Work Text:
Shane sat in his car, sighing wearily.
Work had been more exhausting lately, and it was taking a toll on him. His team that was once a home felt like a pack of wolves waiting to attack at one wrong move. They now looked at Shane like a stranger, an alien. They didn’t care about the blood, sweat, and tears Shane had given the Metros. But that didn’t matter anymore. The season would soon be over. Who knows, maybe he would even go to Ottawa to be with Ilya.
He got out of the car slowly, the biting cold snapping him back to reality. He looked up—the cottage greeted him. Warm light spilled from the windows. Ilya had lit the fireplace.
Shane took a deep breath; his nose and lungs stung from the frosty Ottawa air. He stepped inside, and the toasty atmosphere wrapped around him like a hug he desperately needed. As soon as he entered, his shoulders dropped.
He placed his shoes neatly on the rack by the door, hung up his coat, and put his hockey bag in the storage closet. A familiar smell filled the house. Ilya was cooking pelmeni.
“I’m home!” Shane called, his tone duller than usual.
“Solnyshko!”
Ilya appeared from the kitchen with an endearing smile. He was wearing Shane’s cooking apron, his curls dusted with flour, his hands covered in dough.
“Pelmeni?” Shane asked, tilting his head. A soft smile crept onto his face.
“Da! Is your favorite, no?”
“It’s your favorite, honey.”
“Is same thing,” he said with a grin. “Like wedding vows—what’s mine is yours.”
Shane chuckled, still looking at him. “Can I join in on the cooking?”
“You never ask that question again—you already know the answer.”
Ilya took his hand and pulled him in for a quick hug, kissing his temple. He pulled away slightly to look at him. “Are you okay?”
Shane realized he had been holding his breath. How could he know? He had barely looked at him—just a second, less, even. He hated that. Not him—just how easily he could read him, like there was nothing to hide.
“The team has been… weird lately. Nothing to worry about, though.”
Ilya scrunched his nose slightly at that blatant lie. Sometimes he got mad at Shane for working too hard, especially for that homophobic piece of shit team.
“You are still terrible liar, Solnyshko. But, I let it pass today, just because I don’t want to ruin Pelmeni night.”
Ilya would obviously keep this conversation in mind for a while. He still hadn’t forgotten about the time they didn’t invite Shane (and him) to the annual Christmas party. “Enough about them, okay?”
“… Okay.”
Ilya smiled kindly at Shane, trying to make everything a little less tense. As always, it worked. Shane smiled back, and this time he was the one taking Ilya’s hand, guiding him to the kitchen.
Pelmeni night was always special for them. It reminded Ilya of home, or more so, his mother, and Shane just liked seeing Ilya happy. They even had a special playlist for it titled Schyaste (Ilya really liked to make playlists for everything). They danced around the kitchen table, sometimes throwing flour at one another. Vocal jazz and some yacht rock played in the background, loud enough to be present but not overpowering.
They sat at the round table in the dining room. Shane liked eating there better because he thought it was “more homelike,” and Ilya would never say no to Shane.
“Did you remember to call someone to fix that weird sound coming from the washing machine?”
“What?”
“The awful screech that comes out of the washing machine when you turn it on?”
Ilya looked at Shane like he had never heard of such a request. Shane looked back with an equally puzzled expression, but his had a slightly surly undertone. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“No, I didn’t remember. I’m sorry. I’ll check it out tomorrow, I promise.”
Shane shrugged it off, not giving it much thought. He was sure he had told him. Or maybe he hadn’t. Work had been loud in his head lately.
Ilya looked down at his plate, the question burning in his mind. “Did you remember?” Ilya never forgot anything. Sure, he was easily distracted, but he never forgot Shane’s requests.
He saw no worry on Shane’s face, so he wondered why he was worrying. He had probably just not heard—he had really bad hearing, too.
Yes, that was it. He had not heard.
***
They went to bed like every night. Shane read in bed while Ilya prepared tea. He made Shane’s in his favorite mug—a tall, baby-blue mug with a sleek handle. His was a chunky, off-white mug Shane had given him for their tenth anniversary. I love my immigrant, it read. Ilya had never laughed so hard. Maybe Shane wasn’t that boring.
