Will You Love Me (At My Worst)

Chapter 9

No matter where Shane turned, he could never escape Ilya. Even back during their rookie season, when Ilya had made the first draft, Shane had tried to rush back to his hotel room at the first break. He had bolted past the well-wishers, the guests, the sponsors, and before he had even managed to make it to his room, he had been caught by Ilya’s shadow a hundred times — in the posters he had rushed past, the undecipherable conversations he had caught, and even in the hallway where his gaze had snagged momentarily at Ilya’s room number. In the privacy of his room, Shane had allowed himself to break free and slid to the bathroom floor, twisting the tap free in the process. The water had thumped against his scalp rhythmically, drenching him — drowning him. He had licked the salty droplets that had stuck to his lips. It was only after a while that he’d realized the taste of his own tears. The clock had not even crossed ten minutes when his phone began to ring. Yuna. Shane had almost torn his hair out in agony, fisted them in bunches, and pulled hard enough to sting. He had let it ring, turned the tap off, put on his bathrobe, and sat down on the cushioned chair in his room. He had closed his eyes and breathed. In and out. In and out. Five minutes later, he had cracked his eyes open; they had landed on a magazine. Ilya had stared back at him from the cover. For a moment, something feral had gripped Shane, and almost forced him to grab the butter knife on the table and slash the paper Ilya open: his eyes, his chest, his legs — all ripped apart by a dog in the throes of insanity. But it had only been a fantasy. Shane could never have despised Ilya enough to even cause his paper-self injury. Because somewhere, in the deepest, darkest pit of his heart, there had been the ghost of something else. Something dangerously close to admiration. And tried as he had to suppress it with the collective force of his hands, it had grown and grown and grown till it had plowed through his bony ribs — till his entire body had been encompassed by his heart, all the arteries and veins and ventricles humming only one name: Ilya. As he gazed at the baby in his arms now, he felt that same heart heavy and punishing in his throat. Ames was sucking at his milk-rich pecs, her lips working tirelessly to draw out the last drops from his skin, the tender spot on her skull pulsing with life. Her skin was flushed pink, a rosy shade she had inherited from Ilya; her nose seemed like he had willingly plucked his out and attached it to her face. There was a tiny mole in the centre of her right cheek. The resemblance was so jarring that it made Shane weirdly emotional. Even now, Ilya could not leave him alone to his devices. No — he just had to gift him a mini amalgamation of his moles and nose and skin that will stay with him when he won’t. Reluctant as he was to admit it, Ames had been an accident. Although Shane had always had an unreliable memory on a crusade to blur his best moments, the memory of her conception was clear as day. He could still feel the pressure of Ilya’s hand on his shoulders, the way his thighs had rubbed against his sweaty calves, how his cock had expanded at the base and forced Shane to scream — making all his inhibitions a relic of the past. Afterward, while Ilya had bathed and scrubbed himself clean, Shane had felt his come dripping out of him and sticking to his thighs. It was supposed to be another normal Sunday for them and Shane was supposed to catch a flight for Ottawa a week later. And then came the symptoms like an unwelcome guest — knocking at his door, threatening to break it open if he didn’t answer. One Sunday afternoon, when they had been dining at Shane’s favorite downtown restaurant, the server had delivered a plate of exquisite sushi onto the table — its salmon draped over the fine grain, the scent fresh and intoxicating. While Ilya’s mouth had watered visibly, Shane had gagged at the smell, clapped his hand firmly to his mouth, and sprinted to the bathroom. The moment Ilya had stepped in behind him, he had known. “Shane,” he had said and given him his easy eyes. And then they had been in on a secret — an oath larger than the one they had kept before. In the days that followed, Shane fell witness to a side of Ilya he had never seen before. “Let me” became a phrase that was always on the tip of his tongue, eager to jump out at the slightest push — Let me carry that, let me make you a cup, let me get you shoes, let me, let me, let me. Just when Shane