pajamas and tucked them both in bed properly, the way he'd done every night for decades, like the routine of it alone could put the world back in order.

"He's okay," David said, quieter now. "Or he will be. He's got you fussing over him and a boy down the hallway who clearly isn't going anywhere. That's not nothing. That’s everything.”

Yuna nodded softly and was quiet for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm glad, you know. That he has someone." A small, watery smile. "Even if that someone happens to be Ilya Fucking Rozanov."

"Yuna!"

"Oh, hush, David, like we've never sworn in this house before." She rolled her eyes, but there wasn't any real heat in it. "I mean it, though. I have never,  not once, not with a single friend, not with a single girlfriend he brought home, seen Shane let himself be that soft with someone. That open." Her voice thickened again. "That's all I ever wanted for him. Someone who could get past all those walls he's spent his whole life building."

David pulled her in against his side, and she went easily, her head finding its familiar place on his shoulder.

"Then maybe you didn't fail him at all," he said. "Maybe you just did your job so well he ended up able to let someone in."

Down the hallway, faintly, a door clicked shut.

Yuna huffed a small laugh despite herself. "I do hope they remember there's an entire house of people trying to sleep."

"Yuna!"

"Oh, come on." She swatted his arm lightly, grinning now despite the tears still drying on her face. "Like we were any better at their age."

David groaned, but he was laughing too, low and helpless, the kind of laugh that only comes after a night that had been far too heavy for far too long. He kissed the top of her head.

"I love you," he said. "Even when you're insufferable."

"I love you too." She closed her eyes, finally letting herself sink into the mattress, into him, into the quiet. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a lot."

"Tomorrow's going to be a lot," he agreed, and pulled her closer.

_______


His childhood room looked exactly the same. Different posters, a newer desk, but it still smelled faintly of cedar and laundry detergent. His old phone was charging on the nightstand exactly where his mother had said it would be.

He picked it up. Missed emails swarmed the screen. He couldn't bring himself to open a single one, Yuna would probably deal with them in the morning, the way she'd dealt with everything else tonight.

He sat on the edge of the bed instead, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he had to explain. To Hayden. To his parents. To Jackie. To himself, probably, more than anyone, something even he didn't fully understand yet. His stomach twisted just thinking about it.

The phone buzzed.

Lily.

Freaking out again?

Shane stared at the screen. Despite the anxiousness curling its way back up his body, a tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

No…

The reply came almost instantly.

I can hear you thinking from the other end of the hallway.

Shane huffed out a laugh. The unsettled feeling easing off a little. Another buzz.

Can I come in?

He looked toward the door, already feeling Ilya's presence on the other side of it.

"...Yeah. Come in."

Ilya opened it softly, right away. He was wearing one of Shane's spare T-shirts now, sleeves slightly too short, hair still damp from a shower he'd clearly taken. For a second neither of them said anything. Then Ilya crossed the room and sat on the floor with his back against the side of the bed, right beside Shane's legs, like it was the most natural thing in the world. He rested his head on Shane’s thigh, and Shane immediately started running his fingers through Ilya’s curls, soothing and absent. Ilya closed his eyes.

"I wasn't freaking out," Shane muttered eventually.

Ilya snorted. "Right."

"Fuck you!” Shane bumped his head playfully.

“Shane! Not now! Your parents are on the other side of the hallway, and there are children present! We both know you can’t keep quiet.” Ilya smirked, and Shane turned 3 shades redder than usual, bumping his leg harder this time, hard enough to knock Ilya’s head off his thigh entirely. They both laughed. It was so easy, falling straight back into their dynamic. So easy to just be around each other like this.

Shane slid down beside him, both of them now on the floor. Their shoulders touched. Neither of them moved away.

Ilya looked over at him, more serious now. "So..."

Silence.

"You want to tell me what's going on inside that giant brain of yours?"

Shane let out a breath somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "I don't even know where to start."

"Boston." Ilya said it first. Might as well get it over with. The word hung quietly between them.

Shane closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. "I freaked out. I thought leaving was the right thing." His throat tightened. "I thought if I stayed, I'd never be able to go away."

Ilya didn't interrupt.

"Then I had already left, and I was miserable, and I kept thinking..." Shane's voice dropped. "One day I'd wake up and it wouldn't hurt anymore. One day I'd wake up and all of the feelings would've just... gone away."

Ilya laughed, bitter and a little wet, his eyes starting to sting.

"But it just kept getting worse and worse. Until I couldn't take it anymore, until I physically couldn’t breathe or function, and… well. Now you're here." Silence settled over them again. Ilya was still staring straight ahead, something pained written all over his face.

"God, I'm so sorry, Ilya. For everything. For Boston, and for right now. I broke down in front of fucking everyone and now they probably all figured it out, and I didn't even have the right to take that decision away from you, and—"

Ilya put a hand on Shane's knee and squeezed, gently, silently asking him to stop.

Then, finally: "You know what I did after you left?"

Shane looked at him. Processing the change of topic.

"I bought bread."

"...What?"

"I bought bread." A small, pained smile tugged at the corner of Ilya's mouth. "I was going to make tuna melts. Told myself I'd make one for myself, without you there, and it would be fine."

Shane's eyes filled immediately.

"I couldn't." Another pause. "It felt wrong, making just one." Ilya took a deep breath. "All I could do was relive the way you’d left me on that couch, with our fucking cum still on my belly.” A bitter laugh. “I  Think I stood there for probably hours."

Neither of them looked at the other. Shane sucked in a breath, and Ilya knew, without needing to see, that he was crying.

"I asked you to stay," Ilya said, so quietly it barely reached him, voice breaking on the last word.

"I know, Ilya. I'm so so sorry, you’re breaking my fucking heart right now.” He pressed both palms hard against his eyes. “I don't know how I can make it up to you, I don't know what I can do to make you forgive me, fuck—“.

Ilya reached for his hands and laced their fingers together. Shane's eyes were still closed.

"Shane. Look at me."

He did.

"I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty. God. I know how it is, to make a stupid decision and hurt someone by accident along the way. I'm sorry too. For all of the other times I did it to you."

There were tears on both their faces now. They just cried quietly for a while, not needing to say anything else.

"I'd never asked anyone to stay before," Ilya finally said, his hands still cupping Shane’s face. Their foreheads now resting together. "And I think—" Ilya swallowed hard, staring at the floor. "I think that's why it hurt so much when you left."

Shane reached for him before he'd even realized what he was doing, guiding Ilya's arms back around himself until they were holding each other again.

"Ilya?" he said, into the crook of Ilya's neck, squeezing him lightly.

"Yes, moya lyubov'." Ilya rubbed slow circles over his back.

"I think I like you maybe a little too much."

"I know." Ilya squeezed him back, but his voice cracked on what came next. "But you can't. We can't." A quiet sob escaped him.

Shane's heart dropped. "Why n—"

"Shane." Ilya slowly untangled himself and pulled back to sit up on the bed, tears still tracking down his face, voice shaking but firm. "If the wrong people found out, I wouldn't be able to go back home."

Shane's brow furrowed as he sat up beside him, reaching out to wipe a tear from Ilya's cheek with his thumb.

"Russia is not safe for people like us, dorogoy."

Something in Shane's expression stilled, like the thought genuinely hadn't crossed his mind before. Ilya watched the wheels turning in his head, already looking for a way around it.

"What would happen to you? Wouldn't your family help?"

Ilya laughed, wet and humorless, shaking his head. Then his expression softened. He looked up slowly, closed his eyes, and touched the necklace at his throat.

"Well. I like to think my mama would."

"Yeah? That's good. What's she like?" Shane asked, unable to read whatever was crossing Ilya's face.

Ilya kept his eyes closed, head still tilted slightly upward. Shane waited.

"She died, Shane."

Shane sucked in a breath and quickly moved to stand directly in front of him. "Oh — Ilya, I—"

"Don't." Ilya held up a hand, gentle but firm, keeping Shane from touching him, eyes still shut. "I need to tell you this. And I will. But if you touch me right now, I won't be able to get through it without falling apart."

Shane went very still, unable to stop the tears from starting to fall again. He honestly didn't know how he had any left.

"I was twelve. I found her after she'd swallowed a whole bottle of pills." A deep breath. "She was so strong. So beautiful. My father was very mean to her." He was talking faster now, like he needed to get it all out before he lost the nerve. "My father and my brother are police. My father is sick." A pause, neither of them filling it. "Dementia."

Ilya finally opened his eyes, meeting Shane's red-rimmed, tear-swollen face looking down at him.

