Ghost

Shane sighed loudly, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He’d parked the car close to five minutes ago, but had yet to get out. His gaze drifted again to the occupant of the passenger seat. The reason why he had yet to exit the vehicle echoed the sigh obliviously, though his was more blissful than frustrated, a single golden curl falling unnoticed down in front of his eyes.

The Canadian bit his tongue in frustration, and tried pointedly clearing his throat instead. He watched in disbelief as Ilya merely shifted his position against the window, and continued to sleep. Like he’d done for the entire drive. Like he needed to stop doing if they were going to get into the arena on time.

Shane was one of the only people he knew who had superstitions that extended to practice. Most players couldn’t imagine their actions having implications beyond game day, but for him, almost everything to do with hockey had a ritual or two to go along with it. And one of them was that he would not get out of the vehicle first at the arena. For a game or for practice, at home or away, a car or a bus, it didn’t matter. His feet would not touch the concrete until someone else’s had first. And right now, his husband was stubbornly refusing to be that person.

“Ilya.” He snapped, finally, internal tension reaching breaking point. The blond stirred.

“Mm?”

He was practically vibrating with anxiety, routine delayed for slightly too long, mind allowed to wander a little too far, unable to be brought back by the sweet, sleepy face of the man he loved, now turned towards him in curiosity.

“We need to go in.” Shane reached across and unbuckled his seatbelt for him, smacking up the passenger side sun visor, and accidentally allowing the light that Ilya had been shielded from, to hit him smack in the freshly-awoken, squinted-shut eyes.

Ilya blinked forcefully, recoiling, looking reproachfully at his husband as his breath caught sharply, hands outstretched with palms raised in a wordless ‘why?’.

“hKk! KKh! hKh! hKSH! kSH! KShuh! KSHUh! hihhAhKSHOo!”

“Sorry.” The brunet reached out to take his shoulder, brow furrowed in remorse, gut twisting in self-criticism at his impatience. “Bless you.”

“Agh.” The Russian emerged from the collar of his sweater. “Why you do this to me?”

“I know, I’m sorry. I just wanted us to get in faster.”

“No.” Ilya met his gaze, faux serious. “You don’t know. You sneeze two-” He held up two fingers, “-times and done. Me?” He sniffled, half his face drawing up in response to the itch. “A million. Is so much worse.”

“Okay. I don’t get it, you’re right. Can we please go in now?” He was starting to get a bad feeling about this practice, and a bad feeling today meant maybe a bad feeling tomorrow and they had a game tomorrow and-

“Yes.” Satisfied by his victory, Ilya leaned across and kissed him, pinning him back against the headrest for a moment, before opening the door and stepping out, gesturing to his feet on the floor pointedly before shutting the door. Shane rolled his eyes. As if he didn’t have a million things that had to go just right before the game as well.

…

They were the first in, as usual, despite the small setback in the parking lot. Shane sat down in his stall to wait for the rest of the team to start filtering in, scrolling through emails on his phone. Ilya stood by his neighbouring stall, rifling through his bag for something. It was hardly surprising that he’d lost whatever it was, his bag was a fucking mess, everything shoved in at random. He’d find it eventually.

Now that they were actually in, and the most important ritual had been completed, he was significantly less tense, looking up to briefly greet each player as they entered, the blond also emerging from his bag each time to acknowledge the new arrival.

The rookie was about the eighth person through the door. He headed straight for Ilya, fingers tight around his bag strap, clearly on a mission.

“You see the second goal last night?” Haas blurted before he was really close enough to be in what most people would consider to be casual conversation distance.

Ilya turned to study him for a moment. “Yes.”

“A beauty, right? I really want my backhand shots-” Shane tuned him out for a second as he felt a sudden tickle in his nose, like there was something tiny, feather-light, stuck in there. He pressed down on the affected nostril with one subtle knuckle, sniffed quietly.

