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Ilya and Shane sit opposite each other on the couch of the recently furnished living room in Ilya’s new Ottawa home. Now fully moved, they are soaking up their last shared moments together before the chaos of the pre-season begins, with Shane returning to Montreal and Ilya starting anew with the Centaurs.
Setting his phone down, Ilya looks up to Shane, who remains reading his book, and starts, “So I was thinking.”
“Uh oh,” Shane replies, slotting his bookmark in place and setting his book aside.
Ilya fixes him with a deadpan look before trying again. “I was thinking, I want to cut my hair.”
Shane furrows his brows slightly, a bit thrown off by the conversation. After a little over a year officially together, Shane and Ilya have improved their communication greatly–especially compared to where they started a decade ago. Even so, Ilya had never asked Shane permission to do anything, much less something as menial as a haircut.
“...Okay,” Shane responds, clearly hesitant. “Do you want help finding a new place here? I don’t really know anywhere, but I could ask my dad if he has ideas?”
“No, no. Sorry,” Ilya starts. “I mean, I want to cut my hair off. All of it. Bzt bzt,” he adds, mimicking holding hair clippers.
Oh.
Oh.
Shane takes maybe a bit longer than he’s proud of to process before replying cautiously, “Alright.”
Ilya narrows his eyes at him, unsure of what to make of his reaction. “You are mad?”
“No! No, of course not,” Shane rushes to tell him. “I’m just…surprised. I think.” Shane waits a moment to collect his thoughts before asking, “Why do you- I mean, you don’t have to say if you don’t want but where did this come from? Did something happen?”
“No, nothing like that, sweetheart. Do not worry,” Ilya is quick to reassure him. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back into the couch a bit, visibly relaxing now that he has the initial confession over with. “I saw something online, that hair holds memories. I have a lot of good memories in Boston,” he flashes a sly look at Shane when he finishes, “and with you.”
Ilya cocks his head slightly, sighing deeply, before continuing, “But Ottawa is a new beginning. For me: new team, new city.” An unbelievably soft, mushy look takes over his face. “And for us: we are closer, and we can be together, more. Like a real couple.”
Ilya nods, as if to assure himself of his next statement, “I want to start fresh.”
“Okay.”
“You are sure?” Ilya asks, eying him.
Shane huffs out a small laugh, “I’m sure, baby.”
“Okay.” Ilya swings himself up and makes his way out of the room.
Looking around, confused, Shane watches him saunter away as he questions, “Ilya, where are you going?”
Grabbing a stool as he passes through the kitchen, Ilya pauses and turns to face Shane. “The bathroom. Come, come,” Ilya motions for Shane to follow him upstairs.
When Shane finds himself in the bathroom connected to Ilya’s bedroom, he is greeted by his boyfriend sitting politely on the kitchen stool he dragged up with him. Ilya turns when he hears Shane approaching, revealing the pair of hair clippers in his hands.
An unfamiliar look passes over Ilya’s face. Shyness, Shane realizes. “Will you help me?” Ilya murmurs.
The blatant trust being placed in his hands hits Shane square in the chest. To have Ilya rip his heart from his own body, beating and bleeding openly, and hold it out in offering. So pure and earnest, as if to say, You will take care of this, да? My heart is yours, моя любовь.
“Of course,” Shane replies warmly, taking the clippers from Ilya’s hands and dropping a kiss on his temple.
Shane plugs the clippers in, sets them on the counter, and takes a moment to run his hands through the soft blond hair one last time. He looks up, admiring the gentle appearance of his boyfriend. “Are you sure?”
With a deep breath, Ilya relaxes his shoulders and meets Shane’s eyes in the mirror. “Yes. I’m sure.”
“Я тебя люблю, Илюша.”
Ilya’s eyes softened, lips curling up in a giddy smile at hearing Shane speak Russian. “Я буду любить тебя вечно, мой любимый.”
Shane gathers himself as he picks up the hair clippers, slides the guard into place, and switches it on. He spares a look at Ilya, who sits waiting patiently before him. “Ready?”
Ilya nods shortly, closing his eyes, “I am ready.”
