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Ilya wakes up before his alarm.
He watches the minutes tick up until it goes off. It doesn’t blare or beep. Currently, it sounds like wind chimes and trees rustling, which is meant to be soothing. Shane read an article that said it reduces stress, but it rings in Ilya’s ears, making his head pound. Despite that, he doesn’t turn it off, just lets it go on and on until it gives up.
The other side of the bed is cold. Shane must have kissed him, close-mouthed and quick, before leaving for his shoot in Montreal. He always does when he gets up before Ilya. Usually Ilya will be half-aware of the press of Shane’s lips before drifting back off to sleep. He doesn’t remember this morning’s kiss, though, so it seems likely that he slept through it completely. He wishes he hadn’t. On days that they’re apart, he likes remembering Shane’s lips warm against his forehead, or the corner of his mouth, or the shell of his ear.
Ilya blinks up at the ceiling. He lifts up the duvet, realises he won’t be getting up any time soon, and lets it fall back down. The cold air getting in makes him shiver.
Anya is scratching at the door. He has to get up, let her into the garden and give her her food and her cuddles. He has to. He has to. He wants to, even, but his body won’t move. Shane will be upset by the scratches. Anya will be sad and lonely outside the bedroom door. All Ilya has to do is get up and fix it. Anya is his baby, and he has to push through for her. It should be simple: think about how he has to get up, order his body to move, feel the wooden floor underneath his bare feet. His limbs won’t move, though, the command getting lost somewhere along the way.
He watches the minutes tick by. Now he definitely can’t make it to practise in time. Now the team is changing. Now they are skating. Now they are messing around during their break, shitty music blaring and bad jokes getting booed.
They guys are all expecting him to be there even though it’s optional. In the team chat last night, he’d said My husband will be out of town so I might as well show you losers how to skate properly. They’ll wonder where he is, and they’ll message him for sure. It makes him want to smash his phone against the wall. He’d do it, if he had the energy to pick it up.
Anya is scratching again. Ilya just has to get up, it’s easy. It should be easy. It’s nothing. He still can’t do it.
The clock ticks and ticks on. Anya whines outside the door. Ilya grits his jaw and grabs his phone. The bare minimum is making sure Anya won’t go hungry for the day. He can do it. He won’t sink so low as to make her suffer. He drafts a message, keeps typing and deleting and taking breaks because his brain won’t focus enough to string a coherent sentence together. By the time he’s finished the draft, his jaw hurts with how much he’s pressing his teeth together. If he can’t get up in the next half hour, he vows, that’s when he’ll send the text.
His phone is full of messages he doesn’t bother to open. From Wiebe, from the team, from Terry. He knows what he’ll find, kindness and concern. All the things he cannot bear to think about right now because against all odds he’s somehow fooled the people in his life into thinking he deserves good things. Things like compassion and understanding and lenience.
He thinks that if only he could remember Shane kissing him this morning, everything that feels off today might slot back into place. That thought is what gives him the energy to roll over to Shane’s side of the bed.
He keeps watching the time. In fifteen minutes he’ll send the text. In eleven. In eight. The doorbell rings, more than once. Probably a package. It doesn’t matter, they’ll try again tomorrow. In four minutes he’ll send the text.
Ilya hears the front door open, hears Anya bark and pad down the stairs to greet whoever is coming in. Shane isn’t meant to be back before this evening. The only other people who know the code are Yuna and David, but the voices he hears are too deep, and too many. Heavy footsteps are coming up the stairs. Did someone break into the house?
Ilya grits his teeth again and rolls onto his side. He has to get up. Burglars might hurt Anya. Before he can make any other efforts to get up, someone knocks on the door, then slowly pushes it open.
“Roz? You in here?” Bood peers into the room. “Hey.”
Ilya stares up at him.
“Roz?” Bood asks again. “You okay? You weren’t at practise and we – yeah. With Shane not being in town, we wanted to check on you.”
Ilya manages a nod.
Bood slowly steps into the room. “You look horrible, man.”
“The code?” Ilya asks. “How -”
“Remember when I brought by the new grill for you last month when you were out? You guys gave me the code then. Normally I wouldn’t come in like that, but we were worried when you didn’t answer the doorbell.”
Oh, right. Ilya had forgotten about the grill. Shane wants to make burgers in the summer.
“Do you – is there anything we can do?” Bood asks. “To help?”
Ilya shakes his head.
“Okay,” Bood says. “No problem. Do you want me or one of the others to stay here with you? Or would you rather be alone?”
