Chapter Text
Today is not one of those days.
Shane has been so good lately. Honestly. He has.
He’s been going to every appointment doing every exercise that’s assigned to him. He’s been working with his nutritionist. The new one, Daniel, who is super nice. And has been following his plan to a T. He even had a slice of cake at Wyatt’s birthday party last week.
He’s been doing so good.
There were some days where eating outside of what his mind considers healthy is as easy as breathing days where his mind is quiet. Calories and macros are on the back burner and he isn’t convinced a single slice of cake is going to ruin his hockey career.
He loves those days. Ilya loves those days too. Shane can see the way his face lights up when he says he wants to eat blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
He can see the way his eyes brighten when he suggests they watch a movie instead of the scheduled workouts he follows religiously.
He’s been trying so hard. So hard to let loose and be easier on himself. His therapist Lena always says that progress cannot be undone once it’s made it stays.
And it’s been staying. He was able to have two helpings of pasta the night before.
Fuck. He was doing amazing. He should’ve known it was too good to be true.
———
Shane was sat at the dinner table, staring at the macaroni soufflé that they had made.
Ilya found the recipe off Facebook and was desperate to try it. He was fine before. And the grocery store getting all the ingredients while they were cooking it in the kitchen he was fine with it.
Now that it was sitting in front of him and now that he had to eat it, all he wanted to do was race to his phone and pull up the recipe to look at the nutritional facts that his husband had made sure he couldn’t read.
“Ilya..” Shane said softly
Ilya paused his conversation about some meme Harris sent to the group chat and looked up from his half finished plate to Shane’s untouched one.
“Shane.” It was a statement, Shane could never get over how his husband could make his name sound like 1000 things at once.
“I know, I know…I want to.” Shane put his head in his hands.
“So do it.” Ilya said calmly, a little too calm.
“It’s not that simple.” Shane snapped.
“It is not, but it can be.” Ilya leaned back in his chair.
“You don’t understand..” Shane muttered
“No I don’t. Come Shane you have done this before many times. Remember the cake from last week? This is nothing compared to it.” Ilya leaned in to look into Shane’s eyes.
Shane, of course, avoided eye contact. Looking down at his plate. The thought of eating the cake made his stomach twist even deeper with anxiety. The food in front of him made him nauseous.
Maybe it wasn’t the food. It was more like the voice in the back of his head telling him he was a failure for eating it. For letting himself go. For becoming weak. That’s what he was wasn’t he. He had a diet and he stuck to it. But he just couldn’t die it normal it had to turn into something else…. Something ugly that scared people.
Too weak to control. Too weak to keep up progress.
Shane too a deep stuttering breath. “Let me just-“ Shane stood up and walked to the kitchen where his phone was charging on the island.
He was about to reach for it when he heard booming footsteps come from behind him and snatch the phone before he could get to it.
“Ilya! That’s not fucking funny. Give it!” Shane began trying to pry Ilya’s hands open
“Why Shane? So you can look up recipe and find a reason not too eat. We both agreed you shouldn’t have you phone during dinner right now.” Ilya squeezed away from him running to the other side of the island.
“Give me my fucking phone.” Shane demanded
“Come and get it Hollander.” Ilya had a fucking smirk on his face. Shane was gonna kill him.
“You don’t understand!” Shane yelled.
“What? Understand what? That you are hurting yourself like this? That you are stunting your progress by not letting me help!” Ilya slammed the phone on the counter.
“You think I don’t know that I’m ruining my progress. I do! You think I don’t hate myself for not being able to do this. I do! You think I don’t hate my brain for making me feel disgusting for eating certain things. I do! You think I don’t hate myself for making everyone upset. I fucking do! I fucking do Ilya I hate this I-I hate…fuck I hate me…”
Shane was crying now. Had buried in his hands.
“Shane..”
“Just don’t..I need a second.”
Shane shuffled away to the guest bedroom locking the door behind him.
