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Prologue
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
Ilya
There are different types of cold. It’s something you learn after years of enduring it. There’s the cold most people experience, the kind that turns your nose red and flushes your cheeks—the kind where Ilya could wear a T-shirt. Then there’s a level below that. A kind of chill that makes you pull your jacket around you like a cocoon, wind finding any bare skin like a personal attack. This kind of cold might require Ilya to don long sleeves, but nothing beyond that. There’s a cold below that, one that only people close to the poles experience. A numb cold that gets into your bones and stays for hours later. The kind that stings when you enter a warm room, like you’re burning alive.
That’s the line for most people—the three types of cold they experience. There are outliers, of course. Mountain climbers, Dene Nation, and dogsled mushers. Types that work on a different scale have tolerances for icy chill that differ greatly from those of the average person.
This is Ilya’s first time experiencing a fourth type of cold. A step below the numbness that subzero temperatures bring. This is a cold he’s not meant to experience, a deadly type. He should be in pain; he knows that. He can see the odd angle of his knee, feel the slick trickle of blood down the side of his face, and taste the metallic tang of blood in his mouth. But he doesn’t feel any of that, just a bone-deep cold that steals his senses.
There’s a wet nose against his face. It takes an absurd amount of effort to turn his head and stare into Anya’s ice-blue eyes. It takes even more effort to raise his arm and touch her snout.
“Go, get help,” he whispers to her, praying the message gets through.
She darts off through the snow, her paws quick and soundless in the soft cushion of white.
As she retreats into the distance, her form begins to distort and blur, until she is lost amidst the white surroundings. His vision stays blurry, little dots fading in and out of existence with each blink. He tries to clear them away with a few rapid blinks, but it only seems to make the problem worse. His mind briefly lingers on visiting the optometrist with his father in the early days of diagnosing Grigori’s sickness. They’d always ask if he had blurry or spotty vision. He tries to focus on the shapes, squinting until more and more of them appear. The sudden realization comes to him that the blurry shapes are his eyelashes and the spots are snowflakes that have frozen to them. At least his vision is fine; it’s just his eyes that are freezing closed. That’s his last thought before the darkness overtakes him and he slips back under its spell.
Part One - Into the Snow
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
8 Days Earlier
Shane
Shane’s hands are sweating in their mittens. Even through the wool glove liners, he can feel the moisture beading along his fingers. It’s not from the heat on his hands; it’s -20℉ with a biting wind chill today. No, it’s not the heat that’s making his fingers feel clammy; it’s the nerves of today.
To say he’s spent the past year preparing for today’s race would be a bit of an understatement. Yes, he’s spent 23 months preparing for this specific race, every single moment since he was handed a $50,000 check and the golden harness draped over Pike’s shoulders. However, today’s race is the culmination not of 23 months of work, but of a lifetime of training, research, and manifestation.
Thus, the sweating fingers. He still gets tense before every race—has since he was 5, racing other neighborhood kids with a single dog and a sled barely big enough to fit him. This is different, though. This is the Yukon Quest, the pinnacle of sled racing and the race he has spent his entire life anticipating.
Two years ago, when Shane won the Iditarod, he expected a small reprieve. A chance to celebrate winning the world's most prolific race. Instead, he received a pat on the back from his parents and a training plan for the Yukon Quest. His Dad began reviewing Shane’s team of dogs, and his mom began unloading everything she would have done differently in the race he’d just won.
That’s just how his parents were. Loving and supportive, sure, but single-minded about Shane’s success. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to race the Quest. It had just been handed to him as the next checkbox after the Iditarod, and he didn’t think to argue. He loved mushing, the wind in his face, his only company for hundreds of miles, his team of dogs. Still, there were times when he wanted to stop and have a moment to breathe. He can’t even remember the last time he did something with friends outside of mushing. When was the last time he stood outside and just appreciated the world around him without thinking about the weather, his training schedule, or what his mother would say?
The moment to think about such things, to ruminate on what he hasn’t done, isn’t now. Now is the time to think about everything he has done to prepare for this race. In just five minutes, he’ll start the Yukon Quest, and all his focus is needed for that. It’s decidedly the hardest dog sled race in the world, with over 1000 miles of brutal, unsupported conditions. He knows the route this season as if he made it himself. He had a map packed, of course, lest he find himself off course, but it’s unneeded; every curve of the path ahead is carved into his mind after months of study. This is the moment he’s been waiting for, and he’s not going to let any last-minute overthinking throw him off his game.
His sled stands beside him, packed and re-packed for perfection with everything he could need during the ten days. Technically, he has enough packed for twenty days, but he has no intention of taking that long. His mother’s personal record was eleven days, 3 hours, and seventeen minutes, and he doesn’t intend to take a minute longer. His gear isn't flashy, nor is it designed to be ultralight, the way some of his competitors prefer. Everything he has packed is tried and tested, some of it even belonged to his mother from her racing days. As his father would say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
In the long run, weight won’t be the deciding factor for this race anyway. He has chosen every one of his eleven dogs carefully, and they are up to the task of pulling him and his sled. A few extra rations and a well-packed first-aid kit won’t change that. His lead dog, Pike, is staring up at him with blue eyes far brighter than the sky above, ready to race.
There is, however, one complication he didn’t foresee for this race: Ilya Rozanov.
It was stupid of him not to know. He’d been prepared for everything else: the weather, the supplies, his team honed for excellence, and his body ready for the grueling race. But when he’d caught a glimpse of curls and a rosy smirk across the room at a pre-race event three days ago, his world had been thrown out of focus.
Even now, when Ilya is set to leave in two minutes for the start of his race, he takes a minute to turn to Shane and smirk. It’s a cocky grin, one that Shane is too familiar with. Shane doesn’t smirk back; instead, he levels a focused, icy glare at Ilya and turns back to his own sled.
Ilya Rozanov is fresh off his Iditarod win last year. A win that Shane suspects Ilya wouldn’t have had if Shane had competed. He is brash, unreserved, and a general pain in Shane’s ass. At every race since they were 17, Ilya had been there competing against him, full of snide remarks and teasing glances. Ilya is also unbelievably gorgeous in a way that deeply annoyed Shane. He isn’t sure what bothered him more, the overt teasing or the general beauty of his competitor.
The saving grace for his general focus and sanity is that mushing, rather uniquely, involves covering every inch of exposed skin. He very rarely saw anything beyond Ilya’s glacier-blue eyes and the mole on his cheek. Just layers of insulation and the general form of Ilya as he went racing by on his sled. Beneath the jackets and thermals, they occasionally saw each other at race events, but never in anything thinner than pants and long sleeves, barring one major exception. There was an incident two years prior, just before Shane’s Iditarod win, when they’d been sharing the same hotel in advance of the race and ran into each other at the gym.
Shane hadn’t been able to sleep that night, nerves about the race the next day running through his head like a freight train, and he sought shelter in the gym to distract himself. He hadn’t gone there with any intentions of challenging himself, just with the desire to enjoy the peace that always came with moving his body.
He’d been on a bike when Ilya walked in and sat on another next to him, no words exchanged as they sat closer than they’d ever been before, more exposed than Shane had ever seen Ilya. Shane had barely been able to breathe, catching Ilya with so much skin exposed, shoulders and biceps gleaming with sweat, calves and quads drawing his gaze in his shorts. It was almost obscene for Ilya to wear a tank top and shorts, a true hazard. It was a distraction from his thoughts about the race, sure, just not the one he’d been expecting.
As all things did when the two of them were involved, the simple leisurely bike ride turned into an all-out race, both men pedaling like their lives depended on it—acting like they were competing in the Tour de France, not at a Hampton Inn in Anchorage, Alaska. He couldn't even tell you who won, only that they both walked away from the bikes panting until they slumped on the gym floor to face each other.
Shane hadn’t brought a water bottle to the gym that night; why would he, when he’d only been planning on a leisurely ride? Now, he sat, sweat running down the side of his face and his breath coming out in short pants that matched Ilya’s own. Ilya took a long sip from the water bottle he brought and then offered it to Shane.
It was a nice gesture, a proverbial olive branch, so he accepted Ilya’s offering. Purely out of politeness, good manners. He’d taken a small sip, and then, as Ilya told him more, he took a longer drink without fully meaning to, Ilya's command rushing through his body before his brain had a moment to untangle its implications properly.
When he’d passed the water bottle back to Ilya, their fingers had brushed. Five long years racing against Ilya, and he’d never touched his skin. It felt a little like touching a live wire, the way Ilya’s touch burned through his fingers with a jolt of electricity. That had been it, a single brush of their hands, a simple goodnight, and Shane had left. When he returned to his bed, he still had trouble falling asleep, but it was no longer about his race; it was everything to do with the heat of Ilya’s fingers on his own and the beads of sweat that coalesced on Ilya’s biceps.
Shane hadn’t been prepared for Ilya to be here because he shouldn’t be. Sure, Ilya qualified for the race; he’d won the Iditarod last year as well as many other major titles over the years. But this race was brutal; Shane had been preparing for it for almost two years, the very reason he hadn’t competed in the Iditarod last year (allowing Ilya the win). It seemed reckless for Ilya to enter without the same intensive preparation Shane had. But of course, he knew that Ilya was brash.
The wind is whipping when Shane is given the official start. He can barely hear the crowds around him, just the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. Thump thump thump.
His dogs take off with the polished grace they’d practiced a hundred times before, showing none of the nerves he felt. To them, it was just another day running in the snow, the thing they’d been born and bred to do.
Shane had his pick of the litter when it came to sled dogs, quite literally. His father’s family has owned a sled-dog kennel for three generations. It was how David had met his mother, back when she’d been racing herself. Now, 25 years later, David and Yuna run the kennel, and Shane has carried on the racing legacy. Someday, when he has a few more titles under his belt, he’ll retire and run the kennel as well. His whole life is laid out for him.
Most of his team he’d known since they were puppies. Raised from the best lineages, winning lines in every case. Pike has been his lead dog for four years now, a natural leader and Alaskan Husky with bright blue eyes and a mottled brown-and-black coat. His entire team is made up of Alaskan huskies. Though they differ in size, from his smallest, Jackie, who weighs 35 pounds, to his largest, Price, who is 65 pounds, they all work well together, their strides perfectly aligned.
He lets his mind drift for the first few miles of the race, the course already bearing the tracks of his competitors, his dogs fresh and ready to run. But this point isn’t where Shane makes his move. It never is. Shane is level in the early miles, consistent and dependable. It isn’t until the last push—when his competitors are haggard and their dogs fatigued — that he makes his move. This isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon, and endurance and fortitude count more than the average person would understand.
Ilya
He’s here. Obviously, Ilya knew he would be; it’s half the reason he signed up for this whole intensive race, but it’s still nice to see the confirmation. Shane Hollander looked good when Ilya saw him at the pre-race celebration days ago. Shane had worn a light blue button-down and khakis, looking far more like he sold insurance than a professional musher, and somehow, even in that ridiculous getup, he looked downright edible.
Ilya knows his fascination—obsession—with Shane is a little unhealthy and most likely a little unrequited. Sure, Shane finds Ilya attractive (who wouldn’t); that’s been obvious since they were 17. Shane had given Ilya a hungry look that spoke for itself. But he is mercurial and at times impossible to pin down (though he’d love to try). There are times when Shane looks at him like he’s the reason for all the bad in the world, and then other times when he lets his gaze linger a few seconds too long on Ilya’s lips. There are even times when he does both, his posture radiating anger even as his eyes burn with lust.
What is it they say—there’s a thin line between hate and love? Ilya would like to blur that line a little for Shane.
Regardless, Shane Hollander is at the start of the race today, looking far more at ease in his mushing getup than he did in his Geico employee uniform. Shane always looks focused before a race, and today is no exception. He’s checking over his sled and dogs, vigilant and detail-oriented as ever. If Ilya had to guess, he’d assume that Shane has weighed his sled down to the gram, nothing frivolous left.
Ilya likes frivolity; he finds pure joy in appreciating decadence. Racing typically isn’t glamorous. It’s filled with hard miles, blistering winds, and cold so brutal that you can feel it in your bones. But this race in particular is worse than most, with bush camping part of the deal and no help allowed at their stops.
Ilya allows himself some minor luxuries. A small, travel-sized French press, custom coats for his dogs so they’d match him, and, of course, a brand-new, custom-built sled.
There are different options for formatting your sled, including different materials and styles. It’s an unusually complicated thing to design your ideal sled, and until now, he’d just been racing on a fairly standard basket toboggan, still technically custom, but only to his height and weight. It was built out of ash wood and was all he could afford when he’d first come to the U.S. to race. His new sled is a custom marvel of carbon fiber, aluminum, and plastic, built for speed. Designed by himself and a former musher-turned sled builder, it was ten times the sled his last one had been. It was also ten times the price, and a good chunk of his Iditarod winnings from last year had gone into its creation.
He wants to win this race; he can’t deny that. Sure, he signed up when he’d heard Hollander would be competing, but now that he’s here, surveying the competition, he really wants to win. It’s not just about beating Shane, though that’s always a plus; the money and fame are hard to pass up. Ilya has been working hard to become a Canadian citizen, but the road to citizenship is long and expensive. Every penny he earns brings him closer to his goal. The notoriety is more selfish.
Most competitors come from a long line of mushers. It’s often a family business, a legacy that parents pass on to their children, who pass on to theirs. On and on for generations. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule; he knows Scott Hunter lost his parents at a young age (he talks about it all the time), and neither was in the mushing business, but for the most part, mushers do have family ties. He’s seen some photos of Shane as a child, no more than three, bundled in a coat too big for him like he was bubble-wrapped, only his brown eyes and freckles peeking out of the hood as he held onto a tiny sled with a single dog attached; he’d looked utterly adorable, even if the pictures made Ilya a little envious.
Ilya hasn’t had the same head start of a family name in this business; every accomplishment was hard-earned by himself. He started with nothing when he’d picked up the sport, just the goal of getting away from his brother and father for a few hours a day. Slowly, he built a name for himself. Winning the Quest would be a pretty special jewel in his crown.
He gives Shane another glance, and it’s hard not to feel a pang in his chest as he watches Shane’s mother, Yuna, fuss over him as he gets ready. She looks over his coat and pats down the fur around the hood, almost absent-mindedly, in deep conversation with Shane. She has the same warm brown eyes Shane does, and though her face is serious, her tone is too low to make out; her face still speaks of the utter adoration she has for her son. Ilya turns away, the sight giving him an uncomfortable hitch in his breath, as if ice were forming in his lungs.
Ilya has no one here today, no one to watch him start the race, and no one waiting for him at the finish line. It doesn’t matter, though, because everyone will be cheering when he wins. He’ll make sure of that.
8 Days Later
It’s going well, really well. The course is flying by Ilya; his dogs are healthy and quick, and he’s managing to cope with the exhaustion and sleep deprivation - to an extent. His daydreams have become less like daydreams and more like corporeal hallucinations, but he’s managing. So what if he sees a gleaming coffee shop in the distance, only to blink and have it disappear? At least the hallucinations are pleasant; he has yet to conjure up a grizzly bear chasing him or a giant crack in the ice below him, so he’ll take that as a win.
Best of all, Shane Hollander is behind him. When he’d left Dawson City two days ago, he’d been almost half a day ahead of Shane. Almost a full twelve hours. He’s making incredible time; he might not be in line to beat the course record, not with the conditions this year, but he has a solid shot of winning.
Unfortunately, his speed has come at a cost. He hasn’t been able to use his French press once. It’s a damn shame, especially given the sub-zero temperatures he's been coping with. But if that denial gets him the win over Shane, then it's a worthwhile sacrifice.
He doesn’t really notice when it happens — when it all starts going downhill. He’s descending Eagle Mountain, his dogs cutting through the snow, and his sled blurring behind them at incredible speed.
One moment, he is in control; the next, he most certainly isn’t.
If you're in a car and it slides on the ice, they tell you not to hit the brakes. You’re supposed to ease off the gas and turn in the direction you are sliding.
But dogsleds don't have brakes, and they certainly don't have gas. When you’re going fast downhill, it’s your job to have control over your sled and your team, and Ilya suddenly doesn’t.
Perhaps under ideal conditions, Ilya would have been able to slow his sled and regain control, but these are not ideal conditions. He’d been riding on a few hours of sleep, his body hungry and his limbs cold. There is a storm moving in that is whipping snow into his face at max speed, a whiteout.
There’s a slight turn on the course ahead, barely anything at all really, but it’s enough to ruin it all. Ilya attempts to ease the sled in the right direction, and everything seems to slide out from underneath him. There is a blur as the world turns sideways, the sickening feeling of falling, and then a thud as his body hits the ground.
For a moment, everything is white, and he can’t be sure if he’s looking at the ground or the sky. Perhaps his eyes are closed, and his head hit the ground so hard that he’s unconscious, but no, he can feel his fingers. Ilya starts by trying to wiggle them in his mittens, ensuring they all work—that’s good, at least. Then he moves his toes, wiggling them, but he can’t move his left leg. Well, that’s not true; he can move it slightly, so he’s not paralyzed, but even the slight motion of his knee blurs his already white vision at the edges, the pain so visceral. It’s also pinned under something, and he can barely move an inch.
He manages to sit himself up for a moment, sending a thank-you to all the hours he’s spent at the gym working on abs, not so useless now. This at least puts to rest what he was looking at: the sky. Even sitting up, one arm propped behind him as he gets his bearings, it’s hard to distinguish between the ivory of the sky and the alabaster snow he’s half-buried under, only the grey rock of a cliffside and the verdant green pines around him breaking up the white.
He takes it all in, cataloging where he has landed. His sled is half-buried in a snowbank at the edge of a cliff face. Not super high, probably only 20 feet or so, but enough that had he not landed in the snow, he might be dead. He immediately counts his thirteen dogs and finds them all accounted for. None of them look hurt, only mildly tangled up in their lines; thank god for small miracles.
His first step is to reach forward as far as he can and unclasp Anya from the lines. He can’t move much, but she is just close enough. He’s unable to untangle the rest of his dogs, the line of them half buried under the snow. His head is swimming, and he feels dizzy. A drop of red falls into the snow, and when he raises his hand, he finds that there is blood dripping down his face.
He forces his hands to shovel some snow off the tops of his legs and finds the top of his sled. Speed is a benefit of a sled made primarily of aluminum, but one downside is that it is not as sturdy. His sled is mangled beneath the snow, and amid it is his left leg, pinned under the wreckage. It’s hard to tell underneath the remaining snowfall and the thick pants he’s wearing, but the tilt of his knee isn’t quite right.
