Chapter Text
Ilya knew what depression looked like, he’s known since he was a child.
At eight, he remembers, his father never had anything good to say to him, not like it changed as he grew anyways. Coming from practice, Grigori could only talk coldly about all the ways little Ilya had messed up a pass, or how he had slipped on the ice after going too fast, or how his knees would bend too much or not enough while skating.
Ilya hated that. He loved hockey, loved the way the icy wind felt against his skin and how fast he could go, but he hated the way he was unable to ever make his father proud. He would train so hard, ‘till his knees hurt from falling against the ice, 'till his ribs bruised from being pushed too hard by the older kids at practice. He worked so hard, yet it never seemed like it was enough.
After training he would stand still in the middle of his cold bedroom in Moscow, his hands would turn into fists so tight he'd feel his fingers go numb, not say a single word, not even drop a single tear, just think about all the ways he had fucked up practice and how much of a disappointment he was to anyone involved in his life.
While he could spend long hours like that, not caring if his legs went numb or if back hurt, sometimes his mother would enter the room. She would close the windows and curtains, grab a warm blanket and wrap him in a hug that forced his nervous system to reset whatever thought he had consuming his mind at that moment. She would cradle him, while whispering how proud of him she was, that he was good enough and how much of an elite player he was growing out to be, even if his father thought otherwise. She would cuddle him until he felt himself relax, until his dry eyes would start to wet from the tears that formed at the brim of them, ‘till his little fingers turned pink as he felt the familiar painful relief after releasing them from the tightness of his self-doubt.
And after he had silently cried while being held by the warm embrace of his mother, Irina would slowly release her hold. She would gently cup his small face in between her hands and wipe away the remaining tears that still rested on his cheeks. She would smile at him, so softly, as she kissed his eyes and forehead while saying how much she loved him.
«I love you, my sweet boy,» she would whisper against his damp cheek. «my little lion,» while caressing those golden curls she loved so much.
Ilya would laugh, they had watched a documentary about lions a couple of years ago after hockey practice got cancelled over the heavy snow, and she had called him her little lion after seeing how her baby’s hair looked a little like a lion’s mane, he always found it funny that his mom called him like that. You also have gold curls, Ilya thought while smiling at her, Yours are prettier than mine, mama. If he was her cub, then she was his momma lioness.
After catching his smile, she would give him a mischievous look and tickle him so much his eyes would threaten tears again, but with much less heaviness in his heart than when he first entered his room.
And they would stay like that, his mother asking him about his day and practice and little Ilya telling her about all the amazing things he had achieved that day, how many goals he had managed to score even while playing against older kids. He would tell her all the accomplishments he wished his father had listed at the end of the practice instead of all his failures, and his mom would listen, with a smile on her face, while she stroked his hair and cheeks. His mother’s soft hugs and laughter brought joy to his life.
But today was not one of those days, he stood in his frigid room for what felt like hours while he waited, to see if his mother would come through the door and hug him, to see if maybe Alexei would kick his door open to ask if father had given him any money or to tell him about how much of a bother he was to everyone, to see if maybe his father would enter to continue his complains about how much of a shit player and a nobody he was gonna turn out to be if he continued being a “lazy” kid.
After he understood that no one was going to cross his bedroom door this time, he took a deep breath, untangled his weak fingers from his own angry hold, and stepped out to look for his mom.
He knew what the silence meant, he had seen it a few times before, when his father and Alexei went out and only his mother and him remained inside of their house. At first he wondered if the silence meant his mother had also gone out, maybe with friends or to shop for groceries for the week, although strange she would leave him alone, he would understand, because he felt brave and grown enough to stay at home. But at this point in his life, he understood.
He knew his mother did not go out as much as he thought she did, that she didn’t have as many friends as he thought she had, apart from the interactions they had at the end of the day or sometimes at lunch time when his practice was moved to the evening, she would remain silent throughout the day. Even after Alexei came home with his loud and definitely-too-grown friends, even on the days where Grigori angrily slammed the front door open, shouting complains about stuff no one understood and demanding to see her, she would remain silent, give a small smile to anyone who offered her one first and then retreat to whatever corner could hide her presence better in the middle of the day.
Ilya noticed it. It took a while, he even found it funny at first, but he started to see the patterns of how his mom tried to make herself small as much as she could, how her smile always formed on her face on queue, as if she had practiced it a thousand times before, how her expression dropped as soon as she thought no one watched her anymore, but Ilya did, he always did.
He stood in front of her door for a moment, slowly getting his ear closer to the wooden surface to see if he heard anything, but as always, nothing was picked up. He took a deep breath and knocked. One time, then a second, nothing.
