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When Ilya was on the top of the mountains, he played hockey the best. 

Life was always easier, those times. There was nothing to mourn in silence or fight against to keep on going. From up on the mountain’s top, he could see the entire world. It was small and insignificant under him, but one glimpse and all meaning came true before his very eyes. If he wanted to, he could reach for the sun and grab it. 

When Ilya was lying on the bottom of the ravines, fog shrouded the heavy rocks, and clouds eradicated the sun and moon. Down there, his ribs were broken and mauled to dust and every breath he managed to suck in was a struggle to survive. 

He did that a lot, Ilya. Struggled to survive. 

Ilya was a hiker. Without the up and downs that had accompanied him since he was seventeen, he didn’t know who he was. He was a hiker and would remain one to the end of his days, trudging the s ame path until his legs became part of the rocky landscape and muddy waters. 

A flat path never made a skilled hiker. 

There was a name for it, the thing Ilya was. He looked it up once when he was eighteen and drowning in confusion and too stupefied to call for help from the boat passing him by.

There were pills to take. 

Ilya didn’t want them. Because he was sailing ahead, breaking through the heavy surface of the water, so there was no reason to call out. He was one of the best players in the league, and no one could doubt that, his results speaking for themselves. 

Ilya had been the perfect son for when his father had been alive and well. Did as he was told, respected those who were to be respected, and never questioned it because Ilya’s life had never been his own. 

Ilya was good at what he was supposed to be good at. Was good at being a son, hockey, and sex, and for a long time that had been everything he was meant to be good at. No one wanted anything else from him. That was what he had been reduced to, what he had let others reduce him to. Asshole by day, chained dog by night. 

So it didn’t matter that when not betrayed by the spotlight’s damning brightness, Ilya was a hiker. But that didn’t matter when he did what he was supposed to do. It was okay, because no one noticed. Because he didn’t let anyone notice. It was fucking fine. 

So what if, down in the ravine, he longed for an end he never could tell anyone about?

So what if he liked to map out places that would feel like a pleasant enough send-off?

It didn’t fucking matter because Ilya never let them matter. 

Son, hockey and sex. For a long time, as long as he fulfilled those, he could hike however much he liked when no one was around. Could spiral and walk and run and fall and jump railings on rooftops because no one cared enough as long as he fulfilled those three.

Son, hockey and sex. The golden fucking trio.

What use would he have of stupid fucking pills when Ilya was a master of and slave for the three? 

But then his father had died, and Shane had come into his life. And then Shane decided he would stay.  

Ilya was a hiker. He rose and fell, but it never mattered. The ravines didn’t matter because he always reached the top again. The ravines didn’t matter, because soon after he would reach the top again. There the air was sharp and steely, and Ilya was so fucking happy. Up there, fire was in his legs and wind in his chest. Up there, Ilya soared.

The sky was at his feet and the stars by his head. He learned to bake in three days, spent a week straight rock climbing in a gym and once stayed awake for three days straight to train until his body turned off. 

But then he fell again, and every time he did, he was sure he would never rise again. That Ilya Rozanov was finally defeated for good. 

He went through the motions of living. He did what he needed to do, what was expected of him. 

“What got you so down, Roz? Latest girl of the week dumped your ass?” Marleau said as he bumped his shoulder with Ilya’s in the locker room as he passed him.

Ilya scoffed. “You are just sorry girl last night told you to fuck off."

Fuck.

Before Shane, he didn’t have any plans beyond or after hockey. Ilya didn’t love hockey, but he loved being good at something. There wasn’t anything else Ilya was particularly good at.

Even in the ravines, hockey was what he was good at. It pulled him from his bed and floor and helped steady him when he was on a tightrope between two mountains. 

So when his career was over, when he retired, Ilya didn’t have any plans on continuing, when the thing he was best at was over. He would fade away into obscurity and that was something he had longed for since he was fifteen. 

Then no one would notice, no one would care, if he slipped away, sharing the same fate as his mother

But that was before Shane. 

Now they had plans, and many of them, both abstract and whispers from their fingertips. They had vacations at the cottage, and Ilya had someone to hold onto. And Ilya had been doing better. The mountains were not as steep and the ravines were not as deep, and then both disappeared for good. Ilya was doing better for once in his life. He was happy. So, so fucking happy. 

It was strange how good life could be. How simple and easy it could be to survive, how days could become opportunities instead of burdens. How there were no ups and downs anymore, how life was steady. 

Ilya became a boyfriend instead of a hiker. And Ilya thought, ‘please God, let this last.’ 

It had lasted for a while.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Shane said. Ilya blinked, stretching out on the couch. It took a second for his vision to come back into focus. 

“What?”

“I said that you’re quiet today.”

“Oh. I am just tired,” Ilya said and tensed as he realized Shane was looking at him with furrowed brows. What had they been doing? 

Shane had a book in his lap. Ilya didn’t. “You said that yesterday too.”

“So? I cannot be tired more than one day?” Ilya said, memories of yesterday trickling in. 

Shane shrugged. “You slept a lot today. And yesterday.”

Ilya leaned back against the couch again, sinking into the pillow. He could hear the water drip slowly off the ravine’s walls and could breathe in the heavy fog.  

“Yes. Because I'm tired. Busy week.”

The coming week, Ilya slept a lot more, but Shane didn’t notice because he was somewhere in Chicago or New York or some fucking place that Ilya wasn’t in. 

Ilya was supposed to be steady, with both feet on the ground. It should have been different. It was supposed to last. 

This time it was supposed to have been different; Ilya was supposed to have been different. There was no reason to long for the highs or brace for the falls because he had Shane.Ilya was supposed to be happy and he had been, so why the fuck was he still never okay? Why the fuck was nothing ever enough to fix him? 

And he felt so goddamn guilty about it, so much that it ate at him at night. Sleeping next to Shane, holding him in his arms, Ilya felt like absolute shit because that was everything he wanted in life, and sometimes he still felt like crawling into a ditch and die. He was still trapped in the ravines and mountain summits, but he wasn’t supposed to be. 

Shane made him happy; he was beautiful and smart and amazing and the kindest person Ilya knew, but it still wasn’t enough to fix Ilya. 