He attempts to move the sled off of himself, but it won't budge. His angle is all wrong; sitting up and trying to wrench the weight off him just isn’t possible; it’s probably pinned somewhere else. Not only is the fight against the sled useless, but it’s also blindingly painful. Every twist of his body brings a fresh stab of pain in his knee. Each motion feels like a sledgehammer blow, the pain dull and throbbing.
He can’t pull himself backward either, a rock stopping any progress. Probably the same rock that was responsible for his bleeding head. He wants to remove his mitten and probe at the cut, but he knows that removing any of his gear right now could mean his death, if not the loss of a few fingers, so he keeps them in place. He does, however, run the mittened hand over his head, feeling slowly along for a bump. Along the rim of his hat there’s a small one, and the few errant curls from beneath the hat fabric feel slightly damp against his forehead. He can’t be sure if it’s from melting snow or blood. That’s what does it, the thing that snaps him into the reality of his situation.
His sled is buried, his leg is fucked, and he’s got a head wound that he can’t discern the severity of. He’s going to die here. It hits him like a bullet, the realization of his mortality and the likelihood that these are his last moments. He has no paper to leave a note, no phone to record his last words, and no one to leave them for anyway.
Ilya leans back slowly; the dizziness is getting worse, and though his dogs are doing a good job of blocking the worst of the wind and snow, it’s blindingly cold. There are white spots in his vision that no amount of blinking fixes. The world feels a little like it’s rocking, like he’s on a boat rather than slowly being buried in the snow.
He lets his mind drift, letting the snow pile back on him, obscuring the sled once more. Something tells him not to close his eyes. If he closes his eyes, he might not open them again, but he’s so tired. He lets them rest for just a moment, and then a wet nose nuzzles against his face. He opens his eyes and finds he doesn’t have the energy to sit up anymore. Instead, he turns his head and raises his hand to Anya’s snout.
“Go, get help,” he whispers to her, then lets his head rest again, his eyelids closing no matter how hard he tries to keep them open. Just before he slips into a deep unconsciousness, he realizes that the white spots in his vision were snowflakes caught in his eyelashes. He likes the idea, the fragile flakes resting on his lashes as he slumbers; perhaps they’ll still be there when he wakes up.
Part Two - Search and Rescue
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
Shane
There’s a flash of red in his periphery. It’s not a color you expect to see in the icy tundra of Alaska- too bright, too bold. There’s a reason that Ski Patrol wears red. In the eight days Shane has been on this course, he hasn’t seen anything so bright on the trail as the other teams in their bright coats. Even then, it’s rare for him to see just a glimpse of color rather than a flood of it, with so many mushers matching their coats to their dogs’ collars and booties, and occasionally to their coats. Shane slows his team as they creep down the mountain. He’d already been going slowly, the slope of Eagle Mountain infamous for a loss of control. Standing at a slight bend in the path is a lone sled dog, its coat and booties bright red.
He slows his team to a crawl as they approach the dog. It’s just standing on the side of the trail, waiting patiently. He brings his team to a full halt, glancing around for any sign of another team. There are two teams that he can think of that have red jackets on their dogs. Scott Hunter and Ilya Rozanov. Both men were a good bit ahead of him, so it’s plausible they could be around, but no musher would abandon a dog. If this dog is injured, it would need to be placed on the sled and brought to an aid station. That’s part of the official rules.
He approaches her cautiously on foot, but doesn’t see any injuries as he nears. She is calm, her blue eyes locked on his. She doesn’t move as he looks over her jacket and collar. “Anya,” her collar reads, and he knows for sure now that this dog is one of Ilya’s. More specifically, he heard Ilya fussing over his lead dog in Dawson City two days ago.
Dawson City requires a mandatory 36-hour rest for all mushers, and Ilya had beaten him there by nearly 12 hours. When he’d arrived with his team, he saw a few of the other teams and took stock of the competition. Scott Hunter was in first position; he had only nine more hours of waiting before he could be back on the trail. He sat on a bed of straw, his ten dogs around him as he stared up at the sky.
Shane knew the feeling well, the sheer anticipation of waiting to get back to the race. It always felt good to get to a mandatory stop at first, to catch some rest and get his dogs looked over. A few hours of rest and a clean bill of health for his dogs were a welcome treat. The additional day of waiting that followed was always difficult for him, and he knew the other racers felt the same.
Shane had set up his own bed of straw with his dogs and gone about all the tasks that were required at this stop. He swapped out wet clothing for the caches of gear he’d placed here in advance. He had every one of his dogs checked by veterinarians and personally checked each dog's booties to ensure their paws were in good shape. He boiled water in advance and refilled his dog food stores, removing any trash that had accumulated. All of this took a few hours; afterward, he returned to his bed of straw and tried his best to burn away the remaining day he had to wait, trying to sleep.
As he lay there in the snow, his dogs happily lazing around him, he could hear Ilya’s voice carry across the snow as he quietly spoke to his lead dog. He wasn’t doing any kind of official check on her gear or health. Just speaking to Anya in a whisper about what a good dog she was, how fast and clever she was. As he listened to the whisper of Ilya’s voice, Shane had faded off to sleep, lulled away by the kind words and smooth cadence of Ilya’s praise. When he awoke the next morning, Ilya was already back to the race.
He glances around again, his finger lingering on the metal of Anya’s tag. Ilya wouldn't leave a dog behind, certainly not his lead dog, which means he must be nearby. It’s snowing hard, and the wind is loud over his ears even through the hood of his coat and his hat. He would have seen Ilya if he’d been on the slope down the mountain, and Ilya would have turned back if his lead dog had broken free. So he must be close.
Shane steps farther off the track, standing to Anya's side. It’s difficult in the deep snow, but he can just make out a trail of her prints leading away from the trail. He lets out a huff and steps into the deep snow ahead, careful in the whiteout. When he’d been in Dawson, they’d warned of a blizzard pushing its way over the trail, and he could feel the start of it here, the wind already slicing across any exposed skin. He’d been trying to outrace the weather, and by his estimate the brunt of it wouldn’t affect him at the pace he was moving.
Anya follows at his side as he steps a few paces off the trail. There is no way he can see anything in this weather; he can barely make out his own boots in the snow. He would have given up, called the whole thing off, clipped Anya into his own sled, and dropped her off at the next stop. But mushing has taught him many things over the years, and first and foremost, you always trust the dogs.
So he follows Anya’s lead another ten paces until he’s at the edge of a drop-off. It isn’t terribly steep, perhaps 20 feet or so, but it’s sudden. If Shane hadn’t been watching his step, he could easily have fallen. He sinks to his knees for stability and glances over the edge. Immediately, he sees more flashes of red, dogs curled up against the cold, and bits of equipment half buried in the snow.
In the center of a cluster of dogs, he can just make out Ilya’s form half-buried in the snow, unmoving.
His breath catches, too many things demanding his attention at once as his brain tries to make sense of the scene before him. Flashes of red from the dogs lying around Ilya, and a trickle of crimson in the snow next to Ilya’s head. Ilya’s eyes are closed, and even from this distance he can see the slight blue pallor of his skin. He can’t breathe as it all comes together. He may be looking at Ilya’s corpse right now.
His body refuses to move for a moment, frozen as his mind goes wild with what to do. Anya darts off to his left, seeming eager to get back to Ilya now that she has brought back help. She disappears into the trees and reappears a minute or two later by Ilya’s side. There must be some kind of easier slope off that way. This stirs Shane from his petrification, and he retreats to his sled, trying to take deep breaths and focus only on his actions, not his horrible thoughts. He reassures his dogs to stay and grabs his small first-aid kit, flashlight, ice axe, and rope from it, unsure of what he’ll need.
He follows Anya's tracks through the snow, darting under branches and around rocks until he finds the rockslide she must have taken down. It’s far less steep but half-covered in ice and roots. He ties his rope around a nearby tree and slowly makes his way down the slope, holding it for stability as he navigates the obstacle. It takes him nearly ten minutes to descend the slope, but he’s no use to Ilya if he dies.
He leaves the rope and makes his way through the thigh-deep snow, the walk sapping his energy as he trudges along. He turns the corner of a large rock and finds the dogs and Ilya, splayed out in the snow. Ilya’s eyes are still closed, and he is unmoving. He can’t tell if he’s breathing, can’t tell if he’s frozen. Shane has never even had a pet die; his parents have always handled the passing of any of the sick or elderly dogs at the kennel in private. Shane has never had the stomach to watch any animal put to sleep. Now he’s faced with the possibility that the first death he’ll witness is a human’s. Not just any person, but Ilya. He thinks he might be sick.
Anya is now lying with her head on the snow next to Ilya, nudging her nose against his cheek.
“Rozanov,” he tries as he approaches. The closer he gets, the more he sees. There are bent pieces of his sled poking up from the snow, and there is dried blood on the side of Ilya’s face. None of Ilya’s dogs makes a fuss as he approaches; they are too curled up against him. He notices their tangled lines and resolves to free them once he checks on Ilya. He looks at Ilya’s chest, trying to detect any movement, any breath, but it’s impossible beneath the thin layer of snow and heavy layers of clothing. His legs feel leaden as he gets closer, his body putting up a fight as he nears something he’s not ready to face.
Ilya’s face is calm, his eyes closed, and little flakes of snow are balancing on the spikes of his frozen eyelashes as if they’d been artfully placed there. He’s never seen Ilya looking so calm, and he wishes he could take a moment to enjoy it, but it’s not what he wants right now. Right now, he wants, no, needs, Ilya to have his eyes open, his signature smirk across his face. He needs Ilya to make a joke about the whole thing and assure Shane that this is all some elaborate prank to get him disqualified from the race. Even as Shane silently begs, Ilya does not move, his peaceful face unmoving. He reaches down and places his mitten on Ilya’s cheek, giving his face a little tap. If he were bare-handed, some might call it a slap. It’s not the most gentle way he could've gone about this, but he’s here to help Ilya, not coddle him.
“Rozanov,” he says louder as he taps Ilya’s cheek. Ilya’s eyebrows twitch, and Shane lets out a heavy sigh of relief at the slight motion.
Ilya’s eyes open a half inch, the blue in them catching the light. “Shane,” he says with a dopey smile. Shane’s relief at seeing the expression is immediate.
“Rozanov, we’ve got to get you out of here; you’ll freeze to death,” Shane says, then berates himself for the incredibly obvious statement.
“Can’t. Pinned,” Ilya says, and his voice is raspy and exhausted.
“Okay, hold on, let me see,” Shane says and begins clearing as much snow as he can from Ilya’s torso and waist, lamenting that he left the avalanche shovel in his sled.
Sure enough, Ilya’s leg is pinned under the wreckage of his sled, but it shouldn’t be hard to get it off once he can clear some of the weight. He starts by slipping his knife free from his belt and cutting through the tangled lines of Ilya’s dogs. He’s hoping they don’t run off, but he doesn’t have time to worry about it. He shoos them a few feet away, easing some of the pressure off the sled's top.
The rest is just manual digging, throwing bits and pieces of Ilya’s belongings away until he can reach the bent frame of Ilya’s sled. Even after all his work, it’s still a monumental task to pull the metal away from Ilya’s leg. Shane is panting and sweating as he finally manages to push the wreckage away from Ilya.
Ilya is still lying there, his eyes barely open, but watching diligently as Shane reaches forward. “C’mon, let’s get you up.”
“Knee won’t work,” Ilya says, and Shane looks at Ilya’s knee. It’s not obvious, but there is something very wrong about the way it looks. The angle isn’t right.
Shane is at a loss, the day slipping away and dusk fast approaching, the snow increasing. The blizzard warning is lighting up red in his head like a stoplight. He lets out a breath as he takes it all in.
“Okay, we’ll have to camp here. We can’t do anything in the dark,” Shane decides, any hopes of finishing this race gone. “Do you have a tent?” he asks Ilya.
“Yeah, it’s red,” Ilya says, like that’s helpful.
Shane starts to dig through all the equipment he just dislodged from the sled. It’s been thrown in different directions — half of it is broken or at least ruined. After five minutes of searching, he comes across a bag labeled, very helpfully, "tent". Even with the label, Shane doubts it; the bag is far too large to hold a single tent.
He takes the bag and glances around, searching for a place to camp that will at least protect them a little from the wind that seems to pick up every second. About 100 feet away, sliced into the cliffside, there appears to be a crack of some sort; with any luck, it’ll be big enough to fit a tent and won’t already be home to a grizzly. He wishes he had a blanket or something to drape over Ilya, but taking off his own jacket would be foolish, and it doesn't make sense to search for more gear when he could be setting up a shelter.
“Stay here,” he tells Ilya.
Ilya turns his head slightly, a smirk on his face, throwing his arms out in emphasis. “Where do you think I’d be going, Hollander?”
Shane ignores the–very fair–retort and slowly makes his way towards the cave, trudging through thigh-deep snowbanks. It’s not a particularly deep fissure in the rock, only about 6 feet across and perhaps 8 feet deep, but it should fit the tent and protect them from the wind on three sides. Plus, there are no grizzlies inside, and he’ll take any win he can get right now.
He removes the unfamiliar tent from the bag and finds that his suspicions were correct; the bag was far too large to hold a single tent. This tent is clearly meant for at least three people. It even has its own poles; Shane’s single tent is only supported by his trekking poles. For someone so concerned with going fast, Shane is shocked that Ilya would allow all this unnecessary weight.
He’s grateful for it now, though. The tent will be big enough for him and Ilya to share, even if it’s a tight squeeze to fit it into the cave's mouth. Even with his hands slightly shaking and his breaths coming faster than he’d like, Shane manages to set up the tent quickly. He walks back to where Ilya is still lying prone on the snow. He is looking worse for wear, even with the sled off him; his skin is pale, and his lips are so blue they look bruised.
“You’re not going to like this bit, but we’ve got to get you out of the snow,” he tells him, and Ilya nods.
“I’m going to pull you up on your good leg, and then I’m going to carry you to the tent,” Shane informs Ilya, who gives him a shocked look in return.
“Pull me up and then help me over; you can’t carry me,” Ilya protests.
“No, it’s slippery, and there’s no way you can get over the rocks and through the snowdrifts on one foot. You’re getting carried, and you’re not going to complain about it.”
Ilya relents but continues to complain throughout. Shane easily pulls him to his feet, then debates how best to pick Ilya up. He’s not a small man, and he can’t carry him bridal-style with his injured knee. Not that Ilya would let him anyway; he’s sure of that. He settles on throwing Ilya over his shoulder, a move Ilya protests against heavily.
He heaves Ilya over his shoulder and walks to the tent, doing his very best to grab the backs of Ilya’s thighs to keep him steady and avoid jostling his knee too much.
He leans down to unzip the tent and works Ilya through the entrance in a series of moves that have him swearing as his knee is moved around. Eventually, Shane has Ilya on his back in the tent, both men panting from the effort, but Shane can’t rest yet.
“I’m going to see if I can get your sleeping bag and anything else; then I need to go get my sled and team down here.”
“Okay,” Ilya agrees; the fight drained out of him. “Shane, are my dogs okay?” he asks, and his voice sounds so small that Shane can barely look at him.
“Yeah, they’re all okay. They were lying all over you, probably keeping you from freezing to death. Try not to fall asleep; I’ll be back in a few.”
Shane is lucky that finding Ilya’s sleeping bag is fairly easy; it’s large and red, and he’d displaced it earlier when searching for the tent. The bad news is that it’s soaked. He grabs it anyway, even though all his preparation tells him it will be impossible to dry it out here properly. That was one of the first rules he learned about bush camping. Always keep your sleeping bag dry; wet gear is the fastest way to freeze out here.
His other supplies are much harder to identify. He finds a box labeled “Dog food,” which he drags close to the cave mouth, and another bag labeled “food,” which he assumes is Ilya’s rations. Beyond that, most of his smaller items seem to be lost within the banks of snow, and Shane can’t spend time digging around for anything that isn’t critical.
He opens the tent and pokes his face inside. “Your sleeping bag is soaked. I’m going to go get my gear and dogs.”
“And then you're coming back,” Ilya says, his voice small and childlike, any joking drained from him.
Shane glances at the blood that is dried along the side of Ilya’s face. “And then I’m coming back,” Shane confirms.
There is no other way to put it: trekking back up the rockslide and back to his team is brutal. Setting the dogs loose is easy enough; he knows they’ll follow wherever he goes, but the sled is more difficult. In the end, he opts to move his sled under the cover of a pine at the top of the rockslide so it won’t get completely buried, and he packs what he can to take back to the tent. His own sleeping bag, his stove, a single pot, a bag of rations, and some of his extra layers. He can always make a second trip tomorrow if they need it.
There is barely any light left in the day as he makes his way back down the slope with his gear on his back. His dogs easily make it down the slope, running ahead to join Ilya’s team. Shane is close to collapsing by the time he makes it to the tent, his body wrung out from days of racing and the physical exertion of the past several hours.
He enters the tent and unpacks the sleeping bag and most of what he brought. He unrolls the sleeping bag, glad that he hadn’t opted for a newer, sleeker version instead of the large bag he’s been using for years. It’s a little more cumbersome but spacious and warm, which will be important, as he intends to share it with Ilya.
“You need to get out of your wet outer layers and warm up,” he tells Ilya as calmly as he can.
Ilya is still staring at the single sleeping bag like he’s doing the very tough division of 2 by 1 and realizing they will be sharing. He doesn’t say anything about this; evidently, his nagging is at its limit for the day. Then he begins to shuck off his outer layers of clothing and place them in the corner of the tent. It’s torturous watching him attempt to remove his boots, his face screwing up in pain as he attempts to keep his knee from bending too much.
“Do you need help or—” Shane starts, unsure whether he should help or just let Ilya do it himself. He glances at Ilya’s pants, which remain on, and blushes at the thought of removing them, even if it is a medical necessity.
“I think I’ll have to cut my pants off. I don't think I can get them off around my knee, but my thermals should still be dry; it’s just my outer layers.”
“Okay,” Shane agrees, helping Ilya out of his soaked jacket and gloves. Then he takes his knife and carefully slices down Ilya’s pant leg to free his leg, repeating the motion with the other leg until he can pull the fabric from Ilya’s legs without jostling his knee too much. Shane doesn’t ask as he moves to Ilya’s boots, which he'd been struggling with earlier. He begins to wiggle his right boot off and sets it aside by the tent. Once again, he’s thankful that Ilya has this typically unnecessary large tent.
Shane moves to the left boot and begins removing it when Ilya lets out a pained grunt. He looks up from where he kneels at Ilya’s feet.
“Can you give me a second?” Ilya pants, and Shane sees the tears in his eyes. He couldn’t imagine how overwhelmed and in pain Ilya must be. Even watching the pained expression in Ilya’s eyes is hurting Shane inside. He can’t see Ilya’s actual knee, but he can see how big it is through the leggings, and it’s unbelievably swollen. As stressed as he was, thinking Ilya was dead earlier, he could only imagine the despair that Ilya must have faced in the wake of the crash. Did he think he was going to die out in the cold, all alone? Or was he knocked unconscious and only awoke to Shane peering over him?