“Oh Ilya... can I?" Shane asked, arms opening slightly.

Ilya nodded, eyes already filling again, and the moment Shane touched him, he came apart completely, sobbing in a way he hadn't since the day he'd found strands of his mother's hair still caught on the bathroom floor. Shane pulled him close, standing between his open legs with Ilya pressed his face against his chest, clinging to him. I'm here, baby. I'm here.

When Ilya finally quieted enough to speak, he pulled at the hem of Shane's shirt, tugging him down until Shane straddled his lap instead. He wrapped his arms around him and pressed his face into the side of his neck.

“I like you a little too much too" Ilya's voice was still rough from crying, from the weight of the whole day. He pressed a gentle kiss to Shane's neck.

Shane pulled back and, like he needed it as much as air, crashed their lips together. For a moment there was nothing but lips and tongues and teeth, scraping and dancing around each other, hands roaming, breaths finally, finally, where they were supposed to be.

“How? How, how, how, how” Shane murmured between breaths, between kisses, soft and rough and so right. “How, Ilya?”

“How what, moya lyubov’?” Ilya pulled back just far enough to breathe.

“How can I possibly feel like this with someone else? How is it even possible for it to feel like this?” He closed is eyed, heart fully on his sleeve. “I think you’ve ruined me.”

Ilya made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “If only you knew.” He pressed the softest kisses along Shane's neck and jaw, taking his time, trying to say everything he couldn't put into words through the press of his lips against soft, star-freckled skin.

"What are we going to do, Ilya? How did we let this happen?”

"I don't know, solnyshko." He pressed their foreheads together. "But can we figure it out later? My head's kind of killing me from both of us being huge, enormous, big babies and crying for hours straight.” “Too much emotion for one day”

Shane fully laughed, the sound the single best thing Ilya had ever heard. “‘M’sorry”

“Hum, forgiven.” A quick peck. ”But you can never tell Pike about this, or he'll want to give me paternal advice about our situation, and I cannot deal with the fifteenth-best player in the league lecturing me on my feelings."

"You're such an asshole." Shane kept laughing, and Ilya couldn't look away from the little lines it drew beside his eyes, the way some of his freckles seemed to merge with the movement. "But I like you so much."

Ilya kissed him again, softer this time, soft enough that Shane thought he might actually combust from the rightness of it.

"But seriously, Shane, can we figure out what to do about all this tomorrow? I know you needed to talk tonight, needed to know what to say to everyone. Was this enough? Do you need a plan? I'll make one with you if you want and need to."

Shane looked at him so softly that Ilya felt himself melt on the spot. A little emotional all over again at realizing how well Ilya knew him. ”You're perfect. Thank you. And we can go to sleep now. Just one more thing."

"Tell me.” Ilya brushed a thumb over his cheek.

"Whatever we decide, we decide together, okay? I don't think I can handle being apart from you ever again." His expression turned serious.

Ilya pressed a kiss to the space between Shane's brows.

"Together."


______



Shane woke slowly, which almost never happened.

Usually his body clicked on like a switch, game day or not. Some deep-rooted athlete instinct that refused to let him drift up from sleep in stages. But this morning there was no jolt, no immediate mental checklist. Just warmth, and weight, and the unfamiliar, wonderful feeling of waking up with someone. Not just someone. Ilya.

Ilya was curled into his side, one arm slung heavy across Shane's chest, curls a disaster against the pillow, mouth slightly open around slow, even breaths. Morning light came pale through the curtains. For a long moment Shane just watched him, cataloguing it, the way his lashes caught the light, the easiness of his face in sleep despite the puffiness in his eyes from crying so much last night. Fucking gorgeous.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept that well. Couldn't remember, actually, the last time he'd slept in the same bed as someone without it having led anywhere sexual first. Just sleep. Just this.

Ilya stirred, blinking awake with the particular disgruntlement of a man who resented mornings on principle. Adorable. His eyes found Shane immediately, like some part of him had been checking, even unconscious, that he was still there. His whole face lit up.

"Hey." His voice was rough with sleep, accent thick.

"Hey." Shane's hand found its way into his hair without any real decision behind it.

Ilya hummed happily and burrowed closer, face pressing into Shane's shoulder. "Best sleep I've had in months. Maybe ever."

"Yeah?"

"Mmm. You're very good pillow." A pause. "For giant baby who cried all night."

"You cried more than me, asshole."

"Lies." Ilya didn't lift his head. “Slander." Ilya’s hand moved dramatically.

Shane huffed a laugh, and for a second everything felt almost unbearably easy. Until it didn't.

The ease cracked just slightly at the edges as yesterday came rushing back in. The table. The faces. Everything he still had to explain to people who were, right now, probably wide awake downstairs, judging by the faint sound of children laughing.

Ilya felt him tense. Of course he did.

"Hey." He lifted his head properly now, propping himself up on one elbow to look at him. "Where'd you go?"

"Nowhere. Just—" Shane exhaled. “I’m scared. I don't know what happens now."

"Nobody's asking you to know. Not today."

"Everyone downstairs is going to want an explanation, Ilya. My mom looked at me last night like—" He stopped, throat tight. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to say."

Ilya was quiet for a moment, thumb tracing slow, absent shapes against Shane's sternum. "So we say truth."

Shane looked at him. "The truth."

"Not all of it. Not today." A small, careful shrug. "But enough. That we—" He hesitated, and Shane watched something flicker across his face, something that looked almost like nerves, which was strange on him, foreign. "That we love each other. Is truth, no? Simplest part of all this mess."

The word landed soft and sudden, slipping out like it hadn't been fully intended, and Ilya's eyes widened just slightly, like he was questioning whether he should've said it or whether it was too soon.

Shane's chest did something complicated. "You've never actually said that. Out loud. Not to me."

"I know." Ilya swallowed. "Meant to say it better. Not lying in bed with terrible morning breath, hair looking like this."

"I don't care how you say it. Do you mean it?" Shane reached up, brushing a curl back from his forehead, eyes shy, slightly wet, big and hopeful.

"With all my heart, dorogoy." Ilya's mouth curved, slow and helpless, hand cupping his cheek. "Ya tebya lyublyu, I love you."

"I love you too." It came easier than Shane expected, like the word had just been waiting for permission. "God. I love you so much it's stupid."

"Very stupid," Ilya agreed, and kissed him.

It started soft. Unhurried, morning-slow, the kind of kiss that didn't need to go anywhere to already feel like everything. The kind of kiss that filled the words already spilled with truth. But it didn't stay that way for long. Shane's hand slid from Ilya's hair to the back of his neck, pulling him closer, and Ilya made a low sound against his mouth and pressed the rest of the way into him, one leg sliding between Shane's while Shane pinned him to the mattress, getting on top of him.

"Shane." Half a warning, half not one at all.

"Door's locked," Shane murmured against his jaw, already not particularly interested in stopping.

Ilya laughed, breathless. "I don't remember locking it yesterday when I came in."

"Shut up." Shane said in between desperate breaths and sounds, and within a few minutes neither of them was thinking clearly about doors or locks or anything downstairs at all. Shane's hands found the hem of the borrowed T-shirt, Ilya's hips rocked up against his without either of them quite deciding to start, and the slow morning ease of ten minutes ago had turned into something a lot less patient, both of them hard and rutting against each other through too much fabric, breath gone ragged, foreheads pressed together.

"Fuck, Ilya—"

"I know, fuck— you're going to kill me."

Neither of them heard anything over the sound of their own breathing, movements getting sloppier by the minute. "God, Ilya, I'm so fucki— so fucking close, right there, don't stop." Ilya made an animalistic sound and quickened his movements. Neither of them heard anything beyond breaths and pleas until the soft knock at the door landed like a gunshot.

They froze. Completely. Ilya's forehead dropped against Shane's collarbone with a strangled noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a pure, desperate groan of despair.

"...Yeah?" Shane called, voice cracking horribly on the single syllable, his hips involuntarily still searching for friction even as his face had gone mortified and he scrambled off Ilya.

There was a pause on the other side of the door. A pause that felt, to Shane, roughly four hundred years long.

"Can I come in for a second, sweetheart?"

"Uh—" Shane looked at Ilya, wide-eyed, mortified, already scrambling for the blanket to cover his painfully hard, almost bursting dick, his head still not thinking clearly. Ilya rolled away from him at record speed, pulling the sheet up to mirror Shane's, both of them trying to look, in the space of about two seconds, like two grown men who had absolutely not just been doing what they'd absolutely just been doing. "Yeah— yeah, Mom, come in."

