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Ilya rolls his eyes. The game shouldn’t have gotten anywhere near overtime, let alone beyond it. Colorado were six games without a win going in, and their starting goalie was out. Boston should have wrapped it up easily, but something wasn’t working tonight. Nothing was wrong, but nothing was especially right either. Perhaps it was just that this was the second of their back-to-back away games at the end of a ten day road trip – and fuck whoever scheduled that – so the whole team was exhausted, but the Raiders’ plays failed to connect as often as they succeeded. Marleau and Hammersmith never seemed to be quite where Ilya needed them to be; they’d probably have had the same gripe about him.

Jane: Just watched the highlights of your game with Colorado. Good job in the shootout.

So yeah, Ilya did do a good job in the shootout, but only after playing the kind of game that his father would have had some choice words about, once upon a time. Mediocre. Second-rate. Lazy.

Still, he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.

Ilya: There is nothing to do in Denver, so good we made it a long game

The reply is almost instant.

Jane: I think Denver is ok.

Ilya’s response almost writes itself. Of course Hollander thinks Denver is “ok” because it’s boring like him. Come on, Hollander, you are giving me an empty net. But then Ilya pauses. The speed of the replies means that Shane is somewhere awake with his phone. But it’s 11:30pm in Denver, which means that it’s 1:30am in Montreal. Way past good boy Shane Hollander’s bedtime.

Ilya: You are up late Jane: Can’t sleep.

There are a hundred ways for Ilya to reply to this. Someone keeping you up? So what else are you doing in your bed, all alone? But his fingers are typing without him really telling them what to do, which almost never happens when he messages in English because he still has to think so fucking stupidly hard about every sentence. Now, however, his body seems to have bypassed his brain: his text back is an automatic nervous response that he can’t fully control.

Ilya: Everything ok?

For a few moments, nothing appears on the screen. But Shane must have his phone in his hand – he’d been so quick to reply to every other message. So he’s thinking about what he’s going to say. Well, ok. Actually talking to each other is still a pretty new thing. Ilya can be patient.

The dots appear, then disappear. They flicker on and off again a few times. Then, the message suddenly arrives.

Jane: I’m sick. I think I can tell you that since we’re not playing for another two weeks.

Even as Ilya is reading the message, the dots dance again.

Jane: Don’t tell anyone. I got sent home from practice and told to stay home and not let anyone see me, in case Pittsburgh finds out.

For fuck’s sake, Hollander. Who would he tell? And how would he explain knowing this very specific bit of information about Shane Hollander’s immune system? Ilya grins, as his thumbs tap out a response.

Ilya: Too late. I already tweeted that you are texting me from your bathroom floor. But I will cancel the Instagram post I scheduled. Jane: Ha ha. Very funny. Jane: But not that kind of sick. I just have a cold.

He has a cold. He just has a cold. How strangely intimate that Ilya knows this. It’s the kind of mundane detail that he always wants to know about Hollander, like the colour of his bedsheets, or how he takes his coffee, or whether he got stuck in traffic on the way home that day. The kind of knowledge that most people have about the person that they’ve been fucking for years – all right, the person they are probably in love with – without even thinking about it, but that Ilya can only ever acquire by accident. Every time one of these details about Shane falls into his hands, Ilya wants to tuck it away in some secret place where he can possess it forever: how Shane folds his clothes before he gets into bed, that he wears glasses for reading.

So Shane Hollander has turned him into a сорока – he’ll look up the English word later –  collecting tiny, glittering scraps and hoarding them jealously in its nest.

Because he’s tired and grumpy about the game, either of which on its own could put Ilya in the mood for some self-flagellation, he considers that it’s not normal to find yourself in this deep, for this long with another person without seeing them sick. Hollander must have been sick a handful of times since they’ve known each other, maybe more. Maybe he’s  one of those professional athletes who combines being super fit with having a terrible immune system – it happens more than people think. Or maybe he gets sick at the same time every year: right after the playoffs end and his body can finally give out, or around now, when the seasons are changing and spring becomes something more certain than a promise. And maybe Hollander has never really noticed these patterns in himself, and he’s never had anyone else to notice them for him. No one to brush his hair back from his forehead, and say, моя любовь, you always catch the worst colds this time of year.

But that won’t happen because you are going to do the right thing next time you meet. You’re going to end it - right after the next time you play Montreal. No more hotels, no more sexting, definitely no more phone calls. Two weeks. That’s all.  

The problem is that Ilya can picture exactly what Shane would look like with a cold. He’d be a little paler than usual, with a slight flush on his freckled cheeks. His stupidly cute nose would be red at the tip from tending it with tissues (far too polite to use his sleeve, of course). He’d allow himself a nap in the day time, and so his hair would be mussed up – kind of like the way it often is after Ilya’s finished with him – and he’d wear those button down pyjamas that Ilya always imagines that Shane wears to bed, maybe with a sweater over the top if he’s chilled and can’t stay warm. And he’d make himself tea – green, probably, or camomile, something caffeine-free and healthy – and he cradles the mug in both his hands, so that the steam rises up, and makes him sniffle.

Ilya lets himself linger on the image he conjured for a few moments, stretching an arm up behind his head as he readjusts his position on the hotel bed, and it’s then that it strikes him. He doesn’t only have to imagine it. Because, since that last trip – last ever trip – to Russia, there is something else that they’ve allowed themselves to do together. And ok, that time it was just for sex, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be for other things too. Because he talks to Hollander now, too. They’re friends.

Ilya: Did you want to Skype? You’re awake. I have hotel room to myself.

Nothing, for a moment, and then dots.

Jane: Sure. But I’m kind of gross. Ilya: I will try not to run screaming Jane: Fuck you.

Ilya grins to himself, and then pulls his iPad from his bag to send the video call request. It rings once, twice and then…

Shane’s face appears on the screen and, oh, he does look sick. In the low light of his bedside lamp he looks… well, exactly like Ilya had imagined he would: pale, tired, a bit sad, and like someone who has spent the better part of the day with a tissue pressed to his nose. The rectangle of the iPad screen frames his face in landscape, dark hair teased across the pillows he’s piled against the headboard of his bed; he must have propped his own device up on the bedside table. The close-up highlights the dark shadows under his eyes and the skin rubbed raw at the tip of his nose. Somehow, the pink flush on his cheeks makes his freckles even more beautiful.

The one detail that Ilya had forgotten was Shane’s glasses. Is he wearing them because he’s been reading to distract himself, or because the cold is making his eyes sore and his head ache? At first, the light bounces off the lenses, masking the dark eyes underneath. But then Shane sniffles and adjusts his position slightly. When he looks at his screen again, their magnification makes his liquid brown eyes even larger and easier to get lost in, even now, when they’re actually liquid: damp with tears, red around the rims, and a little bit swollen, as though Shane has just been rubbing them.

In his mind, Ilya presses a screenshot button, saving this image and filing it away with all the others he has of Shane as he’s pretty sure no one else has ever gotten to see him.

“Hey,” Shane says. He sounds as bad as he looks, his voice lowered and scuffed by his cold.

“Hey.”

Silence.

It’s not that there aren’t things Ilya wants to say. You look fucking awful, Hollander. No wonder they sent you home from practice. Did you know your nose is twitching like a little bunny rabbit? Is someone looking after you? And he’d be able to say them in Russian; make the words sound teasing but not cruel, caring but not sappy, tender but not vulnerable. In Russian, he could make Shane feel better without dropping his own guard. But English is too complicated, and so Ilya doesn’t say anything at all.

Hollander blinks first, an anxious look creeping into his liquid eyes.

“You’re not really going to run screaming are you?”

“No…” He lets himself draw out the syllable, making Hollander wait for what will follow. “But you were very stupid to go to practice.”

In the rectangle frame, Shane’s face visibly relaxes, his lips quirking upwards into a half-smile.

“I am not joking, Hollander.” He keeps his mouth stern but hopes that Hollander can see that his eyes are teasing. “Is not good captaining to die in front of your teammates. Sets very bad example to the rookies.”

Hollander laughs at this, and then seems to immediately regret it when it sets off a damp congested cough. He smothers it into the sleeve of his – yes, Ilya called it – Metros sweater, even though there’s no one there he could possibly infect.

“Don’t,” Hollander protests, congestion dulling his consonants. “Theriault already tore me a new one. Asked me what the fuck I thought I was doing turning up too sick to skate.” He sighs, and sniffs. When he wrinkles his nose, his freckles cluster and constellate like stars.

Hearing Theriault’s remarks sparks a tense feeling in the back of Ilya’s neck that he recognises as irritation. All right, clearly Hollander was too sick to skate. And Theriault wasn’t known for pulling punches; “old school,” was what a winger who’d been traded from Montreal to Boston had called him, which pretty much tallied with what Ilya had seen himself across the benches. Still, a little sympathy for his most valuable player wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Oh well. Ilya would make Theriault’s team pay for that when Boston played Montreal.

Now, he asks, “What did you think you were doing?”

“Hiding that I was sick.” Hollander sniffles again in a way that sounds truly miserable without being self-pitying. “I was doing an ok job until I stepped onto the rink and sneezed four times in a row.”

Probably not an ok job, not possible really, not if Hollander looked anything near as bad as he does now. And so Ilya takes a moment to redirect his anger towards the rest of the Montreal Metros for not telling him to go home and sleep it off. You’d have had to be… well, you’d have had to be Hayden Pike not to have noticed how unwell Hollander was.

“Are you benched for the game?” he asks. Hollander shrugs.

“I don’t think they’ll decide until Friday. I can probably shake this thing before then. They just don’t want it to get out that I’m sick to, um -” Another sniffle. “I think Theriault’s phrase was ‘to avoid unnecessary speculation’.”

“Unnecessary speculation that you are about to die?”

That earns half a laugh from Hollander. “You know how it is. People post all sorts of shit on Twitter.”

That was true. Ilya had once made the mistake of going to buy a new suitcase, and someone took a photo and put it online; by the end of the day at least three of his teammates had texted him to ask if the rumour was true that he was being traded. 

“So yeah,” Hollander adds, filling the silence. “I’m not going anywhere for the next couple of days.”

He reaches up under his glasses to pinch the spot on the bridge of his nose where they rest. Ilya feels like his heart literally squeezes in his chest. Shane’s head must hurt. He looks so tired. If Ilya were a better person, he’d wish Shane get well soon, and hang up, to let him try to get back to sleep. But he’s not.  

“You feel like shit?”

“Um…” Hollander pauses for a moment, and Ilya thinks that he’s going to deny it. But then, perhaps because less than a month ago, he’d listened to Ilya being a sad sack in Moscow, he doesn’t. “Um, yeah. Pretty much.” Hollander sighs, and shakes his shoulders, as though some internal voice just told him to pull himself together, and adds, “I just… I hate when my nose is blocked, and then I can’t sleep because I can’t breathe right, you know?”

Ilya does, indeed, know. As far as he knows, he’s definitely broken his nose three times: once from a high stick, once when playing football – ironic – and once as a result of a punch that he deserved. But there had been at least a couple more occasions when a broken nose was a strong possibility but the hospital visit didn’t seem worth it. All of which had left him with a nose that is very crooked, and mildly congested at the best of times. It’s nothing more than an annoyance, except when he catches cold (thankfully not often) or when something irritates his nose (more often than he’d admit). Then, breathing through it became… well, exactly what Shane is dealing with now.

“You have taken medicine?” Ilya asks. “American stuff works - or knocks you out until your cold is gone.”

“Well, I’m Canadian.” Hollander’s smile is smug, teasing; the kind that makes Ilya want to pin him to the bed, cold or no cold. “No, that stuff makes me feel weird. I took some Tylenol and a decongestant the team doctor gave me.”

“Did it help?”

Hollander seems to be genuinely thinking about the question. “Maybe? I - ”

At first, Ilya wonders if Hollander has stopped mid-sentence because the connection is bad, which would also explain the frozen, distant expression in his eyes. But then those eyes narrow in something like panic, and Shane’s perfect nose scrunches upwards, and Ilya works it out. He’s about to sneeze.

Logically, he must have seen Shane Hollander sneeze before. On the basis of probability alone, it would have happened at some point. He and Hollander have known each other for nearly ten years, give or take. It’s a lot of time. Time on the ice, and time in press conferences; All-Star weekends, and Vegas Awards nights. Time that Ilya has spent studying Hollander in VT sessions he feigned boredom through, in YouTube highlight reels he deleted from his history, in that fucking ESPN documentary that he definitely hadn’t watched over and over. And the time they’ve spent alone together? Two weeks, maybe, if you added it all up.

So don’t add it up, you fucking idiot. Arithmetic is not supposed to be a gut punch.

Enough time, then, to see someone do something as mundane as sneezing. Except that, although Ilya is sure it must have happened, he can’t actually remember it happening. Which makes it very, very important that Ilya is now going to be able to add it to his Shane Hollander collection.

The videocall creates a strange proximity even though they’re really so far apart. The screen frames Shane’s face, showing every eyelash damp with tears, every twitch and wrinkle of his unfeasibly straight nose. The only other time that he’s this close to Shane is when they’re facing off or fucking, and yes, he understands the significance of this pairing – he’s not fucking stupid. 

And there aren’t many chances left to be close like this. Hollander must know it, too - that this thing can’t go on much longer. It’s gone on long enough. There’s only one ending and it’s stupid to prolong it.  So he should take this moment, add it to a collection of memories that will fade when they don’t even see each other a few times a season, when Shane Hollander will just be a name alongside his own in the record books, and whatever they had together might just as well have never existed. 

And then, just as Shane snatches a quivering breath, there is a sound like the movement of fabric, and the screen goes dark.

What the fuck? Has the iPad run out of battery? It was fully charged when he turned it on. Perhaps it crashed? But then the darkness on the screen ripples a little. Not dead, then. The screen is still on, the device still connected to the call, the camera still showing what’s in front of it. So Hollander must have – what, thrown something dark over the top of it? No, not that. As Ilya’s eyes adjust, he can see the outline of something vaguely Hollander shaped shuddering underneath what must be his blanket.

“hh’Tchhheuwh!!”

“Hollander?”

“huh-ISHHeuwh!”

 “We are playing hide and seek now?”

“Isshhhh!... huh-IESHhhh’eugh!” Those two are harsher. Not loud, precisely, but strong, as though Hollander’s body is determined to use all of its superior aerobic capacity to rid itself of the germs that had broken down his carefully maintained defences.

“You are very bad at hiding.”

“Fugck off.” They were followed by what sounds to Ilya like the rustle of some tissues, and some very damp snuffling noises.

“You ok in there?” he asks, half-amused, half-concerned.

From the blankets comes a noise that falls somewhere between assent and a groan. It’s followed by more snuffling before the pile manages to speak. “Sorry, I was gonna mu’dte when thad happened. Save your ear drumbs.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. Hollander’s sneezes were not loud, especially not through tissues and a blanket-cocoon. Ilya spends his time with hockey players: a giant breed, not known for their attention to hygiene or decorum. He’s heard worse.

“I think I can survive your sneezes.” More silence; the blanket doesn’t move. “Are you going to hide in there all night?”

“Baybe?”

“Hollander…”

“Ok, doh.” The blanket-pile gives a heavy sigh. “Bud I really need to blow my nose, so I ab going to put you on hold.”

“You don’t…”

 “One seg’ond…”

The blanket shuffles again. A clattering sound rattles through the speakers, loud enough to make Ilya wince; maybe Hollander knocked the nightstand. Then, the sound cuts and a green pause sign looms on Ilya’s screen. All at once, the room is quiet and empty – just him, alone with his thoughts. Far too many thoughts.

“Hurry the fuck up, Hollander.”

For something to do, Ilya moves the iPad from where it’s balanced on his thighs, knees drawn up to the ceiling, to his own nightstand. More comfortable that way, he’d have said, if anyone was there to ask. But it also means that he can lie on his side and look at Shane, who will look at him, so that it feels like they’re lying next to each other. Then, Ilya can believe, just for a moment, that if he stretches his fingers out then he will press through the screen and touch Shane – smooth down his hair, and tease out the headache from behind his forehead like there aren’t thousands of miles between them.

He reaches a finger forward and lets it hover just above the glass, just as the pause sign disappears and the screen goes black.

Ilya’s first thought is that Hollander has hung up on him. But then a voice, small and far away says “Ilya?” and it takes his breath away. A second later, the screen flickers, pixels reorganizing themselves, and Hollander appears again. The pink spots on his cheeks are brighter, and his hair is ruffled in different directions.

“I’m here. You ok?” Ilya adds, before he could think better of it.

Hollander nods. “Sorry about that.” His voice sounds clearer, but not altogether steady, as though blowing his nose has left him a little breathless.

“Is fine. You are sick,” Ilya says, pleased when Shane gives a small, shy smile of acceptance in response. “Is someone bringing you food while you are under home arrest?”

Shane’s eyes sparkle, which is enough to tell Ilya he’s got something in that last phrase wrong. Fucking English. Still, Hollander clearly finds it charming enough. Maybe he can make a few more mistakes before their call is through.

“Hayden offered, but I’ve got stuff in the apartment.”

“No, that is your team meals. You need soup – sick person food.”

On the screen, from far away in Montreal and right here in the room with Ilya, Shane smiles.

“You’d bring me soup, Rozanov?” he asks, sniffling softly.

“Sure. What kind do you want?” Shane’s smile gets bigger, warmer, and it’s such a rush, making him smile like that, that Ilya presses the joke further. “Might be cold when it gets there from Denver.”

It’s only once he’s said the words that he realises that the joke wasn’t supposed to be funny because he’s in Denver. It was funny because Ilya Rozanov doesn’t send soup to his hook ups when they’re sick. Shit.

But Hollander probably doesn’t notice because he’s too busy ducking under the blanket to sneeze again.

“huh?- ISHH’euhhh!... huh’IISHHhheuh!”

“Будь здоров.” He knows the English phrase; doesn’t use the Russian one unless he’s with another native speaker. But he pulls it out now because Shane said he likes it when Ilya speaks Russian – it’s sexy, is what he’d actually said – and Ilya aims to please. It does seem to pull Shane out from under the covers a little quicker this time. His eyes are still damp with fresh tears, and he still has tissues pressed to his face. Taking his moment, Ilya changes the subject. “Your mom, she will come to take care of you?”

Hollander wipes his nose and scowls, which is strange because it’s not weird of Ilya to think she’ll be there. Hollander’s mother always seems to be there, when Boston play in Montreal, and when the tv cameras flick to the audience in Hollander’s home games. His dad, too. But Mrs Hollander is the presence; she’s the one that people make space for, the one whose hand they shake first. And she seems steely, determined, disciplined like her son, but Ilya also sees the warmth with which they embrace, how she lets her hand rest on Shane’s elbow when they speak, grounding him and guiding him. She seems like the sort of mother who would turn up when her only child was sick - yes, he knows Hollander doesn’t have any siblings. The kind of mother who would turn up even when that child is now a two hundred pound hockey god, even when it meant driving two hours from Ottawa - yes, he remembers where they live - even when it’s just a cold.

Hollander apparently disagrees, because he’s shaking his head.

“No, fuck off. I didn’t call my mom to come tuck me in. I’m not eight years old.” He pouts and adds a note of indignation to his sniffle, both of which are quite eight-year-old things to do, but Ilya doesn’t mention that. Then Shane’s expression crumples and he groans again. “She’ll probably just know I’m sick by tomorrow, though, so I guess she’ll want to come and make sure I’m eating or whatever. How do moms do that – just know stuff?”

The question grips Ilya’s body like a vice, forcing the air from his lungs, and that, in itself, is unexpected. The sharp arrows of other people talking like this don’t usually pierce his armour these days; he can withstand the casual way that they dismiss the generosity and kindness of their families. Anyway, he gets it. He remembers when his own mother’s fussing was humdrum, even annoying. He remembers telling her to go away, leave him alone, stop hovering so much. He also remembers when she did stop hovering so often, and then when the hovering stopped for good. But reminders don’t usually hurt like this.

Hmmm. His father did just die. Perhaps his body is learning how to absorb that loss, like the blood that pools and swells near the skin in a particularly nasty bruise. Or maybe it’s because he’s tired and his team played like shit tonight. Or maybe it’s because Hollander is saying these things and, deep down, he’s glad that Shane can just brush off how much his mother loves him, and how she’s still there to love him, and Ilya hopes it’s a long time before he has to know otherwise.

Anyway, this is a normal thing for Hollander to say. Normal people talk about their normal, not-dead mothers like this all the time. So he doesn’t get to be weird about it. And with that thought, Ilya swallows down everything that seems to be rising in him, shrugs and says, “I don’t know.”

There’s a beat, and then Ilya gets to witness the exact moment that Shane realises why Ilya doesn’t know.

