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Maybe Ilya could have seen the signs earlier. Maybe it started the day they were out with Hayden for lunch, a month after Hayden’s divorce.
It’s April, Shane is fiddling with a new scarf and Ilya is thinking about how to tell him he doesn’t have to wear it just because Ilya gifted it to him when Hayden pulls out his phone and says, “so did you hear about the U11 shitstorm?”
“Oh yeah,” Shane says, taking a sip of hot chocolate. “That really sucks.”
“Sucks?” Hayden guffaws, “dude, it’s fucking sick. Reminds me of Dallas Kent stuff all over again.”
Ilya looks up with a jolt at the mention of Kent. It’s been a while—probably almost eight years now—since he even thought about that creep. Criminal, more like. Ilya leans forward to take Hayden’s phone. Shane holds onto his wrist.
Before Shane pulls his hand away, Ilya sees a flash of the headline Former Under-11 Division Ottawa Coach Under Investigation Amid–
“Can we not talk about this right now?” Shane asks.
“Children?” Ilya gasps, disgusted. “This is worse than Kent.”
“Yeah dude,” Hayden nods solemnly.
“I don’t think it’s morally okay to compare cases like this,” Shane says to Ilya, with more bite than Ilya expects. “And didn’t you say you wanted a break from talking about hockey post-retirement?”
It’s only been a year since they officially retired. The mental health charity is still up and running, they visit schools and do media circuits sometimes, but life has been a lot more calm since stepping off the ice. Ilya wasn’t lying when he said he wanted to think less about hockey. He’d never been all that passionate about it in the first. It was the means to an end, and then a cage. And after years as Shane’s husband, hockey became something like love. A representation of what Shane meant to him after being the thing that weighed them down for so long,
“I did,” Ilya says now, “but this is not the same thing as talking about your weak back-hand.”
That makes Shane chuckle, his smile lines deepening. Ilya can still sense the tension in the rest of his face, so he says nothing more about the article.
“How are the kids?” he asks Hayden, and Hayden cartwheels into the story of his Rose and Jade’s college feeds and RESPs how expensive everything is even with how much they’d saved. The divorce settlement really blew through his savings. Luckily, a custody battle wasn’t necessary. The kids were old enough to understand what was happening and they had all reached an agreement that worked for everyone.
They have heard this story from Jackie already, but they let Hayden rant. As Hayden talks, Ilya watches Shane try to put on a ‘normal’ attentive face and ask the right questions. He can tell Shane is trying too hard, which worries him. Shane knows he shouldn’t have to try. Lately he’s been okay with whatever emotion comes to the surface. He knows Ilya and Hayden wouldn’t judge him.
In the parking lot, Ilya undoes the scarf from around Shane’s neck before he starts the car.
“It’s okay if you don’t like it,” he says.
Shane smiles, caught. “It’s a little itchy?”
Ilya leans over and kisses his reddening neck. It’s warm with the pressure of the wool. Shane runs a grateful hand through Ilya’s curls. The muscles around his jaw look considerably looser. Ilya pinches the underside of his jawbone.
“Everything okay?” Ilya asks. “I feel that you seized up during that conversation.”
“It’s just unsavoury,” Shane says, waving a hand in front of his face. “I don’t like talking about those things.”
“You gave interviews about Kent and rape culture in hockey when the case surfaced,” Ilya pushes. He has to push. He doesn't know why, but he has to.
“But I didn’t like it,” Shane argues, “I was younger then, I was still a role model. I had to. It was my responsibility to speak up about someone I knew.”
“So because you don’t know this man you won’t say anything? You are still role model now.”
Shane freezes, his hands on the steering wheel turning white, and Ilya is struck with guilt. He must have crossed a line. That, or Shane knows he is coming to a turn in the conversation where he will have to say something he doesn’t want to say.
“Or do you know him?” Ilya asks, his heart thudding like a slammed door in his chest.
When Shane says nothing, Ilya adds, mostly to himself, “He is from Ottawa. Where you grew up. Where we live now.”
Shane looks at the scarf on Ilya’s lap. Then back at Ilya. Then at the dashboard. He leaves his eyes there, where Ilya can’t see the characteristic shine in them.
“I did know of him,” Shane says, fingers flexing over the steering wheel, “but not well. He coached some of the guys I played shinny with at the community centre.”
“Some guys,” Ilya repeats.
“Some kids.”
Ilya leans into Shane’s space, crowding him, trying to see his face. Shane gives him a soft smile. He’s got stubble under his chin. Ilya touches it, turning Shane’s face toward his own.
“It just shook me a bit,” Shane admits, “that it was someone in my circles. I saw the article last night, but I’m over it now.”
Ilya falls away, but not before kissing him on the mouth, whispering, “okay.”
Shane chases Ilya’s movement. He kisses back as he slides the key into the ignition, and it feels like it always does. Precious, soft, safe. Everything Shane ever was and always will be to Ilya.
