why fall in love, just so you can watch it go away?

Hayden had been expecting this call for months.

He had known somewhere deep within himself that it was coming, ever since the Centaurs' plane crashed and his best friend lost the love of his life – even if Hayden had never cared that much for the man himself.

Watching Shane receive the news from J.J.'s careless mouth, watching him bend over at the waist like someone had scraped out his inner organs–

Yeah, Hayden knew.

He was weirdly proud of Shane for holding out this long.

Hayden held him through the initial grief, through reading those messages on instagram, through Shane throwing up on the floor and crying. Screaming, in a fashion very unlike his best friend. Cursing out the universe, loudly and fiercely.

It was when Shane went quiet that Hayden started suspecting. When instead of grief and anger, there was emptiness and a driving determination. Yuna and David were relieved when Shane started wanting to do things, wanting to talk to his teammates and visit the Voyageur's practice. When Shane started taking interest in the Irina Foundation again. When he started planning Ilya's funeral, delayed by several months for coroner’s reports and accident investigations and lots of paperwork bullshit.

Hayden could see it for what it was.

Shane was tying up loose ends. Setting the foundation up for success without him and Ilya, securing coaches for the incoming summer. Skating on home ice for a practice for the final time, shooting pucks but looking dead inside.

Hayden had bet privately that the funeral arrangements that Shane was guarded and private about were not for one, but for two.

After that practice, where the only emotion from Shane was a slight smile when he gave Hayden a good assist and Hayden sunk it between their alternate goalie's legs, he invited himself to Shane's apartment.

Got them both ginger ales, sat them on the sofa.

"We've already played our last game together, haven't we, buddy?" he asked softly, and watched Shane freeze slightly and open his mouth to lie. Hayden waved it off. "I should take you to the hospital. They'd likely put you on like, suicide watch or something."

He knew it was really called something else, these days.

"It's no use," Shane said, and Hayden nodded. Did it anyway, because that's what you're supposed to do. Shane let him, with the sad kind of smile that conveyed how much he appreciated Hayden's effort. Didn’t fight, just walked out to Hayden’s car.

Hayden was not privy to the exact details of Shane's medical care. He kept in contact while Shane was doing an inpatient treatment, but they spoke of other things, mundane things. Often they just sat in silence. Shane was released a few weeks later with medication and follow-up therapy. Yuna and David wanted to pick him up and drive him home, but Shane asked for Hayden, so he drove up from Montreal to the private facility.

Took one look at Shane, and the way he avoided Hayden's gaze told him everything.

"Fuck," Hayden whispered, and bonked his head on the steering wheel, accidentally honking in the quiet parking lot. It startled a laugh out of Shane, small and honest. "I should turn and march you right back in. As many times as it takes."

The laughter faded. Shane just looked tired. "It doesn't matter how many times, Hayden."

"Fuck."

Hayden turned them right around, but Shane was correct. They couldn't keep him indefinitely in care facilities, and Shane didn't have much left to live for. He'd already been offered medical leave from the Voyageurs, but instead he'd negotiated to void his contract. He wasn't coming back. 

"Can you promise me one thing?" Hayden asked, late one night, sitting on the couch of Shane's cottage. Yuna and David were asleep in a guest bedroom, Anya having scrambled into their bed for cuddles. 

"Yeah?"

"If you do it–" because Hayden couldn't bring himself to say when, even if he'd already accepted that he'd lost his best friend the moment Ilya died, "will you call me?"

"Hayd..." Shane's voice was quiet, barely a breath.

"Not so I can talk you out of it–" a lie, a filthy lie, "–but so you're not alone." The tears had been threatening, but Hayden had pushed them back. Met Shane's eyes, equally glossy. "I know Ilya died alone, but you don't have to."

It was a bit of a guilt trip, but Hayden didn’t feel bad about using Ilya’s memory for this. Thought the Russian would have appreciated it, in fact.

Shane reached out and grabbed Hayden's hand firmly. "You're a good friend, Hayden."

"Give me this one thing," Hayden begged. "Promise."

And Shane did.

