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A long way down, and falling through my cold hands. Sever it now. The future's yours to decide.
He's not planning on it. He would be lying to himself if he said he hadn't considered it before, when things got bad, when they got to be too much, or when he was lying in bed late at night feeling hollowed out and empty and discarded. But he's never made an actual plan. A plan would be too final, would be too concrete of a notion that he's just like his mama in all of the ways he should never be.
When he awakes late one January morning, almost the afternoon, the onslaught is almost immediate when he can't rouse himself quick enough. It's like the moment the timer on how long it takes him to get out of bed hits two minutes, a switch flips in his brain and the box he tries to shove all of those thoughts and feelings into explodes open without any remorse.
You can't even get your lazy ass out of bed. You're supposed to be able to captain a fucking team and you can't even get yourself out of bed? You have everything you ever fucking wanted, and you're still this ungrateful? So ungrateful you can't make yourself get up and get a cup of fucking coffee. What do any of them see in you? It must be pity, the way they treat you, because they can see that you're a fucking failure, a fucking waste of space.
He presses his palms to his eyes until colors dance behind the lids and he literally forces himself out of bed and into the bathroom to do some semblance of a morning routine. He feels pathetic when he can't get up the gumption to wash his face or do more than run his hairbrush through the disaster he calls hair.
Eating is robotic and it tastes like he put the wrong end of a cigarette into his mouth as he eats. It does nothing to stop the churning in his gut, but the shaking he's been trying to pretend he isn't doing slows down.
He gets on the treadmill, hoping that the pounding of his feet and the exertion of his lungs will drown it out the way it usually does, but today is not his day. All he can think about is how he should be doing better, how he needs to push himself harder so he can prove that he did the right thing by coming to Ottawa, that maybe if he's better physically his stupid fucking brain will follow.
Nothing will fix you. You're broken. You're damaged. Cracked. Fractured. All the ugly things inside of you are seeping out of them, tainting everything you love. You're caustic inside, a fucking danger to everyone around you. It's unstoppable, it's inevitable. You've already ruined Shane. He's going to leave you, as he fucking should, after you put your hands on him like that. You are your father's son, after all, just as much as you are your mother's. You are born of the ugliest parts of them.
He slams the stop button on the treadmill and drops to his knees, gasping for air that won't seem to fill his lungs, eyes clenched tight like that will make it stop.
Tomorrow, when you see him, he's going to leave you. He gave you space so you could get used to the idea of being alone and to remember that that's what you deserve. He's made up his mind and he's done with your shit. You can't even take care of yourself. How the fuck are you supposed to take care of him? You can't, because you're fucking worthless and no one needs you here anymore. No one.
Ilya bangs the heels of his hands against his head like that will make it stop, but it just makes pain throb in his temples and makes him feel worse. Some part of him, some tiny part that still holds onto hope, tells him that his brain is wrong, that he's catastrophizing, but it's quickly drowned out by the absolute cacophony of thoughts ricocheting through his skull at the speed of light.
No one will miss you. Yuna and David will be happy that their son has found someone new, someone who isn't so fucking broken and damaged. You wanted a family so fucking bad that you had to dupe your way into one because you don't deserve to get that the natural way, the real way. They're placating you because they know you're a loose cannon and they don't want you to hurt their son. But you already did that, didn't you?
He needs it to stop. He can't take it anymore. He can't fucking do this. He can't. No one will care anyway, right? He's just some washed up loser at this point who can't even captain his fucking team. The news will talk about him for a few days, laugh at how pathetic he is, and then move on like it rightfully fucking should.
A tiny part of him doesn't want to go because that would mean he loses Shane, but he's already lost Shane, hasn't he? He's been losing him for months and now he's gone, and the glimpses of what he'll see of him when this is all over just aren't enough to keep him here. Nothing is enough anymore.
Even though it's stupid, he grabs his phone from his nightstand when he re-enters the room and he pulls up Instagram. He knows Shane doesn't really check his messages there, so maybe the words he's been rehearsing in his head during those dark nights won't ever be seen. It's probably for the best that they aren't, because he's so fucking pathetic that it makes his chest ache with it. He sends them off anyway and then turns off his phone. Shane has extra long practice today so even if he does see it, it'll be a couple of hours from now and Ilya will already be gone. That's the way it should be.