But it wasn’t Shane’s fault. In the end, it was Ilya who wasn’t enough. Wasn’t enough for anyone, wasn’t enough for himself. Was lazy and selfish and ungrateful, and there was something inherently and fundamentally wrong with him. Because when he pulled himself up onto the top to gaze down at the world underneath him, he couldn’t stop it. When he crashed and burned, he couldn’t stop it. 

Something was wrong in him and had been for so long. And if someone as great as Shane Hollander couldn’t fix him, nothing could. 

Ilya was well and truly fucked. 

Ilya didn’t want to be Ilya. He always fell, and Shane wasn’t meant for the dirty stream of water and mud down in the ravine or for the harsh and icy winds up on the mountains. But Ilya was.

Someday he knew Shane would realize that he couldn’t keep up with Ilya. Soon, Shane would find out because even though Ilya tried to hide it when he was in the in-betweens, it was so much harder when he was up high or down low. 

Ilya wasn’t meant for a happy life. Wasn’t meant for Shane. 

But fuck if he didn’t want to be. Wanted it so much he went against every instinct screaming at him to save Shane from himself, and Ilya stayed. 

“Where were you?” Shane asked, sitting with his feet pulled up on one of the kitchen chairs. 

“What?” Ilya kicked off his shoes and walked towards him. He thought that Shane would have been asleep when he got back.

“You left in the middle of the night.”

It wasn’t an accusation, but it wasn’t not one, either. 

“I went on walk,” Ilya said with a shrug.

Last night, he had walked too but had managed to get back before Shane woke. He walked and walked and walked until the sun rose. Looked at the world and was stunned by the beauty of it. Stood hours upon hours watching ice melt into raindrops made out of crystal and diamonds. Holding out his hand to catch them before they could hit the ground and shatter.

Ilya walked because that was what he was made for. He wanted to walk the entire world. He should look up how long it would take. It couldn’t be hard, not for him. He could walk under the sky as the sun rose and set and rose and set and Ilya would walk. 

“In the middle of the night?” Shane asked, and Ilya could hear the suspicion in his voice.

It was unfounded because Ilya was walking and walking and there was nothing else to life than to walk and look at the world. 

“Yes. You should join me too,” Ilya offered, or maybe decided. Shane should join him. 

“This is the third night in a row you’re out walking, Ilya.”

Ilya didn’t like the way Shane said that. Like there was something wrong. Like Ilya didn’t shine under the moon that was walking with him, his legs urging him to walk further. 

“Am I not allowed to walk?” Ilya asked, his words coming out a lot more defensive than he first intended. 

“You really want me to believe you’re walking in the middle of the night? You leave when I fall asleep and then try to come back before I wake up? You did this yesterday too.”

Ilya frowned. “You do not believe me?”

He changed his footing, leaning front and back because he shouldn't be here. Ilya should be walking. He could take Shane’s hand, and then they could walk and walk and walk and there would be nothing wrong. Shane could use the shoes he used for running. He had an extra pair at Ilya’s place. Yes, yes, that was good. This was good. 

Shane then sighed and brushed a hand through his hair. “I don’t know.”

“If I tell you I am walking, then I am walking. Okay?” Ilya snapped, mood turning. He shouldn’t be getting annoyed, he shouldn’t, but he was fucking walking, and why didn’t Shane understand that?

“Is everything okay with you?” Shane asked instead, throwing him off because where had that come from? Ilya was great. He bathed in the moonlight and grew in the sunlight. 

He was going to walk the entire world. He told Shane so, and his boyfriend’s frown deepened even further. 

“What are you even talking about?”

“Walking is good for you. It's great, Shane. Fantastic. We should walk the world together. You and me,” Ilya said in a rush, forgoing answering Shane’s question, ideas of the two of them walking together until the end of time blooming in his head. Yes, that would be great. 

Two of his favourite things; walking and Shane. The only two that mattered. He kissed him fast. 

Shane laughed, a little surprised. “Just you and me, huh?”

Ilya grasped his left hand in both of his own. 

“You and me. Forever.”

The next night, Shane joined him for his midnight walk. 

“I don’t get how you’re not tired. Do you even sleep?” Shane asked as they got back to his apartment just before the sun rose.

Ilya laughed, amused by the idea. He didn’t need sleep; he could sleep at the end of the world but not now. Now was the time for everything he never had the chance to do; now was the time for walking and living. 

When Shane had to leave for a game in Chicago, Ilya almost cried. How could they walk the world together when Shane wasn’t there? 

But he kissed Shane and then he left. Ilya went for a walk. 

He didn’t stop until the sun set for a second time and he couldn’t feel his legs. 

Then the fall came. 

The falls where always the worse. 

When Ilya felt the gentle snow of the mountain’s top under his hand, he was always certain that this time, he was whole again. Up there, Ilya was complete. 

There were no ravines or gorges or falling because he couldn’t fall when the sky was at his beck and call and the clouds could catch him before he hit the ground. 

Ilya was the greatest person to ever walk the earth, second only to Shane and his freckles like stars splattered across his cheeks and nose. Up there, there was no setting sun and therefore no rest, because the stars gave him energy and he was so fucking great he didn’t need it. 

So, when he inevitably fell, it hurt. It was disappointment, a bruising realization that something was and would always be wrong with him. A reminder that Ilya Rozanov was sick in the head. 

That his hands were too flimsy to grasp anything as he fell, his breath knocked out of him he he collided with the ground, his eyes blind as fog filled the air.

Then there he lay, with the memory of what had been his but was now gone, and something he would never get back. That this was it.

This all-consuming, draining emptiness was what life was supposed to be like for him. The first day he cried for hours. The remaining two he barely breathed, numb and empty. His chest cold and skin sweaty under damp sheets. 

Jane: How’s the midnight walks going?

Ilya wanted to answer. He should answer. But how could he, when the phone felt like a ton in his hand and he didn’t know how to move? 

After a while, maybe minutes, maybe hours, Ilya didn’t know, his phone buzzed again. It was still in his hand, his shoulder pressing against the damp couch pillow. 

His couldn’t feel his fingers. 

Jane: Playing against Ohio in a little while

Jane: But you probably already know that

Jane: 4-3

He was in the ravine and Ilya would be stuck there until the end of time. There was no sky, no mountain, nothing except the creak between world which he had fallen into.

Eventually he fell asleep. Then the sun rose and light settled on his face until he blinked his eyes open. He was still holding the phone. 

Three messages from last night. 

Jane: Tired from walking every night?

