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"Лёшка! (Lyeshka)."
Sometimes, Ilya forgets the world isn't fair. But the world has no hesitation in reminding him of that today.
"Там скользко, не бегай, упадёшь (It's icy there, don't run, you'll fall)!"
It's vicious, the way memory claws at him, squeezing his chest and throat, dismantling the last several years of therapy in a matter of seconds.
"Извини (Sorry)!"
He stares with horror, grief, and longing as a boy with beautiful, blonde curls grins up at his mother, who kisses the top of his head after scolding him again for running on the ice.
When the woman stands back up, a gentle smile pulling at her lips, it's like a gut punch seeing the blonde, wispy strands dancing around her smooth, heart-shaped face.
Sounds from the bustling Ottawa street fade around him, and suddenly Ilya is ten again. He can't breathe as his mother's beautiful face stares back at him with mild disinterest and confusion.
He raises a trembling hand from his side, "mama" half forming on his lips before he catches himself, and drops it back down. Blinking hard, Ilya forces himself to take in her face and catalogue the differences. Her cheeks are round with a healthy glow, unlike his mother's sallow features, marred by deep bruises (some real and some from exhaustion) under her eyes. Most telling, though, is that her eyes are alight with the life his mother's had before his father berated and broke down every last good thing in her.
In another life, where she fled or never met his father, this could be his mother. And Ilya doesn't know what to do with that.
***
Ilya knows he's subdued when Shane gets home, but he can't quite bring himself to tell Shane that the ground feels shaky under his feet, all because he heard some random woman, with a passing resemblance to his mother, tell her son to be careful.
(Her son with blonde curls and a diminutive too close to the one Ilya's mother used for him.)
He knows how crazy that would sound. So instead, Ilya plasters on his usual devil-may-care smile and indulges Shane's rambling about the latest hockey documentary he watched. Something fragile must show through, though, because Ilya catches Shane staring hard at him when he thinks Ilya isn't looking.
When Shane hugs him out of the blue in the shower that night, Ilya lets the water wash away the gathering tears before he can get out a respectable, "What is hug for?"
Shane buries his head a little tighter into Ilya's chest before answering with a soft, "Just thought we needed it."
Fuck. Ilya loves him so much.
He can be better for him.
***
It's been about a year since his last regular therapy appointment.
Foolishly, Ilya thought he'd never need it again. When Galina had mentioned the words "Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," several months into their relationship, Ilya had kind of brushed it off. It felt like a death sentence to acknowledge the words at the time.
It took several years to come to terms with what they meant, and naively, during his last year as a regular client of Galina's, when the deep-seated melancholy seemed to finally abate for good, he'd believed it would.
He can't quite bring himself to admit that he was wrong until a few weeks later, when his mom is everywhere.
She's in the rye bread he sees in the window of the European grocer. She's in the black tea with lemon he impulsively orders on the flight to a game. She's in the black, Soviet-era, Karakul fur coat he sees an older woman wearing while out in New York with Scott, Shane, and Kip—leaving him breathless and in a distant mood for the rest of the night.
(He tries not to imagine what his mother might have looked like, had she had the chance to live. He fails miserably.)
But, worst of all, she's creeping into his relationship with Shane.
The worried glances Shane sends him are multiplying, and he's pretty sure he's walked in on Shane telling Yuna about it on the phone one or two times now.
His ever-patient Shane just tells him "I love you" in every way he knows and that he's here for Ilya. Always.
And Ilya tries, he really does. He tries to tell Shane that, like his beautiful, sad mother who never could shake off the depression, he can't escape its snare again.
If he's being honest with himself, he probably never will. And he can't burden Shane with that. So Ilya plasters on a small smile and tries to love his husband back just as enthusiastically as he is being loved.
***
On Tuesday, Harris hands everyone on the team a cabbage and it sends Ilya into a tailspin. He barely remembers to thank him, and just tries to focus on Harris explaining how his family is experimenting with new greenhouses for winter harvests.
Ilya tunes him out to focus on his breathing when Harris begins to explain how cabbages are frost-hardy and can grow in harsh climates, which is why they're the inaugural vegetable.
Ilya knows this.
All of Russia knows this.
"Илюша иди сюда, помоги мне щи сварить (Ilyusha come here, help me cook Shchi)."
He feels sick and vows to throw out the cabbage when he gets home.
***
He doesn't throw out the cabbage.
In fact, he just stares at it every time he opens the fridge. It's Saturday morning when Shane catches him in the kitchen, holding the fridge door open for God-knows how long, staring at his and Shane's cabbages.
"Ilya, hey, what's going on?" Shane asks softly, wrapping his arms around Ilya from behind.
Ilya, a little worse for wear, blurts out very eloquently, "Cabbage soup."