He stumbles into the bathroom, brain reeling like an out of control car on an icy road, and he pulls open his medicine cabinet. He has one large bottle of opiates that he condensed down from several random bottles sitting on the shelf, from injuries over the years that he's just never fully gotten rid of, even though he hates the fucking things. He doesn't think about anything besides wanting it to stop as he begins swallowing them down. First one handful, then two, then part of a third as the pills run out. He's out of alcohol right now or he'd be chasing them down with as much vodka as he could get down.
It doesn't take long before the pills begin acting upon his empty stomach, but it's still taking too long and his brain is getting louder and louder, taunting him that he can't even fucking do this right.
Failurefailurefailurefailurefailure. Weakweakweakweak. Brokenbrokenbrokenbroken.
His hands are shaking when he drags the razor down his arm, pressing as hard as he can. It hurts, it fucking hurts, but it makes his brain go delightfully quiet for the first time since he opened his eyes today, and he sinks to the floor in relief.
Not soon after, everything goes wonderfully, blissfully dark.
Finally. Mama, I hope you waited for me. I missed you.
There's something in his throat, something that hurts, something that he's choking on, and he fights to pull it away but his hand won't move. It jerks short every time he tries, as does the other hand.
This isn't what it was supposed to be like. It was supposed to be peace, finally. Why does it hurt? Why does everything hurt so bad?
The sound filters in next, and when he registers the beeping, his eyes fly open wide in panic. Awareness rushes into his body and he realizes his lungs are moving on their own and it hurts. He wants it to stop, and he tries again to get the thing out of his throat that's making him feel like he's suffocating, like he's being tortured. He's looking without seeing as he fights the ventilator, running on pure panic and adrenaline as he slams into consciousness like he's been dropped into the Black Sea. He hears a panicked voice and then all of a sudden there are more hands on him, and his lungs feel like they're going to collapse as he tries to get panicked breaths in, bucking against the vent with a ferocity that will result in a collapsed lung.
Then he's choking, coughing and spluttering and gagging as it's torn from his mouth like a tumor being excised. His entire chest hurts, reminiscent of having broken ribs after being slammed into the boards as hard as he can be. There's a sharp pinch in his bicep and then the peaceful waves from before begin lapping at him, pulling him back under before he's cognizant enough to take in what's really going on around him.
He goes back under the water, body going limp.
Shane feels broken as he watches Ilya go unconscious again. They had told him it was a possibility that he would fully try to buck the ventilator when he officially came to. He'd tried to remove it a few times in brief moments of consciousness, enough so that they'd restrained both of his wrists to the bed so he couldn't reach the tube.
Watching him run on pure animal instinct and sheer panic like that, completely unaware of anything but the intrusion in his throat makes Shane feel more helpless than he's ever felt in his life.
He shuts himself in Ilya's small bathroom and sinks to the floor, face in his hands as sobs wrack his body. The past forty eight hours have been his worst nightmare come to fruition. He's had nightmares like this, ever since Ilya told him about his mom and he started watching him fade, little by little until he was almost a transparent wisp on the wind.
He feels so fucking guilty. How did he not know? How did he not see how bad it was? What kind of boyfriend is he if he missed all of the signs? He'd let it get this far without intervening because he wanted Ilya to come to him, and look at where that's fucking landed them.
It's landed them in the hospital, with Ilya needing Narcan and his stomach pumped, his kidneys damaged to the point that he will need to monitor them for the rest of his life. The laceration to his arm is bad enough that he probably has nerve damage to some extent. His parents hadn't been explicit about how bad it was, but he knows by the way the gauze is wrapped from his wrist to his elbow that it's horrific. His mom cleaned up the blood without being asked because she couldn't let her son see how much there had been. She knows that he would never get over it, not fully.
They're in the hospital cafeteria, so they luckily weren't there to witness Ilya's terror upon waking, but he's in the bathroom breaking down long enough that his mom eventually pushes the door open and drops to her knees on the floor, gathering her little boy into her arms. She rocks him while he cries, saying nothing because there is nothing she can say to make this better. She can't fix this, no matter how much everything in her is itching to. All she can do is be there for him in the worst moments of his life.