Their routine felt sacred to Shane—stable, but not stale. It grounded them, gave them something steady in an unpredictable world.
Shane was reading quietly when something shattered in the kitchen. His heart dropped.
“Ilya?” he called, already out of bed, his voice unsteady as he hurried down the hall. He braced himself for something worse.
Instead, he found Ilya standing there, staring at the floor. A broken mug lay in pieces around his feet.
A mug.
Shane exhaled, the tension leaving his shoulders all at once.
“What happened?”
“I dropped it.”
His voice was thin. He looked like he might cry. Shane felt a flicker of irritation. It was just a mug. They could replace it.
“Well, accidents happen.”
He grabbed the broom and started sweeping in quick and efficient strokes, trying to restore the quiet that had been cracked open.
Ilya noticed. He always noticed when Shane was upset with him.
“Let me help,” he said softly, stepping closer. His hand settled over Shane’s. Shane flinched.
“I got it,” he snapped, pulling away.
Ilya stepped back immediately. He knew that tone. Knew the line he wasn’t supposed to cross. He watched Shane instead—his tight grip on the broom, the crease between his brows, the way his mouth pulled into something sharp and unfamiliar.
You ruined it. The thought came fast, automatic. You couldn’t even hold a mug. Now he’s angry. Of course he is. His chest tightened. You always do this. Break things. Make things worse. He swallowed hard, his gaze dropping to the shards on the floor. You’re a problem. A liability. The words settled in, heavy and certain. Just like him. Ilya closed his eyes for a moment. He knew what came next. He just needed a little more time.
***
The next day was grocery day, Ilya’s favorite day of the week. He had two things that excited him about grocery shopping: new ingredients and seeing Shane relax. He loved his Solnyshko, but more often than not, he wanted to rip the hairs out of his head from how square Shane was, but on grocery day? He let himself (and Ilya) breathe.
Shane liked grocery shopping day too, but not too much for the actual shopping; he just liked the calmness of it. Another one of their grounding activities. Ilya would walk around the store's aisles, smiling at everyone and reaching for things other people couldn’t reach for themselves.
Shane dressed comfortably, but not shabbily in case someone saw them (or they ran into Yuna). Ilya didn’t even know or cared about what shabby meant, so he wore what he wanted.
They soon arrived and immediately got down to business. Shane got through the produce, meats, dairy, and staples all before Ilya could finish looking at the baking aisle. He, soon enough, returned to Shane with an impressive array of cake mixes and spreads, looking impossibly proud.
“You know we can’t take all of those, Ilya.”
“But they are all different, see? This one is chocolate, and this one is vanilla, and this one is different type of chocolate.”
“That one snickers bar you bought is still in the pantry; going stale.”
“But that was because of your bird food diet!”
Every single chocolate bar Ilya had ever bought had gone stale, melted, or gone to other people. Shane never ate chocolate before, and sure, he was better now, but the thought of all that sugar still made him want to throw up.
They got the essentials: meat, both white and red, vegetables and fruits, some bread for Shane’s special panini day, dairy products, and a box of dark chocolate cake mix. Ilya was very persuasive.
Like always, Ilya insisted on paying with his card; he said he felt especially American when he typed in the little code. As per usual, he took out his card, put it in the card reader, and waited for the cashier to let him push the little buttons. This time, something was wrong, though. He had done this many times before without a problem.
Why couldn’t he type it in?
His hand hovered over the buttons for a moment. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Why couldn’t he remember the stupid number?
The cashier looked at Ilya, which only made him more nervous. She tapped her fingers on the counter annoyed. She sighed. What the fuck was she sighing about? Ilya looked at the pin pad, looking at the worn out numbers on the buttons like they were going to give him a clue on what he needed to remember.
Shane stood beside him and noticed the way his hands were trembling, the way his jaw tightened, and his eyes were shut tight.
“You okay?”
He placed his hand on Ilya’s shoulder. He snapped back to reality and looked at Shane like nothing was wrong.
“Do you remember the code?”
He whispered and pointed at the card. He was embarrassed, Shane could tell. His ears were bright pink, and he wiggled his fingers anxiously.
“Yeah, I do.”
