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The month starts heavy, and every day that passes grows heavier, like a boulder is being deposited on Ilya's shoulders with every moment the day passes into the next. Shane is doing his best to keep him occupied, to keep him distracted with walks with Anya and trips out to Ilya's favorite restaurants.
He appreciates it. He really does.
But it's not enough.
Galina can see it too; he's more reserved, less snarky, and he spends almost one whole session just sobbing into his hands.
His thirty seventh birthday is on the horizon, and it's destroying him inside. He's thankful that this is happening during the summer and not during the season because he doesn't know how he'd be able to function on the ice at all right now.
He's eating robotically, staring off into space. He's not here. Not really.
On the morning of his birthday, Shane slips out of bed at five for his morning run. He won't be gone more than an hour, and Ilya has been sleeping until at least nine, if not later.
This morning is different. Ilya hears him leave, and he gets out of bed. He feels a tightness in his chest that runs down his arms and makes him clench his fists. He heads into the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror.
For the first time in a long time, he's angry with his mama. He stares at his reflection until he can't stand it anymore. "Why did you leave? Why did you leave me? Why wasn't I enough for you to stay?" he yells in Russian, voice echoing off of the tiles. "Why did you leave me with this hole in my heart and this brokenness in my soul? Why would you do this to me, mama?"
He's getting louder and angrier, and his throat is tight with it as tears burn in his eyes. He bites his lip so hard he tastes blood and it only serves to piss him off further.
"Children aren't supposed to outlive their parents like this! I'm not supposed to get older than you until I'm in my seventies! I'm not even forty yet and you didn't even make it to forty because you fucking left me!"
At the end of his tirade, all of his remaining composure snaps and he drives his fist as hard into the mirror as possible, shattering it with a loud, resounding crack. Where his fist met the glass, a jagged edge has driven itself right into his wrist, slicing open the skin in an awful shape, deep enough that he can see things that one isn't supposed to see within their own bodies. His knuckles are shredded, and the blood is beginning to pour as he breaks, sobbing so hard he can't breathe. He sinks to the floor, cradling his bleeding wrist to his chest, but he does nothing to stop it.
He can't find it in himself to care. All he cares about is that the searing pain makes his brain hurt less as he sobs and sobs, chest wracking with them every time a new one comes through. He feels so broken, so wrong. He doesn't understand why Shane puts up with him—he's too much, he's too neurotic, he's too broken. He doesn't deserve the kind of love he's been given, not if Shane could see the ugly things that live inside of him. He's deluded the poor man into thinking he's some kind of kind, caring man when all he is is broken and angry and selfish.
The way time passes is fuzzy; so much of it is spent crying and swirling the thoughts around in his head that he's useless, that he's worthless and broken, that whatever happens is better than continuing to feel like this. The blood loss is making him woozy, and when he looks down, he sees that his lap is covered in far, far too much blood. He thinks about getting something to staunch it, but when he does, his body just doesn't react. He's full of sand inside, like when he wakes up in the morning and it takes him fifteen minutes just to swing his legs over the side and sit up.
He hears the front door and a new wave of panic arises, sending him into another crying fit. Shane's going to be so mad at him. He's going to think he's pathetic for not even being able to handle his fucking birthday. He's going to get rid of him.
Shane's voice comes from the bedroom first, calling his name. He can hear his foosteps quickly approaching, likely having registered the sound of crying, and when he bursts in, his face goes white.
"Oh my God," Shane gasps, pausing to take in the scene for only a second before he quickly grabs a towel and the belt to his robe.
He's breathing sharp and fast but he's moving, seemingly on autopilot, as he takes Ilya's hand and wraps his wrist to his knuckles, and then secures it tightly with the belt. He takes in the broken mirror and the piece still jutting out of it, covered in blood.
"Can you stand?" Shane asks him, and Ilya sobs harder.
Why is he being so nice? Why isn't he yelling? He's a failure—he should be being punished.
"Come on, baby, I've got you."
Shane crouches down and tucks himself under Ilya's good arm and he lifts, getting Ilya to his feet. He's careful of the pieces of broken glass that litter the floor, walking Ilya through them carefully. There's no time to change his bloody clothes, so Shane just walks his hysterical husband to the door and puts his slides on his feet. He grabs the keys and a hoodie to drape around Ilya, and he practically carries him to the car.
In the passenger seat, Ilya curls up in a ball once he's buckled in, cradling his arm to his chest and crying quietly into the hoodie. Shane dials Galina's number from outside of the car.
