💌🤧

It had taught him the humbling reality that an adult relationship under a shared roof mostly consisted of planning meals, laundry cycles, and standing in the kitchen discussing whether they were out of olive oil. Marriage also transformed everything that was supposed to be communal into territory ripe for possession eventually—drawers became claimed, blankets accrued ownership, and taking his husband’s favorite seat at the dining table was akin to a criminal offense. Even a banal discussion about landscaping options somehow became a debate over financial priorities, a question of morality, and an exercise in international diplomacy until they both remembered they could compromise. 

It had not, however, taught Ilya that Shane could turn literally any bad experience into a personal failure. Ilya had learned that lesson long before vows and rings and shared home insurance. 

The Centaurs had played Montreal last night. 

The Centaurs had lost. 

Which meant Ilya woke alone. The space beside him had long since cooled, blanket straightened and smoothed. Pale, early morning sunlight stretched around the curtains. It was the sort of morning that invited laziness and going back to bed. 

Ilya remained sprawled beneath the blankets for a moment, staring at the ceiling, his heart heavy with disappointment. Truthfully, he had known better than to expect Shane to waste the morning in bed with him. After particularly ugly games, Shane was a creature possessed. But some indulgent part of Ilya had still imagined another hour or two tangled together under the covers, sunlight crawling slowly across freckles while they kissed each other awake. 

Ilya sighed and dragged himself out of bed. There would be no practice today, no meetings, no obligations other than surviving Shane’s mood.

He could picture it perfectly. Clipped replies, distant eyes, compulsive productivity. Shane would spend the day treating himself like a problem to solve. He would bleed guilt over everything he touched, and he would quietly punish himself through absurd little acts of self-denial—like rejecting sleeping in on a day off.

Today, Ilya decided, he would be patient. Today, Ilya would be understanding. Ilya would be whatever calm, stabilizing force Shane needed while he dissected every mistake he thought he’d made, the majority of which weren’t his fault. And then Ilya would drag him back to bed and kiss him until he forgot about hockey entirely. 

Then a smell hit him. 

Ilya stopped halfway out the bedroom. The odor creeping through their home was bitter and earthy, as though someone had taken the entirety of a forest and boiled it down into concentrate. He followed the smell to the kitchen where Shane stood at the stove, hunched over a steaming pot. 

Ilya demanded, “What the fuck is that smell?”

The words escaped him automatically, a reflexive blow. It was like getting hit in the knee during a checkup in exactly the right place, kicking out before your brain could catch up.

So much for being patient. 

“Fuck off,” Shane muttered without turning around. He looked wrong, somehow. Curled inward at the shoulders, tense up through his neck. His hair was a mess, like he’d been dragging his fingers through it for the better part of the early morning. 

Ilya took a breath and rolled his shoulders. “Seriously. What is that?” The smell truly was awful, medicinal in a way that suggested Shane was attempting to make soup using ingredients gathered from the yard. 

“Go away.” 

The words would have had more impact if Shane hadn’t punctuated them with a wet little sniffle. 

Ilya approached slowly, gaze sharpening as he came to stand beside Shane. Shane sniffled again, nose slightly wrinkled, and his eyes held a wet shine. Ilya stepped behind Shane and slid both arms around his waist, pressing an absent kiss beneath his ear.

“Ilya, stop,” Shane groused. “Get off me.”

Instead, Ilya tightened his hold. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked, gentler now. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.” Shane knuckled irritably at the side of his nose. “It’s just alleehh-! hh’ISHHh’uh!” He jerked his head sharply to the side, burying the sneeze into the crook of his arm. “snnf! Allergies.” 

Ilya closed his eyes briefly, remembering his vow to prioritize Shane and all his idiosyncrasies. Especially after a grueling, embarrassing loss. “Mmh,” he hummed agreeably. “Allergies, of course.”

Shane went still, surely suspicious at how quickly Ilya accepted his excuse. 

Ilya swallowed his amusement and peered over Shane’s shoulder, inspecting the steaming pot. Floating within the dark water were citrus peels, ginger, and what genuinely appeared to be pieces of the shrubs in their yard. “What is this?” he asked. “You make gross soup for allergies?”

Shane made an exhausted noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh. “It’s tea.” His voice cracked faintly on the word, and he cleared his throat afterward. “It’s supposed to help with allergies. I found the recipe online.”

“Online where?” Ilya scoffed. “Medieval doctor blog?” 

“Ugh, shut up.” Shane sniffled again, thicker this time, and pulled a tissue from his pocket to wipe at his nose.

“What if this… tea kills you?”

“Then I won’t have allergies anymore,” he snapped.

Ilya barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. Shane, though huffing, relaxed a little into Ilya’s hold.  

So Shane wasn’t sick. He just had allergies bad enough to wake early on what was supposed to be a slow Sunday and brew forest tea while looking seconds away from a mental breakdown. 

“You sound bad,” Ilya probed gently. 

“It’s allergies,” Shane insisted, clearly aware that he did, indeed, sound bad. 

Ilya smiled against Shane’s shoulder, then kissed it. This was all too familiar, Shane trying to outmaneuver his own body through denial and stubborn insistence. Shane preferred suffering privately whenever possible, which in practice meant acting annoyed at Ilya when he noticed Shane was clearly having a terrible time. 

It was fine, really, because Ilya could wait. There was no need to corner Shane about it now when his nose was pink and his eyes were wet and his voice was nasally. Nature was building Ilya’s case against Shane quite well. 

“Right, right.” Ilya settled his chin on Shane’s shoulder and peered once more into the pot with a brow raised. “Does allergy tea taste better than it smells?”

Shane stared down into the murky brew for a long moment, clearly weighing whether honesty was worth the humiliation. He finally admitted, “…Probably not.”

Ilya bit the inside of his cheek and kept quiet, deciding Shane deserved some reprieve.

Ten minutes later, Shane drank his questionable tea while Ilya busied himself with making breakfast. Ilya had cracked eggs one-handed against the edge of the counter and watched Shane take the first sip from the corner of his eye.

Shane had raised the mug with cautious resolve, taken exactly one swallow, then gone utterly motionless in the way prey did upon realizing danger was near. His expression had tightened, and a tiny, tortured flare of his nostrils followed. 

Shane was stubborn, however, and he continued drinking with small sips. He swallowed with visible effort, and Ilya kindly continued stirring the scrambled eggs on the stove, pretending not to notice. 

Ilya set the bar counter at the kitchen island, complete with eggs and yogurt and fruit cut into neat little pieces because he wanted Shane to actually eat. Shane continued his brave battle against his allergies, taking meager bites of breakfast interspersed with wet sniffles. Ilya noticed every single one and kept his mouth shut. 

“Huh’ISHh’oo! -ISHH’uh!” 

The sneezes burst out suddenly and hard enough to pitch Shane into an awkwardly angled curl away from the counter. He caught them into the crook of his arm just in time. For a moment, Shane remained frozen there. Then came a slow, defeated reach for another tissue (from a box that had somehow ended up on the counter when Ilya hadn’t been looking).

Ilya lifted his coffee to his mouth to hide his smug smile. 

Shane blew his nose gently and looked up just to find Ilya watching. Ilya widened his eyes innocently, while Shane narrowed his, and Ilya took a loud, slurping sip.

After breakfast, they stood at the sink, shoulder to shoulder, while Shane rinsed his mug and Ilya helpfully organized their dirty dishes for maximum soakage. Ilya joked about his excellent dish engineering, and Shane couldn’t help but laugh. A rough cough followed the laugh, and Shane turned it into his shoulder.

Ilya nudged him lightly with an elbow. “Come shower with me.”

Shane looked at him, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. 

Ilya feigned offense, arranging his face into wounded innocence, because he had only partly meant for it to be taken as a proposition for sex. If Shane wanted, maybe. Which he would, probably. 

“For allergies!” he clarified. “Hot water, steam, touching you. All very good for allergies.”

“Touching me,” Shane repeated flatly. “For allergies.”

“Oh, yes.” Ilya turned and leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed, all smiles and warmth. “I can heal you.”

Shane sniffed and averted his gaze. “I already showered.” He turned the faucet off and stepped away from the sink. “Maybe after we work out.”

Ilya stared at him in genuine disbelief, just for a brief moment. He had already suffered six straight days of practices, games, and Shane’s morning yoga routines. Some days had stacked all three. 

“No.” Ilya pushed off of the counter and left the kitchen with complete peace, abandoning Shane to his compulsive exercise regimen while Ilya claimed his rightful place on the couch. “Today is for rest.”

By the time Shane wandered into the living room, Ilya had already spread himself on the couch beneath a blanket with Anya tucked against his legs.

Shane stopped short at the sight. “Seriously?”

“You should try resting. Will fix your allergies problem, maybe.”

Shane looked scandalized. “You always feel better with active recovery.” His voice was slipping into his captain cadence, an old habit Ilya wished Shane would have left back in Montreal (which wasn’t true, but he much preferred when Shane used that voice in the bedroom). “Ilya, it’s basic condition-… ihh-ing… hh’ISHH’uh!“

Ilya smiled, positively coy. “We can actively recover in the shower,” he offered sweetly. “But nooo, you need to do some scary bosu ankle shit.”  

“It’s for stabilization,” Shane gritted through his teeth, rubbing irritably beneath his nose with a tissue procured from his pocket. “You had that high ankle sprain just last season—“

Ilya waved a hand dismissively. ”Aahh, whatever. Healed in a week.”

“It absolutely did not heal in a week.”

“Well I played after a week. Was fine.”

Shane stared at him incredulously, seeming to weigh whether this argument was worth expending energy over. Somewhere beneath the internal battle and oncoming definitely-not-a-cold, affection flickered helplessly through the exasperation on his face. 

Ilya, of course, found this adorable. 

“I love you, and I love your strong ankles,” Ilya conceded. “But I am going to rest and watch Youtube.”

Shane prepared for the home gym alone by filling his water bottle and arming himself with pockets full of tissues. Ilya watched this preparation from beneath his blanket on the couch and released a long-suffering, dramatic sigh.

Shane lifted one hand behind himself in a gesture that made Ilya laugh loudly and long enough to follow Shane all the way down the hallway. 

Ilya remained sprawled over the couch with Anya curled against him in a warm little crescent while a nostalgic Vine compilation played on the television—an old comfort. The video had started as actual entertainment, the strange humor of a bygone but familiar era, and gradually devolved into background noise while his mind wandered elsewhere.

Mostly, it wandered toward Shane. Specifically, he was imagining Shane sneezing through calisthenics and growing increasingly more frustrated. 

He didn’t have to wonder about Shane and his failing workout for long. Footsteps sounded down the hallway far too soon. Ilya glanced at the time on his phone. Shane couldn’t have been gone for even an hour, likely closer to half that.

Usually Shane returned from workouts flushed with heat and self-satisfaction, loosened with the restless static worked out of his system. Exercise settled Shane in a way Ilya envied sometimes. Ilya always emerged from hard training with energy crawling under his skin, but Shane always seemed sated and relieved.

Now, however, Shane just looked pale. 

He would probably still pass a cursory public outing. No stranger on the street would stop to ask after his wellbeing. He didn’t look awfully ill, but Ilya knew Shane’s face too intimately. Shane’s eyes were always easy for Ilya to read, and they were presently glazed with fatigue. The skin beneath them had begun to shadow faintly violet. Even his posture looked wrong, sagging under the weight of feeling unwell. 

“How was your workout?” Ilya asked casually, fixing his attention back on the television. 

“Fine,” Shane insisted, but he ruined the illusion by ducking into the crook of his arm. “Huh’ISHH’ooh!”

Ilya muted the television.

Shane narrowed his eyes as Ilya unfolded himself from the couch. “Don’t start.”

“I say nothing,” Ilya replied with saintly calm. He crossed the room slowly, enjoying the suspicion gathering across Shane’s face. 

Ilya slid both hands over Shane’s hips. Shane looked downright silly, averting his gaze and taking a slow drink from the water bottle still in his hand, trying to appear unaffected. Ilya slipped his fingers beneath the hem of Shane’s shirt, spreading his hands over warm skin and feeling the subtle flex of muscle beneath them. 

“Mmh,” he hummed approvingly. “Thank you, exercise.”

Shane rolled his eyes. Ilya took the water bottle from his hand, pushed the mouthpiece closed against his hip, and tossed it onto the couch. 

Ilya kissed just beneath Shane’s ear and smiled against the skin when Shane exhaled softly. Ilya followed the line of his throat downward with slow kisses, feeling Shane’s pulse thrum hard and quick against his mouth. Bit by bit, Shane loosened under his hands. Triumph stirred warm and pleasant inside Ilya’s chest. 

“Shower now?” Ilya murmured against Shane’s neck.

Shane huffed a weak laugh. “It would be faster if I just rinsed off alone.”

“Maybe true.” Ilya hooked a finger beneath the collar of Shane’s shirt and tugged it aside, just enough to mouth lazily at his collarbone. “But I think maybe you need a little more exercise first.”

“That’s not even—“ The protest dissolved as Ilya kissed his throat again. Shane tipped his head to the side automatically, allowing Ilya better access even as he muttered, “You’re so annoying.”

“Mmh, definitely true.”

The matter of the shower became less an invitation and more an inevitability as Shane’s arms looped around Ilya’s neck, pulling him even closer. 

Not that Shane had been trying especially hard to resist.

In the shower, Shane melted under Ilya’s touch. He braced both hands against the tiled wall with his head tipped forward, breath catching in ragged moans. Every sound pulled from him carried a roughness now. His nose ran unchecked over his philtrum in a way he either genuinely didn’t notice or had decided to ignore in favor of more important matters.

There was something sacred in these moments. Shane spent so much of his life wound tight, holding himself in a perfectly polite package. But here, flushed and shaking and reduced to primal instincts beneath Ilya’s hands, he became raw and open. It was deeply intimate, watching Shane unravel like this with Ilya buried deep inside him. 

Through it all, Shane never once kissed him on the mouth. Jaw, yes. Throat, repeatedly. Once to Ilya’s nipple with so much lust behind it that Ilya nearly forgot his own name.

It was absurdly transparent. Apparently Shane believed he was conducting infection control measures all while wrapped around Ilya in a cloud of steam and desire. The earnestness of it charmed Ilya so thoroughly he could hardly decide whether it made him want to laugh or ruin Shane completely—or both, more likely. 

After their shower, Shane dressed in clean clothes (dark jeans, oddly, maybe he thought dressing up made him appear in better health?) and stood before the bathroom mirror, going through his routine of toner and some kind of sunscreen he always nagged Ilya to use. Ilya leaned shirtless against the closet doorway and watched him quietly. 

Shane looked exhausted now that adrenaline had worn off. His nose remained stubbornly pink, eyes heavy lidded. Every few moments he sniffled softly, yet he stood determined, as though refusing to let an oncoming cold compromise proper skincare. The sight filled Ilya with such unbearable affection he nearly proposed another round in the shower. 

By the time noon rolled around, Shane announced he was going to do a working lunch so he could relax later in the afternoon. 

“A lunch date with your laptop?” Ilya teased from the kitchen. He waited impatiently beside a pot of water refusing to boil, a box of pasta in his left hand. “I’m much hotter than emails.”

Shane popped his pre-prepped meal into the microwave, not even sparing Ilya a glance. “Debatable.”

“Wow. Shower Shane would agree with me.”

Ilya made pasta drowning in butter sauce and parmesan while Shane sat at the table answering emails between bites of salmon, increasingly congested sniffles, and periodic pauses to tend to his nose with tissues. 

“Nngkh!”

Ilya’s back was turned as he plated his pasta. The noise had come strangled, but Ilya was certain Shane had sneezed—and probably been dangerously close to blowing out his eardrums trying to silence it. There followed one careful sniffle, and by the time Ilya reached the table, Shane had schooled his expression into bland composure.

Shane finished eating first but lingered at the table with his laptop while Ilya worked through his pasta. Halfway through his meal, Shane went into the kitchen to rinse his meal prep container and returned carrying a clean fork. 

“Can I have a bite?”

Ilya looked up, brow raised. “You want some?”

“It’s a day off,” Shane replied seriously. “I can have one bite. Two, if I want.”

Ilya had to work especially hard to keep himself from grinning while Shane twirled exactly one modest forkful. Under normal circumstances, he would have stolen a bite using Ilya’s fork without hesitation, but Ilya kept this thought to himself.

Ilya finished his lunch while Shane puttered around the house in restless little circuits, tidying areas that already looked clean and repeatedly vanishing down hallways to blow his nose in private, maybe because he hoped that being out of sight would place him truly out of mind—or at least out of range of sound (it didn’t). 

Ilya kept easy conversation speckled between Shane’s self-directed tasks. Upcoming games, next week’s road trip. He reminded Shane to add some snacks to their grocery list, easy and dry things to pack for their next flight. Shane tapped on his phone while he stood at the back door, waiting while Anya sniffed around the yard. 

This kind of normalcy mattered to Shane, as did his image of good health, apparently. Ilya allowed him to keep both for now.

By mid-afternoon, after the dishes were loaded and the lap blankets on the couch had been rearranged to look effortlessly draped and home decor catalogue ready, Shane announced, “I’m going to lie down for a few. I need to decompress my spine.”

Ilya nearly choked holding back a snort. 

The excuse was absurd on its own, but they were married. They spent plenty of time existing separately in the same house without reporting their movements to each other like coworkers clocking breaks. But Shane had a funny habit of narrating his behavior when he knew it would appear suspicious. 

Five minutes later, Ilya wandered into the bedroom and found Shane fast asleep.

He had collapsed awkwardly atop the blankets, curled on his side in a way that surely wasn’t helpful for his spine. One arm was trapped beneath the pillow, a crumpled tissue still held loosely in the hand resting under his chin. 

Frankly, he looked sick. 

The tension was gone from his face, leaving behind the exhausted reality underneath. His mouth was parted to compensate for congestion, and he was breathing noisily. He looked warm and worn out and painfully human in a way that tugged hard at something protective in Ilya’s chest. 

Ilya quietly backed out of the room. He found Anya’s leash and took her on the long route through the neighborhood to give Shane uninterrupted peace and quiet. Crisp fall air bit pleasantly at his cheeks while Anya trotted happily beside him. Ilya carried one-sided conversation as they went.

“Your dad is pretending he’s not sick,” Ilya informed her gravely as they walked. “Very embarrassing for him. He’s a terrible liar, you know.”

Anya looked up at him. 

“Exactly,” Ilya said, feeling affirmed. He rewarded her with a treat from the pouch at his waist because Anya’s trainer had stressed the importance of consistent reinforcement, and Ilya took fatherhood extremely seriously. Eye contact on walks, apparently, ranked among the top five most important behaviors to instill in dogs. Ilya had initially been a little dubious, but he had also very thoroughly checked the trainer’s credentials and trusted expertise where his daughter was concerned. 

At the next crosswalk, he told Anya to sit.

“Smart girl,” he murmured warmly, crouching down to scratch behind her ear. Then, more solemnly, he said, “When we go home, you leave Dad alone, yes? No jumping, no making him throw your toy one million times. He needs rest. You only bother Papa.” 

Anya tilted her head, and Ilya chose to interpret this as agreement. 

Ilya returned with Anya expecting a quiet home. He knew it wouldn’t be completely silent. Anya’s nails skittered excitedly across the tile the moment he opened the front door (he needed to book an appointment with her groomer at the spa), and he heard the low, muffled hum of the washing machine in the mudroom leading to the garage. But he had expected the particular stillness of his husband asleep upstairs, napping his way through a cold he refused to acknowledge as anything more than allergies. 

Instead, he heard cabinets closing in the kitchen. 

Ilya stopped in the wide passage to the kitchen and crossed his arms. 

Shane stood at the island, hair rumpled and sweatshirt sleeves pushed up his forearms, while he aligned the corners of a kitchen towel. Ilya cleared his throat, and Shane looked up slowly at the sound. 

“You are folding towels,” Ilya observed calmly. 

Shane glanced down at the towel, frowning, then looked at Ilya again. “Uh… Yeah?”

“Why?”

Shane rolled his eyes weakly. “They were clean.” Halfway through smoothing the folded towel, he stopped and wrenched to the side. “Hh-! Hh’ISHH’uh!” He had caught it in the crook of his arm, but he still washed his hands after. Then he grabbed another clean towel from the small basket on the island and resumed folding. 

Ilya watched it all with a soft smile. Earlier Shane had been sharp and defensive, but sometime during his afternoon nap his cold had sunk deeper into him, blunting all that nervous energy and leaving him fogged over. 

“I took Anya on a walk,” Ilya said casually while shrugging off his jacket. He laid it over the back of a barstool at the island counter. “Your back feels better?”

“Yeah. Laying down helped.”

“You nap?” Ilya eyed the red sleep wrinkle still pressed across Shane’s cheek. 

“No.” Shane sniffed thickly, then cleared his throat. “Just... laid down for like ten minutes? Maybe fifteen.”

Ilya crossed the kitchen under the excuse of heading toward the refrigerator for a drink, and he let his hand slide briefly along the back of Shane’s neck as he passed, thumbing at the hair at the nape with gentle affection. Shane was warm, probably from his nap, but not fever-hot. Relieved, Ilya grabbed a can of coke from the fridge and retreated to the living room. 

The rest of the afternoon passed in domestic bliss, unremarkable in the best way. It was the kind of ordinary Ilya had once assumed life could never possibly become for him. A decade ago he’d imagined spending his thirties much the same as his early twenties, drinking his way around cities and keeping warm in unfamiliar beds. Instead, it was this, tossing Anya’s toy lazily across the room whenever she dropped it into his lap while his husband disinfected already clean countertops and snuffled into tissues.

This was, truthfully, much better. 

By evening, it was impossible to miss that Shane was getting worse. His entire nose had gone pink now, a flush spreading delicately over the bridge and sides of it. Congestion won steady ground, leaving his lips faintly parted with quiet breaths through his mouth. His voice roughened, too. Even his sneezes had changed, sounding tired. 

