Chapter Text
Epilogue
After Shane wins the cup, they go to the cottage.
They fuck in the sunshine. They go swimming and find each other in the water, float weightless in each other’s arms, learning the shape of each other all over again. They make dinner, and Ilya discovers that Shane will, actually, eat ice cream if it’s off Ilya’s body.
They dream together under the pines and the bright blue sky.
There are dark days. Days Ilya can’t make it to the surface, can’t move through the unspeakable weight that holds him down. Shane has them too, days when his body betrays him, fails him the way all bodies eventually do, and he stays in his practice rink shooting pucks at targets until his calluses are bleeding and Ilya has to come pry the stick from his hands.
They hold each other through it. And the dark days never last, even if they also always come back.
It’s good. It’s more than good; it’s ugly and beautiful, full of pain and pleasure. It’s a life, their life, and they build it together, a day at a time.