“Oh, fuck, Rozanov – Ilya – I didn’t… Your mom… I shouldn’t…”

“It’s fine,” Ilya says quickly, because Hollander doesn’t know the half of it and it’s not a conversation they are going to have right now, on Skype, with two hours, a land border, and a few thousand miles between them. Also, he’s supposed to be cheering Hollander up, and right now he’s not doing a very good job of it.

And so, yet again, it’s time for a clever bit of work with the puck before he passes the conversation back over.

“How many goals are you going to score against Pittsburgh?” Ilya asks.

Shane smiles, though Ilya can tell it’s mostly relief that his misstep didn’t land harder. But it still makes Shane’s reddened nose wrinkles, and his watery eyes crease at the corners, and it’s tooth-achingly sweet.

“Two,” he says, like he’s already planned out the plays in his head, can already see the back of the net catching the puck as he scores them. He probably does all that visualization shit after he finishes his wholesome yoga on his beautiful deck, which Ilya, for the record, has only watched five times, and definitely doesn’t ever think about when he jerks himself off.

Ilya tuts. “Scott Hunter got two against them last week, and he is twice your age. You should score at least four.”

“He is not twice our age,” Shane says, rolling his eyes theatrically as he presses a tissue to the underside of his nose again. “Hunter’s having a good season, isn’t he?”

“We beat them,” Ilya reminds him. “But yes. Sometimes he plays good hockey. For an old man.”

“Do you think he’s got a new regime or something?”

“I think he is having some very good sex,” Ilya replies. Mostly because he knows it will make Shane squirm – which it does – but also because it has the advantage of being true. Since Christmas, Hunter has had the look of someone getting a regular railing, lucky bastard.

“I cannot just believe you just made me think about Scott Hunter having sex.” Shane is pouting again but through the glasses and the tears his eyes are smiling.

“What do you think his sex face is like?”

“No! No! Stop!” Shane’s stuffy nose makes his shouts of protest impossibly cute, and he’s laughing now – no, giggling. Ilya’s never heard him giggle before, and all he can think is that he wants to hear it again.

“Like this I think?” And Ilya pulls the most grotesque imitation of a sex face he can imagine, eyes half-closed, head tipping back, mouth open, tongue teasing across his lips. He’s not going to make Hollander come this evening; the least he can do is make him laugh.

“Fuck no, Rozanov!” Hollander yells, only with his sore throat, it’s more like a choked squeal. Ilya stores the memory, so he can wheel it out for an impression next time he needs to rib Hollander about something. That how you talk dirty to me, Hollander? He doesn’t need to do that now because Hollander is laughing so much his eyes are watering, though that probably doesn’t take a lot right now. And Ilya is laughing too, and it's so nice to be laughing, to be silly like this after the game and his father, and the fucking shit show of a funeral and…

Hollander’s laughter catches and halts, and a familiar, pained, itchy, expression crosses his face, as looks down desperately, and then pulls up a tissue that must have been from a box just out of frame.

“No hide and seek this time,” Ilya says calmly, firmly. Shane looks nervous for a moment, lips parted, nose twitching, as his hands hover at his chest, tissues open over both of them like a prayer book. But as his eyes flutter closed, he does as Ilya says.

“uhh’ITSCHhh’ghh!” His head snaps forward into the waiting tissues, palms pressed tightly to his nose and anchored on his cheekbones. He holds the tissues in place, through another quivering inhale. “hehh?... iiIH’CHHHhheuh!!”

Shane exhales unsteadily, pinches the tissues around his nose and carefully rubs and lowers them. He opens his eyes for just long enough to throw Ilya a look that is both mortified and brimming with apology, even though there’s no good reason for either. But there’s barely an instance before Shane’s breath catches again.

“hhIHh’YISShhh’EUhhh!” Stronger again, the tissues and his hands barely muffling the sound. Strong enough to pull a breathless, “Ohmygod…” from Shane before the final sneeze hits. “hihh?--JIHHishhh’EUHh!”

The sneeze is strong enough to drag his whole upper chest forward, and snap his head sharply towards his chest. The sigh that follows tells Ilya exactly how exhausted he must feel.

“Будь здоров.”

“You said that before.” Shane has snatched up a fresh handful of tissues, and pressed them roughly up against the underside of his nose again. “What does it mean?”

“Be healthy,” Ilya replies.

“Ok. Well. I’m trying.” Shane’s mouth is set, but eyes are twinkling; Ilya feels the corners of his own mouth turning upwards.

“It’s what you say in Russia when someone sneezes,” he explains.

“Like, ‘bless you’?”

“Yeah, like that. But makes more sense.”

It’s Shane’s turn to smile at this.

“I guess it does,” he agrees. “Tell me how you say it again.” Exhausted as he is, Shane’s eyes are wide, eager. If Ilya didn’t know better, he’d think Shane had a pen in his hand, ready to take notes.

Ilya says, slowly and deliberately, “Будь здоров.” And then he adds, because it’s useful information and because he wants Shane to know this, “Is the informal version. What you say to a friend.”

Shane’s eyes sparkle, and then, diligent student that he is, he repeats, “Bud-zdor-rohv.” His eyebrows furrow adorably as he strings together the unfamiliar syllables. Ilya tucks the image away in the vault, along with the thought that maybe he, Ilya Rozanov, is the sole witness to the one thing at which Shane Hollander isn’t instantly perfect.

Except, of course, it is. He is. Perfect.

Shane must notice Ilya’s smile because he adds, “Was that bad?”

“No,” Ilya says, softly, truthfully. And then, because he needs to pull this game they’re playing back under his control, he adds, laying the accent on a little thicker, “Your Russian very good. You go play in KHL next season. Make many roubles.”

Hollander rolls his eyes.

“I think I’ll pass, thanks.” He scrunches his nose and closes his eyes, and for a moment Ilya thinks he’s going to sneeze again, but instead, it’s a large yawn that he smothers behind his fist.

“I am boring you?”

Shane blushes at this. Jackpot.

“Ngh… Sorry.”  Shane takes off his glasses, and carefully folds back the arms before reaching out to place them somewhere beyond the frame. “Just tired.” He sighs. “But also all… stuffed up. And itchy. Like I’m going to sneeze a billion more times.”

 Моя любовь, are your colds always like this – all in your nose? Do they always make it hard for you to sleep? Come and lie on me, prop your head up, you’ll breathe more easily. Now tell me how you’re feeling. Tell me what helps. I want to know it all.

“You should try to sleep,” is what Ilya actually says.

“I know.” Shane sighs. “But trying to sleep and failing is the worst.”

Yes. Another thing Ilya knows too well. But there are late night drives on the Pike for that, out into the stony and unyielding Massachusetts countryside and the huge dark forests that he’s rarely seen in daylight. There are night clubs, too, and hook-up apps, even if he’s lost his taste for the latter lately. None of these are useful suggestions right now, and none of them have actually cured his insomnia. He knows what the cure would be, though, and if he can’t ask for it himself, he can at least offer it to Shane. 

“Want me to stay on the call?” he asks.

 Shane sniffles, and says, sweetly, “You must be tired though. Long game.”

Ilya shrugs.

“Is ok. Not tired yet.”

Hollander looks so grateful, and it’s almost unbearable - the distance between them, the inevitable ending that they’ve only been delaying all this time, the impossibility of it all, and how much, despite all that, he wants it. Not just what they have now - though Ilya would take it, a lifetime of it - but what in his wildest, stupidest fantasies, they could be if they weren’t who they are. 

He and Shane stare at one another for a moment – or, that is, they stare at the screens that contain each other. The glass they can’t reach through; the thing they can’t touch.

“Could you talk to me for a bit?” Shane says, with another yawn that folds into a damp cough. “Tell me about the game. Tell me how it went.”

“You watched it. You know how it ended.”

“Well then it doesn’t matter if I fall asleep.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Okay…”

Shane smiles, sweetly, sleepily and his eyes flutter closed. Until Ilya begins speaking in Russian, and they open again, wide and full of wonderment. No one’s ever looked at Ilya quite like that before, and maybe no one will again. So it takes all of Ilya’s willpower to say, “закрой глаза… Close your eyes, Hollander.”

Shane does as he’s told, nestling a little deeper into the blankets, and Ilya wonders if it’s possible for a heart to swell so much that it bursts.

He talks about the game with Denver; tries to work out by speaking it aloud, pass by pass, play by play. Lays it on thick when he describes his goal in the first. Tries to get to the bottom of why they fucked up the powerplay in the third. Wonders whether LeClaire will change the timing of the lines for the next game, in three days’ time. Wonders if he should take Marleau out for a drink when they get back to Boston, because it seems like he hasn’t known how to talk to Ilya since he’s been back from Moscow, how to handle the fact that Ilya doesn’t seem like he’s sad. Or maybe he could take him to go look at a car he’s thinking of buying, but he probably won’t buy, and…

A snuffly sound, half snore-half sigh, comes from Ilya’s iPad. On the screen, the tension has left Shane’s forehead, and he has the blankets pulled up to his chin, the lower half of his face lost between them, and the pillows, and the dim light. He’s asleep.

For a moment, Ilya considers not doing anything – keeping the call connected, and closing his eyes, so that they can both fall asleep alongside one another. But it feels like too much, much more than what Hollander asked for. Besides, they couldn’t wake up like this; couldn’t be this way in the daylight.

“Goodnight, Shane,” he whispers. “Feel better soon.”

“No, you’re fine. I was already awake,” Shane said, his own voice sounding rougher than sleep alone could account for. 

Ilya leaned over, kissed the top of his head, then got out of bed and headed for the bathroom, rubbing his nose with his wrist as he went. Shane replayed the sight in his mind after Ilya closed the bathroom door and felt himself blush. The three honking blows that were loud enough to be heard through the door only made him blush harder, because fuck him if those weren’t the sexiest blows he’d ever heard. Maybe, if the next two weeks went well, one day Ilya wouldn’t bother with getting out of bed and would blow his nose right next to Shane. The fantasy came into his mind almost unbidden – Ilya, slightly pink around the nostrils from sneezing, breathing through his mouth because of how stuffy his nose was, raising tissues to that same nose with both hands (because one hand wouldn’t be enough to do the job properly), and then blowing until a look of sheer relief crossed his face.

Shane looked down; he was already tenting his boxers and there was a slowly spreading wet spot at the apex. Fuck. There was no way Ilya wouldn’t notice that. Maybe if he strategically arranged the sheets… His blush spread down to his neck, imagining Ilya chirping at him about how they’d barely been awake for a few minutes and he was already so wet for Ilya.

He startled, badly, at the click of the bathroom door swinging open and tried to pretend he hadn’t as Ilya walked toward him.

“Coffee?” Shane blurted, unable to help himself from looking at Ilya’s nose before wrenching his gaze to the nearest window and addressing it. “I mean, um, do you want some?” Smooth, Hollander. 

Ilya sounded amused as he said, “Yes. I will need to be caffeinated for later when I take your dick in my mouth.” Still staring at the window, Shane resisted the urge to scrub at his face with both hands by shoving them under his thighs. His success made him realize, to his mortification, that he hadn’t actually covered himself with the sheets before Ilya appeared. Cheeks absolutely flaming, he snuck a glance over at Ilya, who was, of course, staring at his crotch. “Or I can do it now. It looks like you need it.” 

Shane opened his mouth, then closed it, literally speechless. They were going to be honest with each other for the next two weeks, right? He tried again, managing, “I… yeah, fuck, I do.” 

***

On the second morning, Shane woke as soon as the light of dawn crept into the bedroom. He had told himself before going to sleep, in an attempt to quash the part of himself that wondered what if…, that he was lucky to have experienced that morning at all. Still, he hadn’t slept particularly well. 

Ilya, he noted, was still asleep. Shane laid there, hyperaware of Ilya’s breathing, when a hitch interrupted its deep, even rhythm. His own breath caught as Ilya took in a second and then a third hitching breath. He closed his eyes, listening intently, as Ilya stifled three sleepy sounding sneezes. Shane was about to bless him, without the ‘baby’ this time, because that was what normal people did, when Ilya sneezed again, three very awake and itchy sounding half-stifles. Shane’s blood thrilled, some of it bypassing Go and going straight to his dick.

He swallowed in an attempt to moisten his throat before blessing Ilya, who sniffled and rubbed his nose with his whole palm before thanking Shane in his raspy morning voice, his congestion-blunted consonants extra sensual to Shane’s ears.

As he had yesterday, Ilya went to the bathroom, sniffling and rubbing his nose the whole way. Shane wondered if Ilya would notice the box of tissues he’d put in the bathroom yesterday, all the while telling himself it was for no particular reason. Would Ilya use them? And if he did, would it sound different than the toilet paper Shane knew he’d used yesterday? Shane listened hard, taut with anticipation for Ilya’s first blow. When it came, it didn’t disappoint. It was equally as loud as yesterday, but more honking in timbre with a slightly muffled tone. Fuck. Arousal built in the pit of his stomach with Ilya’s second and third blows.

Shane had managed not to get lost in his thoughts, so his lap was covered and he didn’t start when the bathroom door opened, revealing a lightly disheveled (and all the more handsome for it) Ilya. But he still couldn’t meet Ilya’s eyes and had to clear his throat before asking if Ilya wanted coffee. 

***

The events of the third morning made Shane pretty certain that Ilya, his newly minted boyfriend and almost certainly the love of his life, was a morning sneezer. As he lay awake, waiting for Ilya’s breath to hitch, he wondered if Ilya would sneeze three times, like the first morning? Or maybe six, like yesterday? Or… and his cock throbbed just thinking about it – some other multiple of three? 

Ilya’s three hitching breaths sounded more like gasps this morning and Shane wondered what that portended. He got his answer when Ilya sneezed not three, not six, but nine times, each triple harder to stifle than the one before. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Every time he thought his boyfriend (!) couldn’t possibly get any sexier, he was proven wrong.

“Bless you,” he sighed, then blushed at how fucking breathy he sounded. And then, thinking about how Ilya might rub his nose today, blushed harder.

“Thangk you,” Ilya answered, congestion thicker than the morning before, and brought his fist to his nose, rubbing emphatically at it, producing wet clicking sounds punctuated by thick and itchy sounding sniffles. It was a symphony to Shane’s ears that continued as Ilya made his way to the bathroom but faded out as he closed the door.

Shane fisted his hands in the sheets to keep them at his sides instead of on his dick as Ilya blew his nose one, twice, three times. They had a pronounced honk, which Shane now thought of as characteristic of Ilya blowing his nose, but were also clearly wet and irritated. Shane drew his lower lip between his teeth and exhaled sharply through his nose.

In the quiet after Ilya finished, he released the sheets and artfully draped them over his lap. Then, he timed clearing his throat as softly as he could to be masked by the click of the bathroom door opening as Ilya emerged. 

“Want coffee?” he asked smoothly. Normal. Crushing it.

***

As soon as Ilya opened his eyes on his first morning at the cottage, he felt the usual itch in his nose overwhelm his senses. He might not have remembered where he was had a warm, shirtless body not been pressed against his. Shit. He did not want to wake Shane with his stupid waking-up sneezes. Not daring to even sniffle, Ilya scrunched his nose, feeling frustrated when the tickle only grew stronger. He turned his head towards his shoulder with an uncontrollable hitching breath, then two more, and stifled three sneezes as quietly as he could. “hHh…huhH…hhh-!…hgk’xt! …n’gxt! …hih’NGKshht!” He let out a breath afterwards, ignoring the way stifling made the sinus pressure beneath his eyes worsen. But it was worth it, because even though the third sneeze had nearly gotten away from him, Shane hadn’t stirred, slava bogu.

Then Ilya heard a soft “bless you, baby,” from beside him, and the sound - and the pet name - made his heart jump. Still in the process of waking up after being yanked out of slumber by his rude, itchy nose, he took Shane’s rougher-sounding voice for the man’s own sleepiness. But Ilya knew Shane well enough by now to know that his voice when he blessed him sounded very similar to his voice when he was turned on. Hm. Curious. 

Ilya wanted to laze in bed for as long as he could with this beautiful man, but of course, as was customary after a morning fit, he desperately needed to blow his nose. He felt a little embarrassed about the idea of disturbing the quiet of the room with his foghorn-like blows, so he kissed the top of Shane’s head and padded over to the bathroom. Along the way, he needed to bring up his wrist to rub at his nose, which was prickling again with irritation. Don’t be so fucking impatient, he scolded it. I’ll deal with you in just a second. 

He closed the door, then unrolled some toilet paper and held it to his nose in both hands. When he was this congested, blowing quietly wouldn’t do; he needed to get this itch out of his sinuses as quickly and thoroughly as possible. So, praying that the walls were thick enough, he took in a deep breath and allowed himself three long, loud honking blows to alleviate his congestion. Ilya had gotten less self-conscious about his nose blowing over the years (even though the time he’d heard a Russian teammate on the Raiders call him slon - elephant - still made him flush when he thought about it), but he was a bit nervous that Shane would think it was gross or too noisy. He’d just gotten to the cottage, and he did not want to kill the mood because his nose sounded like a trumpet every goddamn morning.

After an involuntary sigh of relief, Ilya swiped beneath his nose with the destroyed paper, took a deep breath, and prepared himself for his first morning waking up with Shane Hollander. 

When he left the bathroom, he saw that Shane’s face was very red and he wasn’t looking Ilya in the eye. Why did he look like he’d been caught doing something naughty? And then…oh. Ilya saw the tent in Shane’s boxers and - oh god - the precum on them, too. His own dick twitched at how absolutely delicious the other man looked. His heart melted when he realized how embarrassed Shane was when he suggested a pre-coffee blowjob, then sped up when Shane actually agreed to it. Fuck, his “rival” was going to be the death of him.

Ilya was thankful that they’d decided to be honest with each other. Although…it seemed like Shane was still hiding something from him.

***

On the second morning, Ilya knew something was up with Shane. 

Somehow, Ilya woke up mid-hitching breaths, and had half a second to think, Am I awake? before he was turning to the side with three “hhh’kgxt’shhue… huhhh’hgnxst–cheww… ahhHNXKT’shhewww…” sneezes that sounded as tired as he felt. He needed to stay frozen in place for another three, much more poorly stifled, sneezes: “hhh–heISH’hhht! hhgh’MMPSHhff! hehheh’NNGHT’shiew!” Fuck…the air at the cottage was making him extra itchy.  

Even in his sleepy, sneezy state, Ilya had noticed something unusual. As he’d gasped once, twice, three times as his body prepared to succumb to his daily waking-up sneezes, he’d heard an intake of breath from the man lying beside him. It sounded…anticipatory. It sounded…excited. But he hadn’t been able to unpack that while his body was so concentrated on relieving itself from this ridiculous tickle, especially during his next triple. 

When Shane blessed him with the same aroused tone of voice as the day before, Ilya found himself wondering…no, it couldn’t be. But the question stayed with him as he thanked Shane in an embarrassingly gravelly voice, left the bed, then blew his nose three times in the en suite with tissues from the box on the counter that hadn’t been there yesterday. When he came back out after another quick nose rub, Ilya heard the sound of rustling. A scarlet-faced Shane was sitting up with the blankets covering the lower half of his body, and suddenly, Ilya was fully awake. Was Shane as hard as he’d been yesterday? Ilya actually licked his lips as the other man, eyes averted, asked if he wanted coffee. “Fuck the coffee,” Ilya growled, desperate to have Shane moaning under his touch, not even giving him the chance to respond before he pounced. 

***

On the third day, Ilya was absolutely sure that Shane liked it when he sneezed. The alert little intake of breath as Ilya hitched towards his morning fit (nine - fucking nine - sneezes), the hoarse “bless you” (with no “baby” after the first day, which Ilya really wished would make a comeback), the blushing, the fact that he wouldn’t look Ilya in the eye, the full box of tissues that had so thoughtfully appeared in the bathroom for him to blow his nose into… 

Ilya wondered if Shane was finally going to be completely honest with him before their two weeks together were over.

***

On the fourth morning, Shane felt that, like Ilya, he’d developed a morning routine. Even though he was already awake, nerves buzzing in anticipation, he’d pretend to be asleep for Ilya’s three hitching breaths. Then, after however many sneezes Ilya’s nose required, he’d fake yawn and bless Ilya (just the standard ‘bless you,’ no ‘baby’). He wouldn't jerk himself off frantically while Ilya blew his nose three times in the bathroom. And when Ilya came back into the bedroom, he’d ask if Ilya wanted coffee. All very normal things to do.

Shane had successfully faked sleep during Ilya’s usual build up, even though they sounded more desperate than the previous mornings. But then Ilya didn’t stifle his sneezes and Shane’s plan was shot to hell.

“ehht-TSCHOOooh! heh’gSSHHhhue! hehh’EHHZISCHhhew!”

He would’ve been lying if he said he hadn’t fantasized about Ilya’s sneezing before, but the real thing was so much better. Masculine and loud, but not so much that they edged into scream territory, and just enough voice to make them unmistakably Ilya. 