She and David are also suffering. They'd gotten to Ilya's house just in time for the paramedics to race Ilya out of the house, covered in blood, skin tinged blue, and into the waiting ambulance. They'd gone inside to placate Anya, who was an absolute mess of fear at everything that was going on. David had stayed with the poor dog, holding her tight and rubbing her ears as she whined pitifully in his arms. He'd cleaned the blood from her paws with tender care while Yuna gathered cleaning supplies and tackled the ocean of blood on the bathroom floor, tears streaming down her face and clouding her vision.
They're all grieving the fact that they didn't see it until it was almost too late. They're traumatized, thinking about what would have happened if Shane hadn't checked his phone when he did and dialed emergency services. Shane had hated how much confidence he'd had in his voice when he told the operator that his boyfriend had attempted suicide, because he knew. He knew from those messages what had happened, body going cold, then hot, then cold again as he spoke into the receiver as he ran through the halls of the Bell Center and to his car, still in most of his gear. He prayed with every fiber of his being that Ilya hadn't done something like hang himself because there would be no way they weren't too late. He'd told them it was pills, probably opiates, because he was well aware of the large bottle of red-speckled pills in that cabinet that Ilya kept promising he'd take to a pharmacy for disposal. Thank God he had, because they'd Narcaned him immediately to shut down the overdose, and that's probably what saved his fucking life.
Shane knows Ilya is going to be angry. He expects him to be livid, actually, that he'd survived. He's been reading up on it, and it's common for there to be anger, guilt, and shame in someone who's survived an attempt, in part due to the fact that they'd failed.
God, Shane is so glad that he'd failed. He can't do this without Ilya. He can't. He knows he would lose every part of him over time if Ilya had died, and he knows, with a sick curdling in his stomach, that he probably eventually would have followed in his footsteps.
Ilya feels like he's covered in weighted blankets from head to toe, including inside of his brain and his body. It takes a few minutes for him to blink himself awake from the warmth of diazepam-induced unconsciousness.
All at once, what's happening hits him, and he makes a broken noise. Shane's head snaps up from where he'd had his face in his hands. Ilya feels a confusing mix of elation and sickness, and it makes his stomach churn. His heart monitor beeps faster.
"Ilya," Shane breathes, like he can't believe he's here.
Well, considering everything, Ilya can't believe he's here, either.
"Ilya, what happened?" he asks next, voice breaking.
He looks down at his lap and flexes his fingers. The fingers of his left arm tingle a little bit when he does so, and there's a feeling like a small zap of lightning into his index finger. It doesn't hurt, per se, but it's disconcerting. He doesn't like it and he hopes that it's able to heal.
"I…" His voice croaks, both from the ventilator and the two days of disuse. "I just needed it to be quiet. I couldn't help it."
Shane feels like he's been flayed open and had salt dumped on him. God, how had he not noticed? "Needed what to be quiet?" he asks, voice trembling.
"All of it. The thoughts. The voices. Just… everything."
"Voices?" Shane asks, growing even more worried. They're at the age that schizophrenia symptoms begin to appear…
Before he can immediately begin spiraling about that, Ilya shakes his head. "Not like that. Voices of my father. My brother. Things they have said or would say. Always in the back of my head."
"What do they say?" Shane asks after exhaling slowly and feeling his pulse begin to slow back to a more normal pace.
Ilya looks fully away, not just down at his lap, and he flinches. His jaw is tight as he clenches it tight. He says nothing, and the silence stretches long enough to be painful. Shane swallows thickly and looks down at his shoes. It must be bad if Ilya won't even give him a hint. He has his own voices like that in his head, so he understands to some degree the horror of having a voice in your head criticizing every step you make. It's hard to cope with. Shane has had his own moments of them getting too loud and causing him to act out irrationally to try and make them stop.
He just hit himself sometimes in the head when it got really, really bad. It hadn't in a long time, and he'd never considered doing something as extreme as ending his life to make it stop. There were just some things about what Ilya is going through that he will never understand, and as much as he knows he's lucky that that's the case, he hates it because he wants to understand so much. He wants to be able to be there in all of the ways that Ilya needs him to be.
"It wasn't supposed to happen like this," Ilya says gruffly, still looking away.