So while the therapy appointments and medications and Yuna and David watching their son like hawks continued, Hayden always knew the call would come.

It was late, and he woke to the ringtone. Saw Shane's name and shook Jackie awake desperately as he swiped to accept the call.

"Hayden."

Shane was calm. Too calm.

"Where are you, Shane? Don't you do it, don't you fucking do it!"

He was half-way into his jeans, miming for Jackie to dial 911. Shane was in Montreal. His apartment was only a twenty minute drive from Hayden's house.

The voice was tinny through the speaker. "At the cottage. Drove here."

Fuck.

Out in the woods. Far from any emergency services. Hayden whispered the information to Jackie, saw that she was calling, and gave all his focus to Shane.

"They won't get here in time," Shane said. Confident, but not satisfied. Never Shane, even when he executed a play he'd worked his ass off to master. "I already took the pills. But I promised I'd call."

"Shane..." Hayden didn't want to know what Shane had gotten his hands on. He was certain Shane was right, though. That he'd executed this plan with zero chance of failure, a perfectionist to the very end.

Too late for Hayden to beg. To make him change his mind. Maybe Shane thought Hayden could have done it.

"I am so sorry, Hayd." Just not sorry enough, Hayden filled in silently. He felt far away from his own body. Knew Jackie was guiding him to sit down, but couldn't feel the bedsheets under him. "You'll be alright. I never would have been, and there's little point to dragging it out."

Hayden wasn't sure how he forced his tongue to work.

"Ilya wouldn't have–"

"Ilya's not here," Shane said firmly, a stark difference to how Hayden's voice was shaking. "Just you and me."

"Just you and me," Hayden echoed. Clumsily, he tried to come up with something to say. Anything. "Fuck, Shane, this is not how it was supposed to go."

"I know." There was a laugh, short and bitter, but then Shane's voice softened. "Don't let Mom and Dad be the ones to find me."

"Emergency services will get there first," Hayden said stupidly, and Shane hummed in agreement.

"I'm on the back terrace," Shane informed him. Hayden thought numbly about how cold it would be out there, but couldn't manage to ask if Shane was dressed appropriately for the weather. Didn’t want to imagine the scenario, what it would look like. "I put the funerary arrangements and other important papers on the kitchen table. And letters. Will you check in on my parents at times?"

"Yeah," Hayden promised hollowly. "Of course. Anything you want."

"Tell the world how much I loved him?" Hayden had expected to be the one to beg, not the other way around. But that was Shane, pleading. "How much he loved me. How wasteful it was to spend over a decade hiding our love because of other people's opinions. So maybe no one else will make the same mistake."

"Not a mistake," Hayden said instantly, because he refused to entertain that line of thinking. "Whatever you guys did for love was never a mistake. But of course I'll tell."

He wasn't sure why he wasn't crying yet. Maybe because Shane was so calm. Maybe it was shock.

"Thank you." A relieved breath. "I scheduled an instagram post. And a longer blog post. It'll explain most of it. But I wanted to make sure the world knows he was so loved."

"So are you, Shane!"

"I know. And I love you too, buddy." There was a slight pause, like Shane was hesitating. "Thank you for all these years. You've been the best friend I could ask for. And you should hang up now. You don't need to listen to this."

Hayden broke through the numbness.

"Fuck that!" His voice was low and trembling, but still sharp. Somewhere within he was conscious of the fact that he was a father and had four sleeping children in the house, so he couldn't shout. "I love you. I'm not leaving you alone for whatever comes next. Don't you dare hang up on me!"

"I should just get hazy and fall asleep," Shane said quietly. "Hopefully. Maybe I'll see Ilya. Maybe I won't. Either way I won't be without him."

Tears were streaming down Hayden's face now and he was distantly aware of Jackie curled into his side, rubbing his back as she talked rapid-fire to someone on her phone.

"We're going to miss you. Fuck, Shane, you're my best friend. I–" 

Shane didn't tell him not to cry, or not to miss him. Like he knew that was useless.

