#presumed dead

Ilya inhales a deep breath as he steps up to the threshold. There is no doorbell that he can see, so he peers through the glass windows, looking for Shane.

Nothing.

Hi irritation spiking, Ilya roughly shoves at the door, and it swings open soundlessly. Ilya’s mouth falls open. Fucking Canadians – he should have known. This would never happen in Boston.

He wanders through the enormous house, noting Shane’s shoes stacked neatly by the door, a Montreal Voyageurs sweatshirt folded over the arm of the sofa in the living room, a single water glass and lone plate propped up on the drying rack in the kitchen. 

Signs of life, signs of Shane.

But no Shane.

Ilya opens the door to the backyard, and he swallows because there, on the dock on the lake, sits Shane Hollander, in the flesh.

Nerves and excitement thrum beneath his skin. Ilya does not run, but he does walk faster than normal down to the water.

“Shane,” he breathes as soon as his feet hit the wooden slats.

Shane does not turn around.

Ilya frowns. “Shane?” he repeats, louder this time.

Shane’s shoulders twitch, but he still does not turn around. 

What the fuck?

Ilya did not waste a fucking year in the Canadian wilderness, starving and going insane with the rest of the Bears, just to get ignored instead of a homecoming. 

Out there, he could not rest for a single minute. As their captain, he had to set an example. He could not fall apart because everything he ever wanted seemed to die in the fiery crash along with the pilots, a rookie, their PR manager, and the Bears’ franchise owner. All Ilya had was the desperate hope that he would make it out. He would make it back to Shane. He would taste Shane again, along with a chocolate glazed donut from Dunkin’ and pelmeni from Masha’s in Charlestown.

He had been so single-minded after the crash, but now –

On the dock, Ilya falters. Maybe Shane found someone else? Ilya looked Shane up; it was the first thing he did once the hospital reluctantly cleared him for discharge, and he got his hands on a phone. The press did not report a boyfriend (or girlfriend), and Shane’s social media channels were their typical quiet selves.

But Ilya has been gone for a year, after all. While Ilya was ruthlessly clinging onto his humanity by the tips of his fingers, not much had changed for Shane in his daily life. He still had hockey, his gross smoothies, his brand deals. Before the crash, Ilya only saw him a few days a month, for a few hours at a time. Barely anything. Finding another warm body to slide in the small, hidden place Ilya had claimed as his own in Shane’s life would be very easy.

Everyone believed the Bears had died, so it would make sense for Shane to replace him. Many times, Ilya wished they had died, but then he would slap himself and say that he could never return to Shane if that happened, so he should not go wishing for bad things. Enough bad things had already happened to him. 

On the entire two hour drive here from the airport, Ilya could not really suppress the evil little voice in the back of his mind that was telling him that Shane had found a new, secret man. 

At least Ilya did not walk in on Shane fucking someone else. That would have been unbearable, more unbearable than this bizarre silence he is receiving now. 

“Hey,” Ilya says, his voice sharper than before. “Hollander. I am speaking to you.”

Shane swallows, his throat clicking. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he turns around. He blinks rapidly as he takes in Ilya, standing there.

Ilya does his best not to fidget under the weight of Shane’s gaze. Ilya looks different - even he hasn’t had a chance to get used to the thinner, gaunt face in the mirror. Most of his muscles have wasted away, leaving him with lean sinew after a few months of near-starvation. His hair is longer than it has ever been, tied back with an elastic he bought from a convenience store in Montreal.

But Ilya’s eyes look the most different. He cannot pinpoint how exactly, but something definitely has changed about them in the year since he got on that last plane.

“Take a picture, it will last longer,” he snarks. “Oh wait, you cannot because your phone has been turned off for three weeks.”

“I’m on a silent retreat and technology detox,” Shane says dumbly. 

Those are the first words Shane says to him? After everything? Ilya declares, “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” 

Shane flinches.