Jane: And you said you didn’t need to rest 

Jane: Sleep well

Ilya was supposed to be better. He knew that. The guilt was still so heavy that he couldn’t bear it. He didn’t want to talk to Shane, didn’t want to face him, didn’t even want to text him because Ilya didn’t deserve to. 

Didn’t deserve Shane when Ilya couldn’t even be happy and normal for him. Ilya would drag Shane under if he got the chance, would feed on his energy and maul his flesh until Shane was the same as him.

Ilya didn’t want to give himself the chance to ruin the only good thing he had in his life. 

He needed to leave soon, the clock on his phone told him. He had a hockey game, and it was the only thing Ilya was good at. Was good for. He longed for retirement. For closing his eyes and never having to open them again. Maybe Shane even would be relieved, not having to follow Ilya on dumb midnight walks. 

Jane: Good luck tonight

Fuck. Ilya would die with this guilt. A guilt so heavy it got worse as the days went on. Not answering made him feel guilty, but answering would also fill him with it. There was no winning, no end for him in sight. Ilya should be happy. Fucking fuck. He had someone wishing him luck, texting him, someone genuinely loving him and caring for him, and Ilya didn’t deserve any of that. Ilya was an asshole. 

Still. 

He– 

He knew he was selfish. His brother always told him so, but–

But he wanted. Ilya was awful and selfish and cruel and drenched in sin and guilt but oh how he wanted Shane. Wanted him happy. Wanted to be happy. 

He flexed his fingers, sat up to relieve the pressure on his arm, and cringed at the awful prickling feeling as blood streamed back. It took a few minutes until he could move his fingers properly. 

Lily: Sorry was sleeping

Lily: Congrats

Lily: Thank you

His fingers hovered over the phone for a second. A pause. A breath.

Lily: Love you

Jane: You too. Try not to lose to Vancouver

After the cottage, Ilya had been steady. Now he wasn’t anymore. He couldn’t understand why. He screamed into his pillow before he threw it as hard as he could. 

Something shattered but Ilya didn’t care. He had no reason to feel like he did. 

For a while, he had forgotten he was a hiker. He was living a good life now, so why was he still so fucking dumb? His father used to say he was ungrateful. Was this what it was?Maybe Ilya really was ungrateful for what he had now. In the end it was just Ilya who was the problem. 

Would Shane realize that some day? Would he see that Ilya was a god on a mountain and a bug on it’s back in a ravine one day, and be disgusted by what he saw?

Even Ilya’s family hadn’t wanted him. 

Lily: 2-1

Ilya had been good at hiding the fact he was a hiker. No one knew about it, about the ravines or the mountain top. But he had been slipping up more and more. 

Ilya was going to be a chef. After hockey was over, he would become a chef, and he would open a restaurant and it would make headlines in every paper there was. Even in the boring fucking New Yorker. 

Shane was going to come over today, and Ilya was going to cook him a three-course meal and tell him all about his plans. 

But first he needed to cool down his skin which was burning up. He was fucking burning up. He stripped off all of his clothes, throwing them every which way, except his underwear. 

He opened every window he could find in the apartment, from the kitchens’ to the bedrooms’. Then he opened both the fridge and freezer because it still wasn’t enough and pressed his body against them. 

Ilya was going to learn how to cook in no time. Every possible moment between practise and matches this last week he had been watching cooking videos on youtube, had read articles upon articles about the intricacies of cutting vegetable and how every seasoning and spice worked. 

He knew which forms to fill out to open a restaurant. Knew how often health inspectors came. 

Ilya would be very careful with cleaning. Did every employee clean, or did he need to hire someone specific to do that? He would need to find out. Where was his phone, now again? 

Maybe he should text Shane and ask him where he was. 

Maybe he should tell him all the things Ilya planned on doing to him after dinner. 

He felt himself starting to get hard as images flickered in his mind–

Something smelled burnt. Right. He was using the stove. 

The wagyu he had been trying to cook was nothing more than a black lump. He laughed, his skin still on fire. But he had more, so he emptied the frying pan over the floor and threw in a few more pieces. He had bought everything he found in the store with a high enough price tag. 

He could clean later.

Maybe he could even begin doing the dishes now. Then Shane would be happy, and they could fuck for hours and hours without Shane stressing over the mess that currently was the kitchen. 

Chef’s creativity and all that. 

Ilya kicked away the burnt meat on the floor when he stepped on it. He filled up the sink and emptied half of what was left of the dish soap. Could never be clean enough. 

Music should be playing to match the thrumming in his bones. His phone lay in the fridge, he realized after looking around long enough he was starting to get frustrated. 

The screen became wet and soapy from his hand, but he managed to turn on a playlist. He didn’t know the song, just that the beat resonated in his chest. Top volume. 

He plunged his hand into the sink with the dishes again. Something stung. He pulled his hand up. 

Blood started dripping from his finger and he laughed because wasn’t that a funny little accident? 

The meat was burning again. He could finish the dishes later. He emptied the frying pan over the floor. More meat in. His blood dripped on it. 

Ilya laughed again. 

A hand on his shoulder. He flinched violently, almost tripping over his feet. 

“Ilya?” Shane said and Ilya got the feeling it wasn’t the first time.

“Shane!” Ilya exclaimed, surging forwards to kiss him hard.

The music was loud behind him, and something was burning again, but Ilya was going to be a chef and make the greatest food ever and now Shane was here and Ilya had never been happier. 

“What’s going on?...Ilya?” Shane’s palm was braced against Ilya’s bare chest, but his eyes were taking in the room. Fuck, how good Shane’s hand felt against his chest. Ilya pressed up closer, hands on Shane’s hips. 

“I am cooking. Do you know a good restaurant name?” Ilya asked, before he pulled back from Shane and gestured to the room with his hands. Shane had an expression on his face Ilya couldn’t decipher but he looked so cute that Ilya couldn’t help but laugh again.

“Why is every window open?” Shane asked cautiously as he closed both the fridge and the freezer. 

“Oh, I am burning. My skin is so warm. Do you feel?” Ilya said, holding out his hand for Shane to take. But Shane barely moved, his eyes so wide and brows scrunched together. When Shane didn’t move to take his hand, Ilya reached forward to grasp his hand. 

“You’re freezing, Ilya.”  