“Okay,” Shane says, pulling his hands back and waiting for a precious minute. At this point, it makes no difference to give Ilya a moment to compose himself. Removing themselves from the wind has helped enormously with the chill. Ilya's face no longer looks ghostly pale, and he even has a little color returning to his cheeks.
“Okay,” Ilya says with a determined grimace, “let’s get it over with.”
Shane does his best to take off Ilya’s boot without moving his knee too much. Ilya had been correct, and the thermals he wears underneath his outer layers are still mostly dry, besides a few spots of sweat, but dry enough to get him into the sleeping bag. He unzips it and helps Ilya inside. Then he makes one final trip outside to check on the dogs and feed them dinner.
Both his and Ilya’s dogs have congregated at the mouth of the cave, tucked amongst boulders and snowbanks. There’s no clear separation between his team and Ilya’s; the dogs are unconcerned with the trivial division of teams. He makes quick work of doling out food for all the dogs, 24 of them in total. They eat ravenously and then huddle together in the snow, completely undeterred by the cold, not a flake melting on their coats.
Shane returns to the tent and strips off his outer layers, placing them near Ilya’s. He sits cross-legged on his sleeping pad, a light extra blanket tucked around his shoulders, and faces Ilya. “I need to check out your knee, and you need to eat something. What do you want to start with?”
Ilya’s eyebrows rise, the only indication that he has heard Shane, while his mouth stays closed and his body remains reclined in the partially zipped sleeping bag. “I choose food, obviously, unless you have a medical degree I’m unaware of. You don’t need to examine my knee.”
Shane can’t help but rub his hands over his face, praying to a God he doesn’t believe in for some patience to deal with this infuriating man. “Fine, we will start with food, but then I’m looking at your knee. I may not be a doctor, but I’ve taken a few wilderness first-aid classes, and I need to assess the damage.”
Ilya again raises an eyebrow, his chosen response to whatever Shane says, like he said, infuriating.
Shane rifles through the two bags he’s dragged into the tent with him, one holding his personal effects, clothing, medical supplies, and toiletries. The other is holding his food and water supplies; this is the one he begins to root through, pulling out two identical beige packets and handing one to Ilya. Ilya squints at the package. “MRE?”
“Yes, is that a problem?”
“Why do you have military meals?” Ilya asks, reading the back of the package, his jaw agape, like this is the strangest thing that has happened today.
“They’re calorie-dense, efficient, and easy to store,” Shane answers, tearing open his own packet and adding water to heat it before passing his canteen to Ilya and indicating that he do the same. Ilya follows without protest, watching Shane’s motions with his meal and mimicking them until they are both eating warm ravioli from the packets, Ilya’s mouth too full to protest anymore.
Unsurprisingly, they are both famished, too many calories expended during their afternoon of life-saving measures, or, in Ilya’s case, too much energy spent not dying. Shane takes Ilya’s empty packet from him and places it back in a separate bag with the rest of the meals, leaving his water out, sealing it, and setting it aside for him to pack up before he goes to sleep.
When he turns back to Ilya, Shane finds he has rearranged himself, the sleeping bag fully unzipped, one leg bent, and his bad knee stretched fully out in front of him. He waits until Shane has zipped the tent shut and removed his overcoat to speak, “Okay, how do we do this, Dr. Hollander?”
He’s teasing him- a completely innocuous remark, but Shane can’t help the flush that meets his cheeks at Ilya’s gaze. It doesn’t matter anyway; the cold weather gives him every excuse to have rosy cheeks, his blushing excused for now. “You can stay like that, or lie back; it doesn’t really matter.”
Shane immediately regrets giving Ilya the option. Having him sit up puts his face much too close to Shane’s, and, as if Ilya knows what he’s worried about, he leans a little closer. Shane turns back to his bag and rifles through it until he has his first-aid kit in his hands. It’s a compact version, but he hopes that something in here can help him get this sorted. He starts by removing a pair of shining silver shears, the metal cold to the touch.
He turns with the shears and kneels by Ilya’s feet, only to be immediately interrupted by Ilya’s panicked voice, “What are you doing with those?”
“Cutting your thermals off so I can see your knee,” Shane explains, trying to keep his voice from showing how exasperating Ilya is.
“You’re not cutting off my thermals with those, Hollander. I can take them off. I’m not trying to freeze to death.”
Irritation laces through Shane’s voice as he answers. “There is no chance you can get those off without further aggravating your knee. I can see how swollen it is already through the fabric. Don’t worry about the thermals; if I have to remove them, you can wear a pair of mine.”
Shane moves the shears to the hem but is once again stopped by his unruly patient's protests: “I can’t fit into your pants.”
“Yes, you can. We’re the same height, and I’d estimate around the same weight. You’ll be fine.”
Ilya smirks, “But my ass is much bigger than yours; your pants will be too tight.”
Shane bites back what he wants to say: Stop looking at my ass, Rozanov. It’s not going to help the situation to argue any further, and besides, he doesn’t hate hearing about Ilya noticing his ass in any capacity. He stops hesitating and snips the hem of Ilya’s pants, moving the shears up his leg with a series of snip-snip-snip sounds that echo in the tent until Ilya’s knee is revealed.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Ilya says, averting his gaze from the joint as if not seeing it will change the reality.
“It’s not going to kill you, but there’s no way you’ll be putting any weight on it. We’ll get you to the hospital as soon as this blizzard lets up,” Shane says, his eyes still locked on the purple bruising around the joint. He’s not a doctor, so he can’t properly diagnose it, but it looks like some kind of joint injury, maybe a torn ACL or MCL. Either way, the sight made Shane uneasy: the flesh around it is already the mottled deep purple of an eggplant, and the swelling makes it the size of a grapefruit.
Shane returns the shears to his kit and replaces them with a small packet of painkillers and an ice pack. “Here, take these. Your pants should be fine for now; I’ll just cut off the fabric right above the knee. I’m going to wrap it, and then we’ll ice it.”
“Ice?” Ilya asks, his voice climbing up half an octave.
“Yes, I know it seems counterintuitive, but we need to reduce the swelling. It’s a good idea to ice it before you go to sleep.”
“Like I haven’t been lying in the ice for hours already,” Ilya mumbles, but he takes the two pills, even as Shane knows they won't be able to touch the pain he’s in.
“This is going to suck, but we’ve got to keep it compressed,” Shane says.
Ilya seems to lose all the attitude he’d had so far that evening. His hands fist in the fabric of the sleeping bag, and his jaw clenches. “Do it,” he says.
Shane works as quickly as he can, but it’s still difficult to wrap the knee as he hears the pain it brings to Ilya. The whole process can’t take more than a minute, but by the end, with the bandage secured, both Ilya and Shane are sweating from the effort. Ilya accepts the ice without protest, all fight drained out of him for the time being. There is no longer any daylight outside the tent, and their faces are only lit by a small lantern that Shane has propped between them.
Shane leans over Ilya once again and inspects the cut on his forehead, using an alcohol wipe to clear away the trickle of blood that has dried on Ilya’s face. He’s pleased to see the cut is shallow, and there’s only a slight bump around it. Shane’s not a doctor, but he’d rather be dealing with a knee injury than a brain injury. He places a band-aid on the cut and then smiles to himself at how cute it makes Ilya look. Something about a small Band-Aid on a large, broody man is so humanizing.
Shane once again puts on his outer layers, moving through the steps quickly and gathering the food and trash. He turns to the tent door and then feels a hand on his arm, stilling him.
“Where are you going?” Ilya says, his hand reaching out and grabbing his arm. Shane is wearing his jacket, and Ilya is wearing gloves, so there’s no skin contact, but the touch still seems to brand Shane’s arm.
“We can’t store food in the tent; it’s practically inviting bears. I’m going to find a place to hang up the food bag so we don’t attract grizzlies,” Shane says, pulling his arm away from Ilya and leaving the tent quickly. He’d scouted out trees for this task earlier, so it doesn’t take long to get his food bag suspended on a length of rope in the air. He tries not to judge Ilya for his ignorance of the subject, but it seems he did not research it, like everything else. Endangering himself with a lack of preparation again.
When he returns to the tent and finally slips off his gear for the last time, the ice pack has softened and warmed. Shane removes it and places them off to the side. He takes a breath and readies himself for another fight.
“We’re going to have to share the sleeping bag; it’s too cold for either of us to go without it.” He says it dispassionately, just stating facts.
He expects a fight from Ilya, some sort of protest, but Ilya just rolls onto his good side, giving Shane his back. “I know,” he says simply. Shane climbs in, doing his very best not to jostle Ilya’s knee or rub his body against Ilya’s any more than is necessary. They lie back-to-back in the bag, and Shane reaches out, flicking the lantern's switch and casting them into darkness, with only the rustle of their sleeping bag and the howl of the wind to sing them to sleep.
Ilya
The heat inside the tent is stifling. Ilya isn’t sure whether he’s developing a fever from the cold or if his body is actually melting. Either way, the heat inside the sleeping bag is unrelenting, and Shane’s fidgeting next to him isn’t helping. Ilya is doing two things simultaneously. One, he’s trying to keep his knee from moving any more than necessary, each motion sending a fresh wave of pain. Two, he’s trying very hard not to think about the way Shane is pressed against him. It’s the absolute wrong time to categorize the way Shane’s body feels against his, even back-to-back, but he can’t help it.
Shane hasn’t stopped moving since he settled in next to Ilya an hour ago, maybe two. Time feels like it is slipping through his fingers, here one second and then a hazy fog the next. He’s starting to realize that a fever is a very real possibility. Perhaps the small cut on his head was actually far worse than Shane had thought, and he’s going to die from a brain bleed. Lovely.
Many people know this, but there truly is no quiet way to unzip a sleeping bag. It’s possibly the loudest sound in the world as he subtly tries to yank the zipper down, metal teeth sliding over each other in a loud ZIP that feels like it’s shaking the tent.
“What are you doing?” Shane says, his head snapping in Ilya’s direction like he’s a bird of prey honing in on a field mouse.
“It’s too hot,” Ilya complains, dragging the zipper down a few more inches, practically seeing waves of heat roll out of the bag as a new section of his chest is unveiled.
“It’s negative twenty degrees out, Ilya. Keep the bag zipped. People have died of hypothermia from less.”
Ilya knows this. You can’t be in the sport without constantly knowing the dangers of hypothermia and the very real threat of frostbite. Half the mushers he knows are missing a little piece of themselves from frostbite, be it a tip of a finger or a few toes, dealer's choice.
“I’m melting,” Ilya complains, and yes, he admits it comes out a bit like a whine. A petulant child unwilling to put on a jacket over their Halloween costume.
“No, you’re acclimating. You’re lucky even to be alive, spending hours out there, soaking cold, half-buried in snow. You need to stay bundled up now,” Shane says, turning back to face the tent door in the sleeping bag, looking like a caterpillar, all bundled up and leaning on an elbow still tucked into the bag. It’s cute.
Ilya lets out a groan of acknowledgment that he’s pretty sure they can hear in Fairbanks. He lies on his back, making the sleeping bag even tighter than it was on his side. The inky darkness of the tent consumes them, quiet breaths doing nothing to fill the silence. Nothing but the howling winds shaking the tent's walls and the uncomfortable silence that comes from two strangers sharing a space they never intended to.
“I still haven’t heard you zip the bag back up,” Shane lectures from beside Ilya.
Ilya lets the loud zipper speak on his behalf as he brings it all the way back up his body, sheathing himself back inside the sweltering bag so the mother hen beside him will stop her ceaseless clucking.
“You’re just as fun as I imagined, Hollander,” Ilya mumbles on his exhale.
It’s simultaneously a lie and a goading remark. He wants to rile up the golden boy of the Yukon. He wants Shane to turn and face him so he can see the way his lips curve when he pouts. He wants to watch the way Shane’s brows furrow when Ilya teases him, as if he’s trying desperately to discern whether it’s flirting or genuine rudeness. Shane may not realize it, but he’s always flirting. In truth, Ilya has imagined many ways Shane could be fun; Shane yipping at him to stay in the sleeping bag was never one of them.
If Shane wanted to be fun, he could unzip their sleeping bag himself and climb on top of him. If Shane wanted to be fun, he could peel off the remaining layers of Ilya’s clothes and then discard his own. If Shane wanted to be fun, then he could use that pouting mouth to -
“Oh, I’m sorry—was saving your life and completely fucking over my chances at a race I’ve been training for years—not very fun? How incredibly rude of me,” Shane bites back.
Ilya regrets the tease immediately.
“Shane, I-“ Ilya starts, ready to make amends. He shouldn’t have started, not when everything is so fresh, and he owes Shane Hollander his very life.
“No, don’t let me interrupt your fun, Ilya. Maybe I should have just ignored you today, and now your corpse could be lying undiscovered beneath half a foot of snow.”
There’s a silence that stretches on too long after Shane finishes. The word corpse seems to linger between them, a reminder of what easily could have happened. How, without Shane, Ilya would already be dead. Ilya steadies himself, pushing away the sweltering, sweeping bag and his throbbing knee. He pushes it all away until his only focus is Shane’s tense breaths beside him in the dark. “Thank you,” he starts, hoping the two words can magically carry the weight of what he really means.
“It’s fine,” Shane says too quickly, an obvious reflex.
”It’s not. You should be out there right now, kicking Scott Hunter’s ass, but instead, you’re next to my grumpy ass, and I can’t even thank you properly for saving my life. So thank you, Shane. I’m sorry I didn’t say it before.”
This time, there’s no immediate reaction; Shane takes in the words and mulls them over before choosing his response. The silence is killing Ilya, and he so desperately wishes there were a candle, a flashlight, hell, even a beam of moonlight, anything so he could see Shane’s face right now. He wants to remove his hand from the sleeping bag and trace Shane’s face, detect the expression like a blind man touching a sculpture, and memorize the lines of his face.
”I hated it. Seeing you like that, in the snow,” Shane starts, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the whistling wind, but softer than it was before, more subdued, “I thought you were dead.”
Ilya’s first instinct is to make a joke about how elated Shane must have been to think Ilya was dead, but he stops himself. The mood in the tent is too heavy, too tense for him to joke about his own life like that. Shane’s face may not be visible, but his tone is clear; he was genuinely worried today, genuinely concerned to find Ilya half frozen under the ice. “I’m sorry, that must have been really scary,” he says quietly.
“It was,” Shane replies, and his voice feels closer, as if he has turned his face toward Ilya’s, somehow maneuvering in the sleeping bag without the rustle Ilya makes with every breath.
“I know I already said it, but thank you, Shane. I wouldn’t be here without you, and I know that. Sorry, you were forced to save your rival’s life.”
“My rival?”
“Yes, I am the best musher, and you are second best. This makes us rivals.” Ilya explains.
Shane lets out a laugh that has no place amid the howling wind and icy ground. “You’re not the best musher; I am.”
“No, not true.”
“Yes, I’m the best, and I think you’d be lucky to make the top five. Scott Hunter is probably the second best,” Shane says, his voice steady and honest, as if this were a life-or-death discussion.
“No, Scott Hunter is a thousand years old,” Ilya says, his immediate response to any mention of Scott Hunter, but with a little more bite when Shane is the one bringing him up.
“Lots of competitors are older, Ilya; that doesn’t mean they’re not good.”
“I can’t believe you think Scott Hunter is better than me; that is completely uncalled for. This is why we are rivals,” Ilya emphasizes again. He wants so desperately to see Shane’s face.
“We are not rivals,” Shane argues again, and Ilya can feel the way his words come out in a huff, their faces so much closer than they were when they started in the dark of the tent. If Ilya turned on his side, their lips would be an inch apart. But, of course, he can’t lie on that side now, so he remains on his back.
Ilya lets a moment pass before responding, “We are; that’s why you hate me so much.”
They are both silent for a moment; ‘hate’ still bounces around the tent as if the wind itself were speaking it. “I don't hate you.”
“Yes, you do,” Ilya replies immediately.
Again, a moment passes, and then Shane adds, lighter, “Well, maybe I do right now, but not normally.”
“You’re always glaring at me.”
Shane’s immediate defense is, “I am not.”
“You are. Always with the angry eyes at me,” Ilya says, hoping his voice comes out a little angry, possibly accusatory, not hurt.
“That’s a complete fabrication. I do not have angry eyes.”
Ilya lets out a harrumph and considers facing away from Shane again, in case Shane can make out his features in the tent's darkness. He knows it’s pointless; nothing permeates the inky surroundings of the tent, so he stays on his back. “You do, always glaring at me. I have done nothing wrong, but every time I look at you, you give me an angry face. Very rude,” he adds the last part with casual nonchalance, his bravado hopefully covering his true feelings on the matter. He doesn’t mention the occasional other looks Shane gives him, the ones that are far more heated and far less deliberate.
“Maybe it has nothing to do with you?” Shane says, and his voice is low now.
“No, I’m sure, always directed at me.”
“You are so full of yourself,” Shane says, and Ilya can feel the mocking cover he puts on the words and the lack of sincerity behind them.
“Possibly, maybe that’s why you hate me so much,” Ilya says, knowing he’s pushing, but he wants to know what Shane meant when he implied it wasn’t about Ilya.
“I don’t hate you; you're just so…”
Ilya’s lips pause for a moment before he prompts him to continue, “So…”
“You’re so sure of yourself all the time. It can be a little obnoxious at times, you strutting around like you own the place. Every time I see you, you’re always teasing me and bragging about how you’re going to win. You never even tried to be nice to me; from the day we met, you’ve been making fun of me.”
Shane’s words sink into him, the feeling the coldest he’s felt all day, despite the time spent frozen under the snow. Ilya takes this in. Sure, he jokes around with Shane, but he’d always thought of it as mutual. Teasing remarks between rivals, not anything that would get under Shane’s skin like this. He swallows a lump in his throat and fights to bring his voice back to a joking lilt, “So if I’m nice to you, then you’ll stop giving me the angry eyes?”
“Again, I don't give you angry eyes.”
Ilya could push Shane further, but this man saved his life today, so he opts to share the truth. “I don’t think you’re obnoxious, for what it’s worth.”
“No, you just think I have angry eyes,” Shane says, annoyance creeping into his tone over Ilya’s earlier careless words.
“Only when directed at me. When you look at other things, your eyes are quite lovely.”
There’s a silence that follows his words, and Ilya wishes he could snatch them back, pluck them out of the air, and wind time back five seconds. Then he feels Shane move slightly, getting himself comfortable on his side, facing Ilya. “Oh… if you don't think I’m obnoxious, then what do you think of me?”
