smile - hollanov - @hollanovmicrofic - word count: 546 - click here for my hollanov microfic archive on ao3 - cw: mentioned canon depression and minor character death, but it's not a depressing, I promise!
Their wedding is in one month.
Every time Ilya reflects on this fact, he smiles so widely his eyes squint shut, and he has to pinch himself to check if his life is real.
But on June 15th, it really, truly hits him.
Because Ilya Rozanov, self-proclaimed forever-young asshole....is thirty.
He'd spent the whole weekend celebrating. Drunk out of his mind at bars and house parties, all of his friends there with him, only taking breaks from the chaos to fuck Shane in every available room he could find.Β
The weekend had been a blur. He'd sworn up-and-down, between shots and shotgunning beers, that he was just as young as he'd always been. That Scott Hunter (who had partaken in a fair amount of the festivities) was the only dinosaur there, and he could still keep up with the best of them.Β
Until he'd woken up Monday with the worst hangover of his life, which was still bleeding into Tuesday, his actual birthday.Β
"I am dying," he groans now, laid out on the couch. Shane, the asshole, just laughs. "And my husband does not even care," he adds.
"Not your husband yet. You have to be alive to marry me," Shane jokes, but Ilya can see the heat in his eyes at the word 'husband.' They've fucked more than once about it.Β
The comment hits Ilya strangely, though. Maybe it's all of the alcohol that's gone through his system in the past few days, (Galina told him that people with depression are likely to experience natural mood drops after drinking a lot), or maybe it's the fact that he still feels a little off, even now. But he doesn't laugh at the words. He chews on them and swallows them, digesting them slowly.
"I...did not think I would be alive, actually," he murmurs after a long moment, furrowing his brow.
Shane's by his side in an instant. "Wh--what do you mean?" he demands.
"Is okay, solnyshko, I am safe," he reminds Shane, because they both need to hear it. "But...after...everything. With Mama, with Papa, with...life. Is maybe...I don't know. I did not hopeI would be dead. But when people asked, 'Ilya, what will life be like when you are adult? Will you marry? Have children?' I...my mind is blank. I do not have ideas. I think I thought...I would not make it this far," he admitted with a shrug. "I would be good at hockey, yes, but then...I don't know."
He can tell, from the way Shane's looking at him, that he desperately wants to say something. He's thankful that he doesn't.
"Relationship, marriage, turning thirty...I am older than my mother now, did you know?" he murmurs, voice breaking a little. "Feels...strange. I did not think I would ever be so lucky, to have all of this. To make it here."
Shane reaches for him, pulling him into a hug that feels more like a lifeline, rocking him slowly back and forth as tears begin to stream quietly down his face. "You deserve it, Ilya," he mutters in that soft tone reserved only for him.
So Ilya celebrated before his birthday. And cries during.
And he will live long after.
