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When Ilya wakes up on June 15, he feels a deep, aching sense of dread in his chest.
Birthdays are supposed to be fun. And after an intense run for the cup (the Centaurs were knocked out in the second round, but they fought a good fight!) having these days to relax and rest is nice. He and Shane have been spending time together, and they drove up to the cottage yesterday to be with Yuna and David for Ilya’s birthday.
But he can’t bring himself to get out of bed. The weight of the truth of this birthday sits heavy over him, his own little storm cloud here to wreck his day.
At thirty six, Ilya has officially outlived his mother. And that… that is a very hard pill to swallow. She is immortalized at thirty five, never to surpass it, and here he is, one year older, his heart still thrumming, blood still pumping – while she’s been gone for twenty three years.
Today, Ilya feels her loss acutely, like it was yesterday that he stumbled into her room thinking she was napping and found her limp, cold, and lifeless. When he closes his eyes and snuggles deeper into the duvet that smells like Shane and anchors him into this reality, the image of her wide, staring blue eyes flash behind his eyelids and he flinches, curls in on himself, and lets out a choked gasp that’s close to a sob.
It’s late. Ilya knows that. Shane must be letting him sleep in because it’s his birthday. Part of Ilya wants Shane to bust in and wrap him up, tell him everything is okay, hold him close and remind him that Shane’s never going to let go.
The other part of Ilya wants to wallow in misery, to let the black hole open up and swallow him whole, to be lost in the ether.
If he’s being honest, Ilya isn’t sure which one he wants more. As he’s debating texting Shane to come back to bed, he hears footsteps in the hall and the door crack open. It’s like Ilya had sent out a distress call and Shane had known to answer. Ilya lifts his head from the pillow and blinks slowly at Shane, and Shane grins at him.
“Happy birthday, Ilya!” He cries, but then, the grin falls when he realizes that Ilya doesn’t share in his enthusiasm for this special day.
“Shit, Ilya, is… are you… okay?” Shane steps into the room and sets the tray he’s carrying on the bedside table, then pushes back the duvet to slide into bed next to Ilya. Ilya can smell the sticky sweetness of maple syrup mixed with the fatty, mouth-watering scent of bacon, and, oh. Shane must have cooked him breakfast. Honestly, though, he doesn’t really know if he has an appetite for anything right now.
Heaving a big sigh, Ilya turns onto his side to face Shane. He meets Shane’s gaze and holds it, and Shane searches his face, for what, Ilya isn’t sure.
“Am okay,” Ilya croaks, his voice thick with emotion and sleep. He clears his throat and sighs, pulling the duvet up to his chin. Shane reaches for him under the covers and tugs him in close, wrapping his arms around Ilya’s torso.
“You don’t look okay,” Shane admits, cautiously, like he’s dodging landmines. Ilya doesn’t want Shane to think he’s going to explode, because he isn’t, and that’s never been him. But he does know Shane has a way of being careful around him when he gets in moods like this without treating him like he’s fragile. Shane still treats him like a human rather than a porcelain doll, and it helps, even if it doesn’t fix the situation.
Swallowing, Ilya blinks back tears that suddenly press against his eyes. It was one thing when the dread was internal and he hadn’t given a voice to it. Saying it out loud feels like cursing himself.
But he takes a breath, holds it in, then, on an exhale admits, “Thirty six. One year older than my mother when she…” He trails off, lets the sentence hang stagnant and heavy between them. He shares his storm cloud so maybe he doesn’t have to weather it alone.
“Oh, shit, Ilya.” Shane squeezes him tight around the middle, like he can hold Ilya together while his emotions and feelings try to rip him apart. “I didn’t even realize.”
“Is strange,” Ilya admits, slowly. It’s his turn to be careful, to decide how far in he wants to let Shane today. “I feel… the same. Old, maybe. She was so young, though. I have so much life left. Life that she didn’t get. And…” Ilya swallows back the tears that threaten again, sniffling slightly. One of Shane’s hands comes up to cup his cheek, and Ilya turns to kiss Shane’s palm. “She deserved more than she got.”
How is Ilya supposed to admit that sometimes, he didn’t think he’d make it to thirty six? That he felt his mother’s death hovering over him like a curse, or a time bomb ticking down to this day? How is he supposed to tell the man he loves most in this world that some days, he doesn’t think he deserves this, but he knows she did, and she was deprived of it? That thought is too much, and pushes Ilya over the brink. Tears run hot and wet down his cheeks, and Shane wipes each one away with a thumb. The pad of his finger scratches over Ilya’s stubble, but he relentlessly chases down each tear, catches it as it falls, then presses a reassuring kiss to the spot that tear stained, like he can wipe away all traces of sadness from this moment.
Kisses and well wishes won’t fix his mood, today though. There had been grandiose plans of kayaking out to an island, or taking the jet skis out for a spin, but Ilya knows he’s not going to make it out of bed today.
“What can I do?” Shane asks, and Ilya shakes his head.