Ilya sighs. Nothing about this is going right. All Ilya dreamed about, ached for, as he shivered and stared at the ceiling of their ruined plane – the only shelter they had – was being with Shane again. 

But Shane is acting weird, weirder than normal, and Ilya cannot read him like he used to. 

It hurts. 

But the best thing for Ilya’s hurts has always been Shane, so he takes a step closer. 

Shane stares up at him, going paler by the second.

But Ilya has already committed to touching Shane, and now he cannot stop himself, drawn to Shane like a magnet. His fingers barely brush Shane’s cheek before Shane jerks back –

And falls into the lake with a loud splash. 

“Hollander!”

Shane pops back up, spluttering, shaking water out of his eyes. “Motherfucker!” he gasps. 

Ilya drops into a crouch. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demands as he holds out a hand to Shane. 

“You surprised me,” Shane mutters as he ignores Ilya and swims around to the ladder on the other side. He hoists himself up from the water, and Ilya’s mouth goes dry as Shane’s arms flex to lift him up to the last rung, his light blue shirt nearly translucent when soaking wet. 

Ilya needs to touch Shane right this second, or he will die. 

He wraps his arms around Shane’s shivering body, and Shane freezes up for a horrifying second, before he all but melts in Ilya’s embrace. Ilya burrows his nose in the crook of Shane’s neck, and it feels like the first time he can properly breathe since those hikers stumbled on the Bears’ makeshift camp. 

“You’re warm,” Shane marvels. “How are you warm?”

“I did not just fall in the lake,” Ilya mutters as he gently strokes the back of Shane’s neck, still dripping with lake water. “I am sure that is the main reason.”

Shane chuckles wetly.

Ilya draws back, drinking in the sight of Shane’s face. He has fewer freckles than the last time he saw him, and his hair is a little shorter, but he is still the most beautiful man Ilya has ever seen. “We will go back into the house,” Ilya proposes. “And I will take you against all those fucking windows, and then I will eat you out on the kitchen counter, and if you want to be boring, I suppose we can fuck on your bed next. You will not be cold by then.”

“Yeah, I’d really like that,” Shane says, and for some unfathomable reason to Ilya, he looks like he is about to cry. But he follows Ilya silently back to the house, his eyes so big, not looking away for a moment.

* * *

“I dreamed about this,” Shane murmurs as they rest after fucking on the floor in front of all the fucking windows.

“You dreamed about me sucking you off you until you begged?” Ilya waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “What else happened in this dream? Tell me more.” He props himself up on one elbow to see Shane better in the dimming light coming in through the gigantic windows. They had turned on the fireplace, and the entire room was toasty enough to make Ilya sweat after the first minute he spent pounding into Shane’s ass.

For a moment, a split second, Ilya worried that too much time had passed. That he had forgotten how to bring Shane to the heights of pleasure, but apparently this is a skillset so imprinted in his psyche, not even a year of distance can erase it.

Shane stares up at him, biting his lip. Heat flares low in Ilya’s stomach, so he leans down to bite it for him. Ilya does much better job of it, anyway. When he pulls back, Shane’s eyes are glassy.

“I dreamed you came back to me,” Shane says in a small voice, like he is afraid of saying it out loud.

Ilya makes a pfft noise. “Lame,” he says playfully as he cups the side of Shane’s face, swiping one thumb over the freckles he loves so much. “I should have known you are giant sap. Canadians are known for this, I have been told.”

“Hey,” Shane protests, a slow smile spreading across his face, “the most valuable theft in Canada’s history was a maple syrup heist! Don’t knock it.”

Ilya falls on his back laughing. He cannot decide which is funnier; that Canada’s greatest crime involved maple syrup or that Shane knows this fact at all.

Bylat, Ilya loves this man.

“It was 77% of the world’s maple syrup supply!” Shane adds, fully grinning now.

Ilya just laughs harder. “This is,” he forces out, “most ridiculous crime I have ever heard.”

Shane just rolls his eyes.