“Hh’ISHhh-‘ISH’uh!” 

Shane no longer seemed embarrassed about them, either. Earlier he had politely buried them into his elbow, and now he halfheartedly caught them in tissues. 

What truly convinced Ilya that Shane felt awful, however, was that he didn’t hover over Ilya when he had said he would handle dinner. 

Normally Shane supervised Ilya’s cooking. At his best, he tried to be helpful. At his worst, he moaned and groaned about nutritional value. He had eased up on his strict diet over time, but he still liked their meals to be reasonably balanced. 

Tonight, Shane simply leaned against a wall nearby, staring off and looking miserable. 

“I was thinking baked chicken,” Ilya announced. Anya’s head perked up from her food bowl, chicken apparentlyfar more enticing than her specially tailored meals Ilya paid too much for. “Roast vegetables on the side?”

Shane blinked at him. “Huh?”

“Chicken. Vegetables. Healthy things.” Ilya motioned to the ingredients he’d been steadily gathering on the counter. “For dinner.” 

“Oh. Yeah?” Shane nodded, rubbing at his nose. “That sounds… really good, actually.” 

What Ilya truly wanted wasn’t anything Shane would want to eat. Chicken parmesan, Chinese takeout, last night he had even thought about ordering from the new chicken wing place in town. He wanted something glutinous, a meal the team’s dietitian certainly wouldn’t have planned for them while on the road these next two weeks. But Shane looked terrible and certainly didn’t need to fret over poor dinner choices, so Ilya took pity on him. 

“Go sit on the couch.” Ilya nudged lightly at Shane’s hip as he passed him, heading for the cabinet where they kept the baking sheets. “Don’t bother the chef.”

Shane narrowed his eyes faintly but definitely seemed too tired to argue. “Fine,” he surrendered.

Ilya prepared dinner while Shane suffered in the living room. 

From the kitchen, Ilya periodically passed the wide passage leading to the living room. Every time Ilya chanced a look, Shane was further sunk into the couch. At first, Shane had been sitting upright, some forgettable home renovation show playing in the background. Soon after, he had curled into the corner piece. By the time Ilya had the chicken and vegetables in the oven, Shane was nearly horizontal, only his dark hair peeking over one of the cushions. 

“Hh… H’ISHHh!” 

A muffled groan followed several seconds later.

Ilya sat in a stool at the island and scrolled through his phone. Twice while dinner cooked, Shane disappeared upstairs.

The first time, Ilya caught movement from the corner of his eye and looked up just in time to see Shane trudging slowly toward the staircase. A minute later, muffled sneezing echoed faintly down the hallway overhead. Shane returned soon after with a fresh box of tissues and the small wastebasket from their bedroom. 

The second trip upstairs happened barely fifteen minutes later. Ilya hadn’t seen Shane leave, but he heard Shane climbing the stairs and stopping halfway up while he coughed. 

Ilya frowned down at the vegetables he was turning over on the baking sheet. He wondered how much more miserable Shane needed to be before he would admit to his cold outright. 

It was a double-edged sword, really. Shane’s stubbornness over this cold irritated Ilya, but it also reassured him. If Shane felt truly awful, he would eventually stop pretending otherwise. Shane still trying to salvage dignity meant he probably felt well enough to push through. 

When dinner finished, Ilya worked on piling two plates and called Shane’s name. 

He didn’t answer. 

Ilya expected to find Shane asleep on the couch but instead found him curled under a blanket with the tissue box on his lap, awake but thoroughly wilted. 

He looked awfully exhausted, staring off with his gaze unfocused. His eyes were dull with fatigue and were watering. And congestion had settled heavily across his face now, the space around his sinuses appearing almost puffy. 

His nose, especially, looked worked into the ground. His nostrils were rubbed raw and swollen, the kind of angry red one might expect to see played up with makeup in a commercial for cold medicine. His nose looked sore enough that sympathetic pain prickled over Ilya’s skin just looking at it.

Ilya had the overwhelming urge to gather Shane up in his arms and carry him straight upstairs. Change him into warm pajamas and put him to bed properly, press kisses into his hair until he fell asleep. 

Instead, Ilya crouched in front of Shane and put a hand on his shoulder. “Shane.”

Shane blinked at him, sleepy and embarrassed. 

“You look so sick.”

A miserable groan escaped Shane instantly. He dragged both hands over his face and left his palms pressed against his cheeks. “I know, I know,” he rasped. “I thought it was nothing.”

“No, you thought it was allergies,” Ilya taunted, and Shane closed his eyes briefly in shame. Ilya pressed the back of his hand to Shane’s forehead and found it warm, maybe, but still not feverish. He asked softly, “How bad do you feel?”

“Not that bad.” Shane sighed softly and leaned into Ilya’s touch. “No fever.” 

Ilya raised a brow, encouraging him to continue.

“I, uh… checked already.” Shane hesitated just long enough to sniffle. “While you were making dinner.”

“Ah, sneaky.” Ilya brushed a thumb softly under Shane’s eye. “I thought you didn’t want me to hear you sneeze your brains out.”

Shane huffed a weak laugh and ducked his head shyly. “No, I’m sure you… heard that anyway.” 

Rather than confirm, Ilya pressed a chaste kiss to Shane’s forehead and stood. “You should eat. I will bring it here.”

Shane nodded once and murmured a tired, “Okay.”

Shane wasn’t normally one to eat full meals on the couch, nothing beyond a light snack, and the simple compliance stirred concern inside Ilya’s chest. He supposed he was glad, however, that Shane was up to eating at all. 

Shane leaned fully into his cold now that he acknowledged it. He ate in small and distracted bites between sniffles and coughs, rough little things he muffled dutifully into crumpled tissues. Once, with the fork halfway to his mouth, his breath hitched warningly. He dropped the fork and fumbled for a tissue. 

“Heh’ISHHh’iew! Fu-uuh’ISHH’uh!”

“Wow.” Ilya rubbed a firm hand over Shane’s back. “Your allergies are really terrible.”

Shane shot him a bleary glare over the tissue held to his nose. “Shut up.” His voice came out wrecked, cracking at the end. 

“You want some more allergy tea? I think we have so many ingredients outside.”

Shane rolled his eyes, but the irritation behind them had dissolved completely now that he no longer had to defend himself. He was embarrassed, maybe, but definitely relieved. He looked tired and soft and willing (open, vulnerable, loved).

Ilya took the blanket from his own lap and wrapped it around Shane’s shoulders, cocooning him further in warmth. Shane accepted this without protest, even offering Ilya a shy little smile. When Ilya scooted closer, so that their thighs pressed together, Shane didn’t move away. 

Shane might have asked Ilya to keep his distance, when he was younger and struggled to give into simple pleasures in the face of more responsible choices. Tonight, Shane merely sniffled and leaned subtly closer. A year of safety, held in Ilya’s arms with the world watching and coming out better for it, had made it easier for him to give in and claim what he wanted.

By the time Ilya finished his plate, Shane had managed a little over half of his own. It wasn’t ideal, with their busy week ahead, but it was enough, especially given that Shane was fully leaned into Ilya’s side now and flagging hard.

“You are done?” Ilya asked quietly.

Shane nodded, drifting somewhere closer to sleep.

Ilya carefully helped Shane back against the couch, tucked the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He gathered their dishes and carried them to the kitchen, listening to muffled television punctuated by the occasional cough while he rinsed the plates. He started the dishwasher before he returned to the living room and dimmed the lights low, then sat on the couch, opening one arm invitingly toward Shane. 

Shane looked at Ilya for approximately two seconds before practically crawling into his lap.

He wasn’t particularly graceful about it, either. It was a desperate grapple, frantic in his reach as his fingers curled at the front of Ilya’s shirt. Shane buried his face in the crook of Ilya’s neck and shuddered out a sigh that signaled a homecoming. 

Ilya had been waiting for this, watching Shane white-knuckle his way through the day. Gathering Shane closer, Ilya shifted to bear the brunt of Shane’s surrender. 

“Good,” Ilya murmured into Shane’s hair. “Much better.”

Shane only coughed softly in reply.

For a long while, they stayed like this. Ilya scratched his fingertips gently over the hair at Shane’s nape. Shane tucked his head lower, giving Ilya more access. 

“Huhh-! Heh’INGSH’ieh!”

The sneeze burst suddenly, directed at a bunch of blanket clutched in Shane’s fist that rested on Ilya’s chest. He groaned into the blanket after, muffled and miserable. 

“Bless you,” Ilya murmured into Shane’s hair. “You are allergic to me, I think.” 

Shane’s fingers halfheartedly pressed into his ribs. 

Ilya smiled and kissed the crown of Shane’s head. “Practice tomorrow is optional. You should stay home.” 

Shane stiffened, and Ilya soothed him with a pass of his fingers through Shane’s hair. 

“I’m probably okay,” Shane murmured after a beat, though even he sounded unconvinced. 

“Mmh.” Ilya continued stroking gently through his hair. “We have a road trip soon. Better you rest now.” 

Shane’s shoulders rounded just slightly, a subtle tensing Ilya had learned meant Shane was preparing to shoot back yet was bracing for a retaliation to follow. He was two steps ahead in everything he did, on and off the ice. 

“Hih’ISHHh’uh! -ISHH’uh!” 

Except when his cold sent him five steps back.

Ilya waited, and Shane eventually sighed against his chest. Embarrassment hung heavy in his voice when he croaked, “Yeah, maybe…” 

Ilya brushed his lips, perched in a soft smirk, over Shane’s hair in slow passes back and forth, a sort of drawn out kiss disguised nuzzle. He breathed Shane’s scent as he took stock of the home around him. Anya slept curled nearby on the rug, paws twitching faintly in dreams. The dishwasher hummed distantly in the kitchen. Shane’s breathing warmed steadily through the fabric of Ilya’s shirt, growing slower and softer yet a tad noisier the closer Shane drifted toward sleep.

Married life, Ilya thought, had so many lessons.

Today, it had reminded him how love settled into ordinary places—into grocery lists and lap blankets, and eating dinner on the couch. Into open arms, and letting your husband crawl into them without needing words. 

Maybe years from now marriage would teach him other things, too. It would teach him how Shane’s hair would silver at the temples first, how his laugh lines would be earned, which insecurities would soften over time and which would stubbornly survive. 

Maybe it would teach him that head colds wouldn’t always be eased into with the excuse of allergies. One day Shane might wake up with a catch in his throat and climb into Ilya’s arms unabashed before even getting out of bed.

It would teach him every version of Shane through time. In turn, it would offer Shane the same.

That thought frightened him a little. He would reach an age he never imagined for himself, with a person he loved there to witness it. It was a terrifying thought, loving someone long enough to have decades of him remembered. The proud moments, and the lowest.

That, he realized, was marriage’s greatest lesson. 

It was learning, over and over again, how Shane would show Ilya that he wanted to see it all, and that he trusted Ilya to watch him grow and change, too. It was spending thousands of ordinary days learning each other by heart, only to find there was always something new to love. It was coming to understand he would never really reach the end of knowing Shane, and being grateful that there would always be more to learn. 

~

stillhollzyswife: he looks soooo tired, poor baby

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

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

rozanuts: your mums a buck 80 at least

~

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

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

m00seknuckle: Found the fujoshi

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

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

m00seknuckle: Found the other fujoshi

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

~

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

Cens4PMs: This is so wholesome wtf

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

—————

Pierre Beaulieu @ hockeytalkie:

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

—————

Earlier that morning…….

“You should not go to practice today.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You do that anyway.”

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

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

——

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

“tshhh’ew! hh’kisshhu!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Shane—”

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

Ilya woke first again, blinking in the mid-morning sunlight as his eyes alit on Shane curled into a tiny ball halfway down the bed, gripping onto the covers in his sleep like the Russian would try to drag them away. He was breathing through his mouth, rasping short breaths like he had just exerted himself, though the lines the comforter had left imprinted on his face attested that he’d been sound asleep for hours.

The blond let himself take in his boyfriend’s form for a few moments, noting the signs of illness, exhaustion, distress, estimating just how tired, symptomatic, and anxious he’d be when he awoke, and then swung his legs out of bed, stretching and grabbing his phone to check the time. They had three hours until Shane’s parents would arrive.

He padded softly back to the master bedroom, stared at himself in the mirror again as he stepped out of his boxers. He looked tired. He felt fucking tired. After this, they would both sleep for a week straight, he decided.

With a yawn, he turned the shower on, stepping in and letting the cool water run over him. Sharing a bed with his very feverish boyfriend all night had left him seriously overheated and clammy, though he couldn’t tell if it was his sweat or Shane’s that had left his skin with a tacky sheen.

He lathered up soap in his hands, starting to massage it into his skin, watching as the bubbles were washed away just as quickly as he swiped them across himself. Ilya took extra time with his upper body, an ache throbbing in the back of his neck from the awkward angle he’d spent most of the night in, sitting up to watch over Shane, and the acidic, throbbing tenderness in his shoulder that always arose in recent injuries when he was stressed or sick or sleep-deprived.

His shoulder was the latest victim, having taken a puck right under the padding at one of the final games of the season, injuring the joint badly. He’d stayed out, though, god knew they needed him to, up until the point where he’d hit the boards with another player on top of him and his shoulder had given up the ghost and dislocated. Even then he’d only missed the last two minutes of second period, and returned with a relocated arm and a taste for the blood of the opposing enforcer in the third. And they’d won.

Ilya dug his fingers into his trapezoids, drawing firm circles in the tense muscle, thumb grazing over the outside of his shoulder as he worked, mostly willing the pain away. It was almost fully healed, and he wasn’t eager to interfere with that by kneading the ligaments the wrong way.

He snorted in aggressively, morning congestion finally beginning to shift as the steam from the shower filled the room. Predictably, a tickle arose in the absence of the blockage, Ilya watching his distorted reflection in the fogged up faucet contort as his face scrunched and his nostrils flared. He kept his hands on his shoulders, losing focus on the itch as he hit a particularly tense spot close to the base of his neck.

Moments later, though, his fingers stuttered to a halt as his attention was sharply ensnared by the actualization of the tickle, eyes slamming shut as his breath wavered.

“hKK! hKk! Kkh! hKSH! hKSHuh!-” He squared his stance, making sure he wouldn’t be knocked over by the coming sneezes, continuing to press his fingers into his upper back, jerking forward with each tiny expulsion, as though imitating the shower head in front of him. “-hKSHh! hihHKSHh!” Ilya snorted again, fighting the approaching threat of emptying his sinuses all down his face, “hAHSCHhUH! ASCHhOo!” The final two sneezes were directed upwards, the blond forcing his head to remain tilted back as he sprayed the tiled wall, keeping the contents of his face where they were until he was finished with his massage.

Accordingly, once he’d loosened his taut muscles and washed his hair and face, Ilya gripped his nose halfway up, pressing on alternating nostrils and blowing forcefully, emptying himself out into his palm, and then allowing the evidence to be washed away before turning off the water.

He wrapped a towel around his waist, using another to swipe his upper body dry enough to slap an antihistamine patch on, on his stomach this time, not wanting to garner questions from Yuna and David. Then he stepped back into the bedroom, intending to walk through and check on Shane, but having his mission immediately voided as he found his boyfriend tugging at the rumpled bedsheets, trying, with little logic or technique, to strip the bed.

“Good morning.”

Shane looked up. “Can you help me? I should have done this last night.”

He looked calm, lucid and focused, but Ilya could tell that he was terrified, and barely even present. There was an underlying air of panic that he couldn’t help but sense immediately, though it was absent from the brunet’s tone, and his face. Also his gaze hadn’t strayed to Ilya’s shower water dropleted abs for even a single second, so clearly something was wrong. Hollander had never had that kind of willpower.

“Yes.” Was his only reply, deciding to take things slow, let Shane explain what he was feeling and why in his own time.

The blond walked quickly to the closet to grab some clothes, dressed himself, and then met him at the opposite side of the bed, patiently starting to untuck the sheets from the mattress, and strip the comforter, as his boyfriend collected the bedding and struggled to accumulate it all into a manageable bundle in his arms. He wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe he wasn’t thinking at all. Normally, Hollander moved with logic, organisation, forethought. He would have stripped the sheets top to bottom, folding each item as he went, moving the pillows and comforter out of the way to get to the next item. This approach was haphazard, distracted, like he was trying to distract himself from some underlying anxiety, with a task he couldn’t even seem to perform on autopilot.

Eventually, the bed was stripped, and Shane started off in the direction of the laundry room, sheets trailing behind him like a wedding veil. Ilya let him go, heading through to the other bedroom to pick up his phone, and the thermometer, slipping it into his pocket so he wouldn’t forget to check. As he walked back into the corridor, he could still hear Shane shuffling through the house, apparently not having made a whole lot of progress in the time it had taken the Russian to make the short detour.

He’d just entered the kitchen when there was a loud thump from near the front door. Adrenaline spiking, the blond ran in the direction of the sound immediately. As he rounded the corner, he saw, to his relief, that the Canadian was still upright, though he’d inexplicably dropped all of the bedsheets in a pile at his feet. Before Ilya could say anything, though, the brunet snapped forwards, away from him.

“hEHTDSHh! hihESHHew!” Ilya could hear the sound ricochet off his cupped hands, and stared curiously at the back of his boyfriend’s head as he stepped closer. That was…unusually careless of him. Normally he could predict, and to some extent control, his sneezes, giving himself enough time to acquire something to cover with. Something more suitable than his hands…?

“God bless you.” He announced himself.

Shane turned. “Sorry.” He gestured at the sheets at his feet, and then flexed his palms towards the blond guiltily. “I couldn’t do both.”

“Is fine.” Ilya stepped deftly to one side, snagging a couple of tissues from the box on the hall table- an addition Shane had definitely made for his sake- and holding them out, pre-empting the expression of self-disgust that the brunet’s face took on as he observed the way his palms glistened in the sunlight.

The Canadian took the tissues, cleaning off his hands, and pressing them between his palms, balling them up absent-mindedly as he stared into space, original mission forgotten in favor of letting himself be carried off on some other train of thought.

Ilya moved imperceptibly closer, but still somehow managed to startle his boyfriend out of his trance, the brunet’s eyes dropping down to the pile of laundry discarded on the floor of the front hall.

“Right. I’ll take these…to be washed.” He still looked slightly confused by his purpose, and the Russian took his hesitation as an opportunity to retrieve the condensed ball of tissues from his hands, so that it wouldn’t accidentally get thrown in with the sheets.

“Okay.” He at least trusted him to do the laundry by himself. “I will make breakfast.”

…

Ilya watched Shane not watching the TV as he fiddled with the belt loops of his shorts. The Russian had heard a car pull up on the driveway almost two minutes ago, but it appeared that his boyfriend hadn’t. He seemed anxious, but not imminently so. His eyes were fixed on the screen, not flitting in the direction of the door as Ilya found his own eyes doing.

Not wanting the brunet to be startled, he reached out a hand, laying it on the nape of his neck. Shane looked at him immediately.

“I think your parents are-”

There was a knock at the door. The Canadian sprang to his feet with a soft gasp. For a moment, his face contorted as though he had to cough, but he swallowed hard, ran his tongue over his lips, and straightened his shirt.

Ilya stood up too, brushing a thumb over his boyfriend’s cheek. “You are okay?”

“Don’t ask me that right now.” Shane said.

“Okay. You remember the signal?”

“Yes.”

The brunet side stepped him before he could ask any more questions, climbing the stairs, crossing the kitchen and pausing just before he’d reach the sight of the front door.

Ilya followed him, placing a hand on the small of his back, but saying nothing. Shane took a deep, slightly shaky breath in, muttered something that sounded slightly self-contemptuous, and moved forward to open the door.

“Hello.” He said, the picture of unreadable neutrality, stepping back to let his parents inside.

“Hi, darling.” Yuna crossed the threshold first, pulling her son into a brief hug and smiling over his shoulder at Ilya. “Hi, Ilya, how are you?”

“Good, thank you.” He stood awkwardly, waiting, as she moved forwards to hug him as well. He loved it, loved the two of them, but that didn’t mean he was used to it. “How was drive?” The question was directed at both of them, David also having entered now, and handed off a bottle of wine to his son, with a muttered “It’s mostly for your mother and I, I assume.” at his slightly dubious look.

“It was great, beautiful weather for it.” He responded as Shane shut the door behind them, Ilya leading the way into the kitchen.

“Yes, we sit outside for lunch?” He offered, feeling his boyfriend’s hand on his arm, a soft warning, don’t push yourself for my sake.

…

They were sitting in the living room, Shane and Ilya on one side, Yuna and David on the other, peacefully catching up before the preparation of lunch would have to begin.

“I read an article about it,” Shane’s mother was saying, “and there’s some speculation that-”

“Sorry, I forgot to empty the washer.” Shane interrupted suddenly, standing.

“You should do that now.” Ilya backed him instinctively, knowing that this wasn’t about the sheets. “Before clothes go… gross.”

“Uh, okay.” Yuna looked thrown for a moment, watching her son exit the room and jog across the kitchen with an urgency that seemed unwarranted for laundry, before returning to her story, “Anyway, Ilya, I don’t know what you’ve heard about it-”

He listened to her explain whatever conspiracy was currently making the rounds regarding the league, how it could affect either of the two of them, and what she’d thought and done and said to David about it. He assumed that Shane actually had gone to take the laundry out of the washer, knowing how much he disliked lying, and also knowing that he’d put the wash on several hours ago. But where was he now?

The conversation moved on. Ilya did not.

“So, you had a fair season, didn’t you? Really whipped Ottawa into shape. They’re starting to get quite good under your leadership.”

“Yes.” Ilya said flatly, looking at the two of them without really seeing. “Is good.” All he could think about was Shane, probably hunched in the furthest corner of the bathroom, sneezing in jerky little bursts with his nose held in that death grip that always looked so painfully remorseless, muzzling himself into silence. And for who? The three people in the world who cared about him most? It made no sense to Ilya.

“Not as good as Boston, though.” Yuna probed.

