Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike, David Hollander & Yuna Hollander & Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov & Irina Rozanova

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Irina Rozanova, Yuna Hollander, Hayden Pike, David Hollander, Svetlana Vetrova

Additional Tags:

Self-Harm, Past Suicide Attempts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Depressed Ilya Rozanov, Hurt/Comfort, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Consent Issues, Miscommunication, No Character Bashing, they're both trying so hard to fix each other, Protective Shane Hollander, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Self-Worth Issues, Past Child Abuse, Shane Hollander Has an Eating Disorder, Established Relationship, Dissociation, Recovery, Eating Disorders, if you feed my shit into AI i will kill myself and it will be your fault, Fainting, Ilya Rozanov Has ADHD, Autistic Shane Hollander, Angst with a Happy Ending, the difference between suicidal vs self-harming personified, Childhood Sexual Abuse

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of Merry Christmas, Please Don't Call

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-11 Updated: 2026-09-20 Words: 66,519 Chapters: 9/19

the toughest part is that we both know (what happened to you, why you’re out on your own)

Summary

Ilya wasn’t trying to kill himself that night. Suicide is something that belongs to his mother- he’s just lazy, and he wishes Shane would stop making excuses for him.

Shane has everything under control. His body is a tool, the one that’s given him both his career and his relationship, and he wishes Ilya would stop prying into the way he maintains it.

or: Ilya learns a whole lot more about his mother, Shane remembers a whole lot more about his childhood, and they both get diagnosed.

Notes

Title from Superstar by Rainbow Kitten Surprise. Extremely fitting for this chapter.

Shane's POV

Chapter 1: i’m your superstar, i can’t be nothing less

They head to pick Ilya up from inpatient treatment on Christmas morning, just like they planned.

Shane’s fully prepared.

He’d spent the last three days combing forums and WebMD, watching video after video on how to support someone with depression, and how to be a good partner, and how to stop someone from trying to kill themselves again. 

He’d compiled the data and written it down in a new notepad, and then fleshed out the steps. 

• Remove potentially dangerous objects from the area.

“Area” wasn’t specific enough, so Shane had taken the liberty to remove them from the entire house. The entire medicine cabinet in the bathroom- painkillers, razors, cough medicine. Kitchen knives, alcohol, scissors, the box cutter. The cleaning supplies, of course- bleach, ammonia, lysol spray. Extension cords, chargers, the lighter for Ilya’s cigarettes he thought Shane didn’t know about. 

He sorted the items into two boxes. One for things they’d need at some point- a single kitchen knife, face razors, a dual charger- that he hid tucked away in the garage. The other was full of items that would need to wait until Ilya was better. This one, Shane taped up and dropped off at his parents house.

“You can’t ever give this to him,” he told his father in greeting, who stared at him blearily. To his credit, it was early morning, and it was still mostly dark outside.

“If he asks you if you have it, you can’t tell him you do,” Shane pressed. He waited until David nodded before setting the box in his hesitantly stretched arms. 

He drove away before his father could make conversation. The sun was just on its way to rising, which meant Shane only had two days left, and he had a lot more work to do.

1. Never leave him alone, where he could hurt himself again. Make sure he’s always in your line of sight, even if you’re in the same room.

This wouldn’t be difficult. 

Ilya was clingy- once upon a time, annoyingly so- but Shane would now be fully indulging him and initiating contact on his own. He’d hold Ilya’s hand while he pissed, if that's what it came down to. 

He’d fixed the security cameras outside, and then ordered a bunch more for inside the house. He paid an obscene amount of money to have a team come install them same-day: two in the living room, one aimed at the bedroom door, one on each end of the upstairs and downstairs hallways, the front door entrance...

 Shane just barely resisted putting one inside the bedroom. According to his research, that was the most likely place for someone to hurt themselves. But the thought of someone, somehow, getting ahold of footage of them in their bed… that made his skin crawl. Besides, if Ilya was in the bedroom, Shane would be right there with him. 

Shane did, however, pull Ilya’s god-awful orange Corvette out of the garage, and disable the small door opener clipped on the sun visor. He then spent the evening following a tutorial on dead-bolting the garage door itself. 

He’d seen enough news articles on professional athletes killing themselves via carbon monoxide poisoning. Unfortunately, it seemed like a very Ilya way to go.

• Make yourself a safe space to talk.

This would be a little bit harder. It’s what Shane had been trying to do before That Night, and he’d failed spectacularly. 

Ilya wasn’t good at talking about his feelings. Shane wasn’t good at reading them. That meant he had to pivot his approach.

He needed to push a bit harder, he decided. He’d need to soften him up first- a night around the fire, dinner with his parents, a lazy fuck after a hard game, a warm bath. If he poked enough- subtly, not with his usual off-putting bluntless that made people uncomfortable- Ilya would crack. 

Shane only needed an inch, and he could take it the rest of the mile. 

He’d started watching Youtube videos on how to be more approachable. He felt bizarrely like a teenager again, when he’d gone down this same rabbit hole at sixteen after coming across so awkwardly in an interview his own mother had cringed.

Shane hadn’t been super successful, then. But he was older now, and he knew what to look for. 

 How to loosen his body language. How to read other people’s. How to stop sounding like a know-it-all, even if it’s something he did know. He was going to keep his research to himself, he decided. Iya certainly didn’t need to know about it- he would only tease him, or worse- get offended.

It didn’t matter, anyway. All that mattered was the outcome. 

• Remind him of all the small things that are worth living for.

Unfortunately, most of the things Ilya enjoyed were directly detrimental to his health. Driving at high speeds, drinking like a sailor, smoking, staying out all night. The tricky part, though, was that Ilya stopped all those things when he’d moved to Ottawa, and that’s also when he’d gotten Bad. So there was something in that list that Shane had to figure out how to give back to him in a way that wouldn’t make him worse.

That left the middle ground: sex. 

Which isn’t exactly a huge ask. They already did quite a bit of it, and it was good. But while Ilya was very careful not to talk about his old conquests, Shane had a feeling his old sex life was a lot more exciting than what the two of them had been doing. 

Shane just had to “spice it up”. 

The internet had a lot of suggestions on how to do that, and most of them made his stomach turn. A lot of the forums he found had clear disclaimers to talk to your sexual partner before trying, but talking was already kind of the whole issue here. He was surprised to see that some of the things listed, they were already doing- and they’d been doing them just fine, with no discussion beforehand. 

Shane and Ilya didn’t really talk before fucking. They just did it. 

The last thing Shane wanted to do was make it awkward- for Ilya to think he was weird. He needed a consultant; someone who had been having sex for the same person for years, and figured out how to keep it exciting.

So he took a terrifying - and, admittedly, a little bit desperate- leap of faith, and called Hayden.

An hour later, his friend was standing on his front porch, white-faced, in a pair of basketball shorts and an enormous green t-shirt with orange stains all over it. Shane quickly led him to the kitchen table and sat across from him. 

He laid it all out, having to pause a few times to breathe, and then he was finished. He looked up expectantly. Hayden groaned and slumped forward onto the table, burying his face in his arms.

Shane watched him, heart beating so hard he almost felt out of breath. “Are you okay?”

Hayden huffed out a breath, slowly sitting back up. “Jesus, buddy,” he said shakily. “You can’t scare me like that.”

Shane felt a surge of panic. 

“Sorry, I- never mind. I’m really not trying to overstep. You don't have to tell me anything-”

Fuck, this was exactly the reason he kept this shit to himself. It was one thing for Hayden to be in a changing room next to a gay man- even sharing a hotel room with him- but talking about actual gay sex? Hayden’s a saint, but that’s a line Shane should never have asked him to cross-

“Hey,” Hayden said firmly, holding a hand up. “I can feel you spiraling over there. Stop it.”

Shane felt frozen, completely out of his element all of the sudden.

Hayden paused, waiting for Shane to meet his eyes, before pointing a finger at him. “That’s not what I meant. We can talk about that shit man, of course we can. The guys talk about sex all the time, that’s- like- half of what goes on in the locker room. It’s just that you called me and told me you needed to talk to me right now, in person, and then sat across from me at the kitchen table as soon as I showed up. I thought you were about to break some kind of bad news.”

“Oh,” Shane said stupidly. He rested his elbows on the table, twisting his hands. He’d kind of blocked out the last time Hayden was in this room. “Sorry.”

“Shane, it’s fine.” Hayden chuckles. “I’m glad everything’s okay. Your approach was just intense.”

Shane twisted his hands tighter, unsure what to say.

Hayden reached over and flicked his finger. “Fucking relax, dude.”

“I am relaxed,” Shane snapped. 

“Alright, buddy.” Hayden snorted, leaning forward, but he was unable to hide his grin. “I can’t believe you’re coming to me for sex advice when you’re the one that’s had Rozanov on a leash for, like, ten years. I’m honored.”

Because you and Jackie have been married forever and managed to pump out four kids, so obviously you’re doing something right.

That feels a bit disrespectful to Jackie, though, so Shane just listed everything out again.

“He’s always just so…” Shane rubbed a hand over face, trying to figure out how to say it without being gross. “Gentle. With me. He’s, like, terrified of hurting me.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Hayden asked. “Honestly, with Rozanov, I would have been worried about it going the other way. Like, being too rough, or something.”

“No,” Shane shook his head quickly. “Never. He’s different, when he’s not on the ice. That’s kind of the problem.”

”Okay,” Hayden said slowly. “So…” 

Then he got a look on his face like he was just told he was going to war, and was trying to be brave about it. “Do you want him to be rougher, or something?”

Shane thought briefly of Ilya’s strong hands- grabbing his face, forcing his chin up, shoving him against the wall, picking him up and tossing him onto the bed, Shane begging for him to go harder, move faster-

Shane wouldn’t call that rough, though. It’s not like any of that left long-lasting marks. He’d never even really given it much thought before.

“No, no,” he said, but he wasn’t sure if it was a lie or not. “I just mean that he probably wants more, right? Like- what if he’s bored and he just doesn't want to hurt my feelings? I don’t want him to be missing out on something.”

”What do you think he’s missing out on?”

“I don’t know!” Shane said indignantly, his cheeks growing steadily warmer. “He won’t tell me!”

“Well, have you asked him? Did he say something to freak you out?”

Well, he almost jumped off a bridge.

Shane couldn’t say that, though, so he just rubbed a thumb over a faint mark on the wood in front of him. “I just want to make sure he’s not bored. I gotta figure out how to make it exciting again.” 

He could feel Hayden staring at him. 

“What?” Shane asked wearily. 

“Nothing,” Hayden said softly, in that voice that means he’s about to directly contradict what he just said. “I’m just worried about you, buddy.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, that's why you’re spiraling.”

“I’m not spiraling.”

Hayden sighed. “Shane. Is this about… a couple days ago?”

Shane didn’t want to talk about a couple days ago. Shane was actively trying to make sure what happened a couple days ago never happened again.

“Can you just help me out?” He whispered, pressure building behind his eyes. 

It came out all small and desperate.

Hayden sighed again. Splayed his hands across the table. “Alright, man. Just as long as you’re not freaking out over this to, like, punish yourself for what… happened. Okay?”

“Okay.” Shane said quickly.

And it wasn’t an entirely helpful conversation, Shane thought as he waved Hayden goodbye, but it was more than he had before. 

Make it fun, laugh with each other, don’t get too into your head about it. Ease into it, you’ll be able to tell if it’s not going well. If it doesn't, move on, and if it does, great. And talk to each other, for god’s sake.

Easy enough. Shane typed it all out on his notepad. 

Ilya called on the morning of Christmas Eve. 

He sounded tired. Sluggish. Shane assured him that tomorrow was going to be casual and quiet- Yuna and David were coming over, and that there was no pressure for anything. Ilya just grunted. Shane couldn’t tell if it was because he’s pissed, or if the antidepressants they’d got him on were fucking with his head. 

He made a mental note to get the exact name of the medication from the doctor tomorrow, so he could research side effects. 

“Tomorrow,” he said, hoping Ilya would hear the earnestness through the phone, and the mess in his head. “I’m gonna be there tomorrow to pick you up as soon as it opens, alright? 7am, I’ll be there to bring you home.”

“Okay,” Ilya whispered, and it sounded as small and sad as Shane felt.

He hung up before Shane could say anything else.

That evening, David and Yuna insisted on making the hour-long drive to Shane’s house. 

“We’ll just stay in the guest room tonight,” Yuna said dismissively, sweeping through the doorway to pull him into a very tight hug. “That way we won’t be rushing out the door to pick him up tomorrow morning. It’s Christmas Eve, sweetheart, you’re not spending it alone.”

“We don’t even celebrate,” Shane grumbled, itching to slink back to the couch. 

He let her hold him anyway, because Ilya’s absence was probably starting to scream at her too.

His parents were impressively quiet, at least, while Shane clicked away on his laptop. His mom didn’t mention the string of his hoodie being chewed to shit, and his dad only offered to grab him a drink twice before Shane shot him a glare.

It wasn’t until the first movie on their rotation ended that Yuna cleared her throat. “Are you writing a novel over there?”

Shane, who was trying to ignore the way his dad kept clicking the little remote to change the colors of the lights on the tree, gave her a look. “I’m studying.”

“I can see that,” she said. “Just wondering why you’re trying to upstage Shakespeare."

She was trying to be funny. She wasn’t good at it. 

“Just finishing up the plan,” Shane muttered, staring at the blinking cursor in front of him like a bomb counting down towards detonation.

“The plan?” David echoed, finally stopping with the tree. It was an ugly green-ish yellow now. 

“Yes,” Shane said hotly. “For Ilya’s recovery?”

“Oh,” Yuna said, sitting up. “Did the doctor reach out? I thought they were going to have the medication and papers tomorrow. Ilya hasn’t picked a therapist yet-”

Shane felt a quick jab of irritation. He didn’t want to explain this to them. It was none of their business. They would get their information tomorrow, and could do with it what they wanted, but Shane was going to be prepared. He didn’t show up to the start of a new season with no idea how to lead his team. 

But Yuna seemed so earnest, and Shane couldn’t help but think of the hurt look on her face when he yelled at her a couple days ago. 

“I just want to be ready,” he said after a moment, trying to soften his voice. 

“You don’t have to be,” David offered. “It’s gonna be a learning curve. But it’s going to be okay.”

Trying to give him wiggle room. Soften the blow for potential failure. 

He had already failed at this once, though, and he’d seen what happened. That wasn’t an option here. One trip didn’t mean the game was over.

Shane Hollander was the best at what he did, every fucking time, and this was going to be no different.

He was fully prepared to get Ilya back on his feet.

At 7am sharp, Shane stands at the front entrance of the hospital, brows furrowed against the wind. The door unlocks a small click, and Shane immediately pushes it open.

His parents pause for a moment to stomp the snow from their shoes. Shane doesn’t wait for them. He powers his way to the front desk, shoes squeaking against the linoleum floor, shattering the silence in the almost empty room. The woman at the front desk glances up at him with a tentative look.

“We’re here to pick up Ilya Rozanov,” Shane says. It came out louder than he expected.

“Alright,” the woman says. Her face is puffy, like she just barely woke up.

A couple minutes later, Ilya emerges from a door to their right.

It feels the sun rising over the lake.

“Ilya,” Shane breathes. He doesn’t wait for a response. He steps forward, once, twice- then yanks Ilya into a hug with much more force than he’d intended. 

“Hi, sweetheart,” Ilya mumbles into his shoulder. His skin is warm, and a little sweaty, Shane can feel it through his shirt.

Shane breathes him in for a moment. He smells like generic shampoo- probably why his curls are so frizzy, fanning against Shane’s cheek. When Shane pulls back, he’s careful not to let his eyes linger on the wrinkled clothes or hunched posture. 

“Good morning,” the doctor says. Shane turns to look at him shaking hands with Yuna, then David. Shane keeps an arm possessively around Ilya’s back, holding him close, as the doctor shakes his too. 

“Good morning,” Yuna returns politely, but her entire demeanor screams business. “We’ve already signed him out, is there anything else we need to do before we can bring him home?”

Ilya stares at the floor. His facial hair has grown in over the last three days, short blonde strands catching the cool overhead lighting. Shane can feel the discomfort radiating off of him. 

“He’s free to go,” the doctor says with a smile. He hands Yuna a small paper bag with the top folded over and stapled shut. “This is the medication we have him on right now. Instructions are on the label. There’s resources here in this folder, answers to some common questions. His two week follow-up will be in the building next door- more information on that will be in the email we sent. If there’s an emergency before then, please immediately call 9-1-1 or come back to the ER, alright?”

“That’s it?” David asks.

The doctor nods warmly. “Do you have any questions?”

None of them do. 

It’s strangely anti-climactic, Shane thinks as he leads them back to the car. He keeps Ilya’s hand tight in his, only letting go to buckle his seatbelt. It almost feels like his parents picking him up from hockey camp as a kid. 

“Are you hungry, Ilya?” Yuna asks from the front seat, looking at them through the rear-view mirror. “We can stop and get something to eat.”

Fuck, that’s already the first mistake. They haven’t even pulled out of the parking lot yet. 

“Nothing’s going to be open on Christmas,” Shane says swiftly. “We’ve got a freshly stocked fridge at home. I thought Dad could make pasta.”

Next to him, Ilya sits up a bit. He squeezes Shane’s hand so slightly, it may have been a twitch. Shane lets out a deep breath through his nose.

A rocky start, but he’s going to make sure the rest of the plan goes smoothly.  

Ilya frowns when they approach the driveway. “Why is my car parked outside?”

“I put the cover over it,” Shane says immediately. The window is foggy, a few beads of condensation dripping away. “I pulled it out to do something in the garage, but I busted the sensor on the door, and it won’t open back up.”

Smooth, practiced, with just the right amount of self-deprication that Ilya shouldn’t push it.  

David perks up, though. “Oh? Let me take a look at it, see what-”

“No, Dad,” Shane cuts him off, his heart pounding. “I’ll get it later, let’s just get ready for dinner.”

Shane opens the car door, not waiting for response, and rounds to the other side to take Ilya’s hand again. He leads him up front steps, pulls him inside, and carefully sets their shoes next to each other on the mat.

“You want to take a minute?” Shane asks quietly. Subtly enough that David and Yuna, kicking off their own shoes a few feet away, won’t hear. 

Ilya nods, the tension easing from his shoulders just the slightest bit.

“We’re gonna take a nap,” Shane announces firmly, leaving no room for discussion. He’s already pulling Ilya towards the stairs. “Regroup for lunch at noon?”

Yuna waives her hand. “You boys go rest. David has a lot of cooking to do, and I’ve got emails to catch up on.”

“Let us know if you get hungry before that!” David calls after them, voice echoing loudly against the walls. “We can whip something up!”

“Thank you!” Shane calls back, taking the stairs two at a time. 

He locks the bedroom door tightly behind them.

Ilya chuckles when Shane finally releases his hand, already moving to turn on the overhead fan. “You are wound up.” 

With his beard, the low tremor of his voice, and gray shirt stretched impressively over his chest, he looks more stereotypically Russian than Shane’s ever seen him. 

It’s unfairly hot. 

Shane looks away, swallowing. “Just missed you,” he says honestly.

Ilya smiles softly. “I missed you too.”

Something’s missing, he realizes as Ilya slowly moves towards the closet. It takes him a moment to place it. 

“Wait,” he says abruptly. Ilya stops and turns. Shane unfastens the chain around his neck and holds it out delicately, the gold of the cross glinting with the weak ray of sunlight slipping through the blinds. 

A heavy array of emotions flicker across Ilya’s face. He takes it from Shane’s hand and, reverently, fastens it around his own neck. 

“Thank you,” he says after a moment, his voice gruff. He visibly swallows before trailing back into the closet, moving like his entire body hurts. “So, how bored were you without me?”

“I wasn’t bored,” Shane says immediately, giving Ilya no room to feel guilty.

“Mm,” Ilya huffs from the closet. “Then what, you have conversation with yourself in the mirror? Give hockey stats to my mother? She’s not very talkative these days.”

Shane can see his smirk from across the room.

“Get in bed and cuddle with me, asshole,” he says, unable to bat his own smile away. Initiate physical contact. 

Ilya emerges, shirtless, with a cocky grin that makes Shane’s heart skip a beat. His eyes trail down, against his will, to the treasure trail leading into Ilya’s low-slung grey sweatpants. 

God, he missed him so much.

“Dorogoy,” Ilya says, and the amusement in his voice makes Shane's eyes snap back up to meet him. “It is not even 7:30 in the morning. I slept like shit last night. I try to fuck you right now, I would probably fall over.”

Shane opens his mouth indignantly. “I didn’t-”

Ilya lets out a laugh- a real, chest rumbling laugh- and takes Shane’s hand. He pulls it up to his lips, pressing a kiss to his palm, then another to his nose. “You would fall over too, I think,” he says. “You have those circles under your eyes. You haven’t been sleeping.”

“I have,” Shane insists, desperately trying to get control of the conversation again. “I bought new sheets, too, the grey ones you liked online. You were right, they’re soft.” 

Ilya hums. Tugs at his shirt. Shane lifts his arms, letting Ilya pull it over his head. “And new tupperware, with the extra compartments, so you can take more snacks with you to practice.” 

Ilya folds the shirt in a few swift movements, tosses it onto the armchair, and reaches down towards his jeans. Shane tilts his hips forwards so he can unbutton them. “I wrote down some easy recipes and stuck them to the side of the fridge.” 

Ilya, on his knees now, taps Shane’s thigh. Shane pulls the designated leg out of his jeans, taking Ilya’s already outstretched hand for balance. “Actually, I’m just going to start packing them for you, so you don’t forget in the morning.” The other leg follows. “You can’t just live off of Doritos.”

“Of course not,” Ilya says, standing again, with that voice he gets right before he usually coos in Shane’s face and peppers him with kisses. 

Shane looks at him sternly. “Bed.”

Ilya fucking salutes him. 

Shane rolls his eyes. He mirrors Ilya’s movements as they pull the covers off their respective sides, quickly finding each other in the middle. He sits back and pulls Ilya to lay on top of him. Ilya squirms for a moment before settling, heavily, with his head on Shane’s chest. His arms come up to bracket Shane’s ribs, his injured one sealed away in rubbery Ace wrap. 

His skin is still warm- warmer than it should be. He’s shivering, though, so Shane pulls the covers up to his shoulders anyways. Ilya makes a satisfied noise, and Shane starts slowly combing his fingers through his hair. 

It only takes a few minutes for the warm puffs of air against Shane’s chest to slow. He closes his eyes, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion.

He shoves it away quickly. His job isn't done here- not even close. Slowly, not to disturb Ilya, he reaches over to the nightstand for his phone.

S: What’s the name of Ilya’s meds?

Yuna texts back almost immediately with a picture of the prescription. 

Shane quickly takes to googling. 

The overheating is a common symptom of most antidepressants, as it turns out. Shane’s brows furrow as he gently runs a hand down Ilya’s sweaty back. He reaches down and tosses the duvet back so it gathers around Ilya’s hips instead, giving his skin room to breathe. He adds it to the note he already has open, awkwardly typing with one hand, not willing to stop cradling Ilya’s head just yet.

Suppressed appetite is a side effect as well, but Shane already figured that one. He should probably let his parents know, so they don’t push at lunch and make Iya feel embarrassed.

Muscle aches, too. It explains why Ilya has been moving around carefully all morning, like every step pains him. It can be eased with tylenol, but Shane already packed that away in a box. 

S: Can you run out and get tylenol, please?

Mom: On it.

Shane nods to himself. He’d keep it on him, definitely, since it’s a potential hazard. He’ll set timers for when to give him the next dose, because Ilya will undoubtedly be too stubborn to ask for them- but it will be manageable. It doesn’t stray too far from the plan.

All in all, the side effects typically fade away after a couple of weeks- and in the meantime, it seems like they can be treated the same way he would treat a fever. 

Shane, absurdly, feels a prickling in his eyes at that. 

Ilya hates being sick. It doesn’t happen often- but when it does, he spends most of his time roaming the house with a blanket around his shoulders, moaning loudly until Shane stops what he’s doing and holds him. 

There'd been times Shane had gotten annoyed with him, for that. For inconveniencing him, making him pause whatever work he was in the middle of, like that fucking mattered.

Shane was a fucking idiot.

Ilya is undoubtedly miserable now, but he’s kept it to himself all morning. He isn’t going to say anything about it- he never does, when it’s actually serious. 

Make yourself a safe space.

Shane is going to baby the shit out of him. 

“I got you,” he whispers, kissing the top of Ilya’s head. He gets a snuffle in response.

Shane scrolls for a bit longer, until a timer goes off faintly downstairs. He blinks, his eyes suddenly dry and irritated, and winces at the crick in his neck. 

He turns to look at the clock. It’s nearly noon already. 

“Jesus,” he whispers. He sets his phone down, suddenly aware of the heat radiating from it, and scrubs a hand over his face. 

There’s a gentle tapping at the bedroom door- just barely loud enough for Shane to hear. His phone lights up on the bed.

Mom: Painkillers are outside the door. I left a few crackers and some water, too. Don’t let him take them on an empty stomach.

Shane looks down at the tiny crease between Ilya’s brows. He definitely needs more rest, but he’d sleep more soundly when he isn’t in pain. “Ilya,” he whispers. He rubs a finger over his flushed cheek. “Ilya, wake up.”

It comes out more urgently than he’d intended. Ilya jolts, sucking in a breath, and his head flies up off Shane’s chest. 

Shane shushes him, trying to slow him down. He can feel Ilya’s heart racing against his hand as his eyes fly, unfocused, around the room. “Sorry,” Shane murmurs, feeling like the biggest dick in the world. “You can go back to sleep in a minute. I just want you to take some tylenol.”

Ilya stares at him for a moment. He props himself up on one elbow, eyes glossy and swollen with sleep. “Okay,” he mumbles, trusting Shane even when he’s only half awake.

Shane allows him to eat the crackers on the bed. Ilya swallows them down in one bite each, almost unhingeing his entire jaw, like he’s trying to prove a point. Shane narrows his eyes, but draws the line when Ilya tries to pop the pills into his mouth dry.

“Okay, no,” he says. “Water first.”

Ilya indulges him, but smacks his lips together obnoxiously afterwards in retaliation. “Okay. I want to shower now.” He climbs, stiffly, out of bed, scratching at his stomach. 

“Okay,” Shane agrees, eyeing the dark outline where Ilya sweat his way into the mattress. 

He pulls the sheets off the bed, careful not to let crumbs fall into the floor, while Ilya rinses. The room starts to smell like something savory, wafting up from the kitchen below.

“What is David making?” Ilya calls through the open bathroom door as he shuts the water off.

“No idea,” Shane says, pulling his jeans back on. “Said he’s trying something new. That’s always a gamble, but pasta’s always a given with him, so don’t worry too much.”

Ilya hums. Shane hears his wet feet splat heavily across the tile floor. “Will be tasty, I’m sure.”

The familiar creak of the medicine cabinet makes Shane’s stomach drop. Ilya audibly pauses for a moment, before letting it shut with a muted thunk. 

“Where is my razor?” He asks, voice devoid of all emotion. 

Fuck.

“It’s…” Shane swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. He can feel Ilya’s eyes on his back. “I put it away.”

“Put it away.”

“Yeah.”

“Put it away where?” Louder. Testily. “It is a razor, to shave your face. It belongs in front of a mirror. Where else would it be?”

Shane’s eyes fall shut. “Ilya.”

“That is my name,” Ilya says, voice drenched in saccharine. “But where is my razor?”

He’s looking for an argument. Shane really, really doesn't want to give it to him, especially not with his parents waiting for them downstairs. He breathes deeply through his nose, keeping his voice low, but firm. “If you want to shave, I can go get it, and we can shave together.”

“What do you have to shave?” Ilya says. Shane rolls his eyes so hard, he swears he can feel them hit the back of his skull. “You are smooth, like a baby. You cannot grow  beard if you try.”

“Stop being an asshole,” Shane snaps. He turns around, hands clenched at his sides. “I’m not keeping a cabinet full of sharp objects when you still have stitches in from the last one you got your hands on.”

It’s mean, and it’s exactly what he’s not supposed to be doing, but he can’t find it in himself to backtrack.

Ilya glares at him through the foggy reflection in the mirror, jaw clenched. He’s waiting for Shane to cave. 

Shane’s not going to. 

“I’ll go get your razor,” he says, making a show of swinging the door open to venture into the hallway, his head held high. 

David and Yuna halt their conversation when they see him on the stairs. It’s annoying, and Shane knows it means they were just talking about him, but he’s trying to focus on one battle at a time. He ignores them, passing through the kitchen to the garage. When he stomps back inside a moment later, razors in hand, they’re both carefully looking elsewhere.

“Lunch is ready,” David says, staring at his already cooked pasta like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. His voice is a bit too high and cheery for anyone to buy it’s real. 

“Two minutes,” Shane responds curtly. 

He traipses back upstairs, opens the bedroom door carefully, and steps inside, twisting the handle behind him so it doesn’t slam shut. 

Ilya is still standing in front of the mirror, hands braced on either side of the sink. He’s tapping a single finger against the ceramic, pointedly looking away from Shane. The look on his face- a faux “I don’t give a fuck” with raised eyebrows and slightly pointed lips- is glaringly similar to the one he gets when Shane mentions Rose Landry. 

 Shane sighs, feeling the anger drain out of him.

“I’m not fighting with you over this,” he says, breaking the silence. Ilya refuses to look at him. “I’m keeping you safe.”

“I’m not a child.”

“I didn’t say that,” Shane says quietly. He walks into the bathroom and stands behind Ilya, arms hanging at his side. 

He waits until Ilya gives in, catching his eye through their reflections. It’s short-lived, and he quickly goes back to staring at himself. Shane steps forward, placing both his hands on Ilya’s hips. He slowly turns him around until they’re facing each other, relieved when Ilya doesn’t fight him on it.

He does stare above Shane’s head, though, because he’s nothing if not stubborn.

Shane loves him so fucking much.

He’s so fucking scared, his chest hurts. 

“You hurt yourself,” Shane says quietly. Ilya tenses, his expression hardening. “And I almost lost you.”

“You didn’t,” Ilya says shortly.

It’s rare that Shane is on the receiving end of avoided eye contact, and he can’t help but wonder if Ilya gets the same sinking feeling he’s getting right now when their places are reversed.  

“Please look at me,” Shane whispers. His voice is dangerously close to cracking.

He sees the moment the resolve crumbles. Ilya purses his lips, his eyes becoming rapidly glossy, and he quickly turns his head away. It’s just a moment too slow for Shane to miss the tear that slips down his cheek, but it’s a valiant effort. 

“Hey,” Shane says softly. He takes Ilya’s face in his hands, gently tilting his head to face him again.

“Sorry,” Ilya mutters, scowling at the floor when another tear escapes. 

Shane shakes his head, pressing a kiss to his lips. Ilya tastes like salt and the aggressively mint toothpaste he never properly rinses out. Shane, not wanting to smother him, starts to pull away. 

Ilya’s hand reaches up towards his shoulder. It’s almost tentative, like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to.

Shane surges forward, raising his own arms up to encircle Ilya entirely. He lets himself be guided even further into Ilya’s chest, and he’s never been more grateful that they're the same height.

Ilya rests his head into the crook of Shane’s neck with a shaky breath. His short beard is coarse and prickly, a stark contrast to what Shane’s used to feeling.

His crucifix, small and sharp, digs into Shane’s chest at this angle. The reminder is a particularly hard pill to swallow.

Ilya found her, Shane thinks, his lip quivering, when he was fucking twelve.

That little boy had picked up his mother’s cross and donned it on his own chest like an omen he was doomed to follow. He’d had it ingrained in him that he was pre-destined to suffer- to bleed, to break, and to die- the same way she had. 

And he almost did. 

Shane wondered how Ilya had done it, all those years. How he’d hung on, in a family riddled with the same grief as him, but never sharing it. Being sent away to a foreign country as a teenager, speaking a foreign language, closeted and all alone. 

Shane wouldn’t survive it. He knew that like he knew the sky was blue. He wasn’t as strong as Ilya was- not in the slightest. If Ilya had died, at his own doing… that’s a burden Shane would not be able to bear.

He would help Ilya carry his, though, if it drove him into the ground. 

“I got you,” Shane whispers, standing firm as Ilya slowly sinks into him, letting him take some of his weight. “I got you.”

It’s an Absolute Truth. 

Chapter 2: i want one ticket out of your heavy gaze

Chapter Notes

(if you saw this posted earlier, no you didn't. i fucked up the format and couldn't figure out how to post it properly and had a meltdown about it. being a full time nursing student and working full time is rotting my brain.)

Ilya’s embarrassed. 

It doesn’t help that he’s been told repeatedly, and unprompted, that he shouldn’t be. 

“What you’re doing is brave.” From the first of many doctors at the psych ward, who apparently don’t wear long white coats like they do in movies. “A lot of guys are too prideful to get help- especially athletes. Good on you.”

 “Accepting help is the first step of healing.” The therapist with the grey cardigan and the glasses, who couldn’t have been older than he was. “There’s no shame in needing a hand.”

“No reason to be embarrassed about changing your mind.” The kind nurse who led him to the phone on Christmas Eve, after Ilya finally caved and broke his pact with himself to not bother the Hollanders. “That’s a sign of growth.”

Shane’s parents are less verbal about it, but their approaches are so very Shane-like that the feeling blooming in Ilya’s chest compounds ten-fold.

All three of the Hollanders, as it turns out, tend to channel their worry into productivity. 

David, always quiet and stoic, took one look in their empty kitchen on the morning after Christmas and disappeared for over an hour. By the end of the day, Ilya and Shane’s refrigerator was packed with tupperware and ziploc bags of baked goods that were decidedly not made with ingredients they had in their pantry. The way the plastic shopping bags sit crumbled up at the bottom of the garbage can- hidden beneath a single paper towel that was laid out far too flat to not be intentional- tells Ilya that David thinks he’s being sneaky. 

On a normal week, Shane and Ilya together couldn’t keep up with the amount of food he’s making. He also doesn’t seem to notice that Shane’s on a strict diet, and Ilya’s appetite has been completely halted by his new medication, and just keeps adding to his steadily-growing piles. 

Ilya, feeling like shit as he watches David’s hard work going to waste, tries anyway. He ends up at the island one day as his boyfriend and his parents bustle about in their morning routines, staring at a large slice of quiche on his plate as if it will somehow end up in his stomach without going through his mouth. 

“Please, don’t force yourself,” David says earnestly. The cowlick on the back of his hair stands straight, like he’s been electrocuted. “You just focus on adjusting to that medication.”

Behind him, Shane’s head snaps up. His nose is wrinkled in disdain at the whirring of the blender, as if his own finger isn’t holding down the On button. “Dad.”

Shane, Ilya has found, gets weird when people mention anything about The Incident- especially head on. Ilya can’t help the warm feeling that spreads in his chest the more he realizes that the privacy Shane is so adamant about now extends to him, even though it’s a reminder of how big a disaster this could have been. 

“Right, sorry,” David says. “Don’t worry about it, Ilya, really.”

Ilya, of course, tries to finish the quiche anyway, but only manages to get about half of it down. He takes a page out of David’s book when he grabs a paper towel and covers the rest that he’s put in the trash, hiding his waste like a child.

Yuna, on the other hand, spends so much time on the phone and checking emails that Ilya is starting to suspect she is running a secret criminal empire. 

He would prefer it, actually. He only hears his own name once, but the words “mental health” and "institution" and “privacy” are said every couple of hours, so there’s no use pretending he doesn’t know who she’s talking about. It’s because of her, he knows, that his coaches and team doctor aren’t blowing up his phone demanding medical records and an explanation.

It will be good for the Hollanders too, that this won’t affect his career. Anything he does now will forever be tied to them. 

It makes him feel nauseous. 

Three days after Christmas, Shane drags him into the kitchen for a cup of water following a particularly sweaty nap, where Yuna is perched on a bar stool and rubbing the pinched skin between her brows. Ilya approaches her with a glass that he holds out like an offering. the sweet, tired smile that blooms on her face makes his stomach drop.

“Just a bit more to do,” Yuna waves her hand. "I’ll be done in just over an hour, probably, and then David and I will head home.”

They’ve made that drive, there and then back, three times now. Six hours total in the car, to support him and Shane, because Ilya fucked up in a way he can’t ever take back.

“No, please,” Ilya says quickly. “It is late, the roads will have ice. Shane has the guest room ready. You can sleep here.”

Yuna looks hesitant until Shane, in a soft voice that could probably convince the prime minister to resign, says, “Really, Mom, stay. Dad’s already camped out on the couch anyway.” 

“Alright,” she relents, nodding to herself. “You’re right, the roads wouldn’t be very safe this late.”

Ilya feels a sweep of relief. He moves towards the fridge, looking between the tupperware for something he can recognize as familiar. “Can I make you something to eat? We did not have dinner, I’m sorry. Bad host.”

“No, thank you, sweetheart. I’ve been taste testing David’s cooking all day, I’ve got no room left in me. But you and Shane haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

Ilya did. Not much- he’s mostly just been nibbling at the salty crackers Shane kept supplying for each dose of Tylenol. But Shane hasn’t eaten much of anything since his protein shake this morning-

“We’re good,” Shane says. He reaches for Ilya’s hand. “It’s late, so we’ll just head to bed.”

Ilya frowns, turning to look at him, but Shane has that tight, determined look on his face that tells Ilya that this isn’t something to poke at in front of his mother. 

He reluctantly follows Shane to bed, although he doesn't sleep. He won’t- not until he hears the tell-tale scraping of the barstool a few hours later, and the faint murmuring as she wakes David from the couch, and the quiet closing of the guest room door down the hall. 

The tension finally eases from his shoulders. Shane notices, and runs a hand smoothly down Ilya’s forearm where it’s slung over his waist.

“You’re awake again?” he asks, his voice raspy with sleep.

“So are you,” Ilya says. He knows what Shane means, though.

He doesn’t even need to get up at night to piss anymore, on these new pills. Shane has to shake him firmly to wake him each morning because his body has lost any kind of internal clock. He naps, too. Every few hours, like clock work, soundly snoring away like a lazy fuck while the rest of the house works tirelessly.

Lethargy, Shane had supplied, when Ilya first complained about it. Your body is just adjusting. It’s normal. 

Shane rubs Ilya’s arm again, slower this time. “You okay?”

Ilya nods into his hair. They don’t talk for a moment, until-

“I am sorry,” he says. “Your parents are having to come here.”

“They didn’t have to,” Shane insists. “They want to. They’re worried. They just need to hover for a few days to get it out of their system and they’ll feel better, trust me.”

Ilya smiles, small and fond. Shane doesn’t see it; the palpable trace-ability of his most endearing traits. 

How Shane’s so obviously and undeniably from them. Equal parts David and Yuna, woven together by love and labor. How everyone who gets to know him over the course of his life will, by extension, get to know them too. How he will carry them down his family line, passed through generations- genetic or not- because it is impossible to not be shaped by that kind of goodness. 

It fills Ilya with a kind of longing that feels like a void. 

“I know,” he says, unable to keep the feeling out of his voice. “But Yuna will not go to bed until midnight, and your father is baking enough muffins to feed half a locker room. Not cutting the recipe in half, this must be genetic too, then?”

Shane sighs. “I really don’t know what we’re going to do with all of those.”

“This is okay. We will just give them to Jackie’s small army of beautiful spawn.” 

Shane huffs, but Ilya can practically feel him smiling. “I don’t know if Amber’s gonna be much help.”

“Pike can have whatever she doesn’t finish, as a treat.”

“Generous.”

“I am always generous,” Ilya agrees. 

He presses a kiss to Shane’s hair, tightening the hold on his waist. He splays his hand out over the smooth ridges of Shane’s stomach and plants another kiss behind his ear, a little more open-mouthed. Adds his tongue to the next, because he can't help himself, and grins at the little noise Shane makes that sounds dangerously close to a whimper. 

Shane gives a small shift his hips. Ilya moves to follow him, mouth already working against Shane’s neck. He’s about to slide his hand further south when he suddenly feels a wave of mortification.

He’s not hard.

Not a semi. Not even a fucking twitch. Ilya’s in bed with Shane Hollander, pressed up against the curve of his ass in the bed they share, after three full days without physical touch and six without sex, and he’s completely flaccid. 

“You okay?” Shane asks. Ilya realizes he’s frozen completely, hand hovering mid-air like an idiot.

Ilya swallows, letting his hand flop down onto the sheets. “Yes. Sorry, I just…”

He doesn't know what he’s supposed to say. Sorry, my beautiful boyfriend whom I normally can’t control myself around, I suddenly can’t get it up for you? Sorry, sweetheart, I just started something I can’t finish? Sorry, I can’t give you what you need anymore?

“You need sleep,” Ilya says instead. He presses another kiss, like an apology, to the crown of Shane’s head, and slides his hand back up Shane’s torso to feel him shiver. 

Then, more hesitantly, “And a snack too, maybe? You didn’t eat dinner, but your mom is in bed now. Kitchen will be empty.”

“Hm?” Shane burrows his head further into the pillow. “Yeah I did. My dad had me try this pastry he made, while you were napping on the couch. It had cherries in it.”

Ilya frowns. He’d seen Shane take a bite of something, but that was hours ago, and he didn't think that constituted as dinner.

“That filling was super rich,” Shane goes on, his voice getting more mumbly now. He must be pretty close to falling asleep again. “We saved one for you, too. It’s in the fridge when you’re ready for it.”

“Okay,” Ilya says. Because a pastry was better than nothing, and there was no way Shane was going to mess up his sleep schedule any further by getting out of bed to eat something right now.

They both stare quietly into the dark for a few minutes Shane’s not quite asleep yet, but he’s getting closer. Ilya rubs his back with his un-bandaged arm, slowly, trying to lull him the rest of the way. 

He’s grateful he can do this, at least. Help ease the tension racking his boyfriend’s body, knowing he put it there. Even if it feels like a privilege he doesn’t deserve. 

“Don’t feel like you have to eat it,” Shane says suddenly.

Ilya furrows his brows, still trailing the back of his hand up and down Shane’s skin. “Hm?”

“The pastry,” Shane clarifies. “Your stomach is probably gonna be upset for a couple weeks while it adjusts to those meds. You don’t need to be embarrassed, trust me, my Dad’s not gonna push it.”