By the time they are home and in bed, Shane is relaxed, purring against Ilya’s chest like a cat, and Ilya forgets he was ever worried at all.
_______
In May, the month of renewal and new beginnings, Shane has regrown the dark circles of their early morning practice days.
He sleeps but wakes up too early at five or six in the morning. Ilya hears him sit up in bed. Sometimes he goes to the bathroom. Sometimes he does breathing exercises and lies back down.
Ilya asks him about it when it happens more than five times. That’s Ilya’s rule. If it happens more than five times, he addresses it. The same goes for Shane. Otherwise, they can work out their own issues without the other hovering ceaselessly.
“I guess my sleeping habits have changed,” Shane explains, drinking a smoothie at the kitchen counter. He looks so tired but he’s smiling, sounding breezy.
“Doesn’t that ever happen to you, babe?”
“Yes it happens,” Ilya agrees, “but it has never happened with you since retirement. Do you miss the ice?”
“I still skate,” Shane reminds him. “But maybe you’re right, I should pick up shinny again. I’ll talk to Hayden about it.”
“Yes, okay.”
Ilya doesn’t know why that’s all he can say. There is nothing he can do but trust Shane, and let it go.
May goes like that. Shane plays hockey with other retired players on the weekends. Sometimes Ilya joins him. At these games, Shane is clearly complacent. He is not joyful, nor is he sad. He looks as if he is going through the motions.
The worst part is Ilya feels the same energy when they make love. Sex has always been a passionate affair for both of them. Over the course of their relationship, Shane became extremely vocal in asking for what he wanted. Now he is always asking Ilya to tell him what to do, so he can do it. And he does it perfectly, because it’s Shane, and nothing Shane can do for Ilya is imperfect, but there is an uneasiness in Ilya’s heart.
He worries. It happens five times. And then seven.
It’s June the seventh time. They have the AC off and the windows open. Sometimes there are fruitflies, but they have set traps to catch the disruptive pests.
It is the afternoon, and they are in the middle of foreplay when Ilya says, “you tell me what you want or we are not doing this.”
He’s using his dom voice but Shane's response is not easy submission. He wavers. He’s sitting naked in the middle of the bed and he looks so small. Has he lost weight? Ilya doesn’t want to notice, but he does.
“I want…”
Shane trails off, tucking his legs up and folding his arms around them.
“Tell me,” Ilya encourages. He has no doubt he can deliver whatever it is.
“I want you to fuck me,” Shane says.
“Okay.” Ilya raises his eyebrows. “That’s it?”
Shane shakes his head.
“Shane,” Ilya says, attempting to be stern but calm, “you have to tell me in order to get what you want.”
“What do you want?” Shane tries again.
The air between them shivers with nerves, overwrought with an undiagnosable sickness. Ilya crawls forward on the bed and takes Shane's face in his hand, rough but not trying to hurt him.
“I want to know, so fucking tell me.”
“You won’t like it,” Shane says, his eyes teary, “I know you won’t.”
That’s not at all what Ilya wanted to hear. Doesn’t Shane know there isn’t anything he can’t tell his husband by now?
But, no. Maybe not. Patience, Ilya tells himself before he lets frustration win. There are still things he doesn’t know about Shane. There must be.
“How do you know?” Ilya prods, “we have so much we haven’t done, my love. Just tell me, please.”
Shane squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them.
“Please,” Ilya repeats.
“I want you to drug me,” Shane says with lowered eyes, “but enough so I know what’s happening to me. And then I want you to fuck me so hard it hurts and I’ll want you to stop but I can’t tell you, I won’t be able to say anything. I’ll just take it. Even if I somehow tell you to stop. You have to keep going.”
The sick feeling spills into Ilya’s body. He tremors and lets go of Shane’s face.
“Shane,” he says, and it comes out choked, like the desperate whisper of a person being strangled.
“I told you,” Shane says, and the shame that fills his face makes him look suddenly gaunt. Bloodless and cold. Like a corpse.
“Shane I cannot do that,” Ilya says, afraid, “I can’t actually drug you. We can pretend, but it can’t be real.”
Shane tilts his head to the side. He looks like a puppet with the strings cut. And then the light catches him a certain way and he looks like Shane Hollander again. He smiles, his cheeks appearing. Where did they disappear before? He shakes his head. His hair has grown out. Some of it falls against his forehead.
“That’s what I meant though,” he says, “we pretend you’ve drugged me.”
“You want to roleplay rape,” Ilya says. Confirms. States. He can’t believe his own mouth.
“It might be fun,” Shane says, suddenly jovial, “I don’t know, maybe it’s just something that implanted in my head considering, you know. All the news. And it wouldn’t be real. You wouldn’t be hurting me.”
“Maybe,” Ilya says, scratching his cheek, “I don’t know. I think we need to talk about it more because right now I can’t. I cannot do that to you, even pretend.”
“Okay,” Shane says. He kisses the tip of Ilya’s nose. “Will you just fuck me then?”