“Mm.” She could have said absolutely anything at that moment and he’d have agreed, mentally setting himself a timer for how long he would leave his boyfriend to his own devices before he let himself check on him. Five minutes? Seven? He barely gave enough of a fuck about manners not to go right now, but he could already hear Shane’s hissed reproach, “You left them on their own to check on me? Now they’re going to know something’s wrong!”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yuna.”

“What? I just want to know where his head’s at.”

“Does not bother me.” Ilya interjected. “I like challenge.” He had no concept of whether the move bothered him or not, currently. He had no concept of anything except Shane. The blond was merely allowing the conversation to follow whatever path it would, giving instinctive answers while he allowed the rest of his brain power to be devoted to his boyfriend.

They discussed more of the ins and outs of the season, though Ilya had no idea which ins or which outs, almost treating the conversation like an interview.

Just as he was bracing his hands against the edge of the couch to get up, footsteps re-entered the room.

Shane padded over and sat down next to him, listening attentively to his mother explaining exactly why a goal that Ilya hadn’t even been on the ice for, which had been waved off, had in fact been a goal, and should have been treated as one.

He glanced subtly over at his boyfriend, who looked, miraculously, much the same as when he’d left. No redness around his nose, no bloodshot eyes, same clothes, same hair, same man. But Ilya knew something had happened. And it was driving him crazy to not be able to ask.

…

Twenty minutes of casual conversation later, Ilya glanced at his watch. “I will start lunch.”

He stood up, Shane standing with him. The brunet’s gaze turned distant, face imperceptibly paling. Ilya reached over, fisting a hand in the back of his boyfriend’s shirt, where his parents couldn’t see.

“Maybe you move outside? Is so nice.” The blond said, voice smooth and calm, and pointed in a way that only Shane could hear. He leaned in, kissing the Canadian on the cheek, and muttering “Fresh air.”

The brunet nodded, blinked. “Right, yeah. We can go sit outside.”

Ilya let him take the steps first, under the pretence of pausing to check his phone. But his eyes never left his boyfriend’s back as he walked, ready to spring forwards and catch him at any second.

His vigilance was unnecessary, as it turned out, but he would much rather have been vigilant than careless, and let his boyfriend collapse halfway up the stairs right in front of his parents.

The Russian watched them walk out onto the patio, making their way to sit out facing the water, Shane facing the opposite way, Ilya watching him stare blankly at the glass, knowing his boyfriend was watching them, but unable to see him through the sun glancing off the windows.

He frowned, before turning to the fridge, retrieving the ingredients Shane had had him prepare the day before, some extremely boring salad that inspired absolutely no appetite in the blond. He placed them on the counter before returning to the fridge to retrieve a cola, opening the can and taking a long sip of the cool, bubbly liquid, before setting it down beside the ingredients and setting a frying pan on the heat.

He was too in the flow of cooking to notice the door sliding open again, masked by the sizzling of mushrooms in the pan. He only became aware that he wasn’t alone when he took a few steps away from the oven and heard something from behind him.

There was a soft noise, a tiny displacement of air like half of a hiccup, and Ilya turned to see Shane standing a few steps past the doorway, pouting absently at nothing. At Ilya’s questioning look, he smiled tightly and started walking towards the fridge.

“I’m just grabbing a drink for mom.”

The blond caught his arm as he went past, pulling him in to face him. “What happened?”

Shane’s pout was back, accompanied this time by glistening tears in the corners of his eyes. “I bit my tongue.”

Ilya winced sympathetically, connecting the dots in his mind. “Sneeze?” Shane nodded his confirmation, Ilya’s heart breaking at the regret on his face. “Budʹzdorov, lyubimy. I’m sorry. Does it hurt still?”

He shook his head before butting it into the Russian’s shoulder. “I hate this.” He whispered.

“I hate it too.” Ilya inched them closer to the fridge, hands around Shane’s waist. “I want to wrap you up like tiny burrito and kiss you-” He paused to press a kiss into the brunet’s hair, “-until you are better.”

“I wouldn’t be a tiny burrito.” Shane corrected as Ilya tugged the fridge door open. “Burritos are usually smaller than me.”

“Okay.” The blond fought against a laugh at the ‘usually’ he’d added. “Get drink before they wonder what we are doing in here.”

“Ugh.” The Canadian stared out through the windows at his parents’ backs. “What if we just hid in the bedroom and never came out?”

“We starve.” Ilya’s gaze drifted to the salad ingredients and he wrinkled his nose slightly. “Maybe we starve anyway.”

Shane paid him no heed, still in his own head. “That’s awful of me, though. They love me. God, why can’t I just be normal?”

The blond frowned, surprised. “What?”

“I don’t know.” He sniffled, retrieving the drink and nudging the door closed. “I just feel ungrateful.”

Ilya pressed the back of his hand to the side of Shane’s face. He was slightly warm. They’d dosed him up as close to the time of arrival as possible, obviously, and he had been sitting in the sun out there, but still, it made the Russian uneasy.

The brunet pulled away with another little sniff, eyes focused out the window again, checking his parents hadn’t seen the check-up.

“You should blow your nose.” Ilya commented. “You are sniffly.”

“Can’t.” Shane started back towards the door. “Don’t want to set myself off again.”

And from the look on his face, the previous time he’d ‘set himself off’ had been bad. Disquietude crawled under Ilya’s skin like a parasite, wondering how much his boyfriend was inhibiting himself from divulging, not wanting the blond to visibly worry while his parents were here.

He pulled the pan off the heat, retrieving a large bowl to mix the salad in, filled with a sense of triviality. The complete inanity of having to make this fancy, disgusting meal, and talk about the season, and the summer, like everything was fine, when his boyfriend was suffering. It almost made him angry. But if he was angry, he had no idea at whom. Because it felt seriously wrong to be mad at Shane right now. Like he was confirming the brunet’s deepest dread.

…

Ilya shoved a forkful of leaves into his mouth, and stared angrily at his salad as he chewed them. His angry stare would be easily written off as being the result of the glaring sunlight getting in his eyes, so he allowed himself to indulge.

“This is delicious, Ilya.”

No, the fuck it isn’t. “Thank you.”

He glanced at Shane, wondering if the brunet could even taste the food, wondering if he still found it appetising in his languescent state, wondering if there was something else he’d prefer. He seemed to be eating normally.

Several more forkfuls did nothing to quell his hunger, his stress over his boyfriend, or his body’s protest to their surroundings. An antihistamine patch, sometimes two if the count was high, usually kept his symptoms to a minimum, so long as they stayed indoors, or showered after going outside. The allergy was manageable. But manageable was entirely different from eradicable, even temporarily, and what he would consider to be unremarkable levels of sneezing and sniffling and scrubbing at his eyes, was probably markedly different to what would be considered unremarkable by Shane’s parents.

“Oh, by the way, Ilya,” Yuna said, “I know you were talking about a new sponsorship, and that they’d sent over a contract? If you wanted me to look over that, just to be sure they’re giving you everything you need, I’d be happy to.”

Ilya swallowed what felt like a mouthful of nondescript Canadian flora. “Okay, thank you. Sounds usefu-hh-l.” Something about speaking, maybe the vibration of the vocalisations, maybe the pause in breathing through his nose, had incited a fire about halfway up his nose, that he was quickly realising wouldn’t be easy to subdue.

He could see that the hitch in his breath had been noticeable, the other three all looking attentively at him in mild surprise, where Shane’s focus had previously been deep in his bowl. So really, it wouldn’t be that unexpected if he-

“hKK!-” He barely raised the back of his hand in time, crunching hard into his shoulder as he tried to shrink away from the table without leaving his chair. “-hKK! Kkh! hKSH! hKSHh! hhih…hrRSHH!”

“Bless you, darling.” Yuna patted the hand he’d left on the table.

“Thank you.” Ilya didn’t meet her gaze, electing to stare into his glass of water instead, as he straightened up.

That really should be it. One little fit, and he’d be fine for the rest of the visit. He didn’t want to make a scene, or rather, he didn’t need to. Although it could take some of this imagined heat off of his boyfriend… that would be the only thing that could induce Ilya to give in any further to his body’s little temper tantrum about the new environment it found itself in.

They finished the meal in calm silence, each allowing their gaze to wander across the beautiful landscape, Shane and Ilya both also throwing little concerned glances at each other every so often, when they were convinced that the other wasn’t looking.

Ilya debated whether he could get away with sidling back into the kitchen to grab himself something else to eat, craving slightly more substance than the meal had afforded him. He rubbed at his still itching nose with his knuckle, glancing up to see Shane looking at him intensely. Instinctively, he lowered his hand, assuming he was being chided for being impolite. But as he watched, Shane raised one hand open, fingers splayed, and held up the first finger on his other hand. He held the signal for barely a second, before his hands were back in his lap again. That was the signal.

Serendipitously, the tickle in Ilya’s nose was unfazed by his nervous system shifting towards fight-or-flight mode. He sniffed, glanced up at the windows, letting the bright sunlight shrink his pupils and trigger that one misplaced wire in his brain.

An hour’s worth of pollen exposure, urged on by the purposeful enactment of his photic reflex, generated a tripping, sharp, staccato breath, that pulled the blond’s head back slightly, squinted eyes focused on the roof of the house as he ducked away from the table against his forearm.

“hKK! hKk! KKh! hhih…hKSHh! KSHh! hihKSHh-SHh! hKSHHuh! hahSHHhOo!”

“Bless you.” Shane’s parents responded in synchronicity.

Ilya turned back, standing immediately with a sniffle and a wince. “Thank you. I have to…” He nodded towards the house nonspecifically. “Shane?”

“Uh sure, yeah.” The Canadian stood too, letting himself be taken by the arm as his boyfriend marched them both back inside.

…

“Are you okay?” Shane tried to turn to look at him, but Ilya was on an uninterruptable path to the bathroom, not pausing for a moment. He had his game face on. Like the exact expression that Shane had seen so many times during face-offs. Was this the plan he’d talked about? What the fuck was he going to do?

They made it to the bathroom, the blond shutting and locking the door behind them. He spun back to Shane with focused, attentive eyes.

“It is bad? You need them to leave?”

“I think so.” He bit his lip guiltily, wondering if he really did feel that bad after all. Maybe he’d just been sitting in the sun for too long. He could stomach a little more conversation, wait for them to open the wine his parents had brought. Couldn’t he?

“Okay.” Ilya reached out and took him by the arms, grounding him. “I can get them to leave.” He reached up to cup his boyfriend’s face reassuringly, but Shane saw the flicker of pain in his expression.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Is nothing. My shoulder. No big deal.”

“Yes, big deal. How long has it been hurting?”

“Since it got hit with the puck.”

“Il-” He broke off coughing, at first trying to choke it back, but then giving in, elbow pressed to his face, bending forwards. His throat felt chalky and raw, his lungs encumbered by mucus and fatigue, every inch of his respiratory system intent on dragging out this fit until it worked properly again. And who knew how long that would be?

There were firm hands on his back, two initially, but then one vanished and he heard the tap running. This time he couldn’t reject the water on the basis of its origin, no matter how much disgust it sparked within him. He raised his head, took the glass in a shaky hand, and downed it, horribly aware of its not-quite-cold, metallic-tasting nature.

“You are okay? You can breathe?” Ilya asked.

“Mm.” Shane didn’t know if he could. He was exhausted, the effort of being a person in front of his family, pretending not to be sick, and his body fighting this infection tooth and nail had completely drained him. He hardly had the energy to take a full breath, ending up with short, raspy half-breaths that made him lightheaded.

Ilya’s breathing was off too. The blond turned away slightly, one hand still on Shane’s upper arm, and scrubbed angrily at his nose, horrible clicking sounds emanating from the abused appendage.

The brunet watched through blurry, honeycombed vision. “I…Ilya.” He breathed, finding it impossible to put any real weight or power behind the word.

“Yebat. One se-ehh-cond. Fucking Canad- ahKK! Kk! hKSH!-”

Shane could no longer really feel the bathroom tile beneath his feet. He had a sense that it had originally been a firm, reliable presence, pressing up against his soles with the same force that he’d been pressing down on it with. That was how physics worked, anyway. But now, it felt softer, like he was standing in quicksand, or clay, and the longer he stood there, the deeper he was sinking.

“-hKSHh! hiHSHh!-”

The sounds Ilya was making were starting to slow and echo in his ears, beyond the effects of the tile surrounding them, playing over and over until Shane wasn’t sure if the fit was still going, or if his ears were just stuck on a loop.

“Help?” He whispered, unsure if the sound even left his lips, if his lips even moved. But the blond turned back, squinting at him, even as his expression was pulled into desperate itchiness again.

And as Shane’s vision faded to black, and his legs were swallowed up by the undulating mass of the tiled floor, and he found himself tilting forwards into the firm mass of Ilya’s chest, the last thing he heard, was a violently hitching breath, suddenly cut off, as though by extreme force.

…

When his eyes opened, meaningless colors swirling before them before solidifying into the familiar surroundings of his bathroom, he felt as though he’d been asleep. Like 8 full hours had just passed, like he’d had dreams.

“Shane.”

He twisted his neck to look up into his boyfriend’s steely gaze, brow furrowed, nose and cheeks slightly flushed. He went pink sometimes, when he panicked. It was something Shane had never actually mentioned, knowing that it would either make for a very endearing private moment, or a useful chirp, at some point in the future.

“How long?” He muttered, turning back to press his cheek into Ilya’s thigh again.

“A minute. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He started to push himself up, drawing his legs up until they were kneeling opposite each other. “Sorry I didn’t have much warning.” His head felt fuzzy and distant, like he was drunk, or overtired. It felt dangerous. He definitely couldn’t go back and face his parents like this.

“I should have noticed anyway.” Ilya frowned further. “How do you feel?”

“Dizzy. Uh…” He tried to think of another descriptor for the endless list of discomforts plaguing him. “I guess achy too.”

“Okay.” The blond pulled out his phone. Shane faintly wondered if he was going to call his parents in order to get them to leave, or if he’d just remembered a particularly important text that he had to respond to. “You will be okay for few minutes while I am talking to your parents?”

“Yes.” The Canadian huddled in on himself, suddenly slightly cold in his summer clothes, sitting on the cool tiled floor. He sniffled as Ilya scrolled through some app or another, blinking in discomfort as a sharp pain started in the back of his nose, making his eyes water.

Shane coughed softly, taken aback as his boyfriend’s gaze immediately fixed on his face.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m not.” He swiped at his eyes, coughing again as the pain switched tracks and became a tickle. “Can you get the-” He gestured up at the counter they were kneeling next to, “-tissues down, please.”

Ilya stretched out obediently, retrieving the box and setting it down between them.

“Thanks.” He rushed the word out, tugging one free, folding it, and pressing it to his nose as he drew in a deep breath. “hTSHhh!”

“God bless you.” Ilya’s eyes stayed on his phone.

“hTDSHHh!”

“God bless you.”

Shane couldn’t reply, face so full of pressure and pain and itchiness that it was all he could do to drag another tissue from the box and fold it over the first, rushing it to his face as his breath caught again.

“hEHTSHH!”

“God b-”

“hEHTSHhew!”

Ilya looked up. “God bless you. What is-”

“HEISHh!”

Face flushing, the brunet grabbed another tissue, surprised and embarrassed at his own volume.

“hehh…hEh…”

His boyfriend shuffled forwards, placing a hand on Shane’s shoulder. “God bless you.”

He sniffled, panted, immediately stopped panting because it made him feel ten times dizzier. “hHh…”

“Is stuck?”

“YeahH…”

“Mm.” Ilya leaned closer, grazing the edge of the brunet’s nostril with the pad of a calloused finger. “You know, when you fell, I stopped sneezing.”

The Canadian couldn’t reply, consumed by the tickle, and his boyfriend’s attempts to tame it into something actionable.

“I do not think,” The blond continued, tilting his finger so that the edge of his short nail ran along one side of his septum, “I have ever stopped in middle before.”

Shane absolutely did not give out a tiny moan, so fever-addled and uncomfortable that he couldn’t tell whether the salience was sexual or not.

“Once I start,” Ilya hovered directly in the centre of the brunet’s flaring nostril, letting his fingertip brush against the hairs, “I have to finish.”

“hyEHTDSHh!” Shane covered his entire face with the handful of tissues he’d been accumulating as his boyfriend spoke. “hEHTSHh! EHHTSHh! huhH…TSHh! tSHeW!”

“God bless you.” Ilya kissed him right at the hairline, one hand cupping the back of his neck.

The brunet swallowed thickly, tired and light and empty in the wake of the fit, blinking heavy eyes up at his boyfriend, only to see a phone screen, opened to some kind of website, held in front of his face. His vision was too blurry, from tiredness, the proximity, and the water that had flooded his eyes as he’d sneezed, to read any of the content.

“What?”

“You have looked, yes?”

“I can’t read it.”

“Good.” Ilya smiled at him mischievously as he stood up. “I come back. Stay here.”

“Wait, Ilya.” Shane sat upright, hand holding the tissues dropping into his lap. “What are you going to say to them?”

The Russian only shook his head, eyes locked on Shane’s until the door was closed all the way, and the brunet was alone in the bathroom.

…

He stepped out slowly, arms folded and cradling each other at the elbow, walking around the table to where both Yuna and David could see him.

“Ilya?” Yuna glanced around, noting the absence of her son. “Is everything alright?”

“Is…” He hesitated, feeling that looming, terrifying possibility of an unknown response. They could say anything right now. It didn’t really matter, because he was doing this for his boyfriend, not himself, and he didn’t care about what they thought of him. But still. He had the unignorable sensation that he was about to drop something precious between the slats of a sewer grate. “Is my shoulder. I hit last season.”

“I remember.” Yuna’s eyes were fixed on his upper arm, though David’s remained attentively on Ilya’s face.

“Has been not good, recently. I am not supposed to shock it, you know. But earlier…”

“You jolted it when you were sneezing?” She offered.

“Yes.” He admitted. He had, and it had hurt badly, but not reinjury badly. “Shane looks at emergency physio.” He nodded back towards the house, explaining the brunet’s absence. Not a lie. The page he’d shown his barely conscious boyfriend had been for an emergency physiotherapist that he’d seen like once in Boston, and had bookmarked on his phone ever since.

“Are you going to go to one now?” David asked.

“Trainer said go as soon as possible if is problem.” Also true.

“Okay, honey. Do you need anything? Do you want us to drive you?” Yuna stood up, moving closer to brush his curls back from his face.

“No, thank you. I think is fine.”

“We’ll get out of your hair then.” David collected the plates left on the table, a gesture Ilya was grateful for as he wasn’t sure he’d have remembered them otherwise, and headed back into the kitchen.

Yuna stepped in behind Ilya, a guiding hand on his back as though it were his legs or his eyes that had ceased to work. Shane’s father placed the dishes carefully in the sink, before moving back to where his wife and Ilya were standing on the other side of the kitchen island. The three of them stood there awkwardly for a moment before the blond realised they must be waiting for Shane. Fuck.

“Sorry we had to cut short.” He muttered, taking a tentative half-step towards the door.

“It’s not your fault, Ilya, darling, don’t feel you have to apologise.” She smiled, patting him on his non-injured shoulder. A small part of him was still surprised that she remembered which one it was that he’d hurt, that she’d been watching the game, and had cared enough to internalise the mechanism of injury.

“Okay.” He stared in the direction of the bathroom, wondering how he could explain his boyfriend’s absence in a way that wasn’t a complete lie, and settling for, “I do not think he is coming.”

He delivered the sentence with enough exhaustion in his tone to show he didn’t want to continue standing there waiting, but not enough that Shane’s parents would feel encouraged to go looking for their son in his stead.

“That’s fine.” David moved back towards the front door. “Tell him we said goodbye.”

“I will.” Ilya fought a relieved smile at the realisation that they were leaving.

“Alright, honey, keep us updated. I hope the physio helps.” Yuna smiled, stroked his cheek softly, and then exited the door that her husband was holding open.

David left after her, “The salad was great, Ilya. See you soon, kid.”

“Bye.” He raised a hand, watching them walk to the car, before slowly shutting the door, and sprinting back to the bathroom as fast as he could without tripping.

…

Shane had gone back to lying down in his boyfriend’s absence. The tile was cool beneath him, and he shut his eyes, imagining himself laying on the ice in an empty rink, visualising the arena from the smooth white surface he lay on, all the way up to the rafters. It was a combination of many different arenas he’d played at, the layout shifting and changing around him as alternate settings arose in his memory. It was a very relaxing exercise. With a sniffle, he shifted his position, trying to stop the ache the hard floor was imbuing in his bones. The sound echoed in the small space, breaking the illusion of the empty arena somewhat.

He shuddered slightly, suddenly a little cold. Shane wondered where Ilya was. Had his parents seen straight through whatever excuse he’d given? What if he hadn’t given one at all and was just telling them? Hadn’t he understood that this was an important area of non-disclosure for him? Should he get up and go help? Could he get up and go help? He inadvertently visualised himself rising to his feet on the isolated ice, and immediately slipping, skateless, and cracking his head off of the surface.

Shane frowned, trying to erase the image from his mind, only serving to make his mind expand to also begin to play Ilya gasping for breath, overexposed to the disagreeable Canadian air, cradling his injured shoulder as Shane’s parents watched on helplessly. He squeezed his eyes shut harder. Now his parents and Ilya were huddled together at the table, discussing Shane with anxious, disappointed tones, conspiratorial, careworn, critical.

“Shut up.” He muttered to himself.

Attempting to ground himself once again, he focused on the arena even harder. The cool air rising from the ice, the bright lights up above, the darkened stands… But as he visualised them, the stands filled with people. Everywhere he looked, every face he tried to make out, was one of his parents; his teammates; friends he used to play with when he was younger; players he hardly knew but still really looked up to; the first coach he’d had a real connection with; Ilya.

