Sniffle 'n Sneeze, please

Jane: practice over i’ve got time before our game 

Jane: [image attached]

Lily: [missed FaceTime call from Jane] 

Jane: [image attached] [image attached]

Jane: for you for later

__

Jane: they just announced you’re a late scratch tonight? 

Lily: [2 missed calls from Jane] 

Jane: call me when you can please 

__

Lily: sorry was asleep 

Lily: watching game now

Lily: saw your goal

Lily: good assist to u from Pike 🤮

__

Lily: going to sleep again 

Lily: game is basically over so i will jinx it and say good win

Lily: will keep my phone on so you can call 

— 

The FaceTime request goes through and Shane squints as Ilya floods into view. Or rather, doesn’t. The screen is dark as Ilya murmurs a greeting. 

“Hey, sorry — you were asleep? I can’t see you. Are you okay?” 

“Sorry,” the dark screen sniffles and sheets shift. There’s some fumbling and then a click of bedside lamp and now Shane can see him. 

Ilya’s adjusting to lie down on his side. He must have turned over once Shane called because he’s got pillow-lines on his cheek and his curls are angled flat, pressed against invisible surface in the air. His eyes are sleepy, visible even through a video call, and there’s a flush to his cheeks and around his nose. 

He snuffles and itches two fingers under his nose, then coughs sharply. He doesn’t seem to be about to say anything else, even though Shane was waiting. 

“Are you okay?” he repeats, watching as Ilya’s fingers move from under his nose to press at the corner of his eye socket, massaging in circles. 

“Mmm. Will be fine,” he sounds hoarse, clearing his throat as he pauses, “just sick. I can sleep it off, yes?” 

“How sick? They wouldn’t let you play?” 

Ilya shakes his head, almost imperceptively. “You are asking information about players from other teams, Hollander? I will have to write the Commissioner about this.” 

He coughs, and Shane’s view shifts, presumably being placed down as he stares at Ilya’s ceiling. 

The sound of a tissue being pulled from a box, the flash of an arm across his screen, and then a muffled sneeze. It’s loud through the tinny speaker of his phone, and Shane hurries to turn down his volume as Ilya sneezes more, devolving into a fit offscreen. 

A relieved gasp for breath as Shane sees Ilya’s face for a second. His upper lip is shiny and the corners of his eyes are wet. Then all sound cuts out and he’s got a nice view of the ceiling again. Crown moulding him and Mom liked for Ilya’s place. 

“Bless you,” Shane says to the silence. He’s pretty sure Ilya muted his end of the call.

 Another tissue flashes across the screen. 

Then, the bottom of a glass. Clear liquid. Shane hopes faintly it’s water and not vodka. 

A beat and then the screen is tilting to Ilya’s face again as he settles back against his pillows. 

“Sorry. Thought you would not want to hear that,” he says, voice and background noise flooding back in. He sniffles again. Shane doesn’t think he’s imagining a glassy look, even through the screen.

“Are you okay?” Shane repeats again, distinctly annoyed somewhere under his concern; he hears how it leaks into his voice. 

Ilya groans, “I am fine, Hollander. Just sick, okay? Fever was what they would not let me play because.” 

He sounds so sick. His English is coming apart. Shane knows exactly what he means, but it’s something he flags sometimes. Sometimes he worries that Ilya intentionally or carelessly fumbles his words when he’s trying to keep him out. He can be very closed off like that. 

And he looks so sick. Shane’s heart aches. I’m Shane. Call me Shane. I love you. 

“I just wish I could be with you,” he whispers. He knows Ilya isn’t about to reply honestly right now, because Shane’s too far away to help. (That’s the easiest one to blame.) And Ilya hurts all the time, but hates to feel it. 

Ilya’s glance flicks back to the screen, face unexpectedly open. He rubs at his nose. “Me too, Shane.” 

Then he breathes, shaking off sentimentality forcefully, scrubbing his nose with a click click, “But you would hate to be with me. You would complain about me getting you sick and —“ he shakes his head harder, “—you know. You don’t miss me right now.” 

I would still miss you. I miss you right now so badly I’m afraid I might explode. But Shane isn’t sure he can say that. He’s worried it will make Ilya more sad. And it will make him more sad, too. 

He swallows. “Okay, just — sorry for calling, then. Get some sleep. I love you.” 

“Love you. Я Тебя Люблю.” 

Ilya looks at him for another long second, and Shane can’t hang up, even though that’s the social cue where he’s supposed to. 

After a brief eye-scrunch, Ilya gasps, “G – ghdd – nigh– hh–” 

And then the call ends abruptly. 

Shane takes a look at his reflection in his phone screen, blinks. Okay.

He can’t help texting him after. 

__

Jane: Goodnight.

Jane: I love you and feel better. 

Jane: I’m sorry you’re sick. 

__ 

Jane: I really wish I could hold you. 

__

The next morning, Shane is awakened before his alarm. 

“Hi?” he asks blearily in response to Ilya’s call. 

“Hi,” Ilya coughs down the other end of the line, “was just saying good morning. Couldn’t sleep that well. Sorry.” 

Shane starts to reply, but Ilya has hung up. Well, fuck. He might as well get up. 

__

An couple hours later –

Lily: fever broke now

Lily: sorry about this morning, wanted to hear you 

Jane: I like to hear you. I’m glad you’re feeling better. 

Lily: 🥹🥹

__

Jane: you were sneezing a lot last night. 

Jane: and how is your cough? 

Lily: better

Lily: kind of

Shane watches his screen bounce with ellipses from Ilya for much too long. He watches anyways.

Lily: i hate being sick

Jane: me too

Jane: i hate seeing you sick 

Lily: sorry

Jane: no 

Jane: i mean i guess i miss you a lot

Jane: fuck 

Lily: i miss you too 😙

__

Jane: i’m trying to say i hate when you’re sick because i want to make it better and i can’t because i’m far away

Jane: but i really want to. 

Jane: i don’t like 

Jane: wrong phrasing, sorry. 

Jane: i’m anxious about how you won’t tell me your symptoms and stuff

__

Lily: well, what would you like or

Lily: in your words, be anxious to know about? 

Lily: i cannot stop sneezing at all

Lily: i am coughing up half the lung i have left

Lily: you know because i smoke, not much there to work with 

Lily: i feel gross and sick and i miss you

Lily: i miss you so much i cried to sleep last night. thats why i called. 

Lily: just really really wanted to hear you

The second Hollander thrusts open the grating metal of the door, Ilya rushes up the stairs. He's shoving him back as they race up the stairwell in tandem.

Fuck. He’s missed him so much. He never misses any hookup like this. That’s a very big problem for another day. Because tonight he’s going to fuck Hollander. He’s always so eager for him. Ilya would never say he was the best at sex, if that can be quantified. He’s not the most experienced. Still, somehow, Hollander has made his way to the top of Ilya’s chart of conquests. 

His favourite, unquestionably.

He lets Hollander lead them into his place, fighting off a lingering shiver as he finally gets warm. 

“Fuck, Rozanov,” Hollander has him pressed against the door immediately, hands searching. He can feel his breath over cheek and his calloused fingertips searching under his sweatshirt.

“You took so long to get me,” Ilya complains, not reciprocating quite yet. He swipes his nose on his hoodie sleeve, pressing it there another second and rubbing to get the itch out. It’s running almost as bad as it was on the ice earlier, cold air always turns his congestion to a faucet. 

“Sorry. I was taking a shower...” Hollander trails off in lieu of further explanation. The shame in his voice paired with his hungry eyes means that Hollander has fully-prepped. He’s worked himself clean and open because he knew Ilya was coming. 

Ilya leers at him, wolfish, mouth inches from Hollander. His perfect fucking lips and straight nose and constellation of freckles fill up his vision and he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

“You are always so excited for my cock,” he praises, compliment punctuated with a soupy sniffle. 

Hollander’s sweet eyes glisten with want and he chases after Ilya’s mouth. 

Too bad that Ilya has a moral compass, so he has to stop him. 

“Ah–” Ilya shakes his head and holds his fingertips over Hollander’s mouth before he can reach his lips. “I am sick.”

This breaks every rule in Hollander’s book, surely. Hooking up with a sick person. Ilya has still come over, but he’s waiting to be pushed off and glared at. Maybe he will offer Ilya tea before he kicks him out. Polite Canadian Shane Hollander. He probably schedules his illnesses for the off-season. He definitely doesn’t invite them in from secret hook-ups.

Instead, Hollander surprises him. He frowns and doesn’t push him away. His eyes flick over Ilya’s face. He’s surely staring at the pinkened tip of his nose, the way it scrunches as Ilya has to sniffle again. Playing over their game in his mind, dissecting every time Ilya wiped his nose while on the bench. 

“Do you have a fever?” 

“Nyet.” Ilya confirms this with a shake of his head. “Is just in my nose. Headcold, they say,” he accentuates this for Hollander with a liquid sniffle and pouts at him. 

“Worse now, maybe, because you made me stand outside so long. Waiting for you.” 

Hollander gives him a long, nervous look. The racing thoughts are so visible on his face. Ilya thinks he might be able to reach out and read his mind if he only presses his fingers to his temples. 

He tests this with a double-tap of his fingers to the side of Shane’s brow.. 

“Do not worry, Hollander. My dick still works perfectly.”

He watches for another moment as his expression changes from apprehensive to decidedly needy and smirks. Ah. Maybe it did work.

And Hollander is throwing himself against him so hard their teeth clack together. 

__

Ilya is thrusting hard into Hollander, one hand bracing over his back and the other on the swell of his ass he fucks him into the mattress. 

“Fuck,” he pants, mind swimming in pleasure. Not only English, but all language leaves him when they’re like this. Hollander is so perfect. He thinks he could fuck only him for the rest of his life. He’s so eager for it, so responsive under him. He groans again as he drags his cock back and then forces back in. 

Hollander makes a pretty sound, so he tries to go for the same angle. 

“Fuuck. Snff. Hollander.” 

His nose is running. He knows. It’s running down over his cupid's bow and into his panting mouth. One brave drip comes off his chin and mixes with the sweat at the dimples of Hollander’s back. He sniffles fruitlessly in between gasps. Hollander feels so good. Perfect. Ilya’s felt his cock work inside countless holes, but Hollander’s always makes him need it more. He has never finished fucking him and not wanted to do it again. 

He’s getting into the rhythm. Sniffle, gasp, babble out something coherent. He wishes he could kiss him.

Hollander’s affirmative moans of pleasure are driving him further into a heady pleasure when a sneeze overtakes him. 

"Hheh-- a'dczh'UUoo!"

He ducks his head as it mists over Hollander’s back, not wanting to stop if he doesn’t have to. 

He sniffles, launched into another three more sneezes. They spill out of him, each competing to be first. He ends on a truly pathetic gasp for breath and a dz'iew of a final sneeze.

Well. He sucks back his mucus. There are more important things to focus on.

“You’re gross,” Hollander mutters below him. 

Ilya halts their movement and pulls his hand from its place at Shane’s hip so he can pinch and rub at his septum. It feels fucking euphoric and he allows an indulgent sniffle as he rubs the whole of his palm up at his nose. 

“Oh, I am gross? Shane Hollander likes to lick my cum from his own fingers, but I am not allowed to sneeze?” 

That said – he grabs a hand wildly over for the first article of clothing he can find and presses it to his face, releasing two – oh, no, three. Three more sneezes.

Wait. 

His abdomen tenses with a fourth sneeze into the fabric. This broken nose is never satisfied. He groans to himself as he pinches his septum against the fabric.

He gasps, fighting off dizzying congestion. His head is so stuffy he almost feels bad, if he’s passing this to Hollander. But he said yes. And Ilya was able to play with this cold, so it should be nothing to the unstoppable force of Shane Hollander. 

He blows his nose into the cloth and tosses it aside with cough to clear his throat, then presses his hands back into place. 

“Bless you,” Hollander mumbles.

Ilya grips for the side of Hollander’s chin, squeezes it once. He still really wants to kiss him. 

“Shut up.”

__ 

He’s noticeably more hoarse than when he arrived as he wipes Hollander down with a damp washcloth and murmurs praises. He’d been honest with him earlier – it’s really just a cold, barely an issue beyond a nuisance. 

Still, he feels thoroughly wrung out as he flops back on the bed beside Hollander. Into sheets that he knows smell like him. Any other time, where his nose was working, he’d press his face into the pillowcase and drink him in. Hollander smells so good after sex. Sweaty. Musky. The distinct scent of man that Ilya wants to lap up. He wants to press his flat tongue over his armpits and the fold of his groin and the small expanse of skin where his pecs jut out over his chest. 

Instead, he itches his wrist under his nose and presses up as he sniffles a few times. This cold has left him with much more of a drippy nose than he would like to admit. 

