Work Text:
Anya dies halfway through the third period of Game 7. Not that it matters – Shane called Hayden this morning and excused them from coming to the viewing party. Even now that they’ve been retired for a while, they care, Shane especially. But not today.
Once he got off the phone, Shane joined Ilya on the floor next to Anya’s dog bed and let Ilya put his head into his lap while Anya lay there half-awake, her every breath laboured, and the vet gave her the drugs.
Somewhere, someone is winning a game Ilya doesn’t care about, while he holds Anya’s paw in his hand.
Anya looks at Ilya until she can’t any more. Her little body stills completely, and Ilya wails like she used to wail for him on the days he couldn’t get up, or when he did get up and locked himself in the bathroom and tried to talk himself out of doing something incredibly stupid. She could always tell, and she was always there for him.
“Ilya,” Shane is saying. “Ilya, baby.” He pulls Ilya in, tugging at his hair, kissing away his tears. Ilya shakes him off, even as he rasps out apologies. He half-falls forward, leaning over Anya in her little bed. He picks her up and cradles her against his chest and cries and cries and cries into her fur until he can’t do anything any more – until he’s swaying on the spot, kneeling on the hard living room floor, with Shane steadying him.
Ilya isn’t sure how much time has passed. The vet is gone. Shane took care of everything - arranging the house call, opening the door, talking to the vet about the procedure. So he must have thanked her and showed her out.
Ilya is freezing, and Anya isn’t warm any more. His knee they replaced the better part of a decade ago is agonisingly painful.
“Ilya, Ilya,” Shane whispers. “You’re shaking, let me at least get a blanket, for you, yeah?”
Ilya looks down. He didn’t realise, but he must have moved one of his hands to clutch Shane’s wrist. His fingers are cramping up, and Shane is probably hurting. He unclenches his hand and lets go. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Shane says. “We – baby, I’m so sorry, but we have to figure out what to – what to do with Anya.”
Ilya automatically clutches her tighter.
“I know,” Shane says. “But we can’t keep her here forever.”
“I don’t,” Ilya says. No more words come out.
“We can keep her tonight, if you want. The vet said so. We can sit with her.” Ilya can see Shane swallow hard. Shane does not want to keep Anya tonight.
Ilya wants to, though.
Anya would stay with him if he were dead. He knows this.
“Yes,” he says. “Keep her tonight.”
Shane nods sharply. “Then that’s what we’ll do. If you – if you need that, we’ll do it.” He nods again.
In the morning, they look at the brochure from the pet cremation service the vet left with them. Ilya picks a pink marbled urn that he thinks Anya would have liked. It would go with her leash. Once they get her back, Ilya keeps her in the safe with all their documents and the very few pictures he has of his mother.
He doesn’t like it, but he can’t put Anya in the ground somewhere away from him. So she stays in that little box, in the back of the safe, and Ilya puts her paw prints and picture wherever he can.
It makes him think about death as something that’s going to happen to him and Shane. As something they haven’t really made plans for. He thinks of Anya in the safe. He imagines dying, and having to go somewhere without her, without Shane.
He imagines Shane dying, and has to call Galina for an emergency session.
He tries to bring it up with Shane, but Shane refuses to talk about it.
Ilya isn’t surprised. A couple of years ago, they had wills drawn up. Ilya hadn’t loved it, of course, but Shane really hadn’t loved it. Years before that, when Ilya put a DNR for himself in place and told Shane, Shane had slept in the guest room for a week. He’d barely spoken to Ilya, until one night where they had a blow-up fight and then edged each other for hours about it. That always serves to reconcile them, but Ilya knows it’s too soon right now to try it.
It stays too soon to talk about it for much, much longer than Ilya would like.
Anya’s dog bed stays in the living room, and her leash stays on the coat rack by the door. The cleaners throw out the rest of her kibble. Ilya cries about it, and Shane, outraged, calls the cleaning service to complain.
By the time he gets off the phone, Ilya has dried his tears and had a shot of vodka. He sits at the counter. Shane steps back into the kitchen, looking grim. “I’m so sorry.”
Ilya shrugs. “Not your fault.” He takes a breath. “I want to talk to you. About dying.”
