here for the sneezing

The locker room was mayhem. It was always mayhem, but when you tended to be at the heart of it, it was easy to miss just how rowdy the team got.

Ilya ducked under a balled up jersey, which had clearly been aimed at someone else, making his way to the showers. His whole body ached, a sensation that usually waited until the morning after an intense game to awaken, but seemed eager to jump the gun this time.

With a sigh that he couldn't even hear echo off the tile because of the ricocheting yelled conversations and thrumming music emanating from who knew where, he turned on the closest shower and shoved his face under the spray, shuddering at the warmth.

Ilya scrubbed half-heartedly at his body as more of the Centaurs filtered through to shower, letting the hot water relax his muscles and the steam start to shift the congestion that was definitely contributing to his headache. As his nose started to run, he sniffled, tipping his head down to stare at the drain, nostrils flaring.

“hhKh! hKK! hKKh! Kkh!-”

“Here he goes again. Bless you, cap.” Someone in an adjoining shower offered. His teammates were used to his fits by now, not that that meant that Ilya had acclimated to them being used to it.

“-KSH! hKSH! hKSHuh! hAHKSHh! hhAHSHHoO!” The sneezes quickly became more productive, mucus dripping from his face into the drain. Ilya pinched his nostrils one at a time, head still bowed, blowing his nose unashamedly into his hand before letting the water wash it away. Ugh.

A different, less amused voice sounded, “That’s fucking disgusting, Rozy.”

Ilya chose not to reply, moving further forwards to let the water run over the back of his neck, coughing downwards at his chest as his eyes drifted shut.

“-sick or something?”

“-gives a fuck, we won babey!”

Ilya caught snatches of the conversations around him as he let the water wash away the sweat and exhaustion and ache. He could have stood there until the end of time, until his whole body had been washed in little bits down the drain, but eventually he remembered that this was not their arena, and somewhere Shane’s parents were probably waiting for him. He still hadn’t really made a decision on their offer. Fuck.

He got out and dry, dodging the various clusters of overhyped players discussing post-game plans, grabbing his phone and scrolling through the significant number of messages Shane had sent him over the course of the final period. Most were about the game, or encouragement for how well he was doing, or passed-along updates from the Canadian’s parents. A few caught his eye.

JANE: did you just cough on that guy who checked you? he’s like 130 pounds, if he catches that he might die.

JANE: I hate to tell you but they aired a shot of you hiding in the tunnel. I think they think you’re crying? Which you’re obviously not. Bless you, by the way.

JANE: Mom said she’ll park close-ish to your exit if you want a ride to the hotel to grab your stuff? Or just in general? No pressure.

JANE: I wish I was there to take care of you. Fuck Florida.

Ilya swallowed against the lump of anxiety and resentment in his throat, wishing he had Shane here too, wishing no one knew he was sick, wishing he could go and hole himself up in the hotel room until his roommate stumbled in drunk and chirped him for being no fun and going to bed early like an old man.

YOU: ride is good. tell her thank you.

YOU: fuck florida.

…

Ilya sniffled, trudging out into the rain with his hood up, scanning the street parking for Shane's parents’ car. The glistening wet concrete reflected the cars and passers-by upside down, every movement in his vision mirrored confoundingly, and the wind blew cold droplets of rain into his face, disorienting him. He'd been looking for almost two minutes, the tightness of frustration beginning to swell in his chest, when a man on the street corner caught his eye.

He was holding an umbrella, and silhouetted by passing headlights, face obscured by the angle and the rain. But he was the only person standing still, and Ilya could recognise the stance and build easily, the image of the man’s outline branded in his head from their first encounter. He started towards him, picking up his pace to avoid being recognised.

When he'd almost reached the street corner, the man started walking. Ilya tailed him for two blocks, alternating between glancing up to check his position, and down to keep the rain out of his face, staring at his blurred reflection in the slick sidewalk until they reached a familiar vehicle.

Ilya got into the back without a moment’s hesitation, pushing his hood down and swiping lingering rain drops from his forehead.