That Ilya can do. They fuck twice in one night and the comedown is strange. Shane starts to tremor, goosebumps coating his arms and belly. His eyes swim with tears. Ilya gives him all the attention he usually does, and more. He takes a shower with Shane, and holds him under the warm water while Shane clings to him, so very like a child that Ilya feels as if that’s what Shane is. A child he’s taking care of.
“Baby, you are okay,” Ilya says, in English.
“Baby?” Shane hums, amused.
“You're like a baby right now,” Ilya observes, “do you know what’s happening to you?”
“I dunno,” comes Shane’s childish reply. He tucks his face into Ilya’s shoulder and lets out a long sigh.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” Ilya repeats, rubbing his back, swaying them in an attempt to comfort them both.
“I am,” Shane agrees, fluttering his eyelashes. “Love you.”
All at once, Ilya finds himself desperately sad.
“I love you,” he says, and when once is not enough, he says it again.
“Shane,” Ilya whispers, “do you understand how much I love you?”
Shane draws away to look at Ilya. To Ilya relief, he's starting to sober up.
“I do,” he says sweetly, “I always do.”
_______
Ilya hears about the case again during a July thunderstorm. The power flickers on and off in their condo, the back-up generator working its magic and bringing light back into their world. With it comes a stream of footage of a man Shane says he only knew as a boy. He plays for Detroit. Or past tense, he played for them. Ilya recognizes him from games but never paid him much attention. He had weak passes and poor defense. Unremarkable, really.
Photos of him in U11 and junior hockey flicker across the screen, accompanied by a newscaster’s sombre retelling of Davis’ story. Davis is on screen as an adult, reddened cheeks, an angry brow. He’s retired from hockey, and now it’s time to tell his story. It started as bullying, he said. Bullying for being too chubby for the league. And then bullying because he cried about it, because he wasn’t man enough. The news censors the slurs but Ilya knows them all.
“Coach Darren was always kind to me, though,” Davis tells the camera, “he made it seem like he’d protect me.”
Ilya looks at the side of Shane’s face. He’s easy to read with his guard down like this. His face is clipped and crushed with something like guilt, or worse. Fear. He was tipsy from wine before they even turned the TV on, and the flush hasn’t dissipated. He worries at his lip.
Ilya touches Shane’s quivering chin to stop him from biting down too hard and making himself bleed. He drags a thumb over Shane’s mouth. Shane, always attuned to this particular motion, opens his mouth to suck Ilya’s finger.
This is the wrong time, Ilya wants to say, this feels inappropriate right now. But Shane—maybe this is exactly what Shane needs. Ilya doesn’t want to ask or hear the answer. Hearing that Shane recognized this player from their youth was hard enough. He feels nausea growing in his stomach, that dread you get when you know someone has died.
But Shane has not died. He’s here, sucking on Ilya’s thumb, his eyes now closed. He asks to change the channel in a muffled voice, his saliva coming down the sides of his mouth.
Ilya shuts off the TV instead. Since April when Hayden showed him the article, Ilya hasn’t allowed himself to give it too much direct thought. In the peripheral, the horror of it sits, waiting for either of them to address, and they haven’t. Ilya didn’t think it needed to be brought up again if it would upset Shane, but here it is, in the room with them, even after the TV goes blank.
Ilya already knows of horrors like these. Shane too. These reports have circulated in the pro-hockey world for a long time. Rumours at first, and sometimes bigger cases and profiles like these. It happened back in Russia too, but rarely were those cases ever reported on.
He takes his thumb out of Shane’s mouth. Shane gapes at him, so completely sunken that Ilya for a moment freezes, worried he won’t be able to bring him out of this. He’s seen Shane drop dozens of times, but this time he looks nearly faint, like he’s going to pass out in Ilya’s arms.
Ilya holds him, strokes his hair, kisses the top of his head. It's a comfort for him too. He’s scared. Very fucking afraid that something has horrible has happened to Shane and he can’t go back in time to reverse it. He should have known somehow that Shane was lying, he thinks. But how? He lets his thoughts resettle to the present, a technique he’s learning to use instead of resorting to self-blame.
“Moy zhizn,” he says. My life.
Shane nuzzles into Ilya’s neck.
“Touch me?” Shane asks, pulling himself into Ilya’s lap.
His voice is feathery, distant. Almost like when they were teenagers.
Ilya is worried it’s a bad idea. But Shane starts to get teary when Ilya doesn’t comply soon enough, and then he knows he needs to make Shane come. That coming is the only thing that will make Shane feel okay right now. Or else, or else, or else.
“Mm, yes please,” Shane is groaning, as Ilya works him.
Ilya blinks away his own tears and focuses his attention at the pink head of Shane’s cock, as wet and leaking as ever.
It takes a long time for Shane to come. It’s like Shane is stopping himself, holding out, even though Ilya is not asking that of him right now. When he does release, he shakes, and Ilya has to rock him back and forth for it to stop.
Shane’s cheeks are pink. Sweat stains his brow. Ilya wipes at his face with tissues they keep next to the couch. Shane turns away. He won’t look at Ilya. He barely even blinks.