The door opened.

Yuna took one step inside, took one look at the two of them, flushed, disheveled, blankets bunched at conspicuously strategic angles, Ilya's hair somehow even worse than it had been asleep, and her cheeks went faintly, unmistakably pink.

She cleared her throat, a slight smirk tugging at her mouth. "Thought I would find you in here."

"Mom—"

"I'm not addressing it." She held up a hand, already backing toward the door, composure visibly reassembling itself with each word. "Breakfast is ready whenever you both are. No rush." A beat. "Take your time." A knowing smile.

"Oh my god, Mom."

"I'm leaving. Hope you had a good night's sleep." She was already gone, the door clicking shut behind her, and a second later they heard her footsteps retreating fast down the hallway.

Silence.

Then Ilya collapsed sideways into the pillow, laughing so hard he could barely breathe, and Shane groaned and dragged a hand down his face, torn somewhere between wanting to die and laughing just as hard himself.

"We are never," Shane said, muffled against his own palm, "speaking of this again."

"Never," Ilya agreed, still shaking with laughter. "Never, ever."

Neither of them believed it for a second.

"My dick hurts though, care to give it a little hand?" Ilya asked, puppy eyes, pouty lips turning into the biggest smirk in the world.

"Fuck off!" Shane threw a pillow at Ilya's face and laughed while getting up, groaning. "I need a cold shower."

"You are a mean, evil man, Shane Hollander.” Ilya said, flat on his back, arms spread across the bed.

"You love me." Shane was already at the bathroom door.

"I do." Ilya smiled so wide he thought his face might split in half, and jumped to his feet, running after Shane into the bathroom.

______


Whatever waited for them downstairs, the questions, the explanations, the whole complicated shape of what came next,  could wait a few more minutes. Steam fogged the mirror. Laughter echoed off the tile loud enough that neither of them worried, for once, about being heard.

They didn't have a plan yet. They didn't know what they'd say, how much of it, or to who.

But none of that felt as impossible as it had a month ago. Not anymore. Not with the door locked, the water running, and Ilya's hand finding his in the steam like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Whatever came next, they'd figure it out together. Like they were always supposed to be.

Chapter End Notes

That's a wrap! Hope you enjoyed it and had as much fun reading as I had writing it.

If people liked this one, I might turn that continuation draft into something real.

Let me know what you thought, kudos and comments truly make my day!
Thank you again for being here <3 💛

Chapter 4: Seven Years

Chapter Summary

Seven years of hiding don't disappear overnight. But maybe, for the first time, neither of them has to carry them alone.

Chapter Notes

Thank you so much for all the love this story has received, especially in its first 24 hours. 🥹
I've spent the last day polishing this chapter, and I also couldn't resist drafting the final one. It's currently being edited, so hopefully it won't be too long before it's ready.
Thank you for every kudos, bookmark and comment. I read every single one, and they genuinely mean the world to me. 🤍
(Also... I'm a graphic designer, so I may have gone a little overboard giving this fic its own visual identity. 🫣🩵)
Enjoy! 💗

They came downstairs together, hair still damp from the shower, and if either of them had hoped nobody would notice, that hope died within about four seconds of hitting the kitchen doorway.

Jackie's eyes went straight to them, then to each other, then back, the corner of her mouth twitching dangerously. David glanced up briefly from his coffee, pausing a beat before returning to his breakfast. Yuna, at the stove, simply smiled, though something nervous clung to the edges of it.

"Morning," Shane said, face flushed, aiming for casual and landing somewhere closer to a man walking into his own execution, last night swarming back into his head all at once. Breathe. You can do this.

"Good morning." Ilya's voice was warm, easy. "Thank you for having me." He brushed a hand briefly against Shane's back, and Shane felt some of the tension in his shoulders loosen at the touch.

Before anyone could address the elephant in the room, a small body collided with Ilya's legs.

"You're the man from TV, you play the same game as daddy!" Jade announced, tipping her head back to study him with the frank suspicion of a four-year-old assessing new information.

"Da. Ilya." He crouched down without hesitation, meeting her at eye level. "And you are Jade... or Ruby?"

Shane felt something in his chest give slightly. Ilya had clearly held onto every small detail Shane had ever mentioned about this family, filed away over years, more carefully than Shane had realized.

"I'm Ruby," said Jade, testing him.

"Mmm. No, you're not." Ilya said it without missing a beat. "I know a little menace when I see one." He laughed, ruffling her hair and poking gently at her belly.

Jade dissolved into giggles. Across the kitchen, Jackie let out a startled laugh. "Okay, he's good."

Hayden made a small noise beside her, something caught between disbelief and static, like a wire short-circuiting in real time. Tension radiated off him.

A second pair of feet came running, and within two minutes Ilya had Ruby draped over one knee and Jade attempting, with great seriousness, a braid in dirty blonde hair nowhere near long enough to hold one.

Shane leaned against the counter and watched. Something in his chest went soft and unguarded in a way he hadn't braced for. He'd seen Ilya charm entire arenas of strangers, watched him talk circles around reporters until they forgot what they'd come to ask. He hadn't expected it to look like this. Unhurried, unshowy. Just a man letting two little girls do whatever they wanted to his hair without a single complaint.

He didn't realize he was staring until Hayden, settling Arthur into his highchair, caught his eye. He cleared his throat.

"Hey, girls. Breakfast time. Come on." Hayden's tone carried an edge Shane didn't miss.

The nerves came back all at once.

"But daaad, there's still so much hair to braid! It's so curly!" Jade protested.

"Jade. Ruby. Now."

"Ah, girls, you have to go eat." Ilya carefully untangled himself from them. "You cannot be big strong girls like me if you don't eat your breakfast, da? Otherwise you end up like your dad, fifteenth-best at what he does." He gave an exaggerated thumbs-down, tongue out.

"Oh, fuck you, Rozanov." Hayden threw his hands up.

"Hayden!" Jackie hissed, at the exact same moment Shane murmured a low, warning "Ilya..." and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"Go on, girls, chop chop," Ilya said easily, and the twins scattered toward the table, him following along.

Shane felt a quick, soft press of lips against his shoulder. "Sorry, moya lyubov'," Ilya murmured.

"No, you're not," Shane said, mouth betraying him with a smirk despite everything, hands still over his eyes.

Ilya just shrugged, smiling. But when Shane dropped his hands, he caught the tightness still sitting in his shoulders. He brushed their fingers together as they made their way to the table, a small, steadying thing.

Breakfast fell into its usual chaos. Arthur flinging cereal with the same enthusiasm he'd shown for spoons the night before, Ruby narrating an elaborate, unfollowable saga about her hamster, David absorbed in something on his paper he had no intention of sharing. Everyone slipped into the motions of a normal morning, but underneath it, something tense sat in the air that nobody had addressed yet.

Ilya sat beside Shane, across from Jackie and Hayden. Arthur was at the head of the table next to Ilya; the twins sat with their father. Yuna and David sat at the other end, closer together than usual, like they were bracing each other through proximity alone.

The kids carried most of the conversation, filling the kitchen with noise, until Arthur, still working out how spoons functioned, brought his down on his bowl hard enough to send milk splattering across his face, the table, and Ilya's arm.

"Arthur! Gentle, baby…” Jackie leaned down to mop up the floor. Without being asked, Ilya reached over and wiped the milk from Arthur's cheek. "There you go, buddy. There's a cute little face on your milk." He tickled Arthur's belly, and the sound that came out of the toddler was the kind of giggle that could stop a room.

Shane didn't have ovaries, but in that exact moment, he was fairly sure he'd grown some. Get it together.

Ilya, oblivious to the stunned silence settling over the table, kept wiping Arthur's chin. It was Hayden who finally broke.

"Okay, can we just acknowledge this? Ilya fucking Rozanov is in your kitchen, laughing with my kids like he hasn't spent years being a fucking asshole to us on the ice. Being all... lovey with you, Shane? What the fuck? Yesterday I could deal with whatever was going on, because you were falling apart and he helped you through it. But this? Bringing our archrival home? Spending the night with him? What. The. Fuck." He looked between them. "It's like I don't even know you!"

Shane flinched. Ilya's expression went dangerously, deliberately calm, his hand finding Shane's leg on pure instinct, protective. Ready to snap if needed.

"Hayden!" Jackie snapped. "Take the twins to the living room, find them something to watch."

"Oh, hell n—"

"Now." There was no room left in her voice for argument.

