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Shane sits frozen in his SUV. In front of him stretches miles and miles of dark gray pavement and behind him sits his home in Montreal, barren and silent after the efficient movers had taken the boxes of his personal belongings. 10 years in this bustling city and his life has been packed up and taken away in under 4 hours.
"Seems about right," Shane murmurs to himself. It's like he's never lived here. His history has been wiped clean.
His car's packed with the items he didn't trust the movers with - personal documents, trophies, and awards he's earned over the past decade. A bag of clothes is wedged somewhere because he doesn't know how soon he'll unpack his boxes of clothes. He might just sleep for days when he gets to Ottawa. He's so exhausted. Maybe he's coming down with something.
Ilya and his parents linger on the sidewalk next to his car, chatting happily and making plans for dinner. They came to help but the movers had done the bulk of the labor. Ilya's smiling, white teeth flashing, as giddy as a kid on Christmas. This is the happiest he's looked in a long time.
Shane tries to match his energy but it falls flat. Everything has felt muted all day. It's odd. He should be happy. He should be happy he's going home to his fiance's house. He's moving back to his hometown and staying. Forever.
No more back and forth between the cities. No more long distance relationship with Ilya.
Hopefully no more fighting.
Hopefully no more unresolved tension.
Ilya got what he wanted and Shane got his future husband and a maybe a chance to play hockey next year on the same team.
Nevermind that he's being forced out of Montreal just like he had been forced out of the Voyagers like some kind of contagious leper. Nevermind he's lost the faith of an entire city and his legacy has been publicly torn to smithereens. Nevermind he's made a laughingstock in the tabloids. Nevermind he's being called and liar, a cheat, and a faggot almost daily.
He grips the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white.
He's happy.
He's so fucking happy he could cry.
"Everything ok, Shanya?" Ilya appears next to his door, hazel eyes taking note of Shane's pinched expression.
Or had it just been blank, devoid of anything?
Shane shakes himself. Forces a smile. "Yeah…Just tired."
"You can nap when we get home," Ilya says gently. How can he be so kind now? So unbothered when Shane struggles to hold everything together? "Then we can have lunch and unpack."
"Sounds good," Shane replies. "Sorry you have to drive home with my parents. My car's kinda full."
Ilya smiles again and reaches inside to touch Shane's cheek. "I can't believe you're coming home to me."
Shane finds a true smile then. Yes, he is happy. He is happy because Ilya is happy and that's what matters, right?
That's what matters the most in love stories from books and movies. You make sacrifices for the ones you love and in the end you can finally be with them and everything is fine and perfect and no one hurts anymore. He lit himself on fire so Ilya is finally warm. That's what people do.
Right?
"I got groceries last night at store you like. Organic bunny food and your crap protein drinks." Ilya smiles at his own teasing like nothing's wrong, like he doesn't know or care that his words cut deep. "You will not go hungry."
" Um…thanks. I appreciate it."
Shane does appreciate the gesture but not the teasing. He hasn't told Ilya he has not eaten anything green or healthy all week. That he has overindulged in snickers and cheeseburgers because his stress is at an all time high.
Ilya leans in and kisses him. Just like that. In the middle of the day on a busy street. What a mindfuck. "I'll see you in two hours, moy lyubimy."
Ilya's so cute when he's in a good mood. "Ok. See you later."
He waves to his parents and pulls away from the curb. He travels through the busy side streets and then onto the highway. The car is silent. He doesn't have the desire to fill the silence with music or a podcast. He wouldn't be able to concentrate on it anyway. He listens to the hum of the road, mind blissfully blank.
There are miles a miles ahead of him.
Countless.
Endless.
He eventually gets to Ottawa.
He misses his exit. The GPS reroutes. He fully plans to follow the new directions. But he keeps going and then Ottawa is behind him. The hum of the drive is so very soothing. He doesn't think of anything.
He keeps driving.
As if waking up from a dream, Shane suddenly finds night has fallen. He blinks hard and then looks around. Confusion doesn't even begin to cover what he feels. There's panic, seemingly ever present and broiling just beneath the surface.