Shane stepped in front of him, nodded to the cashier, and typed in the code. Ilya’s chest felt heavy. After the transaction was completed, Shane took one look at Ilya and knew they should immediately go home. Ilya stared at the ground.
Confused.
Angry.
“Let’s go.”
They put the bags in the trunk in silence. The plastic rustled, loud and brittle in the quiet. Ilya adjusted them twice, then a third time, like he was trying to stall something that was inevitable. Shane watched him, but didn’t say anything. He closed the trunk. They got into the car. The doors shut with a dull, final thud.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The keys stayed in Shane’s hand, just inches from the ignition. Ilya swallowed.
“It was nothing,” Ilya said, too fast. “Okay? I just forgot. That is all.”
“Ilya…” Shane said quietly, “this is the fourth time this month.”
He leaned his head back against the seat and let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, but there was nothing amused in it.
“So?” he muttered. “People forget things.”
Shane turned to him fully now.
“You don’t,” he said.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Ilya grumbled.
“What thing?”
He turned then, eyes bright and sharp in a way that didn’t match the tremble in his hands.
“Making problem out of nothing.”
“I’m not making it anything,” he said. “I’m noticing it.”
“Well, stop noticing.”
The words came out harshly. Immediate regret flickered across his face, but he didn’t take them back.
Shane looked down at his hands. That hurt more than if he had snapped at him.
“Ilya,” he tried again, softer now, “I’m not trying to—”
“I’m fine,” he said, but it came out thinner this time. “I’m fine.”
Shane shook his head, slow, almost reluctant.
“No, you’re not.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating. Shane’s voice, when it came again, was quieter. Not sharp—just tired.
“I’m tired of pretending you are.”
Something in Ilya shifted at that. He stared at the dashboard, unfocused.
“Ilya…” he said, and his name trembled.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“No,” he whispered.
“We have to at least think about it—”
“No.”
Ilya shook his head harder now, as he could physically throw the idea out of the car.
“Shane, no.”
Shane inhaled weakly.
“I won’t watch this happen.”
That made Ilya still. Slowly, he turned his head toward Shane. His eyes were wet now.
“I won’t sit here,” Shane said, his voice breaking, “and pretend it’s nothing while you start slipping away piece by piece.”
Ilya’s chest tightened painfully.
“Shane—”
“I remember it, Ilya. I remember how devastated you were,” he continued, his voice trembling now, “when he called you and asked about your mom, when he would forget you weren’t home, when he acted like everything was fine—” Ilya’s breath hitched.
“But it wasn’t,” he whispered.
“Shane—”
“He forgot your name once,” he said, tears falling freely now. “Do you remember that? Because I do. You brushed it off. You said it was fine—”
“Stop,” he said again, weaker.
“But it wasn’t fine,” Shane choked. “It killed him, made him bitter. I won’t let it happen to you,”he said. “I won’t watch you disappear while you’re still sitting right next to me.”
“I’m not him,” Ilya said, but his voice broke halfway through. “I’m not my dad. He was sick in ways I never will be.”
He looked down at his hands like they belonged to someone else.
Shane reached for his hand slowly. This time, when he took it, he held on. Tight. Like if he let go, something worse would happen.
“I know,” he whispered.
His thumb brushed over Ilya’s knuckles, grounding, familiar.
“But something is happening,” he said. “And you feel it too, don’t you?”
That was the question he couldn’t escape. Ilya’s face crumpled before he could stop it.
“I tried,” he said, his voice shaking. “I tried to remember. It’s just numbers, Shane. Four stupid numbers, and they were just… gone.”
A tear slipped down, and he didn’t wipe it away.
“They were there, and then they weren’t,” he continued, panic creeping in. “Like someone stole them from my brain.”
Shane’s grip tightened.
“I don’t want that,” he said, almost pleading now. “I don’t want to forget.”
Shane’s breath hitched sharply.
“I don’t want to forget you,” Ilya whispered.
“You won’t,” Shane said, even though his voice trembled. “You won’t. We won’t let it get that far.”
Ilya let out a shaky, uneven breath.
“But what if it does?” he asked, so quietly it almost disappeared.
Shane didn’t answer right away. Because he didn’t have an answer. Instead, he squeezed his hand tighter.
