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Why did he decide Shane should come over tonight? Because he’s Ilya’s boyfriend of course, and free time during hockey season is hard to come by.
His mistake felt even greater when Shane rang the doorbell. His thighs- his fucking thighs! Maybe somewhere else would be less obvious, but no.
Maybe he can just have Shane face away the whole time- no. That would simply be impossible.
Ilya opens the door, feeling a heaviness on his heart. How was he going to face this? Their sex life was great, basically every time they saw each other, they fucked. So how could he excuse himself from sex today?
“Moya lyubov.” Ilya says softly, pulling Shane in for a hug as he walks inside. He was smiling, but Shane immediately saw how it didn’t reach his eyes. He hadn’t been okay for a while, not since Halloween at least. But it was really starting to show, he just never knew how to approach it.
Instead, he simply accepted the hug, squeezing him tighter than he ever had before.
The two pulled apart, Ilya taking Shane in with such adoration. He was mostly taking in the moments before everything would change, before he had to tell Hollander some form of the truth; that he wasn’t doing okay, and that they couldn’t fuck. If he could be totally honest, the second one hurt him more.
Ilya took Shane’s hand and led him to the couch.
“Do you want to order dinner tonight? I am hungry but cannot cook tonight. Maybe we can watch movie and relax?” Ilya suggested as they sat down. Shane smirked at him.
“What does relaxing entail?” He asked suggestively. Fuck, those were not the right words.
“I mean it, Hollander. Just- how do you say, like warm and fuzzy, old cartoon?” Ilya responded.
“Wholesome?” Shane asked with a bit of a giggle.
“Yes, wholesome night.” He said with a smile.
Shane thought to himself, maybe that’s just what he needs tonight? But sex is usually what he wants in every situation. Mad, happy, whatever.
But he decided to leave it, he was a bit upset that there was no fucking, he could feel his cock start to get hard on the way here, but he could wait for another time. He decided to leave his emotional prying for later in the night.
About an hour later, the two were cuddled up, eating Chinese food. Ilya wanted pizza, but Shane needed to keep up his rabbit food diet, so they compromised. They were watching E.T, Shane couldn’t believe he had never seen it. But then again, most of the North American pop culture he keeps up with is recent, not some old movie. He wasn’t expecting to resonate so much with some alien. But he had always felt that way. With a strange accent, coming from a far away land where everything was different from normal life, he felt detached from the world. He too wanted to put on a wig and hide in a stash of stuffed animals.
They had gotten close to the end when Ilya started to cry. Not heavily, but a tear silently streamed down his cheek and his breathing became more intense, which Shane immediately noticed. The scene was E.T and Elliot being separated by scientists, and E.T was dying. Elliot was Shane in that moment. He felt like without him, he could just collapse, like there was nothing outside of their little world—except hockey, but that still included Shane—that meant anything to him, and it scared him, a lot.
Shane turned to Ilya, grabbing the remote and pausing the T.V. He cupped Ilya’s face, pulling him into a hug, whispering sweet nothing into his ear.
For once, Ilya let himself go, he let the sobs envelop him, it felt so good, but so embarrassing. He hates knowing Shane was seeing him like this, he wanted to show that he was okay.
“I am not okay.” Ilya whispered while crying.
“I know, and that’s perfectly okay. I’m right here.”
* * *
After five minutes of hugs and cuddles, Ilya was relatively recovered. Shane finally pulled away, trading the touch for simply holding Ilya’s hand.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Shane offered. Ilya could tell he was trying to be very nonchalant about this offer, like the stakes of what he would share weren’t in the stratosphere.
“I-“ Ilya paused for a few moments, he looked down at Shane’s hand and decided to be brave.
“I am becoming like my mother.”
Shane nodded, his eyes were so hurt, he just wanted to give Ilya another hug. But he stayed silent, waiting for the other to continue.
“I do not want to do what she did. Not right now. But I feel like I am starting to get close to that point, and I don’t want to.” He took a deep breath, why was he going to say this?
“It was hard last night, to not- to not do that,” he was struggling to get the words out, saying it out loud really made it real, “so I did something else, and I feel like it’s worse.” He said, trying to keep his tone as interacts possible. The breaths he had to take every few words and the near stutters from him basically prying the words out of his mouth gave away his emotions. Or the fact that he had just sobbed for 5 minutes.
Shane squeezed Ilya’s hand even tighter, he was scared to ask this question but he did anyway. “What did you do?”
“I took a box cutter to my thigh.” He said matter of factly, tears welling up. Shane could tell he was trying to minimize it as much as he could. But this was serious.
“Oh, Ilya-“ Shane said, he didn’t know what to do in all honesty. He has a whole charity about this and Shane Hollander had no idea what to do.
So he did what he knew best, he wrapped Ilya in a big hug, softly rubbing his back and planting a long kiss on his cheek.
Ilya’s voice cracked as tears fell again. “I wanted the thoughts to go away, but it just keeps reminding me every time I see them. Prosti menya, mama.”
Shane had been studying Russian for around a year now, he wasn’t that good, but he knew what Ilya said in that moment, “I’m sorry, mama.” So Shane told him what he will always know to be the truth.
“Ona tebya proshchayet.” She forgives you.
Ilya pulled back, he was always shocked when Shane spoke Russian. But this, he couldn’t take it.
“It’s like she’s speaking through you right now.”