Work Text:
It felt wrong that the weather would be so perfect with everything that had happened. Incongruous. Yuna couldn’t help but think a summer storm would be more appropriate. Thunder rolling in the distance, silvery puddles appearing at the edges of the roads. Instead, the day was shaping up to be the sort of warm that tinted everything sunshine yellow at the edges.
The warmth was balmy when she stepped out onto the deck behind the house.
Wordlessly, she held out a mug of coffee to Ilya, hunched over with his back to her. It was sweet, too many sugars in a way that felt a little sacrilegious, the way Shane had said he took it.
Ilya took it and placed it down on the deck beside his leg. Yuna tried not to take it personally when he instead took another drag of the cigarette he was holding, turning his head so that the exhaled smoke didn’t blow over to her. Even when he was spiralling, he was considerate.
“Very boring Saturday for you,” he commented, tilting his head back a little to squint at the sun above them.
Shane and Ilya’s Ottawa house had the sort of garden that seemed to be aware it was a small slice of heaven. Lawn just the right side of running wild, patches of daisies preening in the morning sun. Multiple seating arrangements, pretty stone paths, a vegetable garden that wasn’t quite a success yet, but scored points for the clear effort that had been put into it. Enough space to host, not too much to become overwhelming. Any other day, spending time sipping coffee on the deck by the backdoor would have been a welcome activity.
“I’ve had worse,” she said, stretching her legs out in front of her. Her knee had been bothering her for a few days now, the ache not dissipating no matter how many times she stretched it. Getting old, David had told her, and she’d been struck suddenly by how deep the smile lines around his eyes had gotten.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Ilya raise the cigarette back to his lips again. The clean edge of a plaster peeked out from under his sleeve. White, sterile, from the first aid kit under the sink Shane kept well-stocked because he was always worried about one of them getting hurt. Two days ago, Ilya had burned four neat circles into the skin of his wrist with a lit cigarette. A straight line, all evenly spaced like he cared how the scars would look. It had to have hurt, but Shane had said he hadn’t cried. Hadn’t so much as winced when he’d put a salve on them and then covered them up with gauze.
“I will not do anything,” Ilya said suddenly. “Was an accident.”
Yuna turned to look at him. At the shadows smudged under his eyes, at the chewed down nails. At the way he was holding the cigarette just a touch too close to his leg for it to be comfortable to look at.
An accident. He kept insisting he hadn’t meant to, but the burns were too neat, too tidy, too like he’d thought about it. And the fact that Ilya had an occasional self-destructive streak as wide as the distance between Ottawa and Moscow wasn’t exactly news.
“I can’t take that risk, Ilya,” she said quietly. “You know that.”
Ilya sighed and pulled his legs up closer to his body. It was the third day of the camps in Ottawa and Shane hadn’t wanted to disappoint the kids by missing another day. Yuna knew they’d argued, had heard the raised voices drifting down the stairs, had read the conflict in Shane’s reddened eyes and uneven voice when he’d finally come downstairs.
Shane was at the camp the three of them had spent all year carefully organising, coaching kids on how to do slapshots and pretending everything was fine, and Yuna was watching Ilya to make sure he didn’t do anything else dangerous. It was a compromise. A strike system. One more and they would move onto the next little box on Ilya’s safety plan.
“Maybe later we can take a walk,” she suggested. “It might do you good to get out of the house for a bit.”
Ilya smiled humourlessly at her. It looked like it hurt, like the muscles didn’t quite know how to move correctly.
“But is so dangerous,” he said, voice gone almost sing-song in rhythm, pale eyes boring a little hysterically into hers. “I could throw myself onto road, I could throw myself off bridge, I could-“
“Stop it,” Yuna cut him off, sharp enough that she immediately wanted to apologise.
Ilya rolled his feet so that only the edges were touching the still slightly damp grass. They were sitting in the last vestiges of the shadow cast by the house, a patch of coolness in among the heat. He wasn’t wearing slippers and the dew glistened on his bare skin. She knew this routine of his far too well. Ilya did it from time to time when his world had darkened a little too far for him to feel certain of his place in it. Pushed her, pushed David, pushed the both of them like he was trying to find their breaking point, the point where they would scream and shout and curse and maybe even lash out. All so that he could nod sagely to himself, secure in the knowledge that deep down under it all they really did hate him, just as he’d always suspected.
“Do you think you would?” Yuna asked seriously. “Because if you do we need to do something else.”
Ilya lowered the cigarette and Yuna watched him carefully as he stubbed it out on the plate he’d brought out from the kitchen, in case he brought it too near bare skin again. She trusted him, she did, but not when he was like this.
“Only by accident,” he said, and his mouth twisted into another poor imitation of a smile as he did so. Like he was in on some private joke he wouldn’t share with her.
Yuna frowned at him and crossed her arms across her body. She felt so incredibly out of her depth, because they both knew that if he wanted to do anything, Yuna wouldn’t be able to stop him. Ilya was taller than her, stronger than her, played an aggressive sport for a living. It was all far too much like paddling near the beach, in deceptively shallow water, knowing deep-down that at any point the sand could suddenly drop off and leave her floundering.
“Thank you for coffee,” Ilya said suddenly, and the change in topic was like a slap to the face.
“No problem,” she said carefully.
Watched him finally raise it to his lips and take a sip.
“Ilya, I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I think-“
“No.”