"Will you tell the kids their Uncle Shane and Uncle Ilya loved them very much?" There was a tiny hitch in Shane’s voice, a small crack of the vulnerability Hayden knew was beneath the calm. Hayden hummed hopelessly in agreement, too messed up to even imagine how he'd ever go about that conversation. "Tell Jade and Ruby when they're older that the day they married me and Ilya with plastic rings was probably the most important of my life."

And yeah, Hayden was sobbing now.

"I will," he managed. 

"Can I ask one more thing of you?" Shane sounded wary, like he was weighing the words in his mouth, ever the polite Canadian not wanting to ask for too much. Or maybe the drugs were hitting him, slowing him down. "I know it's unfair, but... Can you tell me nice things? Like, about the kids, or something? I've thought a lot of Ilya tonight, but I'd still like to listen to something hopeful."

"Sure, sure," Hayden forced out, and tried to gather himself. Spoke through the tears and the pain. "Yesterday, Jade told her teacher that penguins aren't real animals but stuffed animals that have been hijacked by aliens."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, she said–"

And Hayden talked.

He switched his phone to speaker, and told Shane all about the kids. About Amber's new milestones and Arthur's dinosaur obsession. About the twins learning to tie their shoelaces and switching places so cleverly at school that no one had noticed the whole day.

At times, Shane hummed or laughed, though it sounded more and more distant, until Hayden raised the volume on his phone as high as it would go, desperately trying to pick up on his breathing.

"Shane?!" he tried, and thought he heard a faint murmur of Ilya, but there was no other response. "Shane!"

And Hayden had known for a long time this was coming, but it didn't make it any easier, did it?

Still, he kept talking. Just in case Shane could still hear him, could still derive comfort from his voice. Might use it as an anchor to hang on just long enough for the ambulance to get there. When he sobbed too much, Jackie relieved him, her voice rough with tears until he could take over again. They spoke until they heard the sirens, and until the EMT's found Shane.

No one hung up the call, so they listened to the professionals as they tried their best but failed to get any results.

At last, Jackie took the choice out of Hayden's hands and pressed the red button that he couldn't bring himself to touch, ending his last call with his best friend.

The instagram post was a carousel of images. Shane and Ilya, in various stages of their lives, together. Official pictures and photoshoots, soft selfies and a family picture with the Hollanders and Anya. Last of the images was a screenshot of instagram DM's between Shane and Ilya, of those last messages Shane had ever received from his boyfriend.

"When you are seeing this, I will be gone," Shane had captioned it. "I do not want you to think it was because of anything less than the fiercest love. Sometimes, it's just too hard to go on without another person. For me that person was Ilya Rozanov."

Clicking on the blog post that had also been scheduled, Hayden only managed to read the first lines before his eyes blurred with tears.

In 2008, in a freezing parking lot in Saskatchewan, at seventeen years old, I introduced myself to Ilya Rozanov. 

I remember you were smoking in the wrong place, Ilya. Your lighter didn't want to work. I told you off, and you told me you'd beat my team on the ice. Neither of us was ever the same.

Later, after the funeral (that Shane had indeed planned for two, and Hayden couldn't find it within himself to be pleased he'd known his best friend enough to guess correctly), he would read the whole thing. Read the abject love letter Shane had written to Ilya, and left for the world to see. The most private person Hayden had ever known, sharing so openly. Hayden could see how he'd painstakingly considered each word, tried to make it perfect. How he'd told their story through his own eyes, and shared Ilya's and his love with the public in a way they'd never gotten to do while alive.

I regret never sharing this love with the world when you were alive, Ilya, because you deserved that, Shane had written at the end. We deserved that, and fear won out. But now they will know you. They will know how you were soft in private. How you made people around you happy. How you were deeply loyal and sacrificing. How playing against you or with you on ice was what I lived for. How you challenged me to be better and supported me when I struggled. They will know how it was the privilege and honor of my life to be loved by you and get to love you in return.

The EMT's had found Shane clutching two cheap plastic rings in his hand, along with a picture of Ilya. Hayden made sure Ilya and Shane were buried with those rings in their caskets, side by side.

And years later, he sat his kids down and told them about how they'd been part of one of the most important days of Hayden's best friend's life.