He says it like it’s reassurance. Like it’s something he knows, and something he’s ready to combat.

Ilya feels a flicker of irritation, but swallows it down. He knows if he tried to explain, Shane wouldn’t believe him. He’d see it as denial and double down, whittle away until Ilya finally said whatever it is he wanted to hear. 

And that, right there, is the issue. 

Everybody thinks he’s embarrassed that he’s on medication, or that he was on a 72 hour hold. They think he’s ashamed of a suicide attempt, maybe squeamish about talking about mental health. 

They’re wrong. 

It’s embarrassing because they’ve all just assumed that.

Because Ilya is not suicidal.

Really, he’s not. He doesn’t feel like he did on that bridge every day. And he didn’t fucking jump. If he’d really wanted to, he would have.

He knows what suicide looks like. Intimately. It’s burned into his eyes, haunts his dreams, sneaks up on him even in the daylight. The newly fixed bathroom door is proof of that. He gets sad, sometimes, yes. The medication will fix that though- the small, everyday sadness. That’s what his doctor keeps saying, and that’s what he’s told Shane over and over again. 

Still, the few people left in his life have suddenly started treating him like a bomb. They act like he’s hiding something- like he’s planning to jump out of the nearest top story window if they don’t watch him. 

Ilya’s not used to being fussed over. Especially by an entire house of people, let alone a team of professionals whose entire job was to study him and his brain. He’s never been pitied before. No one in his life has ever done that; no one has ever dared.

Shane has always treated him with kindness, yes. He is soft, gentle with Ilya, in a way so refreshing that Ilya tried to pull away from it at first. And it didn’t change when Ilya finally told him about Mama, and his father, or his brother, or Russia. 

Instead, he’d spent the night planning the next ten years of their life. Ilya had followed his boyfriend’s plan in a heartbeat, riding the high of a future together, until it dawned on him that Shane probably didn’t know what he was getting into. 

He would be stuck with Ilya forever- with no escape. He could go to his parents, but Ilya had them too. They share friends, a yard, a car, a bed. 

Watching him choose that… it felt like that couldn’t be anything other than pity. 

This, Ilya knew, had been the catalyst that night. He’d tried to free Shane of that kind of commitment, after an argument not any worse than any of the other ones they’d had before. A spiral that now, he sees, was stupid and heavily influenced by the influence of alcohol, and also a serious discredit to his boyfriend.

“I love you,” Shane had said in the hospital, hands carefully cradling Ilya’s face. “Not because you forced me, or because you… tricked me, or something. I love you all on my own. You have to trust me on that, okay?”

Shane is smart. Astoundingly so. He is a professional athlete at the very top of his sport, and for good fucking reason. He is calculated, quick-thinking, knows exactly how to please the press and how to coach his teammates. He is thorough- he digs through every detail and asks all the right questions until he is one-hundred percent certain of the answer.

He is more than Ilya could ever dream to be. To insinuate that he could be tricked into something was insulting. Shane is giving Ilya his trust, not sacrificing his intelligence.

Ilya doesn’t know what he did to deserve it. But- he thinks, staring into the dark- at least he knows Shane is safe with him. Not because Shane is quite literally the only source of joy in his life, but because he will always put Shane’s comfort before his own happiness. He can't promise someone else would do the same. He’d realized, in treatment, that the thought of Shane spending the rest of his life without someone who understood him completely was cruel.

Ilya doesn’t need to remove himself from Shane’s life- he needs to remove the worry he causes. 

He needs to show that he can handle stupid little arguments, without Shane having to wonder if he’ll down a bottle of vodka afterwards. That he can let Shane take a bath and relax, behind a closed door, without his childhood grabbing ahold of him. That he can be trusted with sharp objects, and finish a meal, and get up at a reasonable time and stay awake, be a functioning member of society-

Which means he has to prove that this thing that happened is behind them.  

Shane doesn't do well with change. 

He does, however, thrive when he feels like he’s doing something right- when he thinks he’s being good. He blushes when Ilya tells him he looks pretty, beams when Ilya nods enthusiastically at his ideas, gets glossy-eyed 

So Ilya needs to redirect Shane back to himself. Let him know that he’s good, he’s doing it right, that he can enjoy things in life- things like a proper, human-sized meal that isn’t blended or a stomach-rolling shade of brown. 

Ilya presses an almost aggressive kiss to the back of Shane's hair, and doesn't move for the rest of the night. 

Shane does not eat a proper, human-sized meal the next morning. 

Ilya tries. He offers to cook something from Shane’s diet list, pinned to the fridge. Does it anyway, when Shane automatically declines. Acts like he’s made too much, and puts some on a plate for Shane to “decide” later. Carefully turns away, pretending to scroll on his phone, in case Shane is waiting until he doesn't feel like he’s being watched. 

Shane, instead, just settles for another one of his stupid brownish-green protein smoothies and migrates to the living room.

Ilya gives it fifteen minutes, then twenty, and then finally gives in when it becomes thirty. By the time David and Yuna have hugged them goodbye and he and Shane have watched their black Lexus turn off the end of the street, the plate is cold, and Ilya wouldn’t want to eat it either.

It still feels like accepting defeat. 

Ilya can safely say that Shane is maybe the only person in the world that can give him a run for his money. Competition- on the ice, during board games, even in their bed- is part of what makes their dynamic so exciting. 

But it also makes it harder when they don’t agree on something that matters, and Ilya can’t shake the feeling that Shane is being intentionally stubborn.

“There cannot be enough in those smoothies to give you energy all day,” He says, around mid-afternoon. 

Shane looks up from his laptop. He’s on the couch vertical to Ilya, not-so-subtly using the angle to stare at him every few minutes. Any other time, Ilya would have used that to his advantage- but this feels more like he’s being studied under a microscope.

“Of course there is,” Shane says. He glances back down to his computer, brows furrowing as he focuses on whatever he’s doing.

It’s completely dismissive. This stupid, joy-less diet is so ingrained in him that he doesn’t give it a second thought. 

It pisses Ilya off. 

“No,” he insists. “Not possible. You blended out all the flavor. Look at it. I don’t even know what color that is.”

“It doesn’t need flavor.” Shane looks at him again, indignant. “It’s got everything factored in, all the necessary calories and vitamins, protein, good carbs-”

He sounds like he’s reading a script. Ilya groans, and lets his arm fall off the couch dramatically. “‘Good carbs?’ Hollander, I don’t know what any of these words mean. Please, let me feed you real food that human people eat.”

“This is human food, you asshole,” Shane says hotly, but his hands have ceased their incessant typing. It feels like a victory.

“Is gross.”

“It’s necessary!” He has that gorgeous flush sweeping across his cheeks again. Ilya fights back a smirk. “I’m a professional athlete, that diet was made by my dietician! I know what I’m eating! Food isn’t meant to taste good, it’s to fuel your body. We can’t all eat like you.”

He gestures wildly at the Red Bull in Ilya’s hands, and the first empty can sitting on the counter that Ilya had forgotten to throw out. 

“Those are not healthy, Ilya. Your medication-”

“We googled this morning, Shane,” Ilya takes a long, obnoxious swig, reveling in the dark look Shane shoots at him. “It will not hurt me. Pills make me sleepy, this makes me awake. Is simple.”

“It is not simple. You should be drinking these protein shakes with me. You need to be taking in way more nutrients right now, your meds need protein to activate-”

Ilya thinks he feels a twitch in his pants.

“Shane.”

“Don’t ‘Shane’, me,” Shane snaps. “Seriously, if we want to make sure they’re working properly, we have to keep an eye on it. I was reading an article this morning-”

“Shane,” Ilya repeats, openly snickering now. “Come here.”

Shane glares at Ilya’s outstretched hand, but a smile pokes at the corners of his mouth. Finally, without much resistance at all, he rolls his eyes and lets Ilya pull him to his feet and wrap him in a hug.

A tiny wheeze is squished out of him before Ilya pulls away, tilting their foreheads together. “Моя любовь, you are so anxious, you are making me anxious. Как будто это заразно.” As if it is contagious. 

“I-”

“It is killing me,” Ilya whines, grabbing Shane’s upper arms to shake him back and forth. “You need a break.”

“I can't take a break,” Shane says, head bobbing pliantly as Ilya manhandles him. “What would I even be taking a break from? I’m happy to do this, I want to keep you safe. I’m just making sure you’re okay, that’s my job.”

His beautiful, anxious Shane, with the world sitting self-imposed on his own shoulders.

Ilya gets a bizarre urge to bite him. 

“Shane, you have already taken all the sharp things, anything that is dangerous. You even took away the fucking phone charger. I had to unplug yours while you were sleeping.”

“I noticed,” Shane says flatly.

 “Is like when tiny Pike was born,” Ilya goes on. ”When you put those small soft things on the corner of the table-”

Shane looks sullen. “Baby-proofing.”.

“да,” Ilya nods. “Baby-proofing. I do not need that. I am much taller than baby Pike, there is nothing I could hit my head on. And baby Pike is bald, nothing to protect that tiny head. I do not have that problem, sweetheart. If I become bald, then you can be baby-proofing the cabinets, okay?”

Shane stares at Ilya’s lips, following his words. He’s got that soft, petulant pout that says he wants to be angry, but he can’t find it in him.

“Do I look like I would hurt myself right now, even on accident?”

Ilya says that softer. More seriously. Any semblance of amusement bleeds out of Shane’s face and he swallows, tight.  Ilya can’t resist pulling him into another hug, wishing he could wrap him in his own skin and hold him there until the anxiety melted away.

“There is no danger here,” he says, words stilted by the way he’s resting his chin on Shane’s shoulder. “You beat the Babadook. It is gone.”

Shane shudders. “I fucking hated that movie.”

“Yes, it was shit. But you understand.”

“I understand,” Shane says softly. “I'm being… suffocating.”

Suffocating. Ilya feels a swell of satisfaction at how quickly he places the word, from quick glances on almost every American warning label. Cutting off air. Shane’s restricting his own freedom, maybe, in this context. 

“Like plastic bag. Baby-proofing, yes? Babies cannot breathe in plastic. You, definitely not. I can, maybe, I have never tried-”

“Do not try that.” 

“Okay,” Ilya says happily. He darts away to smack a wet kiss on Shane’s upper cheek, right atop his freckles. He revels in the giggle Shane lets out, and does the same to the other one, just for good measure. 

Shane pulls away, looking at Ilya’s lips again with a soft, resigned smile. Ilya’s suddenly so overtaken by fondness, he almost can’t take it.

“Go take a shower,” He orders.

Shane’s expression immediately morphs into apprehension. “Ilya-”

Ilya steps away, wiggling his finger. “Plastic bag, Shane. The baby cannot breathe. You must free him.”

“I feel like this analogy is escaping you a little bit.”

“No, Shane. You need to escape. Go take your too-hot shower. Try not to melt away your skin, I need your freckles.”

And, finally, he’s stunned Shane into silence. He has mastered the English language, clearly. 

Shane turns, shoulders back up to his ears, and slowly traipses back to the bedroom with the air of someone who has been sent to the gallows. Ilya watches him go, watching his ass appreciatively, and feels like he’s on top of the world. 

“I’m leaving the door open, Ilya,” Shane says warningly, pausing at the door. “And when I call out for you, you better respond, or I’m coming out. Suffocating or not, okay?”

Ilya waves his hand. “Yes, sweetheart, I will listen very well. I will try not to go too crazy while you are away. I will only throw one party. Maybe two.”

Shane does not find that funny. 

Ilya ignores him. He flops onto the couch and opens the tiny folder of games on his phone until he hears the shower finally turn on. He waits, expectantly, until he hears Shane call out a moment later.

“Ilya?”

“Here!” Ilya shouts back.

He doesn’t hear Shane’s response, but it must be enough. The sound of the water hitting the bathroom tile softens, hopefully catching Shane’s burdened shoulders on the way down. 

“Расслабься, Милый,” Ilya mutters to himself. Relax, sweetheart. 

It burns a little bit- he can’t lie- that his painfully sexy boyfriend is hot and sweaty and naked without him. But his dick isn't working, and a scalding shower has always been the next best way to get Shane to relax. 

The sacrifices he makes for love would put Lermontov to shame.

It only takes a few minutes for his games to get boring again. He pouts and lets his phone fall onto the carpet before looking around for his next source of entertainment. 

The empty red bull can on the counter catches his attention. Ilya grunts as he gets to his feet, scratching his balls on the way. He takes a stance he’s about to make a free throw and tosses it into the bin from a few feet away, 

“Kobe!” he whisper-yells into the empty room. 

“Ilya!”

“Here!” He shouts. 

He makes his way to the sink, raising an eyebrow when he sees the un-washed blender drill. Christ, he really had broken Shane. 

He rolls up his sleeves and elects to pull on the elbow-length yellow gloves hanging over the edge of the counter. He’d rather not give his boyfriend wet bandages to fuss about atop everything else. 

Ilya pauses, wiggling his fingers under the water, waiting for it to warm. The cup Shane had been drinking his breakfast out of this morning is standing upright in the other half of the sink, without its lid.

There’s a very clear ring of brown residue, and a trail up to the top where the excess must have been dumped. 

It takes moment to register, and then Ilya’s stomach sinks. 

Shane hadn’t finished even half of that smoothie. 

Ilya shuts off the water, tearing his eyes away. A wave of dread washes over him so strong that he grips the edge of the countertop. 

This isn’t the first time this has happened. This isn’t just stress, or loss of appetite. But Ilya doesn’t want to jump to conclusions- he owes it to Shane, not to do that. 

It only takes a moment to know what he has to do, even though it will probably ruin his day. 

“Rozanov?” 

Pike takes a long time to pick up, but when he does, he sounds skeptical. Like Ilya would have called him as some type of elaborate, stupid fucking prank to just waste his time. 

Ilya would never waste time on this moron unless there was a gun to Shane’s head, so he cuts to the chase. “Did you spend time with Shane while I was in the hospital?”

“What?”

“You are deaf now?” 

Pike, too, is now rendered speechless. Ilya is on a roll this afternoon. He waits for his first sentence to make its way into Pike’s slow brain, then- 

“Are you okay?” Quiet. Tentative. Walking on eggshells. 

Ilya feels his face contort into something like disgust. “Am I?…Yes, Pike, I am talking to you right now, what the fuck? I asked you a question- did you spend time with Shane while I was gone?”

There’s rustling on the other end, and Pike’s voice becomes clearer. “Honestly, not really. Not for lack of trying, trust me, but he was kind of busy. He only answered my calls to ask me for a favor, and then he went AWOL again.”

So Shane had secluded himself while Ilya was getting his head screwed back on. Tucked himself away, hiding from the people who could take care of him while his boyfriend couldn’t.

“Why?” Pike asks. “Did something happen? Are- are you okay?”

Ilya pinches the bridge of his nose. “Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” 

“Treating me like a child,” he snaps. “Everyone is doing this- I am a fucking grown man, I am not going to break. Pike- be fucking normal.”

“Jesus, man, you really are a dick.” Pike scoffs in disbelief. “Sue us for being worried about you.”

“Do not worry about me, Pike.” It’s an order, not a dismissal. “So you did see Shane, yes?”

“Once. He called me, I came over.”

“Why?”

“Wouldn't you like to know.”

Ilya won’t take the bait. “Did he eat?”

“I wasn’t there for very long.”

“So he didn’t?”

“He doesn’t eat when he’s stressed, Rozanov. I thought you would have caught that by now.”

Considering Ilya is probably the main source of Shane’s stress, yes, he’d caught that. “Yes,” he says flatly. “I know this. This is the problem.”

Pike goes quiet. There’s more rustling, and then a small voice that he can’t distinguish between Jade or Ruby, and a ‘go ask your mom’, followed by a door closing. “What’s going on, Rozanov?” 

“I don’t-” Ilya squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t think he’s eating.”

“As in, not at all? He’s weird about food, but he’ll eat it if there’s something in line with his diet.”

“So he eats at practice, then?” Ilya presses. 

“He’s not an idiot. That diet is fucking insane, but I mean… I checked it. It does have the right calorie count. He knows he has to eat if he’s playing, he has his protein bars and stuff.”

But Shane isn’t playing right now. They’re not in season, which means he’s not going to practice, which means he’s probably trimming down on the amount he’s eating. Ilya doesn’t remember seeing him buy protein bars in a while, which means he’s not snacking.

He’s not even finishing the small amount of food he does allow himself. 

“The calorie count does not matter if he’s not even finishing it all,” Ilya says. “It’s gotten worse, I think, since-”

“Ilya!” 

“Here!” Ilya bellows, startled, and swears under his breath. He strides across the room to the garage door, slinking inside and quietly closing the door behind him.

Pike makes an incredulous noise. “Are you fucking hiding from him?”

“I convinced him to shower by himself. He needed space, this is his compromise.”

“Shane needed space?” Pike echoes skeptically. “I didn’t think he’d ever let you out of his sight again. What did you do?”

“I am very convincing. But he is not… it has gotten worse, yes? The eating. Does he eat less when we are not in season?”

This is one of the many reasons Ilya hates not having been in a relationship with Shane sooner. There are so many things he missed, so many crucial pieces of Shane he could have had before- things Pike gets to know, but Ilya slowly has to unravel. 

“I think so,” Pike says quietly, useless, and Ilya groans. “No, listen- Shane is weird about food. Like, self-conscious about it. He gets really in his head. He doesn’t even talk about it, even with the guys. He doesn't like to eat in front of people either, I don’t think. Even at team dinners- he feels obligated to go because he’s captain, but he hates them, and the guys always end up ribbing him about how he needs to loosen up. It probably makes it worse. ”

For the umpteenth time since he’d been drafted into the NHL, Ilya hates the Montreal Voyageurs.

“Did something happen?” Pike asks after a moment. 

If he says no, Pike won’t believe him. Ilya is sneaking around in his own home with a lowered voice, spending his Saturday afternoon calling possibly the most obnoxious person on the planet, behind his boyfriend's back.

“He did not finish his breakfast,” Ilya admits reluctantly. “Not even half of it. He didn’t eat dinner last night, either. And he… I am worried he was not eating while I was gone. I think I might have…”

“If something’s going on… Ilya, that’s not your fault. You know Shane is thinking the exact same thing about himself right now, right? That blame game is not going to be good for either of you.”

Unfortunately, Pike is right. 

Ilya can’t help it, though. If this is a Thing, Ilya has just made it a lot worse than it was before, intentional or not. He’ss the one who brought them to this point. That’s something he has to take responsibility for. 

He can not be lazy with this. He can’t slack off, or miss things, or let Shane slip under the radar, no matter how much he’ll play it off.

“-nov. Hello? I can still hear you breathing, man, what’s happening over there?”

“Nothing,” Ilya says. The words feel like they’re coming from far away. “Nothing, Pike. Goodbye.”

Pike starts to say something, but Ilya hangs up before he can hear it. 

He stands for a moment, staring into the empty garage, completely drained of the energy that he had five minutes ago. He thinks, distantly, about how empty it looks without his car, and how fidgety Shane had been when he’d said he broke the garage door.

He wishes sometimes he could be inside Shane’s brain. Ilya was good at reading him- better than anyone else in their lives, unfortunately- but there were still so many things that he was still trying to figure out.

It is hard, he thinks, to be so far apart from each other even in the same home. 

Ilya can’t put his thoughts into words in this language- not completely. Not in the way that it matters. Not in a way that Shane can understand without trying to read between the lines in the sand. 

And Shane… he doesn't put his thoughts into words at all. 

So they fuck.

It’s good. It’s always good. Even if they had the words, there are things they’re able to convey through touch they couldn’t otherwise. 

Muscle memory, his trainer had said once. When you do something over and over again, your body will learn how to do it on its own. 

Flushed skin sliding against skin, a shiver down a spine. 

Breathy, indecipherable moans, tongues desperately colliding to taste something they can’t get anywhere else.

Muscles working underneath each other's hands, stretching and pulling the way they do on the ice- like they’re remembering what brought Shane and Ilya together in the first place. Tissue breaking itself down to be built again, even stronger, with reasons they should never be apart again.

It’s still not enough. 

Ilya’s hand hangs limply at his sides, phone loose in his grip, eyes tracking uselessly across the tiny slivers of sunlight slipping through the sides of the overhead door like they’ll give him answers. The chain of his crucifix feels feather-light around his neck. It feels like it would float away if he didn’t have it tucked under his shirt.

Mama would know what to do, he thinks. She was always so good at knowing exactly what was wrong with him. She would know to fix it, without letting his father know there had been something wrong in the first place. 

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, but it’s long enough that his knees almost buckle when the door behind him is flung open.

“Ilya!” 

He blinks, startled. His phone almost slides out of his grip as his foot stumbles, suddenly conscious of itself again.

Shane stands in the doorway, shrouded by the white of the marble in the kitchen behind him. His hair is wet, dripping against his forehead, shorts clung haphazardly to his damp thighs.

“What the fuck?” he demands, but it comes out all breathy and scared. “What are you doing in here? You said you would fucking answer me when I called out to you!”

Ilya’s mouth is dry. He swallows, feeling like all the blood in his body is suddenly returning to his brain. “I- I didn’t hear you.”

Shane’s chest heaves. It’s bright red, which means he’d been slow-roasting himself in the shower in the way that Ilya has never been able to handle for more than two minutes. The way that makes Shane all giggly and warm and plaint while Ilya lathers lotion on his skin, insisting that he must have found a way to put the fucking sun in their water heater. 

 “What are you doing in here?” Shane repeats. 

Ilya waves his phone, eyebrows moving up towards his hairline instinctively. His face, at least, knows what to do while his brain feels like it’s coming back to Earth. “I was making a call. You called out to me two minutes ago, I answered. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“That was not two minutes ago,” Shane insists. His eyes are glossy. He’s nearly trembling with rage. 

“Yes it-”

Shane shakes his head widely, teeth gritting so hard Ilya can see his jaw flex. “Were you looking for them?” 

“Looking for what?”

“The fucking knives!” Shane yells.

Ilya freezes, his heart sinking. “Sweetheart…”

“Were you?” Shane’s voice cracks, loud and desperate. His shoulders are taut and squared like he’s bracing for impact. 

“Shane,” Ilya says softly. He steps forward, Shane’s eyes following the movement, and keeps going until he’s close enough to see the tears in his eyes. “No. I would never. I wasn't looking for anything. It is all okay, I just didn’t hear you.”

Shane shudders, something like a gasp bursting out of his throat. 

Touching him right now would be the wrong move. Shane is sopping wet, obviously having forgone a towel in his desperate rush to find Ilya. The sheen on his chest and shoulders is probably a combination of both sweat and water. His shorts are clinging to his legs in a way that will probably leave a rash on his sensitive skin. 

Ilya still can’t stop himself from grabbing Shane’s hand, though, as he watches him tremble. 

“Breathe, Shane,” he orders. 

Shane’s obviously trying. Ilya can see the moment his boyfriend’s body decides it needs to move, and his arm darts out to hold the door open as Shane turns and stumbles back into the kitchen. 

He follows quickly, sliding his phone into his pocket, and lets the door shut behind them. He watches Shane, with hands clenched so tight his knuckles have whitened, as he rounds the island to the other side. He drips water the whole way, and Ilya glances at the towel hanging over the oven door, making a firm mental note to wipe it up once Shane’s calmed down.

Shane gasps again, jolting as if his lungs don’t know what to do with the sudden influx of air. “Fu- fuck.”

“Breathe,” Ilya repeats firmly. He aches to hold him, but fights the urge and stays where he is. “Come on. Let me hear you.”

Shane’s facing away from him. He makes a noise that’s not quite a sob, but something small and frantic and wide-mouthed. When he turns, his eyes dart around until they settle on Ilya’s chest. 

Ilya locks in place, keeping his arms open and his shoulders loose. He breathes in deeply, then exhales deeper, waiting for Shane to match him.

It takes a couple minutes, but he does. 

Shane’s eyes flutter shut, and his hands fly up to catch the tears that escape. The movement is sudden, quick enough for Ilya to know that the spell has passed. 

“Okay?” He asks quietly.

Shane takes a moment, still swiping at his freckled cheeks. There’s a tear hanging off the edge of his perfect nose. “Fine,” he says eventually. 

It’s clipped. Angry. Ilya hates it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and suddenly, the verbal floodgates are open. “I am okay. I was not looking for anything. Sveta called to check on me, I didn’t want to disturb your shower.”

This- lying- is a habit he’s only recently become aware of. It’s so deeply ingrained in him, nursed over so many years, that he can't even remember when it started, but he never had any reason for it to be a problem. It got him out of trouble, even- cut conversations short, protected his privacy from prying eyes, gave the press the headline that got him the attention his team wanted. 

Since he’s moved in with Shane, though, it feels wrong. 

He’s unable to help how quickly it comes out, now, but it makes Shane’s shoulders finally settle. Ilya swallows his guilt and waits for Shane to slowly walk back over to him, holding his hands out.

He complies immediately, slipping his arms around Shane's ribs and trailing his fingernails down his back. Shane buries his face in the crook of Ilya’s neck, arms resting against the slope of his shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Ilya says quietly, flattening his hand to smooth the goosebumps above Shane’s spine.

“It’s okay,” Shane says. “I shouldn't have gotten so mad. Just… I’m worried about you. Please don’t go looking for things- if you need something, I’ll get it.”

“I wasn’t looking for anything, sweetheart,” Ilya assures him. “Although a charger would be nice. As fun as it is to steal it from you in the middle of the night, I need full battery for my games.”

Shane snorts. “You and your games.”

“Best part of North America,” Ilya nods. Shane’s wet hair is tickling his ear, but he doesn’t dare move away. “App store has so many little treasures.”

Shane hums. His heart beat is still thudding so hard Ilya can feel it near his own, but it’s slowing down now. 

Ilya gives it another few moments before squeezing Shane a little bit, finally moving his head. “You are going to get a rash. Let’s get you dry clothes, yes?”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees immediately. “I feel disgusting.”

“Not possible.” Ilya smacks a kiss against Shane’s temple before pulling away. He takes Shane’s hand and tugs him towards the bedroom. “Never disgusting. Your showers are too hot, they melt away everything.”

“Alright, asshole.”

Shane lets Ilya lead him away, half-waddling in his wet shorts. Ilya finds relief in the fact that this, at least, he knows how to fix.

Chapter End Notes

So Ilya sees Shane getting worse and of course blames himself. he's trying to pull away because the more Shane hovers, the more he’ll notice Ilya messing up, and he'll keep getting worse.

Since they just moved in together, Ilya is torn between “has shane always been this way, and i’ve just missed it because im so lazy and distracted?” and “did my psychotic break break him too?”, and neither option is good. the hard part is that their issues DO feed off each other- but only because they don't talk about them, and they each kind of think it's their own mortal failing instead of a mental health issue that can be easily treated. My poor stunted boys.

Anyways, we are soft launching ADHD Ilya!! AKA i heard his father call him 'lazy' and hauled ASS with it. forgetting small tasks, lack of tidiness, time blindness, + the lows of depression being really fucking low and then kind of evening out when things are good. There's a special kind of self-hatred when you are really, truly trying to do something and your body just won't fucking *move*.

see you next week probably! maybe sooner. I don't know. my schedule was created by satan himself, so we'll see.

Chapter 3: you said, “my Heart has changed, and my soul has changed”

Chapter Notes

title from Orange Juice by Noah Kahan

Shane POV

Shane was almost back on track.

He’d fucked up, eating that cherry pastry his dad had made. He swore he could feel the difference already- the near bloating in his midriff, the shift in energy levels. The taste of it, the way he could feel it sitting in his stomach like he would never truly be free of it. Like it had poisoned him forever. 

It distracted him. He let his guard down.

He’d left Ilya alone. 

Given an open door and a wide room for Ilya’s brain- so hell-bent on hurting him- lead him to the garage, unsupervised, where the knives sat in a box that he could have found in very little time, if he’d gone looking.

And then, after finding Ilya was still safe, Shane immediately went back on his word to let his boyfriend have a bit of fucking space, and freaked out on him.

No fucking wonder Ilya felt suffocated.  

So Shane carefully measured it out- how far he needed to unravel that string in order to fix the knot he’d gotten himself tangled into. He didn’t know exactly how many calories were in that pastry, but he had a good guess. He cut it from his smoothie the following morning, and then again at lunch, for good measure. 

He gave Ilya space, making sure not to cling too hard unless Ilya initiated it; sitting on the opposite couch, waiting on his side of the bed until he felt himself being tugged towards the middle. It felt like torture, but it was the apology Ilya deserved. It was the least he could do. 

He knew he was forgiven when Ilya asked if they could meal prep together for the week.

“Are you sure?” Shane asks with a teasingly raised brow, even as his heart thuds. “There’s nothing else you want to spend your Sunday morning doing?”

A dark, hungry look shudders through Ilya’s eyes. Shane feels a surge of pride before it’s suddenly gone again, so quickly that he almost wonders if he imagined it.

“I want to cook with my boyfriend,” Ilya says, and Shane literally has to will his expression not to fall. “What is it you called it… domestic.” 

Domestic.

Ilya has never had trouble being domestic. 

Shane had been shocked by it, more than once, since they’d moved in together. How it came to him so easily- how much Ilya just observed and took in stride, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Shane’s diet. His schedule. His moods. His weekly family dinners and incredible, but admittedly overbearing mother. 

Even Shane’s clothing. 

“Why do you not wear any of these from your fancy stylist?” Ilya had asked, teasingly running an arm through the array of clothes Shane had hung up. 

“I do,” Shane said. 

“Not at home. You do not like them?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?” Ilya pressed. “You only wear the same clothes- sexy, yes, but the same. You will do laundry so many times so you don’t have to wear anything else. Why not buy more clothes you like?”

Because Shane hated shopping. 

Standing in a dressing room with an enormous, unforgiving mirror, pulling on and off shirt after shirt, walking back and forth from behind the curtain for his mother to either wrinkle her nose or nod in approval, and then doing it all again. 

It made him irritated, and anxious, and rude. It made speaking feel like a grueling, unbearable thing. It felt loud, in a way he couldn’t really explain. 

It wasn’t worth it. So Shane just stuck to what he had, and his mother had given up on trying to expand his wardrobe, and he’d just hoped Ilya wouldn’t notice it when he moved in.

He had, of course.   

“You are cold?” he'd asked one night, brows furrowed seriously.

Shane, curled up under his arm in Ilya’s new Centaurs sweatshirt, shook his head. “No. Are you?”

“No. I just do not see you in sweatshirts much.”

Shane shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just comfy, I guess.”

“Comfy,” Ilya repeated, quiet like he hadn’t meant to do it at all. His eyes were a bit wide all of the sudden, like he’d had a grand realization. “Yes. You are… quiet in it. No tugging.”

Shane was too tired to try to decipher what he meant, so he just shrugged again. 

He’d left the next morning for a game. He didn’t think about it again until he’d come back and noticed the entire closet was re-arranged, like Ilya had taken out everything they owned and moved it around- and several of his tops were missing.

“Ilya!” he’d called. “Where’s all my stuff? Where are my workout shirts?”

“In the laundry,” Ilya had called back. “Just wear something of mine!”

Shane really didn’t understand how Ilya could have possibly gone through so many outfits in the two and a half days he was gone, but he decided that he would probably find out in some weird sexual proposition later, and reluctantly pulled on the first shirt he saw.

“You are comfy?” Ilya had asked, glancing up at him when he entered the room. “The shirt is okay?”

Shane rolled his shoulders. “Yeah. Fine.”

And it was. Not shockingly soft, or attention grabbing, but quiet in a way that had taken a little bit for Shane to realize. It was just… there. 

“You did something to it,” he said accusatorially, a few hours later. “To the shirt.”

Ilya just hummed. “Yes. It worked, then. You haven’t done the face all day.”

“What face?”

Ilya scrunched his face into a scowl. 

“That one,” he said, grinning at Shane’s immediate noise of protest. “Old man face. Is cute, but it means you are not comfortable.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. Ilya seemingly didn’t need him to, because he turned back to the TV without ceremony. 

Shane felt a slow cascade of emotion. Shock, that Ilya had silently observed something so small. Overwhelming gratefulness at the fact he’d cared enough to do something about it. A bit of suspicion at the phrasing of ‘it worked, then’.

It turned to burning curiosity by the end of the night. 

“What did you do?” He asked again, standing in front of the closet, unable to keep it in any longer. 

Ilya looked up. He was sitting with his legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, swiping at something on his phone. It took a moment for him to realize what Shane was asking.

“It’s comfortable, yes?” he tilted his head.

“Yeah,” Shane said. “But it wasn’t before.” 

Ilya got a careful look on his face. Not quite wary- not like he was scared of Shane’s reaction. More observant. Hesitant. “You really don’t feel it?”

Shane waived his hand in a way that says, obviously not. 

Ilya stared at him for a moment. “I took out the tags,” he said finally.

Shane frowned. He rolled his shoulders a few times, then his neck, and gaped when he realized that’s exactly what it was. 

“Shit,” he said, suddenly feeling stupid. “It’s… yeah. Wow.”

“I wanted to understand, because I thought maybe you didn’t understand either. So I looked at your comfy shirts. And the new Centaurs sweatshirt you like. I see none of them have tags, so…” 

He held two fingers out and made a snipping motion, tutting his tongue.

Shane stared at him. “So you… tailored your shirt. For me.”

And Ilya, the beautiful, romantic bastard, just shrugged. 

“I was tired of you torturing yourself. You only like a few shirts, but you won’t buy any more. And then when you do laundry, you have no good shirts, and you get grumpy. Old man face, all day.”

“You made me a laundry day shirt.”

Ilya paused. “Ah… not a laundry day shirt. I did… all of the shirts. And the sweatshirts. In the closet.”

Then he ducked his face back to his phone, unsuccessfully trying to hide the blush blooming across his cheeks.

Shane suddenly felt like he was in genuine danger of crying. 

“You…” He turned back to the closet, blinking back tears. Then his eyes settled on something tucked away at the very top, and he realized that he was not going to win this battle.

“Ilya.”

“Yes,” Ilya responded faux-casually, but his face was so fucking red.

“You used a sewing kit.”

Ilya froze. His eyes darted to look at Shane, but his head didn’t move, so he was staring at him out of the corner of his vision like a child caught stealing. 

“Yes.” He barely opened his mouth to say it. “I did not want to leave those little hanging pieces, so I had to cut the…” he pinched his fingers together a few times, looking for the word. “It left holes. I sewed them back up.”

“Ilya,” Shane choked out.

He could literally see the internal battle playing out before Ilya flipped over onto his side, so quickly the mattress shook.

It did nothing to hide the blush smoothing across his bare back like watercolor. 

Shane, who didn’t know what to do with the feeling swelling so enormously in his chest, had found himself crawling onto the bed. He sat there for a moment, knees tucked under him like an idiot, at a complete loss for words, until Ilya finally took pity on him and rolled back over.

“I broke you.” 

Shane made a weird, undignified blubbering sound. “You changed our entire closet for me. Your entire closet.”

“You were uncomfortable.”

“That’s insane!” Shane cried, head whipping to stare at him incredulously. “Why- how did you even know to do that?”

Ilya scowled at him. “Because I like you.”

Shane scowled back, adoration tearing so strongly through him he feels faint. “You fucking asshole. I’ve literally spent my entire life with no idea that would have fixed everything, and you just did it like it was nothing.”

”Was not nothing,” Ilya shot back. “It hurt my fingers, using that tiny needle. And I had to use those fingers to jerk off, because my boyfriend wasn’t here to suck my dick.”

“You, like, literally just changed my life. And you weren’t even gonna tell me, were you?”

 Ilya scoffed, bringing his phone so close to his face that Shane could see Candy Crush reflected in his retinas. “Tagless shirts changed your life… you are so boring, Hollander.”

Shane didn’t bother to argue. He just climbed on top of him, pinned Ilya’s hips down, and spent the night sucking his boyfriend’s soul out of his dick.

Domestic was a fucking pipe dream, a year ago. 

Domestic was impossible. 

It was something Shane had imagined all growing up. Something he would try to convince himself he wanted, trying desperately to imagine being excited about coming home to a woman every day. His father certainly loved it. Hayden loved going home to Jackie. Even in high school, his peers joked about being “tied up” with spending time with their girlfriends, but he could see the fondness in their eyes, like maybe it wasn’t a chore at all.

Shane loved women, of course. But no matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t fight back the sadness- the dread- at thought of a life completely devoid of butterflies in his stomach, or his heart skipping a beat at a hand on his lower back, or giddy laughter, or hot kisses traded in the dark and arousal in his gut.

Those he only got in tiny, frantic glimpses, a few times a year with Ilya.

Domestic was a privilege Shane would never be able to earn, loving the way he did. Loving wrong, shamefully, in a way that he would have to hide for the rest of his life if he didn’t want his entire career to change overnight. 

Shane never thought he’d get to have this.

To wake up, look over, and see his boyfriend- all sleep-rosy cheeks and wild, fluffy curls- and feel no panic at his bed being shared, and no dread curdling in his stomach at the fact he’ll have to leave before anyone can see. 

To walk out, hand in hand, to the kitchen they designed together, just in time to see the early morning sun pour out over the lake as the blinds raise on their automatic timer.

To hear a litany of affectionate Russian cooed at their tiny dog as Ilya squats down and scratches her behind the ears, enormous hands entirely dwarfing her face.

To sit here, in his tagless shirt, and have his boyfriend ask to spend the day preparing food from his strict, intensive diet.

“Yeah.” Shane swallows hard. “It’s domestic.”

Ilya nods. “Yes. I have missed cooking for you. Now I will need a knife, yes? Can you go get one?”

Shane spends a solid ten seconds trying to think of a way to meal prep without anything sharp, but settles on the fact that he can’t. So he stands and reluctantly heads to the garage, returning with the biggest one he can find.

It would be harder to hide. More difficult for Ilya to “accidentally” cut himself with, if Shane turned his back for some reason. And it would get the job done quicker. 

“Ah,” Ilya said, eyeing Shane’s stony expression. “You will murder me.”

Shane glares at him for a moment before bending down to one of the lower cabinets, pulling out a cutting board, and setting the knife carefully on top. 

Ilya, likely sensing that Shane wasn’t in a mood to joke around about it, merely nodded. “Okay. Now, this diet… explain it to me.”

“What do you mean, explain?”

“Why it is so…” Ilya pinches his fingers together. “Tiny. Sad. You say because of calories. What does that mean?”

Shane, feeling like he’s maybe stepping into a trap, walks over to the side of the fridge. He removes the magnet holding up his recipes for the week and turns back to see Ilya’s expression carefully schooled. Not making fun of him- wanting to understand. Asking Shane to explain to him why it’s so important.

So Shane does.

It is be the same emotional experience, he imagines, as being interviewed by the prime minister.

And Ilya asks so many fucking questions. 

With every vegetable he cuts, between each of the four different kinds of grains he sets to boil, through every tupperware he snaps open and shut. 

Every answer Shane gives just unlocks three more. It makes Shane defensive at first- the way Ilya’s eyebrows raise higher and higher towards his hairline. But he carefully lays out the math, the calculations his dietician used, why every macro counts. 

Shane’s glad it’s a Sunday. The only task to complete on Sundays is meal prep- which, granted, usually only takes about three hours tops. But the rest of the day would have been spent with Ilya anyway, and he finds that he doesn’t mind the two intertwining to stretch out until dusk.  

By the time the sun has nearly started setting, it feels like Shane’s won a long-worn battle.

“You get it?” he asks.

Ilya nods gruffly at his side, looking at their neatly organized food for the week. “I do.”

It doesn’t sound quite as enthusiastic as Shane would have hoped. It sounds more… resigned. Like he’s coming to terms with something.

Shane would have dwelled on it a little bit more, if the kitchen wasn’t a disaster. He starts moving to clean immediately, sweeping everything towards one side of the sink. Dirty dishes on the left, hot water started on the right, so the clean ones don’t have to pass over filth again when they’re ready to be dried. 

Ilya moves slowly into his usual position at the sink, frowning a little bit. Shane pauses with his small stack of drying towels.

“You’re tired,” he realizes. 

Ilya looks up, still a bit tense. 

“It’s okay,” Shane says quickly, and he means it. “You spent all day on your feet. Go take a nap. Or, really, you could just settle in for the night-”

“The kitchen is all messy.”

“You’re tired,” he repeats, softly, when Ilya is unable to stifle his yawn. “I can clean up, baby. Go to bed.”

“No. I will help with the dishes.”

Shane blinks at the sharpness of it. Then he quickly adjusts, molding with the mood, a mental warning sign blinking in the corner of his vision. 

“You look like you’re about to keel over,” he says, mentally preparing himself for Ilya to dig his feet in. “You’re on medication that makes you need more sleep, and you’ve gone without a nap all day. I’m not going to be upset if you go to bed.”

Ilya’s jaw tightens. Shane looks away, giving him a second, and starts rinsing the cutting board.

“I am okay,” Ilya says quietly. “I can help with the dishes.”

Shane looks up, trying to seem nonchalant. His eyes flicker over him and he decides that it may be better right now just to indulge him. “Alright. If you’re sure.”

So they settle into their routine- Ilya washing, Shane drying and putting away. The silence is nice. After a few minutes, Ilya’s shoulder have visibly loosened, and it seems the spell of irritation has fizzled out.

Shane tries again.

“We’re almost done. Go ahead to bed and I’ll finish up.”

Ilya pauses for a moment, and then nods. He peels off his gloves, leans down to kiss the crown of Shane’s head, and Shane smiles warmly at him.

Ilya’s voice is so casual, so light, so joking, that it takes a second to register what he says as he rounds the counter to leave. 

“So I can expect a beating when you come to bed, yes?”

Shane’s brain screeches to a halt. 

A beating. 

He’d never gotten the impression Ilya would be interested in that kind of thing. His conversation with Hayden last week suddenly rings in his ears.

”What do you think he’s missing out on?”

“I don’t know! He won’t tell me!”

“Well, have you asked him?”

Was sex finally back on Ilya’s radar, after so many days? Was he finally coming to Shane, opening up with a request? Was Shane’s hard work finally paying off?

“Oh?” he asks, trying to ignore the way his heart thudded. “Is that… something you want to try in bed? Like- spanking?”

Ilya stares at him for a moment.

Then he snorts with so much vigor that Shane almost feels hurt by it. 

