Chapter Text
Acute Myeloid Leukemia. AML for short. An axe swinging down at his neck. But it was his body who was betraying him. He was both the executioner and the sentenced.
...
This was supposed to be their year. Shane’s first season with the Centaurs had gone great, they hadn’t won the cup but they’d come close. The chirps and behavior off the rink from some players may have been worse than ever but Shane had been humbled by how much support he’d received at the same time. He’d realized he could have it all, hockey, Ilya, his family. With this newfound optimism he was sure his second year on the Centaurs was going to be it. They were going to win the Stanley Cup. They’d found their rhythm as a team. Ilya as center and captain, Shane as his right hand man, literally. Lucas Haas, the new rising star, as left center.
News outlets, other players, coach, and Ilya himself had asked him if he would resent Ilya for remaining captain with Bood as the secondary captain. Nope. If anything it had been a weight off Shane’s shoulders. He loved hockey but he wasn’t leadership material. And there was nothing wrong with that. Without the responsibility of having to be the ‘face’ of the team he felt as if his game had only improved. Watching Ilya give the team pep-talks, eyes shining, accent musical and gesticulating like a cartoon come to life was a treat all on it’s own.
Then, as preseason began Shane starting feeling off-kilter. No, before that even. During the summer break. He started increasing his training as the season neared but workouts that used to be easy for him suddenly, almost overnight, became hard. And they only got harder. Running winded him within a couple of minutes, his legs never seeming to warm up, it was like puppeteering two blocks of lead. He kept reducing the weights in his home gym but they only grew ever heavier. There was joint pain. His knees - both of them - started to ache. Other places of his skeleton would light up in pain. The deep and mysterious aches would change location almost every day, as if his skeleton was laughing at him: catch me if you can. The migrating pains didn’t indicate a specific injury and his doctors initially dismissed him, saying it was overuse. That he was no longer in his early twenties and that he should scale back his workouts and rest more.
Which Shane had already tried. And he may not be a fresh-faced twenty year-old with stars in his eyes and only a couple concussions like Lucas Haas but twenty-nine was hardly old. Even in the hockey world twenty-nine was in the average age range. Barring any serious injuries plenty of hockey players could play well into their thirties. Forties, even. If they were lucky.
Shane started to worry he was not lucky.
After more complaints, a blood test came next. Followed by an oddly specific physical exam where the doctor asked about random bruising, examined his gums, palpated his lymph nodes. Shane acknowledged that, yes, he had some bruises he didn’t remember getting but it was probably just bumping into furniture or from workouts. And maybe when he spit into the sink after brushing his teeth it was pink but he thought he was just not flossing enough. The next event was an urgent referral for a bone marrow biopsy. He may not be the best at reading expressions but even he saw the grim expression on the doctor’s face as she filled out the paperwork.
The bone marrow biopsy was more painful than he expected and the description of the procedure alone curdled his gut. A giant needle would be inserted into his hip bone to suck up some of the marrow so that it could be examined under a microscope by white-coated lab assistants who would check on an impersonal piece of paper of whether the cells were cancerous. At this point, on top of all the fatigue and aches and pains, he carried an icy feeling in his chest. Dread.
It was a bit embarrassing to be a grown man and a professional athlete to need sedation for the bone marrow biopsy. The IV drip didn’t put him under completely but made him drowsy and out of it enough that it was bearable. The drywall pattern on the ceiling swam before his eyes. Afterward he was able to enjoy the warmth of Ilya’s hand holding his as the sample was shipped off to wherever his fate would be decided.
…
“It’s like we feared,” the doctor said. “It’s Acute Myeloid Leukemia.”
Ilya squeezed his hand harder. His hip ached from the biopsy done only the day before. The turnaround when leukemia as a possibility starts floating around is fast. His skeleton screamed at him. The doctor’s voice was static. He imagined the abnormal cells milling about like frantic ants, their number growing by the second.
…
They drove home in silence. Neither saying a word but Shane could sense Ilya’s eyes flicking to him. They held hands over the console but Shane was more doing it for him since it seemed like Ilya needed the contact. In the doctor’s office Ilya had clutched onto his left hand like a lifeline and a bruise was already forming. It wasn’t Ilya’s fault, it came with the territory that they now knew. Shane tucked his left hand in his sleeve and wondered if even the gentle circles Ilya was now rubbing into his right hand would also turn into round bruise, a dark hole waiting to suck him up and crush him into nothingness.
On Thursday, just three days from now, he’d have to report to Ottawa’s cancer center to begin chemotherapy. They really slammed on the gas pedal when it came to acute leukemia Shane had learned. How was it that just a couple months ago he was feeling fine?
It wasn’t a good question to ask, not even inside his own head, because it just opened up the floodgates for all the other questions he had.
He only has a few days to tie up loose ends before he becomes an official cancer patient?
What did that mean for his NHL contract?
How was he even supposed to tell his team?
Coach?
Hayden?
His parents?
How is Ilya handing this? What is he thinking? Shane is too afraid to ask. He thinks of the other day on their patio where he admired the way sunlight reflected off of Ilya’s blue eyes and lit up his hair like spun gold. The way his mouth pulled up in a grin. A hint of a pink tongue between two rows of white teeth, shiny with spit. He never thought he’d have to break Ilya’s heart.
