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Ilya wasn’t sure when it started. He thought that maybe his soul had irreparably split into fragments the day he found his mother. Her cold body laying there, hand dangling over the edge of the frayed covers, almost like she was reaching for something. Someone. Like even in death she was trying to hang on, but couldn’t anymore. He had reached back for her, but it was too late.
Or maybe he was born like this. Born with a deformed brain that had a dark, wispy cloud attached to it that only grew with time. His unseen burden to bear.
The pain dulled in the years after her death, each one bringing more and more of the numbness that threatened to overtake him. On the anniversary of her death each year, Ilya would lean into that numbness, downing vodka like it was water and praying to a God he wasn’t sure he believed in anymore to please take his pain away. He wore his Mama’s crucifix, the only thing he had left of her, but he felt like a hypocrite clutching to it in his darkest moments. If God was real, why did he take his Mama? The first few anniversaries he hid away from Father and Andrei, choosing to find a dark alley somewhere in Moscow where he could wander aimlessly and sob quietly to himself. He missed his Mama, and the last thing he needed was to be called a sissy, a baby, a weakling by the only family he had left.
He threw himself into hockey, silently hoping that maybe one day he would get hit so hard he would close his eyes and not wake up again. It wasn’t that he wanted to die, per say, but the thought of it became more and more appealing as the years dragged on. Oftentimes it wasn’t even because he missed his Mama, though he did, with every fiber of his being. It was just that he didn’t really feel like there was a point anymore. There was nothing to live for. Yeah, he had hockey, but even that was becoming a chore. He did it so Father wouldn’t constantly be on his ass calling him a lazy, useless waste of space. He felt as if any joy or love or any positive emotion had been covered by that thick, dark cloud that spread and spread until he could feel it in his lungs with every breath. Much like the cigarettes he was breathing in by the carton, he welcomed it. Welcomed the dark and found himself becoming intimately familiar with each whisper of its wind. He let it blow him wherever it pleased, feeling like a tumbleweed in one of the old American Western films he had watched on TV one day. No destination or purpose, just tumbling endlessly in the dark grey landscape that was his life.
It wasn’t that he wanted to hurt himself intentionally, but he found himself one day tapping the butt of his cigarette against his inner thigh, just to see how it felt. It stung, the burn grounding him slightly, and he felt a flicker of feeling - he wasn’t sure what - peek through the cloud. He tried it again, pressing slightly harder this time, and relished in the burn, skin turning an angry red in an almost perfect circle. He felt the tension in his chest tighten slightly, making its way up his throat and prickling at the corners of his eyes. He pressed down again, even harder this time, and the first tear fell. Not one of relief, but of something he couldn’t yet name.
Between endless practices and games he laid on his bed and stared listlessly at the ceiling, the only sound the puff of his breath with each inhale and exhale as he sucked down cigarette after cigarette. The only way he found enough strength to get out of bed was by fearing the consequences he would face from Father if he didn’t. He put his cigarette out on his thigh, adding to the fucked up constellation beginning to form there.
When the Prospects Cup came around in Saskatchewan in 2008, he didn’t want to go. What was the point? It didn’t seem like it would be fun and the thought of traveling all that way to have a shitty time was less than appealing. But he knew what Father would say if he didn’t, so he went.
He stood outside the rink, in the freezing cold, which he should be used to, but he somehow felt like this cold was stripping him naked and devouring his flesh. His hands shook as he flicked his lighter.
“Ilya Rozanov?”
He startled and looked towards the owner of the very Canadian voice he just heard.
And it was like all of a sudden, the cloud dissipated and the sunlight broke through and washed away all of the grey and the wind stopped blowing inside his skull. He felt warm for the first time in months, no, years.
Was this heaven? Had he somehow actually hit his head hard enough, and was now in some fucked version of an afterlife?
He barely registered anything that this person - no, angel - said. He must have responded at some point, because the person was nodding and talking like they were holding a conversation. They stuck their hand out to shake Ilya’s and he heard what was said for the first time - “Shane.” At some point, Shane turned to go, and it was like the cloud came back with tornado-force winds and sucked him up again.
Each time he faced Shane on the ice or saw him in a dimly lit hotel room afterwards, it was like the sun came out and he could breathe again. Hockey became fun again, because there was someone who could keep up with him, someone who loved the game just as much as he did and showed that there was purpose to it beyond playing only because you feared your father’s wrath.
But in between he still felt like he was drifting. He put up a facade he barely recognized, enough to engage with his teammates and the media, always the laughing, jovial guy, ready for anything and quick to make a joke. Maybe if you looked closely enough you could tell that he was forcing it, a laugh pushed too harshly out of his throat, too loud and abrupt to be genuine. But nobody ever commented on it, and he was content to let it stay that way.