“My love,” Ilya whispers, “will you tell me—”
Shane shoots up from the couch, wresting his hand from Ilya’s grasp. It happens so quickly Ilya doesn’t have a chance to grab for him. The bathroom door slams shut, and Ilya’s stomach rattles with it.
________
An hour later, Shane has rejected three calls from his parents and has been in the bathroom for an irrationally long time.
Ilya turns the TV on again, muted this time. The news has ended. On the screen, there is a trailer for a Hallmark Christmas in July’s new heterosexual fantasy movie with a child actress who’s supposed to have some magic powers that gets her parents back together. The cheerful music taunts him. Ilya shuts the TV off and checks his phone. He reads article after article and makes himself sick.
In the midst of wishing death on this monster of a coach who terrorized over seven little boys in the course of six years, his phone lights up with Yuna’s name. Ilya looks at the locked bathroom door. He goes to the balcony and answers.
“Hello.”
“Did you hear the new report?” Yuna asks before Ilya gets out the greeting. “Is Shane with you?”
Ilya’s heart sinks. Not gently. It sinks like a stone thudding to the bottom of the dusty ocean. His world turns a deep grey, scattering before his eyes.
Those questions are part of his answer. Ilya has had a lot of worst nightmares. One of those was Shane dying, or being injured again. Another was Shane not loving him anymore. There was Svetlana dying. There was the idea that there was no heaven or hell where he could meet his mother again.
This was not one of his nightmares. He never believed something like this would happen. Worse even, that it happened, or must have, so long ago that Ilya had not yet been a part of Shane’s life. What he could have done at that age, he doesn’t know. But he could have been there.
“Shane is in the bathroom,” he tells Yuna.
“I need to know,” Yuna says, clipped, the start of a sob in her throat, “I need to know if that animal did anything to my child.”
“I don’t know,” Ilya says. He knows. In his gut, there’s a fragile feeling, like if he doesn’t hold his body up he’s going to fall apart completely. “I do know that Shane played with Davis.”
“He did,” Yuna confirms, “they were actually kind of friends. Shane used to tell me that Davis was the only one who wanted to talk to him sometimes. The only one who would invite him to hangout after practice. They were drill partners. They had the same schedules. Darren did coach them both, Ilya.”
Ilya has had only one conversation like this with Shane’s mother. It was once, years ago, when Ilya and Shane were at their lowest. Ilya in the depths of his depression and Shane skipping his eating disorder therapist’s appointments. They fought all the time. They hurt each other so much. The desperation in Yuna’s voice when she begged them to take better care of themselves so they could love each other was the same now. Relationships were hard, she said. But things got better. It took years.
On Shane’s thirty-seventh birthday they unofficially renewed their vows right here in this condo. That was only a year and half ago. Ilya would never let things go that far again. He promises himself that now, with Yuna on the line, trying not to sob.
Ilya loves Yuna. Loves her almost like his own mother. Because of her, he is part of Shane’s family. Part of a family. Ilya Rozanov. No one would have predicted it.
He says everything he can to comfort Yuna. He promises they will all meet in person on the weekend. He promises he will take care of her son as he always has. He tells her he loves her for the first time, and she says it back. She tells him to sleep, to eat. He knows what she means. He promises that too.
He hangs up. He looks out at the unforgiving city, doused in violent rain.
Thunder rolls, and rain beats against the balcony. Ilya goes inside to put on a hoodie. He presses himself against the bathroom door and hears Shane vomiting, which is its own familiar dread. They have been here before, Shane throwing up while Ilya begged him to stop, but not because of this.
Or maybe it was because of this. Oh god, Ilya thinks, startling himself with the scream inside his brain, maybe everything was because of this.
“Dushy moya,” Ilya says against the door.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” comes Shane’s ragged voice. “But please help me.”
Ilya tries the door but it’s locked. He presses his palms against the wood.
“You have to unlock the door, my love.”
He digs his nails into the unyielding surface as he listens to Shane’s shuffling.
The lock finally clicks and Shane falls into Ilya’s arms. He’s trembling. Saying sorry over and over and over.
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,” Ilya says, stroking the back of Shane’s neck, “do you understand that?”
“I didn’t want to know,” Shane says instead of Ilya's chest, “I didn’t want to remember.” His voice sounds wild and hoarse. A variation of how it does when he’s drunk, but much more untethered.
“It’s okay,” Ilya says, wracking his brain for the right thing to say. English feels difficult in a way it hasn’t for years. For a weak moment he thinks of calling Svetlana and asking her what to say. She always has the right words. But this is now, and he can’t leave Shane. He relies on his love to carry him through this conversation.
“You’re safe here, Shane,” Ilya tries, “You can remember now. Or we can do something else. We can go for a walk.”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Shane goes on, sounding possessed, like a creature from a horror film who speaks with two voices. The voice of a child and the voice of a monster.