Shane freezes completely. “Ilya.”
“Not like that,” Ilya reassures him in a hurry. “Not like I used to.”
Shane doesn’t relax even a fraction. He’s right to be suspicious. On the worst days, Ilya used to lie, and Shane could always tell.
Ilya ploughs on. “We need to think about what we want. When we are dead.”
“We have wills,” Shane says, in an end-of-conversation tone.
“About money and houses,” Ilya says. “I don’t give a shit about that. We need to think about what we want to happen to our bodies -”
“No.”
“Shane -”
“I said no.”
“No, just like that? It does not matter that I want to talk about it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You do not need to say it, you are acting like it.”
Shane is clutching the edge of the counter, white-knuckled. “Why the fuck do you want to talk about this right now?”
“What if we want to do different things for our funerals?”
“What if we do? What’s the problem?”
“Because I cannot do it, Hollander!” Ilya shouts, he can’t help it. “I cannot die knowing you will never lie next to me! I don’t care what happens to me as long as you will be there some day. That is why you have to talk to me about it. Shane, please. Please.”
Shane walks out, and doesn’t come home until Ilya’s already asleep.
When he wakes up the next morning, Shane is sitting up against the headboard, eyes red-rimmed and swollen.
“We can talk about it,” Shane says, as soon as Ilya looks up at him. “On one condition.”
“What?” Ilya asks.
“We have to decide together. I know you said you don’t care. I believe you. But I care. I have to know it’s something you’re comfortable with.”
Ilya opens his mouth, but Shane cuts him off. “That’s it. That’s all I want. Your honest opinion on whatever I bring up. And do not fucking lie. Not about this. Okay?”
Ilya nods. “Okay.”
Shane takes a deep breath. “Right. So what do you want to do? You want to talk about it now?”
“Now is fine,” Ilya says.
“So, uh, I guess the most straightforward options would be just a traditional burial, or cremation.”
“Yes,” Ilya says, his heart sinking. Hearing it said aloud, from Shane’s lips, he cares more than he expected.
Shane looks at him expectantly.
“I – maybe not cremation,” Ilya says. “Unless it’s what you -”
“Rozanov.”
“Yes. Okay. Not cremation, please.”
“Ilya, are you -”
“Um, my – my mother one time talked about how she did not want this. And I know she would not have wanted it for me. So unless you really, really want, can we not do this, please. But if you really -”
“Baby. Stop. We’re not doing that, okay? I promise. That’s why I said you need to tell me the truth.”
Ilya wipes his eyes. “Right. Yes. This is hard.”
Shane laughs a little. “Yeah. You see now why I didn’t wanna talk about it? But you were right, Ilya. We have to sort this out, because we never know, and I – I really want to make sure we’re together, whatever we end up doing.”
Ilya forces himself to breathe. “So, then, a normal funeral?” As soon as he says it, he doesn’t like the idea. They could buy a plot for them both, sure, but if they’re in separate caskets, they might as well be worlds apart. He can tell by Shane’s face that he doesn’t love the idea, either.
Shane brushes back Ilya’s curls, then kisses his forehead. When he pulls away, the corner of his mouth ticks upwards. “Guess we can just never die, huh?”
Naturally, Shane throws himself into researching burial alternatives that will suit them perfectly. Ilya should have seen it coming. Ilya finds brochures and flyers in the car and on the coffee table, and once, memorably, in their sex toy drawer for some reason that Shane distracts Ilya from investigating.
They have headlines like Aquamation Explained and Green Burial Options in Ontario and Body Donation and You – Make a Difference! The last one was crumpled up. Ilya unfolds it and takes a curious look inside, then crumples it up again. Never would he let his sweet Shane be cut up and studied, as noble as the cause might be.
One night, Ilya wakes up with Shane’s side of the bed empty. Not that either of them really sleeps there – they end up tangled together, arms around each other, every night. Like they’re meant to be. That’s how Ilya wants to be buried, his essence and Shane’s, indistinguishable forever.
He goes to look for Shane. When he gets to the living room, he finds Shane sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest in Anya’s dog bed, scrolling on his phone.
“Sweetheart,” Ilya says. “What are you doing?”