In a fit of courage, Shane drags the clippers over Ilya’s head, watching the golden locks fall to the ground. He repeats the action, going over and over, each pass followed by soft curls hitting the floor.
With pass after pass, Shane finds the repetitive motions of the clippers smoothing over Ilya’s head calming, and slowly spaces out as he feels his thoughts drifting elsewhere.
He tries to imagine what Ilya will look like with only a short stubble of hair coating his head. He wonders if Ilya has ever had his hair this short. Maybe as a child.
Shane pictures a much younger Ilya, perhaps just shortly after the devastating loss of his mother, forced to sit, just as he is now, while one of his last connections to his mother is cruelly ripped from his grasp. His father behind him, shaving away his tether to his late mom: their shared golden curls.
He compares that to the Ilya in front of him today. So funny and beautiful. And so sad. Shane doesn’t see the small, broken boy his brain imagines. He sees the amazing man he loves. The man who’s been forced to give, and give, and give until he has nothing left for himself. The man who’s grown up on conditional love, only attributing his worth to the material value he can provide.
The man who has given everything to Shane. Shane knows he would give more without question, without a second thought.
But Shane doesn’t want to ask that of him. He doesn’t ever want to make Ilya feel the way his vampiristic family did, bleeding him dry with no remorse.
Shane doesn’t want to ever see that version of Ilya, the fragile and scared boy forced to find his way in a brutal world. He only wants to support him endlessly, to build up this version of Ilya.
This version of Ilya, who Shane can only hope is mending some small piece from deep inside himself—once crushed by his unforgiving environment—by making this choice himself.
To rid himself of his hair and its accompanying memories, and start fresh.
To do this on his own accord. To have the man he loves and trusts to the ends of the earth do this for him. With him.
Finishing off the last strip of hair, Shane comes out of his haze, turns off the clippers, and places them rightfully on the counter. His hands find Ilya’s shoulders, brushing off any stray hairs.
Braving a glance up in the mirror, Shane almost doesn’t recognize the man in front of him. Sharp features only accentuated by the cropped buzz. Hardened stare no longer softened by a surrounding mop of curls. Until Shane’s eyes found the tender, familiar blue of Ilya’s own.
Those gorgeous, kind eyes are the same. The fond look bursting with love is the same. The way his lips quirk up in a maniacal smirk when he wants to work Shane up will be the same. The way he talks Shane down from a freak out and takes him out of his mind will be the same.
Looking back at him is still the same man he’d once met as an awkward teenager outside a hockey rink in Saskatchewan. The same man he once begrudgingly loved, but now aches for with every breath he takes.
His public rival, private boyfriend.
His love, his life, his Ilya.
Shane’s hands find their way from strong shoulders up to his boyfriend’s head, brushing over the newly fuzzy cut. Trailing across defined cheekbones, Shane’s thumb catches a tear as it escapes Ilya’s eye. Reaching down to cup his jaw, Shane leans to leave a tender kiss on his cheek.
A quiet sniffle rights Shane, causing him to straighten, spinning Ilya around in place to face him.
Somewhere from the back of his throat, Ilya asks thickly, “Do you like it?”
Shifting to caress the sides of his face, Shane goes to comfort him, “It’s perfect.”
Admiring the man in front of him, Shane feels the build up of emotions inside him. To be trusted enough to be allowed to see this vulnerable side of this otherwise stoic man. To know that only he is privy to this part of Ilya’s life. To know that as great as that feels, the world will never see Ilya for who he is, gentle and kind and oh so caring.
But his sense of pride overwhelms those bittersweet thoughts. Proud of everything Ilya has overcome. Proud to call him his own.
“You’re perfect, baby,” Shane chokes out.
Two foreheads meet, as they have many times before. Like two streams meeting at the river. Two threads weaving together eternally. The sun and his moon, stuck in endless yearning, never allowed to unite. One soul, long ago split and separated across oceans, fighting to merge once more.
Casting a glance up to Shane’s shimmering brown eyes, Ilya finds himself drowning in warm chocolate. “Thank you, солнышко.”
“Always.”