Archive of Our Own

March

Six months. Well, six months to five years is the official line, but the doctor on the other side of the desk turns pale looking at the scans, and she doesn’t look either of them in the eye as she says it. The median is around a year, but we’ve seen lots of patients who… Specks of dust catch the orange light filtering in from the window and drift aimlessly through the air. Six months. 

Ilya squeezes his hand, and his arm is numb. The doctor is still talking, experimental drugs and palliative care, and Shane’s not listening. His shoes are laced too tight. There’s a thin layer of dust on her shelves that coats the tops of her neat line of medical books, a fine film over the glass of her framed doctoral degree. He wonders if they should get a second opinion. 

They’re sitting in a hospital in downtown Toronto, and Shane is watching the swirls of dust that cluster near the ceiling vent, floating up and falling listlessly down, silent against the quiet hum of the air conditioning. The doctor is still talking, and Ilya is still squeezing his hand, and Shane’s collar is damp and too tight around his neck. The dust is making it hard to breathe, collecting in his eyes and making his eyelashes stick together as he tries to blink the numbness away. He should really pay attention, make a list, ask a question. There are medications and MRIs and lawyers, things he needs to do. He swallows and finds his throat is numb, too. Six months. Six fucking months. 

Ilya’s asking a question instead. He’s speaking slowly, overenunciating in that way he does when he’s half-asleep or half-drunk and English slides out of his grasp ever so slightly. They were pressed together in their own bed just hours ago, and Ilya was grumbling about the long drive. They were both tipsy just a few days ago, Shane slumped against Ilya in the back of Monk's as he tried to ignore the anxiety bubbling in his stomach. Ilya had scratched his scalp and whispered he would call them a cab. Their lives were normal just a few weeks ago, before the first trip to the emergency room, before the first scan, before the first doctor with a list of symptoms and a referral and a speech tinged with sympathy. Shane’s back aches against the metal of the chair.  

Their hands are jumbled together in Ilya’s lap, and his thumb runs over Shane’s, up and down. Up and down. The dust just below the vent is swirling up and down, up and down. His chest is heaving up and down, up and down and up and down and his sweater is too hot, he needs to take it off and get a deep breath. His lungs aren’t filling up all the way and Shane might as well be pushing through the last seconds of his shift, ignoring the scream of his legs as he skates past the center line and lunges for the puck. He might as well be lying flat against the ice, the wind knocked out of him by a rogue shoulder or hip check. He just needs to get a deep breath. Six months. 

He says a few things, and he can’t remember if they’re important. The doctor nods and smiles sympathetically and hands over a few forms, pamphlets in happy pastel colors. Six months. Up and down and up and down, down, down. There’s a recommendation for end of life counseling and a support group for caregivers of terminally ill loved ones. Ilya takes the forms and glances over them. He pulls their hands apart just long enough to fold the mess of papers in half, crease them with the edge of his fingernail.

The elevator is stifling. Ilya pushes the button for the parking garage. His eyes are unfocused and the line of his mouth is thin, even as his hand splays against Shane’s back to guide him to the car. Shane thinks about offering to drive, except that his hands and arms and feet and throat are all numb, and he nearly topples over pulling his sweater off. His undershirt is soaked with sweat. 

“We can stay in hotel tonight?” Ilya says. His voice is quiet, careful. 

“I can drive,” Shane replies despite himself. Ilya just opens the passenger side door for him and Shane slumps against the leather silently. Six months. Half a year. Not even a full hockey season. 

Ilya turns the car on and twists around as he reverses out of the spot. There’s specks of dust on the dashboard, the rear view mirror. Shane thinks about what dust really is. Pieces of things that aren’t there anymore. Hair and skin and eyelashes. Things that used to be alive. Six months. He rolls the car window down and gasps at the cold. It’ll be summer, six months from now.

Six months, six months. He’s sobbing in the passenger seat. Ilya throws the car into the hotel parking lot, cuts the engine, and jumps out. He’s crouching in front of Shane, shivering in the March air. 

He’s not breathing. At least it doesn’t feel like it. Ilya grabs Shane's palm and presses it to his own chest. He feels Ilya’s heart thump, thump, thumping there. His own chest is moving up and down weakly and maybe he is breathing, but it doesn’t feel like it. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane whimpers. Ilya shushes him and reaches up to pet his hair. 

“Let’s go inside, ok? We will take a shower and figure it out.”

“Six months, Ilya.” 

“I know, lubov.” 

He stands under the shower spray and cries. Ilya’s on the phone with someone on the other side of the door, mumbling in Russian in a low voice. He stands under the hot water and tries to wash the dust away, rinses his mouth out. Ilya must be on the phone with Svetlana, judging by the panicked voice on the other side of the phone. She’s getting higher-pitched, more frantic. Ilya’s voice stays low and quiet. 