Anger and astonishment fill Shane like a deluge and he can't control the sharpness in his voice when he speaks. "How the fuck was it supposed to happen then? That I would show up at the house tomorrow and find you fucking dead on the bathroom floor?"
Ilya flinches like he's been slapped, and his monitor beeps as his blood pressure and heart rate increase again. He hadn't even thought about who would find him. He didn't consider it at all. He'd been so stuck in needing it to stop that he had missed a vital part of dying at home—someone had to find you eventually.
Ilya hears a quiet rattle, and he looks back down at his lap and realizes his hands are shaking enough to make the restraints tremble alongside him.
"I'm sorry," he whispers.
As quick as it came, the anger leaves, rushing out of him with an exhale. "You don't need to say sorry," he tells Ilya. "It must have been so fucking bad if you tried to kill yourself, and I'm so, so fucking sorry I didn't see it or realize how bad things are. I didn't realize you were fucking drowning while on land." His voice is breaking again and he wipes at his eyes. "I was waiting for you to come to me and that's the worst thing I could have done."
Ilya feels like the walls are closing in on him, and fast. It's growing hard to breathe as the cage constricts around his chest. The machines attached to him begin to beep in warning of his quickly climbing vitals.
Oh, God, what did he do? He knows what the grief of having someone so close to you commit suicide does to someone. He knows what being the one to find their body, limp and unresponsive, does to one's safety of mind. He knows this and he'd done it anyway. He almost subjected Shane to the worst kind of pain he's ever felt in his life.
"Ilya? Ilya, come on, breathe with me," Shane says, putting his hand on Ilya's chest. He flinches in his panic but Shane doesn't pull away.
Shane has never seen Ilya like this, barring the panic when he woke up. This is a full blown panic attack, and Ilya is very quickly growing hysterical in a way that Shane knows needs intervention. Broken cries come out of him as he sobs through fast, uneven breaths, eyes wild with horror and shame and fear.
A nurse comes rushing in as the monitors begin to alarm, and Shane watches for the second time in twenty four hours as they sedate Ilya. He curls in on himself in the chair and just cries quietly.
The nurse silently drapes a blanket over his shoulders before leaving him alone again.
Yuna has started researching top rated private psychiatric hospitals and she quickly selects the best one, and Shane can't help but agree that that's what needs to happen. He's spoken with Ilya's doctor and he even suggested it, even though he knows that Ilya might hate him for it. Ilya needs serious help, and not the kind that he can manage with outpatient visits right now.
When the doctors come in after Ilya next wakes, another panic attack is triggered when they tell him that once they're sure he's fully stable, he's being transferred to a psychiatric facility until he's deemed safe to return home.
"Please, please don't send me there," he begs, looking at the doctors, and then over to Shane. "Please. You don't come back from there better. You come back worse. I don't want to be worse."
"It's not a facility like that," Shane tells him with a shake of his head. "It's comfortable, well maintained, and not overcrowded. It's private and secure and you won't have people gawking at you."
Ilya feels deeply betrayed, and he just closes his eyes and leans his head back, tears silently rolling down his face.
Shane feels sick, but this is what needs to happen.
He doesn't think Ilya even hears him when he says that he'll see him in a couple of days. The facility doesn't allow visitors for the first three days to allow patients to settle in without disruption.
Ilya allows him to give him a kiss in private, though, and when he tells him he loves him, he gets the words in return. All hope is not lost.
Ilya is being transferred in twenty minutes, and he'd asked the Hollanders to please not see him off. He didn't want their last thoughts of him to be him being wheeled away, resigned to his fate in the fucking loony bin.
It's where he belongs though, isn't it? He did this to himself. He put himself in this position because he's fucking stupid and impulsive. He put Shane in this position, too, and he's never going to forgive himself for it.
They take him by a discrete transport van, with an orderly from the facility in the back with him to keep an eye on him. He sits with his arms crossed and stares out the window, saying nothing.
His affect is flat but inside, he's fucking terrified. His mama had gone to the big, imposing mental hospital once, when he was still in the early years of schooling. She had been bad when she left, and she was even emptier when she returned. He used to find her sitting in the bath, staring at absolutely nothing more and more often afterwards. Her laughter was less bright and felt more forced, and the good days and moments came less and less. She refused to talk about the place, but Ilya had gathered that something awful had happened there, either to her or that she had witnessed. It had sapped some of the beautiful light out of her, and there had already been so little.
