Work Text:
Things start to go wrong when Ilya busts his knee.
It’s not even that bad an injury. Partial tear in the MCL, terrible, dangerous, needs to be rested absolutely for at least two weeks, blah, blah, blah. Over the years, Ilya’s had at least a dozen teammates who have torn their MCL. It’s not great, but, in the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty minor.
You wouldn’t know it, by the way Shane reacts. At first, Shane frets over Ilya like he’s a critically ill consumptive liable to swoon over into his grave at any moment. He guides Ilya up onto the medical examination table, he guides him off of it. He insists Ilya sling his arm over Shane’s shoulder when he limps to the bathroom, so he can keep all his weight off his hurt leg. When they get to the hospital for the MRI, Shane opens Ilya’s car door and unbuckles Ilya’s seatbelt. In the doctor’s office, waiting for the doctor to appear, Shane brushes his thumb over Ilya’s cheekbones. His eyes glimmer in the LED lights.
Then the results come back, with the diagnosis of two weeks of rest, and all of the sudden Shane decides that he’s mad at Ilya, actually.
It doesn’t shock Ilya. It wasn’t really his fault, the injury, but he can’t claim he played no part in it. It was stupid goddamn Hyde, the newest dumb fuck claimed by the Toronto Guardians. He’s, like, three years old and from the corn-fed part of America that’s still convinced sodomy is a crime against God. They’d barely made it ten minutes into the game before Hyde had boarded Ilya, hard, under the thinnest pretense of jockeying for the puck, and while he’d Ilya pressed up against the glass, he had whispered in his ear, “How long do you think it’ll take before you make Hollander kill himself, too? I give it a year.”
And so, yeah, Ilya had hit him. He didn’t even think about it. It wasn’t because he felt angry, or upset, or afraid; he felt nothing at all. One moment, Hyde was pressing into Ilya’s back, with his stupid terrible breath and what is probably a tiny, pathetic dick underneath all that padding, and then everything went white. When Ilya came back into himself, he was sprawled on his back on the ice, arms curled over his face to protect himself from Hyde’s meaty fists.
When the ref finally pulled them apart, Hyde’s nose was fountaining blood all over the ice, a Jackson Pollock massacre. Ilya tried to stagger to his feet, but his left knee buckled under the movement, and when he tried again, he got the same result. By then, the medics had arrived and were telling him not to move.
“I’ll be fine,” Ilya had said, when Shane stooped at his side. “Tell the team to avenge me.”
“Shut up, you drama queen,” Shane snapped back, and followed him off the ice.
In the end, the Centaurs lost the game. Two goals given up in third period, a narrow win for the Guardians in a game they should have been destined to lose. Ilya is lucky they send him right to the hospital, so he doesn’t have to look his teammates in the eye.
“What did he say to you?” Shane had asked, in the little white hospital room, as they waited for the orderlies to come take Ilya to the MRI machine.
Ilya shifted uncomfortably, paper crinkling under his half-bare ass. “He was talking about you,” Ilya had said, and Shane’s mouth had twisted, gaze flicking away. Maybe that was where things started to go wrong. Shane hated it when Ilya fought for him. He found it emasculating, Ilya thought, like he was some princess in a castle instead of Ilya’s equal; he definitely found it amateurish. The first rule of hockey is not to respond to chirps. How could Ilya call himself the second-best player in the world when he sometimes couldn’t even manage that?
Of course, Ilya knew that Shane was probably imagining the comment had been something as simple as a slur. They’d both heard plenty of those over the years, and Shane would hate to lose to a team like the Guardians for such an uninventive comment. Ilya could probably tell Shane what Hyde had actually said, and Shane would soften towards him, dissolving like wet paper under Ilya’s hot touch. But he can’t fathom actually saying it aloud. He thinks you will kill yourself to get away from me, Ilya imagines saying to Shane. In his head, these conversations always happen under the cover of darkness, in their bed, their hands clasped together under the blankets. He thinks I will do to you what I did to my mother.
But they get back to the house and the first thing Shane says, after he dumps their gear bags in the laundry room, is, “I’m sleeping in the guest room tonight.”
So, okay. Ilya wasn’t going to say anything anyway, but he’s definitely not going to say anything now, because then it would sound like a guilt trip, and Ilya does enough of those already. He watches Shane head up to bed, and then Ilya limps his way into the downstairs guest suite, because he can’t climb the stairs by himself.
Wiebe calls Ilya the next morning, fifteen minutes before he’s supposed to leave for practice.
“I talked things over with Terry,” Wiebe starts, and Ilya has a moment of stomach-plummeting panic where he thinks Wiebe is going to say that Ilya has been misdiagnosed and actually has a much more severe injury than anyone had thought. Then he continues, “He agrees that it’s best to try to get total rest for your knee, especially in these first few days. You’ve been ordered to stay at home, ideally on bed rest, until Thursday.”
Ilya does some quick mental math. “But that’s five days,” he says, with dawning horror.
Wiebe huffs a laugh. “You know, some guys would appreciate an impromptu five-day vacation,” Wiebe says. “Just try to enjoy it, okay? Watch some movies. Catch up on sleep. We’ll be here when you get back.”
Ilya makes it all of one day before he starts to fray. Shane seems annoyingly disinterested in the development, humming noncommittally when Ilya shares the news and saying, “Well, enjoy your break, I guess.”
Which infuriates Ilya for reasons he can’t explain. As payback, he steals Shane’s credit card and uses it to sign up for every streaming service available in Canada and a few that aren’t. He spends a good hour scrolling through them all trying to find something good to watch before he gives up, throws the remote across the room, and takes a few melatonin to sleep the day away.
Of course, that means that by the time night rolls around, he’s not tired at all. He spends most of the first night lying in bed with Anya on his chest, slowly stroking her silky coat and practicing box breathing.
Day two is marginally better, in that Ilya makes himself stay up most of the day watching some terrible reality television show on Netflix about people who get married to strangers and then treat them like shit. Around four, he heads into the kitchen and starts banging together some pasta as an apology dinner. He’s halfway through making the sauce when Shane emerges from the gym, sweaty and frowning, and says, “You’re not supposed to be on your feet. Do you want to stay injured?”