He doesn't recognize where he is and it's so dark. The car is in park, but still on. The headlights slice through the oppressive darkness, shining light onto a lake that yawns out before him a few meters away He's in a parking lot. No one else is around. He's completely alone.
Then the panic bubbles up and suddenly Shane can't breathe. His breaths come in quickly and rush out just as fast. Over and over until he's lightheaded.
He scrambles for him phone. It's either off or the battery's dead. The clock on his dash says it's past 8 pm. He's been on the road for nearly 6 hours and he doesn't know how long he's been idling in the parking lot.
He turns his phone on with shaking fingers, fearing the worst. After a few moments, it's on. There's a couple of bars of reception. Enough to making the messages roll in. Over 100 unread texts and countless missed calls. He scrolls down through the log. Down. Down. Down.
Ilya.
Mom.
Dad.
Hayden.
JJ.
And, god, the voicemails. Shane can't and doesn't want to count them or listen to them right now.
Tears sting his eyes suddenly. What the fuck happened? How can he not remember the drive? How can he not account for the last six hours?
Where the fuck is he?
He checks himself. Physically he feels fine. There's nothing wrong with him. Maybe this is a side effect from a concussion but he hasn't had one recently and his head doesn't hurt.
He needs to do so many things at once. Ideas fly through his mind like rockets. Figure out where he is. Call his mom. Google his symptoms. But he just sits there instead, immobilized. He stares out at the dark lake. The waves lap at the shore, rhythmic and peaceful. The crests are highlighted white by the light of the full moon.
It's chilly out. The dash registers the temp is 15°c and he doesn't have a jacket nor has the heat on. He cranks it up, hoping to get rid of the chill inside the car at least. He doesn't even know if he packed a jacket.
His teeth clatter. Tears are rolling down his face. The panic hasn't stopped. It's still hard to breathe because racking sobs are rushing out, making his entire body shake.
What the fuck? The same question whorls around and around in his mind. It's an endless mantra now. It's spilling out of his mouth along with the gasping sobs.
His phone vibrates. Shane looks at the screen. Ilya's name stares back at him in big bold letters.
He's hesitant to answer, not sure what kind of mood Ilya will be in. But he really needs help.
He swipes his thumb across the screen and hold the phone up to his ear.
"Shane? O Bozhe moy! Where are you!?"
Ilya's voice is thick with concern and panic. It makes his accent all the most obvious. He's nearly yelling. Shane struggles to speak. He's sobbing again, gasping for air.
"Shane, baby, calm down." Immediately Ilya's voice is much more gentle. "Are you hurt?"
"Not hurt. I don't know where I am," Shane finally gets out. "It's dark. There's a lake. Ilya, I can't remember. I'm just…here."
"Sweetheart, it will be ok. Just breath, ok?"
Shane closes his eyes, concentrating on Ilya's voice. He greedily sucks in a breath until he feels his chest expand.
Ilya talks but it isn't to Shane. He can hear his mom's frantic voice in the background. And then she's crying and it makes Shane feel like shit. His mom's not a crier.
"Listen to me, Shane. Turn on your location and send it to me. Can you do that and still stay on call?"
"Y-yeah." Shane puts the phone down, stares at the screen dumbly for a moment. Before he pulls up the map up. He can see the little red dot that demarks his location. He doesn't recognize the area. He's north. Way north of Ottawa. Father north than he's ever been. He sends his location to Ilya's phone.
"I got it. I will come pick you up. Are you in a safe location? Are you at a hotel? I don't want you to drive."
"I'm in my car."
"Ok. I see you now," Ilya murmurs, almost to himself as he obviously studies the map. "Fuck, baby, you are 5 hours away."
There's the spark of familiar frustration.
Shane shrivels up immediately. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened."
"It will be ok. Yuna doesn't want you to drive either. She says she will call emergency services to take you to hospital."
Fear rolls through Shane like a wave. His hands shake. "No," he says as firmly as he can. "They will know who I am and they'll talk. There will be stories in the news about this. I can't handle anymore stories, Ilya."