Hayden stood, angry, and took a girl in each hand, moving toward the door.

"Hayden!" Shane's voice cracked out before he could stop it. Ilya squeezed his thigh.

"What?" Hayden turned, sharp.

"Watch it," Ilya said, low and even, aimed directly at him, knuckles white against Shane's leg.

"Ilya. I've got it." Shane said for only him to hear, covering Ilya's hand with his own.

"Hayden. You have every right to be confused. You have every right to be angry with me for keeping this from you, and I will tell you all of it. But you do not get to snap at, or judge, someone who means the world to me and who you know absolutely nothing about."

Hayden opened his mouth. Shane didn't let him get there.

"Take Jade and Ruby to watch TV. We'll wait for you to be ready to talk." He drew one long breath before letting the rest out.

Hayden had already half-turned when Shane spoke again.

"And while you're in there, please take a minute to breathe. And remember that as betrayed as you feel right now, and you have every right to feel that, I spent seven years too scared to open up, scared of showing too much, scared of just being.” The words were just dumping out of his mouth. Like a damn that broke and couldn’t keep the water in.

“Seven years watching you fall in love and get to make out with your wife in front of the entire team the day you met her. Seven years of hearing slurs thrown around the locker room about people like me, while watching everyone else love whoever they wanted, out loud, without once having to wonder if it would cost them the career they'd worked their whole life for." His voice wavered but didn't break. "So yes, I kept this from you for seven years. But Ilya is the best thing in my life, and he's also the reason I've cried more nights than I can count, thrown up more weeks than not, and spent most days one bad moment away from a panic attack."

Shane sucked in a breath. Beside him, a single tear slid down Ilya's face, the memory of every year of that same fear catching up with him all at once.

Hayden stood frozen. When he finally turned back, his face had gone pale, stricken.

"Oh, Bud—"

"Seven years I've been afraid of telling anyone because of the exact reaction you just had, so go." Shane said, quieter now. "Come back when you're ready to hear me, and we'll talk." He rose, giving Ilya's hand a final squeeze. "I'm gonna use the bathroom for a minute."

He left the room. Hayden, silent, turned and walked the twins into the living room. The little ones quiet for seeing Shane talk so much and even them feeling the heaviness of it all.

Yuna wiped her eyes quickly, composing herself in the space of a breath. "Well." She cleared her throat. "I know it's breakfast, but who wants something to drink while we wait?"

The room exhaled. Relieved breaths, a few nervous laughs, a sniffle or two, a scatter of quiet yes, pleases.

Mid getting up, before fully turning to the counter, Yuna gave Ilya a small nod toward the hallway. "Shouldn't you go check on him?"

"He needs a minute alone, quiet. Then I'll go get him." Ilya's voice was soft, the single tear that had fallen already wiped from his face. "In the meantime, let me help you clear the table."

"Thank you, Ilya." A soft smile.

Yuna turned fully then, and got to work beside the man she was now completely certain her son loved with his whole heart, and who, just as clearly, loved him back the same way.


_____



The bathroom door clicked shut behind him, and Shane let himself sag against it for a second before crossing to the sink.

He turned the tap to cold and splashed his face twice, even though the kitchen hadn't been warm at all. It was kind of chilly this time of year, but it wasn't really about the temperature. It was about doing something with his hands, giving his body a task simple enough to follow while the rest of him caught up.

He gripped the edge of the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. Red-eyed, still, with the same subtle puffiness that rimmed Ilya's eyes. Exhausted in a way that went bone-deep. But underneath it, something steadier than he'd expected.

He'd said it. Just blurted it out. All of it, out loud, in his parents' kitchen, in front of everyone. Seven years he'd carried alone, and it was out now, sitting in the open where nobody could take it back into hiding.

His stomach was still in knots over Hayden, over the anger on his face. That part hadn't gone the way any part of him had hoped, if he was honest. But underneath the knot of it, there was something that felt almost like relief. Hayden would come around. He had to believe that. And even if the coming-around took time, even if it took days or weeks of careful rebuilding, Hayden’s anger wasn't really about him and Ilya being together. It was about an entire idea of the world, of who Ilya Rozanov was, being taken apart in real time. A belief he'd spent years not questioning, proven wrong right in front of him, faster than he could keep up with. That kind of thing didn't undo itself in a morning. But it was undoing. Shane had seen it happening already, in the half-second before the anger. In the expression Hayden made after Shane laid his heart out on that kitchen table.

A soft knock landed against the door.

"Shane?" Ilya's voice, careful. "You want more time alone, solnyshko, or can I come in?"

Shane's chest loosened at the sound of his voice. "You can come in."

The door opened, and Ilya slipped inside, closing it gently behind him. He didn't crowd him, just leaned back against the counter beside him, close enough to touch, but not touching yet.

"How are you?" he asked quietly.

Shane considered the question honestly, for once, instead of reaching for the automatic I'm fine. "Shaky. Kind of wrecked." A pause. "But okay. Better than I've felt in months, actually, if that makes any sense."

"Makes sense." Ilya's hand found his, lacing their fingers together on the edge of the sink. "I'm proud of you. What you said in there." His voice caught slightly. "Was not easy thing, to say out loud like that."

"I didn't even know I was going to say it until it was out of my mouth, honestly." Shane murmured. "I guess I had that bottled up for a long time."

Ilya was quiet for a second. "I'm sorry," he said finally, low. "For being reason you were so bad for so long. For all of it. If I was different, if things were safer for me, if I did things differently… maybe none of last month, of last seven years, happens at all."

Shane turned to look at him properly. "Hey, I wasn't alone in that, Ilya. You can't tell me you weren't just as miserable as me. Worse, probably, given all you put at risk every time we're together." He squeezed his hand.

"Maybe." Ilya's jaw tightened slightly. "But I still hate it. That you hurt because of what I can't give you yet. Because of where I come from, who I have to be careful of." A pause. "Because of some... shadows... demons that I carry."

"Ilya." Shane turned fully now, framing his face gently with both hands. "None of that is your fault. Not your family, not any of it. That's not on you. That's just the world being unfair to us. Both of us. Anyone like us. It hurt because I love you. But it was never you. It was the world we live in."

Something in Ilya's face cracked, gentle and quiet, and he leaned into Shane's palm like he needed the anchor of it.

"Okay," he said, barely more than a breath.

"Okay?"

"Okay." A small, real smile, finally. "I love you."

Shane pulled him into a hug, tight, and felt Ilya's arms wrap around him just as fast, both of them breathing out at once like something had settled. "I love you too." He pressed a kiss to the top of Ilya's head, the same way Ilya had done to him that morning, and felt him huff a small laugh against his chest.

"Come on," Shane said eventually, pulling back just enough to press a proper kiss to his mouth, soft and grounding. "Let's go finish breakfast. Let it all out, hope for the best, and figure a way to do this."

"Together." Ilya laced their fingers together as he reached for the door.

"Together." Shane agreed, and they walked back out into the kitchen side by side.



_____



By the time they came back into the kitchen, Hayden was already sitting at the table, elbows on the wood, hands wrapped around a mug he clearly wasn't drinking from, eyes fixed on it. The girls' voices drifted faintly from the living room, some cartoon theme song playing. Arthur had gone down for a nap sometime in the last twenty minutes, and the house felt different with the small chaos of the children gone. Quiet, like everyone had more room to breathe, or less room to hide.

David had set a bottle of vodka on the table, unopened, next to a stack of short wide glasses Shane didn't remember his parents owning, and Ilya had helped set up.

Ilya's eyebrows lifted at the label. "Ah, so this is what you needed the glasses for. Where did you find this?"

"I have a guy," David said simply, not looking up from pouring. "Took me three years to find someone who imports the real stuff instead of whatever they're selling at the regular liquor store." He slid a glass toward Ilya. "Figured today qualified."

Ilya picked it up, turned it once in the light, and something in his face went unexpectedly soft. "This is good brand. Very good vodka." He looked at David like he was reassessing something. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. Wait till you taste it." But David was almost smiling.

Shane sat, and Ilya sat beside him, close enough that their knees touched under the table. For a moment nobody spoke. Then Hayden set his mug down with a small, deliberate click and looked up.

"Okay." He exhaled. "I need to say something before anyone says anything else."

Shane's stomach tightened, but Hayden was already talking, fast, like he'd rehearsed it in the living room and needed to get it out before he lost his nerve.

"I'm sorry. For how I reacted." He glanced at Ilya, then back to Shane. "Not for being confused. I mean I think confused was fair, given that you dropped seven years on me in a kitchen, with our arch rival in the mix." A nervous laugh, a deep breath.