He opened himself up for this one; he knows it. The tent feels small, and his hands are sweating in the bag even though he knows it has nothing to do with the heat. The whole conversation feels like a frozen lake in the early days of spring, dangerous and ready to break open at any second.
He chooses his response carefully, testing each step on the ice, so he doesn’t fall through into the churning water below. “I think you’re smart and driven. I think you’re the most talented musher I know, and you saved my life when you didn’t have to. I think the world of you, Shane.”
Shane doesn’t respond to his words, but Ilya can hear the small hitch in his breath and the following exhale, like he’s stopping a response. Ilya lets the moment linger until the black of the tent lulls him into a dreamless sleep.
Shane
Shane awakens to the pitch black of the tent and the howling of the wind outside. He immediately panics, trying to reconcile where he is and what is going on, the type of panic-induced confusion that only comes from waking up where you don't expect to. He’s warm in the sleeping bag, but his palms aren’t sweaty from his nerves, nor from the heat. He takes a few shaky breaths, calming his breathing and remembering yesterday's events.
He’s in a tent with Ilya.
Ilya almost died, but he saved him.
He has lost the race.
He doesn’t mean to tack on the last statement, but it’s a reflex more than anything else. A lifetime of competition fuels his immediate check on his place in the standings. He can almost hear his mom in his ear, chastising his performance. He shuts it down, the thought doing little to quell his panic; in fact, it does the complete opposite.
He pulls his hand from the warmth of the sleeping bag, glancing at the illuminated display showing 4:23. He’s not sure what time he finally fell asleep last night, but he’s positive he didn’t sleep more than a few hours. It’s a habit in a race like this, sleeping in short bursts before getting back to the race, not easily broken, even by the exhaustion yesterday provided. He listens around him, unable to make out Ilya’s sleeping face in the stygian darkness, but hears the quiet exhalation behind him.
Ilya is breathing, and despite Shane’s instinct to wake him and check his injuries, he knows that sleep is what they both need more than anything. So he rests his head back and lets the quiet cadence of Ilya’s breaths lull him back to sleep.
—
Shane wakes to a gentle nudge on his shoulder, jostling him awake. He blinks, willing his eyes to open and finding Ilya’s face inches from his own. He tries to pull away, but finds his head already pressed against the cold ground of the tent, no room to budge.
“Good morning,” Ilya says, his voice low and raspy from disuse and his hair tousled from sleep. He’s sitting up in the sleeping bag, half in and half out, unzipped to his waist, with a hand propped on the ground to keep himself upright as he leans over Shane.
“What are you doing?” Shane groans, his head reeling from the abrupt wake-up and his body aching from yesterday's activities.
“Waking you up, obviously. Well, initially, I was checking to make sure you were alive. You sleep like you’re dead - did you know that?”
Shane ignores the question, pulling a hand free to unzip his side of the sleeping bag and sitting up in the tent until he is level with Ilya. “No, no one has ever mentioned that I sleep like I’m dead.”
“Really? I’m surprised a girlfriend never said anything,” Ilya retorts, his eyes watching Shane carefully, like a detective leading a witness to reveal evidence.
Shane doesn’t correct him, and certainly doesn't admit that it's been a very long time since he’s shared a bed with anyone, and certainly not a girlfriend. “Is there an actual reason you woke me up, or did you do it just to annoy me?” Shane groans, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and down his face in frustration.
“Yes, I think we should get going,” Ilya says, gesturing at the tent door. “I would have started the packing myself, but I figured you’d make a fuss of me getting up,” he says with an eye roll that Shane pointedly tries to ignore.
“Yes, I would indeed make a fuss.”
“I thought so; thus you’re awake, and now it’s time to leave,” Ilya says.
Shane listens to the wind still whipping against the front of the tent, and in the newfound light of morning, he can see the snow piled against the outside. He frees himself from the sleeping bag and leans over to the tent door, unzipping it a few inches, and is hit with an immediate spray of cold air and snow directly in his face. He quickly re-zips the entrance and turns to Ilya, “I don’t think we’re leaving any time soon.”
“Are you not actually going to go outside and check?” Ilya questions, and Shane shoots him a deathly glare.
“Check that we’re in the middle of a blizzard?” Shane says, not bothering to hide the eye roll he does.
“Yes, you actually need to check if we can travel in these conditions. Unzipping the tent a few inches does not count,” Ilya protests, his voice developing a slight whine that grates on Shane’s nerves.
Shane takes a frustrated breath like he’s trying to reason with a kid who doesn’t understand why they can’t swim during a lightning storm. “Trust me, I saw the weather reports about this storm when I was in Dawson; it’s a blizzard. I’ll go out in a few minutes and check on the dogs, but it’s not going to change the weather.”
“This is ridiculous,” Ilya says, flopping to the ground like a toddler having a meltdown in a grocery store. “We can’t stay here forever.”
Shane huffs out a breath, prays for patience (again), and says, “It’s not forever; it’s only until the blizzard dies down enough for us to travel safely. You’re already dead weight on the sled; we can’t risk any further injury to either of us.”
“Do you think the race is over yet?”
“No, maybe by the end of today or tomorrow morning, with the speed Scott was moving at. That is, assuming he didn’t fall off a cliff and freeze to death,” Shane says, returning the glare Ilya had given him earlier.
Ilya scoffs, “As if Scott could be so lucky to have Shane Hollander save his life. I’m sure he will cross the finish line and then people will come looking for you, wondering why you didn’t win.”
Shane feels a tug in his gut. “No, not until a few days after. My mom will be disappointed I didn’t win, but they know I can handle myself out here,” Shane says, his voice low. His body is turned away from Ilya’s.
“Unless you were to do something stupid like try to save my life,” Ilya says, giving Shane’s leg a nudge with his good knee.
Shane fakes a smile and then glances down, not ready to meet Ilya’s eyes yet. “It wasn’t stupid to save your life. Anyone would have done the same.”
This time, Ilya looks away, his face grim and still. “Not everyone. Besides, the only person who would notice if I froze to death out here is my landlady. She’s eager to rent out my apartment.”
There is a tense silence in the tent as both men take in the other's state. Shane, with his mother’s expectations as a crushing weight on his shoulders, and Ilya, who is completely alone in the world.
“I'd notice,” Shane says quietly, “I know I probably don't count, but I would notice if you froze out here.”
Ilya’s body is still; then his head turns to face Shane. “I’m sure you’d notice; it would make it easy to win your race with your competition gone.”
Shane shakes his head, already regretting the moment of vulnerability. “You’re not my only competition, Ilya, and even if you were, I’d care because you were gone, not that my supposed rival was gone.”
This time, Ilya doesn’t plaster on a smile; he lets his eyes linger on Shane’s and leans closer. “If I’m not your rival, what am I?”
Shane is so close he could feel the heat radiating off Ilya’s chest, the way a magnetism seemed to pull them together. He stares at Ilya’s eyes, so much brighter than they’d been yesterday. “What do you want to be?” He holds his breath as he waits for Ilya’s answer.
Ilya’s sapphire eyes meet Shane’s again, a question he isn’t ready to answer lingering in them. “I think, maybe friends?”
It’s posed as a question, and Shane is half tempted to ask what the other options are. If not friends, then what?
A couple of barks sound above the howling wind, and Shane pulls himself away abruptly. “Shit, I’ve got to check on the dogs,” he says, his heart pounding and goosebumps rippling across his skin.
Ilya, too, seems to pull himself from the fog, practically shaking his head as he stares at the other wall of the tent. “Right, yeah, the dogs,” he says, his voice slightly unsteady.
Shane pulls on his layers quickly. Or, as quickly as someone could dress in a small, enclosed space they were sharing with their…
Friend. That’s what Ilya had called them. He isn’t quite ready to admit that the label left him slightly disappointed, even if he didn’t have a better option. He isn’t sure what he wants from Ilya; he never was. He knows he finds Ilya aggravating at the worst of times, obnoxious most of the time, and handsome all of the time. But Ilya is his competition, and in the first few years of them racing, he’d seen him with a handful of girlfriends, imagining that anything else with him was just setting himself up for disappointment.
He steps into the blizzard outside and goes about the day's tasks. He hadn’t been lying to Ilya when he said he knew what the weather would be like outside and that it would be impossible to travel, but it’s one thing to say it and another to live it. The wind slices across his face like a knife. It’s almost impossible to see, the snow coming down in small icy pieces that attempt to reach any bit of bare flesh available.
He feeds the dogs first, checking to make sure they are all happy and in good shape. They seem unbothered by the horrible conditions and cuddle together in giant mounds of fur. His pack is completely mixed in with Ilya’s, like they were from the same kennels. Several of the dogs wag their tails at him, and he goes around giving each one a few pets. Ilya will be happy to hear they were all doing well.
He then gathers breakfast supplies from the bear bag and searches for anything else that might be helpful. The snow had buried Ilya’s belongings overnight; only the smallest bits of metal and supplies poke through the undisturbed blanket of white. He decides against gathering anything else and makes his way back to the tent.
Inside, Ilya is sitting up again, watching Shane as he crawls through the entrance quickly. Shane sets down the meals he’d pulled from the food bag. Ilya wordlessly grabs both MRE packs, preparing them as Shane shucks off his outer layers and slips back into the sleeping bag.
Ilya hands him the heated food, and Shane gives him a smile in response. They eat in comfortable silence. Today’s breakfast consists of a “pork sausage patty with hash browns, granola and blueberries, and a muffin top.” There are a few additional bits in the MRE pack: nuts, electrolyte mix, and syrup. Ilya eats his meal in silence, but can only hold it in so long before he breaks the silence. “Did you find my coffee maker?” He pairs his question with a smile, as if it will change the answer.
“Your coffee maker?” Shane asks dryly.
“Yeah, I had a small French press with me. I’d kill for a cup of coffee right now.”
Shane closes his eyes for a moment and blows out a small breath. “No, I was too busy saving your life to dig through the snow for a fucking coffee maker.”
“Okay, just asking. I’m just saying that breakfast would be nice with a cup of hot coffee,” Ilya says, raising a hand in defeat.
It’s too much: the French press is the straw that broke the camel’s back. “I can’t believe you packed a fucking coffee maker for the Yukon Quest,” Shane mutters under his breath, anger lacing each word.
“A travel-sized French press, Hollander. It was very small,” Ilya defends.
“Unbelievable,” Shane says in annoyance, but goes about gathering the breakfast trash, eager to move on.
“You’d be in a better mood if you had some coffee,” Ilya mutters under his breath, exaggerating the pursing of his lips and widening his eyes.
Shane should ignore it. Ilya’s had a rough 24 hours, and asking for such a delicacy is annoying, yes, but not a fighting blow. If he thought a little harder about it, he'd probably guess that Ilya’s asking for caffeine to take his mind off his knee. A warm drink to distract him from the biting cold that still fills the tent. He’d probably surmise that Ilya isn't truly looking for his French press, but for the comfort it would bring.
Shane, unfortunately, has also had a rough day, so he doesn't think of any of this. Instead, he faces Ilya head-on. His words are slow, each laced with frustration and annoyance. “Did you prepare for this at all, or did you wake up one day and just decide to attempt one of the hardest races out there?”
Ilya’s brow hardens, his hand clenching in the sleeping bag. “Fuck you, Hollander; you don’t know anything about me”
“I know you're reckless and brash. I know your sled didn’t have chains to slow you down, and I know we wouldn’t be here if you had prepared properly for this race. So fuck you, Rozanov. I don't have to know your life story to know you shouldn’t even be out here.”
“Well, I’m sorry I can’t be perfect like you, Hollander, with your superstar parents and vintage equipment.”
“No, you don't get to act like my family is why I’m out here. You certainly don’t get to give me shit for using my mom’s sled, like using a 25-year-old piece of equipment gives me any advantage over you. Why else would I be winning this race if I hadn't stopped to pull you out of the snow? I have trained for two years for this. I’ve gone on weeks-long bush camping trips, and I’ve taken wilderness first aid classes - you’re welcome, by the way- and I have trained endlessly to be prepared for this race. All to be thrown off the course by your negligence in doing even a modicum of research into what to expect. Why were you in the snow yesterday, Ilya? Huh? I doubt one of your dogs threw you off that cliff”
“I lost control of my sled,” Ilya says, his tone gruff and eyes cold.
“I bet you were racing down that slope. Completely out of control for the sake of speed. Am I right?”
“I w-”
“No, actually, don’t answer that. I don't have to guess; I’m sure that’s what happened.” Shane turns his head away, as if even looking at Ilya is angering him.
“Well, I’m so sorry I ruined your perfect race, Hollander. Next time you can just let me die,” Ilya says to Shane’s back, his words as icy as the blizzard raging outside.
“It’s not about the fucking race, Ilya.” Shane bites out, slowly turning back to face Ilya. “It’s the fact that you are completely reckless with your own life.” He begins pulling on his coat and boots, dressing quickly; the only noises in the tent are the zipping of his clothes and the whistling of the wind.
Shane would prefer to disappear without explanation, knowing Ilya has no chance of properly following, but be it politeness or general decency, he bites an explanation over his shoulder, “I’m going to put our trash back in the bear bag and check on the dogs. Don't go anywhere.”
He doesn’t need to face Ilya to know his reply is paired with an eye roll: “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Ilya
Shane has been gone for a long time. Long enough that the shadows in the tent begin to shorten, announcing the middle of the already short day. He can’t hear any sign of his partner over the sound of the storm raging outside, so he simply has to trust that Shane will be back soon.
It’s agony.
He desperately wishes for a deck of cards, a book, or even a knife and a piece of wood. Now would be a great time to take up whittling. He has nothing but his own thoughts to distract him as he waits. Boredom is a near-constant state in a race like this. Typically, he’d let his mind wander as he took in the changing landscape rushing by him. But today his mind is a dangerous place. Full of the echoes of truth that Shane Hollander shouted at him earlier.
Completely reckless with his own life- that’s what Shane had said to him, and he’d had nothing to respond with. Even now, his mind is blank as to any retort he could have delivered. It doesn’t take much self-reflection for Ilya to know he races differently from his competitors. He’s known this since the beginning, but every race, every victory, and every loss push him to be a little more reckless. There’s nothing to keep him from coloring outside the lines; he’s allowed to play fast and loose with his own life when there is no circle of influence beyond it.
He wasn’t always this way with mushing, so reckless, so brash. He’d stumbled upon mushing when he was 12, drifting aimlessly after the loss of his mother. He was doing his very best in those days to steer clear of his father, who had been in a perpetual half-drunk state since the passing of his wife. Grigori had little thought of how the loss of a beloved mother would affect a 12-year-old, and he only worked to make it worse. His brother, Alexei, was rarely in the house at all, constantly out doing god knows what with god knows who.
One afternoon, Ilya fled from the house after his father shouted at him. The exact words he couldn't remember, but the spirit of them remained with him for the rest of his life. Get out of the house; I can’t stand looking at you. You look just like her. So Ilya had fled the house in the cold bite of winter, wandering until he found a man on a park bench, a beautiful snow-white husky panting at his feet.
He’d asked to pet the dog, Chiron, and the man told him that Chiron was a sled dog. The man, Michael, told him about the kennel he ran an hour outside of Moscow and his own days of mushing. In a different world, a worse world, the man could have had ill intentions; he could have easily stolen Ilya away with the promise of meeting dogs and learning how to race. Lucky for him, this was not that world. Michael took Ilya under his wing, stepping in to replace a father who’d given up and a mother who had left before Ilya had the chance to truly know her.
For every year under Michael’s tutelage, Ilya learned the fundamentals of mushing. Michael was exact in his teaching, direct in a distinctly Russian way that Ilya appreciated. Michael was anything but reckless and instilled the same careful precision in Ilya. He helped Ilya through races around Moscow and would even drive him hours away for bigger competitions.
His father never once protested, and Alexei never once asked. He felt like a stranger living in his own home, and by the time he finished school and had the chance to leave, he did so without hesitation.
He would have stayed in Russia for years, running the kennel and competing in races around the continent. He would have been precise and focused. That all fell apart when he came back after a weekend race and found Michael unmoving on the kitchen floor. Five years after the death of his mother, Ilya still felt like he was living his life on repeat. The same fingers on a body that was too cold, too unmoving. The same panicked phone call to medics, and the same declaration of death on arrival.
Michael died of a massive stroke, the hospital had told him. They told him there was nothing he could have done. They told him that sometimes good people die too soon. Ilya had heard it all before. Michael had been so careful with his racing. He’d never gone too fast, always stayed on the safe side of things. He ate overly healthily, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and got plenty of exercise, and still - all the care in the world hadn’t mattered in the end.
Michael had no family and had never thought to make a will, passing down his kennel to Ilya, so in the end he had nothing more than his experience and a deeper bitterness for the world than he’d had at 12.
The next day, he’d signed up for a race in Alaska, booking a flight with nothing more than his winter coat and mushing mittens, a little bit of saved-up money, and a plan never to come back.
He huffs out a breath and lets his mind drift, begging for a daydream to take him away from Shane’s echoing words and the painful remembrance of Michael’s death along with his swift exit from Russia. No, Shane isn’t wrong; Ilya most certainly is reckless. He’s become more and more so over the years, and he won’t apologize for it. If there’s one thing this life has taught him, it’s that life isn’t guaranteed. Why wouldn’t he play dangerously if it makes him better? There’s no award in life for playing it safe. No, he won't apologize for being reckless with his own life.
He will, however, apologize for dragging Shane into his poor decision-making. He will also shoulder the guilt that comes with his dogs being dragged into this. He can’t even stomach the idea that his own speed could have injured them. Everything has felt so dangerously out of his control ever since his sled slipped on the ice yesterday. Now, as he waits for Shane to return, he doesn't feel in control of anything.
Instead of focusing his mind on this morning's conversation with Shane, he thinks about last night's. How did Shane see him? Could they be friends? He briefly wonders if he’s already started to embellish the memory in his mind… He thinks of Shane’s body language. Did he lean in closer? Was Ilya imagining the way Shane’s eyes kept darting to his lips?
He may be remembering it wrong, but a small hopeful part of him is almost certain he isn’t. He’s attracted to Shane and has been for many years. From the first race against each other, he’d been delighted by Shane’s smattering of freckles and the way he tried to shake Ilya’s hand twice when they met. The question, of course, is how much of his attraction is reciprocated by Shane. He’s almost positive that Shane feels something beyond annoyance toward him, and there was even a moment in a hotel gym two years ago when he’d considered throwing caution to the wind and making a move.