And he was hit, startlingly forcefully, by this at once familiar and totally impossible to place scent. Where had he- It took him less than a second to realise. Because, though he couldn’t name the scent itself, the growing burning itch in his face quickly let him know where he knew it from. He was allergic as fuck to whatever this was. Something he’d only encountered a few times, but each had been notably devastating, the worst having been when the allergen was distilled into some kind of perfume… Shane scrunched his nose at the memory of the cramped store, the endless sneezing and coughing and watering eyes and itchy everything for close to 36 hours afterwards. Please for the love of fuck don’t let the kid be wearing that.

Luca, still talking animatedly about the specifics of the goal, stepped closer to get out of the way of Hayes, inexplicably carrying- three bags? It was just the one practice- and then closer again as the goalie turned and headed back towards the door. Shane blinked harshly, the air feeling uncomfortably close around him, full of the scent of whatever bioweapon the rookie had thought it pertinent to apply to his entire body that morning. Beside him, Ilya coughed lightly, apparently also having noticed the overwhelming aura of scent surrounding the younger player.

The brunet tensed as his nostrils flared, the itch absolutely overwhelming his nose. There was no way this was going to fade away on its own. He stood abruptly, pocketing his phone as he sidestepped Haas, half-holding his breath, and headed for the door.

He hadn’t really realised that his eyes were fixed on the floor until they were snapping up, a loud clattering sound echoing from in front of him.

“Jeez, buddy, what’s with all the luggage?”

Hayes had bumped into Dykstra right as the defenseman had been entering, all three bags, and various personal effects that Shane could only partially identify as belonging to the goalie, strewn across the floor.

They both crouched to begin clearing up, totally blocking the doorway. Shane’s heart started to race. He had to get the fuck out of here. He had to get out NOW.

But there was no way out. He knew that either of the players would probably move if he asked, but he wasn’t sure he could ask without his respiratory system rebelling in a pretty concerning way, and he really didn’t want to draw that much attention to himself.

So he turned, moving quickly back to his stall, tense and anxious and angry, fiddling with the jersey hanging there just to look like he had something to do, and mentally screaming at Luca to finish the fucking conversation and move away so he could have half a chance of regaining his ability to breathe.

“hhT-” He half-gasped, clenching his jaw aggressively in the wake of the small slip, resisting the urge to shudder at the nauseating sensation of dragging cool air in through gritted teeth. But he couldn’t breathe through his nose right now. That would be a surefire way to lose immediate control.

A glance over his shoulder showed him that he was still trapped, Hayes having paused in his clear-up to explain exactly why the day’s practice had necessitated three bags- Shane couldn’t hear why over Haas and Ilya, who’d now transitioned into a spirited argument about luck versus skill- and the rookie still half a pace away, inadvertently suffocating him.

The brunet took another small breath in through his mouth, thrown when it caught in his throat, and a small cough escaped him before he could control it. Panic rising, he unzipped his bag, rifling through with Ilya-like frenzy to retrieve his water bottle, and swallowing a few desperate gulps. The feeling faded, and he dropped his head to his chest, breathing heavily, anxiety and allergy amalgamating.

The angle made his nose run. A sudden, tickly little rivulet trickling down the inside of his left nostril, threatening to drip onto his shirt. He wrinkled his nose, sniffled on instinct. Horrible mistake.

“hHhihhHiHHehhehH-” The breath was sudden, overwhelmingly uncontrollable, and startlingly erratic. He bit down aggressively on his lower lip, halting the unexpected hyperventilation, shoulders hiking slightly in case he’d been noticed. A ridiculously ineffective defence against the man standing next to him.

“What is it?” Ilya had taken him by the wrist, leaned in so Luca couldn’t hear him, though he still faced outwards towards the rest of the locker room. Shane could see his focus flitting between him and the other players, checking they weren’t being watched, knowing how much Shane would hate it if they were.

“Nothing.” He breathed in response, on instinct, far too stressed to think of how to convey what was happening to his husband right now.

“You are having panic attack in locker room. Is not nothing. What is it?”