«mama» he said after the third time. «mama, i'm home,» silence. «Can i come in?»
He waited for a moment, but he knew no response would come, so he turned the knob and entered.
It was cold, colder than his own bedroom, colder than he could comfortably sit on for a long time. He winced at the sudden change of temperature and the sight of the flowing curtains that moved at the rhythm of the wind. He crossed the room quickly and closed the windows with a loud thud, turning around towards the bed that sat silently in the middle of the room. His mother, laying on the mattress, hugging her own knees, not moving an inch, eyes opened, unfocused, eyelids wet, breathing as slowly as her body would let her.
«It's too cold here, mama.» He said, approaching the bed slowly. Ilya put a hand on her soft long hair and stroked, «Aren’t you cold?» He asked, not expecting an answer in return.
Irina stayed there, not looking at him, at anything really, still breathing in a rhythm that calmed her son’s big, angry heart. Ilya looked at her for a moment, then placed a kiss on her cold forehead, grabbed a thick blanket from the dresser, and climbed onto the bed, carefully making sure his mom was covered from neck to toes, leaving her head free so she could breathe, while also sliding inside of the warmth, close to her, hugging her tightly to bring her temperature up.
And then he talked, for long minutes, maybe hours, he doesn’t quite remember. He spoke about his day, about how his coach had told him that he was getting better fast, about how he had scored his first long distance goal, fooling the fifteen year old goalie who sometimes helped out during practices, how this kid three years older than him had pushed him so hard against the ice it made his palms bleed, how he had cried while his coach took him to the benches to put band-aids with little cartoons on his wounds, spoke about how he intended to show them to her as soon as he arrived home, but his father had ripped them off in the car the minute they stepped out of the arena. He tried showing her the small cuts that adorned his palms in different places, but she still didn’t move, and he knew she wouldn’t.
Yet he would stay there, for a long time, at eight years old, while holding back tears and unconsciously trying to comfort his mother the same way she would do to him after practice, after he felt like the world was too heavy for his small shoulders.
A loud bang forcefully dragged Ilya´s mind to the present again, and he noticed he was still in the bathroom, still wearing a towel around his waist, his hair damp, his skin now cold and dry. He noticed his own reflection in the mirror, the expression on his face, how he looked pale today, his eyebags looking a little darker under his eyes. But apart from that, Ilya noticed the familiar crushing heaviness in his chest that he felt the moment he had opened his eyes this morning.
He had woken up early, maybe a little too early. At four in the morning he was already staring at his ceiling while Shane slept peacefully next to him, his naked torso cuddling against his side as closely as he could, trying to generate as much heat as possible to fight the coldness of the night. Ilya smiled looking at him, he loved seeing him sleep, it always made him feel at peace. But this time he noticed it, the moment his mouth curved upwards, a pressure started to build up in his chest, slowly, rising. Ilya felt his hands go cold, knowing what that feeling meant.
He slowly sat straight, grabbed the blanket that they had kicked around during the night and covered Shane’s body with it, making sure to wrap him as much as he could while also being careful of not waking him. After he was done, he placed a small kiss on his hair and stood up, walking towards his bathroom.
He then took a cold shower, which was crazy for him, because he would never do so in the middle of Canada's winter nights. But sometimes, when he was feeling a little too heavy for the world, it would strangely bring comfort to him. The frigid temperature would help him calm his abrupt emotions, feeling them slowly quiet down just like they did when he stood in the coldness of his room after practice when he was eight.
Except it didn’t help this time.
Ilya felt his heart so heavy, too heavy, full of unrecognizable emotions with no apparent point of origin. He could breathe, but each breath felt like an extra effort for his lungs. It felt so tight around his neck, his torso, his back, a tightness that he had no physical way of relieving. He felt as if his chest was full of nails to the brim.
He wanted to carve his chest open and squeeze his heart dry.
He let out a frustrated sigh at his reflection. Why now? He thought. It had been a long time since he last had one of these episodes, he didn’t dare to name them, didn’t even remember when exactly was the last time it happened, so it must’ve been years by this point, so why now, again, after all this time.
Ilya was happy, he knew he was happy. After so many years of denying his own feelings, of wanting and yearning for Shane’s presence, for his touch, his scent, his skin and his heart, after years of being scared and swallowing the big words that formed on his tongue every time he saw Shane’s beautiful self under the moonlight, every time they were alone at night, staring into each other’s eyes, hoping for words that furiously scratched at the back of his own throat, they were finally together. Ilya, overwhelmed by love and devotion towards his familiar touch, comfort and the way he was willing to plan a future for the both of them, had told him he loved him with an urgency he had forgotten his heart carried at all after many years of getting used to feeling it. And Shane, in response to his sudden confession, instead of running away as he feared he would, had said it back.