"But for how I said it, and for what I assumed, I’m sorry. That wasn't okay." He rubbed a hand over his jaw, his expression now completely serious. "You're my friend. No, fuck this, you're my brother, and I only want to see you happy. I keep trying to actually picture what you just told me before I left. Watching me and Jackie be us, in public, without ever once thinking about it. Getting to just have that." His voice caught slightly.

"I have literally never once in my life had to think about whether loving my wife could cost me my career, my friends, my family, or even my liberty. It never crossed my mind that it was even a thing to think about. And you've been sitting next to me on planes, my house, hotels, and on the rink for years, watching me not think about it, while you…” He stopped, shook his head. "I don't know. I guess I never had to imagine what that would be like, so I never did. And that's on me. That's not fair. I'm sorry." He took a deep breath. Jackie reached for his hand and gave an approving nod.

Shane was quiet for a moment before he spoke, low. "Not something people usually think to imagine. Not your fault, for that part."

"Maybe not. But I could've noticed you were miserable a month ago, years ago, and done more than just ask before letting it go." Hayden looked at Shane now, voice sad. "I'm your best friend. I should've pushed harder."

"You didn't know what you were pushing on," Shane said quietly. "None of this is your fault, Hayden. I made sure of that. That was the whole point of keeping it hidden, so nobody would have to carry it but me."

Something flickered across Hayden's face, guilt, maybe, pity, too. For seven years he hadn't paid enough attention. "That's the part that gets me the most, honestly. That you carried this alone the entire time, and that I took part in that. That's a long time to be that lonely next to people who love you."

Shane gave a little nod, eyes down. He felt the sudden urge to thank Hayden for the words, for the apology, but nothing came. He figured he could let Hayden put those words into practice, and let the thank-yous and sorrys been shown through actions instead.

Ilya bumped their feet together. I'm here now.

Nobody said anything for a second. Yuna reached over and covered Shane's hand with hers, eyes misty.



_____



"So," Jackie said gently, breaking the silence before it could get too heavy, "seven years, hm? That's a really long time."

Shane glanced at Ilya, some silent permission passing between them again. "Since the summer before our rookie season," he said. "We met at the Prospect Cup." He shrugged.

Yuna went very still, as if only now letting that information sit. She looked between them. "So you've been together since you were... seventeen? Eighteen?"

"Seventeen." Ilya confirmed. "Well, we weren't like…” he gestured in the air with his hands, searching for a word, “…together together, like, we just…” he looked sideways at Shane.

Shane's eyes widened. "Ilya..." he warned, cheeks turning pink.

“Ah…blyat! The first time we... we kissed, we were nineteen." Ilya distracted himself with the vodka and lifted the cup to his mouth, surprising himself at how good it was.

"Oh, I see." Yuna said, cheeks slightly pink as well.

"Must've been one hell of a kiss." Jackie said with a smirk.

"Jackie!" Hayden said, putting his hand over his face and frowning.

"Oh my god!" Shane turned five shades redder, if that was even possible, and grunted a little. Ilya was smirking so hard it was almost a full smile.

“That’s…" Yuna's hand went to her mouth. "That's almost a third of your lives."

"Feels like all of it, some days," Ilya said, quiet, and Shane felt his ears go even warmer.

Yuna's eyes had gone bright, and for a moment she just looked at her son like she was seeing an entire hidden decade rearranging itself behind his face. Then, abruptly, she stood, crossed around the table, and put her hands on Shane's shoulders.

"Can I give you a hug, baby?" Shane didn't answer, just got up and launched himself into his mother's arms.

"I'm so sorry," he said, arms tight around her. "I'm so sorry, Mom, I need you to know that I tried really hard, but I just really can't help it." His voice wobbled a little.

"Oh, honey, you have nothing, nothing, to apologize for," she said, voice thick. "I'm the one who's sorry. So, so sorry. I keep thinking about every single time I looked at you and thought he's just tired, every time I let 'I'm fine' be enough because pushing felt unkind. I don't know if I made you feel like you couldn't tell me, or if it was just everything else, the danger of it… but either way, I'm sorry I wasn't someone you felt safe enough to come to."

Shane sniffled a little, pulling back so they were face to face. "Mom. You didn't do anything wrong. This was never about you not being safe to talk to. It was never anyone in this house. It was just the whole world outside it. It was me not being ready to acknowledge this part of myself." He reached down, covering her hands with his. "And yesterday, when everything actually fell apart, you didn't hesitate for a second. You didn't need to understand what was happening to know exactly what I needed, even before I did… even if it went against everything you believed in. That's... I don't even know how to thank you for that."

Yuna pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. "I love you, honey." Shane felt something settle fully into place in his chest for the first time in weeks. "I love you too, Mom." They held each other for a minute more, then let go slowly.

In the back of his mind, he thought he should be embarrassed, having this vulnerable moment in front of a room full of people. But he figured it was way too late for that. They were the important people in his life, and they could have this information and figure out how to deal and what to do with it.

"Well," Yuna said eventually, straightening up and wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand, composure visibly reassembling. "Now that we're all done crying, and it's not even lunch.” a watery laugh, "I have questions. A lot of them." She returned to her chair, placing a hand on Ilya's shoulder on the way and giving it a little squeeze. His eyes went a little misty.

"Oh, here we go," Hayden muttered, but he was almost smiling. Shane took that as a good sign. "Brace yourselves."

Yuna side-eyed Hayden. "So, how does anyone hide this for seven years? Where did you meet up, when did you spend time together?"

"We had to be very careful," Ilya said. "We mostly just met in hotel rooms for the first years, every time we played each other we would... get together... after."

Shane cleared his throat and continued, reaching for Ilya's hand. "We always said it was just casual, now we know it wasn't, for neither one of us, but it was tough. Our teams only played against each other four times a year, five tops.”

"Then in the summers I had to go back to Russia, so we just texted for most of it. All year round, actually." Ilya's eyes had gone a little sad while saying it. Shane squeezed his hand and started slow circles with his thumb, absent-minded.

Hayden made a thoughtful expression. "But I don't understand, what abou—" his eyes widened. "Oh my god! Oh my god! How could I not... you're Boston Lily!"

Ilya snorted. "No shit." Jackie gave them a knowing smile.

Shane laughed. "Yes, we couldn't exactly have our real names on our phones and text constantly, every day. Even if the rivalry wasn't a thing, it would've been strange."

"My beautiful Jane." Ilya said dreamily, reaching for Shane's cheek with his palm. "Good names, huh? I came up with them." Ilya sat so proud Shane melted a little.

"Didn't take a genius, actually..." Hayden muttered.

"Ah... so that is why you figured it out, da?" Ilya said, eyebrow raised.

"Fuck you, Rozanov." Hayden said, eyes low, but Shane could make out the slightest twitch in his lips. His brain filed that under ‘wins’.

"I don't think Shane would like that very much!" Ilya shrugged, taking another sip of vodka.

Shane just pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. Hayden's eyes widened, and then he snorted.

Jackie, Yuna, and David watched the whole interaction with amused expressions.

"So." Yuna cleared her throat, turning serious. She looked between Shane and Ilya. "What happens now? What do you actually need, going forward? Do you want to come out?"

"I don't think I'm ready to come out yet. I think I've only just recently come around to the idea of me being... gay. I don't even know how that would look to the league, but based on the locker room talk... I've worked so hard my whole life to be where I am professionally right now, and I don't want to lose that. And it's so fucking unfair." An exasperated sound escaped him. "But mostly, and much more important, it wouldn't be safe for Ilya..."

Ilya scooted a little closer to Shane, eyes sad.

"Yes. Russia is not safe for people like us. If they found out, I could not go there again, and since I don't have an American passport, I would have to... and well, I don't like to think about how that would be like." He was suddenly so small, turning his attention back to the vodka.

"Ah, sorry, son." David nodded. "So that's why you show up with so many women in the papers and news… to never draw suspicion? You always came across as such a ladies' man."

"Hm, not really. I'm bisexual, actually. I like both."

Hayden went a little still at that. Shane tapped Ilya's shoe with his own. I know, and it's fine. They hadn't talked about it so straightforwardly yet, but Shane had figured as much back in Boston.

"Oh, okay." David said, taking another sip of vodka. "Does your family know? Would they protect you if anything leaked?" Yuna asked.

Ilya stilled.

"Ilya, you don't have to." Shane said immediately, reaching for both his hands, holding them.