Maddened, the brunet visualised himself getting up to skate off. If he couldn’t picture himself on the ice in peace, then he’d picture himself in the tunnel, or the locker room, or locked in a bathroom stall. But again, his brain refused to imagine skates on his feet, and he was slipping, and slamming his face into the ice. And the crowd of people he cared about, gasped. And though he wanted to do anything else in the world, he found himself looking up, taking in all those concerned, worried, put-upon faces turned towards him. Stop it. Stop fucking looking.

“Stop it.” He whispered, the real sound silencing the imagined noise of the crowd, Shane grounded back in the silence of the bathroom again for a moment.

And then the door slammed open.

With wide panicked eyes, he looked up to see Ilya in the doorway, panting for breath.

“They are gone. Did you faint again?” He was on his knees in a moment, leaning over Shane upside down, smoothing hair from his face.

“No. It’s just colder down here.” He fought the urge to laugh at the odd angle.

“You are too hot, moya sverkhnovaya?”

“Mhm.”

“Can you sit up?”

Shane didn’t respond, providing his boyfriend with the answer he needed by pushing himself carefully back up into a sitting position instead. When he met Ilya’s eyes the right way up, he saw how unbearably fretful he looked.

“I’m okay.” He immediately tried to placate the blond.

“Good.” Ilya’s expression didn’t change, and he reached into his pocket to pull the thermometer back out. Shane’s mind skipped through a trifecta of awful scenarios where the device had fallen out in front of his parents and they’d had to explain it away, before flicking back to the present moment, his heartbeat maybe 10bpm faster for his trouble, and opening his mouth to take the thermometer in it.

The silence as they waited seemed to stretch on forever, the brunet watching his boyfriend rub absently at his nose, and after a moment, mirroring the action himself, breaking the stillness with simultaneous sniffles and clicks as their respective immune systems protested to the respective invasions.

Shane’s mind wandered again, his parents in the car, driving home, probably talking about how sullen and quiet he’d been that day, how he hadn’t helped Ilya with lunch, how he hadn’t said goodbye…

The thermometer beeped. Ilya took it.

“38 point-”He glanced up, face dropping suddenly, “Oh, vzglyani na sebya.”

The brunet blinked at the pitying tone, staring blankly at his boyfriend until the Russian plucked a tissue from the box on the floor and swiped at Shane’s cheek. Oh, he was crying. The realisation was confusingly slow, Ilya having made one full go over of his face with the tissue by the time the Canadian had processed what was happening. But then, with his cheeks newly dry again, the floodgates opened.

He raised his hands to cover his face, suddenly hiccupping and gasping for breath as the exhaustion of the day finally won over the last dregs of determined adrenaline, and he felt the ache deep in his bones, the painful tenderness of his skin, the weight and pressure of congestion in his head, and the itch that ran from his nostrils, all the way down his throat.

“Shane, Shanya, moye vse,” Ilya placed his hands on the brunet’s shoulders, leaning in closer, “What is it?”

“’m not okay.” He managed, between gasping breaths.

“I know, I see this, why?”

“Feel bad…my skin…and because I sent them away… and so hot… my body and… and fucking can’t even… I was so mean, ‘lya, so mean… bad fucking person… everything feels bad… every single thing… everything… feels… it feels bad.” He knew he was incoherent, barely able to form thoughts in his distressed state, let alone sentences, so he focused on the phrases that seemed relevant and would probably be easily understood by his boyfriend, intercutting the declarations with little groaning noises and writhing movements as he resisted the agonies that plagued him, emotional and physical.

“Alright, okay.” Ilya removed his hands, apparently noticing that Shane had enough going on right now, and didn’t need any extra anything on his body. “You are very overwhelmed, yes?”

“Yes.” The Canadian suddenly realised that crying was only making his face more uncomfortable, as the tears left his skin sticky and irritated, and the pressure in his sinuses was building tenfold. “It hurts, though. I want to stop.” He looked up at his boyfriend pleadingly. “Help me.”

A fresh wave of tears filled his eyes, despair amassing in his chest as he failed to stop himself from continuing to cry.

“What hurts? Stress? Or crying?”

Shane nodded at the second prompt, swiping angrily at his cheeks with the back of his hand.

“We take deep breath, okay? Watch me and copy.” He mimicked a deep breath in. The brunet tried not to glare at him. He didn’t want to breathe, it was going to hurt his lungs. He didn’t want to try and stop the feelings, he just wanted them to stop. He didn’t want to do a dumb breathing exercise, he wanted to be fucking sedated so his decelerated brain would stop spitting out nightmare scenarios in agonising slo-mo and freaking him out.

Against his own wishes, Shane mimicked his boyfriend and took a semi-deep breath in. It was shakier than Ilya’s and it did indeed hurt his lungs, and feel like having ice water dumped directly into his nervous system as the therapeutic effect of the tears dwindled. But the tears themselves did also start to slow.

He copied Ilya through three more breaths before his anxiety was usurped by antsy frustration. Apparently this change was visible on his face, too.

“Better?”

Shane nodded slowly. “Some.” He still felt like shit, and he still felt stressed and guilty, but there was only so much that breathing could do for you.

“You have fever. I get you medicine, then we go to bed.” Ilya reconsidered for a moment. “I get snack as well. You want something to eat?”

“No, I don’t think…no.” The brunet pressed his hands hard against the floor in front of him, trying to distract himself from the other sensations.

“Okay, fine. We go to bedroom first. And you are not,” Ilya placed his own hand in between Shane’s on the floor, getting his attention without touching him, “A bad fucking person. You are maybe only good person here.”

“Here? Canada?”

“No, cottage. Maybe Ottawa.”

Shane smiled weakly, regretful that he couldn’t quip back in some way, but his brain was just too slow, and before he knew it, Ilya was climbing to his feet.

“Come on.” He held out his hands to help him up.

…

Ilya stood in the doorway and watched his boyfriend cross the room towards the closet. He said nothing as Shane pulled out one of his own hoodies, stared at it with intensity that suggested that it was either speaking to him or covered with invisible text that Ilya couldn’t see, put it back, and retrieved one of the blond’s instead.

He said nothing as the brunet accumulated a full outfit’s worth of clothes and headed slowly back towards the bed. He said nothing as Shane dumped the clothes on the end of the bed Ilya had remade earlier, further antagonising his shoulder- not that he would be telling his boyfriend that-and started to shimmy out of his shirt.

But when he tried to strip off his shorts and started to stumble dangerously around the room, trying to keep his balance, Ilya stepped in.

“Sit. I will do it.”

The lack of protest from the Canadian momentarily spurred the thought in Ilya’s mind that he’d been acting that hapless on purpose to garner some assistance, but once he got close enough to start to help with the changing process, he could see how glazed over Shane’s eyes were, and knew this was no performance.

As he pulled the hoodie over his boyfriend’s head, the blond asked, “You could not go to bed in these-” He nodded in the direction of the discarded outfit at his feet, “-clothes?”

“No.” Shane responded firmly, muffled by the neck of the hoodie still half covering his nose and mouth, eyes barely visible enough to discern the disparaging glare he was directing at Ilya.

“Okay.” He didn’t bother to ask why not, unsure whether the brunet could actually express why at this current moment, and further unsure whether the answer would make sense to him on a regular day.

Hand hovering a small way from his boyfriend’s back just in case he lost his balance, Ilya shepherded him into bed, watching him snuggle into the sheets with an endeared half-smile.

Once it looked like Shane was comfortable, he let himself refocus on the things he had to do before he could join him in bed. Medicine was the first, then something more substantial for himself to eat, he’d need to check they had everything they’d need in the bedroom, make sure Yuna hadn’t messaged either of them seeking physiotherapy updates, and-”

Suddenly, his nose started to itch sharply again with an imminent need that he’d just barely noted before he was stepping back and dragging his shirt up over his face.

“hHAHKSHh! KSHh! KSHh! hhihKSHh! hRRSHHhOo!”

“Mm, bless you.” Shane snagged a tissue and scrubbed at his own nose in sympathy. “That’s the other half of the fit from earlier, right?”

The Russian was nonplussed. He’d never had a fit cut itself in half like that before so he had literally no idea if that was how it worked. “Maybe.”

…

One dose of medication for Shane and one suitable snack for Ilya, and they were both back in bed, the blond stripped naked in order to counteract the effects of his bundled-up, feverish boyfriend laying beside him.

The Canadian looked exhausted, Ilya watching as he brought a wavering elbow to his face, blinking haphazardly and involuntarily as he coughed, whole face puckering for the millisecond that each expulsion took over him. It was adorable, but it made him want to bite the brunet and suck out this illness like some kind of medicinal vampirism spurred by his hatred to see the man he loved suffering in any way. And it almost seemed that Shane hated to be seen suffering just as much, he mused.

“I do not get it.” He voiced his thoughts on an impulse, prompting his boyfriend to look across in surprise.

“Don’t get what?” His voice was totally shot, thin and strained, while also being significantly deeper than usual, in a way that was borderline attractive to Ilya.

He knew the topic was a sensitive one, and the brunet was only just relaxed and medicated and lucid enough not to be crying over it on his own, so it was a risk to bring it up, but the thought weighed heavy and confusing on the Russian’s mind. “Your parents. They are nice, no? They are nice to you. They want you to be okay, but they are not mad if you are not.”

“Mm.” Shane could clearly see where this conversation was going.

“So why can they not see you like this?”

There was silence for a moment, while Ilya waited for an answer, and then waited for his boyfriend to start crying or hyperventilating or screaming, and then waited for a meteorite to fall from the sky and crush him where he lay to stop him from asking any more stupid questions.

“It’s really complicated.” The brunet said at last. “It’s not really their fault, I guess I just… I hate worrying people. I just want to be normal, I want to be okay, I want the people I love to feel happy and proud, not stressed and disappointed.” He sighed shakily. “There’s other stuff too, but I’m too tired right now. I guess basically it’s just that my brain sucks and my parents don’t.”

It was a lot for Ilya to process. There was a lot he wanted to say, to refute, obviously Shane was normal, and everyone was happy and proud of him, and illness didn’t spur disappointment in Ilya, though he’d known it to do that in other people, worse people, but he could tell, by the gradually increasing length of time the Canadian’s eyes remained shut each time he blinked, that now was not the time.

“I understand.” He said, slightly more truthfully now. “I hope you don’t feel these things as much with me, though. Like you have to hide. Because I love you, and I never want you to hide.” The exhaustion was contagious, it seemed, because as he leaned closer to press a kiss to the brunet’s temple, he felt a wave of exhaustion crash over him, slumping his head down afterwards to rest on Shane’s shoulder.

*

After practice, Hayden was chatting at him by the lockers. Something aimless, about Jackie’s latest bird food recipe for him. Something that didn’t require a lot of participation on Shane’s part, thank God. He hadn’t been able to shake off this morning’s haziness quite yet, and practice had only made him feel slower, heavier in his bones.

“You good, bro?” Hayden interrupted himself to ask. He poked at Shane’s arm, as if imagining that Shane would deflate like a balloon. “You’re really pale over there. Like, more than usual. I think I can count all your freckles.”

Shane cleared his throat, shifting away from Hayden to avoid more poking. He picked up his water bottle and took a long gulp. “Just dehydrated, I think. Skipped my morning smoothie.”

Not because his throat had hurt. He just hadn’t been thirsty.

“Okay,” Hayden said cheerfully. “I bet you could find someplace around here that makes them just as disgustingly healthy as you do.”

Shane flipped him off and headed for the showers, ignoring Hayden’s cackle of laughter behind him. The water was cold when he stepped into the spray, and Shane couldn’t keep himself from immediately snapping forward with a sneeze.

“hh’esshht!”

He caught it in his elbow, thanking God that none of his other teammates were in the showers just yet. He hated when the cold made him… him…

This one, he managed to mostly stifle between his pinched thumb and forefinger. “hh’nkkt!”

And the next two. “hh’ngkt! …HAH’ngxxkk!”

The last one had come with a louder inhale than he’d wanted, and he knew he needed to blow his nose or risk this turning into a bigger fit. He fumbled to turn the shower off, reaching blindly for his towel.

“Hollander, you alr—?”

“HEHHT’sschhh!” he sneezed again, hastily into the palm of his hand, this time only partially keeping the sound of it contained. He could feel the congestion building up, and they were only going to get wetter. Reluctantly, he brought his towel up to his face and bullied his nose with the rough fabric until the tickle died down.

“Jesus, man,” Miitka said, giving him a wide berth as he went to another shower stall. “You don’t sound too good.”

“S’just from the cold water,” Shane muttered, wishing he still had the showers to himself so he could blow his nose without an audience. Giving up on the shower, he wrapped the towel around himself and booked it for the bathrooms so he could clear out his sinuses in peace.

*

Hayden talked him into lunch with the team, some poor eatery that wasn’t prepared for twelve hockey players and their humongous appetites. Shane was just grateful they had a single salad on the menu with his safe foods in it.

They didn’t have ginger ale, though. He was surprised by how actually upset he felt about that, having to push back the barest prick of tears in his eyes.

He felt… raw. Like an exposed nerve. His sensitivity surprised him. Practice had really worn him out.

“You’re shivering, dude,” a teammate told him.

Shane struggled to swallow his bite of salad. His throat was dry, the tiniest bit sore, and he chugged more water to fix it. “Yeah, we’re right under the vent,” he said, though it really wasn’t even that cold.

The next sip of water went down the wrong way, and he couldn’t keep from coughing, pressing his face into his elbow and praying he would stop before his teammates started thumping him on the back. His skin felt hypersensitive, probably from the cold of the vent plus overexercise at practice, and he suddenly couldn’t bear the idea of being touched.

He pushed his chair back, the sound of it scraping the floor hurting his ears, and mumbled an excuse before booking it to the bathrooms. In there, he coughed until tears burned at the corners of his eyes, swallowing tap water from the sink—which he usually avoided drinking on principle—to finally make himself stop.

Hands braced on the edges of the sink, Shane looked up and eyed himself in the mirror warily. He forced himself to take in the facts. A wet shimmer in his eyes from the tears. Dark under eye circles. Skin so pale he could see his freckles standing out. He sniffled—there was a thickness there, like inflammation and congestion both settling in. His throat still tickled a little bit. His skin still hurt, and maybe it wasn’t from overexertion after all.

His grip on the sink tightened. “No,” he told his reflection, firm and insistent. “This is not happening.”

*

He made it through the rest of lunch without doing anything to stand out or embarrass himself, which he was thankful for. Hayden had offered a hangout at his place afterward, a way to chill out before the game, but didn’t seem too pressed when Shane declined. He’d begged off for a nap at his place instead, which was a common thing for players to do before a game, thank God.

He slid into his car and rested his forehead against the steering wheel for a minute before forcing himself to sit up. Now that he wasn’t in the group, the pressure to act normal was off him, and he suddenly felt so tired that he thought he might actually nap once he got home. He hoped Ilya wouldn’t mind—he probably expected some marathon sex session, knowing him.

Shane had decided by the end of lunch that his moment in the bathroom had just been pre-game nerves. He was not sick. There was no way, he didn’t have time for it, and he hadn’t been around anyone sick. Well, Hayden’s crew always had some bug going around, but Hayden himself seemed fine, didn’t he? So it stood to reason that Shane had to be fine, too.

“hh’TSSCHH’sheww!” He flinched forward with a sudden sneeze before he could stop himself. His nose tingled, like he’d been dusting or something, and the sneeze felt wetter, heavier, than he was used to. Shane lifted a hand to his face to try to scrub the tickle away, only for it to abruptly transform into another sneeze that refused to be held back, forcing him to shield the spray with only a palm. “hh’TCCHHH!”

Once he’d recovered himself, sniffling into a takeout napkin that Ilya had probably left in his car, and regretting not having any tissues, he slumped back against his seat. “Fuck.”

He drove back to the apartment, suddenly overwhelmed with the proof of his immune system giving up. He kept having to stifle back little fits of sneezes, like he’d done in the shower that morning, so he wouldn’t wreck his car. His throat protested, too, but he wasn’t coughing. Yet, he thought ominously. And his skin ached, worse than this morning.

The drive itself was short and uneventful, aside from all his symptoms refusing to be dammed back anymore, and he’d spent the whole time daydreaming about his bed, but he found himself lingering in the car once he’d parked. He didn’t know what he’d say to Ilya once he got inside, Ilya who’d been waiting all day for him—“hey, thanks for making the inconvenient drive from your new apartment in Ottawa, but I’m sick, so leave me alone? I appreciate your eternal devotion, but my nose is stuffy, so get the hell out?”

He’d never been sick around Ilya before, not beyond little post-game sniffles they’d been able to ignore during hookups, and certainly nothing since they’d made their relationship official. His immune system’s sudden breakdown made him a little nervous for Ilya’s reaction. It was inconvenient, it was gross, and worst of all, it was weak.

Eventually, he had to force himself inside, knowing that he needed the nap before it got too late in the day. What he didn’t want was to go into the game tonight exhausted and… and sick. It was the playoffs, for God’s sake. He cursed, dragging his feet and making his way to his floor.

Ilya was lying on the couch, playing one of those stupid ad-ridden games on his phone that he was addicted to. “Good practice?” Ilya called out, not taking his eyes off his game.

For once, Shane was grateful not to have the weight of Ilya’s full attention on him. Usually he craved it, but today he felt like ducking notice as much as possible. He croaked out a, “Yeah,” and slunk into the kitchen like a dog trying to avoid getting into trouble. He was halfway through making his afternoon protein shake when he felt Ilya slide up behind him, wrapping his arms around Shane’s stomach and pressing his chin into Shane’s shoulder.

“Okay?” Ilya asked.

Shane couldn’t keep himself from smiling. He loved the way Ilya pronounced that word, so quintessentially Russian. “Tired,” he said, clinging onto the excuses that the team had bought wholeheartedly all morning. Just tired. Just dehydrated. Just cold. Really cold, actually, now that he’d stopped moving. He shivered.

Ilya seemed to read his mind, rubbing his hands up and down Shane’s arms to soothe the goosebumps. “Chilly,” Ilya said, an observation and not a question.

“The, uh, restaurant was kind of cold.”

“And the car on the way home?” Ilya asked.

Shane could feel Ilya’s raised eyebrows without turning around to look at him. He stayed very still, like a prey animal hoping to avoid the predator’s eye.

Ilya waited a beat, then sighed and rubbed Shane’s arms again, this time more to comfort than to warm. “Malyyysh,” he said, drawing the word out until it was almost a tease. It was one of Shane’s favorite pet names, and he knew it. “You are getting sick, I think? Yes?”

Shane felt caught, like the prey animal he’d imagined himself as. Maybe he needed to stop thinking in metaphors. “I’m fine,” he protested, but his voice broke awkwardly on the words, leaving him exposed in the lie, and he abruptly knew there was no point in it. Ilya always knew all the things he wanted to hide. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he nodded. “You can go whenever.”

“Go? Go where?” Ilya asked, actually sounding surprised. “You think I am going to leave, malysh?”

“I mean… yeah?” He let himself sniffle, feeling the drag as it caught uncomfortably in his swollen sinus passages. What was the point in hiding it anymore? “I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to catch this.”

Ilya shrugged and draped himself over Shane even harder, if that were possible. “I am out for the playoffs already. Does not matter if I get sick.”

Shane groaned at the reminder of tonight’s game. He brought up a hand and scrubbed at his eyes. They were so tired they were starting to pulse, but he was dreading lying down. There was no way he woke up feeling any better than he felt now—most likely, it would be even worse, and then he’d still have the game to play.

“You, though,” Ilya mused, reading his mind again. “We need to do something about this, yes?”

“Like what?” Shane snapped. Immediately, he sighed and rubbed at his nose, feeling it prickle at the touch uncomfortably. “Sorry. I’m… shit, I’m sorry. I don’t feel great. And I don’t have time to be sick right now. I have so much to do.”

Ilya huffed out a laugh and pressed a kiss to Shane’s shoulder over his shirt. “I do not think you get a choice in this, Hollander. It’s okay, though. We fix.”

Shane couldn’t help but feel curious. “How?”

He let Ilya take charge from there, leading him into the bedroom and gathering up comfy pajamas. “Ilya,” he put up a token protest when Ilya physically pushed him toward the bed, “I’m sorry, I really don’t feel like—”

“Thank you, Shane, I know this,” Ilya put in with patience, rolling his eyes with a fond smile. “I am not here to rock your world, at least not right now. But how will you nap with dress shirt, hm? Put on your pajamas.” Ilya shoved a soft pair of sweatpants in his direction, then disappeared into the en-suite bathroom.

Shane changed his pants and sat down on the bed while Ilya perused the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. The prickling in his nose had only grown more insistent, teasing and annoying in equal measure. He stripped out of his dress shirt, making to fold it as he sat there shirtless, but the teasing sensation abruptly transformed into the immediate, undeniable need to sneeze. Casting the shirt to the side, he ducked into his cupped hands, stifling the sneezes back as much as he could. “heh’kxxt! heh… hih’KGGXHHT!”

The two sneezes were rougher than he was used to. Drier, though that was because he’d been stifling; he could feel wetness begging to come out, congestion having thoroughly settled in his sinuses. They had hurt from the force of stifling, too, and he resisted the urge to groan.

“Bless you,” Ilya called out from the bathroom.

And after all that, they’d still been audible, making it hardly worth the effort.

Shane blushed, scrubbing at his nose until the lingering tickle died down. “Thangks,” he muttered, feeling now just how stuffy he was getting.

Ilya returned from the bathroom with a bottle of cold medicine in hand. “You should not hold them back like that,” he informed Shane, measuring out a dose. He handed it over matter of factly, leaving Shane feeling like he was six years old again.

“I’ll keep that ind mbind,” Shane mumbled, flushing again when he heard how congested he sounded in his n’s and m’s. “That’s what everybody says.”

“You will give yourself sinus infection,” Ilya said. He gestured at his own thrice-broken nose and deviated septum with lighthearted self-deprecation. “Take it from someone who gets one every year: they suck. Take your medicine.”

“Jeez,” Shane cracked a smile, unable to help himself. “I wouldn’t have pictured you as such a mother hen.” He downed the medicine like a shot, praying it worked quickly. Sitting down had let him relax a little, and all he could focus on now was the way his body ached. He hoped he wasn’t spiking a fever. He’d be useless tonight if he couldn’t even skate straight.

