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Ilya does not of the thing that exists between himself as a bond, tether nor bridge - not, that is, in the way that Shane considers it to be so. He does not know what he thinks of it as, only knows that there are no words that can express the closeness that he feels exists between himself and Shane. Once, maybe, he might have had the words; Ilya has spoken hundreds and thousands of languages across the span of his existence, and there have been words in each that he has found best suited to describe what it is he feels for Shane. But he has never spoken all of those languages at once, and now - knowing that these languages are ones that he might never know again and feeling the ache of them like atrophied muscle memory locked somewhere in the grind of his jaw - nothing feels adequate.
He thinks, instead, in allegory and myth. He thinks of Plato and his creatures with four arms and four legs and two faces, split in half because the power of unity is enough to rival the gods. He thinks of himself and Shane like this, as some kind of mythology stretching across the expanse of time itself, cyclic and unstoppable. Shane is part of his soul, an intrinsic part of himself that cannot exist alongside the distance of a bond, tether or bridge. Shane is more Ilya than Ilya is himself. Ilya is more Shane than Shane is himself.
This means, when Marlow slams into Shane with all the force of a truck fishtailing across the ice, Ilya feels it in his bones. He feels the shock of it, the pain crescendoing. He feels the terror - a feeling that is both distant and overwhelming - and he feels it all with a terrible certainty. Shane crumples to ground like a rag doll. Ilya has seen him like this before.
People know that they are friends, in this life. It had been impossible to pretend that they are anything else, because Ilya has spent too many years with Shane and too many years without him to contain the viciousness of what he feels for him. If they ask, Ilya says that he has known him forever, that there is no one he loves the way that he loves Shane. If they ask (and this part, they don’t), Ilya would say that he wants to spend the rest of eternity with Shane doing normal people things - kissing him like it’s the first time, marrying him like it’s their only opportunity, getting to learn new things about him like Ilya and Shane are not blurred at the edges.
Example: in this life, Shane cannot stand barefeet. He is almost always wearing socks. Ilya had not known this before, and probably it will not be the same in their next go around.
Ilya wants to do normal people shit and he can feel it all slipping away between his fingers, sand in an hour glass. He has lost Shane like this before. He is always losing Shane - getting him back just to see him go away.
Ilya is across the ice in a heartbeat, and on his knees in the next. He does not want to move Shane - because what if it makes him worse - but his hands settle all over him, restless and seeking purchase somewhere he’ll be able to comfort him. He tries to call Shane’s name but all of them - all the names that Ilya is supposed to forget but carries around in him like a second shadow anyway - get stuck in his throat, claw their way out as an incomprehensible sob, wet and ugly.
Instead, he says, “please.”
He says, “please,” and “don’t,” and “let me keep him, just this once - let me keep him longer.”
“Rozanov,” the ref barks, hands on his shoulders and fisted in his jersey, trying to pull him away. “Back to the fucking bench. Give us room to work.”
Ilya cannot leave Shane’s side. If it happens here, Ilya does not know when the next time he will see Shane will be. He has gone centuries before, but he doesn’t think that he has it in him to wait another few centuries, to keep turning towards a Sun that has already set, a listless and purposeless flower slowly starved of all nutrition.
He thinks he will die, and still he finds - so many deaths later - that he is scared of this. If he dies, he will never be Ilya Rozanov again, in love with a man called Shane.
So, Ilya reaches inwards, to the thrum of where his soul is knit intrinsically into Shane’s, and buries himself there, imagines hands reaching in and grabbing anything that they can find. He feels it as it all begins to drain away, a terribly fast tide that he cannot stem. Shane is going to die. Ilya will die alongside him. Ilya buries his hand in the fabric of their soul(s), this strange and natural and mythological spirit that keeps them forever orbiting each other, and yanks.
Under his hands, in his bones, in the ache of his teeth - Ilya feels the steady thrum of Shane’s heartbeat, solid once more.