“hy’ESHHhhuhh! hr’RUSHHhhh’ooh! HADZCHhhhh’hoo!”

“Bless you,” Shane said on autopilot, still dazed.

Ilya sniffled, watching Shane. The brunet looked tenser than usual at this point in the morning, but Ilya knew that was Shane’s body’s reaction to the disruption of routine. Underneath that tension, Shane was clearly, at least to Ilya’s eye, turned on, more so than the previous days. His blush was out in full force, he was looking anywhere but at Ilya, his lower lip was sucked in between his teeth, and he’d started fidgeting, pointing and flexing his toes under the sheets. He was getting antsy, expecting Ilya to head for the bathroom.

Instead of getting up, Ilya put an arm around his boyfriend and brushed his nose gently against his ear. “Shade?” he could hear the stuffiness in his own voice.

“Yeah?” Shane answered, voice cracking in the middle of the word.

A grin stretched across Ilya’s face. God, Shane was adorable. “Do you have something you -snf- would like to share?” 

Shane’s blush deepened and started creeping down his throat, a clear sign that, yes, he did have something to share, but no, he would prefer not to, thank you very much. 

Ilya paused for a moment, just watching Shane, whose body looked rigid enough to snap in half. Wanting to make sure that Shane was not overwhelmed by his obvious nerves, Ilya kissed his neck, then put his nose back up to the other man’s ear and sniffled. With his arm around him, he could feel the shiver that went down Shane’s spine. He gently cupped Shane’s chin and turned his head so they were face-to-face. “Shane,” he said softly. “Lyubimyy. It is okay. I will not judge you, I promise.” He pressed a kiss to Shane’s forehead.

“I,” Shane started, then stopped. He swallowed, then made to duck his head. Ilya released his grip and Shane pushed his face into Ilya’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he apologized, sounding embarrassed, “it’s, uh, easier if I’m not looking at you.”

“Hey, is okay,” Ilya reassured, brushing his thumb over Shane’s arm. “However you need, malysh.” He could feel the faint flutter of Shane’s eyelashes across his skin as Shane closed his eyes. 

“Thanks,” Shane said softly and gathered his courage. “I’ve… I’ve always had a thing, uh, a kink, I guess, for… sneezing. I wasn’t planning on ever telling anyone.” He lifted his head a little, enough for Ilya to see that his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Guess you’re the exception to every rule.” He blinked, causing a tear to slip down his cheek. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m getting so emotional about this.”

“Hey, hey, sweetheart, is okay,” Ilya soothed, alarmed at the tears starting to fall from his love’s big brown eyes. He grabbed for a tissue from his nightstand and blotted at Shane’s face. Fuck, had he pushed him too far? The last thing he wanted was for him to feel uncomfortable and hide himself away. “Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re welcome,” Shane said automatically, then grimaced. “I don’t know why I said that. It’s like telling the person behind the check-in counter to have a good flight.” 

Ilya let out a laugh, feeling a rush of fondness towards his polite Canadian boyfriend. “I understand you, honey,” he said, brushing his thumb over the cheek he had just wiped tears from. 

Shane’s lips curled slightly in a relieved smile, which broadened as he melted at the endearment. But then he remembered what they’d been talking about and tensed up again. Ilya hadn’t actually said anything about his confession – what if he thought Shane was disgusting? Or he was weirded out by the idea? Or, or, or… Or he could just… ask. “So, uh, what do you. What do you think?” It was a measure of how at ease he felt with Ilya, that he could actually stop himself from spiraling before it got too far.

Ilya put his arm back around Shane and squeezed. “I think is fine,” he said. “Is very sweet, actually. Liking a sneeze? That is innocent.” Shane’s eyebrows furrowed at that, clearly skeptical. “Is the truth,” Ilya responded.

Shane huffed a soft laugh at that, some of the tension in his body unwinding. “Would you ever– I mean. Would you want to– fuck.” He groaned, letting his head fall back against Ilya’s shoulder. 

“Do you want me to sneeze for you, Shane?” Ilya whispered into Shane’s ear.

Shane’s anxiety had quashed his arousal, but Ilya’s words set him aflame. “Fuck, Ilya,” he muttered, pressing an open mouthed kiss to the curve of Ilya’s deltoid.

“I would do anything for you,” Ilya said, truthfully. “And you are in luck, because I sneeze a lot anyway.” He pressed his nose, then a kiss, against the top of Shane’s head.

“I did notice that over the past few mornings, yes.” Shane paused, thinking, and pointed out, “You haven’t blown your nose yet.”  

“Hmmm. You’re right.” Ilya sniffled a few times. “I am feeling extra stuffed up now.” He looked at Shane with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Would you like it if I blow my nose right here?”

Well. Yes. Yes, he would. Shane nodded wordlessly, but his eyes were heavy-lidded and his pupils were blown with desire.

“You know, Shane,” Ilya said as he plucked two tissues out of the box on his nightstand, “Sobetibes” - the congestion was creeping back into his voice - “if I wait too long to blow my dose, I sdeeze some more. Let us see if that happens.” He held the tissues to his nose in both hands, took in a deep breath, and blew. The sound was loud, as always, but Shane was struck by how much louder it felt without a door and wall in the way. He was also surprised at how much more crazy it drove him – being able to see Ilya, his big hands engulfing his face, the tissues just peeking out, his eyes squeezing shut with exertion, and to feel Ilya, his rib cage expanding in preparation, then the muscles in his torso contracting as he blew. Shane’s thighs pressed against each other reflexively, needing friction. His eyes wanted to flutter closed with desire, but he kept them open and trained on Ilya with no small effort. He wanted to commit everything about this to memory. And if Ilya was going to sneeze again, he wanted to watch.

And right on cue…Ilya took in another breath, this one a little shaky, and his eyes opened but narrowed immediately after, and his brows knitted upward as he hitched again, then again, his chest expanding more and more with each inhale, and–

“AAH’IDSHHhh’hoo! HAESHHhhhh’uhh! hyy’ESSCHhhh’ue!”

Shane didn’t know if he’d ever been this turned on before. He felt almost lightheaded from how fast he’d hardened. Was he going to come just from this? That would be, despite how sweet Ilya was being about all this, kind of embarrassing. 

Ilya sniffled, cleared his throat, looking a little dazed, then looked over at Shane. His eyes crinkled and his grin grew wolfish. He kept his eyes on Shane’s as he pulled two more tissues from the box. But before he blew again…

“Aren’t you going to bless mbe, Holladder?”

Shane shuddered at hearing his last name in Ilya’s congested voice, involuntarily arching his back and rolling his hips. “Bless you, baby,” he sighed out, voice thick with desire. 

“Oh, thank you, lyubov moya,” Ilya said with a wink, and as he blew his nose with one hand, he squeezed Shane’s crotch with the other. 

“Fuck!” Shane’s head thunked back against the headboard at the touch. “Oh, God, Ilya,” he moaned, “I… oh, I think I’m close.”

“Then let’s get you closer,” Ilya purred, reaching into Shane’s boxers and circling his thumb around the dripping tip of his dick. Shane cried out as his hips bucked up into the touch. 

“Oh fuck Ilya please, please,” Shane panted. He was far gone enough that the next words came out without any self-consciousness. “Do you need–ah! Could you sneeze again?”

“Hmm,” Ilya said, smiling, still rubbing at Shane’s head. “Let us see if I can…” 

“Please,” Shane pleaded, getting a little whiny with sheer want, “I really wanna come to you sneezing, you drive me fucking crazy…”

“Bossy.” Ilya’s smile grew wider, and he made Shane gasp when he took two fingers from the hand not touching Shane, pressed them against the bridge of his crooked nose, and tweaked it to the side. His face immediately fell, and he himself gasped with three distinct, itchy-sounding “hHhehh…Hhehh…ehEHhhh–!”s before jackknifing forward, still holding Shane in hand. 

“HAAESHHhhh’oooh! GY’ISZCHHhhh’ue! hhEGHH’ISSSCHhuuhh!”

Shane’s mouth opened in a silent scream and his hips pressed down hard into the mattress as his orgasm slammed through him, his dick pulsing against Ilya’s hand and come spurting through Ilya’s fingers. In a trance, he faintly heard the shfff of Ilya taking tissues from the box, then blowing his nose again, the stuffy honk and sigh of relief after sending another pulse of desire through Shane.   

“So,” Ilya said after a long pause. “You like?”

Shane, almost back to Earth, looked at Ilya, totally blissed out. “Fuck yeah I like,” he said, a dreamy smile spreading across his face. 

“Bless you. Again. Now go get high on Sudafed.”

“I won’t get high—“

“Dude, relax, I know. Breathing through your nose doesn’t count as performance enhancing, I checked.”

“Fuck off.”

Shane’s response was half-hearted, but he still wasn’t looking at Hayden. His eyes were watering, and his upper lip was already glistening with more moisture. It kind of looked like he was crying, but Hayden knew that any time he caught a bug, Shane’s whole face turned into a leaky faucet. He also knew that Shane absolutely hated both the sensation and the loss of control.

Despite all of it, pissy, overstimulated Shane was replaced by Captain Hollander the moment he got his shoes on. Hayden had seen the transformation hundreds of times over the years, but it still gave him the heebie-jeebies sometimes. 

“Right, I’m gonna go,” Shane said flatly. He still sounded undeniably sick. 

“Feel better, snot monster. I hope you manage to turn back into a human by the time we meet up.”

Hayden rolled in to the stadium an hour later, but Shane wasn’t in the dressing room. He was immediately cornered by a concerned J.J.

“Pikey! Où est notre capitaine?”

“Probably in medical still. Surprise, he’s sick,” Hayden shrugged. 

“Crisse, sa pa ka fèt,” J.J. swore, but he looked more worried than angry. 

“Shit, really?” Andropov looked up from taping his shin guards. “He seemed fine this morning.”

“Of course it had to happen in Boston,” Comeau grumbled, seeming more concerned about the game than his teammate. 

“I didn’t know cap could get sick,” Schneider, their rookie, marveled. “He’s never missed a game in his whole career. I thought he just ordered his immune system to wait for the off season.”

“Guys, chill. He’s not that sick,” Hayden reassured them. “He just has to get cleared for the game and take some meds.”

That seemed to do the trick, and the anxious tension in the room dissipated. Hayden awarded himself a point on his internal ‘nailing the alternate captain thing’ scoreboard.

“At least is not just us with a sick capitaine, eh? You hear about Rozanov?” J.J. commented. Hayden had no idea where J.J. picked up his real-time gossip, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. 

“Is that confirmed? I was pretty sure we heard him sneezing in the background on ESPN,” Hayden speculated. 

“Might not mean anything. That asshole is always sneezing all over the place, I remember from Russian junior team,” Andropov snickered. 

“Whatever. I hope he’s too sick to skate straight,” Hayden said. “I’m gonna go find Hollzy and see what’s taking so long.”

With that, Hayden made an about-face and left the rest of them to gossip in the dressing room. As expected, he found Shane in the medical clinic. Unfortunately, he looked just as bad as he had an hour ago. At least someone had found him a tissue box; he was holding on to it like a life raft.  

“Dude, I thought I told you to do drugs,” Hayden teased with an undercurrent of concern. 

“Hi, Hayd. I didn’t take anything yet, doc wants to time the meds so they last through the game,” Shane said tiredly, his voice raspier than before.

“So, what, you’ll sit in all the pre-scout sessions with your brain leaking out of your nose?” Hayden asked skeptically. “You hate when anything messes up your routine.”

“I’ll be fine. S’just a cold, my…hihhh! my brain isn’t going aehhhhnywhere except—hhh!—my s-skull— Ihhhh’DJSSHhhuuhh!”

As usual for Shane, the sneeze was a fucking mess, soaking the tissue he’d covered with. Hayden watched with morbid fascination as Shane pulled at least four tissues from the box and swapped them with the ruined one, then gave a sopping wet nose blow. He didn’t even bother folding them before dropping them in the trash can. 

“Bless you. Should I tell the trainers to have tissues on standby?” Hayden was only half joking.

“Fuck you,” Shane replied automatically. “I’ll be fine when we get on the ice.”

“Okay, okay. I guess we don’t want to jinx it,” Hayden conceded. 

“Right,” Shane said curtly, then coughed lightly into his elbow. 

There was a knock on the open door of the clinic. Matt McCann, one of the assistant coaches, poked his head in. 

“Oh, good, you’re both here. Hollzy, doc says you’re a bit under the weather?”

Shane looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, but he squared his shoulders. “Yeah, just a bit. I’m fine, really—heehh-kZSCH’ssshh! ehhh’khTJSshoou!”

Hayden winced. Two in a row, forceful and crackling with loose congestion, they sounded undeniably sick. Shane’s body was perfectly still as he mechanically wiped under his nose with a tissue, then folded it neatly into quarters and dropped it in the trash. 

“Excuse me,” Shane said, voice devoid of emotion. 

“Gesundheit,” McCann said jovially. “That looks like a hell of a cold. Theriault is not gonna be happy.”

“Is he ever happy?” Hayden wondered. “We won the fucking cup last year, he barely cracked a smile.”

McCann’s lips twitched upward, but he didn’t comment. Shane coughed again, then sat up straighter. 

“It’s not that bad. Doc will give me something before the game. He said I’m good to play as long as I stay hydrated,” Shane’s voice was hoarse but steady, and audibly congested.  

“Good, good. I’ll talk to Theriault about managing your minutes—don’t argue, Hollander,” McCann gave him a look born of years of experience with hockey players’ stubbornness. “It’s Boston, LeClaire’s gonna hard match you, there’s no point in wearing you out against their second line when you’re not at 100%. We’ll save you for Rozanov.”

Shane looked like he was about to correct what McCann was saying, but he bit his tongue at the last second. Something wasn’t adding up. As far as Hayden could tell, McCann was probably right about the line matching. Was this about the Rozanov illness rumors? What did Shane know that McCann didn’t, and why was he keeping it to himself?

* * *

On a hunch, Cliff decided to show up early at the arena and stop by medical. Not that Roz didn’t know his own body, but he had a wicked stubborn streak. Case in point. 

“Rozanov, how many times are we gonna have this argument? Take the goddamn decongestant,” Doug’s exasperated voice echoed down the hallway. The team doctor was a veteran of years’ worth of arguments on the topic. 

“Dod’t d’eed it. Is od’ly id’ by d’oze, I play like this all the tibe id sprid’g,” Rozanov said stonily, so congested that Cliff had a hard time making out the words from outside the room. 

“And every time you do it’s a bad idea,” Doug said matter-of-factly. “Seriously, Rozanov, why do you hate your own sinuses this much?”

“Is other way aroudd. By siduses are traitors that hate mb’e,” Roz grumbled, half a register lower than normal, just as Cliff reached the door of the clinic. 

“I had a feeling we’d be doing this again,” Cliff said, standing in the doorway. 

“And I was hoping you’d show up.” Doug looked genuinely happy to see him. “You’re better at convincing him.”

Roz glared at both of them. Cliff was unimpressed. Getting into a staring contest with Roz was usually a bad idea, but in this case his cold was on Cliff’s side. It didn’t take long before Roz’s scowl cracked, replaced by pure, irritated need. 

“Huh’GHXXDT’chh! yhH’KDTJ’zzhhh! huhhh… hYEH’KGXZz’hdtt!!”

He crunched forward over his lap, face obscured behind yet another t-shirt-turned-snot-rag. The sneezes sounded so painfully clogged up that Cliff felt phantom pressure behind his own eyes. Roz followed it up with an attempt at blowing his nose, but the pathetically choked-off sound made it clear that the gunk in his head wasn’t budging. God, his sinuses must feel like a lead brick. Cliff couldn’t for the life of him think of a reason to willingly spend any more time in that condition, let alone go out and play three periods of hockey. 

“Those were wicked gnarly, even for you,” Cliff commented. “Why do you put yourself through the ringer like this, Roz? That can’t be comfortable.”

“Do I look fuckigg cob’fortable?” Roz snapped. 

“No. But you will be if you take the goddamn pills,” Doug prodded. 

“I do nd’ot—“ Roz started, but was interrupted by Cliff and Doug completing him in unison: “take pills.”

The stony expression was back on Roz’s face. Whatever issue he had with pills made him obstinate to the point of stupidity, but Cliff could never get him to talk about it. 

“I would give you a nasal spray, but we all know it’ll just make you sneeze your head off,” Doug continued. “So unless your nose has magically gotten cooperative, you’re stuck with the pills.”

“Or I cad suffer ad’d suck it up,” Roz shrugged entirely too casually. 

Doug groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “And get another sinus infection in the process.”

“B’aybe,” Roz conceded, but he didn’t look too concerned. Cliff wanted to slap him. 

“What about the actual game we’re playing tonight? You really want to drop two points to Montreal because you can’t breathe through your nose?” 

Roz had the nerve to smirk. “Ah, but is d’ot just mb’e. Hollad’der is also sick, reb’ember?”

“We don’t actually know that—“ 

Cliff was interrupted by someone knocking on the door of the clinic. 

“Doug, you there? I have a request for a medication from the Metros’ doc.” The unfamiliar woman’s voice was muffled by the door, but it sounded strained. Doug opened the door a crack, not letting her see inside.

“Sure thing, what do you need?” Doug was equally short. The league mandated that medical staff share resources when needed, but it could get awkward. Doug was probably eager to send her on her way before she got any intel on Roz. 

“Just Sudafed,” the woman said, impatient. 

Cliff exchanged a glance with a smug Roz as Doug busied himself fulfilling her request. The medication in question was already right in front of him, so it didn’t take long. 

The silence stretched after she left, broken only by Roz’s sniffling. The three of them looked at each other. Cliff spoke first. 

“Okay, so Hollander is sick, but he’s a big boy who takes his medicine,” Cliff taunted. 

Roz bristled, but didn’t manage a retort before his cold spoke for him. 

“yKGGHZXD’ttttch! hhh-GDJJCH’zhhh! Huhh- uh’GXXHJ’TCHeuh!!”

The sneezes sounded like they’d gotten trapped in his swollen sinuses before they could fully escape. They were followed by another honking nose blow, which ended in a defeated sigh. 

“Fide. Give mb’e the fuckigg pills.”

* * *

Look, Hayden got that Shane was self-conscious about being sick in front of the guys, but this was getting ridiculous. 

“Buddy, you planning on hiding in here until the team meeting?” Hayden pestered, trying to keep his voice light. “You’re not gonna have time to do your weird yoga stretches.”

That seemed to get through. Apparently, the thought of playing with tight ligaments was more horrifying than being seen with a runny nose. Shane sat up straighter, rolling his shoulders like he was trying to shrug off his anxiety. 

“You’re right, Hayd, m’sorry. I just really hate…this,” Shane said weakly, gesturing vaguely at his face. “Especially in front of the guys.”

“It’ll be fine,” Hayden said dismissively. “I keep telling you, we’re all hockey players. Dealing with gross teammates is part of the job description, why else would I put up with Comeau’s B.O.?”

Shane wrinkled his nose in agreement, which seemed to set him off. He managed to grab a handful of tissues from the nearly-empty box, in time to bury his face in them.

“Hehh’dZZS’sshhhhh! Ihhh-djCH’sshoouh!! Fug’ck!” 

They were still uncharacteristically harsh, instantly soaking through the tissues. Shane dropped the soggy bundle in the trash, swapping it out for another handful. 

“Ugh, I feel like a leaky faucet,” Shane griped as he mopped up the remaining mess on his upper lip, wincing as the tissues brushed his chapped nostrils. 

“Yeah, I’m gonna go ask for another one of those,” Hayden gestured at the tissue box, which was now empty. 

With the critical supplies acquired, Hayden and Shane made their way back to the dressing room. 

“Capitaine! You live!” J.J. called out from across the room. 

“I wasn’t dying. It’s just a cold,” Shane said flatly, his illness as audible as ever. 

“Well, your cold has shitty timing,” Comeau complained. “Did you have to get sick right before a game?”

“Shut up, Comey. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s the middle of the season. We’re always right before a game,” Hayden retorted, earning a few snickers. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Shane said firmly. “I’m cleared, and it won’t affect how I play. If coach makes any adjustments, we’ll discuss it in the meetings.”

Shane turned sharply to face his stall, putting his back to the room like the matter was closed. But Hayden was right next to him and yeah, no, he could see the real story. Shane was just trying to hide his face as his nose overflowed again. 

No one on the team seemed eager to question Shane further. Messing with another guy’s rituals was taboo anyway, but doubly so when it came to their captain, who had his routine timed to the exact second. Shane seemed relieved to be left alone, keeping his back to the room as he wiped the mess off his upper lip yet again. Hayden had a feeling that the new tissue box was not long for this world. 