The facility looks nothing like the one in Moscow. Instead, it's a one story building, a bit sprawling, with architecture that someone like Shane might appreciate. The inside is all warm, dark woods and soft cream walls. It's much more inviting than the hospital was, thankfully.
They do intake, taking note of his injured arm and that he has no other injuries, so they will know if he hurts himself.
"Do you know why you're here?" Dr. Okiishi asks him. He's a large, round faced Japanese man with glasses. He doesn't give the same clinical air that the doctors in the hospital did. He's personable and Ilya immediately hates it.
"Yes," he says shortly.
"Can you explain why, please? In your own words."
It feels like gargling gravel as he says the words out loud. He hasn't fully acknowledged them like this yet.
"I… I tried to kill myself. I almost succeeded. I need—I need help."
Dr. Okiishi nods. "That's what we're here to do. We're going to help you figure out how to manage the symptoms and take care of your brain the same way you take care of your body. We're going to run a genetic test to see what kinds of medications you would be receptive to and what classes you should avoid all together. It will also give us insight into whether this is just a temporary thing, or if you have a chemical imbalance causing your mental health struggles."
Ilya balks. "I don't want to take pills," he says. "Why would I be trusted with them again, anyway?"
"Do you think you shouldn't be?"
"I—I don't know. Using pills for bad things is genetic for me."
"The hope is that if we get you on something to stabilize your mood, those urges will subside. You won't have access to all of them while here. Meds are given twice a day by a nurse. The medication is kept behind a locked door."
"I… I guess I will try."
It's the last bit of effort he makes for three days.
The three days pass in a haze. He remembers doing a long preliminary therapy session to assess him and any possible diagnoses, and then being told later that day that he was going to start taking Lithium, with the intent to switch him to Lamotrigine once they've yanked him out of the suicidal slump. They don't want to keep him on Lithium for too long because of his kidneys. Yet another reminder of how much he fucked up.
He doesn't participate in group, and he doesn't say much to the therapist. He wants Galina, but she's at a conference and Ilya knows she won't be back until day four, when they'll be able to have her come work with him. He doesn't want to talk to someone else, so he gives them the bare minimum. He's struggling to eat, the Lithium making him feel funny enough that his stomach just won't really seem to settle. They give him Ensure and protein shakes when he doesn't eat so that they can get some nutrients into him. He reluctantly accepts them. They taste like chocolate milk, so they're easy to get down, at least.
He's starting to think that Shane just left him here to be done with him. His brain is a little too loud today, and so when visiting hours open after lunch and Shane is the first one at the front doors, Ilya is gobsmacked to see him. The moment they're in Ilya's room, Shane is on him, hugging him tight.
Ilya lets out a quiet whimper and buries his face in Shane's shoulder. "I was scared you wouldn't come," he whispers.
"Of course I'm here, Ilya. I've been in the parking lot for an hour."
Ilya lets out a little laugh and he smiles. "That's my Shane," he murmurs.
"How are you doing?" Shane asks after they've taken a seat on Ilya's bed. "Did they start you on medication?"
"Yes. Lithium. I already hate it. Makes me feel like I am full of fog. First night, I got up to piss in the middle of the night and almost face planted with how woozy it had made me. Hasn't happened again, but I still feel hazy."
"That's normal, I think. I've been reading up on it, and usually as your body adjusts, the haze goes away a bit. I'm surprised they prescribed you that with your kidneys…" He worries his lip between his teeth and Ilya smooths his thumb across it. He gives him a chaste kiss.
"Is to ah, snap me out of it. And then they're switching me to something less dangerous for kidneys. Lamictal, I think? Other name for it, I cannot remember."
"Lamotrigine?" Shane asks, and Ilya nods, smiling softly again.
"You have been doing a lot of reading, it sounds like."
"I've been looking into medications and what they treat. Do they think you have bipolar, then?"
Ilya nods. "Bipolar 2. I have mania, but not as much as I have the depression. I think maybe I get more manic during things like playoffs, or when I have a few days of feeling like I can do anything. They used to be more frequent when I was younger, when I was even less stable. So… is nice to know it's not something I can really 'control.' My brain does it on it's own. I… I didn't do anything wrong."