"It's okay." He squeezed Shane's hand, took a deep breath. "I, uh…” he took another sip, "my father and my brother are police. They would probably lock me up themselves." A bitter laugh. "I want to be able to not go back, but my father is sick. Dementia. I don't know how much time he has left." The words just left him, surprising him at how comfortable he felt with these people, comfortable enough for it to come out at all.

Shane reached over and placed a soft kiss on Ilya's shoulder. Ilya leaned into the touch, eyes closed.

“And before you ask…my mother died when I was twelve. So..." Another soft kiss landed on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, honey," Yuna said. "I will do my research and see everything we can do to safely prepare if anything leaks. It won’t. But you need to have at least a plan B and C. We won't let anything happen to you."

Ilya's eyes watered. "Thank you." That was all he could manage.

"If you don't mind me asking… I understood that you don't have too good of a relationship with your family." She had a determined expression painting her features. "But... not being able to go back, would that be so bad? This is just for planning purposes, and I know it's so unfair to ask... but have you thought about it?"

Ilya let go of a breath he hadn't noticed he was holding. "I have, yes. Russia hasn't felt like home since I had my mama with me." A silent tear fell before he could help it. Shane was there in no time, wiping it with his thumb, Ilya leaning into his palm again, eyes closed.

He cleared his throat and sat a little straighter, composing himself before continuing. Everyone around him went very still, as if any movement might shatter whatever courage he had left.

"I have to go back for now. I don't know how much time my father has left, but I don't think is too much." He was able to look directly at Yuna now, his composure gathered, forever grateful for the anchor that was Shane in that moment. "I want to, or maybe need to, be there for the funeral, and I'm paying for everything, so they're counting on me.”

"The only thing I'll have left after that is my niece, but she's still too young. I intend to leave her a fund only she can access once she's older. Nothing more I can really do right now." A little shrug. "And well, I still have my mama's grave. But I have everything I need right here with me." He gripped his necklace tightly and gave it a light feather kiss, before raising Shane's hand to his lips and mirroring the gesture. "Ya tebya lyublyu." He murmured against his skin.

"I love you too." Shane murmured, soft enough for Ilya's ears only. He smiled softly.

"Thank you so much for trusting us with this piece of yourself. And I'm so sorry. You've been through a lot." Yuna offered, eyes watery and soft, a thankful smile.

"I'm sorry, Ilya. And thank you." David offered, hand reaching for Yuna. Hayden gave him a nod. Ilya nodded back, while Jackie reached over and squeezed his arm reassuringly.

"So, I think we have enough information to make a plan and approach the situation the safest way possible. I want nothing less than to give you two the opportunity to be happy, which is the most important thing." Her face was pure determination now, and everyone could already see her mind working through what she could do. Her manager mode had turned on in no time at all.

For a moment, nobody said anything else. Under the table, Ilya's thumb kept tracing slow circles over Shane's knuckles.



_____



The vodka in Ilya's glass had gone warm, forgotten between his fingers. The table had settled into a different kind of quiet, the exhausted kind that comes after everything urgent has already been said.

"Wait!" Hayden said. "Before the whole planning thing… sorry to interrupt your turning wheels, Mrs. Hollander." Yuna snorted. "Since we're still sitting down for questions... and if it's not stepping out of line, of course you can say no if you don't want to answer."

Shane was suddenly nervous, and he realized he was a little cold, his crossed arms brushing against each other lightly.

Ilya noticed, and without taking his eyes off Hayden, leaned his body back, lifting the front legs of his chair slightly, and reached for the Raiders jacket he'd discarded the day before on a chair behind them. "Shoot it, Pike." He kept looking at Hayden as he carefully dropped his jacket over Shane's shoulders and pressed a light kiss to his head. Then he took a sip of his vodka.

Hayden froze at the interaction, taken aback by how naturally Ilya had done it, and how naturally Shane had accepted it. Yuna, Jackie, and David paused too, faces soft.

When nobody spoke for a second, Ilya gestured with his hands. "Well, tough question. What do you think, Shane? Really complex. Didn't even know he was capable of using such grammar."

"Oh my fucking god, Shane." Hayden pinched the corners of his eyes with two fingers. "I hope you know how much I love you for holding my tongue right now instead of saying the profanities that come to mind when this asshole opens his mouth."

"Love you too, Hayd." Shane laughed, tucking himself a little further into Ilya's jacket, losing himself in its smell. David snorted.

Ilya huffed, side-eyeing Shane, but a smirk danced on his lips.

"So, as I was trying to say… may I ask what happened in Boston? All I know is that you've been seeing each other for seven years, casually, hooking up in hotel rooms when you played each other. But since Boston it was different, no? Shane, you completely freaked out, and you were miserable for the last month." Shane's expression turned sad; Ilya tensed a little too, but reached for Shane's neck and rubbed the back of it gently.

"And like I said, don't answer me if you don't want to… but please do, if it means I have to kick Rozanov's ass." Hayden looked at him, serious now, protective of his best friend.

"Hm... that was actually on me." Shane said, voice small. Ilya's expression turned sad, but he shook his head no and kept massaging Shane's neck, soothing him.

"We'd kind of established some silent rules. Or maybe I made them up in my head to make everything make sense, I guess." He tilted his head back slightly, leaning into Ilya's touch. "We'd meet up, we'd... hook up, and then we'd leave. We texted, but as far as being physically together, that was it. It was always like this.”

“… And then in Boston, Ilya invited me to his place and asked me to stay. We napped, he made me food, we watched TV, and he asked me to stay. And I freaked out. I guess I finally realized how much he meant to me, and how fucking much I wanted to stay, and how impossible our situation was, so I left. And I spent this past month regretting it every day." Another light, feather kiss landed on his shoulder. "'M sorry again, Ilya." He murmured very quietly.

"It's over now, moya lyubov'." Shane nodded.

“Oh… okay.” Hayden said, like every time they showed him how much they'd suffered, he learned the information for the first time all over again.

"I think that's enough talking for now," Yuna said. "I know we still have to discuss this, but you two must be emotionally exhausted, and I need a little time to think through what to do as well, because we are finding a solution." Her determination hadn't dulled once. "Ilya, how's your schedule? When's your next game, do you have to leave?"

"Today was an off day. We fly back to Boston tonight, but my practice tomorrow is optional since we don't play again for two days."

"You have a few days off too, don't you, Shane, before Montreal has to leave to Toronto?" Yuna glanced at her son and he nodded. She looked back at Ilya. "We can drop you at the airport today if you'd like, but if you'd rather stay, we'd be more than happy to have you another day."

"Of course I want to stay. Thank you so much for having me, and for all the support. I still have my things at the hotel, though. I need to go back and get them, if that's okay."

"Of course. You can take our car so you don't have to call a driver, or we can drive you, if you'd prefer." Yuna pointed toward the car keys hanging by the door, though they weren't visible from where they stood.

"Oh, don't bother, you've already done so much. After lunch I'll go, and I'll be back within the hour."

"I can go with you, if you want." Shane said.

"Hm. Maybe we'll be gone for two hours, then." Ilya smirked.

"Ilya! Okay, time to take the vodka off the table!" Shane hissed, blushing heavily, a laugh threatening to escape.

"Kidding!" Ilya announced, the smirk never once leaving his eyes.

"Well, then, I'll go check on the girls. Jackie, want to see if Arthur's up? Maybe we should wake him." Hayden said, already getting up from the table.

"Yeah, yeah, coming!" Jackie followed along.

"Go brainstorm your master plan, I'll make lunch." David said to Yuna, getting up and pressing a kiss to her head. "Ilya, do you like pasta?"

"Oh my god, I'm in heaven!" Everyone laughed and excused themselves.

Chapter 5: Same Team

Chapter Summary

The family builds a plan. Ilya lets himself be looked after. And for the first time in seven years, they're not counting down to goodbye.


Chapter Notes

Lunch turned out to be its own kind of chaos, the good kind. David had gone all in on the pasta, three different sauces bubbling on the stove at once because apparently he "didn't know Ilya's preference and wasn't about to guess wrong," and Ilya had hovered by the stove for twenty minutes insisting he could help and would eat anything they would give him, only to be swatted away with a wooden spoon every single time.

"Sit. Drink your water. You've had enough excitement for one morning." David pointed the spoon at him like a weapon.

"I am athlete. I have very good stamina." Ilya said it entirely straight-faced, and it took Jackie choking on her own water and Hayden's pained groan for him to realize what he'd said.