“D’you need to go?” Hollander murmurs as he actively winds himself more around Ilya. 

He should go. “Yes,” he laments, praying that the want doesn’t show in his voice. 

“Goodnight, Hollander.” He detangles himself, stands up and collects his clothes.

As he’s slipping in his hoodie, Hollander sits up in bed, risen from the newly-fucked dead, and shoves a packet of tissues at him. 

“For your cold,” Hollander says in one big breath. His hair is plastered to his forehead. His eyes are sincere.

Ilya laughs and waves him goodnight. He clutches his hand around the plastic of the tissues as he shoves it further into his pocket. He has a feeling he will carry it with him.

__

Shane heads to the team doctor. He does not want to, but he has to. He can count on less than one hand the amount of times he’s gotten sick during a season.

“Uh,” he sniffles and resents as the sound drags in his sinuses, “I have a cold? I think? Or, uh, rhinovirus?” His heart pounds his chest with a steady thrum of betrayal. You caught a cold from Ilya Rozanov of the Boston Bears. 

Rozanov. 

It makes him miss him, which is all kinds of weird and fucked up as he blows his nose and thinks Ilya did this when I saw him last.

The doctor is perfectly reasonable. Checks his temperature, listens to his chest. Confirms he’s good to go. Advises fluids, a decongestant before bed, doesn’t mince words and tells him he’s got a runny nose that’s only going to get worse on the ice and should have towels on hand.

It’s all the more embarrassing when Shane has to come back into the locker room. He’s been cleared for the game, but he’s late in.

“You good?” Hayden asks, thumping him on the back as they change into gear. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, and has to sniffle or it will dribble onto his upper lip. 

“Glad to hear it, man.” 

“I’m good, yeah.”

“You sneezed so much earlier, man,” Hayden shakes his head, sifting through his bag. “Thought you were down for the count. Like, fuck. Flu or something.” 

“All good,” Shane assures him. 

He’s blushing everywhere. He doesn’t sneeze a lot. Like, ever. If he does, he knows the right way to press his knuckle to his nose or his tongue in his mouth and make it quiet. But Ilya never sneezes that way. And this is the cold he got from Ilya. It feels like he’s still around, even when he’s hundreds of miles away. 

Impulsively, he shoots out a text. 

Jane: I got your cold, asshole. 

Immediately, a reply.

Lily: Sorry (((

Lily: but i did enjoy that asshole ))

Jane: fuck off

Lily: feel better Jane <3 

During the game, his phone gets more texts, buzzing as it’s tucked into his bag. 

Lily: maybe i did do biological warfare

Lily: you cannot stop sneezing. Funny they must have cleared you just for you to spend every pause like little scrunched up kitten 

Lily: i almost feel bad. 

Lily: but no. you wanted me to fuck you so bad you have to be sick now. 

January 2014

It was a very normal morning for Ilya. He woke up, brushed his teeth, showered, got dressed, had breakfast (black coffee and a cigarette or two), attended morning skate and then returned home for some downtime before the game.

The game against Montreal. He would be playing against Shane in 7 hours. And then he would probably make Shane come apart in 10. That put a smile on his face.

Upon getting himself comfortable on his couch, he decided to scroll the web. Twitter. It was something that his teammates insisted he get on. "Everyone is on this fuckin' app, bro! You're missing out!"

Scroll scroll scroll. The Toronto Maple Leafs defeat the Detroit Red Wings 3–2 after a shootout in the 2014 NHL Winter Classic. Good for them.

Scroll scroll. Justin Bieber pleads guilty to careless driving. Nobody gives a shit.

Scroll — wait.

Shane Hollander Updates 🇨🇦 @shanehupdates

Shane Hollander was spotted this morning in a coffee shop on Beacon Street 👀☕️

Bless him! He seems to be not feeling too well. Hopefully he feels better before tonight's game against Boston 🤧💙❤️

🔗 [ Video attachment : Shane is filmed by someone in the Café, he's sat by himself in a corner booth. He has a little cup of tea on the table in front of him. He's wearing a blue hoodie with a parka jacket. He seems to glance around before ducking down into a closed fist, shoulders bobbing with his sneeze. One sneeze, then some coughs. He picks up his little cup, and the video abruptly ends. ]

Ilya frowned, allowing the video to replay and replay and replay. Shane had a cold? Was he not going to be playing later on? Fuck. He shouldn't be outside. He should be in bed.

Ilya shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans, standing without a second thought. Shoes, keys, money, and he was out of the door.

Ilya drove himself to his favourite pharmacy nearby, the one with the nice wooden Russian dolls in the window. He had asked about them to an employee once, but nobody who owned the store was Russian. They were purely for decorative purposes.

He grabbed a basket. DayQuil? Yes. Tissues? Of course. Cough drops? Yep. Nasal spray? Sure. Thermometer? Why the fuck not.

After checking out, Ilya got back into his car with the bag full of sick day supplies. He'd never actually witnessed a sick Shane before, so he had no idea what to expect. Would he want all of this fussing? This wasn't even that big of a gesture. Ilya could go further.

To: Montreal Jane

13:28 Room number?

Ilya sent the text, taking a moment to play a new game he found on the App Store. Flappy Bird. Shane probably wouldn't text back straight away.

"Блядь," Ilya cursed as the stupid bird he was controlling face planted into a stupid obstacle. Fuck this game. Delete. Rigged. Bird propaganda.

Montreal Jane

13:31 Eager?

13:31 0814

Ilya jumped in the driver's seat of his car at the sound of the notifications, not expecting Shane to text back so swiftly. Ilya started up the ignition, making his way over to the hotel where the MLH always put their players. They should change hotels every time, really. Very dangerous.

After parking several blocks away (just in case), Ilya made his way to the hotel with his cap low on his head. The secretary was nice enough not to spare him a second glance as he slipped on past the main entrance, heading for the elevators. His thumb smashed the button for floor 8.

After praying to every single God he could think of that no Montreal teammates would come into the elevator, he finally made it onto his desired floor. He stepped out of the elevator, checking his texts again. Room 14.

Ilya knocked on the door, shuffling his feet. Shit, he was still in his adidas slides and socks. Not very sexy. He wasn't here for sex, anyway.

Ilya prepared himself as he heard the door open, expecting to see a red nose. Watery eyes. Cracked lips. Instead, Shane looked absolutely gorgeous. Ah. Of course he was sick and still gorgeous.

Shane pulled Ilya inside by the neck of his shirt, closing the door after Ilya was inside. Ilya had almost dropped his bag of supplies when Shane pulled him again , this time for a kiss. Their mouths moved desperately in a familiar dance before the spell broke and Ilya pulled away with a little sound of alarm.

"You are too sick to be kissing," Ilya frowned, attempting to get his now hard dick soft again. Think about other things, Ilya. Hayden Pike — ooh, okay. Boner immediately flagged.

Shane frowned, blinking at Ilya with a look of devastation. "What? I'm not sick."

Ilya furrowed his brow, assessing Shane's face with his eyes. "But — Twitter said you were. I saw video.. of you."

Shane looked utterly confused as he stepped back, eyeing the plastic pharmacy bag in Ilya's hand. Ilya just stood there, lips glistening with wetness.

"God, I knew someone was recording me!" Shane grinned a little, piecing together the story. "I took my antihistamines a little late today."

"Anti.." Ilya mumbled, wracking all of the English in his brain.

"Hay fever medicine," Shane added, his smile slowly growing. "You seriously believed some article on Twitter? And you went to get medicine for me? Oh my god. This is — so unheard of."

Ilya felt himself blush. Was he even blushing? His neck was hot. His ears were hot. Was he humiliated? "Yes, so funny. Laugh. So gullible."

Shane didn't laugh, he just smiled instead. Ilya was pulled back in for another deep kiss.

Ilya felt his back hit a wall of the hotel, something he normally did to Shane.

Shane had to pull away from the kiss to gasp for air, his pupils blown as he eyed Ilya. "You were going to play nurse?"

Ilya spluttered, the bag still awkwardly in his hand as he held Shane's waist. "I didn't know, okay? Whatever."

Shane rubbed his nose against Ilya's neck, giving the Russian a hug. They never hugged. Only kissed, and fucked. And shoved.

"Thank you," Shane mumbled, stepping back after a moment. "It's nice to know that you'd care whenever I catch my next cold."

Ilya hummed, squishing Shane's waist. "Is fine. There is stuff that could still probably.. help you. With hay fever," Ilya mumbled, pressing the bag into Shane's chest.

Shane peeked inside the bag, a small smile on his face. His cheeks were turning pink.

"Who even gets hay fever in January? I thought this was.. summer thing." Ilya said, watching as Shane went through the bag.

~

stillhollzyswife: he looks soooo tired, poor baby

rozanuts: “poor baby” and it’s a 200lb man

69_CAD: please, he’s a buck 80 at most.

rozanuts: your mums a buck 80 at least

~

sodahhhmb: Just heard the pregame interview, he sounds sick as fuck.

iguessedhollanov: Don’t mind me, just imagining Rozy bringing him tea and soup in bed…..

m00seknuckle: Found the fujoshi

2481: Why do I feel like Rozy is a big softie who’s amazing at taking care of Hollzy

StreisandEfxt OP: Uhhh, do you see the way they look at each other on the ice??? They live to cuddle with each other (and fuck nasty before and after, probably)

m00seknuckle: Found the other fujoshi

StreisandEfxt OP: Nah, I’m just a horny gay guy :)

~

MTLorBust: Metros fan skating in to say get well soon, Cap! We miss you 💕

Cens4PMs: This is so wholesome wtf

StreisandEfxt OP: liek dis if you cry evrytim (seriously though, this made me smile.)

—————

Pierre Beaulieu @ hockeytalkie:

Hearing that Shane Hollander was scratched right before warmups due to illness #OTTCentaurs

—————

Earlier that morning…….

“You should not go to practice today.”

Shane whirled around from where he’d been picking out a shirt from his dresser to wear to the rink. “Uh, what?”

Ilya, still sitting in bed, looked deadly serious, like a psychic warning away from impending disaster. “You are getting sick, lyubov moya. See, your voice sounds terrible. And your breathing is off.”

Bewildered, Shane let out a breathless laugh. “How -snf- could you possibly know that? I’m not even standing by you.”

“I can just tell. Come here,” Ilya said, and Shane felt his body automatically obey. He sat on the edge of the bed and let Ilya study him like he was a cheese-focused lab rat getting zapped with electricity. Shane felt his cheeks flush as Ilya scanned him up and down with a frown, feeling, absurdly, like he’d done something wrong. Ilya noticed Shane’s discomfort and put a hand to his thigh, his blue eyes softening. “I just want to check on you, sweetheart. Make sure of how you are feeling.”

“I’m fine,” Shane said. Well, he’d thought he was fine...for about five seconds after he’d first woken up. Then the ache in his head, the burn in his throat, and the stuffiness in his nose had hit him full force. Now, he absentmindedly pressed two fingers into his temple, feeling it throb against his touch. Ilya reached up, gently brushed Shane’s hand aside, and rubbed his thumb lightly over the same spot. “Is it very bad, your head?”

Shane let his eyes droop as his husband took his face in his hands and rubbed at his temples, then his cheekbones. He let out a little moan of relief, but Ilya didn’t smile at the sound. In fact, he looked quite concerned. Maybe even scared. “Is it like when you had your concussion…?”

“No,” Shane said firmly, which was the truth. This was less of a migraine-worthy pain and more of a dullness that he could tell wouldn’t be too bothersome. “I can play, Ilya.”

Ilya was quiet for a moment. They both knew that Shane could not miss a mandatory practice just because of a little headache - nor did he want to. He would automatically be benched, and Shane would rather die than be a healthy (or, in his case, “healthy”) scratch. Plus, he was looking forward to tonight’s game against Calgary after last game’s line brawl. (Ilya had looked sexy as fuck with some other guy’s blood on his jersey.) The season series was 2-1 Calgary and Shane was itching to even it out. Even if he had to do that with a little bit of sinus pain.

“Okay,” Ilya finally acquiesced. “But I get to put you to bed for our nap the second we come home.”

“You do that anyway.”

“Then I will do it extra this time. I’ll grab you by the waist —” he did just that, and Shane laughed with an “Ilyaaaa!” “—and fling you onto the bed.” He very gently guided Shane’s body downward towards the mattress, then climbed on top of him and started kissing his neck. “Ilyaaaa,” Shane said again, between more peals of laughter. “We have to gooooo. Go get changed, you weirdo…mmnh,” he moaned as Ilya began to kiss and lick and suck at a sentitive spot. Abruptly, Ilya hopped up and left a flustered Shane panting and laying with his legs spread wide open on the bed. “Preview,” Ilya purred as he stuffed his luscious ass into a pair of track pants, “for later. If you are a good boy and promise to rest when we get back.”