It was probably best to let Shane do his thing for now. Hayden grabbed a protein bar from his bag, then joined Andropov and J.J.’s recounting of the previous night’s exploits. Apparently Schneider had managed to leave the club with a girl, but refused to share any details. 

Hayden glanced over to check on Shane, who had completely zoned out the room as he stood on one foot, his other leg bent into an improbable position. Hayden was just in time to watch him almost lose his balance in his haste to grab a tissue.

“Hehh- yhH’DTSSSHhhooo! IHH’DZZSsshuhhh!”

Glances were exchanged around the room as the team collectively decided to look the other way. Definitely the right call. Shane hated to be interrupted when he was trying to lock in, and he’d basically told them to drop it. 

Theriault, who chose that moment to walk in early, apparently hadn’t gotten the memo. 

“À tes souhaits. Again,” the head coach said, looking Shane over with a critical eye. He huffed in displeasure. “That’s unfortunate.”

Shane’s face was impassive, his posture perfectly straight. 

“It’s not ideal, but I can play,” Shane still sounded like his vocal cords were in a battle with a river of snot, but his tone didn’t betray even a hint of discomfort. Still, he had to be pretty miserable. Whatever timing the doc was attempting, Hayden hoped he wouldn’t hold off on the meds for much longer.

“Of course you can. You’re not the type to be a little bitch about a head cold,” Theriault said gruffly. From him, that was almost a compliment. The head coach sighed again. “It had to be Boston.”

* * *

Cliff was seriously contemplating strangling Roz. Which would be a shame, considering all the work he’d put in to ensure that bastard could breathe during the game. 

“Fuck off! It’s my turn, we listen to Skrillex. End of the story,” St-Simon said angrily. 

“If I wad’t to liste’d to dial-up ind’terdet, I go back to 2005,” Roz drawled, his blasé tone at odds with the painfully distorted consonants. 

“You have listened to this song every day last week,” St-Simon argued.

“That was before mb’y head feels like is full of wet cod’crete,” Roz retorted, a bit more snappish this time. 

“Fine,” St-Simon threw up his hands in exasperation. “I’ll give the aux to Sebb, but next time we listen to the whole of Bangarang.”

Roz leaned his head back against his stall and closed his eyes without bothering to acknowledge the compromise. Cliff glanced at his watch to check how long ago Roz had taken the pills – just ten minutes. He was pretty sure Doug had said they had half an hour to wait. This was going to be a long twenty minutes. 

Sebbin, now in possession of the aux cable, put on a flat out boring pop song. Cliff had definitely heard it multiple times, but he didn’t remember a single lyric. 

“…Better.” Roz still had his eyes squeezed shut. 

The peace lasted exactly ten seconds. 

“Still terrible.”

“You just said it was better!” Sebbin protested. 

“Yes, I said better. Did d’ot say good,” Roz clarified without opening his eyes. 

Sebbin shot him a fearful glance, then wordlessly passed the cable to Feller. Cliff wished that he’d picked literally anyone else, but he kept his face-palm internal. Sure enough, a country song started playing. Half the room immediately groaned. 

“Seryozno?” Varkov ribbed his defensive partner. 

“It’s one song!” Feller said petulantly. 

“It’s the same one as this morning,” Cliff had to open his mouth, but he immediately regretted feeding the fire.

“It’s not—“

“Huhh’KGHDZZ’txhh! yyG’DJXX’Tdch!! Hhhh-! UH’hGDDHJJZ’dttt!!”

Their captain’s triple sneezes were background noise at this point, and the team usually ignored it. This time, he sounded so obviously sick that the whole room stopped to look at him. He was doubled over his lap, face buried in another spare t-shirt. Eyes closed, he made an attempt at blowing his nose, but only managed a grating squeak. He peeled open his eyes and scowled. 

“What are you all lookigg at?”

“Nothing,” Sebbin blurted out, at the same time as Cliff quipped: “Just want to see if any concrete comes out.”

Roz rolled his eyes. “You have nd’ever heard of mb’etafora? They do d’ot teach id’ Ab’ericad’ school?”

“I’m Canadian,” Cliff retorted. 

Roz waved a hand dismissively as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Cliff glanced at his watch again – seventeen more minutes. Nobody spoke for a few seconds, leaving the country song to play in the background. 

The silence was broken by Varkov. “Marly’s right, it is same song from this morning. Always singing about trucks.”

“This one’s about tractors,” Feller protested. 

“Is sab’e thid’g—ahh’KGHXX’Dtxhh!-hGDTJJ’ZHh!! HUH-YGKHX’Ttjj!! Blyad!”

The sneezes were, impossibly, even more pathetically congested. Roz stayed hunched over for a few seconds and let out a low groan, before straightening and tilting his head back. It hit the side of his stall with a soft thunk. 

“Jesus Christ, bless you,” Connors said uneasily, exchanging a glance with Cliff. Cliff shook his head slightly, hoping it came off as reassuring. 

“I dod’t thig’k he approves of b’y lifestyle,” Roz said tiredly, then pointed at Feller. “You do d’ot deserve mb’usic choice. Give to sobeod’e else.”

Without waiting for acknowledgement, Roz closed his eyes again and raised both hands to his face, massaging his cheekbones. Feller looked at Cliff, arms raised in a ‘what should I do?’ gesture. Cliff shrugged, which Feller apparently interpreted as a request for the aux cord. Well, it would probably be better if Roz directed his ire at the A, rather than the kids. He scrolled through his playlists, deciding on a hard rock mix that he knew Roz worked out to sometimes. 

As soon as he heard the opening riff of Seven Nation Army, Roz opened his eyes and looked around the room accusingly. “Who has aux nd’ow?” 

“Me,” Cliff said, crossing his arms.

“…Really?” Roz scoffed, the rolled R coming out stronger than usual. 

“What?” Cliff asked neutrally, inviting the challenge. 

“I expeg’cted better,” Roz narrowed his eyes. It was probably supposed to be threatening, but his flaring nostrils made it clear that he was actually holding off more sneezes. 

“I’ve known you for five years,” Cliff narrowed his eyes right back, biting his tongue to stop himself from laying into Roz. 

“Ad’d you’ve disappoid’ted—hhh!—m’be for f-faaahive—haA’KGHDJ’ttsch!- yGHXDT’Chh!-kGXDTT’xhjj!! huhh- ekh’GXDZZ’xheu!! HYEH’DGJXXZ’TChh!!”

The sneezes must have scraped something on the way out, because they immediately transitioned to a fit of hacking coughs. Fuck, that sounded wicked rough. Cliff was still annoyed, but he straight-up winced looking at the guy. The fit left Roz panting, t-shirt held over his lower face. He spat something into it, then pressed the palm of one hand into his eye socket. Finally, he looked up and met Cliff’s eyes. 

Cliff raised one eyebrow, trying his best not to look concerned. Roz responded better to being chirped than to being babied. 

“Roz. That soundtrack is flat out worse than anything we could put on the speaker. Go hang out in the showers, get some steam, come back when you can breathe.”

They stared each other down for a few seconds. Roz was usually a stone wall in a stare-down, but he lost it when he had to duck his head and cough into his shoulder. For a split second, he looked dead on his feet. But then his face remembered that he was supposed to be an asshole, and went right back to pouting. 

“So cruel, sed’digg ill captaid’n to exile. N’dow who will save aux cord frob’ your terrible b’usic?” Roz tried to make it seem like Cliff was twisting his arm, but when he stood up his feet were already pointed toward the showers. 

* * *

To the surprise of literally no-one, the Metros’ coaching staff had thrown a wrench in the line matching strategy. Shane had done his best to maintain that he was just ‘a little under the weather’. Hayden didn’t know who he thought he was kidding. Everyone already assumed the forwards would be called in for a last-minute extra meeting.

As a veteran, Hayden knew what to expect. It was too late to make any in-depth tactical changes, but the coaches could decide who to send out on the ice at any given time. Shane would be playing fewer minutes, which meant other lines would be getting more ice time than usual. The question was which of the Raiders’ lines they would be facing, and most importantly – who would have the pleasure of taking face-offs against Rozanov. 

The twelve forwards settled on the benches in the dressing room. The atmosphere was mostly boisterous and competitive, but Hayden noted an undercurrent of anxiety. He could only hope that Theriault’s buzzkill attitude wouldn’t drag the whole room down. Shane usually left the hype work to his alternates, so the damage control would be Hayden’s problem. He was already mentally prepping a speech for after the meeting. He was relieved to see McCann walk in. 

“Alright, boys, here’s the deal,” the assistant coach clapped his hands and rubbed them together, as chipper as ever. “LeClaire loves to hard match, and he’s been trying to contain our top line for years. Thing is, Hollzy is a beast.”

Hayden glanced at Shane, who had a tear leaking from one eye and a wad of tissues pressed under his nose. He looked about as far from a beast as a human could get. Well, maybe some kind of creature that got dragged out of a swamp. McCann was either completely blind, or, more likely, just playing dumb to give Shane some privacy. 

“Normally, we let LeClaire have his fun,” McCann said with some satisfaction. “He rolls the Carmichael line against our first line more than we’d like, but you three still find ways to score on them.”

Hayden made a face at the reminder. Rozanov would always be his number-one headache in Boston games, but the Raiders’ second line was a close second. Carmichael was one of the best shutdown centers in the league; trying for a zone exit with that guy on the ice was just a massive pain in the ass. 

He glanced at Shane again to catch his reaction, and found him completely distracted. His eyes were squeezed shut, tears leaking from the outer corners, and his nose was pinched in a vise-like grip through the tissues. 

“Either way, Hollzy has enough minutes in him that there’s enough left to deal with Rozanov when we really need it—“

“Hihhh- ehh’DTJj’SSSsshhh! EH’DHJSSSsshhhhue! hnngh…”

McCann was interrupted when Shane lost his battle with his nose. He pitched forward into the tissues with two miserably wet sneezes. Hayden was pretty sure only he heard the soft groan that followed. 

“Bud’ zdorov,” Andropov said, sounding both sympathetic and grossed-out. 

Shane, who was in the process of swapping out his soaked tissues with a fresh handful, froze. Hayden was close enough to see the flush creeping up his neck. 

“What he said,” McCann added, still either ignoring or happily oblivious to his star center’s embarrassment. “Hollzy, I know you don’t want to hear this, but there’s no way you’re logging twenty-five minutes tonight.”

Shane scowled, but he didn’t argue. Or maybe he just wanted McCann’s attention off of him so he could tend to his nose in peace. Now that he’d lowered the tissues, Hayden could see that the rosy, chafed hue had spread from his nostrils to his philtrum and upper lip. That had to be painful, and it was the exact sort of discomfort that drove Shane up the wall. Hayden was pretty sure he would rather skate on a broken ankle than irritate his skin. 

Hayden felt a sudden flash of irritation at Boston Lily for making Shane so miserable, but he immediately felt like a jerk. It wasn’t her fault, and she was probably suffering just as much as Shane right now. He needed to save the hate for the real enemy – the Boston Raiders in general and Ilya Rozanov in particular. 

His train of thought was interrupted by McCann. “We have to manage your ice time, so when you’re out there, it needs to count. Here’s how the rest of you guys are gonna pick up the slack. ”

The changes were straightforward. No double shifts on the power play, fewer defensive zone starts, replacement on the penalty kill as needed. It all seemed pretty reasonable, so Hayden had no idea why Shane was chewing his lip like that. His musings were interrupted by a woman’s voice outside the dressing room. 

“Are you all decent? I have good news and bad news.” Hayden recognized the voice as one of the newer trainers. 

“Lovely,” McCann called back. “We’re good, come on in.”

The trainer entered and unceremoniously shoved two pills and a water bottle at Shane. “Enjoy breathing through your nose.”

“That does sound nice,” Shane said hoarsely. “Thanks.”

She nodded in acknowledgment, then turned to McCann. “So, the bad news: the Raiders definitely know about Hollander.”

“Goddamnit,” McCann swore. “I was hoping to keep LeClaire in the dark at least until puck drop.”

Shane’s eyes narrowed; he looked pissed. Which seemed a little ridiculous, honestly, because there was zero chance they were keeping his cold a secret. His nose was so red that any Raiders player who came within ten feet of him would immediately figure it out. 

“You haven’t heard the good news yet,” the trainer grinned. “Rozanov is also sick. Actually, he sounded worse than Hollander.” 

McCann actually laughed. Shane looked…nervous? Hayden wasn’t sure why. As far as he was concerned, anything that slowed Rozanov down was the opposite of nerve-wracking. 

“Oh, excellent,” McCann said, still laughing. “I swear, it’s like nature wants to keep the rivalry even.”

“I think is just karma,” Andropov shrugged. “Rozanov sleeps with a different girl each night, while half the city is sick. Is not surprising.”

“Then what happened to Hollzy? He never leaves his fucking house.” Comeau sounded like he was joking, but his tone rubbed Hayden the wrong way. Shane would probably shrug it off, but Hayden wasn’t gonna let it go. He knew exactly what had happened to Shane, so he could tell everyone Comeau was talking straight out of his ass. 

“Maybe not his house, but he definitely leaves the hotel sometimes,” Hayden smirked, elbowing Shane in the ribs. Big mistake. Hayden winced as the contact triggered a fit of wet coughing. 

“Shut up,” Shane croaked, red-faced and glaring at Hayden. It would have been intimidating if Shane’s nose hadn’t chosen that moment to start running again, forcing him to look away as he buried his lower face in yet another tissue.

“Alright, you can discuss Hollzy’s love life later,” McCann cut in, now a bit exasperated. “Piker, do us a favor and try not to kill your linemate.”

“Sorry,” Hayden said, meaning it. “So, Rozanov is sick. I’m guessing that changes things?”

“Yes, and no,” Shane piped up, hoarse but suddenly energized. Were the meds already working? Hayden was pretty sure that should take longer than two minutes. 

“I don’t like it, coach, but you’re right. The way you’re deploying me makes sense regardless of Rozanov. But since he’s also sick, the math changes. They have more defensive depth, so I’m guessing they pulled him off the PK completely. That means that even if you only give me one look on the PP, our conversion rate goes up. Plus, if they’re protecting him with heavy O-zone starts it actually works in our favor. It means I won’t be taking as many draws against him in our end, and he won’t be leaning on me all night.” 

Shane’s words spilled out in a flood of precise analysis. His voice was steady but sounded like sandpaper, his gaze fixed on the air to the left of McCann’s head. Hayden glanced around the room and saw that everyone was staring at him, their assistant coach included. Shane, completely in his own world, just kept right on rolling. 

“Of course, if they know I’m sick, they have ways to fuck with us. Their forecheck is nasty even without Rozanov, so they’ll dump and chase heavy to force board battles below the dots. They might try to get me to take more face-offs, but that would gas Rozanov just as fast. If it looks like he’s slowing down we could try driving down the middle lane on zone entries, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Our best bet is east-west plays. He’ll bite and chase the puck every time because it usually works, but tonight it’ll wear him out. Oh, and pressure Varkov on the breakout, he usually ices the puck if you force him onto his backhand.”

By the time he’d finished, Shane’s voice was basically hanging on by a thread. He gave a tiny shake of his head, eyes snapping back into focus and darting around the room. Everyone was still dead silent, staring at him. 

“Respectfully, cap, what the fuck?” Schneider, their rookie right winger, said incredulously. 

“I, uh—hihhh-!”

Hayden saw the disaster unfolding before it happened. Shane had been completely checked-out, distracted by the scouting report he’d apparently managed to do in his head in real time. He hadn’t noticed the tickle in his nose until it was too late. 

“Hehh-dJZZ’SSSSHhhhuh! Ehhd’TSCH’ZSSssshhh!!”

At the last second, Shane managed to get his hands up in front of his face. The pair of sneezes barreled out of him, forceful and audibly pretty messy. His hands did nothing to absorb it, but at the dozen or so people staring at him were spared the sight of snot spewing from his nose. Hayden winced. Even by hockey hygiene standards, that was kind of gross. Shane’s face was as red as it had been after Lily had called earlier. 

The silence stretched, so Hayden decided to break the tension. “Bless you, man. Maybe, uh, go take a break?”

Shane nodded behind his cupped hands, then fled in the direction of the bathroom. McCann cleared his throat. 

“Right. Good to know Hollzy’s IQ is still the best in the league, even if the rest of him isn’t at 100%,” McCann’s cheerfulness sounded a bit forced, but Hayden appreciated the effort.

“Is that what’s going on in his brain? All the time?” Schneider said, sounding slightly awed. 

“Yup. He’s just like that,” Hayden grinned. “That’s why we’re going back to back this year.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” McCann rebuked them. “We still have a game to win.”

* * *

Roz returned just as the boys were filing into the meeting room, and Cliff craned to get a look at him. The sounds that had echoed out of the showers after he’d left were kind of nasty. For his own sanity, Cliff had done everything in his power to tune them out. Hopefully all that sneezing, hacking and nose-blowing was a sign of the meds working to break up the congestion and not a preview for the rest of the night.

Cliff caught only a brief glimpse of Rozy’s face before LeClaire pulled him aside, clearly trying to see if he could actually go tonight. It seemed to be a mixed bag. His nose still looked like it had been to war, but the glassy, dead-eyed stare was gone. Cliff could only hope his attitude had cleared up in tandem with his sinuses. 

Apparently satisfied, LeClaire clapped Roz on the back and headed to the front of the room. Roz took his customary seat between Cliff and Connors in the first row. 

“So, how are you liking the benefits of modern medicine?” Cliff needled him. 

“Go fuck yourself,” Roz replied, but his earlier spitefulness was gone. He lowered his voice as he continued. “You were maybe kind of right. Is nice not to feel like my face will explode.”

Yeah, he sounded much less stuffed up, and he was actually, if grudgingly, conceding an argument. They might make it through tonight after all. 

“Glad to hear it, man. Really,” Cliff said earnestly. Sincerity wasn’t their usual style, but neither was Roz folding on an issue like this. 

Roz looked at him for a long moment, then smirked. “Of course you are. Is first and only time you will ehhh-ver w-win ahhh!-argumehhnt—Huhh’DJZSH’EUuh! yHH’DTZCH’SHUue! Haahh-PJZSCHhihh!”

Roz twisted away from Cliff at the last second, bending over double in his seat to sneeze openly at the ground. Well, it would be too much to hope that the meds would completely eliminate any sign of Roz’s cold. Especially his sneezes; Cliff kind of doubted that any drug in existence could do that. At least they didn’t sound like they had to punch through a brick wall on the way out. 

“Well, that sounds like a sign that we should get started,” LeClaire said dryly, but his voice carried enough to get the attention of the twenty unruly hockey players filling the room. “There have been some developments.”

The room stilled completely. “Rozy, please tell us you’re still cleared,” Connors begged. St-Simon nodded vigorously beside him. 

“Yes, yes, Doug is smart man, he says I can handle tiny cold,” Roz said airily. Cliff kept his mouth shut about the half-dozen other warnings the doc had tacked on to that sentence. The important part was true. 

“He did say that. He also said you’re getting less ice time, but you knew that already.” LeClaire said amiably, holding up one hand to forestall Roz’s objections. “Enough, Roz. We need you rested for the road trip next week more than we need you to pull double shifts tonight. Besides, you already got us a consolation prize.” 

Cliff grinned in anticipation. Roz’s mutinous expression melted into a small, private smile. 

“Are you talking about Hollander?” Connors asked excitedly. “Cap, what did you do? I thought you were joking about the biological warfare thing.”

“Yes, Connie. I invite captain of Metros to my house so I can sneeze on him and infect him with illness I did not know I have,” Roz said, dead-pan. 

Connors laughed delightedly. Cliff snorted, marveling at Roz’s ability to say the most ridiculous things with a completely straight face. Although, come to think of it, if Roz had actually hooked up with his Montreal girl last night, that was exactly what had happened to her. Wherever she was now, Cliff hoped she wasn’t too pissed off at Roz. 

LeClaire pinched the bridge of his nose. “What I meant to say is that Roz and Marly got us accidental intel. But yes, Hollander is also sick.”

“Great,” Carmichael said, for once not even slightly sarcastic. “I was not looking forward to taking extra face-offs against him.” 

“Too bad, you’re still taking them,” LeClaire declared with a resigned determination. Sure enough, Carmichael and Roz objected simultaneously. 

“But shouldn’t we save Roz for—“

“There is no need, I can take Hollander—”

“I said enough!” LeClaire barked, banging on the table to shut them up. He shot an annoyed look at Roz. “You’re getting less ice time, and so is Hollander. Theriault will avoid starting him in their defensive zone so he can focus on scoring. Which is exactly what I’m going to do with you. Mikey is perfectly capable of shutting down the Hollander line, that’s what we pay him for.”

It was mostly true. LeClaire’s current game plan against Montreal’s top line was to let Hollander and Roz have at it in the first period. In the second, he’d use the combined power of Carmichael and the long change to trap them in their zone and cycle them to death. That usually left them gassed and less dangerous by the third. It would be less effective without Roz out there to stir up shit, but not a total disaster. 