But Ilya shook his head. Maybe Shane was still cold from being outside. Maybe it was something else. “Are you bleeding? What happened? Did you cut yours–”

“No, no, I am so warm. But it is great! Here, look, I made food,” Ilya said and all but tore his hand back because Shane was trying to turn it over to where the sting was. He turned back to the frying pan. Once again the meat was burnt. Why did that keep happening?

“Ilya. You’re really, really freaking me out right now,” Shane said. He looked surprised. A little horrified. 

Ilya emptied the frying pan on the floor. Shane made a strange sound. “Wow. Hey, Ilya, can you turn off the music so we can talk? Let’s sit down and talk.”

“I just need to fry meat, Shane. You can sit down.”

Shane took hold of his upper arm. “Please, Ilya. Let’s just sit down?” Ilya was breathing heavily, he realized. His skin was still burning, but the windows were open. He didn’t think he had much more meat to fry.

“You can tell me what you’re cooking.”

Ilya thought it over. Maybe Shane was a hiker like him with ideas of greatness in his every breath.

“Okay.”

Shane nodded at him, trying for a smile, but it looked wrong. It made Ilya laugh. 

“You look funny,” he told Shane. 

“Yeah, sure. I do. So come on, let’s sit.”

Ilya once again tore free from his grip, and Shane groaned frustratedly. 

“Please, Il-”

“I am turning off music. You’re so worried. You need to calm down,” Ilya admonished, and Shane almost gaped at him before he took a deep breath. 

Maybe it was because he knew how great Ilya would be as a cook. Maybe he was impressed with him. Smugness bloomed in his chest.

Yes, he was great indeed. 

“Come, come. We are sitting down, yes?” Ilya asked, stepping into the meat on the floor to make his way to the couch. It was a bit slippery. Shane took a big step over it. 

“Want to tell me what’s going on, Ilya?” Shane asked after a second, leaning against the couch’s arm to look at Ilya. He seemed to hesitate for a moment. “You didn’t…you didn’t take anything, right?”

Ilya shook his head. His legs were restless. “No.”

“Are you sure?” 

Ilya pulled back his leg that was touching Shane’s foot, hurt spreading quickly through him. 

“Why would you think that I take something? You think so little of me?”

“No, that’s not it, Ilya. But you’re…you’re acting strange. And you’re making me worried.” Ilya laughed again, irritation now gone. Wasn't Shane just the cutest little thing? He turned on the couch and crawled up towards Shane. 

“I am just so, so happy,” Ilya said as he straddled Shane’s lap. Fuck, it would feel good to fuck him right now. He had so much energy he could fuck him for days straight. 

“Ilya. This isn’t ’happy.’ The kitchen looks like it was bombed. You look like you’re–”

“But I am happy!” Ilya insisted. He was the god on the mountain, overlooking all the restaurants he was going to open. 

Shane looked lost, confused, and Ilya kissed his nose, making Shane go cross-eyed to look at him. 

“Can you please calm down? Ilya, please. Just, just take deep breaths.”

Ilya hummed before turning his head from Shane and stood up.

“Ilya. Come sit down again.”

Ilya shifted his weight on his feet, agitation in his limbs because he was calm. Ilya was the calmest person to ever fucking exist, and he didn’t want to sit down.

“I don’t want to.”

Shane almost looked like he wanted to cry. 

Now Ilya felt like absolute shit because he didn’t want Shane, whom he loved beyond all else, to be sad.

“No, okay, I am sorry. I will sit down again. Okay?”

“Yes, please.”

This time Shane was almost half sitting on him, as if to hold him from trying to stand up again. Ilya didn’t mind; he was just happy having Shane close. Ilya was vibrating, his leg bouncing up and down and his fingers drumming at his knee. He needed to move. Needed to cook. Needed to make meat and find out how to hire a cleaning crew. 

Then Shane leaned over and took the blanket hanging on the arm of the couch and threw it over both of them.

Ilya immediately shrugged it off. “I am not cold. There’s fire on my skin, Shane. Feel.”

But Shane didn’t feel the arm Ilya extended towards him. 

“Well, I am cold. And I don’t want to sit under the blanket alone.”

Reluctantly, he let Shane pull the blanket over the both of them, taking back his arm. Ilya’s heart was beating in his chest over and over. 

”What’s going on with you? Is this like…the midnight walks?”

”No, those were long time ago. Not important. You just don’t understand, Shane. I need to move. Fire in my legs. You do not understand.”

”What don’t I understand?”

”I am god on mountain, Shane,” Ilya said as he looked up at the ceiling, at the stars reaching for him and Ilya was on the mountain’s summit with air cutting him like a knife, and it was exhilarating, it was breathtaking; Ilya was fucking breathtaking.  

”Does this–” Shane swallowed, looking around. Ilya thought his hands were shaking, but maybe he saw wrong. It was hard looking down on the ground from up the mountaintop. “–happen often?”

Ilya had plans on never saying anything, but he was so happy Shane was there, even if Shane didn’t understand him. And it didn’t matter anymore because Ilya was never going to descend this mountain, was immune to the falling, couldn’t fall because Ilya was the fucking mountain god. 

And how could an atheist believe in the mountain god if he never saw him?

”Yes, repeat cycle. Again and again, but Shane, Shane, that's not important. I am never falling again. I am so happy; do you see?”

He pulled Shane’s hand against his crotch, grinding against him. ”And horny. Are you?”

Shane pulled his hand back. ”Not right now.”

”Okay. I kiss you though, yes?”

When Shane nodded, Ilya surged forwards, shrugging off the blanket.

Ilya kissed him on the forehead, on the cheeks, for every freckle he had. Kissed him until it almost started to hurt, until Shane was red in the face. He could keep going for hours, but then Shane pulled back. 

“You said it’s like a cycle?” 

Ilya nodded, a pout on his lips because he wanted to kiss Shane again, but Shane had pulled back, so Ilya wasn’t going to anymore. Not until Shane said he was allowed to, and then he never would stop; then he would bring Shane to the mountain’s summit, and they could live there forever, the two of them, until Ilya became the sun and walked in the moon and opened restaurants over the entire world. 

“Can you, uh, elaborate?” 

“Is like, up and down. But not anymore. I am never falling again. So it does not matter.”

“Is this a new thing, or…?”

Ilya could hear the unspoken question through the bright colors dancing before his eyes. 