Shane had never been more excited to rest in his life.

——

Shane’s first sneezes of the day came in the car.

“tshhh’ew! hh’kisshhu!”

“Bud’ zdorov,” Ilya said, and when Shane emerged from where he’d buried his face in his elbow he saw Ilya looking at him with naked worry on his face. Blushing from the intensity of the attention, Shane began digging in his pockets for tissues but realized that he’d left them in his bag in the trunk. Shit. He felt like he was going to start sniffling sooner rather than later, and they had another ten minutes before Shane could duck into a room at the practice rink to blow his nose in private.

He was debating whether he should allow himself to sniffle back his growing congestion or - shudder - wipe his nose on his sleeve when Ilya handed him a pack of travel tissues from his pocket. Shane took them with a soft “Thagk you” and blew into one, surprised at how quickly the tissue became soaked through. He stuck it into his jacket pocket as Ilya leaned over (while they were stopped at a red light, thankfully) and pressed a kiss into Shane’s hair.

As they turned the corner into the parking lot, Shane, who’d been staring into space for a bit, suddenly needed to grab a tissue from the pack against an enormous itch that had somehow started between his eyes and moved its way downward. As his breath hitched, the tissue got stuck on the sealing sticker and tore in two, and Shane was only left with a few measly scraps to hold to his nose as he—

“htschhhhuh! hhITSCHhhhew! hh’tshieww! hh’SCHhhuhh!”

Fuck. The tickly, spraying sneezes had practically turned the tissues into pulp in his hands. And now he was coughing, turning his body as far from Ilya as he could to choke out a fit into his shoulder. He felt icky as hell from the dampness in his hands and the pressure in his chest and the fact that his nose was still. Fucking. Dripping. A wad of tissues were pressed into his hands, and he took in a deep breath and blew his nose messily, a few extra coughs slipping out in between blows. He stayed hunched over for a moment, blinking back tears, when he registered a warm hand rubbing his back and something being said in a soft, lulling tone. Ilya.

Shane blinked the last of the blurriness out of his eyes and turned towards his husband, who was murmuring so quietly in Russian that Shane couldn’t even guess what he must have been saying. His expression was an agonizing mix of concern and affection, and Shane could hardly look at him without feeling overwhelmed by the love he saw there. It was exactly how he himself felt about Ilya, laid bare on the other man’s face.

“Bozhe moy,” Ilya exclaimed, face back to doing that frowny-thing that made Shane feel like he’d fucked up somehow. Ilya’s not unhappy with you, he told himself, he’s unhappy that you don’t feel good. “God bless you, honey.”

“Tha—hgkm—thank you,” Shane replied, having to clear his croaky throat. Jesus Christ, he felt like a mess and definitely looked like one too. But…the boys had seen much worse. So he sighed and took off his seatbelt - he hadn’t even felt the sensation of Ilya putting the car into park - and forced a smile as best he could, which probably meant that his teeth were bared. “Big game tonight, eh?”

“Shane—”

“Can you pop the trunk? I’ll grab our bags.” Shane got out of the car before Ilya could say anything. Ilya didn’t pop the trunk, instead making Shane wait in the infuriatingly bright sunshine as he came around and unlocked it manually, blocking Shane and grabbing the bags himself.

Frankly, he couldn’t remember the trek to bed. He remembered Ilya cajoling him into drinking some tea, remembered letting Ilya dab at the corners of his wet eyes when the realization sunk in that Ilya was truly there. He remembered feeling sick yet comforted, and consequently so sleepy he had let Ilya gather him up in his arms and—

Oh. Apparently, Shane had been carried to bed. 

Ilya was beside him, his hair crushed flat on the side and unruly at the back. Shane shifted closer to Ilya, feeling the warmth of his bare back through the cotton of his own sweatshirt. He nuzzled his nose against the back of his neck and had never wished so vehemently for clear sinuses, just to breathe the familiar scent of love caught sleeping. 

Ilya stirred with a snort, then a cough, and Shane remembered Ilya was sick too—recovering, but still not well. It was almost romantic, in a deranged way, to be weathering the flu together in the same bed. It felt distinctly intimate, a rite of passage in a relationship.

He soothed Ilya with another nuzzle, a soft hush whispered right up against his spine, and snaked his arm around a body that eased into him. Ilya was still asleep, Shane knew, but always angled himself like a sunflower in search of its own solnyshko. 

Shane was nearly back to sleep when his breath hitched, the warmth of it puffing on the back of Ilya’s neck, trapped between them. The sensation of a sneeze in the works was crawling up his sinuses and making him take slow, shallow breaths through his mouth as he wrinkled his nose. 

“Hhehh… Hh’huuuh…” 

The center of his face was throbbing, his nose becoming impossible to ignore now that it had its own pulse. He didn’t want to wake Ilya, not when he was finally getting quality sleep, and he should have been running to the bathroom to sneeze, as quietly as possible, in private. But his concentration was threadbare at best, the immense tickle making it difficult to think anything beyond don’t sneeze, don’t sneeze, don’t sneeze. 

He ducked his chin down toward his chest, hot forehead finding the cool relief of Ilya’s bare back, and he carefully removed his arm from around Ilya so he could worm his hand between them, bringing it to his nose. 

“HhEHH—“

His breath hitched in a strangled vocalization, the worsening surge of the tickle sudden and undeniable. His nostrils flared as the bridge of his nose wrinkled hard. His eyes squeezed shut, whole face tightening. He closed his hand into a fist and pressed a knuckle tight into the right side of his nose where the tickle was at its worst, then he held his breath and stilled. 

“Shane?”

Apparently, Ilya had woken anyway—and swept away Shane’s effort to hold back his sneeze. He stuttered a surprised and overwhelmed gasp.

“Hh’hh’heh’ISSHOO!” 

It tore out of him, harsh and wet against his fist. Now that his nose had started, it didn’t want to stop. It almost felt like a punishment, a vengeful fuck you for ever being denied relief.

“Huh’ISSHHuh! Hh’ISSHHeuh-ESCHH’iuhh!”

Each sneeze seemed to make the feeling worse, like shaking around something fragile until it splintered further and further. His nose felt oversensitive and unsteady, the irritation of sneezing feeding back into the itch in a constant loop. When he heaved a breath, it stuttered in uneven gasps, already starting him on the next sneeze. 

“Hh’ehh’heEH’SHHIUH! EISHH’uhh! HUH’ISSHEUh-ISSHHGh’uh!” 

His body was trembling, muscles quaking with each snap forward that he didn’t have the energy for but was forced into. He was distantly aware of Ilya saying his name, of his back being rubbed, of his hand being forced away from his nose and replaced with a bundle of tissues. 

He couldn’t have said how long the fit went on, a cycle of gasping and sneezing and a few faint groans in between. When it finally began to taper, enough that he could drag in a fuller breath, there was Ilya tending to his nose with pinched rubs and telling him blowing his nose would help. 

“Try, malysh. Here, blow your nose.” Ilya pressed a fresh bundle of tissues to his nose, and Shane was far too exhausted to refuse the support. 

He blew his nose in short, breathless spurts that did indeed help to abate the tickle. Ilya continued rubbing his back through it and murmuring sweet nothings. 

Ilya waited until he was done, then wiped his nose clean with another tissue. He stared at Shane after, assessing him with a look that made Shane smile. He felt very valuable, perhaps a rare sight fit for gemological appraisal. Ilya looked at him as such, closely and carefully. Ilya’s hair still looked aggressively disheveled, almost windswept, and Shane couldn’t help but tug at it.

Ilya’s hand on the small of his back, which had still been rubbing soft strokes with his thumb, inched under his sweatshirt and touched his skin. Shane’s smile twisted into a wincing frown, his skin incredibly sore where Ilya touched. It felt like having a sunburn slapped, but without the smell of saltwater hair and the feeling of sand in shoes. That had happened to him before, at seven years old and during his first ever beach vacation. His cousin had slapped his sunburnt shoulder and reduced him to loud, messy tears.

“I cried odne tibe,” Shane mumbled, recalling the pain of the memory as Ilya’s fingers moved across his back carefully. “Frob a sudburd.” 

Ilya stilled, giving a frown of his own, then his hand moved from under Shane’s sweatshirt to his forehead. The backs of his fingers first, then flipped so his whole palm lay across it, finally to the side of his neck like he didn’t quite believe whatever he was feeling. 

Ilya pulled back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He coughed as he got up, sharp and encompassing and making him stumble a little on his way to the bathroom. 

Shane watched, distantly wondering if learning that his boyfriend had cried over a sunburn a lifetime ago was just too much for Ilya to bear, was the final and unforgivable straw for all the ways Shane could be so boring. 

Ilya came back from the bathroom with a thermometer in his hand, and Shane felt relief wash over him in waves. He had convinced himself Ilya had been packing his toothbrush with his heart already halfway out the door.

Instead, Ilya sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his leg, patiently asking, “How do you feel?” 

“Ubm… Sick,” he admitted uncertainly.  

Ilya made a quiet sound that might have been agreement, or dissatisfaction. He pressed the button on the thermometer and held it in front of Shane’s mouth. “Open.”

Shane blinked, and Ilya waited.

There was a pause in which Shane began to process that something was being asked of him, a request that he understood conceptually but wasn’t sure he needed to act on. It was as if Ilya’s command had slipped through one ear and gone clean out the other side, leaving him blissfully without thought but with the low, gravelly tone of Ilya’s voice still sitting warm in his mind. 

“Shane.” Ilya patted his thigh gently. “Open your mouth.”

With the thermometer set under his tongue, they waited in the quiet with only the sounds of Ilya’s short coughs catching on exhales and Shane’s congested, half breaths through his stuffy nose. They were a sight to be seen, or perhaps heard—a symphony composed of the sounds of sick men. 

Ilya removed the thermometer when it beeped and cursed under his breath, a phrase in Russian Shane hadn’t heard before but held familiar words, something like a plea for help. 

Ilya dropped the thermometer onto the bedside table and slipped his hand behind Shane’s neck, steering him upright with gentle insistence. “Come.” 

Shane let himself be guided out of bed. The stretch between the bed and bathroom became a journey of steps, careful heel-to-toe measurements like he was navigating unfamiliar space. Ilya stayed with him, a steady arm hooked around his waist. 

In the bathroom, Ilya turned him gently and pressed him down to sit on the closed toilet lid. Shane rested his elbows on his thighs and let his head hang. He noted the sound of the shower turning on, the roar of rushing water filling his ears.

Ilya came back into his space quickly, and Shane welcomed him with arms looped around his legs and his face pressed into his bare stomach. He was rewarded with a gentle stroke down his spine, then a tug at the hem of his sweatshirt. 

“Put your arms up,” Ilya said softly.

Shane lifted his arms, half with his own merit and half forced by his sweatshirt being dragged over his head. For a moment he was nowhere, blind and caught in fabric.

“Hh’ISSH’ehw!” 

It caught him by surprise, muffled awkwardly into the soft cotton still half over his face. His body jolted forward with it, and he grabbed blindly at Ilya from the shock of it. 

“Woah, okay, okay.” Ilya caught him immediately, one hand firm at his side as he finished pulling the sweatshirt free. “I got you.” 

Shane blinked, disoriented. “Sorry,” he mumbled thickly.

Ilya pressed a stray kiss to the top of his head before moving on. The rest of Shane’s clothes went the same way, removed carefully with one of Ilya’s hands keeping steady at his side all the while. 

“Fuck,” Ilya muttered suddenly, stopping in his tracks. Shane frowned, lips curving down until Ilya tapped his cheek and smiled warily. “Is nothing. Just, I forgot—wait here, okay? I will be right back.”

As if his plan had been to move at all. He wanted to say as much, but Ilya was gone faster than he could manage a single word. He felt horribly alone now, one hand bracing the counter beside him as he shivered, the air sliding unpleasantly against his overheated skin. 

“Huh’ISHHuh—‘TSH’uh!”

Two sudden, messy sneezes that had him curling forward, the second weaker and doing nothing to relieve the buzzing feeling suddenly taking hold of his sinuses. He stayed there for a moment, with his hand hovering uselessly in front of his face, breath stuttering in uneven hitches.  

“Have to sneeze?” 

Shane’s watering eyes shot up. Ilya had returned with a glass in one hand and his other closed in a loose fist, and he was taking in the sight of him. Shane nodded absently, then tilted his head to slide his gaze toward the bathroom light. 

“HH’ISHHoo—ISHH’uhh!” 

“Oh? That helps me too sometimes, looking at something bright.” Ilya gently nudged the glass of water into Shane’s hand, then offered him two tablets. “I learned something new about you.” 

Shane swallowed the pills down without fuss. His throat hurt with it, but he greedily drank half the glass of water, as if the first little sip had reminded him how parched he was. 