He sat on the bed. He was really hungry, but he couldn’t eat that. He couldn’t look at Ilya right now. He wanted to be good for him so badly. He didn’t mean to blow up. He just couldn’t hold it back anymore.
He began to cry silently. He layed on the bed with his legs spread out. His phone was still downstairs so it was just him and his mind for now.
Knock knock
“Shane Моя душа, open up so we can talk please.” Ilya’s accent was thick which meant he was crying.
“I don’t think I want too…” Shane said from where he was laying.
“I am so very sorry. I was only trying to help and I got scared. Should not have said anything. Пожалуйста, не ненавидь меня.”
Shane got up and walked towards the door. He knew himself and he knew if he looked at Ilya right now he’d either breakdown or get into another argument.
“I love you so much, I’m sorry for yelling. I don’t really want to come out right now if that’s ok…” Shane leaned his forehead against the door.
“Well…can I stay?” Ilya sounded like a lost child.
“Of course.” Shane heard a faint rustling against the door as his husband sat down on the other side.
Shane mimic the move and sat down.
Shane heard a scrape against the wood as his phone slid under the door.
“Thank you.”
“Da.”
“This was a hard day.”
“Yes very…”
They sat in silence for a while more. Shane was a bit more relaxed. He wanted to be in Ilya’s arms. He wanted to dissolve into the embrace.
He settled for worming his fingers under the door, and they were immediately met with his husband’s
“Shane?”
“Yes?”
“Did you…did you mean what you said, about-about hating yourself…” Shane could hear the tears in his voice.
Shane squeeze tighter to the fingers under the door
“Yes…sometimes..”
“Do I push you too hard?”
“No. You always push me just enough and you make sure I’m ok….sometimes I just don’t receive it well even if you’re doing your best.”
“Ok.”
“I love you…”
“I love you to Shane, you are my world.” Ilya squeezed his fingers.
“I’m not gonna eat that food Ilya.”
“Ok. Your progress still is good…um it is-fuck what word.”
“Valid?”
“Yes your progress is still valid. Brain doesn’t want to cooperate then we work around it for now.”
“I don’t think I want anything else tonight…”
“Shane. We are not skipping meals, never that.”
“We don’t have anything else in the house I could have..”
“I will make whatever you ask. Will drive to grocery store. Anything Shane…anything.”
“Jesus Ilya..” Shane laughed wetly
“I am master chef for my husband. Is good practice for when I become housewife.”
“I want Onich soup.” Shane answers honestly.
His mom’s bone broth soup was light yet filling. Perfect flavor palette and painfully simple and consistent.
A true comfort food.
“I will get it.”
Ilya’s fingers left him and he was alone again.
Shane leaned down and dialed Leena’s number. It was 6 so she should still be reachable.
“Hello Shane.”
“Hey…”
“It’s 6:48 so I’m assuming dinner went wrong.”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to tell me what happened?”
“I freaked out, Ilya had this whole dinner planned with this new recipe. He wanted to try and I was fine until it was in front of me and then I just couldn’t do it…”
“That sounds like it would be stressful. Having all that anticipatory buildup just for it to dissolve into an anxiety.”
“Yeah… and then in my mind the only way to get rid of some of the anxiety was to take control back, like you said I like to do and read the recipe recipes nutritional content.”
“Ilya stopped you I presume.”
“He got to my phone before I could, and I kind of went off. He just started talking to me like I’m doing this on purpose to be difficult. Like disordered eating is a choice that I make.”
“I mean on some level it is a choice. I don’t say this to undermine how hard you’re working. You are making incredible progress and that doesn’t minimize it. But progress is a choice. You choose to do good and that simultaneously means you can choose to do bad. Now I didn’t say that is an easy choice either way. Someday making that choice is hard harder. So on some levels, he is right and on some levels you are right you are both in the middle of a rock and a hard place. It’s good not to blame each other. This is hard deal. Dealing with disordered eating is hard but you’re doing it and he’s doing it and neither of you have done it before.”
There was a pause as Shane took in her words. She knew him, and she knew that the paws meant that he was absorbing the information so she kept going.