Ilya settles down, shifting his body so they’re pressed together all the way from their shoulders to their toes. He closes his eyes – maybe small nap before next round. He has been awake since five in the morning to drive from Montreal to Ottawa.

“I miss you,” Shane says, so quietly Ilya barely hears it.

But he does. He squints over at Shane. “I am right here.”

Shane doesn’t respond. Instead, he inhales sharply and throws his arm over Ilya’s side. He pulls him closer, fingers digging into the flesh of his back, teeth nipping at the meat of his shoulder. Like if he holds on tightly enough with enough parts of his body, nobody will pry Ilya loose from him ever again.

Fine with Ilya. He has heard of worse ideas, like getting the whole Bears team on a plane to Seattle for a charity fundraiser on the last day before summer break.

He holds Shane, breathing in the scent of him, and they lay like that for a long time, long enough for Ilya’s eyes to drift closed again.

Shane twitches, and Ilya smiles. Before, they rarely fell asleep together. No, usually one of them would sneak out after they had got all the fucking out of their systems. But now, they can both sleep. They have more time for sex tomorrow.

Shane twitches again, his breath catching, and Ilya freezes. Shane is not asleep. “Shane?” he says.

Shane just shakes his head.

Ilya tilts his head up, and the tears coursing down Shane’s face catch in the flickering light from the fireplace. “Oh, moya lyubov,” he murmurs as he wipes one wet trail away with the pad of his thumb. “What is wrong?”

Shane shakes his head again, his lips pressed tight together, but that does not stop the water from welling up in his eyes.

“We are okay here,” Ilya says as he presses a kiss to Shane’s forehead. “No crying, unless you are choking on my cock, okay?”

Shane snorts a gross-sounding laugh, and Ilya smiles. “You always know just what to say,” Shane whispers.

“Is special talent of mine.”

Shane sighs. “I don’t want to go to sleep.”

“Then you will not,” Ilya says at once. He has no idea why Shane does not want to pass the fuck out after their marathon of very hot sex. But Ilya did not drive all the way here and ignore all those warnings from the doctors not to give Shane everything he asks for.

He can stay awake for Shane. 

He gets up to make them coffee, with Shane quick on his heels. And when Ilya’s stomach rumbles loudly, they wind up picking out odds and ends from whatever rabbit food Shane has in the refrigerator and sugarless (and fun-less) pantry. 

It’s the best meal Ilya has ever had, feeding Shane purple grapes, one-by-one, as Shane pretends to concentrate on slicing a bell pepper into perfectly even strips. As brown rice cooks, Shane piles all the vegetables into a stir fry. After, they eat on the couch as Ilya proposes increasingly insane things to do to stay awake and keep Shane entertained. 

Fifteen minutes later, they’re locked in the most intense game of their careers. 

“Get fucked, Rozanov!” Ilya crows as he snatches the puck back and races back towards the Bears’ goal. 

Shane mumbles something indistinguishable under his breath as, on the screen, his little player 81 flies down the ice. But he cannot stop Ilya’s little player 24 from shooting and scoring. 

“Goal!”

“Yes, I see that,” Shane mutters. “I can’t believe the fig–”

“Believe it, Hollander,” Ilya says smugly as he leans over to kiss Shane’s cheek. “You lost.”

But before his mouth can make contact with Shane’s freckles, Shane yanks him closer, and Ilya falls, blanketing Shane with his body. Shane just stares up at him, a dopey little smile curling his lips. “I don’t mind.”

Ilya gasps. “You do not mind losing to me? Are you really Shane Hollander?” 

“If you’re around to lose to,” Shane says seriously, “then no, I don’t mind.”

“Hmph,” Ilya grunts as he settles on top of Shane, slotting their legs together. “Maybe I should get lost in the woods more often. Maybe then you will decide eating cheese is not too bad.”

“Don’t you dare,” Shane says, a surprising ferocity in his voice. “You can’t leave me. Not again.”

“Not again,” Ilya agrees before he dips his head down for a proper kiss.