Ilya undressed, just his boxers, then helped Shane into the shower. When the water hit his skin, it sent a shudder up through him that made his teeth clack together. He flinched hard, pulling back instinctively. “It’s cold—“

“No,” Ilya said firmly, his arm tightening around his waist and effectively stopping his escape. “Is warm, Shane. Your skin is just warmer. Trust me, give it time.”

Shane obeyed, because that was what he did now—followed the path Ilya set, step by step, without needing to see where it led to. Letting Ilya tend to him, take care of him like Ilya had allowed Shane to do earlier in the week. What was love if not a give and take, if not an exchange of trust?

So Shane leaned into him and closed his eyes, letting his cheek rest on Ilya’s shoulder as Ilya adjusted the angle of the shower head so the water fell more evenly over Shane’s back. One arm stayed steady around Shane’s middle, anchoring him, and his other moved—a hand over his shoulders, down his arm, across his back. 

Shane’s consciousness narrowed down to sensation. The steady drum of water, the slide of Ilya’s hand, the quiet rhythm of breathing into each other. The steam seemed to be doing good for both of them, easing Ilya’s cough and Shane’s burning sinuses. The tension in him slipped away, muscles loosening as his body adjusted to the temperature of the water, his weight settling more fully into Ilya’s hold. 

At some point, Ilya pulled his shoulder back and took Shane’s cheek in his hand, fingers gentle but insistent as he forced him up a little straighter. “I will wash your hair, okay?” Shane made a vague sound that he hoped Ilya understood as a yes. “Close your eyes.”

Ilya placed a hand at the base of his skull, guiding him to tilt his head back to wet his hair. His fingers combed through gently, the drag of fingertips against Shane’s scalp. It made Shane sigh, long and loose. 

Shampoo came next, worked into a lather. Ilya’s fingers massaged careful circles and scratches, a firm pressure that wasn’t too hard but enough to make Shane feel hypnotized. His forehead drifted toward Ilya’s shoulder unconsciously. 

“Hey, no. No, stay up.” Ilya adjusted him again. “It’ll hurt if you get soap in your eyes.” 

“Feels so good,” he muttered drowsily. 

Shane knew Ilya must have been indulging him. It was slow and gentle work, certainly going on longer than necessary, but it was the best Shane had felt all night and Ilya seemed to recognize it. They stayed like this for a stretch of time, with Shane melting into Ilya’s touch, until his breath caught. 

“Hhuh!” Ilya’s fingers paused, and Shane lifted his wrist to his nose. “Hh’ISHHh!”

The sneeze caused him to jerk forward, the motion throwing off his balance just enough that he would have tipped if Ilya hadn’t tightened his hold.

“Hehh’ISHhuh! So-sooh’ISHHeuh! Sorry, fuck.”

“Easy, easy.” Ilya steadied him, holding him tightly to his chest. “Is okay, just sneeze.” 

Shane sniffled wetly, dragging his wrist firmly under his nose. “Doh, it’s okay… Thigk I’b donde.” 

Ilya waited a few more seconds, just enough to make sure, then helped Shane rinse his hair. Ilya’s fingers started at his forehead, swiping suds back carefully away from his face, then raked through his hair to help the water wash everything away. 

Ilya turned the shower off and they exited together. Cold air rushed around them, sharp against Shane’s wet skin. He shuddered hard, shoulders curling inward. The shower, which had been comforting, now felt like a trick. Perhaps this was a Herculean task. Maybe showering with the flu was one of the 12 Labours, with the act of standing wet and cold being the price to pay for working a fever down. 

But then Ilya was moving, reaching for a towel and wrapping it around Shane’s shoulders, drying him off with careful presses of the towel rather than dragging it in scratchy passes, and Shane felt soothed. Shivery, uncomfortable, but deeply loved. 

It settled somewhere deep in Shane’s chest, that kind of attention—in being learned so thoroughly by another person. Ilya, full of force and rough edges in so many corners of his life, was handling Shane with a kind of gentleness that made him feel frighteningly known. It was as though Ilya knew by instinct which parts of Shane needed softness without ever having to place it into words. 

Ilya managed to get them both dried and dressed, a pair of shorts hanging low off his hips purely for the convenience of them, and Shane more carefully tugged into a loose shirt and sweatpants. Once Shane was back in bed, propped up against the headboard, Ilya reached for the thermometer and held it out to him. 

Shane frowned, edging more towards a wince. “Agaid?” 

“Yes, again.” 

He put the thermometer under his tongue and watched Ilya while they waited. Really watched him—his damp, unruly hair; the crease between his brows; the way his hands rested on Shane’s thighs like he couldn’t not touch him; the way he looked at him, assessing from the top of his head, his face, the climbing numbers on the thermometer. 

The thermometer beeped, Ilya took it, and Shane quietly considered that the act of loving someone had less to do with grand declarations and a lot more to do with selecting soft, warm clothes and taking temperatures.

Ilya squinted at the thermometer, and his shoulders dropped with a sigh. “Better,” he said, sounding relieved. “Still high, but better.” Ilya set the thermometer aside and started adjusting Shane, guiding him lower down the bed, easing his head against the pillow, pulling the blanket up to his shoulders. 

Shane swallowed. He was, essentially, being tucked in. “Ilya.”

Ilya’s hands paused, now hovering over Shane. “Yes? Are you okay?” 

“You… I, umbb…” 

He could feel the words sitting somewhere in his gut, formed in intention but not taking the shape of language. It was the slow, aching pull of tenderness tangling up with the sharp sting of embarrassment. Now with a sound mind, or closer to one, he was painfully aware that he had been washed, dried, dressed. He had failed, even, to hold himself up. He had let his body become more an extension of Ilya’s, or a burden to him, than something within his own control.

The truth of it, though, was that something else was threaded through every moment. It had been care in motion, as if Shane was allowed to need him, as if Shane needing him wasn’t an inconvenience but a circumstance that Ilya met eagerly and entirely willingly. 

The hands that pressed him face-first into mattresses, that gripped him with the edge of a challenge, that stole touches at the worst moments just to prove they could—those same hands had held him upright under a shower, had tenderly wiped his nose clean, had generously washed his hair. This version of him, weak and unsteady and unable to care for himself, hadn’t changed anything fundamental. The world hadn’t come crashing down. In fact, the world felt a little lighter, like Ilya had decided to shoulder it with him without being asked. 

But how would he say any of that? The enormity of it, gratitude and vulnerability and love, sat somewhere in the aching center of him. He wouldn’t be able to find the words tonight, and maybe not ever—not in a way that would feel like enough. So instead, he croaked a soft, “Thagk you for helpig mbe.”

Ilya smoothed his hair back, palm flattening briefly against the crown of his head in a gentle, reassuring press. “Always.”

The rest of the dark, early morning hours passed in stretches of restless sleep and bouts of hazy consciousness. Sometimes Shane woke to find Ilya scrolling on his phone beside him; at others, he woke to fingers carding through his hair. Once, horrified, he woke to Ilya coaxing him up so he could change his shirt because he had apparently sweated through it. 

The day arrived somberly. There was no glowing sunrise, no hopeful sense of renewal—just weak, muddled light leaking around the curtains and Shane waking with the immediate realization that he still felt like absolute shit. 

The flu had settled into him completely now. His skin was oversensitive and hurt just from the rustle of his clothes. His body ached with a deep, heavy soreness. His sinuses throbbed and buzzed in miserable little waves, and he was so congested he had to breathe through his mouth, making his throat feel rubbed raw. 

Ilya was asleep on his side, one arm thrown over Shane’s waist protectively. Even now, still recovering and obviously exhausted, Ilya slept like he was holding the hope of the world in his arms, like rest was secondary to keeping Shane close and cared for. 

Shane loved him with such terrible force it seemed to circle back around into fear. Could you love someone so much that it stopped being healthy? Maybe there was some kind of recommended limit, beyond which devotion crossed a line and became pathological. 

Throughout the day, Shane’s house transformed. It carried signs of ill health. Tea mugs accumulated, half full and abandoned after naps between doses of cold medicine. Damp washcloths were left draped over the edge of the bathroom sink. Crumpled tissues bloomed in strange places (the bathroom counter, tucked into folds of blankets, inexplicably on the windowsill in the kitchen). 

“How mbady boxes do I have stashed away?” Shane asked hoarsely, blinking blearily at the fresh box of tissues Ilya placed on his lap. “That’s gotta be… What dumber is that?” 

Ilya flattened the empty box in his hands, probably for recycling. “Three,” he said. Then he glanced at Shane, his mouth twitching into a crooked little smirk. “There is two left, but with both of us… I should order grocery delivery, for tissues. And food.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

“Ten boxes of tissues, yes?”

Shane huffed a weak laugh that dissolved into grumbling coughs muffled into his sleeve. Ilya stepped closer and spread a warm hand over his chest, rubbing slowly while Shane coughed himself miserable. When the coughing eased, Ilya brushed his knuckles over Shane’s cheek. 

“You sound so bad, Shane.” 

“You soud worse.” 

Ilya raised a brow. 

“Doh, really,” Shane insisted. “Your cough really does soud bad.” 

“I’m getting better.” Ilya looked Shane over, pursing his lips. “You, well…”

Shane lowered his gaze, fixing it on the corner of the bed. Ilya hadn’t meant any harm, Shane knew, but the truth of it reminded him that Ilya had a life waiting. Soon, Ilya would stop spending entire days wrapped around Shane. He would leave for Ottawa and slide back into the rhythm of his normal life while Shane remained in Montreal. 

It was ridiculous how distressing the thought was, as if that hadn’t been their arrangement for the past couple years. 

Ilya sat on the edge of the bed and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Shane’s mouth, palm cupping under his jaw. 

“You will get better too,” he said softly. “Maybe slower than me, because I am very strong. But your strong boyfriend will take care of you.” 

The joke should have calmed something in him. Instead, emotion climbed unexpectedly into Shane’s throat, hot and awful. 

“How logg?” he asked quietly. His voice strained despite his effort to steady it. “Udtil you go back?” 

“Hey.” Ilya’s expression softened. “Don’t worry about that right now.”

But Shane did worry. He worried because he wanted this horribly domestic version of them forever, wanted Ilya worrying about their stock of toiletries and asking him about grocery orders. He wanted to settle in bed at night without counting down days. He wanted—

“We have time,” Ilya said quietly. He brushed his thumb beneath Shane’s eye, stopping him from spiraling further. “I have to go to Ottawa on Tuesday to see my team doctor. Get cleared for light practice, probably. Maybe play game Wednesday.” He continued slow strokes over Shane’s skin. “So we still have a few days, okay?”

Shane nodded. A few days shouldn’t have felt as precious as it did, but relief still coursed through him. Relief that Ilya would have more time to rest, and selfishly, that Shane would have two more nights not spent alone.

Their conversation dissolved into murmured pillow talk, little sweet nothings and encouragements whispered back and forth until Ilya coaxed more water and medicine into him, and eventually guided him out to the couch with the promise that a change in scenery might make him feel better. 

By late evening, Shane had become part of the couch.

He lay cocooned under two blankets, his head propped up against one end of the couch and his legs resting in Ilya’s lap. A nearly unwatchable slapstick comedy played quietly on the TV, only really on for Ilya’s benefit while Shane dozed between bouts of coughing and sneezing. 

It had been funny at the time, when Ilya actually added ten boxes of tissues to the grocery order, but now Shane thought Ilya had demonstrated great foresight. 

“Huh’EISHH’uh!” His head throbbed with it, and he scrubbed weakly at his nose with a tissue. “Heh-! Hehh’ISHH’iehh! H’ITSHHooh! Ugghh.” 

Ilya assessed, watching him with the same low-level concern he’d been wearing on his face all day. Then, he carefully slid out from underneath Shane’s legs. “I will heat soup.”

Shane answered with another sneeze. 

“After we eat, I think we go to bed.” Ilya stroked his palm gently over the top of Shane’s head as he passed the couch. “You want chicken noodle? Or miso?”

Shane wanted neither. Really, all he wanted was to remove his entire respiratory system, and possibly his musculoskeletal system while he was at it; he was sore in places he didn’t even know he could hurt. But the instant miso cups Ilya bought were small, more drink than meal, and it sounded marginally less miserable than trying to choke down noodles. 

“Mbiso,” he croaked. 

Ilya returned a few minutes later, carrying two cups of instant miso soup. “Sit up,” he instructed. 

Shane struggled his way into something resembling a half sitting lounge. Every muscle protested the movement, but when he accepted the soup, he nearly groaned at the warmth of it in his hands. Ilya drank from his own soup cup while Shane slowly sipped at his. 

He was halfway through the cup when his nostrils flared. The tickle came on so suddenly he let out a strangled sound before he even registered he needed to sneeze. He pinched his nostrils tightly while his other hand reached blindly toward the coffee table, trying desperately to set the soup down lest he spill it all over himself and the couch. 