“No, Shane,” he shakes his head, like the thought was fucking rediculous. “I mean, you know, when your parents beat your ass when you don’t do your chores. Was a joke.”

A joke.

So… not a sex thing. Shane didn’t really get where this was going, then. Was this just another piece of dark humor Ilya and Svetlana threw around, like Shane wasn’t supposed to take it seriously?

 Like he wasn’t supposed to stare at them in horror, start trying to invent ways to time travel so he could scoop the two traumatized children they were and bring them somewhere safe?

“My parents never beat my ass,” Shane says firmly.

Ilya chuckles. “Of course they didn’t. I can’t imagine you were ever a lazy child. Yuna said you were a ‘dream’.”

And it’s that word- lazy, the one the Ilya throws around with a little too much weight- that settles in Shane’s stomach like a rock.

It makes him see, unbidden, a version of Ilya sitting in a hospital bed. The one that was drunk and teary-eyed, and so, so certain of his words that Shane had literally tried to vomit the taste of it out of his mouth.

I make messes, and I don’t clean them up. 

I am lazy.

You deserve better than that.

“You weren’t lazy either,” Shane says, before he can help himself. 

He didn’t have to know Ilya as a child, to know that much. 

“I was,” Ilya returns, because the child he was still so vehemently believes it, for reasons Shane is terrified he may be coming dangerously close to figuring out. “But I am not a child now. I know better. No one wants a lazy partner, yes?”

“You’re not lazy,” Shane rephrases it, trying to appeal to the part of his boyfriend that has come to accept affection like it’s second nature over the last year. “You never have been.”

“Really?” Ilya says, staring at Shane like he’s being ridiculous. “It would not be lazy to go to bed after making your kitchen look like a bomb came through the window? To leave you to clean up my mess?”

“Ilya, that’s not-”

“My father would have beat my ass, if this was his home.” Ilya fucking laughs. 

Not even in a self-depricating, finding-the-silver-lining kind of way.

A light-hearted chuckle, like it’s funny.

Like it’s truly, genuinely a joke, and not the most nauseating thing Shane’s ever heard.

“Ilya,” he says, his voice sounding like it’s been dragged over gravel. “I would never beat your ass for not cleaning the kitchen."

It’s such a terrifying litany of words.

It’s even more terrifying that Shane has to say them with so much purpose, so much severity, so much meaning, knowing that Ilya means what he’s saying too.

Ilya’s eyes flicker to Shane’s fingers, which have gone white around the towel he’s holding. He suddenly straightens, tilting his head like he’s surprised at the fact Shane is reacting at all.  

“Of course not,” Ilya says quickly. Trying to backtrack, like he doesn't know where he misstepped in the first place. “You are kind. Patient.”

Shane feels like he might throw up.

“Don’t fucking say that,” he begs. “That’s not patience.”

“Shane-”

“It doesn’t take effort not to fucking beat someone when they’re sick. That’s horrible, Ilya.”

“Sweetheart,” Ilya says, looking like a deer in headlights, “Shane, relax. It was just a joke.”

"No, it wasn’t.”

Ilya stares at him for a moment more. Then he straightens, like an illusion shattered, and scrubs his hands over his face. “Shane,” he says, and the exhaustion in his voice is palpable. “You take things so seriously. It was… that is not what I was saying. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Shane chokes out. “Please don’t apologize.”

Ilya looks away, pursing his lips. Hiding away. “I am glad,” he says, like he’s choosing his words carefully, “that you were a good kid. You have always been good. You were smarter than me. Better. Better than most, maybe. You didn’t need to be punished.”

Shane flinches so violently that he has to lean up against the counter to steady himself. 

“Your father was kind to you,” Ilya says gently. Like he’s breaking news. “And to Yuna too, I assume?”

“Of course he was,” Shane says, strangled, his vision so blurry with tears that he’s scared to blink. “He- he would never-”

“That is good,” Ilya says placatingly. “But most men are not like that. They are not patient. My father…” he laughs hollowly. “He was more than… not patient. He was cruel. He was not good to my mother. And it was my fault, most of the time. I was lazy.”

“Ilya.”

“It would have been bad for me if I left a mess like this,” he goes on. “Worse, for Mama. Much worse.”

And it’s that image that breaks Shane completely. 

A tiny Ilya, all long limbs and gap-toothed and joyous, bolstering laughter, believing he was anything but perfect. Believing that the evil things that were done to him could have somehow been earned. 

Shane hadn’t been there to protect him. Not even at the end of Grigori’s torment, after they’d known each other for years- but Irina had. 

She had been stuck in that house too. Had held out for so fucking long, endured so much cruelty, and still kept part of her son safe enough to grow up to be the man in Shane’s kitchen. 

It would have been worse for her.

She’d taken the brunt of it, Shane realized. 

Then he wonders, bile rising in his throat, if it was intentional. If Grigori knew just how good his son was- if he knew that it was infinitely worse for Ilya’s psyche to watch his mother hurt on his behalf than if he’d taken the abuse alone.

Because here, all these later, the mark still stands. 

Ilya looks at Shane, surrounded by the evidence of a day well spent, and still searches for punishment.

Shane won’t give it to him.

“That’s never going to happen here.”

“I know that.” Ilya says. “We are the same size, I could fight you off no problem.”

Joking, again. Trying to extend an olive branch out of whatever horrible thing this conversation has turned into.  

“So if I was smaller, it would be okay?” Shane demands. “I could hit you then?”

Ilya growls, immediately morphing into a tired, resigned frustration. “That is not what I’m-“

“There is not a single fucking scenario where I would ever lay a hand on you,” Shane’s voice cracks. “I need you to fucking get that into your head.”

“Okay!” Ilya snaps. “Christ, Shane, can we please stop fucking talking about it now-“

“No, you’re not listening!” Shane yells back, and the tears finally drop, making twin paths down his cheeks.

“How could I not be listening, you are so fucking loud-“ 

Shane slams the bowl down and marches over to Ilya so quickly that he almost surprises himself. Then, gently, but quickly all the same, he takes Ilya’s face into his hands and draws their foreheads together. 

Shane takes a second. Breathes. Pulls back and forces himself to meet Ilya’s eyes.

Ilya stares at him, a million emotions flitting across his face half as many milliseconds.

“I need you to hear me,” Shane tells him thickly. “Please. I am fucking begging you.”

“Okay,” Ilya whispers.

Shane sweeps his thumbs back across his temples, the way he does when Ilya has a headache. 

“I would never hurt you.”

“I know.”

Shane shakes his head. “No. Listen. I would never hurt you. Not because I’m a good person. Because there is nothing, on this planet or the next, that could possibly make you deserve that.” 

Ilya’s jaw tightens. He looks like he’s being tortured, rather than forced to recognize he’s safe.

“There is nothing that could make you deserve that,” Shane repeats. “But even if there was… you’re not any of those things. You’re not lazy, Ilya. That’s insane.”

“Shane,” Ilya says, looking pained. “That- you are taking that too seriously.”

“It’s serious,” Shane insists. “‘Cause you’ve said that before. You said it in the hospital. That you were lazy, like that was a reason for me not to love you. You are not lazy. You are sick. You are on a literal sedating medication that your body is trying to adjust to, and you still spent the entire day on your feet in the kitchen with me. You shouldn’t be doing anything other than sleeping.”

A small, tired smile again. “I cannot sleep all day. That is not fair to you, Shane.”

“I don’t fucking care. Your version of ‘fair’ is all kinds of fucked up. You’re not allowed to decide what’s fair. That’s my job from here on out, got it?”

He doesn't wait for Ilya to nod, determined to drive the point home before he can argue. 

“What wouldn’t be fair is if I were to wake up one day and you were gone, and I had to be alone for the rest of my fucking life because you had this awful, convoluted idea of yourself-”

“Convoluted?” Ilya echoes tiredly.

Shane closes his eyes. “Like… complicated. I’m saying that the way you think about yourself makes me really fucking scared, Ilya.”

And I swear to you, I’m not going to stop until I fix it. 

“You’ve accomplished more in 20 years than most people could dream of doing in their entire lives. You were drafted as the number one fucking pick in a professional sport, as a teenager. You’ve won a fucking Stanley Cup.”

Then, almost scrambling, not wanting to be misunderstood-

“And it’s not just those things, Ilya. It’s little things, too. You go out of your way to do things for other people, even if you know you’ll never get anything back from it. You do it because you care. You bought Anya, like, fifty pairs of dog shoes to match her little outfits, and then you tell her how pretty she looks, and I swear she almost looks like she understands you.”

“She is very pretty girl,” Ilya shrugs, but Shane can see that his eyes are starting to get a little glossy. 

“You sit for hours on the floor, playing with Hayden’s kids. You do puzzles with my Dad and send him pictures of your progress because you know it makes him happy. You let my mom run your media schedule even though it means you have barely any free time. You spend extra time after each practice with the rookies so they don’t feel like they’re falling behind. And-”

Shane swallows, feeling his lip quiver. “You put up with all my weird shit. You know when something’s wrong, and you always know how to fix it. And you aren’t mean about it, and you don’t make fun of me.”

“No ‘putting up’,” Ilya insists. “It is not ‘weird shit’. That is just… my Shane.”

Once again, not giving himself enough credit.

“And that’s how I feel too,” Shane says fervently. “The stuff that you’re going through… it’s not a burden on me, Ilya. I’m not going to get mad at you for something like that. Keeping yourself healthy, letting your body adjust, being kind to yourself, resting- I want you to do all of that. I- you need to let yourself do that. And you need to know that you’re going to be safe.”

Ilya stares at the floor. Shane watches him for a moment, and his heart starts to sink when he sees that the look in his eyes is just a bit too far away. 

He can’t afford to let him disappear into his head right now- into that deep, endless void where Shane can’t follow. Where Shane can’t protect him, reel him back on track, keep him away from the edge. 

It’s terrifying, having an invisible enemy.

But Shane has a plan. This is his job. He can do this.

“Ilya,” he says, coaxing. 

Ilya blinks slowly. 

“You with me?”

“I’m right here,” Ilya murmurs. He blinks a few more times and slowly draws his shoulders up, standing straighter like he’s being pulled up by a string. “I hear you.”

“Good,” Shane says.

He can see the gears turning in Ilya’s head and gives him a moment. He lets his own eyes drift down to the wood floor behind them. There’s a cluster of scratches near the barstool at the end of the island, like something sharp had shattered.

The vodka bottle, his brain supplies nastily. 

Shane jerks his head minutely, trying to dislodge the reminder. There was a reason he avoided that particular spot in the kitchen- there was no use dwelling on it. They were moving forward now, not back. There was nothing left Ilya could hurt himself with here. 

 He makes a mental note to get it sanded. Or, maybe, to just replace the entire board-

“I am not used to this,” Ilya says suddenly.

Shane’s eyes snap back up to meet his boyfriend’s stormy blue. They’re flickering back and forth- something he’s noticed Ilya does when he’s stressed. Tracking, searching, all flighty and unsettled like they don’t know where they’re allowed to land. The rest of his face is dark, serious, but also open.

He’s trying. 

Shane gives a small, encouraging nod, trying to leave the runway open. 

Ilya takes it. His words are cluttered, stilted, like he’s just trying to get them all out before they’re lost. 

“I know you would not hurt me. I didn’t mean it, when I said about… beating my ass. That really was just a joke. But yes, part of me still thinks that it would be fair if you did. Or, maybe not you, but… someone.”

He makes a frustrated noise. 

“I don’t… a messy house is my job to fix. Because I made the mess. That is always true, wherever I am. I use too many dishes, or I don’t put my shoes away, or I leave a wrapper on the counter… and I tell myself I will fix it before someone sees, but I just forget. I forget, and then it is my own fault that I am punished for it, because I knew that was the consequence and I did it anyway.”

Shane doesn't like it, but he follows. He nods again, even though Ilya isn’t really looking at him anymore. 

“I was good at remembering, when I got older. My father made sure I would remember. But it was so hard when I was a child, there were so many distracting things. I was punished a lot, and my mother couldn’t stand to watch it, so she would make my father look at her instead. She was protecting me, but she was so small, and she couldn’t fight him away, and it…” his face crumbles. He turns away. “It was so bad for her, Shane. I fucking hated myself. I still do. I begged her not to do it.”

“You were a kid,” Shane whispers. “That wasn’t your job.”

“It was my fault,” Ilya says. “Wrong or right, it was because of me. And my brother hated me for it too. He wasn’t like that. He remembered the rules, he never made a mess. He never needed to be punished like me. He never got Mama hurt. I was not… good, like him. And then I started hockey, and it stopped being so bad for me in the house. He couldn’t hurt me like before. Not where people could see, not bad enough that I would have to stop hockey. As long as I made him money…” he shrugs. 

Shane wants to fly to Russia and pull Grigori Rozanov out of the grave by his fucking hair.

“I remember to clean now,” Ilya continues. “Except recently when I stopped, for some reason. When I got… depressed. It was worse, I left a lot of messes, I forgot more things. I gave up, maybe. And then we fought, and I realized how bad it was- how unfair I was- and I felt like a child again.”

And then he sliced his arm open and ended up on a bridge, in the snow, in the middle of the night.

“Ilya,” Shane whispers, scrambling for the right thing to say. 

“The medication will fix it, maybe,” Ilya says. “It gets… confusing. The house is messy, so I must be punished, but you would never hurt me. My brain is in that house, but you are here, and when I try to imagine you there, it doesn't go together.”

Shane, not knowing what part of that to focus on, starts to panic. 

There are too many elements. Too many layers, so many things to sift through. His research says to find the root issue, but how is he supposed to know what that is? He doesn't know what is supposed to take precedence here-

“I feel like I am waiting, maybe.” Ilya nods, and he looks slightly relieved, despite the way his face has gone hollow and his eyes are all haunted. “I am not scared for myself anymore, but maybe sometimes, I am scared for you? When I am confused?”

“Like… like you’re scared you’ll hurt me?” 

That, Shane can latch onto. That’s an easy fix, a non-issue. The idea is so impossible- Ilya, striking him in anger, striking him at all- that he almost can’t picture it. But-

“No,” Ilya says immediately. “Fuck, Shane- no. Never. It is just part of the confusion, I think. I made a mess, I am not being punished for it, so someone else must be. Yes?”

Yes, Shane agrees? 

Or yes, Shane understands?

He makes a split-second decision. “I get what you’re saying.” 

Ilya nods, visibly relieved.

Shane feels like he can breathe again.

“Okay,” he says, staring at Ilya’s lips. Reorganizing. “Thank you for telling me that.”

A strange, uncomfortable look passes over Ilya’s face.

Shane thinks for a moment that may have been the wrong thing to say- but no, that’s word for word what the research said to do. That’s the right move- thanking him for sharing, making sure he knows safe space for him to open up again. Shane can’t overthink that. 

Ilya gets embarrassed after moments of such raw vulnerability. He tries to push away, stitch himself back up in privacy, but Shane knows it’s not really what he wants. He knows that like it’s an Absolute Truth. 

So he closes the distance between them and slides his hands around Ilya’s waist, tugging him forward until Ilya’s head lays on the crook of his shoulder.

Ilya makes a small, shuddering breath.

Shane holds him. “I’ve got you.”

Ilya nods. 

They hold each other for a minute or two. Shane nuzzles into him, kissing Ilya’s neck every now and then. Through his closed eyelids, the light starts to turn orange. He opens them and watches the sun setting over the lake, warming the entire house. 

The wave of gratefulness that washes over him is almost enough to make him dizzy.

Grateful that he gets to have this. Grateful Ilya had failed, and they’d gotten a second chance at this beautiful, domestic life. Grateful that he has another opportunity to make sure that never happens again.

“You’re safe,” Shane says after a while. 

Ilya doesn’t respond, but the tiny shiver that runs through him tells Shane that he heard.

“You don't have to earn that, okay? Not anymore. Even if you really were lazy. You’re not, for the record. Just so that’s clear. But either way. You deserve to be safe if you spent the rest of your life as a fucking vegetable, Ilya.”

“You love vegetables," Ilya says, a bit muffled. Shane feels a shiver of arousal sail unbidden down his spine as Ilya’s lips move, smirking, hot against his neck. 

He fights it off. Sets it aside for later tonight, once this is over. 

“I love you. I’ll keep you safe. I will always keep you safe.” It comes in a low, possessive growl.

Ilya smiles into the groove of his shoulder. “I know, котенок.”

“Yeah, well, I mean it.”

“Yes. You are very determined. You still have not given back my phone charger.”

“A cord that long isn’t safe. You can use the one built into the nightstand.”

Ilya just chuckles. 

Chapter End Notes

writing their trauma from each other's perspectives is so yummy. They keep staring at each other and getting so broken hearted with what they see, and never bother looking in the mirror.

ilya's adhd symptoms being the catalyst and excuse for his abuse??? i almost made myself throw up, i feel like that just added so many layers to him. I shocked myself, i blacked out and suddenly my mind became enormous.

Sometimes i read the shit i write and im like damn that really came out of me. like i don't remember that at all.

anyways. next chapter is NASTYYYY Shane angst.

Chapter 4: i'll spend my whole life looking up and wondering who i am

Chapter Notes

title from Looking Back by Lord Huron.

Ilya POV

These stupid pills are going to kill him.

It’s been two weeks now. That’s the promise Ilya made- to give it two weeks, stick it out, adjust, and give them time to work. Two weeks is when the side effects are supposed to subside, and then they’re supposed to increase his dose.

Two weeks, apparently, was complete bullshit. 

He’s still sleeping all day. And sweating through the sheets. His appetite is gone. His emotions are still on a hair trigger.

Not to mention, his fucking dick still doesn’t work.

He’s become, essentially, a toddler.

“Your body is adjusting.” His psychiatrist, Dr. MacDonald, nods passively. She has big glasses and a cardigan with little purple flowers on it, hair braided over her shoulder, and she looks so fucking young that Ilya almost wants to laugh in her face. “It can take up to six weeks to feel the full effects. It will most likely be a gradual-”

“Oh, it is six now?” Ilya demands. “You said two! You fucking lied!”

“Mr. Rozanov.” The psychiatrist says, in a tone so severe that makes Ilya briefly suspect Shane’s spirit may have flown up from the waiting car downstairs and possessed her. “We’ve discussed the timeline. The side effects you’re describing- sweating, fatigue, erectile dysfunction- those do all statistically ease at the two week mark. You are at that point now. You’re over the hurdle. The hardest part is over.”

What the fuck is she talking about? Ilya thinks hysterically. 

“It has not stopped!” he says loudly, splaying his arms out wide. “I just told you that! It will be like this forever?!”

“They start subsiding at two weeks,” Dr. MacDonald says. Her eyes are unwavering. Confident. This, too, reminds him of Shane, and it makes him pause. “You are over that hurdle now. This is when things start to get better.”

“I don’t feel better!” Ilya says, and he’s horrified to feel his voice cracking. “I still feel like shit! If this is how it is, I don’t want it. It is not helping. It is ruining my life.”

Dr. MacDonald's features are soft with sympathy, but still earnest. Still certain. “I understand. But I am also urging you to see it through, and trust that I do want to help you. The timeline can be different for everyone, but the results are worth the wait. It won’t be a sudden change, Mr. Rozanov.”

Ilya glares at the wall.

“I know that’s not what you want to hear,” she says gently. “Think of it this way; depression is like a backpack full of gravel, and you’re hiking up a mountain. SSRI’s are like little holes on the bottom of that backpack. The gravel starts to trickle out and gradually, over time, the backpack gets lighter. You don’t really notice that the weight is disappearing until suddenly, it’s gone. And now you get to climb back down the mountain with no extra weight at all.”

Ilya has gone hiking twice in his life.

Both were with Shane- once during their first time at the cottage together, and then again right after Ilya had moved in. 

“It’s our last chance before it snows,” Shane had said, eyes bright with excitement, absentmindedly toying with one of Ilya’s curls. “We can see all the trees in their fall colors- Ilya, it’s beautiful. Please?”

Ilya, to his credit, was barely awake. 

It was the wee hours of the morning, and he’d been spent all day unloading his entire life out of the back of a moving truck. Not to mention the fact he’d been subjected to a shirtless, sweaty Shane repeatedly lifting fifty-pound boxes like they were nothing- and had had no choice but to fuck him sensless at various points during the day.

If he were more awake, he would be shocked- not to mention a little offended- that Shane wasn’t out cold after the three orgasms wrung out of him, and the valiantly attempted fourth. He didn’t seem tired at all, propped up against the headboard with the blindingly-bright computer screen reflecting off his glasses, and he was already fucking scheming to put them through more physical labor. 

So no,  Ilya’d had no earthly idea what Shane was saying to him when he’d agreed. 

It didn’t matter, though. Even half-asleep, he knew whole-heartedly that the answer would be a resounding ‘yes’, to anything Shane asked of him for the rest of their lives.

They’d left a couple days later. Ilya had quickly been reminded that while Shane- strong and motivated and endlessly optimistic- was made for the outdoors, Ilya himself was a city boy through and through. 

A backpack full of gravel.

Shane doesn’t have one. He wasn’t just raised with loving parents- he was nurtured. The good was already there inside him, waiting to be cultivated. He’d grown up with sunshine and the lake behind him and all of the resources in the world. Even if he’d had a backpack, it would have been emptied as soon as they realized it was there.

Ilya is eternally fucking grateful for that. 

He is also- in a way that makes him resent himself- really fucking jealous. 

It’s not fair to be. That’s just the ‘cards life has dealt him’, as Marleau would say. And he would never want to bring Shane down with him. There is no world he would want Shane to understand what this is like, no matter how much he tries to convince Ilya he does. 

That kind of darkness doesn't belong in him. It doesn’t belong around him. 

Maybe it’s good Ilya’s so far behind on this metaphorical hike. Maybe the universe is just refilling that backpack indefinitely, trying to stop him from infecting Shane with whatever this is. 

Or, maybe, it’s not a backpack at all. 

Maybe it’s the chain around his neck. 

Or, maybe, it’s not an object at all. Maybe it’s fate- pulling him down, down, down until his face is buried in the dirt he was always meant to return to, long before everyone else. Rozanov’s always did have a shorter expiration date.

“Have you spoken to a therapist yet?” Dr. MacDonald asks. 

The lamp overhead is buzzing. 

She’s testing him. Seeing if he’ll lie. 

It’s unfortunate, he thinks, that lying wouldn’t help him this time. He’s so good at it.  But she has an entire file on him, and she’s been observing him since all of this started. 

“No,” Ilya says shortly.

“That is part of your recovery plan,” she reminds him. “I have several references, I believe I gave the list to your emergency contact.”

Yuna did have the list. He was surprised she hadn’t bugged him about it yet. 

“I will speak to her,” he said stiffly. 

The buzzing lamp is getting louder. He blinks and realizes Dr. MacDonald is looking at him expectantly. She must have said something. 

“It’s time, no?” Ilya gestures at the clock, too irritated to bother figuring out what she asked. 

“Just about,” Dr MacDonald confirms. She stands with him and holds open the door, eyes tracking as he races out of it. Her voice gets farther and farther away, but it doesn’t stop her from trying to get the last word.  “We’ll meet again this time next month, alright? Reach out if you have any concerns!”

Ilya just grunts, already halfway down the hallway. 

The crisp January air bites at his ears as he walks back towards the car. Shane sits in the driver's seat, his phone on the center console, hands folded in his lap like he’s been staring and waiting for Ilya to return. 

He opens the door and drops into the passenger seat, scowling. 

“How’d it go?” Shane asks eagerly, not even mentioning the way Ilya had slammed the door. 

Ilya holds up the brown paper bag from the pharmacy. “Higher dose.”

“Okay,” Shane says. “How do you feel about it?”

“Great,” Ilya says tiredly. The buzzing is still there at the back of his mind, even though the lamp is long gone. Maybe he’s just lost one of those tiny hairs in his ears and it’s taking longer to go back to normal. “Can we go home please?”

Shane looks at him for a moment. Then he puts the car into gear, and pulls out of the parking lot.

The drive is short. Time gets weird, and Ilya doesn’t really have the energy to try and keep track of it. 

He only really comes back to himself when Shane’s thumb trails across his cheek. 

“Ilya,” he says.

Ilya blinks a few times, then frowns. They’re parked, the engine rumbling in idle, the windows foggy. “I thought we were going home.”

Shane only looks a little bit sheepish as he follows Ilya’s gaze to the short gravel driveway of his childhood home. “I know. But my mom wanted to talk to you, so I figured we’d stop by.”

There’s snow gathered on the tiny hats of the gnomes by the Hollander’s front door. Ilya had named them all at one point, much to David’s delight, but he’s too out of it to remember what they are right now. 

It’s early enough that Ilya would be willing to bet money David is still asleep. Yuna, however, is definitely awake. She’s always risen with the sun. She tackles the day’s problems first thing instead of letting them stew and grow all day. She’s like Shane in that way.

“Did I do something?” The words come out sounding more childish than Ilya intended.

Shane shook his head quickly. His nose is pink. “No, no. Nobody’s mad, I promise. It’s not a big deal. Just go run ahead, I’ve got to get something out of the truck.”

Ilya doesn’t want to run ahead. 

But he’s tired- too tired to register how Shane is avoiding his eyes and the redness of his ears. Yuna wants to speak to him, so he lets his feet drag him up the front steps. 

Ilya’s hand hovers for a moment in front of the door. Something like dread curdles in his stomach. 

Nobody’s mad, I promise.

He knocks.

It takes a moment for Yuna to get to the door. Long enough that Ilya almost turns to tell Shane nobody’s home. But then the door swings open and Yuna appears with a stern, apprehensive look on her face that quickly morphs into something much more alert.

“Ilya?” She asks, her eyes widening with shock. 

She’s wearing a simple black cardigan and sweatpants. Her features look softer, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s because she’s not wearing any makeup. 

“Yes,” Ilya says stupidly.

“Are you okay?” Yuna gasps, her hands coming up to grasp Ilya’s arms, eyes darting all over him like she’s expecting to see a knife sticking out of his gut. 

Ilya, stunned, recoils from her touch before he can register what he’s doing. “What? Of course I am, Shane said-”

The sound of quickly crunching gravel makes both of them turn. The land rover is backing out of the driveway. Shane is back in the front seat, giving them both a sheepish smile that looks more like a grimace. 

Ilya’s mouth drops open as his boyfriend peels away, leaving two tire tracks of brownish-white sludge behind him.

“Мудак,” Ilya hisses. Motherfucker. 

“What-” Yuna stares at her son’s receding figure before darting back to Ilya, significantly more apprehensive. “Did something happen?”

The buzzing in Ilya’s head has been dialed back down to zero, replaced with unbearably awkward silence. He glares at the now empty driveway. 

“Shane told me you needed to speak to me,” he says stiffly. “I’m sorry. I- let me call him.”

He’s barely reached down to pat his pockets for his phone when Yuna goes, “Ah.”

It’s an “ah” full of far too much understanding for one syllable, but she always has been efficient. Ilya looks up, stomach sinking when he realizes his phone is decidedly not in his pocket, which means it’s still in the car next to a scheming asshole who most likely won't return for a few hours.

“Come on in, sweetheart,” Yuna says, voice calm. 

Ilya’s heart pounds. He doesn't know why; he’s been here a thousand times. He loves Yuna. 

But it’s never been just the two of them, with no Shane to buffer. 

It feels wrong- intrusive- to have someone else’s mother look at him the way Yuna is right now. It feels like he’s stealing.

But her eyes are so much like Shane’s- so determined, so unwilling to take no for an answer, and always a million steps ahead of Ilya- and he suddenly understands why Shane had left him here without warning.

Ilya fights back a dramatic, heaving sigh of dread, and steps into the open doorway.

“The kettle is warming,” Yuna says, closing the door behind them. 

She moves swiftly past. Ilya scrambles to take off his shoes and, Christ- his socks don’t even fucking match. One navy blue and the other heather gray, both so painfully out of place on the warm brown wood. 

“I’m sorry,” he offers, standing awkwardly under the arch of the kitchen entrance. 

Yuna shoots him a stern look. “Ilya, if I didn’t want you here, I wouldn’t have invited you in.”

He doesn’t really know what to say to that. Instead, he watches her lift a pair of glasses from the counter and slot them over her nose. They’re round, like Shane’s, and it makes his heart hurt. 

“You wear glasses too,” he says faintly. 

Yuna nods, reaching up steadily to grab two mugs from the cupboard. “Yes. Shane got that from me, unfortunately. I wear contacts most of the time, but they can be uncomfortable, so I opt for the glasses when I’m home.”

Ilya smiles a little at that. This- loving Shane- is very much familiar territory in this home. “He is a lot like you.”

Yuna smiles too. She motions for Ilya to sit, so he lowers himself onto one of the kitchen chairs. He watches as she pours the kettle, steam drifting up from each of the mugs.

“You like the orange tea, right?” She peers at him over her glasses. Ilya nods. She pulls out a pair of chopsticks to pull two bags out of the long round tea tin, and places them in the water to let them steep.

“That’s smart,” Ilya remarks without thinking. 

Yuna blinks and looks down at the chopsticks. “Oh.” 

Ilya freezes, terrified he’s said something offensive, but Yuna just chuckles lightly.

“Shane started that, actually,” she says. “We’ve never really used chopsticks much, but we always had some around the house. Shane doesn't like touching some things with his fingers, so he started using them for that. Chips, tea bags- anything too long for his fingers to reach the bottom.

Ilya glances at the photos lining the wall. He imagines a tiny Shane- all spiky tufts of hair and serious brown eyes and that adorable fucking smile that almost looks like he’s in pain- trying to reach a chubby hand into a can of pringles. 

He grins, his chest warming. “He was very cute.”

“He was,” Yuna agrees. She hands him his mug and settles across from him at the table. “I bet you were a cute kid too.”

Ilya hadn’t seen a picture of himself as a child in a very long time, but didn’t think that was true. He didn’t have the inherent good in him, like Shane clearly had. Children were supposed to be full of wonder, and curiosity, and innocent kindness to the point of naivety. 

Ilya had been anything but. 

He wondered, sometimes, if he would have grown up to be anything like Shane, had Mama not died.

Really, who would he have been, if that isolating, all consuming grief hadn't been nailed into his palms and soles, far too young for him to know the difference?

Ilya stares at his cup, toying with the string of the tea bag to give himself something to do. “Maybe,” he shrugs, keeping his voice light. “I was always losing teeth, so I probably looked funny.”

There’s a long silence. 

When Yuna breaks it, it feels like mercy and damnation all at once. 

“How are you doing?”

“I’m good,” he says automatically.

“Okay,” Yuna nods. “You want to try that again?”

Ilya takes a deep breath. He watches the water, the way the tiny crushed leaves slowly turn it orange-brown. “I am frustrated.”

He doesn't know why he’s telling her that. Part of him immediately wants to reel it back, brush it off and change course. But the other part of him has been desperately seeking something that he can’t put into words- and whatever it is, Yuna Hollander is full of it.

“That makes sense,” she says. No denial, or ‘cheer up’, or ‘it’ll get better’- just a simple acknowledgement. 

Ilya breathes again. 

He finally glances up, and finds Yuna looking at him too. He holds her gaze, unable to look away. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Ilya says. “I don’t know… Shane is scared, now. And my doctor keeps telling me it will get better. But I don’t feel better. The… side effects. They are awful. I feel worse than before.”

“Worse, like you would hurt yourself again?”

It’s blunt. Ilya’s gotten so used to people dancing around it that it takes him by surprise, like toothpaste catching the back of your throat. 

“No,” he insists. “I don’t want to hurt myself. I didn’t even feel like that before, I just… I had a bad night.”

“Okay,” Yuna says. “I believe you.”

And something about that- being taken at his word, the first time around- makes his eyes burn. 

“So, what’s worse about it?”

“I am always tired,” Ilya says. He can feel the floodgates already teetering, and has to make a conscious mental effort to keep them closed before he unloads his burden on a woman who has already been too kind to him. “Not tired like depressed… I just sleep all day. I get angry easily, and I get mean. Not at Shane,” he amends quickly. “I would never-”

Yuna just raises an eyebrow at him. “You don’t need to convince me of that, Ilya.”

He’s starting to get that, now- that Hollanders don’t think of anger the same way he does. It doesn't mean the same thing it did in his house. It’s still important for him to make it clear, though. 

“I am just frustrated,” he repeats.

He takes a gulp of his tea, unsure what else to say- or, maybe, worried he’ll say too much. 

Yuna sips hers as well. She runs a hand through her hair and looks out the window. The sky is clear, the sun reflecting white and almost blinding off the snow. 

Suddenly her phone vibrates on the table, making them both flinch. Ilya catches a glimpse of a gangly teenage Shane before Yuna lifts it, lips pursed, and reads the message with an amused look.

“What?” Ilya asks.

“He wants to know if you’re mad,” she says.

Christ, it’s only been a few minutes. Shane must have just barely pulled into their driveway, and he’s already spiraling. 

Yuna types something out and sets the phone back on the table, face down.

“What did you say?” Ilya grips his mug. 

“Told him we haven’t talked yet,” Yuna says, going back to looking out the window. “Keep him on his toes a little bit. But he also said you had a rough appointment this morning and he thinks I can help.”

Ilya feels both a surge of irritation and unbearable fondness. “You do not have to help me.”

That normally would have earned him a piercing look, but this time, there’s something different in her eyes when she looks at him. 

“I do,” she says. “Not because I’m obligated to, but because despite everything I would have thought about you a year ago… I care about you, Ilya Rozanov. And I take care of people I care about.”

Ilya’s lip trembles against his will. He doesn't trust himself to speak.

“I can’t help you with all of it,” she goes on. “I can’t fix what’s going on in your head. But, I can get you to the people who can. And me, and Shane, and David, and everyone else in your support system can hold your hand and make sure you stay on the right path.”

Yuna just watches him for a moment, letting him take it in. He nods.

“I’m not going to tell you you don’t have to do this alone,” she says, “because you’ve probably been told that a hundred times recently. I’m going to tell you that you can’t do this alone. There’s no negotiation to be made there. It’s a fact. So, you’re going to let us help you.”

Ilya nods again. 

“Okay,” he said, his voice dangerously strained. 

Yuna, seemingly satisfied, sets her tea back down. “Alright. I’m going to get the list of therapists your doctor gave us.”

She disappears around the corner, and returns a moment later with a stack of papers and a laptop. Her expression has settled into something much more serious and determined. 

 They just need to hover for a few days to get it out of their system and they’ll feel better, trust me.

Yuna sits back down and adjusts her glasses. “Come sit here.”

Ilya obliges. 

She scrolls on the computer for a moment, too fast for Ilya to read what she’s looking at. Then she makes a satisfied hum and turns the screen towards him.

“This is the list I was able to vet.” Ilya leans forward, taking in all of the different faces and descriptions. “They’re discreet, and they’ve worked with celebrity clientele before. Fully confidential, of course, and most of them are located in smaller areas where you’re less likely to be seen. So at least we have something to go off of, but now we can narrow them down.”

“Okay,” Ilya agrees, desperately trying to keep up. 

“Do you have a preference on gender?”

“Both,” he says. 

He feels an absurd bout of laughter bubble in his throat before he can stop it. Yuna shoots him an unimpressed look, but there's a smile poking at the corner of her lips as she huffs and looks back at the computer.

“Either one is fine,” he amends.

“Alright, Rozanov. Any specialities you want them to have? Trauma, LGBT issues, anger management, addiction?” 

All of the above, probably, but he doesn't know how to tell her that.

“We can just leave that one blank,” Yuna says, taking his silence for what it is. “What about religion?”

“No, not religious.”

Yuna’s eyes flicker to his chest, where the crucifix rests under his shirt.

“Ah... that was my mother’s.”

“Was she religious?”

“Russian Orthodox. We didn’t really go to church except on holidays, though. She…” Sudden apprehension creeps over him, and he trails off. 

They didn’t go to church. 

He blinks. 

… Was his mother religious?

Ilya’s first instinct is yes, of course. Surely, she was. She wore a crucifix, she was buried with a cross, she had all of the traditional Orthodox rituals observed at her funeral. 

But, he realizes, with a certainty that makes nausea rise in his stomach, he had never actually seen her practice. 

She only recited scripture on the rare occasion Grigori was home for dinner on the Sabbath. Even then, her voice was only chanting alongside everyone else’s- often drowned out by the low timber of a house full of men. 

She never sang hymns to him. He didn’t recall ever seeing her cover her hair, although that may have just been generational- but she never fasted on her own, and she certainly never made Ilya or Alexei do it. In fact, he thinks he remembers her slipping Alexei a fresh slice of bread once when he was fasting once on his own. She’d done it quietly, subtly, and with a wink that said, don’t tell your father. 

Fuck. Was Grigori the only reason she owned that crucifix at all?

He feels sick, all of the sudden. 

Yuna speaks, sounding for some reason like she’s a little bit farther away. “Ilya? You alright?”

Ilya’s hands tingle. 

How has he never thought about this before? How does he not know? 

“Yes,” he says, but his mouth feels like it’s moving on its own. “Just…dizzy.”

“You look really pale, honey,” Yuna says, like she’s calling from the other side of a tunnel. “Do you need to lie down?”

He doesn't really have words right now- English or Russian. He attempts to make a placating gesture, but his arm feels kind of detached from him and it ends up all limp and aborted.

Was Mama religious?

Her crucifix, warm against his chest. A crucifix, a symbol of martyrdom- a reminder of an eternal sacrifice, of the freedom it provided, the damnation it held an escape from. 

Grigori had been anything but.

A sudden, distinct memory- hazy and shrouded in red, like his brain had tried to cover up a murder. 

Ilya kneels in front of his bed, hands clasped, looking up at Irina as she yells angrily at a figure in the doorway. It’s his father, in his crisp new police uniform. He looks at her in a way so condescending that it makes bile rise in Ilya’s throat, even then.

“Он же ребёнок!” He's a child! 

Grigori is talking over her before she can even finish her sentence. “Все должны покаяться.” Everyone must repent. 

“ Ему не в чем раскаиваться!” Mama shouts. He has nothing to repent of!

“Ленивые дети вырастают в ленивых людей. Богу было бы стыдно.” Lazy children grow up to be lazy people. God would be ashamed.

Ashamed, Ilya had thought. That must be the name for the terrible feeling in his stomach, and the blooming bruise covering half his face in the shape of his father’s hand. 

“Какой Бог допустит, чтобы ребёнка опозорили?” Irina demanded through tears. What God would allow a child to be disgraced? 

Grigori smiled, cold and taunting. “Выблядок.” An ugly child.

Ilya trailed his tongue over his newly chipped front tooth, and felt his face flush with humiliation as his father continued. “Уродливая душа. Ему нужна дисциплина.” An ugly soul. He needs discipline.

Irina, small and fierce, had gotten inches away from her husband’s face.

 “Ты не создавал его душу.” She hissed. You didn't create his soul. 

Ilya froze, watching as for the first time in his life, his mother became the one to make someone cower. 

“Ты не можешь решать, что считать безобразием. Ты не Бог, Григорий, ты не можешь наказывать его, как Бог.” You can't decide what constitutes ugliness. You're not God, Grigory, you can't punish him like a God.

Grigori was not a God.

He wasn’t- but he’d created that burden anyway. Thrust it upon his wife, for her to carry until her death, and then watched his son pick it up when she was gone.

Has Ilya spent all these years clinging to a cross that wasn’t even one of his mother’s choosing?

“Ilya.”

There’s buzzing in his ears again, but there isn't a lamp anywhere in sight. 

Is that why Grigori had never said anything? 

“Sweetheart, can you hear me?”

Did he find it fitting, that the son bear the cross of his creator? That he carry her death with him, punishment for a transgression so severe that it trailed through their family tree, the way Eve had eaten the apple?

Suicide is a sin, after all.

An ugly soul.

Had Grigori known, even then, that he’d be so much like her?

“Ilya.” A gentle hand on his cheek.

“Мама,” Ilya asked, trying to fight back the tremble in his lip. His voice was so small. He couldn’t have been older than six or seven. “я урод?” Am I ugly?

His mother had cried out, taking his face in her hands. Her calluses scratched against his bruised cheek.

These hands aren’t calloused, though.

“Илюшка, ты никогда не сможешь быть некрасивой. Ты моя.” 

You could never be ugly, Ilyushka. You are mine.  

Something is wrong, Ilya thinks. 

He feels so fucking dizzy. Genuinely dizzy, like he’s been spinning in circles. He thinks he might fall over- he needs to sit, probably, but he doesn't really know where he is.

“Ты мой. Мой прекрасный, прекрасный мальчик.”

You are mine. My beautiful, beautiful boy.

“Ilya!”

His neck jerks backwards. 

It’s jarring enough that his head almost stops spinning. 

He realizes Yuna is sitting in front of him, their knees practically touching, her hands gripping his shoulders so tight they might leave a bruise. She’d shaken him. 

My beautiful, beautiful boy.

His mother’s voice fades away in the back of his head like smoke. 

Ilya blinks rapidly, and his eyes burn like he’s had them open for hours.

“Are you with me?” Yuna keeps one arm fisted in his shirt, steadying him, and reaches the other up towards his forehead.

Her hand is cool and soft- so soft- and so unlike Irina's. They have a kind of evenness that means they’ve never done heavy labor. They smell like expensive lotions and something like mint, or lavender, or Eucalyptus. 

Irina never got to have that. She had died a poor woman, just a few years too soon for Ilya to start raking in sponsors. 

“Yes,” he says thickly.

His vision is clear now- what it had been before, he doesn’t know. 

Yuna stares at him, visibly terrified. 

Fuck. 

“I’m sorry,” Ilya says. He’s sweating like crazy- there are beads gathering at his hairline and in his armpits. He’s fucking disgusting. 

“Jesus, Ilya,” Yuna says, her voice strained. “What the fuck was that? You weren’t responding!”

He’d ‘gone away’ again. In front of his boyfriend’s mother. 

“I’m sorry,” Ilya repeats earnestly. He gently guides Yuna’s hand off his arms and takes it in his, the same way he would with Shane. It seems like the right choice, with how her hands are trembling and her jaw is so tightly clenched. 

“You looked like you were going to pass out!”

“It- I don’t know. That happens, sometimes. I’m sorry. I am working on it. I’m okay.”

Yuna takes a deep breath, pursing her lips. “Ilya.”