So the half-made pasta sauce goes down the kitchen drain and they both eat meal preps for dinner. On day three, Ilya and Shane aren’t supposed to have practice, so they had made plans to go to Montreal to see the Pikelings. Shane finds him in the kitchen, sipping a mug of coffee, and says, “It won’t be good for your knee to drive. You should just stay here for the day.” And Ilya gets another day of reality TV.
Ilya considers confronting Shane, of course. In the three years that they’ve been married, Ilya and Shane have never slept in separate beds for more than there nights, except when one of them is traveling. Whatever this is, it’s getting ridiculous, and, at the same time, it’s increasingly clear that Shane isn’t going to do anything about it by himself. Sometimes he needs Ilya to draw him out of himself: needle him until his emotions rise to the surface and pop out of him like a zit. Sometimes, you need to excise the bad.
But at the same time, Ilya is sure that if they actually have this argument right now, he is going to have to tell Shane what Hyde said, and then he is going to cry. And he doesn’t want to cry in front of Shane, not right now. He’s been feeling more emotional lately; he’s not sure why. Maybe because it’s the winter, which is always the worst time of the year for Ilya’s depression. Maybe it’s his meds. Terry has been talking about changing them, lately, but Ilya has been putting it off, because it’s a risk and because just the thought of tapering off his current meds and onto something new is exhausting. If he’s this bad with help, what’ll he be like with nothing at all?
So he says nothing, and he waits.
On day four, Ilya tries to lure Shane back into their bedroom by limping into the living room, completely nude and still wet from the shower, while Shane is watching old tape. He stands right in front of the TV so that Shane can’t help but look at him. “We should fuck,” he says.
Sure, it’s hardly romantic, but Shane’s well past the point of needing romancing, if he ever did. It’s not like it was very romantic, Ilya stroking his cock in front of him in the lukewarm water of the locker room showers. But though Shane’s gaze flicks down to Ilya’s cock, though his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, his jaw is set.
“I’m busy,” he says. “And you’re not supposed to do anything that can fuck with your knee.”
Ilya raises his eyebrows. “My knee?”
Shane huffs. “Yeah,” he says. “You know, that whole ligament you tore a few days ago? Remember that?”
Shane once fucked Ilya two hours after he had his shoulder dislocated during a game. The medics had popped it back into its socket, given Ilya a sling, and sternly informed him he wasn’t to exert himself for at least a week, to which he had nodded and agreed and then had prompted gone home and bent Shane over the edge of the couch and fucked him until Shane came on his cock untouched.
“There are lots of ways to fuck, Hollander,” Ilya says, because he doesn’t want to say that and then have Shane say well, I don’t want you as much as I did back then. “I am sure we can figure something out.”
But Shane presses his lips together and shakes his head. “Not tonight,” he says. “Now can you get out of the way? I need to rewatch this bit with Jorgensen.”
Ilya goes to bed humiliated, with a thorned shame twisting in his stomach that he hasn’t felt in a very long time. That night, he dreams his father has come back from the dead as a zombie and has arrived in Canada to tell Ilya about his doomed future as a bum hockey player. He flits around Ilya’s kitchen making tea, half-rotted bits of flesh falling off his arms to the floor, where they’re quickly snapped up by Anya. Ilya, perched on the kitchen stool that he can’t get down from without assistance, is stuck listening to him ramble, for hours.
He’s annoyed at his subconscious when he wakes up. What stupidly obvious symbolism. Fucking uninventive.
He still skips his usual morning tea.
By the time day six rolls around, Ilya feels like kernel of popcorn that’s been roasted over a stove for far too long. If he doesn’t get out of this fire, he’s going to fucking pop. Luckily, Terry has agreed that Ilya should come into the rink for an evaluation of his knee. Shane drives him in, early, before practice, when the world outside the window is mostly grey and tired with dawn. Ilya reaches across the gearshift and squeezes Shane’s thigh. Shane makes a little sighing noise, but otherwise doesn’t respond.
“It looks good,” Terry says, prodding at Ilya’s knee. “Good healing. Keep doing what you’re doing, and you could be back on the ice in, oh, ten days, maybe?”
Ilya’s heart sinks. “More rest?” he says. “Terry, if I have to watch more Netflix, I think I will literally go insane.”
Terry laughs. He’s a very joyful guy, Terry. Like a skinny Santa Clause. He’ll be a good grandfather some day. “I know it’s boring, but it’ll be worth it. I’m going to recommend you stay home from tomorrow’s road trip to rest this knee up, and then after that we can talk about getting you back onto the ice.”
Ilya thinks about being stuck home alone while Shane is off in California with the rest of the Centaurs. Ilya thinks about Shane nursing a ginger ale at a bar and confiding in Bood that things have gotten exhausting in their marriage, lately. That Ilya has gotten exhausting. Ilya thinks of lying in bed by himself and watching more stupid TV and then lying awake all night, staring at the ceiling, thinking of his mama.
He waits around at the rink for Shane to drive him home. At a red light, almost home, Ilya says, “So Terry wants me to stay home from the road trip.”
Shane hums. The light turns green. Shane hits the gas. “That sounds smart.”
Ilya picks at the cuticle on his thumb. “I think maybe I will go anyway. Will be good for the team to have their captain there, you know.”
Shane shoots him a look, but Ilya’s gaze is fixed out the window, watching the grey landscape rolling by. Shane turns into their neighborhood, and things get marginally more cheery, but only marginally: winter in Ottawa can be so depressing. Nothing green, not even pine trees. It reminds Ilya a bit of Russia, except for all the ways it’s different.
“You’re not going on the road trip,” Shane says. “If Terry says you need to rest your knee, then you need to rest your knee.”
“Oh, so you’re my father, now?” Ilya snaps. Shane doesn’t say anything. Ilya waits as they pull into the driveway, into the garage, the door closing behind them. Shane gets out of the car and moves as if to open the door for him but Ilya shoves him away. “I’ve got it,” he huffs, limping to his feet. Shane presses his lips together, nods, and turns abruptly to stalk away.