“Not panic.” Shane frowned, shaking his head, before reconsidering. “I mean yes, panic, but-hihheHh!” He bit his tongue this time, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to force the feeling away.

“Shane.” Ilya drummed his fingertips against the underside of the brunet’s wrist.

“Sorry, fuck.” He raised his other hand, pinching his nostrils shut as his breath caught again, “hhhHT-!” After a moment he sighed it back out again, and let go, lest anyone look over and notice the rather obvious pose. “Remember that time I bought you that fucking-” He paused as the inhale between words scissored ominously, “-candle that smelled like me?”

“Yes.” No lewd comment, clearly the Russian was as focused as he on getting to the point as soon as possible so they could get on the same page about what was plaguing him.

“And in the shop there was something tha-hh-at-”

“That fucked you up so you sneeze to death in car.” He finished the sentence for him. It hadn’t been exactly what Shane was going to say, but yeah, that was a pretty accurate way to describe the event.

The brunet nodded. “It’s here.”

“Here? In locker room?”

Shane nodded, avoiding eye contact as aggressively as he wanted to avoid a confrontation resulting from the words he was about to utter. “I think… I think Haas is wearing it?”

…

The words sent a wave of negative emotions over Ilya that was so powerful that his chest ached with pressure and his vision whited out for a moment, half-baked thoughts flitting through his head in a swarm of multi-directional blame. Fucking of course the rookie would pick the one fucking scent that- Jesus Christ, how the fuck had he let Shane describe that experience to him and then forgotten to further investigate the cause- He was such a bad fucking partner, Shane knew every one of his allergies and meticulously avoided them- Fuck, and he was his captain as well, so twice the responsibility to- How long would his husband have suffered without saying anything if Ilya hadn’t- He thought they were over the whole hiding health stuff- There was no way he was about to let this happen in front of the whole team, it would kill- He needed to get Shane the fuck out of there. He needed to get Haas the fuck out of the way.

“Move.” He whirled back around to face the younger man, whose eyes widened in shock at the sharp command.

“What?”

“Move, get the fuck back.” The captain stepped menacingly towards him, still speaking in a low tone, so as not to catch anyone’s attention. He could see his husband hunching in on himself out of the corner of his eye, barely visible little jerks betraying the rapidly decaying control he was attempting to exert over his immune system.

Luca stumbled back a few steps. “Sorry. Did I say something-”

“Stay.” He pointed at him firmly, before moving back towards Shane, shielding him from the rest of the room as he leaned in. “Hey, is okay, you can breathe, yes?”

The brunet nodded, breathing shallowly through his mouth as he kept that death grip on his nose. Ilya could see tears beading in the corners of his eyes, the sight feeding the seething, boiling, protective rage in his chest, whether the cause was the allergen or the stress of the sudden onset reaction, he hardly cared. He would fix this.

“heHNGT! hNGGTt!”

“God bless you.” His hands and arms ached with tension, wanting to reach out and cradle his husband, pull him in, let him come apart in his arms. But he knew that would draw the focus of everyone in the room, and only make Shane more uncomfortable, so he forced himself to remain close but not touching, watching over him.

The Canadian threw a quick, terrified glance in between their shoulders at the door. “Can’t get out.”

Ilya looked too. “I can move them. Stuff is almost gone anyway. Just one more minute, moya lyubov, then you can get out.”

He nodded, resigned, hand moving back to his face again as he ducked, slightly towards the blond, apparently grateful for the cover. “hNGTt! hhehHNGTch!”

“God bless-”

“Is Hollander okay?” The words cut through the calm Ilya had been trying to embody, through the quiet hubbub of the rest of the room, through the illusion of normality.

He spun around, Shane moving further into his stall in his absence until his head was almost hidden in his jersey. Haas stood, closer again- fucking disobedient little- innocent frown on his face, totally unaware of the rest of the locker room, now also attuned to the captain, behind him.

“Yes. Is fine. Everything is fine. What the fuck is your problem?” His original approach of aggressively neutral denial collapsed halfway through, confrontational nature rearing its head.