“Then we face it,” he said finally, “Together.”
“…I say we check,” Shane continued, gentler now, steadier for him. “Just to be safe. Just… to know what we’re dealing with.”
Ilya shook his head weakly, but there was no force behind it anymore. Knowing meant naming it. Naming it meant it could take him.
***
Two years had passed since that conversation.
They didn’t arrive at the diagnosis all at once. It came in pieces that refused to feel real until they were impossible to ignore.
First, it was small things; names slipping sideways in conversation, sentences that lost their endings halfway through.
Then it was repetition.
Then silence where there used to be certainty.
At some point, Shane stopped correcting Ilya when he forgot, and at some point, Ilya stopped joking about it.
The day they walked into Dr. Muller’s office, neither of them said much on the drive there. Ilya kept his hands folded in his lap like he was trying to keep them steady. Shane watched the road as if looking anywhere else would make it worse.
The word dementia didn’t feel like something that belonged to him. It felt too large, too clinical, too far away from the man who still reached for his hand in the middle of the night like it was instinct.
But it stayed.
It stayed in the quiet adjustments—labels on drawers, notes left on the counter, reminders that slowly stopped being helpful and started being necessary. It stayed in the way Ilya began looking at familiar things for a moment too long, as if waiting for them to introduce themselves again.
And it stayed in Shane, too.
It stayed in the way he started answering questions before Ilya finished asking them. In the way he learned to smile while his chest tightened. In the way he would get mad at Ilya in silence. In the way he began grieving Ilya while he was still sitting right next to him.
***
Shane couldn’t sleep, or eat, or think without sobbing anymore.
It had been a month since Ilya’s funeral, but it felt like it had been yesterday.
Everything reminded him of his Ilyusha. The cookbooks in their kitchen. The stupid chocolate chips they kept in their pantry for no reason.
His heart hurt at the memory of Ilya’s last weeks. Him sitting in front of the fireplace, like every day since he lost the ability to walk on his own. He always had a small notebook and a pen on the coffee table beside him, even if he couldn’t write anymore. Shane never asked him what was in it. It was one of the few little things left that were only his.
But that didn’t matter anymore. He was alone now with all this stuff that reminded him of Ilya. And he could do nothing. So, he accepted it. He embraced them. Shane walked over to the couch. Ilya’s couch. He stepped closer, his fingers brushing the edge of the table before he picked the notebook up. It felt lighter than he expected. He opened it. Most of them were scribbles. These were from before Ilya was sick. It was just little doodles he made when he was on calls. Shane flipped pages until he got to a more shaky handwriting. Uneven, crowded words pressing into each other as if he’d been trying to hold onto them before they slipped. His name is everywhere.
Shane Hollander.
Shane Hollander.
Shane Hollander.
He exhaled softly through his nose, turning another page. Then another. Near the end, the writing changed. Slower. More spaced out. Careful in a way the rest wasn’t. He already knew what he was going to see. Still, he turned to the last page.
You love Shane. Love his freckles, his hair, his eyes, his eyes in glasses. Love the way he takes his tea, without sugar. Love his order obsession, even if it drives you crazy. Love his–
The sentence stopped there. Shane stared at it, his thumb resting just below the words. The house was quiet. He closed the notebook, pressing his palm flat against the cover. He held it there—like he was trying to keep the last version of Ilya from slipping any further away. Shane stood there a moment longer, then he sat down on the couch. It still smelled like Ilya.
Shane didn’t realize he was crying until he was unable to breathe. Ilya was gone. The only person who truly saw him was gone. The one who wiped his tears. One of the only stable things Shane thought he’d always have had vanished in thin air. And he could do nothing about it. Ilya was absent long before this, but this was different. When he was sick, he was still there, at least in the flesh. Shane could still hold him. See him. Hear him. Ilya had always been loud, but not in an annoying way. He was just always kind of there. His presence was loud and bright. The harsh contrast of his absence was what most hurt Shane. His beautiful house, which had once been his comfort, was now a gloomy cage he trapped himself in.
Shane was trapped. He knew he wouldn’t get out of this one. Not without Ilya. He didn’t live anymore. He couldn’t. He could only survive. Survive until his love called him home.
And so he did.