Shane swallows as they pull into the driveway, the tense silence between them almost too much to bear. “Um…” he begins but Ilya unbuckles his belt and hops out of the car before walking quickly around to the passenger side and opening his door for him. Shane blinks a few times before undoing his own seatbelt but then Ilya’s arms are grabbing his, awkwardly trying to support his weight as he steps down. “It’s fine..I don’t need-
“Your hip still hurts from biopsy,” Ilya grunts, his accent a bit thicker than usual. The Russian accent is always stronger when he’s upset. “And your knees and other places were already bothering you before that,” Ilya explains his own symptoms to him.
Shane decides to not tell him that the stabbing, aching pains don’t go away even with his support. They go inside where Pawsha, their grey cat with little white paws mews at them in greeting. Normally a softie who squats down and gives her a kiss first thing, Ilya instead nudges her out of the way with his foot but she isn’t deterred and just steps forward again to rub against their shins. Ilya squats down and starts untying Shane’s shoelaces for him, giving her another inpatient push.
“You don’t need to do that,” Shane says. He’s not sure which part of cancer means he can’t undo his shoelaces but his body seems to not want to move anyways as he stands dumbfounded while “you have cancer, you have cancer, you have cancer” blares in his head. He doesn’t think the doctor even said it like that. Right, she had said, “It’s like we feared. It’s Acute Myeloid Leukemia.” There wasn’t any ‘you’ at all in her statement but rather a ‘we’ and an ‘it’. But Shane feels like it’s just a ‘me’ and ‘himself’.
“Do you want to lie down?” Ilya asks, standing back up when he’s done with the shoes.
Shane nods, nothing more than a bobble head that will agree with anything Ilya says at the moment.
“On the couch or in bed?”
“Um...the couch is fine.” He doesn’t even remember Ilya guiding him to the living room. Just like he doesn’t remember most of the doctor’s speech or the drive home or the process of Ilya taking his shoes off. All he knows is that now he’s lying on his side, on the hip that wasn’t biopsied, with the throw blanket draped over him. Pawsha jumps up next to him and starts kneading the cushion in front of his stomach.
“I will make you some tea,” Ilya declares, marching away.
He doesn’t need tea. This isn’t a cold or a flu that’s going to go away with rest and a blanket tucked around him with so much tenderness. But he knows Ilya must feel as out of control and hopeless as him. Worse, probably. So Shane lets him try to grasp any semblance of control.
…
They don’t start talking about it and making a plan until the next day. Shane was still in a numb sort of shock but Ilya had woken up that morning with a new sense of determination.
Shane supposes it’s good that the season isn’t completely underway yet. It means the team still has a chance to get used to a new lineup without him before the competition starts ramping up. He hopes his diagnosis won’t psyche everyone out too much; professional hockey is as much a mental battle as physical. They had really found their stride as a team last season. What a shame.
“We tell your parents first, yes?” Ilya interrupts him.
Tell them what exactly? He’s pretty sure the doctor didn’t say anything about prognoses or statistics, just detailed what type of disease it is and the treatment plan. But Shane had already googled leukemia earlier in the month when the doctor first mentioned it as a possibility and what he found wasn’t good even if he hadn’t looked up the specific AML subtype he was ordained with. If Shane had already researched it, no doubt Ilya had as well. He imagines them a couple weeks ago, each locked in their own world on a small bright screen, too afraid to share with each other what they found because what if he didn’t even have leukemia and they were freaking out for nothing? Jokes on them.
Shane shrivels up inside as he realizes they have to tell his parents. Today. Telling his parents first makes the most logical sense but emotionally it’s the hardest. The icy sickness in his chest that he feels about the impending conversation doesn’t even compare to what he felt when coming out. That was laughably easy. “I’m gay.” There, done. It hadn’t actually been that straightforward but already by the end of the day his parents had warmed up to it, Ilya and all.
How is he supposed to tell them that he is sick? Like, deadly sick. That he can’t play hockey anymore. That he won’t ever play hockey again. The last thought is what finally makes his eyes prick with tears. It’s only now he’s realizing he’s played his last NHL hockey game of his career and he hadn’t even realized it at the time. It’s a tragedy so much more tangible than the upcoming conversations or rogue cells dividing uncontrollably in his bones and it takes his breath away.
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong, are you hurting? Do you need your pills-
“No,” Shane chokes out, stopping Ilya before he can bolt to get them. His throat is thick. “I just...I don’t know how to tell them.”
“Do you want me to tell them?”
His throat closes up completely and all he can do is nod through his tears. Ilya holds him to his chest. Shane remembers when Ilya held him like this over two years ago when he was freaking out about coming out. “You are brave,” he had said.
Now Ilya says, “Want me to call them? Or drive over? Do you want to be there?”
Too many questions, it’s all too overwhelming. He’s tired. He aches. He’s scared.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya says and Shane can hear he’s choked up too. “I know this is too much, too fast. But they want you to start the treatment so soon...it needs to be done. But I can do all of it. You can just stay here all day if you want. You don’t need to talk to anyone.”