As the player selection screen rotates endlessly on the television, Ilya lazily ruts against Shane, sucking against the sensitive point at the hinge of his jaw. Shane makes a delicious whimpering noise, so Ilya sucks harder, reaching down to palm his cock. Shane hisses a low, “Fuck, Ilya,” as Ilya pushes the head through the tight hole of his fist, slick with Shane’s own precome. Ilya keeps increasing the speed and pressure until Shane goes rigid beneath him and spurts all over Ilya’s hand and his own thighs.

“God,” Shane goes boneless beneath him, “you’re good at that.”

Ilya’s eyebrows rise. “Just good?”

“Mm hm,” Shane hums sleepily as he closes his eyes. But, as Ilya gently extricates himself from Shane’s weak limbs, his eyes pop open again in alarm. “Where are you going?”

“To clean you up,” Ilya explains. “You do not like being sticky.” He frowns. “Unless that has changed too.”

Wordlessly, Shane shakes his head.

“Hell would ice over, I know,” Ilya says, chuckling to himself. He pads to the kitchen and tears off a few paper towels. He damps with the faucet in the sink and returns to find Shane watching him through heavily lidded eyes. 

Shane sighs in satisfaction as Ilya cleans his release off his skin. 

Ilya carefully swipes away every last drop. As he places the damp paper towel on the coffee table to dispose of later, he turns back to Shane to find him fast asleep.

Ilya sighs as he looks down at his own cock, now only half-hard with the brief lull in activity. No matter, they have more time to fuck tomorrow. And Ilya will make sure Shane pays for falling asleep on him. Could be a fun game, who knows?

* * *

It is a fun game because Ilya has all the best ideas. He has Shane begging and pleading before nine in the morning, holding his orgasm hostage for a good half an hour as he tells Shane when to start and stop touching himself. Sure, this leaves Ilya down two on the orgasm counter, but he does not mind because he finally gets his mouth on Shane’s dick, so hard and wet for him.

They eat breakfast on the patio, Shane loose-limbed and content, Ilya the happiest he has been in more than a year. The chickpea flour pancakes are gross, but Ilya cannot bring himself to care, especially after Shane proudly unearths a small bottle of maple syrup – the only sweetener he has in the entire house – and Ilya nearly doubles over laughing.

They finish eating, and Shane loans him a pair of swim trunks, going fiery red and turning a deaf ear to Ilya’s pleas to just let him swim naked.

After all the excitement of the morning, it is nice to just float in the water, holding hands, occasionally shoving Shane under the surface to see him make his little angry kitten face when he tackles Ilya in retaliation.

They only head back up to the cottage when their hunger becomes too strong to ignore. But Shane makes the mistake of walking in front of Ilya on the gravel path, and Ilya’s hands cannot not sink into the meat of his ass, right there for the grabbing. Laughing, Shane lets Ilya back him up against the glass door and cover his face in kisses.

After months of hunting for his own food and once, running away from an actual fucking bear, Ilya developed a keen sense of being watched. And, as soon as Shane’s back hits the glass, Ilya lifts his head to scan his surroundings, a hair-raising prickle at the back of his neck.

A man stands in Shane’s living room, staring straight at them.

Shane turns, following Ilya’s line of sight. He freezes.

“Is that your father?” Ilya says as he finally places the face of the man running out of the door like the cottage just caught fire.

Shane doesn’t respond, his eyes wide. But Ilya cannot detect a hint of fear or anger, just pure shock. Eventually, Shane croaks, “Did he see you?”

Ilya grimaces. Did he suck Shane’s actual brain out through his dick this morning? He says flatly, “I am a big Russian man. I am hard to miss.”

Shane grabs his face between his hands, but he makes no move to kiss Ilya. Instead, he studies every inch of him with the intensity he usually saves for playoff game tape.

After a full minute under this scrutiny, Ilya says blandly, “You are acting weird.”

Shane just swallows, but he doesn’t let go. 