Carmichael looked a bit more compliant now that he’d had his tires pumped. Roz was still mutinous as he scrubbed his knuckles roughly under his nose. He closed his eyes for a beat, swallowing whatever complaint he had left, then shoved his game face back on.

“Is not bad idea, but there is one problem,” Roz said thoughtfully, his voice still a gravelly baritone. “If they know about me, then Hollander will expect this. Mikey slows down the game, is how he makes life hard for players who use speed for attack. Hollander will not do this tonight. If you give him space to think, he will play chess with Mikey. Is low-event game, but he is good at chess.”

LeClaire was still a bit ticked off, but he was listening. “Do you have a different idea?”

“Yes. We do not give him space to think. Hollander hates being sick, will be easy to annoy him. When he gets comfortable, send us out to rile him up, then let him waste energy on Mikey.” 

Roz’s face settled back into his trademark heavy-lidded stare. Combined with his accent in that low, guttural voice, he sounded like a movie villain laying out his master plan. The whole tough-guy image was immediately ruined when he scrunched up his nose and scrubbed it against the back of his hand like a toddler.

LeClaire gave Roz another long look. He seemed impressed that the guy’s brain was still firing on all cylinders, but Cliff could see the edge of concern in the coach’s eyes. “I’ll consider it. Moving on, we can’t know exactly how this will affect the Metros’ game plan. We put our heads together with the analytics guys to come up with a baseline. Let’s start with—“

“haA’kGXTJ’SHeuhh!”

Roz pitched forward with another sneeze. Thankfully, it was the normal loud kind and not the wicked blocked-up ones that sounded like they rattled his teeth. He drew a few nervous glances from the kids, but was mostly ignored. LeClaire, who was used to that particular disruption, just kept talking. 

“—their forwards. We expect them—“

“Huhh’PTXZSCHhh-eu!”

“—to shelter the Hollander line, which means Comeau—“

“Ihh’kGHX’SCHuhh!”

“—is going to swallow up more hard minutes and d-zone draws. That’s good news for you three,” LeClaire, still ignoring the interruption, nodded toward Cliff, Roz and Connors. 

Cliff exchanged a satisfied look with Connors over a  bent-double Roz, who had yet to look up after his latest sneeze. Cliff was definitely looking forward to running over Montreal’s fourth line. The Raiders had no qualms about playing a heavy, greasy game. But those three idiots took it too far, and it was galling to watch the Metros escape with their choirboy reputation intact every time. Cliff blamed Hollander and his picture-perfect media-trained captaincy. 

Of course, LeClaire wouldn’t let him have too much fun. “Marly, keep your nose clean tonight. No stupid penalties. I can’t have you in the box when we’re already down one of our best penalty killers.”

Several guys jeered, and Roz briefly stopped bullying his nose to blow a loud raspberry. LeClaire was obviously fighting a smile as he kept going. 

“Speaking of the PK, we’re not entirely sure what we’re up against. Their PP1 has Hollander running the point, so he can try to win with his brain instead of his legs. He won’t cycle down low, but he can still pick us apart from the blue line if—“

“yhH’KGDHx’schueh!”

“—we give him time. Pressure him up top, make him skate. He—“

“Huhh-PdTX’SSHhh!”

“—wants to log the full two minutes, but if we make him work he’s going to—“

“Aah’GDHXxt’SHIIIh!!”

“—gas out early, bless you. Bottom line, they’re still dangerous. We’ll get more detailed in the PK meeting.”

The sneezes drew more attention this time after LeClaire’s offhanded blessing, but everyone looked away before Roz could catch them. As Roz righted himself, Cliff nudged him and raised his eyebrows in a silent ‘you good?’

Roz rolled his eyes and flicked his wrist carelessly, then scrubbed his knuckles roughly under his nose. That was probably Roz-speak for ‘leave me alone, you should be used to this by now.’ Fair enough, as long as he stayed that way for the next four hours. 

* * *

Author’s notes:

Shane wants the ground to swallow him whole, and that was before his teammate blessed him in Russian. Ilya plans to do more than just annoy him. 

Ilya would rather piss everyone off than experience a single moment of emotional vulnerability. This is an airtight plan and Shane will definitely not disrupt it by existing in his general vicinity. 

Hockey analysis - I wrote my best attempt at analyzing how each team’s tactics would adjust to this situation. I’m just a hockey fan without personal experience so my knowledge is limited, hopefully some of it makes sense. There’s maybe too much jargon, but I erred on the side of keeping the discussion in character. Both coaches are doing fairly standard stuff, but with slightly different emphasis. McCann is focused on load management, LeClaire is playing chess with match-ups. Shane is being autistic detail-oriented about his special interest, Ilya is engaging in psychological warfare. 

ESL speakers - Ilya isn’t the only one. Varkov and Andropov are Russian, so they’re gonna drop articles and use weird prepositions. Victor St-Simon is the most Quebecois name ever. He definitely grew up speaking French, he’s been speaking English for a while but he messes up verb tenses and idioms sometimes. J.J. is Haitian-Canadian, so he’s also a francophone. Plus he can swear in a combination of Haitian creole and Quebecois sacres, which is fun. I made a whole meta of where I think players are from based on their names, if anyone’s interested I can post it. 

Nicknames - around their team, hockey players almost never refer to each other by their full surnames. The lack of nicknames in canon bugs me almost as much as the lack of Russian diminutives. Hockey nicknames usually have 1 or 2 syllables, based on the player’s last name with an ‘s’, ‘y’ or ‘er’ suffix. Sometimes it’s an inside joke or a reference to a distinctive attribute (a redhead could be Red or Rusty, a tall player could be Tiny, etc.) For the sake of clarity I went with the boring options here, but I love the silly ones. My irl favorite is A/rber X/hekaj, nicknamed WiFi because his surname looks like a default password you would find on the back of a router. 

——

Oh Babe, I Hate to Go (Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4): Shane, cold (Ilya @ end)

H/R One-Shot #1: Shane, cold

Oh, Those Russians: Ilya, allergies

An (Un)healthy Scratch: Shane, cold

Bunny: Shane, allergies

Quiet (Part 1 / 2): Ilya, cold

It’s You (Part 1 / 2 / 3): Shane, various

Headspace: Ilya, allergies

Hazards of Our Occupation (Part 1 / 2): Ilya, various

H/R One-Shot #2: Shane, cold

H/R One-Shot #3: Ilya, cold

Prompt fill (tea): Ilya, cold

Yuna’s Perpetually Stuffy Son: Ilya, cold

They’d returned home last night after a week in Las Vegas, which had itself come after a week of nonstop parades and clubbing and bar crawls all around Ottawa. Shane didn’t think he’d ever been so exhausted. Somehow he’d slept on the plane for a solid five hours, only waking when the smell of the herbal tea Ilya got him from a flight attendant wafted past his nostrils. There wasn’t much better than being soothed by warm tea and the cuddles of an even warmer husband, that Shane knew for certain.

Ilya’s side of the bed was empty, and, as Shane found when he reached a hand over to brush against the sheets, cold. He scrunched up his face, hoping to relieve the lead-weight tension that was sitting in the middle of his forehead and around his eyes, but didn’t feel much of a difference. He sighed, still frustrated with himself for getting up so late, then rubbed at his nose and went downstairs.

Ilya was sitting at the kitchen table, humming along to some heinous Russian pop music and scrolling on his phone, a piece of toast on a plate beside him. “Good morning, Mr. Conn Smythe,” he said warmly when Shane sat down next to him. “I made some toast for you, but you have been sleeping so long that I ate almost the whole thing.”

Shane would tell people that while he was honored to have been awarded the Conn Smythe (again), the most important accomplishment was the trophy he’d won with his teammates. And while yes, that was true, he was secretly so fucking proud of himself. After the year from hell he and his husband had been subjected to, including having been disowned by his former team - those he’d considered family - he’d clawed his way back to the top. He’d left everyone who’d scorned him lying in a heap at the bottom of the pyramid. And snowed them in their faces with his skates.

He picked up the toast, which had a huge bite taken out of it. “Gee, thanks,” he said dryly, then finished it off, savoring the salty taste despite the fact that he was probably dehydrated. Ilya always made the best toast. (He probably soaked it in butter, but Shane didn’t really care about that right now.)

When Shane looked over after his finishing bite, Ilya was watching him with a gentle smile on his face. Shane put an arm around him and squeezed. “We fucking did it,” he said, ignoring the slight twinge in his throat when he spoke.

“We fucking did it.” Ilya guided Shane’s head down to rest against his shoulder, then pressed some kisses to it. They were quiet, Ilya no doubt reliving the same memories as Shane.

——

1-1 after the third. After all this team had been through - the punishing seven-game series in the first round, pushing through injuries and exhaustion and stress, everyone giving it their all on the ice in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, this would finally be the year - they were dying to get it done now. Today. If worse came to worst, they could lose this game and start all over again in Game 6. But the Centaurs did not want to go back to Oregon. “I want to hear OUR fans. I want to hear THEM scream,” Ilya shouted at the boys before the beginning of OT.

And so they fucking did.

Everything became madness after Ilya scored by beating the goalie on his far side. Shane had played and won in Montreal, one of the biggest hockey markets on Earth, and still he’d never heard an arena get as loud as this one. Then there was the team pile-up against the glass…Hayes zooming across the ice towards them, whooping, goalie stick flying in the air…the confetti, the crowd, Ilya’s sweaty curls sticking to Shane’s cheek, the WAGs kissing their men like they’d returned from war…none of the three other times Shane had been here were anything like this. This was unencumbered happiness like he’d never felt before, cranked up to a deliriously high level. When he looked into Ilya’s eyes, he knew why.

And then, the parade. Ilya, drunk on joy (and beer. Lots of beer), speaking eloquently to the crowd (until the “WE FUCKING LOVE YOU, OTTAWA!” which got the biggest cheer of the day) as tears streamed down his, Shane’s, and many of their teammates’ faces. This was more than just a win, but a beacon of hope for a city that had become a punching bag amongst NHL fans. “Ottawa Centaurs: There’s Always Next Year” was a slogan Shane had heard many times, even seen in person on more a few t-shirts around town. Nobody shit on a team like its own fans, but then again, the Centaurs hadn’t given them much to be optimistic about. Until now.

Finally, Vegas. Bood commandeering karaoke with a group of tourists from Guatemala, Ilya walking around the casinos doing his best De Niro face, Luca Haas making sure their younger teammates were staying hydrated and managing their liquor to a (semi-)sensible degree. Shane kissed his husband beneath the palm trees every chance he got, the most beautiful trophy in sports casually photobombing them in the background. Harris was thrilled to get some of this on camera, and for once, Shane wasn’t being shy about it. He had a husband, and he could kiss him! In public! (The champagne was helping, too.)

——

“It’s like a dream,” Shane mumbled, closing his eyes against the gentle carding of Ilya’s hand through his hair. How could he possibly feel sleepy again after he’d just woken up? Then again, he’d been up throughout the night from the sound of Ilya’s rumbling snores in his ear, as well as to frequently adjust the blankets and pillows. Nothing had quite felt correct against his body for the last few days for some reason. Even the sweats he was wearing right now felt strangely restrictive and a little itchy.

“It’s no dream. Not anymore,” Ilya replied, and Shane heard a little wobble in his voice. “It’s even better.”

Shane was about to tell Ilya that he loved him when he felt an itch tickle at his nostrils, then lodge deep inside his nose with an alarming quickness. He lifted his head and raised his elbow at the same time, muffling a “hd’tschh! ht’shiew!” and an involuntary little sigh into the fabric of his soft, comfortable Rozanov Centaurs tee. Immediately his eyes filled with tears, and he wiped them away with his thumbs. “Fuck, excuse me.”

“Ah, bless you,” Ilya said, sounding disappointed. He shook his head and muttered to himself, “I knew it.”

“Knew what? -snrf-” Shane winced at the stuffy snuffle that escaped him.

Ilya put an arm around Shane’s shoulders and rubbed gently at his bicep. “You are catching a cold, lyubimyy.”

“Ugh, no, don’t say that,” Shane complained, squeezing his eyes shut as if it could help him avoid his husband’s words. It didn’t do anything other than make the pain in his head intensify. “I’m just a little tired.”

Ilya frowned. “Being tired doesn’t hurt your throat. Or make you sneeze.”

How the fuck did he know…? Shane sighed again. Ilya was a fucking prognosticator, often able to tell how Shane was feeling just by looking at him. He was right every single time he voiced that Shane was getting sick - He’s just on a lucky streak, Shane thought, knowing deep down that luck wasn’t a part of this, especially judging by the discomfort in his throat and the everpresent tickle in his nose. Motherfucker.

Shane was determined to ignore his symptoms. They were going to have a great fucking day today, goddammit. “I’m fine, don’t worrihh…!” But the strong tickle returned, cutting Shane’s reassurance short as his breath began to hitch…and hitch…and hitch. As he stayed stuck in limbo, he was faintly aware of Ilya hopping out of his chair and power-walking out of the room. What the hell? Irritated and desperate for relief, Shane looked into the fan light above the table, hoping it would trigger—“hy’ih! h’ehh-? hsshiew! ah’ishhoo!”—something in his nose. He felt some wetness trickle out of his right nostril after the second sneeze, and he quickly covered his nose with a hand. Ugh, disgusting. He needed a—

Ilya returned with a box of tissues and set it on the table next to Shane. “Bless you, sweetheart.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Fuck, Ilya had even known that Shane was going to need tissues. Blushing, he took one with his free hand and dabbed beneath where he had shielded his nose from view. He felt himself turn even redder when he caught Ilya’s amused little gaze. “You don’t need to be shy around me. I think you have seen me blow my nose five billion times,” he joked, and Shane laughed and blew gently into the tissue. A kind of creeping exhaustion, the same he’d felt on the plane, was coming over him, and he couldn’t hold back the huge yawn that escaped him. “Aw,” he heard Ilya say softly, then warm arms wrapped around his shoulders and another kiss was pressed to the top of his head. “Too much fun. It’s catching up to you.”

Shane groaned. He’d take one extra night of being hungover over having a cold for a goddamn week. (Although…he was learning that it was harder to recover quickly from a hangover in your thirties than in your twenties, even as a world-class athlete. Especially when you slept next to a chainsaw-jackhammer hybrid of a man at night.)

“Wanted to make us breakfast,” he mumbled.

Ilya chuckled. “I think you’ve missed your window. But I could have pancakes and bacon any time of the day. When you feel better, of course.” He paused, looking contemplative. “I think I’ll get a McGriddle before I pick up Anya.”

Shane grimaced. “You’re gross.”

Ilya shrugged. “I know what tastes good.”

“You don’t know anything.”

Ilya tsked. “I know that my husband is a big meanie when he’s not feeling well. Lucky for him that his husband is so good to him anyway.” He kissed behind Shane’s ear, and Shane grinned and sighed happily. God, Ilya’s kisses always felt so good.

“I am lucky,” he replied. “Not everybody gets to marry an OT-goal-scoring-Stanley-Cup-winning hockey player.” He grabbed another tissue to blow into as the insufferable fullness filled his sinuses again. It…didn’t help much, and it made his ear pop a little.

“Yes. Is you and a bunch of very blonde women.”

Shane smiled beneath the tissue. “Lucky us, then.”

Against his better judgment, Shane lay back down in bed as Ilya got ready to pick up Anya from Shane’s parents’ house. He sleepily watched his husband change with an appreciative hum that came out beyond his control. Ilya winked at him and flashed him his six-pack beneath his tank top. “Woo,” Shane said softly as his eyes begin to droop.

“Back soon, milyy,” Ilya said in a hushed voice. Shane felt the blankets being pulled up to his chest, then lips pressing against his forehead as he drifted off.

——

The next day, laying in bed and watching Anastasia, Shane felt his nose begin to drip. He grabbed for some tissues and blushed furiously when Ilya paused the movie (again) so Shane could focus on tending to his nose. “There’s subtitles,” he mumbled before he blew, the sound soft and snuffly.

“Yes, but then you could not hear her singing, Shane,” Ilya said, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth (Shane was too tired to scold him for eating in bed) and turning to Anya in her enormous dog bed. “Who knew you had such a beautiful voice, my sweet girl?” he cooed as the Anya on screen sang “Once Upon a December.”

Shane laughed hoarsely, then coughed a little and rubbed at his chest, which had begun to ache a little. Ilya was at his side immediately, fussing with the blankets and petting a hand through his hair. “Make sure you’re drinking your tea, sweetheart,” he said, worry alight in his eyes. “It will keep you warm. Do you want a jacket?”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said for about the twenty-fourth time that day. “I’m warm enough.”

Ilya searched his face for a few moments, then nodded. “Okay. But if you start sneezing again, I’m getting you another blanket.”

“Ilya. It’s July.”

“You can be chilly in July.”

“Yeah, maybe in Antarctica.”

Ilya reached over and cupped Shane’s face in both hands. “Shane. You are sick. Let me take care of you.”

Shane felt his cheeks warm again, and he realized that he was unable to relent. Not with those big sweet baby blues trained on him like this. “Okay.”

He felt himself wilting more and more as the movie progressed, and eventually he had to lay his heavy head against Ilya’s broad shoulder, then sit back up when it made his nose start to drip again. “Fuck,” he grumbled as something in his sinuses shifted and he needed to duck forward into a hastily-grabbed tissue. “hy’ITSChh’uu! hip’schiew! ISHhhuhh! hyihh-! hy’ishhhew!”

“Bud’ zdorov.” Ilya, who had paused the damn movie again, was true to his word and grabbed Shane another jacket because of course he’d been wracked with a full-body shiver after the sneezes. Shane drew the line when Ilya attempted to zip it up for him, however. “I can put on my own jacket,” he argued, then immediately sneezed into his elbow with a rapid “hy’ischh-ISHhuhh!”

“Mhm, okay. Bless you,” Ilya said, then continued zipping the jacket up to Shane’s neck. He felt…a lot warmer and cozier, actually, and he tipped his head back on Ilya’s shoulder and snuggled close in response.

“So what do you think of the movie so far?”

Ilya shook his head. “Is very unrealistic. That bat should at least be wearing a fur hat in this snowy weather.”

Shane giggled. Being sick wasn’t so bad when it was like this.

“I think I had a crush on Dimitri when I was a kid,” he commented a few minutes later.

Ilya gasped dramatically and put a hand to his chest. “Shane Hollander, you have a type? Are you trying to make me jealous of other hot Russian men with crooked noses?”

Firstly, he absolutely could not stop sneezing. It was simply impossible. He’d swaggered to his plushy recliner with hubris and paid for it about 57 minutes later after dutifully repressing every single rising urge that niggled his sinuses over the course of the hour. It grew and grew in him, increasingly worrisome in its size, until the tickle was just too strong to hold at bay. No amount of snorting, nose blowing, or finger rubbing would ward it back.

It forced him at metaphorical gunpoint to the closet-like bathroom, blindly staggering through tears and wrenching hitches, where he dropped to a crouch and then to his backside with almost a dozen cataclysmic sneezes. Each one worked his lungs like a bellows, dizzying him until he saw spots, winding him until he felt breathless. By the end he was wrecked, and clinging perilously to his self control. He realized then that his sneezing wouldn’t bring him to orgasm alone; it could only lead him to the edge and trap him there until he finished the job himself. Which he obviously couldn’t do in the agency’s aircraft lavatory.

So. He gave up on the ‘don’t sneeze until the jet lands’ plan.

Instead, Omicron washed his face, dried his hands, and resigned himself to minding his nose’s whims. His original hypothesis was correct - if he did nothing to deter his sneezes, they’d come at regular, but controllable, intervals. This remained consistent as long as he didn’t make the other critical error.

Which led him to the second issue: if his mind strayed too far toward anything sneeze-related, he armed the tickle with more ammo. His sneezes became unwieldy if he held them back, yes, but they also magnified to arousing proportions if he imagined literally anything tickling his nose. This was the hallmark of Dr. Voster’s virus - the ‘suggestion sneeze.’ So to avoid a case of blue balls, Omicron did his best not to ruminate on the ceaseless, beckoning sensation that lived in him now. This was by far the most trying aspect of his predicament.

And the third and final bit of info was an exasperating realization: Agent Delta was a chronic and committed blesser even in these circumstances.

“H-ah.. DZSshuh!” 

“Bless you.”

Omicron resisted the urge to rub his nose, and instead treated it to a dab from his beleaguered tissue. Any motion more substantial than that would goad it into further misbehavior. He wasn’t interested in another stumbling trip to the bathroom.

“Sir.” He sounded as congested as he felt; his voice was locked up in his sinuses. “You really don’t have to bless me every time.”

Delta patted Omicron’s knee. The two of them sat side by side, despite the sea of empty seats around them. “Aw, Omicron, you keep saying that. I really don’t mind.”