There was a hospital on the outskirts of Ottawa, a private clinic, with glowing reviews and a free bed. Yuna had made discreet enquiries. Had sent the webpage to both Shane and Ilya. Neither had mentioned it again.
“Was an accident,” he said again, more insistently this time, and tugged his sleeve down from where it had ridden up so that it covered the plaster again. “Will not happen again.”
There was slight tremor in his voice, and it made Yuna’s heart ache. She wished she could believe him. Wished she hadn’t had to hear from Shane that Ilya had similar scars on his hipbones, on the soft flesh of his thighs. Secret, hidden places on his body that only few people would ever see.
“I love you so much,” she said softly. “We all do.”
Ilya’s throat worked and she finally reached across to take his hand. Squeezed it tight, felt the fragile bones shift a little under his warm skin.
“Maybe that is a bad idea,” he said suddenly, and scrubbed roughly at the side of his nose.
“It hasn’t been yet,” Yuna said, quietly. Dropped his hand again.
Thought about how late they’d all spotted the signs, how well Ilya had hidden them this time. Even from Shane, with whom he shared a home, a bed, a life. Everything fine, everything running smooth, maybe just a little quiet but well within what was normal. Ilya coming over to do jigsaws with David after his morning runs, to slurp down her too-salty attempt at making borscht like it was the best thing he’d ever eaten, to squeeze himself into a single garden chair with Shane instead of getting his own. Fine, by any estimate.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Ilya was putting out cigarettes on his wrist in the hours between midnight and dawn, a tidy little line of four along the thin skin. Would he have kept going if Shane hadn’t stumbled into the bathroom? They’d never know.
Ilya shook his head and picked up the coffee again. Took a gulp of it like he wasn’t even tasting it, fingers shaky where they were curled around the handle.
“I will not do it,” he insisted. “I promised Shane I would not.”
How Yuna wished she could take him at his word. How dearly she wished she could just pat him consolingly on the knee, tell him she believed him, everything rose-tinted and wholesome and pretty as a picture. But Ilya was capable of being the sort of liar Shane had never managed to become, and, while she trusted him with a lot of things, she didn’t trust him with his own safety. Not right now.
Ilya seemed to know what she was thinking, because he absorbed her silence like it was a boarding. A muscle in his jaw twitched, his fingers tightened around the mug again.
She wondered if it was the camps. He always said he loved doing them, and he was endearingly good with kids, able to connect with them like he’d been born for it. But she couldn’t help wondering if maybe the presence of so many parents, both the overbearing and the genuinely supportive, got under his skin just a little. If it hit just a little too close to the never-quite-closed-over wound that was his own family.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Yuna asked.
It wasn’t the first time she’d asked. And she knew she wasn’t the only one asking either. David had tried, Shane had tried, they all had at different points in different ways and had all been met with the same response.
Ilya put his feet flat on the grass again. Pulled them in towards the decking, like he was trying to hide them.
“No.”
“But you’ll talk to Galina about it?”
Ilya made a frustrated noise in his throat.
“Yes,” he said. “I am not a child.”
Yuna wondered if he ever had been. Truly, in the innocent and carefree way children should be. Or if he’d come into the world and had a weight slung onto his fragile shoulders before he’d even taken his first breath or had the blood wiped from his skin.
They were both silent for a moment or two. Ilya tapped a heel against the decking impatiently.
“I want to go tomorrow,” he said suddenly. “To the camp.”
“Ilya,” she said gently. “You’re allowed to take a few days away. For your own health.”
“I am fine,” he insisted, and it came out louder than he probably had meant it to because he muttered an apology immediately after.
“I don’t think you are,” Yuna said. “And that’s…”
She trailed off for a second.
“That is how it is,” she finally said.
“Is a little funny,” Ilya said, so quietly Yuna had to strain to hear him. “I cannot attend camps to raise funds for a mental health charity because I cannot even be trusted to smoke alone.”
Yuna took a sip of her own coffee. Thought about Irina Rozanova, whose name was on all the flyers for the foundation and whose story was on their website for anyone and everyone to read. Thought about her chain around Ilya’s neck and wondered if some days it felt tighter than others.
He took another sip of coffee, then put the mug down. There was a finality to it.
Ilya got to his feet and shoved the pack of cigarettes roughly back into the pocket of his shorts. It was a strange look on him, barefoot in shorts with a bulky Centaurs sweater. She was used to him in tank tops, tight shirts, summer sewn into every seam.
“I am going to sleep,” he said, looking just past her at the house. “Do you want to check I do not have knives under my pillow?”
Yuna sighed and pushed her hair back from her face.
“No,” she said quietly. “Leave the door open though? Please?”
Ilya rolled his eyes towards the pristine sky but nodded. Stooped to pick up his mug to take inside, because he always did around her and David. Not around Shane though, thankfully. She’s almost been relieved when she’d watched Shane wander around the living room of their house a few months ago, complaining about Ilya’s habit of leaving glasses tucked into every nook and cranny.
She listened to him pad across the decking behind her; yank open the door with a little more force than strictly necessary. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she knew it was Shane, just like it had been since he’d left a few hours ago like he was running late. They’d make up, they always did, but until they did, she would take the brunt of his concerned texts.
Yuna tilted her head back to look up at the sky again. Cloudless, blue, like it had forgotten to add some details for depth. Breathed in the afternoon air and tried not to think about Ilya back in the bed he’d only peeled himself out of to smoke, another day with his head hidden under the covers and his thoughts circling like vultures.
Tried not to think of the clean white plaster, tucked under his sleeve.