A small tense piece of him loosens when he hears Shane's familiar, confused hum, and Ilya almost smiles as he pictures the face Shane is currently making.
"Will this cabbage soup include all of the food going bad from how often you've been leaving the fridge door open?" Shane asks without reproach.
Ilya lets out a surprised, soft laugh. "No, ah, sorry."
"'ts okay," Shane mumbles into his back, "just want to know what's going on with you."
Ilya lets the door close and turns around, hugging Shane back. He kisses the top of Shane's head and drops his chin onto it, the way he knows Shane pretends to hate but actually secretly loves.
(Ilya figured out very early on that his height was a turn on for Shane and has weaponized it mercilessly ever since.)
Shane grumbles in protest but makes no move to get out of Ilya's arms. The silence stretches on, not uncomfortably, as Shane waits for Ilya to explain his weird cabbage issues.
"My mom used to make cabbage soup. The cabbages made me sad. Is dumb." Ilya mutters eventually.
Shane squeezes Ilya once before pulling back, and Ilya immediately misses the warmth. Shane's earnest, brown eyes find his. "It's not dumb. Do you want to make the soup?"
Ilya turns his gaze away as he thinks about it for a second and shakes his head. "No, not this time." He certainly had enough Shchi growing up and heard enough fights about it; probably to last a lifetime.
"Что это за нищенские щи? Ты с ума сошла, что ли, такое дерьмо варить когда начальник в гостях? Где мясо и кортошка я же дал тебе деньги купить (What is this beggar's Shchi? Have you lost your mind, cooking this shit when my supervisor is our guest? Where are the meat and potatoes I gave you money to buy)?"
"Do you want me to give the cabbages to someone else so they're not making you sad every time you open the fridge?" Shane asks patiently.
Ilya nods hesitantly. How stupid is it that cabbage reminds him of his father terrorizing his mother?
He suddenly snorts, remembering something his mother used to mutter when his father wasn't home.
"What?" Shane asks, nose scrunching up adorably in confusion.
"Ah, nothing," Ilya muses, "just something my mother used to say: "Родной отец надоест, а щи—никогда (Your own father gets tiresome, but Shchi—never)."
He can't keep the fond smile off his face as Shane sounds out the words and tries to translate them. "Dear father . . . something, but Shchi never?"
"Close. Own father gets tiresome, but Shchi, never."
But Shane doesn't find it as amusing as Ilya thought he would; instead, Shane stares intently at Ilya. "Is this what's been bothering you for the last few weeks?'
"Your Russian is very good," Ilya says in a low voice, leaning in. "I think we use it for something better than my father."
"Ilya," Shane says firmly, planting a hand on Ilya's chest, "you can't distract me with sex every time you don't want to talk about something."
Ilya groans, "You are so boring today, Hollander."
Shane's earnest eyes search his, "Please, Ilya, whatever you need, I'm here for you. You can't scare me off, remember?"
Ilya's throat bobs with a harsh swallow as he tries to loosen the sudden grip emotion has on his throat. How does he tell Shane—Shane, who has his own issues with food—that his mother, who grew up very poor, who had issues with food her entire life, seems to be haunting him and it's suddenly giving him weird hang-ups with food.
He doesn't know. So he doesn't.
***
It all comes to a head over the stupidest thing imaginable—a fucking pickle jar.
Shane, organizing the fridge, sees that the jar is empty with just the brine left, and goes to pour it down the sink so that he can add the jar to the recycling before it's collected tomorrow.
(Ilya loves his environmentally-conscious, organized husband.)
Before he can think better of it, Ilya hears himself say, "Don't."
"What?" When Shane turns around, he must read something on Ilya's face, because he immediately sets the jar down and walks around their kitchen island to where Ilya is perched on a barstool.
"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" Shane asks softly, setting both hands on Ilya's upper arms and squeezing lightly before running them up and down.
Ilya just shakes his head, unable to loosen the knot in his throat that a fucking pickle jar gave him. Shane steps closer, so that he's standing between Ilya's legs, and Ilya leans forward until his head is buried in Shane's stomach.
Shane's hands immediately find their way into Ilya's hair, and he barely holds back his sob as Shane begins running both hands through Ilya's hair, then down Ilya's shoulders and back.
When Ilya loses his battle and lets out a choked sob, Shane cradles his head. Ilya can distantly make out the soft shushing sounds Shane is making as unwanted tears slip down his face.
"Everything reminds me of her. I don't know what to do," Ilya croaks, turning his head to the side, several more tears slipping down his face.
He feels fucking pathetic as he gets the next few words out. "She died more than twenty years ago." Ilya sucks in a sharp breath as his upper body spasms from how hard he's been working to suppress his sobs. "Why now?"