“Are we going with the contingency meal?”
“Mhm.”
“And what would that be?”
“A soup that my mom makes. I have no idea how he’s gonna get it but… he said that he would. Now I’m just sitting in the guest bedroom waiting for him.”
“Guest bedroom.”
“Yeah after the fight, I-fuck. I got up and I came into the guest bedroom and I locked the door. He came to check on me and apologized, but I just couldn’t face him at the time. We still talked though through the door…”
“That was a good response. Sometimes autistic individuals experience a flight motor. They want to flee a situation that makes them uncomfortable. It’s a bit harder for them to stay in situations that make them uncomfortable or overstimulated than it is for neurotypical people. From what I understand, you do exhibit that a lot. From years of masking, you’ve learned to bring yourself away from whatever is causing your own discomfort. There’s nothing wrong with it. You’re not a bad person for leaving. You’re a human. It’s better to have left and regulated yourself than to have said more things that you would’ve regretted.”
It was like she could read his mind like she knew he was beating himself up for leaving.
“Thank you.”
“Of course Shane. Overall, you’re handling the situation as best as you can you have a contingency plan and you’re going to eat. Which is better than nothing. You’ve resolved the conflict for the time being you called me, and you kept the conflict from raising to a point of no return. You’re doing extremely well Shane there are bound to be setbacks. They’re gonna be days where it’s gonna be hard and almost impossible. But you have got it. Ok?”
“Yes?”
“I want you and your husband to write up a response plan for when these days happen this may be a first but it’s not a last. This plan will not be a fallback. You should still try your hardest and I know you will, but just in case it’s good to have one knowing the mechanics of your brain so you don’t freak out over losing control. This plan will allow you to have control even when you lose control of certain things. Does that sound good?”
“Yes.” he was already imagining the Google doc and his brain.
“That’s your homework. Drafting up a plan. Getting yourself taken care of. Being kind to yourself. You struggle with disordered eating and autism two things that play into each each other immensely. Things are difficult for you and that is OK. You are allowed to shutter under the pressure. You have people in your life who are there to carry the weight with you.”
“Yes..you’re right..”
“Good night Shane.”
“Night Leena.”
———-
Shane finally left the guest bedroom and walked into the living room.
He flopped down on the couch, and Anya hopped up to join him.
he calmly ran his fingers through her hair as he stared off into the distance.
It couldn’t have been more than 20 minutes before his husband was stomping back through the door.
“Soup!” Ilya’s fingers left yelled triumphantly
“Ilya did you drive to my parents?” Shae sat up and Anya hopped down to greet her papa.
“Da!”
Ilya ripped off his coat and shoes and moved into the kitchen
Shane sat up and followed behind him. Ilya had pulled out his favorite bowl the one that had small indents on the side that Shane like to run his fingers along.
He opened the brown paper grocery bag he was holding and took out a small white container.
He opened it eagerly and poured out the soup into the bowl.
Shane sat at the island and watched him work.
Ilya took out a fresh ginger ale and carefully wrapped up the untouched mac & cheese before placing it into the fridge.
“I called Leena..”
“Oh?” Ilya said while going washing off Shane’s favorite spoon.
“She said we should draft a contingency plan for the next time this happens…”
“Ok we will do.” Ilya nods before turning back to the sink.
Shane looked down at the bowl in front of him and was amazed to find that the soup was still warm.
“How did you keep this warm the whole way here?”
“Husband magic” Ilya smiled before hand Shane the spoon.
Shane happily took it and finally had a sip of the soup.
it was light and earthy and savory yet it immediately silenced the pain that was in his stomach.
“Is good? I wanted-“
“I love you.” Shane looked into his husband’s beautiful eyes. “I truly do.”
Ilya moved around the island and crowded behind Shane.
“Я люблю тебя больше всего на свете” he whispered against Shane’s neck.
Shane ate the entire meal and they spent the rest of the night drafting the Google Docs and watching a nature documentary about snails.
First bad day officially concluded.