“Hi Ilya.” Yuna appraised him in the rear view mirror as David got into the passenger side, folding his umbrella down. “Sorry we couldn't park any closer.”

“Is ok. Thank you for ride.”

“Of course. Did you decide if you want to head back to Ottawa with us tonight?”

“Yes, please.” He hated owing people things, and this felt horribly like a debt building up that he’d be wondering how to pay off for years to come. But he needed out of here, he needed to get home.

“Ok honey, we'll take you to the hotel so you can get your things. Well done for the win, by the way.”

“Thank you. Was not good game.” He knew she was thinking it, and saw no reason not to address that. He knew he’d played like shit, and they knew why, so there was little point in tiptoeing around the issue

“Maybe not your best, but you don't have to be the best to beat Toronto right now.”

They both laughed, only one of them with teeth gritted. Ilya blinked in the beat of silence that came after, wondering if he should say something else. He didn’t particularly want to, but it was polite to make conversation, no?

Luckily, Yuna had apparently been waiting the entire game to voice her opinion, and continued, “And that second goal! Plenty of guys in the league could benefit from a bit of that power and speed on a shot.”

“Mm.” The captain winced, a pang of guilt washing over him at the vivid memory of his mindset when he'd been in the process of smacking the puck over the goal line.

“We don't have to talk about hockey if you don't want to, you know.” David said, with a glance over his shoulder, clearly feeling like the kid might need an out from the topic of conversation.

“No, is ok.” Ilya bit his tongue for a second to keep from continuing ‘I don't remember much about the game anyway, so it’s good to go over it’. “You watched Shane play yesterday?” That was a game he actually recalled.

“Of course. That was another one where the refs were…” Yuna trailed off meaningfully.

“It was barely checking, yes.” The Russian nodded, swiping at his nose as he watched the traffic move slowly, red lights snaking ahead of them. “Bad call.”

The two continued to talk hockey until they pulled into the hotel parking lot, Ilya strategically blotting his dripping nose with the cuff of his hoodie to keep himself from sniffling or making more of a mess of himself on the short journey.

“Take the umbrella,” David turned as the car slowed, passing it in between the seats to him, “Don't want you getting any more soaked than you already are.”

“Thank you.”

“I’d change out of those wet clothes as well,” Yuna called, running a hand through her hair calmly, as she put the car in park, and turned to glance over his damp demeanour.

“Okay.”

He didn’t really care about dry clothes, and, had it not been suggested to him, he probably wouldn’t have changed. He couldn’t let himself crave the warmth and comfort of dry clothes and a good meal, and other things that Shane probably wanted for him, the Canadian’s parents too most likely. All Ilya wanted, all he would recognise that he wanted right now, was to keep himself together. And a cigarette. And to punch someone in the face. Or be punched in the face. Maybe both. Something that would sate the dissatisfied anger at himself that stuck thornily in his chest.

He stepped out into the rain again, opening the umbrella and heading for the hotel entrance, tensing his muscles the whole way so he wouldn't shiver until he was out of sight. He looked pathetic enough already.

…

The hotel was warm, warmer than the car, and definitely warmer than the sheets of biting cold rain that seemed intent on finding their way to soak him to the skin in spite of the umbrella. Ilya kept his sleeve pressed to the base of his nose, a passive defence against the temperature change, as he walked through the lobby and entered the elevator, nodding his gratitude to the woman already in there, who’d put her hand in the door to keep it open for him.

“What floor?”

“Six please.” His voice was gravelly from the mucus draining down his throat, and he slumped into a corner of the elevator, trying to seem less menacing.

“It's miserable out there. Makes me a little sniffly sometimes too.” She smiled kindly and Ilya squinted amicably back, his mouth hidden behind his sleeve still as he wished for a hole to open up in the elevator floor to drop him into the shaft. He was not ‘a little sniffly’ because it was raining, he was drowning in his own mucus because he’d just played the world’s most mediocre game of hockey with what was starting to feel like the flu. Still, he’d rather she thought him shy and sniffly than some kind of imminent threat to her existence.