They lived closer now, still almost five hours away, but in the same country. They saw each other more often, but not as much as they both wished. Even so, Ilya lived close to Yuna and David Hollander, he loved them, and they loved him back just as much. Even if they still had to hide from the world, they no longer had to hide their feelings from each other, Ilya loved Shane, and Shane loved him back. And he thought that was enough. He felt it was enough, he felt content enough.
So, why now?
While trying to strengthen the hold he had on the bathroom sink as a response for his growing frustration and anger, he noticed he was already grabbing it as much as he could, his knuckles turning white, his fingers numb at the attempt to ground himself.
He let out another heavy breath at the sight of his screaming hands and quickly freed them from the torture. He walked towards the door and opened it, his eyes shutting at the sudden change of lighting in the room. How long had he been in there?
He glanced down to find the source of the sound that startled him out of his own memories: A green tennis ball and a furred creature laying next to it. Ilya let out a small chuckle that sounded more like a huff and bent down to give a quick pet to Anya’s soft head, getting a small tail wag as a response, she must’ve been playing with it, he thought to himself.
He quietly walked towards the bed and checked to see it if his love was still laying on it. He found Shane, now with an arm bent over his head and mouth slightly open, still sleeping soundly. Ilya smiled widely this time, how could he love him so much? How could HE love Ilya so much? It still made no sense inside of his head. Ilya would sometimes find himself questioning if Shane truly wanted to spend his life with him. He knew the truth, they had talked about it numerous times, but his mind sometimes still brought the question up, especially any time they fought or spent time away from each other for games and work trips.
The sight of his beautiful boyfriend laying on his bed half naked almost made him forget the grand heaviness of his heart. He quickly grabbed some underwear and pants from his closet, put them on and almost-ran to cuddle next to Shane.
“Where were you?” Shane asked as soon as he felt the sudden change of weight on the mattress.
“Moya lyubov, i’m sorry for waking you” he said while placing a kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead. Shane then turned, his body now embracing Ilya’s, one of his hands over his waist, the other next to his hair, playing with his curls, his head now closer to his neck, warm breath against his cold skin. “Sleep more, it is still too early”
“You’re cold” Shane mentioned at the touch of his hands over Ilya’s naked skin. He then hugged him harder, in a small attempt to warm him up with his own body heat.
Ilya smiled at the intention, hugging Shane back with as much force, resting his chin on top of his head. “I took a shower, felt a bit dirty after everything we did last night.” His voice with traces of a smirk that even though Shane couldn’t see, still sensed.
“I thought you took a shower last night, after me, I heard the water running.”
Ilya stayed silent. He noticed Shane asleep after he exited the bathroom the night before, so he thought he wouldn’t notice if he took another one.
He thought for a bit, the desire to tell Shane he had been awake since four in the morning, staring at the ceiling, tried to take a cold shower in the freezing night to quiet his loud thoughts and lift some weight off of his heavy heart, but it hadn’t worked crawled up on him. He wanted to tell him that he had stayed in the cold bathroom for almost two hours, staring at his own reflection, remembering his mother, how her sadness manifested on it’s own way and Ilya watched every sign of it like clues, like a game where he had to guess if his mother would go to his room in the evening to ask about his day, or if he had to be the one to hug her cold body while he talked about all the things he did that day as he held back his tears from falling onto her, receiving no response back. He wanted to tell him how he saw his own mother stare back at him in the bathroom mirror at 4:15 in the morning, and he had been so surprised by it that it made him remember moments from his childhood he thought his mind had buried.
His own reflection, staring back at him, looked just like her.
Instead, Ilya said softly , “I did, but I did not wash my hair. Curls cannot be washed at night.”
A lie, a stupid lie he wasn’t sure Shane would accept, but that he still hoped was believable enough to end his sleepy boyfriend’s curiosity.
After a while in silence, Ilya thought Shane had fallen back asleep. As he himself was about to close his eyes, he felt words over his skin. “Don’t shower with cold water, it’s winter, you’re gonna get sick.”
Ilya felt a painful knot form in his throat and simply nodded in response, he then felt Shane relax into his arms, breathing heavily as he slipped back into sleep. And Ilya tried to do the same, closing his heavy eyelids, trying to ignore the noticeable tightness around his heart and the growing pain in his throat that made it a bit hard to breathe.
