Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Shane has always been good at carrying things: expectations, schedules, numbers, the quiet, constant weight of being exactly what everyone needs him to be.

His parents’ pride rests heavy on his shoulders, not because it’s conditional, but because it’s sincere. Every phone call ends the same way: “we’re so proud of you,” said with a warm honest love that Shane believes. He knows they love him, what he doesn’t know —what he’s never let himself test— is whether that pride would survive the messier versions of him: the tired one, the angry one, the one who breaks the image just a little. The son who isn’t always composed, disciplined, easy to admire. That unasked question turns affection into pressure, praise into something he feels he has to maintain.

His team’s trust presses in just as hard: coaches watching, teammates relying on him, even brands, cameras and fans counting on the same clean, controlled version of him.

It has always been this way actually: control, discipline, perfection—a cycle that never really ends. Most days, he manages it. He eats when he’s supposed to, trains when he’s told, sleeps when his body finally gives in. He keeps everything tight and contained, like if he loosens his grip even a little, something important might spill out.

But there are days —quieter ones— when the pressure builds too fast, when control slips through his fingers no matter how hard he tries to hold onto it. Those days leave him hollow and ashamed, frustrated with himself for not being stronger, for not being better at this.

Loving Ilya is the one place where none of it matters.

They exist in the in-between. In rival teams, separate cities and careful schedules that never overlap too neatly. Their relationship is made of stolen hours and soft mornings, of private jokes whispered into pillows and hands finding each other in the dark. They’ve already crossed the hardest line: they’ve said it out loud, named what this was, chosen each other without hesitation. And for Shane, loving Ilya isn’t confusion or doubt anymore: it’s something steady, something he carries with certainty.

They are at the peak of their careers, exactly where everyone always expected them to be. And for now, the secrecy isn’t a wound, it’s a choice, something they hold gently between them, protected and shared. Keeping their relationship hidden feels like one small part of Shane’s life that doesn’t belong to anyone else, something he doesn’t have to earn or prove. Just love, kept safe, exactly as it is.

Sometimes Shane thinks about how easily Ilya says his name when no one else can hear it, like it isn’t something sharp or dangerous, like it doesn’t belong to the ice or the headlines or the noise of the world. Just Shane: soft, familiar, held carefully in another person’s mouth. He loves when Ilya says his name like that, because it reminds him that although he has spent his whole life being watched, their love is the one place where he gets to exist without an audience.

Shane holds onto that feeling longer than usual, like it might carry him through whatever comes next, because today, was one of those days, even though it was supposed to be an easy day. By night, he would have dinner with his boyfriend, it would be one of those rare evenings where Shane lets himself imagine that life can slow down for a couple of hours. He’d agreed to it days ago, penciled it into his mental schedule like a promise to Ilya, but also to himself.

But bad days don’t announce themselves. They slip in dressed as discipline, as commitment, as doing what needs to be done. Shane tells himself he’s just tired, that everyone has off days, that pushing through is what he’s good at. But this feels different, it feels heavier, like he lost control somewhere along the way and doesn’t know how to admit it without feeling weak.

Practice ran long. Conditioning turned into compulsion. One drill bled into another until stopping felt worse than continuing.

By the time Shane made it back to his hotel room, his body was buzzing and his head wouldn’t slow down. The quiet pressed in immediately, giving his thoughts too much room to spiral. Not about dinner, not even about Ilya, just the feeling that he’d pushed himself too far and didn’t know how to stop.

It was already night. The city glowed through the hotel window, distant and indifferent. Shane sat on the edge of the bed, towel still damp around his shoulders, chest tight in a way that had nothing to do with fatigue. Dinner at Ilya’s place had been planned, it was a reason to leave his own head. And now, he was late, which was strange, because he never allowed himself to be late.

He picked up his phone and entered Ilya’s chat.