Chapter Text
The worst part about having his depression mostly managed was that it was nearly impossible to tell when things really started getting bad again, especially since Ilya was busy.
At the beginning of January, Coach Wiebe was particularly tough on the boys during practice — they’d come back from the holiday break a little too sluggish, and narrowly lost to Colorado during their first game back. The recovery time spent with the massage gun and then the ice bath at the practice complex did little to alleviate the deep ache that was blooming from his toes to his skull.
The commute home felt longer than usual, even though it was the regular thirty-three minute drive. Shane had also found the practice particularly tough, so the two of them mutually agreed to let each other just have the night to themselves. Shane spent his night meal prepping and listening to a podcast about the new professional women’s hockey league that had been announced in August. Ilya turned the TV on, but zoned out as it droned on. He decided to go to sleep an hour earlier than he usually did, stopping to kiss Shane who was still in the kitchen before he tucked himself into bed and knocked out.
The extra hour would do it, he had thought. But the next day, Shane woke up feeling sore but pert and Ilya felt more tired than he was the night before. He couldn’t shake the exhaustion — it was bone-deep, and that extra hour didn’t make a dent — but Ilya convinced himself that following his normal routine and going to bed an hour earlier again that night would do the trick. The waking, the exhaustion, and the false promises to himself continued in a cycle over the next few days, until sleep became elusive. He spent most of the night wide awake listening to Shane breathing, taking only cat naps before he woke most mornings with just enough energy to push himself through his days. He felt too tired for his own life.
After the sixth night of watching Shane sleep and napping before the sun rose, Ilya acknowledged he had a problem. Ilya had recognized the pattern of his behavior — take that, depression! — and was going to do something about it. He opened up to his husband that he couldn’t shake this exhaustion — maybe he was getting too old for hockey? Ilya knew that wasn’t accurate, but it was much easier to start a conversation with that line than with “I am feeling more depressed than usual.” Shane still made him spell that out for him, anyway.
They talked through his feelings for two hours, much to his chagrin and to Shane’s satisfaction. Yes, I am still taking my medication. No, I haven't been to therapy since early December. Yes, I am feeling grief, but no it's not quite that. I am just really tired, Shane, all the time. Shane needed to know that his husband was not a danger to himself. No, I have not had any thoughts. I don't think I will have any. I have not done anything stupid. I just need some help to feel less tired. They made a plan together and he was going to get out of this little slump.
The plan was that Ilya would conform to Shane’s routine for at least two weeks, just to help him get back into some healthy routines, so that it could be viewed as time spent connecting with each other, rather than what it really was: a safety plan.
So this meant Ilya was up at 6, every day, regardless of it was a game day, practice, optional skate or a rare, coveted day off. They’d stretch for 10 minutes, scarf down a banana each, and then head outside for a 10Km run — rain, snow, or shine. When they got back in, they’d do some yoga to cool down. Ilya complained the whole run his first morning running with Shane, but he realized he got to shower with Shane if he stuck to the routine, so Ilya stopped complaining immediately.
For breakfast, they scarfed down matching plates of Greek yogurt, oatmeal, protein pancakes, eggs and toast or whatever else their meal plan had in store for them, accurately measured out to what their plans required of them individually.
On practice days, they got to the rink at 8, giving Ilya time to talk to the coaches and alternates when needed. If he didn’t have any official business to tend to, Ilya and Shane taped up their sticks, stretched, and chatted with the guys as they trickled in. Five minutes to nine they were seated in the video room, waiting for coach to start the review session of the last game or recent footage of their upcoming opponents. Then they'd hit the gym as a team, moving through exercises in small groups of four, targeting explosiveness, joint mobility, pure strength, and, when the trainers weren’t looking, throwing better punches. From there they’d hit the ice for a skate session, where the length and intensity was solely decided by Wiebe. Coach was usually fair, but he could really push them when he wasn't happy with what he was seeing in games. They’d cool down, shower, have lunch as a team, and then head to a few more meetings — online safety, in-house media, one-on-ones with coaches, health check ins, boring stuff, mostly — before they could slink out the door to go home. And as a Hollander-Rozanov, heading home meant caring for Anya, doing Irina Foundation work, or meetings with sponsors before Ilya or Shane got to kick off their shoes and relax.
Ilya’s brain liked practice days. Practice days were busy and full, and there was a lot required of him — there was purpose in every minute of the day. He was undeniably needed and important, and he could prove his worth every practice. There wasn’t time to think and wallow.