“This is enough, Любимый,” Ilya sighs, and buries his face into Shane’s shoulder, right in the crook of his neck. They stay like this for a long minute, and Ilya can feel Shane breathing against him. He matches his breaths to Shane’s, which helps his galloping heart. Shane’s fingers stroke up and down the hills and valleys of his spine, and every now and again Shane’s head turns to press the gentlest kiss to Ilya’s temple. Over and over, Shane whispers “я тебя люблю,” like the words can heal wounds, like he can love Ilya enough for the both of them.
Maybe he can. Ilya hasn’t quite decided yet if Shane’s love is enough to heal him. Replacing one love with the next doesn’t work, but Shane’s love can help water the parched earth and bring Ilya back to life.
Maybe. Maybe.
Ilya doesn’t know how much time passes as they lay here, but he drifts in and out of sleep, lulled by Shane’s breathing and his fingers on Ilya’s skin and the warm scent of breakfast. He wakes up when Shane tugs his arm out from underneath Ilya, and Ilya starts, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
For a moment he’d forgotten. If only he could forget for a lifetime.
“Shit, I’m sorry, my arm was asleep and I was trying to move without waking you up, and –”
With a kiss, Ilya cuts him off. “Is okay. I should eat this breakfast anyway.”
“It’s probably cold now,” Shane sighs, and Ilya knows he doesn’t mean anything by it, but he does feel guilty about it. Grabbing the tray, Ilya sets it across his lap. He sips at the lukewarm coffee and takes a few bites of eggs and bacon, but they’re like ash in his mouth. His stomach is full of worry and his throat is tight with regrets, and how can he bring himself to eat when his mother is dead and a lifetime of sorrows weigh down on him?
Heaving a sigh, Ilya sets the utensils down, drops his head into his hands, and rubs his eyes.
“I do not think I can eat now, Shane.” It’s a soft utterance, a quiet admittance to just how bad off he is right now. Shane sits up and takes the tray, setting it back on the bedside table.
“Okay. That’s okay,” Shane soothes, and he squeezes Ilya’s thigh. “What do you need?”
My mother back, Ilya wants to cry it out, to shout it to the heavens at the god who doesn’t listen. But he purses his lips and thinks, then shakes his head sadly.
“I just want to stay in bed today. I am sorry, I don’t think –”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Shane interjects with a heavy sigh and a kiss to Ilya’s cheek. Usually, Shane wouldn’t let him wallow. He’d kick him out of bed, force him into clean clothes, make him take a run (because runs fix everything) and go about his day. But it’s Ilya’s birthday, for fuck’s sake, and he thinks he deserves a wallow. It seems Shane thinks the same.
“Stay in bed as long as you like. If you need me just holler, or text. I’m going to do some projects around the house, but whatever you need, just let me know. Okay?”
“Okay,” Ilya agrees, and hunkers back down, curls back into the covers, and settles in for a day to sit with his grief.
Shane gives him one last kiss on the forehead before scooting out of bed, and after a few minutes, Anya trots in and hops up into bed with Ilya. She curls in the crook behind his knees, soft nose nudging at his thigh, and he reaches down to scratch her head, which causes her to huff contentedly.
For a little while, Ilya allows himself to recall memories of his mother. He thinks of the good times they had before she was gone, tries to summon up every detail he can remember of her – the color of her hair, caramel copper in the watery afternoon Russian sun, her bright blue eyes that danced when she laughed, the dimples in her cheeks and the wrinkles around her eyes from years of smiling.
While Ilya doesn’t remember the bad nearly as well as the good, he does recall the way she’d darken, shrink into a husk, like the sun fell behind a cloud and took all the color from her. He remembers stretches where she would stay in bed, like this, and no one would see her for meals or otherwise. For a woman so vibrant, there was always a hint of sadness to her, like the rain looming on the horizon, like the night creeping in as the sun dips lower behind the earth.
And, like he always does, Ilya wonders if he could have done more to help her, or if he'd have looked for her a little faster if they could have saved her. While he does blame himself partly, he mostly blames his father for her early, untimely death. Grigori provided Irina with a gilded cage, it would seem. At the time Ilya was too young to understand, but now he can only imagine what life had been like for his mother, married to his horrid father, who went no easier on her than he did on his sons.
The day slips away slowly, like water trickling from a faucet. Ilya sleeps in fits and starts. He cries – weeps, really – for what he lost when his mother died, for what he gained when he found Shane, and for what he misses more than anything now. He wishes Irina could see his happiness, see that he found his soulmate and he’s living a life he could only have dreamed of years ago. He wishes she were here to celebrate with him now, but instead he’s left with a grief that chokes and drains him.
A little after four pm, Ilya checks his phone. There are plenty of ‘Happy birthday!’s in his texts, and he knows if he opens Instagram there will be tons of fan art and edits and well wishes there. But he doesn’t want those. The only person he cares to hear from right now is gone, and he’s an idiot for wishing for something he knows he will never have.