Shane shoves his knuckles into his mouth to keep from crying out. They gave his husband six months. They give Ilya six months.  

April

Spring in Ottawa is pretty beautiful, if you think it might be your last. Crocuses peek out from under the frozen ground, purple dots against the thin layer of snow, and the lake’s reflection grows greener and greener. The days are getting longer. Ilya’s been spending a lot of time sitting in the sun and watching the gentle canopy of leaves stretch out across the water. 

He tries to be positive about it. He used to only get hours with Shane. Minutes. Three weeks between seasons at the cottage used to stretch out in front of him like a sun-soaked eternity, and he remembers the first time Shane drove him to the airport, both of them loose and relaxed and tan from floating next to each other in the gentle current of the lake. It had felt like forever. Ten years of reaching out and two weeks of grabbing and touching and having. He used to live for hours and minutes and seconds. Six-months-to-five-years really isn’t that bad. 

Ilya wakes up early, the third morning in a row, and stands on the back deck of the cottage. Stares out into the sun as it rises, just a sliver that slowly trundles up over the horizon. The orange light splashes across his nose, his neck, his chest. Shane is still asleep with Anya curled up at his feet; he’s given up on keeping her off the bed. 

Ilya feels so fucking stupid, whenever he stops and really thinks about it. He thought they had more time. And he feels even stupider, for thinking such unhelpful, cliche thoughts. But he really thought they would get another few eternities together. He’s been spoiled, recently, and two weeks feels more and more like the blink of an eye, like the sun quickly slipping back under the water’s surface. Two weeks should be nothing, in the grand scheme of things. 

He’s trying to be positive about it. Not everyone gets an eternity. 

Shane shakes him awake after a little while. Ilya’s fallen asleep in the deck chair, cheek smushed against the wood. He hands Ilya a mug of coffee. Shane doesn’t drink coffee during the season, at least not when things are normal. He clinks their mugs together. 

“Did you sleep ok?” Shane says awkwardly. It’s been a month, and neither of them have figured out how to talk about it. They haven't even told Shane’s parents. 

“I was dreaming of you,” Ilya says. He tugs at Shane’s collar until he leans down and kisses Ilya on the cheek. 

“What do you want to do today?” Shane asks. He looks nervous. 

“Maybe we can go skate a bit,” Ilya says, trying to sound noncommittal. “The guys won’t be in until the afternoon.” Shane will probably feel better once he gets on the ice. Right now, he looks ready to burst into tears, even as he smiles and slots into Ilya's lap. His hands find Shane’s waist instinctively and pull him closer. 

“If you want,” Shane says. Neither of them know what to say. “I was thinking we should, uh, go see my parents. This weekend maybe.” Neither of them dare to say why. 

They make out lazily on the deck as the rest of the sun crests the horizon. Shane’s mouth is warm and tastes like coffee against his. Ilya decides he’ll take however many minutes of this as he’s allowed. He sighs against the corner of Shane’s mouth and presses a kiss to the underside of his husband’s jaw. 

David told him once that Shane was their miracle. After years of trying, if you can believe it, he had said over his tumbler of vodka, lifting the glass to his mouth. It makes perfect sense to Ilya. Shane’s his miracle too, after weeks and months and years of wanting. And he hates seeing his husband so despondent, so upset. He nips at Shane’s neck, relishes in the warmth of Shane’s chest as he arches gently against him. 

He thinks Shane’s more upset than he is, about Ilya being sick, about Ilya dying. Ilya’s mostly upset about saying goodbye.  

June

The Centaurs lose to the Raiders in five games. Shane cares, of course. He knocks helmets halfheartedly with Luca as they shuffle off the ice and claps Zane on the back. Cliff and a couple of Ilya’s old Boston buddies are still on the team, and they give him identical sympathetic grimaces as they grip Shane’s hand, mumble good game and good man and see you soon, Hollzy. Most of them know, even though Ilya never made a public statement. Shane suspects most of the hockey world knows at this point, and he knows his mom has drafted a statement she doesn't want either of them to see. He knows he just lost the Stanley Cup. And really, Shane doesn’t care about the game at all. 

No one questions when he skips the media pen. His husband is at home, six hours away, and Svetlana posted a picture to her private story half an hour ago of Ilya’s head in her lap, mostly asleep as the game played on TV. Ilya’s been having these headaches more and more, and the screen probably made his eyes hurt. Shane left a bottle of ibuprofen in the nightstand, though he doubts Ilya took any. 

Shane should have quit hockey. He should have fucking quit. The last three months have been torture and he has no fucking clue why he even finished out the season. Wiebe would have understood. The guys would have understood. The press would have understood.