“I promise. I never told anyone. I thought maybe that was why I was—why I was the way I was. Because he made me like that. But that was wrong. Davis used to tell me that. That I would be gay if I let myself enjoy it. I was so confused Ilya I didn’t know. I didn’t know what was happening to me.”
“I know,” Ilya says, trying to gather himself, “you could not have known. Being gay has nothing to do with what that man did.”
He loosens his grip on Shane so he can see his beloved’s face. Oh, how awful, his beautiful Shane. His mouth is twisted up into a scowl. His nose is red and crusted. Vomit stains the corner of his lips.
“I know,” Shane parrots, “I know, I know. It’s not that. It’s how he made me feel. Like it was my fault. Because I attracted him to me. Because I was gay. I said I wasn’t. I said it so many times. I said so why did he do it to you. You’re not gay. Maybe he thought that about himself. He was projecting maybe. He was just a kid too, Ilya. He was a fucking kid.”
“Who said that?” Ilya asks, trying to keep up with these violent threads, “Davis told you that?”
Shane is out of his mind, his eyes darting in all directions like fireworks, ignoring the question.
“Coach Billy said he wasn’t gay either. He was very religious he said. God was the only judge and God knew when sad men needed saving. He said he just liked to be close to me,” he continues. “He said his life was sad sometimes. The only thing that made him happy was coaching us. Kids were his life.”
Billy. Bill Darren was his name. Ilya’s veins are ice. He takes a breath and Shane closes his eyes against the rush of wind from Ilya’s mouth.
Ilya touches Shane’s cheeks, feeling dried tears over his freckles.
“You know what he used to call me?” Shane asks, chuckling.
Ilya does not want to hear the answer, but he lets Shane say it.
“Cherry Blossom,” Shane laughs, “I guess because of the Japanese thing.”
Rage lurches in Ilya’s chest, momentarily winding him.
“I’m so sorry, Shane,” Ilya says, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you.”
Shane looks up at him. A slow grin spreads across his face, like he’s on pain killers. It’s terrifying. Ilya touches his hair to try and bring him back to no avail.
“It’s okay, Ilya,” Shane says, and then crumples like a doll in Ilya’s arms.
________
That either of them sleeps at all is a miracle. When Ilya wakes, it’s half past seven in the morning. Shane is curled at his side in a protective posture he doesn’t usually sleep in. For a moment, Ilya is afraid to touch his husband.
He’d carried Shane to bed, checked his temperature which was high, and then woke up around midnight to ensure he was still breathing. At that point, Shane was more lucid. He looked ashamed and said very little aside from thanking Ilya for the water and the blankets. He said he was tired and wanted to sleep.
Sunrise glimmers through the curtains. Ilya gets out of bed to shut them so Shane can have more rest, but when he turns around, he sees Shane’s eyelids fluttering as they do before he wakes.
Sliding in next to Shane again, he reaches out and lays a gentle hand on Shane’s face.
“I love you,” he says.
Shane opens his eyes and tears spill onto his pillow and into Ilya’s hand. He has that apologetic stare again. He says, “Love you.”
“Nothing in the world could make me stop loving you,” Ilya says. “Do you understand?”
With hesitation, his eyes darting around, Shane breathes out, “I understand.”
“No, no,” Ilya says, “look at me please.”
Shane looks. What he sees in Ilya’s eyes must reassure him, because he suddenly appears so calm.
“Ilya,” he says, “the things we do. The way I want you. When I submit to you. I want you to know it’s because of you. Because I love you, and not because I’m trying to escape from anything.”
Ilya considers this. How to phrase his next words so Shane doesn’t get hurt. If he should or should not bring up the rapeplay. It’s hard sometimes, with his blunt personality or his tendency to make light of things. Sometimes they misunderstand each other. But he knows Shane’s submissiveness is more complicated than that. He doesn’t want to agree just to avoid an argument. That’s what screwed them up last time.
“If you ever do need to use it as an escape,” Ilya says, “that is okay. We can talk about it. You are safe with me. You have been healthy, Shane. I am very proud of how far we have come. Sex is not the only reason this has worked.”
“I know,” Shane says, his brows furrowing, “but I just mean I don’t want you to think everything about me has been some sort of trauma response.”
“I don’t think that at all,” Ilya reassures him. “It is like saying everything about me is because my mother died from suicide or because my father was a bad man.”
Shane gives Ilya an offended look.
“I would never think that.”
“So?” Ilya says, spreading his hands in a therefore gesture.
“Yeah, okay,” Shane smiles. Really smiles this time, bright and sweet like the peace Ilya knows as part of his own heart.
God. It is such a relief.
________
Reporting is a point of contention. Yuna thinks it would do others good, and that Shane could tell his story to the world now that he’s retired too. She says maybe it will help others, especially the kids who have looked up to him since the beginning of his career.
Suffice to say, it is not a good conversation.
Shane’s fists are clenched on the dinner table. Ilya wants to say something to redirect, but Shane speaks first.