From downstairs, the sound of conversations floats up. Ilya sits up slightly and listens, identifying three voices – Shane, Yuna, and David.
That’s right – Shane’s parents had agreed to come over for dinner tonight. Ilya feels like an ass for forgetting, and feels even worse for the fact that he’s still in bed. He huffs a sigh as Anya pushes her way up from under the covers and licks his nose, and he nods.
“I should shower,” he agrees, and the dog wags her tail enthusiastically, then licks Ilya’s cheek a few times. “Da, da, I will do it,” Ilya huffs, and finally gets up and out of bed.
The shower he takes is long, and hot. He wants to wash this day from his skin, to scrub it off of himself and never think about it again. He doesn’t want to be thirty six, he doesn’t want to have this birthday, and he definitely doesn’t feel like going down to celebrate with Shane and his family.
But Ilya has to. He’s got to get it together, because ignoring Yuna and David would be rude. He and Shane bought steaks to put on the grill yesterday, and Ilya is better on the grill anyway.
Letting the shower water rush over him, Ilya tilts his head back and squeezes his eyes shut. The rainfall showerhead is gentle against his face, and he lets it soothe him for a moment, washing the day away, letting the water cleanse him.
Finally, forty five minutes later, Ilya feels marginally better. He dries himself off and puts on comfortable clothes – joggers and a Centaurs t-shirt – then stands at the top of the stairs and listens to Yuna and Shane and David, who are all chatting in a low tone. He also smells something – food, obviously, but he can’t quite place what he’s smelling. Either way, it smells good, and his stomach rumbles for the first time today.
Taking the stairs slowly, Ilya goes down to the first floor, grinning sheepishly when all three Hollanders turn to look at him.
“Evening,” Ilya offers with a little wave, and a relieved grin rushes over Shane’s features before he can school them into something less intense. Good thing Ilya loves how intense he is.
“Happy Birthday, Ilya!” Yuna sing-songs as she comes around the kitchen island, where she’d been manning a pan, to hug him. He leans into her embrace and blinks back the tears that threaten to fall at being embraced by the mother figure in his life now. Wrapping his own arms around Yuna, Ilya buries his face in her shoulder and breathes, and she pats his back soothingly.
“Oh, honey,” she whispers, and a small sob wracks through Ilya, but he reins himself in and sniffles as he straightens up and gives Yuna a watery smile.
“I am glad you two still came over,” Ilya says, a peace offering. David comes over and gives Ilya a hug as well, a much less intense hug, but a hug nonetheless.
“We’re glad to be here,” David offers, and Shane nods as he grins at Ilya from the stove.
“You have been cooking for a while?”
“We started a little before you got in the shower,” Shane says with a little shrug, and Ilya grins at him. “Figured you’d be hungry since you hadn’t eaten all day.”
“I am starving,” Ilya agrees, and on cue, his stomach gurgles angrily. They all laugh, and Shane transfers something from a pan to a bowl and places it onto the table.
“Dad, do you want to get the meats off the grill?” Shane asks, and David nods, then disappears onto the deck where the grill is.
“You grilled without me?” Ilya asks, feigning dismay. Shane leans in to kiss him softly with a little chuckle.
“We didn’t want you to worry about it. Not on your birthday, and not with what you were going through. And we made some of your favorites!” Shane grins and tugs Ilya over to the table where the food is spread.
Ilya looks it all over and is shocked to find a plethora of foods – from blini topped with sour cream and caviar (“ooh, fancy, Shane,”) to pelmeni dusted with fresh dill, it would appear Shane had thought of everything Ilya had ever mentioned missing from Russia.
“You even made the Olivier salad!” Ilya laughs, and Shane nods.
“We also grilled the steak and some sausages. There’s plenty of food,” Shane chuckles, and Ilya leans in, kissing him again, a tender thing that he’s hoping conveys just how thankful he is.
Because Shane, he didn’t have to do this. They’ve been married for more than a few years now, have celebrated plenty of birthdays together. Shane has given him expensive gifts, sure, but nothing is as good as this – as being seen even in your darkest time. Of being cared for when you can’t quite care for yourself. Ilya doesn’t know how he got so lucky to have someone like Shane, let alone get to marry someone like Shane.
“And don’t worry, I also got you a gift. A good gift, but you get it after dinner.”
“And cake?”
“Yes, there’s also cake,” Shane huffs out a laugh and rolls his eyes affectionately. “You and your sweet tooth.”
“I do not know how you live without sugar, Shane,” Ilya sniffs as he settles in at the table. Yuna and David return with the steaks and sausages and join Ilya, and after grabbing utensils for everyone, Shane joins them.
And this… this is enough. It’s more than enough, really, it’s perfect. And will there always be a hole in Ilya’s heart for the mother he misses? Of course. But now there’s room in his heart for Shane, and for Yuna and David, and he’s surrounded by love in ways he never thought he’d deserve, much less get.
Yes, Ilya thinks, this is what he deserves. And he’s determined to make thirty six the best year yet.