had begun to grow sick of it, he started finding Ilya’s steadying palm on the small of his back more often than before. On cold nights, long after Shane had drifted into sleep, Ilya would notice his bare feet peeking out from beneath the covers and quietly tuck them back into the white fuzzy blanket. Later, he’d fetch another from the wardrobe and drape it across the first, indifferent to the overheating the pile might cause. Then he would climb in behind him, tuck his leg in between Shane’s warm thighs, and wrap his hand around his tummy, feeling the life slowly, but surely, growing beneath the warm wraps of his body. On most mornings, the food appeared beside Shane before he even lifted his hand — trays laden with meticulously prepared spinach sandwiches and buttery avocado toasts. Ilya was at his beck and call to the point of annoyance. It was too sweet for Shane but then, Ilya had always been that for him. Shane, on the contrary, felt as if he had grown limbs of glass overnight, as if he had become something fragile, vulnerable, and worst of all, dependent. His ticket to Ottawa had been cancelled the second those two pinks lines had shown up in the bathroom. Farah had yelled at him through the phone, her voice the thinnest sheet of metal. It had cracked something open in Shane. “Tell me this is a joke,” she had begged with desperation evident in her tone. It had not been a joke. Shane had cut the call and fallen back onto the couch. Hockey, for him, would never be the same again. Sure, at one point he will gain strength enough to jump back onto the ice, and his blades will cut through the rink as they had before, and the crowd will cheer for their King’s return as they had before, but his body, alas, won’t respond to his commands like before. There would be softness where there had been hard lines before, a lingering weight that would not shed even after hours of training in the gym. Even his stamina would betray him at times, his breath catching sooner than it used to. But then, through all this bedlam in his chest, he would look at the stands and see Ilya smiling at him, their daughter in his arms. And then it would all be so, so worth it. So worth it. On the day Shane crossed the beginning of his seventh month on the calendar, Ilya came home early with snow still clinging stubbornly to his golden curls; the broad red shoulders of his jacket had been dusted white. He was heaving as if he had run a marathon. Shane had waddled in his direction, his huge middle already making the mundane task of walking a climb to Everest. “Hey,” Ilya’d whispered, before tilting his head and slipping his tongue into Shane’s mouth. Shane had pulled him closer by wrapping his arms around his neck. “Hi,” he’d replied shyly. And then Ilya had dropped to one knee. For one brief absurd moment, Shane had thought it must have been to tie his shoelaces. But it had not been for that. No, it had not been for that at all. Shane’s assumption had been confirmed the second Ilya had pulled out the ring from his pocket. It had been a ruthlessly precise diamond in the cut of a tear. It was the most beautiful thing Shane had ever laid his eyes on, second only to Ilya’s face. “Shane Hollander,” Ilya had begun, his voice edged with tears. “Will you make me — ” Ilya was a fool if he thought Shane was going to let him finish his proposal before dropping down on him. With much difficulty, and with his belly an unwanted (wanted) weight on his body, Shane had kneeled and kissed Ilya as tears had leaked down his cheeks. “Y-Yes,” he had been able to manage. Barely. And that had been the beginning of their forever. To be continued…

Chapter 10

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes The moment Shane leaned his torso out of the car’s window, the wind began beating against his skin and threading its cool restless fingers through his hair almost instantaneously. Shane could not remember the last time he’d had something like this — the last time he had felt so free and untamed. Although there had been drives before, of course, the ones he had undertaken with his husband on a quest to satisfy his midnight cravings, he had not been allowed to sneak his head out of the window; it had been deemed too dangerous in his state. “Nothing is going to happen, Ilya!” He had hissed back then. “What if your head gets hit by an overspeeding car?” Ilya had retorted. “I am not taking any chances!” More than half of Shane’s mood had been ruined, right then and there, by Ilya’s comment. Even the ice cream had not tasted half as good as it