Title from The Old Religion by Florence + The Machine.

 

TW: depressed Ilya with mentions of suicide, but no actual suicidal thoughts. More like thoughts of thoughts of suicide.

Ilya is glued to the couch.

Shane has just walked through the door after making the drive from Montreal, and after kissing Ilya sweetly on the mouth he instantly starts to ramble. About the Voyageurs loss last night, then about the traffic coming into Ottawa, and then about dinner.

“I got a new recipe from the team nutritionist,” he explains. “It’s this honey-lemon chicken. I was thinking I could pair it with…”

Ilya listens to the soft, confident lilt of Shane’s voice. He lets it roll over him in waves, enjoying the way that it soothes some of the ache inside of him - the way having Shane here, in his home, makes everything feel just a little bit less heavy.

But god, today the weight is almost unbearable.

It has been for weeks, now. Maybe even longer, probably, if Ilya had the strength to look back and figure it out.

He’s been sleeping for longer, and much more restlessly. He’s been spending less time with his team, and more time in bed, and every single day it is harder to crawl out of it - harder to pull himself out of this black hole he’s been sucked into - and fake his way through the day. It’s as if he’s walking, skating, breathing through six feet of snow. Every minor thing takes more effort than he has to give.

Ilya feels like a zombie; he’s an approximation of something living.

He knows what this is, of course. He isn’t stupid. He was just a child when he watched the life bleed out of his mama, long before she stopped breathing. He watched her sweet smiles grow hollow, and her kind eyes fall blank. He felt her slipping through his fingertips like grains of sand in an hourglass; her time was up before Ilya had truly even realised that it was running out.

When he looks in the mirror, he sees her staring back at him: blond hair, and blue eyes, and an emptiness that kills.

This isn’t new to Ilya. He’s felt it before.

After his mama left him, when the house was cold and his father was cruel. When Ilya felt more like a phantom than something real - something that could be touched, held, loved. Sometimes he would catch his reflection in a shiny surface, and would be surprised that he still existed. Surprised that there was anything left of him at all.

He felt it Boston, too, when he was a child playing dress-up as a man, in a country he didn’t know.

And he felt it when Shane was dating Rose - when it seemed like everything he had ever wanted was being paraded around in front of him, but just out of his reach. A taunt, even though Shane would never intentionally be so cruel.

This is an ancient type of aching, passed down through blood and heartbreak. It’s wired into his DNA, and humming in his veins. It lived in his mama’s bones and its burrowed into Ilya’s now, as well.

“So what do you think?” Shane asks.

He’s standing in front of Ilya, now, with his hands on his hips and an expectant look on his face. Right, the recipe. Dinner. All the normal things that normal people are supposed to do when they are dating and in love and…and happy.

He feels better when he’s with Shane, of course. It’s impossible not to. Shane is all that is right, and good, and beautiful with the world. It feels like coming up for air when they finally get to steal some time together. But Shane’s presence is a bandaid over a bullet hole; Ilya can’t stop bleeding out.

The longer he is silent, the more concerned Shane begins to look. Ilya is doing that to him. Draining him.

“Ilya? I said-“

“This isn’t going to work.”

Shane pauses for a moment, a considering expression passing over his face. Then he shrugs his shoulders easily. “Okay, if you’d rather I cook the salmon-“

“No. Not the food, Hollander,” Ilya sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. “I mean us.”

There’s silence for a moment. A long, extended pause.

And then: “Us?”

Shane’s face is…expressionless. Just a completely blank canvas. Except for his eyes, which - Ilya can tell in an instant - are starting to fill with panic. Panic that he put there.

“I think - I think we should end things.”

The whisper is broken as it stumbles from his lips, hesitant and frightened, like the words don’t want to be spoken. Like even Ilya’s body knows how much it will hurt to say them out loud. And it does - hurt, that is. It is searing agony, like a knife through his chest. A wound that won’t ever heal.

Ilya watches Shane’s face fall - watches the weight of grief settle over his entire body - and it feels like the knife is being twisted. It is cracking open Ilya’s ribs, and piercing his lungs, and carving out his heart, his heart, his heart. Shane.

His heart, his love, his everything.

He deserves so much better than anything Ilya could give him. Better than this: a partner who is broken. Who is poison.

“What.” It’s not a question, not really. It’s a statement of disbelief.

“I am sorry,” Ilya whispers. “I just think-“

“What the fuck are you talking about, Ilya?” Shane demands, half furious and half frantic.