Shane lowers the phone, looking guilty. “I couldn’t sleep, and it just – it still smells like her.”
Ilya sits next to him, pulling him close. “I know.”
Shane sniffles and shakes his head. “She didn’t even like me.”
They both know it’s not true, but Shane always used to protest that because he was strict with Anya, she loved Ilya more.
Ilya kisses Shane’s forehead. “What were you reading?”
“Oh, just this article about human composting.”
“Hollander, what the fuck? Did you just say human composting?”
“Yeah, it’s a thing. They legalised it in Ontario a couple of years ago, actually.” Shane sounds completely serious.
“So it will turn us into actual shit to fertilise crops or something?”
Shane frowns at him. It’s adorable. “Shut up. It just came up while I was researching options.”
“Stupid options.”
“We have a compost heap out in the garden. You don’t think that’s stupid,” Shane says.
“No,” Ilya agrees. “But rats live there.”
“No, they don’t.”
“I have seen them.”
“Bullshit.”
Ilya pokes Shane’s side. “Next time, I will catch one in a bucket and bring it into the kitchen to show you.”
“Okay, fine! No human composting! I get it. Jesus Christ. Will you shut up now?”
“Hm,” Ilya says. “Make me.”
“Do not talk dirty to me while I am sitting in a dog bed.”
“Then get out of the dog bed, Hollander. You’re the one who left me all alone in our marital bed and went to read about human kitchen scraps.”
“I fucking hate you,” Shane says, but naturally he kisses Ilya right after.
“What was that aquamation thing?” Ilya asks Shane one day when they’re driving home from dinner at David and Yuna’s. The brochure is still stuck in the door pocket of Shane’s car. Ilya pulls it out and squints at it.
“You need reading glasses,” Shane says.
“I do not.”
“Ilya.” Shane sounds exasperated.
“You need reading glasses.”
“Yes. You like them, remember? I’ll wear them for you tonight if you make an appointment to get your eyes checked. Deal?”
“Fine,” Ilya says. He’ll get out of the appointment after Shane wears the glasses for him. Maybe with his old Montreal jersey. Or better yet, Ilya’s old Boston jersey. Or either of their Centaurs jerseys that the team retired with them. Ilya can narrow down the options in the trophy room, while he makes Shane wait. Maybe while he makes Shane polish the glasses, actually. That’s a good idea.
Before he can get too distracted, Ilya slaps the brochure against his thigh. “So? What is this thing?”
“It’s, like, water cremation. An eco-friendlier version of cremation. Which I know you don’t want,” Shane says hurriedly. “I was only checking out all the options. It uses some water solution to break down the body and turn it into a powder, similar to what you’d get after a normal cremation.”
“Hm. I mean – is good that it’s eco-friendly, right?” Ilya sighs. “But I don’t know. I keep thinking about my mother.”
His mother, who believed if she was cremated, she couldn’t go to heaven. Who would firmly believe that Ilya will go to heaven, no questions asked.
His mother’s casket, the grey Moscow cemetery she’s buried in. Ilya shivers at the memory. He cannot do that to his Shane. He won’t. Shane deserves sunshine, quiet, peace – the peace he so rarely gets in life.
And, Ilya thinks, he deserves it himself. It’s not like he never feels the way he did when he was younger: desperate for things to stop. But he has done a lot of work, and sometimes he does actually remember that he fucking deserves peace.
“No aquamation, baby,” Shane says, squeezing Ilya’s thigh. “It’s okay. I’m working on something else.”
“Oh? What is that?”
Shane shakes his head. “Not ready yet. Don’t worry. I’ll tell you soon.”
Ilya wakes up to the smell of coffee and bacon. A bright ray of sunshine is hitting him squarely in the face. He has to blink for several seconds until he can focus. Anya is jumping and barking in the picture he keeps of her on his bedside table here at the cottage – in the house in Ottawa, the picture in that spot is of her with a little Santa hat.
He brushes his teeth and heads to the kitchen to investigate the highly promising smells. Shane beams at him from across the counter. “Morning, baby.”
Ilya yawns and kisses him. “Morning. Mhm, what have I done to deserve this?”
“Forced me to talk about death,” Shane says.