He hadn’t done so, needing a more concrete sign from Shane before he crossed any lines. He was curious about Shane, but he needed something a little more tangible before he potentially fucked someone within the mushing community. Have you ever heard the advice "Don’t shit where you eat "? Well, that applied to everyone within the mushing world. The theory was that he’d see all the people at every race every year until he retired. If he was going to make things awkward with a hook-up, it better be worth it.
He suspects that Shane would be worth it. That is, if he’s interested.
Now, his mind drifts away from this morning's conversation into dangerous yet familiar ground. He thinks about the way Shane carried him to the tent despite his protests and never once balked at his weight. He thinks about Shane’s hands, gentle on his skin as he wrapped his knee, and the way he brought him hot meals. There’s something new to being taken care of like this. Although he's still fighting against it, unsure about the attention, he can’t deny it feels nice, especially when it involves Shane's touch and gaze on him.
He imagines Shane and all the beautiful lines of his body. The way his arms bulge beneath his tight base layer and his cheeks are perpetually rosy. He’s thinking about the way Shane’s eyes darken when Ilya lies back and lets him tend to him. He thinks about other ways Shane could tend to him. Ways unrelated to injuries or bandages.
He wonders how Shane’s hands would feel on his bare body, the skin-to-skin contact so incredibly rare in their world, always marred by gloves, mittens, and a million other layers. He wants to know how far the blush on Shane’s cheeks goes down. He’d like to lick down his body, following the rosy hue like a road map. He allows himself to imagine whether Shane takes commands well, as he did in the gym years ago. Or if he would be fiery, like he was when he yelled at Ilya this morning, his eyes blazing and his breath heaving.
Fuck, and now he’s hard.
It’s incredibly inconvenient. Well, not as inconvenient as it could be. He was lucky that yesterday, when Shane had bent over to look closely at his knee, his face inches from Ilya’s groin, he’d been in too much pain to even think about the attractive man touching him. He supposes he’s lucky that Shane isn't in the tent either, not that he’d be able to see much beneath the thick layers of the sleeping bag.
No, what makes this inconvenient is that he could deal with this now. He could reach beneath the sleeping bag, shuffle his pants down, and touch himself, imagining a situation in which he shared this tent with Shane. Instead of arguing about coffee makers, Ilya closed the gap between their bodies and pulled Shane down onto the sleeping bag. But Ilya can’t risk doing that. He has no idea when Shane is coming back.
Ilya grimaces, thinking about Shane coming back and catching him, a hand wrapped around himself. He can picture the uncomfortable atmosphere they’d have to sit in for however many hours they’re trapped together like this. He guesses there is a possibility that Shane could react differently, maybe…
He stops the thought before it goes further, knowing he’s just throwing fuel on the proverbial fire at this point. He’s going to be much better off trying to sleep it off; Shane can’t possibly react badly to that. So he closes his eyes, focuses on evening his breaths, and prays for his dick to calm down and his body to sleep.
Shane enters the tent not even a minute later.
Ilya raises his head a little to see Shane shuffle through the tent door and turn to face him. Ilya uses a hand to move the sleeping bag around a little to hopefully disguise any evidence of his dick at attention.
Luckily for him, Shane’s eyes immediately go to his face. “Shit, were you sleeping?” Shane asks, looking genuinely concerned.
Ilya props himself up, shoving down the sleeping bag until it pools around his waist. “Not really, just zoning out while I waited for you,” Ilya utters, and then mentally kicks himself for sounding like a dog waiting for its owner to return. But…if the shoe fits…
“Right,” Shane whispers, and then, a little louder ”listen, I’m sorry about earlier; that wasn’t fair of me to say.” He keeps his eyes on the ground, refusing to look Ilya fully in the eyes, and whether it’s out of shame or embarrassment, Ilya can’t tell. He knows one thing, though: he wants Shane to be looking at him.
“It’s fine,” Ilya waves off, “this is a shit situation and tensions are high. I don’t blame you.”
“It was rude, and I’m sorry,” Shane apologizes anyway, then finally his eyes rise to meet Ilya’s. “I made you something; it’s probably stupid, but I thought you might want some fresh air.”
Ilya’s interest is piqued: “You made me something? Like a present?”
“Like an I’m sorry I was such an ass this morning apology gift,” Shane corrects, but the corner of his lip tilts up, and Ilya is going to count that as making Shane Hollander smile.
“You have to put your coat on; we’re going outside,” Shane instructs, glancing at Ilya’s forgotten coat on the side of the tent.
Ilya reaches for it and slowly untangles himself from the sleeping bag, stretching out his tired limbs and doing his best not to jostle his knee any further. With Shane’s assistance, he manages to get his coat on and then, very carefully, pulls on a pair of Shane’s loose waterproof pants. It’s not warm enough to be wearing outside for long, but he doesn't expect Shane to bring him out there for a hike.
Shane slips out of the tent first, on his side, zipping it closed, then reappears on the other side to open Ilya’s tent door and hand him a pair of crutches. Well, really, calling the sticks he hands forward "crutches" would be an insult to crutches everywhere. Shane thrusts forward two sturdy sticks that have been whittled down with a knife and have some kind of fabric wrapped around the top of them -possibly a T-shirt?. They are rather ugly and poorly made, yet the sight of them still makes Ilya’s vision blur a little.
Shane notices, because of course he does, “shit, I know they’re a mess, but I thought you might want to see your dogs and get some fresh air. You don't have to use them if you don’t want to,” he says, mistaking the moisture in Ilya’s eyes for disappointment and not the gratitude it really is.
Shane is still crouching in the tent’s entrance, Ilya propped up before him. He swallows. “This was incredibly kind of you, Shane. Thank you,” he half-whispers and hopes Shane can hear him over the howling wind.
Shane gives a coy smile. “You’re welcome.”
It’s a kind gesture, but the actuality of it is a complete mess. It takes at least ten minutes to properly get Ilya out of the tent and balanced between the crutches. There’s a good amount of swearing, complaining, and snipping at each other in the process, but at long last, Ilya is propped up, standing on his good leg and able to take in the storm in all its glory for the first time in 24 hours.
Truthfully, he’d thought Shane had been exaggerating about the magnitude of the blizzard. They have both been mushing for most of their lives, and he’s seen his share of blizzards. They’re nothing to write off, but they’re also a hazard of the job. As it turns out, Shane has not exaggerated; if anything, he’d undersold the conditions outside.
The wind is thrashing at Ilya with such a force that he knows his cheeks will be whipped pink by the time he’s back in the tent. He can’t make out anything more than a foot in front of him the way the snow is coming down, blown around by the wind like it’s a snow hurricane. He looks for any remnants of his sled, his gear, -his French press-, but sees nothing but a continuous blanket of white, unable to discern between the sky, the ground, and the world around him. The only colors he can make out are the red of their tent and black of Shane’s coat.
Moving through deep snow with a bum knee and poorly fashioned crutches is slow work, to say the least. Shane leads them, wading through the snow drifts to make something of a path, as Ilya hobbles awkwardly behind him. It doesn’t take long before they come upon an outcropping of rocks that blocks the wind, and, nestled against the stone in the snow, is the whole pack of dogs.
His own team is indistinguishable from Shane’s. He sees the bright gold of Luca’s coat next to an unfamiliar black husky, the dark black of Cliff’s coat tucked between two of Shane’s dogs, looking as smug as a dog can. The only discernible difference between his team and Shane’s team is the red of his dog’s booties versus the blue of Shane’s. Once they catch sight of him, they untangle; immediately, all rush through the snow to crowd around him, tongues lolling out of their mouths and bodies jumping around in the snow like it’s a field of fresh, fluffy powder on a bluebird day and not a potentially life-threatening blizzard.
Ilya half-balances himself on one crutch and uses his free hand to give his dogs some head pats, their happy faces bringing peace to the churning in his gut he hadn't realized was there until now. He lays his palm flat against the top of Anya’s head. It’s not much, but without her he’d be buried under this snow now, his body forgotten. When he gets back to civilization, he’s going to take her to the pet store and buy her any toy she wants; perhaps he’ll even reach out to Tom, who freeze-dries his own salmon to make the really stinky ones she favors and he hates.
Shane says nothing, his eyes at first trained on Ilya, then he gives each of his dogs a quick once-over, checking to ensure they are faring well in the weather. He knows as well as Ilya does that the dogs are made for this, but it’s still endearing to watch him fuss over them for a minute.
They make their way back to the tent and slowly begin re-entering it. This involves Ilya balancing on one leg and grasping both of Shane’s hands to lower himself into the tent's mouth, rather slowly. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, but Ilya can’t deny that being outside has done more for him than any kind of knee dressing and 200 mg of painkillers can do.
Shane climbs into the tent as Ilya finishes shucking his coat and rain pants, two new dinners in hand. Another day is done, the last vestiges of sunlight slipping away from the sky. Ilya and Shane eat in silence, no words needed, as they finish their dinners and begin preparing for what Ilya is sure will be a restless night.
“Why don’t you leave me?” Ilya asks, breaking the silence in the tent. He’s on his good side, facing the back of the tent.
“We’ve been over this. I couldn't leave someone who was hurt.”
“No, not yesterday. Now. You can travel in these conditions; it won’t be fast, but I’m sure you’ve raced in worse. You could leave me here with some food and water, along with my dogs, and head to town. It’ll take you less than a day to get there, and they can send a rescue for me once you arrive. So why stay?”
Shane heaves out a heavy sigh, as if the question itself has weight. “I’m not sure. You’re right that it would probably be faster, but I just can’t leave you here.”
“Because of the bears?” Ilya jokes, his voice lighter than it was a moment before.
“No, not because of the bears,” Shane answers back. “I just...I don't want to leave you out here. It might take longer, but I’d rather we stay together,” he admits, his voice so much softer than it’s been.
“Okay,” Ilya agrees, his voice matching Shane’s.
“Besides,” Shane continues, “how would I get the full credit for saving you if I can’t show up with you strapped to my sled”
“Ah, so it’s about getting recognition,” Ilya notes, warmth filling his bones for the first time in days, weeks even. It’s nice to sit here and joke with Shane, to forget everything else for a moment and just enjoy each other's company.
Shane gives him a smile that reaches his eyes, making them warmer somehow, like chocolate instead of the usual deep mahogany he’s come to expect. “You know me, I’m all about the publicity,” he says, raising his eyebrows.
“Well...” Ilya says, drawing out the word and letting his eyes flick down to the ground for a moment before he peers up at Shane through his lashes. “I seem to remember an ad in Musher’s Monthly featuring you. Mr. Big Shot. Mr. Publicity.”
Shane’s face turns the color of a pomegranate. “You saw that,” he squeaks out.
“Oh, not only did I see it, I tore it out and taped it to my wall like you were my favorite boyband member,” Ilya quips, shooting Shane a smirk.
Shane buries his head in his hands, but it does nothing to hide the way his face is flaming.
“Which one are you in the boyband, Shane? Are you the shy one, the bad boy, the sensitive one?” Ilya continues, watching every ounce of blood in Shane’s body rush under the skin of his cheeks.
Shane raises his head from his hand. “I’m the one who is going to kick your ass if you keep bringing this up.”
Ilya leans back with his arms beneath his head, the picture of relaxation to the eye, but his body aches and his knee throbs. “You can’t beat me up; I’m already injured. That would be mean.”
In response, Shane gives him a light elbow to the ribs. “I can be mean,” he says, his eyes squinting. “Let’s not forget about my angry eyes,” he says, giving Ilya his most piercing stare.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Ilya taunts, turning his head and noting how, once again, they seem to have shifted closer together without meaning to. Really, Ilya can barely move in his current position with his knee out of commission, so he’s going to blame Shane for this one. He gives himself a reprieve from control, allowing his eyes to flick to Shane’s lips for just a moment. Really, it’s the bare minimum that he deserves. His knee is busted, and he’s stranded in the wilderness for God’s sake. He deserves to look at Shane’s lips for a second.
Shane
There’s barely any light left in the day. Shane is half-tempted to look at his watch and half-determined to completely ignore it, knowing it’s probably only a little past 4 pm. Either way, the sun is setting, and he is exhausted from running around outside, fashioning crutches for Ilya, and trying his very best not to look at his tentmate as if he wants to jump him.
It’s the third one that’s becoming quite the problem for him. There was a moment this morning when his lips were a fraction too close to Ilya’s, the tent too small, and exhaustion muddying his mind to the point he almost closed the distance. He feels as if a pendulum is swinging between the two of them, one moment of fighting, then another of longing or attraction, or something impossible in between.
If he’s being honest with himself, and he rarely is, he’s having trouble resisting Ilya Rozanov’s magnetism. It’s not easy on a good day to keep a scowl plastered across his face when Ilya walks too close or aims a beaming smile his way, but sharing a tent with him for two days? Yeah, that’s a losing battle. He nearly died when his fingers brushed Ilya’s two years ago. How is he going to handle another night sharing a sleeping bag with him?
“What are you thinking so hard about?”
Ilya’s voice jars him out of his train of thought, and Shane nearly falls over in the tent. He shakes his head for a moment, as if he could dislodge his thoughts of Ilya from his mind like shaking water from his ear. It’s not particularly effective, doing nothing but making him look even more foolish in front of a smirking Ilya.
“Nothing,” Shane murmurs, turning to where Ilya lies supine beside him.
“Was it about me?” Ilya whispers, his smile barely visible in the fading light.
“It was nothing,” Shane insists, although he can already feel his cheeks betraying him, like an alarm.
Ilya squints, as if trying to make out the blush in the tent's dim light. “Okay, sure,” he says, his voice oozing with sarcasm.
The quiet in the tent consumes them for a moment, their twin exhales and the whistling wind the only noise, before Ilya breaks the silence. “Tell me something.”
This throws Shane: “About what?”
“Anything,” Ilya says somberly, “we've been racing each other for the better part of ten years, and I don't know anything about you that I can’t look up online.” Ilya pauses for a moment, his face lit up with pure glee. “Actually, I have a whole slew of blackmail stories that aren't out there. Like at our last juniors competition when you got your foot stuck in that hole.”
“That was an accident; I didn’t know there was ice beneath the snow,” Shane complains.
“Ooooo, or in our first Iditarod when you told the organizer lady you too, after she told you to have a good race.”
Shane’s face burns; the memory of that encounter is humiliating and something he had forgotten until this very moment. “Thank you for reminding me about that one. I can’t wait to think about that all night.”
Ilya’s smile grows softer at the edges, ”Tell me something that most people don’t know. Something that your competitors don’t get to see. ”
Ilya’s request is unexpected, and for a moment Shane lets his mind wander, thinking of how to answer. For so long, his life has been about racing. He knows which brand of booties he likes for his dogs, his favorite weather conditions for racing, and he can name all the different types of conifers they pass while racing. But what else is there, beyond racing? He doesn’t have much he likes or enjoys, so much of his life is eaten up chasing various race titles. “I love watching movies,” he settles on.
The sun is gone from the sky now, their tent back in darkness, but neither bothers to reach for the lantern, letting the dark cling to their faces like a safety blanket. Even still, he can hear the smile in Ilya’s voice as he asks, “What kind of movies?”
“All kinds. I watch basically anything that comes out, even those really terrible action movies that make no sense,” Shane admits, a smile forming on his own face as he shares the semi-embarrassing fact. “It's hard, with mushing, to have a normal schedule. I spend so much of my time racing, practicing, or working in the kennels that I didn’t really stop to make friends or develop hobbies in my teens. So I started spending a lot of my free time watching movies.”
Ilya lets this confession linger in the air for a moment, and Shane holds his breath, waiting for a clever joke about Shane’s lack of friends, but he doesn’t get one. “I, uh, never really made friends either. You’re right, the schedule is demanding, and most people don't understand the dedication it takes to make it in mushing.”
Shane suddenly feels very heavy, as if all the years of missing out on a normal life have come crashing down around him. “Do you get lonely?” he asks Ilya in a small voice, letting the darkness and isolation give him the bravery to ask something so personal.
“All the time,” comes Ilya’s quiet reply.
It could end there, silent confessions slipping away into the night, never to be brought up again, but Shane doesn’t want it to. There’s just enough light to make out the curve of Ilya’s lips, and he’s afraid that turning on the lanterns will break the spell. He wasn’t lying when he said he was lonely, but he doesn’t feel so lonely when he’s this close to Ilya. As their broken parts fit together more easily than anyone who’s fully whole could understand, he absentmindedly licks his lips. He catches Ilya watching the motion, the air between them hot and full of something unspoken. He likes talking with Ilya, likes hearing the Russian lilt in his voice and feeling Ilya’s eyes on him. “Will you tell me something too?”
“Okay,” Ilya agrees, and then he pauses, and Shane is sure he’s searching for the right thing to say, just as Shane did. “I’m working on becoming a Canadian citizen. It’s a long process and expensive - that’s what I use any of my race winnings for.” Again, he pauses, as if he’s considering whether to add the next part: “I’m not planning ever to go back to Russia; there’s nothing left for me there.”
Shane has no immediate response to that. He doesn’t know much about Ilya’s past, only that he moved to the US and began mushing here at 17. He hadn’t even realized Ilya was living in Canada at this point. “I think you deserve to be where you’re happiest. If that’s in Canada, then we’d be lucky to have you.”
“A glowing endorsement from Canadian superhero Shane Hollander. Do you mind sending that to the immigration offices in writing?” Ilya jokes.
“Shut up, I’m being nice,” Shane says with a laugh, reaching over to give Ilya’s shoulder a light shove in the dark. He does so, but before he can pull his hand back, Ilya has grabbed his wrist.
Not for the first time in the past two days, the mood in the tent shifts on a dime.
Ilya doesn’t let go, but his grip is light enough that Shane could easily pull free. He doesn’t.
Ilya pulls Shane’s hand closer to him at an unhurried pace, like he has all the time in the world to change his mind. Shane still doesn’t pull away; instead, he lets his whole body follow his hand, pushing closer to Ilya at the same slow pace. Ilya drops Shane’s wrist once they are nearly pressed together, their faces now only inches apart.
This close, he can see the way Ilya’s eyes search for his own face, as if he’s begging for the answer to a question he asked. “Shane,” he says, and he’s too close and not close enough all at once. He’s tucked into the sleeping bag, with Shane pressed against him on the outside. His voice is half curious and half pleading, and Shane closes his eyes for a moment, drowning out the fire burning in Ilya’s irises.
“This is probably a bad idea,” Shane says into the darkness. It’s an understatement; he knows it’s a bad idea. There’s a reason he’d never dated any of his fellow mushers, even though he knows a few who are openly gay; it’s a close community. There’s too much of a chance it will go sideways, and he’ll feel uncomfortable in the one place he’s ever felt at ease. Add in a small tent and an untold number of days of isolation, and everything becomes far too complicated.
“Almost certainly, but I like trouble,” Ilya whispers back.