—*
Ilya woke up hours later, this time alone on his bed, the sun shining through the slits between the curtains directly onto his eyes, making them hurt. He heard the distinct sound of the blender going and smelled fried eggs and sausage in the air, which made his stomach rumble.
However, without even needing to open his eyes, he felt it. The pressure, now more prominent, hovering over his heart like a falcon searching for his prey, scratching at it with each beat it generated to keep him alive, was still there.
Ilya made an effort to ignore it, opened his eyes and stood up, he grabbed a hoodie while flinching at the cold air touching his skin and went out the door.
He arrived at the entrance of the kitchen at the same time as he finished pulling the hoodie down and stared at his boyfriend’s back, who was now making scrambled eggs and Italian sausage while trying to keep a straight face because the oily smell made his stomach turn a little bit.
He chuckled as he saw Shane sprinkling some green onions on top of the eggs as if it were salt, imitating a video they had seen weeks ago of a guy doing the same thing.
Shane jumped a little and turned around at the sound of his lover’s laugh. “Good morning.” he said, a soft smile forming on his face, “You scared me a bit.”
“Sorry moya lyubov, good morning.” Ilya spoke, approaching him and placing a small kiss on his lips. He slipped both hands on the sides of Shane’s waist and hugged him from behind, resting his chin on top of his shoulder and closing his eyes while taking in a deep breath against his neck, trying to breathe him in.
“You’re soft today” Shane mentioned while resting his head on top of Ilya’s. “I made you breakfast, are you still tired?”
He thought, tired… yes, I am tired. But it wasn’t because of his lack of sleep. He felt tired, exhausted, his body felt heavy, and the pressure in his chest grew with each breath he took. He felt his head too heavy, his skin too tight, his muscles too big, his eyes too dry. He just wanted to hold Shane, to absorb as much comfort and sweetness as he could from him and replace his river of internal disgust with it. He felt his blood dirty, his sweat hurt against his skin. His heart felt empty and full at the same time, the feeling of heavy emotions pouring into it increased as the seconds passed.
Galina had told him that depression presented differently in each person that showed the symptoms. But still, he knew it came from his mother, knew how it would look, he had known how it looked since he was a child. It presented slowly in his mother’s mind, calmly, creepily, stalking.
It always began with her eyes. She would smile, talk and interact with anyone who approached her. She would laugh at jokes, play with Ilya, even watch some American sitcoms with subtitles and laugh at the cheap and empty jokes the characters would throw at each other. But Ilya noticed it, the emptiness that would creep behind the fake smilies, like a warning, like an ocean wave that retreated slowly from the shore, preparing itself to destroy anything that crossed its path as it grew stronger.
He took another breath in, trying to calm his mind, trying to ease the pain in his chest, trying to stay present with his beautiful boyfriend who had just cooked him breakfast, who looked beautiful in his grey sweatpants and black t-shirt that wrapped around him just a bit too much–.
“Ilya?”
Ilya surprised himself at how fast he opened his eyes after hearing Shane’s voice. He hadn’t noticed he had turned off the stove and was now looking at him with concerned eyes, his body now facing Ilya's, right hand around his own waist while the left cupped his cheek gently. “Are you okay? Does anything hurt?”
He felt his eyes get wet at his boyfriend’s response. How could he be so perfect? Standing here, after preparing his breakfast even while disliking the amount of oil needed, looking at him with so much worry and love, Ilya just wanted to absorb all of him in one go.
He quickly blinked away the tears that threatened his cheeks and showed him a small smile. “I am fine, just tired. Could not sleep well last night.”
“You shouldn’t have showered with cold water, it’s the middle of winter.” Shane moved the hand he had over Ilya’s cheek to his forehead to check his temperature, Ilya tried to sink into his touch.
“I could not help it, you looked too hot in your sleep, I had to calm down.” That wasn’t a total lie. Shane did look insanely hot while sleeping, he always did, but it still wasn’t the exact truth.
Shane softly pinched his cheek and smiled back at him. “At least you don’t have a fever. You should go and sleep more after eating.”
He wasn’t really hungry, the tightness in his chest was stealing enough energy from him, enough to take his hunger away. But he had to eat, it was still too early to be rejecting food, he knew he couldn’t do it right now, because there would be a time where he inevitably would refuse to eat all together. Ilya knew it was coming, maybe soon, maybe later.
Because he had seen it before.