"Oh my god, I did not mean it like that! You dirty, dirty minds!” His ears went pink. "I meant stamina, for training, not—"

"Sure, Rozanov." Hayden didn't even look up from cutting Ruby's pasta. "Sure you didn't."

“I didn’t! But if you want to know, Shane w—“

“Ilya, shut up!” Shane put his face in his hands and laughed until his shoulders shook, and if Ilya's stamina comment earned him one more smug look from David, who absolutely had heard and absolutely was pretending not to, well. Shane figured that was a fair trade for how the morning had gone.

The twins had reclaimed Ilya within about ten minutes, migrating from the living room the second they smelled food, and Jade had appointed herself his official pasta-quality inspector, demanding a taste of his plate before declaring it "acceptable" with the gravity of a Michelin critic. Arthur, from his highchair, had taken to banging his spoon in time with whatever song Ruby was humming, and for a while the kitchen was just noise and warmth and the particular chaos of a family that had, somehow, absorbed one more person into itself without anyone quite deciding to.

Shane watched it happen the way you watch weather change. Slowly, and then all at once, and by the time lunch was clearing he couldn't remember the version of the table that hadn't had Ilya at it.


_____

"So." Jackie leaned against the kitchen counter, drying a plate she'd already dried twice, watching through the window as Shane and Ilya helped David wrangle the twins into jackets for a walk. "You good?"

Hayden didn't answer right away. He watched Shane through the window too, out on the porch now, laughing at something Ilya had said, looking lighter than he could remember seeing him in longer than he wanted to admit.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I keep waiting to feel weirder about it. The Rozanov thing." He said the name like it still didn't sit right in his mouth. “I am supposed to hate him! He’s supposed to be the biggest asshole in the league, hell, I’ve seen him being the biggest asshole in the league. And then I look at him and he's just... Ilya. It’s like him and Rozanov are different people.”

“Maybe they are…” Jackie said. “And that’s okay. I mean, just look at them.” The twins were now hand in hand with each other and with Ilya and Shane, one on each side, creating a human chain while leaving the main patio to go walk besides the lake.

“Yeah… Shane is happier than I've seen him in years, maybe ever if I’m being honest. And I feel like an asshole for how long it took me to see any of it."

"You didn't know what you were looking for." Jackie set the plate down, came to stand beside him. "None of us did."

"Seven years, Jack." His voice cracked slightly on it. “And even now, look at them, they are going for a walk in a lake inside a private park, Shane’s mother park, because going outside the door to the street was risky, even though we are in the middle of fucking Ottawa. Seven years he sat across from me on planes where not even his mother’s private park was safe and I never once noticed or asked the right question."

“You can ask them now." She bumped his shoulder with hers. "That's not nothing."

Hayden watched Shane duck his head, laughing again, Ilya's hand finding the back of his neck like it belonged there. Something in his chest, still raw from the morning, settled half an inch.

"I liked him," he admitted, quiet. "This morning. Before I knew. I liked watching him with the girls." A pause. "I think that's what actually got me. Not the being gay thing, god, I would never. But the fact that I liked him when I was supposed to hate him all this time."

“Well, now you know you’re suppose to love him, but I don’t think that will be very difficult.” She just laced her fingers through his and let him watch his best friend be happy for a minute longer.


_____

Yuna had claimed the table the second lunch was cleared and the kitchen was clean, laptop open, three different browser tabs already alive with things Shane didn't want to know the details of yet.

He would, eventually, after all, he was his mother’s son and he would want to be 200% prepared and informed, but for now, he was just enjoying this peace.

David had wisely decided that his role in this operation was making tea and staying out of the blast radius.

"You've got that look," he said, setting a mug down beside her.

"What look.” Her tone was bland, only half listening to him.

"The one you get before a big trade negotiation. Terrifying." He kissed the top of her head. "I feel bad for whoever's on the other side of whatever you're planning."

"Nobody's on the other side, David. That's the problem." She rubbed at her temple. "There's no negotiating with a country. There's no negotiating with a league that hasn't figured out if it wants to pretend players like this don't exist or actually deal with it. All I can do is build enough of a net under them that if it ever falls apart, it doesn't take them down with it. It keeps them protected.”

David was quiet for a second, watching her work.

"You really love that boy," he said. Not a question.

“He’s our son David, of course I love him!”

“Not him, Ilya.” David sat beside her.

“Well, don’t get to ahead of yourself there, but how could I not not like him? How could I have not started to love that boy a little bit the moment he entered this house and confronted our little boy the way none of us could?” A small, tired smile.

“Well, we've adopted him, Yuna. I hope you know that."

She looked up, something soft breaking through the determination for just a second. "He needed adopting. Did you see his face when I asked if his family would protect him?" Her jaw tightened. "Nobody should have to think that hard before answering that question. No one should ever have to give that answer.”

"No," David agreed quietly. "They shouldn't."

He didn't say anything else. He just got up, refilled her tea, and let her keep working.


_____

Ilya found David out back an hour later, standing at the grill that wasn't lit, doing something with the propane tank that didn't strictly need doing. Ilya recognized the type of task immediately. He had a few of his own.

"You are hiding," Ilya said, not unkindly.

"Recalibrating." David didn't look up. "Yuna's in there building you a small country's worth of contingency plans. Someone has to make sure the actual grill still works for when this is all over and we just want a normal Sunday."

Ilya huffed something like a laugh and leaned against the porch railing. For a while, neither of them said anything, and Ilya found he didn't mind it. There was a particular kind of quiet that some people were good at holding, one that didn't ask anything of you, and David had it in spades. Shane had learned it from somewhere.

"You are very calm," Ilya said eventually. "For man whose son just told him he's been secretly dating rival player for seven years."

"I've had a few hours." David straightened, wiped his hands on a towel that didn't need it either. "And for what it's worth, I wasn't calm this morning. I just process quiet. Yuna processes loud." He shrugged. "It works out. Between the two of us we usually land somewhere useful."

Ilya nodded slowly, turning that over.

"You know," David said, "I watched you with Arthur this morning. The way you just… handled it. Didn't flinch, didn't hesitate." He studied Ilya for a second. "You're good with kids in a way that's not learned. That's instinct. That’s a good trait to have. Says a lot about a person.”

Something flickered across Ilya's face, there and gone. "My mother was very good with children. I like to think some of it stayed with me."

"I think it did." David said it simply, no pity in it, just fact. "For what it's worth, and I know it's not much, coming from a stranger you met yesterday. I think she'd be proud of the man you turned into. Given everything stacked against you."

Ilya's throat went tight, fast and unexpected. He looked out at the yard instead of at David, blinking hard.

"Thank you," he managed.

"I mean it." David clapped a hand once against his shoulder, brief and solid. "And for the record…you’re allowed to let yourself be looked after here. You don't have to be steady every second. Not with us."

Ilya didn't trust his voice for a second. When he found it again, it came out rougher than he meant it to.

"I'm not used to that. Someone offering, without needing something back."

"Get used to it," David said simply. "You're not going anywhere, are you?"

Ilya looked at him for a long moment, something unclenching slowly behind his ribs.

"No," he said. "I don't want to, at least.” His words saying something else. I hope to be good enough for you, I will try, I promise.


_____

One and a half hour later, Shane and Ilya arrived at the hotel. It still smelled faintly like Ilya, and Shane hated how much that undid him the second they walked in.

They hadn't said much on the drive over, hands loosely linked over the console, the radio low. The silence they needed after everything that happened in the last 24 hour.

Ilya’s suitcase sat exactly where he'd left it two days ago, half-packed, like a version of himself that hadn't known yet what this weekend would turn into.

"Feels like a different life," Ilya said, looking around the room. "Since I was here last."

"It was literally yesterday."

"Feels longer." He caught Shane's hand, tugged him closer without any real urgency behind it. "Feels like before and after."

Shane let himself be pulled in, forehead resting against Ilya's. "Before and after what?"

"Before I stopped being scared of this." Ilya's thumb brushed along his jaw. "After, I don't know. I still don't have plan. But I stopped being scared of wanting it."

Shane kissed him then, slow, unhurried, nothing like the desperate fumbling of that morning. This one had nowhere to be. Ilya's hands found his waist, pulling him in by degrees, and for a while neither of them said anything at all, just traded soft, unbroken kisses in the quiet of a room that didn't belong to either of them, in a city that wasn't home for either of them, and somehow it didn't matter, because for once neither of them was leaving.