He’s a terrible husband, leaving every other day, barricading himself in the back of the team bus or the back of the team plane. Ilya’s been travelling with them when he can, but Shane can tell it makes him sad, to watch the team play without him. Shane’s jersey, now adorned with the captain’s C in bright red lettering, is embroidered with guilt. He calls Svetlana to tell her he’s on the way home, and she whispers that Ilya’s still asleep in the recliner. He’s a terrible husband.   

He’s a terrible husband, Shane thinks, stripping off his pads and throwing his jersey in the laundry cart, but hockey is the only thing in his life that’s not falling apart. The only constant. The Cens had a great season and it really felt like they might go all the way for the third time in four years. Even after Ilya Rozanov’s Shock Retirement! A CBC Exclusive. Even after Shane wore the captain’s jersey for the first time, since the guys stopped being able to look him in the eye. 

Hockey’s the only thing in his life he feels like he can control, except that two or ten or however many months from now, they’ll make retrospectives on this season, on Ilya Rozanov’s last season as a captain. On Hollander and Rozanov’s last season on the same team. The last season of Hollander and Rozanov. And there’s nothing he can fucking do about it. 

Hayden’s standing next to his car, fiddling with the zip of his jacket. Shane had seen him and the kids sitting up in the VIP box. Amber was wearing a Rozanov jersey. 

Hayden’s hug nearly suffocates Shane. “Hey, sorry man,” he says. 

“It’s ok.”

“You guys played really well, considering you didn’t have Rozy on the…” he cuts himself off . 

Hayden hasn’t really hated Ilya for a while now. It helps that his kids beg for Uncle Ilya to come babysit because he brings the best candy and lets them pelt him with Legos and foam Nerf bullets, as long as he’s allowed to carry Arthur’s little plastic shield to defend himself. But Shane can’t think about Ilya and kids, their kids, for too long, if he wants to get himself home in one piece. 

“Yeah,” he replies lamely. 

“Next season, Holz.” He claps Shane on the back. 

“I’m not renewing.”

Hayden chews his lip for a moment and squeezes Shane’s shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll have you back, man.”

“Don’t fucking say that,” Shane spits back. He’s surprised at the venom in his own voice. 

“Of course, fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean–”

“It’s fine.” He doesn’t want to come back. Even though hockey is the only thing that’s holding his life together. Coming back means admitting it’s over. Coming back to hockey is a thing he’ll have to do after. After.

Ilya’s thirty-fifth birthday is three days later. The party is absolutely massive. Half the Raiders, the Cens, a few guys from the Metros, and seemingly half the town of Ottawa show up to Troy and Harris’s place. Dykstra assigns himself the role of DJ and Zane has commandeered the grill. Ilya hugs everyone, and he drags Shane onto the makeshift dance floor and undoes the top three buttons of his shirt, throws his head back and laughs. It almost feels normal, and Shane lets it go when Ilya accepts a shot from Cliff’s outstretched hand and sputters at the taste. 

Then Ilya catches his eye and winks, and Shane remembers that his husband’s thirty-sixth birthday might be another thing that comes after. He excuses himself into the bathroom and leans heavily against the door, sliding down until he’s sitting on the cool tile. Thirty-six, and thirty-seven, and forty and fifty and sixty and eighty and everything he assumed they would have. Ilya’s birthday will still come every year. Their wedding anniversary. Valentine’s Day. The date they first met. 

Everything is going too fast. Shane’s pretty sure everything is going to be too fast forever. It’s June. If the doctor’s worst-case scenario is right, they’re halfway through their forever, and Shane spent half his fucking time playing hockey because he can’t stand to live without a stupid fucking game. He hates whatever’s wrong with him. 

Someone knocks hesitantly on the bathroom door, and Shane doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there. His hands are tangled in his hair, pulling hard. Everything’s moving too fast. 

Ilya pulls Shane tight against his waist as Cliff starts the singing of Happy Birthday. If Shane didn’t know otherwise, he would think it was just another party. He would think Ilya’s just turning another year older. He thinks about the ten years when they were both pretending not to care, about all of Ilya’s birthdays he missed. Twenty-four and twenty-five and twenty-six and eighteen and forty and sixty and eighty and forever. 

Ilya smiles a massive smile and blows out the candles, and the room erupts into cheers as the music starts again. There’s a single tear sliding down the side of his face. 

August

Summer in Marbella is pretty unbearably hot, if your immune system doesn’t work anymore. Ilya doesn’t really care. 

They go to Spain once the season’s over. Ilya’s always wanted to go, but he’s always figured it would be the kind of trip they would take when they’re old and retired and can eat whatever they want. Within the safety of his own imagination, he’s always thought it’s the kind of trip they’d take once their kids got old enough to appreciate travelling. Maybe one of them would learn Spanish in school, or would be really into architecture or art museums or beg to see an F.C Barcelona match at Camp Nou. None of that really matters now. He’s always wanted to go, so they go. 