“I did not tell you because you would look like you look now. But Shane, Shane. I am mountain god,” Ilya said soothingly, trying to smooth out the lines on Shane’s forehead, but they only deepened at his words. Shane’s eyes flickered over him, and Ilya could not decide his own feelings. Was he annoyed? Was he irritated? At Shane? 

No. Ilya was happy. He was so fucking happy, and he should buy more meat. He should walk to the store and buy everything in there. 

“Okay,” Shane said and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Ilya echoed.

“Do you– I don’t know. How do you calm down from the…from this?”

Ilya shook his head so fast the world became dizzy. “I am never going down again.” Ilya climbed out of the couch, falling onto the floor before getting up. 

“Ilya.”

Ilya was burning. The sun on the mountain was burning him, and he needed the summit’s snow. He tore open the freezer and sat down against it, the cold pleasant and soothing against his back. He sighed in relief. 

Slowly, uncertainly, Shane sat down next to him. His eyes were wet. Ilya pulled him against his chest, hugging him tight. 

“Don’t cry, Shane. I am happy.”

“I’m worried, Ilya.”

Ilya kissed the top of his head. “Let’s sit in front of freezer rest of our lives, yes? You and me.”

Ilya didn’t know how much time had passed, just that the freezer was cool against his back and Shane was in his arms, but then Shane pulled back. 

“Let’s go to bed. Okay?”

“No.”

“Ilya. You can’t sit here the entire night.”

“You are trying to control me,” Ilya realized with a staggering breath. 

Shane’s eyes widened. “I’m not.”

“Then why tell me what I cannot do? I want to sit here.”

“Okay. Okay, sit here.” Shane relented after a few seconds. “I’ll be right back.”

Ilya pretended he didn’t mourn the loss of touch. Pretended not to hear Shane talking on the phone with his mother in the bedroom. 

Ilya sat against the freezer. He should cook. He should do something. But he was burning and the freezer was the only thing keeping him from slipping into the inferno. He was a mountain god, on top of the world, so why was he so warm? Tears burned behind his eyes, but he didn’t let them fall. This would pass and then Ilya would be great again. 

He pulled up his knees against his chest and hugged them. 

Eventually Shane came back. Ilya watched him from the floor. “How are you feeling now?”

Ilya didn’t answer. He had been happy. He had been so happy, and now he wasn’t anymore. Ilya didn’t want to fall; he refused to. How could he open restaurants and walk the world and become part of the forest if he was lying in ravines? 

If he opened his mouth and spoke, maybe everything great with him would escape him. Shane spent a while cleaning the kitchen and closing all the windows. Ilya didn’t protest, just kept watching him. He didn’t even remember to blink until his eyes were burning. 

After a while, Shane crouched down in front of him. Ilya looked at him. 

“I want to sleep. Will you please join me?”

Ilya looked away. He was on the mountain, not crashing and burning. He wasn’t. Those moments were gone. Ilya should laugh. Should scream. Should sing stupid American songs and walk the world. 

Shane held out a hand. Ilya grasped it just as Shane started to pull it back. 

Ilya didn’t sleep the entire night. He wasn’t sure if Shane did, either. The alarm clock on the nightstand ticked away. When morning arrived, Ilya gently moved Shane’s head from his chest and slipped away. 

“Where are you going?”

Ilya looked back over his shoulder and saw Shane sitting up in bed. 

“I have practice and match later,” Ilya stated as he started rifling through his drawer to find some clothes. 

“Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, stay home?”

“Why? I am not sick,” Ilya said, almost daring him to disagree. Ilya was a fucking hiker. He wasn’t sick. He needed to get away. 

“I know. But you– what was that, last night?”

Ilya shrugged. “Fluke. Overtired. I don’t know. Nothing important."

Shane pulled off the covers and stood up. When he approached, Ilya took a step back. Hurt flashed over his face, and Ilya turned his head away.

“That wasn’t you just being overly tired. It scared me.”

“I am going to be late,” Ilya said and left the room. Footsteps followed.

“Ilya. Come on.” But Ilya just started putting his shoes on. He wasn’t fragile. 

“Something happened. Can’t we talk about it?”

“No,” Ilya said and threw the strap of his bag over one shoulder. “There is nothing to talk about.”

“I– I have a match tonight. I need to go back to Montreal soon, so let’s just–”

“So I should skip practice and match to talk because you have a match later? What, your match is more important than my match?” Ilya scoffed. 

“You know that’s not what I mean.” Shane said as he crossed his arms, but he didn’t look angry. “I can stay.”

“No.”

“Ilya.”

“I do not want you here when I come back, okay? I need space.”

“Space? From what?” Shane asked defensively. Ilya's heart raced. He couldn’t do this. He had told Shane things last night. His memories were somewhat blurry but he remembered enough of what he had told Shane. He couldn’t deal with it. 

Couldn’t deal with himself. He was falling, and Shane couldn’t see that. He had already seen too much.

Ilya had decided at eighteen, when he realized it wasn’t going to go away, that it was something he would take with him to his grave. A grave he had planned to lie in at an early age. 

But now Shane had questions. Ilya couldn’t avoid it. Shane wouldn’t let it go. 

And Ilya couldn’t do this.

So he did what he did best. He turned words into blades and preyed on insecurities he was always so quick to find in others. And he knew Shane well enough to know where his words would hit. 

“You. I need space from you.”

Ilya slammed the door behind him.

He would give up everything in his life to be with Shane. So why did this seem to be the limit? Why was this one line he couldn’t cross? He could transfer to some shitty team in a small and boring town from Boston, which he had liked being a part of, and could risk never going back to his motherland for Shane, but he couldn’t have one conversation about his highs and lows? 

When he got back later, Shane was gone. 

A part of him wished he had stayed. 

The ravine he lay in was familiar. While the fall always hurt, always a surprise, he got used to it quickly. His life had been haunted by ravines. He imagined sometimes that if he jumped in one steep enough, he would find his mother’s body on the ground. 

That night had been a mistake. Some mountains were higher than others; some he could climb a lot quicker than others. This mountain had peaked fast and strong. If Ilya wasn’t used to himself, he would have been scared, too. 

Why did Shane have to see it? Fuck. 

Ilya would keep the ravine he lay in shielded, where the only sound was his ragged breathing. 

Ilya had scared Shane that night. It had been a particularly bad night for Ilya, but it hadn’t been the worst. Shane had looked worried. He had even cleaned up Ilya’s entire kitchen. Had wiped Ilya’s hand and put a bandaid on the cut before they went to bed. 