“Have a good night.” He offered awkwardly as he stepped out. It took everything in him not to run down the corridor, overwhelmed by discomfort and wanting to be alone for a single. fucking. second.

As the door to his room shut behind him, Ilya tore off his hoodie, suddenly burning hot in the room he'd been convinced he was freezing to death in a little over 12 hours ago. He stumbled into the bathroom, dropping the discarded clothing on the floor, pulling toilet paper from the dispenser and enveloping his nose.

He blew hard, coughing through his next fractured inhale, fumbling for more and repeating the process. It seemed like a Sisyphean task, like his sinuses housed infinite amounts of mucus, and no amount of blowing would ever clear them out again. The fourth blow brought something different at least, triggering a burning itch that drew sharply on half of his face muscles, forming a ticklish snarl that he could only feel. Ilya’s breath caught and he braced himself on the counter, glancing up briefly at his tortured expression in the mirror before his head snapped down again.

“hKK! Kkh! KKh! hHKH! hKSH!-”

Ilya moaned between hitches, sweaty palms slipping on the faux marble, crashing down to rest his head on his forearms as the world spun dizzily around him and tears leaked from his eyes at the intensity of the ache in his sinuses.

“hKKSH! KSH! hKSHhuh! hihKSH! hhIH…HRSHH!” The sensation of the spray ricocheting back up off the countertop to hit him in the face was hardly pleasant, his fever-tenderised skin prickling at the pressurised rushes of air in a diminished echo of the feeling of the wind-guided rain smacking him in the face.

Once he'd suitably made a mess of himself, and the counter, the blond raised his head, swaying slightly as he moved over to the sink, flipping the faucet on and clumsily washing his face clean. He splashed some water over the countertop too, grabbing a towel from the rack to dry both of them off.

They’re waiting. Come on. Ilya walked through into the bedroom again, grabbing his bag and shoving the few items he'd unpacked back in, as he extricated a random hoodie and sweatpants and stripped down to pull them on. Then he dumped his bag by the door, veering back into the bathroom again, picking up his original hoodie, with a sniffle, frowning at the inculpatory dampened sleeves and, after barely a moment's consideration, burying his face into the chest.

He blew extensively, glad to be able to empty his sinuses into something that didn't dissolve in between his fingers. A few breathy coughs and a barely intelligible curse word later he was sneezing again.

“hKH! hKKh! Kkh! hKSH! KSH! KSH! hihHKSH! hiHMPH! mMPH! hHRSHHoo!”

It felt odd to resurface into echoey silence, just the whirring of the extractor fan and the ringing in his ears, so, for a reason he couldn't entirely pin down, Ilya cleared his throat and spoke to the empty room, “Bless mbe.”

With a sniffle and a smirk at his own absurdity, he balled up and tossed the hoodie back into his bag, giving the room a once over as he picked it up, and zipped it up.

…

The rain was even harder when he left again, battering the umbrella, the bag in his other hand, and his lower legs as he jogged to the car.

David looked over his shoulder as Ilya got in. “Did you get everything?”

“Yes, thank you.” He folded the umbrella and dropped it in the footwell, dropping his bag in the one on the opposite side.

“Alright, let's get going.” The car started to pull out of the parking space, Ilya glancing back up at the hotel as they left, thinking guiltily of his team trying to organise their own exit the next day. They’d be fine. There were plenty of other people to keep the players in line and on time. That didn’t really make him feel much better.

“It'll be a long drive, so call out if you want to stop to get food or go to the bathroom or anything.” Yuna added

“Okay.” He said quietly. He wasn't really hungry. He wasn't really anything right now except trying to remember if he'd played well enough at the game. If he'd spoken to the team afterwards like he was supposed to. If he'd left anything at the rink. The whole day was a fucking blur.

They drove in silence for a few minutes until David put the radio on. Ilya took the cover of the music as an opportunity to sniffle softly against his nose protesting to the change in temperature again.