“It’s okay,” Ilya repeats. He lets go of her hands, unable to hide his own shaking anymore, and backs up a bit from her. He reaches across the table for his mug, feeling Yuna’s eyes tracking him the whole way, and tries to feign nonchalance. “This is why I need therapist, yes?”

“Have you gotten it checked out before?” Yuna demands. “Does your doctor know you do… that?”

“Yes,” he says, and it's only a half-lie. He’d done it during his inpatient stay, yes, and his doctors knew about it- but they kind of just brushed it off as a side effect of medication, or him being uncooperative. He didn’t really have the energy to fight them on it. “I will talk to a therapist about it. It is okay, Yuna.”

Her brown eyes look so big under her glasses. She looks both younger and older than she is, in a way Ilya can’t really put his finger on. 

“So it’s not a medical thing?” she presses. “Not, like, low blood sugar? It almost looked like low blood sugar. And you’re sweating-”

“Not low blood sugar,” he promises. “It happens sometimes when I am scared. Or if I remember something. My head goes away.”

That makes no fucking sense, and Yuna clearly doesn't buy it. 

“I’m going to get you some orange juice,” she says, already half-way out of her chair. “Stay right there.”

It’s not like he has anywhere else to go. 

Ilya waits until her back is to him, and then takes the opportunity to wipe his forehead with the back of his head. He fans his shirt away from his chest, trying to let in the cool air. Maybe he should go outside-

“Here,” Yuna says firmly, and suddenly there’s a glass of orange juice in front of him. She places the back of her hand against his forehead again, then his cheek. “You aren’t warm-”

Ilya ducks away from her hand and downs the orange juice in three loud gulps. 

Yuna’s face scrunches up in disgust- the same Old Man face he’s grown to love on her son. He fights back a smile and bites his tongue, figuring she wouldn’t appreciate the acknowledgement. 

“I feel better now,” he promises, wiping his mouth. It’s true this time- his head has stopped spinning, his skin has begun to cool, and his hands aren’t tingling anymore. It’s passed. Hopefully, that means it won’t happen again for a while. “We should keep looking, yes?”

It takes another minute of coaxing before Yuna finally settles. 

“Let me know if you need more juice,” she says. Ilya nods, staring pointedly at the laptop, and she sighs. “Okay. So, no religious preference.”

“No,” Ilya confirms.

Yuna clicks ‘not applicable’, and moves onto the next. 

“Qualifications… a psychology degree, of course,” she says, mostly muttering to herself. Ilya doesn't know the difference, but he trusts her judgement. “Insurance… already covered…” 

Ilya had forgotten about that part. “The league has to approve it?”

“The league requires it,” Yuna says. “I’ve got that part handled, don’t worry. But yes, they will be updated on your progress to make sure you’re cleared to play. Not specifics- it’s still confidential, of course- it’s more of a ‘yes or no’ question on if you’re passing the psych evals.”

“Confidential,” he repeats. That’s a word he’s heard a million times over the last few weeks. 

“Stays between you and your psychologist.”

“I thought it was a therapist?”

“A psychologist is a therapist with more degrees,” she explains. “They can actually diagnose you, that’s a part of your treatment plan.”

“I thought I already had one of those.”

“No, you have a psychiatrist. That’s the one that prescribes you medication. They do sound similar, though. We can just call it a therapist.”

“Okay,” he says, unable to care about this anymore. “What’s the next question?”

“Preference on ethnicity?”

Ilya raises his eyebrows. “That is a question?”

Yuna waves her hand, leaning back to peer at the screen with a severe look on her face. “Some people feel like they may be understood better by someone of their own race.”

“I think white man in Canada can be understood by most people.”

“I think you’re right. But aside from that- you would want someone who speaks Russian, right?”

Ilya shrugs. “That would be best, yes. But there is probably not a real Russian speaking therapist in Ottawa, yes?”

“That’s a good point,” Yuna nods thoughtfully. 

“It is already hard to say what I feel in English sometimes. If I speak Russian it is because I want to be understood. If the therapist only knows as much Russian as I know English…” he shrugs again. “Same problem. No point.”

Yuna frowns. “I’m assuming it’s the same thing, even outside of therapy? That sounds frustrating.”

Ilya hesitates for a moment. Agreement might make her feel bad, and he doesn’t want to do that. It’s not her fault. “Sometimes,” he admits. That feels safe enough to be considered middle ground, but still awkward, so he keeps going. “But luckily, I am very good at English already. I am an easy person to figure out.”

“I know Shane is taking up Russian classes,” she says. “How’s that going?”

Ilya doesn't know. He thinks he might not know for a while. 

“Shane wants to do everything perfect,” he says. “I don’t think he will share what he’s learning until he feels like he knows everything."

Yuna smiles thinly. “You’re probably right. He doesn't like feeling embarrassed.”

“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “But he has no need to be. He is good at everything he does. It seems that always, Hollanders are good at things. Make the rest of the world look bad- except the best player in the league, of course.”

Yuna snorts. “Alright, you charmer. Focus. So we want a Russian therapist- not ‘took a trip abroad and learned Russian’, but a native speaker.”

Ilya tries to ignore the void in his chest that feels almost like grief. 

“You are very good at what you do, Yuna, but I don’t know if even you can find that in Ottawa,” he says thinly. “Maybe even Ontario.”

His tea is cold now. He sips it anyway. He tries not to think about how badly he’s going to fucking hate this- how maddening it’s going to be to have a stranger look at him and try to fix him with a barrier like that between them. 

Ilya will be alone in this, too- alone in his head, alone in his memories, alone in a culture he can’t even return to. Alone in something he never even loved in the first place, but feels he has a responsibility to preserve anyway. 

To understand Mama is to understand Russia.

Without that, what hope does he have? How can he fix himself, keep himself from the same thing that took her, if he can’t even put it into words?

“I can find you a Russian psychologist, Ilya.”

Yuna sounds so fucking determined that he almost doesn’t want to break the illusion. 

But he also knows that she will just end up running herself into the ground if he doesn’t let her down. Seeing it happen to Shane is bad enough- he can’t keep watching people waste away trying to fix something that’s too far broken.

Ilya’s already 1:1. He won’t do it to someone else’s mother, too. 

“It is okay,” he assures her. “I don’t need it.”

Yuna doesn't answer him. She just types away, all perfectly manicured nails and pursed lips and perfect posture. 

Ilya tries not to feel sick again. 

He racks his brain for a way to change her mind, but they’re all either too easily dismissible, or they sound like abject disrespect. He feels like he’s walking on a tightrope too high up to risk making a wrong move in either direction.

Yuna hums suddenly, eyebrows shooting up on her forehead. “Here we go.”

Ilya stares at her. “What?”

“Russian therapist, here in Ottawa. Dr…. Galina Molchalina.” She stumbles a little bit on the pronunciation, but that’s definitely a Russian name. “ Psychology degree, in her forties, has several specialties. She does in person-talk therapy.”

“Really?” Ilya almost fucking stutters, trying to fight back hope that feels too close to delusion. 

“Really,” Yuna says proudly, leaning back with folded arms. “Take a look.”

The relief is palpable. Ilya’s heart thuds in his chest, and he swallows hard as he pulls the computer towards him. 

Dr. Galina Molchalina 

Registered PsyD (Doctor of Psychology)

In Practice for 14 years

Attended University of Toronto, Graduated 1991

Languages spoken: English, French, Russian. 

Specializes in cognitive and behavioral therapy, with experience in ADD/ADHD, MDD, PTSD, and DBT.

“Ебать,” Ilya mutters under his breath. Fuck. 

Yuna looks at him expectantly. “Is that a yes?”

Ilya nods slowly. He stares at the black and white picture of this slightly wrinkled woman, with her slicked back bun and stone-faced expression that’s so familiarly and undeniably Slavic.

Yuna smiles. “Good. I’ll book the consultation. David is in Montreal for the day- why don’t you call Shane and see if he wants to join us for lunch?”

“I… don’t have my phone,” Ilya says, feeling like he’s in a trance. 

Yuna hands him hers without ceremony, sweeping both of their mugs into her hands and moving briskly towards the kitchen. The tension in her shoulders has eased- the task completed, and victory won.

Ilya can’t help but feel the same. He stares at the bold text, reading the same line over and over again like it might disappear if he doesn't.  

English, French, Russian. 

He thinks, just for a moment, that she might be able to pull him off this stupid mountain- backpack of gravel and all- and fly him to safety.

Chapter End Notes

I know i said this chapter would have the nasty Shane angst, but i wrote pretty much the whole things and realized that it doesn't make sense without *this* chapter first, so here it is. Next chapter should be right behind this one, since it's pretty much done already.

Ilya not knowing if the crucifix even meant anything to his mother... it occurred to me that if Ilya isn't really religious, Irina may not have been either. It's been my experience that when religious people die, ppl around them will cling to that religion like it's an extension of what they lost. I didn't see that in Ilya.

He is going to learn to love that crucifix without the religious element, though. It will be something just for him.

Aside from that, is important to me that Yuna- while being a mother, and being wise, isn’t some all-knowing sorcerer. Women are always expected to be the ultimate fix to everyone’s problems, to be perfect and have the solution. This entire story is communication issues, and so much of that comes from toxic masculinity. Women usually end up doing all of the emotional labor in relationships like that, *especially* for professional athletes in those spaces with those mindsets, and Ilya and Shane don’t have that buffer.

That doesn't mean Shane and Ilya are bad, or toxic- of course they’re not. But they are learning, and they've never done this before, and it’s going to take a lot of hurt.

Anyways, let me know what you think!

Chapter 5: belly of the whale

Chapter Summary

Chapter from the song of the same name, Belly of the Whale by Searows.

Haunting and beautiful and very much the inspiration for the long spiral of this chapter.

Shane POV

Chapter Notes

Shane expects Ilya to be angry with him when he picks him back up.

When Ilya answers the door, his eyes are a bit red-rimmed. His arm hangs at his side, head cocked to the side, eyebrow raised.

He doesn’t look mad. If anything, he looks lighter. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane blurts out anyway. “I should have told you I was planning to drop you off. I just didn't think you’d-”

Ilya flings his head back and groans so dramatically, Shane falters.

“Yes, yes, you are sorry,” he says, but when he looks back down at Shane, there’s amusement all over his face. Shane feels his shoulders drop just slightly. “Canadians are always sorry.”

“I am,” Shane says desperately, and he’s never been so sure of anything in his life.

Ilya looks him over, his brows furrowing slightly. “Where is your jacket? You’re freezing.”

Shane looks down at his own figure and realizes that his bare arms are tinged pink, and covered in goosebumps. He’s shaking. His lungs burn a bit from the cold. “I- I drove here, I didn’t need it.”

He’d been suddenly very hot when he’d gotten home. He’d stripped it off and left it on the couch, actually, before spending the next few hours pacing-

“Christ,” Ilya mutters. He takes Shane’s hand and pulls him into the house.

“Is that Shane?” calls Yuna from somewhere in the kitchen. Shane swallows hard. 

Ilya closes the door behind them. “Yes!” he calls. He turns back to Shane and starts rubbing his arms

 “You were just so upset after your appointment, I knew that Mom would be able to help,” Shane says. His chest is weirdly tight. Everything around him is just so much that it seems to just merge together.  

“It was funny, sweetheart. You drove away so fast-”

“It wasn’t to, like, prank you, or anything-”

“Shane, I know that.”

“I shouldn’t have done that without talking to you first. I’m not supposed to surprise you like that, it’s not good for-”

“Shane.” Hands suddenly trail up and down his arms, like they’re trying to rub warmth back into him. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane pleads, and to his horror, he feels his eyes are burning. Along with the rest of his body, actually. He’s shaking, too, beneath Ilya’s touch.

Ilya takes Shane's fingers and cups them in his hands. 

Shane, dry-mouthed and panicked, stares at the shape of Ilya’s lips as they pucker slightly, blowing warm air into the little cave he’s made, like he’s thawing him out. Like Shane is the one that had frostbite. 

“I’m not mad at you,” Ilya says seriously. He smacks a kiss to the side of Shane’s head, then another one in his hair. Then, softly, “Relax, Любимый мой. Nothing happened. We are okay here.”

Shane’s heart pounds. Ilya slings an arm over his shoulder, like he’s J.J or Hayden or Troy, a bro, and leads him to the kitchen. 

Yuna has her back to them, removing the tin foil on a dish she’s just clearly just pulled out of the oven. She turns when they enter. “Just in time. Lunch is ready.”

Lunch, apparently, is Shane’s reckoning for ambushing his boyfriend with his in-laws. 

He sits at the table, next to Ilya, who has taken to chatting up Yuna while simultaneously keeping a grounding hand on Shane’s knee. Shane stares at the plate his mother has loaded with milk-white pasta and a small, sopping pile of lettuce that smells like vinegar from a foot away. 

“Thank you, favorite Hollander,” Ilya says loudly, directly into Shane’s eardrum, twirling his fork with glee. 

“David may have gone over-board with the dressing,” Yuna says unhelpfully, poking at her own pile with a grim look. Her fork scrapes against the glass plate in a jarring, tiny screech. “It’s been marinating all night. You don’t have to eat it.”

Not eating it only leaves the pasta, though. Too large of an amount to just move around on a plate without going unnoticed. 

“David would love Russia,” Ilya says. He shovels a fork-full into his mouth and grins with a mouth of dark green. “Pickled everything.”

Shane’s stomach turns. 

“So.” Yuna smiles over her wine glass. “Want to tell Shane the news?”

“News?” Shane echoes. 

He’d not only abandoned Ilya, but also missed something big enough to warrant an announcement?

“Is nothing bad,” Ilya says, like he knows what Shane’s thinking. He removes his hand from Shane’s knee to wipe his mouth with a napkin and rests both his forearms against the table. “Yuna found me a Russian therapist.”

Shane’s racing heart suddenly stutters, then slows.

“Seriously?” 

“Seriously,” Ilya says, smiling widely. 

“Here? In Ottawa?”

“I did not think it was possible either.”

Shane lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and with it, an unexpected laugh bubbles out of his mouth. “That’s amazing.” 

“It’s about time the universe started looking out for you,” Yuna says. 

“Yeah,” Shane agrees. Unbidden, his eyes drift towards the gold chain glinting around Ilya’s neck. 

Ilya catches the look. His hand moves, subtly, to touch his chest where the cross sits under his shirt. Yuna stands to refill her glass. 

“Moms always know what to do,” Shane says quietly, almost to himself.

Ilya visibly swallows, and his expression does something complicated. He clears his throat and turns back to his pasta. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, just as quietly. “I think they do.”

A ray of sunlight catches the edge of the window to their left, and the room grows brighter.

A day later, about an hour after Ilya swallows the first of his new dose, Shane watches him suddenly dart up from his barstool and sprint down the hall. 

He chokes, mid-gulp of his smoothie. “Ilya!” 

It comes out gurgled and panicked and entirely indecipherable. He swears, wiping his mouth and chases after him.

He hears the retching before he even enters the bathroom. 

Ilya’s on his knees, his whole body heaving, clutching the toilet with white fingers. His shirt is stuck to his back, navy blue turned even darker with sweat. The sounds he’s making make Shane’s own stomach roll. 

He forces it down and grabs the washcloth folded on the sink.

“Okay,” he says, crouching down next to Ilya, who moans painfully. “It’s okay. Just get it out.”

Ilya seems to take that to heart, because he vomits for a total of seven minutes before his stomach seems satisfied.  

Shane talks him through it, sweeping his curls away from his forehead and snaking an arm under his sweat-soaked t-shirt to run the washcloth down his back. Ilya just pants and groans into the toilet.

“You didn’t eat,” Shane remarks when it’s finally over. 

Ilya makes a noise that almost sounds like a growl.

“You can’t take it on an empty stomach.”

“Oh, really?” 

“Yeah,” Shane nods. “It says on the pamphlet. You have to-”

“Shane.”

“Yeah?”

“Please get out.”

Shane blinks. Ilya doesn't move, sitting with his legs around the toilet and his elbows resting on his knees, faced away from him. His face is white, his eyes closed, breathing carefully through his nose. 

“I’ll make you some food,” Shane promises. 

Ilya doesn’t respond.

Shane stands and heads to the kitchen. 

He opens the fridge and surveys what they have. Ilya’s appetite hasn’t improved, so he’s going to be eating smaller amounts, which means those smaller amounts have to be nutrient-packed. And he’s on an SSRI. Patients on SSRIs should have a diet high in healthy fats, omega 3’s, and magnesium.

Foods in that category: nuts, seeds, avocados, fish dark leafy greens, and oysters. They have peanut butter, but it’s smooth, and Ilya only likes the crunchy kind. They have trail mix, but it’s mixed in with chocolate, and Ilya doesn't need excess sugar right now. 

Shane stares deeper into the fridge, eyes trailing over each item, like something new will appear.

There, on the second shelf: Raw salmon.

Shane was going to make that for dinner on Thursday, but he can switch it around. Yeah, that should be fine- he can swap the broth and tofu. He’ll just have to compensate for two days in a row of high salt intake. 

He pulls the salmon carefully out of the fridge. It's a small sacrifice to make when Ilya is the one suffering down the hall, taking pills that make him sick, so he doesn’t disappear.  

By the time Ilya finally emerges from the bedroom, the salmon is fully cooked. 

Shane is plating it when he sees him- shirtless and trembling from exertion, curls matted to his forehead. His color- which Shane was just about to say looked a lot better than earlier- suddenly went white-green again.

“Are you going to throw up again?” he asks, already rounding the island. 

Ilya literally gags. His abs visibly clench. His hand flies up to pinch his nose. Shane stretches out his arms-

Ilya swears in Russian, holding out his free hand to stop Shane in his tracks. “Christ, Shane, why are you making evil fucking things right after I am throwing up?!”

“I- it’s fish. You need to eat. It has all-”

“Fish, Shane?” Ilya interrupts faintly, sinking onto the couch, breathing in slowly through his nose. “Why?”

“You need to eat,” Shane repeats firmly. “You’re not eating consistently. It makes the side effects worse. Patients on SSRIs need to eat healthy fats, but you aren’t eating enough, so what you do eat has to be-”

“I just threw up!” Ilya says loudly. Shane falters. “I cannot eat fish!”

Shane’s hands clench briefly at his sides. “Ilya,” he says carefully, “you have to eat with your medication.”

Ilya blows air out of his mouth, head in his hands, but doesn't respond. 

Taking it as a win, Shane continues. “I know it doesn't sound good, but salmon has everything you need in it. It helps you absorb the medication more efficiently. You threw up because you took them on an empty stomach. I should have made sure you’d eaten, that was my bad, I’ll set a reminder moving forward-”

He sees the moment Ilya’s body tightens, right before he snaps.

“Stop!”

Shane falls silent.

“Stop doing this!” Ilya waves his hand in the air. “You keep deciding what I will do! You think I cannot take care of myself? You think I am stupid?!”

Shane’s heart stutters. Ilya finally raises his head, and stares at the wall across from them. Like he’s unable to even look at Shane.

“I know you are trying,” he says. “I know that, and I know I scared you, and it was not fair, but Shane- I cannot fucking breathe. You do not know everything. You think you have all of the answers, but you don’t- who wants to eat fish when they are sick? You aren’t thinking about this, you aren’t thinking it through.”

Shane feels a surge of irritation, because what the fuck else has he been doing if not that? 

“That’s literally-”

“No.” Ilya finally looks at him, shaking his head with eyes so sharp and his jaw clenched so tight that Shane can almost feel it himself. “You are not thinking, you are panicking. One thing can not fix everyone. One thing is not right for everyone- you of all people should know this!”

Shane’s jaw drops. “Is that a fucking jab at me being gay?!”

Ilya scoffs and waives his hand, like that’s a ridiculous conclusion to come to. “You said, ‘patients on SSRI’s’, just a minute ago, did you not? You are thinking of me as a project, as a number! A fucking patient! You are not my doctor, Shane. You are not a doctor at all.”

“I never said I was!” Shane yells back.

And shit, he is not supposed to be yelling at Ilya, that’s exactly what drove him away last time. He’s supposed to be open, let Ilya communicate to him how he’s feeling, and that’s exactly what Ilya’s trying to do now-

“Shane, I am- I am trying. But you are not letting me. I need to get better, yes? Then let me learn how to get better. You doing all of the things I’m supposed to do is not going to fix me.”

And that… is a good point. Ilya’s the one who’s actively trying to change his brain chemistry. It has to be him..

“Okay,” Shane says, tucking his thumbs in his pockets. “I hear you. You’re right.”

Ilya mock gasps- subdued, obviously still nauseous, but teasing all the same. “Hold on, say that again, I need to record-”

“Shut up,” Shane says back- teasing, too, because bantering Ilya is better than sick Ilya.  “I- I can send you all of the articles? And the list?”

“List?”

“Yeah. This- the fish was stupid. Sorry.” Shane nods, mostly to himself. ”I’ll just- I’ll send you the research. So you can learn by yourself.”

Ilya looks at him for a moment. His jaw clenches.

Then, quietly, resigned, and clearly irritated, he mutters, “Sure, Shane. Of course.”

Shane watches as he slowly rises from the couch and walks back to the bedroom. Shane hears the door close behind him, then open again, like Ilya had remembered what the rule was.

His eyes start to burn. He swallows, staring at the hallway like it will give him answers.

He’d gotten it wrong, again, clearly. 

God, he felt like a little kid again. Misinterpreting whatever fucking clues he was supposed to pick up and either getting laughed at, or people thinking he was being disrespectful. Only this time, it was his boyfriend- the one person who usually understood him like he could see inside his brain. The one person who never got offended when Shane spoke. 

But, Shane had already missed so much of Ilya. Those enormous empty caverns in his mind, with their whispering ghosts and “Under Construction” signs, that Shane was supposed to be filling. He was supposed to know by now how to fix him. 

But if all of that research didn’t work- if it kept making everything go wrong, kept upsetting Ilya- what the fuck was he supposed to do?

At a loss, floundering for air, Shane stands in his living room for a few more minutes, wondering where he went wrong.

By that evening, Ilya still hadn’t left the bedroom.

He was awake, though. Shane can hear him rustling around in the blankets, playing games on his phone loud enough to hear through the doorway.

Shane can’t help but feel like he’s keeping a hostage. 

The answers he had were wrong. He’d kept fucking up, trying to execute a plan he wasn’t qualified to make in the first place. Ilya was right about that; he’s not a doctor. Who the fuck is he to try to play that role?

There’s only two things in this world he’s perfected, and only one of them is something Shane can take the reigns on right now. 

So he stands in front of the mirror, under the dim light of his guest bathroom, and gives himself one last once-over. 

He looks good. He knows that. Shane’s intimately aware of the way he catches people’s attention. The way the cameras linger on him a bit longer, the way his teammates would scoff at the way the Voyageurs younger female fans flocked to him for photos and squealed his name. The more predatory, unsettling looks when he was first drafted, from people much older than him who were looking at him with a bit too much hunger.  

One of his favorite secret past-times is pretending that he doesn’t notice it. He likes watching Ilya glower at the people looking at him, feel Ilya’s hand on the small of his back as he acts non-the-wiser and lets himself be guided away. He likes how hard Ilya fucks him afterwards, like he’s proving to an imaginary audience that he’s the only one who gets to have him. 

His body is a tool. 

Shane likes knowing the effect he has on his boyfriend. He likes that his body belongs to two things: hockey, and Ilya.

He doesn't how it feels like both of those are moving too far away, too fast, for him to keep up.

This, he can fix. This, Shane knows. This, to him, is tried and true, with a guaranteed positive outcome- at least for his boyfriend. 

He straightens, watching the light ripple over his reflection. 

“Man up,” he whispers to himself. He can see his fucking heart pounding under his chest- a very faint up and down- and prays Ilya will be too distracted by everything else to see. 

He’s ready.

Shane finds himself counting the steps to the bedroom, pausing just before the doorway. 

He breathes in once, squares his shoulders and feels his feet beneath him, the way he does when he’s about to step onto the ice.

Confident. Steady. No room for error, because he knows what he’s doing. He knows these calculations, he knows how to maneuver himself, and he knows how to get the outcome he wants.

This will give him a leg up. Steer them back on track, so they can start over. 

I know how to do this.

He opens the door and strides in.

Ilya is sitting with the nightstand light on, instead of opening the curtains for the last few hours of sunlight. He looks up when he hears the door creak, and raises an eyebrow when he sees Shane.

Shane, for once, determinedly holds his gaze. He peels his shirt off- slowly, flexing his bicep in the way he knows will trigger the heat in Iya's stomach. 

When the shirt is over his head and he finds Ilya’s eyes again, he sees them familiarly narrowed.

Bingo.

He folds the shirt and lays it carefully over the armchair.

Ilya’s body goes still under the covers, his jaw jumping. There’s heat in his gaze.

Shane moves on to the top button on his shorts. This part, he usually doesn't do anymore- this is typically where Ilya takes over, moving across the room so quickly it’s like he can’t contain himself. Shane hasn’t given him an actual strip show since their first time at the cottage together. 

It’s exciting, showing off for him like this again. Like getting back on the ice for the first time after a slow-healing injury. 

He folds his shorts and adds them to the pile.  

“You gonna make me do all the work?” Shane asks, his voice huskier than he expected it to be. He trails a finger along the top band of his boxers. 

Ilya’s adam's apple jumps in his throat. 

Shane is taking the lead here, though, so he doesn't wait for a response. He pulls his boxers off, already half hard, and they join Shane’s other clothes in their neat stack. Then he stalks across the room, eyes trained on Ilya’s clenched abs, and climbs onto the bed. 

He slowly starts to peel back the duvet. He dips his chin and peers up at Ilya through his brows in the way he knows will get him a reaction, his hand snaking lower, until-

Ilya’s soft.

Shane blinks, his plan screeching to a halt. Ilya is staring at him with a look Shane has literally never seen before.

“Are you okay?” Shane asks, frozen.

Ilya makes a weird noise, like he’s trying to scoff, or laugh or something. He yanks the duvet back over his lap and Shane leans back, pulling his arms into himself like he’s been burned. 

“I’m sick, Hollander,” Ilya says. In that same weird tone that Shane’s literally never heard before. His eyes aren’t distant, at least- but instead, they're darting between both of Shane’s so quickly, he doesn’t know how he can see anything at all. “You think I can get it up right after I threw up again?”

Yes, Shane thinks, heart pounding in a rhythm that’s frantic in a way it wasn’t before. Because you’re insatiable, and you always have been, and if I so much as breathe too close to you, you get a semi. 

That’s an Absolute Truth. It’s something both of them know, and it’s something they can both bank on when nothing else gives, and that’s never been a secret.

That’s not to say Ilya can’t change his mind- Christ, of course he can. 

It's just that he would usually do it without letting Shane slowly undress himself like a cheap whore in his own bedroom, and fucking… laughing at him afterwards. 

Maybe he was waiting, a small voice in the back of his head says nastily. 

Waiting to see if Shane’s body is still enough, even though he hasn’t been sticking as firmly to his diet over the last couple of months. 

“Sorry,” Shane whispers, feeling like a fucking moron.

Bare naked, slightly cold, erection quickly flagging as he kneels in the middle of his own bed, unsure what to do with his arms now.

Ilya makes that weird noise again. The look on his face now is something Shane can decipher a bit better now- something between anger and fear. He’s looking away, bending his knees to bring them closer to himself as he scowls. “I- I’m sorry. It is different now, I have been trying, but…”

It's different now. 

Shane feels vaguely nauseous. Panic starts to curdle in his stomach, just above something a lot deeper that sort of feels like dread. 

Because of course it was. 

Shane was exciting once, sure- years ago, when they were sneaking around together. When he was young and novel, eager and in better shape. When he could tease Ilya from far away, make him wait until the next time they were in the same city.  

When the thought of being something more- belonging to each other- was something unthinkable.

The idea of him is fun, he’d found over the years. People’s reactions to meeting him, the way the press obsesses over him, the way rookies still talk about him with stars in their eyes. He’s a professional athlete, the best hockey player in the fucking world. 

 But Shane himself, any closer, is boring. 

He doesn't drink or smoke. He follows the rules. He plays his game and doesn't make eye contact in the locker room, let alone participate in small talk. He goes on silent retreats, and wears the same clothes, and eats the same foods.

“I- it is not you,” Ilya says quickly, suddenly sitting up. 

Too quickly. 

Overcompensating.

Embarrassment swells over Shane so quickly, he feels lightheaded. 

How could he think that he, alone, would be sufficient for a man who was constantly seeking a thrill? Who got antsy if he spent more than ten seconds in silence, or without moving around? A man that had spent his life and career having enjoyable, consistent sex with strangers every week before he was pressured into moving to an entirely new country, and playing for a shit team?

Shane had taken everything from him.

“It isn’t you,” Ilya repeats quickly.

Shane can’t speak. He feels like a moron. He feels like a fucking alien. He draws even further back, away from Ilya’s body, hand catching clumsily in the sheets.

“It is the medication.” 

But his blue eyes are so wide, so guilty.

He looks like he’s been caught. Shane feels bile rise in his throat, and the towers in his mind are starting to give way. 

How had he gotten this so wrong?

Wrong words, and wrong movements, and wrong researching, and wrong judgement. 

You think you have all of the answers, but you don’t.

“I’m sorry,” he finds himself saying. 

His skin feels taunt, pulled over his muscles like there’s too much to fit inside. Disgusting. 

Ilya reaches out and Shane flinches away, the thought of his pity unbearable- but not before his hand lands on Shane’s thigh. 

The fat there moves- it fucking ripples- and Shane suddenly remembers the pastry he’d eaten from his dad, and the greasy pasta from lunch, and the way sodium holds onto water in the body and how badly he fucked up his diet earlier. He’d eaten the fucking fish he’d cooked, not wanting it to go to waste, which meant he’d had both of his high-sodium meals for the week back to back-

And now his body is clinging to it, holding onto every weakness Shane had given into, stretching out his skin, wrong, wrong, wrong. 

“Shaneya,” Ilya says, pleading. “Look at me, please?”

He can’t. 

He should have just thrown the fish out- or fed it to Anya, at least. He should have started over, skipped lunch today and picked up again tomorrow with his new grocery delivery. 

He- this will take days to flush out, probably. He needs to train, he needs to go to the rink and do fucking bag skates, but Ilya is sick, and Shane can’t leave him alone.

Not when it might cost him Ilya’s life.

Shane made him come here, and now he’ll die if Shane leaves. He’s completely dependent on someone who can’t even get him off anymore-

“Shane, it’s the medication,” Ilya insists. He grips Shane’s thigh, bringing his other hand to match, trying to get Shane to look at him, but all Shane can feel is those strong fingers resting on top of a disgusting mound of dirty flesh. 

And Shane- he’s left with no fucking options. He’s failed. Truly, wholly, and undeniably. 

Everything he’s done- finding a way for them to be together, trying to learn Ilya’s mind, trying to give him any semblance of happiness, trying to keep him safe-

Shane’s completely out of control. 

He has no fucking idea what he’s doing. The answers were wrong.

“I’m so sorry,” Shane rasps. He sounds like a fucking child, his voice all shaky and small. 

Ilya sucks in a breath, scooting towards him, and Shane can see him shaking his head, but Shane can’t look him in the eyes right now. He can’t fucking bear it. 

“I-” Shane swallows, his mouth dry. He backs away, his leg finding the other side of the bed. “I’m going to sleep in the guest room.”

“Shane, no,” Ilya begs.

He sounds so fucking guilty, even though he has no reason to be, and Shane can’t bear torturing him for one more minute. 

“It’s- I’m so sorry.” He sounds like a broken record. He stumbles towards the door, clumsily picking up his folded stack of clothes like a participation trophy he doesn't want. “I shouldn’t have… that was my bad. Just-”

And he can’t help it. He’s so, so fucking needy, it’s pathetic, but he can’t help it-

“Please just keep the door open?” Shane’s voice cracks. His fingers grip his clothes like they’re a lifeline. His eyes are so full of tears he can barely see. 

Then he turns and practically runs out of the room. 

He hears Ilya call his name, tight and scared, and Shane barely manages to cover his mouth with his free hand before a sob bursts out of his mouth, but he doesn’t stop until he’s across the hallway. The guest room is dark and plainly decorated, with photos of some abstract American beach on the walls. The sheets are freshly replaced, and the air still smells faintly of his mom.

He leaves the door cracked open. Anya pokes her nose at the small gap, but Shane shoos her away.

“Go, Anya,” he pleads. “Daddy needs you. Go see Ilya.”

She leaves. 

Shane settles onto the bed, trying to stifle his sobs. His hands find his bare thighs again, burning like Ilya’s hands are still there. He feels a surge of complete mortification as he kneads the skin between his knuckles, knowing Ilya had felt it too.

The stupid fucking fish and its stupid fucking sodium.

He had a diet for a reason- he ate fish on Thursdays for a reason- and now he’d ruined things with his boyfriend, and he was only getting older, and when he got back on the ice in a couple of weeks, his teammates would see it too. That he’s aged out, lost his value, at age twenty-eight. 

At the same age most people started their lives- bought a house, started raising kids, finishing up doctorate degrees or starting novels or starring in movies- Shane was already done.

His thighs start to hurt, and Shane realizes he’s digging his short nails into the skin, gripping hard enough it will undoubtedly bruise.

But he can’t let go. He can’t move. He can’t even fucking breathe. 

“Shane,” Ilya calls from down the hallway. 

He sounds almost angry- but in the way he does when he’s scared, desperate to be understood. It’s loud and commanding, and Shane almost instinctively wants to answer, but he just sobs instead.

“Shane, дорогой, please.”

“Go,” Shane chokes out, digging, digging, digging his fingers deeper, trying to at least ground himself, because everything’s spinning so fucking far out of control. “Just go, Ilya, please. I’m sorry.”

Ilya pauses. Shane can see his shadow across the floor through the gap in the door, dark against the warm lighting from the living room. 

Shane’s chest clenches in a hiccup, and he clamps his hand over his mouth again.

Finally, after an eternity, Ilya speaks again.

“Okay.”

Quiet, shaky, and resigned.

All of the things Ilya Rozanov should never be. The things Shane’s forced him to become. 

The light disappears, and the house goes quiet, and Shane doesn’t sleep.

Somewhere around midnight, the wind outside starts howling, and Shane sighs heavily when he realizes a snow storm is rolling in.

For Shane, growing up, that used to mean board games and being curled up near the fireplace in between his parents while they never let his mug of hot chocolate run more than half-way empty. 

But Ilya, he’d learned, would get kind of quiet. Morose. He’d avoid the windows, turn the thermostat up a little higher than it needed to be.

Shane let him. It felt like another one of those things where Ilya was trying to prevent something. But he hated them, Shane could tell.

He caves a few minutes later, when he hears ice start to hit the window. 

Shane stands and tiptoes back to their bedroom- praying Ilya’s sleeping, like he should be. He just wants to check on him. It’s irrational, he knows it is- he would have heard if something had happened- but he can’t help himself.  He just needs to make sure he’s still breathing, still there, still in the house-

Shane quietly pushes the door open, socked feet muffling his steps.

Anya is curled up at the end of the bed. Ilya’s flat on his back, hands limp at his sides, the moonlight catching the sharp curves of his muscles. 

His eyes are open. 

Shane’s breath catches in his throat.

Then Ilya’s chest falls, and then rises steadily again, and Shane almost whimpers in relief. 

“Sorry,” he whispers, because there’s no way Ilya doesn't notice him there. “I just wanted to check on you.”

Ilya doesn't respond. 

Shane pauses. Then, hesitantly, “Ilya?”

Nothing.

And while Ilya may be petty sometimes, and even though he might be angry right now, he would never just ignore Shane. Especially not to his face. 

Shane swings open the door before he even realizes he’s moving. 

Ilya remains still. His eyes, Shane realizes, are completely distant. Glossy, like they’ve been open for a long time.

Shane feels hot pressure behind his own eyes. 

His skin is cool, and a bit clammy. His neck is in an awkward position against his pillow. Shane adjusts it, lifting Ilya’s head a tiny bit to pull the pillow down. Ilya sighs a little bit- more of a deep exhale, than anything- but he still doesn't move. 

It’s like he doesn't even realize Shane’s there. 

“Okay,” he whispers, reaching out to softly tuck a curl behind his ear. Ilya blinks, slowly, but still doesn’t turn his head. “Okay. You’re okay, baby.”

He doesn’t seem okay. He doesn't seem not okay, either, though. He’s just… gone. 

You think you have all of the answers, but you don’t.

Shane has to be careful how he approaches this. Ilya can’t do it himself- not if he can’t even see it, and being completely out of his own body like this is dangerous. 

“I got you,” Shane murmurs quietly. 

He pulls the duvet up over Ilya’s chest. 

He won’t try to fix this, but he can at least find a name, give Ilya a label for it, so he can get the help he needs without Shane inserting himself and inevitably fucking it up.

It almost feels like a relapse, the way the relief swells so wholly in him. 

Shane spends the next day tucked away in the guest room, hunched over his computer.

The storm stopped at around eighth AM, but when Shane peeked out the window and saw snow so high it almost reached the window downstairs, it became abundantly clear they were going to be stuck in the house until the snowplows came.

Which meant no grocery delivery, he realizes with a sinking feeling.

But… maybe that’s okay. 

He’ll just save what he has left, in case it’s a longer delay than usual. There’s other food in the house, but nothing Shane would eat if there was a gun to forehead- let alone a snowstorm.

He doesn’t eat breakfast. He doesn't need it; the excess of sodium will more than tide him over.

He keeps the door halfway open, just in case. He only hears Ilya’s footsteps a few times, and it seems to just be to the kitchen and back. For the most part, it seems that he’s just sleeping off the side effects of his upped dosage.

According to the internet, there are a few things that seem to match Ilya’s symptoms, and each one only sounds worse. 

Amnesia.

Dissociation.

Absent seizures. 

Brain tumor.

Stroke.

And now, Shane really can’t leave it alone- he can’t afford to. He would rather Ilya feel smothered or annoyed, he would rather Ilya hate him than be dead. 

Around noon, he feels a headache blooming, and realizes that sitting hunched in the dark definitely isn’t good for his eyes. He needs his glasses- but those are in the bedroom on the nightstand, where Ilya is.

Never mind. That’s not an option. Shane’s done enough damage already. 

He grits his teeth and keeps going.

One PM rolls by. 

His headache is worse. Suddenly aware of how dry his mouth is, he chugs the spare water bottle on the nightstand, making a mental note to replace it before his parents stay over again.

He can literally feel it go down. Shane snorts at himself. Of course, he was just dehydrated. 

Another hour goes by, and there’s a tentative knock on the door.

Shane’s head whips up so quickly, his vision goes white for a second. 

Ilya stands in the doorway with Anya held close to his chest. He shifts from foot to foot. There’s a worried, uncertain look in his eyes that makes him look younger than Shane’s ever seen him. 

Shane’s heart pangs.

“You’re okay?” Ilya asks quietly.

“Yeah,” Shane says, but it comes out too raspy to be understood. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, of course. What’s up?”

“You have not left this room all day,” Ilya says, pinning him with his gaze. “Did you eat?”

Oh. He wouldn't have thought Ilya would want him to make them food- especially not after what happened yesterday. He usually liked to fend for himself, cook something for himself.

But he’s not feeling well- of course, he wouldn’t be up to making himself a whole meal right now.  

“There’s meal prep in the fridge,” Shane says, sitting up straighter. “You can have whatever you want. I’m starting over tomorrow with a new delivery. There’s no more fish, don’t worry- it’s mostly just grains-”

“No, Shane, did you eat?”

Shane falls silent.

Ilya is staring at him in that way that usually makes heat flicker in his stomach- but right now, for some reason, all it makes Shane feel is a bit nauseous.

“Yeah,” he says, looking back down at his computer, pretending to be looking at whatever article he’s on right now.

He doesn't really know why he’s lying. He’s almost surprised by how defensive he gets- but he can already hear the ribbing, the teasing, the pitying looks. The ‘you think you have all of the answers, but you don’t, the telling him to loosen up-

He’s too busy for that right now. Especially with everything going on with Ilya. He can’t have Ilya worrying about him. 

“Shane,” Ilya says quietly.

Shane glances back up, feeling a flicker of irritation. “Ilya.”

A heated staring contest that Shane really doesn’t have the wherewithal to try to win. 

“You don’t have to be here,” Shane insists. “Seriously. I can handle myself, I know how to eat. I’m not a child.”

Jesus, what?

It works, though. Ilya, now seemingly a bit irritated as well, just flicks his hand in a universally-understood Slavic ‘whatever’ and retreats from the doorway. He says something in Russian that Shane thinks might mean hypocrite, if he’s at least been doing those lessons correctly. 

He buries himself back in his work.

Another hour goes by. 

Shane realizes, suddenly, that he really doesn’t feel good.

Sweaty, kind of. 

His head isn’t spinning, but it’s something close. Almost like he’s… tipsy, or something. 

Tipsy and… nauseas. 

He stares harder at his screen, and it’s like the words just float past. He has to re-read the same sentence about four times before it makes any sense. 

He doesn't know how long it is this time, but his hands are shaking now. The nausea is worse. 

And he’s tired. Like, bone-tired. Fucking stupid, because he’s done literally no physical exertion today, but maybe he’s caught a bug. Shit, maybe that’s what’s wrong with Ilya- maybe it’s not his meds. maybe it’s, like, a weird flu or something.

He really doesn't feel good. 

He needs more water. And his glasses, probably. Yeah, that will help the headache. 

Shane stands.

The movement seems to take his body by surprise. His knees buckle a little bit, head spinning for a second. His vision goes dark around the edges.

“Fuck,” he whispers to himself, digging the heel of his hand into the sockets. 

Speaking, apparently, is the wrong move. His stomach lurches. His entire body goes hot. His hands start tingling, and so does his tongue. 

He- something’s wrong. 

He needs water. Probably. Yeah, that- yeah, he needs water. 

He walks to the door, thankful that it’s already mostly open, because he would have probably walked right into it. Something weird is happening with his vision. His whole body feels like it’s pitched too far in one direction, like he’s tilted, or walking sideways or something-

In the hallway, now, Shane feels his foot almost slip under him.

He feels like he’s on the ice, kind of. Not like he’s skating, though- like he’s walking across it in his shoes.

He’s not wearing shoes. He’s got socks in. Socks can make things slippery.

He’s in the kitchen now. His heart is thudding. He’s sweating.