“I have this distinct memory,” he says, “of you saying that to me during my rookie year. Do you realize what that did to me when I realized I was gay?”
David, on Yuna’s right, turns away, blinking rapidly.
“Honey,” Yuna says, the wrinkles around her eyes growing deeper, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just want you to do what’s best for you and your post-career.”
“No, I’m sick of doing what’s best for everyone else,” Shane says, "I want to be selfish this time. I can’t talk about this anymore.”
Something like pride pricks at Ilya’s heart, but he tries to remain neutral for Yuna and David’s sake.
“Shane,” Yuna chides.
“Mom,” Shane near-shouts. It is not a tone Ilya hears often, and even he is startled.
“Mom,” Shane repeats quietly, ceding when Ilya’s hand covers his own, “at this point in my life, being open about this would literally kill me.”
A silence grips the room.
Ilya tightens his hold on Shane’s hand. His neutrality caves. There is nothing to hold back. He looks Yuna in the eyes in silent defiance. He may love this woman like his mother, but he will always be on Shane’s side.
Yuna’s eyes crumple. She presses her hand to her mouth.
“You’ve gone through so much already,” she says. “I never thought it would be this hard.”
“It was always hard,” Shane says, “but I loved it. I loved that I could be with you and you were always with me. Can you just—let this one go and just be with me now?”
David and Yuna exchange a look. Yuna tucks a finger under her chin, as if her whole world is held tight between that single joint. She doesn’t seem to breathe, lest she unravel it.
“Son,” David says wearily, “we can absolutely keep it between family. No one needs to know.”
“I’m sorry Shane,” Yuna says, suddenly ragged. She rises from the table and pulls Shane into her chest. “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice what was happening to you.”
“I didn’t tell,” Shane says, “I could have said something. How’s that your fault?”
“Oh baby,” Yuna sobs, “you were ten. You were a child. I was responsible for noticing what was happening with you. I knew they bullied you but I didn’t know—”
“You couldn’t have known, Mom.”
Yuna lets out a sound of frustration, flinging her hair away from her face.
“You didn’t know,” Ilya says gently, “either of you. What was really happening. Shane couldn’t understand enough to tell you. It’s nobody’s fault but that awful man.”
Even as Shane rests his face in his mother’s shirt, his hand is still solid in Ilya’s, a grounding weight. Seeing them like this, together, rings a strange feeling in Ilya’s chest. Both longing and sadness. Both relief and comfort.
And then Yuna reaches out her other hand. She rests it on Ilya’s neck, and squeezes gently.
______
One morning that same month, Ilya wakes to find Shane staring at him.
“Good morning,” he says curiously, touching Shane’s freckles, which have grown darker with age.
“What if I made it up?” Shane asks, “maybe it didn’t happen at all.”
Ilya sits up, pushing their sheets away. He hovers over Shane, unsure of where to put his hands, and then settles them on Shane’s stomach which rises and falls with his deep breaths.
“I barely remember,” Shane continues, “it’s only bits and pieces. Maybe I just made it up based on what Davis said.”
In the past few weeks, Ilya has read dozens of articles. About the case, yes, but also about child sexual abuses, memories, dissociation. Despite the difference in experience, Ilya could relate to the phenomenon of dissociation. He doesn’t remember his mother’s funeral at all. When he does remember it, it’s the texture of his pants or the shape of his shoes that arise, not the ceremony or the people. It’s the same with Shane’s accident. His memories of the actual event were formed only from seeing the footage on social media. He can’t actually remember what it looked like the moment Shane got hit.
What he does remember is the panic. The nausea, the fear, the awful, pillaged feeling in the gut. Those are the things Shane remembers too, and more. Shane gets a jerking pain in his neck and lower back when he has a bad dream. His dreams have hands, he says. There are fingers in his underwear. It tickles but doesn’t hurt, but sometimes it does hurt. Sometimes it really, really hurts, like a wound rubbed raw. There are days where he wants to brush his teeth all the time. He had stomach aches for his entire childhood. He used to pee himself at school. He gets dizzy looking at images of his U11 days.
Ilya reminds him of these things. And slowly, patiently, Ilya tries to explain to Shane how to trust himself.
“You don’t want it to be true,” Ilya says, “and that is understandable.”
“That’s one reason I can’t ever tell anyone else,” Shane says, “I don’t have a shred of evidence.”
“Listen to me,” Ilya soothes, “you don’t need evidence. There is nothing to prove unless you want to go to court. I know you are telling the truth. I know you. Your parents, they know and trust you and believe you.”
He almost adds, “you are lucky,” but he holds back. It wouldn’t be fair. Shane is not lucky because of this. Having a family is one thing, this is another.
“I don’t want to go to court,” Shane says into his pillow, “I don’t need his money, or anyone else’s. I don’t need pity. Therapy has been good. I don’t need anything else.”
“I know, moya lyubov,” Ilya assures him. He rubs Shane’s shoulders. They’re warm with tension. “What do you need?”
“I need,” Shane thinks, sitting up and planting a kiss on Ilya’s cheek, “I need a sandwich.”