Ilya doesn’t really feel like he’s dying. He is, but he doesn’t always feel like it. They spend most of the trip sitting on the hotel balcony and drinking in the salty breeze, or wandering up and down the boardwalk, or spread out on beach towels in the sand. It’s everything Ilya wants, to relax with Shane, to not be recognized, to have no responsibilities. He reviewed the most recent draft of his will last week. 

He wishes he could control when he goes. It’s making Shane anxious, he knows, to have so much uncertainty. Even when he was just Hollander on the ice and Lily in his phone, Ilya knew Shane needed a bit more structure, more routine. Needed to know. 

The end of August will mark the six month mark. He and Shane walk hand in hand along the beach. The water is inky black, and pale strips of moonlight reflect on the waves that lap at their ankles. The wind is warm and thick in his throat. 

If he wasn’t so fucking scared to say goodbye, he would just want it to end now. He doesn't want Shane to watch him decline. He doesn’t want Shane to remember him like that. Ilya’s spent years dreaming of his mother’s limp hand, of her tears as she braced herself over the kitchen sink. Shane's shoulders are loose, and his linen shirt billows in the breeze. He’s holding his flip flops in his other hand. 

If he wasn’t secretly hoping he didn’t actually have to say goodbye, Ilya would think this is the perfect way to end it. To have Shane remember him as something relaxed and gentle and warm in the salty air. To leave him with one really good memory, the memories of their vacation in the sun. When he goes, he doesn’t want it to be cold and sterile and pathetic. 

“Should we turn around?” Shane says, turning to squint at the distant lights of their hotel. He looks surprised to see the tears rolling off Ilya’s chin. He reaches a hand out and fits it against Ilya’s cheek, his thumb wiping one of the tears away. They’re both well past asking what’s wrong? They already know. 

“No, let’s go a little bit more,” Ilya finally manages. He presses their foreheads together, inhales the rhythmic sound of the waves crashing and fizzling out, again and again. 

“Of course,” Shane says. “Yeah, uh, we can keep going.” 

Ilya stops after a few minutes and digs his toes into the sand, pulling Shane closer. He hopes he’ll get to see Mama, at least. If he doesn’t get to control when he goes. He has so much to tell her.

His head falls against Shane’s shoulder. Mama will probably be upset that he’s married to a man. She’ll probably be upset he didn’t have kids. She’ll probably be upset to see him so soon. He can’t wait to see her anyway. He’s trying to stay positive, and if he thinks too hard about saying goodbye to Shane and Sveta and David and Yuna… He’s trying to stay positive. The moon is starting to disappear behind a thin, wispy strip of clouds, casting them into hazy blue darkness. Ilya slides his hand into Shane’s pocket. They stand like that for a while. 

He’s made his peace with the dying part. It’s the saying goodbye that kills him. He doesn't want to die knowing Shane isn't ready to say goodbye, knowing he's upset. But he knows neither of them will ever really be ready. 

“We can go back now,” Ilya says finally. “We have to catch plane tomorrow.” 

It’s Shane’s turn to sniffle and hide his face. They’re both well past asking why are you crying? 

“Maybe we should just stay here,” Shane says. His voice cracks. 

“See, I knew you would like Spanish lifestyle. Other than the wine and the good food and the being late, is perfect for you,” Ilya jokes. 

Shane chuckles and swipes at his eyes. “Fuck off, it’s nice here,” he says weakly. 

“We have to go home. I’m sure your parents are missing you,” Ilya says. 

Despite the darkness, Ilya can tell Shane’s fighting to keep his face together, to keep his mouth pressed in a tight line. 

“I dunno, I think we should just stay like this.” Shane bites his lip and swallows roughly. They both stare out into the waves. 

December 

The panic attacks start around month seven, and nothing seems to help. 

They’re living on borrowed time, and he’s grateful for it. Ilya was a professional athlete before everything, and he’s never been seriously sick before. If anyone’s going to make it past the worst-case scenario, it’s Ilya. He has the best doctors that money can buy. The panic attacks start anyway. 

Every day is a gift, Mom tells him, and Shane is so fucking selfish. He knows that every day is a gift. But when his alarm goes off or the sunlight throws itself in yellow strips across his face, spilling in through the half-open blinds, it doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels like another day of uncertainty, of Ilya holding Shane together when it should be the other way around. So usually, Shane lays there and lets the sun warm his face, waits for Ilya to snore or sniffle or throw his arm over Shane’s chest and pull him closer. Waits to know that it’s safe to open his eyes. 

Sometimes, though, he can’t wait, and his breathing grows heavy and ragged as he tries to think of what to do if he rolls over and Ilya’s gone. He makes lists in his head, completely frozen in the early morning sun. He’ll have to call Svetlana, to try to get in contact with Ilya’s niece. He’ll have to call the hospital and the funeral home. He’ll have to find Ilya a collared shirt, and the right dress shoes, and decide whether he’s going to bury Ilya with his wedding ring. Ilya’s told him he doesn’t mind, if Shane wants to keep it. 