There was silence for a moment, as everyone processed the question, and the harsh response, and Luca tried to disappear into his own body like a turtle.

Then, “hNGT!”

In the stillness of the room, the small jolt of the only person who wasn’t facing the rookie and the captain ‘s shoulders, accompanied by the tiny strangled sound, drew pretty much everyone’s attention. And even if that hadn’t…

“hNGTt!” Shane was by no means done. “heHNGTt! NGT! hNGT! NGGTt!”

Another moment of silence. And then,

“I tell you stay, and you move! You can not follow instructions. And you never hear of minding own business?!” Ilya made a valiant attempt to drag the attention away from his husband, by letting a little of the vat of anger in his chest, explode in the catalyst of the attention’s direction.

“I just wanted-”

“No! You do not talk back!” It was a good fucking thing this argument was in English, because he was starting to sound disgustingly like his father.

“What’s going on Roz?” Boodram stepped between the two of them, eyes trained on the captain.

“He fucking- he- agh!” The words were just not there, the tentative nature of the accusation and the stupidities of the English language combining to form an impenetrable barrier to communication. “What the fuck is on you?” He decided to just ignore the intermediary and return to his interrogation. “Is new cologne or what?”

“Uh-” Haas also looked like he was suffering from a case of ‘the words not being there’, panic clear on his face. “I have- like, new soap? Natural stuff, is that-?”

“That is why you smell like this?”

The younger man flushed, “Uh, yeah?”

“Cap.” Hayes had also moved over towards the epicentre of the argument, leaving Dykstra alone in the doorway, picking up the last few things from the floor. “What’s the problem?”

Shane helpfully summarised the issue with a desperate, “heHNGTDSHh!” that echoed around the room, so conspicuous that it almost made Ilya visibly cringe in sympathy.

Realisation dawned on the other players’ faces.

“Alright,” Bood’s hands were on the rookie’s shoulders, steering him away as he showed no signs of moving on his own, mouth open, eyes flicking back and forth between Ilya and Shane. “Let’s give him a bit of space, yeah?”

“I didn’t mean to-”

“hTDSHHuh!”

…

Both hands clamped over his lower face, Shane considers why there couldn’t be a second, secret exit in the back of his stall, for times like this when he really needed to get out of the locker room but was trapped in. He could hear Ilya cursing under his breath in a long stream of angry Russian as he guarded the brunet against the return of the rookie. It didn’t really seem like Haas wanted to return, as far as Shane could tell, Bood had him on the other side of the room, and Ilya’s death stare was pinning him there.

“hehMPHh! hNGT!” God this was fucking embarrassing. He would give anything for the ability to teleport, or turn invisible right at that moment. “heHNGTCh! hNGTCHh!” Invisible and inaudible.

His breath hitched again, painfully shallow in the small space afforded by his aggressive grip on his nose and over his mouth. Dragging in oxygen between his fingers like this almost made him dizzy. “heH…hEHMPHh! hMPHh!” He felt like it would never end. Like Ilya would never turn around and realise he needed him, he needed help, and like he’d stand here with his hands over his face until he suffocated. “heHMPHh! hHNGTXCHh!” Ugh, okay, now he was definitely going to keep his hands over his face until he suffocated.

Shane hadn’t really noticed that he had his eyes shut until something unidentified nudged against his arm. He looked over, panicked, to the side that wasn’t shielded by his husband, to see Hayes standing there, holding out a towel. Seeing his predicament, the goalie tucked the towel over Shane’s arm, patting his head affectionately, before turning his back to him, as though he were the net, forming a shield on the other side, so he couldn’t really be seen from the rest of the room.

Unspeakably grateful, but still in unspeakable discomfort and distress, the brunet snatched the towel from his arm and buried his face in it. He blew softly in short itchy snuffles of breath that had barely any chance to be effective before his breath was catching sharply, dragging some of the material into his mouth. The sensation barely deterred the reflex for a second.