______
Ilya knows he’s being too careful. It’s just that Shane has this confused look in his eyes, blowing Ilya, sitting on his knees next to the couch, like he’s trying not to drop. It’s not the soft haze he usually carries. Not the excitement he usually has when he works so hard to get Ilya to come.
Ilya’s thrusts slow to a halt and he slips out of Shane’s mouth to cup his jaw. Shane whines in frustration.
“Shane,” Ilya says, like a question.
“S-My body’s doing something,” Shane explains, “it’s like fucking—like these sensations.”
“Where?” Ilya asks. Despite the concern, he is relieved that Shane held back an apology. There is nothing he needs to be sorry for.
Shane shakes his head.
“I never blew anyone before you,” Shane says.
“I knew that,” Ilya says, smugly.
“I mean not even—” Shane chuckles and rests his head against Ilya’s knee.
“I think maybe he sucked me off but I never came,” Shane whispers, “it was just his huge fucking mouth on me. Like a wolf. Or a dog, or something. I never liked animals that much, before Anya that is. She really changed me, you know?”
Ilya’s throat tightens.
“Oh, Shane.”
“He was so big.”
Ilya touches Shane’s cheek. He pulls on Shane’s index finger and it’s enough for Shane to get up from the floor and curl onto the couch next to Ilya.
“You were small.”
“Davis used to ask me to touch my—” Shane says, “I guess that’s why.”
Ilya laces their fingers together.
“And did he?”
Eyes fixed on the wall across from them where a painting of a vague metropolis in the rain hangs, Shane relaxes into Ilya’s body.
“Sometimes. I thought it was normal. I sometimes wondered why my dad never did that. To me.”
A dangerous quiet arises, so strong Ilya can hear Shane breathing.
“I wish Darren wasn’t dead,” Ilya says.
“Cause you’d kill him yourself?” Shane asks, his eyes glowing with humour and affection.
“I would,” Ilya says seriously.
Shane’s eyes shine with tears, but he’s smiling, taking in all of Ilya’s face. Ilya feels stripped bare whenever Shane looks at him like this. Like Shane can see everything about him all at once. Like Shane Hollander understands the entirety of Ilya Rozanov, and always has.
It’s unbelievable sometimes, how much faith Ilya has in their love.
“My hero,” Shane jokes. His smile fades. “I really wanted to make you come tonight, Ilya.”
Ilya shrugs, unfazed. “It’s okay, Shane.”
Shane wiggles around until his lips are pressed to Ilya’s neck. He kisses, soft and light, what must be hundreds of times. Hundreds of kisses, his eyelashes brushing against Ilya’s skin. It’s been almost twenty years that they’ve known each other this way, and even this sweet gesture makes Ilya harden in his sweats.
“I still want to,” Shane confesses into Ilya’s skin, “I love to watch you come. I want you spilling over my hand.”
“You like my come that much, hm?” Ilya asks, a hand slipping under Shane’s shirt. His warm skin pulses, alive as ever.
“Yes,” Shane says, earnestly.
Ilya’s heart blooms again, renewed. He touches Shane’s stomach and then his thigh, waiting, squeezing, just feeling him respond to the caresses. Shane whimpers when Ilya palms his cock.
“The sensations?” he asks.
“Good,” Shane says, his familiar haze returning, “it’s you. I love you.”
“Look at me,” Ilya commands softly. “Just keep your eyes on me. It’s just you and me.”
“You and me,” Shane confirms in a floaty, ephemeral voice.
Ilya strokes him until he’s wet and then Shane stretches out before him on the couch, his mouth on Ilya’s pelvic bone, licking.
I should have known, Ilya wants to say, I should have known since May, since April. I let it go on too long. Did I hurt you more? Are you hurting now?
These thoughts skew Ilya’s libido into a delayed erection. He’s not even all the way hard when Shane’s face is next to his cock.
“Hey,” Shane says. It would almost be funny, the way Shane’s gaze is darting between Ilya’s cock and his face, but it’s not.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya winces, “I think I am worried about you. I know you don’t want me to be, but I am.”
Guilt flashes across Shane’s face.
“Ilya.”
“Come here,” Ilya says gently. He pats his lap and Shane goes, curling up on top of him. Shane smells of fresh laundry and unscented body lotion. Ilya curves one arm around him and keeps the other in his lap, with Shane, who pushes Ilya’s sleeve up and down in a slow rhythm.
“I want this so much,” Shane tells him. “When I first met you, I knew I’d want you for a long time.”
“Cheesy,” Ilya jokes.
“I know,” Shane agrees, “but it’s true.”
A silence falls between them. Shane continues moving Ilya’s sleeve. Ilya rubs at his knee, at the stretch marks around it. He loves the texture, the pattern of it. Like a maze that always leads home.
“Talk to me,” Ilya says, nudging Shane’s cheek with his nose, “tell me more about what you felt back then.”