He doesn't feel good. 

Open the cupboard. Get a glass, because he has to have something to put the water in-

But Shane’s hands are shaking. So much, they’re shaking, it’s like his arms aren’t even attached to his body anymore.

“Shane?” 

It’s far enough away that Shane doesn't really register it. He grabs the glass and pulls it down towards himself, but it almost hits the counter, it’s so heavy-

He turns around. Ilya is standing behind him, eyes narrowed but alert, darting all over Shane like they’re across from each other at the puck drop, and he’s trying to psych Shane out, figure out his next move-

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

It’s instinctive, at this point- but this time, it comes out weak and limp. 

Water. He just needs to get to the fridge and get water. 

He walks towards it. His stomach lurches again.

He really doesn't feel good. 

“You are very white, sweetheart,” Ilya says, but from far away again, like he’s throwing his voice. He’s across the island, though, which isn’t that far. Shane feels a flicker of anger, or panic, or something else that doesn't make any sense, because why the fuck won’t he just talk like a normal person?

Shane frowns. “I’m- not.”

And he doesn’t know what the fuck happened there, but the words sound all slurred, like he’s drunk. 

His mouth feels so weird. 

Full of cotton, and too wide, and his lips won’t touch-

“Shane,” Ilya says, louder. He’s moving around the island, arms hovering at his hips, like he wants to reach for something. Trying to get Shane's attention.

Shane’s fucking listening. He tries to tell him that, to tell him to leave him alone, but-

The vignette around his vision narrows into pinpoints.

Someone shouts his name.

And suddenly, Shane is on the floor.

He blinks. His head is a million pounds, but someone- Ilya, he recognizes that voice- manages to lift it anyway, off the dark floor and into the crook of his elbow. 

He’s so strong, Shane thinks. He doesn't feel good. 

“Wake up!” Ilya bellows. 

Shane is awake. Or, maybe he’s not- he doesn't know, because his mouth won’t cooperate. He releases a strange, weak noise, and it’s not enough.

Ilya moves, and Shane is shifted along with him. There’s beeping, and a long dial tone, and Ilya swears, before he tries again, and again, and finally Ilya cries out like he’s in fucking agony. 

A long, desperate string of Russian, and then Shane’s being gently lowered to the ground again. 

He tries to sit up, to follow him, but his arms barely twitches. 

He can hear Ilya moving. The fridge door opens- Shane can see it now, barely, through the small separation he’s managed to get as he heaves his eyelids open. He’s probably getting Shane water. Shane should have gotten it himself, really, if he’d just made it in time for whatever this is-

Then he’s being hauled back into the crook of Ilya’s arm. His mouth is forced open, and something horrible and explosive and sour is poured over his tongue.

Shane chokes, and sputters. 

“Drink it, Shane,” Ilya says, loud and commanding and leaving no room for argument. It’s his Captain’s voice, Shane realizes, but he’s never heard it directed at him before. 

But following orders is the one thing Shane is good at, and following Ilya’s is even easier. 

So he lets it trickle down his throat, swallowing weakly, until it stops. 

“Good,” Ilya says, and Shane’s heart lurches at the way his boyfriend’s voice breaks a little bit. He feels an almost aggressive kiss to the side of his head, and then he’s being rocked back and forth. “Good, Shane.”

 Warmth spreads through his limbs, and Shane sinks into it.

He opens his eyes a little bit, catching a glimpse of Ilya’s face. He looks pissed, but it’s the kind pissed-angry-scared he gets after one of his rookies goes down, or when Anya runs a bit too far towards the street at the dog park, or the time last month when he’d almost broken down the bathroom door trying to get to Shane.

Shane must close his eyes, because Ilya lightly smacks his cheek a couple of times, and he opens them again. 

“Awake, любимый.” He pulls Shane closer, until Shane is being cradled against his chest, close enough that Shane can hear Ilya’s heartbeat fucking racing. “Stay awake.”

And because it’s Ilya, because it’s the one person who always seems to know what’s right for Shane, he does. He stays awake, keeps his eyes cracked open, occasionally rolling back as his head pounds painfully.

A few minutes pass.

Wetness trickles down below his ear. Shane makes a weak, aborted sound. Ilya’s shoulder moves, and Shane realizes he’s wiping away a tear that’s escaped down Shane’s completely numb cheek and made it down to his neck.

Shane breathes. His hands slowly regain their feeling. Ilya calls him something in Russian and runs a gentle, firm hand over Shane’s leg, where it’s hanging limp over Ilya’s knee. 

The contact hurts; an almost jarring soreness that makes Shane’s breath hitch. 

Ilya pauses. Shane feels a single finger gently hook under the bottom seam of his shorts and pull up. Ilya gasps.

Shane forces his eyes to fully open. He finds it easier now. He feels less alien. Whatever Ilya had made him drink had fixed whatever the fuck this was, and he’s still trembling a little bit, but it’s easier to see, now, at least-

Ilya is staring at Shane’s thighs in abject horror.

Shane follows his gaze. There are long, irritated red stripes dragged along his upper legs, leading to five deep, purple marks along the line where his thighs and hips meet.

His own fingerprints, Shane realizes.

He’d done that. Last night, when he’d ran away to the guest room. He’d done that to himself. 

Ilya’s head whips towards him. His eyes are red-rimmed, his face swollen, and he looks like he himself might collapse when he realizes Shane is sitting up on his own.

“Oh, Christ!” Shane is immediately pulled back into Ilya’s chest, but at a better angle now. “Спасибо, мама. Fuck, Shane, fuck-”

Thank you, Mama? Shane blinks blearily, trying to orient himself. 

He lifts his arm, brings it closer to his lap. He smacks his lips. They’re sticky. His whole face feels like it’s got pins and needles. “What happened?”

Ilya pulls back a little bit- enough to hold his entire palm against Shane’s cheek and stare at him like he’s trying to read hieroglyphics. “You passed out, Hollander. Are you- how do you feel?”

He feels weird. Like he’s coming off a roller coaster, his stomach swooping and his limbs all tingly. But, decidedly- “better. I feel better.”

He glances around him, head still spinning a little bit. His ass hurts from where it’s been pressed into the floor for who knows how long. There’s an entire jug of orange juice sitting next to them, the lid off, and Shane’s eyes fly up to his hairline.

“Did you force-feed me orange juice?”

Ilya clenches his jaw, moving his hand down to cup the back of Shane’s neck. Shane lets his eyes drift to Ilya’s lips.

“Yes,” Ilya says. “Because I tried to call 9-1-1, but the phone service is not working because of the storm, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“So you gave me orange juice?” Shane repeats. 

He’s not even angry, even though that is so far outside of his diet, he’s just so fucking confused-

“Yes. You had low blood sugar,” Ilya says, jaw set tight. His eyes are tracking Shane’s again, flitting back and forth. “Low blood sugar, Shane. Because you haven’t eaten anything all day.”

Oh.

“And I asked you about it,” Ilya goes on, and there’s something in his gaze that is so fucking haunted that Shane can’t look away, “and you fucking lied to me. I checked the trash, and I came out here to make you sit down and eat something, and you collapsed, right in front of me.”

The same wet hotness trails down Shane’s cheek again, and he realizes he must still be crying. 

Ilya’s staring at him. Shane doesn’t know what to do.

“I-” he swallows. Tries to gather something to say. His mind is moving too slow for his mouth to be able to form anything. “I didn’t think it would- I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t mean to,” Ilya repeats. Still not breaking eye contact, moving his other hand to grip Shane’s waist, giving him no room to run away, he pulls the bottom of Shane’s shorts up again. “Did you not mean to do this either?”

“Stop it,” Shane whimpers, his voice cracking. 

He reaches arduously forward, and tries to uncoordinatedly cover his legs back up. His stomach literally trembles with the effort.

Ilya watches him silently. 

“As soon as the roads are clear,” he says in a low voice, “we are going to a hospital.”

Shane immediately shakes his head. “No. No, Ilya, that would be impossible to hide, we’re already dealing with the other hospital visit.”

“That’s not a negotiation.”

Big word, Shane thinks almost bitingly, and then feels a swell of shame. “They couldn’t even do anything at this point, Ilya. The fix for low blood sugar is to fucking eat sugar, and I did that.”

The words come easily to him now. Surprising, again, in their viscousness. 

“Shane, you put yourself in danger! And you lied to me about it, why would you do that?!”

I don’t know! Shane wants to scream.

“I’m fine now,” Shane says. “We’re not wasting a hospital bill or risking getting caught on camera over something that was fixed in fifteen minutes. What’s the point in that?”

“The point is that you fucking scared me!” Ilya bellows, and then he’s moving, and Shane’s entire head is suddenly engulfed in Ilya’s enormous hands, forced to look at him.

He looks insane. 

He looks terrified. 

Shane did that to him. 

“You were on the floor! You were not moving! And you did that to your fucking legs!”

Something has snapped in Ilya’s resolve. His shoulders suddenly cave and he starts crying, hysterical, and whatever adrenaline that had been coursing through him a few minutes ago has clearly run out. Shane finds himself crying too, hot tears running down his face like a child, dripping between Ilya’s thumbs.

“You hurt your body,” Ilya pleads, and Shane has never hated himself more in his fucking life. “My Shane, you can’t- please.”

“Okay,” Shane blubbers, bringing own hands up to cover Ilya’s, trying to soothe what little he can. “Okay, baby. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I’m okay, I promise. It was stupid. It was an accident.”

Ilya rests his forehead against Shane’s. Shane lets his eyes fall shut, and neither of them mention the fact that that word has started to mean something else entirely.

Chapter End Notes

Oh my god, its been forever, been pharmacology has been pussy whipping me and I didn't want to give a half-assed chapter.

So, that hit like a mac truck. Shane's spiraling and isolating, and their miscommunication. His self esteem is such dog shit when it comes to anything other than hockey and sex, which he's perfected, and now he doesn't have that either.

He has no control anymore, and he has no idea what to do, and now he and Ilya are both drowning together. And as someone with experience in specifically orthorexia and reactive hypoglycemia, i’m drawing from what I know. low blood sugar is SO fucking weird on your body, and it’s hard to put into words.

Anyways, your guys's comments here and on twitter have been an actual ray of sunlight in a very grim fanfiction culture. You guys make me think, and you catch the little things, and you speculate and give me kind words and it really, truly means the world to me. Not to be dramatic, but it literally makes me love writing. Like oh, i'm not just shitting out words- the words make sense to other people too.

Chapter 6: I worry for you, you worry for me (and it’s fine if we know we won’t change)

Chapter Notes

Shane refused to go to the hospital.

His unwavering determination is something Ilya usually admires. It's certainly gotten him this far. It's gotten him his career, carved his place in his country- it takes a special kind of stubbornness to become a professional athlete, let alone the best player in your sport. 

Ilya feels everything but fond about this now.

“This is not an argument,” he says, even though that was the literal definition of what they were doing right now. “You passed out in our fucking kitchen!”

“I know,” Shane says sharply, “And I’m sorry I scared you, baby, but it’s fine now. It’s low blood sugar, like you said, there's no reason to go to the hospital. It’s fixed.”

"Fixed?!"

Shane throws his hands up. "Yes! The fix for low blood sugar is fucking eating sugar, and I've done that!"

“You shouldn't have passed out from it.”

“Not usually, no. That’s why I stick to my diet. I know you think it’s ridiculous, but this is why I do it.”

This, Ilya knows, is untrue, but the look on Shane’s face- so earnest, so indignant- makes his stomach sink. 

Because he believes it. 

Somewhere in his head, the circles that he’s run himself in have created a spiral staircase going straight down to something he can’t even see anymore.

“It was not like this before,” Ilya says. 

Shane snorts. “Yes, it was. You’ve always given me shit over it, that’s literally fifty percent of what we would talk about when we hooked up.”

“You never fainted before.” Then, with a pang of fear- “you haven't fainted before, yes?”

“I haven’t,” Shane confirms, and something in Ilya settles.

It’s short-lived, though. Shane’s hand, seemingly subconsciously, finds his thigh over his sweatpants and scratches at it.

Scratches at the deep marks drug all the way up to his groin. His perfect, impossibly smooth, sweet skin, marred in the shape of his own fingernails. 

The image is burned into Ilya’s mind. He doesn't know how he’ll ever be able to see anything else. 

“Have you done that before?” Ilya gestures, his body tight as stone. 

Shane gives him a Look. “Of course I haven’t.”

The answer is quick enough to make Ilya pause.

There’s two options here. 

Either Shane is telling the truth, which means Ilya has driven him to this point- or he’s being dishonest, and Shane has been hurting himself for God knows how long, and Ilya was too fucking dense to see it.

Ilya doesn't know which is worse.

Shane’s hands have gone still over his legs, his posture straight and uncomfortably tight. He’s refusing to meet Ilya’s eyes, and Ilya’s stomach sinks to his feet. 

He’s lying.

Lying to Ilya’s fucking face. 

Ilya stares him down for a moment. Then, longer. 

Desperately trying to give Shane a chance to take it back; to let him gather himself behind the instinctive ego that’s protected him for so long. 

“Of course you haven’t,” Ilya says flatly. Echoing him, not agreeing, and he can tell by the way Shane tightens impossibly further that he knows it. 

He doesn't respond, though.  

There’s a rumble outside, and then a loud scraping. 

“The snow plows,” Shane says, snapping out of his rigidity. “The cell towers will be back up soon- I should call my parents, make sure they're okay.”

He stands from the couch, still not making eye contact, and rounds the coffee table to make his way towards the kitchen.

Ilya watches him wordlessly.

Russian, or English- he doesn't know what to say. 

The next morning, Ilya is woken up by Shane quietly climbing out of bed. 

For a moment, his heart clenches in fear, thrown back into the decade they spent sneaking out of hotel rooms, trying not to wake each other up. He didn’t know if Shane would even be willing to share a bed with him last night, so he doesn’t think he could stand it if he was now trying to slip away like a shitty one-night stand-

“Hey, hey,” Shane says, face softening in the early morning light at Ilya’s sweaty, disoriented scramble. “Go back to sleep.”

Ilya turns to look at the clock next to them. It’s early- much earlier than Shane’s self-imposed schedule usually calls for. “Where are you going?” 

“I’ve got to scrape off the car,” Shane says. He reaches down and runs a hand through Ilya’s hair with a gentleness that still takes Ilya by surprise. “You have your therapy appointment today.”

Ilya's voice is so coarse from sleep it almost hurts. “It is barely five o’clock.”

“I know,” Shane says. “I couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d get a head start, make sure everything is ready.”

“Ready for what? Is just therapy, sweetheart, not spaceship takeoff.”

“I know,” Shane repeats. “It will probably just take a while.”

“I will come with you, then.”

“Ilya-”

“You are hurt,” Ilya says firmly. Shane’s expression flickers into something defensive, but Ilya plows on. “I will come with you.”

They dress side by side, wordlessly. Ilya is, admittedly, sore- the strange muscle aches from his medication that haven’t quite eased up yet, and neither has the exhaustion. 

Still, he is now as determined to keep an eye on Shane as Shane seemingly is on him. 

The jeep is buried under a mound of snow so deep, it’s comical. 

“That’s just absurd,” Shane mutters, scowling at the vaguely car-shaped lump like he’s trying to unearth it with his mind. 

Ilya laughs, deep and hearty. “Looks like Canadian propaganda cartoon.”

“Glad to know we’ll always uphold our stereotypes.” Shane grips his shovel. “Alright. Come on.”

Shane, like he is in most things, was correct when he said it was going to take a while. 

Breaking through the layer of ice that the snow had frozen into has Ilya way more out of breath than he’d ever admit. He ends up taking off his coat at one point and swears he can see steam radiating off his forearms. By the time the car is mostly uncovered, they’ve both agreed to just leave it running while they shower, and let the defroster finish the work. 

When they get to the bathroom, though, Ilya doesn’t realize Shane isn’t behind him anymore until he realizes how quiet it is.

He turns around. Shane is standing frozen in the doorway, his face blank.

“What, did your feet forget how to work?” Ilya asks.

He’s hoping Shane will roll his eyes, call him an asshole- maybe blink out of his stupor and follow him in. 

Shane shakes his head slowly, then swallows hard. Then Ilya watches as he morphs into something tense and straight-postured, and his thumbs find his pockets. A polite smile plasters itself on his face. 

“No,” he says, just as politely. “I’ll just wait until you’re done. 

And then he walks away with the manner of someone excusing themselves from a coffee shop after getting their order.

Ilya stares after him stupidly. What?

He can’t get away with not showering, though- not if he’s going to be sitting in a small room with a stern older Russian woman whom he’s meeting for the first time. His mother would turn over in her grave. So he climbs in and lets the lukewarm stream hit his chest, mind racing.

They haven't fucked in... over a month. Nothing close. Not even a blowjob, Ilya's broken libido has made sure of that. And the one time Shane tries-

Shit, this about a couple of nights ago?

When Shane had slowly stripped off his clothes, hungry-eyed and beautiful, and both Ilya and his stupid dick had frozen? The way Shane looked like Ilya had just shot him in the chest, eyes full of tears that he refused to let fall, and fled the room?

Was it because of the scratches on his legs? The ones he’d done to himself, that made Ilya want to launch himself off a cliff? 

“Shit,” Ilya chokes into his hands, raking them over his face. 

Galina Molchalina had better tell him how to fix this. He’s too stupid to know where to even start.

Galina Molchalina is not stupid. 

Ilya can tell this from the moment she enters the waiting room. She directs her gaze to him immediately, gives him a once-over, and calls him by name- the Russian pronunciation, not the awkward, fumbled English version. 

It sounds like home. It sounds like everything he’s left behind. 

It sounds like what he’s been missing.

“What brings you to therapy?” She asks, in Russian, once they’ve entered her room. It’s well lit, with small curtains tied back from a small window to Ilya’s left, and a low coffee table in front of him. 

“Because everyone thinks I am going to kill myself,” he says flatly. 

Galina’s face remains unchanged. Like she’s immune to Ilya’s attempt to shock her- or better yet, scare her off. Then he could say he tried, but he clearly doesn't need it, and everyone can stop worrying.

“Are you?”

“Obviously not.”

“So why do they think you are going to kill yourself?”

It almost takes Ilya aback, hearing those words back at him so bluntly. Touche. He waves his hand. “You must have seen it in my file. Yuna sent it from the hospital.”

“I did read it in your file,” Galina confirms. “I’d like to hear it in your own words.”

Ilya’s eyes flicker between hers. He can’t tell what color they are, from here. “My boyfriend and I were in a fight.”

No change of expression at the word boyfriend. Ilya must admit he is a little surprised at that. Regardless of how many times he’s been told that things are different here, that homosexuality doesn't guarantee the same kind of danger, he still has a hard time believing it. 

He gives it another second, to be sure. Galina just nods for him to continue. 

“We were going to go to family dinner,” he says finally. “I was mean, and he left. I… was in my head, for a while. I got drunk. Vokda. I was not looking where I was walking, and I broke the bottle on the counter. It cut my arm. Everyone thought it was something worse.”

Galina doesn’t nod this time. “That was all?”

No, it’s not. They both know it. 

But this part will be trickier to convince her of. Ilya huffs to himself. “I went for a walk. But I was drunk, and so I didn’t know where I was going, and I ended up far away from home. A nice woman saw me and drove me home, but Shane had already come back by then, and they thought I was missing. They called the police, and the police brought me to the hospital…” he waves his hand again. “A misunderstanding. But the doctors did not believe the bleeding drunk man, and my boyfriend and his family were very upset, so they made me stay.”

“Did you want to stay?” 

Ilya gives her an unimpressed look. “No.”

Galina reaches to her left and sweeps a cup into her hands, swirling the tea bag. “That must have been frustrating, having that choice taken from you.”

And that was… not what Ilya expected. “Yes. It was.”

“Did you feel like it helped? Staying in the hospital?”

“I did not like being away from my boyfriend. And they gave me pills that do not work.”

“A prescription?” Galina clarified. 

“Yes.” Ilya nods at his file from across the room. “It is in there.”

Galina opens the file with one hand and peers at it, still stirring her tea with the other. “I see. An antidepressant. You said they don’t work?”

“No. They make me sick, and sweaty, they broke my dick, they just make me more tired-”

Galina humsm unphased. “That is a high dose. And it’s been over a month- you're taking them for depression, I assume? Or do you have another diagnosis?”

Ah. 

Smart woman, Ilya thinks bitterly, getting him to admit things without actually saying them. “Depression.”

Galina nods. “Would you be open to trying a different medication?”

Ilya stares at her. It feels like a trap. “...Yes.”

Galina finally takes a sip of her tea, and meets his eyes again. “I would like to suggest something, before we change it.”

There it is. Ilya shuts his eyes briefly, jaw clenched so tightly he thinks one of his fake teeth breaks. 

“There is genetic testing I encourage clients to do, before they start out on antidepressants like these.” 

A ridiculous image of men in white coats and comically large mustaches pops into Ilya’s head, followed by much more terrifying reality- tools, knives and scalpels and drills, glinting in cool blue lighting over a cold metal table. Threats Grigori used to hurl at his mother, that she’d be tied down, have her brain cut into until they fixed her. 

He had twice the reason to have ended up in the hospital in Moscow. If his father had known… if his brother found out…

He remembers the way they gloated at the television in 2013, at the news of Vladislav Tornovoi’s death. Ilya had chuckled to himself, swallowing back bile, at how much of a cosmic joke it was- that his father’s rotting mind couldn’t remember where he fucking was, but had no issue remembering his prejudices. 

Then, when Grigori had finally died- the purge of Chechnya.

Ilya swallows, his mouth dry. There’s a buzzing sound coming from somewhere behind him.

Murmurs from Alexei and his friends, from the very minute Ilya had landed back home. Sasha, quiet and uncharacteristically subdued, only giving Ilya a firm handshake at the memorial. The bags under his eyes, pale and thinner than Ilya had last seen him a few years ago, and the pointed stare that said, careful. A gentleness from Sveta that made Ilya’s heart sink, softly telling him that it was worse this time, and people were going missing in larger numbers than could be explained away. Then the teary look in her eyes as she’d kissed him one last time, after his fight with Alexei at the memorial dinner, saying "Jane", and "he", and Ilya knew.

When he left tomorrow, he would not be coming back.  

He’d cried at Mama’s grave that night. He’d had to jump a fence to do so, trudge through the snow along the pathway he knew by heart. He’d dropped to his knees and begged her to understand- that he was sorry, and that he loved her, and that he loved Russia, but he wasn’t safe anymore. 

Her marble grave shone so brilliantly white, reflecting against the moonlight and the snow, it felt like it was angry at him.  

But if Ilya stayed here, if he died here, it would not be an honorable death. He would only bring shame upon his family. She was already the subject of so many rumors- if he couldn’t protect her in life, he owed it to her in death. 

“-ya? Can you hear me?”

The voice worms its way through the buzzing. Ilya nods instinctively in response.

“Good. Can you look at me?”

Looking is weird, though, because he didn’t realize until right now that he’s not actually seeing anything. He blinks, hard, and the nothingness melts away.

He realizes Galina is sitting at the end of her chair, leaning forward with clasped hands, her eyes watching him intently. 

Ilya swallows. He feels like he just woke up from a very long nap. “Yes,” he says, in response to seemingly fucking nothing, because she hasn’t asked him a question-

“Are you alright?” She asks. Her voice is steady, but sharp. Concerned. 

“Yes,” he says, and maybe that’s what he’d been answering before. It’s usually what people ask when this happens, he’d just been getting ahead of it. “I apologize. What were you saying?”

He’s playing nice. He’d forgotten, for a moment, what exactly this was. What psychiatry entailed. 

Whether they are in Canada or not, Galina is Russian, and Russia has a way of carving you from stone. No matter how much you soften, the center is still the same. Galina, a fucking psychiatrist, who makes her living off of fixing people, would have no reason to believe any differently now than she had in Russia. 

“I was talking about a test I would like to suggest,” Galina says. She still hasn’t sat back. It makes anxiety thrum under Ilya’s skin. “You became very quiet. Does that happen often?”

“No,” Ilya says instinctively. But no, that’s a lie, and he’s trying to fix himself right now so Shane doesn’t have to. If he can distract her from the queerness, the depression, he will do it for as long as he can. “Yes. I… go away sometimes.”

“Can you explain to me what that looks like for you? ‘Going away’?” 

“My head…” Ilya gestures around his hair. “My ears ring. My hands can’t feel anything. It is like everything disappears.”

Galina purses her lips and nods. “Alright. How often does this happen?”

Ilya shrugs. He doesn't know. He doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. “What were you saying about testing?”

He can be a fucking man about this. He won’t do it, of course- he will talk to Yuna and make sure it doesn't happen- but he will let her speak. He will let her think she is winning. 

Galina doesn't respond right away. She narrows her eyes slightly, then jots down something in a notebook and sets back onto the small table next to her. “The testing is to identify which medications would best align with your genetic makeup. There are many types of antidepressants, and it can take a long time to rotate through them and see which ones work the best, and which ones have the mildest side effects. This testing would eliminate that process. It would narrow it down. Basically, it would tell us which antidepressant would work best for you, and give you he most relief.”

Ilya blinks. What?

“Medication should not be an obstacle to your healing,” Galina says. Her eyes aren’t soft, but her gaze is more… rounded. Like she’s seeing right into him. “It can come with its own difficulties, of course, but it should not, on its own, hinder the process. It is an aid.”

There’s no fucking way it’s that easy. Ilya searches her eyes for a moment, before speaking carefully. “And this… testing. Where is it done? How long is it?”

He really, really doesn't want to be locked up again. It may not have been that bad last time, but if it becomes a regular thing… 

“You wouldn’t need to travel for it,” Galina says firmly. “It’s a very simple blood test. I would send an order to a pharmacy, here in town, and you could do it when you have a free moment.”

What the fuck?

“I would go to pharmacy,” Ilya relays back to her, voice filled with as much skepticism as he can muster, “And they would take my blood, and then they will tell me what medication will not make me feel like shit?”

Galina smiles. Ilya feels a bizarre sense of… victory? “To put it simply, yes.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Hm.

Ilya brings his arm up to rest against the back of the sofa, pursing his lips. He doesn't really know what to say, so he fills the silence with, “that will ruin my boyfriend’s plan then.”

“What’s your boyfriend’s plan?” 

“He thinks he will fix me.”

Galina raises an eyebrow.

“He thinks he can make everything better,” Ilya amends. “A lot of times, he can. He is the best thing in my life. But he has not been able to help… this. He is scared. He makes himself busy trying to fix it.”

“What does he do?”

Breathes down my fucking neck, Ilya thinks fondly, but he would never speak about Shane in a way a stranger could take as derogatory. “He worries. Hovers. He does not let me be alone in a room. Does ‘research’,” he makes air quotes, “on what I should eat, how I should exercise, how much water I need.”

“And how do you feel about that? The ‘hovering’?” She copies his air quotes. 

Ilya refuses to laugh. She hasn’t won yet, even if she’s given him far more in this session than he had expected. “I feel like I cannot be alone. He is very anxious. He is the most anxious person in the world, so much so that it makes me anxious. He is always thinking something will go wrong, and he must stop it before it does. I tell him nothing will go wrong again, but he does not listen.”

“What does he think will go wrong?”

“That I will hurt myself again.” Then, quickly, catching himself, “That I would have an accident again. He has thrown out all of the liquor in the house, and he’s hidden away all of the sharp things. He even hid my phone charger.”

Galina’s brows flicker downward.

“He thinks I could strangle myself,” Ilya clarifies.

“Have you ever strangled yourself before?”

Ilya stares at her, astonished. “What? No, of course not.”

“Have you hurt yourself before?”

“It was an accident," Ilya insists, irritated now. “I was not trying to fucking kill myself. That is absurd.”

“Have you thought about killing yourself before?”

“No,” Ilya says bitingly, before he can think any harder about it. 

“Do you know why your boyfriend thinks you would?”

Christ, this is not what he wanted to talk about today. She is going to think it is some kind of explanation for whatever is wrong with him, like it is a built-in diagnosis, even though it is fucking irrelevant. But he doesn't think he can possibly escape therapy without talking about it, so he charges on, trying to regain control before she can come to her own conclusions. “My mother killed herself when I was twelve.”

Galina looks like she wants to speak. Ilya doesn't give her the chance. “It was a very long time ago. She did not have much freedom, and she was alone a lot of the time. My father was cruel to her. He cannot be cruel to me, because he is dead now."

Galina is watching him carefully. He has shocked her, now, he can tell. It’s a lot to process, he supposes. He knows that on paper his life seems like shit. 

“Her life was very difficult. Mine is not. My Shane-” Galina’s expression flickers ever so slightly. Ilya feels a pang of panic, and continues on, hoping he can still salvage this- “my boyfriend is kind to me, always. I am never alone. I have a job I love, friends, a dog.”

And that on paper… that is perfect.

“I am sad sometimes, yes,” he admits, “but I am not suicidal. I have no reason to kill myself.”

He allows Galina a moment, taking one himself to glance out the window. 

To her credit, the moment is quite brief. “Sometimes, there is not a reason,” she says. “Oftentimes, you cannot rationalize depression. Chemicals do not care about rationality. Sometimes, they are just imbalanced.”

Put like that, it seems much too simple. 

She’s simplified a lot already today. Ilya does not know what to do with it all organized so plainly.

Shane will love her, he thinks pettily. Then, out loud, “When my mother killed herself, it was not an accident. It was clear. I did not do that that night. If I wanted to be dead, I would know how to do it."

"Do you have a plan, if you were to kill yourself?"

"No," Ilya hisses. "It was just... it was a small lapse in judgement. I do not sit around, thinking how I want to kill myself. But my boyfriend seems to think differently, and I do not know how to convince him. That is why I am here.”

“You want to convince him,” Galina repeats.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Ilya stares at her again. Then, angrily, "Because I didn’t do it! It is making him worse, thinking I did!”

“Making him worse,” Galina repeats again. “Worse how?”

Shane, white as a sheet, hands twitching, dazedly walking towards the fridge. 

Ilya calling his name, fear tearing through him, because he knows in his gut that something is wrong, wrong, wrong-

Shane’s beautiful dark eyes, rolling into the back of his head, as his knees give out.

“He-” Ilya swallows hard. God, whatever lump is stuck in his throat won’t fucking go away. 

His hand frantically patting Shane’s cheek, cradling all 200 pounds of him in his own lap, looking down at his face as he wails like a child.

Yuna’s voice saying “are you sure? That looked like low blood sugar” and Ilya forcing orange juice down Shane’s throat and praying to Mama, to God, to whatever the fuck was out there, that he was right. 

“He does not eat,” Ilya bites out. “He- he doesn't finish his food. He only eats specific things at specific times, but sometimes he does not even do that. And he fainted in our kitchen yesterday. Would not let me bring him to the hospital.”

A serious, sympathetic look. 

For some reason, it gives him the willpower to keep going. “And he- he scratched himself.” it sounds so fucking stupid, when he says it like that. “Badly. Scratched his nails all the way up his leg, digging them in.” 

Ilya’s eyes are wet. He blinks rapidly, trying to force the tears back. He scowls at the window, wishing she’d just fucking look away. 

“It was my fault,” he says shakily. “I make him worry. I make him panic, and then he hurts himself. He needs to have things a certain way and I kept fucking it up. That is the reason we had a fight at Christmas. I’m forget things, I make messes and I don't clean them up- I'm lazy.”

“Depression can make it harder to do things we normally would,” Galina says. “Cleaning up after yourself can be part of that.”

Ilya scoffs, feigning a cough and using the movement to swipe away a tear that has escaped down his chin. “It is not depression.”

“Why do you say that?”

“My mother was never like that,” Ilya says. “Even towards the end, she… she was never lazy.”

Galina reaches over to sip her tea again. “You keep using that word: lazy. Why do you say that?”

“Because I just… will not do things. Even if I know I need to. I will look at a pile of laundry for hours and I will not fold it. My boyfriend has to remind me of things. If it is boring, it will not get done. If I do not see something, I will not remember it.” Ilya taps his thumb against the back of the sofa. 

Galina is quiet for a moment. Long enough that Ilya looks back up at her, eyes narrowed. 

“It doesn't sound like laziness to me,” she says finally. “There is intent to do those things. You are not ignoring them.”

“If I was disciplined, I would be better,” Ilya insists. “I do not know… why I cannot do it.”

“You mentioned boredom,” Galina says. “Can you elaborate?”

“It means I get bored,” Ilya snips, because what the fuck else would that mean? “I have to move around, I don't sit still. I drink energy drinks all day. But I will not do what I should be doing unless I am doing it with my team, or my boyfriend.”

Galina clasps her hands again. “I apologize- I did not ask this before. Does anyone in your family have a history of mental illness, not including your mother?”

Ilya thinks for a moment. “I do not think so,” he says. “They do not talk about those things.”

“Any history of addiction?”

Well, that’s a no brainer. “My brother used to snort away half of my salary on cocaine before I cut him off. And, I suppose all of us drink. I would go to parties, drink a lot of vodka. I do not think I was addicted, though. I could stop. I did stop.”

Galina stares at him like she can see into his soul. She nods once, slowly, then again, a bit faster. “I see. Ilya, have you ever been assessed for attention-deficit disorder?” 

And now, it’s Ilya’s turn to be stunned into silence. 

By the time he’s walked back to the parking lot, his skin feels like it’s been peeled back, and someone has violently sprayed down his bones with a fire hose. 

“Oh,” Shane says, eyes going wide when Ilya opens the passenger door. His poker face is terrible. 

“What, ‘oh’?” Ilya snaps, collapsing into the seat.

Shane quickly tears away his gaze. “Nothing. Sorry.”

“No,” Ilya sighs. He knows his eyes are red, and he's slumped dramatically in his seat, posture the last thing on his mind. “I’m sorry. I am not mad. I don’t know why I said it like that.”

“It’s okay,” Shane says, because he’s kind, and far too patient. “You just look kind of drained, is what I meant. How did it go?”

Ilya glances down at the pamphlet he’s been handed on his way out. “Terrible.”

Shane grips the wheel, eyes snapping to him. “Why? What happened?” There’s a protective spark to his voice. “Was she, like, mean to you?”

“No,” Ilya says. “She was just… very smart.”

Shane pulls out of the parking lot, quiet, giving him room to speak. He’s always read Ilya better than anyone else. 

“She thinks she knows what is wrong with me," Ilya says reluctantly.

“There’s nothing wrong with you-”

“Yes,” Ilya says tiredly. “There is. Chemical imbalance. It can be fixed, but it is wrong.”

Shane takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

“And she thinks I have ADHD.”

“ADHD?”

“Yes.”

“What-” Shane sounds as confused as Ilya had been. “What does that have to do with… what happened before Christmas? Why would she think that?”

“I don’t know,” Ilya says bitterly. “I am not… what is-”

“Bouncing off the walls?” Shane supplies. 

“Sure, that. I am not loud and crazy. But she says it can make the depression worse, sometimes. Big emotion swings, the boredom. She says usually she would speak to the family to diagnose, to see what I was like as a child. But, obviously…” he tosses his hands in the air. “They are all dead. So, I don’t know.”

“Why would she think you have it after one session?”

“I don’t know.”

“So, she just told you you have ADHD out of nowhere?” Shane presses, narrowing his eyes cynically. 

Ilya scowls. It’s becoming a habit already, and it’s barely ten in the morning. “I told her about my mother. And how I am not depressed in the same way as her. I told her about the messes, how I am lazy. She asked if I have ever been tested.”

Shane glances at him- a brave feat, for a man who preached road safety like it was his religion. “So didn’t tell you you have it, she just wants to assess you for it.”

“I guess,” Ilya grumbles. 

Shane leans back into his seat, loosening his white-knuckled grip. “Okay. Then maybe you don't have it.”

Ilya can’t help but feel a bit disgruntled at the relief in Shane’s tone, but he’s too tired to argue. He leans his head against the window and watches the trees as they pass.

“Do you think anyone in your family would have it?” Shane asks a couple hours later. 

Ilya looks up from his couch, fully cocooned in a blanket he’s sweating pretty heavily under, but is too lazy to shove off. “Have what?”

“ADHD.”

Ilya thinks for a moment. “No.”

“No?”

“I don’t think so. There was nothing wrong with Alexei, except that he's an ass. And my father certainly didn't have it.”

“Do you think…” Shane tenses, his cheeks going pink. He shakes his head, almost to himself. “Never mind.”

Ilya sits up, finally pulling the blanket off his chest. “No, what were you going to say?”

Shane looks uncharacteristically ashamed. “Never mind,” he repeats.

“Shenya.”

Shane grips his water bottle. Sighs. Then, tentatively, “...Do you think your mom did?”

“I don’t know,” Ilya says. “Why were you afraid to ask that?”

Shane gets a little pinched look on his face, like he’s picking his words carefully. Sometimes, Ilya wishes he could break into his mind and help him sort it out, push away the overwhelm and just hand him what he’s looking for, and tell him it will be okay, no matter what he speaks.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about her,” Shane says, slowly and painstaken. 

Ilya blinks. Oh.

“You are,” he says softly. “Of course you are, Shane.”

But Shane shakes his head. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, or make you uncomfortable, or remember something you don’t want to think about.”

“Sweetheart,” Ilya begs. “You could never make me uncomfortable.”

Shane is still. Too still, maybe. Panicking. 

“Come here, my kotyk,” Ilya says, because Shane’s lip is fucking quivering, and it makes Ilya want to blow up the sun. 

Shane comes, albeit stiffly, and curls up into Ilya’s open arms. “I should be comforting you.”

Ilya shakes his head vehemently. His gaze drops, against his will, to Shane’s leg. “We can do both.”

They sit together for a moment, feeling each other breathe. Ilya counts his, until Shane’s  have finally slowed, and he speaks.

“What did she look like?” 

Ilya feels his heart skip a beat.

Shane has never seen her, he realizes. 

Obviously, never in person- but never a picture, either. He didn’t know anything about her. 

It feels like a crime, that Ilya has deprived his sunshine of the very first ray he ever knew.

“Her eyes were like mine,” Ilya says, and it’s proud, because that was the one part of her they undeniably shared. The one thing he could pass down through generations, like Shane could with Yuna. “Her hair was dark, though. Alexei got that from her.”

“So where did you get your blond from?”

Ilya shrugs. Then, a little bit wickedly, “My father, perhaps. But he was so fucking old. So bald, he only had three hairs, maybe. So I have no idea what color they were.”

Shane gasps, but Ilya can hear the smile he’s fighting back. “Ilya!”

“He just combed them over,” Ilya mimes the motion, and Shane giggles. “Like it could hide his shiny head. So round, it looked like a flashlight when he was in the sun-”

Shane is fully laughing now, and the rest of Ilya’s sentence trails off into laughter as well. 

“But yes, rest of my good looks came from Mama,” Ilya says, when they’ve both settled a bit. “You can thank her for that.” 

Shane raises their intertwined hands to his lips. “I can thank her for everything about you.”

Ilya swallows hard. 

Shane kisses the backside of Ilya’s hand once, then twice. “Do you have any pictures of her?” 

“No. After she died… I did not think to save things of hers, except this.” He runs a finger along the chain against his neck. “I do not know where the rest of her things went. My father threw them away, I think. I was… tired, for a while, after she died. I don’t remember much.” He laughs deprecatingly. “I should have known he would get rid of everything. I was stupid.”

“Stop.” Shane shakes his head firmly. “You were twelve. That wasn't your responsibility.” 

It was, though. It was Ilya’s job to make sure Irina wasn't ever forgotten- no one else was going to. By the time he’d figured that out, though, it was too late. 

Shane taps his knee, trying to pull Ilya out of his head. “What was she like? What did she like?” 

Ilya’s hand finds her crucifix. He turns it over in his hands a few times before answering. “If I can be honest… I am not sure?”

His voice wobbles. He clears his throat, quickly turning to look out the window, because his eyes are getting dangerously hot again. 

Shane drags his thumb across Ilya’s knee. 

“She liked to bake, I think?” Ilya offers. “But maybe not. She may have just baked because she knew we liked it.”

Then, so faintly he almost thinks he imagines it- a memory of his bare feet in the grass, wind flying through his curly hair, and his mother giggling behind him. 

“She liked to run,” he says suddenly. A laugh bubbles in his chest, taking him by surprise. “She was very fast. Yes, she and Alexei used to race! He used to say he was taking it easy on her, but he was always tired. She did… what is it… she did track, in high school.“

“Do you have any pictures of it?” Shane asks. “I mean, did you guys have, like, yearbooks or something in Russia?”

He cringes towards the end of the sentence, clearly worried he’s been rude. Ilya, suddenly overcome with giddiness at the recollection of something he didn’t even know he’d forgotten, leans forward and smacks a kiss onto the side of Shane’s head, just to feel Shane relax again.

“Yes.” He grins widely. “We do. My school had a photo album for graduation, that each student got. My mother must have had one too.”

Shane tilts his head to look at him. “Could you get a copy? I mean, I know it was a long time ago, but maybe there’s one online. Or… did you know your grandparents? Would they have it?”

And just like that, the bubble bursts.

This part is exactly why he has never talked about it before. 

Just the thought of unraveling all of this, letting an intruder slip through the cracks to observe and judge and pick apart things they couldn’t possibly fully understand- was offensive.

But actually laying it bare for someone else to see? That is betraying his family in the highest fashion.

All I’ve done is betray them, Ilya thinks. 

But it was worth it, wasn’t it? Giving everything up, for Shane?

It wasn’t even a question. 

Shane deserved everything, all of the most intimate parts of him. He would hand his heart to Shane on a platter if he asked. How was this any different?

“She did not have much family,” Ilya relents, and it makes him feel kind of lightheaded. “No family I have seen in a very long time, anyway. I don’t think they would be very eager to speak to me.”

“You could call them,” Shane suggests.

Ilya shakes his head. “No. I have no way to contact them. They are still in the same city, I think. But I don’t have any of their numbers.”

“I would go with you,” Shane says. “If you wanted to go back. Go look. When the season is over, in the summer. Russia would be warm-”

“No,” Ilya says sharply.

Shane falls silent. Ilya watches the gears in his head start turning, immediately overthinking. He squeezed him to his chest for a moment, trying to gather the right words. Not unkind, but direct. Firm. Clear that this is not something Shane can think his way around.

“It’s not safe, solnyshko,” he says quietly. 