His blank expression gives way to something else…something more. It’s anger, and disbelief, and heartache, and sorrow. It’s every bad thought coming to life on the face of the man Ilya loves so much. And he wants to take it from him, wants to soothe the ache and make it all go away, but he can’t.

Ilya has to hurt him now, to help him in the long run.

He has to push Shane away now, so he doesn’t break him entirely later - further down the line, in months or years, when they are too far gone to come back from this. When Shane has given up his whole life for a man who was never going to be worth the cost.

It’s better to do it now, while they still can. While Ilya is still brave enough to let him go.

“This is not working,” Ilya says.

What he means is: I am not working. There is something broken in me that cannot be fixed. Something sharp, and jagged, and cruel, that I do not want you to cut yourself on. I won’t take you down with me. This is somewhere I won’t let you follow.

“Not working?” Shane repeats. “Are you - what does that even - what the fuck are you saying, Ilya?”

“I am sorry.”

“Sorry,” Shane laughs. “You’re sorry?”

There’s an anger in Shane that Ilya has never seen before, in all the years they’ve played and fucked and fought each other. But there’s fear, too, and pain. So much fucking pain. And Ilya…he doesn’t ever want to be the cause of that. He doesn’t ever want to be the reason that Shane is hurting.

But Ilya is so desperately sad.

Just an empty, hollow shell of something half-human, and wholly undeserving of Shane Hollander.

Because Shane is filled with so much love, and joy, and kindness. Shane is the brightest, most beautiful thing that he has ever gotten to hold. And all Ilya knows is how to ruin - how to suck the light out of someone good. He is a leech that will drain the life from Shane if he remains attached to him.

Ilya destroys everything he touches; he’s his father’s son, after all.

He lifts his head to look at Shane, still standing before him. There are tears welling in his beautiful eyes, and his bottom lip is quivering like he’s trying desperately to hold them back.

Ilya deserves to die for putting that expression on his face.

Perhaps he should have never gotten involved with Shane at all, all those years ago. Or, at the very least, he shouldn’t have let it get this far. Someone as toxic as Ilya has no place in Shane’s life; he doesn’t deserve the power to cause him this much pain.

He wants to take his words back - wants to apologise, and get down on his knees, and beg for a forgiveness that he certainly does not deserve. But he won’t. He can’t. Because of course Shane will forgive him, but that won’t fix Ilya - it won’t close the empty chasm in his chest - and so Ilya will continue to hurt him.

He will drag Shane down, down, down, until both of them are drowning instead of just Ilya.

And he refuses to do that.

Ilya loves Shane so much. There just…there aren’t words in any language that exists, that could even begin to articulate just how much. Shane has saved Ilya, over and over again. He has made him into a better player and a better person. He has given Ilya a life that was worth living, and a love that he never dared to hope he could have.

It’s time for Ilya to give back, now. It’s time for him to stop being so selfish.

“I do not want to hurt you,” Ilya says, and even though the words are true, they are meaningless; he’s going to hurt Shane either way.

Shane laughs again, just for a moment. A cold, bitter sound, that makes Ilya’s damaged heart shrivel inside of his chest. And then, in an instant, Shane’s face crumples. The tears he’d been fighting so hard to hold back finally fall from his eyes, and they slide over the freckles on his cheeks. He makes a low, wounded sound, deep in the back of his throat, and he bends over - hands on his knees - like he is winded.

“Shane…”

“Is there - fuck. Ilya, is there someone else?”

The question shatters Ilya.

He moves suddenly, for the first time in what might be hours, and doesn’t stop until he’s standing right in front of Shane. His hands hover, too afraid to touch, as Shane slowly straightens up to look Ilya square in the eyes. He looks heartbroken - not angry anymore, not even disbelieving, just absolutely fucking devastated.

A sound crawls out of Ilya’s throat, wrecked and hollow.

“No,” he promises. “Fuck, no. God, Shane, of course not. How could you - why would you even-“

“Then why?” Shane begs. “Why would you - why are you doing this to us? I don’t…Ilya, I don’t understand.”

You will, Ilya wants to say. In years, when this emptiness has consumed me but left you unharmed, then you will understand.

Ilya doesn’t want to kill himself.

But a couple of weeks ago, when he took a hard hit that aggravated an old injury, he had refused the orange container of pain medication that the team doctor had offered him. Ilya didn’t want them in the house. If he felt the jaws of loneliness sink into his jugular, he didn’t want to be able to follow in his mama’s footsteps.

So he’s not there. Not yet, anyway.

But he’s scared that maybe he could get there, and he doesn’t know how to stop that.