"I'm so sorry, Ilya," Shane says gently, resuming his ministrations, "I don't know. But I do know that it's not stupid or weak, okay?" Ilya lets Shane's tender hands pull his head back until his teary, red eyes meet Shane's. "So stop telling yourself that." Kind hands brush his tears away, and Ilya closes his eyes, unable to bear looking at Shane's steady gaze.
"Хватит позориться, мужчины не плач (Stop embarrassing yourself, men don't cr)—" Ilya cuts his father's voice off with a half-hysterical chuckle. If Shane tells Ilya he can't tell himself that, who is Ilya to deny him, especially for this memory of his father's hateful voice?
Ilya opens his eyes, finding Shane's steady gaze and letting it ground him. "I miss her so much," he confesses in a tight, trembling voice.
Shane nods. "Do you want to tell me about her?"
Ilya immediately shakes his head, not wanting to embarrass himself anymore. But when Shane flicks his gaze quickly to where the pickle jar is probably sitting on the counter, before looking back down at Ilya with concern and something else, Ilya reconsiders.
What greater insult to his father than to keep his mother's memory alive?
"She grew up very poor." Ilya begins, not knowing how else to explain that fucking pickle jar. "Used everything, would not throw any food away."
Shane's face does something complicated, but Ilya keeps going, "I think she married my father because he could provide some safety from this."
He lets out a derisive snort, "He was not very safe—terrorized her. Hated her, always accused her of cheating or trying to leave." Ilya swallows hard. "Beat her . . . I think. But mostly berated her until she was like shadow."
Several more hot tears slide down his face, and he closes his eyes when he feels Shane's gentle fingers gently swiping across his cheeks again. "I wish she had left," Ilya whispers.
He just lets himself breathe while the silence stretches, and Shane resumes running his hands over his shoulders and through his hair.
In for a penny, in for a dollar—or whatever that saying is.
"But, he was safe in this way. We never went actually hungry. But there were many times my father was not happy with how my mother was with food." Ilya continues, voice monotone, as some of the grief loosens its cruel grip on his chest, and he welcomes the familiar comfort of nothingness.
He can do this.
"My father was very controlling with money, so she was very careful with buying food—too much for my father sometimes, and he would get so mad." Ilya feels his face heat, as a rising tide of emotion pushes back at the numbness he'd just been welcoming. "She used the juice from pickles to make рассольник (rassolnik)—this pickle soup, because she wouldn't throw it out."
She—" Ilya's voice cracks, and it's the straw that breaks the camel's back, the numbness fully receding as the floodgates open.
It's only after Ilya has been crying for several minutes that he realizes that he can just cry. Who's going to stop him? His husband, who has been murmuring "I love you," "It's okay," and "I'm so sorry, Ilya," intermittently while holding him this entire time?
The front of Shane's shirt is thoroughly soaked before Ilya picks his head back up to look at Shane again. His steady, perfect, boring Shane, who probably hates feeling his wet shirt stick to his stomach, but hasn't moved an inch.
Just when Ilya thinks it's over and he can be done with crying, Shane leans down and places a gentle kiss on Ilya's forehead, and Ilya remembers watching that mother press a kiss to her son's blonde curls in the street.
But worse, he remembers how he felt when his own mother pressed gentle kisses to his head.
He can't do this.
So, for the first time in his life, he gives in and gives himself permission to cry and to grieve his mama in the safety and comfort of his home.
It still hurts.
***
When Ilya wakes up the next morning, nestled in Shane's arms from where they'd fallen asleep while Shane rubbed his hands in soothing motions across his upper back, he's hit with a sense of clarity.
For the first time in weeks, Ilya's not just going through the motions when he sits up, careful not to wake Shane, and makes his way into the kitchen.
He'd realized late last night that it was the eve of the anniversary of his mother's death. He'd felt so stupid, letting it creep up on him like this without even realizing. For a moment, he'd tried to let himself think that this was the only reason he'd been a shadow of his normal self for the past few weeks, before giving up.
But, he has never been one to lie to himself before, and he certainly isn't going to start now.
Ilya stares hard at the bag of flour Yuna left here about a month ago, for making cookies when they'd celebrated Christmas. Shane had grumbled about it, but thankfully, eaten a couple of cookies then.
They are a long way from 2021 Shane's relationship with food. And Ilya hopes he's far enough to join him today.
When he left Russia, he left behind any chance of seeing her grave again. But he can still do this.
Ilya pulls out the milk, eggs, salt, sugar, and butter, and gets to work.
***
There's a decent-sized stack, not for two professional hockey players, but still a respectable stack of blini by the time Shane wakes up and joins him in the kitchen.
Ilya smiles fondly at Shane's sleepy, half-lidded gaze and the hair sticking up on the right side of his head. When Shane drops onto one of the barstools, Ilya slides him his cup of black coffee. Shane inhales deeply and takes a few sips before asking in a subdued voice, "How are you feeling?"
