Chapter Text
All the mirrors in the cottage had been abandoned; it was the most unlikely thing in the world. There had been a time when these mirrors could not spend a second alone, reflecting Shane’s chiseled body as he stepped out of the shower, Ilya’s image as he twisted his tie into perfection, both of them as they fucked back and forth while glaring at their reflections. But now dust had settled over the curved edges. Their phones with limited screens had, apparently, offered a better alternative after Shane had given birth. It was unprecedented. But that’s life.
The digital clock on his side table read 3:21 a.m. when Shane awoke with a start. Although it had only been a week since he had given birth, Shane could not remember the last time he had slept through the entire night without a shrill cry splitting his ears into two. Even now, when there was no wailing in earshot, his body had jolted him awake out of habit. It was his worst nightmare come to life.
When Shane blindly reached for the body next to him, his hand fell flat on the cold sheets rather than a warm torso. Ilya was not in the room. The cot next to him was empty, the blankets arranged in the shape of a baby. Shane knew exactly where to find them. He lifted himself from his bed with a barely stifled groan; his stitches were still raw. He did not know how they looked in their present state. The first time he’d seen them in the hospital bathroom was still fresh in his memory. Although Ilya had insisted on following him into the bath, Shane had firmly resisted with an outstretched hand and a grunt. He had not wanted Ilya to see him in his revolting state and realize the mistake he had committed by getting down on one knee.
After an internal battle that had lasted for five minutes, Shane had reluctantly lifted his hospital gown and almost puked into the basin at the sight. There had been an uneven line of pink running through his pale abdomen; it was the place where they had sliced him open to retrieve their daughter. The skin around the scar had been swollen and marked with deep purple stripes. The swell of his tummy, contrary to Shane’s expectations, had not disappeared miraculously after birth to unveil the sharp ridges which had once adorned his body. Shane would never be the same again.
As Shane slipped his feet into the fur-lined slippers, Anya shot up from her position at the foot of his bed, awakened by the mere shuffling of his feet. She launched herself forward and nuzzled her ear against his ankle, a habit which signaled her desire to be lifted into her favorite human’s arms. But Shane could not, not when his stitches made even the most mundane activities impossible. Postpartum had forever changed life as he had known it.
Outside in the hallway of their cottage, Ilya stood with a little bundle pressed against his bare chest. Ames was crying, which was nothing Shane had not seen before. Ilya’s cooing, which got louder as Shane crossed over to him, was not doing anything to calm the distressed pup. The moment Shane’s eyes landed on her contorted face, his swollen pectoral muscles began to weep through his threadbare t-shirt.
Shane had always treated his body as a temple. In his prime, he had sworn off the thickest hamburgers and the most precious delicacies planted on gold-trimmed plates at award shows. His body had been a soldier who had followed its commander blindly even when it had trailed off brutal orders and asked it to starve. It had only taken a week for his body to turn against him. Shane had never thought that it would be so easy.
“You are leaking.” Ilya fixed Shane with a sympathetic look. It was the last expression Shane wanted to see on his face.
“You know why.”
Ilya gestured at their daughter with his chin. “The dictator demands food. You mind?”
Shane looked down at the carpet, and began his inspection of the scruff marks as if they required immediate attention.
“I am not a cow,” he said with gritted teeth; each word blew the air out of his chest.
Ilya blinked, clearly caught off guard. The look that crossed his face was similar to the one he’d worn the first time he’d heard Shane slip into flawless Russian. “Sorry?”
“You heard me, Ilya,” said Shane, his voice low but exhausted. “I am not in the mood.”
An awkward, thick, and unmoving silence settled in the air around them. Shane could feel it pressing against his skin; he wanted to slice it clean with a knife. After a quiet minute of reorienting himself, Ilya nodded slightly. Sympathetically.
“Formula it is then,” he said gently, more to their daughter than to Shane, and left for the kitchen.
Left alone, Shane’s eyes drifted onto the clear night sky. The sky was streaked with shades of blue and clouds which stood perfectly still. The stars hung there too, distant and dull, their usual shine lost to the wind. A tear slipped down Shane’s cheek.
——
The clock had turned 3:48 by the time Ilya, who had a blanket clutched firmly in his grip, found Shane sitting on their couch. His husband’s eyes were fixed on something in the distance and Ilya wished he could climb into Shane’s skin and know exactly what he was staring at. Then, maybe, he could figure out where it hurt and fix him. Except Shane was not a thing to be fixed.
He propped down onto the sofa beside Shane, then proceeded to rub his knees and smack his lips loudly. When Shane still did not swing his eyes from where they were concentrated, Ilya pulled his body into his arms, wrapped the blanket around his shivering shoulders, and kissed his forehead.
“I love you, Solnyshko,” Ilya whispered into his ear softly. If Ilya had known the cascade of tears he would unleash by brushing his lips against Shane’s temple, he would have thought twice before doing it.
The moment Shane pulled away from Ilya’s embrace, a torrent of tears began to run down his twisted face. His eyes were squeezed shut and in a second, Shane began to have difficulty breathing. He opened his mouth and started inhaling big puffs of air as an alternative. It was the worst heartbreak Ilya had ever known.
In a desperate attempt to calm his nerves, Ilya pulled Shane back against his body and began to rub slow, deliberate circles along his upper arms. Although Ilya’s palms were warm and steady and an anchor for Shane to the life he had lost, it still took him another ten minutes to calm down.
Carefully, Ilya turned him around.
Shane’s face was a mess; his eyes were swollen and glassy, and his lashes were clumped together with tears.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Ilya cupped Shane’s tear-streaked face with his palms and brushed the pits beneath his eyes.
“It’s nothing.”
“Then why,” he said quietly, “are you crying worse than you would at the loss of a Stanley?”
The words hung in the air between them for a minute. Then, Ilya knew with an odd certainty in his chest that there was no going back.
“I am awful at this,” murmured Shane. His eyes began to brim with tears again. “ What kind of dad keeps on blaming his child for the scars on his body? What kind of man constantly fantasizes about a life in which his daughter doesn’t exist? A life where he doesn’t have to think twice before climbing the stairs or loving his husband or…looking in the mirror.”
A choked sound clawed its way up Shane’s throat.
“And you didn’t even notice.”
Ilya’s entire world vanished from beneath his feet. Before he could even muster the courage to speak up, Shane resumed. “And that’s fine Ilya, it really is.”
A beat.
“I just wish you were the same boy who used to notice even my slightest grimace.”
There was another punctuation of silence. To Ilya, it tasted like despair.
“But it’s unfair for me to have these expectations, especially when you have sacrificed everything for Ames. I just…” Shane took a shuddering breath. “I just wish you didn’t have to choose between us.”
It was precisely at that moment that Ilya knew what he had to do.