Archive of Our Own

The room was tilted on its side, as it had been for quite a while, though Ilya couldn’t say —or didn’t particularly care— exactly how long. He did think, however, that it had been long enough that the mattress, in which his body was almost embedded and beginning to ache, might start growing vines, which would encase him where he lay on his side, immobile.

With the way he felt right then, he wouldn’t mind the decomposition that tight, unforgiving embrace would trigger.

That morning, Ilya had woken up at 8AM —two hours after Shane— as always. He had sat up in bed, feeling like a solid grip on his shoulders was trying to push him back down, but he had fought it. He had slid on a pair of sweatpants and slippers, and trudged down the stairs to have his morning coffee with Shane, who had buzzed around the cottage, muttering something about needing to clean up the house and something happening that night, between adorable kisses to Ilya’s cheeks as he passed.

But the crushing weight, along with his braincells lagging and struggling to awaken, as they did every morning, meant that he couldn’t keep what Shane said straight in his head.

Still, Ilya had tried his best to understand and process what he said so when Shane had quieted his movements, swivelled Ilya’s chair at the island, stepped between his knees, and looked into his eyes when he told him that he was going out to run some errands for a couple of hours, he had given him whatever smile he could muster at 8:15AM —or whatever stupid, ungodly time it was— and muttered that he would be here waiting for him to come home, leaning in for a short but sweet kiss to Shane’s lips, which were somehow perpetually soft.

That was how, once he had walked out the door, Ilya had found himself surrendering to the weight, almost feeling a rod holding his spine upright crack, causing his shoulders to slump and his chest to deflate.

He had dumped the rest of his coffee down the sink, not interested in finishing it, and put his mug in the designated ‘mug’ part of the dishwasher —attributed by Shane, of course— and dragged himself right back upstairs to his bed. There, he had burrowed himself under the fluffy duvet cover, shoving his AirPods in his ears, and put on the songs that hollowed him out the most, never wanting to see the light of day again.

Predictably, that weight, which had threatened to pull him back into bed and had inevitably won, had transferred itself to its favourite spot within his chest. It transformed itself into a black hole, which grew to nauseating depths to fill his whole chest.

It was a terrible, unrelenting, sucking thing. It wanted to swallow him whole and it tugged greedily at anything it could to tear itself even farther open. The feeling squeezed and twisted uncomfortably within his throat and Ilya almost felt like he might choke.

It was insatiable. This wasn’t enough so it sucked and guzzled and grew, carving and spooning out the flesh within his chest. Nothing was ever enough for it, but it never stopped trying. It was ravenous.

The worst part of all of it was the only reason it continued to propagate, its greed endless, was singular.

Ilya allowed it to.

Because while the black hole ate and pulled and gorged and sucked every bit of him that it could, he couldn’t deny that within its immense discomfort came a disconcerting sense of comfort, of familiarity. Yes, it hollowed him out to the point that he felt everything and absolutely nothing at all but it was also inviting.

It felt as if he floated on the surface of a swirling ocean, its waters blackened by the night and its depths a mystery. The dim moonlight was enough to be reassuring but not anywhere near bright enough to see anything distinguishable.

It was dark and mighty and hungry but the warmth it exuded was almost addictive. Within the mansion in his mind, which housed all his emotions and everything that made him him, he was stuck in a dark back-room, the minimal light obscuring its true dimensions, with a singular loveseat in the middle of it. When he sat in it, someone dark and faceless —shame— would be there beside him, so he could curl up, resting his head on its lap and calm fingers would run through his hair.

The dark was heavy, unnerving but the comfort and calm it could bring along with it was disarming, a thick blanket of black enveloping him. It was the only reason that a tiny little voice in the back of his head begged him to please not allow it to go away.

While the cruel but warm darkness threatened to swallow him whole, Ilya stared at the room, which remained tilted on its side. He stared somewhere between the window and outside, not focused on anything in particular, except for the lyrics filling his ears, and allowed himself to be engulfed by the dark, by the shame, by the cruel truths flooding through his AirPods. It pulsed as it grew, its tendrils stretching.

And the main truth was that Ilya didn’t deserve anything.

He was surrounded by his teammates, who he loved and couldn’t be more grateful for; the opportunities he has had in the NHL over the course of his career; Shane, Yuna, David, and Svetlana, who made him feel so valued, made him feel like he had a real family, yet he didn’t deserve any of it. Their presence in his life was overwhelming. It hung over his head so precariously, as if by a spider web, that he wondered if a small gust of wind could blow it all away.