“I know; that’s why we’re in this mess,” Shane says, but there’s no bite in it- his eyes still closed, but the warmth of Ilya’s breath fanning over his face.
Ilya doesn’t argue with Shane’s reply, instead closing the distance between them and bringing their lips together.
It’s bitterly cold outside, so far into the negatives that Shane hadn’t bothered to check. Inside the tent, shielded from the wind, with their joint body heat filling the space, it’s better but still frigid. By all accounts, Ilya’s lips should be cold, his face chilled from the temperature that continues to plummet outside as night washes over the landscape.
Ilya’s lips are not cold; they are warm and supple and everything that Shane has been denying himself. Shane thinks about the expression melting into a kiss and finally understands it for himself. He sinks into the kiss with Ilya easily, tension uncoiling from his muscles until his mind is wholly focused on Ilya’s hands, lips, and tongue.
It’s admittedly a little awkward of a position, with Ilya half-balanced on his side, his bad knee stretched out in the sleeping bag and Shane trying his very best not to bump into it. Still, Ilya does a spectacular job of making it feel natural. His warm hands maneuver Shane the way he wishes, one tilting his jaw up and the other cupping around the back of his neck, pulling him as close as he can muster.
Shane lets himself be pushed and pulled in every way Ilya wishes, simply along for the ride and enjoying every minute of it. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and before he’s ready, Ilya pulls back with a grimace and a sharp exhale.
“Fuck,” he grunts with no further explanation, and without being able to discern his facial expression, Shane begins to panic.
His skin prickles with shame, and he starts to pull away. “I’m sorry, I thought that…”
Once again, Ilya’s hand darts out, stopping him from moving back. “No, it’s not that at all, Shane,” he whispers, then lowers his head and places a chaste kiss against Shane’s lips. ”Actually, the opposite,” Ilya says, his voice strained.
“What’s wrong?”
Ilya’s face is shrouded in shadow, but Shane can see the slight movement as he shakes his head from side to side, as if in disbelief. “I’ve thought about this a lot,” he begins, and Shane feels a rush of heat through his body at Ilya’s words, “but I never imagined anything happening when I can barely move one of my legs, or in this small of a space on this cold of a night.” He huffs out a breath that is tinged with frustration: “I finally get to kiss Shane Hollander, and I can’t even do it properly; the universe is laughing at me.”
Shane smiles even if Ilya can’t see it. “I thought you did it very well.” Shane practically hums, his lips still puffed from Ilya’s treatment of them, his body vibrating with the urge to keep kissing him.
Ilya leans up again until Shane can feel the heat of his mouth just centimeters away. “I can do it so much better, though.”
Shane composes himself just enough to stop a whimper from slipping free at Ilya’s words. There are too many emotions raging inside him, a nasty battle raging between the parts of him that want to be rational about this; focus on keeping the peace and surviving until the blizzard dies down, and the parts of him that want to straddle Ilya and explore him with his tongue.
The rational side wins this time, his mind telling him he’s already enjoyed himself too much tonight, already letting control slip far further than he ever should have.
“Maybe when we get back to town, and you get your knee fixed, you could show me,” Shane whispers into the darkness of the tent.
“Shane Hollander, are you asking me out?” Ilya says, his voice light and excited, like a kid who was just told he could visit the ice cream truck.
“No, Ilya, I’m just propositioning you for sex,” Shane taunts back, words dripping in sarcasm.
Ilya lets out a groan that shoots directly to Shane’s cock, “Fuck, don’t say sex. What are you trying to do, torture me?”
“Sex.”
“You’re cruel,” Ilya groans out again.
Shane doesn’t continue to taunt him, instead leaning over to place a light kiss on Ilya’s lips and murmuring, “Go to sleep, Ilya. Maybe in the morning we can get out of here, and I can take you on that date.” He unzips the sleeping bag and settles on the opposite side he slept on last night, this time nestled in front of Ilya on his good side. It’s a little presumptuous, but he feels spurred when Ilya wraps an arm around him and lets out a happy hum.
“Promises, promises,” Ilya yawns back, and minutes later, his breathing settles into a calm, steady rhythm as he drifts off to sleep without further protest. Shane lets his mind drift to the calming cadence of Ilya’s breaths, and before long he, too, falls asleep.
Ilya
Ilya wakes to the same howling wind that has been raging against their tent for the past three days. He knows immediately that the blizzard is still going strong, the tent still shaking with the wind and his breath fogging in front of him in the bitter cold. He’s simultaneously crestfallen to be stuck in the tent for another day and thrilled to be stuck in the tent for another day with Shane.
Shane is still sleeping in Ilya’s arms. His cheeks are rosy in the glowing morning light, like a porcelain doll painted with perpetual blush. He’s tempted to run his hand over the flush to feel if it’s from the cold or if Shane’s skin is as warm as it was last night when he got his hands on him. He wants to trace the constellations speckled across his nose and create his own map of each star that peppers Shane’s skin.
He resists these temptations, keeping his hand away from Shane’s face and instead filing away this peaceful, sleeping version of Shane in his mind. He doesn’t want to wake him yet and spoil this blissful moment. He also wants to give Shane a moment to rest; he’s been working himself too hard the past few days, taking care of Ilya, and he deserves his sleep.
So, in an effort to balance the scales, Ilya carefully extracts himself from the sleeping bag and begins to don his coat, pants, boots, and everything else he needs to go outside. Shane, to Ilya’s amusement, is a rather heavy sleeper, dozing peacefully through all of Ilya’s movements, the fumbling with his layers only a foot away, and the loud rustling always coming from waterproof fabrics. Perhaps it’s masked by the white noise the wind outside has become, like the rustle of the tent.
Ilya scooches to the door, ready to go outside with his crutches and do something productive. Perhaps today he’ll fetch them breakfast, feed them, and check in on the dogs. He’s feeling useful and hopeful as he drags down the door's zipper.
“What are you doing?” comes an immediate response from behind him, and his hand pauses on the zipper, the few unzipped inches of door already letting in a gust of icy air and snow.
Ilya closes his eyes for a second, caught red-handed, and re-zips the door before turning his body to see Shane. Heavy sleeper or not, Shane is certainly awake now, sitting bolt upright in the sleeping bag, eyes alert and eyebrows furrowed in suspicion. Note to self: Shane Hollander’s alarm sound must be a zipper, because the man who was dead to the world a moment ago is now wide awake and ready to wage war against Ilya.
“I was just going to get us breakfast and check on the dogs,” Ilya explains, keeping his shoulders back and his voice steady. Not asking for permission, but telling Shane what he’s going to do.
“No,” Shane says with an immediate shake of his head, “absolutely not,” he adds for emphasis that most certainly isn’t needed.
Frustration burns through him at being cooped up in this tent, at Shane for thinking he controls him, at himself for going off that ledge in the first place. This is why you don’t kiss other mushers. You think they’re going to be nicer to you because of it, but they’re still the same grumpy, controlling, anal bastard. “I can be helpful; why the fuck won’t you let me?”
“I won’t let you because you’re injured. I won’t let you because you aren’t thinking this through clearly. Most importantly, I won’t let you because it’s unnecessary- I can do anything you can twice as fast and without further injury, so why risk it?” Shane bites back, his frustration matching Ilya’s as he stares him down, his eyes dark and dangerous.
“I’m going fucking crazy in here,” Ilya shouts, annoyance bursting free like a dam breaking, “I can’t just sit around all day doing nothing; it’s torture.”
Shane throws his hands up, “I took you out yesterday!”
“I’m not a dog, Shane!”
Shane closes his eyes for a moment, and Ilya isn’t sure whether he’s regretting his own words or biting back another insult: “I know you’re not a dog, Ilya, but right now you’re acting like a child.” He heaves out a long breath, and Ilya watches tension uncoil from Shane’s shoulders, but the flush to his cheeks remains. “You should have woken me up. I can take you with me to check on the dogs and get breakfast, but trying to go alone was reckless.”
The word reckless burns through him like an old injury, an echo of Shane’s insults yesterday. “I may not be Shane Hollander, musher extraordinaire, but I still know how to survive in the cold. I can do it alone,” Ilya says, his stubborn streak showing even after Shane has conceded.
“On crutches? In thigh-deep snow? In a blizzard?” Shane questions, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head like Ilya truly is a child making stupid decisions.
“I would have been fine,” Ilya says curtly, done with this argument. He’s ready to just slip out the door with or without Shane’s approval, but he knows it would be pointless. He’s unwieldy with his knee like this, and it makes all his movements slow. Shane would have him pinned to the tent floor before he could even unzip it. And though Shane pinning him to the ground another time sounds delightful, right now it is not what he’s looking for.
Shane softens, glancing off to the side of the tent and heaving a soft breath, “And what if you weren’t, Ilya? How long would you be out there in the snow before I woke up? Are you really so determined to freeze to death fifteen feet away from where I’m sleeping that you’d take that risk?”
Shane looks completely despondent at his own words, like even putting the thought out there has sapped all the energy he gained from sleeping. He looks back into Ilya’s eyes. “I can’t pull you out of the ice again, Ilya. It was the most awful experience of my life seeing you like that the first time. Please don’t make me do it again.” His voice is shaky. Ilya can see the way the memory seems to play across Shane’s face. “If you need something, just tell me, and I’ll try to make it happen, but please don’t put yourself in danger like this; I can’t handle it.”
It’s never a good feeling, knowing you’re in the wrong. In this moment, it feels like poison, every inch of his skin crawling with discomfort as he comes to terms with his errors. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it like that,” he admits, pulling away from the door and sliding back onto the end of the sleeping bag in surrender.
“I know,” Shane says solemnly.
“I’m not used to it, you know? Having to account for someone else in my actions. I’m not really used to someone caring that much.” The admission feels like it costs something, and Ilya fails to meet Shane’s eyes as he says it.
“Well, get used to it,” Shane says, with no room to argue.
“Okay,” Ilya says back simply, hoping the word encapsulates even an eighth of what it really means. Thank you for being here. I care about you too. You’re the best thing I’ve had in a long time.
Shane
Ilya accompanies Shane to the morning activities that already feel routine. In all honesty, he significantly slows down the process and makes a few simple tasks rather convoluted. It doesn’t matter, though, because Ilya’s smile is worth every extra minute in the blizzard.
By the time they return to the tent, dogs fed, and breakfast fetched, they are shivering- cheeks red from the wind and eyelashes frozen with snow. Shane helps Ilya get back into the tent from his crutches- a maneuver they’re already getting better at- and then enters his side.
Okay, he’ll admit it this once: he has imagined an instance or two (or ten) where he and Ilya remove their clothes in a rush—stripping them off and flinging them haphazardly around a room, too caught up in each other to care about folding them (as Shane always does). In all the times he’s imagined this, it has never been about them stripping off half-frozen layers, sliding on dry base layers, and sliding into a single sleeping bag.
Sexual fantasies of naked Ilya aside, they quickly manage to rid themselves of their boots and outer layers, slipping back into their sleeping bag to warm their bodies up. That’s how they end up eating their breakfast MRE, both snuggled up in their sleeping bag, food spread out in their lap like a raccoon hoarding a fresh pile of garbage.
There’s a silence that falls over the tent once their food is gone and the wrappers are carefully packed into a bag. Shane waits for Ilya to fill it, and Ilya clearly waits for the same from Shane. It’s no surprise that when he decides to speak, Ilya does the same.
“So, about last-” Shane begins.
Ilya simultaneously starts, “I was thinking -”
They both stop, looking at each other to start again. It’s a bit like running into someone in the hallway and both of you stepping in the same direction to let the other pass. Awkward and clumsy, both are begging for the other to call the shots.
“You first,” Ilya instructs.
Shane takes a breath and bolsters himself, “I wanted to talk about last night.”
“Which part?”
Asshole, Shane thinks privately, unsurprised that Ilya is making this difficult. “You know which part.”
“No, I do not. Was it the part where I kissed you, or the part where you begged me to go on a date with you?”
How is it possible that he has any kind of feelings for someone so difficult? Shane ponders the question, but it’s pointless; he is already in far too deep with Ilya. “I did not beg you to go on a date with me.”
Ilya places a finger on his chin, as if trying hard to recall the exact details. “Maybe you’re right; I think I’d remember you begging a little more vividly.”
“I just-” he hesitates, unsure of the exact words needed for this. Truly unsure what he even wants to say. He knows they should talk, but he’s not sure what he needs to bring up. This is the problem with kissing your rival/friend/tent-mate: there aren’t many parameters for how it’s supposed to go. “I wanted to make sure we’re on the same page about the kiss.”
Ilya looks a little concerned, his brows furrowing and his body tensing, like he’s expecting a fight. “And what page is that?”
Shit. He really should have prepared for this better. He looks at Ilya and takes in his guarded expression. “I like you, and I don’t want you to feel…beholden… to me or whatever, for saving your life.”
Ilya’s laugh is unexpected, so out of place in the bitter cold and the howling wind; hearing it feels like sunshine on his skin, melting the chill away. “Shane, I didn’t kiss you because you saved my life.”
“Okay, um, good,” Shane says, more to the floor of the tent than to Ilya himself. He feels two fingers under his jaw, Ilya putting light pressure there until Shane raises his head to meet Ilya’s gaze.
“Let me be very clear, Shane. I kissed you because I wanted to. Not because I feel beholden to you for saving my life, not because we’re trapped in this tent, and not because I was being reckless. I kissed you because I have wanted to kiss you for a very long time, and you finally looked like you wanted to kiss me back. Is that clear?”
Shane’s eyes ping-pong between Ilya’s eyes and his lips, unsure which is the better view. “Crystal.”
This time, when Ilya kisses him, he makes no protest, no moments of pure self-preservation for his feelings. He sinks wholly into Ilya’s lips, enjoying the softness of his mouth and the freedom to curl his hand in Ilya’s hair today, his hand freer than it was last night. He should just let himself kiss Ilya; he could spend the rest of the day kissing Ilya, and it would still be one of the best days of his life, but he can’t quite help pulling back, his lips barely off Ilya’s and adding, “When you say a very long time, how long would that be?”
“Shut up, Hollander,” Ilya responds as he brings their mouths together again, the kiss hungrier than it was a moment ago, Ilya’s grip on his chin slightly harder. As you might imagine, there’s not a lot of room to spare in the sleeping bag when it’s stuffed with two grown men. Maneuvering around is a bit of an athletic feat, especially given Ilya’s knee, but Shane is an athlete, and he’s up to the task.
He slides his leg over Ilya carefully, until he is straddling him, draped over his body like he was specially made to fit there. There’s still so little skin contact; Shane wants to take off his gloves and run his hands down Ilya’s chest, but it’s too cold, and he’s too preoccupied to bother removing anything.
The whole thing is a little clumsy, both of them too frantic to properly achieve anything smoothly in the confined space. Ilya is hard and wanting beneath Shane, and Shane is no better off, his cock hard in his leggings, begging for some kind of relief.
There is no word for how much he wants this. Actually, scratch that. There is a word, just one, that he’s not ready to admit to himself. He is desperate for this. He wants to touch Ilya properly, to taste him, to feel him inside of him. He’s desperate for all of it, any of it. Perhaps later he’ll feel shame for the way he begs for these things. The pleas he makes to Ilya to touch him, taste him, to take him apart. Those feelings are for later; right now, there is only Ilya.
Shane bites along Ilya’s neck in a sporadic pattern that he’s sure will leave a trail of hickeys tomorrow. He’s unconcerned with this, too focused on grinding himself against Ilya until he hears Ilya groaning into his shoulder.
“Shane,” Ilya pants, using his fingers in Shane’s hair to pull his head back slightly until their eyes meet. “What is the possibility that you have condoms and lube in your sled somewhere?”
Shane lets out a heavy sigh. The Boy Scouts' official motto is "Be Prepared," and he definitely did not prepare for this. Then again, he was never a Boy Scout. “No, Ilya. I did not pack lube and condoms for this race. I hadn’t exactly expected to have time for sex.”
“Oh, so it was about time? Not the lack of willing participants?” Ilya quirks an eyebrow, daring Shane to take the bait. Shane has learned, though, and he just gives a small head shake.
“Well, I’m pretty sure that if I offered, Barrett wouldn’t say no,” Shane says from the side of his mouth, letting a cocky smile spread across his face.
Ilya looks aghast and leans up an inch or two until his lips are almost touching Shane’s. “Are you trying to make me jealous, Hollander?”
Shane leans in until his nose touches Ilya’s, closing his eyes as their lips brush and he breathes against Ilya’s mouth. “Why, is it working?”
Once again Ilya doesn't bother answering in words, but instead with a searing kiss, and a slow grind of his cock against Shane’s. Perhaps he should make Ilya jealous more often.
He could come like this. It would be a shameful way to go over the edge, fully clothed, just grinding against Ilya like the desperate slut he really is, but he knows it’s possible. So, he slows the roll of his hips and pulls back until he can look Ilya in the eyes. “I want this, want you.”
In terms of eloquence, it’s lacking. Really, in terms of clarity, it’s also lacking because Ilya misreads it slightly. “Shane, I’m not fucking you out here without lube. Without a condom, sure - I’d love to -” he stops his sentence, shaking his head slightly and running his tongue over his bottom lip, like whatever he was planning to say was too obscene to voice, “-not without lube, though. I’m an asshole, but I’m not that much of a dick.”
Shane grins. Clearly, his words aren't doing the job right, so he decides to back them up with actions. At last, he slips off his gloves, feeling slightly like a burlesque dancer as he slowly bares his fingertips, like a Victorian woman showing her ankles. He shouldn’t feel so exposed, but he does.
He has every intention of taking his hand and, well, shoving it down Ilya’s pants until he can properly touch him, but his hand takes a detour of its own volition. Shane brings his hand to Ilya’s face and takes a moment to run his fingers down Ilya’s warm face. He traces the line of his jaw and runs a reverent finger over the soft swell of Ilya’s lips. Ilya’s skin is soft and smooth to the touch, a flush blooming across his cheeks that quickly spreads to his ears.
Shane’s going to make him come. He knows where this is going, and he’s excited to get his hand on Ilya, to touch his cock and watch the way it unwinds him. But he also knows, no matter how good whatever happens next is, this will be the moment he looks back on. The first time he touched Ilya, not in passing or accidentally, but by his own choice, his own want.
Ilya kisses Shane’s fingertips, his blue eyes locked on Shane. Shane trails his hand down Ilya’s chest, still clothed (unfortunately), until he finds the waistband of his pants. Ilya watches him with careful focus, like he’s unwilling to blink and miss a second of what Shane’s doing. So Shane makes sure he has something good to see.