Inside, Ilya finds him in the kitchen, standing over the sink. He’s not actually doing anything, just gripping the edge of the counter with his head bent. “You’re being an asshole,” Ilya says, and Shane says, “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to act like you give a fuck about me,” and it startles Ilya. The real venom in his voice. Slick and hot as blood.
“What the fuck?” Ilya demands. On the list of things he expected Shane to say, this wasn’t it. “When do I ever act like I don’t give a fuck about you? I am fucking obsessed with you, everyone says it!”
“Sure, you’re obsessed with my dick and my ass and making sure nobody else wants to fuck me,” Shane says. He whirls around, glaring. “I’m sure that’ll be real helpful when you’re a lunatic with CTE because you can’t stop pissing people off on the ice and meanwhile I’m, what, forty-five and miserable?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Ilya manages, when he can speak again. “I’ve only had three concussions in my whole fucking career! And I didn’t even touch my head this time, I’m not an idiot, I know how to fall—“
“Oh, yes, you know how to fall, that’s why your knee is busted open like a fucking cantaloupe,” Shane snaps. “That’s great, wow, I am so reassured.”
“Sorry, I did not realize my job when I was injured was to reassure you,” Ilya retorts. “Are you not getting enough attention? Is it too difficult to not be the center of the fucking universe for two fucking minutes?”
Shane rears back like he’s been slapped. His eyes are suddenly watery, his jaw working hard, and Ilya doesn’t even really care. When you’re a lunatic with CTE, Shane had said, like he doesn’t know dementia and CTE are closely intertwined, like he doesn’t know the results of the DNA test that showed Ilya has a high risk of Alzheimer’s, like he doesn’t see the stupid fucking sudoku games Ilya plays on the plane to keep his mind sharp, like he didn’t hear Ilya ask the doctor the last time his antidepressant medications were increased, does this change my risk for—my chance of—forgetting—
“You know what, yeah,” Shane says. “Yeah, I am fucking mad about that because as far as I can tell you didn’t spare so much as one fucking thought for me before you started ramming on Hyde. You just thought about yourself and your own stupid anger.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Ilya says, pressing a hand over his heart. “I am so sorry that I dared to do one fucking thing that wasn’t about you. I’ll make it up to you, what do you want me to do? Give you the fucking captaincy? Move to another team, in another fucking country? Please, Shane, tell me how I can prove to you that I care.”
“You asshole,” Shane says, and there’s a tear on his cheek now. “I can’t fucking talk to you right now. You fucking prick.”
Ilya rolls his eyes. “Oh, yes, that will help. Yes, run away, just like you always do, I’m sure that’ll make everything better—“
“Fuck you,” Shane hisses, whirling on his heel. “Don’t follow me.”
Then he disappears.
It takes a good five minutes for enough of Ilya’s anger to dissipate for him to start to feel vaguely guilty. For a while yet, though, the guilt still pales in comparison to the self-righteous anger. Ilya goes downstairs to the homey gym and does an arm workout—which he’s probably not supposed to do, but fuck it, it can’t hurt his knee that much—and the adrenaline and pumping blood only makes him more riled. Texts start to come in in the Centaurs’ group chat at the end of the workout, reminding the rookies not to miss the flight rolling out in two hours. Sacramento. The team will be there, and Ilya will be here, all by himself. Well, him and Anya. Not that he can even treat her right. With his knee the way it is, they’ve had to hire a dog walker. He can barely let her out into the backyard to piss.
Ilya sees a text from Shane in the group chat: On my way, be there in ten. When Ilya totters back upstairs, he finds the house empty and quiet, Anya lounging on her dog bed, licking at her freshly-refilled Kong toy.
“Well, Anya,” Ilya tells her, light as he can manage. “I guess it’s just you and me.”
That’s when the first tendrils of unease start to set in.
It’s not like Shane, to leave without letting Ilya know. Even when he’s pissed, he’d normally send Ilya a text directly, or at least call out to tell Ilya when he was leaving. Maybe he did, and Ilya just didn’t hear him over his music. Maybe Shane assumed Ilya was ignoring him, so he didn’t repeat himself. Maybe he thought Ilya had gone out.
Ilya replays their argument in his mind. Shane had accused Ilya of not caring about him. And Ilya had—what? Said he shouldn’t have to care about Shane, pretty much. Said he had cared enough in the past and now he should be free of it. Of caring. About his husband.
It sounded like something a man would say in a romantic drama shortly before the female main character realizes she deserves better. It sounds like the sort of thing Ilya’s father might have thought, after he married Ilya’s mother.
Ilya sinks down beside Anya’s dog bed.
She clambers into his lap immediately, obligingly, snuffling her wet nose along his chest. He burrows his fingers behind her ears, scratching hard, trying to smile. “Yes, pretty girl, I know, I have been neglecting you. You need more pets. Okay, okay.”
It makes him feel better, for a little bit. But then the dog walker comes by to take Anya out for her evening walk, and Ilya goes into the kitchen to heat up his stupidly healthy premade meal, and as he’s staring at it rotate in the microwave he’s seeing the shadow of Shane standing behind him, fork in hand, laughing at something Ilya has said. I can’t look at you right now, Shane had said. Forty-five and miserable.
Shane’s not forty-five but he could be miserable. He could already be on the path there. You can see where you’re going, sometimes, before you get there. Ilya has never been strong enough to stop himself when he sees where he’s going, but Shane is different. Maybe Shane actually would turn his life around. Maybe Shane would be willing to say, I see where we’re going, and it’s not someplace good, and so we’re going to cut this off before we get there. When we still have some fond memories, you know?