So he smiled and nodded at Shane’s proposal. He sat down as Shane placed his plate in front of him, and he ate. While Shane spoke about the clips he had seen from last night’s game, while he drank his disgusting-looking green smoothie as always, Ilya took a bite of the food, and then another, ignoring the painful tightness in his throat every time he passed it down, until his plate was empty.
He felt robotic, like he was following a 10-step plan to accomplish looking as human and normal as possible. He smiled when Shane did, raised his eyebrows at the same time as him, laughed when he said something funny, always following and mirroring his reactions as genuinely as he could.
But nothing was real. He felt himself react to Shane’s interactions, yet it all felt superficial inside of him, like he had a barrier that prevented those emotions from affecting him internally. He would speak, but it felt like the words were born on his tongue, not in his diaphragm, same with his laughter and everything else. He felt false, controlled by a force that seemed to have no strength but at the same time tightened so hard around his throat it was getting harder and harder to breathe normally.
After a while they finally finished their breakfast and Shane took the plates to the sink, Ilya took one step towards the bedroom before he stopped on his tracks. He hesitated for a bit, not sure if he felt comfortable interrupting Shane’s whole morning routine, so he just looked at him for a bit while internally fighting the thought of asking him to come lay next to him.
Shane seemed to notice his hesitation and smiled, approached him and placed a kiss on his lips, “You go first. I’ll be next to you in a moment. Mom wanted to talk to me about something so I'm gonna call her.”
Ilya smiled at his response and went to the bedroom. He opened the door, entered the room, and closed it behind him while resting his back on the cold wood. And he sensed it, his smile dropping after he made sure he was all alone, his expression changing completely after the silence gave him the comfort of the room’s solitude, his eyebrows went straight, he felt his whole face go tense, even while knowing that he wasn’t making an exact expression at all. He didn’t need a mirror to guess what his face looked like right now, not like he wanted to look at it at all, he could feel it enough to guess.
Ilya dragged his feet to the bed and sat down, back bending in a way that Shane would immediately call out to try and correct if he saw it. His eyes fixed on a random place on the floor, arms dead beside him. He was breathing, but he felt like the air he was taking wasn’t enough. The pressure on his chest just grew bigger with each inhale, making Ilya want to pull his own hair out of frustration and because he felt like the physical pain would distract his horrible mind and emotional discomfort.
Instead, he laid completely flat on the bed and slowly turned to his side, raising his legs until his knees were as close to his chest as he could physically put them, his arms bent close to his heart, his eyes closed. He wasn’t really sleeping, he didn’t feel like he could, he just closed them to maybe drown out some of the noise in his head. The pressure on his chest was starting to truly hurt him, so he scrunched his hoodie right in the middle of his chest, as if abusing the fabric would somehow ease the ache he felt.
Ilya didn’t know how long he stayed like that, time was usually a foreign concept to him the few occasions where his body would act this way, but after what felt like maybe seconds or even hours, Shane entered the room.
Ilya straightened his legs to at least look a bit normal and pretended to sleep. Shane grabbed the blanket that lay on the floor, since neither hadn’t really made the bed after waking up, and covered Ilya’s body, making sure his feet and arms were inside of the warmth. He then gently grabbed his head and lifted it to place a small kiss on his curly hair, positioning it over his lap right after.
They stayed there, Ilya resting his head over his boyfriend’s lap while this one slowly played with his hair and checked his phone in silence.
And Ilya couldn’t hold it in anymore, the pressure in his throat became unbearable, the pain in his chest hurt too much to handle. Silent tears began to wet his cheeks onto the blanket. He stayed still, didn’t move at all, simply let his eyes express the minimum weight of all the emotions his heart carried. He didn’t even know why he was crying, why he felt so devastated or why he couldn’t stop, so he just stayed still.
And Shane was right beside him, if he had noticed the tears falling from his partner’s eyes, he didn’t mention it, which made Ilya grateful and so much more in love with him than he believed he could already.
After a while Ilya fell asleep, his breathing becoming heavy and steady. Shane smiled at the sight of his chest rising with each breath, left his phone on the night stand, slowly slipped down enough to lay right next to his golden-curled man and hugged him gently, never stopping caressing his hair. Shane had noticed his cold shower in the early morning, the lie about his hair, the way Ilya smiled and reacted to their conversation as if he was checking boxes on a list, how he looked at his plate considering his options, the way his expression seemed heavy on his face, he had noticed everything, yet followed Ilya’s game to not disregard his efforts. He would do it for a while, he thought while hugging him, he would do it enough so Ilya could grab the familiarity of comfort and normalcy and hold onto it for as long as he could. He would pretend with him, until he couldn’t anymore.