I mind, groused Omicron. That’s why I keep saying it. His gaze drifted to the porthole window and all the little, passing structures beneath. The ground drew closer meters at a time, just as the tickle, yet again, tugged him closer to a conclusion he’d given up fighting. He blinked wetly against the sensation, then let his eyes fall shut. The image of the tiny cars cruising down below lingered, each one speeding undeterred to a destination. They were perpetual. Indefinite. And it was far beyond Omicron’s ability to stop their momentum.

He felt the tickle lurch forward, ripping his breath into a shuddering, “-hUH!hh.. mbb..” Omicron swatched his finger beneath his nose, pausing when the tickle reprimanded him with a lancing spark. “eh-HEH!..hh..”

Hurry up already, he chided with a daring snub to his nose. His nostrils pulsed erratically, aggravated, and another gasp shivered out of him. “h-hh-hh.. HAH-TZSS!sss’uhh..”

“Bless you!” chirped Delta.

It was a particularly unsatisfying sneeze, and ridiculous as it was he felt mocked by his own nose. Omicron sniffled, sniffled again, trying to flare the tickle into action. But it wouldn’t budge. He dug at his eyes with his palms.

“Does your head hurt?” asked Delta.

Omicron dropped his hands and leaned his head back against the seat with another defeated sniffle. “Ndo, sir. Mby head doesn’d hurt.”

“Do you need more tissues?”

His fingernails bit into the palm of his hand. “Ndo, sihHH-”

Unwilling to endure another hygiene lecture, Omicron flinched both elbows to his face and kept his nose there. He heaved through a series of increasingly yearning breaths, light on the inhales, heavy on the exhales, shoulders lifting and dropping each time he thought the sneeze might grant him mercy. In the end it left him wanting. He dropped his arms and panted, eyes still closed, cheeks streaked with tears.

Delta cleared his throat and Omicron lulled his head in that direction, squinting through sticky eyelashes. His superior held a fresh pack of tissues in offering, and Omicron’s cheeks heated. How many of these did he bring??

He didn’t snatch them, but it was a near thing. Delta’s smile tilted with sympathy, and Omicron prickled like a wet cat. “You can vent your complaints to me if you want, I don’t mind.”

“Not sure what you mean,” he muttered through gritted teeth, scrubbing his nose with intentional strength. It stung, but served it right. 

“It’s okay to be grumpy, Omicron.” Delta spoke like he was soothing a startled horse. “I’m sure this is a tricky situation to manage.”

What remained of Omicron’s professional decorum disintegrated, and he snapped with a waspish, “What would you know?”

Delta’s eyebrows flew up and Omicron’s blood flashed cold. He hadn’t meant to say that. 

“P...Pardon mbe, sir,” he mumbled and lowered his tissue with a sniff. “I apologize. That was uncalled for.”

“Yes, it was,” Delta agreed, his tone contemplative. “But it was also very out of character for you. I’ve seen you stay composed during triage for a gunshot wound. Just what about this has you so out of sorts?”

Admitting to Delta that there was more to this than simply sneezing - disclosing the induced erections that were slowly eroding his self control - would be professional suicide. Even if this side effect wasn’t Omicron’s fault, it was his responsibility to manage. This was a chance to prove himself, and if he screwed it up he’d never get this chance again. That’s just how it was at the agency.

He’d have to lie. Lie until he could deflect. 

“Dnothi’g, sir,” he said. “It jhhust tih.. iih..ckles-hh..hH..” Omicron’s eyelids fluttered and he crushed his crumpled tissue to his face. 

Please, please, please, he found himself begging as the itch crawled around behind his eyes. Give me a good one.

Against his better judgement, a smoky silhouette sprung to his mind’s eye. Something lithe and graceful, skulking through his nasal passages heedless of the sorry state of them. It glided across raw nerves, pausing to snuggle against their warmth as Omicron sliced his lungs with a gasp. Then dragged the breath back out on a groan. Fuck, he could feel it. Could feel the dimensions of the tickle as it prowled and pawed, arched and sprawled, coy in its torture. He could feel his nerves recoil, his nostrils spasm - a panicked cry for action.

“h-YEH!hh..oh.. hh-HEH-” 

Omicron panted as the tickle receded, plumeing into an indistinct but irritating mist. Like a phantom it spread through him, coating his quaking membranes as it drifted deeper.. deeper.. deeper still. It filled his nose with a sensation too ambiguous to do much more than hopelessly itch. His hiccuping breaths eased to stillness; he was trapped on this plateau, punished by a tickle that wouldn’t grow. It merely wanted to endure. A bit frantic, Omicron tried to grasp onto a more solid visual. It didn’t matter what it was, it could be anything, just so long as- 

“Agent Omicron?”

The torturous mist evaporated, leaving his nose singed and no longer imminently sneezy. It took substantial restraint for Omicron not to pound his armrest in abject, miserable frustration. He blew his nose in defeat, raked his sleeves over his cheeks to clear the tears, and sniffled. His nose squeaked in reply. 

“.. I don’t think I can adequately communicate how annoying this is, sir.”

“Well, it really must be a bother if it’s making you pout like this.”

Omicron puffed up in offense and casted for a snide reply before he remembered that this was his boss. He bit his tongue, figuratively and literally. “It’s true this is testing my patience,” he said, “but I assure you that it won’t impact my performance. I’ll achieve nothing less than exceptional results. And respectfully, sir, I’m not pouting.”

Then he shimmied in his seat to face the window.

Agent Delta considered him with a skeptical eye, and as someone who knew the extent of his subordinate’s gifts he was right to do so. Deception was something of Omicron’s specialty. Trained in the art of information extraction, he excelled at becoming whomever a target wanted to see: a cautious creative type, a severe and dismissive businessman, the gullible boy next door or the leather-clad motorcyclist your friends warned you about. This ability, among other qualities, landed him this case.

But tricking a stranger he’d researched for weeks and swindling his superior officer were two different beasts.

“As you say,” Delta conceded to Omicron’s back. 

The jet’s landing gear grazed the runway.

+ + +

The destination was tropical, but close enough to a coastline that the heat wasn’t stifling. Their resort hotel was nothing short of opulent, offering amenities such as: a grand carpeted staircase, bellhops in uniform, and over a dozen glittering chandeliers. They’d changed into their civilian clothes before entering to better blend in. Well, blend was a strong word for Agent Delta; he wore Bermuda shorts with an equally garish aloha shirt printed with hibiscus flowers. Omicron doubted it was an officially sanctioned garment. He himself donned something understated - khaki shorts, boat shoes, and a white v-neck t-shirt. A pair of gold aviator sunglasses sat on top of his head.

He’d done what he could for his nose. When he caught sight of it in the jet’s bathroom mirror just before they deplaned, he could understand why Delta kept needling him. The skin was blushed an obscene red, the color deepest at his nostrils and fanning out across his septum, cupid’s bow, and as far up to the bridge of his nose. He also hadn’t been aware of how much it moved on its own, incessantly prodded by the tickle inside. Looking at himself too long just made him feel sneezier, and Omicron had braced his hands on the bathroom counter with helpless hitching until he coughed out a single, underwhelming, ih’BZSch!

Now watching Delta check in at the front desk from across the hotel lobby, Omicron tempered his trembling nostrils with a touch of his index finger. Settle down, he bargained. Stop teasing me.

His phone vibrated against his thigh. It was a burner; he got a fresh phone for every assignment and didn’t keep a personal cell. A glance at the number told him exactly who it was. He lifted it to his ear.

“Make it quick, Doctor,” he said. “I’m onsite.”

“Well, hello to you too, Mr. Grouch!” Dr. Voster trilled. His mood further soured at her enthusiasm. “New phone again, huh? How’d you know it was me?”

“I memorized your number.”

“Because I’m your favorite?”

Omicron wrinkled his nose. “I memorize all my numbers. Don’t get excited.”

“You really know how to make a woman feel special, O.”

“Did you want something?” he asked, eyes on Delta as the man chatted amiably with the clerk. His nostrils twinged and he gave them an appeasing rub. “I’m busy.”

“Just checking in. How’s your nose doing?”

As if to answer, the tickle squirmed. Omicron snorted reflexively and rubbed more sternly against his sore septum.

“You’re calling at..” He checked his watch. “..1:15 in the morning your time to ask about my nose?”

“Your viral load should be pretty high by now,” she replied, sounding wide awake despite the hour. “I want to know how it feels.”

“It feels-” He’d been gearing up for a snarky remark, but it died on his tongue. Between one breath and the next something changed. His nostrils slowly flared, grazing his finger where it rested against his lip.

“… it feels?” prompted Dr. Voster.

To his credit, Omicron tried. “I-hht.. h’tzuh..” 

But then his eyes flickered shut as he became entranced by that incurable tickle. It advanced slowly, enormous in his nose, lumbering forward and promising him a bounty. The swell would have intimidated him if he hadn’t been waiting for the better part of a day. He dropped his finger from his lip and braced his hand against the wall instead. If this was as big as it felt, he’d need it to stay on his feet.

“hUH-… ugh..” A sharp sniff, and a mutter under his breath. “..chhome on.. h-hh-!”

Fuck, it was oppressive. Omicron cinched his eyes tightly shut as he eased a breath through his tingling nose. It didn't hasten the advance, only threw gasoline on a raging fire. The tickle licked at his nasal nerves, which began to spasm in alarmed reply. Suddenly he was gulping down air, hitching so loudly it felt lewd.

“hah!hh.. uHH!h.. HUH-.. HUH-.. HUH-!”

The fire burned on, colossal and all consuming, demanding so much of him that his lungs filled to the brim. He could feel his head ratcheting by degrees, twitching back even when he could take no more air. If he could open his eyes, he’d probably see the shimmer of those fancy chandeliers. The tickle seethed for an agonizing moment. A quiet ache of pleasure twisted his gut. And then-

“WRRUZZSSSSHOOO!!”

Ecstasy. 

“HHHH-!.. RRIHSSSSCH’YUU!”

It scraped through him thoroughly with a crack of throbbing relief. Dazedly, he hitched anew. In, in, in-

“h-hH-HH-” And out in one fell swoop. “HPT’ZSSSCHOOO!!..nnngh..”

Omicron thanked himself for the foresight of leaning against the wall. Otherwise he’d probably be on the ground, or at the very least staggering aimlessly as his sneezes tossed him around. His nose didn’t seem to know what to do, other than grant him another.

“HAH’DIZSSSH’uh!”

And another.

“HEH’YIIZSSCHOO!ohhh..”

He gasped for breath, the hand holding his phone routing to his sternum. He could feel his heart hammering, his chest heaving. Each time he sneezed, his abs clenched. And with each release, a cloying ache spread through his groin. He was probably erect by this point but-

“Hih-.. HIHBISSSH’YAHhh!”

He didn’t want to stop. Omicron breathed deeply into the tickle, feeling it paint the inside of his nose with a swath of sensation. Something speared into his sinuses - the probing tip of a paintbrush, a thin piece of twine, a fiendish little intruder intent on undoing him.

“IIH’TIZZSCH’iu!!”

His lungs emptied and replenished themselves with another single, flowing breath. Despite his light-headedness and unsteady legs, Omicron felt himself smiling. 

“HHHH!.. EHJZZSSHUE!!’hhhooohh by god..”

It resonated pleasantly, like he struck his body with a tuning fork, and the trancelike need to sneeze, gasp, sneeze finally ebbed. The tickle receded, mollifying his nose in its tide. He could still feel it floating around in his sinuses somewhere, sated for now but impossible to fully satisfy. And of course his dick wasn’t satisfied in the slightest. His balls ached terribly. He’d had the good sense to arrange himself before entering the hotel lobby, fully aware he might find himself in this predicament in public. Again.

A voice spoke intelligibly, muffled against his shirt. Oh right, the phone. He put it back to his ear.

“What?” he panted.

“Did those feel good?”

He sniffled and fended off a full body shiver. “Don’d all sdeezes feel good?”

“Mm. Yeah.” Her tone was weirdly stilted. “Well. So. This is awkward, but I might have-”

Omicron tuned her out as he gathered himself. He was in dire need of a tissue, and he’d caught his own shirt in the crossfire of those last few sneezes. A quick scan of the room confirmed that just about every guest and employee saw him letting loose without even an attempt to cover his mouth. Many people were staring, including Agent Delta. The man was agog, but as Omicron stared back, he got the prickling feeling that it wasn’t him Delta was looking at. It was a second after that when he heard who exactly caught his superior’s eye. 

“Bless you.”

He clocked the voice before he turned, which gave him a split-second to prepare his expression. He arranged a look of chagrined surprise and hung up the phone on a still-nattering Anita.

“Oh!” He jumped, and flashed a shy smile. “Thagk you.”

She was taller in person, with legs a mile long and hair falling in thick waves to her waist. She wore burgundy lipstick, accentuating the plush shape of her mouth. A voluptuous woman, her Bohemian ensemble framed her curves and flowed around her like a modern renaissance painting. Her jewelry spoke of wealth, her painted nails spoke of elegance, and her eyes concealed a careful fire. 

She held out a pair of sunglasses. Mine, Omicron realized.

“You dropped these.”

He took them from her with a chuckle. “Ah, jeez, that’s embarrassi’g.” He sniffled and didn’t miss her swift glance at his nose. “I really mbade a spectacle of mbyself. Sorry about that.”

“Not at all,” she said. Her voice was dark velvet, soft and sophisticated. “I’m sure you couldn’t help it.”

Omicron juggled his phone and his sunglasses, keeping his eyes on her as he unearthed a half-empty package of travel tissues. He kept up his sniffling, in part for her benefit and also because his nose dripping onto his shirt was an imminent concern.

“Yeah, I’b kind of a mbess todahhy..” He tried to keep his eyes open even as they fogged with emergent tears. His voice scratched against a tender throat, tremoring around little hitching hiccups. “I do-hh!T huh.. don’t eved doe where th.. hh-hH!..mbghh, where all thad came fromb I-hhH!.. ndormally don’d sdnee-”

It overpowered him suddenly. He just barely rushed a tissue to his nose in time.

“hiH’TISsh’oo!” Back to the regulars, and just one didn’t quite cut it. Omicron huffed his way to a second. “..uh.. hck’KSSH’u!.. ugh..”

“Bless you,” she said.

That took care of the itch (for now). He wavered on his feet, fawn-legged from his earlier fit, and muttered a guttural “Pardod be” as he ducked away to noisily blow his nose. It took several tissues before he deemed himself presentable and by the time he got all the used ones shoved into his shorts pockets, he turned back around to see his sunglasses being offered to him again. 

Omicron chuckled hoarsely as he took them from her. “I should probably start carrying a spare pair, at this rate.”

There was an amused tilt to her lips. “Perhaps.”

He shared in her smile until the pause between them stretched a little too long. Then he jolted into awkward conversation. “Ah, um- where’s my manners, jeez, I’m Nicolas.”

Nicolas Foster, his cover for this operation: an under-the-weather tourist in town for a destination wedding.

She inclined her head to him gracefully and held out her hand. “Josaline.”

Josaline Jewel, his target: business mogul of the fashion world with a clothing line, makeup brand, and lucrative designer bag collection all sold exclusively online. The agency suspected her of extensive cybercrime; Omicron’s job was to uncover any signs of money laundering, malware manufacture, or identity theft.

“I’d shake your hand,” he said with a self-conscious scrub of his palms against his shorts and another self-deprecating laugh, “but I’ve been sniffly all morning, I’m sorry.”

“Oh?” Again her gaze flashed to his nose when he wrinkled it with a sniffle. “Are you not feeling well?”

He sniffled again as he fiddled with his sunglasses, bashful. “I’m still hoping it’s the jet-lag, but it feels like I’m coming down with something, yeah.”

He punctuated this with a wrist swipe beneath his warm, chapped nostrils. They flared to caution him against further meddling. Josaline crooned in sympathy.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Doubt it, he thought to himself as he offered a warm smile. “That’s really sweet of you to say. Thanks.”

Omicron researched sneeze fetishes as thoroughly as he cased intel on Josaline Jewel. Operatives observed her engaging with unfamiliar men at industry events or galas, escorting them off the dancefloor and into private quarters. All these men had two things in common: they were shorter than she was, and they were at the time afflicted with sneezing. Though she didn’t seem deterred by illness, the agency lacked further details. To fill his void of knowledge, Omicron dove headfirst into a world of niche kinks; he read and watched a towering amount of sneezy content, some of it about fictional characters he’d never even heard of. But he left the experience a more educated man, enlightened and prepared to perform. Now it would be a game of discerning Josaline’s preferences.

“What brings you to town, if I might ask?” Josaline asked. She took a hesitating step in her peep-toe wedges and Omicron followed the cue to walk with her.

“A friend’s wedding,” he said, and it became obvious that his increasingly wet sniffles required maintenance. He sighed as fished around for his last clean tissue. “He’s an old college buddy, super nice guy. The wedding’s not until next week, but I had some time saved up at work and the flights were cheaper on weekdays, so..” Tissue acquired. “..I guess it worked out pretty well.”

“Do you enjoy traveling alone?” she asked, setting a sedate pace across lush carpet and spotless tile. “I find it invigorating, but it can be a little lonely now and then.”

He blotted gently at his nostrils. They fussed at the treatment, jerking and fidgeting against his fingers. Yes, that’s right, Omicron goaded. Tickle me. Go on. The virus humored him, unfurling and sauntering forward with ambition. Instantly his eyelids got heavy, and his voice grew heady.

“Oh, I couldn’t afford this place by mys-.. mys-hhelf..” He kept the tissue tucked to his face this time, muffling his voice and obscuring her view of anything but his fluttering eyes. “I’m hhuh-” 

The tickle got to work, trailing feather-light fingers along his nasal walls. They writhed, trapped and helpless to the whims of a persistent itch. It stroked sensitive places, unhurried and secure in the knowledge he could do absolutely nothing to stop it. He tried to speak around the buildup, each breath a little blip or sigh he couldn’t repress.

“Ho, sorry, I’m rooHH-!.. uh.. rooming with another frihhend whose… als-uHH’h..H-H!” 

He paused as the tickle escalated, now lounging indulgently as it guided him to a gasping high. Its approach was always rhythmic, an everlasting titillation that magnified as the tolerance of his nose diminished. Omicron shot Josaline an apologetic glance over the edge of his tissue and found her looking right at him. For the first time she lost composure, and hurriedly ducked behind a lock of her hair.

“.. Are you alright?” she asked, staring at the floor as they continued to stroll.

Omicron cringed through another playful swipe of the tickle, like fingers made purely of fluff skimming up the length of his nose. He gasped hugely, certain it would come, but then let it out on a near-moan. “..ohhh, sorry- it’s this cold, I-.. Iyyiieee..HH! iG’GZZSCHhu!”

It was a little stronger than he thought it would be. Instinctually he flashed a hand out and anchored his grip to whatever was nearby. The tickle gave him another long, firm stroke and his nerves begged mercy. 

“HIH!PPSSHh’oo!” And another lancing tickle, like washing your car with a sponge, running your hand along a cat’s back, a frictionless glide but it was malicious in its softness and it agitated his nose into rebellion. With one hand, Omicron sealed the tissue more tightly over his nose and mouth. “MMPPHSssh!”

He emptied his remaining air in a desperate blow. His nose tingled with temporary relief. The single, brave tissue did its best, but he’d absolutely need to wash his hands and find another fresh package as soon as possible. Picking his head up, he balled up the trash and knuckled his nose with his fist.

“Sorry, that was gross, I’m-” Genuine anxiety prickled in him as he looked up and realized his other hand was clasped firmly to her upper arm. That was an accident. Omicron flinched away and clung white-knuckled to his disguise. “-SO sorry, oh jeez, I really didn’t mean to grab you like that, I wasn’t- I just, I had to sneeze and then it felt like it was gonna be a big one so I-.. guess I reached for whatever was around, I wasn’t thinking…”

Josaline stood and silently let him run out of steam. A molten heat pooled in her irises. A rose tint glazed her cheeks. She lifted her purse, an understated but expensive clutch with a golden chain, and popped it open.

“Not at all, Nicolas.” Her words melted from her lips. “I truly don’t mind.”

She slipped a swatch of white fabric from her bag and shook it. It unfurled like a flag of surrender, and she held it out with a coy smile. He lifted his finger once again to his nose to graze it just beneath his itchy nostrils and felt a telling touch of moisture. His ears flushed and her smile grew.

“Oh gosh, sorry, that’s..” Cupping one hand over his nose, he reached with the other. “Thank you, Josaline.”

Omicron took the handkerchief and paused when she didn’t let go. Their eyes met.

“I do hope this won’t be the last we see of one another,” she told him. 