"Fuck the news, Shane. You're more important than what people think."
"That's easy for you to say," Shane snaps bitterly.
There's more discussion on the either end. He can hear his mom and dad talking to Ilya, then there's a rustling as the phone changes hands, and his mom's voice comes over the line.
"Baby?"
"Hi, mom," Shane obediently replies, sniffling. There's so much concern in her voice that Shane hates himself because he's the cause. He's been the cause of so much stress in her life lately. She doesn't need any more.
"You really need to to go to the hospital, honey. This is serious, Shane. Can you do that for me?"
"No. I'll…. I'll," Shane trails off, searching his sluggish brain for an answer. "I'll find a motel and stay there until Ilya comes. I'll stay on the phone the whole time I drive so we can talk, ok?"
"Ok, baby." She's tearful again. "If you start to feel different, please stop driving. You could of had a seizure or something."
Shane almost says he'll talk to the team doctor but stops himself. He doesn't have a team yet. The Voyagers dropped him and he hasn't officially been signed by anyone else. He'll have to go to the hospital eventually to get checked out but not tonight. Tonight he's so tired and drained. He just wants to lay down and sleep.
He finds the nearest motel with the GPS and cautiously starts to drive. All the while he talks with his mom about funny stories of childhood antics and her recent trip to the grocery store with Ilya.
There's a heavy pit in his stomach that he can't shake. He hopes the receptionist doesn't recognize him.
Shane wakes to knocking on the door. The TV is on, bathing the room in blue light. He struggles out of the covers. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. He stumbles to the door, stiff and still partly asleep. He unlocks it. Opens it slowly.
Ilya rushes inside in a blur of motion. He nearly knocks Shane down in his hurry to pull him into his arms. "Moy lyubimy," he whispers, his face buried in Shane's neck. He's trembling.
"I'm fine," Shane says, wrapping his arms around Ilya. "I think. I'll go to the doctor's tomorrow. They will say it's stress and it's nothing to worry about ok?”
The lie on his tongue doesn't feel good. But he can't consider the alternative: that his life sucks and his brain is completely fucked.
"Stress? People don't disappear because of stress."
Shane pulls back wearily. "I don't want to fight about this."
Ilya stares at him. "Fight? This isn't a fight, Shane. I just want to talk."
"It will turn into a fight like it always does," Shane snaps. "It'll turn into a fight because that's what you do. You'll think I did something stupid like always and you'll tell me so."
Silence descends. It's thick and uncomfortable and Shane is angry now. He's the one picking a fight but if he doesn't say what he needs to, he'll rip himself out of his skin.
He stares Ilya dead in the eye, frowning. "Why didn't you fight for me, Ilya? My didn't you step up and say something, anything, when the media tore me apart…still tears me apart daily? But I guess your happiness is more important to than mine."
Ilya's eyes grow cold. "You're not happy?"
"Of course I'm not fucking happy, Ilya! What do I have to be happy about? My best friend outed us and then I was kicked out my team. The media's destroying my name because they think I tripped on purpose. The entire city of Montreal fucking hates me because I lost one fucking game. After 10 fucking years of blood, sweat, tears, they despise me because I love you. And you…you stand back and laugh and makes jokes."
"I'm trying to make sure you don't get more upset! If I wasn't upset, then you would see it wasn't a big deal!"
"It is a big deal, Ilya! I wasn't ready to come out!"
"Maybe you should have been!”
Shane groans in frustration. "We had a plan. I was sticking to it. You were the one who wanted to change it without telling me."
"Fuck, Shane! Anyone other person would have guessed what I wanted!"
"I'm not a fucking mind reader, Ilya! I asked you over and over if you were ok. That would have been the perfect time to tell me you wanted to come out. But you didn't. You just resented me. And you haven't even considered how scared I've been, have you? Ilya, I was fucking petrified. And everything I was scared of came true and it's a fucking joke to you."
Shane's not making any sense. He knows he's not making any sense. His voice is loud and his words are rambling but, damn, he suddenly has so much to unload. It's like a damn inside him has broken and everything thing is rushing out in a furious torrent.