“No one would know,” Shane insists. “We’re friends, there’s no reason anyone would suspect anything. We could say we’re going to do research for the camp. Her family would approve of it, right-”

“No,” Ilya repeats. “Shane, please listen to me about this.”

Shane makes a weird, frustrated noise. “Why not, Ilya? This is important to you.”

Ilya takes a deep breath. “You are important. It is not safe. Do you understand?”

“No.”

And at the earnest look in his eyes, Ilya knows he’s not just saying it to be a little shit.

“Russia is worse now. We wouldn’t just be arrested, sweetheart.”

“In the hotel room in Tampa, you said you wouldn’t be able to go home. Ever,” Shane remembers. “It’s- I remember you were more scared than before. Did… something change? You said your dad was a police officer, but he’s…”

“Yes, he is dead,” Ilya says. “But things did change. Around my father’s funeral, 2017. In Chechnya- small republic of Russia, near Ukraine- they started to arrest gay men in raids. They were put in prison- torture camps- and then they started to kill them.”

Shane has gone stiff. Silent.

“There was not much news on it,” Ilya goes on, “and it was far away. Sometimes, with things like that… it’s hard to tell what’s real, and what is just people talking. But at my father’s funeral it became clear that this wasn’t just gossip. It was spreading. Hateful people were getting brave. I knew I couldn't come back.”

“Oh, Ilya,” Shane’s voice cracks. 

But Ilya keeps going. Because Shane- this endlessly stubborn man, who will stop at nothing if he thinks he can find a solution- needs to hear this. “They called it a 'purge' in the States, when I was looking it up. It isn’t just illegal, anymore, sweetheart, it’s a death sentence if you are caught. And it doesn't take much. They do not need a reason. It hasn't stopped.”

Ilya watches, hating himself, as Shane nods slowly, eyes full of stubborn tears he won’t let fall. 

He sighs, squeezing Shane in both of his arms, and starts to rock them back and forth. 

“I don’t want you to be sad. I just need you to understand, I need to keep you safe.”

“I understand,” Shane promises. Ilya can hear in his voice that he means it, and swallows back the relief that threatens to make his own tears fall. 

They sit like that for a quiet moment until Anya stirs from her enormous dog bed in the corner. 

“She wants to go out,” Shane says needlessly. Ilya nods. They stand together, but Shane clings to his hand, clearly not quite ready to let go yet. 

“It’s a good idea,” Ilya says as they open the back door, shivering at the sweep of cold wind. “Trying to find a yearbook online. Maybe I could do that.”

It’s mostly just because he thinks Shane needs to hear it. The actual idea itself is futile. He’s not sure what dark corners of the internet he’d have to go to to try to find a Russian high school graduation album from the 80’s, but he wasn’t going to risk it.

Shane nods. He’s quiet now. He will probably be quiet for the rest of the day, overthinking until his brain gives out. “I’m glad you told me about your mom.”

“I didn’t tell you much,” Ilya bumps his hip against Shane, hoping to earn a smile. “Just that she liked to run. But it makes me happy to share her like that.”

“You should share her more,” Shane says. “Not to everyone, if you don’t want to. But I would love to get to know her.”

Anya trots back up to the door, her tiny shoes scratching at the welcome mat. Her fur has tiny speckles of snow in it. 

“To you, yes,” Ilya says. “To other people... I don’t know. I don’t want people to misunderstand her. I want to keep her safe. Sometimes… maybe wonder if I'm remembering her right. Like if I made things up.”

“Like what?”

Ilya reaches up, holds the crucifix between his pointer finger and his thumb. He opens his mouth, but closes it after a moment.

I don’t know if she was actually religious.

It feels like too heavy of a confession. That’s integral part of a person- their faith- and Ilya doesn’t really have any idea. 

 It’s embarrassing. 

“It’s time for lunch, yes?” He says, louder than he meant to. He ushers his little family inside and shuts the door behind them. He can keep them warm, at least. 

He starts rummaging through the fridge. He feels Shane’s eyes on him, watching carefully.

Ilya has talked enough for one day, though- so they’ll just have to worry about each other in silence.

Chapter End Notes

These last few updates have been kind of far apart. Oops.
I will never abandon this work, though, so please don't be worried about that. It's, like, the one thing I enjoy doing right now.

We met Galina! She's a little out of character, and that therapy session was a lot more fast-paced and invasive than reality, but it served its purpose.

So right now, we're seeing two divides. One is Shane, who is obviously self-harming- the scratches, and the burning his hands in hot water, if you read the work before this one- but it's still methodical to him. It's a means to an end, and it's a way to be in control. But he collapsed (and that will be VERY delved into, btw) and isn't eating if it's at all outside the perfect parameters, and that's out in the open now.

And then we've got Ilya, who is having episodes of suicidal intent, but doesn't believe he's actually suicidal. He's depressed, but in the way that just kind of fogs everything up. The suicidal ideation is triggered by other things- it's not something he's usually thinking about, or planning- and that's very common with ADHD. But since it's different than how his mother did it, he thinks the same word can't possibly apply to him.

The genetic testing is also very much a real thing. It would have been newer, in this timeline, but still incredibly beneficial. It can eliminate a lot of risk, and make things a lot safer. I very much wish that it were more public knowledge.

And I also felt it was very important- and also extremely relevant- to mention the purge of Chechnya. To be honest, I’m a bit shocked it was never mentioned in the material. While far away from Moscow, it falls in that exact time frame, and it would explain so much more about Ilya's reluctance, and intent to break up with Shane in the hospital. The ripple effects were devastating, and justice still hasn't been served, and it's an incredibly pivotal point in queer history.

Anyways, onto the next chapter! I would love to hear what you thought!

Chapter 7: 'cause if I never see you again, you can be anything I want

Chapter Notes

song from 23 by noah kahan, obviously.

It’s not that Shane is trying to hurt himself. 

He’s not thinking about it, or dwelling on it, or hiding away so he can drive a razor into his skin or something. It’s not like any of the things he read online, when he was doing research for Ilya. And he’s definitely not depressed. 

So he can’t quite figure out why it keeps happening anyway. 

He doesn’t realize he’s scratching at his leg until suddenly his finger is wet, and there's a spot of red under his sweats. It doesn't start to actually hurt until he looks down at it, followed by a rush of mortification that drives him quickly to his feet and back to his bedroom to change.

He thinks, as he stuffs the sweats carefully into the corner of their laundry hamper, that this must be another manifestation of his oddities. 

He doesn't know anyone else who is both so aware of their body, and simultaneously oblivious to the way it’s supposed to act. 

When Shane was six, he went to his first fancy dinner with Dad’s colleagues. 

He’d sat next to Mom, even though his feet didn’t quite touch the floor, and his plate was a little bit high, but his parents had made sure he hadn’t gotten any of the foods that smelled too strong or felt weird in his mouth. He’d gotten 7 grapes, all hanging on a small bundle together, three slices of chicken, and two pieces of cheddar cheese.

He was deciding which order he should eat them, when a strange man plopped down into the seat next to him. 

The table had burst into sudden noise.

This man was important, Shane realized, judging by the way Dad had started talking really fast, and his mom had started sipping a lot more of her wine. So when he had turned to Shane and said loudly, “and who is this little guy?”, Shane had just stared at him. 

Mom had laughed tightly. “Don’t be rude, Shane. He asked you a question.”

But the man hadn’t asked Shane a question, and Shane wasn’t supposed to speak to strangers anyway, and Dad must have remembered that because he said, “this is Shane”. The man had laughed, along with the rest of the table, loud and sudden, and then he thrust his outstretched hand towards Shane again with raised eyebrows. 

Raised eyebrows meant this man was expecting something from him- but Shane didn’t know what.  

Then the man reached out towards Shane’s lap, where his hand was bunching up the bottom of his suit. He grabbed it, forcing Shane to let go, and then shook his fingers up and down mockingly. 

Shane flinched, yanking his hand back to himself. The table laughed again, and suddenly Shane’s eyes felt very hot.

Mom’s arm came around him immediately, tugging him protectively into her side. The man glanced at her, and then his cheeks became very pink and he held his hands up near his shoulders. 

“Shane’s never been to a dinner like this before,” Mom said smoothly. She ran her fingers over Shane’s hair, careful not to mess up his gel, and Shane’s eyes were very blurry all of the sudden. “He doesn't quite know the etiquette yet.”

“You’re right,” the man said, and Shane agreed, because she usually was. “I apologize.”

Shane hadn’t heard the rest of the conversation, because he’d turned and buried his face in his mom’s dress, and Mom hadn’t made him move. 

When it was time to go, Dad hoisted Shane up into his arms and rested him against his hip. Shane, almost asleep now, quickly found its spot in the crook of Dad’s neck. 

His hand was stinging for some reason, so he grabbed Dad’s thumb in his fist and held onto it. Dad traced his pointer finger along the back of Shane’s hand and pressed a few kisses to the side of his head. “You did so good, Shaney.”

The words felt warm, and Shane felt himself finally go slack. He was almost asleep again when Dad tugged his thumb away and suddenly sucked in a breath.

“Yuna,” he said sharply. He held Shane’s tiny hand out flat, tilted palm-up towards Mom, and Mom gasped too.

Shane looked up, eyes adjusting to the dim street lights, and looked down to see that his hand was bleeding.

It was just a little bit. There were four marks dug into his skin, shaped like the half-cresent on the poster of moon cycles in his classroom, and one in the middle was smeared red.

“What the hell?” Mom’s eyes flew up to Shane’s, all wide like she was scared. “Did Collins do that when he grabbed his hand?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t think he grabbed him hard enough for that.”

Mom took Shane’s hand and stared at it closely. After a moment, her lips got all tight. “David- I think those are his fingernails. Shane’s.”

Dad paused. He leaned down to Shane’s ear. “Buddy, did you hurt your hand?”

Shane didn’t understand why they were asking. They had both gasped, like they knew it hurt. “Yeah.”

Mom and Dad went silent. It was long enough for Shane to lay back down on Dad’s shoulder and tuck his arm against his chest, and the part of his hand that was bleeding was really starting to hurt now, after Mom and Dad has gasped like that. 

When Mom spoke again, her voice was all shaky. “Baby, why did you do that? You’re bleeding. Did you not feel that it hurt?”

“Did you do it on purpose?” Dad pressed.

“No,” Shane whispered. His eyes started getting all hot again. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Mom said quickly. She reached over and lifted Shane into her own arms. Shane went easily. Her perfume had kind of faded by now, but she still smelled like flowers. “You’re not in trouble, Shaney. I just want to know why.”

“Didn’t mean to,” Shane mumbled. His hand really stung now that he’d been staring at it. 

Mom nodded a few times. Dad was staring at Shane with a face he had never seen before. “Okay. We’ll just need to cut your fingernails when we get home, okay?”

“M’kay.”

Mom sat in the back with him for some reason, even though she didn’t have a carseat. She cut his nails when they got home, and Dad put a long kind of bandage around his hand so it wouldn’t come off while he was sleeping. 

Shane watched the little marks on his hand slowly disappear, the scab in the middle the last to go, and didn’t think about it again for a very long time. 

Shane is worse at not picking at the scabs now. 

He was really concerned with someone seeing as a kid- giving people anything other than hockey to notice him for- but then he was living on his own and had a lot more liberty over the situations he put himself in. 

And it wasn’t like it was an everyday thing. He wasn’t doing it on purpose. 

It was just that every now and then he’d find his hands too tightly clenched, or a bruise on his side, or a shower that was way too hot. And once the mark was already there, it was just hard to leave it alone. It’s not like anyone ever looked closely enough to point out how long it was taking them to heal.  

He ignores the one-offs that don’t happen as often. 

The ones that he’s a lot more aware of, while they are happening. 

Burning his arm against the oven when babysitting one night: because Ruby and Jade were just a bit too loud, and Shane just needed something to concentrate on, and now that his skin was already there, he might as well see how long he can go without moving, and it had made his brain go quiet for a minute, so what’s the harm?

Getting shoved up against the boards during a game and just not really fighting back- letting his browbone be shoved into the corner of his helmet at just the wrong angle, until hot dark red poured down into his eye, because they were already up by four and maybe it would give him an excuse not to go out with the team that night. 

Doing a commercial shoot for a brand deal his mom had gotten him right after he’d been drafted: hearing the way they muttered amongst themselves behind camera, and the microaggressions they’d made right to Yuna’s face, and the subtle look she’d given him that told him to be quiet, and how the only way he’d been able to take that to heart was to bite his tongue so hard that blood pooled in his mouth until he’d been been able to spit it out in the parking lot on his way out. 

Or a couple days ago, when he’d carved a trail into his thighs with his own fingernails. 

That was a bit of a step up from little half-moons on the inside of his palm. He’ll admit that. This is more like his body was lending itself to his subconscious to issue the punishment it knew he deserves.

The problem is that because of it, Ilya seems to think they are on the same playing field. 

“Shanya,” Ilya says, emerging from the laundry room. 

Shane looks up from his book. He’s in the middle of the first chapter on adult ADHD, and he’s already marked four lines with his highlighter. Ilya is staring at him with a look that’s way more careful than Shane would like.

“What?”

“Did you hurt yourself again?” Ilya asks, quiet and firm. He holds up the bloodstained pants from this morning. 

Shane flinches. “What? No.”

“You’re lying,” Ilya says in the same flat tone, like he’s trying to distance himself from any kind of emotion. “There is blood here. There is evidence. Why are you lying?”

“I’m not fucking lying.” Shane shuts his book with a hot spark of irritation, and then quickly takes a deep breath. Ilya’s fucking sick, and he’s going to be irritable. He has to remember that, or Ilya isn’t going to feel safe to talk to him. “I’m sorry for yelling. Of course I didn’t hurt myself- I just scratched my leg, and it opened up the scab. But I’m sorry you has to see that.”

“You didn’t want me to,” Ilya remarks. “You rolled it into a ball and put it in the corner, and covered it up with other clothes.”

“What- how would you even know that? Are you taking laundry inventory, or something?” 

Ilya’s jaw twitches. His eyes are tracking back and forth so quickly it makes Shane dizzy. “Because I know that trick. You were hiding it. You wore shorts yesterday, and the day before that. You haven’t worn these since you hurt your leg. These are from this morning.”

I know that trick. 

The little bandaid’s on Hayden’s fingers. The fact that the tiny shards of glass on the floor were nowhere to be found when Shane got back home, and the way he’d just shrugged when Shane asked where the mess had gone, and said, “Most of it was already shoved at the bottom of the trash anyway.”

Ilya looking up at him with teary, heavily drugged out eyes, telling him that he tried to clean up the blood so Shane wouldn’t find it. 

Shane’s gut rolls. “Ilya…”

Ilya ignores him. “Why were you hiding it?”

“Baby, I wasn’t hiding it like that,” Shane says carefully. “I just didn’t want you to see it and get scared. I didn’t want to trigger you.”

“Trigger me.”

“Yeah. Like, set you off or remind-”

“I know what trigger means, Shane,” Ilya says sharply. “And that isn’t why. You didn’t even tell me you had hurt yourself until you couldn’t hide it anymore.”

He’s projecting, Shane thinks.

“Ilya,” he says, keeping his voice pointedly calm. He motions for him to sit down. Ilya watches him for a moment before obliging. “I’m not suicidal. That’s not what this is. I’m not hurting myself in secret. That was- this was just a fluke. It was a mistake. Okay?”

Ilya clenches the sweatpants in his fist. He looks up with a guarded expression that Shane really, really hoped he would never see again. “This isn't the first time.”

“Ilya.”

“It’s not. You told me that yesterday, and that was a lie too. What is it they say- once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern?”

“Three,” Shane corrects.

“Three, then, but Shane-” Ilya huffs out a breath. “This is not okay. You aren’t eating. You fainted because you aren’t eating. You did this to your legs, and you are still scratching at them. You need help.”

You aren’t eating. 

Now Shane is too irritated to be patient anymore. “I am eating. That was a one time thing, they aren’t related-”

“Of course they are!” Ilya says loudly. “What- if it were me, what would my therapist say?”

Shane snaps his jaw shut and then opens it again. “That is different, and you know it.”

“How?! What you are doing-” 

“I am not doing anything!” Shane shouts, and something fiery flickers in Ilya’s eyes. “These things aren’t related, this isn’t a pattern, and it’s not like your depression! Okay? This is irrelevant, we are focusing on the wrong things here.”

“Irrelevant?” Ilya repeats incredulously. “You think this is irrelevant?”

“I’m not the one who tried to kill myself, Ilya!” 

The words hit like a stone, and the room goes silent. 

For a terrible moment Shane is sure that he’s just ruined everything. 

“I-” He feels a sudden, violent urge to vomit. “Ilya, I’m so sorry.”

He expects to watch Ilya go away. To watch his eyes go dim, and his breathing slow, and his hands twitch minutely in his lap as he blinks slowly, then slower, like he’s completely vacated his body.

But he doesn’t. Instead, his expression shudders just slightly, he tilts his head, and he looks Shane up and down like he’s taking inventory.

And that, for some reason, feels so much worse. 

“No,” he says. “You’re not. What you’re doing is much slower, and you can’t see it.”

Shane’s heart pounds hard against his chest. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Ilya waves the sweatpants around wildly, nothing if not infuriatingly cryptic. “Shane, I don’t know how to help you if you can’t even see it and you won’t even let me try!”

“I don’t need help!” Shane feels fucking hysterical. He feels insane. 

“So I am the only one with problems here? You sit there all day planning how you're going to fix me, you take every dangerous thing out of the house like I’m a fucking child-”

“Stop it.”

 Ilya plows on, louder, “But when I tell you that mauling yourself like an animal is not fucking normal, you say it isn’t! You decide I will stay at the hospital for psychiatria for three fucking days, and I cannot say you need help too?”

“Why would you make me your medical proxy, then?” Shane bellows. He stands from the couch, fighting the urge to blink even as his vision gets blurry, because once it starts, it just keeps going, and then his entire point is moot. “If you don’t trust my judgement, why did you give me that kind of power?”

Ilya fucking laughs. “Who the fuck else would I pick?!” 

Shane flinches. 

“Hm?” Ilya widens his eyes and shakes his head mockingly, gesturing an arm around the room. “Who, Shane? I have lived in three fucking countries, and I have left two of them behind to be with you! I have no one else! Everyone here is yours!”

Shane loses the battle and blinks against his will, clenching his jaw when twin tears slip from his eyes. “Ilya.”

“You are it for me, in every possible fucking way!” 

“You’re it for me too!”

“No, I’m not!” Ilya exclaims. “And I am glad I’m not! You deserve as many people in your life to love you as you can get. You deserve support system. But what do you think will happen to me if you let this take you away?”

Shane moans, sitting back down and lacing his hands into his air. He looks back up and meets Ilya’s eyes, which are just as watery as his, and clumsily reaches over the lump of blankets on the couch to grasp Ilya’s hand in both of his own. 

“Baby, nothing is going to take me away,” he says desperately. 

Ilya shakes his head so hard his curls bounce. 

Shane squeezes Ilya’s hand so hard it must hurt, but he can’t make himself let go. “Ilya, please. You can’t spend your life afraid of that. I- nothing is going to happen to me. I’m not going anywhere. I swear it.”

And he means it.

If he died today, he’d find a way back. He’d make whatever deal he needed; he’d have Ilya back in his arms by sunset if it meant he’d spend his entire afterlife being flayed alive. 

It had scared Shane at first to be as completely and absentmindedly devoted as he was to Ilya. From the very beginning, he’d been willing to take the risk to have him for just a few hours a few times a year. He’d brought him to his cottage, and shared his home, and adjusted his schedule and stepped outside of the bubble he’d built for himself because it turns out, Ilya is his comfort zone. Making Ilya comfortable gave him just as much fulfillment as being on the ice. 

“You can’t promise that,” Ilya says, hand slack between Shane’s. “Not if you can’t even look at yourself and see that something is wrong. Do you understand that?”

Shane nods without really thinking, because that’s going to be the only thing that will bring Ilya peace right now.

“I mean it, solnyshko. If you let this take you, I will have nothing left. I will not survive it. I know that is not fair to say, and I am sorry, but I need you to understand. You are my life.” 

Ilya’s voice cracks. He turns away for a moment and his arm follows, quickly swiping away the wetness under his eye. 

When he looks back, his eyes aren’t vacant. They’re fucking haunted, and Shane knows it’s the same things that dwelled in the empty caverns in Shane’s mind for so many months. 

“You are everything to me,” Ilya says. “Do you understand? I am yours. I have always wanted to be yours. I have everything I wanted for the last decade right here. I made you my medical- person?”

“Proxy,” Shane says with a noise that feels like a sob.

“Proxy. I trust you to make choices for me when it is important. You decide if you unplug me if I am in a coma. You get everything in my will if you are right and those cigarettes kill my lungs when I am eighty. You can drive fancy cars until you are a hundred and ten.” 

Shane snorts wetly at the bizarre mental picture of a shriveled raisin of a man behind the wheel of an obnoxious neon orange Porsche, barely able to see the speedometer right in front of him.

But then, suddenly, it hits.

“I’m in your will?”

Ilya waves his hand again, and finally lets go of the bloodied sweatpants to place them behind him on the sofa. “Of course you are.”

But something unsettling has sprouted in Shane’s stomach. He doesn't like how nonchalant Ilya is being about this. “Why do you have a will?”

Ilya raises an eyebrow. “I am a public figure, Shane. It was not big deal. My lawyer tried to talk me out of it, because ‘celebrities and unmarried partners and finances are bad idea’. But I figured you would not try to murder me for insurance money, since you have plenty of your own.”

“Okay, but…” Shane swallows. Ilya’s tone is a little bit too light, too joking. “So when did you write me in it?”

Now Ilya pauses like he’s been caught.

“Don’t lie to me. I can call Farah right now.”

Ilya shrugs, but he’s dodging Shane’s eyes. His shoulders are just a little bit too tight. “A couple months ago.”

“A couple months ago?”

“Yes.”

Shane feels lightheaded. “As in- when you got depressed?”

Ilya sighs. “Shane.”

“You put me in you will… two months before you went missing and were found on a fucking bridge?”

Ilya stiffens, eyes darting towards his. He opens his mouth, but Shane keeps going.

“Did you fucking- did you plan this?” 

“Shane, no. That is not-”

“Were you planning to kill yourself?” 

Shane can’t breathe. This is so much worse than he’d thought. It hadn’t been a heat of the moment thing, where Shane finally made his boyfriend snap- it had been premeditated to the point where he’d decided where his assets would go when he was gone?

“Shane, listen. I wasn’t planning anything, it was just time to change it! It is a coincidence!”

Shane makes a wet, panicked noise of disbelief. “No, no, no! You’re talking about coincidences and how three times is a pattern, and you’ve been sitting here this whole time-”

“Christ- wait-” Ilya holds up his hands. “You just now think I was planning something? If- why would you have the hospital keep me then?!’

Shane can’t breathe. 

“You- because once is enough, Ilya! One time is enough! Normal people don’t think about that at all, and you got so close!”

“You think I would plan to do that to you before Christmas?” Ilya says, baffled. 

“You almost did!”

“I was not thinking clearly, Shane! And I didn’t-” he makes a frustrated noise, bringing the back of his hands to his eyes and pressing them against his eyes. “If I wanted to be dead, I would be, do you understand that?!”

Jesus.

Ilya pummels on- not unkindly, but frantic. “You don’t know what that looks like. Suicide– that belongs to my mother. You don’t know what she was like. She had planned it, probably. I don’t know. I really-” his voice cracks. “I really wish she had left a note, or something. If she did, I never found it. But that is what planning looks like. She wanted it, so she did it. I might be lazy, Shane, but that- that is the one thing I would know how to do right.”

How…

Shane doesn't understand how they’re backtracking now. All of his research, all of the medication and appointments, and now Ilya is trying to deny it?

“You’re going to sit there,” he says through tears, “and try to tell me that you weren’t going to jump off that bridge if that woman hadn’t found you?”

“No, I did not sit there and write my will so I could commit suicide by bridge jumping, Hollander,” Ilya laughs hysterically, flipping his hands over to dig his heels into the sockets now, like potentially blinding himself is more appealing than looking Shane in the eye. 

“Do you think I’m fucking stupid?”

“No, I think you think about things too much!”

Shane’s hands clench into fists, completely blind through his tears now. “Do not try to-”

“You plan everything! You can’t take a fucking drink of water without planning for it, you need reason for everything! Sometimes there isn’t one, Shane! You don’t get to make something up for me because you cannot take it!”

“What am I making up, Ilya?”

Ilya snorts. 

“No, you don’t get to say that and not back it up, you asshole. What part of what I said isn’t right? You’re telling me you’ve never tried to kill yourself before?”

Ilya squares his jaw defiantly and finally, finally looks him in the eye. “Da. I have not.”

“Have you ever thought about it?”

Ilya hesitates for a split second. 

It’s enough.

“When,” Shane demands, refusing to let his voice tremble. 

Ilya sighs. “Shane, this is not important.”

“Yeah, well, your judgement is clearly fucking impaired when it comes to what’s important. When, Ilya?”

“It-” another frustrated sigh. “It was a long time ago.”

“When.” 

 Ilya reaches behind him and grabs Shane’s bloodied sweatpants like they’re leverage; like they’ll be able to help him pull himself out of this argument of quicksand. When he speaks, it’s so quiet and reluctant and flat that Shane has to strain to hear. “The night after I saw you in the club in Montreal. When… you were with Rose.”

Shane is going to throw up.

He truly can’t speak for a moment. He’s concerned that bile will come out instead of words- or maybe a long, drawn out scream. 

Ilya senses it. “Shane,” he says softly.

Shane holds up a hand. His breath hitches. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. Just a second.”

Fuck, he needs to respond. 

He needs to say something now, before it’s too late and Ilya retreats for good and never opens up again. Before Ilya disappears too far and Shane can't pull him back in time, he's left behind to find the body.

 Shane pictures that night. He’d considered the worst one of his life; like an addict hitting rock bottom and realizing that there is nowhere left to go now except crawling back up.

He’d drug Ilya down there with him.

Fuck, he’d almost lost him. And he hadn’t even known. He would have founds out with the whole rest of the world, from a fucking TMZ article, and had to watch as the world tore Ilya apart and grieved him like they had any fucking right to something so intimate. 

Shane would have spent the rest of his life mourning the closest thing he could get to a happy ending. He’d have married Rose, and had children with her, and hated himself for the rest of his life. 

“What-” he takes a deep breath. Swallows, and when it feels safe again- “What stopped you?”

“Sveta,” Ilya says quietly. “Cliff. My teammates.”

People Shane barely knows, in passing. From stories. People Ilya left behind to come here and live in this isolated city with nothing but a piss-poor hockey team. 

“They didn’t know for sure, I don’t think.” Ilya’s breath halts. “They didn’t know quite how bad it was. But I never planned anything, Shane. It was more… I lost hope. I knew that I would never be happy again.”

Shane nods. He doesn't know what else to do. He’d fucked up everything this far. 

“You need to believe me, Shane. I do not have a… what did Galina call it? Pre-made?”

“Premeditated.”

“Da, that. That is what they ask you when you are held like I was. The answer was no, sweetheart. I was honest. The bridge, the stitches… I was drunk. It just got worse and worse and I didn’t realize how bad it was.”

Shane peers up at him, lip trembling. “Do you now?” he whispers. “Do you see now, how bad it is?”

Ilya’s expression crumbles. His voice shakes when he asks, “do you?”

And Shane knows Ilya isn’t referring to himself. 

They eat dinner in silence. As soon as his plate is finished, Ilya mutters that he’s going to bed.  

“I’ll be there in a bit,” Shane says, because he doesn't want Ilya to think he’s angry. “I just haven’t called my mom in a while.”

Ilya nods and walks away without another word.

Shane stands for a moment in the empty space and tries to breathe in a way that doesn’t make his chest hurt.

He fails.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket, opens the sliding door to the backyard, and whistles for Anya. She’s there a moment later, trotting right across his feet like she can’t be bothered to just jump over them. Shane almost smiles.

The smile quickly disappears when Svetlana’s voice rings out from his phone a moment later.

“Hollander?” She says in way of greeting. “Is something wrong with Ilyusha?”

Shane tightens his hold on Anya, who’s curled up in his lap, tail splayed out over Shane’s outstretched legs. 

“Uh, no,” he says. “Not exactly. I mean- he’s still recovering from… you know.”

“I do,” Svetlana confirms. Her voice is just as flat as Ilya’s when he’s trying to make a point. “But you do not just call. I do not mean this in a bad way, Shane, but we are not exactly close. Something is wrong, no?”

Shane doesn't take it offensively. She’s right; they’re friends by proximity. It’s hard to become close with someone who lives in another country.

“Yeah,” Shane says quietly. “Something’s wrong. It’s nothing new, Ilya isn’t in any immediate danger or anything. But he said something earlier that scared me.”

Svetlana hums. Shane takes a second and decides that means she wants him to keep talking, so he does.

“He said that his mother was obviously planning to… you know.” He swallows audibly, and hopes Svetlana doesn't hear it. “He says that he can’t be suicidal because that’s what suicidal looks like.”

“You’re asking if I remember her being obvious?” 

Shane winces. “...Yes.”

Svetlana is quiet for a moment. Shane hears something clack daintily on the counter, and then the obvious sound of liquid pouring. 

“I don’t think so,” Svetlana says. “I was young. I was maybe… not very observant.”

Shane finds that hard to believe. She’s always kind of struck him as the “wiser beyond her years” type.

“I remember her as… alive. Not just living, but alive. She knew how to make small things fun. She was sad too, sometimes, yes. But with us as children… Ilya and Sasha and I, and Alexei, she could make anything like magic. 

She is the one who let us play on the rink as children when our fathers were doing business. She could beat you in any race, outsmart you in any game- but she was never mean about it. She would teach you how she did it. She would help you learn.”

Shane can picture it. It makes his chest ache.

He misses someone he never met. 

“She sounds amazing.”

“She would have liked you.”

Shane chuckles sadly. “Yeah. Ilya says that too. I hope he’s right.”

“She would have thought you were funny,” Svetlana says with a snort. “So serious. I bet you were a serious child. She would have made you loosen up, though. She was never quiet; not unless she had to be. She would have taught you to be loud.”

Shane feels a tear drip down the bridge of his nose. He buries his face in Anya’s fur and stifles a hiccup. “I think- I think Ilya is afraid he’s forgetting her. Or that he’s remembering her wrong. He says sometimes that he’s worried he made it all up in his head. I think he remembers her being sad.”

“Irina was not my mother. I will not speak on his behalf, like she is. But…”

Svetlana breathes deeply. 

“I think… it would be easier for him, if she was always sad. If she was in so much pain for so long that death was mercy, and now she gets peace now she couldn’t have before. When you lose someone that way, it feels blasphemous sometimes to remember them as happy and fulfilled; like it is discrediting why they did it. Ilya needs a reason, but he never got one.”

“He doesn’t have anything of hers,” Shane says, and he fails this time at trying to hide that he’s crying. Svetlana, thankfully, has enough tact not to react to it. “All he has of her is what he can remember. He’s got her cross, but he says everything else is probably thrown out by now.”

Svetlana goes quiet for a moment. “He said this?”

“He said his dad got rid of everything. He said his mom’s family might have had some things- we were talking about how she did track, we thought of maybe trying to find a photo of her in a yearbook. But he’s not close with that side of the family, he said his call wouldn’t be welcome.”

Svetlana hums again. She audibly takes another swig of whatever she’s drinking; probably vodka, if Shane knows anything and what she and Ilya used to get up to. 

“Her family has things,” she says. Shane pauses at her delivery: a statement, not just echoing back what he said. “They came to get them from Grigori. I remember that, because my father went over to ‘help’ him with something. There was a fight, I assume, because he came home with his hand bruised.”

Shane frowns. “They- fought over her things? Why wouldn’t her family let him keep some stuff? Or the kids, at least?”

“Because Grigori didn’t want to keep her things, he wanted to destroy them.”

Shane squeezed his eyes shut briefly. Just when he thinks he’s starting to grasp just how bad Ilya’s childhood is, he discovers another layer of heartbreaking cruelty. 

How is he supposed to undo all of that?

What match is he to decades of abuse and neglect and loneliness- especially if all he’s done so far is fuck this up, despite all the research? 

“I can find them,” Svetlana says suddenly. Shane shelves his self-hatred for a moment, knowing he’ll have no probes drowning in it later. 

“What?”

“Irina’s family. I can find them, ask them for some of her things.”

“But… if they didn’t want to give them up then, why would they wanna give them up now?”

Svetlana’s voice is firm. “Because they know Irina loved him. And he deserves to have a part of her. I’m sure they would be happy to know that she would be safe with him. That he wants to remember her.”

Shane takes a moment, running over all of the possibilities in his head. 

Svetlana stays silent, letting him think. 

It feels too easy. And Shane knows from experience that if it seems too good to be true, it is. Ilya is so delicate right now- he will not be the reason his mind fails him again. 

“You would do that?” Shane asks quietly; like if he speaks too loudly, it’ll scare away the possibility that this will work. 

“I’ve known Ilya for longer than you have, Shane,” Svetlana says, not unkindly. “That doesn’t mean that you don’t- it just means that you’re not alone in this. I couldn’t do it alone. I did my best. I tried to keep him warm.”

Shane realizes, suddenly, thinking about Svetlana and Ilya being intimate like that- it’s not jealousy that he’s feeling. 

It’s equal parts gratefulness that he had someone to comfort him like that, and grief that it was the only kind of comfort he got.

Ilya had spoken about sex before Shane a couple of times. How it was just a way to feel connection without pain, a way to remind himself he wasn’t alone. Shane thinks about how he still craves it- they both do- and how even that alone was enough to keep them coming back to each other for years. 

It released Shane from control. It let Ilya finally have some. 

“You can’t shoulder all of it alone. No person can. Your mind will become just as dangerous as his.”

Well, that’s going a bit far. Shane’s not the one who was going to jump off a bridge.

“I love him too. Let me do this, yes?”

Shane swallows. 

He’s spent so, so long protecting those sacred parts Ilya from the rest of the world. The misunderstandings and rumors, prying press and teammates- the cops who came to his house the night Ilya went missing. People who think they have any right to assume they know who he is, or what he’s going through. 

He doesn't trust other people with something so precious. It feels better, maybe, if he’s the one to carry it all. He can find the research, and remember the answers, and approach Ilya in a way that’s safe-

But… Svetlana knows how to do that too. She was loyal to Ilya before Shane even knew him. 

He can trust her with this, he thinks. With him. 

“Okay,” He says, even though it comes out a bit strangled. 

Svetlana laughs, low and effortlessly sultry. “You sound like you are being stabbed.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t need to be. I admire your protectiveness. I’m glad he has you- especially right now. He’s changed. He’s gone soft recently.”

Fire licks up Shane’s spine. 

“He deserves to be soft.” It comes out more aggressive than he intended. But before he can apologize Svetlana speaks again, voice warm and amused. 

“Yes,” she says. “He does. Having her things will help him. If he can see that his mother was soft too, and happy- that she was a person outside of her suffering.”

She’s right.

The way Ilya disappears sometimes… 

Maybe this can be an anchor for him. Keep him from drifting away. Maybe knowing who she is will help him know himself too; remind him that there’s a foundation under his feet already, built by the life she made. 

Maybe the temple Shane had built in his head- slowly compiled over the years with all of the beautiful elements of Ilya- was never missing pieces of him; it was missing pieces of her.

“I think you’re right,” Shnae says, before an uncomfortable thought makes his chest constrict. “Wait. Is that going to be safe for you?”

“I will make sure it is. Do not worry about that.” Her voice is… warm. Like she’s simultaneously surprised and pleased that he thought of that element of what she was about to do. “I assume we will not be telling Ilyusha about this until we are sure I can bring something back?”

“Yes,” Shane says immediately. “I think… that kind of disappointment would probably be dangerous right now.”

Svetlana hums in acknowledgement. “Then it is done. I will keep in touch.”

“Thank you,” Shane murmurs, suddenly overcome with a swell of emotion. “Thank you, Svetlana.”

“You are welcome, Shane,” Svetlana says back. 

The call disconnects. 

Shane lowers the phone to the grass next to him. 

He releases a heavy breath. Some of the tightness in his chest eases. 

Anya huffs in his lap. She’s dead asleep. Shane gently comes his hand over her silky hair for a few moments, before leaning down to kiss the top of her warm little head.

“I really hope you’ve still got something for him,” Shane whispers. Maybe to the universe, maybe to Irina, or maybe to both. They’ve kind of fused together at this point. “‘Cause I’m not sure what else to do.”

A loon calls out from across the lake. Shane looks up in surprise at the stars that have just started emerging across a peculiarly clear sky. 

For the first time this winter, the clouds are finally parting for them. 

Chapter End Notes

I basically had 23 by Noah Kahan on loop writing this chapter. There's a lot of anger in those lyrics, but I found it fitting for what Ilya's going through.

Not knowing who he is, because he doesn't know his mom as well as he thought he did. If he never sees her again, she can be anything he wants. grieving someone who died by suicide is easier when you can convince yourself that they're at peace now, because they didn't get to have that in life. But if Irina was happy as well, what does that mean for him? That no amount of happiness will be enough to keep him from that same fate?

Anyways. Shane slowly coming to terms with the fact that he can't "fix" Ilya on his own. And once again completely deluding himself into believing that hurting himself isn't serious, because he's *in control* of it. It's calculated. But he's never really had an outlet- even as a little kid. writing that scene crushed my soul, but it was important to show just how deeply repressed he is.

Yes, the chapter count went up again. whatever, leave me alone.

Anyways, I hope you liked it!

Chapter 8: we'd rather be six feet under than be lonely

Chapter Notes

title from Granite by Sleep Token

strap in my lovelies

It takes exactly three appointments for Ilya to get an ADHD diagnosis. 

He hadn’t seen it coming. His boyfriend, however, had. Several times over the past two weeks, he’s caught Shane staring at him out of the corner of his eye, in the way he does when he thinks no one can see him. 

“What?” Ilya asks finally, trying to be annoyed. 

He fails spectacularly when Shane turns his head, eyes widening, shocked he’s been caught. “What? I didn’t say anything.”

He’s so fucking cute, Ilya wants to explode the sun. 

“Oh, really? Your eyes are like морская свинка, Hollander. It’s very loud.”

Shane frowns to himself, like he’s trying to summon the Russian language.”What-”

“The…” Ilya makes a nonsensical gesture with his hands. Shane stares at him. Ilya makes an exasperated noise. “The fucking- it runs around in the plastic ball, jumps off of things, it is very small-”

“A fucking guinea pig? ” Shane sputters. 

Ilya snaps his fingers. “Yes, exactly. So brown. Very shiny. You keep looking at me like you are playing hide and seek. I can still see you if you don’t move your head, солнышко.”

“I know that one,” Shane perks up, looking rather proud of himself. “Little sun.”

Ilya hums, pleased. “Very good. But you did not answer my question. Why do you keep looking at me? Am I just that pretty?”

Shane’s quiet for a moment. Ilya can see him carefully picking his words, trying not to tread where he thinks he’s not supposed to. Trying to find the Correct Thing To Say.  

Ilya has never been a particularly patient man. He also doesn't do well with Shane visibly suffering in front of him.

So he can’t help himself when Shane licks his lips, hands clenching at his sides as he looks everywhere but in front of him. “Shane, just say it. You’re not going to hurt my feelings.”

Shane takes a deep breath. “I’ve just… I’ve been researching ADHD. And looking at the pamphlets Galina gave you. I’m trying to see…”

“If they are accurate?” Ilya cuts in. 

Shane cringes, looking guilty at his feet. 

Ilya snorts. “Shane, I knew that already. I am not blind. I have told you I am getting an ADHD assessment. Why do you think I’m putting those papers on the counter?”

“You leave a lot of stuff on the counter.”

“I- okay, yes, that’s true. But you like to do your research. And you think too much, you would never talk to me about it unless you thought it was perfect. It would take a hundred years if I tried to tell you about it.”

Shane is silent for a long moment. Too long. There’s a weird look on his face, and his shoulders tighten a bit, like he’s trying to make himself smaller. 

“I do want you to tell me about it,” he says quietly. “Is that- you’re not telling me on purpose?”

And, perhaps this is why Shane overthinks so much. Ilya puts his foot in his mouth enough for the both of them. 

“I am not keeping things from you on purpose, no,” he says, trying to figure out exactly where he had miscalculated. “I just know that you like to… see for yourself, yes?”

Shane blanches. “You think I don't trust you?”

“No! That is not the right word. I don’t know-” He growls in frustration. “You need to know it is true before you want to talk about it. You need to know you will say the right thing.”

“Ilya, I would never think you’re lying about something like that,” Shane says earnestly.. “You can tell me anything, I would never think you’re making that up-”

Good lord. 

“That isn’t what I’m saying, Shane. I’m sorry. You are so anxious, and I don’t know how to say it right.”

“No,” Shane shakes his head. He holds his hands up, forcing his shoulders to loosen. “Hold on- okay. Back up. I’m sorry, I’m stressing you out.”

“Da.”

“I need to not jump to conclusions.”

“Yes. You are jumping very far, like a giggle pig, I told you-”

Shane makes a face of complete bewilderment. “Ilya- it’s guinea pig!”

“I don’t know, you giggle right now-”

Shane laughs, loud and hearty, from the gut, and Ilya’s heart soars. He crosses the room and pulls Shane into his arms from behind, peppering obnoxious kisses all over his head, just to keep him laughing. 

He thinks, for the millionth time, that this is it for him. There is nothing better on this planet or the next; nothing that could ever bring him joy like Shane Hollander.

He says as much, swaying Shane from side to side. In Russian, and in a teasing tone, because he still has the image of Shane fleeing his house in Boston burned into his mind. He’s got an incredible track record at ruining things that are good. 

I want to tell you things, Ilya thinks. I want to tell you everything. But I don’t want it to make you go away. 

“I want you to feel like you can talk to me,” Shane says finally, resting the back of his head against Ilya’s collarbone. 

It’s easier this way, Ilya thinks. Not facing each other. It makes words feel less like an admission of sin. 

“I do,” he says. 

It’s a lie, sort of- but he thinks he can work on it. 