He slips his hand beneath the waistband and beneath Ilya’s briefs. He really hopes there will be a time later on when they can go slowly. A slow, leisurely day when they’re in a real bed, in a warm enough room to be naked, with a fully healed Ilya, and he has time to do all the debased things he wants. Today, he’s lost any sense of patience.
He wraps his hand around Ilya’s cock, and they both let out a moan at the contact. Whatever restraint Ilya must have been clinging to is gone the moment Shane touches him. Ilya captures his lips in a hungry kiss, and he’s vaguely aware that somewhere in the rush Ilya has removed his gloves. He doesn't even have time to marvel at the feel of Ilya’s hands on him, one slipping into his hair, the other slipping under his shirt to claw against his lower back.
He has always been impressed with Ilya’s quick mastery of English. When he first met him at 17, Ilya’s words were choppy and accented. Now, he speaks rather fluently, with an impressive vocabulary to match. He is curious, however, as to where Ilya learned the utter depravity that now spills from his lips.
“Fuck, Hollander, you’re such a fucking slut for it. So hard for me when I haven’t even touched you,” he hisses against Shane’s lips.
Shane grinds himself down against Ilya as he pumps his cock with his fist, begging for friction. He pulls his hand free and spits into it, slipping it quickly back into Ilya’s pants and touching him in earnest, his spit-slicked hand moving quickly over Ilya.
Ilya paws at Shane’s pants now, and manages to push both his leggings and briefs down on his hips, bunching the fabric before he slips his own hand inside and frees Shane’s cock. Shane can’t help the whimper that slips free when he finally feels Ilya’s hand wrapped around him, smearing precome from his tip down his shaft.
“See, it's already leaking for me before I can do anything. So. fucking. needy.”
It’s messy and uncoordinated, both men stroking at different rhythms, their moans filling the tent. Shane slaps Ilya’s hand away from his cock when it becomes too much, his body tensing as he dances far too close to orgasm than he’s ready for. At this, Ilya gives him a questioning look. Shane places his hand flat in front of Ilya’s mouth. “Spit,” he says simply, and Ilya does as he’s asked.
Then, Shane brings his hand to both of their cocks, pressing them together and using his hand to spread Ilya’s spit over the two of them. It’s messy- his precum mixing with both their spit, and Shane should be disgusted by it. Instead, he wants to lean down and use his mouth to clean it up. Another time, he decides, keeping his hand going as Ilya’s hands slip to his ass. Both hands sliding under his pants until his palms are flat against Shane’s cheeks, nails digging into the meat of his ass.
Shane’s hand moves quickly over both of them, Ilya torn between throwing his head back in pleasure and leaning up so he can watch the way Shane grips him. Shane unravels too quickly, panting Ilya’s name in a chant as he holds back his orgasm, like he’s asking permission even when he’s doing all the work.
“Are you going to come for me, Ilya?” he asks in desperation, praying to a god he doesn't believe in that Ilya is falling apart like he is.
“Fucking make me, Shane,” Ilya grits out, but Shane can see the way he’s trembling, the sweat beading at his brow. Shane works his hand faster, both of their gazes locked on the way he moves it over their cocks. It’s too much; he can't hold back any longer.
“Gonna. Come,” he tells Ilya on a pant, too far gone to try to hold back anymore.
“Yeah, Hollander, come for me. I want to see it,” Ilya says, and it’s Shane’s undoing, the permission he needs to let go finally.
The release comes quickly; come catches in his fist and then immediately coats over their cocks as Shane strokes himself through the throes of his orgasm and waits for Ilya’s to hit.
Perhaps it’s the sound of Shane finishing, or perhaps the lewd display of using his own come to jerk Ilya off, but Ilya digs his nails deeper into Shane’s cheeks, to the point of pain, and grunts “fuck, Shane” as he, too, comes into Shane’s fist.
For a moment, the world is still, both men panting and Shane’s hand still wrapped around their cocks until they grow soft and sticky.
Ilya looks at him, at his hand still hovering over them, and lets out a small laugh. “Okay, hold on, let me get you a shirt or something,” Ilya tells him, glancing around.
Shane doesn't wait for Ilya to find something; instead, Shane - the type of man who always wipes down the grocery cart before he uses it- brings his fingers to his mouth and slowly uses his tongue to clean them off. Ilya watches spellbound as Shane licks their come from his fingers like it’s his favorite treat. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he murmurs so quietly that Shane isn't sure he meant to say it aloud.
Shane leans forward and kisses Ilya deeply, letting him taste them both on Shane’s lips. Then he pulls back and grabs his toiletry kit. He uses a few wet wipes to finish cleaning them off. Of course he has wet wipes; he’s not an animal.
Ilya lies with his head on Shane’s chest, both listening to the wind soften outside in time with their breathing.
Shane breaks the silence, “You said yesterday that you’re not going back to Russia. Is your family still there?”
Ilya lets out a heavy sigh, like the question itself is a punch to the stomach, and Shane immediately regrets asking it. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don't want.”
“No, it's okay,” Ilya says, his voice rumbling against Shane's chest.
“My father died a few years after I came to the U.S. Dementia. I found out he died from my brother sending me a request for funeral expenses.”
Shane lets out a breath, unsure of what to say to that. “Ilya, that’s awful. I’m sorry.”
“My brother died of an overdose two years later,” Ilya says, and Shane closes his eyes.
“Were you close with them?” Shane asks, already dreading the answer.
“No, not for years. Not since my mom died.” His voice is somber, and the hand that’s wrapped around Shane’s shoulder gives a little squeeze, as if to assure himself that Shane is still there. “You don't have to feel bad for me. It was a long time ago,” he says, his voice rough around the edges. Shane gets the feeling that, though he might not have been close with his father and brother, he was very close with his mother.
Shane knows he doesn’t want pity, so he just tilts his face down and gives Ilya a soft kiss.
He thinks of his fear when he first saw Ilya in the snow. He’s never had to face someone’s death before, and here was Ilya, who had lost his entire family. The thought that he was so close to losing Ilya brought a tear to his eye.
“I’m really glad you’re here now,” Shane says, knowing it doesn't fully encapsulate everything he’s feeling and everything he wants to say, but hopefully it’s something.
“I’m glad too,” Ilya says into his chest, and Shane places a kiss on the top of his head and lets silence stretch between them again.
Ilya
The wind and snow are slowing down.
They both know it; it’s obvious from the way Shane looks around as they exit the tent that afternoon. The gale no longer slices against Ilya’s cheeks, the snow falling softer than it has in days, a lighter version of the icy bits it was earlier. Neither acknowledges the change in the weather, but Ilya knows from Shane’s posture that he’s doing mental calculations.
Ilya doesn’t need to do the calculations. He knows that Shane will come to the same conclusion he has. It’s too late in the day to pack up and leave. They could travel at night, but there was no way they could pack up the sled and the tents and figure out how to get up the cliffside in the dark. It wouldn't be safe, and Shane is all about safety. No matter what, they are here until tomorrow.
Ilya can’t deny that he is happy to have another night.
Yes, his knee is killing him (not that he’ll tell Shane that), and yes, he desperately needs a hot cup of coffee (he absolutely won't tell Shane that either), but another night with Shane tucked into his arms doesn’t sound bad at all. Perhaps that’s selfish, but sometimes selfish is good.
Shane allows Ilya to take care of the dogs that evening. It’s a little awkward, half-balancing on a crutch as he doles out food to all the dogs, giving each one a little extra and at least 5 pets. He checks the dogs for any signs of injury or discomfort and is happy to find them looking healthy.
It’s a little comical seeing his own mutt mix alongside Shane’s purebred kennel dogs. To the untrained eye, he’s sure the dogs all look similar, but he knows the differences. When he came to the U.S. at 17, he had to form his own team of dogs stateside with very little money. Going to a mushing kennel and picking out purebred Alaskan Huskies was not an option, so he was a little creative. He’d gone to shelters all over Alaska, searching for dogs that might make good sled dogs.
It took him a few years to get the perfect mix he has now, a collection of huskies, Samoyeds, Qimmiqs, malamutes, and plenty of mutts that lie somewhere in between. It’s not the team Michael would ever have raced with, but at this point, Ilya doesn't think he could ever race with dogs from the same kennel again. He gets too much joy from rescuing a dog from a shelter and seeing the way they come to life when given a purpose, a job.
He keeps many things in the box for his dogs. He’s unbelievably grateful that, of all the belongings on his sled, Shane managed to pull this box free. Though he still mourns his French press. He opens the tub and glances inside. Packed tightly into the box is an extra set of booties for every dog (an official race requirement), a bag of dehydrated sardines as an extra incentive for his pups (mostly for Anya), and the holy grail. Not the actual holy grail, of course; what use would a chalice be in the desolate Yukon?
No, the holy grail, shining at the bottom of the box, is a jar of 100% pure coconut oil. Ilya uses it occasionally on his dog's paws. A natural paw protectant that helps with chafing the booties sometimes causes. Helpful and easy to apply, but it’s not the holy grail because he’s planning to give his dogs a paw massage with it tonight. No, this jar will be coming back to the tent with him, and he will be giving a massage with it in a far more interesting place.
He glances at Shane across the snow-lined valley and watches as he fiddles with the food bag he’s hoisting over a branch. He could tell you Shane looks focused and adorable, even without seeing his face, just from the line of his shoulders. God, he is so gone for this man that he’s admiring Shane’s shoulders from 100 feet away, even though said shoulders are covered by the thickest winter coat available. Insane.
Shane comes striding back over, a smile on his face and two MRE packs in his hands. He walks back to the tent slowly, Ilya crutching along behind him, helping him in and not questioning the lump the jar of coconut oil leaves in Ilya’s pocket. He leaves it in his jacket as he shucks the garment off, casting it aside. If he needs it later, he knows where it is.
They eat dinner together, already in a routine, as they spread the contents of their meal on top of the sleeping bag, their thighs touching as they eat, bundled into it. Shane gathers their trash and heads out to add it to the bear bag. He’s back a few minutes later, his cheeks red from the cold, but his eyes bright, no snow in the fur around his hood.
He places the lantern on the ground as he begins removing his outer layers, casting his features in the soft incandescent light. “It’s not snowing anymore,” he says, waiting for Ilya's reaction.
“Yeah, it looked like it was slowing down earlier,” Ilya agrees.
Shane lets out a breath. “If it’s still clear tomorrow, we should be okay to head back.”
Ilya avoids agreement; it doesn't matter; they both know that’s what will happen. “So this is our last night.”
Shane nods, crawling to the sleeping bag and shuffling inside. He stares at Ilya with wide, hungry eyes, parted lips, and freckles painted on by the gods specifically to drive Ilya insane.
“Let’s make it count,” Ilya says, leaning over to kiss Shane.
Earlier, they’d been frantic, too overwhelmed with lust to want to slow down and take their time. Ilya takes his time tonight. He kisses Shane slowly, memorizing the way his lips move against his, like they’re two parts of a whole that have been searching for each other for years. He kisses every part of Shane’s face, taking his time to feather kisses along his freckles, to pepper kisses along his jawline, to suck on the alabaster skin at his neck until it’s red with the abuse.
This time, when Ilya removes his gloves and slides them under Shane’s clothes, he takes stock of all the dips and curves of Shane’s body. He runs reverential fingers along the edges of Shane’s hips and the planes of his chest, worshipping every inch he can get his hands on.
Shane, as it turns out, is not the most patient man. He leans into Ilya’s touches and begs under his breath for more. He pushes his hips closer to Ilya, pleading for him to touch his cock, to make him come, but Ilya doesn’t. He will, but not yet. He wants a million more moments like this with Shane, but he knows he’s not guaranteed any more than tonight, and he’s going to make the most of it.
He waits until Shane is a restless mess, begging for more, before he reaches for his jacket and pulls his jar of coconut oil free.
“What is that?” Shane says, trying to lean closer to the label. He’s pretty sure Shane could use a pair of reading glasses. The thought of Shane in reading glasses makes his dick twitch in a way he’s going to have to explore later. Fuck.
“It’s coconut oil. I normally use it for my dogs' paws, but I was hoping I could use it on you,” Ilya proposes, a little nervous about Shane’s response, so he tacks on, “you can say no if you want-”
“Yes,” Shane says immediately.
“To fuck you?” Ilya clarifies to make sure they are on the same page.
“Please,” Shane whimpers, and Ilya has to reach down and squeeze the base of his cock at that sound, trying to keep himself in check.
“I don’t have a condom,” Ilya says, looking at Shane again.
“I don’t care; I want to feel you,” Shane says, trying to scoot closer and rub himself against Ilya.
Perhaps he should have asked all of this before he drove Shane to this point of desperation, but he’s not perfect. “I had a physical before the race and all my tests came back negative," he adds. This needy, perverted version of Shane isn't asking, but he knows that the level-headed, typical version of Shane would want to know.
“I’m negative too,” Shane clarifies, still rubbing against Ilya like he’s in heat. Jesus.
“Okay,” Ilya says, breathing out slowly and collecting himself. He wants to do this right and make it so good for both of them.
He unzips the sleeping bag halfway and tells Shane, “I think you’ll need to take your pants all the way off; I don’t know how else this will work.”
Shane immediately removes his pants, kicking them off at the ankles, as Ilya shuffles his own pants halfway down his thighs. It’s not the best way to do this; he’d rather they were fully naked so he could feel every part of Shane on him, but you’ve got to work with the hand you’re dealt. Shane climbs back into the sleeping bag and straddles Ilya, his bare thighs once again covered by it.
For the second time today, their cocks knock together, and Ilya lets loose a small grunt at the feeling. Shane seems oblivious to the battle Ilya is waging against his own body to stay calm and does an exploratory drive of his hips, rubbing them together again with a moan.
Ilya lets out a short breath through his nose and grabs Shane’s hip hard. “Stop doing that, or this is going to be over before I can get inside you.”
Shane smirks and tilts his hips forward another half inch.
“Behave,” Ilya grunts, reaching into the coconut oil and rubbing it over his fingers, his body heat melting it quickly until it is a soft, warm oil. He keeps the jar beside him and brings two fingers between Shane’s cheeks, running the warmed oil gently over his hole. He repeats the motion until everything is slick, running a finger around the rim of Shane until the tip slips inside.
Shane gives him little moans of need, but otherwise does as he was told and stays still. “Good,” he tells him.
Shane lights up at the praise, and Ilya continues to work on opening him up. First the tip of his finger, then to the second knuckle. One finger, then two, and finally three, until Shane is a whimpering mess perched on his lap, clearly fighting his impulse to ride Ilya’s fingers and beg for more. “So fucking pretty like that,” Ilya tells him, “You’re going to look so good stuffed full of my cock.”
This time Shane can’t help but give a tentative thrust of his hips, and Ilya lets out a huff that’s half irritation at Shane’s disregard for his instructions and half arousal at how needy Shane is.
“You were being so good; maybe you don’t deserve my cock, right now,” Ilya bluffs. No version of himself could actually follow through with not fucking Shane right now when he wants it so badly.
“Please, Ilya. I’ll be good, I promise,” Shane begs, his eyes wide and his lips red from biting at them while Ilya fingered him.
If they had more time, if this weren't the first time he had Shane in his lap, ready to be stretched on his cock, he’d make him beg more. Make him prove he's going to be good, but Ilya is no longer feeling patient, and he might be as desperate as Shane is for this now. He rubs more oil on himself and then lines up with Shane’s hole and pushes the tip of himself inside. It's tight and hot, and completely fucking perfect. He means to take his time with it, go slowly, and make it last.
Shane has other ideas.
He lowers himself onto Ilya’s cock in one push, sinking until Ilya is fully bottomed out and they are both gasping.
“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya says, his hand digging into the fabric of the sleeping bag as he tries his hardest not to come.
“So good,” Shane says in a sex-soaked voice that Ilya would like to listen to at all hours of the day. Shane could read the dictionary in that voice, and it would probably make Ilya come.
Ilya has lost control of the situation; he knows he has. The moment Shane begins moving his hips like he’s a fucking Olympic equestrian, he realizes that although he’s no longer running the show, he’s in the best seat in the house. His only goal is not to come immediately like a fucking teenager. Shane rides his cock like he was born for it, while Ilya bathes him in praise. They’re both on the edge, and Ilya refuses to be the first to fall over.
He once again smears oil onto his hand and wraps his hand around Shane’s dick, giving it hard, fast strokes. The whole tent smells tropical from the coconut oil, like they’re on a beach somewhere and not hundreds of miles away from civilization on the ice. Ilya has a brief moment where he wonders if it would be like this on their honeymoon, the smell of coconut sunscreen filling the room while he fucked his new husband.
He comes.
He would never admit this, but it’s not the way Shane is riding him or the moans he’s making that tip Ilya over the edge. It’s the vision of being on his honeymoon with Shane. He’s so fucking pathetic. It doesn't matter what tips him over the edge; the moment he is filling Shane with his come, Shane goes off too, coming into Ilya’s fist with Ilya’s name on his lips.
Cleaning up is a little more challenging after Shane's wet wipes only go so far in dealing with the oil, which seems to be everywhere. Shane is sleepy and sated, easily pliable, and Ilya cleans him up, whispering adoration against his skin. They spend a long time in comfortable silence, just listening to the quiet of each other's breathing and enjoying the afterglow of truly great sex.
He lies on his back, with Shane lying on his chest, hand absentmindedly stroking Shane’s hair when a light begins to fill the tent.
It’s been dark the past few nights, the snow clouds blotting out any trace of the moon. He’s not even sure what the moon phase should be at this point; he tries to think back to the last night that he raced under the moon. He thinks it may have been a crescent, but whether it was waning or waxing is beyond him. Either way, the light that cascades through the tent wall tonight is not the soft white of moonlight.
He leans up, trying to discern the source through the red wall of the tent. Shane, too, rises, looking at the wall with that same curiosity that Ilya has. Shane pulls himself free of the sleeping bag and unzips the tent door a few inches. Ilya can’t see around his head to make out the source, but he can see the way that Shane smiles at it.
Shane re-zips the tent door and turns to him, “Put your gear on; let’s go outside.”
Ilya desperately wants to ask Shane what he has seen outside, but he doesn’t. Shane would have told him if he had wanted to. So he puts on his clothes as quickly as he is able, not protesting when Shane does up the laces on his boots without being asked. Shane sits off to the side and gestures to the tent door, his eyes locked on Ilya’s face. “Open it,” he tells him.
Ilya slides the zipper down and is first met by the green hue of the snow. Then, as he casts his eyes upwards, to the clear sky, he sees the expansive, dancing lights of the aurora borealis. Purple and green lights chase each other in the sky, shifting and playing in waves of color.
