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It sits with him.
And there were no nice men in Montreal?
It burns in his mind, a slow, dreadful smolder. It fogs across his thoughts, cloying and terrible. What a stupid, awful question. What a fucking weird thing to say about his—about his boyfriend.
No nice men in Montreal?
And all he'd said was I don't know.
He's a terrible person.
Ilya shifts next to him, and Shane drags his eyes up from the fire to find him staring at him.
“What?” he asks quietly, the corners of his mouth twitching up from a frown. “You okay?”
Ilya nods, his eyes reflecting the flames. He looks okay, wrapped up in one of Shane's pullovers, his hair tousled and damp from their shower. “Da,” he murmurs, sweeping a hand up Shane's thigh, warmth spreading under his touch. “Are you? Is big day, no? Very much happened.”
Shane opens his mouth to assure him that he's fine, but instead, traitorously, are you mad at me?, slips out. He flushes, shaking his head, backpedaling as Ilya's eyes widen before they narrow, his mouth settling into a flat, unimpressed line. “I mean—I don't—I mean, if you are, you should probably tell me, but I don't—you aren't—”
“Shane.”
He snaps his mouth shut, horrified to find his eyes watering. He's so—this is terrible. He's bad at everything today; he can't even keep himself together.
“I am not mad,” Ilya says carefully, his hand curling over Shane's. Shane stares down at their entwined hands, taking in the ridges of his knuckles, the broad width of them as he holds his hand. How tenderly Ilya clasps his fingers, as if they're soft and precious and not calloused and ruined. “What would I be mad about?”
Shane chews on his lip for a moment. He feels fucking stupid for being this wound up, but he feels even more idiotic for not having addressed it sooner.
I don't know, he'd said, instead of I don't want anyone else, or he's nice, or maybe we don't do this, Dad, because you won't like what I have to say if you insult Ilya again.
He drags his gaze up, meeting Ilya’s eyes. “I didn't say you were nice,” he confesses quietly, his eyes darting across Ilya's face, searching for any sign of upset or anger. “I didn't—and I don't know why—”
“Shane,” Ilya says, his face twisting from uncertainty to a tiny, beaming smile. “Shane. I am not nice.”
Shane straightens up, outraged at the very thought. “Yes, you are! Ilya, what the fuck?”
Ilya tips his head back and laughs, loud and unabashed, his whole body shaking as Shane stares at him, his mouth wide open.
He shakes his head, looking boyish and gleeful, entertained by the very thought. “I am not nice,” he says again. “I am, ah, how do you Canadian's say it, horror on ice?”
“To play against—”
“—am always getting into fights—”
“That's literally part of the game—”
Ilya laughs again, loud and boisterous. “You are very sweet, Shane Hollander,” he says, reaching up to sweep his thumb across Shane's cheekbone. “Is nice to know you are concerned with my honor.”
Shane huffs, scowling at him. “You're nice to me,” he says petulantly. “Why can't anyone else see that?”
Ilya smiles, his whole face softening into something agonizingly beautiful. “Is first day, moy lyubimyj,” he murmurs, his hand dropping back down to his thigh. “You must give time to let them see.”
“But,” Shane starts, before he sighs. “I don't like it,” he confesses, pulling his gaze away to stare at the fire. “I don't like that we—that the first thing asked about was why you.”
Ilya shrugs. “Is a good question,” he murmurs, an unrelenting honesty in his voice. “Sometimes I think, why me?”
Shane snaps his head around, his mouth dropping open. “What the fuck?”
Ilya shrugs again, lifting up their clasped hands to press a kiss against Shane’s knuckles. “Is not so hard to be confused about us,” he says slowly, as Shane fights the urge to snap off more questions, to dig into the soft, unspoken pieces of them. “Would not make sense if we were not there, no?”
“But we were,” Shane says, because they were, so what the fuck is Ilya even saying. “I don't—I don't want anyone else. I've never wanted anyone else, not really. Even with—” He swallows, his eyes closing, because this is too raw to even dare look at Ilya, because he doesn't want to be humiliated even more as he unspools his stupid wants from the cage of his heart. “Even when I was with Rose, it wasn't you, and I was—god, Ilya. I was so fucking unhappy. I was miserable. And it was so awful because I like Rose. She makes me laugh, and she's beautiful, and I wanted to want her so fucking much.” He shakes his head. “I felt so fucking broken, because here was this movie star girlfriend, and all I could think about was you.”
He pauses, his lips trembling. The first of his tears slips out as Ilya cups his cheek, his fingers warm and familiar as they stroke across his skin.