Shane texted him a few times. Called him. Ilya didn’t answer any of them. Promised himself when he came back to a clean and empty apartment that this was for the better. This was the life he had known was his, and maybe Ilya could retire early, and then he would be of no use in this world. If he could make Shane hate him, it would be easier to let go. 

It would be mean to curse Shane with a hiker for a partner. Ilya would never be still. He couldn’t keep from wandering up and down the mountains. The tops and ravines were always calling him, and when he was walking the normal path, their presence still loomed like a promise and threat, and they always came for him in the end. 

Shane deserved someone not bound by mountains. 

Shane deserved someone better than Ilya. 

Ilya was good at pretending he walked the same paths as everyone else. That was what he had done ever since he was seventeen. Maybe even longer than that. 

When his mother had died, some part of him had died with her. That part had never returned, and the room it left behind had grown deeper since he was seventeen. 

His mother had been a hiker too, Ilya was pretty sure of. She walked the same paths he did, only her ravine was one she didn’t climb up from. Was Ilya cursed from birth to the lonely life of hiking, or had his mother passed it on the second she died? Had it been lying latent until the day it bloomed? 

There had been a time when Ilya wasn’t chained to mountains. He knew there had been. There must have been. 

Maybe when he was younger. When he skated on the ice with unsteady legs as his mother held his hand to steady him. Maybe when he played matches and his mother was always in the stands to cheer him on. When they won, or when the loss of a game hit extra hard, she used to take him to a small stand selling oreshki. He hadn’t eaten them since she died, their scent a reminiscence, a silent requiem for a time long since passed. 

No one came to his games after she died, except for the important ones his father used to attend in Russia. Otherwise the stands remained devoid of anyone he knew. When they lost to Latvia he had trudged past where he recalled the oreshki stand had been. 

But it was gone, and Ilya didn’t know how long since it closed down.

An old man had owned it. Ilya didn’t know his name. 

He was probably dead now. And Ilya would never again taste his oreshki. 

Jane's mom: Hi! Don’t know if Shane told you, but we would love to have you over for dinner on Friday. Shane has a few days off so he’s visiting. 

Jane's mom: Making chicken :-)

Ilya swallowed. He had been avoiding Shane for a week now. Every time Shane texted, Ilya deleted the notifications. Reading his messages was hard, so he stopped doing it. But when he saw notifications pop up from Yuna, he had become curious. Had been nervous that maybe something had happened to Shane. 

But instead he found a dinner invitation. He stared at the words, his brain not fully comprehending. It was unexpected. Was this why Shane had called him three times today after not calling for a few days? 

He knew Shane had called Yuna that night. This had to be related. 

Ilya was a hiker. He had a hiker’s heart. He lived on the mountains and their ravines. In the ravines he longed for the mountain tops, and on the mountain tops he forgot the ravines. It was life as he had known it for over a decade. It was how Ilya was, a trait passed down from his mother. 

Hikers couldn’t stop wandering through wilderness to reach the tops. They were desperate for the clear and cool air that only ever existed up there, void of anyone and anything. Just rock and sky. 

And hikers fell. 

It was how it was like. It was how Ilya was like. How he would always be like, no matter how much Ilya tried or hoped. A hiker's life, in the end, was a lonely one. Bound to the mountains, cursed to walk their paths forever until they one day couldn’t. Until their skull got smashed against boulders in the ravine during the fall. 

Ilya was a fucking hiker. He wasn’t meant for Shane. 

He shouldn’t have transferred to Ottawa. He should have stayed in Boston and blocked Jane. Should have followed through with his plan to break it off with Shane before he got hurt. 

But Ilya was nothing if not selfish, and he couldn’t help himself. When it came to Shane, he didn’t know how to stop. Ilya was a fucking hiker, and that sole fact covered him with such immense shame and guilt he couldn’t move. He had no reason to hike but he still did. His life had been going so well, but Ilya couldn’t 

fucking

stop

hiking—

Lily: What time?

Jane's mom: 7! See you then :-)

Fuck. 

Ilya stood outside the door at 7:02. It felt like something was bound to change if he knocked on the door. Standing in front of the door, the mountain and the ravines behind him. 

He should turn around. Should go back. Should block their numbers and beg to be traded as soon as possible. He could escape back to Russia. He still could. No one knew about him and Shane except for the people in the house in front of him. 

Back there he could slip away together with his mother. Maybe by the empty space that years ago contained the oreshki stand. 

Just as he was about to turn around, the door was all but torn open.

“Ilya,” Shane breathed out. Behind him light streamed out from the door, casting a shadow around him. It seemed warm inside. 

Ilya swallowed. “Sorry for not responding.”

A hand on his. He almost stumbled over the threshold when Shane pulled him inside. 

Shane’s eyes were flickering over him. 

“How are you?”

Ilya kissed him, chaste and hurried, instead of answering. He wanted to go back to his apartment, wanted to lie in bed and pretend this last decade had been a dream. A nice one, one he didn’t want to wake up from, but he didn’t know how to continue with this. 

Ilya had been hiding in plain view that he was a hiker since he was seventeen. Shane looked like he wanted to says something, his eyes big and–

Unsure. He looked unsure. His shoulders were drawn up, his feet shifting. 

Ilya suddenly remembered the last thing he had told him. He opened his mouth to say something, anything–

“Is that Ilya?” David called from inside the kitchen, breaking the moment. 

Dinner would have been awkward if it wasn’t for Yuna and David. They carried the conversation while Ilya felt like he wanted to disappear through the ground and Shane sat restless and twitching beside him. 

The food was good but tasted wrong in his mouth. Dirt was still there, the drought having hit the area surrounding the mountain hard. Ilya couldn’t look at the sky down there. Ilya missed the clouds. He missed the mountains. 

Ilya looked at Shane, who had barely touched his plate. Whenever Shane was anxious enough, he stopped eating. The knowledge that it was because of Ilya sat heavy in his stomach, making nausea curl deep. This was because of him. Ruining everything he touched, even the one thing he cared more about than all others. He loved Shane and he was hurting him. Fuck. 

Ilya touched Shane’s wrist. Shane looked up at him from where he had been staring at his plate as if it had personally offended him. Ilya looked down at the plate, then at Shane. This was all Ilya’s fault. 