“Alone,” Ilya says. His voice comes out rough. He clears his throat, but it doesn’t really help. “But maybe -” His face burns hot with shame at making the request, but the thought of the house empty makes him shiver with cold even under the covers. “Maybe you stay downstairs?”
“Of course,” Bood says. His voice is low, so at odds with the boom and joviality he usually exudes. “Is there anything you need?”
“Anya,” Ilya manages. “She needs walk and food -”
“Hazy and Dykstra are walking her any time now, and we’ll give her food before. Haasy was just looking for it when I came upstairs.”
“Okay,” Ilya says. Embarrassingly, he feels himself tearing up, so he hides his face in Shane’s pillow. It smells like Shane’s healthy seaweed shampoo. The scent cocoons Ilya, mutes everything awful, wraps him in the closest thing to Shane’s embrace he can get right now.
“Anything I can bring you?” Bood asks.
Shane. Ilya wants Shane. Shane’s arms around him, Shane’s hands in his hair, Shane’s lips against his own. It wouldn’t make him able to get up, but it would ease every single breath. Shane knows how to hold Ilya the exact right way, how to whisper things that slowly chip away at the weight on Ilya’s chest. Ilya can’t say that, though. He never wants Shane to worry, and if the guys text him that Ilya asked for him, he definitely will. He might even stop the shoot and come back early. As tempting as the thought is to Ilya, he won’t give in and mess up Shane’s meticulously planned day.
So Ilya merely shakes his head again.
“Alright,” Bood says. “I’ll give you some space. Anything you need, just call us up here or even text. We’ll be here.”
The door closes softly, and Ilya is alone with the silence and Shane’s smell around him.
Once in a while, the guys check in on him. Chouinard, Haasy, Barrett. None of them seem to expect him to talk, they just look in, ask if he needs anything, and don’t prod him when he shakes his head. Chouinard comes over to the bed and pats Ilya’s shoulder. Barrett gives him a serious nod. Haas smiles tentatively. Somewhere along the line, the humiliation of them seeing him in this state ebbs away. The far-away sounds of Anya’s occasional barks, doors opening and closing, the coffee maker whirring, and the guys talking, blend into a soothing harmony.
After his phone dies and he can no longer watch the time, Ilya drifts in and out of sleep. Once, he gets up to go to the bathroom. A few times, he reaches out and takes sips of water from the bottle on Shane’s nightstand. It feels twice as heavy as usual, but he lifts it up and drinks anyway.
At some point, Bood shows up again and asks whether Ilya wants any of the food he’s making for the guys. Ilya declines. Bood leaves before returning with some crackers. Ilya eats two and Bood accepts the rest back without a word. He refills Shane’s water bottle as well.
When the sunlight outside starts to take on a golden afternoon glow, Ilya rolls over to put his head onto his own pillow and snuggles Shane’s pillow against his chest. It’s warm from where Ilya has been lying on it all day, and Ilya basks in how much it smells like Shane. Ilya closes his eyes, and when he next wakes up, it’s dark. It feels monumental, sitting himself up against the headboard. His movements are slower than usual, but he manages to plug in his phone to charge. With effort, he gets out of bed and heads downstairs. He can’t let Anya go to sleep without apologising to her.
Most of the guys have left, but Bood is sitting at the counter, on his phone. “Hey,” he says.
Ilya grunts in response and kneels down next to the dog bed where Anya is dozing. He talks to her in soft Russian as he strokes her fur. “I’m sorry, my best sweet girl. I’m so sorry. I love you.”
She licks his hand, then starts to snore.
Ilya stands up, his bones creaking. “Hey,” he says to Bood.
Bood nods at him. “I made some food. It’s in the fridge.”
“Thanks,” Ilya says.
Bood holds out a piece of paper. It’s a drawing of a picture on the living room wall, him, Shane and Anya by the lake at the cottage.
“Haasy made you this,” Bood says, when Ilya can’t respond over the tightness in his throat. “And Dykstra sent you a playlist he put together for you.”
Ilya coughs to clear the lump in his throat. “Ah, so he wants to make my depression worse instead of cure me.”
“He said it’s all songs that helped Caitlin when she was dealing with postpartum depression after Susie was born,” Bood says.
“Oh.”
“You want me to heat you up some food? Make a cup of tea or something?”
Ilya shakes his head. “Go home, Bood. It’s late. Cassie and Milo are probably missing you”
“No way,” Bood says. “I’ll stay until Hollander gets here.”
Ilya wants to argue, but he’s so tired. He slept all day, and he’s still so fucking tired. He puts the picture Haas drew on the fridge using the magnet shaped like a loon. “Thanks,” he mutters in Bood’s direction. “I’m going to go lie back down.”