“hEhTSHh! TSHh! hTSHh!” He frowned in frustration, though the expression was quickly wiped away by desperation again. Why were they so small and ineffective? It felt like they were only making him more itchy. “hEHTChh! hheh..”

Blindly, desperately, already feeling himself flagging, the exhaustion of stifling and holding back, and panicking, and the fast, useless sneezes, starting to creep up, he reached behind him, trying to find Ilya. He could hear the blond yelling at Haas to go to the showers, the rookie trying fruitlessly to apologise, and an animated conversation in the doorway as Dykstra caught who Shane was pretty sure was Barrett up on what the fuck he’d walked in on. He couldn’t find Ilya’s wrist and he was pretty sure he looked like a fucking idiot, towel over his face, hand waving around behind him. How the hell could he get Ilya’s attention? There was absolutely no way he was capable of speech right now, and whatever voice he could muster would surely be drowned out by the chaos in the rest of the room anyway.

“hEhTSh! TSHH!” Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone here. “hehh…” Shane gripped his nose aggressively through the towel, holding the sneeze back, but letting the need build. “huhhEh…” He ran his tongue hard across his teeth, using the pain to get the tickle to cooperate, fighting the urge to just let it overwhelm him and hope that those uncharacteristically small useless expulsions would rid him of the feeling. “hhEHEH…” At last the feeling swelled enough to drag his lungs to full capacity against his will, chest trembling with the force of the breath. God, this was stupid. Maybe he could just breathe it back out again and hope that Ilya would turn around in his own time, preferably before Shane passed out.

But he was too far gone, forced to reap what he had sown, the brunet could only control himself for a few more agonising seconds, holding his breath, pressing the towel to his face so hard he was sure there would be visible marks if he ever let it go, and listening to his husband obliviously yell in what felt like slow motion. And then-

“EHhESCHhOo!” It sounded nothing like him. It sounded like a half-tired, more Canadian version of the end of one of Ilya’s fits. It sounded kind of like his fucking dad, actually. Shane’s ears rang in the half-second of silence that followed before, “hiEHTDSHHuh!” It bent him double, sent him stumbling into the wall of his stall, made his whole face flush in embarrassment, and actually reduced the tickle in his nose to almost nonexistence.

“The fuck are you looking at?” Ilya’s voice rang out immediately afterwards, yelled at the room at large, before the blond pressed up against him, hands on his waist, head over his shoulder, trying to get a good look at his face. “God bless you, moy malen'kiy vulkan, are you okay?”

“No.” He managed. It felt like he should have used his singular word allowance to convey some slightly more important information, but all he could really think right now was how was it possible to be this itchy? and what would it do to Ottawa’s rep to have him die in the dressing room before practice?

“Okay, you’re okay.”

He really wasn’t, but it felt good to hear that anyway. Like if Ilya believed it, maybe a little bit of him could believe it too.

“hEhh…” He resisted again, rewarded for his efforts with a sharp pain high in his nose that made his eyes flood with tears.

“Let it out.” Ilya had pulled away, one hand on his lower back, the other… Shane could hear him fumbling around with his bag, shoving stuff around, and then the zipper being tugged across. He was getting ready to leave. They were finally going to get out of there.

“hTSHh! TSHhuh!” The blond’s hand migrated to the back of his neck, thumb stroking softly at the nape of his neck as he retrieved Shane’s bag as well.

“God bless you.”

“hTCHh! hihEHTCHh!”

“God bless you.”

It didn’t feel like he could actually sneeze the itch out, the sensation almost stuck between the layers of skin in his face, burrowing its way into his pores, his sinuses, his skull. Like it was as much a part of him as the hair on his head. Every breath, every movement, every muscle that tensed or relaxed, made the feeling flare. Every sneeze made it fade ever so slightly, before it grew back stronger than ever. His neck was starting to hurt from having his head ducked towards his chest, and his shoulders hiked up protectively. He felt almost weak at the knees with the effort of trying to expel the irritant. Like the tiniest push would send him tumbling to the floor. Also, he was really starting to hate the feeling of pushing all of the air out of his lungs.