had the previous week when he had received it in the comfort of his blankets. “Careful, Hollander,” said Theo now, his hand steady on the wheel, the grin on his face evident in his tone. “The way you are acting man — I feel like I am sneaking Rapunzel out of her tower.” Shane laughed and withdrew his head. “Yeah, well,” he said, “I feel the same.” And although Shane did indeed feel like Rapunzel abandoning her duties toward her godmother, or in this case his daughter, whom he had left behind with Hayden, he also felt so goddamn free. And yes, he loved his daughter more than life, but Jesus, didn’t he deserve a fucking break too? Even in his wildest dreams, Shane could not have imagined that his reprieve would come through in the shape of a man who had only been a stranger a few hours ago. But then, was Theo really a stranger when he had cared enough to check up on him, and to not step around him as if he was something to be avoided — to be forgotten? The fact that he had been a Montreal fan made the getaway even better. “So,” said Theo, “got any place in mind?” The answer should have been simple but Shane’s stupid heart refused to be confined to one place. It scattered into a million places and his stupid mind, forever obedient, conjured up a multitude of locations in the span of a second. Shane imagined himself in Los Angeles, basking and tanning his body in the Sun, except the body that came to his mind was not the one he carried now but the one he’d had before Ames had come along. Then, he imagined his head tilted back in Norway, glancing up at the vibrant greens, blues, and purples dancing in the sky during the Northern Lights. But in the end, did the place even matter? “Wherever you want.” Theo looked a bit taken aback. His blonde hair was riding the waves of the wind blowing in through the window, each strand dancing happily in the wind’s caresses. “Wherever I want?” Theo smiled and for a second, Shane felt like smiling too. “You have no idea what you have just agreed to!” As the open countryside slipped past them, and the cars blurred in a race, Shane felt a tug of guilt low in his stomach. “Later, okay?” he demanded from his body. For once, it obeyed. They pulled to get their fuel refilled at the next gas station, and while Shane hopped off and went to grab a bunch of candies from the counter, he saw Theo snagging a bottle of absolute vodka from the refrigerator. Shane’s mouth watered at the sight; it had been too long — far too long — since he had felt that overpowering, that completely overwhelming burn humming alive in his veins. When Shane pulled his wallet from the pocket at the register, he found that the bill had been cleared in advance. From his place near the car, Theo winked. The moment they jumped back into the seats of Theo’s stunning red Ferrari, Shane’s belt caught halfway and stubbornly refused to click into place. He tugged at it hard, once, then twice, and pulled again and again till Theo reached over, hovered dangerously close to Shane’s breathing space, and in a single smooth movement, snapped the belt into place. The car roared to life, and Shane licked the sweat that had gathered on his upper lip a few moments ago. They drove on and the scenery shifted as their car picked up altitude. The air thinned, the turns sharpened, and the world below seemed to fall away inch by inch. After an hour, Theo pulled over near an empty slanting field littered with brushes and shrubberies and overlooking a sky so blue Shane wondered if it had been painted from an artist’s palette. Theo grabbed the vodka from the backseat and started down the hill. Shane followed suit with a much slower gait as he worked his way around the huge obstructing rocks in his path. Theo dropped down into the middle of the field and Shane, too, lowered himself beside him. For a minute, neither of them spoke, both of them too sober for the conversation they knew would soon begin. Then Theo uncorked the vodka, took a swing, and handed it to Shane. The moment Shane lifted his hand to reach for it, Theo swung it back and cocked an eyebrow. “Aren’t you breastfeeding?” Oh, fuck. In his mad chase to regain a bit of his old life back, he had completely forgotten about the child waiting for him back home. The husband who had left an hour ago. And who, Shane was sure, was never coming back. But was Shane really to blame if he wanted to forget all about it just for one day? And so, he shrugged his shoulders and yanked the bottle from Theo’s grasp, making a small dent in the volume the minute it touched his lips. The