Ilya mulls over the question as he flips the blin in the pan. "Better, I think. I will call Galina tomorrow."
"Yeah?" The hopeful note in Shane's voice is unmistakable. Ilya's honestly surprised Shane hasn't brought up his going back to therapy up before now. But it's probably better that he arrived at this conclusion himself, anyway.
"Yes. But I do not want to talk about that. We are going to remember my mama today instead."
"Okay," Shane readily agrees, "What are we doing?"
"Eating blini." Ilya tries to say as nonchalantly as possible. "Is okay?"
"Of course, Ilya," Shane promises, like it's nothing. Like, this isn't breaking every single rule of his special performance diet.
He can't quite believe it, so Ilya turns around, but Shane's beautiful, open face stares back without even a trace of hesitancy.
"You know there is butter and white flour in these, yes?" Ilya asks, dryly.
Shane rolls his eyes, "Stop trying to talk me out of this, and start telling me what this," Shane gestures to the stack of blini, "is."
"Is tradition to make them on anniversary of death." Ilya thinks about it and amends the statement, "But also is for funerals and other celebrations. And just to eat."
Ilya turns back and slides the finished blin onto the top of the stack, taking a moment to butter it. "I ah, have not done this myself before. Sveta did, once, I think." He'd drunk himself into a stupor that year. "But I have not been very good son."
"I'm sure she would understand," Shane tells him softly. "You've done so much to honor her memory with the foundation. Don't let yourself forget all the things you've done."
Ilya thinks about it while he mixes the sour cream and blueberry jam in a bowl. He sighs out one long breath. As per usual, Shane is right. "Yes, but today I will honor her memory, instead of avoiding it."
Shane grabs plates and paper towels while Ilya carries the stack of blini and the sour cream and jam mixture to their dining table.
Ilya watches with amusement as his prim and proper husband neatly rolls up a crepe and takes a few bites. "It's really good," Shane compliments, voice almost a moan.
"Yes, real carbs taste good." Ilya can't help but bait him.
"I eat carbs," Shane complains for the millionth time, "healthy carbs."
Instead of continuing their age-old argument over this, Ilya folds a blin into a neat triangle and dips it in the sour cream mixture. Shane wrinkles his nose as he watches Ilya take an enthusiastic bite.
"Is much better like this, you must try," Ilya continues teasing, half-expecting Shane to brush him off with an eyeroll like he usually does.
But Shane surprises him when he rolls up another crepe, dips the edge the slightest bit into the mixture, and takes an equally small bite.
Ilya laughs at seeing Shane's eyes light up. "Are you sure you can even taste it? I think even mouse would starve with bite like that."
Shane whacks at Ilya's chest with his left hand, and Ilya traps it, intertwining their fingers.
He gets a soft smile out of Shane, who squeezes his hand, and they continue eating in content silence.
Eventually, Ilya's gaze drifts to Shane's captured hand, where a matching wedding band catches the morning light against Ilya's plain fingers.
A sudden thought occurs to him, and he stares hard at Shane's ring, bringing his own ring hand up to worry at his mother's crucifix.
"You know," Ilya begins in a subdued voice, "Is orthodox tradition to wear wedding rings on right hand."
"Did your mother wear her ring on her right hand?" Shane asks curiously, turning his body to fully face Ilya.
"She did."
"Do you want to wear it on your right hand like her?"
Ilya makes a noncommittal sound. This isn't the first time he's thought about it. "Maybe. I think so. Yes."
"Okay," Shane softly agrees, and in several smooth motions he grabs and pulls Ilya's left hand toward him, takes the wedding ring off, and moves it to Ilya's right hand. Before he can blink, Shane leans down to kiss the ring where it now sits on his right ring finger.
Ilya's world narrows down to the black band on his right hand, the edges of his vision growing blurry. He is only saved from crying again by Shane thrusting his left hand into Ilya's eyeline.
He must stare at it stupidly for too long, because Shane prods, "We're doing this together."
Ilya tries not to notice how his hands are shaking as he pulls the band off Shane's left hand and gently pushes it into place on Shane's right ring finger.
Shane picks his hand up, examining the familiar ring in its new home, sun glinting off the metal in the morning light. His beautiful freckles glow in that light, the same way they did on the day of their wedding, and Ilya can't imagine living in a world without Shane Hollander by his side.
She really would have loved Shane, too. It feels bittersweet, watching the love of his life wholeheartedly embrace the tradition of a woman he's never met.
"Wanna bet on how long it takes before someone takes a picture, and there's rumors we're divorcing?" Shane muses, and Ilya gives a startled laugh.
No, she would have adored him.