He clutches the blanket and tries to breathe, trying to think of what to do first. He can’t move. He doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want it to be real. The other side of the bed dips next to him, and Ilya ruffles Shane’s hair. 

“Shane, hey. Shhh, is ok.” Ilya’s voice is coated with sleep as he guides Shane to roll over. Shane’s heaving, gasping for air. Their noses touch and Ilya reaches over to press Shane’s palm against his chest. Ilya's heart is beat, beat, beating. It wasn’t real. Shane sits up and tucks his head between his knees, trying to cough the dust out of his lungs. 

Ilya’s having more and more trouble walking, though he won’t admit it. He just hangs onto chairs and tables and walls, tells everyone he hasn’t skated in months and he’s out of shape. His left leg drags against the hardwood floor, and there’s a cane in their hallway closet he refuses to use. He takes a bunch of pills now, and Shane takes some too. He’d been prescribed a lower dosage of the same medication at seventeen, to help with the stress of juniors and being drafted and the pressure of a thousand flashbulbs every time he steps onto the rink. He hadn’t taken the pills at seventeen, though. 

It wasn’t real this morning, but one day it will be. Shane takes two and turns the shower on. 

He and Ilya go to New York for New Years. Snow pours down in buckets and they trundle around in coats and hats and matching red mittens, take the boat to Ellis Island and walk the Highline under a grey, glistening sky. Ilya buys a New York Mets bandana for Anya. But of course, Ilya also refuses to hail a cab even as the sidewalks grow slick and drags himself up and down Manhattan on one leg instead, slumps in the plastic seats of the metro with a grimace he tries to hide from Shane. Shane sees it anyway and swallows the panic down the best he can. It’s been nine months, and every day is a gift. He takes two pills in the hotel bathroom while Ilya’s on the phone. 

They don’t stay out to see the ball drop. Ilya’s completely exhausted from their sightseeing, though he’ll never admit it. He nearly cracks his skull in the shower, though, head slumping against the tile as Shane rinses the shampoo out of his hair. Shane puts the TV on, volume low, and the cheers from Times Square echo through their little hotel room as they lay next to each other, breathing into each other’s mouths. 

It’s so unfair. He hadn’t even thought about how there’s going to be a New Year’s Eve every year for the rest of his life, that Shane will have to sit through parties and champagne and sparklers for the rest of his life. He’ll have to tolerate everyone around him being happy for the rest of his life. The two minute countdown to midnight starts. 

“It’s so unfair,” Shane mumbles against Ilya’s hair. There’s one minute left until midnight. 

“Are you angry with me, for leaving?” Ilya mumbles back. There’s tears dripping off the bridge of his nose and onto the pillow.

“Ilya–”

“I don’t want to leave,” Ilya says. Thirty seconds left. He sounds like he’s still asleep. “Shane, I promise, I would never…”

“I know.”

“I was so angry with Mama,” he whispers. Ten, nine, eight. “For many years. Shane, you have to promise you will try not to be angry.”

“Ilya–” Five, four, three. 

“I will be waiting for you,” Ilya says. The tinny sound of Auld Lang Syne fills the space between them. “I promise.” 

Shane doesn't believe in God. He’s not entirely convinced Ilya will be waiting for him anyway, after. He nods anyway and kisses the tip of Ilya's nose

“Happy new year, Ilya.”

“Happy new year, lubov.” 

February

Shane fights off the hospice nurses as long as he can. Hospice is for people with six months or less, generally. They've already gotten a year since their first ER visit and Ilya’s first scan and the first round of doctors with kind, sorry eyes. He’s so grateful to still have Ilya, even though he sleeps more and more, and walks around the neighborhood increasingly tire him out. Shane washing Ilya’s hair stops being a luxury reserved for lazy weekends and starts being a necessity. 

Still, Shane’s got it under control. Then Hayden comes to visit. 

Ilya peps up enough to chirp at Hayden about the Metro’s shitty season, and to ask for photos of the Pike children. But he’s clearly exhausted, purple veins prominent against his skin. He trudges upstairs to call Svetlana and wish her happy birthday, still dragging his left leg, and Hayden grabs Shane’s wrist before he can start to clear the table. 

“Listen man, it’s none of my business.” Hayden pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “And I know you’re trying to handle everything yourself, but maybe if you had some help–”

“Hayd, we’re fine.” 

“Look, Hollzy. You can still make some good memories for him. Y’know Jackie’s grandma, she was in the hospital for a long time before she…Well, the nurses told us she could still hear us, or uh, something like that. So we would tell her happy stories. Brought the kids in to hold her hand, and stuff.”

