Chapter Text
The beach looked different at night. Not soft and postcard-perfect the way it had earlier, when the sun was out and people were still milling around in flip-flops, laughing, drinking shitty resort cocktails.
Now it was a restless slab of dark water and deep indigo sky, broken only by the weak glow of street lamps along the walking path about a hundred feet back.
Ilya stood at the very edge of the surf, shoes dangling from one hand, toes sinking into cold, damp sand. The waves moved in and out in a rhythm that felt annoyingly peaceful, considering the mood currently chewing its way through his chest.
He wasn’t drunk. But he wished that he were. Being drunk made the world fuzzy and stupid, and he could have used a little fuzziness tonight.
Instead he had… this. Dark thoughts. Awful memories. Painful awareness of every single thing in his life felt like it was not working the way it should.
His father was dying. Slowly and maddeningly, yet still with the same bitterness he’d carried all his life. The fact of it should have devastated Ilya more than it had. Instead, the first feeling had been deep and visceral relief. Followed swiftly by crushing guilt.
Some son he was.
His mother’s face drifted through his mind next, unbidden. She would shake her head at him if she saw him now, standing barefoot in the surf like some moody poet who had misplaced his heart. She would tell him to go back inside, get warm, stop being dramatic, stop thinking so much.
He missed her. He missed her every day.
And lately, it felt like the only thing that made any part of his life feel solid was a pair of steady brown eyes and the delicate constellation of freckles beneath them.
Shane fucking Hollander. Of course.
Ilya blew out a harsh breath, as if his own thoughts annoyed him. He crouched down, then let himself sink fully into the sand, legs folding under him until he could sit with his arms resting loosely on his knees.
It was stupid to think about Shane like this. Stupid to let himself feel anything about him beyond the usual cocktail of lust and competitive irritation. Lust he could handle. Irritation he had partially built his career on.
But this… This wanting? This deep, pathetic ache in his chest? Ugh.
Shane had been close all weekend by virtue of the All-Star schedule. Same team, same events, same stupid photo ops where they had to pretend to be friendly but cutthroat rivals. Pretend not to be two men who were sometimes entwined together in hotel beds and tried very hard to call it nothing.
And Shane had smiled at him today. Really smiled. Bright and earnest and golden, the way he did when he wasn’t thinking about anything except the moment in front of him. It made something in Ilya loosen and tighten at the same time.
He wanted to text him. He wanted to see him. Not just for sex, though God, he always wanted that, but because he didn’t want to sit here alone with the tide and the dark and his own unravelling thoughts.
But he couldn’t do that. Shane was… good. Too good to be dragged into whatever depressive nonsense Ilya was spiraling through. He wouldn’t burden him with this. With himself.
He stared at the waves again, watching them break and disappear and come back, over and over, relentless and indifferent. It was easy, in a moment like this, to imagine stepping forward into them. Walking deeper and deeper into the surf. Letting the dark water swallow him. Letting everything, the pressure, the noise, the grief, the hollowness, just turn off.
He wouldn’t do it, of course. He didn’t want to die. He just… wanted the exhaustion to stop.
A crunch of sand behind him snapped the thought cleanly in half.
Ilya stiffened. He didn’t turn. He assumed it was some drunk hockey player or late-night jogger or -
“Hey,” someone said softly.
Shane.
Of course.
Ilya twisted just enough to see him approach. Shoes in one hand, the other shoved into the pocket of his slacks, hair ruffled by the wind. He looked warm and soft. He looked impossibly out of place on this lonely beach, almost glowing from the dull light behind him. As if even the night itself couldn't bear to diminish him completely.
Shane didn’t hesitate. He just dropped down beside Ilya in the sand, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched.
“You’re hard to find,” Shane said cheerfully in that gentle, unforced way he had.
Ilya blinked at him, the ache in his chest shifting, sharp and humiliatingly grateful. Shane brushed grains off his palms as he settled more fully beside him.
“I thought you’d be in the bar or something,” he said lightly.
Ilya shook his head and turned away, staring at the dark line where water met sky.
“Too loud,” he muttered. “Too much…”
He let the sentence fall apart, waving it off with a small, exhausted motion. He was too emptied out to chase down the English word he needed.
Shane nodded. He didn’t tease. He didn’t push. He looked at Ilya then, really looked. And the concern that bloomed in Shane’s eyes wasn’t sharp or pitying, just steady and real.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently.
Ilya inhaled through his nose, puffed his cheeks out, then blew the breath out in a long, uneven stream.
“No,” he said at last. “Not really.”
Shane’s expression softened. “Would you rather be alone -”
“No,” Ilya cut in, fast, almost tripping over the word. “You can stay. Please.”
The last part came out too quickly, too raw. He hated how it sounded, but Shane didn’t seem startled by it this time. If anything, he relaxed a little more, as if he was relieved to be wanted. By Ilya.
“Okay,” Shane said simply. “I’m here.”