Shane, because he knows him, shakes his head. “No. You’re right. I’m making it hard. I like to do research. But not because I don’t trust you- because I want to make sure I’m doing it right. That I don’t make it worse. I…” he sighs.

Ilya gives him a moment. He’s not done yet. 

“You’ve always been so good at knowing what I need before I even know I need it. It’s like you can read my mind. You cut the fucking tags out of all of your clothes so I would be comfortable if I wear them. You don’t pressure me to eat food I don’t like when we’re out. You know when I want to go home when we go out. I… I want to make it easier for you, like that. Without you having to beg me to.”

Иисус Христос. Jesus Christ. 

All the late nights on the computer. The way he stares at Ilya from the corner of the room like a child in a horror movie. The terrifyingly intense way he clings to every word that comes out of Ilya’s mouth. The way he keeps a schedule of every time Ilya fucking blinks, lists off symptoms and labels and-

He’s been trying to be a fucking mind reader. 

“Oh, my Shane.” Ilya groans into his hair. It’s soft, and slightly damp from his shower this morning. He pulls back and slowly turns Shane around to look at his bright, overly expressive eyes.

“What?”

Ilya huffs. “You think you are God? You think you are a wizard?” 

Shane frowns. “Uh- no?”

“Then why do you think you should be able to know what I am thinking?”

“Because you do,” Shane says earnestly. Ilya gives him an exasperated look. “No, listen- you’re perfect at it. I don’t know how you do it. I feel like… such a shitty boyfriend sometimes.”

“Sweetheart,” Ilya says, pained. “I would never expect that from you. And, I am Russian. We don’t make facial expressions.”

Shane snorts. “Yes, you do. I can tell when you hate someone from a mile away.”

“Yes, well, it is hard to hide how much Pike-”

“But, that’s part of why that night went so badly,” Shane cuts over him. “Before Christmas. You said it, in the hospital. I couldn’t understand you.”

Now, Ilya doesn’t remember much of that night, if he’s being honest. He’s got flashes of the hospital, of Yuna holding his hand and Shane crying and, bizarrely, a lot of small things that felt like his mother. 

But he certainly doesn't remember saying that Shane doesn’t understand him. 

“You couldn’t tell me how bad it was,” Shane says quietly. “You- I couldn’t understand Russian. I’m learning now, I’m- I promise I’m learning-”

“Oh, Shane-”

“The worst, most dangerous thing in the world was happening to you, and you couldn’t fucking tell me. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know how bad it was- and I fucked up! I left you alone! You…” he shudders, his eyes glossy and wet. “Ilya, you could have died-”

Ilya shushes him, yanking him forward a little bit more harshly than he intended. 

“No,” Shane says fiercely. “That’s my job. Your entire life, people have been misunderstanding you. Hockey takes you for fucking granted- they built your reputation by framing you as an asshole for profit, they plastered your face everywhere when you were a fucking teenager and just threw you to the wolves-”

And Ilya, suddenly and against his will, is carried back to his first grocery trip in Boston. 

Eighteen years old, hungry after eating nothing but the food from the vending machine at practice for a week, with no car and no license and no idea how to spend the paycheck he’d just gotten.

His teammates shouting amongst each other in the locker room after taking off his helmet, ribbing him about how your hair looks like a fuckin’ animal, Rozy, and Ilya trying not to yelp when one of the older guys dumped an entire wattle bottle on him in an attempt to tame those curls, man, you look like my toddler-

Ilya wanting to scream that he wasn’t trying to be lazy, or trying to look unpresentable, it’s just that they hadn’t let him bring his curl gel on the plane-

He’d gone to the convenience store right next to the rink the same evening. It was the only place close enough to his apartment to get without a ride.

He’d spent a good thirty minutes just standing in the aisle, staring- like if he gave it enough time, English would start to make sense through eyes so blurry with tears that he’d had to lift the bottom of his shirt to wipe them.

“It’s my job to make sure nobody ever does that again,” Shane says, blinking rapidly. He sweeps his hand across Ilya’s back. “You’re mine to take care of. And I- I’m fucking failing at it, Ilya…”

“No,” Ilya says immediately. “No, you are not failing, could never fail, that is impossible.”

Shane makes a terrible, wet noise and pulls away. He grabs Ilya’s wrist- the one he thought they had agreed to ignore for the last few weeks.

The bandage is taped neatly, wrapped just right enough around his palm that he barely even feels it when he dresses. The stitches are supposed to be fully dissolved by next week, and then he can take it off. And by then, it should be healed enough that it won’t scar too badly-

But the look on Shane’s face tells Ilya that he isn’t going to forget about it any time soon.

“I did fail,” Shane whispers. 

Ilya tries to pull away, suddenly a little bit nauseous, but Shane’s just as strong as he is. He barely budges. 

“Shane,” Ilya begs.

Shane softens immediately.

“I need you to hear me.’” He clings to Ilya’s arm with both of his hands, careful not to squeeze too hard, but leaving him no room to escape. “If ADHD is something that’s causing this, I need to know everything about it.”

“It isn’t.”

“Galina thinks it is.”

“Yes, well, Galina does not know me as well as she thinks. She has known me for two weeks. You’ve known me for more than twelve years, did you ever think I had ADHD?”

Shane makes a noise of frustration. “That’s exactly my fucking point. I didn’t know as much about it. I didn’t know what it looks like, I didn’t know about the emotional dysregulation, or the addictive tendencies, or-”

And he’s lost Ilya a little bit now, speaking new words too quickly for him to keep up, and Ilya can’t help but sigh.

Shane’s too deep into his spiral to catch it. “I didn’t know back then. But I do now, and it makes sense, baby. Now that I know what to look for.”

“Okay,” Ilya pulls his hand away and waves both of his arms. “So you know about ADHD. You are an expert now. What is the point? Now you have a name for whatever the fuck is wrong with me- what are we supposed ot do with it?”

“Now we learn coping mechanisms, help your day to day life get a bit easier and then move towards the big things once that’s under control-”

“And if it does not get ‘under control’?” Ilya demands. “What happens when I cannot be fixed?”

“You don’t need to be fixed. You are not wrong, your brain is just-”

Ilya feels a swell of an emotion so strong, he can’t even quite place what it is. 

Anger, maybe. 

Frustration, more likely. Galina would be proud of him for narrowing that down. 

Because once again, he and Shane ended up at the crux of the same argument they’ve been having for months.

In Shane’s mind, there is no room for movement.. There is right and wrong, black and white, and he will never stop until he knows he’s on the right side of things. Words have a definition, and he will always be fixated on the need to use them correctly, use perfect language, as if English isn’t full of contradictions and double meanings- 

And Ilya…. he will never be perfect at it. 

But he has gotten pretty damn close to perfect at reading people. It wasn’t much of a choice, being thrust into a country where no one can understand you, but will find it disrespectful if they are not heard themselves. When cameras were always in his face, and his manager was breathing down his neck, and his brother was in his ear. 

He can read Shane because there was no other option. Because what they were doing was delicate, and uncertain, and beautiful, and terrifying. And because if Ilya misstepped, he had everything to lose. 

It was survival. He’s grateful for it anyway.

But it still doesn’t make the words themselves any easier. 

“Shane,” Ilya says firmly, because he can’t shoulder both Shane’s spiraling and his own frustration at the same time or he’ll fuck up both. “I- listen to me, please.”

Shane’s jaw snaps shut like he’s been called to attention. 

He looks both desperate, and like he hates himself. Like he thinks Ilya will be angry with him. Ilya can’t quite push down how much that makes him feel like his father.

He has to get the words right, just this once. Shane has to understand.

“I say I need to fix this.” He gestures at his head. “You tell me I don’t need to be fixed, it is just my brain, like that is supposed to be a different thing. You do research on your computer, and you buy books. You watch me while I do things. You don’t let me close doors, or be away from you. You are so afraid of doing the wrong thing. You are so afraid of hurting my feelings.”

He gives it a moment to sink in. After a moment, Shane nods.

“Любимый, do you trust me?”

Shane blinks. “Of course trust you.”

“Then why are you trying to find answers about me from the whole rest of the world?” Ilya questions. “Why not ask me?”

Shane looks at him for a moment. Then, quietly. “I’m worried I will trigger you. Make you upset, or make you not want to talk to me again. One of the first things I saw when I researched was that I need to make a safe space for you to open up to me.”

Okay. Progress, even if it makes Ilya’s chest ache.

“Hollander,” he says earnestly. “I am safer here than I have been anywhere else in my entire life. There is no more you can do.”

“But you still aren’t talking to me,” Shane stares at him with such direct, beseeching eyes. “You didn’t tell me how badly you were doing at Christmas, you never told me how hard it is to be understood out here, you didn’t tell me about your mom for years.”

Ilya shakes his head. “You’re right. I didn’t. I’m sorry. I am not so good at… volunteering to give information. But if you ask me, I will always answer you.”

“That’s-” Shane shakes his head, his eyes falling to Ilya’s collarbone. “Ilya, that’s not true either. I asked you outright, that night, if you tried to hurt yourself. And you told me no.”

Fuck.

Do you trust me?

Of course I trust you.

But Ilya hasn’t done much to earn that, has he? Not when lying is so instinctive that the words seem to already be out of his mouth by the time he realizes. 

“I think…” Ilya says slowly, “I thought I was telling the truth, in the hospital. I didn’t realize how bad it was. I didn’t realize what I had done.”

Shane watches him, tentative but earnest. “Okay.”

“But… Galina helps. I just need a moment, sometimes, to understand myself before I can talk about it.”

“But where does that leave me?” 

It’s so blunt, and honest, and said with absolutely no heat, and it makes Ilya want to crawl into a hole, because he doesn't know, and once again, he’s dragged Shane down into an impossible situation. 

“What if I promise you?” Ilya offers quietly. 

It’s complete bullshit. It’s laughably unfair. 

But Shane doesn’t scoff at him like he should. Instead, he strips him raw.

“Do you trust yourself to do that?”

It’s the ‘of course’ almost slipping off his tongue that humbles Ilya so suddenly, it feels like vertigo. 

Christ- even now, while they're actively talking about honesty and trust, the instinct is so strong, so subconscious, that it still almost betrays him. 

“I can try.” Hoarse. Desperate. “That’s- I promise to try.”

Shane nods. “Okay,” he says softly. “I can work with that.”

Ilya swallows thickly. “Thank you.”

Shane just pulls him in close, slipping his arms underneath Ilya’s shoulders. Holding him up. “I know I’ve been overbearing. I’ve been smothering you. Making you feel like you’re being watched. And I’m sorry. I’m just scared.”

“I’m sorry I scared you.”

“It’s okay,” Shane says, even though it isn’t. “I’m glad Galina is helping.”

Ilya buries his face into the crook of Shane’s neck. “Me too. I’m tired of not knowing what is happening to me.”

Shane squeezes him tighter.

Ilya walks out of the hospital three days later with a written diagnosis and a prescription for a stimulant medication he gives up trying to pronounce the second he sees it. When he gets back into the car, he barely hesitates.

“Can you…” he waves his hand around the paper bag, trying to swallow the swell of irritation he gets when he doesn’t understand something. 

Shane looks at him like he’s just been handed a very large inheritance. He leans across the center console and pecks Ilya on the cheek. “Let’s go figure it out.”

The swell is long gone before it reaches shore. 

The next morning, it’s Shane who gets him up bright and early, calm as can be. He doesn’t mention Ilya’s repetitive anxious swallowing, or the several failed attempts at being nonchalant throughout their morning routine.

“The website says you should take it with a lot of protein,” he says as they walk into the kitchen. “What do you want for breakfast?” 

And Ilya- who is typically designated and more than happy to make these little decisions for the both of them- finds himself unable to think of something honestly.

“I am not very hungry,” he confesses, plopping down onto the kitchen stool. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, a tiny voice scolds him that Shane could very likely use this as an excuse not to eat as well. He quickly follows it up with, “But I know I need to eat. I am just nervous, I think.” 

Shane nods. “Do you want me to choose?”

And yeah, weirdly, Ilya does. But he also knows that whatever he picks, Shane probably isn’t going to eat- and he’ll very likely get away with it. So, instead- “What about one of your smoothies?” 

Safe, easy to make, and quick to get down. 

Shane practically beams, and Ilya knows he made the right choice.

Four minutes later, the smoothie is set in front of him. The tiny teal capsule is poured out of its bottle and placed carefully in Ilya’s palm.

Ilya stares at it, and fights back the urge to vomit.

Shane gently rubs his shoulders from behind. “You okay?”

Ilya doesn’t know how to answer that. “I am thinking about my mother.”

Shane kisses the top of his head. 

“You have the pills. You will hide them.”

“I will.”

“I wouldn’t take them all,” Ilya promises quickly. “I just… I don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Shane says softly. “It’s okay to be scared. It doesn't have to make sense why.”

Ilya’s eyes burn. It’s so fucking stupid. His antidepressants didn’t make him feel this way- but maybe it’s because his ego had been in the way when he’d first started taking them. Those, he always kind of expected to take. 

But this was different.

He’d seen the way Shane’s jaw had tightened as they sat side by side on the couch, reading about controlled substances and addiction and potential cardiac strain. The PSA’s about how stimulants ruined people’s lives, and the somber way Galina had told him that yes, researching it is a good idea. 

“The things we read about aren’t going to happen,” Shane sounds so certain that Ilya is almost inclined to believe him. 

Ilya nods. 

“Those don’t happen if you take them like they’re prescribed, and if you tell someone if something feels wrong. This is a medication that saves lives too.”

Ilya nods again. He’d seen the statistics. Longer lifespan, lowered risk of impulsive, accidental deaths. 

He snatches the pill of the island with the gusto of someone trying to swat a fly before it can move.

A swig of water and a cough, and it’s done.

No going back now.

Ilya exhales. “The world did not explode?”

“Nope.”

And if Ilya waits an extra second just to make sure, that’s not one’s business but his own. But eventually he rises from the stool and shakes his arms frantically at his sides, like he’s trying to expel a demon. “Okay. So what now?”

Shane shrugs. “We wait.”

“We wait,” Ilya echoes unhappily. 

“I mean, we don’t have to put everything on hold,” Shane says. “Is there anything you’ve been meaning to do for a while?”

“Not really.”

“Did you finish that book already?”

“Yes. Was good pick, I liked that author.”

“Do you wanna go to the library and get another one?”

Ilya shakes his head. “I do not want to be in public if I go insane.”

“You’re not going to go insane, Ilya, God. I don’t know… do you wanna play video games?”

Ilya thinks for a moment. “Sure.”

So Shane plays Boston, and Ilya picks Montreal, because he will never not enjoy getting Shane worked up. 

A couple rounds later, Shane switches to Cliff Marleau, and Ilya feels a random swoop of very intense emotion. 

Shane pauses, bewildered. “Are you okay? Sorry, I didn’t mean to, like, offend you or anything. He’s a great player, I just thought-“

“No, no. It’s okay. I just…” Miss him. A lot. “I have not talked to him in a long time. Texting is not the same.” 

Shane’s brows tug together, like he’s worried. “I’m sorry. Do you wanna call him? You should have him come visit. He… knows, right?”

“Yes,” Ilya says. “He knows. I couldn’t just leave for no reason. And I could not pass up the opportunity to brag about you, кролик.” 

“Why don’t you call him?”

And Ilya… really, really wants to. He doesn’t have time to be embarrassed about moving away and missing his best friend like he’s a child, before he’s got the phone up to his ear. 

Marley answers almost immediately. “Rozy!”

“Big Dick!” Ilya exclaims. Shane chokes on his water. “What are you doing right now?”

“Not a damn thing. What’s up? You okay?”

“I am great,” Ilya says. And, really, he is. It feels like Sveta taking him to Disneyland back when they were teenagers, his first visit to the States. “I just miss you.”

“Awww,” Marly cooes. “I fuckin’ miss you too, Chief. When are you coming back out here?”

“I should, soon. I will- Shane, can you find flights?”

Shane looks wary. “Ilya, we can’t leave-“

“Is that Jane?!” Marly bellows. Ilya laughs giddily. “What’s up, pretty lady?”

Ilya watches as Shane tries to be offended for a moment. Very quickly, though, it turns into flushed cheeks and a sheepish smile. “I’m good, Marleau. How are you?”

“All good over here- when are you guys gonna come out here? We miss you?”

“Who is ‘we’?” Ilya raises an eyebrow. 

“No, no, I haven’t told anybody- just me and Sveta, we miss you guys-”

“Sveta?” Shane echoes incredulously. 

Marly goes quiet for a moment. 

An enormous smile spreads across Ilya’s face.  “She lets you call her ‘Sveta’?”

“Shut up, man,” Marly says without heat. 

“I will not! You two are hanging out without me?”

“Fuck you, she’s my friend too, man!”

Ilya turns to Shane, who shrugs playfully, both hands in the air. “Sounds like more than friends, yes? I think I must talk to her immediately.”

“There’s nothing to talk about!” Marleau protests, his voice a little too high to be believable. 

“I will be the decider of this.” Anya nips at his feet, jumping up and down around his feet. Ilya realizes he’s been pacing. “I will see- when do we next play Boston, Shanya?”

“Ugh… five weeks, I think? I’d have to look.”

“That’s too long!” Ilya moans. 

“That’s what she said,” Marly says smugly. “Or he! I don’t know, Jane, what do you think?”

Shane shoots the phone an unimpressed look. “I’m not answering that. But we’ve got to stick close to home right now, so-”

“Why?” Ilya whines. 

Shane glances at him. “‘Cause of… medical stuff?” he says, eyes widening like he’s trying to communicate telepathically. 

Ah.

“Medical stuff?” Cliff echoes. “What’s goin’ on? You guys said you’re good.”

Shane’s eyebrows dip, staring at the carpet. Ilya swallows, his mouth dry. 

He didn’t tell Marleau. He had no reason to. Why make someone worry when they’re in another country, hundreds of miles away? He had enough people worrying, and he was fine, and he was getting the help everyone said he needed, and soon it would be-

“- see you get injured recently? Roz?”

Ilya blinks. “Ah- yes. Shane is right. I have… doctor things. Trying out new medications.”

“Medications?”

“Yes.”

“You wanna… elaborate on that?”

Ilya doesn’t really know what to say, so he sighs, long and dramatic and drawn out. “I am not dying. Is just for my head. I have depression.”

Marleau is silent for a moment. Shane’s eyes dart up and narrow slightly at the phone, like he’s preparing to jump Cliff through the screen if he missteps.

“Good,” Marly says, so gently it makes Ilya’s heart skip a beat. Or, beat a lot harder- he isn’t sure which. “It’s good you’re getting help. We were kind of worried about you for a while there, buddy.”

Ilya scoffs. “That is ridiculous.”

“Was it? Do you not remember 2016?”

“We don’t talk about 2016,” Ilya says darkly. “Was not a good year for anyone. Harambe gorilla, Vine, the fucking bucket challenge, and stupid fucking president, Rose Landry-”

“Be nice about Rose,” Shane scolds him. 

Ilya waves his hand. “2016 does not count.”

“Okay, sure, But it was bad before that too, buddy.”

“No, no, it was never bad like this.”

“Bad like what?” Marly presses. 

Shit. That had sounded more serious than Ilya had intended. He growls, combing a hand over his face. Shane is sitting ramrod straight on the couch, unsure what to do. “It is not a big deal now. I just… had an accident before Christmas.”

“What kind of accident?” The words are said carefully. 

Maybe, if Ilya didn’t feel like he could run a fucking marathon right now, he’s remember why he never told people about this. He’d remember that withholding is what kept him going for so many years. 

But this was Marly. This was, for lack of a less juvenile word, his best friend. 

So he starts talking. 

“I hurt my arm. Maybe an accident, I don’t really remember, I was drunk. But I left in the night and wandered around. A nice lady found me on a bridge. I was going to jump, maybe. Probably. I thought about it.”

Shane has gone completely still. Ilya realizes, glancing at him, that he’s never acknowledged it like this.

But why not? What was the point of letting it fester?

“But I didn’t tell Shane I was leaving. That was… bad of me. But they thought I was missing, so he called the police, and when I got back home they took me to the hospital. Said I was… what was it?”

He glances at Shane. Shane is looking at him, pale and tight-jawed. He nods like he’s trying to be supportive, but he doesn't know how. Ilya swallows. His mouth is really dry. 

“Danger to myself. So they kept me for a few days. I am on medication now. Shane helped me find one that doesn’t make me sick, or break my dick. That was worse than being depressed.”

“Shit,” Marly says eloquently. “I… shit, man.”

And Ilya realizes, with a rush of embarrassment, that he’s just talked Marly’s ear off for almost a full minute. He’s just dumped this burden of someone who can’t possibly do anything about it.

He’s never talked this much in his life. What the hell is wrong with him?

“Sorry,” he says. “Talking is usually your job, yes? That was… boring-”

“No,” Marly says loudly. “No, Roz. Don’t do that. This is a big thing. I’m glad you told me.”

“I don’t want it to be a big thing.”

“Well,” Marly sighs. “Sorry, man. It is. It’s a big thing. You’ve gotta give me that at least.”

Christ. What a fucking… selfish person he is. Forcing his way into people’s lives, making them deal with him because they’re good people, and what else would Ilya expect them to do?

Ilya scratches at his chest, suddenly itchy. 

“I’m not saying that to make you feel bad. I’m saying that it kind of should be a big deal. At least to the people who care about you. It’s important. I wanna be a part of it. I wanna know you’re okay. I wanna know when you’re not. I wanna know when I should worry."

Ilya grimaces. He clears his throat. “Ah… you don’t need to worry about it. It is fixed now. I am doing all of the right things. I am a big boy, Marly.”

“Good. But you’re our boy, Rozy. We get to worry about you. Comes with the territory.”

Once again, Ilya doesn’t know what to say. 

His mouth is dry. His skin is itchy and warm. He feels like he’s vibrating under his skin. There’s a weird, repetitive surge of emotion that keeps sweeping over him, so strong that he doesn’t know what to do with it.

It’s too much. 

Shane stands from the couch. He tilts his head at the phone, silently asking a question. 

Ilya nods. Shane tugs the phone from his hands. 

“Ilya’s right, you should come see us soon,” he says, voice forcibly light. “We just furnished our guest room, we’d love to have you.”

“Yeah.” Marly coughs. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Da,” Ilya mumbles, too little and too late.

“Alright. It sounds like you guys might be busy, I’ll let you get back to it. Talk to you later, alright, Ilya?”

Yikes. Government name. He’s never going to let it go, is he? Ilya’s going to be fussed over for the rest of his life.

Shane is standing in front of him now. The phone is gone. The apartment is quiet. 

“You okay?”

Ilya feels untethered- like he’s just floating along. There’s no direction for the buzzing under his skin. “Yes. I just- I want to do something. Can we go on a walk?”

“Okay,” Shane says immediately. “It’s kind of cold out, so we’ll have to get Anya’s shoes. But, we can totally do that if you want.”

Ilya nods. Shane disappears. 

A moment later, they’re bundled up and heading out the door. Ilya grips Anya’s leash tight in his hands, because he needs something to do.

They don’t get very far before Ilya is sweating underneath his coat.

“Христос,” He mutters. Christ.

“Getting too hot?” 

Ilya nods. He’s almost out of breath.

“You wanna head back?”

Ilya’s about to say no, that Anya needs more time outdoors, that it’s good for them, when Shane’s stomach growls so loudly, Ilya hears it from three feet away.

He raises an eyebrow. Shane blinks. 

“You are hungry?” 

“No,” Shane says reflexively, because of course he does.

“You are,” Ilya says firmly, and he suddenly has a grand idea. “We should go back.”

“No, Ilya, really, it’s fine-”

“I’ve got it.” Ilya grins, tugging Anya’s leash as he pivots their little family back towards the house. “I am going to find new food you will like.”

Shane is almost jogging to keep up with him. “Food I’ll like?”

Ilya nods eagerly. “Yes. You don’t eat a lot because you don’t like so many foods. If you had more that you like, you will eat more, yes? Like with the clothes. More options.”

“I don’t need options,” Shane sounds wary. “I’m on a diet.”

But, at this point, Ilya isn’t listening anymore. If Shane gets to decide when Ilya needs an extra hand, even when he denies it, Ilya gets to do the same.

They take care of each other. That’s the deal. 

Ilya quickly strips his snow clothes, kicking off his shoes and lining them up at the door. 

He makes an immediate beeline to the kitchen. “Where is that book- the one for the making…” he trails off.

“Cookbook?” Shane offers, trailing in behind him. 

“Da!” He claps his hands. “What do you want?”

“I already ate,” Shane says. He rubs Anya’s fur. 

“Yes, you also ate last night. And the night before. This is how eating works. Your stomach is asking for more. I would be a bad boyfriend if I didn’t listen.”

Shane grumbles something that sounds like, you could listen to me instead. Ilya ignores him.

Red cookbook, cookbook with the passive aggressive smiling lady, small book with the green binding- then, there, the cookbook full of Russian recipes that Sveta had gifted to him, his second year in Boston.

“What are you gonna make?”

Ilya points at the open page. Shane nods behind him. “Do you want help?”

Ilya barely hears him. He moves to the fridge to gather his ingredients. 

“No!” Shane says quickly. “You can't have caffeine on stimulants.”

“I don’t want one,” Ilya says dismissively, nudging aside the Redbull, because he’s strangely wide awake, even though it’s almost noon and he hasn’t taken a nap. He gathers the ingredients in his arms in one go, muttering to himself as he adds to his pile.

He turns back around, straight back to the cookbook. 

Bowl, it says. He needs a bowl. 

He rummages under the counter until he finds it. He mixes the dry ingredients first, like the book calls for. Salt, flour, rubber spatula for a glass bowl- 

Shane says something behind him. Ilya hums instinctively. His eyes are glued to the book, but doesn’t turn around, his eyes sweeping to the next page, which calls for three eggs. The carton has an even four. He cracks the three he needs and moves the carton to the other side. 

Egg shells in the trash. They’re sharp. Not sharp enough to cut him. He doesn’t want Shane or Anya to step on them if they drop on the floor. 

Mix the eggs into the dry mixture. Butter next. Fridge to his right- 

“Ilya.” A gentle tap on his shoulder.

Ilya whips around, his heart suddenly pounding. 

Shane is staring at him. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Ilya says absently, already turning back to the bowl.

A moment later, though, he suddenly has to piss. 

More desperately than he’s ever needed to do anything in his life, actually. 

He leans the spatula against the side of the bowl and charges to the bathroom. 

Shane calls after him. He sounds worried. Ilya doesn’t want him to be worried, but he’ll be okay once he eats. 

Shane is barely a step behind him until he’s in the bathroom doorway, watching Ilya yank down his shorts with an incredulous expression. “Is there a fire?”

Ilya glances around passively. “No?”

Shane stares some more. It would be awkward if Ilya could find it in himself to care. “Why did you run in here like that?”

Ilya gestures at the dick he’s tucking back into his shorts. 

“Yeah, but why did you-” Shane holds up his own hand, stopping himself in his tracks. “Never mind.”

Ilya doesn’t bother pressing. He has to finish making Shane’s food.  

He heads back to the kitchen to crack his final egg. Shane trails behind him, but doesn’t speak. Ilya feels him distantly settle onto the bar stool and lean forward onto his elbows and just… watch.

He’s okay, Ilya thinks. He’s here in the kitchen with him, and he seems happy enough. A quiet, calm Shane is a happy Shane. Ilya leaves him be.

After a timeless blur, the pan is in the oven. 

Ilya stares at it.

“You okay?” Shane asks again. Like he’ll get a different answer if he asks enough times. 

“Yes,” Ilya says. It’s the truth. Shane must believe him, because he hums, handing him a glass of water Ilya hadn’t seen him fill. 

He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until the cup was empty. He smacks his lips together. They’re weirdly dry. 

“How are you feeling?”

Another variation of the same question, but sweet nonetheless. They’d promised to communicate. Shane was doing his part; the rest was up to Ilya.

“Good,” Ilya says. “Quiet. I don’t think the pill is working much.”

Shane, honest-to-god, snorts.

“What?” Ilya demands. 

“Sorry,” Shane says quickly, but he’s still unable to hide how amused he is. “I didn’t mean to laugh. I just- it’s working, baby. Trust me.”

Ilya frowns. “You can see?”

Shane gently takes the glass from Ilya’s tightly clenched hand. Ilya blinks, quickly loosening his fingers. Suddenly, he’s very much aware of how tense he is; every muscle strung tightly together, like they’re bracing for impact.

“You seem…” Shane thinks for a moment. “Regulated,” he finishes carefully.

 “Regulated.”

“Yeah.”

“This is not bad?”

Shane shakes his head. “No. Your body just seems to be controlled, like it knows what it’s doing. You were able to follow a pretty complicated recipe from start to finish, and you didn’t get frustrated once. You didn’t lose track of anything. You kind of tuned me out a little, but you looked… comfortable.”

Ilya frowns. “I’m sorry, Shanya. I didn't mean to tune you out.”

“No,” Shane laughs. “It didn’t hurt my feelings, that’s not what I meant. That just means it’s working. Your brain is picking what’s priority and sticking with it; it’s not getting distracted by anything else. You’ve been so… awake.”

And that, for some reason, suddenly makes it click.

Ilya leans against the kitchen counter, sucking in a breath.

Awake. 

“I did not realize…” Ilya trails off. 

He hadn’t made a whole trail of his mess and snapped at Shane for telling him to clean it up.

He hadn’t laid in bed or sat on the couch and spiraled until Shane literally forced his lazy ass to move.

He hadn’t scrubbed his hand over his face, staring at the mirror and blinking away tears, because he was so fucking bored. Because nothing was good enough, exciting enough, to get him to move, live, make his mother proud. 

He hadn’t thought, dark and unbidden, about how he really didn't think he could keep living, if this is what life is.

He hadn’t just thought about how much he wanted to do things. 

He’d just… done them. 

He’d eaten breakfast, played video games, called Marly, gone on a walk, and cooked a whole meal to share, all before noon.

“I have done so many things,” Ilya says hoarsely.

Shane nods, like he knows what he means. 

He probably does. He’s the one who gets him up, pushes him to actually follow through, whispers to him that you’ll feel so much better if you just move around, baby.

Ilya lets his head fall onto the cabinets behind him. “I don’t even want to nap.”

It’s too small. It doesn't encapsulate it. It doesn’t even come close, but Ilya doesn’t think he could put it into words if he tried. 

But Shane nods anyway.

Because he understands. He understands because he understands Ilya, no matter what he’s managed to convince himself. 

Ilya’s eyes burn. Shane rises from the stool and rounds the island. Ilya doesn’t move as Shane pulls their bodies together, fitting perfectly against him, squeezing tighter and tighter until Ilya is convinced he’s trying to fuse into his skin.

It wouldn’t be close enough, he thinks. Nothing with Shane ever will be. 

Ilya will spend the rest of his life chasing more. He’ll spend the next seventy years trying to prove himself worthy of any chance at any afterlife, where Shane can roam and Ilya can follow, and it still won’t be enough.  

“You fixed me,” he whispers into Shane’s ear, and he fucking means it. 

He wouldn’t have done it without Shane. He wouldn’t have known where to start. He wouldn’t have had a reason to even try. 

Shane shakes his head. “No, Ilya, you did. You put in the work. I’m so fucking glad you’re getting to see the payoff.”

This fucking man.

Ilya nibbles at Shane’s ear, unable to help himself. 

Shane gasps quietly, perfectly predictable and delicious as always. It goes straight to Ilya’s dick. He keeps going, trailing down Shane’s neck until he’s at Shane’s chest and the angle is too awkward and he drops to his knees. 

“Ilya-”

Ilya fumbles with the string of Shane’s sweatpants, arousal flickering in his stomach so intensely he swears his vision is fading. 

Shane’s hand finds its way into Ilya’s hair. Ilya finally undoes the knot at Shane’s hips and drags the waistband down, away from his prize. 

“Ilya, wait-”

Ilya can’t wait. He really, truly, can’t- he thinks he might actually fucking die if he doesn’t get Shane off right now. His hands find the back of his boyfriend’s thighs and he eagerly dips forward, taking Shane into his mouth. It’s too quick at first for his throat to adjust, so he pulls back a bit, coughing as his eyes fill with tears, then surges forward again-

“Ilya!” Shane grips the sides of Iya's head and pulls him off his dick. 

Ilya gasps at the sudden intrusion of air that feels like a prison sentence. He whines before he can help himself. 

Shane, flushes and wobbly-kneed and so hard he’s nearly purple above him, smooths both of his hands clumsily over Ilya’s cheeks, forcing him to look upwards. “Sorry, sorry. Fuck. Just- we’re too close to the oven. I don’t want you to burn yourself-”

“Fine, fine,” Ilya croaks, pathetic and desperate and unable to care. “Just fucking move, fuck-”

Shane whimpers and yanks him to his feet, their lips finding each other immediately. Ilya sucks on his tongue like a man starved, stumbling backwards as Shane pushes them towards the living room.

Ilya shoves him down onto the couch as soon as they're close enough. Shane moans loudly and Ilya literally has to close his eyes for a moment in order not to jizz his pants right then and there, unable to remember the last time he was this horny. 

He manhandles Shane to lay horizontal before climbing on top of him. He grabs Shane’s legs with his hands and pulls him downwards like he weighs nothing, reveling in the yelp of arousal it earns him. 

He shuffles downwards himself and lifts Shane’s knees to hang over his shoulders, calves resting along the lines of Ilya’s back, leaving him beautifully exposed and unable to escape while Ilya indulges.

“Do not fucking move again,” Ilya growls. 

Shane’s pupils are blown widen. He squirms, mouth hanging open and brows stitched together, heels digging into Ilya’s back, until Ilya slings and arm over his hips, forcing him to be still.

“What did I just say?” Ilya demands. 

Shane whimpers, nodding frantically. “I won’t, I won’t move again-”

“You’re going to take what I fucking give you.” Ilya damn near rips the seams of Shane’s shirt as he yanks it upwards. Shane takes it wordlessly, obediently clenching it in his fist until his knuckles whiten, leaving the wide brown expanse of his abdomen bare for Ilya to do as he pleases. “You’re going to let me make you feel good until it isn’t good anymore, as many times as that takes. Understand?”

Shane nearly cries out when Ilya doesn’t wait for a response, dipping to suck a bruise alone Shane’s V-line instead. 

There’s a line of indentation right below it, pink and red where Shane had tied the pants too tightly. Ilya has his mouth on it before he can stop himself, licking and smoothing his tongue over it until Shane’s hand clenches so tightly in his curls he can’t help the moan that escapes him. 

“Ilya, Ilya, fuck, Ilya…”

It feels like an anointing. Ilya takes Shane into his mouth, as far as he can, before he pulls back up, dragging his teeth ever so slightly just to hear the choked cry Shane lets out, and sinks back down.

Over and over, with the feeling of Shane’s nails digging into his scalp with just one hand, because the other is holding his shirt up like Ilya had ordered him to, and it’s good, it’s so fucking good, he’s missed this so badly-

Shane comes in his mouth, quickly, like Ilya had expected. He pulls almost all the off, suckling at the top to ride him through it, until Shane is squirming from overstimulation.

He kisses the inside of Shane’s thigh, then around his groin, letting Shane pant above him. 

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, mouthing at the sparse trail of hair leading to his stomach. “Прекрасный, fuck, Shane…”

It takes him a moment to realize that Shane has stiffened above him. He glances up, pausing when he sees an almost blank look on his face.

“Shane,” Ilya says, rubbing a hand along his waist. 

Shane glances down at him, flushed and sweaty. Ilya almost thinks he sees his lip quiver before he’s surging down to kiss him. “Sorry, sorry. Just thinking about your food. I don’t want it to burn.”

“Our food,” Ilya says, resting his chin on Shane’s stomach, because he needs to touch as much of him as he can or he thinks he might die. “It won’t burn. I set a timer.”

He barely catches Shane’s flinch. His eyes snap upwards.

But Shane is moving, like he’s trying to get up. Ilya quickly pins him back down. “What are you doing?”

“Wanna suck you,” Shane says, licking his lips, looking at Ilya’s comically tented shorts. 

“Ah-ah,” Ilya says sternly, holding him down. He hoists Shane back down, “What did I say? I am not done with you. Food will not be done for an hour.”

He gets back to work., taking his time between Shane’s trembling legs, over and over again, trying to drag him back to the edge. Shane is noisy, his body slowly tensing, and Ilya thinks he must be getting close.

“Ilya,” Shane begs. “Just- fuck- just let me get you off…”

Iya doesn't bother looking up. He gave his answer, and he already has his plan, and a fucking meteor striking the earth couldn't stop him now. “This about you. Stop trying to distract me.”

Because Ilya knows Shane likes getting him off- that’s not in question- but he also knows that Shane has a hard time receiving pleasure if he doesn't feel he’s earned it, or if he thinks he hasn’t reciprocated enough. 

Ilya is determined to clear away those thoughts the same way Shane has for him. He swallows around his dick, and Shane makes a noise that sounds like a sob, and Ilya smirks to himself. 

Over and over, Ilya brings him closer to breaking. 

He takes his time with the scabs along Shane’s thighs. He trails his hands all over the smooth expanse of skin that’s all his, all for him to treasure and mark up and make pink and sweaty, as long as-

Shane sobs loudly.

Something about it makes Ilya freeze. It’s too sharp, too close to memories Ilya doesn't want to think about right now. 

A split second later, he pulls off, just in case, his hand finding Shane’s as he coughs-

Shane is shaking.

Ilya’s blood runs cold, scrambling to sit up. “Shane?”

Shane doesn’t respond. Ilya registers, with a strum of horror, that he’s crying.

Full-body crying, abs clenching, tears trailing down his temples into his hair, his eyes screwed tightly closed.

And he has his hand clamped over his mouth, nails digging into his cheeks, muffling his crying so Ilya wouldn’t fucking hear him. 

Ilya thinks he’s going to throw up. 

He scrambles up to pull Shane’s wrist away, and then there’s no buffer in the dead quiet of the house, giving them room to echo against the walls, throaty and uncontrollable. 

“What happened?” Ilya cries out, eyes sweeping frantically over Shane’s trembling frame. “Shane, what?! Did I hurt you?!”

Shane looks like he’s trying to answer, before another round of sobs rack his body. Then he covers his mouth again, bringing his other arm to wrap around his waist, curling into himself like he’s trying to hide. 

“No, no, no,” Ilya doens’t know what to do, he doesn’t fucking know what to do- “Where did I hurt you? Please, tell me, let me fix-”

But he can’t see anything, there are no marks but the hickey he sucked into Shane’s belly-

Should he call 9-1-1? His phone is still in the kitchen, but the snow plows are gone, they could get there-

Shane is sobbing something, over and over, and Ilya could cry as he strains to hear. 

“‘M sorry, M’sorry, so sorry, ‘lya-”

Ilya can’t feel his fucking hands. 

I’m sorry, Ilyusha. 

“No,” he gasps. “What happened? What happened, Shane, fucking tell me!”

Shane says something unintelligible, and Ilya pulls him into his chest before he can help himself. 

“I’m bad,” Shane gasps, his eyes almost swollen shut with tears, and Ilya tries to brush them away, but they’re coming so fucking quickly, like they’re trying to drain Shane dry. 

“No,” Ilya says immediately. “Never bad, you are so perfect- did I hurt you?”

Shane shakes his head. Ilya feels a wave of relief so intense his knees almost buckle. 

“What happened?" he begs. “You have to tell me, please, I don’t know how to fix-”

“I’m sorry,” Shane chokes out wetly. 

His eyes lift towards Ilya’s, wide and brown and heartbroken, his waterline thick with tears. 

“Why?” Ilya asks. 

And then a terrible, unfathomable thought. 

A twelve year old version of himself, standing in the doorway of his Mama’s room. Confused and staring, for a long few moments.

Sick trailing from the corner of her mouth into her hair. 

The white sheets soiled where her legs are gathered near her chest.

Like his new baby cousin they’d gone to see a few weeks ago. Small, curled up, and messy, because he doesn’t know how to control his body yet.

Except Mama isn’t small. She put a cookie in his lunch pail this morning.

And he’d known, then, what he was looking at, and a dreadful shard of glass lodged into his heart that wouldn’t ever go away.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Ilya asks, voice cracking like he’s still twelve, still small, still naive to how fucking cruel God could be. “Did you- did you do something?”

Shane shakes his head vehemently, but he’s still crying so hard, Ilya doesn't know how he has anything left in him. 

“Shane!” Ilya pleads, loud and desperate. “What did you do?!”

“I- I didn’t-” Shane grasps at Ilya’s shirt, wet with tears that Ilya realizes he’s also partially responsible for. “‘M so sorry- I’m disgusting-”

“What? No, no, never disgusting-”

The smell of the oven starts wafting its way through the room. It hits them at the same time, and Ilya watches as Shane flinches and curls up, sobbing messily, until he’s cradled in Ilya’s lap, like he’s small, like Mama-

Then his hand finds its way into the scab starting halfway up his thigh, and a small bead of blood appears before Ilya can force his hand away. 

But it’s when Ilya catches the half-filled smoothie across the room, tucked away sneakily on the bench near the front door, that makes it click.

“Oh, Shane.” Ilya’s voice breaks. 

Chapter End Notes

Hello! I don't know where the new wave of you just came from, but it was just in time for a new chapter! Welcome!

So we finally got a conversation about the miscommunication that's been happening, but we've also ended up with Shane and Ilya heading in very different directions. Ilya feels like there is a whole new world of possibility for him. He thinks he's been fixed, but he still doesn't know how to utilize the tools he's been given, and he's going to struggle a lot with that. And my poor, sweet Shane, completely in denial about how sick he is.

And teenage Ilya breaks my fucking heart. He was so fucking lonely, and he couldn't even talk to his mom or ask for her help. He was totally on his own, and I just had to write about it.

I'm so sorry about the cliffhanger. (That's a complete lie, but know it will be worth it.) The parallels between Ilya's trauma with his mom and with Shane's struggles area driving force of this fic, because heal from one without confronting the other, and he's nevr going to be able to quite separate those outcomes.

This took fucking forever because the POV's and chapter counts just weren't making sense, and I had to basically just shove this all into one chapter for the absolute shitstorm that's coming to make any sense. sorry if it's jumpy.

Writing smut? fucking terrifying. dom ilya came easy to me, but jesus christ.