Game days weren’t as easy on the brain. There was too much time to think, no matter how early he woke up, whether it was in a hotel room or at home. Practice didn’t change much those days, it was just shorter. There was tape to watch, exercises to loosen them up, drills to skate through, team bonding to be had. When he got back to his hotel room or home, he and Shane would shower, eat lunch, and nap for as long as possible. But when sleep wasn’t coming easy, it meant Ilya would be sprawled on the mattress ruminating for hours on end. He didn't ruminate the way Shane would, anxiously flitting through plays or opponent strategy from tape session. No, he wasn't anxiously ruminating. The water might circle but it always went down the same drain: did Ilya deserve to lead this team, to have Shane next to him, to be happy in this life? There were stats and clear metrics of performance that could tell him if he was worth the time and energy and resources poured into him — and no matter how good the numbers were, Ilya's brain was better at bending logic.
Luckily for Ilya, his line of work provided built-in structure every day for up to 10 or 11 months of the year, depending on how far they made it in the post-season. There were travel days and off days and back-to-backs and afternoon games and evening games, all of which required something different of Ilya, but Ilya knew exactly what was needed and expected of him. It was just a matter of whether or not he could do it with ease or with an invisible hydraulic press coming down on his chest.
The travel days and days off were when Shane’s routine mattered most. Shane’s routine always included a run, morning and nighttime skincare, a daily crossword done across the span of the day, twenty minutes of yoga in the morning, ten minutes of reading before bed, and a call to Yuna and David, no matter what happened at work. But on the travel and off days, Ilya needed Shane’s structure. Shane knew the who, what, where, and when of everything: their meal plans, their workouts, their agent meetings, their downtime. The consistency of Shane’s little routines coupled with his detailed scheduling made for a grounding environment for Ilya, especially when their job had them in and out of their home so frequently.
Ilya hated conforming to Shane’s routine at first. It was bad enough he had admitted something was wrong once, but this felt like a daily reminder that his brain was broken, and he resented it. His resentment and aversion to embracing Shane’s routine meant that he probably had to follow it for longer. Shane’s brain was by no means perfect, but it organized itself around intensity and routine and structure and control; and even though Shane was often guilty of going overboard with it when he was stressed or anxious, it was often exactly what Ilya needed.
Another part of the plan was Ilya actually had to take his medications and go to his therapy sessions. Shane administered his meds each morning — a dose of sertraline and bupropion — and kept the pills in a lock box at home and while traveling. He could watch Ilya swallow them each day, knowing it was working as hard as it could. Maybe it wasn’t elevating Ilya, but it was keeping him afloat enough, and Shane had to trust that was helping, even when it was clear Ilya was still struggling.
But, it was pretty obvious that Ilya would cancel and reschedule therapy frequently when he wasn’t doing well, and he hadn’t seen Galina in three weeks by the time he told Shane something was wrong. So, Shane made him commit to one session a week as long as he was following this plan, which didn’t actually have a real end date. What Ilya worked on there was out of Shane’s control, and he tried to be okay with that.
At the first session on day 6, Galina ushered Ilya into her office without a greeting. They made eye contact and nodded at one another as he passed through the door. They sat down in silence and she opened with, “Ilya, you are avoiding me.”
“Not true,” Ilya huffed. “I’ve just been busy… with stuff.”
“So busy you don’t want to come chat with an old friend?” She ended the question with a sly smile. She was goading him, and he knew it.
“It is never just a chat with you,” Ilya said, rolling his eyes. “Always some big feelings thing, really quite annoying. Not sure why I come back.”
The first session was full of avoidance. He’d caught her up to speed on the last few weeks, talked through his difficulty of getting back into the routine after the time off, contemplated retirement, and pushed back whenever her line of questioning was getting too close to his hurt. As he stood up to leave, she followed him to the door, and there he dropped his doorknob confession.
“My depression is doing its thing again, Galina, and I know you know this,” he said, and she nodded to confirm his suspiscion. “It is so much worse than it used to be, I don’t know what to do. See you next week.”
He closed the door softly behind him, and she took a deep breath, before turning back to her cozy seating area. She picked up her notebook and her file on Ilya, scribbled a new note, shook her head, and got ready for her next client. Galina was confident he would be back, and she was a little worried, but she would never tell him.