He thinks he could know Ilya from touch alone, could taste him on the air, could sense the seismic shift that occurs every time they're close to each other, as Shane’s entire world rapidly reshifts, the space that is always held for him, the constant readiness he has to welcome Ilya home.
“And I don't—I can't—I just. He, my dad, he said, what, were there no nice men in Montreal?, and I just said I don't know, like some idiot. Like I couldn't say anything else. Like it wouldn't have hurt me to have ever tried to be with anyone else.”
He blinks his eyes open, chewing on his lip as his mouth quivers, Ilya's thumb still on his cheek, the fire warm before them. He still can't bear to glance at Ilya, doesn't want to see what his face is doing as he spills all of his useless, too-late words. “And I feel so fucking stupid, because I didn't—because yeah, okay, maybe you are an asshole, but you're kind to me, and I'm in love with you, and I don't—why the hell would I ever want anyone else when I have you? When you're worth it? When you've always been worth it.”
He shrugs, shrinking into himself. “I just—I feel bad. That I didn't say more. That I didn't defend you, other than a shitty like I don't know, like there would ever be anyone else.”
For a long moment, they're both quiet before Ilya breaks it.
“Shane,” he rasps, his voice soaked through with a tortured sort of hurt. Shane whips his head around, meeting Ilya’s eyes and freezing at the look in them.
He looks ruined, scored through the soft heart of him, bloodied by sheer devotion, by an eternally burning flame of love. Shane thinks that the world could sear to ash around them, and he wouldn't be able to muster up any energy to care; not when Ilya's heart is in his eyes, not when reverence is painted across his face.
He's undone by the sheer look of him, helpless against the familiar agony of love that's so sweet it burns.
“Ya tebya lyublyu,” Ilya murmurs. The quiet words ring in the air with all the grace of growth, with all the shine of hope. They pin Shane down, cut him to the quick; he has never been loved so much.
No one else will ever make him feel so loved again.
This, he wants to say, wants to capture. Nice men in Montreal aren't real—they never could be measured against this tidal wave of love, this crushing ocean of beautiful, blinding hope. I could never be okay with just a fragment of love, not when I've tasted the full richness of it with Ilya. Not when I've been gifted such sweet tenderness, not when I have given back such deep adoration.
“I love you too,” Shane says, wet and raw, heavy with the weight of it. Such a prize to have earned, such an oblation to have worked for; nothing about this has been easy.
Nice men in Montreal; he wants to spit, wants to claw the casually cruel sentiment out of anyone's mind.
What a stupid thing to ask, what a graceless sentence to posit.
“Shane,” Ilya says, again, drawing his attention. “Sweetheart.”
Shane sniffles, blinking at him.
“Is not easy,” Ilya says, watching him steadily. “Not for us, to understand sometimes, I think, even after all these years. Not for others.” He lifts his hand up from where it's settled across Shane's thigh and presses it against his sternum. Shane watches the gentle shift of his fingers, unable to handle the sheer amount of love in his gaze. “There are not—” He pauses, and Shane waits, listening to the soft crackle of the fire, the gentle woosh of the wind off the lake. Loons trill in the background, branches rustle in the woods; the warmth of a home settling in around them. “Is hard to pull out how this happened, no? Hard to understand how we grew into love. How it was always there, I think, maybe. Is like picking berries on a vine, yes? Sharp thorns that do not mean much, in the moment, but when you pull back, you are already bleeding. Can scar, can shape, can change.”
He sets his hand back down on Shane's thigh, smiling lopsidedly when Shane pulls his eyes back up to his gaze. “We have always been picking berries, Shane Hollander. People do not know what to do when we already have a full basket.”
“They do not know that you and I are the same as always because love was always there, no?” Ilya murmurs. “Is silly to you to think of nice Montreal men because it is impossible. Even when you did not have me, you had me.”
Shane nods, emotions clogging his throat.
Ilya's said it exactly; it is impossible.
“I love you,” he says, because anything else is impossible to imagine as well. “And I'm sorry that—”
“There is nothing to be sorry for,” Ilya says, as gently as he can manage, a sharp look in his eyes. “We are in love. That is enough.”
Shane can't squash the strangled sob that rises from his throat; he doesn't fight the hands that guide him into Ilya’s arms, or mention the soft wetness he can feel when Ilya nudges their cheeks together.
Neither of them speaks as the fire begins to dwindle, as their tears begin to dry.
We are in love, Shane thinks; the whole world cracked open, made anew. They are in love; there is nothing more he can say, nothing else that can capture what they mean to one another. That is enough.