He certainly doesn’t want to force Shane into dealing with it. This is already so much more than they signed up for, during that night in Toronto back in 2010. They’ve grown, and changed, and taken a different shape since then, but. Ilya is supposed to be exciting and thrilling and fun for Shane; he isn’t supposed to be this.

“I am…I am not good for you,” Ilya whispers.

The words don’t feel quite right, but English is hard when his head feels all jumbled up like this. Though he’s not sure he’d be able to properly express himself in Russian at the moment, either. Everything is too loud and too heavy.

Shane’s bottom lip trembles and he bites down on it. Ilya wants to pull it from between his teeth - wants to draw it into his mouth to ease the sting.

“That’s…what?” Shane breathes. “Ilya, that’s not true. Of course that’s not true.”

Ilya shakes his head. “You don’t understand.”

“Okay. Okay, maybe I don’t,” Shane says, soft, like he’s trying not to spook Ilya. “But - but I do know that whatever you’re thinking right now is wrong. Whatever your brain is telling you, Ilya, it’s lying.”

Ilya scrunches his eyes closed. He can’t look at the desperate flicker of hope on Shane’s face. He doesn’t deserve to.

Shane can’t see what he can.

He’s too blinded by his love for Ilya to recognise the truth of it - to see that Ilya takes and takes from Shane, and he never gives back. There’s nothing left of Ilya to give, and he’s going to wring Shane dry.

“Ilya, baby. You are the best thing for me. The best thing that has ever happened to me.” Shane sounds like he is begging.

Ilya shakes his head. He can’t hear that kind of thing, or he will change his mind. He’s not strong enough to walk away from the love of his life twice. He tries to turn his head away from Shane, tries to avoid his eyes so he doesn’t give in to him like he always does.

Shane won’t let him.

There are hands on Ilya’s face - warm and gentle, but firm. Steady. They turn his head so he is looking directly at Shane - so he is staring into the eyes of the man he loves, and seeing everything that Shane holds in his heart.

Determination. Tenderness. Sadness. Love.

“Shane,” Ilya’s voice breaks. “Please.”

“Talk to me.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

I don’t deserve to hold something so precious when I am sure to ruin it.

Shane sucks in an unsteady breath, his brow furrowing as tears slip out of Ilya’s eyes and down his cheeks.

They pool against Shane’s hands where he’s still cradling Ilya’s face, and he shifts his hold just enough to brush them away. He doesn’t remove his hands, though. They push backwards into Ilya’s hair, scratching at his scalp before looping tightly around the back of his neck.

Shane leans forward, rests his forehead against Ilya’s.

His voice shakes when he says, “You do. You do deserve me, Ilya.”

And Ilya can’t help himself; he isn’t strong enough. He wraps his arms around Shane’s waist, clinging onto him like he’s a port in the middle of a reckless, raging storm. Ilya burrows his face in Shane’s neck, sucks in a raw, ragged breath…and then he breaks.

For the first time in weeks Ilya lets the floodgates open, and he cries.

Heaving, wretched sobs tear their way out of his chest. He feels humiliated, and cracked open, and suddenly, terrifyingly vulnerable. He tries to pull out of Shane’s arms - tries to shield him from the breaking so he doesn’t get any splinters - but Shane won’t let him. He cradles the back of Ilya’s head with one hand, and takes his sagging weight with the other. He doesn’t let go.

“I’m here,” he whispers. “I’m here, Ilya. I’ve got you.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Ilya mumbles through his tears, over and over again. “I’m sorry. So sorry, Shane.”

“Stop, baby. Please. It’s okay,” Shane murmurs back. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Ilya isn’t sure if he believes it, but when Shane says it like that - so gentle and so certain - he wants to. He wants to trust that they can find a way through this, that Ilya hasn’t broken things so irreparably. He wants to trust that the weight of all his anguish won’t drag Shane down with him, because that’s the last thing in the world he wants. He would rather die.

He would rather die than ever be the cause of Shane’s misery.

Ilya thinks, deep down, he worries that that is why his mother left. If he had been enough - if he had been kinder, or easier, or better - then maybe she would still be here. But he is scared that he was more than she could handle - too loud, too needy, too much - and he is scared that he will destroy Shane in the same way.

Scared that he will need so much from Shane, that Shane will have nothing left for himself.

Ilya doesn’t want to be too much for him; he doesn’t want to be more than Shane can bear.

“I am…not okay,” Ilya confesses, once the sobs have quieted to gentle hiccups.

Shane pulls back. Not away - never away - but just far enough that he can look Ilya in the eyes. He swipes at the tear on Ilya’s cheek with the pad of his thumb, and then leans in to kiss the path it has etched across his skin.