Around the 10th-day mark, the third day of a roadie, Ilya started to genuinely enjoy partaking in Shane’s routine. He did feel more connected to Shane, and that made him happy in the moment. But it made little impact on the overwhelming sadness and exhaustion he couldn't explain. Ilya was starting to think he could live like this happily — a deeper, more fulfilling marriage and a beast of sadness gnawing at him but never drawing blood.
When Ilya returned the following week, on day 13 of the plan, he avoided talking about his end-of-session confession for as long as possible — twelve minutes — before she backed him into a corner. Galina could see that he was clearly feeling better than the last week, that something had rattled loose in his head, but she knew the signs of a false spring just like every other Ottawan and therapist did. She made him work hard, and extended the session an extra fifteen minutes to make up for the bullshitting at the beginning. Ilya left with tear-stained cheeks and a small smile for Galina. There had been progress, but she knew Ilya was not out of the woods yet.
After two full weeks of following Shane’s routine, Ilya thought he genuinely felt better. It was easier to get out of bed in the morning, and easier to fall asleep at night. He managed to be so busy that his thoughts didn’t have time to catch up with him — and then, eventually, he forgot to even think about them. He got better at the crossword and actually made a dent in The Picture of Dorian Gray. His skin felt smoother than ever, and he’d spent more time with his teammates or chatting with Sveta than he had all season. The stupid plan was working. It was keeping him safe from himself. Shane’s stupid routines actually worked.
Shane was happy to see that Ilya was feeling better — he could see it in his husband’s eyes, how they actually lit up when he laughed, and in the way he lingered at the rink because he wanted to be there, rather than avoiding going home. He knew that he’d pushed Ilya with the safety plan, and he’d worried about it for a while. Shane had been on the other side of a safety plan before, after a particularly bad meltdown and a rough week of eating three years ago, and he knew how much it sucked. A safety plan felt infantilizing when your thoughts were so much more… mature than that, so Shane had made a secret promise to keep Ilya on the plan for as short of a time as possible.
On the 16th day of the plan, when they were laying next to one another in bed, after having just put their books down, Shane was ready to broach the subject of the plan with Ilya.
“Ilya, honey,” Shane whispered, shifting to his side to make them face to face.
“Yes?” Ilya responded. He’d been fluttering asleep, but he’d stay awake for his husband.
“You seem a little happier lately.”
“да, yes,” Ilya responded, adding a little nod. “I feel happier, I’m glad you can tell.” He meant it, he really did. But Ilya, in this moment, seemed to forget that “happier” in relation to his depression being worse than ever, didn’t mean much.
The corners of Shane’s lips turned up ever so slightly, before he flattened them out. He’d gotten better at controlling his facial muscles over the years. It came in handy when talking to Ilya, especially when the conversation centered around Ilya’s mental health. He didn’t want to give his hand away, and have an effect on what Ilya shared or felt.
“Well, I was just thinking,” Shane said. “I know I’ve asked a lot of you these past two weeks, but maybe we can taper you off the plan, over the next week or so. How would you feel about that?”
“I would feel okay, I think. Your stupid plan didn’t work that well anyway.”
“Oh, really?” Shane said with a smile. The comment amused him; Ilya was full of shit.
“да. Boring plan. Maybe it did help, actually,” Ilya said. “So boring my depression killed itself so now I have no depression.”
Shane rolled his eyes and huffed, and Ilya stretched his arm out to bring shane closer to him. Shane wasn’t sure how to feel about the suicide joke Ilya had just made, and wasn’t sure if it was a red flag that things were worse or a sign that things were better. Maybe he’d broached ending the plan too soon, and now that he had, he couldn’t exactly walk it back, could he? Awkwardly entangled, chest to chest, nose to cheek, Ilya let out a small hum of contentment, which brought Shane back to the present moment.
“Stop thinking, Hollander, I can hear wheels turning. They make agitating sounds. Let’s go to sleep, we will talk more about boring plan ending tomorrow. You have tired me out today.”
The next morning, nothing changed. Ilya woke up with Shane, gave him a good morning kiss, and joined him for his run and yoga. They ate breakfast together in comfortable silence, and Ilya’s mind wandered. Would Shane bring up ending the plan again today, or was that spur of the moment pillowtalk? What would Galina think? Should he wait a few more days to talk it out with her? Did he need to keep the appointment at all? It was probably a good idea, wasn’t it? Was Shane just… sick of having to manage him?
“Stop thinking Rozanov, I can hear wheels turning,” Shane said with a smile and an intentionally piss poor Russian accent, clearly calling back to the night before.