He found himself always taking the last shower stall in the corner of the locker room, where he had more walls to surround himself with. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed, but he didn’t want to face questions about why his upper thighs were dotted with small circles and thin lines, some old and faded, others with a slightly fresh scab forming. He was sure his teammates noticed - there wasn’t much you could hide in a hockey locker room - but he tried nonetheless. The potential embarrassment of someone confronting him did nothing to break through the cloud that still hung over him, still led to him to silently press his cigarette to his skin, feeling the burn pulsing in time with his heartbeat and radiating down through muscle and bone. In the times he found himself in a non-smoking hotel or without a cigarette, he reached for his cosmetic scissors he kept in his travel bag. He always had an unruly eyebrow hair or two, and once Shane had pointed it out teasingly during one of their clandestine meetings, he kept the scissors in his bag to trim them when they got out of hand. It wasn’t Shane’s fault that now the scissors doubled as a blunt knife. It took slightly more effort than the cigarette; he found himself having to press slightly harder and swipe across his skin in rough movements until it was red and raw, but sometimes he liked the effort. It made him feel like he was doing something for once.
Months came and went between seeing Shane. He could barely remember what happened during those days; he knew he played hockey and faked smiles and collapsed on his bed at the end of the day, going to stand under the shower spray, water turned all the way to hot.
The next time he saw Shane, he was so excited to get a relief from the neverending murky grey in his head, that he wasn’t as careful as he usually was. He ripped off his clothes, flinging them to the side, and pounced onto a laughing Shane on the bed. The lighting from the dim bedside lamp must have hit just right, because suddenly Shane stilled and his smile fell.
“What? What is it?” Ilya asked, brows furrowing in concern.
“Rozanov…what happened to your thigh?” came Shane’s worried voice.
Fuck.
He had succeeded the past few years in keeping Shane from noticing - always keeping his own clothes on until Shane was too fucked out and whimpering to notice anything other than his pleasure. He kept the lights dimmed and always threw his clothes back on before Shane could rouse himself from the bed. But this time he had been careless.
“It’s nothing Hollander, just hockey marks. You know how it is,” he replied, trying to play it off as no big deal.
“No, Rozanov, they’re not, let me see,” Shane said, grabbing at Ilya’s legs and trying to get a better look in the light.
“No Hollander, it’s not a big deal, don’t-”
“Rozanov.” said Shane, in a tone that he had never used before. Ilya stilled, knowing that this conversation was unavoidable now.
Shane gently grabbed his leg and stroked his fingers carefully over the fucked up scars where Ilya’s leg met his groin.
“Rozanov…what, what is this?” he asked, concern lacing his voice.
“I-” Ilya started, but stopped himself before he said it was nothing again. He wasn’t even sure where to start.
“Do you hurt yourself?” Shane asked quietly, turning his face to look up at him.
He avoided meeting Shane’s eyes, instead staring at the top of his head. He swallowed, trying to will words to form in his mouth.
“There are so many…” Shane trailed off, still gently tracing his fingers over the scars.
“It has been a long time, Hollander,” Ilya tried, voice wavering slightly. It was mostly the truth - the most recent marks were from a few months ago.
Shane reached up to grab his face between his palms and forced Ilya to look at him.
“Why?” Shane asked, eyes staring into Ilya’s, slightly glossy now with unshed tears.
Ilya swallowed again, mouth dry, and stared at Shane.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “It started a long time ago.”
“Did something happen?” asked Shane tentatively, as if not wanting to spook him by prodding further.
“My mother died,” Ilya replied bluntly. There was no sugar coating it. Even though it had been almost ten years, it often still felt as fresh as it did the day he found her.
“Oh,” said Shane softly, blinking, a few tears spilling on his cheeks now.
“I think I am like her, maybe,” said Ilya. “Sad.”
“How did she die?” Shane asked.
“She took too many pills,” Ilya responded dryly. “Accident, my Father said.”
“Rozanov, I’m- I’m so sorry.” Shane whispered.
“It is okay,” said Ilya with a shrug. “Like I said it was a long time ago, almost ten years now.”
Shane hummed softly in acknowledgement. His hands were now tracing along Ilya’s leg again, almost as if he could gently erase the scars with his fingertips.
“What do you mean, you think you are like her?” Shane asked after several minutes.
Ilya thought for a moment. He was never really sure what exactly went on with his mother; it’s not like he could ask his father what had happened or what she had struggled with. He just knew that he sometimes looked in the mirror and recognized the vacant, distant expression on his face.
“I think maybe, she was sad. Depressed, I think is the word?” he said.
“And you feel sad a lot?”
Ilya was quiet. Admitting to it out loud felt a lot bigger than dealing with it in his head.
“Can you- can you maybe tell me next time you feel like, you know, hurting yourself? Maybe I can-maybe somehow I can help you?” Shane asked. “I don’t want you to feel alone,” he said gently.
Ilya closed his eyes and brought his hand to cover Shane’s where it was still stroking over his scars.
“Yes, I can do that I think,” Ilya replied quietly.