Shane thinks for a moment. When he speaks it’s with consideration for each word. It’s one of the things Ilya loves most about him.
“You made me feel like it was possible to want things instead of just having shit flung at me. That was my whole life. I loved hockey but it—it hurt so much and I didn’t realize it until then. Maybe even until now.”
He lays his head on Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya takes Shane’s hand and places it on his cock. They stroke Ilya together.
“More?” Shane asks.
Ilya nods. “Please.”
“I wasn’t supposed to feel safe with you. You were supposed to be my enemy. I was supposed to hate you, or fear you.”
“Fear me,” laughs Ilya.
Shane scoffs. “Hey, you were pretty damn scary sometimes.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Shane says, “I liked that about you too. Even when you were cold, I knew that the moment we kissed or you touched me, I would be okay because you would make me feel good. I wasn’t scared the first time we fucked. I knew you would stop if I wanted you to.”
Ilya strokes himself faster, guiding Shane’s hand underneath his fingers. Despite the struggles that came before and after, that night is one of Ilya's favourite memories. He had fucked so many people, but none of them came close to the tender he feeling he had when he was inside Shane. The feeling of being needed in all the right places. Warm and full. Proving nothing, but getting everything he ever wanted.
“You were so perfect that first time,” Ilya says, “I wish I could have seen your face when you came for me.”
“Ilya. You have seen me so many times.”
Shane’s flushed. He can’t touch himself in this position, his hand is trapped in between their bodies, so Ilya palms him again, letting Shane roll up into his hand while Shane continues jacking him off.
“Not like that,” Ilya says, “not for the first time I made you mine.”
Ilya feels Shane shiver at that word. Rarely is Shane someone Ilya thinks he possesses, but he likes saying it, and he knows Shane likes hearing it.
“I probably looked like an idiot.”
“Nooo,” Ilya protests, “you didn’t. You’re so beautiful when you come, Shane. You drool sometimes. You get so messy. But of course, it is my pleasure to clean you up.”
“Fuck off,” Shane snarls, bucking up harder. Ilya squeezes him, finding his balls under his sweatpants, and Shane groans.
“Keep talking,” Ilya requests. He’s never asked Shane to do this before. He thinks he should do it more often.
“I wanted to know everything about you. Dumb things like what kind of pajamas you wore or if you liked coffee or tea. I feel so lucky that I know those things now.”
Ilya spits into Shane’s hand, and the squelch of their motions fills the room, taking up the spaces between them, if there were any left at all.
“You feel lucky that you know I like to sleep naked, I guess,” Ilya observes.
Shane laughs. Ilya tugs his sweatpants down the curve of his ass and then down his legs, and then Shane is seated fully on his lap, straddling him. Ilya strokes them together and Shane’s laughter breaks off into little whimpers against Ilya’s mouth.
He mutters something between kisses. Ilya doesn’t quite catch it. He asks Shane to repeat it, and Shane rests his flushed forehead against Ilya’s face, and says, “only you.”
“Only me,” Ilya agrees, because the rest doesn’t matter right now.
_______
December arrives, and with it, a new scarf. This one is a cerulean silk and cashmere blend, much smoother on the skin. Shane wraps around his neck and snuggles into it immediately, and Ilya knows at once that he has succeeded in his quest for the perfect gift.
“You like?” Ilya asks, though he already knows.
“I love,” Shane confirms.
Steady snow falls outside their window. The glass is fogged, and after their gift exchange (in which Ilya received the loveliest pair of Tom Ford loafers) Shane reaches a hand out to draw a star.
“Cute,” Ilya laughs. Mílyy. He draws a second one, and then leans back over the couch as Shane pulls him into a hug.
They sit like that, wrapped in each other, listening to the weather get harsher. In his arms, Ilya can feel the weight Shane has gained back, and the prideful affection that runs through him is so intense that it swells in his throat.
Winter always reminds him of the first time he stepped onto the ice to play hockey. The first time he realized he could be good at something. Ilya never cared much for school. He liked reading sometimes, but he needed to move his body in order to feel truly invested in something. Hockey was not his first love. He didn’t even like it. But it led him here, to Shane, to Anya, to this condo and this reality in which he can do something for others because it felt good, and he’ll never regret that.
As dawn catches up to them, Ilya is certain of it. Shane’s burden didn’t start in April. It was a neverending cycle. Life piled onto life. The good and the bad. The horror and the peace. What Shane carried, the things he said and didn’t say, what he remembered and didn’t remember, all ran its own course. Neither of them could control each setpiece. Even if Ilya could go back in time, he could not change the garish outcome. If Ilya were to meet Shane as a child, all he could do was love him just the same. They could be boys together, flying over the ice, racing toward the future. They could uncover the secret of survival, which is to hold onto each other, to reach a hand out toward the thing you love most, and let it save you.
Shane looks content in Ilya’s arms, brow unfurrowed. He takes Ilya’s index into his mouth and gently sucks on it, unhurried and thorough. The lines in his face are of a proud age. They have made it so far. The rest is history.