Just behind her, the elevator dinged. He blinked, only just noticing where exactly they were. She stepped back into the gilded lift, leaving him with her handkerchief and one last view of her burgundy smile. Then the doors closed. Omicron dropped his shoulders and blew a slow breath from his cheeks. Initial contact: not a catastrophe. Step two: arrange a serendipitous rendezvous.

Agent Delta appeared beside him. Omicron was certain he’d watched it all from a covert corner. He spoke softly, so as not to be overheard. “This is going swimmingly. Well done.”

Omicron ignored his heart’s little leap at the praise. He didn’t like to count chickens before they hatched. His mind raced to assemble all that he’d learned, the pieces of what intrigued her. “Thank you, sir.” 

“Nicolas.” Omicron looked at him, and resisted shooting the man a withering glare when Delta brightly grinned and said, “Your nose is running.”

“Yes, thank you, sir,” Omicron snipped. “I’m aware.”

He tucked into the handkerchief. It was a balm to his sore nose after so many cheap tissues. The cotton was of superb quality, probably with a thread count higher than his bed sheets back home. Omicron nuzzled into it to snuffle and blow; seconds later, he realized with dawning dread that this was the wrong thing to do. For while this handkerchief was freshly laundered, it was also steeped with an overpowering perfume.

The tickle took umbrage with this. It bristled in his nose like a startled cat, sinking claws into his tender membranes and whipping its tail angrily against the sensitized border of his sinus. He couldn’t even suck a breath in before-

“Tssh! Ih’TSsh!.. HSH’u!” He ripped his nose away from the handkerchief, holding the cloth away from him with revulsion. “Hih’KSSh!.. h’KZSh’iu! Ugh!”

“Ooh, bless you, bless you.”

The handkerchief disappeared, and without any other options, he buried his nose into the prayerbook of his hands.

“IHPsh!.. h’PZSsch!.. fugk, ednough, plhHE- HH!BZSSh!”

“Bless you!”

At last it abated. He could imagine the tickle huddled far back in his nose, growling low as it continued to lash its tail. Omicron sniffled behind his hands and coughed from the effort.

“It’s impossible to say whether she doused this intentionally or not,” mused Delta, studying the handkerchief. He tried to pass the offending item back to Omicron, who shrunk away from it. He didn’t want it anywhere near his nose. “She couldn’t have known you were allergic.”

“I’b dnot allergic,” Omicron argued through gritted teeth. Delta gave him a look that plainly said, I don’t believe you, but I’ll humor you because you’re irascible and sneezy. Omicron fantasized about strangling him with a garrote. 

They took the elevator up in silence. Delta passed over another package of tissues and Omicron plowed through several of them. More garbage to add to his pocket collection. He’d have to unload once he got to his hotel room, and used tissues weren’t the only load on his mind. His erection had yet to flag. It was easy to ignore during his conversation with the target, focused as he was on his work, but with nothing to distract him Omicron was getting tense and eager for alone time.

Which is why he balked when Delta tried to follow him into his hotel room. Omicron stopped just over the threshold. “Is this your room?”

“It’s our room.”

Omicron’s grip tightened on the doorknob. He’d been lying when he told Josaline he had a roommate. That was his cover story, yes, but not the actual plan. “I thought we were bunking separately.”

“I’ve reconsidered,” Delta replied, and while his tone was light there was a finality to his tone. “Sharing a room will reinforce our cover, and given this is your first high stakes case I’d rather stick close to support you on the ground.” He fixed Omicron with a pointed stare. “Unless there’s a reason you’d rather not share?”

Oh, you bastard, he seethed. You know what I’m going to say. Delta was already suspicious - giving him anymore ammo would just worsen things for Omicron. His hand slid off the knob. “Of course not, sir.”

There were so many reasons Omicron would rather not share a room with Agent Delta. He preferred solitude over company, silence over noise, and Delta was the opposite. The senior agent prattled about nonsense while awake and he snored very loudly while asleep. He hovered around Omicron all evening and compulsively blessed his sneezes and bullied him into watching crappy reality television shows. The hotel room was excellent, but small; there was no opportunity for privacy. The silver-lining was that there were two beds so they didn’t have to share.

After unpacking, discussing tomorrow’s plans, and sharing an array of delivery boxes from Panda Express while they watched some inane matchmaking show, Omicron collapsed into bed with a heavy head. All the congestion settled behind his eyes, and both nostrils were blocked as soon as he reclined. He jammed the charger into his phone with stuffy grunts of exasperation and then noticed the flurry of missed calls and text messages from Dr. Voster lighting up his screen. They were hours old, most of them berating him for hanging up on her and demanding that he call her back.

But it was late, he was tired, and surely by now she was asleep. He’d catch up with her tomorrow.

+ + +

Steamy hot water fell around him, sliding warm down his skin and thickening the air. Omicron tilted his head back. He hitched a single breath, and shuddered it out on a voiced sigh. “..huh..”

He braced his hands more securely against the shower walls and steadied his feet beneath him. He woke this morning with post-nasal drip and a too-big tickle in his nose. Just as Delta said before, it stockpiled power in his sleep and by the time he came to bleary consciousness, he could feel the itch in every nook and cranny of his respiratory system. It wanted out.

The tickle scuffled with his weary sinuses and his lungs snagged with a sharp gasp, “Hih!” and another slow, yearning sigh. “..hhuhhh..”

His prick throbbed and he brought a soaped-up hand down to grip the shaft. He was rock-hard, woke up that way, too muddled with arousal and tickling misery he could do nothing but stumble to the shower. Another grungy sniffle roused the tickle to action; it shimmied in the confined space, touching every nerve with its feathery borders. It was such an overpowering sensation that he couldn’t actually sneeze. Only suffer.

“h-H-HH!” Both he and the tickle waited, but to no avail. He deflated with a moan. “.. hhh-uuuhhhh..”

Omicron stroked himself, stepping forward to press an arm to the cool tile wall and lean his forehead there as he lost himself to the climb. Sneeze or no sneeze, he was going to come. Muggy air coaxed a dry cough, a snuffling breath, another flexing fidget from the tickle. It didn’t settle afterward, but instead began to twist and turn. Thrash and flail. His nose shuddered helplessly in the onslaught. Yes, yes, yes, chanted Omicron as his nostrils pulsed. That’s it. Tickle me.

He smoothed his thumb over his slit, arching forward. He panted hot breath against the sweaty tile. Water pounded down against his shoulder blades, muscles shifting beneath skin as the tickle wriggled and wormed against its prison. His nose frazzled at the attention, and Omicron’s parted lips flinched up with a little grin. He heaved with breath, whining his way through a monstrous buildup. All the while he pumped his hand at an increasingly feverish pace.

“..uh... hhUH-hh!.. HUH!’hh.. HAH-H-” His voice reverberated off the walls with obnoxious volume. The sound of wet skin squelching mingled with the patter of water on the shower floor. He gasped at the bolt of pleasure sparkling below his stomach. “-H-Hhh’oh-hh.. h’H-uhh..”

The arousal broke his momentum. He thumped a fist against the wall with an abysmally soupy sniffle. With warring sensations, neither could win. Omicron lifted his head to the shower spray to wipe his face and paused to chafe his index finger beneath his flitting nostrils. He slowed the rhythm of his other hand. You can do better than that, he challenged the tickle. C’mon, let me have it. He snorted, feeling his sinuses vibrate with the strain. Make me sneeze.

Wish granted. With a loss of sensation down below, the tickle rushed in to fill the void. It consumed him in an instant. Omicron inhaled as if the shower water suddenly turned to ice.

“HHHHH!! IIHDDZSSSCHHYOOO!!”

It was finally out, the start of what felt like a dozen. His whole body trembled, including his dick, and Omicron dazedly picked up the pace as his nose cramped with another powerful swell. Another butter-smooth gasp.

“HIIIIH!! EHTZZSSHHH’EH! Mmmbb-!”

A beautiful ache bled through his abdomen, mirrored in the tingling clarity of his nose. Fuck he didn’t know when Delta would be back from his morning run, but.. “nnnggh..HAAASCHHYUU!-uuooh..”

He’d never been a quiet man in bed and these sneezes were some of the best he’d had so far. His membranes twitched in relief each time, as did his prick, before another storm quickly gathered. Omicron instinctively sped up the tweak of his wrist as he rocked into each stroke. He wouldn’t last much longer; he’d been edged long enough. His flaring nostrils flew wide.

“h’YIZZSSSH’Iyuh!! hooh-.. hh.. H-HIISSCHH’OOO! hhhAH-!” 

The orgasm hit like a truck. It rippled through him, wrenched him forward, and it would have been perfect if the shower floor wasn’t so damn slippery. As he shook his way through the aftershocks, the tickle snuck up on him.

“iiGGXSHH’TT- AAH-” Nothing about him was prepared. It exited roughly through his congested airways and upset his equilibrium. His feet went out from under him and rolling with the momentum spared him a concussion from the slick tile. It didn’t spare his pride however when he heard a voice from the other side of the door.

“Bless you, Omicron! You okay in there?”

Fuck, cursed Omicron, back flat to the tile as the shower pelted water into his eyes. When did he get back?

“Fine!” he barked back. The slip-scare soured what remained of his orgasm and the inside of his nose ached with raw exhaustion. He touched a knuckle to the tip. Before Delta could ask, he added, “I dropped the shampoo!”

“Well, be careful,” Amused, now that he knew his subordinate was alright. “Sounds like that nose of yours means business today!”

Omicron covered his face with his hands and sighed.

+ + +

Sunshine coated the simmering pavement. People kept their sandals on as they milled about for fear of burning their feet. Couples cuddled together in upholstered loungers around the pool’s perimeter. Loners relaxed with books on couches sheltered by giant, colorful parasols. A dual walk-and-swim-up tiki bar bustled at the far end of the pool, surrounded by wading, tipsy tourists. This was an adult-only area, so aside from the group of trust-fund college grads squealing and shoving one another off the diving board, it was quiet and classy. 

Nicolas ignored wandering eyes as he maundered the water’s edge. 

After his ill-fated shower, Delta informed him there was surveillance of Josaline Jewel in this area and it was time for a fated meeting. He’d put on a pair of colorblock swim trunks and a thin cotton cream shirt he left unbuttoned over a waxed chest. He was not a big man, but his work kept him toned. Defined abs, firm pecs, broad shoulders with muscles that rolled across his back when he moved. He’d use them all to his advantage.

Deep in his sinuses, the tickle swelled. His nostrils weakly complained and he hushed them with a quick back-forth sweep of his finger. He’d use this too, when the time came.

An arm draped over his shoulders, dragging him in for a chokehold hug. “The whole team should take a vacation sometime,” Delta said fondly. “This is fun.”

Speak for yourself, groused Omicron. Irked as he was to have Delta here, it would help his cover. Acting with a partner provided an opportunity that single performances couldn’t. Besides, jerking off in the shower took the edge off his temper, so Omicron weathered the affection without complaint. He only pressed an elbow to Delta’s chest when his own expanded with a fast-rising urge.

“G-Gonnaahh-” He hiccuped a hitching breath. Experienced now in dodging, Delta leaned away as Omicron pitched haphazardly into his opposite arm. “hih’DZSSS’ooh!”

“Bless you,” muttered Delta, and mercifully didn’t complain about the distinct lack of vampire-sneeze etiquette. Some of these sneezes just got away from him, no matter how slow or quick they came on.

They both paused for more, but after a couple uneasy breaths, none arrived. Omicron checked the damage: no shirt stains, a slight drink spillage but not on himself or anyone else, and Delta wasn’t caught by collateral. Insufferable as his senior officer could be, Omicron would perish if he accidentally sneezed on him. 

Delta lowered his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose. “See her anywhere?”

Omicron scanned as they walked, swirling his stemless wine glass before he took a sip. “Not yet.”

“Maybe she left before we got-”

“Hello.”

They whipped their heads to the left and there was Josaline. She wore the widest brim sun hat that Omicron had ever seen, black with a dramatic dip, and streaked with a white ribbon that matched the chic blacks and whites of her asymmetrical one piece suit. She still wore heels, toes painted to match her nails, ankles crossed. Her smile peeked at them from under her hat and designer sunglasses.

Nicolas roused himself and gave her a helpless smile, as if he hadn’t meant to stare. “Hi.”

“Were you looking for me?”

He fished a hand at the back of his neck, flushed to his ears, and Delta playfully tightened his grip. “Yeah, he couldn’t stop talking about you.”

Nicolas elbowed him with a hiss under his breath. “Harry!”

“I’m Harry by the way,” Harry told her, swooping in to offer his hand. Nicolas wrestled out of his hold in the meanwhile, straightening his shirt with a huff. Josaline raised a hand to her mouth to hide her widening smile.

“You must be the friend Nicolas mentioned. The one he’s rooming with?”

“Oh, he told you about me, huh?” Harry smoothed back his hair and waggled his eyebrows. “All good things I hope.”

Nicolas took another sip of his drink as they chatted, wrinkling his nose to one side and then the other. A quick, strong sniff flared his nostrils wide. He let the breath go on a sigh. Josaline tilted back the brim of her hat.

“Feeling any better?”

“Ndot really,” he conceded, then moved to sit across from her on an empty lounge chair. His shirt fell open to frame his sculpted chest and she curtly inspected the view. His pecs jumped with a brisk sniff, then another. He knuckled more aggressively at his nose. “But I’mb dnot gonna let it spoil mby vacation, if I can help it.”

Feeling lousy wasn’t actually a lie. Omicron woke up in the thrall of the tickle, yes, but when he had the ability to think afterward he realized he wasn’t at his best. His throat stung when he swallowed, scraped sore from all his harsh sneezing. His abs felt like they’d been through a ruthless core workout. And there was a disconcerting malaise settling over him, a woozy feeling that he refused to acknowledge in hopes it might just go away. 

“Forgive me saying so, but should you be drinking in your condition?” she asked, nodding to his glass. He took a breath to reply but Harry interrupted with a booming laugh and an amiable slap to the smaller man’s back.

“That’s just lemon tea and honey,” is what he told Josaline and that was also true. He did lie to Delta about it just being a prop for his cover story though. In actuality, it took the edge off his aching throat. Harry carried on, unaware. “I told him to try a hot toddy but he’s a little goodie two shoes when it comes to nursing a cold.”

Nicolas narrowed his eyes, blinking as they began to glass over. All the while since he woke, the tickle in his nose continued to haunt him. Contrary to Dr. Voster’s claim to Delta, the sensitivity hadn’t diminished at all. He bodily turned from the conversation with his drink held far away from him. His other arm tucked snugly around his nose as he sucked in a shuddering breath. Then quaked in place.

“.. hik-.. iH-GZSShu!”

“Bless you,” chorused the other two. 

He picked his head up by hesitating degrees before giving it a sharp shake. More sniffling, a thick clearing of his throat. His gaze darted to Josaline, who glanced away when he caught her looking. “Pardod mbe.”

“You know what? Try not to ruin my vacation either,” Harry griped at him, then looked to Josaline. “Nobody wants to get within five feet of me with him around. He’s like a walking cold medicine commercial.”

Omicron’s eyebrow twitched. “Well at least I don’d snore.”

Delta shot him a look that Nicolas met with innocence and a sip of his drink. Omicron shouldn’t push his luck, but he refused to pass up the chance to take pot-shots at Delta while he could get away with it. Josaline giggled.

“I can tell you’re old friends,” she said as she looked between them. “Do you see one another often, outside of events like this?”

This spiraled into deeper discussion. Delta and Omicron rattled off fake trivia to all her questions, and asked about her in turn. She was vague about her work but fairly open about her personal life. Almost all of it was useless small talk, aside from a compelling instance when she told them she created the software for her website’s security certificate herself. Her competency in coding wasn’t something Josaline Jewel advertised to the public. 

Dr. Voster called him exactly three times during the chat, and each time he dumped her to voicemail. She knew he was working. Whatever she needed to ask him could wait, or ideally, be an email.

Soon the sun was past its apex and Omicron was running out of tissues. Mortifyingly, a passing poolside waiter brought him a little bin for him to toss his trash so he didn’t have to keep walking off to a garbage can. Over the course of their conversation Josaline’s attention gravitated squarely to Nicolas and both men took this as a cue.

Harry slapped his hands on his thighs and stood. “Alright, I’m gonna check out the casino. I’ll catch up with you later, Nick.” He winked. “Have fun.”

Nicolas waved him off with one hand and tended to his unruly nose with the other. His nostrils pushed against his fingers, pulsing irritably. The tickle seemed to get worse over the course of the day, and his sneezes were coming with frustrating regularity if he didn’t waylay them. He tried to strike a balance between holding back and letting go, observing Josaline’s reactions all the while. She definitely wanted him to sneeze as badly as he did, which is why he chose to press the flat of his forefinger hard against his septum until the urge receded. He huffed away the gasp he’d gathered.

“.. huh-hh, sorry, I’b probably ndot great combpadny right ndow..”

He opened his eyes to find Josaline staring at him from under her lashes. She’d taken off her sunglasses some time ago. “On the contrary, I find you captivating.”

Nicolas laughed, ducking his head to cough. “Really? Thad’s a relief. I was worried all… this,” here he gestured to his nose, “would put you off.” 

He punctuated with a sniff, the sound purely liquid, and rushed a hand to cup his nose while he tried to free the last of his tissues from the pack with the other. “Ugh, sorry-”

“Did you lose the handkerchief I gave you?”

Omicron feigned surprise, as if he hadn’t been waiting for her to ask. “Umb.. so-.. hah.” He scrubbed his finger under his nose, subduing his wavering nostrils. “I did use it, but I thig’k you had someb kinda perfumeb on it?..”

Her lips parted in shock, and Omicron knew at once that the scent on that cloth wasn’t intentional. Maybe it was a habit of hers, dousing her handkerchiefs in perfume, but she didn’t know it would actually make him sneeze. There was a faint, petal-like blush spreading across her cheeks and her thighs tensed more tightly together. Well, well.

Nicolas blinked wetly, as if the memory of the handkerchief was enough to make his nose tickle. Granted, literally anything was enough. “As soon’d as I-.. as I-yee…huh-” He blinked again, and again, each time a little harder and with more moisture in his lashes. With a swallow, he tried to hurry through the rest, “As I used ihht I.. st- st..”

He pressed a hand to his sternum as his chest jumped with a little sip of breath. The tickle fluttered in him, enticing. Omicron gave in for just a moment, letting his eyes fold shut, relaxing into the sensation of it. Sometimes the virus felt mechanical, automatic, indifferent to him and his reactive nose. Like a machine chugging ever onward, so did the tickle continue to toil. Tickling.. and tickling.. and tickling… Blind to his convulsing nerves, deaf to his snagging breaths, just carrying on with its function with no regard for the consequences.

Unable now to open his eyes again, Omicron spoke around compulsive gasps and breathed his words on the exhales. “hH!S’made be-.. h-HH!Bade be-uhhh.. snd’HIH!.. sdeehEEZZSSHOO!”

Nicolas snapped forward, sneezing over his lap, and belatedly raised a hand to his nose. It was running copiously. He wouldn’t get the job done with what was left of his tissues, unfortunately. He squinted against another hopeful tickle, begging himself now to keep it together. He really didn’t want to sneeze again like this.

A flash of white caught his eye. Josaline, her gaze boring into him with palpable weight, offered another handkerchief. He swallowed. It was identical in every way to the first, and Omicron suspected it smelled the same too. But this was what she wanted, and he was a professional. He would deliver.

He took it from her and began to unfold it with both hands to give her an uninhibited view of his face. As he began to wind up for another sneeze, he gave the tickle full control over every micro-expression. The fitful flare of his nostrils. The crease of his crow’s feet. His quivering, parted lips. The way his nose gathered grimacing wrinkles at the bridge when the urge became undeniable. His voice bled into his heaving exhales, unintentional but not unwelcome.

“H’uhh.. iIH!hhh..h-h-!hohh.. mbbggh..”

This was the worst part, when it crested to a peak but couldn’t quite get him high enough to tip him over. Throwing caution to the wind, he lifted the aromatic cloth to his face and breeeeeeeathed-

“KZZSSSCH!”

Rough, wrenched out of him in fury. As the methodical tickle gave way to a fierce burn, Omicron had just long enough to wonder if Delta was right: he might actually be allergic.

His eyes rolled closed and he shuddered helplessly into the handkerchief. “iih’TZSsh!” A tight breath and then, “iik’KISHH!... hd’IZSSH!.. Tshh! it’TZSH!”

There wasn’t time for anything else. No wavering gasps, no bleary moment of respite before the next volley. It was a quick trigger release, too itchy and ineffective to do anything but wind him. “-DSSH’uu!.. hd’DZSSH’oo!! ohh..HH!”

He heard Josaline stir in her lounge chair, and then felt the jostle of his own when she sat down beside him. A hand smoothed up and down the line of his spine, pausing to feel his back expand with a single, catching breath. 