"Galina, Ilya hurt himself. It's bad. I'm taking him to the ER. Do you think a psychiatric hold is a good idea?" he asks, voice trembling. He knew it was bad. He knew it was bad but he didn't know it was this bad. He shouldn't have left. Fuck, he shouldn't have left.
"Yes, a psychiatric hold for seventy two hours is the best option in this scenario. Is he okay?"
"I don't know," he says and his voice breaks. "I have to get going. Thank you. I'll make sure they keep you up to date."
Shane gets into the car and immediately hits reverse, pulling out of the driveway much faster than is necessary. He heads to the good ER near their house.
"I'm so sorry I left this morning," Shane says. He doesn't care that he's sweaty and that he probably smells. His skin itches with it but that doesn't matter right now. What matters right now is that Ilya is beginning to slowly bleed through the towel and they're still ten minutes away.
He doesn't even know what he talks about as he drives. He just fills the silence, making sure Ilya knows he's here, that he's not mad, that he loves him. He's never seen Ilya this bad before and it's terrifying because he can't fix it. He doesn't know what to do to make things better and it makes him feel like he's dying inside.
Getting Ilya out of the car is a bit of a struggle, but he gets him inside and they quickly take him to triage because of the severity of the wound. When they unwrap it, Shane balks and has to look away.
It's jagged and torn, and deep enough that there might be lasting damage. He prays not. He prays that this damn breakdown doesn't end up effecting Ilya's hockey, because Ilya will forever feel like a failure for it. He knows his husband well enough to know that it'll hurt him deep inside forever if that happens.
Ilya has stopped crying in favor of staring blankly and not responding at all to anything that he's asked. Shane speaks for him, telling them what he found, what he saw, and how Ilya was reacting when he found him on the bathroom floor.
They clean the wound with saline solution, irrigating any tiny particles of glass that may be inside of it before numbing the area with lidocaine. They have to make internal stitches first, and then he gets fourteen perfect stitches, and a couple on a few other spots on his arm. They treat his fingers, cleaning them, disinfecting them, and bandaging them. His feet get checked for glass, but luckily he avoided it.
They put him in an observation room until the on-call psychiatrist can come talk to him. Shane turns on the TV, picking some old VH1 countdown show for its neutrality. He sits down beside Ilya's bed where he's curled up again and he strokes his hair.
The exhaustion must have finally kicked in, because after thirty minutes, Ilya falls asleep. Shane takes that time to step outside and call his parents.
Yes, I think it was intentional. No, he did not try and stop the bleeding. Yes, I'm going to suggest a psych hold. No, you do not need to come down. He's already fragile enough without other people here. Yes, I know you love him, but please do this for me, mom. I love you.
When Ilya wakes, Shane manages to cajole him into eating a granola bar. He takes it apart in little pieces and eats them, like it's less offensive that way. He won't look Shane in the eyes, afraid of what he'll see there. Maybe he's being nice because they're technically still in public. Maybe he doesn't want to seem like a bad husband in front of the doctors. But it's coming. It has to be coming. This is the end.
The psychiatrist shows up about ten minutes later. She's a nice woman named Dr. Hsiao.
"Hello, Ilya. I see you've hurt yourself. Was that intentional?"
Ilya shrugs a little bit.
"Were you trying to kill yourself?"
He hesitates before shrugging again.
"Do you know why you wanted to kill yourself?"
This time, he nods a little bit.
Shane is barely holding it together in the corner, but he's managing because he has to. They can't both fall apart at the same time. He has to be strong for Ilya because no one else will.
"I think the best course of action from this point is to admit you for a 72 hour hold," Dr. Hsiao says. "We're going to get you on some medication that should help and get you on the path to feeling better, okay?"
He looks up at her finally. "I'm not crazy," he croaks. "I'm not."
Dr. Hsiao looks at him with a gentleness in her eyes. "You're not crazy, Ilya. You're sick. There's a difference. Just like with the flu, we want you to get better. We're going to work hard to help you start to get better."
"Okay," he says softly. He knows it's a losing battle. He's not going to win this one.
"I'm going to be on your team of doctors in the ward, okay? You can always talk to me."
She reminds him of Yuna, and it immediately makes him feel better. He nods and says okay again.
"I'm going to get that transfer started, and within the hour you should be being moved, okay? We've got several beds open, luckily, so it should also be pretty quiet on the ward for right now."
He feels sick about going into the ward. He remembers, as a young boy, looking up at the mental hospital on the edge of Moscow. People who went there usually never came back out, and when they did, they were worse than before. Mama had been almost sent there, but she had begged and pleaded and promised she would be better as long as papa didn't send her.