—----------------------------------
As the years went by, he kept his promise to Shane, and called any time he was in a particularly low moment. He had only relapsed once, several months after their initial conversation, when he had been too scared to actually pick up the phone and call. Shane had seen the healing scabs a week later and burst into tears. Ilya had vowed there and then to never hurt himself again, as long as it would keep Shane from crying on his behalf.
He still felt like the cloud was covering him most days, and it was only made worse when he moved to Ottawa. He knew, logically, that doing this would bring him and Shane closer together (both literally and figuratively), but leaving the only city he ever knew outside of Moscow and the only semblance of a family he had left was more difficult than he expected. But he kept his promise to Shane, and now that they were able to see each other more often, he hardly ever felt that gnawing ache inside of him, pushing him to feel the sharp sting of his cigarette on his skin.
They were laying on the couch one day, Ilya nestled between Shane’s legs with his head resting on his chest, his fingers idly playing with the hem of Shane’s shirt. The TV was on, some house design show Shane liked, and Ilya was perfectly content to lay there and enjoy their close proximity. Shane would have to leave in the morning to head back to Montreal and he was dreading it.
“Ilya,” Shane started.
“Shane,” Ilya replied.
“You know I love you, and would do anything for you,” he continued.
“Yes, moya lyubov, I know this. And I love you and would do anything for you,” Ilya said.
“And I think maybeyouaredepressed,” Shane breathed out, so quickly Ilya barely understood what he said.
Ilya turned so his chin was on Shane’s chest and he was looking up into his beautiful brown eyes.
“Remember when we had that conversation, about your- about your scars, for the first time?” Shane asked quietly, looking down at Ilya’s chin.
“Yes,” Ilya said, waiting for Shane to continue.
“And you said you thought maybe you were like your mother.”
“Yes,” Ilya said again.
“Do you still feel like that?” Shane asked, looking up to make eye contact now. “Sad, I mean. I know you haven’t - haven’t hurt yourself in a long time, which I’m so proud of you for,” he said earnestly.
Ilya closed his eyes. He logically knew this conversation would have to happen one day, he had just been secretly hoping he could avoid it forever. He hated that Shane worried about him about normal things, like getting hit too hard during a hockey game or driving his car too fast. He hated that he caused Shane to worry about him like this, too.
“I-” he started before Shane cut him off.
“And don’t lie to me, Ilya. I need the truth. We need the truth so I can support you,” Shane said with a pointed look.
Ilya sighed. “I think - yes, I think I feel like that. Depressed,” he said quietly, looking at the hollow of Shane’s throat. He didn’t think he could make eye contact for this.
Shane moved his hand up to stroke his fingers through Ilya’s curls.
“Can you tell me what it feels like?” he asked quietly.
“It is like- like there is a big, dark cloud over me. Over everything. It has been there since I found my mother that day, but I think it has maybe always been there. At least a little,” Ilya replied softly, thinking back to when he was only twelve and going through some of the most horrific moments of his life.
“It feels like the cloud is everywhere, I cannot escape it. It gets into my lungs and eyes and ears and I am floating aimlessly, like those big weeds in all of the desert movies with horses,” he said.
“Tumbleweeds,” Shane whispered.
“Da, yes. Tumbleweeds,” Ilya said. “But it used to be worse, I think. It was worse before I met you.”
“What do you mean?” Shane asked.
“Well, when I saw you that day, outside of the rink in Saskatchewan, and I was trying to smoke, I was thinking about how pointless it was to be there. I liked hockey and playing was sort of fun, but I only really went so my father wouldn’t yell at me. I didn’t feel the same joy I used to when I played, everything just felt numb,” Ilya continued. “But then you said my name.”
He looked up then, to meet Shane’s eyes with his own.
“You said my name, and it was like the cloud went away a little, and I could breathe a little easier, and the sun came out. Moy solnyshko,” he said softly. “I barely remember anything you said, just that it felt like I was warm for the first time in so long.”
Shane blinked at him, a tear sliding down his cheek.
“You have always been my sunshine, Shane. But I think yes, I am depressed. Many days the cloud is too thick and it feels like I am walking in soup. Like today. It is hard to be normal. Do normal people things, like shower, get dressed, the cloud is too much,” Ilya said.
Shane leaned forward to press a kiss to Ilya’s lips, tears falling freely now.
“I am so sorry, my love,” Shane whispered. “Thank you for telling me how you feel. I am always here for you, always your sunshine, whenever you need me to be,” he said. “But I think maybe, if you would be okay with it, maybe we should talk to your team doctor, or find one here for you to talk to? You don’t deserve to feel like this, Ilya, no one does, and I want to help you.”
‘Mm,” Ilya murmured, his own tears falling now. “Da, yes, I think a doctor here might be okay. Not the team doctor. I don’t want anyone on the Centaurs to know.”
“Okay Ilya, okay,” said Shane, still petting his hair. “We’ll find someone.”
“Okay, solnyshko,” Ilya said.
He knew the cloud would probably never go away permanently, but he was content with letting his sunshine lead him.