Ilya only grinned and took charge once again: hanging up the dress shirt so Shane wouldn’t fuss over folding it, putting away the rest of his clothes, and ushering him into bed. He even went to get Shane the protein shake he’d left behind in the kitchen.

By the time Ilya got back from the kitchen, Shane was sitting up against the headboard, trying to coax out the sneeze that had been taunting him for the last few minutes. He had grabbed a handful of tissues from the fresh box Ilya had left on the nightstand, but it just wouldn’t come. He dragged the tissue over his nose, featherlight this time, and felt his breath finally catch in the way he’d been waiting for. Too relieved to stifle, he let it come out a little louder than typical for him. “hehh… HEHHH… HEPT’SHHIEWW!”

“Bless you,” Ilya said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

But he wasn’t done. He rubbed at his nose through the tissue and hitched again, helpless until the itch was finished with him. “huhh—!” It was fighting him. Frustrated, he hovered over the tissue, feeling his breath catch again and again as the tickle teased him some more. “huhh… huhHH—!”

“Oh,” Ilya said, a little surprised but mostly teasing him, just as surely as the tickle was. “Oh, I see. One is not enough, you go again?”

Shane’s eyes were closed, so he was surprised to feel Ilya’s fingers brush against his cheek, the tips dragging at the bridge of his nose.

“You need help, hm?” Ilya murmured, gentle but ribbing him. “A little assist?”

The hockey pun wasn’t lost on him, but he didn’t have time to react as Ilya’s gentle touch, plus the tickle in his sinuses, overwhelmed him. He crashed forward into his lap, the tissue barely covering everything as he gave in and let the explosion burst out. “HUUSSCHHH’OOH!”

It was bigger than any sneeze he could remember having, huge and soaking and demanding. It sounded like one of Ilya’s sneezes, actually, loud and satisfying. Shane moaned, half relief and half embarrassment. Maybe a little bit turned on, too, though he couldn’t explain why. He was Pavloved to Ilya’s touch in all circumstances—even the snotty ones, apparently.

Ilya sucked in air against his teeth, surprised. “Big sneeze, moya lyubov.”

Shane’s shoulders hunched, the embarrassment belatedly winning out. “Sorry,” he mumbled into the tissue he’d sneezed into, feeling its dampness against his skin. Gross. He blew gently, trying not to be as loud as he knew he could be. Jeez, this cold was turning out wet. Just what he needed.

“Is okay,” Ilya said softly. His hands were suddenly everywhere on Shane, rubbing his shoulders and taking away the tissue to throw it away for him. “Lie on your stomach? I have idea.”

Those were usually Shane’s words—he’d have an idea, and Ilya would grumble and groan but eventually give in. The role reversal took Shane by surprise. This whole afternoon was taking him by surprise, honestly. Ilya was being so soft, so calm, so unexpectedly sincere.

It was… nice. So nice he didn’t even put up a token protest, only flopping back onto the bed and rolling onto his stomach. It was harder than usual, breathing in this position with his nose so stuffy, and he propped his chin on folded arms to make it a little easier.

Then Ilya sat on the backs of his thighs, and Shane didn’t breathe at all for a second. “I-Ilya,” he said, coughing a little with the shock. “I… I really dond’t thingk…”

“You don’t want back rub?” Ilya teased. “I will be gentle, solnyshko. Will help you sleep, I promise.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the back of Shane’s neck. His next words came out breathy, his exhale felt on Shane’s neck. “I promise, is all this is.”

Shane could feel the evidence of Ilya’s arousal against his ass, but he didn’t argue. A massage sounded amazing, if he didn’t fall asleep immediately. Why had he ever been against the thought of a nap? Now that he was horizontal, he could barely keep his eyes open. “Mmb… ogkay,” he said sleepily. “No funndy busindess.”

Ilya snorted at Shane’s congested words. “Sure, sweetheart. No funny business.”

For a moment, nothing. Then, Ilya’s hands were on Shane’s shoulders, gentle at first before he started to dig into the muscles. Several minutes of this passed peacefully before Ilya spoke again.

“Was going to do this for you anyway, what with the playoffs. Good for sore muscles,” Ilya mused out loud. He dug his thumb into a knotted spot that had Shane groaning into his folded arms. “But it will probably help you sleep off this bad cold, too, hm?”

Shane shivered a little, though he wasn’t cold, exactly. He felt warm, and hazy with sleep, and cared for even when he was being gross, and the combination was kind of intoxicating. His nose started to tickle, and all he could bring himself to do to fend it off was to rub it hard against his forearm.

“Tired yet, malysh?” Ilya murmured. His touch was firm but not painful, teasing and prying at all the knots of tension Shane carried in his shoulders and back until they simply fell apart. It felt better than any physio.

“Mmb…” Shane knew he’d made a sound in response, but right now he couldn’t bring himself to form words for a response. He felt so sleepy, and maybe a little hazy off the cold medicine starting to kick in, and abruptly ticklish… God, his nose felt so unbelievably sensitive with this cold…

“Shane?” Ilya asked, pressing hard at a stubborn knot in one shoulder.

He couldn’t focus long enough to say something, anything, to reassure Ilya. All of his concentration was suddenly on the tickle, but oddly enough, he didn’t feel like fighting it for once. He sucked in a hasty breath, letting the sneezes burst out of him in a wet, needy rush that felt so, so satisfying.

“heh… hehhh’shieww!” He sneezed, feeling the hot, damp air of it as he sprayed helplessly across his forearms and into the sheets. Immediately, he was inhaling for the next one, no time to even think of covering or stifling it, no desire to do so even if he’d had time. “huhh… huh’hupshhoohh! Oh…. I’mb… huhhsshheww! Ohhh…”

God, the relief of them had been intense. They’d been softer than his previous sneezes, but no less powerful. His nose still tingled, like it might need to sneeze again in a moment but was in no hurry to do so. He found himself completely uncaring of the fact that he’d sneezed so openly and wetly on himself, right in front of his boyfriend. Too tired and overwhelmed with this cold to even be embarrassed anymore.

“Oh, Shane,” Ilya said, a little hoarse. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Shane’s shoulder, chaste and sweet. “Bless you, sweetheart. Feel better?”

Shane smiled into his forearms, half-drunk on sleepiness and the cold medicine. “Bet-ter,” he said, gently mimicking Ilya’s accent. “Will you nap with me?”

Ilya smoothed his hands over Shane’s shoulders and back one more time, feeling for any remaining knots. Then, satisfied with his work, he dismounted and collapsed back onto the bed beside Shane, eyeing him with a lazy smile. “Nothing I’d rather do,” Ilya said genuinely. “Come here, malysh.”

Shane army crawled into Ilya’s arms, resting his head on his chest. With what little remained of his rationality, he hoped and prayed he wouldn’t sneeze into Ilya’s chest. He’d embarrassed himself enough for one afternoon, and even Ilya couldn’t possibly be so accepting after that. He’d already put up with Shane sneezing and sniffling all over himself.

Shane felt like he was dreaming already. He’d never imagined, this morning, that Ilya would stay through all this, would take care of him. “Thanks for staying,” he mumbled into Ilya’s skin. “You’re good at this.”

Ilya pressed a kiss into his hair, so quiet and gentle that Shane wouldn’t have known it had happened at all if he hadn’t felt the slight pressure. “I have been waiting a long time,” he said softly, “to take care of you in all the ways I want to.”

Shane felt a little overwhelmed by that—he was frequently overwhelmed by the depth of Ilya’s love, when he least expected it—and he couldn’t think of the right thing to say. He snuggled further into Ilya’s arms and pressed his own kiss into the skin just beside Ilya’s nipple. “Me too,” he whispered.

“I know,” Ilya said. His hands petted Shane absently, soothing over the nape of his neck and across his back. “Sleep, malysh. I will wake you when it’s time.”

*

It was getting to the end of the game by the time Shane really started flagging.

He’d woken up from his nap to another dose of meds already ready for him, along with hot tea and Gatorade. Ilya had kept him well-hydrated as he’d eaten a light dinner and prepped for the game, and it had done a lot to soothe his headache and growing cough. Keeping hydrated had also kept him with a permanently streaming nose, so Ilya had pushed bundles of tissues into his hands every few minutes to address it, until it was time for him to catch his ride for the game.

Shane had made it to the stadium feeling decently okay to play, though he couldn’t quit sniffling, to the point where Hayden had noticed. “Thought you were just dehydrated,” he’d said dryly in the locker room.

“Caught your Pike plague, I guess,” Shane responded snarkily, thumbing at his nose and praying it behaved itself during the game. He’d been feeling too annoyed and self-indulgent to even pretend not to be sick.

Hayden only rolled his eyes with a grin and shoved a water bottle at him. He’d been nice about it, at least.

Shane had played fairly well, though now as they wound down, he could feel himself starting to droop. There were only a couple of minutes left in the game, and Montreal had the lead by 1, which he felt confident in. They’d win tonight, putting them into the next round of the playoffs, which would earn Shane a couple of nights to rest off this cold. He could feel now how badly he needed it.

He finished his shift on the ice, collapsing readily onto the bench and watching his teammates play with bated breath.

“…hihh—!”

Okay, not so much bated breath, maybe. The sneeze had snuck up on him, but he’d been fighting them off all evening, increasingly more as the game went on. This tickle was insistent, though, and he was exhausted and worn down by all the energy he’d spent playing. Unable to help himself, he snapped forward with the sneeze, hastily buried into the elbow of his jersey. “hiiihh’tiisschhoohh!”

The sneeze was damp, airy, and not half as satisfying as he’d hoped it would be. He sniffled on the inhale of his next breath, and the tickle burst back into life, forcing him to immediately hitch and sneeze again on the exhale. “…sndff… huhh—tchh’shhuhh!”

Fuck, he could feel eyes on him. Maybe even the cameras. He prayed that this wasn’t being broadcast to the whole stadium. He couldn’t check himself, because his eyes were still shut tight, his head rearing back as he got ready for another one.

“hetchhshh!” he exploded for the third time, this sneeze wetter and heavier than the others.

It seemed to be the last, for now. He emerged from his elbow, feeling the redness in his cheeks as he caught the eyes of his teammates watching him. He sniffled, dragging his arm under his nose when that wasn’t enough to stop the flood, and he cringed at how disgusting that was.

The game ended soon after, wrapping up their advance to the next round of the playoffs like he’d hoped. Shane hurried his way through his shower and cool-down, ready to get home. He checked his phone first chance he got, seeing several texts from Ilya commentating on the game throughout.

And then, the most recent text, from the last few minutes of the game:

Lily: God bless you sweetheart! That looked like a strong fit. I will have tissues ready for you when you get home ❤️

Well, that was confirmation that the cameras had caught him all sick and sneezy for the audiences at home to see. Shane knew he was blushing down at his phone, and he hoped his teammates didn’t notice. He couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the text, only letting Ilya know in a brief message when he was leaving the stadium.

The car ride home was quick, or at least he thought it was, but he was really starting to fade now that the adrenaline from the game was wearing off. Time was losing its meaning. Before he knew it, he was stumbling out of the car and up to his apartment. The elevator ride was equally hazy, and by the time he made it to his door, all he could focus on was the idea of his bed, with Ilya in it. That, and the resurging tickle in his nose.

He pushed his way through the front door just as the tickle caught up to him. Helpless to stop it, and not really in the mood to try to crush it down, for once he just let himself sneeze as loudly as his body needed to. He bent forward at the waist, barely catching a pair of violent, huge sneezes in his cupped hands.

“HUUPPSSCHHOOHH! huhh… sndff… huh-huh… hh’HUUTTSSCHHOOOHH!”

Jesus Christ, that had felt agonizingly good. He panted into his hands for a second, trying to see if there would be more, and decided that that had been enough to satisfy his sinuses for now. He sniffled thickly and straightened.

Ilya, who’d been approaching, stood in front of him, a little frozen in shock from the outburst he’d just witnessed. He blinked and recovered, coming up to hug Shane and produce a handful of tissues for him from his pocket. “Big big sneezes, malysh!” he exclaimed. “Game wear you out? You played well.”

He’d have played much better healthy, but Shane wasn’t in the mood to diagnose his errors tonight. That was unusual for him, but he was just too tired, and Ilya’s arms around him were so warm…

He took the tissues and blew his nose, cringing when he filled the tissues immediately. “Ugh, thangks,” he said, his voice more of a congested rasp than it had been just an hour ago. “Umb, do you have andy mbore…?”

Ilya readily handed over more tissues, and Shane blew his nose again, coughing a little afterward. His nose felt clearer, though, and his head was not-unpleasantly foggy as his body and brain equally decided they were ready to give up for the night. “Bed?” he suggested hopefully.

Ilya laughed and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, guiding him toward the bedroom. “Once you have your meds again,” he said, “you can lay down. And maybe, if you are good, I will rub your back again.”

Shane felt pretty sure he’d be asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, massage be damned, but he let Ilya talk up the prospect of it anyway as he put on pajamas and took a dose of the nighttime stuff that Ilya had carefully measured out for him. He could cash in on the massage tomorrow, maybe, when he undoubtedly woke up feeling achy and exhausted after exacerbating his cold with tonight’s game.

And maybe, in a couple of days when Ilya inevitably started sneezing and coughing himself, Shane could flip the tables around and return the favor. He was feeling pretty grateful, after all.

“Thangks for all this,” he said throatily, half from illness and half from emotion, as he curled into Ilya’s arms in bed. It couldn’t have even been midnight, but Ilya hadn’t protested the early bedtime at all, and that was making him feel more mushy than usual with this cold fucking with his emotions. “Taking care of mbe, I mbean. Staying.”

Ilya squeezed him a little tighter, like Shane was going to slip out of his arms. “I would not be anywhere else,” was his unusually serious response. “I love you, moya lyubov.”

Roadtrips with the Raiders, Ilya was quickly learning, could turn very easily into total and complete chaos. They were an energetic team at the best of times, mostly young, impulsive players who barely had the foresight to consider the penalty-related detriments of throwing themselves headlong into a scrum, let alone how their post-game choices would affect them the following morning.

So yeah, they’d almost all been out getting wasted until 3am, knowing they’d leave for the airport at 6. And yeah, Ilya had let himself get dragged into a stupid argument between Cadyn and Kovalev when they’d come pounding on his hotel room door at 5:30 to seek a mediator for how long was too long to shower. And yeah, that had left him with ten fucking minutes to get his shit together and get downstairs. But what was the worst that could happen if he had to rush his morning routine a little?

As it turned out, leaving all of his fucking bathroom stuff behind was the worst that could happen. Ilya had spent a very annoying 20 minutes in the duty free restocking all of his usual items, but had hesitated when it came to cologne. He always used the same scent, some random designer brand that he was pretty sure he’d seen an advert for one singular time and bought with barely a thought when he found out it was supposed to be hypoallergenic. It smelled good, and it was familiar, but he couldn’t help wondering if he should switch it up a bit. Maybe find something a little more ‘him’.

So he’d spent another 20 minutes trying out samples and trying not to suffocate too obtrusively as one scent after another irritated his stupidly sensitive nose. He was close to giving up when he’d found it. The cologne was clean-smelling, woody and almost aquatic, like a forest bordering a lake. It made him feel almost nostalgic, but he couldn’t place exactly for what, like he hadn’t actually encountered the source of the memory yet. It smelled like home, but a home that he’d never been to. And most importantly it did absolutely nothing untoward to Ilya’s respiratory system. In fact it almost calmed the residual irritation left by the earlier scents. He bought it immediately.

Shopping spree complete, he made his way back to join the rest of the team, slumping down in a spare seat at the gate, and scrubbing at his nose with the back of his hand. What a stupid fucking idea. Inhale a bunch of irritants and then lock yourself in a metal tube with your team. Incredible foresight, Ilya. At least this didn’t seem to be a full blown reaction, just a slight sensitivity.

…

If Ilya had thought that his lack of symptoms at the gate was a good sign, he was miserably mistaken. The plane was just beginning to taxi, and it was already all he could do to keep his composure. His nose was burning with a white hot itch, and his throat was unbearably dry. He shoved a knuckle against his nose and glared out the window at the airport. What the fuck did they even put in those shitty ‘designer’ colognes? They shouldn’t be allowed to sell such toxic products at the fucking duty free.

The plane gathered speed. Ilya twisted his face, trying to quell the sensation in his nose without using both hands.

The wheels left the ground, the pressure pushing him back slightly in his seat. He dropped his hands into his lap and gritted his teeth, willing himself to keep it under control until they reached cruising altitude.

“You okay?”

The captain glanced over at his seatmate, who had removed one earbud from his ear to ask the question. That was why he’d chosen O’Regan in the first place, the goaltender usually made a very quiet, unintrusive travel partner. Of course he’d chosen that exact moment to break the trend.

“Yes.” He replied shortly.

“You look a little tense, that’s all. You’re normally a pretty chill flier, so-”

“Is fine. No problem.” He turned pointedly to stare out of the window into the blinding white nothingness as they made their way through the clouds. Big mistake. He felt the itch that had been mostly limited to just within his nostrils, connect with a tickle that was starting to build in the very back of his nose. No, come on, just a few more minutes.

He bit down on the inside of his cheek, trying to use the pain to distract himself, digging his nails into his palms to up the ante past his regular threshold. It just barely held the tickle back.

“Rozy?”

“Fuck off.”

“Fine, but if you’re about to spew, give me some kind of warning first.”

Ilya didn’t reply, keeping his eyes out the window, waiting for them to break through the clouds and reach the correct altitude to switch off the seatbelt sign. He pressed down on his nostrils one at a time, left, right, left again, trying to squash the sensation. With steely resolve, he continued subtly fiddling with his nose, placating the tickle, until he heard the familiar ‘ding’ and glanced up to see the seatbelt sign switch off.

He turned towards his seatmate immediately. “Move.”

The goalie’s eyes widened. “Are you gonna…?”

“No.”

“Okay, man.” He stood so Ilya could get out, dubious gaze fixed on the captain for his whole walk down the plane to the bathroom. If he mentioned anything to anyone else while Ilya was in there… there’d be hell to pay.

The second he was in, he locked the door, and dove for the pile of fancy little rolled-up hand towels stacked next to the sink. Pressing one over his nose and mouth, he moved as far from the door as possible in the small space.

“hhHKk! Kk! hKK! hKk! hKSH-KSh-KSh! hhhihKSHh! hMPH! hhMPHh! hiHHMPHh! hrRMPHh!”

Dizzily, he stood in silence for a moment, listening for laughter or voices from the rest of the cabin. He heard nothing. Apparently the bathroom was fairly soundproof, probably less designed for desperately muffled sneezing fits and more for rich assholes who wanted to join the mile high club with some modicum of privacy, but he was grateful nonetheless.

He blew his nose softly into the towel, barely thinking about the act until he’d done it, and then glancing disgustedly at himself in the mirror. Get yourself under control.

Ilya hadn’t even removed the towel from his face before the itch started again, immune system well and truly frustrated from being tested by all those testers. He hunched up his shoulders again, preparing to fight to muffle the next onslaught.

“hhihh… hKk! hKK! hKSH! hihKSH! hMPHh! hMPHhuh!”

The smaller fit would have seemed to most to be a positive sign, but Ilya knew what it really heralded, hundreds more tiny fits at unpredictable intervals until his body forgot about the irritant, which sometimes meant hours, and sometimes meant days. Most people would simply pop an antihistamine and forget about it. Ilya was not most people.

He blew his nose again, tossed the towel into the laundry container, splashed some water on his face, stared at himself in the mirror as it dried, discerning whether he looked ‘normal’ or not, and then opened the door and stalked back to his seat.

O’Regan fixed him with those wide, wary eyes again as he stood up to let the captain past, but said nothing until they were both seated again.

“You doing okay?”

Ilya glared at him.

“Alright, I’m shutting up.” Good.

…

It hadn’t been an overly long plane ride, but Ilya had had to make two more trips to assault the towels in the bathroom with short, desperate fits, his body keen to ensure he didn’t forget his misstep too quickly.

Things had only increased in chaos from there, a traffic accident keeping them from the arena so long that they missed their practice slot and were forced to change into their suits in a gas station bathroom, having no time to detour to the hotel. Ilya took the opportunity to try on his new, non-suffocating cologne, revelling in the calming scent as frustrated yells about thrown-off rituals and missing items of clothing echoed off the tiled walls.

That had been the sole moment of serenity he would be afforded for the entire evening. Back on the bus, the rookie had had some kind of panic attack, Ilya helpfully standing in the aisle by the kid’s seat and glaring at anyone who made a sound while he got checked out by a trainer. Then the arena’s fire alarm had been triggered right as they’d arrived, and it had been half an hour before they’d even been able to make it inside. And the final cherry on top had been the piece of paper taped to the locker room door “Hot Water Broken, Sorry.”, the team entering dejected, knowing they’d only have cold showers to look forward to after the game.

So Ilya had completely forgotten about the whole cologne thing by the time that Marleau brought it up, save for the intermittent tickle that flickered in and out of tangibility inside his nose.

“You change your shampoo or something, kid?”

“What?” The captain looked down at where he was sitting, in his neighbouring stall, head tilted up to look at the blond.

“You smell different.”

“This is insult?”

“No, dumbass.” That, however, did seem to be an insult.

“Is new…” He hesitated, unsure how to convey the word that currently eluded him. “Chht-chht?” He mimed spraying something on himself.

“Body spray? Cologne?”

“Yes. Cologne.”

“It’s nice, man.” The older man scrubbed at his nose with his knuckle as he retrieved his phone from his bag to scroll through new messages.

“Thanks.” Was Ilya’s curt reply, as he wandered off to brood somewhere less friendly.

…

Five minutes later, bored of listening to his team lament their streak of bad luck, he returned to find his water bottle, throat still frustratingly scratchy. He dug through his bag, retrieved it and swallowed a few mouthfuls before something he couldn’t quite place made him turn to look at Marleau.