Ilya imagines playing on the Centaurs with Shane, post-divorce. He wouldn’t be able to do it, surely. It would be too tense on the ice, to say nothing of the locker room. One of them would have to move, and Ilya wouldn’t make Shane do it, not when he was the one who fucked up their marriage, so it would be him. Probably he would just retire form hockey altogether. How could he ever get on the ice again when everything about it made him think of Shane? He’d retire, and he’d retreat with his ill-gotten Canadian passport to some far corner of the country where nobody would recognize him or care about him. Newfoundland, maybe. The Yukon Territory. He could adopt a bunch of old sled dogs and live in a horribly depressing, freezing climate that made him sad every day, which was good, that would be good penance, and Ilya would eke out maybe a few years, long enough for Shane to start to forget about him, before he’d shoot himself in the head and end it all. By then, when Shane found out, it would hurt, but not as much as it could have. A stinging wound instead of a true ache. The Centaurs would play a memorial game in his honor, which they would win, and they would go on to get the Stanley Cup and one of the players, maybe Bood or one of the more sentimental rookies, would dedicate the Cup to Ilya in their speech, and that would be the end of it. Things would be over.
The doorbell rings, startling Ilya out of his stupor. It’s the dog walker, back with Anya. The microwave has long finished its lazy rotations, and Ilya’s dinner has gone cold.
He takes Anya, and thanks the dog walker. He eats most of his cold dinner. Anya retreats to her bed by the fireplace, sighs, and settles in for sleep. Ilya breaks out a bottle of vodka. He has one drink, then two. Then the bottle runs out.
Small restraints: he doesn’t go get another one. Instead, he goes upstairs and lays in his bed and stares at the ceiling. It’s his normal bedtime, and yet he doesn’t feel like he could sleep at all. He feels like he’s existing in some dark, liminal space that isn’t really real. He feels like he could float off at any moment. The bedsheets are cold and every time he shuffles his legs it’s like a shock to his system, his skin seeking out the warm dryness of Shane’s hairy calves.
He looks at the clock. It’s one in the morning. Then it’s two. Ilya turns over onto his stomach, back to his back, onto his side, these crab-like, twisting configurations. It’s three in the morning. Then it’s almost four. Ilya had left the bathroom light on before he went to bed and he can’t stop looking at it and thinking about what’s in there. A warm shower. A toilet to puke into. A medicine cabinet with massive bottles of ibuprofen, purchased in bulk for the needs of professional athletes, more than enough to choke the life out of somebody.
Ilya reaches over to the bedside table and, with great effort, picks up the phone and dials Shane’s number.
The line rings long enough that Ilya thinks Shane isn’t going to pick up.
“What the fuck,” Shane says, in lieu of a greeting. “It’s four in the morning.”
Ilya’s eyes slip closed, and his head thunks back against the headboard. It’s stupid, the effect that hearing Shane’s voice has on Ilya’s heart, even now, as guilt curls through his stomach.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya says, and means it. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Well, what did you think would happen, calling me in the middle of the night?” Shane huffs. Ilya can hear rustling in the background, then footsteps as Shane treads into the bathroom. Ilya imagines the flick of the light switch; imagines Shane’s tired face illuminated by yellow hotel lights. A second later, Ilya hears the faint sound of Shane pissing. He always drinks a cup of sleepy time tea before bed when he’s on a roadie, even though it inevitably makes him need to piss in the middle of the night. Shane says he had done it the night before his first-ever MLH victory, more than ten years ago now. He’s been sacrificing his sleep at the altar of victory ever since.
“Is there a reason you’re calling me?” Shane asks, as he pisses. “Or is this part of your strategy to win our argument?”
Ilya swallows hard. “Constantinople,” he says.
Ilya had thought it was so dumb, when Galina suggested it. A code word for when his mental health was bad—he and Shane didn’t even have a code word for sex, and Ilya was regularly tying Shane to the bed and slapping his ass until it was as red as a tomato.
Why can’t I just say it’s bad, Ilya had protested, and Galina had said, do you think it will be easier to tell him it’s bad or easier to say Constantinople? Which was a good enough point that Ilya went home and reluctantly told Shane about the scheme. Shane agreed quickly, because he liked things like this, shorthands that let him slip into Ilya’s mind more easily, the reassurance that there was a dragnet ready to catch Ilya if and when he fell.
Ilya hadn’t actually imagined himself ever using the code word, but in this moment, he finds that Galina was right. There is little else in the world he wants to say less than I am having a mental health crisis and thinking very hard about killing myself.
So. Constantinople it is.
The response from Shane is delayed by his sleepy mind, but Ilya can tell the moment he realizes what Ilya is saying, because there’s a clattering sound like he’s knocked something over. “You—what?”
“Constantinople,” Ilya says again, because he still doesn’t want to say it.
There’s a beat of silence. Ilya can imagine this so clearly, too, Shane’s cock still out of his underwear, the way he must be gaping at himself in the hotel mirror. He’s stopped pissing, at least.
“Okay,” Shane says finally. “Okay, that’s—what’s happening? Tell me what’s happening.”
Ilya looks around himself. There’s not much to tell. Anya is in her dog bed downstairs, the sheets are all rucked up from Ilya’s tossing and turning, and the bathroom light is gleaming at him. It looks very attractive in the darkness, very warm.
“I am feeling very bad,” Ilya says. “And I know we are fighting, and I do not—I know you are mad at me, and is fine. You can be mad at me. But I just am thinking bad things. And I need you to tell me. Tell me—“
“What?” Shane presses.
“I need you to tell me we are going to get through this,” Ilya admits. God, he sounds pathetic. He sounds like everyone’s worst nightmare of a partner, can’t take a simple argument without collapsing, demanding comfort when they’re the one causing the upset. If Ilya was in a relationship with himself, he’d fucking hate it. He wouldn’t last.
“We are going to get through this,” Shane says immediately. “Jesus, Ilya, of course—fuck. Of course we’re going to get through this. It’s one argument, it’s not—I love you. I love you so much. You know that.”
“Right,” Ilya says. And he does know that. It’s just that people who love each other break up all the time. Not Ilya’s parents, certainly—Ilya’s not convinced they ever loved each other at all, but even if they did, divorce was a moot point; Ilya’s father would cut Irina’s hands off before he’d let her walk away from him—but others.
Marly had had a terrible divorce a few years back when he’d cheated on his wife on the road. It was a terrible fucking thing for him to do, of course, and Ilya didn’t blame Christina for divorcing him, for all he outwardly commiserated with Marly, but he always thought the whole mess afterwards was so terrible because they still loved each other so much. Marly had dropped ten pounds in a month during the worst of the court proceedings. Before the news dropped, fans online started speculating that he’d gotten into meth.