“If your father comes back, he will be even more confused,” Ilya points out. 

Shane drops his hands. “No, no, you’re right,” he sighs. “I should talk to him and Mom.”

They head to the bedroom to put on clothes, with Shane growing quieter and quieter the whole way. By the time they climb into his Jeep, Shane hasn’t spoken for several minutes. 

“I…” Ilya steels himself. “I can wait back at the cottage. If that will be easier,” he says stiffly. 

Shane pauses in buckling his seatbelt. “No,” he says without looking up. “You should come too.”

“Okay.”

* * *

The drive feels just as long as the two-hour trip from Montreal to Ottawa, but Ilya watches the clock on the dashboard, and barely ten minutes later, they are pulling up to a more modest version of Shane’s cottage.

“Hello? It’s me. It’s… Shane,” he calls unnecessarily as they step through the door. After toeing off his sandals, he gestures for Ilya to follow him to the livingroom, where Mrs. and Mr. Hollander are huddled together on the couch.

They both raise their heads at once. “Shane?” Mrs. Hollander says.

“I forgot to buy dishwasher tablets,” Mr. Hollander says carefully. “I just wanted to see if I could borrow some. I didn’t know you had… company.”

Shane turns to Ilya, and Ilya cannot understand the expression on his face. “What?” Ilya barely gets out before Shane is flinging his arms around him, panting harshly against his neck. 

Into his ear, Shane breathes shakily, “They can see you too.” His arms curl tighter around him, almost tight enough to ache. “You’re fucking real, Ilya.”

“Yes?” he agrees, mostly confused. “I am real.” This was something he had to prove?

But Shane now is outright weeping into Ilya’s shoulder and apparently beyond words. Ilya throws Mr. and Mrs. Hollander a panicked look, but they just shake their heads, Mrs. Hollander looking dangerously close to tears herself. So he just rubs Shane’s back, murmuring reassurances in Russian, since Shane has always liked that. 

When the sobs seem to be petering out, Ilya adds in English, “Of course I am real, moya lyubov.”

Apparently that is the wrong thing to say, since it sets Shane off all over again.

Over the past day, in between rigorous bouts of fucking, Ilya had wondered why Shane did not ask him about the last year. He thought Shane was being thoughtful by not bringing up bad memories. But if Shane did not believe the Ilya standing in front of him was the real Ilya, maybe he did not want to – what is the English saying – tempt fate.

The Bears talked a lot about tempting fate, out there in the wilderness.

After a few more minutes, Mr. Hollander gets up from the couch. “Why don’t you two sit down?” he asks gently.

Hiccuping lightly, Shane takes a long second to disentangle himself from Ilya, but he lets his father lead him to the couch. Mrs. Hollander immediately makes room and settles down in one of two chairs facing them. Mr. Hollander disappears around the corner and comes back with a box of tissues, glass of water, and a glass, of course, of ginger ale for Shane. He hands the water to Ilya.

Tears are coursing silently down Mrs. Hollander’s face, so Mr. Hollander says, “It is nice to finally meet you, Ilya.”

Ilya turns to Shane, bewildered, but Shane just shakes his head, still incapable of saying a single fucking thing to help Ilya make sense of any of this. “You too, Mr. Hollander.”

“Just David, please. I have to say, Yuna and me were… surprised, to put it lightly, when Shane told us about you two,” he says as Shane sips at his ginger ale. “We had a hard time believing it. But, seeing you together today,” he shakes his head, lips pressing tight together like Shane’s does when he’s trying to keep the emotion from spilling out, “I haven’t seen my son this happy in a whole year.”

Oh, fuck. Ilya swallows, the tip of his nose burning and his eyes prickling. “I was very happy to see him too,” he says in a low voice.

Mrs. Hollander reaches over to tightly grasp her husband’s hand. “We were so relieved to hear your team had been rescued.”

“You knew?” The outrage bursts out of Shane, his first words in ten minutes. Incensed, he demands, “You knew he was back?”