Shane strokes his cheek. "Oh, Ilya. You never did anything wrong, or something to deserve this. I understand that feeling, though. That's what I thought when I was younger, that I'd done something wrong, so wrong, and it was why my brain is so…" He winces. "You know how my brain is."
"Yes. Is beautiful."
Shane laughs softly. "It's also absolute chaos in there. I never got a formal diagnosis because we didn't want it to interfere with my chances of hockey, but I passed the general autism questionnaire with flying fucking colors. We took that as our answer and didn't push any further so it didn't go fully on my record."
Ilya understands why. People underestimate the hell out of autistic people, no matter how capable they are of doing what they're doing. He knows they get infantilized to hell and back and he knows that it would infuriate Shane enough that he might set fire to something if he had to deal with that constantly. It's also just another thing Shane doesn't want as his label. He's already that Asian hockey player and maybe one day he'll be that gay, Asian hockey player. He can understand why he doesn't want yet another qualifier attached to his name.
"How is therapy and everything going?" Shane asks, and Ilya looks away.
"I do not like the doctor. Galina gets to talk to me tomorrow."
"Will you tell Galina the truth? Please? I want to see you get better, Ilya. I believe in you, so much. You'[re so fucking strong. You're the strongest person I've ever met and it's not even close. I can't say I understand exactly what you're going through, but I get what it's like to have that voice in your head, haunting you, telling you you're not good enough."
Ilya's head whips around and he looks at Shane with wide eyes. That worries him. He doesn't want that for Shane. He doesn't want those evil voices in his ear, trying to convince him that he's all wrong inside.
"Shane—"
"I used to hit myself," he says softly. "When I was younger, when it got bad. I understanding wanting it to shut up. As I got older I learned more skills to cope with it and it became easier to drown it out. I've found ways to control my environment, too."
Ilya just nods, dumbfounded. "Why have you not told me this?"
Shane looks embarrassed. "I guess for the same reason you didn't tell me. I don't like to talk about it. It feels kind of like acknowledging that there's something different about me, maybe something wrong, and it makes me feel itchy inside."
Ilya leans forward until he can rest his forehead on Shane's shoulder. "Yes. Itchy inside, like I am full of bees and sandpaper."
"I'm sorry," Shane murmurs. "I should have asked you, I should have pushed—"
"I would have pushed back," Ilya points out. "I did not know it was this bad, either, if that helps. It took me by surprise. I have not had a spiral that bad. Ever. I didn't even know it could get that bad."
Shane wraps his arms around him. "I'm just so glad you're still here," he whispers. "I can't do this without you, Ilya. I can't."
The guilt sinks into his bones again and he holds Shane tighter. "I know. I'm sorry."
"I know."
Talking to Galina is harder than it's ever been. It's never been easy, per se, having to open up and unpack things that he packed away so, so fucking carefully in his head. He's never feared disappointment from her until now, though, and he nearly cries in relief when he realizes she's not disappointed in him at all for not disclosing how truly awful his brain was to him sometimes. She's understanding and concerned, and she wants to help him through this and to the other side. She doesn't beat around the bush, telling him it won't be easy and it won't be quick, but that she will be there every step of the way alongside him.
She tells him that he doesn't have to do this alone, and that it doesn't make him weak to admit that he needs help.
That time, he does cry, because he realizes that he isn't alone anymore. He's got the biggest support network he's ever had. He's only ever had, at most, two people at a time that felt like they were in his corner. His mama and Sveta, and then Sveta and Shane.
Now he has his whole team—who've had Shane pass on their well-wishes since they know that he and Shane are good friends now—and Yuna and David, and Galina herself to add to that short list.
After the first week he's in the facility, Shane unfortunately has to go back to work. His emergency family leave is up and he's off on a nearly two week long road trip. He calls every night to talk to Ilya for an hour before bed. Ilya misses him like he'd miss a limb, but he's doing much better.
He's come to learn that as a result of his overdose, he has fairly bad kidney damage. He likely has a transplant in is future, somewhere near middle age, if he doesn't follow the changes that they've outlined for him. He needs to limit his salt and processed foods, avoid NSAIDs, fully commit to stopping smoking, and monitor his blood pressure.He might still end up needing the transplant anyway, even if he adheres to the shift in his lifestyle.