They sat in silence for a few seconds and watched the surf rolling in and out, in and out. Shane eased one knee up, resting his arm across it, watching Ilya out of the corner of his eye with infinite patience.
“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, voice soft enough that the wind almost stole it.
Ilya shrugged, a jerky little lift of his shoulders, and swiped at one eye with the heel of his hand. Quick, irritated, as if batting away a mosquito rather than emotion.
He did want to talk. His chest was full of words. Too full. His mother’s voice, her impenetrable sadness, his father’s impending death, his useless leech of a brother. The guilt. The loneliness. The gnawing sorrow.
And the terrifying truth that the only time he didn’t feel so hollow was when Shane was in the room.
But the idea of opening all that up? Of watching Shane recoil, or worse, watching him care? It was unbearable. The thought of being comforted by Shane, of feeling that warmth and knowing he couldn’t keep it, nearly crushed him.
Ilya kept his eyes on the water, jaw tight.
Shane didn’t press. Not this time. Instead, he reached out slowly and carefully and let the tip of one finger trace the outside of Ilya’s forearm. Just a whisper of contact. A question, not a demand.
Ilya’s breath stuttered. He looked at him. Shane gave a small tilt of his hand, beckoning him closer.
“Come here.”
Ilya blinked. “What? Are you su-”
“The beach is empty,” Shane murmured. “It’s pitch dark. No one’s going to see anything. Just… come here.”
There was no teasing in his tone. No suggestion of sex. Just kindness, open and unguarded, held out like his offered hand.
Ilya swallowed hard. Then, slowly, awkwardly, he uncurled his arms and leaned sideways until his shoulder brushed Shane’s thigh. A heartbeat later, he let his head tip down, resting on that solid, warm leg. Shane’s thigh tensed reflexively, then relaxed, adjusting to cradle him.
It was too much. It was not enough. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.
Shane’s hand came up, hesitant at first, then surer as his fingers threaded gently into Ilya’s hair. He stroked once, twice in slow, grounding motions that made the ache inside him loosen its teeth just slightly.
Neither of them spoke. The waves kept moving. And for the first time all night, Ilya didn’t feel like the darkness was trying to swallow him whole.
Shane’s hand kept moving in Ilya’s hair, slow and careful, as if each stroke needed permission. His voice, when it came, was barely louder than the surf.
“I’ll listen,” he murmured, “if you want to talk.” A pause, gentle and testing. “But if not, I’m perfectly happy sitting right here. Doing this.”
Ilya’s throat tightened. He nodded once, a small, choppy motion. “Thanks,” he whispered.
His fingers twitched against the sand before he allowed himself to move them. He curled one hand around Shane’s shin, just above the ankle. Not clutching. Just… holding. A little more closeness to keep him steady.
Shane didn’t react beyond another gentle sweep of his fingers through Ilya’s hair.
They sat like that for a long time. Long enough for the tide to creep higher, for the wind to shift cooler. Long enough for the heavy knot in Ilya’s chest to loosen by several degrees. Still there, still sharp, but not strangling him.
He could breathe. Not easily, but he could. And in that small space the breathing created, words slipped out before he could stop them.
“I looked it up,” Ilya murmured, voice so low Shane had to lean in slightly to hear. “Compatible.”
Shane blinked down at him. “Oh?”
“I was pretty sure I knew what it meant,” Ilya said, eyes on the dark water, “but I wanted to be sure.”
Shane opened his mouth, then closed it again. There wasn’t an obvious response to that, not one that wouldn’t tip them off a cliff neither of them had named aloud. So he made a soft, noncommittal hum, a neutral acknowledgment that didn’t push, didn’t presume.
Ilya should have stopped there. He knew he should have. But some part of him that was worn thin, lonely, unbearably grateful for the warmth under his cheek, loosened too much.
“I missed you,” he whispered.
He didn’t see Shane’s face, didn’t see the way that simple sentence split his face with a wide and boyish and stunned smile. But he heard it, that slight, impossible-to-hide grin edging into Shane’s voice.
“I missed you, too,” Shane said softly.
Then the hand in Ilya’s hair stilled for just a moment as Shane bent at the waist, moving slowly, giving him every chance to pull away. But Ilya didn’t move.
The gentlest kiss touched his temple. A brush of lips, feather-light, gone almost before Ilya registered it.
Shane straightened again, hand returning to its soothing, steady motion through his hair, as though nothing monumental had happened.
But for Ilya, the whole world tilted, just a little, toward something that felt unbearably like belonging.
The waves hissed in and out, steady as breathing. Minutes passed. Maybe more. Ilya didn’t track them. Didn’t want to. The dark behind his eyelids was easier than the dark in front of him.
Another confession drifted to the tip of his tongue, heavy, insistent, impossible to ignore.
“Today is my mother’s birthday,” Ilya murmured.
Shane’s fingers froze. “Oh,” he breathed.