The cup disappeared from his hand at the last possible second.

“Hh’nnghk’uhh!” The first sneeze was forcibly contained behind his pinched fingers. It hurt everywhere. “Owwwhhuh-hEH’TSHH’iewhh—ISHH’ooh!” 

Tissues were pressed into his hand, and Ilya murmured a soft blessing while Shane groaned miserably as he cleaned himself up. He finished with a thorough blow. By the end of it he felt entirely drained, all the energy wrung out of him by half a cup of soup and three poorly timed sneezes. 

Quietly, Ilya gathered both soup cups, Shane’s still only half-finished, and disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned, he crouched in front of the couch and held his arms open toward Shane. 

Shane, without a word, sank into Ilya’s arms. He allowed himself to be gathered up, Ilya’s arms fitting securely around his shoulders while Shane buried his face against the slope of his neck. He let his eyes slip closed, all tension draining under familiar warmth. 

Ilya’s hand settled against the nape of his neck, thumb moving lazily through the short hair there. “We should go to bed now,” he murmured. “You need sleep.”

“You do too,” Shane countered grouchily, voice muffled against Ilya’s shoulder.

Normally Ilya would have struck back, would have found some way to beat Shane at his attempt to smart him, to tease Shane into smiling just for the sake of it. Tonight, he only hummed softly and pressed a lingering kiss into Shane’s hair before helping him carefully off the couch. 

He held Shane’s hand the entire walk to the bedroom. 

Shane leaned shamelessly against Ilya while they brushed their teeth, side by side at the bathroom sink. At one point, he caught Ilya watching him in the mirror with sleepy fondness, toothbrush hanging from the corner of his mouth. 

“What?” Shane mumbled around toothpaste foam.

“You are very cute when sick.”

Shane rolled his eyes and brushed his teeth a little more aggressively, if only to stop himself from smiling.

When he finished rinsing, Ilya wiped the corner of his mouth clean with his thumb before guiding him gently toward bed. The sheets were cool when Shane climbed in, a relief against his feverish skin. He curled toward Ilya, and Ilya gathered him close instinctively.

Shane rested his forehead against Ilya’s collarbone and listened to the slow rhythm of his breathing. It had deepened noticeably, slow and even. Apparently, Ilya had fallen asleep almost instantly. It struck Shane suddenly that Ilya must have been exhausted. The entire day had revolved around Shane and his temperature, and his liberal use of tissues, and his love of freshly brewed tea. 

Aching with the realization, he tilted his head up and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the center of Ilya’s throat before he let sleep drag him under, too. 

Unfortunately, the flu rendered sleep very difficult, indeed. Shane surfaced abruptly from a shallow fever-dream less than an hour later because a cough caught at the back of his throat. It made his chest ache and his eyes water. 

Ilya stirred under him and passed a sluggish hand over his back. Shane stayed still, listening carefully. He desperately wanted Ilya to get more rest. 

When he was certain Ilya was still asleep, he carefully shifted off of Ilya and onto his back. He swallowed against the soreness in his throat and tried to settle back down, but his sinuses had packed themselves completely shut, as though cotton were stuffed deep into his skull. 

Slowly, cautiously, he reached for a tissue on the nightstand and attempted to blow his nose, one nostril at a time, with the smallest amount of pressure possible. The congestion remained stubbornly immoveable, but somehow his nose was still managing to run. 

Shane sighed miserably and, out of desperation, tore off two small pieces of tissue, stuffing them into his nostrils so he wouldn’t have to wipe at his nose every few seconds. The skin around his nostrils was rubbed raw and painful, anyway.

It felt deeply pathetic, but also incredibly effective. 

For a while, he lay on his back like this, staring into the darkness and trying to ignore the pressure throbbing behind his eyes. It was miserable business, but Ilya was at least sleeping soundly. 

“Hh-hIIH!”

He clamped a hand over his nose, trying to smother the tickle out before it worked into a sneeze, but the congestion only made the sensation worse, pressure building painfully. 

“Hhgh’SHHoo!”

Yeah, that fucking hurt. 

Sneezing while this congested felt genuinely agonizing, the force ricocheting painfully through his blocked sinuses. 

“Hh’GSHHiuh!”

“Shane?” Ilya mumbled drowsily. “You okay?”

Shane was beginning to suspect Ilya possessed some inexplicable biological reflex to react to the sound of Shane suffering. Perhaps a survival instinct, ancient and deeply coded in his DNA. Maybe Russian men had once survived brutal winters by instinctively waking whenever their lovers sounded ill, entire bloodlines preserved through aggressive caretaking and sheer emotional vigilance. 

“Mby dose…” Shane tried to sniff and immediately regretted it when he choked on a cough. 

Ilya made a soft sound of understanding and rolled toward him. Even half asleep, his hand found Shane’s face in the dark, broad palm nice and cool against his hot cheek. 

“Come here.”

Shane shifted closer beneath the blankets, and Ilya’s fingers moved over his face, carefully mapping it in the dark. His fingertips pressed gently beside Shane’s nose, then along his sinuses in slow practiced motions. The pressure hurt at first, making him wince, then slowly began to ease some of the tightness. 

Shane let out a low, appreciative groan.

“Mmh, feel good?” Shane could practically hear the little smile in Ilya’s voice.

Shane made a soft sound, and Ilya’s fingers continued to work carefully in touches more gentle than seemed possible for such strong hands. It wasn’t enough to clear the congestion completely, probably not even enough to be able to properly blow his nose, but enough that the throbbing behind his eyes lessened into a dull, nearly unnoticeable ache. 

“How do kndow how to do this?” Shane asked, bewildered. 

Ilya’s fingers slowed briefly as he answered, “My mother.” 

Ilya was able to say these things, late at night with the world quiet behind sleep and without the bright hours left to expose him. It was like he saved his sadness for the dark, when only its silhouette was visible in the low light, its details swallowed kindly by shadows.

And it had been stated so simply, not an invitation for probing or a request for comfort. It was an explanation, a humble offering of information caught between I trust you with this and I trust you won’t make me talk about it. It was a house of cards, a building without a proper frame, a structure one breeze away from catastrophe—of Ilya falling apart. And Ilya trusted Shane enough to chance it anyway. 

Ilya once had a mother, too. Once, Ilya had been loved freely and tenderly, by a woman who had pressed cool hands to feverish skin and learned the exact places to soothe pain from her son.

Shane could picture it, Ilya’s mother sitting beside him and teaching him care through patient hands, passing her love so ordinarily neither of them knew how important it would become later. People passed, and parts of them continued moving through the world. What Ilya kept for himself, the remnants of his mother’s love, lived on in his hands and was being selflessly handed over to Shane. 

Shane shifted closer, tucking himself warm against Ilya’s chest, and murmured in practiced yet still clumsy Russian, “я тебя люблю.” 

For the briefest moment, Ilya went very still. Shane felt the pause of his breathing, the way his body tightened sharply before relaxing again. Then, Ilya lowered his face into Shane’s hair with a gentle nuzzle. 

“Terrible accent,” Ilya whispered against the top of his head. 

Shane smiled weakly. “Dod’t lie, I’b very good. It’s… It’s just the codgestiod, that’s all.” 

“Wooorst accent.” But Ilya’s arms wrapped tightly around Shane, pulling him impossibly closer, then continued gentle rubs along Shane’s sinuses with his thumb. “But good effort.” 

Eventually, little by little, Shane’s breathing eased. He was halfway to sleep when he sneezed again, suddenly and helplessly right into Ilya’s chest. 

“Hh’ISHHuhh!”

The force of it startled both of them. Then, Shane realized with horror that he still had tissue stuffed in his nose.

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned, mortified. “I’b sorry… This is so gross.” 

He twisted away from Ilya and pulled the damp tissue free, quickly wrapping it in a clean tissue before abandoning it on the nightstand. He had the foresight to grab a few more tissues just to keep in his hand.

Beside him, Ilya laughed softly. “Yes,” he agreed. “Is very gross.”

Shane groaned again, but through a self-deprecating laugh, and Ilya pulled him back into his arms. 

“But,” Ilya continued, sounding awfully fond, “this is also love.”

Something warm spread through Shane’s chest. He pressed the tissues to his dripping nose and settled heavy into Ilya’s arms again, forehead finding the crook of Ilya’s neck on instinct. 

“I could do this agaid,” Shane admitted softly after a moment, voice edging on shy. “Every flu seasod, forever.”

Ilya made a quiet sound against his hair that might’ve been a laugh. “Every flu season? For the rest of our lives?”

Perhaps it was the fever, but he nodded. Shane considered that he was essentially proposing under the pretense of surviving future respiratory illnesses together, which honestly sounded perfectly reasonable to him at the moment.

“I like flu-Shane,” Ilya mused. “He loves me very much.”

“Healthy Shade loves you too,” Shane argued weakly. “Healthy Shade loves you without sdeezig od you.”

“Healthy Shane, sick Shane.” Ilya smoothed his fingers over Shane’s hair in gentle, slow pets. “All my Shanes.”

Love was a lot of things. Sometimes it was bright and cinematic and made Shane think happily-ever-afters weren’t only for fairytales. Sometimes it was mild summers spent in Lanaudière, or puzzles at his parents’ house during family dinner nights. 

He had taken Ilya’s temperature (39.2), made him eat a bit of yogurt (3 spoonfuls, something easy on his throat and to settle his stomach for medication), dosed him up with cold and flu tablets (2) and ibuprofen on top of it (400mg), and got him to drink half a glass of water (to wash down said medication, around 200ml). 

Shane accomplished all of this within fifteen minutes, down to the haphazard notes on his phone for tracking, if only because Ilya was ragdolling around and giving Shane absolutely no pushback. He hadn’t even asked Shane why he was suddenly in his house, feeding him medicine and throwing caution to the wind. It was as if the flu had taken all of Ilya’s essence and left his body behind, flushed and sweat soaked. 

This was much more frustrating than Ilya’s tendency to lean provocateur over passive lover, or maybe it was just that now Ilya was stripped bare and Shane selfishly wanted it all back. 

Or maybe Shane just always had something to complain about.

He surprised himself with the thought. Shane had never been a very introspective person, but Ilya shaped him into more of a human than he’d ever known he could be. It was inexplicable, the power of caring for someone so much. 

I love you, he thought. I love you, I love you, I love you.

“I need to get the sheets changed,” he said accordingly. “Come on, I’ll help you up.”

He leaned in, sliding an arm behind Ilya’s shoulders to help him upright. Ilya seemed awfully uncoordinated but no less made the effort to lean into Shane’s stable hold. Ilya was heavy, muscles whipcord tight in a way that always made Shane question how junky breakfast sandwiches and ice cream could amass into such a body, but Shane was strong too.  

He helped Ilya onto the chaise near the window. Ilya gave a full body shiver, looking uncomfortable and fully absent, his rheumy-eyed stare fixed on nothing in particular. Shane covered Ilya with the throw at the end of the chaise as an afterthought. 

(Ilya wasn’t the type to have an extra set of sheets, and Shane had complained about it just days after Ilya moved in. A week later, there had been three identical sets waiting in the linen closet, courtesy of Ilya caring so much, and three separate hickeys on Ilya’s chest from a thankful and thoroughly loved Shane.)

Shane stripped the bed and tossed the damp sheets on the floor because he didn’t have time to put things in their proper place, then redressed the bed with clean sheets. He did a sloppy job with his shaking hands, but he desperately wanted to get Ilya back in bed. 

“Do you think you can handle a quick shower? Just to rinse—“

“—zZdshooh! RrHh’sSCHuuh! Hh-hehh-gd’schhiuuh!”

Shane turned to Ilya and watched him curl into the thin throw blanket, aiming his sneezes down at it with no real intention other than that his head snapped down with them. 

“Never mind,” he said gently, more for himself. “Bless you.” 

Ilya sniffled in response, a congested sound that made Shane reach for the box of tissues on the nightstand. He pulled a couple out and moved to the chaise, pressing them into Ilya’s hand. Ilya blinked down, only curling his fingers around the tissues.

“Ilya? Hey.” Shane kneeled, catching Ilya’s eyes just for the sake of making sure he was still in there. He took the tissues back from Ilya’s hand and wiped his nose for him with a gentle touch. Ilya’s head tipped forward, following the touch automatically, and Shane couldn’t remember a time he’d ever seen Ilya so pliant. “Alright, bed. You need to be in bed.” 

Ilya made a sound of agreement, a thick grumble sticking in his throat, but it eased Shane’s anxiety by a hairline. At least Ilya wasn’t totally lost to the fever, at least he could still appreciate the idea of resting comfortably.