Oh, so they would be talking about it, huh?
“Not as funny when you say it, Hollander.”
“That’s Hollander-Rozanov to you,” Shane said and gave him an overexaggerated flirty wink.
“You did not seem so upset last night when you were just Hollander,” Ilya replied in a rather curt tone, a tone which usually wasn’t reserved for Shane or even their home sphere.
Ilya was testing the limits, seeing how far he could push Shane, while still getting what he wanted. He wanted to come off the plan so fucking bad because he was feeling better, he was. He wasn’t lying when he told Shane last night that he’d felt happier lately, he realized, he had just forgotten to consider that happier was relative. Ilya fell asleep with Shane in his arm, warm and heart aglow. When he woke, it felt as if someone had dumped an ice bucket over his head. He was suddenly hit with the sobering realization that while he felt happier most days, the sadness was still right there beside it. The run and the breakfast this morning had been a bit of a balm; it had all only ever been a balm, not a cure.
There was a deep ache in his chest, which lingered as Ilya spent the morning with Shane; could Shane see the way the muscles in Ilya’s chest twinged and contracted around the ache? If Ilya pulled back and said he’d rather stay on the plan, he knew it would ring alarm bells in Shane’s head, but Ilya knew that Shane could not stay this close to him, or else he’d see the truth. He needed to push, create an imperceptible amount of distance, just to give him some breathing room, so he could wean off the plan and still manage. He was in a better place, so it should be better now, anyway.
Shane just raised his eyebrows in response, giving him the “you really want to do this now?” face that Ilya had been on the receiving end of far too often.
“Sorry малыш, that was a little unfair of me.”
Shane nodded, accepting the apology, but clearly prompting Ilya to keep speaking. Ilya knew he couldn't snap at Shane like this again if he really wanted Shane to believe he was fine, because he was fine.
“I was thinking about weaning off the plan,” Ilya started. “What that would look like, how we’d determine if I was in a good enough place. And I just got frustrated again that this plan had been necessary at all, and I got snippy when I shouldn’t have.”
“It’s okay, come here, gimme kiss,” Shane said, while pulling out his piss-poor accent when requesting the kiss which Ilya so freely gave.
Shane then launched into his prepared spiel, clearly having given Ilya coming off the plan more thought than Ilya had. Ilya just assumed he’d be on it forever indefinitely, that Shane wouldn’t want to let Ilya go from his little rituals. He’d have happily done all of them with Shane forever if he’d ask.
His beautiful Shane with his beautiful brain had it all figured out. Ilya could keep any of the shared routines that he liked, and could make them individual or continue sharing them with Shane if he wanted. Of course he wanted to, but Shane seemed to be suggesting space would be good. And Shane would relax when it came to managing their schedules. That was normally Shane’s job between the two of them, but in pre-plan times, Ilya had more input, and the authority to adjust it as he needed. Shane had recinded his authority to cancel and reschedule, and over the course of the next seven days, he would slowly relinquish the authority back to Ilya. Ilya was required to continue seeing Galina for the next two months, but he could switch back to every other week, if he wanted — and no, the upcoming appointment didn’t count. And Ilya could completely get off the plan, stop all of the routines and meal plans Shane suggested, if he agreed to track his mood with Shane every night, no lying.
It all sounded good in theory, but Ilya was a little afraid of what this meant. Would he be up to the task of managing his own life again? Was he ever really up for it to begin with? But Shane had repeated multiple times that Ilya could go back to his schedule, his meals, his habits like a mantra, and Ilya couldn’t help but read through the lines: Shane was tired of managing him. That deepend the ache in his chest. Ilya liked being cared for by Shane, being babied by him during his hard times, and Shane always did it with a smile and no complaint, even when he was having a hard time, too. But this time it felt like Shane couldn’t wait for Ilya to be on his own again.
“Ok it sounds good to me, I will talk with Galina about this, too,” Ilya said. Shane gave him a peck like it was a period to his sentence, a period to the conversation, and rose from the kitchen table to start clearing plates, quickly changing the topic to what they were doing that day. It had been decided, conversation over. Ilya couldn’t hear Shane nattering on over the ringing in his ears. How could Shane be so happy when Ilya still felt so sad? How could Shane be so happy when he just asked Ilya to back up? Or maybe, that was what made Shane happy.
But if you asked Shane, he was happy because Ilya was doing better and things were looking up. Maybe spring could come early after all.