There was only one reason that they were so loyal to him, took such good care of him, and supported him the way they did: he had fooled them all.

Somehow, he had tricked them into believing he was likeable, that he was useful to them, that he wasn’t just this poisonous presence, which dragged them down and lied to them and pretended with them. A suffocator.

The thought of that alone made him drag his hand, which lay above the other on the bed by his face, down to his wrist and squeeze his nails into the flesh.

But if they knew the real him, if they knew who he really was inside, the darkness that always lingered at the surface and lay in wait, deep within, if they recognized how terrible of a friend, a boyfriend, a captain, an adopted family member he was, there was no doubt that it would be within their rights to toss him to the ground and squish him underfoot, like an old cigarette butt.

There was a part of him that craved it and even though, of course he feared it. Most of all, he had earned it.

The coward within him loved his life the way it was, surrounded by these amazing people Ilya would never be able to compare to, people who kept him in their lives for unknown and unjustifiable reasons. He was selfish, which made him want to dig his hands like claws into his scalp and tear his hair out at how repulsed he was. It ate him alive and it was absolutely intolerable. Good.

In adoring and trying to honour those who made up his found family, in wanting to be the best and do the best for them, a small part of him, which bloomed ever so slowly within him, pushed him forward, towards all these people he loved to confess the farce that made him up, the lies they had believed.

A deficient captain who never knew how to say the right thing or support and lead his team the way they needed.

A neglectful boyfriend at his core, who covered it up and shoved it down by doing the exact opposite but forgetting to be everything Shane needed sometimes.

An absent family member to his blood who he could never be enough for, to begin with. Never a good enough son, brother, uncle. He gave them up instead of trying harder.

A presence in Yuna and David’s life that they just had to accept because there was no other choice.

A fraud. A failure. Inconsequential.

He wanted to prove to Shane just how wrong he was for him. How much better he could do with anyone else, how he was wasting his time with someone so destructive, how every wrong thing Ilya had ever told him or everything that he had asked him to do that Ilya stalled on was the perfect evidence of how he must have been manipulative, abusive, just like his father.

He wanted, especially, to prove to him that this useless parasite, lying in bed all day was the worst possible choice for him, how much better he would do with anyone else. How toxic his presence was to him and how every day with him would continue to degrade his life.

Instead, he dug his nails deeper in the skin of his wrist. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted it to bleed. He never wanted it to stop so he would be adequately punished. He wanted it to serve as a reminder of all of the ways he let everyone he knew down eventually, of how he was never enough and he never would be, of how his presence is entirely noxious. It was only fair.

The nails stung dully. It wasn’t enough. He wished he had a blade to run across his skin. At least he would have the scars to remind him of his complete uselessness, the pain to reprimand him in ways no one else would. How deep would be enough? He didn’t have the energy to search for one sharp enough, regardless, so he settled for running his thumbnail hard across his wrist in lines. He did it repeatedly from the end of his wrist, down to the crook of his elbow, but it didn’t bring the kind of pain that would have given him some satisfaction. Nothing poured out; not blood, not his failures.

But alas, Ilya was too selfish. He stayed and he never said anything. It had made him unbearable, if only to himself, to the point that he wanted to carve the rotten, necrotic thing out of his body. Only, if he did that, he wasn’t sure there would be anything left of use.

What self-preservation he had seemed to think that was a good thing but part of him knew that everyone would be better off that way.

So, the room stayed tilted on its side as he continued to stare somewhere between the window and their beautiful backyard, which often served as a sanctuary to him. It didn’t feel that way today, maybe because he didn’t want it to and that was okay with him right then. He didn’t seek any change to his current state. He knew he would have to change it eventually but he would handle that when he needed to.

Lyrics, which soothed and berated him, still filled his ears. He let them and the darkness that persisted on its invasion of his body flood him, a tsunami swallowing everything in its wake.

He continued to swipe his thumbnail against the reddening skin of his exasperatingly unmarred wrist, until he could feel the vines crawling and climbing his skin, gripping and twisting around his motionless body and he allowed the sleep that greeted him, replacing the blanket of darkness that he wished would swallow him whole.

It was never enough.