reward was blinding, and his nerves began to sing at the burning sensation almost immediately. It felt like the release of a withheld orgasm. The moment Shane placed the bottle in the space between them, the world seemed brighter than before. Better too. He felt like a fucking King. “How’s life, Shane?” asked Theo abruptly. It was a simple question from a simple man. Shane did not know where to begin. “Good,” he lied. “Pretty good.” And then because it would have been rude not to, he added, “How’s yours?” “Shitty,” replied Theo. “Pretty shitty.” For a while, they just watched the blue sky dissolve into shades of pink and orange. “I don’t think he’s ever coming back,” said Shane. In the silence of the valley, beside a man he will never meet again, the truth seemed easy to speak. The impact of the vodka had already hooked itself to his bones. “Who?” drawled Theo. “My husband. Ilya.” “Oh.” They did not speak for another moment. And then, it was Theo who broke the silence. He was smiling sadly, the lines of his face concealing a truth Shane could not understand. “I met Cath when I was thirteen,” he said. “Do you believe in love at first sight, Shane?” Shane thought back to a tuft of unruly curls pulled tight under a beanie. The strong stench of smoke. A dark mole in the parking lot as the cold wind had torn through him in Saskatchewan. “I do,” answered Shane. Theo nodded understandingly. “Well, it was that for me. It was the first day of eighth grade and she was alone in the hallway, staring at a place to sit, her fingers around a white tray. I offered her mine. She was so…” Theo stared off dreamily into the distance. “So beautiful. Her white dress was so clean. Pure. But when she sat down beside me and bit into her apple, I noticed that her nails were dirty.” Theo took another drag from the bottle. “Do you want to know why, Shane?” Shane nodded. “I don’t know,” said Theo with a disappointed shake of his head. “She never told me. And I never asked her why. That’s marriage Shane.” Theo stared into Shane’s eyes, his eyes a piercing blue. “That’s marriage.” And then finally, Shane understood. In the end, it simply didn’t matter if Theo was not privy to every intricacy of Cath’s being, every curve and every nod and every hurt that she had suffered through her life. What mattered was that he had understood, had stood by her nonetheless, and that he had not held her secrets against her and neither had been offended by her inability to articulate them. They had found their peace in silence. And now, it was Shane’s turn. “Do you love him, Shane?” Shane’s throat felt tight. Darkness had descended upon them now, its stars brightly embroidered in the thickest patches of the sky. All of a sudden, the admittance of his love for Ilya felt too much in the presence of someone who had not witnessed those isolating years of their relationship. It felt too fucking much. And then, lost in the whirlwind of his thoughts, Shane almost didn’t notice Theo leaning in for a kiss. Shane’s heart lodged in his throat instantly and he dodged the collision of their lips at the last second. His heart felt impossibly fast. Theo withdrew from Shane’s space and sighed. “You do love him,” he said. His voice felt distant. “What a pity.” Shane’s head felt dizzy with shock. “Are you and Cath — ” “Still together?” asked Theo. “Yes. We are.” And then it really was too much for Shane. “But there’s no love Shane.” It was difficult to see Theo’s face in the dark and yet, the glint in his eyes reflected hurt. “It died so long ago I can’t even remember ever being in it.” He grabbed Shane’s hand firmly. “But yours is still there.” His skin was cracked and cold. “Don’t let it go so easily.” And then, Shane realized that he had gotten it all wrong. All this time, he had been so stupid thinking that Theo had been trying to set himself as a role model, a standard for Shane to rise to. But that had not been his motive. He had only been trying to teach him how to let go. It had been Shane who had misunderstood his words — who had failed to understand because he had loved Ilya. Because he still loved Ilya and could not imagine ever falling out of it. Somewhere beneath the weight of that realization, he held onto the hope that Ilya felt the same. An hour later, when the inebriation finally took over the pair, they both fell flat on their backs and let sleep sweep them away to better lands where they belonged. In the car, Shane’s phone buzzed once, twice, then a hundred times. An unknown number. A hospital nurse. Shane was too far gone to answer.