Mrs. Hollander’s eyes narrow. “It was all over the news, Shane.”

“I was on a technology detox!” Shane says at once. “I wasn’t watching the news.”

“And we were going to come by as soon as it was over to tell you,” Mrs. Hollander says in a deliberately calm voice. “Because we were respecting your boundaries and your rules.”

“But–”

“Shane,” David cuts him off, “you were the one who threatened us, remember? You asked us to trust you, and we did.”

Shane’s gaze wildly pingpongs between his parents before he slumps back on the couch, glowering.

Ilya taps the side of his water glass. “You threatened your parents?” he asks.

Shane huffs. “They didn’t think I should be completely by myself for that long,” he says in a low voice.

Ilya reaches for Shane’s free hand, gripping it tightly in his own.

David sighs. “We didn’t think we could make it anywhere near any of the Bears for a few weeks anyway, what with the media circus.”

Mrs. Hollander smiles wryly as she tells David, “I suppose we’ll have to cancel those plane tickets, honey.”

Shane stares at his mother. “Plane tickets?” 

“We were going to pick you up from the cottage as soon as your blackout was over and drive straight to the airport,” Mrs. Hollander says. “We knew how important Ilya was to you, Shane.”

“You knew?” Ilya asks, his voice cracking on the second word. Shane’s hand spasms in his grip, but Ilya does not let him pull away.

“Shane told us a few months after your plane went down,” Mrs. Hollander says matter-of-factly. 

Ilya swivels around to look at Shane, who is deliberately avoiding his gaze. “You did?” he breathes in awe.

“Well,” David says into Shane’s pointed silence, “It seems like you boys have a few things to talk about. Have you eaten? Yuna and I will reheat something for you.” He gets to his feet and waits, pointedly, for his wife to stand too.

Mrs. Hollander seems more reluctant to leave Shane, but she says nothing, just squeezes Shane’s shoulder as she heads to the kitchen after David.

Ilya slumps back against the couch. Shane told his parents? About him?About them? David didn’t seem very surprised to find them kissing, now that Ilya tries to remember his face back at the cottage. And they had already planned on going to Boston – going to see Ilya.

It was like the Bears’ plane went down, and Ilya wandered out into an upside down world where he and Shane did not have to hide, and Shane’s parents were nice to him. He cannot wrap his head around any of this.

“I’m sorry I told my parents about us,” Shane murmurs in an undertone, breaking through Ilya’s thoughts. “I know we weren’t… like that, but they saw me after the news. They sensed something was going on, and I couldn’t keep lying. You were dead,” he says bitterly. “What harm could telling them do? The worst had already happened.”

“You told them,” Ilya repeats, still hung up on this.

“Sorry,” Shane apologizes again.

“And they were… okay with this?” 

Shane shrugs. “As okay as they can be when their only son is walking around like a zombie, not eating, sleeping, or talking to anyone.”

“Shane,” Ilya says helplessly.

“They made me see a therapist,” Shane says in a low voice. 

“Did the therapist help?”

Shane shrugs again, staring down into his mostly empty glass of ginger ale. “I got taken off suicide watch, so that’s something.”

Ilya’s heart stops dead in his chest. “You were on ‘suicide watch’?” he asks, his voice rising in alarm. “You were going to kill yourself?”

Shane glances over at Ilya, and whatever he sees in his face makes him sit up straighter. “No,” he says firmly. “I was not going to kill myself, but,” he jerks his head towards the kitchen, “you’ve seen how they are. They were worried.”

“But you are not going to kill yourself,” Ilya says again.

“No,” Shane says, eyes narrowing. “I would never do that.”

“Good.”

Shane hums in agreement and rubs his thumb soothingly against the scarred back of Ilya’s hand.

“Because my mother did that,” Ilya says, barely more than a whisper.

Shane’s thumb presses harder against Ilya’s hand, grounding him. “She died by suicide?” he asks.