He also absolutely gave himself nerve damage in his left hand. It hasn't been enough to effect his ability to hold things or his dexterity, but he's going to permanently have a tingle and soft zaps every time he makes a closed fist or moves his fingers too much.
When the doctor told him he'd needed twenty four stitches he'd burst into hysterical laughter that turned into crying. How fucking ironic.
He plans to get a tattoo to cover the ugly pink scar. He hates it and knows he won't be able to pass it off as anything but what it is. It's too long to be from a freak ice skate accident, and too wide, even after the stitches.
After three weeks and a medication shift later, the doctors come to the conclusion that Ilya is ready to go home. Shane is home for a few days when he gets his discharge date, and he comes to pick Ilya up.
They pick up some Mediterranean food on the way home and after they eat, Shane leads Ilya to bed. He takes him apart with his mouth and his hands, and Ilya returns the favor eagerly, desperate to feel the weight of Shane on his tongue and his tight heat around his fingers.
Afterwards, as they lay in bed, Shane takes Ilya's left hand in his. He kisses each of his fingers, followed by his palm. He then moves to his wrist, and he presses butterfly kisses down the length of the ten inch scar that runs down his arm.
Tears flood his vision and he lets out a sob. Shane wraps him up in his arms and holds him to his chest, fingers combing gently through his curls.
"I'm so fucking sorry, Shane," he chokes out. "I'm so fucking sorry. I'm sorry I'm like her in all of the wrong ways and that I almost left you with same grief I carry. Prosti. Mne ochen' zhal', chto ya chut' ne razrushil tvoy pokoy." He nearly destroyed Shane's peace of mind in a way that he knows you can never recover from and he thinks he'll carry that guilt for the rest of his life in some capacity.
"Oh, Ilya," Shane murmurs. "You are like her in all of the right ways, too. Never forget that."
It hits him in a spot he didn't realize was so bruised and his breath hitches as he devolves into full on sobs. Shane just shushes him quietly and holds him through it.
He was always punished and taunted for being too like his mama, even though all he wanted when he was little was to be funny, caring, and smart like she was. He was sensitive like she was, too, and that put a target on his back. He spent years being berated for it, and to hear Shane speak of it like it's a beautiful thing is like having his heart torn open and sewed back together again.
When the tears have subsided and they've spent a good thirty minutes just laying in the silence of their room, Shane speaks. His voice is quiet but sure.
"I want to marry you," Shane says, and Ilya's breath hitches again, but he doesn't resume crying. His heartbeat does kick into double gear, though, and he looks at Shane, searching his face. All he finds is sheer honesty and determination there.
"I know you're worried that you've ruined something here, but you haven't. I've realized though, that I can't do this anymore—the hiding. Some things are more important than hockey," he says, and Ilya thinks he might have heard him wrong. "If the risk is losing you forever, I would do fucking anything, Ilya. All that matters to me is that you're still here and I'm so fucking sorry it took this long for me to realize that. I've been so clouded by fear that I've only been thinking of myself and that's not fair."
Ilya swallows the lump in his throat and he kisses Shane hard. "I want to be your husband more than I want anything in the world," he whispers against Shane's mouth.
When they part, Shane rolls over and opens his side table. When he pulls out a velvet box, Ilya makes a noise in his throat.
Inside the box is a simple gold band. There's a single lily engraved on it. On the inside, навсегда is engraved. Navsegda. Forever.
Shane is gentle as he undoes the locking clasp on Ilya's necklace. He immediately feels naked without it on, and he touches his bare collarbone as he watches Shane thread the ring onto the chain before he refastens it around Ilya's throat.
He touches the ring and crucifix with reverence. "Now I'm always with you, just like your mama is."
The wedding will be in July, on the 10th, they decide. That gives them time for Ilya to heal some more and for them to arrange a small ceremony. They don't want anything big, so they're going to host it in the backyard. Ilya wants his team there, and Shane agrees that they should be there. They're Ilya's family now, too, and he knows how much Ilya adores those men and how much they've tried to be there for their captain.