Chapter End Notes

I hope you liked it!! Please leave a comment ❤ Also, just to be clear, Shane was not going to cheat. He even interpreted Theo’s words wrong because of his love for Ilya. Thank you �

Chapter 11

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes The darkness receded slowly from Shane’s eyes. His body felt impossibly heavy, as if his limbs had sunk to the bottom of a deep ocean and forgotten how to pierce the surface; he felt breathless but didn’t have the strength to make it out alive. When he reluctantly squinted his eyes open, his vision seemed blurred at the edges. The darkness above him with its smooth spread of stars was a smudged firmament of nothingness. Emptiness. He felt the dirt pressing into his palms as he pushed himself to an upright position, his arms shaking with the effort of gaining consciousness. It was only when he looked at the figure sprawled beside him — a man drooling and wetting the patch of grass beneath his mouth — did he realize where he was. In that split second of epiphany, Shane wanted nothing more than to sink right back into that baseless ocean and pretend that this was a nightmare he could wake up from with a shaky breath — a nightmare his husband would rescue him from by pulling him back under the duvet. Except, it was not a nightmare. It was his reality. He needed to get back home. Right now. Shane curled his fingers into Theo’s shirt and shook him with the strength of a man running on vodka. “Theo,” he rasped, his voice on the verge of a collapse. “Wake up!” Theo’s body lolled to the other side, unresponsive to the insidious grasp on his shoulder. Then, something snapped inside Shane; his palm came down on Theo’s right cheek with a resounding smack before he could stop it. Theo woke up with a sudden jerk. “What the fuck man?” He gasped as his glassy eyes flew open. “What the actual fuck?” Shane barely heard him over his own breath that was coming out in uneven bursts of air. The thin air of the high altitude was not helping his case in the slightest. The air was freezing, and the chill had long since seeped into his muscles and made them unprecedentedly slow. He wondered how he had even lasted this long out here. The vodka, his mind supplied dimly. Definitely the vodka. “We need to move!” Shane barely managed to pull himself to his feet, using Theo’s shoulder as leverage. Then, he hauled the other man onto his two feet with a strenuous effort that made him grit his teeth. Theo was heavier than he had realized. Or maybe Shane was weaker. He didn’t have time to think it over. After a minute of stumbling at every step, the pair finally made it to the top with their chests huffing together in a ragged cadence. They half-fell inside the car, their heads still muddled due to the liquid in their system, their vision still not at its best. Shane looked at Theo and wondered if he was in any state to drive. Either way, he was going to have to. The moment the doors slammed shut against the deafening air, Shane’s hands fumbled for the glove compartment and yanked his phone out. He pressed along its edge. The sudden flash of light was blinding — he blinked rapidly till the blur disappeared and his eyes formed the numbers imprinted on his screen. Twenty missed calls lined his lockscreen: an unknown number, Hayden, Yuna, and incomprehensibly, Svetlana. Shane’s chest almost caved in. The minute his phone connected to the network, a flood of text messages appeared on his screen. Shane did not have to read through them; he already knew that something had gone wrong. As the engine roared to life under Theo’s unsteady hand, it was not Yuna’s or Hayden’s or even Svetlana’s number that he dialled. It was the stranger’s. As soon as the ringing started, Shane’s mind conjured up an elongated slideshow of every bad thing that could have occurred in his absence — Ames choking to death as Hayden played a video game on his phone, leaving Shane to grieve over a baby he had not loved half as much as he had resented; David on his death bed, waiting for his son to hold his hand one last time, or maybe Ilya — No. Shane forced his brain to stop, braked it against the very instinct that was keeping it reeling. He didn’t want to think about Ilya — it just was not possible. Ilya was safe, he consoled his heart. Sure, Shane did not know where he was — but that was fine, right? He. Was. Safe. Maybe passed out across the counter of a bar, his hand stretched around a glass of whiskey, maybe fast asleep in the back of his car, too drunk to call him, maybe even bitching about Shane’s atrocious behavior to