He turns to Shane and catches the loving expression on his face. As if watching Ilya see the lights is a better view than seeing them himself. He swallows, the emotion too overwhelming to voice, but gives Shane a soft smile, sharing the moment with him. He manages to get outside and balance on his crutches, with Shane trailing silently behind him. He doesn't have to move far from the cave to get a clear view of the sky above him.
Shane joins him at his side, and Ilya throws an arm around him, half for support -the crutches really are quite uncomfortable-, and half because he can. He pulls Shane’s head to him and leans over to place a kiss against the hood of Shane’s coat. They don’t speak, neither wanting to break the spell that the night has put on them. Instead, they watch the show the earth has put on for them, arms around each other, completely isolated from the rest of the world. Together.
Part Three - The Way Back
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Shane
Shane wakes with a pit in his stomach. He knew it last night when he saw the clear sky and fell asleep without the howling wind against the tent, but it’s really clear now: the blizzard is over. Bright sunshine is already streaming through the tent walls, casting everything inside in a red haze.
He should be elated, excited to get out of this tent and rejoin society finally. Elation doesn't quite feel like the right word, though. There is a churning in his gut that is complicated, a mix of too many emotions to name. Two come to the forefront, though: excitement and dread.
Excitement is easy enough to understand. Everything aside, it’s been a grueling couple of days. Shane’s body feels wrung out, and he knows Ilya has to feel even worse. He’s excited to get back to a place where he can contact his parents, get medical attention for Ilya, take a hot shower, and put on clean clothes. The dread is less understandable, and with it comes a deep wash of guilt.
He’s dreading leaving the bubble he’s created in this tent with Ilya. Even now, as he turns onto his back and takes in Ilya’s sleeping form, so peaceful, his lips parted just slightly, he doesn't want to wake him. Things will be different once they’re back; of course they will be. He’s not sure he’s ready to see what he and Ilya look like together when they’re back. Will everything crumble away, too fragile to withstand the actuality of the world?
He watches as Ilya’s eyelashes flutter before his eyes squint open, the first bit of cerulean blue catching the morning light in a way that takes Shane’s breath away. He watches as Ilya’s eyes fully open and then smiles when Ilya’s gaze finds his own.
“Good morning,” Ilya says in a rough voice, either from disuse overnight or from overuse last night; he’s not sure. Either way, it makes Shane blush, the rough timbre of it finding its way under Shane’s skin.
“Morning,” Shane greets him, and he can’t help the smile that follows.
“It’s quiet,” Ilya says, noticing the same absence of wind that Shane did.
Time to face the music. “It’s clear outside.”
Ilya’s face goes through a myriad of expressions in just a half second—one moment of happiness, followed by another of skepticism. Glee, followed by reluctance. Shane can’t deny that seeing Ilya torn about the change in conditions makes him feel a little less guilty about his own mixed emotions.
“So, we’re leaving,” Ilya surmises, still looking at Shane, his voice devoid of any emotion.
“Yeah, we’re leaving.”
Ilya again looks torn. Shane expects him to unzip the sleeping bag and start getting his gear on. Ready to be free of his temporary confinement in his tent at last. He doesn’t.
At least, not at first.
First, he leans over and places a feather-light kiss on Shane’s lips. “You owe me a date when we get back. I haven’t forgotten,” he whispers against Shane’s lips, his eyes searching.
“I’ll take you on as many dates as you want once you have a shower,” Shane promises back, returning the kiss softly to Ilya’s lips.
Then, the real work begins.
Ilya and Shane don their gear, and Shane assigns Ilya the task of packing everything inside the tent, while he begins consolidating everything outside. Shane rouses the dogs and gives them their final breakfast; hopefully by tonight they’ll be eating their dinner in a kennel in town. The first problem to solve today is how to get Ilya back on the trail. The rockslide that Shane and the dogs have been using to reach the top of the cliff is no longer an option. There’s no way Shane could carry Ilya up it properly, and no chance Ilya could navigate the rocks and ice on his own.
Shane climbs the slope and retrieves his own sled, where it has remained safe beneath the pine branches he’d placed it under. He brings it to the top of the cliff, peering down at Ilya’s dogs 20 feet below him, huddled around their musher, who is balanced on his crutches next to the tent bag and the few additional packs Shane had left there.
Shane knows how he’s going to get Ilya up the cliff, and he knows Ilya will hate it. He takes a long length of rope from his sled, wraps it around the trunk of a nearby tree, and lowers the bulk of it into the valley below. He then unloads any excess from his sled. He’s already marked the location on his map, and he’ll come back later to collect anything he left behind, but for now he needs a near-empty sled, so Ilya has a place to sit.
Twenty minutes later, he returns to the valley below.
“I’m going to pull you up the cliff,” he says simply, no room left for negotiation.
Ilya looks at him like he’s gauging whether it’s worth arguing. He must decide it’s not, finally trusting Shane. “Okay.”
Shane nods and leads him to the rope coiled at the base of the cliff. He ties a loop on the end and hands it to Ilya. “I’m going to go up to the top and pull you up. When I say so, place the loop at the top of your thighs and grab the rope line. It’s most likely going to be uncomfortable, but this is the best way to do this.”
Ilya nods, “Okay,” he repeats. Then he leans forward and places a swift kiss on Shane’s lips before Shane walks away, once again climbing the rockslide and making his way to the top of the cliff.
It’s a grueling process, lugging Ilya to the top of the cliff. Shane uses the tree as a lever, pulling the rope around it and using his strength to pull Ilya up the cliff, foot by foot. He can only imagine how the jerky pull-up must feel for Ilya. If he had a better setup, he could have used the dogs to make this easier, but in the end, it wasn't necessary. Twenty minutes later, Ilya is at the top of the cliff, and Shane is panting on the ground.
Shane gets Ilya settled onto his sled, wrapping most of his body in a tarp. When he steps back, he’s tempted to laugh; Ilya looks like a sausage roll, completely plumped and wrapped up so tight. Ilya frowns at him, but Shane ignores it and goes about getting his dogs clipped into their lines. There was a lot of debate this morning on how best to handle Ilya’s team.
Ilya is insistent that his dogs can run with Shane’s team. Shane isn’t so easily convinced. Dog teams work for months, if not years, to learn how to run in sync. Adding a whole team of dogs at this point seems foolish, like they’re asking for even more trouble.
In the end, a compromise is reached. Ilya picks his best four dogs to join Shane’s team. Fifteen dogs on a team is a lot more manageable than 24, and Shane can’t deny that more power will get them there faster. Ilya picks out Anya, his lead dog, Cliff, Luca, and Hayes. Shane adds them to his leads, then looks back at Ilya.
“We should be back in town by nightfall if we move quickly,” he says, even though he doesn't need to. They both know this.
“Let’s get a move on, Hollander. I have a hot date waiting for me once I get back to town,” he says with a smirk.
Shane nods and steps onto the back of his sled. He takes one last look at the equipment he’s leaving behind and a final glance at Ilya, nestled into his sled. A final breath, and then “marche,” he tells the dogs, and they are off.
Ilya
You may be inclined to think that riding in a sled for eight hours isn’t a bad way to spend a day. If you were talking about the position on the back of the sled, the world rushing by, dogs heeding your commands, and nothing around you for 100 miles but beautiful untouched snow and trees, you’d be right.
On the back of his sled, Ilya feels like a god, the world at his fingertips. There truly is nothing else like it in the world, no better feeling than racing over sights that most people will never have the chance to see. Areas that barely anyone in the world has ever set foot in.
Today, riding, wrapped up in Shane’s sled, he feels the opposite. He can’t blame Shane for this; he’s a great musher. His dogs listen to every command, and Ilya’s dogs do their best to follow along- which would be easier if Shane hadn’t trained his dogs using French commands. The problem with being a passenger instead of a driver is that he feels every bump in the trail in his bones. So low to the ground, he’s constantly assaulted by bits of snow and ice kicked up by the dogs in front of him. He’s grateful that he’s not dead, sure, but he does have to admit that the way back to civilization is worse than he’d anticipated.
It certainly has nothing to do with the understanding that things might be different when he gets to town with Shane.
The whole trip takes them around eight hours. The sun has long since set, but that’s not saying a lot during an Alaskan winter. When he sees the first twinkling lights of the town on the horizon, he half-expects it to be a mirage or a hallucination, something made up. But the closer they get, the brighter the lights become, the more the town comes into focus.
The moment they enter the town, too many things happen at once. People rush out, asking questions in English that are far too fast and jumbled for Ilya to respond to. Shane steps to his side and places a comforting hand on his shoulder as he answers every question. He gives officials his and Ilya’s names, half-explains the situation, and requests medical help for Ilya.
A minute or two later, Ilya is being loaded onto a stretcher and placed in an ambulance that will take him to the airfield and a helicopter. Shane shuffles after him until he’s back at his side.
“Ilya, I’ve got to get our dogs taken care of, but I’ll be at the hospital in Fairbanks as soon as I can,” he tells him, and Ilya nods. He knew Shane wouldn't be able to travel with him to the hospital, but hearing it still sucks.
The paramedics ask him on the flight to Fairbanks if there is anyone he wants them to call. He tells them there’s no one. The only person who needs to know already does, and he promised he’d be there as soon as he could.
He falls asleep in the ambulance almost immediately, the fatigue of the journey here and some concoction the paramedics put in his IV enough to lull him to sleep. When he wakes, he’s being unloaded at Fairbanks Hospital. He spends several hours being wheeled from room to room by different doctors. He has different scans done on his knee, a doctor who checks all his fingers and toes for frostbite, and several different vials of blood drawn.
At last, Dr. Bradley enters the room and explains the surgery they will perform on his knee. They explain everything slowly and clearly and praise him for doing such a good job wrapping and icing his knee while he was trapped in the blizzard. They tell him that without it, the injury would have been far worse.
“That was all Shane,” he says.
“You’ll have to thank Shane the next time you see him; he has most likely not only saved your life but also your mushing career.” The doctor tells him, and he smiles back.
“I’ll tell him,” he promises before they wheel him into surgery.
Shane
Shane has never been a big fan of hospitals, not that most people are. The scent of antiseptic is grating on his senses, and the fluorescent lights feel blinding. He’s alone as he walks down the hall to Ilya’s room, a bag in hand. His heart is pounding in his ears as he nears the door. 1219,1220,1221. He stops before the door, expecting it to be closed. It was always closed when he imagined doing this.
The door is open, and inside he can see Ilya lying in the hospital bed, reclined halfway with his eyes closed. Shane’s half-tempted to turn back down the hall, telling himself he’s sleeping-I’ll come back later. He’s debating this, still standing in the doorway, when Ilya’s eyes crack open, and a warm, genuine smile crosses his face.
“Shannee,” Ilya says in a slow, happy drawl that speaks to some seriously heavy painkillers that must be racing through his system.
Shane approaches the bed, suddenly feeling awkward about the present he brought. It feels childish, like he picked something out for a child’s birthday party instead of a get-well-soon gift for his…Well, he’s not quite sure what Ilya is now. How is it that he knows the way Ilya’s lips feel on his skin, how his cock feels inside of him, but he doesn't know how to categorize their relationship?
He stops at the side of the bed, unsure how to properly greet Ilya. Certainly not a kiss, but absolutely not a handshake either. He settles on neither, bringing his hands together in front of him until both are holding the gift bag handle, “Hey.”
Ilya’s eyes lock onto the bag in Shane’s hand. “You brought me a present?” he asks with unadulterated joy. Perhaps a mixture of his love for presents and whatever drugs he’s on.
Shane glances down at the bag and then hands it over reluctantly to Ilya. “It’s probably stupid.”
Ilya fishes in the bag for a second, extracting a few crumpled sheets of tissue paper before pulling out the three items inside—a bag of coffee beans, a grinder, and a sparkling-new French press.
Ilya looks up at Shane, his eyes slightly watery, and Shane begins to explain immediately.
“I just thought that the coffee here is probably really bad, and that you’d probably prefer to have something better. As I said, it’s probably stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” Ilya says, his voice a little raspy as he hugs the French press to his chest like it’s a teddy bear. “This is wonderful, thank you, Shane.”
Relief courses through Shane, and he lets out a sigh. “Okay, good. You’re welcome.”
Ilya watches him, the giddy smile never leaving his face. “Gimme kiss,” he tells Shane happily, like they’re a married couple who kiss every morning by the coffee maker.
Shane is all too happy to acquiesce, the decision on how to approach Ilya finally out of his hands. He leans forward, places a quick, chaste kiss on Ilya’s lips, then pulls back. Ilya is no longer smiling, instead giving Shane an overdramatic pout. “A real kiss, please,” he grumbles.
Shane shakes his head. “That was a real kiss.”
“That was the kiss you gave your grandmother on Christmas. I want a good kiss. I’m in the hospital, Shane. Don’t I deserve a good kiss?” Ilya whines.
“First of all, I have never kissed my grandmother like that. What are you doing in Russia?” Ilya blinks in mock shock at Shane’s statement, but he pushes on, “Second of all, you can’t guilt-trip me about you being injured. I think that ran out a few days ago when I saved your life.” Shane smiles even as Ilya continues to pout.
Shane leans forward until his lips are an inch away from Ilya’s and whispers against them. “Now, I’m going to kiss you because I want to. Not because you’re injured, and definitely not because you’re pouting.”
If Ilya catches the echo of his own words thrown back at him, he doesn't show it. Instead, he closes the distance, and Shane focuses on kissing Ilya deeply and soundly. Perhaps it’s a little salacious for a kiss in a hospital bed, but how can he deny an injured man his only request?
He pulls back to find Ilya giving him a lovestruck expression, his eyes soft and his mouth relaxed. “Better,” he half-sighs.
Shane smiles back and runs his hand down the side of Ilya’s face, marveling at how good it feels to touch him without gloves.
“You know this doesn't count as our date, right?”
“I didn’t think it did,” Shane quips back.
“Good, because I’m not that easy. I’m expecting a nice date, Shane.” Ilya mocks as he leans back into the pillows, his eyelids sliding closed with a yawn.
“I’ll take you on a nice date, Ilya. Somewhere inside with good coffee, and we can both wear clean clothes,” he jokes.
“Somewhere with a bed nearby,” Ilya says, eyes closed but a smirk on his lips.
“Very presumptuous,” Shane mutters under his breath, even if he agrees.
“Mmmm,” Ilya slurs before sleep takes him back under, his French press still cradled against his chest.
Epilogue
Ilya
Ilya approaches the pack slowly. There are easily fifteen of the tiny creatures, all chittering to each other. He knows that when you approach rabid animals like this, it’s important to be brave, confident, and, most of all, to avoid sudden movements.
As he gets closer, he can make out the words one of them is saying: “No, my dad’s the best there ever was. He’s won the Quest like a billion times.”
Shit. That one is one of his. He stalks forward, “Rosy!” and sees the little girl’s eyes go wide as she notices him approaching.
“Oops,” she mutters before he scoops her up into his arms, holding her out in the air at arm's length like a dog that rolled in the mud.
“What have I told you about bragging?” He chastises and watches the little devil give the world’s smallest eye-roll. It’s honestly shocking that she doesn't technically have any of his DNA. Her eye-roll is like looking in a mirror.
“Bragging about my father is bad,” she repeats like it’s a mantra.
“Unless-” he prompts, letting his lip quirk up just a smidge. His smile betrays him.
“Unless I’m bragging about you, Papa. Then it’s okay,” she finishes with a nod and a bright smile.
“Exactly,” he agrees and places her down.
Unfortunately for him, she is his daughter, and though she won’t inherit his perfect curls or blue eyes, she has studied at the master’s feet for six years and has learned never to let someone else have the last word. Ilya is going to choose the one Shane taught her.
“But you’ve never won the Quest, and Dad has won it a bunch of times,” she says, staring him down.
Three times doesn’t feel like a bunch in his eyes. “The Quest is a stupid race; I’ve won the Iditarod four times; that is plenty,” he argues.
“Obaachan says the Quest is the only race that matters,” Rosy repeats, as if she’s Yuna’s personal agent, sent to annoy him.
He ignores this, frustrated to let his six-year-old get the last word, but he knows it’s pointless; she’d happily argue with him all day. Instead, he turns back to the group of children and calls them to attention. In their snowsuits, they waddle around him like a colony of penguins.
“Okay, kids. Today we’re going to practice some of the mushing commands we learned last week. I’m going to have you go on the sleds 4 at a time, and we’ll practice gee and haw.”
He corrals the kids into groups and gets the first group set up, only to lose their attention when they all stare over his shoulder at something. Now, it’s not hard to lose the attention of six-year-olds, but he usually keeps them interested when the dogs are out. The kids love the sled dogs that work in their camps.
He turns to look at what has distracted his junior mushers and smiles when he sees Shane approaching. The kids are looking at his husband like he’s their favorite celebrity. And maybe in this section of Canada, he is. Ilya looks at him with nothing but unbridled love as he easily strides across the snow, his brown eyes locked on Ilya’s.
He reaches Ilya and gives him a quick kiss. “My dad’s finishing up at the kennels for today. I thought I’d stop by and see how camp is going.”
“It was going great until you distracted all the kids with your star power,” Ilya grumbles, but smiles through it. He’s always happy to see Shane.
Shane nods and leans forward to place a kiss on Rosy’s hood. “I can head back if it’s too distracting,” he offers.
“No, go ahead and stay. Rosy was just telling everyone how you’re the best musher there ever was. I’m sure they’d love your input.”
“Rosy, we don't brag,” Shane says to their daughter, his eyes angry.
“Sorry, Dad,” she says, but Ilya catches the smirk on her face.
Ilya sets the first group of kids off on their sleds, watching as they shout their commands in their small voices as they move around the track they’ve set up on their land. “Where’s Irina?” he asks Shane even as his eyes stay locked on the kids.
“At the kennels with grandpa; she’s been begging him to let her name the puppies, and I think he’s close to giving in,” Shane admits, shaking his head. “I think they get their powers of persuasion from you.”
“No, that’s you for sure. They are funny and charming because of me.”
“Oh, I see—none of that from me?” Shane says, turning to look at Ilya with a challenge in his eyes.
Ilya smiles to himself. He’s had many passions over the years, mushing first, then running the kennel, and now teaching the kids at mushing camp. None of them holds a candle to his favorite activity: baiting his husband into fighting with him. “No, you teach them to be stubborn and brag about winning the Quest.”
“Maybe you’re jealous that you’ve never won the Quest,” Shane says, a cocky smile plastered on his face.
“Remind me, how many times have you won the Iditarod?" he asks.
“Twice,” Shane answers stoically.
They go back and forth like this as the kids race around the track, Ilya shouting encouragement at them and Shane giving tips. Ilya pulls Shane closer and places a kiss on his cheek. It didn't matter how many times he’d won the Quest or any of the races. He had all he ever needed right here.