He kept his arm anchored around Ilya’s bare waist as he guided him back to bed. The fever was doing a number on him, but Shane figured being next to naked wasn’t helping. He got Ilya get settled in bed, propped against the pillows and duvet pulled up to his waist, then set out to find something comfortable for Ilya to wear.

He momentarily considered if it was even worth getting Ilya dressed. He would undoubtedly sweat through any clothes, but he supposed it was much easier to change his clothes than to keep changing the sheets. 

He settled on a loose long-sleeve and pulled it over Ilya’s head, guiding his arms through and tugging the fabric down into place. His fingers brushed over fever heated skin all the while, mentally clocking that he should check his temperature again soon, just to make sure the medicine was at least keeping it steady.

“RRH’SCHOooh!”

“Oh, fuck—“

The sneeze broke loose against Shane’s arm, and the expletive slipped out in tandem. It took a moment for his mind to catch up, to process the sensation, warm and damp against the back of his hand that was still braced on Ilya’s stomach.

And the reality that he was still being sneezed on.

“Ggh’ZDSCHuuh! YhH’SHhh-ISHhuh-ghH’SHOo!”

There was a brief, horrible pause in which Ilya looked at Shane’s arm, then up at his face, and then Ilya’s expression shifted. He looked completely crestfallen, guilty in a way that looked wrong on on him, and Shane hovered his hands near Ilya nervously. 

“Oh, no, it’s—Ilya, it’s fine. You’re fine.” 

Ilya turned his head, still looking stricken, and Shane placed his hands on Ilya’s shoulders. 

“It’s fine,” he said firmly.

“I’b sorr—“

“I know,” Shane cut in, softer but no less certain. Just to prove a point—to both of them, probably, but he would dissect that later—he pressed a placating kiss to the top of Ilya’s head and squeezed his shoulders. “I know, it’s okay.”

Had Ilya not been sick, they probably would have laughed it off quickly enough. Shane would have complained and dramatically scrubbed his hands under hot water, Ilya would have made a joke about the honor of being baptized by a hockey god, but they both knew the parameters were different during flu season. Shane would have been just as, if not more, mortified if the tables were turned. 

“Get some rest.” He squeezed Ilya’s shoulders one more time. “My mom’s coming by soon with some soup. Call if you need me, okay?” 

_________________________

Okay, so he was still dramatically scrubbing his hands under hot water, but he was doing so in the kitchen and out of Ilya’s line of sight. He used a healthy four pumps of soap and scrubbed up to his elbows. His sweatshirt had already been tossed in the laundry room with the dirty sheets.

Feeling sufficiently clean, he sat at the table with the packets and bottles of medication, crosschecking as he set alarms for doses. He was in the middle of searching the maximum dose of ibuprofen appropriate for an adult when his mom texted, indicating she had arrived. 

He tried to make it a quick affair. His mom, for all her good intentions, had a very hard time relinquishing control. He let her ask questions, answered as kindly as he could manage, and rushed her out with a promise to call her in the morning. 

The evening crawled on. He changed Ilya into a clean shirt when the one he had put on him earlier grew too damp. He pushed fluids and kept the bed clear of used tissues. He even convinced Ilya to have a few bites of soup.

Two hours and a few rewetted cool cloths later, Ilya held a cognizance in his eyes that made Shane want to fall to his knees in a belated prayer because he didn’t believe in God, but he could still set his gratitude in places he didn’t understand. With Irina, maybe, and wherever she watched from. 

He hadn’t really planned on sleeping in bed with Ilya because it seemed like an unnecessary (and very germy) risk, but he hadn’t really planned on this evening at all. It was unfamiliar, a little scary, but Ilya made Shane’s muted voice of instinct speak up. So Shane sat up in bed with Ilya, scrolling through an article about the workings of fevers and keeping his free hand on Ilya’s blanket-clad thigh. 

“Hhah’DZSHHooh! Ugh… Snndfff!” Shane wordlessly passed Ilya a tissue even though the box sat between them, within Ilya’s reach. He listened as Ilya blew his nose and continued thumbing over his screen. “Shade?”

“Hmm?”

“Shirt.”

“What?” He frowned and turned his head to look over.

“Hot. Help mbe take this off.” 

“Oh—yeah? That’s good, I think.” He set his phone down and gently swatted Ilya’s hands away from the bottom hem of his shirt, deciding it would be easier if he did it without clumsy, flu-fatigued help. “I think that means your fever’s coming down.”

“Good.” Ilya coughed into his bare arm after his shirt was off. “I hate fever. Terrible.”

“Terrible,” Shane agreed, reaching for the thermometer on the nightstand. “Have you ever been this sick before?”

“Probably. Whed I was yougg, baybe. Dnot sindce... Si’ihhh’hahh—“

Shane had more tissues ready—

“Hh’aAHDZCHUuh! Yhh’HIDDSCHhh!”

—to push into Ilya’s waiting hand, who was anticipating Shane would answer to the call—

“—GDZTCHhuhh-hh’huuh’dZZSsh-ETSCHhoo!”

—of his nose fucking losing it.

“HhehH-HEH’JDSHhooh!”

“Holy shit.”

Ilya blew his nose after Shane handed him another fresh handful of tissues, then again when Shane gave him more. 

“Ugghh. Sorry.”

“No, I just… That just sounded like it hurt. Are you okay?”

“Mby dose is goig to break agaid probably.”

“I don’t think that’s poss—“

“Is a joke, Shade. You thigk I ab stupid? You thigk this fever cooked mby braidn, huh?” 

It was more like Ilya than he’d sounded all night, and Shane kissed him for it. On his forehead, far away from his running nose, but happily. Ilya looked notably happy about it, too.

“I’b really glad you are here.” 

“Me too.”

_________________________

Shane dozed intermittently. He found it difficult to sleep deeply even on an average night, despite his daily dose of the magnesium supplement his nutritionist swore by, and tonight proved to be more of a challenge. 

Ilya was snoring louder than usual, which he couldn’t help, and Shane also couldn’t help the way it ground his nerves to dust. On the other hand, snoring meant Ilya was getting sleep, which he desperately needed if he had any hope of feeling better come morning. Maybe the dichotomy between relief and distress wasn’t so stark, after all. Or maybe Shane was really losing it and could no longer tell the difference between the two.

All he knew was that Ilya was snoring, the feverish heat was so stifling that Shane had done away with his own shirt some time ago, his head was starting to hurt from the lack of sleep, and if he could go back in time, he still would have forgone a quiet bedroom and chosen a two hour drive with all that followed. 

He held onto that thought and kept his eyes closed.

It was nearly four in the morning when Shane woke with a start.

He had been half-dreaming of growling engines, of machines struggling to power on and push through their work, and it all seemed so out of left field until he realized that the grating noise was happening in real time right beside him. 

“Fuck, fuck, Ilya.”

That was a fucking terrible cough. 

Shane reached to turn on the bedside lamp. Ilya was faced away from him, curled in on himself and shaking the bed with it. Shane grabbed at him in a panic, pulling him to his chest to raise him up and firmly rub his back. 

“Ilya, breathe. You need to breathe.”

Which wasn’t likely helpful to say, but if he meant it enough, if it helped even marginally, he would keep saying it until he went hoarse.

“Shhh, shh. Breathe.”

The coughing slowed, but Ilya’s breaths took on a staccato quality, a sign that he was either building up to a sneeze or, worse, crying. 

“Hhuh’ddjshh!”

A sneeze, then.

Ilya’s cheek settled on his collarbone, and Shane finally registered how immensely warm he was. His fever was back up, and Shane felt torn between measuring it with the thermometer and holding Ilya a little longer, at least until his own heart settled.

“You’re really hot, Ilya.” For a brief moment, Shane held hope on the cusp of his breath. He was waiting for Ilya to agree, to make an innocuous joke Shane could roll his eyes at. It was the Ilya whom Shane was trying to carefully coax out of fever.

All he got was another stuttered breath, only this time it was tears that followed.

It broke his fucking heart. He would have preferred being sneezed on again.

He threaded his fingers through Ilya’s hair, smoothing it back just so he could press his cheek flush against Ilya’s forehead. His other arm wrapped around Ilya, keeping him close and holding him in place. He could feel the heat of him sinking into his skin, could feel the gentle stridor of weak crying straight from Ilya’s throat vibrating messages of help me, help me, help me into his chest. 

He held Ilya’s head in his hands, his face against his chest, and he kissed, and he kissed, and he kissed because it was all he could do. He thumbed away loose tears, Ilya’s and a few of his own when he really couldn’t help it. 

“—ihhdj’shh! Nngh’jdshh!”

Shane knew that would keep happening, Ilya sneezing into his bare chest, and it didn’t matter. It didn’t fucking matter, because Ilya was sick enough he was crying about it, and it made Shane feel like his world was crumbling in consequence. He could withstand a little sneezing if it meant keeping Ilya close for the end of the world.

“Ddzh’ishhuh!”

A lot of sneezing, perhaps, but the point remained unchanged.

He checked Ilya’s temperature four times over the course of the next hour, in 15 minute increments, just to make sure it wasn’t getting any higher. He made Ilya take more medicine, made him shiver his way through cool cloths being gently wiped over his neck and back. Ilya didn’t complain, but Shane wished he would. 

It took time, and some patience, and some (all) frayed nerves to get through the worst of it, but Ilya’s temperature calmed. Ilya slept soundly now, and Shane still had the address of the nearest emergency department set on his navigation app just in case. He fell asleep somewhere around the tenth re-check of the estimated arrival time.

Hours later, he woke to Ilya blowing his nose (very loudly, and very obnoxiously), looking pale and bedraggled and still unwell, but noticeably better. 

“Wow, Shade, you look like shit.” Ilya raised a brow, a glint in his eye. “What, could dnot sleep?” 

Shane, with his relief palpable and needing a place to go, climbed on top of Ilya and kissed all over his clammy but much cooler face. “Your—fucking—fault,” he grouched between kisses.

Ilya laughed, coughed, and laughed again. He rolled them over, pinning Shane under him, and trailed quiet thank you’s from the right side of Shane’s neck, over the front of his throat, and to the left. 

_________________________

By Friday morning, Ilya was well enough to lounge on the couch and groan over Shane’s obsessive need to watch tapes of his last game on Tuesday.

Shane had missed optional practice yesterday and was skipping mandatory practice today, with the fabricated excuse of a brand deal commitment and a promise that he would be more than ready for their pre-game practice tomorrow. And Theriault had been more than pissed, tearing into him with you’re a hockey player first and brand whore second, and Shane knew he would be paying for it further tomorrow.

Still, it was hard to feel ashamed about it when Ilya was sprawled over his lap, still sniffly and just slightly flushed, using Shane’s phone because he had wanted a second Clash Royale account to test decks or practice clan formations or whatever he’d rambled on about until Shane gave in. 

“Wait, wait, Shane.”

“Yeah?”

“What is this?”

Shane craned his neck forward, seeing that Ilya wasn’t tapping at the game anymore and was now on his browser. 

“Hey, no! Give me my phone!”

“Oh, no-no-no. No, I must see this.”

“Ilya!”

“This is… Woooow, Shane. This is bad for you even.”

“God, fucking leave me alone.”

“No, I love it. You are so crazy about me, you have to search every crazy question for my health. Medicine dose, even. You know it says on the box, yes?” Ilya laughed, a brazen and wheezy and gloriously happy kind of sound. “You looove me.” 

Shane, aching with something overwhelmingly tender, smiled with a shy laugh of his own. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Maybe in a week’s time he would be back to nagging Ilya over his choice of breakfast, or admonishing him for a second-day wear of his favorite shirt, or something else that didn’t truly matter in the grand scheme of things. He didn’t worry about it, because Ilya would find him human all the same and love him for it. 

Ilya, in turn, would quip back twice as hard. He would find something unrelated to tease Shane about, trying on which insult of the day would make Shane most irritated and wear it proudly, would get on his nerves just to come back with a kiss to make it better.

Sick il/ya fic

Ilya was dragged from sleep by his damn phone going off for the third time in a row. It was past midnight, who the fuck--of course.

“Whatd, what is it, Alexei?”

He snapped into the phone, consonants dulled by exhaustion and congestion. He felt like shit.

“You sound like shit.”

“You kndow whad, fugk you.”

His finger hovered over the ‘end call’ button.

“Dad wants you to call him back.”

“I’mb tryigg to sleeb, cand’t you tell himb-”

“Now, Ilya.”

His brother’s tone caused a pit to form in his stomach. That was not a good sign.

“Fide…”

“Blow your nose, dumbass. He’s pissed enough already and if you talk to him sounding like that, I’ll have to hear about it for weeks.”

Ilya winced, but grabbed a handful of toilet paper. He’d used up all the tissues in the hotel room yesterday, and he’d rather chafe the shit out of his nose than call the concierge to ask for more.