Svetlana — but safe. The ringing stopped. “Hello, this is Emily Martin from St. Mary’s Hospital. How may I help you?” Shane’s ears registered the word ‘hospital’ and then bloomed with static; a stone, impossibly large for his body, began to weigh him down, and pull him back into the ocean’s depthlessness for the third time. This time, Shane did not let himself sink. “Hi — ” His voice was barely audible. He tried again. “Someone called — ” “Is this Shane Hollander?” “Yeah — ” “Ilya Rozanov’s husband?” His breath hitched. “Yes, that’s — ” “Sir,” The receptionist’s voice was straight as a rod. “Your husband’s been in an accident… Where are you?” Accident. Shane had been in an accident once. The world had seemed so…far. Ilya had been there then. Near him. “No, no, it must be a mistake,” Shane said calmly, shaking his head, a small laugh escaping from his throat. “My husband’s not — ” “I’m sorry, Mr….Hollander, is it?” The receptionist proceeded to tell him something about a car crash, how it had been massive, and how she didn’t know if his husband was going to make it out alive. She asked him how long it would take him to get there, how far he was from the hospital, and reassured him that his family was there. Except him, Shane added on her behalf. Instead of answering her questions, Shane pressed down on the red button while the woman was still talking. He wanted to smother her words and return to the man he was an hour ago, someone blindly swimming in the darkness. “Shane, is everything alright?” Theo’s eyes were focused on the night stretching ahead of them. They had already descended and the car was rolling at a swift speed towards his home. Shane wanted to tell him that he had taken the wrong turn — that they had to go to the hospital. The bulge in his throat made that impossible. He had called him sick. The last thing that Shane had ever called him — sick. Once, Ilya had woken up with the worst headache of his life. He had been moody the entire morning and had gone on to sulk in each corner of the house. When Shane had firmly pressed his hand between his shoulder blades, he had shoved it away. When Shane had thrown his shirt off in an unusually seductive manner, Ilya had looked away. When Shane had offered to make him one of his healthy yet tasteless sandwiches, Ilya had not resisted but slowly backed away. The entire house had boiled in an incomprehensible sadness from dawn to dusk. At night, after Shane had scrubbed the greasy deposits from their plates clean, he had retired to their room to find Ilya curled in on himself, sobbing into their pillows. The sheets had been twisted around him, Shane’s pillow clutched tightly under his arm. For a second, Shane had just stood there. Then, he had stepped closer and sat beside him as the mattress had dipped under his weight. He had let his hand settle against his nape and wrapped his finger around the curl there. Ilya had tensed beneath his touch and turned to face him. His face had looked…mottled. But still beautiful. Still, the one that Shane had fallen in love with. “Talk to me,” Shane had said, and reached beyond to rub his palms against Ilya’s spine. “I am sick,” Ilya had said plainly as if it were an indisputable truth. “There’s no cure for it.” Shane had just kissed him deeply, twisted their tongues together, and mingled their breaths. That had been enough to reassure Ilya that Shane didn’t feel the same — could never feel the same. Sick. That’s what he had called him. Sick. And now there was going to be no apology, no proper goodbye, no proper kiss. Sick. “Take a left,” said Shane after a while. “Pardon?” Shane closed his eyes. “Take a left.” Theo did without asking why. Shane was grateful. The second the hospital appeared in sight, Shane jumped out without waiting for the car to halt. The hospital was a compound of beige stone buildings in the middle of a massive field. He made a brief stop at the reception to inquire about the floor of Mr. Rozanov and didn’t wait to give his name before departing for the elevator. On the fourth floor, he rushed past the commotion of doctors and nurses scurrying toward their duties — carrying carts with equipment or domed food. At the end of the hallway, Yuna and David sat huddled under the pale overhead light with their arms slung around each other’s backs. The moment their eyes landed on Shane, they shot up at once and rushed to meet him halfway. Yuna got to him first, colliding into him with a force that knocked the breath from his lungs. Her hands came around to clutch at Shane’s shirt, and before Shane even knew it, he was crying — breaking down in his mother’s embrace. He felt like a child again and cried like one too. The world seemed tilted. Shane wondered if it would ever be right again. ——— “It all happened so fast,” said Yuna, “We didn’t even get to see him properly…He had already been taken when we got here.” Shane faintly heard her words in the back of his mind. “Where’s Ames?” “She’s with Svetlana.” Yuna sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Such a sweetheart.” The coffee in Shane’s hand was horrible. Still, he took a sip and waited for his mother to ask. He knew her too well. “Where were you?” Yuna looked at him with a hint of anger in her eyes. “We called you so many times. I thought you were — ” Dead too. She didn’t need to say it. Shane didn’t know how to tell her the truth. “I was out. With Theo.” He paused. “Drinking…” His tongue seemed made of lead. “I am so sorry.” Surprisingly, Yuna did not poke further. She knew that there would be no end to his tears if she did. “Mom,” said Shane after a moment. “Do you remember Matt?” It had been such a long time, Yuna took a while to remember. Then, clarity dawned on her face as clear as day. “Your kindergarten friend? “Yeah.” “What about him, honey?” “He…um. He didn’t have a dad.” A tear spilled down Shane’s cheek. “He used to be so… sad. All the time. And so you asked me to befriend him one day. But he was still sad, Mom.” Shane’s eyes began dripping furiously. “He was still so sad.” And then he was back in his mother’s arms, his face pressed deep into her sweater’s elbow where it was difficult to breathe. One unfortunate delay and Ames could have ended up like Matt. The children stood apart because of one impossible minute. It was too much for Shane. Too fucking much. Ilya could not — was not allowed to leave them behind. Shane was not going to let him go, even if he had to drag him back from God itself. ———- Before the beeping of the machines pulled him back to the surface, Ilya had been dreaming of freckles on rosy skin. God, he still remembered how Shane had hated them. He never understood Ilya’s fascination with them; Ilya never tried to explain it either. He didn’t know how to tell Shane that those freckles — those tiny dots that only became visible when Ilya was pressed close against Shane — were a reminder of their love. Their proximity. Their love. Then, the beeping grew louder and louder till it became impossible to sidestep. Ilya’s eyes twitched painfully then opened in one firm movement. His limbs felt like they didn’t belong to him, too unresponsive to his commands. He tried to inhale but it broke halfway in, splintering into something that made his ribs protest violently. It was then that Ilya realized that his ribs were not in pain only because of the hurt — but because of the weight of a man slung over him. Shane was breathing deeply into Ilya’s thin blanket, his face the reddest tomato he had ever seen. The freckles were as evident as ever. He tried to call him out but his tongue lolled uselessly. He lifted his hand —felt more like lifting a car — and ran his fingers across Shane’s freckles. He jolted awake, his body responding to the caress before his mind. Pure instinct. For a second, Shane’s eyes darted around the room wildly, searching for their target. Then they landed on Ilya. Everything in his face broke like a dam that had held too much. Shane surged forward without thinking then halted at the last moment. His arms came down on Ilya’s shoulders — careful, almost afraid — then slid down to his elbows. “Ilya — ” All the words in the language seemed foreign to him. “You are alive.” And then, before he could stop himself, “You are not sick.” He needed Ilya to know that Shane didn’t think that. He needed him to know — Then Ilya’s fingers intertwined with his in a firm move. There was no need, they seemed to say. It was all right, they said. I love you, they said. Shane leaned in and brushed his lips against Ilya’s bandaged forehead. A single tear darkened its white cover. Shane was home.

Chapter End Notes

Just to make it clear: this is Shane and Ilya’s happy ending. I love you guys so much! Thank you for reading along. But honestly? I don’t think I am done with them. Yet. I believe they are not quite where I want them to be. And so, I am going to lock myself in my room and type 30k words of pure angst into my docs app. Then, I am going to publish it bi-weekly :) If that’s something you are interested in reading, you can always subscribe <3 Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts :) Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!