Ilya nods. “So you cannot do this too.” He swallows. “Promise me, Shane. You will not kill yourself.”

“I promise,” Shane says, no hesitation, and Ilya relaxes a fraction. 

“Boys!” David calls. “Food’s ready!”

Ilya stands first, offering his hand to Shane to help him to his feet. They take the seats facing Mr. and Mrs. Hollander, who each have a glass of wine and a few pieces of bread while Shane and Ilya’s plates are piled high with spaghetti and –

“Is this chicken parmesan?” Ilya asks excitedly as he sits down.

“Yep,” David says as he pushes back his chair. “Leftovers from yesterday. Hold on, I’ll get the extra cheese.”

Ilya beams up at him as Shane just rolls his eyes.

“Can we take some back with us?” Ilya asks as he scatters too much parmesan on his pasta. “Shane has no dairy anywhere in the cottage. And I have not had cheese for a year.”

“Of course, son,” David says.

Ilya’s hand twitches at the casual ‘son’ from Shane’s father, and he cannot help the pleased flush to his cheeks.

Mrs. Hollander claps her hands together, making both Shane and Ilya jump. David just looks fondly at his wife as she starts, “All right, so what’s the plan? We’ve got a problem. Let’s solve it.”

“A problem?” Ilya echoes. 

“Coming out,” Mrs. Hollander says shortly but not unkindly. “Now is an optimal time, what with the current levels of public sympathy for the Bears at record highs. We probably shouldn’t share details of how long you two have been involved since that might bring up more questions than answers. Maybe we’ll say since All-Stars? Everyone saw what chemistry the two of you have, and who doesn’t love a good forbidden romance?”

“Mom –” Shane stops her, holding up a hand.

“What?” Mrs. Hollander says, taken aback. “You don’t want to come out?”

Shane inhales a deep breath. “No, of course I do,” he says. He reaches to take Ilya’s hand. “But this is a lot. And he just came back.”

“This is the best opportunity we have,” Mrs. Hollander argues. She turns to Ilya. “I know Shane’s opinion on this. But do you want to come out?”

“Yes, Mrs. Hollander,” Ilya says dutifully.

“‘Mrs. Hollander’,” she repeats with a snort. “Call me Yuna, please.”

“Yes, Yuna,” Ilya corrects.

“You’re cute,” she says dryly, and Ilya preens under her praise. She continues, “I can set up interviews at some LGBT-friendly outlets, and, Shane, it would be good to get in touch with Scott Hunter to see if he has any advice.” She frowns. “Scratch that, I know his agent. I’ll get in touch and coordinate things.”

She takes a sip of wine. “Ilya, we’ll need to get you brushed up on media training, and Shane and I can handle the bulk of your joint press releases and quotes. It’s my top priority to get an immigration lawyer on retainer next week, so we can guarantee your safety. I hope you were planning on staying at least part of the year with Shane as you resume training for the NHL. Perhaps you could buy an investment property together? Then, we can claim asylum in Canada rather than the US.”

“Jesus, Mom,” Shane groans as Yuna pauses for breath, “please tell me you did not think of this in the last five minutes.”

“Of course not,” Yuna says in a tone like Shane has taken one too many pucks to the head. “While one of us was in a complete media blackout, I was making plans.”

“You know how your mother always likes having a project,” David says placidly. 

Shane just slumps back in his seat, defeated. 

“Your mother is scary,” Ilya says in an undertone.

Shane grumbles, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Quite.” Yuna agrees with a smile. Her expression softens. “I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time. I just want to get it right for you both.”

“More pasta?” David asks. 

* * *

Ilya leaves Yuna and David’s cottage with a whole extra plate of chicken parmesan he has no intention of sharing and a multi-step to-do list to review and get back to Yuna with comments by the end of the week.

“Your parents,” Ilya starts as Shane twists the key to start the car, “they are nice.”

“You can say they’re too much,” Shane says with a shrug. “I’m used to them, but they’re not, like, normal parents.”