It reminds him a bit of his mom, the pragmatic side that tries to solve every equation. They can both be like that. But for now Shane is rendered mute and helpless, stuck over any simple decision. It feels like a drawn-out panic attack and he doesn’t know what to do about it. For awhile they stay on the couch together, Ilya cradling Shane’s head in his lap and stroking his hair. Little by little Shane regains control of himself. He can form coherent thoughts again. The living room light no longer feels too bright. He doesn’t feel the crackle of static from the fleece blanket over his goosebump-prickled skin.
“We should...we should go over there in person. It’s not right to tell them on the phone. But the rest..coach, management or whoever. That can be handled remotely.”
Ilya continues to stroke his hair for a couple more minutes. “You want to come?”
Shane nods. He wants to go crawl in a hole and hide. He wants to hug his parents and wipe their tears. “Let’s go, enough stalling.”
“Take your medication first, lubov, you are so pale and tense.” Shane agrees though he suspects a lot of it is anxiety. But the pain is definitely there, constant and throbbing. He’d been given a prescription a week ago but had been given a stronger one after the biopsy. Luckily it also helps to calm his nerves to make the drive manageable.
They reach his parents’ at what feels like the speed of light. Ilya doesn’t help him out of the car this time but does hover by him as they slog up the steps to the front door. His dad spots them from the bay window and opens the front door before they can knock.
“Hey, we weren’t expecting you guys today...is something wrong?” he asks as his eyes trace up and down Shane’s hunched posture and their serious expressions.
His parents were aware that he’d been having some pain and fatigue issues that he was investigating with his doctors but nothing more than that. They’d both assumed he’d been overworking himself. He’d caught them telling Ilya a few weeks ago after dinner to make sure that Shane didn’t push himself too hard.
“Maybe we can sit on the couch?” Ilya suggests, hand on the small of Shane’s back as if he senses his reluctance and wants to propel him forward.
The pill hasn’t made the pain disappear completely but it has dulled it to something insignificant. The cost is that he feels even more drowsy than usual.
“Shane, you look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet,” his mom exclaims as she enters the living room to see what the commotion is about. “Are you sick?”
Ilya clenches his jaw even tighter.
“The boys have something to tell us,” David says and Ilya notes the ‘look’ he gives Yuna. She frowns, brow furrowing, before she follows them to the living room. Ilya leads Shane to the couch where he curls up on the cushion, pulling his knees to the chest. Ilya sits next to him and wraps an arm around him. David sits in the armchair across from them and Yuna hovers for a moment before sitting on the other couch to face them.
“What’s wrong?” Yuna asks.
Ilya had been called ‘brave’ a lot since coming out. And it was something he was starting to see in himself too. There was a myriad of situations in which one could be brave. Sometimes bravery looked like coming out. Sometimes bravery was looking someone in the eyes that he loved and breaking their heart. Ilya was brave. He stared straight at David and Yuna, one arm wrapped around Shane as he said, “Shane was diagnosed with Leukemia yesterday. He must start treatment immediately.”
He sees the confusion in their eyes, the shock, then the fear.
There’s no one asking if it is a joke or a prank or a misunderstanding.
“We didn’t want to worry you until we were sure,” Ilya continues. “It is called Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I’m sorry.”
Shane is still staring into middle distance and Yuna takes in a shuddering breathe, eyes going red as she stands up robotically from the couch and goes to sit on Shane’s other side. David’s mouth is a flat line and his skin is even paler than usual.
“L-Leukemia,” Yuna stutters. “You’re sure?” There is the disbelief that Ilya was expecting.
“Yes, Shane had a biopsy to confirm earlier this week. The doctor wants to start treatment Thursday.”
“Thursday? This Thursday?” David asks.
“The doctor says it is aggressive, best not to wait.” Ilya wishes there was a way to sugarcoat this but there really isn’t and they don’t have the time to ease anyone into the diagnosis. They need to be brave. For Shane.
Yuna sniffles. “Shane, sweetheart,” she says, her voice wet and thick.
Shane shifts a bit then, his unfocused gaze still down-turned but tears gathering on his lashes. “M’sorry.”
“No, no ‘sorry’ baby,” Yuna says, her hand going up above where Ilya’s is to rest on her son’s shoulder.
“How can we help?” David asks. His voice surprisingly steady despite two thick trails of tears rolling down his face.
Shane sniffles and closes his eyes as he presses himself more tightly into Ilya’s side. Yuna’s hand goes up further to stroke his hair like Ilya had done this morning.
“I..we don’t know yet. Like I said we also just found out. You are the first we wanted to tell. Next we must inform our management.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Yuna says right away despite still being choked up with tears.
Shane shudders between them and David shoots to his feet while Yuna leans forward, right hand extending as if to catch him. As if Shane is going to keel over dead right then and there.
Instead a tear rolls down his long nose and disappears into the carpet. His shoulders quake. “M’sorry, m’sorry, I-I-
David grabs the box of tissues on the coffee table and crouches down in front of Shane, blotting his tears for him. Yuna caresses his face.
The Hollanders are brave too. Ilya already knew this.