Slowly, Shane started eating. 

Ilya wanted to kiss him again, wanted to lie in bed with him until the mountains disappeared. 

Normally he knew how to hide when he was in the ravines, knew how to pretend he wasn’t slowly dying, but it was as if that day in the kitchen when Shane saw him had broken something. 

Shane had seen him in his falls. It had been easier to hide before they got together. Most times when they hooked up, Ilya was on steady ground, in between both the high and the low. But now it had been more difficult. 

And Ilya–

Ilya didn’t want to hide. Didn’t want to be a hiker. Wanted to sit beside Shane and his parents and be fucking happy, instead of sitting in almost complete silence. Ilya saw the way the Hollanders kept looking at each other; how they looked at him. 

Some part of him had thought this would make him feel better. Had thought sitting and eating with a normal family would make him okay. 

It didn’t. 

Next time he blinked, he was sitting down beside Shane on a couch and on the one perpendicular occupied by Shane’s parents. Then they were watching some movie whose name Ilya didn’t remember with a plot he hadn’t paid attention to. 

Shane’s leg was touching his, and Ilya had never felt more like shit. He had been ignoring his boyfriend for a week because, what, he saw Ilya acting completely insane?

Ilya didn’t want to be this way. He felt like crying. 

He wanted to be like everyone else. Why was that so hard to achieve? It had been easier when he and Shane weren’t in a relationship, but now it was different. A lot more different. Accepting the fact he was wrong and pathetic and meant to be lonely had been manageable when he didn’t know any better, but now he knew, and it made it hurt all the more.

What he could have if he wasn’t wrong and unsculpted by his own head. 

Maybe it would have been better if he had never met Shane. If he had never known how good life could be. 

Sitting there, with gentle conversation about the movie floating in the air from the other three, he felt like an alien. Like he was dirty and sweaty from his hikes and falls, intruding on this perfectly normal family with normal parents and a pretty son. 

And he hated himself. Because he had everything he hadn’t had before, had a life he enjoyed and that actually felt worth living now, but he was still so fucking ungrateful. There was a divide between him and them. He was defiling them. 

Ilya Rozanov was cocky and arrogant, a dirty player. He was strong, and he was fucking great. 

Ilya wasn’t. Ilya was a hiker. 

He didn’t want to be one. He wanted to rest.

His chest felt empty. The fog was there again and his brain felt scrambled. His entire being was in disarray, but he couldn’t care. He wanted to care, but he didn’t. Wanted to retire. Wanted to jump into the ravine head first, aiming for the biggest rock there was. Wanted to die on impact just so this was over.

When he was seventeen, he thought it was something that would pass. But then a decade went by, and Ilya knew there was something wrong with him, something fundamentally wrong and no amount of pills could fix that. 

This was a reminder that Ilya never could have this. This easy and simple normalcy, Ilya wasn’t made for. He wanted it but he would never fit in. 

“Do you want to help me with the dishes, Ilya?” Yuna asked when the movie credits rolled. Ilya still had no idea what the movie had been about. 

“Ilya’s a guest; he shouldn’t h–” David stopped speaking abruptly as Yuna turned a pointed stare on him. 

Shane shifted beside Ilya awkwardly.

“I could really use your help. These two are completely useless, really,” Yuna said, and Shane nodded to himself. Ilya frowned because her words were far from true because Shane was incapable of leaving dirty dishes or spills anywhere. 

Then the thought hit him. Had Shane really sent his mom on him? 

Ilya raised an eyebrow at Shane, who just scratched at his neck, pretending not to see him. Still, Shane’s leg pressed harder against his. 

Fuck. 

Was this seriously happening? Yuna looked at him with questioning eyes. He saw Shane in them. 

Fuck. Well, whatever. He shot Shane a glare when he got up from the couch. 

On the ice, Ilya Rozonov was arrogant and cocky. Chirping at whoever was near him, in more fights than he could remember. He was strong and good and confident. In the kitchen with Yuna Hollander, Ilya felt far from it. 

“What did Shane tell you?” Ilya asked the second they entered the kitchen. He didn’t care if he was rude because he knew exactly where this was heading. 

Ilya didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t want saving. Didn’t want to talk to his boyfriend’s mother about his mental fucking issues. 

Yeah, hey, remember me, your son's boyfriend, his asshole rival? Yeah, I’m also fucking crazy. 

Yeah, Ilya did not want this to happen. He was a fucking hiker. He had gotten himself involved in something that wasn’t meant for him. He didn’t want this. 

(But wasn’t this why he had chosen to come?)

Yuna leaned against the kitchen counter. “He told me he was worried about you.”

He almost cursed Shane in his head because why couldn’t his own boyfriend just talk to him instead, before he realized that, right, Shane had tried. And Ilya had ignored every attempt his boyfriend had made over the last week. 

“What? One thing happen and now I am problem?” Ilya said. He knew he was impudent and ill-mannered, but he didn’t care. 

“You’re not a problem, Ilya,” Yuna assured, the gentle smile on her lips contradicting the sad look in her eyes. “You know, many players have issues with mental health. It’s a lot more common than one might think, actually.”

Ilya crossed his arms. Just months before he had been so desperate that Shane’s parents liked him, and while he still was, those thoughts were somewhere far away at the moment. He was stupid to have come here. He knew what would happen and he still came here. 

It would be best, really, if he walked home and submitted to the mountains, far too great and formidable for him to ever overcome. Maybe Ilya wouldn’t need to wait until he retired. Maybe if he cut ties with everyone and everything it would be easier.

This evening had shown him how ungrateful he was. How he was so fucked beyond repair he couldn’t even appreciate what he had, what he had always wanted. 

He hated himself for being this way. Why did he feel this way when he had no reason to?

“I don’t have issues,” Ilya said in defiance even though both of them could taste the lie in the air. 

“Shane said you have highs and lows,” Yuna continued, and Ilya felt like a caged animal. 

It was strange to hear it said aloud by someone else. He knew he had told Shane that when he was on the mountain’s top, but never before had anyone else said it. They felt like truth incarnated. It felt more real when said out loud. Like it was a fact, just like how one would state the temperature. 

Ilya had been great at hiding it. He knew how to. Had done it for a decade. Hid it from even his own father. From his brother. Fuck, even from Svetlana. He had been hiding it from Shane. Shane didn’t know. Didn’t know about the hard bottom of the ravines, didn’t know anything. 