Bood’s eyes are worried. Maybe he expected Ilya to actually push harder for him to leave. “Anytime, Roz.”
Ilya makes it up the stairs. He falls back into bed feeling like he just played a full game, exhausted to his bones. It’s easy to go back to sleep.
He’s confused when he wakes up again, until he realises the sounds filling the room are the familiar noises of Shane carefully moving around in order not to wake him up. Ilya doesn’t stir as he listens to Shane’s quiet steps and the water running when he begins and finishes brushing his teeth. But not during, because Shane is responsible and doesn’t waste water. Ilya’s eyes burn.
Shane slides into bed next to him and gropes around the mattress for the moment. Ilya realises what he’s looking for and reluctantly hands over the pillow he’s been clutching for several hours.
“Shit, did I wake you?” Shane’s voice is hushed. It’s easily the best sound Ilya has heard in his life, better than loon calls or the water lapping at the lakeshore or crowds thousands of fans strong roaring his name.
“No,” Ilya says. “Is okay.”
Shane tugs him into his arms and Ilya groans in relief.
“Bood said it was a really tough day,” Shane says gently.
Ilya nods, knowing Shane can feel it. Finally, Shane’s fingers slide into the curls at the nape of his neck. Ilya pushes even closer.
“Want to talk about it?” Shane asks.
Ilya shrugs. “Just bad. Difficult to get out of bed.”
Shane’s fingernails are gently scratching across Ilya’s scalp. “I’m sorry.”
“Happens,” Ilya says.
“I know,” Shane says. “It sounded really bad, though. Do you want to call Galina tomorrow for an emergency appointment? And Terry, too? We can do it together.”
“Okay,” Ilya says. Together, it will be okay.
Shane kisses his forehead. “Okay.”
They’re silent for the moment. Ilya feels Shane’s chest rise and fall with his breathing, a familiar and soothing rhythm.
Eventually, he makes himself speak again. “Shane?”
“Mhm?”
“I could not get up to feed Anya,” Ilya croaks, trying to blink the tears out of his eyes.
Shane doesn’t say anything, just holds him tight while Ilya tries to stop himself from crying. When he’s calmed down a little, Shane kisses him, overwhelmingly tender. Ilya clings to him and Shane doesn’t end the kiss until Ilya is able to stop digging his nails into Shane’s waist.
“I made a plan,” Ilya whispers after they’ve parted enough to speak. “To make sure she will be okay even if I cannot get up.” Suddenly he feels unexpectedly, fiercely proud of doing that.
“Yeah?” Shane says. His palms are warm and steadying where he’s cupping Ilya’s face.
Ilya nods and shows him the message he drafted in the morning. Hi David and Yuna. Can you please come to the house and pick up Anya and take care of her today. I cannot do it today please. Sorry and thank you for helping.
“Ilya,” Shane breathes, and then he’s brushing kisses all over Ilya’s face. “That’s so good. You did so well writing that out. I’m so proud of you. Fuck, you’re incredible.” And I love yous in between, so many Ilya loses count.
Eventually, Shane pulls away and moves to leave the bed. Ilya tries to hold on to him.
“I’ll be right back,” Shane says. “I promise.” He kisses Ilya, brief but so, so sweet, exactly like he must have done this morning. Ilya lets him go, committing this kiss to memory as best he can.
Shane keeps his promise. It only takes a couple of minutes for him to come back. In the dim moonlight filtering in through the window, Ilya can see that he’s carrying Anya in his arms.
“I think it’s the kind of day for an exception,” Shane says. He lets Anya down at the foot of the bed and slides back under the covers next to Ilya. “Come here.”
Ilya scrambles on top of him. He lays his head right over Shane’s heart, wedges his thigh in between Shane’s. Anya shuffles around until she’s half-covered by the duvet as well, curling up against Ilya’s feet.
Ilya breathes in more deeply than he remembers ever doing. Shane’s fingers find their way back into his hair.
“Ilya?”
Ilya hums against Shane’s chest.
“I’m glad the guys were there for you today.” Shane wraps an arm firmly around Ilya’s shoulders. Ilya knows he needs his medication, he knows rationally that Shane can’t cure his depression, but when Shane holds him like this, it feels like it might just fix everything wrong with him.
Ilya doesn’t know how to say what he wants to, but Shane knows him. Shane says, “But I’ll be here when you wake up tomorrow.”
Ilya presses a kiss to Shane’s shirt, feels Shane’s heartbeat through the cotton underneath his lips. Anya moves her tail, tickling his feet. Tomorrow seems less scary like this.