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Ilya gets like this sometimes.
He doesn’t know what causes it, but he knows it is something genetic that he cannot control. He thought therapy would fix it like magic, and then he eventually went on the pills he thought would actually fix it, and now he is left wondering if anything is going to fix this big thing that is wrong with him.
He pushes a little harder on the treadmill, upping the speed. He relishes the little way it is starting to feel like too much.
Finally, he hits the emergency stop, stumbling off. He lets himself sink to the ground and breathe through it, shirt soaked with sweat.
It reminds him of a hotel gym, a little competition. He thinks of the stubbornness on Shane’s face that day, and the goofy way he smiled as they pressed harder.
Ilya is alone today. He doesn’t even know where in the house Shane is, but he could guess it is the den, which he has been forbidden from going near. Ilya normally isn’t the kind of loyal that would listen, but it’s a little harder to be mischievous today.
He lets himself have a few more minutes on the floor before he forces himself onto his feet.
The shower is harder than it should be too. Everything is so much heavier and feels so much more… useless.
He looks in the mirror and slaps his cheeks between his hands, trying to snap himself out of it. He is not the kind of man to pity himself.
He is not the kind of man to breathe the despair of his mother.
Ilya knows he has a good life. He has a beautiful husband who he finally plays on a team with and a house and a dog and a family that he would have killed for when he was fifteen and lost to the world, still mourning his mother like it happened the day before. Ilya is out from under his father’s thumb and his brother is quiet on the other side of the ocean and his mother’s cross is around his neck. Ilya feels sometimes that he has no right to feel this way, that he has too much good to make sense of why sometimes he feels so much bad.
He knows that is not true. His therapist has really nailed that into his skull in the last year or so, and he knows that he is logically allowed to feel this way. It is harder to understand logic on these days.
Ilya throws on a pair of sweatpants and little else. He figures he is owed some comfort, especially when he has been banished from cuddling up on Shane like he really wants to. He is eyeing the door to the den with disdain when the door opens a sliver, and Shane slithers out through the gap.
Shane starts. “Jesus, Ilya, how long have you been standing there?”
“Not long,” Ilya confirms, and looks him up and down. He loves Shane in every form but he thinks there is something extra special about how he looks when he is dressed down at home, bare feet and soft shirts and his hair rumpled. “What are you doing?”
“A surprise,” Shane tells him, smiling. “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Tired?”
Very. “No.”
Shane reaches out and touches his face, the bags under his eyes. He leans up to kiss them, and murmurs, “Okay?”
“Fine,” Ilya lies like second nature, even though they both know he is lying. Shane knows him well enough to know it is a bad day.
Shane runs his hands down Ilya’s chest and holds at his waist, squeezing gently. “Close your eyes.”
“I like surprises,” Ilya tells him with gusto, closing his eyes as ordered. “Blowjobs?”
“Come on,” Shane laughs, tugging him by the waist. “I’ll show you.”
Ilya grins as he wanders forward with his eyes closed, navigating his own house with ease. He hears Shane open the door and he wanders through. Shane stops him with firm hands on his chest and a kiss on his neck, and the warmth in Ilya’s chest might not chase away the darkness but it makes it bearable. A light at the end of the tunnel.
Shane steps away. His voice is excited when he says, “Okay, you can look.”
Ilya opens his eyes.
The den has been transformed.
Normally, it is a drab room that they rarely use, one with a couch and a television and some lifeless artwork. All of that is still there, but now the couch has been pushed back, and chairs have been dragged in from the dining room to make—a pillow fort.
Ilya stares at it. Turns to Shane, who is watching him with anticipation, holding his breath as he waits for Ilya’s reaction.
When Ilya still shows nothing on his face, Shane says, “My parents used to make these for me when I had a bad day, when I was a kid.”
And Ilya—breaks.
The good kind of break. The one where the darkness lifts a little to make room for all of the love he has in his heart for this man. The kind of break where his eyes sting and his throat gets thick and he wants to love this man for the rest of his stupid life, and he doesn’t think he can survive another moment without Shane knowing how much he loves him. Ilya feels the darkness splinter.
He has never had these things that Shane has given him. Parents that love him, security to be exactly who he wants to be. He has never had forts made of blankets with a dog laying in it like she owns it, tail wagging happily. He has never had someone who saw he was sad and went out of his way to make the day into something good and kind.
Ilya turns and buries his face in Shane’s neck before he can completely lose it. He wraps his arms around him tight, crushing them together, and Shane’s hands immediately come up to bury in his hair. He kisses Ilya’s forehead reverently.
“Thank you,” Ilya whispers.
“Of course,” Shane says because he really thinks it is just that easy to love Ilya.
Ilya pulls away only to practically skip over to the fort, plopping down next to Anya and smothering her in scratches and kisses that he couldn’t give her earlier when Shane kidnapped her. “Did you help, Anya?”
Anya pants happily. Ilya considers that a yes.
He scoots over so Shane can sit next to him, chest warm as Shane curls up at his side. He cuddles a dog on one side and his husband on the other and thinks, for not the first time and certainly not the last, that his mother would love to see where he ended up.
Inside of the fort is Shane’s laptop, which is already open to the trashy reality show Ilya has been weirdly obsessed with lately, mostly because he cannot shake his fondness for the insanity of rich housewives who will do anything to have a camera on them. Shane hates it, so it is another testament to how Shane would do anything for him today. Ilya wants to open up the metal cage of his ribs and keep Shane next to his heart forever. He thinks, in the deepest part of his hope, that he does not need to trap him—he has this man forever.
Ilya leans his head against Shane’s. “And now?”
”Now we watch your awful show,” Shane says, “and then I’ll make hot cocoa, and Anya gets hugs. And then, when we come out of the fort, everything will feel better.”
”I love you,” Ilya says because he means it, and because he needs to. He has never known a love like this. Ilya has never known a devotion and adoration and sincerity like this, and he falls more and more every single day.
Today, even in the fog, he falls a little harder. It is easier to be brave when he knows how loved he is. It is easier to be himself when he knows he is safer than he’s ever been.
Shane kisses the tip of his nose. Grins sweetly. “I love you too.”
He hits play and leans back. Anya puts her head on Ilya’s stomach. Shane puts his on Ilya’s shoulder.
It will not make everything magically go away. It will not make the depression disappear, same as the therapy and the pills didn’t. Shane’s little fort is not magic. But it is a reminder, so small and yet irrevocably large, to remind Ilya of what he means. How much he counts. Ilya is worth more than his sadness, his doubts. He is worth more than the way he feels on his worst days, and Shane does not want him to forget that there is always going to be someone waiting to weather the storm with him.
Ilya could never forget, but he did not realize how badly he needed the reminder.
He closes his eyes. Takes it all in. And breathes.