“I like them.”

Shane smiles, pleased. “I think they like you too.”

“Of course they do,” Ilya says graciously. “Everyone likes me.”

Shane snorts. “Sure, they do.”

In the quiet of the backroads of Ontario, the events of the day spin through Ilya’s head. Fucking, swimming, crying, meeting Shane’s parents… Ilya has not had a day this busy in a very long time. Or a day this good, even if Shane did not believe Ilya was really Ilya for half of it.

“So, when I met you yesterday, you did not think I was real?” Ilya asks lightly.

Shane goes beet red and just stares out the windshield. Ever so slightly, he shakes his head.

“Even when I made you come three times in one hour?” Ilya asks, eyebrows raised. “You thought your brain could make this up? Really?”

“Yes,” Shane says shortly.

“Wow, Hollander,” Ilya drawls, “maybe you are not so boring as I thought.”

Shane glances over at him. “You’re such an asshole,” he retorts, but his expression is as soft as Ilya has ever seen it.

They drive a few more minutes, and Ilya reaches over to lay his hand over Shane’s.

To his horror, Shane sniffs loudly. “Shane?” Ilya asks.

“Fuck,” Shane swears softly. “Look,” he says, eyes trained firmly on the road, “after the accident, after it was clear nobody was going to even find the crash site, I started seeing you everywhere. On the rink, out of the corner of my eye, I’d spot you skating away, but then I’d turn, and of course you wouldn’t be there.” He swallows. “I’d see you in my apartment, sometimes hear you in the next room. Once, in the showers. That was the hardest.”

“In the showers?” Ilya repeats automatically as his head spins with all this new information.

“Shut up,” Shane says without any heat. “Of course you’d fixate on that.” He shakes his head, and his eyes are still too watery for Ilya’s liking. “It’s just – I was so used to seeing you, even in places I knew you couldn’t possibly be, that, yeah, I thought it was happening again.”

“Shane.”

“I’m not crazy,” Shane says in a rush. “I’m not.”

“I know you aren’t, moya lyubov,” Ilya says gently. “This, seeing people who are not there, happened to me too.”

Shane’s head whips around to stare at him. “It did?”

“Da,” Ilya confirms. “My mama. I saw her all the time after she died.” He shrugs. “I knew she was dead. I felt her cold hand. I went to funeral. But still, I saw her. Always glimpses, always.”

“Oh,” Shane says quietly.

Ilya just nods. “You are not crazy.”

“Thank you.”

“You do not have to thank me,” Ilya waves the gratitude away. “I am made up person of your imagination. Of course I agree with you.”

Shane snorts. “Shut up.” He shoots Ilya a sly look. “If you started agreeing with everything I say, then I know you’re not the real Ilya Rozanov.”

Ilya purses his lips. “I do agree with you… sometimes.”

“You do not.”

“I do!” He grins. “You said I am the best hockey player. Is true.”

Shane’s mouth drops open. “I have never said that once in my entire life. I’ve said you’re a good hockey player.”

“No,” Ilya insists, “I remember, you say, ‘Ilya Rozanov, you are the best, sexiest hockey player in the league. Stick your dick in me now, so hard I cannot walk or skate tomorrow’, and then I do this, and I win the playoff game.”

Shane bursts out laughing. “Since when did this turn into a crappy hockey porno? And in what universe would I want you to fuck up my skating with your dick?”

Ilya shrugs. “This is my made up Shane. He tells me this all the time.”

“Sure, sure,” Shane says, grinning broadly. “So, let me get this straight, my made up Ilya just tells me I’m right, while your made up Shane talks like a porn star and throws hockey games for you?”

“He is also hung like a horse,” Ilya says primly, “just like you.”

Shane pulls over to the side of the road and kills the engine. 

“What?” Ilya twists around in the seat, staring out the darkening windows. He has really had enough of being stranded in the middle of nowhere.

“Kiss me,” Shane demands to his left.