Ilya’s still not sure why Marly did it, when he was so clearly in love with Christina; but then, maybe these things didn’t always make sense. Ilya didn’t always feel in control of his own actions. Sometimes he felt like he was just moving on autopilot, his thoughts processing into words as they came out of his mouth, and it wouldn’t surprise him, maybe, to find himself doing something terrible, something he didn’t want, something he couldn’t take back.
“Ilya,” Shane says, sounding so pathetically miserable that Ilya feels terrible all over again.
“Is okay, moya lyubov,” Ilya says, to try to make him feel better. “Is fine. I’m fine. I’m sorry for—everything. I have been being terrible.”
“No, you haven’t,” Shane says, so, so sad. “It was—shit, it was me, too. I said terrible things.”
“Not as bad as the things I said.”
“Shut up and let me apologize,” Shane says. “I’m sorry. I love you, and we’re going to be okay.”
Ilya nods. “Okay,” he agrees. “Now stop feeling bad. Is not—is not your fault my head is broken.”
Shane sighs. “Your head isn’t broken,” he says. “Your head is my favorite head.”
Despite himself, Ilya smiles. “Oh, really, Hollander?”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, it’s four in the morning, my brain isn’t working yet!” Shane huffs, and Ilya can so clearly picture the mixed embarrassment and indignation on his face, the faintest flush to his cheeks, the slight wideness of his eyes. If Ilya was there, he would slip his hands on Shane’s waist and pull him in for a kiss. Maybe tweak one of Shane’s nipples, to make him yelp. Kiss his neck.
“I don’t want you to be alone,” Shane says, and the fantasy comes crashing down.
“I will be fine,” Ilya tells him, and it feels true, now that he had Shane’s voice in his ear, and Shane has told Ilya that he loves him. The bathroom still looks nice, but not in the same way. Maybe Ilya will go take a bath. Or a shower, too-hot, the way Shane likes them.
“I can call my parents,” Shane says.
“No,” Ilya says, immediately. “Jesus Christ, no, definitely not.”
Another gusting sigh. “Someone should be with you,” Shane says. “I know that you don’t want my parents to see you like this, but the team is all here, and Svetlana’s in Boston—sorry, wait, hold on, Hazy’s trying to get my attention.”
Ilya had forgotten that Shane and Hazy were sharing a room this weekend. Ilya’s struck with a sudden wave of guilt for his four a.m. phone call. It’s one thing to wake up your husband before a game. To wake up your teammate is a whole other thing.
“Okay, so Hazy says Lisa can come over,” Shane says. “She’s working a night shift but she can be over at six thirty.”
“Shane, I will be fine on my own,” Ilya insists.
“It’s Lisa or I’m calling my parents.”
Shane, stubborn as a fucking boulder. Ilya sighs. “Fine. Lisa, then.”
He hardly wants to put Lisa out after a long night shift, but she probably takes some time after work to decompress anyway, and by the time she’s ready to go to sleep, the sun will at least be up. The world feels so different when the sun is up. Different the way the world feels different when Shane is around, Ilya thinks, when everything is just a little bit less intimidating.
“Okay, Hazy, he said yes, can you—okay. Okay, Ilya, he’s going to talk to her now. She’ll be there in two hours. In the meantime—“
“Is fine,” Ilya interrupts, before Shane can again suggest Yuna or David. “I can make it two hours.”
“In the meantime,” Shane repeats, “I’m going to stay on the phone with you.”
“For two hours?” Ilya says disbelievingly. “Shane, you should go back to sleep. You have game today.”
“Because I’ll sleep so great wondering whether my husband is at home, killing himself,” Shane snaps. Ilya sucks in a surprised breath, and Shane must hear it, because he’s saying, “Fuck, sorry, I didn’t mean—“
“Yes, you did,” Ilya says. “Is fine. Is true.”
But that doesn’t seem to make Shane feel any better, from the way his breath stutters. When he speaks again, his voice is thick. “Okay. We’re just going to sit here and talk about normal things until Lisa gets there. What, uh—what do you want to talk about?”
Ilya looks around their bedroom helplessly, like a topic will present itself. “I don’t fucking know, Shane,” he says. “You’re the one who wants to talk. You tell me.”
“Okay. Um, okay, um—how is your knee doing?”
“You want to talk about my knee?”
“Look, asshole, I don’t see you coming up with any ideas!” Shane snaps. Then a sigh. “Shit. Sorry.”
“Is fine,” Ilya says. “You’re right. I am asshole. My knee is fine.”
“Fine?” Shane presses.
Ilya shakes his head, even though Shane can’t see it. “I don’t know. It feels better, I guess. I think the ice bath yesterday helped.”
“That’s good,” Shane says, with real relief. “And you’re doing your stretches, right?”
“Yes, mom,” Ilya says.
“Maybe you can do some right now,” Shane continues, undeterred. “While we talk. Yeah?”
It feels very stupid to Ilya. Stretching when he’s thinking about killing himself. But he’s not going to kill himself, which means he will still be here tomorrow, and next week, and next year, probably, unless a drunk driver or freak aneurysm or a rabid goose kill him unexpectedly, and that means he will want a working knee.
“Okay,” Ilya says, without moving. “I’ll do them.”
“Good,” Shane says. “Have you started?”
“Yes,” Ilya lies, looking down at legs, unmoving under the duvet.
“Good,” Shane says again. “Does it hurt? Does it—“
“It feels good,” Ilya says. “A good kind of hurt.”
“Yeah,” Shane says. “That’s right. Just don’t push too hard, okay?”
Ilya closes his eyes, tilting his head back against the headboard. “Okay,” he agrees.
Ilya mostly zones out for the rest of the conversation. They talk about things, and he knows his mouth is moving and words are coming out of his mouth, but he can’t remember a thing that he says. He thinks Shane talks about Seattle’s defensive line, at some point. At some point, the newest X-Squad movie comes up in conversation. There’s a debate about trimming Anya’s nails.
Then, eventually, the doorbell rings. “There’s someone here,” Ilya says.