He steps back, throat painfully tight, and returns to the bed, his head in his hands. "Fuck, Ilya. I was so scared."
He sounds like he's seven years old again and just had a nightmare. But he's not. He's an adult whose entire life just imploded in a blink of an eye. He's lost. He's angry.
He's so fucking angry and he doesn't know who to be angry at.
Ilya?
Hayden?
The Voyagers?
Surely no one could possibly have this much anger inside them and survive. It's absolutely unfathomable.
He wants so badly to scream.
He wants so badly to go to bed and never wake up.
"Fuck," he sobs quietly. "And I don't even know what I'm going to do next season. No one wants me to play for them. I'm a fucking pariah."
Ilya sets down beside him, settling an arm over his shoulders. "Shane, you know Ottawa wants you," he says gently.
"They won't pay me what I deserve and there's hardly an opening. I'll be put on the third line...do you know how humiliating that is? What if you were in my place? Would that position make you happy?"
Ilya pulls back, his eyes narrowing. "If it meant I got to see you every day, then yes it would," Ilya says coldly.
"Bullshit," Shane hisses, his eyes snapping up to meet Ilya's, daring him to disagree. "Ilya, that's complete bullshit. You switched teams, retained your captaincy, saw me more than ever, and still you were miserable."
"I was miserable for a lot of reasons, Shane, you know that."
"And I was one of them. How can we even think of getting married when I know how miserable I make you?"
"What are you saying?"
"I don't fucking know! I don't fucking know what I'm saying. Everything is just too…too much, Ilya!"
The fluctuation between anger and sadness makes his head hurt. Fucking hell. It doesn't feel like Shane will survive this. He'll curl up in a ball full of righteous anger and it will burn away at him until he's nothing but a pile of smoldering ash.
"Put your head between your knees and breath, sweetheart…I think your having a panic attack."
Shane rolls his eyes. "What else is new?”
"Have you had these before?"
"Daily," he confesses. "Multiple times. The team doctor gave me something to help before I left the Voyagers but I haven't taken any yet."
"I don't know if you should now since we don't know what happen to you. Your head might be messed up." Ilya slips off the bed and kneels in front of Shane, his hazel eyes wet with unshed tears. "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry you are going through this. I haven't exactly been acting like the best boyfriend to you. I just don't know what else to do or say."
"You can cut out mocking me."
"That's how we act," Ilya replies but his voice is uncertain. "We've always talked like that, Shane."
"It's different now. You sound so cruel. You make me feel like shit about so many things."
Ilya pales and his grip on Shane's shaky hands tighten. "Seriously? Why didn't you say anything? I like to rile you up. I don't like to make you sad."
"You would have just gotten angry with me," Shane confesses. "You always seemed so prickly when I was around."
"Shane, I'm so sorry. I've been in a very bad place lately but I should not have taken it out on you. There's no excuse in the world that could forgive my words."
Shane sniffles and nods, accepting Ilya's apology. "I think I need to see a therapist," he quietly admits.
"We will find you the best one," Ilya tells him gently. "But first we will go to the hospital first thing tomorrow and get you checked you out."
Shane shakes his head. His face crumbles at the thought of his name splattered all over the news, besmirching him ever further.
"I don't…."
"Please, Shane. For me and for your parents. You really scared everyone when you did not show up at the house. I've never seen your parents so upset."
"I'm sorry. I just…" he trails off, sighing heavily, not sure how to put into words the gravity of what he's feeling. "I just needed some space, you know? Some peace. I just kept driving and then, I don't remember what came after. I'm sorry."
"Everyone has asked a lot of you and then turned their backs when you need help. Anyone would need peace after that. I'm sorry I couldn't bring you that peace, Shanya. I love you. I'll always love you. As your boyfriend. As your husband. As whatever you need me to be."
"You really still wanna marry me? I'm such a fucking mess."
"We can be messy together," Ilya says as gently as possible, hazel eyes begging Shane to understand. "We are not perfect people, but we will try our best, ok? And, yes, I'll always want to marry you and be your husband. We'll figure out your future together."