He was standing stock still, shoulder to shoulder with the captain, staring blankly into his own stall, phone held loosely in one hand. Ilya wondered if he was trying to remember something, or just to form a thought in general. Too many head injuries could really take your ability to follow a simple line of reasoning out of you.

But then the brunet’s breath caught, a harsh snag that was no sooner inhaled than it was half coughed back out, and then another, shorter, inhale, and his head was snapping down towards his chest with,

“htTNGKk!” Another breath, this one almost whistling through his pursed lips, and “huHtNGKkhOo!”

Ilya didn’t acknowledge the sneezes, and it was far too loud in the room for anyone else to have really noticed, so Marleau raised his head, dropped his shoulders, and seemed to refocus in on his phone screen immediately, unbothered by the interruption. Ilya wasn’t overly bothered either, having seen and heard the older man do that a number of times before, particularly in the winter of his rookie season, when he’d lived with him, and watched him succumb to whatever ailment was making the rounds that year.

Almost a minute later, though, the brunet inadvertently grabbed his attention again, with another gasp and resulting cough, followed by the customary second inhale and,

“huhtGGKk!” This time he turned away slightly, aiming towards his bicep, aware of the Russian’s eyes on him. He just barely managed to fit a “Goddamn.” in before the second inhale, hand coming up to grip the bridge of his nose as he ducked forwards again, “hTNGXhOo!”

It wasn’t the way Hollander did it, though it was similar, the forced back sneezes that seemed desperate to defy all attempts to quash them, which clearly the Canadian was better at, with his technique of pinching his nostrils shut so the sneezes were almost silent. Marleau’s approach seemed half-assed in comparison, gripping the bridge of his nose only as some kind of last-ditch motivation to keep himself in line, rather than blocking off the passageway.

“What are you doing?” He asked, curtly.

“Fucking practical magic, Roz, what’s it look like?” Marleau pressed a knuckle to the side of his nose and sniffed aggressively. “People don’t sneeze in Russia?”

“Fuck off. You are sick?”

“Nah, I mean I was fine this morning.” He shrugged.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t sick. Some things, bad things, came on faster than normal. Like the flu. Which was a point he would make if he could remember the English word for ‘flu’.

“Okay.” He said, instead.

“Would be just our luck, though.” The winger tipped his head back, blinking and scrunching his nose up in irritation.

Ilya, sick of hearing about ‘luck’ for the day, chirped him indifferently as he walked away again, water bottle in hand. “Would not be that bad. We win without you.”

“No the fuck we w-hh-wouldn’t, Rozy! You take that back!” Marleau yelled after him.

…

And then they were out for warmups. All of the stress that had built up being cooped up in a plane and then a bus stuck in traffic, and then a locker room, bled out of the team as they hit the ice. Ilya skated absent-minded laps for a bit, taking in the crowd, and eyeing the team as they hyped themselves up and got into gear, the same familiar rituals playing out across the ice as always. His eyes strayed to Marleau, as the winger stretched himself out. He was about to look away again, turning to avoid crossing the line to the opposing side of the ice, when something in the other player’s expression caught his eye.

Ilya tracked him as he sped across the length and turned again, facing him now. The brunet was staring vacantly down at his gloves, and, as the captain watched, his face tensed, and his mouth fell open. He appeared to draw in a sharp breath, and then his body shook slightly with a single cough. Ilya was almost level with him now.

“hHTNGKk!” He watched his head jerk down towards the ice, knees slipping slightly on the surface. And then, as he passed him, a sharp breath in, hardly audible over the sound of Ilya’s skates. “hHTGKK!”

The captain frowned. Maybe he really was getting sick. The winger had been right, this really was just their luck at the moment.

But he’d lost track of the older man until they were heading back to the locker room after warmups, lost in his own head, in his plan for the game, until suddenly everyone ahead of him was slowing, and then detouring to the opposite side of the corridor. What the fuck was it now?

What it was, was Marleau, coughing viciously against the back of his forearm, leaning against the wall, gloves and stick loosely held in his spare hand.

“You are sick.” Was how Ilya greeted him.

“No I’m not, man. Fuck o-hH-Kkf- hUh…hTNGKk! hhUh…hHTNGXhuh!”

“No? What the fuck is wrong with you, then?”

“I don’t fucking-” He’d shoved his already raised forearm over his mouth the first time, but as he sucked in another sharp breath, and coughed it back out against his shoulder, he brought his fist up to press under his nose. “hHNGKTt! huHTNGKk!”

“You-” Ilya began, acclimated enough to the pattern to know he could keep talking after two of the aggressive, poorly held-in sneezes. Defiantly, Marleau interrupted him.

“huhAEHSHhOo!”

Ilya took a step back. He’d never seen him do that before. Sure, when he’d been really sick, he’d stifled a little less, but the captain had never heard anything that forceful and desperate come out of the brunet, certainly not into anything less than the sleeve of his hoodie or a fistful of tissues. Watching him explode unheralded into his bare fist was…slightly jarring.

“What the fuck was that?”

Marleau squinted at him through his face shield, which had been knocked back down over his eyes by the force. “A sneeze, dickhead. You know, people in this country usually like to say ‘bless you’ afterwards, to be polite. You haven’t picked that up in your several fucking years of residence?”

“Fuck you. Go see medic.”

“I don’t need to, because there’s nothing-” He sniffed aggressively against the back of his hand, flipping his face shield back up again, “-wrong with me.”

“I am captain.” Ilya leaned in, grabbing him by the back of the neck, so tight he could almost feel Marleau’s pulse against his wrist. “And I tell you-”

“Rozanov! Marleau! Get your asses to the locker room! You can make out in the corridor on your own time!”

The blond spun around, faced by their coach further down the hall, with an impatient expression on his face. He stepped back into the locker room just as, behind Ilya, Marleau’s breath caught again.

“hHTNGK! hEHNGTKhOo! Jesus fucking-”

The captain shot him a look that said ‘This isn’t over’, walked away, rolling his eyes as his teammate called after him.

“I’m not fucking sick, Roz. I’m gonna play tonight!”

…

Marleau had no doubt that he wasn’t sick, he trusted himself to know his own body, after so many years of injuries and ailments that he had to assess on the fly to see if he should play through or not. Obviously he also sought medical advice for that, but sometimes you were flat on the ice trying to decide whether to get up and go after the puck or dip the hell out of there to get some first aid.

So he was sure he wasn’t sick. But that was about as far as his surety stretched. This felt like… allergies. But like, some of the roughest he’d ever had. Like sleeping off a night out at a friend’s place and waking up with a cat on his chest rough. And for the life of him, he didn’t think he’d even seen a picture of a cat in the last 24 hours, let alone gotten up close and personal with one in real life. So what the hell was happening to him?

He scrubbed at his nose with his knuckles as Coach Reilly walked around the locker room, trying to mend the damage done to their morale by the sequential slip-ups with a few choice words in a motivational tone. Cliff wasn’t sure if it was working.

“…performance has been really-”

“hHTNGKk! hEHTNGXK!”

“-really strong recently, especially-”

He’d glimpsed the warning look the coach had shot him as he’d sat back up in the wake of the sneezes, making sure he wasn’t purposefully interrupting him, fucking around, or about to make a scene. Unfortunately for both of them, Marleau was pretty sure he was about to make a scene, whether he wanted to or not.

“…so, what I’m saying is-”

He pressed his palm over his nose and mouth in a desperate attempt to shut himself up, “hEHNGXkhuh! hhEh…hHTNGKk!”

“Bless you, Marly.” Connors cut in, clearly bothered by the lack of acknowledgement of the winger’s plight.

“What I’m saying, is-”

The burning in his nostrils was driving him mad. If he didn’t know it would incur his coach’s fury, he’d just get up and leave, succumb to his body out in the corridor where he could be slightly less of an interruption. But he had a feeling he’d get called out before he even made it to the door. Helpless to stop himself, the winger fumbled a towel from his bag and raised it to his face.

“…present a unified defense-”

“hTNGKk! huHTNGKK! hh-Kkf-haH…hAEHTCHhyUh!”

“Christ almighty, Marleau, I'm trying to talk here. The hell's gotten into you?”

“Sorry, coach.” He lowered the towel and raised a hand in apology. “I dunno what's setting me off.”

He sighed. “You're not sick, are you? Because if you've brought some superbug into my damn locker room-”

“I'm not sick, I was fine a couple of hours ago.”

Coach Reilly squinted at him dubiously, before turning to address the rest of the room again. “Alright, which of you dumbasses adopted a cat, ran through cut grass, or switched shampoos this morning?”

There was a general mumbled consensus of ‘none of the above’, but, out of the corner of his eye, Marleau saw Rozanov stiffen. He glanced over at him, seeing that the center’s face was its usual mask of unapproachable neutrality, but his eyes were flicking around the room with an uncharacteristic panic. He almost looked… guilty?

“Fuck, Roz.” It took him only a few seconds to put the pieces together.

The Russian’s head snapped towards him, expression screaming ‘Shut the fuck up’. But it was too late.

“What is it?” The coach was laser focused in on the two of them. “Rozanov?”

“Is new cologne.” He admitted, uncharacteristically sheepish. Well at least he’d remembered the word this time.

With a sigh, Reilly turned his head skyward. “God give me strength.”

Marleau also found his head tilting back, awkwardly aware of the fact that most of the room had their eyes fixed on his flaring nostrils as he drew in a hitching breath, let it back out again in that annoying little tic that he could never pin down as being a tiny sneeze in and of itself, or just a cough, and then, “huHTSHHyOo!”

There were a chorus of blessings this time, some amused, some sympathetic, and some with an edge of despair at the realisation that they were going to be losing their first line wing for at least part of the game.

“Yeah, yeah, enough with the manners. You,” The coach gestured to Rozanov, who had shuffled to the far side of his stall, away from Marleau, as though that would keep that sharp, woody scent from spreading across to him. “Showers. Now.”

Most of the rest of the team either winced or grinned at the order, knowing the showers were freezing cold, and to be subjected to them twice in one night would be torture.

“And you,” His finger now pointed squarely at Cliff. “Go find a trainer, or a medic, or-”

Unable to stop himself, having already smothered the precipatory cough against the back of his hand, the brunet ducked into the towel again, shoulders shaking with a desperately itchy,“huHSXCHhOO!”

Another chorus of blessings, some now expanded to new inflections and other languages for emphasis.

“-or a damn miracle worker.” Reilly finished with an exasperated look. “But I’m not sending you out on the ice before you can breathe in the vicinity of your captain without triggering any more en masse benedictions out of these boneheads. Got it?”

“Yes coach.” He muttered, standing and retrieving his phone and water bottle, along with the towel, which he had a feeling he’d be needing again before he even made it to the physio room.

He was right. No more than two steps down the corridor, “hEh-Kkf-hh…hEHSCHhyOo!”

“Prosit, kille.” Johansson offered sympathetically before shutting the door behind the winger.

Marleau sighed, frustrated. Of all the fucking days for the kid to switch his cologne.

…

Freshly showered, and just about able to stop himself from shivering every twenty seconds, Ilya made his way to the physio room to check on his incapacitated winger. His best winger, who he himself had incapacitated before the game had even fucking begun.

When he stepped in, the room was empty save for Marleau, who was sitting on an examination couch, forearms resting on his thighs, head down. Ilya couldn’t help thinking that there were definitely some guys on the team whose legs would have been swinging freely in that position, but the brunet’s feet were flat on the floor, a testament to his height.

“Hey.” The captain announced himself.

Marleau looked up at him, surprise, and then a slight wariness showing on his face. “Hey, man.” He coughed, turning to direct the short burst into his shoulder, before returning to his original position with a barely visible wince.

“I showered.” Ilya clarified, as he moved closer.

“So I see.” The winger sniffed, running a finger under his nose as he once again glanced up at the blond. “How’s the temperature?”

“Fucking freezing.”

“Of course it is. These guys are such shitty hosts.”

“Mm. You see medic yet?”

Ilya watched him look away, running a finger over the stitching on the blue plastic cushions of the exam bed. “Yeah.”

“And? You are dying? Retiring? Starting new career as goaltender? What?”

Marleau laughed briefly, the sound slightly hollow. “Ah, I’ll be fine. It’s pretty much just the sneezing, throat’s kinda sore, a few hives-”

“Fuck. Hives?”

“Yeah,” The brunet looked up again, “It’s like when-”

“I know. I give you hives?” Ilya’s eyes flitted across every inch of skin that was visible to him in the winger’s current position.

He shrugged in response, now maintaining eye contact like if he could just capture .the captain’s gaze, he could get him to stop freaking out. “Yeah, when you grabbed my neck, I think. Doesn’t fucking matter.”

“Yes it fucking matters. Is bad reaction.”

“No. I’ve had worse, man.” But he didn’t look completely sincere, like this wasn’t the worst reaction he’d had, but it was close enough to the top that the sentiment fell flat.

“Can you play?”

Marleau opened his mouth to answer, expression suddenly crumpling as he flinched away with a sharp inhale, fist flying up to press over his mouth as he coughed and then sucked in a deep breath, sitting up the straightest Ilya had seen from him so far that day and-

“hyEHhOo! Whoo, fu- hhH-Kkf-hh hUDSHHyOo! Jesus fucking- hhH-Kkf-hH hAEHSCHOo!”

“Budʹzdorov.”

The brunet squinted up at him from between his own knees, where he’d been thrown by the attack, “What?”

“Are you trying to make sure he’s out for the entire game?” A trainer appeared in the doorway, moving quickly to take Ilya by the arm and drag him away from Marleau.

“I showered.” The blond protested, pulling himself free, though he didn’t move back towards his teammate.

“I don’t care if you went through decontamination, that shit’s probably still on your uniform and you’re all up in his business like you want him to go into anaphylaxis.”

Ilya glanced down at himself, before looking up at Marleau again, offering a half-sincere apology like a child in kindergarten being scolded. “My bad, Marly.”

“You’re all g-hh-Kkf-heH…good-hTNGK! hEhTGKkhOo!”

“Stop holding them in like that.” The physio crossed the room, exasperatedly retrieving a box of tissues and shoving them into the brunet’s lap. “I swear, between the two of you, you’ll have yourself out for the whole season.”

Marleau raised a repentent hand, before taking a tissue from the box and blowing his nose forcefully.

Ilya cringed internally, though his face remained stoic. “Can he play tonight?”

“He-”

The brunet interrupted with a foreboding cough, that led straight into “hAEHZSHhyOo!” Just barely caught in a fistful of tissues.

“Budʹzdorov.” The captain muttered again, drowned out by his teammate dissolving into a violent coughing fit that bent him forwards towards the floor, the trainer pressing a firm hand in between his shoulder blades, while motioning to Ilya to fill a paper cup with water from the dispenser.

He did, bringing it over just as Marleau sat up, face flushed with effort. The blood quickly began to drain from his face, though, leaving him pale and blinking dizzily.

“Alright, lie down before you knock yourself out.” The physio guided him to lean against the raised back at the head of the couch, putting his legs up one at a time, though his feet dangled a way off the end. Ilya handed him the water.

“Thanks, man.” The brunet rasped.

“He’s out for the first, at least,” The trainer continued speaking as if nothing had happened, “But as soon as we can get him upright and breathing again, he’s all yours.”

Ilya nodded, face blank, mind racing. How would this affect the starting line-up? How would this affect their play? Moving players around this late always threw things off. And what about Marly? Would he make it out for the game at all? Would he be pissed at Ilya for benching him? What the fuck was the statement going to be? “Yeah, our indispensable first line winger is out for this game, because the captain’s too much of a damn peacock.” Fuck, this whole fucking game was a disaster, how-

“Captain?”

“Da- yes?”

“Do you need to be checked out as well, or is there another reason you’re still here instead of getting ready to start the game?”

“No, is good.” He threw a glance at Marleau as he stepped back towards the door. The older man was watching him with an unreadable expression, still massaging his nose through a handful of tissues.

“Are you sure?” The physio stepped closer, lowering his tone so the winger couldn’t hear. “You seem like you’re having similar respiratory sym-”

“I am fine.” Ilya sniffed softly, only realising he’d been doing that intermittently for the last few minutes as the medic’s eyebrows twitched slightly in response. “Shower water was cold. Thank you for helping him.”

And with that he abruptly turned and left, striding down the corridor in the direction of the locker room at increased speed, hoping to make it before his absence became too notable, or set things back any further.

…

First period was a shitshow. There wasn’t a player on the Raiders who wasn’t playing sloppily, everyone’s reflexes dulled from exhaustion and stress, the line-up changes throwing off the usual dynamics, the captain distracted and tense.

Ilya watched in disbelief as Cadyn passed to someone who wasn’t there, and then paused confused, the opposing team taking the opportunity to switch the direction of play, moving smoothly into their offensive zone, and easily slipping the puck past O’Regan, who was far too far out in the wrong direction to do anything about it.

“Get it together you fucking…!” He smacked his stick against the boards in frustration, “Yebat kopat!”

He’d done his best to excuse their performance in his interview, promising a far better second period than they’d just delivered. The disbelieving tone of the interviewer made his blood boil as he gritted his teeth through the “Thank you.” and clenched his fists as he walked away down the corridor towards the locker room.

Marleau was sitting in his stall, talking with Connors, who was lounging nearby, trading sentences in between gulps of water.

“Marly.”

“Hey, cap. I’m cleared for second period.”

“Good. We are fucking losing like fucking losers.” Ilya fished his phone from his bag, scrolling distantly through notifications as Marleau and Connors laughed at his lack of articulacy or optimism.

“Told you ya needed me.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’d be lost without you, dude.” Connors responded. “Just get out there and save us.”

…

It was pretty immediately clear that Marleau was not going to save them. Like before the puck had even dropped, clear.

Ilya snorted congestedly as he got into position, not bothering to look up and check whether he’d been heard by the opposing captain or not. Who cared? They needed to win, not be polite about it.

His focus was zeroed in, the sound of the crowd dimming in the face of the blood rushing in his ears, when-

“hTNGKk! hhTyEHXSHHUh!”

Oh they were so fucked.

The ref paused, the opposing captain looked up, and he heard the winger facing Marleau say “Gross, man. What the actual fuck?”

Ilya kept his eyes focused on where the puck was going to drop, sniffling against his nose’s protest to having his head tilted forwards for so long, while the referee called out some kind of wellness inquiry to Marleau, and the brunet apparently cleaned himself up.

“Hey.” The player in front of him hissed. “There some kind of plague going around your team? Is that why you’re playing so shittily?”

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

He could still hear the other winger complaining about biological warfare and installing rules against putting sick players on the ice, and blah blah blah whiny American bullshit. So, at his next most convenient opportunity, Ilya checked him into the boards. Hard. And then turned to look the player dead in the eyes after smacking the puck into the back of the net.

As he got back to the bench he heard that stupid whiny voice again, “The fuck was that about?” And another player reply, “I don’t know dude, but it looked personal.” Their captain cut in, slamming the door shut behind him so loudly that half of the players on the Raiders’ bench looked up and across at the opposing bench as he berated the winger, “Why the fuck would you piss Rozanov off? We’re gonna fucking lose now.”

Ilya grinned as the players’ gazes turned to him. Yes the fuck they were.

…

But they fucking hadn’t. It had been close, but not close enough to feel like they’d ‘almost’ won. The high of every goal scored (all three of them) had been sincerely dampened by the wheeze on Marleau’s breath as he’d crashed into him, face still stretched into a delighted grin, through Ilya could see the unnatural flush of overexertion on his cheeks. The low of every goal conceded (all five of them) had only been worsened by the tension visible in the winger’s shoulders, and the way his head hung as he sat on the bench, trying to recover a modicum of his typical performance ability.

Ilya had hardly said a word until they were back at their shared hotel room, and the brunet was about to head into the shower (having forwent one at the arena for obvious temperature-related reasons). The captain on the other hand, had subjected himself to a second ice-cold shower, trying to ground himself in the shame and evitability of the loss.

“Sorry I almost kill you.” Ilya offered without making eye contact, digging sleep clothes out of his bag.

“It’s all good, Roz. You didn’t know. Plus I’m pretty sure we would have lost anyway.”

The blond mumbled a non-response that was definitely not coherent English, more because he didn’t want the winger to understand than because he wasn’t able to translate.

“We would. The shit we’ve been through today? No one could have pulled that off.” He shut the door behind him, pausing only to say “Stop beating yourself up, we’ll still make the playoffs.” before it closed all the way.

Yeah, they’d still make the fucking playoffs, but not in first, and not with anything close to a perfect record. Maybe not even with an impressive record, maybe they’d just scrape in, no talent, all luck. What kind of a fucking captain was he?

Ilya got changed, and flopped down on the bed, staring angrily at the ceiling as he listened to the shower turning on and heating up, and the brunet coughing as the steam loosened whatever bullshit had started to build in his lungs from the drawn out reaction. God this fucking sucked, he fucking sucked.

He alternated between staring angrily at the ceiling, and the wall, and his phone until the winger turned the shower off, and wandered out in a towel to dig through his own bag for his own clothes, which he’d apparently forgotten to take in with him, sniffing intermittently. He headed back through to change and finish his night routine, starting with an aggressive noseblow, apparently equally as frustrated as the captain at the constant sniffling.

The Russian dropped his phone on his chest again, bored, waiting to be able to go to bed already so he could overthink himself to sleep, wake up, and start thinking about the next game instead of remembering this shitty one. The steam had filtered through from the bathroom, the scent of soap and shampoo caressing Ilya’s nose. It scrunched automatically, on a hair trigger in the wake of the airport debacle.

And he was so fucking tired, and Marleau had been doing it in front of him all fucking day, and he was so pissed about the loss… part of him wanted to test the boundaries of this relationship, garner a little punishment, the pain of rejection to put him back in his place. You don’t become a good player by being coddled, you become a good player by being reminded to do your job and stop whining about it. Maybe he’d gotten too lax with himself. Maybe he needed another reminder.