Hospice is for people with six months or less, generally. Shane shoves his knuckles into his mouth and dials the number on the back of the cream-colored business card the doctor gave them at Ilya’s last appointment. Ilya’s asleep on the couch in the next room with Anya stretched out between his legs. 

They do a lot of reminiscing, over the next few months. They talk about their first meeting, what they thought of each other at first. Ilya tells him about calling CCM to get Shane included in the photoshoot that started it all, a story Shane’s never heard before. Shane tells Ilya about watching Ilya’s interviews, being embarrassingly charmed by his thick accent in his rookie season. They hold hands as much as they can. Shane takes two of the little white pills almost every day. 

They eat dinner at the dinner table for once, for Valentine’s day. Ilya procures a bouquet of roses, somehow, and clips the stems carefully so they'll fit into the glass vase on the mantle. 

“I remember Valentine’s Day, our rookie year,” Ilya says between bites of steak. He can’t eat nearly as fast as he used to. “I was going to text you.”

“You were?”

“Yeah, like, to make joke. But I thought you would take it seriously, so…” 

Shane stares down into his green beans and wills the panic down before it can climb up his throat. Ilya's always known him so well, seen right through him. Every week, every month, every year he spent afraid of people knowing their secret feels useless now. Every day is a gift. A gift he fucking squandered for the better half of a decade. 

“What can I say, Hollander?” Ilya adds. His thumb runs along Shane’s knuckles, winking exaggeratedly. “I am a romantic guy.” 

Ilya has the first seizure in March. It’s common with brain tumors, apparently. It’s fucking terrifying anyway, and Ilya manages to chip a tooth a full year after his last NHL game. He has a lot of trouble walking after that. Shane googles what will happen if he takes three pills instead of two, and then decides against it. 

The hospice nurse pulls him aside right as the winter melts into a timid Canadian spring and tells him they might want to think about sleeping in separate beds. Ilya might start to get really cold, and he might start to have trouble with his bladder, she says. Sleeping apart would make things easier. 

“No,” Shane says. He’s barely sleeping as it is, even with Ilya in bed next to him. He's getting better at hiding the panic, but it hasn't gone away. 

The nurse purses her lips and nods. “You might find you’ll be more comfortable–”

“No, I’ll stay with him.” Shane spent ten years sleeping without Ilya. Every day is a gift.  “Please.”

June

Everything starts to feel final. Shane’s not ready for final.

The seizures get more violent, and Ilya starts to forget whether it's daytime or night. Shane goes to the store to buy the soap Ilya likes and it could very well be the last time. He knows he won’t be able to use that brand again, after. He cooks Ilya’s favorite dinners, even though his husband can only manage a few bites most days, and it’s probably the last time he’ll ever make them. The cookbook was a present from Hayden and Jackie, when Shane and Ilya moved into their new house two years ago. He won’t open it ever again, after. He thinks he’ll probably sell the house, too. 

He hates thinking about after. After is long and scary and unknown and horrible. After nearly makes him swerve into a ditch, his eyes sting with tears as he drives home with Anya from the dog groomer, thinking about how she doesn’t know what’s happening. She loves Ilya so much and she won’t understand, after. Shane barely understands it himself. 

It’s the middle of June, and Ilya’s sitting upright. He eats breakfast, and he asks Shane’s mom if the Cens are playing today, and he asks if Shane will come sit with him and watch the first period at least. His breaths are long and labored. 

Shane texts Svetlana: could you make it down today? 

She responds right away: I’ll get in around noon. 

He’s so grateful. He’s so glad they get another day together. He’s so glad he woke up with Ilya’s chest warm against his back. He’s so fucking grateful his husband is awake enough to poke him as the Cen’s new rookie lines up for a face off and say he’s slow, just like you were and groan when Shane lightly shoves him away. 

“I was still faster than you,” Shane protests. 

“Maybe, but I always got there first.” Ilya waggles his eyebrows and giggles. Shane smiles and digs his fingernails into his palm. 

Shane is so grateful, but he knows what this all means. And in the evening, Ilya can’t sit up anymore. 

He’s groaning. Shane waves off Mom and her offer to call the night nurse, sends her back downstairs and leans over the edge of the bed. Ilya’s face is lined with sweat and he thrashes weakly against the pillow.

“What hurts, Ilya?” he says quietly. This is a dance they’ve done a million times before, even before the doctors and the scans and the six months to five years. It feels normal, like he could be pressing gently on Ilya’s ribs or throwing a roll of athletic tape at him with orders to wrap his knee. 

“Nothing,” Ilya groans back. That part feels normal too. He mumbles something in Russian Shane’s pretty sure he’s not meant to understand. 

“I love you, Shane,” Ilya adds. His chest rises and falls, up and down and up and down. 

“I love you so much.” I love you so much more than fifteen months, Shane thinks. I love you enough for years and years and years. Forty and sixty and eighty and forever. 