The next week she was dead.
When they're left alone again, Ilya finally looks over at Shane.
"You are angry," Ilya says softly.
Shane pauses in his spiral to look up at him, brow furrowed. "Angry? I'm not—I'm not angry, Ilya. I'm scared. You scared the living shit out of me. I thought—-I thought you were dying."
"Maybe I was," he whispers. "Would that be so bad?"
Shane gapes like a fish for several seconds. "Yes, it would be so bad! Losing you is the worst fucking thing I can imagine on the entire planet, Ilya. Losing you would destroy me so badly I don't know how I would function. Mom and Dad would mourn you forever. Svetlana would be heartbroken. Your team, our team, Ilya, they love you so much. Yes, you dying would be bad!"
He realizes he's gotten loud and he lowers his voice and rubs his eyes. "Losing you would be like losing part of myself."
Ilya stays quiet and just looks at his lap. Tears stream silently down his face.
Shane gently wipes them away. "I'm so sorry I left this morning. I thought you would sleep through it like you normally do."
"Is not your fault," Ilya tells him. "Is mine. I am stupid."
"You're not stupid, Ilya. You're in pain. You're in so much pain and I don't know how to fix it."
"I cannot be fixed."
"You don't need fixing, Ilya. Your problems do. There's nothing wrong with you. You're sick, and we just need to… we need to find the right thing to fix the sick."
"I am broken," he whispers. "Into so many pieces."
"Then I'll be there to pick them up," Shane murmurs, wrapping his arms around his husband. "You aren't alone in this, Ilya. Not anymore. I'm always going to be there."
"You cannot promise that. You cannot promise you won't get tired of this."
"I can and I will promise that, because it's true. I'm not leaving you just because you're mentally ill, Ilya. I'm not. I love you, all of you, and that includes the bad voices in your brain. When I said I would love you forever, I meant forever. Through everything."
Ilya still doesn't know if he can believe him right now, but he lets himself be held. It offers the only comfort he can come by right now. Shane's arms are home and always will be home, and he's going to be without them for at least three days. That almost hurts more than the fact that he's going into a facility itself.
Within the next hour, Ilya is being put into a wheelchair (it's protocol), and Shane is kissing him goodbye with the promise to call every single night. They've warned against him visiting so that Ilya can focus on his treatment and be less distracted. Shane begrudgingly accepted the conditions.
When Ilya has finally been wheeled away, Shane collapses against the wall in the hall of the ER, hyperventilating and sobbing. He rocks back and forth and clamps his hands over his ears to try and shut out the noise. It's just too much. Today has been too much. His skin itches. His clothes are dirty. His brain is static. He's wracked with guilt.
He's only there for a few minutes before a kind nurse is gently touching his arm, crouched in front of him. She walks him through breathing, evening out some of the panic. When she's sure he's not going to pass out, she helps him to his feet and leads him to the quickest exit to the parking lot so he can get the fuck out of here. He thanks her and hurries to his car.
He doesn't remember driving anywhere, but he ends up at his parents house. When he walks in, he collapses in his dad's arms and begins crying again. His mom hurries over to his side and the both of them hug him tight despite how gross he is.
When he's done crying, he's sent to go shower and change because he's going to go crazy if he doesn't get out of these clothes. When he exits the shower, his mom is making him miso soup. It goes against his diet, but right now he doesn't give a flying fuck. He needs something comforting and his mom's miso is at the top of the list.
He curls up on the couch under a blanket, stroking the fabric between his fingers to quiet his brain. He idly notices he's slightly rocking, but he doesn't try to stop himself like he normally does. He needs it so badly right now as he works to regulate his system. He's barely restraining himself from hitting himself in the head to try and make the noise stop. He knows how upset his parents get when that happens, which is why he forced himself to only do it in private after he got old enough to realize how distressed it made his parents.
A hot bowl of miso is put in front of him on the coffee table, along with a glass of iced green tea. He eats slowly, letting the flavor distract him from everything else. He can sense his parents want to talk, but talking just isn't in the cards right now. It feels like there's a clamp on his vocal chords.
When he's done with his soup, he retreats to his room and curls up there instead. His mom comes in to cover him up and kiss him on the forehead. She tells him she loves him and then leaves him alone, which he deeply appreciates.
And then, for the first time all day, he lets himself cry. He lets himself sob over what just happened, over Ilya wishing he was dead and not caring if it happened or not. He sobs over not noticing just how bad things were, over leaving that morning, over everything.
He sobs for what he could have lost.
But he has hope for what is to come.