So he let himself inhale, slowly, through his nose, let the feeling build as the anger swelled in his chest, pain pricking the corners of his eyes like he was going to cry. “hhH…”

Marleau dropped something in the bathroom, and cursed as it clattered to the floor. The feeling waned. Ilya bit his tongue, frustrated, crinkled his nose, stared up at the ceiling light.

“hiH…hKk!-” His head snapped forward, fist coming up to hover in front of his face, “-hKK! Kkh! hKSH!-” He tugged the collar of his hoodie out, pulling it up over his nose to half muffle the sound, aware of the thinness of the walls. “-hKSHh! hahKSHuh! hhrRSHH!”

“Bless you, kid.”

Ilya looked up to see the winger standing in the doorway of the bathroom, regarding him with mild curiosity.

“Thanks.”

“How come I’ve never seen you do that before? We used to live together, dude.”

The Russian shrugged. In truth he was pretty sure it was because the older player wore headphones or played music a good portion of the time, and Ilya was fairly well versed in ducking out of sight and muffling his sneezes into pillows or towels or layers of clothing, but he didn’t care to communicate that the lack of visibility had been an active effort.

“Okay fine, keep your secrets.” He rolled his eyes, moving back into the bathroom to continue getting ready for bed. Ilya stared after him, surprised. That was it? No mockery for his stupid endless sneezes? No admonishment for losing control of himself? No chirp about karmic justice for losing the game? They were just going to move on? Wow.

He was almost annoyed. He’d been ready for an attack, an insult, something to give a little bite to the disembodied disappointment lingering in the wake of the loss. And Marleau had given him nothing.

The source of his frustration flicked the bathroom light, and then the main light, off, padding towards his bed with a yawn. “Those allergy meds knocked me the fuck out, man. I’m gonna sleep like a rock tonight.”

“Mm.” Ilya ignored the mental image of his roommate turning to stone the moment he laid down in bed and poked at his still itching nose, almost catching himself in the eye in the darkness.

“You got an alarm set for the morning?”

“Y-hh-yes.” His blind attempt to placate his nose had accidentally resulted in him grazing the edge of his nostril with his fingernail. Not enough to make him sneeze, but enough to make him sharply draw in a breath that sounded almost like he was in pain. Too much like he was in pain.

There was silence for a moment, and then bright white light illuminated the room. Ilya squeezed his eyes shut, breath hitching wildly.

“hKk! Kkh! hKK!-” He tugged his hoodie up over his mouth and nose again, “hKSH! hKSHh! hihKSHuh! hKSHuh! hAHSCHhh!”

“Bless you Roz, fuck. Y’alright?” The older man was hunched forwards like he was poised to get back out of bed. What the fuck did he think he could do about the situation? Or maybe he was just going to leave the room entirely, disgusted by the display.

“Fucking… light.” He gestured in the direction of Marleau’s phone, which was pointed accusatorially in his direction, torch on.

“Oh shit, my bad.” The winger quickly flipped it away, accidentally angling it into his own eyes, “Oh shi-hTNGKk! hUhTGKkHOo!”

Light getting in his eyes was one of the few times Marleau didn’t do the whole precursory inhale, cough, inhale, sneeze, routine, and it was 50-50 whether he’d be able to hold it in properly as well, because it came on so suddenly. While Ilya mostly knew this from carpooling to the arena together for his whole first year- every time they pulled out of the garage, Marleau white knuckling the wheel and ducking towards his chest with a forceful, tired sneeze or two- he also vividly remembered an incident the same year when the winger had been knocked down on the ice. When he’d come to, the first thing that caught his eye was some overhead light flashing off of a passing skate blade and he’d almost brained himself against the boards with the immediate resulting sneeze. It had earned him the nickname ‘C.T.Sneeze’ for almost two weeks, a joke Ilya had needed explained, Ivanov seeing his blank expression and calling across the locker room, “Khronicheskaya travmaticheskaya entsefalop-apchii.” This had resulted in the entire team’s delight at the fact that the joke could be translated effectively, and several other iterations, including ‘éternuement-pathie traumatique chronique’, which continued to make appearances during practice if one of the players was sick or suffering from allergies.

“Budʹzdorov.” Ilya muttered, kneading at his nose with his knuckles.

The room went dark again. “You good?”

“Yes. Goodnight.”

“You don’t need allergy meds or anything? Because the trainers gave me extra.”

Ilya didn’t respond, though he kept his eyes open, fixed on the opposing bed, which he could barely make out in the darkness.

“Fine. Night, man.”

And once again, the blond felt the aching absence of abuse in the interaction. No ridicule, no disdain, no frustration. It was confusing, to say the least. He turned it over and over in his mind as he fell asleep, compared it to the many experiences he’d had previously, with previous teammates, coaches, ‘friends’, family. Tried to make sense of it. Did he want something? Was he going to remember this and bring it up later as incredibly weak blackmail or something?

But even the next morning, Marleau acted normally towards him, as they packed up to get ready to leave, chirping him about the cologne again- “Don’t you fucking forget yesterday and put that napalm shit on again.” but offering nothing more than a simple “Bless.” when he stopped halfway through packing his bag to direct a short fit into a crumpled shirt.

And he didn’t appear to mention anything to the rest of the team, either, because Ilya heard nothing about it from anyone else, and didn’t catch any amused glances directed his way, or unsubtle comments as they were boarding the plane again. And when Connors mentioned “still hearing Marly suffering through the wall in the middle of the night”, the winger just laughed it off with a retorted “Maybe I’m allergic to people jacking off next door at 1 in the morning.” Probably just easier than explaining he’d actually been hearing Ilya inexplicably dissolve into two consecutive (and as far as Marleau was concerned, unexplained) sneezing fits. He probably wasn’t going out of his way to cover for the blond. Because how would that benefit him? It wouldn’t.

Ilya stirred from a light sleep at the waning of a long midsummer night to his boyfriend looming over him. It was dark, still, but he could make out Shane's outline, and hear him breathing. He was breathing quite fast, Ilya realised slowly, and fumbling around the blond's nightstand, though his legs remained on his own side of the bed.

The Russian wondered if he should interrupt, wondered what he should say, wondered if his boyfriend had been possessed by some kind of demon with a hunger for half-used chapstick. He settled for, “Are you lost?”

Shane's sharp shallow breaths were abruptly cut off with a jagged inhale of surprise. He froze for a moment before continuing his search with renewed frenzy and no justification.

A few short seconds later, Ilya heard the familiar sound of a tissue being dragged from the box before Shane sat back on his haunches, crunching forward with a violent,

“hEhTDXSCHh!”

It was more forceful and productive sounding than his usual sneezes, and Ilya winced sympathetically, reaching out to turn on the light, blinking away the resultant tickle that sparked somewhere between his eyes, as Shane repeated himself.

“EHtCHuh!”

“God bless you moya lyubov.” He crooned, ignoring the chaos of his nightstand in favour of tending to his crumpled husband and his crumpled tissue.

“Tried not to wake you.” Shane muttered. “Didn't realise I was out of ti-hih- hHNGtch!”

“Budʹzdorov”

“heHTDSHhew!”

“God bless you.”

“Thank you. Sorry. Thank you.” Shane gratefully accepted the additional tissues Ilya thrust upon him, and blew his nose aggressively.

“You are sick.”

“Nooo.” The word was elongated so far it could be considered a whine by most definitions, and the Canadian’s voice wavered in and out, only stopping when the strain on his throat made him cough. It was no real denial, he clearly just didn't want it to be happening.

“Yes. You are so so sick,” Ilya pulled him into his arms, dotting kisses over his shoulders and head, “and I make you… better.” He was entirely too tired to placate his boyfriend in any more detail than that, having almost replaced ‘better’ with ‘butter’ and only deciding he’d chosen the right word when the Canadian didn’t burst out laughing. Was butter good for sick people? Wasn’t better to do with gambling? Why were words so fucking stu-

“Fuck. My parents are coming tomorrow.” Shane groaned in a much more serious voice, pushing his face into Ilya’s sternum so hard it almost hurt the blond, and he was half worried about his boyfriend suffocating himself.

“They will help me, then.”

“No.” Shane sat bolt upright, almost cracking his head on Ilya's chin. “I don't want them to know. I don't like freaking them out.”

“I do not think they will freak ou-”

“No, Ilya. You don’t get it, I can’t just-” Ilya could see him shrinking in on himself as his muscles tensed up, hands fisting in the sheets, eyes flitting back and forth across the bedspread as he spoke. “-make them worry for no reason. I can’t-” His voice had been growing progressively tauter with each word, the start of the next sentence the final straw for his throat as he broke off into a coughing fit, shuffling away from Ilya as he practically suffocated himself with his elbow.

“Okay, okay.” Ilya reached out and took the brunet by the hips, dragging him back until he was almost sitting in his lap and rubbing his back, applying just enough pressure to bring him out of his head, ground him back in the moment, but not enough that the contact would hurt. Which was a fine balance with how sensitive his boyfriend’s skin was to touch when he was really sick, but it was an art Ilya had all but mastered now. “We do not tell them. I understand.” He really didn’t. Not completely, anyway, but what he could understand was that talking about it was working his boyfriend up far more than was really good for him with his body trying to fight off illness. And that was good enough for him for the moment.

Shane surfaced from his elbow, breathing heavily, a slight flush visible on his cheeks in the lamplight, from exertion or embarrassment or some cold-related cause, Ilya couldn’t be sure. “Thank you.”

The blond reached out to cup his face, drawing a thumb over his cheek before moving his grip down to his boyfriend’s neck and pulling him gently back down to rest his head on his chest again. Shane melted against him like butter on hot toast, every ounce of tension draining from his body as he sighed deeply, Ilya’s fingers starting to skim gently through his hair, pausing to draw soft circles at the edge of his temples, as though he could draw out the spiralling thoughts and lull him into a peaceful, anxiety-free sleep.

A crease appeared in the brunet’s brow, worries having apparently continued to plague him, as his eyes opened and his face fell into a regretful expression. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“No, is good.” Ilya reassured him without hesitation, before his mind flicked back to the abrupt awakening. “Was scary, though, I thought you wanted to kill me.”

“Really?” Shane’s tone was quickly taking on the soft awed quality of a child being told a bedtime story as sleep swallowed the more critical corners of his mind.

“No.”

“Well, I was out of tissues, and I didn’t have time to get out of bed and go round.” The explanation was slightly slurred and less monotone than the Canadian usually sounded when he was sober. It was very endearing, but some evil little part of Ilya wanted to see how far he could push it with his boyfriend in this state.

“Why not use the sheet? Is same thing.”

A moment of hesitation as the cogs whirred, and then, “It is not the same thing!” No further than the vague idea of improper manners apparently.

“I think it is.” He argued, heatlessly.

“I fucking know you do.” The crease in his brow was back, and deeper now. “God, I can’t believe I let myself share a bed with you before training those habits out.”

“So what, I am dog now? Maybe I want to train weird Canadian habits out of you too.”

The brunet looked up, intrigued. “Like what?”

Ilya stared into his eyes, took in the way his lashes glowed golden brown in the lamplight, and suddenly couldn’t think of a single thing he’d ever found annoying about the man. There definitely were things, he was sure of it, and Shane had somehow managed to erase them from his mind with his crinkly little half-asleep expression. Witchcraft.

“hNGTt! hEHNGT!” As quickly as he’d looked up, the subject of Ilya’s infatuated gaze ducked down again, body jolting against the Russian’s as he pinched his nose tightly with fatigue-feebled fingers. “Fuck, sorry.”

“Mm. Budʹzdorov. Like that, actually. Stop holding it in.”

Shane shook his head. “I don’t wanna infect you.”

“Oh yes, I will get sick bad if you sneeze in same bed as me. If we have sex in every room of house I will get just a little sick.”

“Fuck, Ilya.” He sat up a little, pulling back so he was leaning mostly on the Russian’s shoulder but they were eye to eye, so the blond could see his honestly guilty expression in full. “I didn’t know.”

He met him right back with an openly unbothered expression. “I don’t care. I would fuck you anyway. Is fine.”

Shane made a small noise like it wasn’t fine, but he didn’t want to argue about it, as he slumped down against his boyfriend’s shoulder, and then sniffled, sleepily nudging at his nose with the back of his hand. This sparked another sniffle, a retaliatory nudge again, and a flicker in his slightly affronted expression- Ilya could have watched this, rapt, for hours- and then a panted hitching breath.

“hEh…” He turned away with the sharp inhale, internally wrestling for control for a moment before he looked up at the Russian. “Can you pa-ah-ss me another-” He hesitated for a moment, face scrunching against the itch. “-ti-ihH-issue please.”

Ilya pulled up a section of the sheet, holding it out with a goading look. Shane smacked his chest weakly, shaking his head.

As amusing as dragging the issue out was, it was impossible to deny the helpless expression he was being fixed with for a moment longer. The blond reached out and tugged another tissue from the box, bringing it back, but just out of reach. Really Shane could have reached up and taken it without much difficulty, but they were both entirely too stubborn for this to be a simple hand-off.

“I-ihh-lya.”

“You have to do it properly, okay?”

“F-uhh-ine.” The Canadian appeared to be genuine about the response, as far as Ilya could discern, so he handed over the tissue, surprised as his breath made a sharp switch from periodic snags to erratic hitching the second it was in his hand. He really was incredible at keeping the reflex under his control. Maybe Ilya should push the issue of learning how to do that slightly harder, it really would come in useful.

“hEhh…hhH…” Shane fumbled with the fabric, folding it haphazardly before bringing it to his face, eyes squeezing shut.

“hEHtTDSHh!”

“God bless you.”

“hHTDSCHhew!”

“God bless you.” He was already reaching for another tissue to hand over, the damp, forceful nature of the expulsions not having gone unnoticed.

“Thank you. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting them to be quite that…you know…” Shane took the next tissue, avoiding eye contact as he pressed them both to his face, the last word coming out muffled, “big.”

“Mm, me too. Is going to be big cold, clearly.” He pressed a kiss into his boyfriend’s hair as the brunet ducked in on himself slightly to blow his nose, coughing softly into the tissues afterwards, with a muttered “Sorry.”

Ilya wasn’t completely sure what he was apologising for this time and he was definitely not going to ask, knowing it would be something completely unnecessary, as usual. Instead he settled for stroking his thumb over the back of his boyfriend’s neck as he let himself drift towards slumber again, slightly slower than usual, just in case Shane wasn’t done with the prolog of his ‘big cold’ and needed anything else.

It appeared that he didn’t, because within minutes they were both sleeping deeply, dead to the world even as the first rays of sunlight started to slice around the blinds.

... When Ilya awoke for the second time, it was from a far deeper sleep. His phone alarm dragged him into consciousness against his will, an aching heaviness weighing on his eyelids, and an uncooperative clumsiness plaguing his limbs as he smacked at the screen in a frustrated bid to stop the noise.

Mind full of the swirling remnants of one of those dreams that felt like you’d lived an entire lifetime in the space of a few hours, he extricated himself from under Shane’s splayed form and padded through to the bathroom to piss. Why the hell was he so tired? They’d gone to bed at what Shane would call a ‘reasonable’ hour right?

He stared at his slightly puffy face in the mirror, brow furrowed low over his eyes, debating going back to bed. After a few seconds of blank staring while the last coherent memories of the not-quite-nightmare dissolved before his mind’s eye, he dragged open the drawer in the counter, pulling out the box of antihistamine patches and shaking one out into his hand. Even if he was going to go back to sleep after this, it was still better to put one on before he forgot.

As he applied it to his arm, a rustling from the bedroom told him Shane was stirring, the sound of bedsheets rumpling as his boyfriend turned over. And at the sound, a tiny blaring alarm in the back of Ilya’s brain was silenced. That was what had been throwing him off. He never woke up first. And if he did, he most certainly didn’t get up first. It wasn’t their routine.

Ilya stepped back into the doorway of the bedroom, watching the Canadian greeting the morning by pushing himself up onto his elbows and staring blankly at the opposing wall, like he had no idea where he was or why.

“Good morning.” The low words drew puffy half-shut eyes to him immediately, as Shane’s confused gaze was given a new target to examine. Ilya swallowed a smile, knowing what his morning voice did to his boyfriend, the deeper, more thickly accented words never failing to earn him a passionate kiss.

“Morning.” In contrast, the brunet’s voice today sounded like his best attempt to provide a voice for some kind of lethargic, animated frog character, betraying a bubble in his throat that seemed to pop in synchronicity with the blissful ignorance that had been encapsulating Ilya, as Shane ducked to one side with a fit of productive coughs muffled into his bare elbow. Fuck, so that hadn’t been part of the dream.

Ilya turned abruptly back into the bathroom, filling a glass usually reserved for rinsing one’s mouth, with water from the faucet and bringing it back to the bed. He held it out, waiting as the brunet wrestled with his lungs, finally surfacing to look at the glass with a reluctant expression.

“Drink.” He encouraged.

“It’s bathroom water.”

“It’s what?”

“You got it from the bathroom.” He swallowed thickly at the end of the sentence, as the coughing threatened to start again.

“Yes, from sink, not from toilet. Drink.”

“It’s gross.”

“It is same thing as in kitchen. You have fucking well. Drink.”

Shane stared at him obstinately. Ilya stared back, outstretched arm unwavering. He would stand here for as long as it took to get his boyfriend to drink some damn water and let himself feel better. The only thing more stubborn than Ilya on a regular day, was Ilya when something was wrong with Shane, and they both knew that.

“Drink.”

…

The only thing more stubborn than Ilya when something was wrong with Shane, the Russian thought as he tugged open the fridge, was Shane himself.

He could hear the brunet succumbing to another coughing fit back in the bedroom, though it was audibly muffled, and couldn’t help mentally cursing himself for not retrieving some suitable water sooner. He grabbed a bottle from the door, and took off at a jog, letting the appliance close on its own.

“Here.” Ilya twisted the cap off, holding out the bottle before he was even remotely close enough for Shane to take it from him, desperate to provide him with some relief.

The blond watched in exasperation as Shane took the water, fought to catch his breath, swallowed dryly, and turned sincere, bloodshot eyes up to him, “Thank you.” Only then would he allow himself to begin to rehydrate, chugging the water with a fervor he usually saved for the bench, between shifts in the third period.

“Slow.” Ilya instructed, tapping on the side of the bottle to get his attention.

Shane did slow a little in response, lengthening the time between desperate, hungry swallows, finally pulling the bottle from his lips with a shaky sigh.

“How do you feel?”

The brunet stared blankly at the bottle in his hand, resting against the covers, as though he were too tired to hold it unassisted, despite it being more than half empty. After a moment he shook his head.

“Not good?” Ilya guessed.

“Mm.”

“You want food? Medicine?” He carded a hand softly through Shane’s hair, smoothing the chaos left over from a night of tossing and turning.

“Not really.” He held the bottle back out to Ilya, the Russian moving it carefully to the nightstand for him. “But I should probably eat something anyway.”

“Okay.” Without really realising why, the blond started to walk away, only questioning his action when he’d made it to the other side of the bed. He didn’t intend to get back in, so why-

“hhH-”

The sharp breath in drew Ilya’s focus, and he realised that he was already reaching out to retrieve the box of tissues from his nightstand. He had just enough time to make it back around the bed and hold out the box, Shane dragging a couple free and folding them over his lower face.

“hTDSH! TDSHh! heHh… hEHTSHh! hTCHhew!”

“God bless you.” He cupped the nape of the brunet’s neck with his free hand, feeling each jolt as it tensed up the muscles there.

Shane blew his nose, and cringed, either at the sound or the sensation, Ilya couldn’t tell. “Thank you.” He murmured, eyes drifting shut for a moment as he drew in a deep breath and sighed it back out again. Then his gaze turned slightly sharper, and he looked up at his boyfriend, curious. “Did you know that was going to happen before I did?”

“I don’t know.” Ilya responded honestly. “Maybe.” Maybe he’d just remembered that Shane didn’t have any tissues in his nightstand and gone to fetch them pre-emptively, or maybe he’d noticed some small signal, too small even to recall, that had warned him of the imminent need for something that wasn’t a bedsheet to cover his face with.

“Wow, that’s pretty romantic.”

“You know what else is romantic?- Fuck, vinovat, sorry.” He’d dragged the covers back as he spoke, only for the brunet to shudder like he’d been doused in ice water, pulling his knees up to his chest. “Wait.”

Ilya stepped over to the closet, retrieving one of his hoodies and shaking it out so it wouldn’t feel as stiff and cold. He wished he could have given Shane one he’d been wearing but it was far too hot for him to sleep with any sort of shirt on, or even to think of dressing for the first few hours of being awake.

“Arms.”

Shane obediently raised his arms, though he visibly tried to keep the rest of his body as compact as possible to stay warm. The blond rolled up the sleeves and body of the hoodie until he could easily slip it over his boyfriend’s hands and tug it down over his head and chest. Shane sunk into the material with another shudder.

“What else is romantic?” He asked, face buried in the collar of the hoodie, either trying to warm it up with his breath or soaking in Ilya’s scent, if the Russian had to guess.

“Ah.” His train of thought restored itself. “Making you breakfast. Come on.”

Unable to bear watching his boyfriend crawl out of bed like he hadn’t moved in a hundred years, both because he knew it would embarrass him and because the painfully slow, exhausted movements made Ilya want to scoop him up and carry him everywhere for the rest of his life- and he knew Shane would have some pretty serious qualms about that- he retrieved his phone from his nightstand and stood in the doorway scrolling aimlessly through it until the raspy congested breaths got close enough to make him look up on instinct.

Shane stood, glassy eyed, somehow appearing to drown in a hoodie that Ilya knew he had the muscular capacity to fill out as well as the blond did, breathing slowly through cracked lips, a dissatisfied little frown on his face.

“Ready?”

He nodded slowly, and, with a deep sigh, started to shuffle down the hall towards the kitchen.

…

Shane stared blankly out at the water as he moved oatmeal that he couldn’t really taste around in his mouth. There was an aching heaviness lingering in his head, waxing and waning in his temples, throbbing behind his eyes, like gravity had been turned up on one specific lobe of his brain and it was dragging him down towards the table.