“hNGT! heHH…hNGTt!”

Ilya tapped him lightly on the back of the head chidingly. “Budʹzdorov. Stop that.”

There was a tiny chuckle from somewhere else in the room. Not spiteful, more endeared, familiar, amused. But it made Shane’s stomach clench all the same, and it made Ilya-

“What the fuck is funny?!” He’d taken several steps away to confront whoever it was, and the Canadian felt his absence like all his clothing had been removed, unprotected, vulnerable, alone.

“Il-hNGT! HTSHh!”

“No, you laugh, so what is funny?!”

“hTSH-TSH! Ily-ahHTSHh! hTCHh!”

“And you are all staring like rude fucking… fuckers, you have nothing better to do?!”

Ilya’s tirade was abruptly interrupted, “What is going on in here?”

Blinking burning, watering eyes in the direction of the door, Shane somehow managed to identify Coach Wiebe, standing in the doorway, surveying the chaos. His view was immediately cut off as his breath hitched and he automatically raised the towel to cover his face again, ducking into his stall and hopefully out of sight.

“hNGT! NGT! hNGT! hNTSh! TSHh!-”

“Roz, your guy’s kind of dying over here.” Hayes muttered, no sooner having finished the sentence than Shane felt a familiar hand on his back again.

“Sorry, moya lyubov. Is okay. God bless you.”

“hTSHh!” Shane continued, with no way to interrupt himself to actually convey anything meaningful back to his husband, “hEHTShh! TSHh! TSHhuh!”

“Rozanov? Boodram? Someone tell me what’s going on, please.”

“Hollander’s having a reaction to the rookie’s soap, coach.” Bood informed him, evenly. Shane buried his face further into the towel, breath still scissoring, hoping that the ‘if you can’t see them, they can’t see you’ rule would somehow apply here.

“Hollander?”

The brunet pinched his nose through the towel again, desperate not to respond to his name with another sneezing fit. Ilya’s arm stretched protectively across his shoulders. He held his breath. Footsteps crossed the room towards him. Please no, please just let him leave without confronting him in front of the entire fucking team.

His lungs were burning. He had to breathe, he had to-

“H-” The coach was clearly just about to call his name again, but Shane beat him to it.

“hNGT! hNGTSHh! hehh…hTDSHH! TDSHh! TSHh! TSHh!” Oh God, he couldn’t stop, he was never going to stop, he was running out of breath and he was never going to stop sneezing and- “EHTSHh! hhihhh…hihHEHTCHh! hEHTDSHh! hIEHTCHheW!”

“Fuck.” Was Ilya’s input, too thrown even to bless him, apparently.

“Jeez. Okay, Roz, back it up, I’m not going to do anything, I just want to check on him.” Even the explosive fit hadn’t deterred the coach, apparently, as Shane heard his voice move closer.

“Is okay.” The Russian whispered in his ear. “People are leaving.” And then he pulled back, and Shane was alone, in the corner, with his back to the coach like the fucking Blair Witch.

“Hollander, bud, can you just turn around so I can get a look at you?”

Obviously that was the last thing he wanted, but the possibility of getting a look at the remaining occupancy of the room, and a potential clear path to the door as an escape- although they were probably all out in the hallway, weren’t they- was pretty enticing. Besides, Ilya was gently pushing on the shoulder that was closest to him as though he was a fucking revolving door or something.

He turned, face still hidden mostly behind the towel, eyes on the floor. He could only see his own, Ilya’s, and the coach’s shoes, so either everyone else was huddled just out of his peripheral vision, or they’d actually left.

“Okay.” Wiebe stepped closer, pulling gently at Shane’s wrist to get him to move the towel away. “What are we working with here?”

The brunet sniffled miserably, trying not to set himself off again, but also trying not to let his nose run down his face in front of his coach.

“What is it that you’re actually allergic to?”

“We do not know.” Ilya answered for him. “Has only happened two times.”