“Can you explain that to me?” He asks gently.

Ilya nods his head. “Can we sit?”

“Of course.”

Shane lets go of Ilya’s waist, but grabs hold of his hand instead. Their fingers thread together instinctively, like two halves of a whole finally finding each other again. And then Ilya lets Shane tug him back to the couch where they sit together - one knee tucked up onto the cushion so they can sit sideways, facing each other.

Shane doesn’t let go of Ilya’s hand. He rests his other arm along the back of the couch, then flexes his wrist and burrows his fingers into Ilya’s curls. Ilya shudders, tilting his head into the tender touch.

“I think…” Ilya begins, then pauses to clear his throat. “I think I am like my mother.”

It’s a scary thing to say out loud, even though he’s known for a long time. It’s an admission he never wanted to make. Not because he thinks his mama was weak, but because he knows what it costs to love somebody that sad. He knows what it costs to lose them.

He doesn’t ever want to be the reason Shane has to grieve.

“Sad,” Ilya clarifies. “Depressed.”

He sees the panic flit across Shane’s face for a brief moment, before he manages to school his expression into something more controlled. And that…it’s exactly what Ilya doesn’t want.

He doesn’t want Shane to have to be careful around him. It isn’t fair.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, um. Ilya - are you saying that you want to…?”

Ilya shakes his head quickly, then tilts it to press a kiss to the hand Shane still has buried in Ilya’s hair.

“No. No, I don’t want to do…that. But. I’m scared that maybe one day I will? Maybe it will get so bad that I-“ his voices breaks, and he can’t finish the sentence.

Shane surges forward while simultaneously tugging Ilya closer, until their foreheads and noses bump together. It’s almost painful, and Ilya might have laughed if the moment wasn’t so fraught. He can feel Shane’s ragged breath on his lips, can feel the flicker of his pulse when he curls his fingers around Shane’s wrist.

“Okay,” Shane says. He’s said that a lot this afternoon, which is probably quite ironic. “Okay, Ilya. Baby. We need to get you help, yeah? Someone to talk to. Therapy, or-“

“I am in therapy,” Ilya confesses. “Only a few sessions, so far, but…”

Shane leans away to look at Ilya, and there’s a sadness in his eyes that Ilya knows is there because of him.

“That’s good. So good, Ilya,” Shane assures him.

“I am sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“You don’t have to apologise,” Shane reassures him. “Just - just why didn’t you tell me? I would have listened. I would have been here for you, Ilya, if I had known that-“

“I know,” Ilya interrupts, just to prevent Shane’s train of thought from derailing.

He knows Shane would have been here for him - he would have packed a bag, and taken personal leave from work, and refused to leave Ilya’s side until he was fixed. He has never once doubted how loved he is by Shane.

But the problem is…Ilya doesn’t think this is something that can be fixed.

Shane likes routine and structure - likes workout regimes, and diet plans, and things that are black and white. Straight forward. X + Y = Z. This - depression - isn’t that. There’s not a way to fix it, no clear-cut answer for how, or why, or when. It just is. A thing that can’t be controlled.

And, more than anything in the world, Ilya doesn’t want to become a burden. He doesn’t want to become Shane’s cross to bear.

He had hoped he could get his head sorted - that he could get this all squared away so he could be good enough for Shane again. So he could be worthy of him. But when he realised it wasn’t going to be so simple, well. It became even more difficult to talk about. Even more terrifying of a prospect to bring up, in case he trapped Shane in this with him.

“I just - I didn’t want to be a problem for you. I wanted to make it better so you didn’t have to worry,” Ilya admits. Then with a sad laugh, he says, “But - but I do not think it is so simple.”

Shane’s face cracks, and all the emotion he’d been trying to hold back for Ilya’s sake suddenly pours out of him. Tears stream down his down his face and Ilya whines at the sight, trying to brush them away as quickly as they fall because he can’t stand to see him crying. It breaks his heart to see him hurt.

“Shane, sweetheart. Please. I am sorry, I-“

“No. God, no, Ilya. Don’t apologise. I just - I love you,” Shane says. “I love you so much. Please tell me you know that?”

“My love, of course I know. Is why I did not tell you. I did not want to hurt you.”

“So, what? You thought breaking up with me would be the solution?”

Ilya had almost forgotten that’s why they’re sitting here right now, talking about this thing that is so scary. It somehow feels like a lifetime ago since he uttered the words: I think we should end things. It feels like he’s aged a decade in the minutes since then, as he confessed his biggest secret and broke both of their hearts in the process.