“That’ll be Lisa,” Shane says. “It’s six-thirty.”
Ilya blinks, surprised, but when he forces himself to his feet and goes to pull back the curtain, Shane is right: the sun is peeking out. The green leaves of the tree outside the window are backlit in stained-glass orange, and Ilya can hear the faint chittering of birds.
“Okay,” Ilya says. “I will go let her in.”
“Okay,” Shane says, softly, and he sounds like maybe he’s going to say something else—he’s got that cadence to his breath, like he’s working up to something. Like there’s something important he wants to say.
“Goodbye,” Ilya says, quickly, and hangs up the phone.
Lisa, when he gets downstairs, looks exhausted. Her hair is a mess, there are dark circles under her eyes, and she’s still wearing her blue scrubs from the hospital, which have a faint, yellow-tinged stain on the front of them. But she’s got a Tim Horton’s box in her arms, and a tray with two coffees, and a smile on her face.
“I ordered DoorDash,” she says. “Looks like it beat me here. You should let me in before your coffee gets cold.”
—
She got him a double-double and three of the cheesecake-filled donuts that are on special at Tim Horton’s this month, which are Ilya’s favorite, so Ilya knows Shane had a role in this. He takes a picture of his plate with Lisa in the background and sends it to Shane with a note saying, I am being stuffed with sugar. Please go to sleep.
The message is read immediately, like Shane had his thread with Ilya open, just waiting for a text to appear.
Three dots show up. Then they’re gone. Back again. Ilya clicks out of the thread before Shane can respond.
“Thank you for the breakfast,” Ilya says, setting his phone face-down on the counter next to him. Lisa has shed her coat, and Ilya can see that she’s still wearing her stained scrubs. Not even enough time to change; what had Hazy said to her, to get her here? She shoves down a honey-glazed crueler like it’s the first thing she’s eaten in hours. It probably is.
“I am host,” Ilya says, picking at his cheesecake donut. “I should be feeding you.”
Lisa rolls her eyes. “Please,” she says. “I know the kind of food Shane keeps stocked here. If you think what I want at the end of a work day is a kale smoothie, you got another think coming.”
Ilya smiles, just a little bit. He should get her a Tim Horton’s gift card to say thank you, maybe. Or, no—she’s a doctor, and her husband is a professional hockey player, money is useless. Food sent to her work, maybe. He can get catering, desserts included, for the whole unit. Schedule it near the end of a long shift, so that the doctors and nurses who haven’t been able to leave to get food have something tasty waiting for them, and the leftovers can be eaten by the next group. Mexican, maybe, or Thai—
“So, do you want to talk about it, or do you want to do something else so we don’t have to talk about it?” Lisa asks, reaching into the donut box for a Boston Cream.
She’s a blunt woman, Hazy’s wife. It's good for him. He needs someone blunt, who can tell him when he needs to shut the fuck up.
“Please, for the love of god, let’s do anything else,” Ilya says, and Lisa laughs, open and remarkably unbothered.
“Do you like movies?”
So twenty minutes later, they’re on the couch, sipping their Tim Horton’s coffee under flannel blankets, watching X-Squad 3: The Red Bandit. Ilya shouldn’t have expected anything else, really, out of Hazy’s wife.
They’re in the middle of a scene where Rose Landry’s character carries out heavy and prolonged eye contact with the Red Bandit when Lisa says, “Tell me about her.”
For a long, hallucinatory moment, Ilya thinks she means his mother. How the fuck did you know about her, he thinks, and then, angrily, why the fuck did you ask if I wanted to talk if you were going to make me anyway?
And then she waves a hand at the screen and says, “I’ve always wondered what it’s like behind the scenes of these things,” and Ilya realizes she means Rose Landry.
He shrugs as casually as he can manage, hoping it conceals his poorly-suppressed panic. “We don’t talk about it much,” he says. “Is more question for Shane. I know she has to eat very strict diet to fit into outfits. And she says most of the directors suck. But she just signed a new contract, so cannot be that bad.”
Lisa tilts her head. “Maybe,” she says. “But Wyatt had it pretty bad, back in Toronto, and he kept signing. Could have gotten out of their earlier if he had tried, but sometimes—sometimes I think it’s hard to see a way out. And the risk can be high.”
Ilya hums. He’s not sure if she’s trying to send some coded message to him through this conversation. If she is, it’s a lost cause: he’s too tired to try to parse it out. Canadians and their subtext: it’s a whole separate language.
“She is doing other movies, soon,” Ilya says, more to fill the silence than anything. “She is more excited for them, I think. For one she will be figure skater.” He makes a face. “Er, I think that is secret. Don’t tell anyone.”
Lisa grins and mimes zipping her mouth shut. “I’m good at secrets. Doctor-patient confidentiality, remember? You wouldn’t believe some of the shit I’ve seen. So many fucking affairs. So many secret cancer diagnoses. So many things stuck up asses.”
Ilya’s eyebrows shoot up. “I thought you were in ped—peed—I thought you worked with children.”
“I do now,” Lisa says. “But I did my residency in an adult ER and, oh boy, you would not believe how many fucking people stick things up their butts without having a plan to get them out.”
“Obviously, you need to tell me more immediately,” Ilya says.
“Only if you promise not to tell anyone else,” Lisa says. She holds out her hand to Ilya, pinky extended. “Deal?”
Ilya links his pinky with hers. “Deal.”
—
Ilya wakes up to the sound of the front door closing.
He forces himself to sit up, rubbing at his eyes. Last he remembered, he and Lisa had just started X-Squad 5: Destructoforce Annihilated. Lisa was walking him through all the injuries of the characters onscreen, and why Captain Universe would have definitely died from a shot to his chest like that, no matter how enhanced his metabolism, and then Ilya—
Ilya must have fallen asleep.
When he looks to the other couch, Lisa is still there, her hair spread out over the pillow, her mouth slack and open. Ilya frowns, stretching his arms over his head to pop his shoulders. If Lisa is still here, then—
“Hey,” comes a whisper from the living room doorway.