I would love to hear what you guys think! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 9: you will open the yawning grave

Chapter Notes

chapter title from The Yawning Grave by Lord Huron.

Please take a look at the updated tags.

The first time Shane saw another boy naked, he was thirteen years old.

He knew what they looked like, of course. He’d seen them with their shirts off, or in their underwear sometimes, just like they’d seen him. In Atom’s and Pee Wee’s, they didn’t even really use a locker room; most of the boys just showed up in their gear and changed out of their practice clothes at home.

He didn’t see actual nudity until the Minor Hockey Association granted him special permission to jump two age divisions to play in U16 AAA.

His new teammates were okay. Nice enough, but clearly competitive. Shane appreciated the lack of personal attention. He just hadn’t expected the kid with the locker next to him to pull off his briefs, scratch his balls, and turn to Shane to start up a conversation.

“Some of us are together this weekend,” the guy said, like this was completely normal. Shane froze, staring at his bag, barely an inch away from the kid’s dick. “You ever been to the lake?”

Shane swallowed, eyes quickly darting away before nodding his head. He didn’t understand how this was relevant, or what he was supposed to be doing right now, but he knew that the cardinal rule of every bathroom on the planet was don’t look at the other guy’s junk.

“Hey.” The kid- Ralph Tremblay, he remembered- snapped his fingers in Shane’s face. “My eyes are up here, buddy.”

Shane flinched and quickly looked up. The kid raised a bushy eyebrow.

“This is your formal invitation. Saturday at 9. You gonna need a ride?”

“I- uh, no, my Dad has a meeting at ten. He can bring me before that.”

Tremblay snorted loudly. “Nine at night, Hollander.”

“At night?” Shane’s stomach was starting to hurt.

“What, you deaf?” The words sounded mean, but his face didn’t look like he was mad. Shane had never been so confused in his life. “Yeah, buddy. You got a bedtime or something?”

Shane had never had a conversation with a kid this much older than him before, let alone one in the nude. But he knew that a bedtime was for children, and the whole reason he was here was because he was decidedly not a child anymore, so he shook his head.

“Good. Then be there. The parking lot off Pine.”

Shane nodded. Tremblay looked satisfied. He tugged on new shorts and wandered away, leaving Shane behind in a row with six other guys, who were all immersed enough in their own conversations not to pay him any mind.

Shane spent all day Saturday with an anxious stomach ache. He tucked himself into bed at eight-thirty, and then, for the first and only time in his life, snuck out of his bedroom window.

It’s not that he was trying to be rebellious, or that his parents truly wouldn’t let him out past his bed time. He knew they trusted him.

It was just that this was his first Hang Out. It was different than meeting up and playing in his friend’s room while their parents chatted upstairs. The last thing he needed was for these guys to see his mommy dropping him off, especially when they’d gone out of their way to include him.

The Pine entrance to the lake was barely a mile walk. He knew the pathway well enough. He arrived two minutes before nine and took a deep, shuddering breath when he saw that seven of the guys were already there, parked under the lone street light.

Trembley grinned when he saw Shane approaching. He spat his gum out onto the pavement, the dim light above them turning everything a weird shade of orange. “Look who made it!”

There was a series of “man of the hour!” and “there he is!” and something in rapid fire French Shane couldn’t quite catch. Shane waived politely, trying to pretend like he wasn’t completely out of his element.
They headed back to the lake behind the brush. The guys were loud, shoving each other and swearing. A couple of them rubbed their knuckles on the top of Shane’s head. Shane went with it, picking at the skin around his thumbs.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

The kid who spoke French earlier pulled off his shirt and threw it at Shane’s face, making him sputter. “We’re swimming, man! What did you think?”

Shane blinked as the others started to follow suit, tearing off their clothes and slapping each other on the chest. The lake in front of them was beautiful, the water twinkling under the stars- but undoubtedly freezing this time of year.

“What, you didn’t bring trunks?” Tremblay called, stepping into the water.

“Uh- no, I… I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

Tremblay shrugged. “Guess you gotta go Commando!”

A couple of the guys whooted. Someone slapped his butt and sprinted towards the water before Shane could even identify who it was.

He so, so badly didn’t want to take his clothes off. But the other boys were already getting in, treading water, and looking expectantly at him.

You look stupid, Shane scolded himself, even as his stomach clenched. Just fucking do it and get it over with.

He slowly pulled off his shirt and neatly folded it in his arms, trying to buy time. If he left now, he’d look like a total wimp. And besides, everyone else had already done it. It clearly wasn’t a big deal.

He swallowed hard and set his shirt down on a somewhat flat rock. Then, reluctantly, he undid the tie on his shorts and pulled those off too.

Someone hooted from the water. Shane knelt to untie his shoes, taking care to tuck his socks inside so they wouldn’t get wet. He walked the final few feet to the shoreline and stepped in. The water was freezing as expected. It sent an unpleasant shock though his body, raising the hair on his arms.

“Hollander, for fuck’s sake, just get in!” Tremblay bellowed. Laughter rang out behind him. “Jesus Christ!”

He was taking too long. He was fucking this up. They were already annoyed at him, and it hadn’t even been five minutes yet.

“I’m coming!” Shane yelled, blinking rapidly.

He stepped in until the water was up at his knees. Suddenly a wet hand came up and smacked him on the stomach, making him double over and drop. His knee dug into the rocks.

“Holy shit,” one of the guys- Smith- laughed loudly. “Look at that recoil!”

Shane looked back up, coughing heavily. It took him a moment to realize Smith was looking at his stomach.

Recoil?

Someone reached up and pinched his abdomen, where the skin was still pink in the shape of a handprint. Shane flinched away, glancing at Tremblay in disbelief, but even he was laughing too.

He brought his hands up quickly to cover himself. He’d never… what was wrong with his stomach?

“They let you advance when you’re built like that?” Taylor Leblanc laughed, treading water a few feet away like it was nothing.

Shane, to his horror, felt his eyes getting hot. He quickly stepped further into the water until he was up to his shoulders, suddenly morbidly aware of his own body in a way he’d never been before. “I didn’t- I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Shane couldn’t speak, struggling to tread water with his body clenched from the cold. His stomach was really, really aching now.

“Are you a fucking charity case or something?”

Charity case? His parents had had to sign a crazy amount of waivers to let him advance. The coach had advocated for him to the MHA board. And it wasn’t like he was fat. He just wasn’t, like, super skinny-

“You’re lucky coach hasn’t seen that yet,” Tremblay said. He had swam up closer, his voice lowered like he’s trying to be nice, but everyone else is staring right at them.

“I’m not-” Shane’s teeth chattered. His eyes were blurry. He had never wanted to be somewhere else so badly in his life. “I’m not fat, what do you mean?”

Tremblay snorted and hid his face behind his hand, like he couldn’t help it.

Like he was trying to be sympathetic.

Shane never even thought about his build before. Jesus, why had he never thought about it before?

Then Tremblay’s eyes shifted behind him, and suddenly Shane was being dragged underwater by the waistband of his briefs.

He choked immediately. Water flooded into his nose, his vision was blurry and his eyes too shocked from the cold of the dirty water to see anything.

Whoever’s hands were on him were trying to pull his underwear down his flailing legs. Shane screamed into the water, unable to breathe as he got dragged further and further down. His elbow made contact with what he thinks may have been the guys’ eye. Then suddenly the hands were gone, and a white blur somewhere to Shane’s left swam upwards.

Shane kicked his legs furiously, trying to break the surface with his fingers, when he realized in abject horror that his underwear were caught around his ankles. Whoever had been trying to pull them off had clearly given up, and left him behind.

Shane’s chest burned. His entire body trembled with the desperate, feral need for air. After what felt like decades, he finally kicked them free and furiously swam upwards.

He finally broke the surface, gasping and choking on air that felt much too cold to get a proper breath with.

There was yelling to his left. The boys were gathering their things- Shane’s things- and sprinting towards the treeline again, back to the parking lot.

They hadn’t even seen him yet.

Had they left him to drown?

Shane realized he was crying. Loud, hoarse, watery sobs that rendered him so out of breath, he could barely keep his chin above the water.

Swim, Shane. You have to swim.

It took a moment for his body to remember how to move. His limbs moved uncoordinatedly, painfully slow, breath foggy over the water, but soon enough his toes scraped against sharp rocks and he was able to stand.

The boys hadn’t taken off yet. Their voices carried through the trees. Shane figured they were probably able to hear him crying too.

He made it to the parking lot, shaking and colder than he’d ever been in his life. All six of them were still there. Tremblay looked up from where he leaned against his car and whistled. He was holding Shane’s clothes in one hand, crumbled and wet.

“Okay, okay,” Taylor shouted. The other boys were laughing so loudly Shane barely heard it. He took the wet clothes out of Tremblay’s hands and held them out. “Alright, that’s enough. Here, Hollander.”

Shane, slowly, stumbled forward. He ignored the sharp pain shooting through his left foot as it caught on the dimly lit pavement. He outstretched his hands to take his clothes when Taylor yanked them back, a sudden grin on his face.

“Nah,” he said. “You still gotta earn ‘em, right?”

Shane lunged forward with a sob, barely catching the waistband of his jeans as Taylor twisted away and climbed into his passenger seat.

The rest of the boys quickly split up and piled into the two cars. The first pulled out so fast the tires screeched, but the second held back just long enough for Taylor to stick Shane's clothes out the window and yell “come and get them!”

Shane was left with no other option but to run after it.

His shirt was flung out the window after a minute, and Shane almost tripped reaching down to grab it. His shoe was next, thrown out the rear window in the totally opposite direction.

The car drove in a circle around him. The boys yelled out the window, calling him names he’d only heard in movies. Eventually Shane just crumbled into a heap, humiliated and crying so hard he couldn’t see.

The resignation must have made it boring, because Leblanc reached his arm out and dumped Shane’s remaining belongings on the pavement.

“Sorry,” he said, like he meant it. “Figured you could use the exercise, buddy.”

Shane didn’t bother watching as the car drove away. Eventually he stood up, numb and bleeding and worn to the bone, and pulled his wet jeans over his bare skin.

He couldn’t help but fixate on the way that the top button dug into the soft, firm skin of his stomach.

It was all he could think about, the whole walk home. That, and the fact that his brand new underwear was somewhere at the bottom of the lake, and probably would be forever.

The first time another boy saw Shane naked, he was thirteen years old.

He didn’t let it happen again until he was eighteen, in a tensely charged shower at a GCM photoshoot, where Ilya Rozanov had dragged hungry eyes up and down Shane’s body and liked it so much he’d asked to come to his hotel room that night.

Now, at twenty-eight, the novelty had worn off.

Now, Ilya laughed at Shane when Shane undressed in front of him. Now, he needed literal medication to fuck him.

Now, Shane can’t even handle Ilya’s hand on his middle without breaking the fuck down.

He curls into himself on their couch, arm wrapped around himself as he cries. Ilya sounds terrified above him, saying his name over and over like he doesn't understand. Like he can’t see it.

The smell of the food Ilya had cooked them is wafting through the room, salty and thick with butter and saturated fats. Ilya is going to rightfully expect Shane to eat it without it ruining his body, and his metabolism, and putting extra weight around his barely controlled midline. Shane should be able to just appreciate it, be good for him…

It’s fucking disgusting. Shane’s fucking disgusting.

“What? No, no, never disgusting-”

Shane just cries.

Ilya’s voice breaks. “Oh, Shane…”

Like he finally understands.

And still, he’s kind enough to hold Shane in his lap while he waits for him to be too tired to cry anymore.

It comes quickly. Shane was already strung too far apart; it was bound to catch up with him. Eventually he sits up and meets Ilya’s eyes, his own swollen and tight.

“Солнышко,” Ilya says, sounding distraught. His eyes are flickering back and forth between Shane’s. “Are you okay?”

He brings his hands to Shane’s waist. Shane flinches away before he can help himself. Ilya’s face drops.

“Sorry.”

“Please stop saying sorry,” Ilya begs. “Please just talk to me. You said you are… disgusting.” He looks like he can barely get the word out.

Shane, while certain he hasn’t been this repulsed by himself in a very long time, is also certain that this is not Ilya’s problem. Shane keeps making bad decisions about food and suffering the consequences. He keeps straying from his diet. He’s just… built differently than other athletes. He has to work twice as hard to maintain his physique, when Ilya can enjoy whatever he’d like and remain looking like he was pulled out of a teenager’s wet dream.

Even on antidepressants, he hasn’t gained any weight.

It’s a nasty, inexcusable thought.

It’s a thought that’s coming more and more often.

Being jealous of his own fucking boyfriend is something Shane never thought he’d be reduced to. It’s pathetic.

“Okay,” Ilya says softly. His bright, beautiful hazel eyes are filled with tears. He leans down and presses the world’s gentlest kiss on Shane’s forehead, holding his head with both hands. “Let’s get you warm, yes?”

Shane really doesn’t have any words left. He feels completely wrung out. He wants to burn this body alive and start fresh.

But he lets Ilya help him stand. He lets him start the shower, clutching Shane’s hand like he’s afraid he’ll run off. He lets him slowly peel off the rest of his clothes and guide him under the spray that’s just on the wrong side of cool.

Ilya keeps his hands above waist level. He’s caught on, by now.

Neither of them speak. The shower is quick. They dress quietly and Ilya pulls back the sheets of their bed, holding his arm out. Shane pulls obliged and settles in next to him, letting Ilya hold him close.

“You are scaring me, Shane.”

Shane squeezes his eyes shut. He knows if he apologizes, Ilya won’t accept it, and they’ll be back at square one. “I don’t mean to. It’s not your job to deal with my bad decisions.”

“I don’t understand what you mean by ‘bad decisions’.”

Shane closes his eyes briefly. “Can we just go to bed?”

He doesn’t know why he’s asking. He’s a grown man. They have a guest room if needed.

He just… wants to be good. He so, so badly wants to be good.

Ilya breathes out slowly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because if we go to bed, we aren’t going to talk. And we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“About what is happening up here.” Ilya taps Shane’s head. “It is bad up here. I think… like mine is, sometimes.”

“I’m not depressed.”

Quietly, but firmly- “I don’t know if I believe that.”

Shane doesn’t know what to say. He’s not depressed. He’s never wanted to kill himself. Is this some kind of weird deflection? Ilya trying to relate to him?

“Hurting yourself isn’t healthy,” Ilya says. “Not eating, making yourself sick and saying you’re… disgusting. That’s not healthy. And I don’t know how to help you, because you won’t talk to me about it. You won’t even be honest when I ask. I don’t even know if I can help you. You won’t give me a chance.”

And… yeah, all that laid out together seems pretty damning. But Ilya just doesn't understand. “I have a system. You know that. With my diet, and the exercise. If I stick to that, everything is perfect. But I just… I kept fucking it up, and I had to compensate to fix it. I miscalculated.”

“Skipping food and not finishing breakfast isn’t ‘compensating’, Shane. It’s dangerous.”

“You sound like a fucking high school assembly,” Shane grumbles. “I’m a grown man. I know what’s dangerous. I know fainting isn’t normal. I’ve never done it before. Like I said, I miscalculated. I was rearranging calories to make up for the sodium in the fish, ‘cause I ate my other sodium dense meal the day before-”

“Why does it matter?” Ilya presses. “If you eat fish two days in a row. What does it matter? Switching your meals means you have to change everything?”

“Yes!” There’s that burning defensiveness again. Shane can feel himself tiptoeing dangerously close to anger, all of the sudden. “The calories matter! I have to do them in order! There’s a reason I have the career I do-”

“Eating fish on Thursdays does not make you a good hockey player.”

“Oh my God- yes it does! The regimen works! Consistency is key! I am perfect when I stick to it. I fucked it up one time, and look what happened! I passed out in our kitchen!”

“You didn’t pass out because you ate fish on Wednesday instead of Thursday.”

“I wouldn’t have had to try to make up for the calorie intake if I did what I was supposed to.”

“Supposed- who says you’re supposed to? You have made a rule for yourself that doesn't make any sense!”

“It does! The diet has always worked! The schedule has always worked! Meal prep Sunday, grains Monday, broth Tuesday, chickpeas and tofu Wednesday, fish Thursday- I’ve been doing that since I was twelve, and it’s the only thing that fucking works! It’s the whole reason I won a fucking Stanley Cup!”

Ilya moves swiftly, manhandling Shane so they’re face to face. “Shane. Do you hear yourself?”

Fucking asshole. “Do not talk to me like I’m inept.”

Ilya ignores the deliberate attempt to trip him up. “No. I need you to listen. You are connecting things that do not make sense.”

Shane opens his mouth furiously to retort, but Ilya plows on.

“The days you eat these things is not what makes you a good hockey player. And changing the order is not what made you sick.”

“When I stick to it, I’m fine.”

“That’s not…” Ilya shakes his head in frustration. “That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t eat the same things as you. I don’t eat the same thing every week. And I’m right there at the top with you.”

“Yeah, but that’s different.”
“How?” Ilya demands. “How is that different?”

“Because…” Shane doesn’t know how to put it into words. He growls in frustration and drags both hands down his face, before setting them in his lap and making a conscious effort not to let his nails dig into the inflamed skin. “You don’t get it.”

Ilya nods. “You’re right. I don’t. Help me understand.”

Because you’re just made differently. Because your body just cooperates with you, like it knows what you’re meant to be.

To Shane’s horror, he feels his eyes start to get hot.

After a few long moments, Ilya must realize he’s not going to get a response. He gently rubs the small of Shane’s back and says, “What you said about yourself…”

“I didn’t mean it,” Shane lies, because what else is he supposed to say?

“You said you were bad. You cried, you said you were sorry- what were you sorry for?”

“All I’ve been doing lately is messing up.” Shane whispers. “I just- I need to be good again. I need to fix it. I need to make up for it.”

Ilya looks completely lost and so, so frustrated. “Make up for what?”

Not doing what I’m supposed to do. For not keeping the body you fell in love with.

“You didn’t start crying until I started getting you off. You were in a bad…” Ilya gestured at his head. “Bad headspace. And it was when you smelled the food.”

“The food is definitely burned by now.”

Ilya sighs. “Yes. We’ll have to throw it away.”

Shane is clearly unsuccessful at hiding the way his shoulders sag in relief, because an impossible sad look comes over Ilya’s.

“Food does not make you good or bad, sweetheart.” His eyes are so wide, so desperate. Shane can barely look at them before having to glance away again. “If that’s what this is… what you eat has nothing to do with that. You are always good, Shane. You just are. Always, for me.”

“l’m not, though.” Shane mutters. He feels boneless and vaguely nauseous. Off kilter, like he’s been spinning. “I couldn't get you off, for weeks. You didn’t want to touch me. I-“ he swallows, fighting back humiliated tears. “I tried to start something the other day, and you laughed at me.”

“Shane-”

Shane doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. He doesn’t need to fucking… justify his schedule to another grown man. He knows what works, and he knows what happens when he doesn’t do it.

“Let’s just drop it,” Shane whispers.

Ilya, ever stubborn and immovable, doesn’t let him stand. “No, listen.” Shane uses his foot to prop himself up and pushes upwards. Ilya grunts, keeping an arm looped around his waist, his bicep bulging with the effort. “Stop it-”

They struggle for a moment. It’s not wrestling so much as just awkward manhandling. It would be funny if Shane wasn’t literally shaking with desperation to get up, leave, move-

“Shane!” Ilya says loudly. He gets both arms around him and uses his entire body weight to leverage them backwards. Shane’s back to Ilya's chest, Ilya’s chin hooked over his shoulder. “Breathe. Breathe.”

Shane suddenly realizes that he hasn’t been. He lets out an exhale that sounds more like a choke.

“Good,” Ilya soothes in his ears. He presses a kiss to the skin just behind it and stays there, exaggerating his own breathing. Shane takes a ragged breath inward. “Good, sweetheart.”

He’s always been good at that; giving Shane something to mirror when his body isn’t cooperating with him.

A facial expression. A place to stand in a crowded room. A strong hand gently guiding him in one direction or another, when Shane is too tired or too consumed by his own thoughts. A deep breath, or a firm kiss on his temple, or gentle fingers putting themselves between Shane’s own, where the sides of his thumbs are starting to bleed.

Ilya’s too good for him. He’s something pulled out of an idealistic romantic comedy.

What the hell does Shane have to offer him now?

“Stop it,” Ilya murmurs against his skin, shaking his head. “Whatver you are thinking, stop. You are so fucking mean to yourself.”

Shane supposes that’s right. But just because it’s mean, doesn’t mean it’s not true.

“I was not laughing at you,” Ilya’s voice is hollow. “I would never laugh at you, маленький кролик. I was… afraid of disappointing you. My medication was making me sick. I couldn’t get my stupid dick to work.”

“What do you mean?”

“Erectile dysfunction.” The words are slow and over-pronounced, clearly something he’s been thinking about often. “It’s not a very common side effect, but nothing about me is average, is it?”

It’s stupid enough to make the corners of Shane’s mouth poke upwards.

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” Ilya repeats. “I had been avoiding sex because I knew I couldn’t give you what you needed. And then you give me a fucking strip show. I have dreams about that, Shane. I wanted you so fucking badly. My dick just…. wasn’t working. It felt like God was playing a sick joke on me. It was… what is the word?”

“Ironic?”

“Ironic. You are so fucking hot, Hollander. There is not any world where I would not think that. We will be a hundred years old, and I will find ways to get my hands in your pants. The nursing home will hate us.”

Shane’s eyes burn. He laughs wetly before he can help it.

Ilya uses a finger to tilt his chin, so they’re face to face. “I want you. Always. You are so beautiful that I want to punch something sometimes.”

Shane snorts. Ilya smiles for a moment. But then he looks hesitant, and when he opens his mouth again, there’s a furrow between his brow that tells Shane is choosing his words very carefully.

“That was not a small thing, feeling like I was rejecting you. But it was… simple. It was just a misunderstanding. And it made you run away and hide in the other bedroom. You didn’t eat anything for so long that you passed out.”

“Ilya…”

“It made you hurt yourself,” Ilya’s voice cracks. He clears his throat. “You hurt yourself, Shane. That can’t happen. Period.”

Shane doesn't know what to say. He's been doing that as long as he can remember. He doesn’t even realize it’s happening, half the time. He’d just… managed not to let Ilya see it, for a while. But now that they live together, of course that would change.

“Something that simple should not put your head in a space like that.”

“It wasn’t just that,” Shane says. “It wasn’t just you. It’s not your fault, okay? I also just wasn’t feeling super confident because I kept messing up my diet. It just caught up with me. That’s why I need to stick to it, right?”

Ilya squeezes Shane tightly again. “Shane, that is not reasonable. That is not healthy. That… that should scare you. It scares me.”

“You just haven’t lived with me long enough, you’re not used to it. I’ve done this my whole life, and I’ve had no issues.”

“How long?” Ilya says, eyebrows raised. He looks like he's preparing for a gotcha, blocking Shane into a corner, and it only pisses him off more.

“Since I was thirteen!” Shane snaps. “More than half my life, Ilya. I know what I’m doing. You don’t need to worry about it. You always say I worry enough for the both of us anyways.”

Whatever furious reply Ilya was winding up is cut short by the fire alarm suddenly blaring through the front room.

Shane flinches bodily, clamping his hands around his ears. Ilya swears loudly. He lifts Shane off his lap and onto the couch like he weighs nothing, quickly moving towards the kitchen.

A small, grey plume of smoke billows out of the oven when Ilya opens it. He reaches inside and pulls out the red dish, dropping it unceremoniously onto the stovetop. The food is completely charred. The smell is so bad Anya whines from somewhere down the hall.

“We’re going out to eat.” Ilya announces. His eyes are watering.

Shane waves a towel through the air, like that will help. “Fucking hell.”

“I’ll call your parents. Can you take Anya out?”

“Why?”

“Because she needs to pee.”

“No, why are you calling my parents?”

Ilya is already halfway across the living room. “Because we are going nuts in here, and I want to ask them why they had you on a bullshit diet when you were just a kid.”

They end up at a little spot downtown, with sage green walls and chairs that are uncomfortably wide.

It’s one of his mom’s favorites. Shane has only been there for brunch before. Yuna says as much as she skims the menu, lips pursed. “Their steamed vegetables aren’t bad, honey. They don’t season them very much, but it’s not mushy.”

Shane nods. It does fit into his calorie intake frame for the afternoon.

“You can get something else,” Ilya says next to him. Loud and pointed for Yuna to hear.

Shane glares at him, kicking him under the table. David raises his eyebrows, while Yuna peers at them over her menu.

“Everything okay?” She asks.

“Yes,” Shane says quickly, albeit grumpy. “That’s a good idea, I’m gonna get the vegetables, mom.”

Yuna nods, not looking entirely convinced. “I picked it because there’s a lot of low-calorie options. There are a lot of things that you can eat on your diet.”

“He doesn’t have to eat for his diet every time we go out,” Ilya says, a little bit sharply.

“Knock it off,” Shane hisses under his breath.

“What? We don’t go back to practice until next week. There is no reason not to relax.”

“You are the only one making it impossible to relax.”

“Oh, I’m the one-”

“Okay,” Yuna interrupts. “What is going on with you two?”

Shane and Ilya return glares. Ilya, though, on a tirade Shane doesn’t think he’ll stop until everything’s off his chest, speaks up.

“Shane’s diet is unhealthy. And I think it is wrong that his parents would make him do it as a child. And it has messed him up, so many years later.”

It’s extremely bold. It’s presumptuous. It’s much more than Ilya would have dared to say a year ago.

Yuna’s brows dip. David leans forward, baffled. “Ilya,” he says slowly. “We’ve never made Shane do that diet.”

“We would never restrict what he eats,” Yuna looks deeply disturbed. She turns to Shane. “Where is this coming from?”

Shane groans. “I told him I’ve been on that diet since I was thirteen, and he thought that meant you guys were making you do it.”

“Lord almighty, no.”

“That’s what I was telling you,” Shane turns to Ilya, bemused. “It makes me feel better. It always has. They just accommodated it.”

Ilya doesn’t seem to buy it, but his tone is significantly less fiery when he says, “You always cook food for their diet. You pick places like this.”

“Because that’s what he enjoys,” David returns, without heat. “We never really liked it. We fought him on it.”

Shane snorts. “Yeah, probably a bit too much. I was on it for a reason.”

“Not a single other kid on any of your teams were doing anything that intense,” Yuna says. “It was extreme.”

Shane feels a flicker of irritation. “Okay, but I was kind of a bigger kid,” he mutters, his cheeks hot.

Yuna gives him an incredulous look. “What? No, you weren’t.”

“Mom,” Shane says tiredly.

“No, Shane,” Yuna says. “You were never a ‘big kid’. There would be nothing wrong with that if you were, but it’s just untrue. Where is that coming from?”

And now she’s either lying, or had just deluded herself his whole childhood.

“You took me to a dietician,” Shane says, annoyed. “The dietician put me on that diet for a reason, and look where I am now.”

Yuna is looking at him with a very strange look on her face. “You never saw a dietician, sweetheart. Your coach was the one who gave you that diet to follow. I mean… he was the reason we moved teams.”

..What?

“We never moved teams,” Shane insists. Seriously, what kind of reality has she been living in? He glances at his Dad in concern. “Just that once, when I moved to U16.”

Yuna has gone very, very pale. David, for the first time in Shane’s life, looks like he wants to punch something.

“Dad,” he says quietly. His heart thuds in his chest. “It was just a diet.”

David shakes his head, his jaw tight. He glares out the window, tears in his waterline. Shane has never seen him like this before.

“That wasn’t it, honey,” Yuna says carefully. “It wasn’t just the diet. Do you remember?”

“Remember what?” Shane demands, feeling like he’s lost his mind.

There’s a sudden screeching of a chair against tile as his Dad shoots upright. His face has crumbled. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, I just need a second- car-“

He practically runs out of the building.

“Dad!” Shane whisper-hisses after him. The few other customers sitting around them turn. He whips towards Yuna. “Mom, what the fuck is going on?”

He doesn’t realize he’s sweating until Ilya grabs his hand.

“Sweetheart,” Ilya says, His tone is taught and his face is carefully calm. “Let’s go to the car, yes?”

He nods at Yuna, giving her the same firm look. “Yes?” He waits for her nod nod stiffly, frozen in her seat. “Okay. Up we go.”

Shane stands. He feels weirdly lightheaded, like everything is kind of jumping around him. “I don’t understand.”

Yuna is already grabbing her purse, seemingly snapped out of whatever trance she was in. Ilya, for the first time in public, is touching Shane, hand on his back, just gently guiding him towards the exit.

Shane can’t find it in himself to worry if anyone is recording. He doesn’t know why it feels like the earth is catching fire around him.

I’m missing something.

What am I missing?

Because Ilya is acting all stoic and taking charge, like he knows something. And it would really, really irritate Shane, most of the time- being underestimated to his face.

But it’s like- Shane’s own body is reacting. Why the fuck is he sweating so much? Why does his stomach hurt?

I’m missing something.

They’re at the car now. Ilya opens the door for Shane and climbs in after him. David is in the driver’s seat, eyes red but seemingly more composed.

He and Yuna stare at each other, having a whole conversation with their eyes.

Shane can’t fucking take it anymore. He thinks he might throw up for some reason. “Can you just say it?” he says faintly. “Please.”

David pulls away from the curb. Yuna takes a deep breath and turns around to face him. “Do you remember U16?”

“Yeah,” Shane says immediately. He still doesn’t understand why they won’t just spit it out.

“What do you remember?”

“I…” Shane falters. He waives his hand. “I mean, it was hockey. I remember going to practice. It wasn’t very memorable.”

“You don’t remember any of the people?” Yuna asks softly.

Shane thinks for a moment. Ilya’s hand grasps his, pulling it into his own lap, and Shane realizes he’s been pinching his lower stomach.

“I remember getting hazed by the team when I first got there,” Shane suggested. He felt weird. “That sucked, but it wasn’t, like…a big enough deal to make Dad run out of the restaurant.”

“The hazing,” Yuna repeats.

She’s looking at him really intensely. Her hands are clasped on the center console so tightly her fingers are turning white. She’s trying to keep her hands from shaking, Shane realizes.

“Yeah. I mean, there's really not anything. I don’t remember much, but I mean… I was thirteen. There’s not much about being thirteen that needs to linger.”

“Shane.” David speaks, finally. His voice is infuriatingly gentle. “You were only with that team for about two months. We moved to the one in Ontario, Kingston, right after, because your coach was arrested.”

Shane blinks. Ilya clings to his hand as the city quickly thins out around them through the car windows.

“Arrested?”

“Yes.”

“While I was there?” Shane says in disbelief.

“Yes.”

There’s no way. Shane would have remembered, that would have been enormous. His mom would have been scrambling to make sure Shane’s name was nowhere near it, so it wouldn’t affect his chances at the draft.

“For what?” Someone would have said something to him, surely. At one of his sponsorship events, or any of the million dinner parties that were really just a guise for a night of gossip.

Surely, he would have seen a mugshot. There would have been news. Those boys-

What ever happened to those boys?

Shane’s breath stutters. He doesn’t… remember those boys, really. He can’t remember seeing them again, after that night at the lake. He would have felt mortified getting on the ice with them again. He would have remembered that. He would maybe have even gone to his coach-

His coach, who… for some reason he can’t recall anything about.

Not a name. Not a face. Not even some kind of faceless blob. Just a figure sort of at the peripheral of some random snapshots of a goal, a stick hitting the ice, the cold of the metal bench.

The lethologica makes Shane’s head pound faster. He feels like he’s getting a migraine.

The man was… tall? No, not tall. Maybe? He wore-

Red. Shane’s jersey had been red. But he… had pictures from U16. He’d worn white.

“My jersey was red?” It comes out as both a question and an accident.

Mom is still watching him. She looks older. She looks like she’s fighting back tears. “Yeah, sweetheart. Your jersey there was red in Ottawa.”

Shane pulls his hand from Ilya’s grasp. Dazedly, he fishes his phone out of his pocket.

“Shane,” David says quickly from the front seat.

Yuna places her hand on his leg and whispers something. Shane ignores them both and searches “ottawa u16 coach arrest”-

Ottawa Junior Hockey Coach Arrested, Charged with Sexual Exploitation of Children

A junior hockey coach was arrested in Ottawa on Saturday after being found in possession of child sexual abuse material…

… photos of one or more minors…

… contents deemed child pornography…

Cold fingers pry the phone from his hands.

Mom is saying his name. He’s supposed to answer.

Shane’s eyes burn. He looks up and promptly vomits into his own lap.

He really doesn’t register much more until they get back to Ottawa.

Ilya helps him change out of his soiled clothes. David leads him to the couch and lays the big white throw blanket over his legs. Yuna thrusts a warm cup of tea into his hands.

No one makes him speak.

Shane, distantly, appreciates it. He doesn’t know what he would say.

He doesn't know how much time passes. He feels their eyes on him as they try to pretend everything is normal. David lets Anya into the yard. He and Ilya settle next to the ottoman and continue a large puzzle of some kind of Nordic landscape. Yuna starts the washing machine down the hall. When Shane’s untouched tea goes cold, she wordlessly replaces it with another cup that’s bordering on too warm. It makes his hands tingle.

She’s trying to keep him here, Shane realizes. Keep him from drifting away, like Ilya does sometimes.

It’s unnecessary. He’s never been more aware of his body in his life. He’d like nothing more than to disappear into his mind.

It isn’t until Yuna settles next to her husband around the puzzle, playfully arguing with Ilya about a blue piece that could be ocean or sky, that Shane speaks.

“How did I never remember before?”

Yuna goes quiet. She and David exchange glances.

It’s David who takes the initiative to answer. “The psychologist we took you to said that would likely happen.”

“Yeah, but I would have… I never, like, saw his face again and got triggered?” It comes out sounding angry and childish. “I’m not stupid, I know how these things work. How come I never saw a jersey, or a picture, or any of those boys or anything? Why would you fucking hide that from me?”

“We weren’t hiding anything from you,” Yuna promises. “We spoke to multiple professionals-”

David leans forward, his hands splayed. “They all said your brain was protecting you, that has those mechanisms for a reason. That we shouldn’t bring it to you before you were ready.”

“And that consensus is still the same.” Shane has never seen his own mother beg before, It’s equal parts jarring and heartbreaking to see it now. “I’ve kept up with the research all these years. I just… I needed to know we were doing the right thing.”

“You weren’t really talking in the sessions with the psychologist,” David continues. “She would ask you questions, about why you were there, or if something bad happened, or if there was anything you wanted to talk about. You were just… blank. You didn’t remember. You even got annoyed that you were going, you felt like there was no reason for it.”

Yuna takes a deep breath. Shane glances at her, but she’s avoiding his eye contact. Shane hasn’t seen her do that in a very, very long time. “We don’t have anything from those months because I threw it all out.”

“Why?!”

“I couldn’t keep them around, Shane. You have to understand. I couldn’t put those photos in an album with all of the others and look at them all the time, like it wasn’t the most horrific part of your life. Of my life. I couldn’t keep that jersey in a box for your kids to discover one day and ask you about. I couldn’t put you in that position.”

Shane’s eyes have finally welled past the point of salvage. He hates himself as tears drip onto the collar of his shirt. He scrubs them away with the back of his hand. “So if I never remembered, you would have just taken it to the grave?!”

“If you never remembered on your own, then maybe you were never meant to. But the brain can’t hold onto it forever, and that was extremely unlikely.”

Yuna makes an aborted movement like she wants to reach for his hand, but refrains. ”We always knew that when you eventually remembered, when you asked, we would tell you. It just… took longer than we expected.”

“And nobody else knew? Not my new team? No reporter ever dug it up? It doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together!”

“Because I buried it,” David says hoarsely.

David did? Shane huffs out a breath, swiping at his eyes again. “How- what do you mean, you buried it?”

“It wasn’t hard,” David says solemnly. “Things like that, involving children, are confidential. They’re sealed away- those names and things are never released to the public. But the police didn’t have to interrogate you, because the coach admitted it, and there was… irrefutable evidence.”

“Evidence?” Ilya echoes- quiet, like he didn’t mean to. It’s the first time he’s spoken. He’s holding the same blue puzzle piece tight in his hand. It’s warped and ruined now, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

Shane watches both his parents' shoulders tighten.

“The coach had taken… nude photos of you,” Yuna says carefully. Shane flinches. “Not doing… anything sexual. There were no photos of the two of you together, or photos of rape or anything like that.”

“So what…”

His mouth goes sour.

David nudges a trash bin towards his feet, seemingly out of thin air. Shane’s never had a weak stomach: he’s seen blood, dislocated elbows- even the white of bone in a teammate’s compound fracture once. He’s never had this kind of response to something before.

He waits until the wave of nausea has passed before speaking again. “What were in the photos? ”

“The photos were in his office. Several of them. He had you next to a yard stick. He was… measuring you. He claimed it was for keeping track of your ‘progress’.” Yuna puts it in air quotes. She’s finally looking at him now, but the expression on her face makes Shane wish she wasn’t.

“So… he was just looking at them? I don’t really believe that. What did he actually do?”

“We… don’t know,” Yuna says reluctantly. “There were no signs of rape, when you were evaluated. The psychologist told us what to look for. And we watched you like a hawk, we would have caught it. But… that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, sweetheart. We just don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Did he do it to any of the other kids?”

“We don’t know.” David looks angry again, but it’s muted. Like he’s waiting until later. “The charge was for possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material. None of the specifics were disclosed, except for what involved us. We never asked any of the other kid’s parents, and they never asked us. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

Except that maybe it would, if Shane had been the only one that the coach had decided to target for some reason.

Those other kids saw him change that first day in the locker room and thought it was so bad, they literally got together to haze him about it. How long had his coach watched him before deciding-

Jesus, what? Why the fuck is he trying to justify this?

Shane sets his tea onto the ottoman before his trembling hand can drop it. He brings his knees up to his chest like a barricade.

“Your new coach put it together when we got there.” David keeps speaking. Shane is glad; he doesn't know if he’s gonna be able to have this conversation again. “It was a pretty big local story, and the timeline was pretty hard to argue away. So I dug through the legal options and figured out how to get an NDA. Had that whole coaching staff sign it. They couldn’t say anything to you about it, and they had a cover story they gave the kids on the team so they wouldn’t question it.”

“They were made aware of things that could trigger you. To shut down any conversations in the locker room about it, and just… watch you. Make sure you were okay, keep you safe. Let you make up practices when you had to be at therapy. A couple of your coaches would even stay after on Wednesdays to make sure you never fell behind- with our supervision, of course-”

His coaches stayed after practice. Weekly. To give him one-on-one training that the other kids never got.

They gave him an advantage over the rest of the kids.

Shane Hollander, who had spent his entire life trying to work twice as hard not to be other- who had done everything he could to prove that he belonged, that he worked just as hard and was just as good as the white kids-

And this whole time, he’d been given a hand-out.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Shane rasps.

Yuna and David look at each other.

“Okay,” she says softly. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore right now.” She says it pointedly, in a way that means, this isn’t over.

Shane doesn’t care right now. He doesn't have anything left in him. He can’t look at his parents right now without feeling like he’s going to hurl again.

“We can give you some space.” David’s knees pop and he stands, holding his hand out for Yuna to do the same. Then, faux-casually, “Do you still want to do dinner tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” Shane murmurs, in the way that means probably not.

David just nods. Yuna clings to his hand, her eyes carefully trained on the floor. She’s trying not to cry.

Shane doesn’t know what he would do with her tears. He doesn’t have any left of his own.

Ilya walks them towards the door. They whisper quietly enough that Shane would have to strain himself to hear. He doesn’t really have the energy to do that, though, so he just keeps sitting on the couch.

His knees will start to ache soon, propped up like this. He should stand.

Ilya walks back into the room, rubbing his palms along the sea of his pants. He glances at Shane a couple times. Clears his throat. Opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, then falters.

Shane gets it. There’s nothing to say.

The silence feels too big for anything to appropriately fill. At its center, a void that just spat Shane out into a reality so similar and so fundamentally different to the one he’d been in a few hours ago.

Ilya gingerly sets himself on the edge of the coach. His whole body thrums with a nervous energy, his muscles so taught Shane swears his ass is barely even touching the leather.

It’s painfully awkward. It feels like the first couple years they were meeting up. The way they tiptoed around one another like they were going to scare each other off. The way they didn’t know each other well enough to be able to trust where they stood. The complete uncertainty in how to proceed.

Ilya doesn't know how to do this, because he doesn’t know this part of Shane.

But Shane doesn’t know this part of himself either. It kind of feels like a betrayal, this thing lingering in him for so long without making itself known.

He doesn't know the right way to do this. He doesn't know anything.

Ilya lets out a slow breath.

Shane glances at him. He’d been trying his new medication today. It must be wearing off by now.

“Do you have a headache?” he croaks.

Ilya startles, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Huh?”

“Your meds. Do you have a headache?”

Ilya just shakes his head helplessly. “Not really. Do you?”

Shane thinks. “Kind of.”

Ilya nods, bolting upright. “I will get you some ibuprofen, yes?”

Shane nods. “It’s in the garage.”

He really shouldn’t have said that. He hid them away for a reason. But he lets him go because Ilya, in true Hollander fashion, seems desperate to be useful in crisis.

He doesn't remember when they switched roles. When Ilya became the one keeping Yuna and David together, or struggles to start a conversation in their own home. He doesn’t remember when Ilya became the one keeping his boyfriend in eye’s view, worried he’s going to disappear or worse.

Shane doesn't remember much of anything, apparently.

He takes the glass of water from Ilya’s hand and swallows the pill.

Chapter End Notes

i've been sitting on this chapter for a long time, because there's really no wiggle room with this kind of topic.

first, i want to be very clear that this will not be going into graphic detail of what shane was experiencing as a child. partly bc it's triggering for literally everyone, and i'm not going to allow any snippet of it to be construed as sexual, even out of context. but also because Shane probably isn't going to remember all the exact details of it either.

like ilya's story, this is about how he felt during that period of time, and how it changed him and led him to unhealthy coping mechanisms. It's about adjusting, and learning, and growing. remembering what happened to him, realizing the root of all of this, is the only way he's going to be able to heal.

it's always where this story has been going, but it was intended to be jarring. there were some signs that make sense now- but Shane didn't know, and neither did we. you're going on this journey with him.

I'd love to hear what you guys think, or answer any questions you have. Thanks for reading, and the next one will be up much sooner than this one.