“Okay, I’ll blow before I--”

“Do it now, I’ll let you know when you sound normal enough for him not to notice.”

Ilya’s cheeks heated up, but he was too fucking exhausted to argue with his brother. He set the phone beside him on the bed and started the painstaking process of blowing his aching, overfull nose. He was three balled up stacks of toilet paper into the process when he felt the telltale zing of pain-turned-burning tickle shoot up his sinuses.

“HHHHH? Heh'EISSH! HAGK'SCHIEWW! Hhh’tssSHUuh!! H’tsshuUh!! Hah’AHTSHIEuw!!! huh’ESHHh! ASSHuh! IESHAHH! hHAD’dzZZSshHIEW!! Fug’k!”

Dizzy, he gave a final gurgling blow before picking his phone back up.

“--had 8? Suck my dick, I know his idiot nose best!”

The color drained from Ilya’s burning cheeks when he realized what was happening on the other end of the line.

“Are you taki’gg fucki’gg bets ond mbe?”

He spat, only for his brother to guffaw into the phone.

“Of course we are, baby brother! You’re the sneeziest person I know and your nose never fails to win me money! Now call dad, you still sound like shit!”

The line went dead. He should have known better than to trust Alexei to have anyone’s best interest at heart but his own, but he had a fever to blame for that lapse in judgement.

Your nose never fails to win me money… what the fuck? He thought about the fits he’s had on the ice, had Alexei been betting with his friends on those too? His eyes burned, mortification pooling in his chest and making his teeth ache. He’d always been a sneezy person, a quirk that his father never failed to remind him was annoying and disgusting.

His phone began to buzz. The Colonel. Fuck, he needed a cigarette.

He sniffled and snorted in a futile but instinctive effort to clear his voice before answering, a pang of dismay weaseling into his stomach as his nose tickled mercilessly. After he broke his nose for a second time, his habitual sniffles began to tickle his nose horribly. Usually he could tamp it down and breathe through it, but with this cold virus inflaming his sinuses, he was oversensitized to every passing tickle.

“Finally answering me now?”

“Sorry, papa, I was hhhhasleep…”

“Lazy! After a loss like that, you ought to be running drills overnight with your useless team! You are the captain, make them do better!”

“Hhh… Hehh’DDSHHT!”

“Disgusting, Ilya! You know better than to do that into the phone!”

“I t-tried to turnd…”

“No excuses! You sound terrible, do you know why you are sick again? Because you lack discipline!”

Ilya’s eyes glazed over as his father continued his tirade, mumbling soft apologies every so often. He needed air and a fucking cigarette.

He had to start pinching his nose against the tickles invading every few minutes while his father’s tirade continued until finally,

“I will see you when you return home in a few weeks, correct? And we will continue this conversation.”

Ilya’s heart skipped a beat, dread forming a knot in his stomach.

“Yes, papa. Good n'hhhehhh-night.”

The moment the line went dead Ilya pitched forward and sneezed openly onto the bed several times. His post-fit haze was interrupted by the sound of thumping on the wall beside him. Shit, he’d been too loud again. He squeezed his eyes shut, embarrassment and shame flooding his chest. Too loud, too sneezy, too weak.

He needed to clear his head.

“Fug’k it.”

Until Ilya had woken late for practice to one of his teammates banging at his hotel door. He had slept badly that night, too hot then too cold, tossing and turning over and over. Ilya only really reached REM once the sun started coming up, and by then he should have been getting dressed already. He leapt out of bed and threw on whatever discarded clothes were in proximity. His head was fucking killing him and he was already in a bad mood, cursing as he hopped on one foot trying to yank his sweats on. Ilya missed breakfast, barely made it downstairs for the bus, and simply sucked ass during practice. His head wasn’t in it and no matter how hard he focused on the ice he just couldn’t find the tight groove he usually did. 

By the time practice had finished, he was drenched in sweat and could barely catch his breath. Ilya had a hard time remembering ever being this tired after a pre-game practice on the ice. It soured his mood further, how out of routine he felt. This was not how game days went, especially not game days in Montreal. His headache hadn’t gone away; if anything it felt worse. He snapped at his teammates until they all got the hint and left him alone because honestly the last thing he wanted to do was speak or deal with someone asking him what the hell was wrong with him. Ilya didn’t even know himself what was going on and he’d rather chew concrete than try to put it into English. 

During the afternoon Ilya tried to get back to feeling normal. He ate lunch with his team even though he had zero appetite, he went back to his room and showered, he chugged a couple of water bottles because maybe his problem was dehydration. 

But by the time they were at the stadium in the locker room, he was beginning to think maybe he was fucked. His brain felt slow to process the information around him - English was suddenly so difficult that he stumbled through a rather short, embarrassing pre-game speech before just walking around and giving each teammate a shake or bump of helmets or punch on the arm to physically get them hyped instead. His vision felt a little off, a little out of focus, and god his head was killing him. The sound of the fans in the stadium nearly made him clamp his hands over his ears when they skated out for warmups. 

Ilya couldn’t even get himself to look at Shane. Ilya was pissed off, he felt like shit, and the last thing he needed was Shane to pick up on that. Because of course Shane would. There was no way if he was even a hair off of his usual game that Shane wouldn’t notice and Ilya really didn’t want to fucking talk about it. 

By the time the game was over, Ilya wanted nothing more to be magically transported to his hotel room where he didn’t have to do anything other than shower and sleep for the next twelve hours. 

The Boston Raiders lost by one point, 4-3 for the Montreal Metros. He felt worse and worse as the game progressed. By the second period his throat was aching, not yet raw but uncomfortable when he swallowed, dry and irritated from all of his panting during the game. His nose was next to useless now. Ilya always was sniffly on the ice from the cold of it, but this was a new low. The congestion was bad enough his ears ached and muffled the sound around him. His head continued to pound. His gear felt hot and suffocating and he was constantly wiping sweat out of his stinging eyes. The harder he pushed, the faster he worked his legs, the more nauseated he became. By the fourth period he was benched - somewhere in the last few minutes of play is vision went a little sideways and he just couldn’t keep track of the puck and his coach knew it. Embarrassing. 

Luckily he hadn’t been slammed around too bad, but he still felt like shit and he was pissed that he felt like shit. He was pissed that they lost, and he was pissed that he would probably have to tell Hollander he was coming down with something and couldn’t hook up. Of course. Ilya knew he was an asshole, but not that much of an asshole. But with the way Hollander squinted at him during the puck drop, he might already know. 

Shane gave him a narrow-eyed, calculating look when they shook hands after the match. Ilya had seen him make this face at enough people that he didn’t take it personally, but did make him feel weirdly self conscious in a way only Shane was capable of. Ilya probably looked as bad as he felt. So he got the handshakes over with and skated back to the locker room where he peeled off layers of sweat-soaked fabric and protective gear to shower this fucking night off of him. 

The steam didn’t help the issues he was having with his nose. The congestion began to shift in earnest, and before he knew it he was - 

“Hih’Nxcht! HUH’ngkt! HAh’NXXNGT! Hngh… ”

Damn that hurt. 

It was surprising to him how quickly he was going downhill. His headache has been steady all day, but over the course of just a few hours he had a full-blown head cold. Hopefully. Ilya was really and truly hoping this wasn’t the flu. Either way, his ears were blocked, nose packed full and running, and his throat felt like it was gearing up for laryngitis. Awesome. 

Ilya showered quickly, dried off, and threw on his post-game clothes. He sniffled thickly, wiping his nose roughly with his hoodie sleeve. He’d have the team medic check him out tomorrow if he still felt like this, and either way he had a couple of days before he needed to catch a flight. Right now all he wanted was to just to go the fuck to bed. 

Soon enough he was fumbling with his door key and stumbling inside his hotel room, closing it with a thud and leaning back against it. Ilya closed his eyes and took a deep breath, coughing weakly into his elbow on the exhale. Great. He rubbed his aching eyes and shuffled into the bathroom, rolling a copious amount of toilet paper around his hand and blowing his nose thoroughly. The noise was loud and gurgling, making him wince in disgust. He looked pretty terrible, hair still damp from the shower, face puffy and pale, nose already an irritated red with a mound of makeshift tissues tented around it. 

He took a moment to mop up his nose, but the touch just made him - 

“Hih’AAUSHHuhh! Hur’IESSHuhh! HAAH’DSHOO-INGTSHHU!!”

Ilya groaned afterwards. This cold had just started and he was already over it. He finished cleaning up, dug through his bag for tylenol, and took a couple with several desperate gulps of water. The liquid didn’t really help with the dryness in his throat, just made it sting as it went down his esophagus. He took a whole spare roll of toilet paper to bed with him as he collapsed into it, clumsily sliding it onto the nightstand. 

Ilya was so exhausted, sore and aching, head and sinuses pulsing when he moved. The bathroom light was still on and he needed to set his alarm for the morning. He was still fully dressed. But Ilya was too tired and felt too shitty to care about a single one of those things. 

He did care about one thing though. Groggy and squinting, he quickly pulled out his phone and typed a message to Hollander. 

Lily: Don’t come tonight. We will meet next time. 