Ilya’s half-convinced he’s hallucinating when he turns and sees Shane. He must have left his suitcase by the door, and his shoes, but he’s still wearing his jacket and he’s got a toque pulled down over his ears. He looks tired, his hair messy where it pokes out from under his hat. But he smiles at Ilya, and it seems real.
“Shane?” Ilya hisses back. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Shane’s eyes flit over to Lisa, and he holds a finger to his lips. Ilya crosses the room in a few quick steps, grabs Shane by the wrist, and pulls him into the downstairs office, shutting the door behind him.
“You should be in Sacramento,” he says. “You have a game.”
“Family emergency takes priority,” Shane says. “Why did you think I wasn’t checking in with you this morning? I was on a plane.”
“I thought you were at practice,” Ilya says, dumbly. Also, he wasn’t really looking at his phone. It’s still somewhere in the kitchen, probably, filled with unopened notifications.
“God, you can be so dumb,” Shane says. “Do you really think I would go to a practice without my phone when my husband called me in the middle of the night and told me he was—he was—“ Shane cuts himself off.
Ilya’s stomach twists like a starfish. “That is the last thing I wanted,” he says. “This is worst thing you could do.”
Shane gapes at him. “What the fuck?”
Ilya shakes his head shortly. “Forget it, Hollander,” he says, turning on his heel and stalking out of the room.
Shane follows him, of course, and clearly neither of them are as quiet as they should be because when Ilya comes back into the living room he’s startled to find Lisa pushing herself up from the couch, rubbing at her eye with one hand. “Hey,” she says, and then her eyes catch on Shane behind Ilya, and her face goes through a very complicated series of expressions. “Hey, Shane.”
“Hello, Lisa,” Shane says, voice terse. “Can I get you something to eat? Or something to drink?
Lisa looks between Ilya and Shane for a split second before shaking her head. “Nope, I think this is my cue to be off.”
“Please—“ Ilya starts.
“Oh, you don’t have to—“ Shane says at the same time.
But Lisa is shaking her head vigorously, now, grabbing her sweater from where she’s tossed it over the end of the couch. “No, really, it’s good. I’ll probably sleep better in my own bed anyway. Do you need anything else before I go?”
I need you to stay and be a buffer, Ilya wants to say. I need you to stay so you can talk to my husband instead of me. I need you to give me an excuse to avoid him for at least the next three days.
“No,” Ilya says. “Thank you. For coming.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Shane offers, and Lisa trails him obediently to the door, only pausing briefly to skate a hand over Ilya’s shoulder as she goes.
There’s a hushed conversation between Shane and Lisa as they walk to the front door. Ilya doesn’t try that hard to listen in; he can imagine what they’re saying. Shane is probably thanking her half a dozen times and apologizing for interrupting her schedule; Lisa, an equally polite Canadian, is probably reassuring him it’s no trouble at all. Now Shane is surely asking whether Ilya needs to be committed. Now, Lisa is sharing that, in her professional opinion, Ilya needs to—
What? What does Ilya need? Ilya can’t imagine what she’s saying. All he knows is that if they try to commit him, he’ll run away into the forest, crawl under a log, and die. The mushrooms can eat his body, that way. It’s probably good for the ecosystem, or something.
“If you try to commit me, I will run away,” Ilya says, as soon as Shane steps back into the room. “I will never forgive you. I will divorce you.”
Shane nods. “Okay,” he says, as if Ilya has just reminded him to put oranges on the grocery list.
“I’m serious,” Ilya says. “You cannot do this to me.”
“What even makes you think I want to commit you?” Shane says. “Did Lisa say something to you?”
Ilya huffs. “Lisa does not say shit to me. I am not stupid, Hollander. I call you in the middle of the night telling you I am thinking about killing myself, I know what you will think. You will think, Ilya cannot be alone. You will think you cannot be around all the time to watch me so someone else needs to do it. You will think, maybe it should be a professional. Then suddenly—“ Ilya snaps his fingers. “There I am, in insane asylum.”
Shane presses his lips together and takes a deep breath between his nose the way he does, sometimes, when his mother tries to talk about brand deals in the middle of family dinner. “Okay, first of all, they’re not called insane asylums anymore,” Shane says. “They’re called mental health wards, and you know that, and there’s no reason to be dramatic about it. Second of all, even if I did think you needed to be watched all the time—which, okay, maybe you should be, for a little bit, for your own good, not because I’m your fucking jailer—but even then, why the fuck wouldn’t I be able to watch you?”
Ilya squints at him. “Are you stupid, Hollander? There is this thing, it is called hockey. It is your job, and my job, and the thing we spend all our fucking time on—“
“Stop being such a fucking ass,” Shane snaps. “Why the fuck would hockey be a problem?”
Ilya raises his eyebrows. “Games? Practices? I don’t know if you remember, but my knee is fucking shot—“
“Your knee is temporarily injured, and you’re supposed to be back in two weeks,” Shane counters. “And for those two weeks you can just come to the fucking games and practices! Coach wanted you to stay home to rest, but it’s not fucking mandatory, if we have an away game you can just fly with us to fucking Calgary or whatever—“
Ilya laughs, ugly. “And tell everyone what, Shane? How are we going to explain why I am chasing you around like sad fucking baby duck? Oh, sorry, I just have to keep an eye on your captain so he doesn’t slit his fucking wrists—“
Shane flinches backward, full-bodied, and finally, finally, the look on his face is enough to pull Ilya out of his head for just a moment. Chest heaving, Ilya sees the way Shane’s hands are shaking, the gleaming wetness of his eyes, the trembling, downturned corner of his mouth.
“Fuck,” Ilya says, finally. “Sorry. I’m sorry. This—I am being terrible.”
“No, you’re not,” Shane says, but his voice is hoarse and cracking. He steps forward, and, when Ilya doesn’t flinch back, wraps his arms around Ilya. Ilya sags into his grip embarrassingly quickly, tucking his face against the strong line of Shane’s neck, settling his hands on Shane’s beautiful tapered waist.
“I love you,” Shane says into Ilya’s hair.
“I love you,” Ilya echoes.