“More than two.” Shane muttered, immediately thrown by his utterly destroyed voice, the Russian apparently thrown by the words themselves if his sharp head turn was anything to go by.

“Alright, maybe that’s something we take up with the rookie later. For now, let’s see about getting some heavy duty allergy meds into you. I’ll go talk to the trainers.”

“Practice-.”

“-is cancelled.” The coach finished calmly. “I’m not sending you or the rookie out, I doubt he’ll be able to skate straight, the way that Roz was yelling at him. And if I’m not sending you, I can’t send the captain, and if I’m not sending Haas, I should leave Bood with him. And if I’m not sending either of those two, what’s the point in sending Barrett? And so on and so forth until I have no one to send out. So-” He paused, so Shane could-

“heHTSHh! hhehh… hTDSHhew!”

“God bless you.”

“Gesundheit. So, practice is cancelled, and you two should head on home as soon as you get cleared by medical. Alright?”

He nodded. Ilya thanked the coach for the both of them, Wiebe patting the brunet on the shoulder before heading out of the locker room to inform those lingering in the hallway of the schedule change. The blond started gathering their bags again.

Shane stared into space while he waited. The itch was in his chest now. Not his lungs, just like somewhere between his ribcage and his skin, it felt like. He coughs, and the feeling buzzes, but doesn’t change. It hadn’t been that annoying originally, but now, knowing that he had no power over it, it was suddenly agonizingly uncomfortable.

The Russian thrust his water bottle at him, swinging the bags over his shoulder. “Drink. Breathe. Then we go see trainer.”

…

One dose of the most hard-hitting allergy meds the medics could find later, they were on their way out of the arena. Ilya was running over and over the information he’d been given about side effects, next doses, and allergy testing in his mind as they walked. He held the door open for his husband, and then stepped out after him, immediately squinting in the bright sunlight. Normally he donned his sunglasses for the lighting transition, but obviously today he had other things on his mind, so-

“hKk! Kkh! hKk! hKSH!” In trying to keep walking, the blond inadvertently stumbled over his own feet, the weight of the two bags dragging him forwards, and he almost fell down entirely, before Shane lunged in front of him, taking his weight. “hKSHh!” Ilya twisted away from him, although he almost definitely caught the brunet’s arm in the subsequent spray, “hKSHh! KSHh! hiHSHh! hhih…haHKSHh!”

“Bless you.” The Canadian sounded exhausted, and Ilya felt his stomach twist in guilt for having thrown his entire body weight plus the two bags at him, even if it had been an accident.

“Thank you.” He kissed him on the temple, sniffling as they started to walk again.

They’d barely made it thirty more seconds before Shane slowed to a stop, mouth falling open as his eyes fluttered shut.

“Fuck, wait-” The blond fumbled in his pocket desperately for one of the handful of tissues he’d taken from the physio room. He managed to retrieve it, and slapped it into his husband’s hand just in time.

“hEHTSHh! hTDSHhuh!”

“God bless you.”

Shane blew his nose softly, glancing at the tissue as he folded it to put into his pocket. “Thanks. You forget these when you were sneezing all over my arm a minute ago?”

“Fuck off.” Ilya felt his heart pick up in relief at the jab, a clear sign that his husband’s condition was improving.

“You fu-uhh-” They repeated the routine, the Russian frantically trying to extract a tissue from his pocket and press it into Shane’s hand in time, the Canadian absently folding it and pressing it over his nose and mouth before folding forwards with, “heHTCHh! EHTSHew! hTCH! Oh-” The extra sneeze clearly surprised him as well as Ilya, as the tissue had moved away from his face a good ways by time time it appeared, “-hihEHSHh!”

“God bless you, god bless you.” The blond snaked an arm around his waist as they started to walk again, leaning across to press a kiss to his cheek. “You will be okay by next practice?”

Shane’s brow furrowed, as though he hadn’t actually thought about the concept of the next practice, just surviving that one, “Yeah, no. After the entire team saw me like that? I’m literally never going back.”