Shane is going to be a free agent come next season, and he wants to play for Ottawa. Farah has said that Ottawa, among many other teams, will be interested. He doesn't give a shit who else is interested or what their salary offers are. He's going to fucking Ottawa. Right now, he'd play for fucking free if he had to. He wants to be with Ilya. He can't do the distance anymore, either, and especially not after they're married. He's going to be their teammate, so he wants them to be at their wedding, too.
A few days after Ilya returns to practice with a new tattoo of lilies and delphinium covering his scar, and he sits his team down after practice. He'd talked to Coach Weibe and the owners already, and they all back him 100% in telling the team. Coach had hugged him, clapped him on the back, and congratulated him on the engagement. He'd left Weibe's office with a smile on his face and a couple tears in his eyes.
"Everyone, clear your calendars for July 10th," he tells the room.
Wyatt had honed in on the ring on Ilya's necklace immediately, and he barely holds in his grin as Bood asks him what for.
"I am getting married," Ilya says, and he grins wider than Hayes has ever seen him smile in his life. He holds up his necklace, showing the ring to the room.
The room breaks out into cheers for a moment before Luca speaks up. "Wait, to who?"
The cheers die down for a moment as the team collectively realizes they didn't even really know that Ilya was in that committed of a relationship. They knew there was somebody, given the goofy smile the man gave his phone all of the time. They just didn't know it was that serious.
Ilya lets the silence drag out for a moment.
"Shane Hollander."
There's several seconds of silence, and then the room erupts again. Ilya laughs, delighted by the way he's delivered the biggest shocker of them all to his teammates. Wyatt was definitely not expecting that.
"Okay, okay, settle down. You may ask five questions," he says loudly over the volley of them coming at him. "Choose wisely."
Bood clears his throat. "Okay, I gotta ask—you're not fuckin' with us?"
"Not fucking with you," Ilya promises.
Barrett speaks up next. Wyatt notices that he's the only one who doesn't look a hundred percent shocked. Surprised, but not blindsided like the rest of them.
"How long've you two been together?"
Ilya hesitates a little bit. He and Shane talked about this. He wants to be honest with his boys. "Officially? Since summer of 2017. Unofficially? Since 2010."
They're fucking dumbfounded. "That's since your rookie season!" Chouniard says.
"Summer before," Ilya corrects.
"Was the rivalry all media bullshit, then?" Holmberg pipes up.
"Yes and no. Shane and I play best against each other. Always have. Every time I have beaten him I have done so with pride, and I love kicking his ass. But there was never any hatred between us. I have always admired him. League decided they could milk the division rivalry for all it was worth the moment we were up for the draft and we had no say in it."
Wyatt feels for them. No wonder they had to fucking hide it. The MLH is going to go fucking insane when they announce this.
"You know we've got your back, right? When the league does whatever the fuck they're gonna do," he says.
Ilya gives him a warm smile and he nods. "I know. We are a little scared, but we are done hiding. We're finally ready to love each other out loud for the first time in our lives, league be damned."
"Can I hug you, man?" Bood asks, and Ilya laughs.
"That's five questions."
"It's a good question, cause I've got the same one," Hayes adds. The moment Ilya nods, they swarm him just like they would on the ice. Ilya laughs again, and as he accepts hugs from his teammates, no one comments on the tears on his face.
He's happier than he's been in a long, long time.
After the hugs, he grows a bit somber before filling them in on a short version of why he wasn't here. He leaves it at needing a break for his mental health, saying that things were bad enough he needed emergency help. It's hard for him to say, but he trusts these men. He has for a long time, and he's learning that this isn't something to be ashamed of. This isn't some way he's failed. He has no control over his brain chemistry, after all.
He gets a second round of hugs, and after all is said and done, they head out to Monk's, where Shane meets them. They keep it fairly restrained as they congratulate him. He and Ilya sit closer together than they normally would, and everyone knows that under the table, Shane's hand is resting on Ilya's thigh.
Their ceremony is beautiful and everything Ilya never thought he'd get to have. Harris oversees the exchanging of the rings, and when he pronounces them husband and husband, Ilya kisses Shane with every ounce of affection he has in his body, laughing with joy into it.
He can't believe how far he's come since January, when everything seemed hopeless. He truly thought he was never going to feel joy again. He had given up on having the happiness he wanted so badly to hold in his hands, and now here he stands, with everything he's ever wanted.
He's finally found forever.
Out of the Black Sea, I will rise.