"We have one hour," Ilya murmured eventually, checking his watch and mouth still ghosting against his. "Maybe more, you know, people know me for being a terrible packer s…”

"You're a terrible packer," Shane said, already working his hands under the hem of Ilya's shirt. "Truly awful. I should probably help."

"Mm. Very generous of you." Ilya's breath hitched as Shane's palms found bare skin. "Very selfless. But I still think we will need an hour to pack you know. We don’t want to forget anything.”

“Humm, yeah yeah, just shut up.” Shane walked him back toward the bed, and Ilya let himself be walked, laughing softly against his mouth the whole way down.

Although they were moving fast, there was no rush to it, this time. No knock coming, no month of ache behind it, just the quiet luxury of time and a locked door and each other, and when Ilya finally pulled him down against the sheets, hands mapping over skin that felt more familiar with each pass, Shane thought, distantly, that this, this steadiness, this unhurried certainty, was the thing he'd been most afraid of a month ago. Not the wanting. The having.

He didn't run from it this time. He leaned in.

They came back an hour and forty minutes later, hair a mess, Ilya's shirt rumpled and the suitcase looking, if anything, less packed than when they'd left.

"Good trip?" Yuna asked, entirely too innocently, from her spot at the dining table, laptop still open.

"Very productive," Ilya said, straight-faced, and Shane choked on his own spit.


_____

They gathered back at the table an hour later, the house quieter now, the girls down for a nap and Arthur babbling softly to himself in the corner with a stack of blocks. Yuna had a legal pad covered in her own handwriting, three different colors of pen, and the particular energy of someone who'd found a project and wasn't going to let it go until it was finished.

"Okay." She flipped the pad around. "I want to run something by you both."

Shane exchanged a glance with Ilya. "That sounds ominous."

"It's not ominous, it's strategic." She tapped the pad. "You can't come out. Not yet, maybe not for years, and that's fine, that's your call to make and I'll support it fully. But you also can't just... exist quietly and hope nothing ever slips. That's not a plan, that's a hope, and hope isn't a strategy."

"So what's the strategy? I’m not even going to ask what is ominos, dominos, whatever…” Ilya asked, leaning forward.

“It means it feels like something bad is coming” Shane provided. “But yeah, what is the strategy?”

"You build something bigger than the secret." Yuna's eyes lit up in the way Shane recognized from every crisis she'd ever managed for a client. "A foundation. The two of you. Something public, something that puts your names next to each other in a way nobody questions, because it makes sense on paper. A summer hockey camp for example, for kids who can't afford ice time, mentorship, the works. You run it together, rivals turned co-founders, great story, league loves it, sponsors love it. And underneath that" she tapped the pad again, softer now, “ the proceeds can go to some organization or topic you care about.”

“We can donate it to mental health organizations.” Shane said quietly, like the idea just came out of his lips and now he was afraid he had said the wrong thing.

Ilya went very still. He then just turned to Shane, held his faced and kissed him, not caring about if anyone was watching, with an intensity that he hoped said everything he was feeling. “That’s perfect, than you.” His voice gave a little crack.

“That’s great, and you don't have to decide anything today," Yuna said gently, watching that interaction and realizing that has a story behind she will learn one day, hopefully. "It was just an idea. But it gives you a reason to be photographed together, a reason for your names to be linked publicly, all while doing something that actually matters to you. ”

Ilya's eyes had gone glassy, and for a moment he didn't trust himself to speak. Shane's hand found his under the table, steady, and Ilya held on like it was the only solid thing in the room.

"I like it," he said finally, voice thick. "I like it a lot."

“That’s great!” Yuna smiled, soft.

”There's more," she said, after a beat, composing herself. "Long-term. Ilya, you're a free agent next season, aren't you?"

"Da." He looked wary, like he wasn't sure where this was going.

"A Canadian team would get you a Canadian pathway. Easier than an American one, from what I understand, and it puts you a lot closer to Shane geographically no matter which team he ends up traded to eventually, God forbid. And if you're not needing to go back to Russia anymore…” she said it gently, watching his face, “…eventually, you could apply for citizenship. Somewhere that's actually safe for you."

Ilya sat with that for a long moment, something working behind his eyes.

"I have thought about this," he admitted quietly. "Little bit. Not seriously. Feels too big to hope for."

"It doesn't have to be decided today, and I don’t even know of leaving Boston is something you would feel comfortable about.” Yuna said again, softer this time. "I just want you to know the door exists, and it was the best option I could find, if not the only one in this scenario. That's all."

Ilya nodded, throat working, and Shane squeezed his hand under the table.

“I would do anything to be able to be with Shane, just to be closer to him, really.” Ilya said. “And there is one more thing," Ilya said suddenly, and something in his voice made everyone look up. "About plan. Backup, about options, I mean. I have friend. Sveta. Svetlana. We grew up together." He hesitated. "If I ever needed… if things got very bad, and I needed cover, a reason nobody would ask questions… she has said, before, she would marry me. If I asked."

The table went silent.

"Ilya." Shane's voice came out strangled. "You're not—that's not—"

"I'm not saying I want that." Ilya said it quickly, seeing the look on every face around the table. "I'm saying it exists. As option. If things ever got so bad that—"

"No." Yuna's voice was firm, final, in a way that ended arguments. "Absolutely not. We are not putting that on the table. Not while there are actual solutions that don't require you marrying someone you don't love to survive."

"She's a good friend…”

"I'm sure she is." David spoke up now, gently but with the same finality. "But that's not a plan, son. That's a last resort dressed up as one. And we're not there. We're nowhere near there."

Shane hadn't said anything, and when Ilya turned to look at him, his eyes had gone bright, his knuckles pressed hard over his mouth.

"Shane?"

“Just…” Shane's voice cracked. "Just the idea of you having to do that. Marry someone else, pretend, for the rest of your life, just to be safe. And I couldn't even…” He stopped, blinked hard.

"Hey." Ilya's hand found his face immediately, thumb brushing under his eye. "Hey, is not happening. Was just old idea, from before. Before this. Before all of this." He gestured at the table, at Yuna's notes, at David's steady presence, at the whole strange, unexpected net that had appeared under him in the space of a day. "I don't need backup plan like that anymore. I have this instead."

Shane let out a wet laugh, wiping at his own eyes. "You're ruining me. You know that, right? Emotionally. Completely ruined."

"Good." Ilya kissed his temple. “Good to know I have company."


_____

By the time the sun started dipping low, the house had settled into something easier, the plan mapped out in Yuna's careful handwriting, contingencies stacked on contingencies, none of it fully decided but all of it, finally, real. A real path instead of just hope.

"There's one more thing," Shane said, as they cleared the last of the coffee cups from the table. He glanced at Ilya. "The All-Star game. Next month."

Ilya's face changed instantly, something lighting up. "We're both playing."

"Same team, this year," Shane added. "First time in years the draft's landed us together instead of against each other."

"That feels like a sign," Jackie said, from where she was refereeing a Lego dispute with the girls. "The universe finally getting the memo."

"It's a game, not a sign," Hayden said, but he was smiling when he said it, and Shane counted that as its own kind of miracle.

"It's a start," Ilya said quietly, looking at Shane. "Same team. Same bench. No more sneaking. Just... us, in the open, at least for one weekend. We could become friends, see what else we might have in common” His eyes were soft, hopeful in a way Shane hadn't let himself imagine feeling a month ago, and a smirk played on his lips.

“I hate you" Shane laughed.

“You love me” Ilya pecked his lips.

Shane felt giddy.

“Yes, I do.”


_____

Ilya flew back to Boston the next night. Shane and Hayden had one more night at the Hollanders, and then they would fly to Toronto. He was sitting on his mom’s couch now and his phone repaired now, screen whole again, buzzed just as the plane leveled out.

Lily

Landed safe. Miss you already. Ridiculous, no?

Shane smiled down at the screen, something steady and warm settling where the ache used to sit.



Jane

Very ridiculous. I miss you too.

Lily

One month till All-Stars.

Jane

One month.

Lily

Same team.

Jane

Same team.

Lily:

I could get used to that.

Shane curled into the couch, thinking about the whole uncertain, complicated, terrifying, worth-it shape of what came next, and let himself believe, for the first time in longer than he could remember, that it might actually be okay.

Jane:

Yeah. Me too.

Chapter End Notes

And that's it... (Hopefully.) 🩵
Thank you for reading this story, for every kudos, bookmark, and comment. For making my first fic such an incredible experience.

I genuinely never expected this response, and I'll carry it with me for a long time. Thank you for loving Shane and Ilya as much as I do. 💗