Ilya laughs, startled. “That is why you are looking so happy?”
Shane nods and pushes a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs and bacon towards Ilya. “Let’s eat. Then I have something to show you.”
Once Ilya’s finished his food and poured himself a second cup of coffee, they move to the sofa. Shane fiddles with the tablet, cagey, tilting it so Ilya can’t see anything. Finally, he flips the tablet around so Ilya can see the screen.
Slides. Fucking slides. Before nine-thirty in the morning.
“Hollander?”
“Yes?”
“I love you. I fucking love you.”
“Yes, me too,” Shane says. “Can I do my presentation now?”
Ilya presses his lips together to keep from laughing. “Mhm. What do I get if I am good and pay attention?”
“A – a well-planned, thoughtful burial that means we can be together forever, even after we die?”
Ilya tilts his head from side to side. “Okay, yes, pretty good. What else?”
“I can throw in a blowjob or two? I mean, now, after the presentation. Not once we’re dead.”
“Yes, I know you mean now. Perfect. I will study this presentation so well, you will not believe it.”
“It’s only ten slides.”
“That is ten too many, but okay. Go ahead.”
Shane clears his throat and sits up straight. “Right. I spoke to a couple of different funeral directors in and around Ottawa for research.”
“A couple?”
“Fine, a dozen.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I think natural burial would be a really good option for us. It means there’s no embalming and we would be buried in biodegradable coffins or shrouds. I really like the shroud idea, actually. Because I like how you look wrapped up in the sheets when we wake up together.”
Shane blushes. “That’s weird, saying that about being buried, right?”
“No,” Ilya says. “No, it’s not weird, sweetheart.”
“Okay.” Shane looks back at the slide with bullet points, all nervous and cute. “And there’s no vault or anything like that, our bodies would just be put in the earth directly. And they usually don’t have headstones, though sometimes they have some sort of indicator where the grave is.”
“Is very… anonymous?”
“Yeah, a bit like that. I sort of liked that. Like, everyone is always watching us, and there we would be just us.”
“Just us,” Ilya repeats. “Yes. That – yes, I understand.”
“And, um, here, I have this slide, look.” Shane clicks through to a picture of a meadow covered in flowers. “This is a natural burial area I found. We could buy side-by-side plots, and because we’re just in the ground without a casket or a vault, we would be really together, and then the wildflowers would grow over us and…” He puts down the tablet to wipe his eyes. “I found this, and it’s the only way I can see it now. It’s the only place I can imagine us going. But you have to tell me if that’s not what you want, because I couldn’t bear it if you went there with me only because I want it.”
“No,” Ilya says. “Shane – I want to be there with you. Forever. Yes, please. I cannot believe you put all this effort into finding something so good.”
“Of course I did,” Shane says. “Look, I’m not religious or anything, but once you got me thinking about it I couldn’t stop until I found some place we could be together for – for eternity, or whatever.”
Ilya pushes the tablet aside and pulls Shane into his lap, carefully cupping his face. “I love you.”
Shane turns his head, kissing Ilya’s palm. “I love you, too. But I haven’t even told you the most important part.”
“No? It all sounds pretty important.”
“We can take Anya with us. They have a plot where people can be buried next to their pets’ ashes, so she can also be with us, and it’ll be our whole family, the three of us together.”
Ilya wants to say something, anything, to show Shane how perfect the idea is, how Ilya could never ask for anything more. He can’t, though. His throat has closed somehow.
“Baby?”
Ilya shakes his head, hot tears pooling in his eyes.
“Oh, Ilya.” Shane kisses him, careful yet firm. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” Ilya sniffs.
“Sure. Yeah.”
“Oh, fuck. Shane. This is incredible.”
“Great. I’m really glad you think so. Tomorrow, we have a video call with the director of that burial area, at ten a.m. But that’s mostly a formality, I saw on their website that they have plots available currently. So we can purchase them, and then I’ll call the lawyers to update our wills.”
Ilya groans. “Stop. You are too perfect.”
Shane smiles down at him, and kisses him again, just the barest brush of lips. “Thank you. Now how about those blowjobs I owe you?”
And Ilya just knows he’s going to die so happy when the time comes.