“I’m sorry things are so hard right now,” Shane continues, stroking one hand easily up and down the line of Ilya’s spine. It’s very relaxing. Ilya’s mother used to rub his back, when he was very little and had a hard time falling asleep at night. Ilya’s father had made her stop, eventually, determining that six years old was too old to need his mother’s assistance in falling asleep. But she would still do it, sometimes, when Grigoryi and Alexei were both away and she knew there was no one to tattle. When he closes his eyes and focuses, Ilya can still feel it, sometimes, the touch of her delicate fingers along his skinny back.
“I’m sorry I’m being difficult,” Ilya says. Shane immediately tries to pull back, but Ilya just digs his fingers in, grip tight. “I know it is hard for you, when things change. And this is interrupting your plans, your season—“
“Shut the fuck up,” Shane says. There’s a real edge of anger in his voice, but he’s also got a hand in Ilya’s hair, scratching at his scalp like Ilya is giant golden retriever. “I guess it’s my fault that you feel like this, but I don’t know how many more times I have to say it. You’re more important to me than anything. More important to me than hockey.”
It’s a nice sentiment. But—“It would be better, though, if I didn’t make you choose,” Ilya says. “If I could just—figure it out on my own, and you could have both.”
Shane bends his head and bites Ilya’s shoulder. It’s sharp, even through the fabric of Ilya’s t-shirt, and not particularly sexy. It still makes something jolt in Ilya’s stomach.
“Shut up,” Shane commands. “There are lots of things that would be nice. It would be nice if Crowell wasn’t a piece of shit. It would be nice if the Centaurs were good from the get-go so you didn’t need to play three years of terrible hockey. It would be nice if Hunter would finally throw in the towel and fucking retire.” Despite himself, Ilya huffs out a laugh against Shane’s shoulder, and Shane takes the opportunity to press a kiss to his curls.
“The world isn’t perfect,” Shane says. “Sometimes you gotta pick the lesser evil. This isn’t even a hard choice. Between playing a hockey game with fucking Sacramento and taking even the smallest, tiniest chance that something might happen to you—it’s a no-fucking-brainer. Dumbass.”
“That’s not very nice,” Ilya mumbles, but something in his chest relaxes, a little bit. “What did Wiebe say, when you told him were going?”
“Godspeed,” Shane says. “And then he offered to help me look for flights.”
“And the other guys?”
“I don’t fucking care.” Shane grips Ilya by the chin and tips his head up so they can meet each other’s gaze. They’re so close together that their noses are almost brushing. “Ilya,” Shane says.
“I know,” Ilya sighs. “I know, shutting up, now.”
Shane kisses him, probably as a reward. He tastes like airplane pretzels. When they pull back, Ilya says, “There’s Tim Horton’s on the counter, if you want some.”
Shane makes an expression so automatic and so disgusted that it shakes a real laugh out of Ilya. “Sorry, sorry, your face,” he giggles. “If only Canadian public knew their golden boy hated Tim Horton’s. You might actually be first Canadian political prisoner in 21st century.”
“Shut up,” Shane grumbles, smacking Ilya’s ass. “I’m tired, sue me.”
“Me too,” Ilya admits. The nap on the couch wasn’t very restful, and now that he’s not in a state of panic about his marriage he wants nothing more than to sleep for about twelve years, or at least as long as he can persuade Shane to lay in bed with him, wrapped up in his arms.
“Shower first?” Shane asks. So they clomp together up to the shower, where neither of them bothers to do much other than stand under the hot warm spray. Shane brushes his teeth, and elbows Ilya right in the most painful part of his side until he brushes his teeth, too, and then they climb under the covers together, naked.
They’re both too tired to do much, but when Ilya reaches out to grasp Shane’s cock, half on instinct, he hardens quickly under Ilya’s grip. “Ilya,” Shane sighs, tilting his head back, and Ilya says, “Have you been needing it, baby?” And Shane says, “I haven’t come in, like, a week, it’s not my fault.”
It’s nice, under the covers. Like a little rabbit’s den. Shane’s skin, still warm and faintly damp from the shower, pressed against Ilya’s own. He seems too skinny, around his ribs, the concave swoop of his belly, and Ilya wonders if that’s because of the last week, or if it’s just the season dragging on. Shane fumbles lube out of the bedside table, and, lying side by side, facing each other, Ilya takes both of their cocks in one hand.
“Fuck,” Shane groans, as Ilya gives them one pull, then two. “Fuck, I missed this.”
Ilya leans forward to press a kiss in the center of Shane’s collarbone. “I never want you to leave me,” he says.
Shane twists a hand in Ilya’s head. “Never,” he agrees. “Never, never, never, Ilya—“
They both come quickly, and afterwards, Shane gets them a wet washcloth, wipes them clean. He rinses it out in the sink, afterwards, wrings out the excess water, takes it to the laundry hamper. Ilya watches this careful routine with his heart in his throat, and when Shane’s done, he lifts an arm to invite Shane to tuck himself against him.
Shane surprises him, though, by instead nudging Ilya over. He waits until Ilya’s well-situated to sidle up against Ilya’s back, his palm over Ilya’s heart, a steady, reassuring weight.
“We should call Galina, later,” Shane says, voice sleepy.
“Mmhm,” Ilya agrees. “And we should fuck again, too. For real, this time.”
Shane sighs. “Your knee, though.”
“I will lay so still you will think I am mannequin,” Ilya says. “It will be hot. Like roleplay. I will be like sexy blow-up doll.”
“Ew. That’s so gross. I don’t want you to be a blow-up doll, what the fuck.”
Ilya huffs. “My husband is so demanding,” he complains, snuffling back into him a little tighter. “Fine. I will at least blow you, though.”
“Whatever,” Shane mutters. Ilya wishes he were looking at Shane, but also, he doesn’t need to be looking at Shane: he knows he’s blushing anyway. “Like I was saying. Galina. We should talk to her about what she thinks of changing your medication. Or maybe there’s some lifestyle interventions. Exercise you can do without aggravating your knee, to help with endorphins, and—“
“Hollander,” Ilya groans, settling his hand over Shane’s. Their fingers twine together. They’ll be very sweaty when they wake up, later, but right now, Ilya doesn’t mind. “Go the fuck to sleep.”
He does.