He swallowed, lifted another spoonful. It was so quiet, so peaceful, the trees barely stirring in the wind, wildlife muted by his clogged ears, that he wasn’t totally sure he’d notice if time stopped entirely. That would be nice. Give him as much time as he needed to kick this stupid cold before his parents came around tomorrow.

The daydream of infinite stillness and silence, no time pressure, no responsibilities screaming in his ears, felt so tangible, so possible. He let his eyes drift closed as the spoon touched his tongue, imagining the birds in the trees freezing in place, the ripples in the water paused perfectly, refusing to decohere, clouds hovering hesitant in the sky, nothing in the world moving but him and-

“hhAHKk!-” Ilya.

Shane opened his mouth instinctively to gasp in surprise at the sudden noise, eyes darting to his boyfriend, who was leaning back over one shoulder, hands gripping the edge of the table to keep himself upright. The spoon fell from his mouth, hitting his thigh with a resounding slap, before bouncing onto the floor.

“-hKk! KKh! hKK!-” It was rare for his fits to start with anything but the tiny cough sneezes, but it happened, mostly when he’d been trying to keep himself under control for a while, or if the sneeze had eluded him for too long. The Canadian swallowed his mouthful of oatmeal, the bite going down agonisingly slowly as his digestive system kicked back in in the wake of the scare, and reached out an uncoordinated hand, placing it on Ilya’s shoulder as he continued.

“-hKSHuh! hhhKSHH! haHKSH! hrRSHHOo!”

“Bless you.”

“Thank you.” The Russian’s eyes scanned the table, Shane’s legs, and then the floor, alighting on the fallen spoon with a slightly guilty expression. “I tried not to, you looked so peaceful.” He leaned forward, retrieving the piece of cutlery. “I will get new spoon.”

Shane squeezed his shoulder lightly to get his attention as he straightened back up. “Maybe we should go inside.”

“No, is fine. You need air.” He waved his hand in the vague direction of the landscape surrounding them.

“Not if it’s bothering you, I don’t.”

“Is not bothering me. I always sneeze in morning, you know this.” Ilya tapped the antihistamine patch on his bicep. “Will work soon.”

Shane did know this, obviously. He also knew that his boyfriend’s morning sneezes were typically limited to one or two fits, three if either of the first had been particularly unsatisfying. And he’d watched him pause once while cooking, taking several nimble steps out of the kitchen to shower the floor in the hall with a violent fit, and heard him succumbing to a second in the bathroom when he was retrieving meds for the brunet to take with his breakfast. So this fit was clearly just because they were eating outside. So, because of him.

Before he knew it, Ilya was back, nose slightly redder than when he’d left, most likely the mark of the unforgiving paper towels in the kitchen, holding out a clean spoon.

“Thank you. If you want to go inside, just say, okay?

Ilya looked at him unblinkingly, eyes roving Shane’s form. Shane termed this his ‘trap detector’ look, when the Russian appeared to be staring into his very soul, searching for the meaning behind his words, figuring out exactly how Shane could use them to trip him up. It wasn’t panicked, like a wild animal already caught, it was cunning, like something that had learned to pre-empt capture, and with a hint of enjoyment, as if these feeble word cages he’d set up were amusing to escape.

“I will say.” He answered at last.

“Good.” He used his new spoon to bring another mouthful of oatmeal to his lips. Ilya watched him in silence.

“So, tomorrow-” The blond’s knee nudged his, as if to make sure he was listening, “-we need plan or what?”

“A plan?”

“For your parents. You do not want them to know, so…”

“Oh fuck, yeah probably.”

“I have excuse, for if we need them to leave completely. What if you need break, though?”

“What’s the excuse?”

Ilya shook his head. “Is not for you, so you don’t need to know.”

Wasn’t the entire point of a plan to get on the same page about stuff? Whatever. “I guess if I need a break, I’ll just go to the bathroom? Or pretend to take a call.”

“Call from who?”

Shane took another spoonful of his breakfast and shrugged. Did it matter?

“Is all in details. You will not be able to think tomorrow. Plan ahead.”

“Mm. Let me think about it.”

Ilya stroked his thumb along the back of Shane’s hand. “Is all going to go fine. Everyone loves you.”

He felt his shoulders tense, gaze flicking from the bowl in front of him, out to the distant treetops as a pit opened in his stomach. That only made the pressure worse. Why couldn’t everyone be ambivalent about him instead?

The Russian withdrew his hand, sensing his mistake. “Stop thinking about it and eat. Is getting cold.”

He was grateful for the bluntness. It brought him back to reality, and he turned his focus back to his breakfast again, running over mundane information about the season in his brain to keep his mind from wandering to the next day, icing the intrusive thoughts over to the far side of his brain until his spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.

Then he allowed himself to return to the moment, relieved to discover that his headache had withdrawn somewhat, the medicine he’d taken just before the meal apparently having kicked in. With a final deep breath in of the fresh air, he stood, glancing over Ilya who appeared to be lost in thought, as he opened the door to head back into the house.

“Hollander.” There was a flicker of urgency in Ilya’s voice, and the brunet spun around immediately.

“What?”

“I want to go inside.” The smile was picking up the edges of his mouth before he’d even finished the sentence.

“Wh- fuck off.” Shane turned back, stepping over the threshold and heading to rinse his dishes in the sink.

“You say to tell you!” The Russian’s voice echoed after him. “I am just doing what you say!”

“Fuck-” He paused to cough harshly into his elbow. “-off!”

…

The day had been far from peaceful for Shane. His mind spun back around to the next day and all sorts of hideous worst case scenarios, every time there was a slight lull in other things to think about. The only way he’d managed to get some rest was by having a random European hockey match playing on mute on the TV while he laid on Ilya’s chest on the couch, watching, the blond delivering what appeared to be sarcastic commentary in Russian into the top of his head, punctuated with kisses.

So, to say he was exhausted now would be the understatement of the year. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the shifting shapes of the bedroom in the light from the bathroom, enthralled by whatever misperceptions his mangled mind was regaling him with, like a fatigue-driven version of shadow puppets.

“Tired?” Ilya’s fingertips lifted Shane’s chin, his face turning obediently before he could drag his eyes along with it.

“Mmf.” He slumped his face into the blond’s palm until he was holding the entire weight of his head, taking a partially obstructed breath in, faintly able to detect the scent of his own soap and the Russian’s aftershave.

“So tired.” It was almost praise-like, the words spoken reverently from low in Ilya’s throat, sending a shiver through Shane.

“Mmf.” Was his only response, again.

Ilya sat down next to him, gently moving his head back up so he could take its burdensome weight on his neck again, and moving his hand around to massage lightly at Shane’s shoulders, starting on one side of his neck and moving around to the other, as the Canadian’s gaze got lost in the things that weren’t there again.

“You will sleep so good, and your body will kill the cold while you sleep, and you will wake up and feel so much better, yes?”

It was less of a question or suggestion than an instruction, and though Shane knew he had no control over the microorganisms that made him up, he felt inclined to obey in every way he could. He nodded.

“And you will-” Though he wanted to listen, his focus was pulled away by an irritatingly sharp tickle in his nose, the first active feeling in a sea of sluggish sensations which had been lazily plaguing him for hours without drawing much notice.

He reached out and plucked a tissue from the box that remained on his nightstand, only aware of Ilya talking once the action drew him to a sudden halt. Instant regret washed over him, though he had no time to express it, raising the tissue and ducking away apologetically.

“hTSHhh!”

“God bless you.”

“hhEhtDSHhhew!” The sneezes were weak, lacking the punch needed to be satisfying, entirely too feeble to have really earned the way they dragged him forward and left him drained afterwards.

“God bless you.”

“Sorry, I interrupted you.” He breathed into the tissue, too tired to sit back up, bent double still in the picture of exhausted remorse.

“No, was just your body telling me ‘shut up so we can go to bed’.” Ilya drummed his fingers on Shane’s back. “Can you get in by yourself?”

The Canadian straightened. “Yes. I’m not eighty. And I don’t want you to shut up.”

“Okay. I will talk for another hour, then.” He inhaled deeply, as though to begin some sort of monologue.

Shane didn’t give him the satisfaction of trying to stop him, instead turning over to crawl slowly into bed, slumping down against the pillow with his back to him.

“You are sure you are not eighty?” Ilya asked, poking his ass. “You get into bed at same speed.”

“Did you sleep with a lot of eighty year olds before me, or is this based on just one or two observations?” He shot back, kicking weakly in the direction of his boyfriend’s hand.

“Fuck you.” The mattress shifted as Ilya stood up, and with a click, the bathroom light turned off.

“Not before you fuck a bunch of grandpas, apparently.” Shane laughed, giddy in the sudden darkness, the sound quickly morphing into a cough that had him curling in on himself, elbow pressed to his mouth, feeling the whole bedframe shake with him.

“Okay, okay, you cannot die laughing at this shitty joke.” The Russian climbed in opposite him, hands coming to his boyfriend’s shoulders to steady him, though they felt around his head and the pillow and at least one of his knees before both finding their purchase. Not funny, not funny, don’t start laughing again or you’ll die.

The breath he drew in in the wake of the fit was long and ragged, stinging in his throat and aching in his lungs. Though he knew speaking would hurt even worse, he braved the decimation of his vocal cords anyway.

“Ilyaa.”

“I know, moya lyubov. I know.”

“Hurts.”

“I’m sorry.” Shane felt him let go, heard him shifting around, felt the covers being pulled up over them both, and finally heard slow calm breaths just in front of his face, before a soft kiss was pressed to his forehead. “Try to sleep, okay? I am here, and I will wake up if you need me.”

“I love you.” This he whispered, hoping to preserve his throat for the next day, and also fearing that the emotion that was making his eyes prick with unseen tears might extend to his voice.

“I love you too. Now rest.”

…

Ilya was once again awoken by his boyfriend looming over him, though this time he wasn’t in the bed at all, and when the blond’s eyes flew open, it was to blinding light.

“Agh!” He startled backwards, arms coming up defensively. Shane didn’t move. “hhAH-!” He bit his tongue forcefully against the reflex, finding it easier than usual to quell, as fight-or-flight kicked in halfway through, flooding his system with adrenaline. Shane didn’t react. “Are you okay?” Ilya managed finally, starting to push himself up to more of a sitting position. Shane said nothing, staring at him with wide blank eyes.

The Russian forced himself to slow down, heart racing from the horror movie scenario he’d woken to find himself in, forced himself to take in the scene. Shane stood, almost imperceptibly swaying, right by Ilya’s side of the bed, breathing heavily again, though his expression was mostly neutral. He’d abandoned the long-sleeve he’d gone to bed in, standing, shivering, in pyjama trousers, upper body covered in goosepimples, pecs glistening with sweat in the light of Ilya’s bedside lamp, a single droplet running down his neck in a way that normally would have taken the blond’s breath away but instead opened a cold pit of dread in his stomach.

“…Shane?” Ilya reached out to touch his face, poised to spring back if he accidentally startled him. Was he even conscious? Was he sleepwalking or something?

“I’m scared.”

The sentence came out of nowhere, nothing changed on the brunet’s face, and he spoke right as Ilya’s hand grazed his burning hot cheek, making the Russian flinch in surprise. His voice was gravelly and obstructed, sounding discomposingly unlike himself as though he were only miming along to another person’s voice, the deep shadows cast on his face from the single light source not helping the terrifying image.

Ilya forced himself to reply with some semblance of stability, rather than echoing his boyfriend’s fear, as instinct drove him to. “Why are you scared moy lyubimy? Is all okay.”

“Tomorrow.” He replied simply.

“With your parents?” Ilya tugged on his wrist, trying in vain to get him to sit down on the bed, only succeeding in making the Canadian stumble awkwardly towards him, bumping into the edge of the mattress and then stepping back again.

“What if they figure it out? And they know that I’m…” He breathed heavily for a moment, a clumsy attempt to calm himself. “-sick.”

“Then-”

“Then,” Shane interrupted before he could be placated, “they’ll know I hid it from them. They hate when I hide things.”

Ilya glanced down for a single second to free his legs from the covers, and when he looked up again, tears were pouring down his boyfriend’s face. Fuck. This was a bad fever. He could tell.

“Okay, okay, we have options, yes? We have plan and excuses, we have medicine, and we can move to other day if is really bad.” He swung his legs out of bed and stood up as he spoke, gently taking hold of his boyfriend’s arms- not missing the slight wince as he touched the fever-raw skin- and steering them around to the other side of the bed.

“But I didn’t sleep well, and I don’t want to cancel because I might get worse, or you might get it, and we can’t just keep moving it back.” Shane sniffled as Ilya snagged a tissue from the box on his nightstand and started to wipe away the tears.

“We still have time to sleep.” In reality he had no fucking idea what time it was, but right now his boyfriend didn’t seem capable of thinking straight, let alone reading and comprehending any kind of clock. “And I- what is it?” The brunet’s face had suddenly turned from absent distress to frustration.

“We can’t sleep in the bed anymore.”

Ilya fought the urge to sigh, entirely too tired to be picking apart Shane’s incomprehensible lines of logic. “Why not?”

The Canadian reached out and unceremoniously drew back the covers to reveal his own side of the bed, sheets rumpled from tossing and turning. He frowned at Ilya, as if to say ‘See?’

He did not see. “What? Is just uh…” What was the fucking word? “Crumbled? Crunkled? Look.” The blond reached out to tug the sheets taut, withdrawing his hand almost immediately. “Oh. Why is it-?”

The entire side that Shane had been sleeping on was at least moderately damp, the pillow too, now that Ilya was actually looking at it. For a moment he had no idea how this had happened, but, glancing back at his boyfriend, skin still glistening in the warm lighting, he knew. If he’d sweat all the way through the sheets and was still feverish, he was definitely completely delirious and dehydrated.

As Ilya watched, the brunet shivered, arms pressed tight against his torso as if he were fighting against a bitterly cold wind that the Russian somehow couldn’t feel. The tiniest amount of anxiety stirred in his chest. He was really sick. Like if Ilya didn’t do something he might be doctor sick, hospital sick, accidentally-out-themselves-trying-to-get-him-medical-care sick.

“Okay.” He straightened up, retrieving Shane’s phone, the box of tissues, and the bottle of water he’d made sure was on the brunet’s nightstand this time, rounded the bed to grab his own phone, and made a mental note to come back for medicine and some kind of washcloth from the bathroom. “We sleep in other room.”

Shane stared at him blankly for a moment from across the room, and Ilya was just mentally running back the words that had left his mouth to check that they were in English and generally comprehensible, when the Canadian snapped forwards.

“hEISHh! huHITCHhew!”

“God bless you.” The Russian stared at him with wide, wary eyes, the tiny flicker of anxiety fanned into a flame by the scene he’d just observed. Shane had made absolutely no effort to cover his face, suppress the sneezes, turn away, or in any way interfere with the process. It was uncannily unlike him, and it sent a shiver down Ilya’s spine, that innate sense of ‘wrongness’ like an optical illusion or one of those humanoid robots, screaming a warning in his mind.

The brunet didn’t respond, frowning as he raised a hand to run his fingers under his nose, as though confused by the intractable expulsions that had just overwhelmed him. Ilya nodded towards the door, reminding him of their destination, and with a soft sniffle, Shane dropped his hand back to his side and headed for the hallway.

They walked through slowly, Ilya watching his boyfriend walk as though he could feel every single muscle and tendon involved in moving, and each one ached in a different way. The journey was steady though, excepting the small pause they’d had to take when the plastic water bottle had briefly slipped from the Russian’s grasp, hitting the floor with a liquid-y thud. Shane had slammed his hands over his ears, shoulders hunching protectively as he growled low in the back of his throat a barely audible “Too fucking loud.” They’d continued shortly after, though the Canadian’s shoulders never untensed in the wake of the incident, and Ilya found himself gripping the bottle with a newfound tightness, berating himself for his clumsiness.

When they’d made it to the other room ,he flicked on the overhead light without thinking, both of them reeling back from the sudden assault on their eyes. Ilya’s breath started to hitch immediately, fiercely, the trigger awoken for the second time that night and not eager to be denied. He nudged Shane into the room, tongue between his teeth as he sidestepped his boyfriend, tossed the contents of his arms gently onto the bed, and ducked back out into the hallway, turning his back to the room and clamping a hand over his lower face.

“hKk! hKk! KKh! hMPH! hihMPH! hhMPHoo!”

With a sniffle and a frustrated glare at nothing in particular, since he was actually just mad at whatever stupid connection in his brain caused that reflex, and it was pretty hard to glare at your own brain, he spun back around to see Shane staring at him with glistening wet eyes again.

“What happened?” He moved closer immediately, watching the brunet’s lips twist into a pout as the tears started to fall.

“You’re hurting yourself.” He was what? If his boyfriend wasn’t doing an excellent imitation of someone at death’s door right now, Ilya would definitely point out the hypocrisy in that statement.

“No. Does not hurt. I am fine. I did not want to make loud noise, because it hurts you.” This explanation only made things worse as Shane drew in a shuddering breath, tears flowing incessantly down his cheeks again. He was going to dehydrate himself even more if he kept that up.

“You hurt yourself because of me?”

“No, no. I-” Ilya struggled to explain, not wanting to worsen the situation but sensing that his boyfriend could and would twist whatever he said into some devastating misinterpretation in his current state. “Wait here.”

He jogged back through to the master en suite, retrieving cold medicine, a cool soaked washcloth, and the thermometer, and returning to find his boyfriend sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.

“Okay, look at me.” He knelt in front of him, waiting patiently as Shane lifted his head and blinked stuck-together lashes at him.

“You left.”

“Yes.” He was in no-nonsense mode now, knowing that placating the fatigued Canadian was a never-ending quest. “To get things to help. Put this in your mouth.” He held out the thermometer, watched Shane dejectedly place it between his lips.

While they waited for the beep, Ilya started to gently clean the sweat from his skin, swiping the cool washcloth over his face, chest, neck, arms, and moving around behind him to reach his back. The brunet didn’t move throughout the process, sitting still, pliable, patient, letting himself be helped.

The device reached a conclusion just as the Russian decided he’d gotten enough of the sweat off that Shane wouldn’t be uncomfortable when it dried, plucking the thermometer from his mouth and frowning at the number.

39.1. It was about what he’d expected, but that didn’t make it any more comforting to see. “Take two of these,” He doled out the medicine into his boyfriend’s waiting hands, “And I will put this back, okay? I come back in two minutes.”

The brunet nodded, Ilya ducking out of the room, and heading to toss the washcloth in the laundry and retrieve an electrolyte drink before he had to watch him putting the pills in his mouth. By the time he’d gotten back, Shane had drunk a third of the bottle of water, and shuffled around the bed to partially climb in, only under the covers up to his ankles.

“Can you drink some of this, too?” Ilya handed him the open drink, relieved to see him starting to sip it eagerly. He retrieved their phones and the tissue box from the end of the bed and placed them on the nightstands, pulling back the covers so Shane could get further in, and taking the electrolytes from him when it seemed like he didn’t want to drink any more.

“Better?” He asked, turning the lamp beside the bed on before heading to turn the main light off.

“Yes. Thank you.” The Canadian still didn’t sound totally lucid, voice slightly dreamy and distant, gaze not quite focused, but he wasn’t crying or shivering or staring through Ilya like he didn’t exist anymore, so that was definitely progress.

“Good.” Ilya joined him in bed, unsurprised when Shane immediately slumped over to lie against him, taking the opportunity to cup his cheek and kiss his forehead, checking whether his fever had started to wane yet. It hadn’t.

“Tomorrow-” He began again, in a small voice.

“Tomorrow is for tomorrow. We talk in morning.” The blond replied, firmly, staring unwaveringly into his eyes as they drifted closed, as if to scare away the recurring thoughts that were making his boyfriend so anxious.

“Yeah, okay.” Shane finally conceded as his breathing began to deepen, expression slackening as sleep began to take hold on his consciousness again.

Ilya remained sitting up, watching him relax, bit by bit, wanting to make sure he was completely asleep, totally at peace, before he drifted off himself. The total unguarded lethargy in his expression was somewhat arresting, the Russian realised, feeling like he was privileged to be privy to the sickness that was visible up so close. The way his mouth was slightly cracked, and he seemed to be alternating between sucking in raspy breaths between his chapped lips, and inhaling stuffily through his nose. The slight flush high on his cheeks that appeared to be fading now as the medicine began to work, making the similar flush on his nose that much more stark in contrast. The puffiness around his eyes from crying and the lack of rest, eyelashes clinging together in small clusters like the bristles of a damp paintbrush. He really was beautiful. Like this and always.

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

Oh. Apparently, Shane had been carried to bed. 

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

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

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

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

“Hhehh… Hh’huuuh…” 

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

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

“HhEHH—“

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

“Shane?”

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

“Hh’hh’heh’ISSHOO!” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ubm… Sick,” he admitted uncertainly.  

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

Shane blinked, and Ilya waited.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Put your arms up,” Ilya said softly.

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

“Hh’ISSH’ehw!” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Huh’ISHHuh—‘TSH’uh!”

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

“Have to sneeze?” 

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

“HH’ISHHoo—ISHH’uhh!” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Feels so good,” he muttered drowsily. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, again.” 

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

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

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

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

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

“You… I, umbb…” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, good idea.”

“Ten boxes of tissues, yes?”

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

“You sound so bad, Shane.” 

“You soud worse.” 

Ilya raised a brow. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shane answered with another sneeze. 

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

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

“Mbiso,” he croaked. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?” Shane mumbled around toothpaste foam.

“You are very cute when sick.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It felt deeply pathetic, but also incredibly effective. 

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

“Hh-hIIH!”

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

“Hhgh’SHHoo!”

Yeah, that fucking hurt. 

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

“Hh’GSHHiuh!”

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

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

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

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

“Come here.”

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

Shane let out a low, appreciative groan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hh’ISHHuhh!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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