He doesn’t want to lose Shane. He can’t imagine anything worse. He’s just scared that he can’t keep him without ruining him. 

“I did not want to drag you down with me,” he whispers, suddenly ashamed.

Shane shoves his shoulder gently. “Fuck you, Ilya! You don’t get to decide what’s best for me. I love you. I’m in this with you. That’s what being partners is!”

His anger is brief - a flash fire that burns hot and bright, but fades quickly. And then he’s crying again, quiet, heaving sobs, as he grabs hold of Ilya and folds him into his arms.

His hands are everywhere - in Ilya’s hair, around his neck, on his face and back and waist and arms. Shane is touching him everywhere like he’s checking him for damage, or to make certain that he’s real. And then he’s kissing Ilya’s hair, and forehead, and his cheeks, and Ilya simply lets him. He doesn’t try to pull away, or stop him, or even speak, he just lets Shane love him frantically for a little while.

“I love you,” Shane whispers again. “I’m here, Ilya. I’m not going anywhere. You can’t scare me off, or try and - and break up with me, because you think that’s what’s best for me, okay?”

Shane forces Ilya to look at him, waits for him to nod his head in agreement.

“You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. The best, most favourite part of my life.”

“Shane,” Ilya whispers, seemingly unable to recall anything but his love’s name.

“You have to talk to me. You can’t shut me out, not about this,” Shane pleads. “You have to let me love you.”

Shane holds Ilya’s face in his hands, pushes his curls away so he can look him firmly in the eyes. And Ilya can see the truth in them - not hidden, but front and center.

He can see the determination, and the ferocity, and the love that he carries inside himself - for Ilya, for their relationship, for the life that they are starting to build together. It is unwavering, unyielding. Something that cannot be bent, or broken, or ruined.

Ilya should have never, for a single second, considered walking away from this.

“I love you, too,” Ilya promises. “So much, Shane. I’m sorry. For hiding this from you, and for trying to leave - for trying to decide for you.”

“Such an asshole,” Shane sighs, but it sounds a lot like I love you.

And then he’s leaning forward and capturing Ilya’s mouth in a kiss that is so sweet, and so tender, and so overflowing with love, that it makes Ilya want to weep all over again.

It makes him want to scream his love from the top of his lungs.

It makes him want to make a thousand therapy sessions in advance, because he never wants to let his unkind thoughts ever get in the way of this again. He never, ever wants to even come close to leaving this perfect man behind. And although Ilya knows this is something that won’t ever be cured, he also knows that it can get better.

He’s going to make sure of it.

“I want all of you, Ilya,” Shane murmurs against his lips. “Even the parts that scare you, okay? They don’t scare me. I can handle it. I want to handle it.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, and this time it feels true. “I won’t keep it from you when I am not doing so good.”

Shane sighs, long and slow, and reassured. He nudges their noses together, sweeping them side to side in the sweetest kiss. “Thank you,” he says, the relief evident in his voice.

Ilya lets Shane manhandle him, then. Lets Shane tug, and pull, and move him around, until they’re both lying on the couch. Shane is on his back and Ilya is between his legs, splayed out over him - chest to chest - with their hearts beating against each other in a sure, steady rhythm.

Shane’s hand cards through Ilya’s hair, softly scratching at his scalp and the nape of his neck in a way that has Ilya’s eyes drooping closed. He presses a kiss to Shane’s chest, right above his heart, and then suddenly Shane is leaning down to kiss Ilya, too.

Over and over again. A flurry of brief, little pecks everywhere that he can reach.

“My baby,” Shane hums softly. Ilya feels his cheeks flush.

“I love you,” he says again, just so he can taste the words on his tongue.

“I love you, too,” Shane promises. Then, tugging at Ilya’s hair, he adds: “Don’t ever try to break up with me again.”

Ilya snorts out a laugh. “Never.”

He knows this sadness is a thing that will always live inside of him - it cannot be cured, or fixed, or ignored any longer.

But that isn’t all there is.

There is hockey, and his team, and his friends who care about him. There’s Yuna and David, who have welcomed him into their family with open arms. There are fresh bedsheets, and summers at the cottage, and honey-lemon chicken recipes to try - there are games to win, and songs to dance to, and a million other little things that make life worth living.

And, above all, there is Shane Hollander.

The love of his life. The man Ilya is going to marry. And he takes up so much more space in Ilya’s heart than any sadness ever could.

i don’t usually mention ilya’s depression (or shane’s relationship with food) very often because it can sometimes be a little triggering for me, but this kind of happened anyway.