But Ilya had told him, he had vague memories of. Telling him about the cycles. 

And Shane had seen it. 

“Shane does not know what he is talking about.” Ilya wanted to say something else, but he didn’t know what else there was. Maybe something smart. Maybe something to take all of this back, to undo it.

But what else was there, except for this? For these mountains and gorges that he was slave to? 

“I think he does. I think you know he does, too.”

Ilya felt his jaw clench, and he looked out the window. He could see soft light from gardens lamps. Yuna remained leaning against the counter, but her eyes was dissecting him in ways he didn’t like. He was a lonesome hiker. No one was supposed to know. 

“I know we don’t know each other so well yet, Ilya. But I care about you. Shane does too. Having problems doesn’t make you weak. Just look at Shane. 

“Shane is not weak,” Ilya agreed quickly. Yuna smiled again, in a sort of knowing way, something fond, something that made Ilya’s stomach flip. He looked at the cupboard beside her. 

“Exactly. And you aren’t either.” 

Why did he feel like a child with Yuna? He was a grown fucking man, a hiker, and he became a teenager again when standing in front of her.

“How long has it been going on?” Yuna asked, embodying with words what Ilya had only dared to do once. 

If he answered, he would be admitting to it. Admitting out loud there was something wrong.

This wasn’t him sitting on the mountain’s summit with Shane beside him, and telling him in jumbled sentences how things went up and down. This was a conversation, a real one. And while the ravine was always worse than the top, he was clearer. He knew what he was saying. 

“Seventeen.”

Yuna’s eyebrows raised. Maybe from the number or that Ilya answered. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t. Even Ilya had thought he wouldn’t. 

“For seventeen years?”

So why was he standing here, in Yuna Hollander’s kitchen, and saying things he swore to never do?

“No. Since I was seventeen.”

Maybe she would realize how wrong Ilya was. That it had been a decade and that he was going to stain her son with the wrong was that was Ilya. That he would ruin Shane, would drag him down, would wear him out until there was nothing left of him.

That Ilya was beyond help, beyond saving. That he needed to be put down like a fucking horse with a broken leg. 

“I assume you never got any help for it?”

“I do not need help. Is been fine. I have been fine. Nothing new.”

“You deserve to be more than just fine. And I don’t think you even are fine.”

Ilya bit his lip.

“Shane cares about you, Ilya. You know he does. He will understand.”

Ilya knew he would understand. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he thought Shane wouldn’t. Fuck. A headache was starting to form, his mind going hazy. 

“Just remember that. Okay? And if you ever need someone, we’re all here.”

“Okay,” Ilya agreed, feeling oddly defenseless. Felt exposed, raw nerves on the surface, cold air brushing against pulsating blood and muscle. It was a strange feeling. 

There was a lump in his throat. He swallowed, but it didn’t ease the sensation. 

Yuna pushed herself off the counter. “Now. I really do need help with dishes. I wash and you dry?”

He threw his car keys at Shane when Ilya and Yuna were done with the dishes. Shane stumbled trying to catch them, having been leaning against the doorframe the last ten minutes. Ilya had felt his gaze, soft and gentle. 

“You are driving.”

Shane breathed a noticeable sigh of relief, and Ilya raised an eyebrow. Did Shane think Ilya didn’t plan on bringing him back to his place?

Well. That would be a reasonable thought, considering the last week. Guilt gnawed at him. 

‘I need space from you,’ echoed in his head. 

“Goodbye Yuna. Goodbye David,” Ilya said, eyes flickering over them as he put on his shoes.

“Bye, Ilya.”

Ilya stood a little awkwardly by the car while he waited for Shane to emerge. He had stayed behind a few minutes to talk in the doorway. 

“Why are you standing out there? It’s cold,” Shane said as he came walking up to the car.

Ilya held up his empty hands. “No keys.”

“Right,” Shane said sheepishly and unlocked the car. 

“You snitched on me,” Ilya said, breaking the tension that had started to feel suffocating.

Shane huffed a laugh. “I didn’t snitch on you.”

“You did not? You did. What are you, a child?” Ilya said, almost petulantly. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest. The car was bumping every now and then, and the leather of the seat cool against his skin. 

“I’m sorry. Really. It’s just– I don’t know. I was worried.”

Ilya swallowed at the change of tone, looking down at his hands. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Ilya. But I didn’t know what to do. And then you didn’t answer me, and I thought you were mad at me or that something had happened, and I panicked and asked Mom.”

“I wasn’t–”

“So, maybe I shouldn’t have told her or asked her for help, but I had no fucking idea what to do.” The car turned sharply left. “I still don’t,” Shane admitted. 

“I’m so-”

“Stop saying you’re sorry.”

Ilya didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes. He didn’t want to burden Shane with this. Didn’t want him to know, didn’t want to give him a reason to leave. Ilya should be quiet and should push him away. Should be cruel and cold like Ilya was meant to be. 

He didn’t like being vulnerable. It was difficult and exposing, and it crawled over his skin. Whispered that he was weak, and the feeling of being open was so unfamiliar to him it felt like he was even doing that wrong. 

“It is not like–” Ilya paused. A hiker’s world was a lonely one. But maybe it would be okay to say this. This truth, he knew better than the mountains. “I do not want to be like this.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Ilya couldn’t help the short, bitter laugh. “There is. I go crazy and almost burn down the entire building.”

“The only thing you burnt was crazy expensive meat,” Shane contradicted. Ilya leaned his head against the window. The glass was cold under his skin. He looked over at Shane, whose eyes were still on the road. 

Something fond pulled at his chest. It was easier to talk like this when eyes couldn’t read him, when there were just words in the air. “It is not expensive if you have money, Shane.”

The corner of Shane’s lip pulled upwards. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

Ilya was a hiker. 

“It’s okay, Ilya. We’ll get through this.”

He was bound by mountains.

“Is been like this for decade. Since I was seventeen.”

Shane was standing with both feet on the ground.

“So?”

He was unshackled, as opposed to Ilya. 

“So, it is not going to change.”

Ilya wanted to be normal.

“I will deny I said this, but you’re the best hockey player I know. The best person I know. We’ll make it change.”

Ilya wasn’t sure if he believed him. 

“Better player than you, yes?”

He wanted to believe him.

“The best.”