Thanks for always taking my requests with an open heart. I know this might be a heavyly emotional angstyish request and it's completely fine if you don't accept to write it, I wanted to ask if it's possible for you to write one where Ilia is diagnosed with cancer and he wants to take a break from competing and skating to have the treatment and it's his last show before starting it all. He performs a contemporary program to a meaningful and emotional song (I'd like to see which song your imagination flows us into) and then he makes a speech about the whole situation while he is looking for but can't catch the reader in the audience. But after the speech when he wants to perform another programme, the song is not write, it's Thinking out loud by Ed sheeran or Medicine by Daughter and the reader, who just skates for fun, comes and asks for a dance, so they do it together like ice dance and a promise of forever and the rest is history.
Thanks again for being an amazing artist 🕊🌿
Warning: Mention of cancer, chemo
The lights dimmed to a soft blue glow, the kind that made the ice look like a frozen lake under moonlight. The crowd was restless, a low murmur of confusion and concern. Word had already leaked—whispers in the press box, quiet conversations in the stands. Ilia Malinin was skating tonight. His last competition program before everything changed.
He stood at the edge of the boards in a simple black costume, no rhinestones, no flash. Just fabric that moved with him like a second skin. His hair was shorter than usual, already starting to thin at the temples from the early rounds of treatment they had begun in secret. The diagnosis had come six weeks ago. Stage II thyroid cancer. Treatable. Curable, the doctors kept saying. But the chemo would be brutal, and the recovery longer. He had told only a handful of people. His parents. His coaches. And you.
You sat three rows up, slightly off-center, wearing the soft gray hoodie he had stolen from you last week because it still smelled like your perfume. Your hands were clenched so tightly in your lap that your nails had left crescent marks in your palms. You had begged him not to skate tonight. He had kissed your forehead and said he needed one last time on the ice as himself—before the exhaustion, the nausea, the months of not being able to jump or spin or even stand without leaning on something.
The first notes of the music drifted out.
It was a quiet, aching contemporary piece—piano and strings, something that felt like a held breath. Lost Boy. Just music that rose and fell like a pulse. Ilia stepped onto the ice and the arena fell silent.
He didn’t open with power. He opened with stillness. Arms hanging loose, head bowed, as if the weight of the diagnosis sat on the back of his neck. Then he began to move—long, stretching lines, edges that carved soft curves into the ice. Every movement was deliberate, almost fragile. When he lifted one arm overhead, you could see the way his ribs expanded under the fabric, the careful way he conserved energy even as he gave everything.
He spun slowly, body folding in on itself, then unfolding again. A single spiral that held for an impossible length of time, free leg extended, head tipped back toward the lights. The crowd didn’t cheer. They watched. Some people were already crying.
Halfway through, he landed a triple Axel—clean, quiet, no arms thrown up in triumph. Just a soft landing and a continued glide, as if the jump had been only another step in a longer conversation he was having with the ice. His face never changed. Concentrated. Almost peaceful. Only when the music swelled did something crack open in his expression—grief and gratitude and fear all at once.
You felt it in your chest like a physical bruise.
When the final note faded, Ilia stood still in the center of the ice, breathing hard. The applause started slowly, then grew into something raw and sustained. People stood. Some shouted his name. He lifted his head and looked straight into the stands, eyes searching, searching—
You were frozen. The lights were still dim. He couldn’t find you in the sea of faces. His gaze moved left, right, higher, lower. A small, almost invisible flinch crossed his features when he didn’t lock onto yours. He gave a small nod to the crowd anyway, raised one hand in quiet acknowledgment, and skated toward the boards where a microphone waited.
His voice, when he spoke, was steady but low.
“Thank you for being here tonight.” He paused, swallowing. “I need to tell you something before I leave the ice. A few weeks ago I was diagnosed with cancer. It’s treatable. The doctors are optimistic. But I need to step away for a while. Chemo starts next week. I’m going to take the time I need to fight this properly, and that means I won’t be competing—or even training the way I used to—for a while.”
A ripple of sound moved through the arena. Shock. Sympathy. A few soft gasps.