“-ig’GEZSC’Hoo!.. GZSShuu!.. Chshh-IH’chzssh!.. HIH!chzsch! Ugh!” He finally managed a shaky blow into the folds of the handkerchief. A couple desperate hitching breaths and then he quickly committed to another. It cleared away most of the mess; he was able to free his nose for air.

His eyes were still locked shut, but he could feel his nostrils twitching like a rabbit’s. Rushing a finger beneath them did nothing. He sneezed against his hand. “iihpssh!... h’TZschh!h- hIKssh!! TIZSSCH’u!”

It felt endless, and nothing like the big, bad wolf sneezes that the tickle cooked up. No, these didn’t help anything. Each sneeze just somehow itched him more. “..hah-..hh.. hH’ZSSCH’yah!”

He nearly lifted the handkerchief back to his face and caught himself at the last moment. Loathe as he was to do it, he used the collar of his shirt instead. He had nothing else. Omicron lifted the corner to his nose, his nostrils so warm to the touch they felt feverish, and muffled what he could.

“MMFZSSH!.. hg’ISHH!..” At least it was slowing down. He sniffled, feeling muzzy, and finally cracked his eyes open. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He closed them again with a jumpy, “hih- IH!-..MMPHZSSH!!”

Omicron waited, tense, for the next one. It sizzled in his sinuses for a solid few seconds before dissipating in a wave of prickling dismay. It left his nose wary, on guard for the next attack, even as the virus insidiously labored away inside him. His shirt was a lost cause, so he shrugged it off and used it to blot at his face as he snuffled and hitched his way into presentability. Holy hell, that was more than he bargained for.

“Bless.”

A touch alighted on his bare arm. Nicolas picked his head up, squinting through puffy eyes and already cringing with apology. “Sorry,” he croaked. “I thigk I mbight be allergic.”

“Yes, so do I,” she breathed, and smoothed her touch to his back again. Without his shirt in the way, her palm glided up and down his skin. Her other hand thumbed a tear from the corner of his eye. “You poor thing.. I didn’t realize that’s what you were trying to say. Forgive me.”

They were both lying to each other now. Nicolas shook his head, both his hands coming to hold one of hers. “Ndo, ndo, it’s ndot your fault! I couldn’d explain itd well.” He gave her a pitifully tearful smile. “Had to sdneeze too bad.”

The tone shifted. Omicron could feel it keenly. Josaline squeezed, then let them go. Her hands lifted instead to cradle his cheeks, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I need to confess something.”

He blinked at her, wide eyed. “... Codfess whad?”

“I’m not the sort of woman to be repelled by all... this,” she said softly, with an equally soft graze of her thumb against one of his chapped nostrils. It flared in response, and Omicron fended off the visceral need to rub it. Josaline stroked him again, and his nose twitched away from her. The tickle bristled and he leaned out her hands, racked with fittish hitches. He jammed his finger beneath his septum, barely catching himself before a sneeze tumbled out. 

She watched him avidly as he battled back the urge, one eye squinted shut in a lopsided wince. Her attention honestly flustered him; Omicron never liked attention when he sneezed, and her gaze in particular stripped him bare. He lowered his finger reluctantly, and kept his hand hovering at chest level. The sneeze was stalled but certainly not gone.

He sighed his words. “S-uh.. Sorry, I-.. hooh, I bight.. I-ihhm godda-HH!” He wiped his head to the side. “iih’DZSCH’iew!! ugh, b’sorry..”

Her voice wavered. “Please don’t be sorry.”

“I-hhuh.. hkrrm!” Omicron cleared his throat, bringing the edge of his shirt up to his nose to blot and then, with great disgust, blow. He was going to burn this thing when he got back to his room. When he finished he looked away from her, painfully embarrassed. “I’m seriously so gross right now, I’m sorry-”

“Nicolas..” She slid a hand up his arm, splaying her fingers on his shoulder. Her other arm came around to rest at the juncture of his neck so she could toy fingers at the short, fine hairs on his nape. “I want to be clear. I’m not put off at all by your cold. Frankly, I think it looks very good on you.”

He frowned at her as the gears turned, then perked up when they slotted in place. “.. Oh!”

Josaline smiled wide enough to show her teeth, humming a little laugh. “I would like to kiss you. Is that alright?”

She drifted into his orbit as she spoke, her smokey stare flicking between his eyes and his lips. He nodded, and met her halfway. As their mouths met, she tugged down the brim of her hat to hide them from view. They kissed behind a black veil, his hand reaching to cup her jaw as she pushed a palm up the plane of his bare chest. With his nose so completely packed, Nicolas gulped air between passes of her tongue and chuffed soft, stuffy breaths against her skin.

Something about Omicron. He was suited to his job in many ways, one of which being his attitude toward infatuation and sex. Romance made his skin crawl, and physical intimacy was to him nothing more than a nice dessert. Delicious? Yes. Mandatory? No. He desired sex as much as he desired bubble baths or a night at the opera. He never let it distract him from his mission, even when at times it was his mission. It was a point of pride for him.

She eased him onto his back, kissing him deeply into the plush of the lounge chair. The new angle wasn’t great for his nose, shifting congestion in his head like tetris blocks until he whimpered against her lips. She finally let him up for air and he heaved in a breath, snuffling squeakily and then coughing when the air bottled up in his sinuses. He belatedly turned his head, and flushed up to his hairline.

“- guh, suh-sorry,” Nicolas whispered, his voice gravelly. “Can’d breathe through by dose at all.”

“Stop apologizing,” Josaline whispered back. She nudged the tip of her nose against his, nuzzling him even as she bit down on his lower lip to mumble around the flesh. “Can I help?”

He didn’t get a chance to reply before her tongue was back in his mouth. It was dark beneath the shade of her hat, with bits of sunlight dancing through the weave. While it was no mystery what they were getting up to under there, it was as subtle and as tasteful as public displays could get. She leaned more of her weight against him, pushing the planes of her palms up the span of his chest until he made another pleading sound.

Again she leaned back by an inch and again he tried to catch his breath. His nose fizzed with a wicked tickle. Sinuses immobile. Couldn’t agitate his nose with air. It would have to be something else, another method.. 

A bolt of inspiration struck.

“Josah-H!.. Josalind,” he mumbled. She was passing time sucking a bruise on his neck. “hah.. Josalind, cad you-”

She blew a puff of cool air over the patch of wet skin and smirked as he shivered. “Can I what, baby?”

“Hhhelp,” he gasped, and arched when she laved her tongue over his collarbone. His neck was sensitive, and Omicron resolutely continued even as he arched his back. “I’ll breathe better if I cad sdneeze, bud.. huh..” He sniffled in vain. The attempt ended in another disappointed cough. “.. id won’d combe.”

It was like he said the magic words. Josaline lifted her head and refocused her attention on his nose. It looked pitiful, so raw from rubbing and snubbing that the skin shined a brilliant red. His nostrils flared like a beacon, irregular but frequent. Nicolas gazed up at her, blotchy and half-lidded. She skimmed her pinky finger up the bridge of his nose, watching his eyes fall closed and his brows crunch and his nose wrinkle up beneath her touch. She sighed, besotted.

“I can certainly do something about that, but I’m not sure I should do it here,” she murmured. Fingers threaded through his hair, scritching lightly at his scalp. “I have things in my room-”

He slivered his eyes open. “Whhee.. cad d..” They fluttered closed again as he breathed, breathed!... And then sighed out a groan. “-ohh..We cad go to your roomb-h-H!.. hiiff you w-wand.. but..huh-”

Unable to help himself, one of his hands routed from her waist to his nose to grind beneath his throbbing nostrils. Just enough to take the edge off so he could finish what he was saying. His entire expression scrunched as he worked his nose, but he plowed onward.

“..I usually don’d ndeed buch,” he clarified. “Jusd thinking about id is edough to.. to…” He dropped his hand and snatched in a gasp so deep, his chest lifted Josaline where she lay across him. “HHHUH-!” But nothing came. He growled, his first real display of frustration in front of her. She comforted him with another rake of her fingers through his hair.

“Truly?” she asked, and when he fought his eyes open to look at her she seemed awed. “No.. external stimulation at all?”

Omicron knew of the methods to which she alluded, but Nicolas didn’t. He gathered his eyebrows together. “.. Ndo?”

“How do I help?”

“You cand just talk.” He anchored his hand back to her waist, his gaze glassing over. “About how buch id t.. tiihckles..”

She pressed her lips together, her cheeks beginning to darken. “.. could you demonstrate?”

Not the response he expected. He figured she’d want to take the lead, but Omicron was nothing if not flexible. “Yeahhh..h!IH-.. I usually thig’k about fhheathers or.. flowers or.. sombthig like..” He closed his eyes and conjured an image. “Like a little bug, crawli’g around up there.”

And just like that, it’s what the tickle became. Small, at first so unobtrusive as to be barely of notice but over time the irritation compounded. Omicron hauled in a hearty sniffle, coughing for his trouble, but the endeavor cleared up some of his consonants.

“It doesn’d know what it’s doing, but it’s tryi’g to escape and the luhh.. lohhnger it searches the.. huH!ohh.. the mbore unbearable it becomes.”

He could feel it zipping about, uncaring and unaware of how it stirred his haggard nose into motion. As it scampered along the length of a nerve, the membrane flushed and quivered. As its glossy wings grazed the tender pink walls, they shuddered. Another sensation pulsed further down; heat began to pool into his abdomen.

“And it’s tiih.. tiHII-!ckling mbe, but it doesn’t know that and I can’t tell it to stop and at this p-hhoint I don’dH! wantHH!- hhihht to..” 

The little presence adventured in the wrong direction, into more sensitive depths, so deep in his nose he didn’t know it could tickle there. Omicron moaned at the honeyed ache in his groin. He desperately wanted friction, but common sense kept his hips welded to the lounge chair. He felt the tickle flutter, then flit, and then begin to panic. It realized this wasn’t the exit.

“Ahhnd th-then.. it starts freaki’g out. It’s buzzing all around and maki’g my ndose itchier and itchier, and I’m st.. start-HH!h’ingHH!!h-to.. IIH!”

Omicron imagined the wet, cavernous expanse of his tortured sinuses, every inch of it undulating in agitation all because of one little tickle. And that tickle persevered even now, darting around in the abyss of his nose unceasing. A smile flickered across his lips as another pang of pleasure swirled through him.

“.. and I just want it to keep..HHHH!” He huffed a momentous breath and his chest jumped under her hands. Words carried on his pining exhale. “.. -want it to mbake mbe-HHHHH!” Tingles trailed down his spine as he uttered the last few words in a high, airy voice. “.. make mbe snhheeze… HHDZZSSSCCHH’OOO!!”

Sparks popped behind his eyelids and Omicron moaned helplessly through a wave of carnal delight. He didn’t come, but the sneeze was paradise. He hitched gratefully up to the next one in line. “HH! HH! HHHH-” Something billowy and soft tucked over his nose and he pitched into it. “EH’JZZSSHHH’IUU!”

He groaned into fabric, stretching restlessly on the lounge chair as his cock twitched again. It was confined to the tight pressure of his swim trunks, a problem Omicron couldn’t think clearly enough to solve as he huffed and puffed his way toward another humongous sneeze.

“-ah.. haH.. HAAASZZSSSH’UE!” And still his nose craved more. Who was he to deny it? “-iihHHIIZZSSHEW!! mmbb..” Once they started, they felt too good to stop. “.. uhTZSSSSCH!!iuuhhhhh..”

Omicron keened, muffled by the cloth snugged over his nose. The break afforded him a chance to snurfle into its folds and reach up to brace his hand over the one that held it there. Deep in his nose, the tiny intruder buzzed brainlessly against nerves flayed raw. They were defenseless, vulnerable and so, so very sensitive. His chest rose and fell with an increasingly staccato rhythm, his expression frozen with need. He needed t-to.. He hhhad to-!

“ehhHPBBZSSCCH’IIYUU!”

He seized into the cloth and collapsed back to the chair. Heat surged through his veins, wondrous but left wanting as his erection strained against the front of his shorts. But at last the attack on his nose abated; the tickle retreated to the dark, hidden place where it liked to bide its time. Omicron mustered through a long, alleviating blow into the sturdy fabric. Sinus pressure dissipated from behind his eyes, just enough to take the sharpest edges off his encroaching headache. Then he just laid there panting and steadying his hazy vision when he finally opened his eyes.

He noticed a few things.

Nearly everybody in the vicinity was looking at him, sunbathers and staff members alike. Josaline was not an exception. Her hand rested lax in his, where she’d held his shirt to his face as he sneezed. And blew his nose. And he had a visible erection, blocked mercifully by Josaline’s position to the wider crowd but absolutely not hidden from Josaline herself. And for the first time, Omicron thought, Oh shit. I might actually be compromised.

“Um-..” he squeaked. All he could hear was a rushing noise, like standing in a wind tunnel, his heart banging against his ribs. Cold sweat broke out over his skin. “Um-..”

Josaline was similarly speechless. Paralyzed, even.

Did she not like it? Was it the bug thing? Fuck, he should have gone with pollen or something, that was more mainstream or at the very least, comparatively less weird. What was he thinking?! He thought this ‘sneezing untouched’ method might entice her, but a hell of an idea that was. Dr. Voster and her ridiculous pursuits. ‘Sneezing by suggestion,’ his ass. Now he was sprawled out here on display with a cock harder than diamonds and he’d just blown his nose into his shirt and practically into her hand-

Don’t panic, he counseled himself through shaking breaths. This is salvageable. Just play it off with a laugh, apologize for everything, then tactically retreat, regroup with Delta, fess up, come clean, apologize AGAIN-

“I-I’ll go,” he said, barely present as he gathered his shirt and held it in front of his crotch to stand. “I’m really sorry, very sorry about this. I just… um..”

Delta will be so pissed that he’ll take me off the case and the agency will put me on probation and I’ll be sorting files in the office for the rest of my career and they’ll never let me live this down, I’ll be the laughing stock of the force, I’ll-

A hand caught his wrist. He looked down and there was Josaline, coaxing him with soft, careful touches to sit back down. She smoothed hair off his sweaty brow.

“Relax,” she told him. “No one knows. They only looked because you were loud, and nothing more.”

If she meant that to be reassuring, it didn’t help. Everybody and their neighbor just watched him obnoxiously sneeze and moan for what might have been several minutes. So much for subtly, which was his entire job description as an agent. He was a disgrace to the force. Omicron buried his face in one hand, elbow propped on his knee. Nebulous plans to cut his losses and find a new job stalled at the sound of her chuckle. 

“And didn’t I tell you to stop apologizing?”

He shrunk inward, painfully embarrassed and hissing a whisper into his clammy palm. “Yeah, but that was-”

“It was incredible.” 

Omicron snapped his head up, blinking the blur out of his eyes. Josaline’s flushed cheeks and smile came into focus. She scooted closer to him, pressing her bosom to his arm and tucking her head in the crook of his neck. She raised the edge of his shirt, still piled between his limp hands, to dab beneath his nose. Omicron startled, recognized the feeling of something wet on his upper lip, and lost what remained of his composure.

“Could I not be a disaster for just five seconds? Please??” he demanded of the universe, of the virus, of anyone, and turned his head away to clean himself up without help. Sniffling and scuffing his nose prompted retribution. It tickled like a dangling string. Omicron ducked forward. “..h’HIDZssch!!”

Josaline swayed with him and pressed a kiss to his throat. She trailed her lips up and up even as he rushed to wipe his nose. “Listen, Nicolas,” she said against the corner of his mouth. “There is something else I need to confess to you. I want to introduce you to someone.”

Omicron’s nostril wrinkled as it was bestowed a kiss. “.. intro..hh.. duhhce me to someone?”

“Yes.” Silken breath glossed over the bridge of his nose. “To my husband.”

Everything grinded to a halt. 

It was a good thing she expected him to be floored by that news. Husband? Husband?? The word echoed around in his head, immaterial; he couldn’t grasp the concept. There was no intel about a husband. Nobody mentioned a husband. She’s married? How can she be married!? His eyes jerked to her left hand, bare of a ring. She followed his gaze with a charming smile.

“Neither of us wear one,” she explained. “We married for practical reasons, and we aren’t interested in exclusivity. He and I consider ourselves free to explore as we like.”

She’s… married. The fact churned sluggishly in his mind, untethered and unexpected. She’s married. So..

“..uhh..” Omicron contributed intelligently. “Uh, s-so.. huh-” 

Oh for fuck’s sake. He fought tooth and nail to keep his eyes open, watching Josaline bite her lip as the last sliver of light disappeared. Now the tickle was just kicking him while he was down. It snagged him by the lungs and hurled him forward over his lap.

“-eHTCHZSS’hoo!”

“Bless you,” Josaline purred, stuck to him from shoulder to hip.

Omicron tucked his fist beneath his nose with a couple convalescing sniffles. “-nguh, thagk you..” Another sniffle, sharper, and a crinkling blink to disperse the dark spots floating in front of his eyes. “So, you want me to.. meet him?”

“While my husband and I have similar tastes,” she continued delicately, “we find it more gratifying to seek pleasure with others than with one another. However..”

Here she guided him to look at her with a single finger to his chin. 

“.. very rarely, one of us will meet someone special. Someone who would please us both. Together.” 

This conversation was going at light speed while Omicron was still floating in space. He nodded, buying himself time, trying to gather more than just the word husband. So his mortifying sneeze-fit failure was actually a success, to the extent that Josaline wanted him to meet her husband, who also had the hots for sneezing? Presumably? Possibly? But wait, nothing in the files ever mentioned a husband, so that meant this was a secret husband..

“Do you understand?” Josaline asked. “What I’m proposing?”

Ménage à trois, his strategic mind supplied. Ménage à trois with the suspected cyber criminal’s secret husband. 

Suddenly, and Omicron truly didn’t know how, everything was turning up aces. Not only did he have intel on a secret husband but he’d get to meet the guy. Talk to him. Learn more about Josaline through him. Find some incriminating indication that she actually was a white-collar mastermind screwing thousands of people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then he’d get his ass kissed by everybody at head office and they’d crown him King of Spies and give him only the coolest assignments henceforth. Maybe he’d get a fancy company car.. or a commissioned self-portrait in a tuxedo.. or..

Omicron jolted, as if coming awake from an impromptu nap. Shit. He rubbed both hands over his face, dismayed when they came away sticky. The humidity must be getting to him. Moist air always made him groggy. 

“Nicolas?” Josaline looked a little uncertain now.

“I’d love to,” he blurted, then ducked his with a sheepish sniffle. “Ah, I mean.. if that’s-.. if you’re offering..?”

“If you’re comfortable?” she asked back. Nicolas nodded, maybe a little too quickly because his head felt like it was on a string five feet in the air. Josaline broke into a toothy smile, reaching to smooth thumbs over the puffy skin beneath his eyes. “Really?”

“Well, I-... as long as you’re both okay with it,” he replied. His nose creased at the bridge when she nuzzled the tip of hers to his. Omicron hiccuped a breath, and huffed it against her lips. “I-hhah..”

“Dinner tomorrow night,” she promised him, watching avidly as his expression contorted. Omicron squirmed his nose in a bid for it to behave, but Josaline wasn’t having it. She kissed just beneath his nostrils as they flared against her own. Lurking in the recesses of his sinuses, the tickle emerged. “I’ll ask him.”

Then she sealed her lips over his as he contended with the damage in her wake. His nose felt full of fuzzy bits, and with his nose as his only source of oxygen, Omicron was forced to keep stirring them with air. Each inhale swept them in a wind, sending them spinning against every inflamed atom of his nerves. They moved deeper, joined by more, an escalating infestation drifting deeper into his sinuses until he was dizzy with it.

“mmm!” he hummed into her mouth. Both her hands sunk into his hair, holding him still, keeping him locked to her lips as the tickle grew and grew. He sucked a hitching, shaky sniffle that whipped all the fuzz into a storm. Omicron whimpered again, higher and sharper. “-MM!”

Only when he set hands on her shoulders did she part from him with a soft sound, and even then she did it reluctantly. By now Omicron was lost to his gasping ascent. “hih-..hIH!h.. IHT-!” On the cusp, he whirled to the side and rocked with a perfunctory, “-DZSHH’iew!!”

She draped her arms around him, tugging him into her side as he fussed with his nose. Nicolas topped backward with her to the lounge chair. “Bless.” 

“Ugh, thagks,” he snuffled and shifted in her arms to see her better. “Had to sndeeze, I’m sor-”

Josaline pressed a finger to his lips to silence an impending apology, and when she was sure he’d gotten the message, she trailed her painted nails along his bottom lip. “It’s a date, then?”

Nicolas smiled. “It’s a date.”

/tbc! 

I know what happens next, I just have to write it! Thank you so much to everyone who’s stuck around for part 2, I really appreciate you!💗Hope to see you again at part 3 ^w^