Satisfied that Shane both wouldn’t come over and wouldn’t freak the fuck out at his radio silence, Ilya tossed his phone to the bedside table and nuzzled deeper into the starchy pillow, sniffling thickly. He just needed to sleep, just for a little while… 

~~~~~~~

Ilya jerked awake an indeterminate amount of time later to knocking at his door. His phone on the bedside table was vibrating incessantly and Ilya could basically feel the reverberation of it in his skull. He grumbled and swore and swatted at his phone until he knocked it to the carpet, fingers fumbling and failing to tug it towards him. He swore again and pushed himself up on trembling arms, confused and aching and pissed off. 

He really truly now felt awful. He was freezing cold even as sweat plastered his shirt to his skin. As soon as Ilya left the warm pocket of air trapped between the blankets, he began to shiver. His head was pounding and his nose was running already, congestion packed so tight that even sniffling made his face bloom with pain. His throat was beginning to ache properly now after an indeterminate time of mouth breathing. 

The knocking began at his door again, sharp and insistent. The phone on the ground stopped vibrating, then seconds later began again. Shaky, Ilya threw his legs over the side of the bed and wobbled to his feet. He was grateful in that moment he had left on the bathroom light so his balance wasn’t a hazard along with the lack of sight. Ilya, hunched over himself, arms tucked tight around his stomach as if that could ward off the chill, pulled on a discarded hoodie and swiped an arm under his leaky nose after trying and failing to sniffle away the mess.

Ilya didn’t know who was at his fucking door but they were about to regret it. The only thing in the world he wanted was to sleep, and Ilya swears to god if this is one of his idiot teammates- 

The door is yanked open to reveal Shane Hollander, ball cap pulled low over his eyes, standing nervously in the hallway. He had a plastic shopping bag in one hand, the other holding his phone to his ear. Ilya saw Hollander’s shoulders visibly droop with relief as he pushed his way inside. Ilya felt stunned for several seconds, mouth working soundlessly, sluggish sick brain trying to put the pieces together as to why Shane Hollander was here right now. He had cancelled, hadn’t he? Had he dreamt that? Ilya didn’t have time to make sense of it before Shane was shutting the door behind him and sighing in relief. It took several seconds for Ilya to realize he was being spoken to. He felt like he was underwater, vision swimmy, thoughts slow.  

“-really thought someone was going to see me. Are you okay? I’m sorry if you were sleeping. I just wanted to…” Shane trails off, looking nervous and embarrassed in that endearing way he always does when he meets Ilya’s silence with rambling. But then his eyes focus in on Ilya’s face again and his eyes narrow, bottom lip pursed in the prettiest frown Ilya’s ever seen. “God Rozanov, you look awful. No wonder you played like shit tonight.” 

The insult seems to jolt Ilya back into the land of the living. Now it’s normal territory again, back where Ilya knows what song and dance to perform.

“So you have combe here just to insult mbe then?” Ilya has to fight to not cringe at the sound of his own voice. It’s beginning to sound raspy and raw, clogged with congestion. The concerned wrinkles in Shane’s face deepen. 

“No, I just wanted…” Hollander paused for a second, averting his eyes and shuffling nervously, and Ilya takes the opportunity to move this conversation in a less tender direction. Ilya really didn’t want to talk about it, the vulnerability so vile he could feel it on his skin like a physical entity. If Shane got all soft and sweet with him right now Ilya knew he won’t be able to resist it like this. He could not do this, not with Hollander and his worried brown eyes, not while he felt so shitty. 

“You have combe here for a fuck, hm? Are you so unable to resist mby dick even when I tell you ndo?” 

The taunt works and Shane’s eyes snap back to his usual affronted squint he does when someone says something particularly stupid. 

“Stop fucking around, I’m not here to sleep with you. What do you have, the flu?” 

Ilya sniffled before he answered, which proved to be the wrong choice. The congestion shifted inside his already sensitive nose and the burning need to sneeze ignites in his sinuses. After he had broken it for the second time, Ilya’s nose became over-sensitive and reactive, even more than before. So now when he got sick it was always a constant struggle to fight the tingling, burning urge to sneeze. 

He turned away immediately, ducking to try and hide his face in his below. His sinuses were packed full since Ilya hadn’t really thought to blow his nose before answering the door. He felt a small flare of panic, a lick of embarrassment; this was possibly the least sexy thing he could do in front of the one man he found to be the most attractive person on the planet. But still, his breath hitched on a shuddering inhale and his body gave him no choice. 

“Hih’Ngxt! Hd’nGXT! Hngt’NXTSH-KNGT-NGXNT-uh!”

He stifled painfully, jerking forward one, two, five times, expulsions squelchy and squeaking. Thank god, no mess had escaped him. Ilya groaned quietly, face pinched with pain. His pulse roared in his head for a few seconds as the sinus pressure made his ears pop. He turned back towards the bedroom, going straight for the roll of toilet paper on the bedside table. He fumbled with the soft sheets and then blew his nose, going slowly to try to avoid the worst of the pain in his head. Ilya made sure he was presentable before he turned back around to face Hollander, nose beginning to feel raw and chafed from the frequent friction. At least now he felt a touch less clogged.

"Don't do that, you're going to give yourself an ear infection. I can't believe your medic cleared you to play tonight."

While Ilya was busy dealing with his nose, Shane had put his shopping bag down on the desk and was pulling things out of it. Bottles of medicines, sports drinks, water, a can of ginger ale (naturally), and two large cylindrical takeout containers. Ilya's nose was too stuffed up to smell anything, but he guessed from the shape that it was probably soup. Soup. This man was going to fucking kill him.  

"He did not clear me," Ilya grumbled, pulling the hotel room's waste bin closer to chuck the sopping tissue he was still holding into it. Shane whipped his head around to ogle at him, eyes wide and outraged, freckles bunched up adorably. He quickly amended his statement before he got thoroughly chewed out. "I was okay before game, just headache and was tired. I will see team doctor tomorrow. I am okay, Hollander, Russians to not pass out and die just from ti-ihhh-ny coldsihhNGXT! Hih’NGngXT!”

Ilya ducked quickly into his elbow again to squash the angry expulsions there, strangled again into quiet, painful things. 

Hollander just blinked at him as he blew his nose again. At least the blowing helped a little.

"Uh-huh. Tiny."

Ilya refused to feel embarrassed about the call-out. 

"Why are you here, Hollander? I told you not to come yes? We cannot fuck, you will catch this and then you will blame me for ruining your perfect little winning streak." Ilya felt himself already losing the little energy he had from the shock of seeing his rival at the door. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed to look up at Shane, eyes heavy and hot. As if Shane were telepathically tuned into that thought, he stepped close into Ilya's space and put a palm against his forehead. Their eyes met, and Ilya felt his pulse jump into his throat at the zing! of contact. At the gentleness in Shane's eyes. 

Shane must have felt something equally as vulnerable because he pulled away and turned away to open one of the pill bottles on the desk, ears red. Ilya tried not to mourn the contact. He really did feel pretty awful, head aching, throat sore, snuffling and miserable and cold. 

"Well, I correctly assumed that you're shit at taking care of yourself. And I... wanted to see you." Shane admitted the last part softly, like he was unable to get his vocal cords to raise the volume past the nervous lump in his throat. Shane opened one of the boxes, pulled out the bottle inside, and then disassembled the box to fold it flat. Always so neat. "You probably have a fever, by the way."

Ilya was helpless to the smile that worked its way onto his face.

"Ah, so you do think I am hot." 

Shane huffed and smiled softly, shaking his head.

"Shut up, Rozanov. You're not funny." He finished with his unboxing and counting of the pills he had brought, four capsules in the cupped palm of his hand. "Have you taken anything?"

Ilya leaned back on his palms, bed creaking beneath the new distribution of weight. He still kind of couldn't believe this was happening. Shane Hollander was here in his hotel room to feed him pills and soup and play nurse. Ilya hadn't even told him he was feeling bad, hadn't said much during their game together, and hadn't even been terribly symptomatic during the time he was on the ice. To anyone else he was just playing shitty. Was it that Hollander only had to look at him to know? Did Shane see the differences in him the way Ilya could see the differences in Shane? When Shane was playing on a tweaked ankle, when he pretended missing a goal didn't bother him, when his eyes just barely flashed anxiously while answering interview questions that were just a little too personal. Did Shane watch him like Ilya did? 

Ilya took a deep breath, then stopped the train of thought where it was. He didn't need to be thinking of that when he was so tired and unwell, when his walls just weren't as strong, when he simply didn't have the resources to keep them tall. 

"Umb," Ilya said, clearing his throat and turning away to cough weakly. "Tylenol only." 

"Good," Shane said, holding out the handful of pills with a bottle of water. Ilya felt his heart do a insubordinate little flutter at the praise. He took the pills into his own palm, chasing them down with a swig of water. The bottle was cold, recently refrigerated, and it made him shiver. "This will fix you up. And it's nighttime too so it should help you sleep. I checked Boston's schedule so I know you don't fly out for a few days. If you have practice in the morning, don't go." 

Right as Ilya was going to tell Hollander to fuck off and that he wasn't Ilya's boss and he could go to morning practice if he wanted to (he very much didn't), the itching from earlier came back to his sinuses full force. He brought up the back of his wrist to his nose, breath gasping. 

“Hih’HnGT-nGXT-HNGKT! HAH’ngHHXT!”

He suppressed them as well as he could, unwilling to make a mess, to show further proof of his illness. To try and make it as small as possible.

Shane frowned at him again, eyebrows pulling together in displeasure.

“Seriously, Roz, knock it off. Stop doing that." 

Ilya snuffled into more toilet paper he had pulled off the roll. "Doing whadt." He blew his nose with a painful honk before tossing the tissue into the trash. If anything he thought maybe Hollander would appreciate his attempts to keep his germs to himself, to be less gross. Shane was always so put together, so neat and tidy, so very much the opposite of whatever Ilya was right now and Ilya very clearly felt the imbalance of it. It made him feel a mix of embarrassment and self-consciousness and shame he didn’t often feel outside of interactions with his father.

"Holding them in. Your, uh, sneezes," Shane said, suddenly looking sheepish. "You'll make yourself worse. Or, like, explode your brain. It must hurt to stifle them." 

"Whatever," Ilya grumbled, crawling further onto the bed and leaning his aching head against the headboard. He didn't love the idea of sneezing with a very full nose in front of the guy he fucks every other month, but Shane was right. It did hurt to stifle them. "You did ndot have to do all of this." 

Even as he said it, Ilya was grateful Shane had come. It warmed something inside of him, that Hollander had thought of him, had noticed something was out of place, and had showed up unasked to fix it. Ilya struggled to remember a time someone had done this for him, especially without being asked. He couldn’t. The last person who must have done this for him was his mother, and he really didn’t want to think about that right now. It was a strange feeling to be grateful and content and miserable and exposed all at once.

Shane looked away with a half shrug, cheeks heating. God, he was so sweet Ilya could barely handle it.

“I wanted to.” Again uncomfortable with his own nervousness, Shane retrieved the takeout containers and dug around in the bottom of the bag for a pair of spoons. “Are you hungry? I brought soup. I don’t know what you like so I just got miso? It’s what I usually get when I’m sick but if you don’t like it-“

“Hollander.” Ilya smirked softly. Even sick and drippy and gross he couldn’t help the swell of affection in his chest. It was so Shane to fret so much, even about his rival, the guy he sometimes has sex with. Ilya had never had another hookup in his life care about him like this. Or look at him the way Shane sometimes does. “I’mb sure is fine. Bring here, we can eat.”

Ilya wasn’t really hungry at all, but an excuse to keep Hollander in his room was something he couldn’t make himself pass on. Shane just nodded quickly and fumbled with the food and utensils for a second before getting it together while Ilya took him in with hungry eyes.

They ended up side by side on the bed, bad hotel TV on, eating soup mostly in companionable silence. Ilya drank his soup while Shane ate his with a spoon. It was actually pretty good despite having no desire to eat, simple and savory and salty. The food was enjoyable, but the steam almost immediately made his nose begin to run. He sniffled through it for a few mouthfuls before the congestion shifted just so and ignited the tickle in his sinuses. Again.

He had just enough time to set his container of soup on the bedside table before he was snapping forward with several body-shaking sneezes.

“Hah’ADSCHH’uhh! Hih’ISHH’OO! Hih’AAUSHHuhh-EIISH’UU-RUSSHH-HA’DZCHHH-IEWW! Nghhh.”

He remembered at the last minute Hollander’s instructions to not hold it in. He was glad for it - even letting loose still made pain shoot through his sinuses and into his temples. Ilya didn’t want to know what the agony of stifling right now would feel like.

Ilya felt a little winded, a touch dizzy as he pulled away from his elbow. As he reached for the now half-used roll of paper on the nightstand, he saw there was a smattering of wet droplets on his hoodie sleeve. He felt himself blush a bit as he scrubbed at his sleeve with the tissues and blew his nose. But when he risked a glance over at the man next to him, Shane was looking at him with a little proud smile pulling at his lips, eyes soft and warm.

“Better,” Shane said before turning his attention back to the TV, still smiling.

Ilya for the first time felt too flustered to reply. That, and he was still exhausted and sick and his brain was slow. That’s why he just finished cleaning up his nose and turned back to the TV. It was just the cold medicine making his face warm, making his heart pound.

Ilya managed to finish most of the soup which he was rather proud about. He was glad that he was able to eat despite his lack of appetite, if only so Shane would be happy about it. And it was clear that Shane was; he made a little satisfied noise in his throat when he got up to throw their trash away and saw just an inch of broth left in Ilya’s container. And to Ilya’s great surprise, once Hollander finished tidying up, he got right back into the bed, just a touch closer than before.

Now full of warm soup and medicated, Ilya began to feel his eyes droop. He wanted more than anything to have just a little longer of this, a little more of Shane’s company, a little more of the creature comforts he usually denied himself. But sleeping off how terrible he felt was a close second.

Shane, of course, was quick to notice.

“Meds working already?” He looked at Ilya so sweetly, eyes soft, little concerned crease in his brow. He reached over again and felt Ilya’s forehead, then brushed the backs of his fingers against his flushed, warm cheek. Ilya sighed and leaned into it, sniffling thickly.

“Mm. Amberican medicines are insande. Is like I amb dreaming while awake.”

“We’re in Canada right now.” 

“Mmph. Whatever. Ndorth Amberica, is sambe thing.” Ilya yawned hugely and nuzzled down into his pillow, blinking slowly up at the man in his bed. Shane moved his hand up to play with Ilya’s hair. Ilya was rather enjoying it before he had to jerk away into his sleeve with another set of sudden, intense sneezes.

“Hih’IhhtSHUU! Hah’HRISHH’oo! HA’SESHHUH!”

He coughed and sniffled wetly after, eyes watering, head pounding, vision wobbly from the medicine. “Sorry,” he rasped, already turning away to clean himself up. His face felt hot with embarrassment, shame, vulnerability. His head swam as he tried to sit up.

But Shane just frowned and pulled Ilya’s face back towards him with a cupped hand.

“Don’t be. I’m sorry it hurts.” Shane’s fingers skidded across his face, gently pressing and massaging the swollen passages of his sinuses. Ilya shut his eyes so as not to cry. He felt both raw and soothed simultaneously as Shane moved his warm thumbs to trace firm circles at Ilya’s temples, slowly easing the ache there.

Ilya felt himself deflate against the pillows. He was well and truly in the depths of a nasty cold, but he was somehow the most content he had been all day - and he was also on the verge of tears. Shane Hollander was absolutely capable of making him feel complicated things. He was nothing but putty under Shane’s hands, helpless as the haze of cold medicine pulled him under.

“Is okay. You mbake it better.” Ilya was sure he was slurring, and maybe not even entirely sure he had spoken at all. Shane’s fingers froze at his temples for the smallest of moments before they began their ministrations again, somehow even more tender than before. Eyes drifting closed, Ilya let his body relax fully as the fuzzy sensation of sedation washed over him. Promptly, he fell asleep.

Whatever pills Shane had given him had knocked him out more than properly, but some time later Ilya was sure he felt the quick press of lips against his cheek before Shane whispered a soft ‘Goodnight’ just inches from his ear.

Ilya would wake alone the next morning, which was not a surprise. But it did make him smile when he saw all the supplies Shane had brought him lined up on the desk with a note set neatly before them.

Don’t go to practice! Stay hydrated!!