Ilia’s eyes kept scanning the seats as he continued. “I’m not asking for pity. I’m asking for patience. And I’m asking the people who love this sport to understand that sometimes the hardest thing an athlete can do is stop. I’m going to stop. Temporarily. So I can come back stronger. Or at least… come back.”
His voice caught for half a second. He looked again, more urgently now, searching the same section where you sat. Still not finding you. The lights had come up a little; the glare made it harder.
“I want to thank my family. My coaches. And…” He hesitated, the words clearly meant for someone specific. “And the person who has been sitting with me through every scan and every hard conversation. I don’t know if she can hear me right now. But I need her to know that this—” he gestured vaguely at the ice, at his body, at the whole impossible situation “—doesn’t change what I promised her. Nothing does.”
He lowered the microphone. The arena was so quiet you could hear the soft hiss of the ice resurfacer waiting in the tunnel.
Ilia skated a slow circle, then stopped near center ice again. He looked up toward the sound booth and gave a small signal. Another song began—something more familiar, the piece he had planned as an encore. But the moment the first notes of Medicine by Daughter hit, his face tightened. It was wrong. Too ordinary. It didn’t belong to this night.
He raised a hand. The music cut abruptly.
And then you were moving.
You didn’t think. You just stood, climbed over the people in your row with quiet apologies, and walked down the steps to the boards. A security guard started to step forward, but someone from Ilia’s team recognized you and waved him off. You stepped through the gate, quickly throwing on skates and stepped onto the ice.
Ilia turned at the sound.
When he saw you, something in his shoulders dropped—relief so visible it looked like pain. You glided carefully across the ice toward him. He met you halfway, gliding the last few meters, and when he reached you he didn’t speak. He just took your hands.
“I couldn’t find you,” he whispered, voice rough. “I kept looking and—”
“I’m here.” You squeezed his fingers. Your own voice was unsteady. “I’m right here.”
He closed his eyes for a second, forehead nearly touching yours. Around you the arena watched in complete stillness.
You looked up at him. “Dance with me.”
His brows drew together. “But it’s not rehearsed. And I—”
“I know.” You stepped closer, sliding one hand to the small of his back the way you had seen ice dancers do. “Just… move with me. Slow. Like we do at home when the music’s on and no one’s watching.”
For a moment he didn’t answer. Then he nodded once, sharply, as if deciding something important.
Someone in the booth must have understood, because the song began—soft, almost private. A slow version of something the two of you had listened to a hundred times in the kitchen at two in the morning when neither of you could sleep. The kind of song that felt like a promise already kept.
Ilia guided you into a simple hold. Your skates made softer indents against the ice while his blades whispered. He kept the movements small, careful of your balance and of the fatigue already living in his bones. You followed. Step, glide, turn. His hand stayed warm and steady at your waist. Every so often his thumb stroked once across the fabric of your hoodie, as if reminding himself you were solid.
You weren’t skating the way professionals did. You were just two people moving together on ice that suddenly felt smaller and safer than the whole world outside. He spun you slowly under his arm. You came back into his chest. He rested his cheek against your temple for three long heartbeats while the music continued.
Somewhere in the stands people had started to cry openly. Cameras were still rolling, but neither of you looked at them.
When the song began to fade, Ilia stopped and framed your face with both hands. His eyes were bright.
“I’m going to get through this,” he said quietly, only for you. “And when I do, I’m coming back to the ice. But more than that—” his voice dropped even softer “—I’m coming back to you. Every day. For as long as you’ll have me.”
You covered his hands with yours. “I’m not going anywhere. Not for chemo. Not for the hard days. Not ever.”
He kissed you then—gentle, lingering, right there in the middle of the ice under the arena lights. Not a performance. A vow.
When he finally pulled back, he kept one arm around you and raised the other toward the crowd in a quiet wave of thanks. Then he guided you carefully toward the boards, still holding on, as if letting go even for the few steps off the ice would be too much.
Behind you the ice shone under the lights, empty now except for the twin trails of his blades and the faint scuff marks of your sneakers side by side.
A promise written in frost.