“I’m gonna go get Mom,” Shane says instead. Ilya’s eyes are closed. 

Shane gives his parents a few minutes alone with Ilya. Mom sobs through the half-open bedroom door. Dad doesn’t say anything. Sveta flicks the TV in their room to the Boston game and mumbles her own witty commentary for a few minutes, though Shane can only translate every other word from Russian. She’s petting Ilya’s hair and smiling, even though his eyes are still closed. Her own eyes are full of tears, though she doesn't let it change her voice at all. 

“I’ll make sure they get his suit,” his mom says. Ilya’s wedding jacket, they'd decided on. Shane can’t even think about that right now. He wants to wait as long as he can before he has to think about what happens after. He still hasn’t decided what to do about the ring. 

“Thanks,” he chokes out. They’re standing just on the other side of the bedroom door. Boston scores, tying the game in the second period. 

“Shane, I think you should go in there now.”

It’s the middle of June, and the temperature’s just crept over 25 degrees in Ottawa for the first time all year. They’ve been married for four years now. Shane doesn’t know what happens to all the love you have when it ends before you’re ready. He doesn’t know what will happen. After. 

He’s holding Ilya’s hand, their fingers laced together the same way they’d been in that doctor’s office almost two years ago. Shane can barely remember that there were years and years where he wasn’t allowed this kind of closeness with Ilya. He shrugs off his shoes and crawls into their bed, rolling onto his side. Ilya is still flat on his back, eyes shut. His breathing is shallow and strained. 

The tears are thick in Shane’s throat but he swallows them down. He’ll spend the rest of his life wanting and wishing and grieving. But the rest of Ilya’s life, the rest of his husband’s life, is clutched between the two of them, warm between their intertwined fingers. Shane’s not ready for final, not ready for last words, but the words aren’t for Shane. He's the one who gets to stay, who has to stay. Years and years and years stretch out in front of him like those two weeks at the cottage used to, like their hours in countless hotel rooms used to when he convinced himself that days or hours or minutes were enough.  

He collapses against Ilya’s chest and tries not to cry out. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what he thinks and it doesn’t matter if he holds still and lets the morning sunlight splash across his face until Ilya snores or sniffles or pulls Shane close. His after is here. 

“I’m not angry with you,” Shane whispers, forehead pressed right on top of Ilya’s heart. Not that it matters. It wouldn’t matter if he was angry. But these words aren’t for him. He will never forgive himself if Ilya’s afraid of what comes after. 

“You can go, Ilya. I know you’ll be waiting. You can go." 

Anya barks at the guys from the funeral home, louder than Shane’s ever heard her before. He has to lock her in the laundry room so they can take Ilya away. It’s summer again, when he finally leaves the house three days later. It’s too hot out for a funeral, but they have one anyway. 

Shane walks down the aisle of the church and thinks about getting married. Ilya’s casket sits near the altar. He’s wearing the same black shoes from their wedding. It’s so hot inside the church, and he thinks he might pass out. But he doesn’t, and they have the funeral anyway. 

Ilya’s thirty-sixth birthday is three days later. The whole house is coated in a fine layer of dust. 

Summer bleeds into fall, and then winter, and then spring again. And just like that, it’s been two years since they sat in that hospital room. Spring turns into summer, then fall. Shane still takes the pills, every day now. Sometimes he takes melatonin as well. Or Nyquil. Anything to finally fall asleep. 

Despite the strange cocktail of drugs and all their promised side effects, Shane never dreams about Ilya. It’s cruel. All Shane wants is to dream of Ilya. He knows Ilya used to dream about his mother, that it tortured him to have her so close and so far away all at once. But it sounds worth it, Shane decides. He’s staring up at the ceiling and idly petting Anya’s head. The hours tick on and on and on and eventually sun streams through the blinds and Shane drags himself into the bathroom where Ilya’s shampoo still sits on the lip of the tub. It’s empty. He would take the torture, to dream of Ilya again. 

He stares at photos of the two of them on the mantle all the time. Their draft photo, their wedding photos, photos from Spain and New York and the rink and their back deck, painted in an autumn sunset. He keeps a photo of Ilya in his wallet. It’s a polaroid from Rose’s pastel blue camera, from a week Shane and Ilya had flown down to Miami last summer when she got a break from shooting some shitty spy thriller. He still has Ilya’s phone, thumbs through that folder with the selfies from their first NHL awards sometimes. 

Autumn tumbles back into winter again, and Shane sits in silence on Christmas Eve, trying to find the energy to go over to his parents house. He’s holding one of the endless photo frames in his hands, looking at his husband’s hair, the ridge of his nose, the gentle lines next to his eyes as his face scrunches into a smile. They're in each other's jerseys in this one, and Ilya's kissing Shane's cheek with an exaggerated smack. 