Ilya frowned to himself. “Or yesterday. I don’t know. Is after midnight?”
He felt Shane’s wrist turn, the whisper of movement as he checked his Rolex.
“Not yet,” Shane said. “Only 11:23.”
Then his hand returned to its path through Ilya’s hair. Ilya nodded, eyes drifting shut.
“Thirty-seven minutes left, then.”
A moment passed before Shane asked, gently, “So… you miss her?”
He sounded cautious and gentle. Likely assuming, reasonably of course, that she was alive but just far away in Russia. Ilya felt his throat cinch closed. He squeezed his eyes tighter, pushing against the sharp pain of wishing that were true. Wishing that geographical location was the only distance between him and his mother's arms.
He forced himself to nod against Shane’s leg.
Shane was quiet. Thinking. He wasn’t hard to read. Not to Ilya, at least. Shane was probably turning over several shamelessly earnest and kind suggestions: You could call her. Or FaceTime. It’s morning there now, right? Won't you get to see her in a few weeks when you go back?
But Shane didn’t say any of it. Something in the way Ilya held himself must have warned him off.
Another wave rolled in. Ilya breathed out. And said, simply, “She’s dead.”
Shane went very still.
“Oh,” he murmured again, but this time the word was weighted, full of sorrow he hadn’t expected to feel. “I’m so sorry.”
His hand moved again, deliberate now, cupping the back of Ilya’s neck; Shane’s thumb swept once along the tense line of muscle there in a gentle, instinctive movement.
“When did she - ?” Shane began, tentative.
“A long time ago.” Ilya answered. A breath; inhale, exhale. “Fourteen years.”
Ilya braced himself for the questions. How did she die? Were you there? What happened? All the awful details he never wanted to say out loud, not tonight, not ever if he could help it. He felt his shoulders tense.
But Shane didn’t ask. He didn’t even try.
Instead, he shifted, reaching down to slide an arm behind Ilya’s shoulders. He tugged gently but firmly, yet still giving Ilya a chance to resist. Ilya didn’t. He let himself be pulled upright, let Shane draw him fully into his arms.
Shane wrapped both arms around him, solid and strong, and Ilya went willingly, practically collapsing into the embrace. He buried his face against Shane’s neck, inhaling the scent of sun-washed cotton and sea salt and that faint, clean note that was just… Shane.
Shane held him, really held him, one hand splayed between Ilya’s shoulder blades, the other cradling the back of his head. No questions. No platitudes. Just closeness. Just comfort.
Ilya’s breath shuddered once, barely audible, and Shane tightened his hold the way someone shields a flame from the wind.
For the first time in years, or maybe ever, Ilya let himself be soothed.
They stayed like that for a long, immeasurable stretch of time. The waves rising and falling, the dark settling deeper around them, the world stripped down to breath and warmth and the slow, steady slide of Shane’s thumb at the nape of Ilya’s neck.
Little by little, the tightness in Ilya’s chest eased. Not gone, never gone, but loosened, the pain ebbing the way the tide pulled back from the shore. Shane’s arms didn’t solve anything, but they made everything hurt less. They made it bearable.
Which was, of course, its own type of unbearable.
Ilya inhaled against Shane’s throat, the skin smooth and soft beneath his lips. He hadn’t meant to speak, but it slipped out anyway, almost slurred with exhaustion.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Shane dipped his chin, brushing his lips against Ilya’s forehead. Not a fleeting touch, but a long, lingering press.
“Always,” he whispered.
The word sank into Ilya’s bones, blissful and terrifying.
Before he could think too hard about it, a shiver rippled through him. First small and slight, then harder. The damp sea air had crept under his clothes, clinging to his skin. Shane felt it, too; Ilya sensed the way his muscles tightened with cold.
Shane pulled back just enough to look at him, hands still splayed on Ilya's back.
“Do you want to go inside?” he asked gently.
Ilya nodded, though the motion was hesitant. He was reluctant to let the moment end, reluctant to step away from the one place he’d felt whole all night.
Then Shane asked, “What room are you in?”
“Twelve seventeen,” Ilya murmured, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of one hand.
Shane nodded. Then, before Ilya could withdraw or overthink or ruin it with a joke, Shane leaned in and kissed him.
Just once. Soft. Chaste. A promise dressed up as restraint.
Ilya’s breath shuddered. Shane’s did too. Half from the cold, half from something molten and far more dangerous.
Their noses brushed and Shane nudged his lightly against Ilya’s.
“Go,” he whispered. “I’ll be right there.”
The words curled around Ilya’s heart just like Shane's embrace.
He stood, unsteady but so much calmer, and Shane rose with him, brushing the sand from his clothes. The wind kicked up again, making both of them shiver.
Ilya hesitated for one second, just one heartbeat, looking at Shane as if he was a miracle made flesh.
Then he turned toward the hotel lights in the distance.
Shane watched him go. And true to his word, he would follow.