He presses the frame to his chest. You can go, Ilya. I know you’ll be waiting. Two years of tears are hot on his face and he grips the frame harder. He still doesn’t know if he believes in God. He still doesn’t know if Ilya’s out there waiting for him. He wishes he kept Ilya’s wedding ring. It’s a selfish thing to want, and it would probably be too painful to wear it. He still can’t touch the clothes in Ilya’s closet or buy the same bar of soap or open any of the cookbooks they’d acquired over four years of marriage. But he wants it anyway. The thin pane of glass cracks as the frame shakes in his hand, and splinters of glass spray across the carpet. Shane spends the night before Christmas at urgent care, getting the shards pulled out of his palms. 

You can go. Those are the last words Shane ever said to his husband. Except that he’ll never really stop talking to Ilya, and he'll never really let him go. He walks Anya, dodging puddles of ice and slush, and talks to Ilya silently over the backdrop of birds and rustling leaves. Don’t worry, our new place has a big yard for her to run around. She still sleeps on Ilya’s side of the bed.

He stands for the anthem at Luca’s citizenship ceremony and talks to Ilya, even though the only sound in the room comes from the two tinny speakers blaring O Canada. He holds one hand over his heart. My mother is going to get us all kicked out if she keeps taking pictures with flash. 

He coaches hockey for U-Ottowa and sees a bit of Ilya in every kid who seems like they have something to prove. One day I’ll go back and work with Wiebe. Everyone on that team knows you’re better at coaching than me, though. 

He sits in the fourth row as Cliff’s fianceé walks down the aisle and he barely even hears the bridal march, because he’s staring up through the delicate canopy of leaves above them, staring into the dappled light that pours across his face and stings his eyes. I know you would catch the bouquet if you were here, just to annoy me. Even though we’re already married. She's pregnant, it's revealed at the reception. Shane goes home early. 

Rose tries to set him up a few times. “I was a big fan of your husband,” one of the guys says. Shane wishes he had Ilya’s wedding ring, wishes he was drowning in Ilya’s hoodie, wishes he was still panicking at the thought of Ilya’s body not being warm next to him when the sunlight wakes him up. The torture of it doesn't sound so bad, if he gets to see his Ilya again. 

“Oh yeah?” Shane replies lamely. They're sitting in some steakhouse in downtown Montreal and he took two pills last night to try to sleep. It doesn’t seem like they’re working at all. 

“Yeah, I mean. I don’t really, uh, know anything about hockey. But I remember reading about you guys, back when…”

He ends up in the guy’s driveway, and then his foyer, and then his bed. And somewhere along the line, somewhere between the duvet and the fitted sheet he realizes that everything feels wrong. The guy is cold and dry and doesn’t feel like Ilya at all. Shane’s still wearing his wedding ring. 

“Sorry, uh–” his face is wet and there’s no more words he can say. He misses Ilya, misses the way they fit together, misses Ilya’s shampoo and his soap and his recipes and his dress shoes and his wedding ring. He drives home in total silence. He doesn’t know what to say to Ilya about this. 

“You don’t have to force it, honey,” Mom says, folding a pile of laundry. “No one expects you to just move on.”

“I know.” 

"And it's really only been a few years."

"I know, Mom."

“And Ilya’s such a special kid,” Dad cuts in. 

“Stop,” Shane bites back. He doesn’t know why he sounds so angry. He promised Ilya he'd try not to be. “He’s not anything. He’s dead.” 

“Honey–” Mom starts. 

“He’s not coming back.” 

“I know that, Shane, we’re just–”

“I wish everyone would just stop talking about it." As if he doesn’t spend every hour of every day talking to Ilya. As if he doesn’t have to will down tears when he sees Luca score with Ilya’s signature move. Haas points at the cuff of his sleeve where the guys have a little white 81 stitched into their red jerseys. As if he doesn’t have to lock himself in the bathroom whenever anyone brings up the foundation, the hockey camps. They still run the summer camps, and Shane hasn’t been involved in three years now. It was a thing he promised himself he would return to after. He doesn’t think he ever will. 

Sometimes he’s glad Ilya left when he did. He knows he was probably in a lot of pain, at the end. Shane wouldn’t wish three more years of that on his husband, no matter how much it stings to wake up after another night of tossing and turning and not having dreamed of Ilya at all. Three years later, and it’s still so cruel that he can’t even visit his husband in sleep. 

Ilya’s thirty-eighth birthday is in three days. Shane unlocks the door just as the sun’s fading behind the tops of trees and Anya jumps up, wagging her tail as soon as he slips his shoes off on the doormat. She weaves between his legs and runs out into the front yard, sniffing up and down the path to the front door. Up and down and up and down. 

“C’mon, girl,” he says, and she begrudgingly trots back inside. It’s been almost three years, and she still looks for him every time Shane opens the door. She still waits for him. Shane does too.