Before long they were on the interstate, brake lights blurring in front of Ilya’s eyes as he stared mindlessly out of the windshield from the backseat. A buzzing sensation had him swiping at his nose with the back of his hand, the fits at the hotel apparently only having tided it over for so long. He really didn't want to sneeze in the car. He wanted to melt into the backseat and wait for them to get to his place.

But his nose would not be denied, no matter how much he internally pleaded with it. A memory conveniently appeared in his mind, Shane with a miserable cold, trying to be quiet while Ilya fucked him in his hotel room, one thin wall separating them from the Russian’s teammates. He remembered Shane pinching his nose, jolting with silenced sneezes. Ilya remembered other things about that night, the way the curbed convulsions had run through his whole body…

That wasn't important right now, though.

“h—! —! hH—!” Ilya kept his lips pressed together, keeping the initial sneezes silent as coughs in the back of his throat. The itch flared. He pinched his nose, high on the bridge, where cartilege met bone. “hHPGKK!” Pain erupted through his face and his ears popped. Ilya instinctively let go of his face, reeling slightly, helpless to silence the next ones, “hKSH-KSHuh!”

Though every muscle in his body was tensed in apprehension against it, Yuna’s voice rang out over the music anyway. “Bless you.”

Ashamed, he pinched his nose again, adjusting his grip this time so as not to direct the pressure straight into his sinuses. “hiHNGK! HNGKK!”

The music faded as someone reached out and turned the radio down.

“Everything alright back there?” David asked.

Frantic, Ilya dragged the collar of his hoodie over his face.

“hKSH! kSH! kKH! hNGK! hkSH-KSH! hRSHh! hhHKSH-KSH-SHh! hNGk!- ”

“I'm going to pull over.”

“N-hKSH!-no.” He almost whimpered, uncharacteristically plaintive, though the assertion hadn’t been directed at him.

“It’s alright, son, there’s a rest stop just here. We would have stopped anyway.” David reassured him, though Ilya was mostly reassured by the fact that he didn’t sound like he’d turned around to look at the captain as he’d spoken.

“-hKSHuh! hIHSHHuh! hHRSHh! HRSHHuh! hrRSHHH! AHKSHhOo!” If his eyes were full of tears at the end of the fit, it was certainly just the exertion of it all, buried in the neck of his hoodie, chest aching, nose stinging, hardly able to draw a full breath.

“Bless you, hon. There are some tissues on the seat next to you. We’re heading inside, be back in a little bit.” Yuna didn’t wait for an answer, or what Ilya was actually going to offer- an apology- the sound of her door shutting punctuating the sentence, the passenger side door echoing it a few seconds after.

He waited a minute before looking up, finding himself alone in the car, and a box of tissues on the seat beside him. Where on earth had she gotten a full box of tissues? He didn’t care, tugging several loose and ducking forward between his knees to blow forcefully.

The silence once he’d finished rang out loud and lonely, Ilya busily stuffing all the used tissues into the pocket of his hoodie, to be thrown away once he got out. A buzz from his bag on the other side of the car snapped his head up, though. Oh fuck. Shane.

He hadn’t messaged his boyfriend since the locker room, having entirely forgotten the miracle of modern communication that was the smartphone sitting at the bottom of his duffel bag in favour of staring blankly out the window at the journey passing.

Ilya lunged across the car, crumpled tissues decamping the pocket they’d just been stuffed into and scattering across the backseat. He had a lot of missed texts. And two calls.

JANE: Dad told me you’re with them, heading back to Ottawa. That’s good. Call me when you get home :)

JANE: Did you guys pick up food? Please tell me you’ve eaten.

JANE: Is your phone dead?

JANE: Are you fucking dead?

And many more along those lines. Ilya cursed his own absent mindedness, thumbing out a reply.

YOU: sorry. everything is fine.

YOU: didn’t get food yet

YOU: phone was in bag

YOU: call you later love you

Phone in hand, he swept up the armful of escapee tissues and got out of the car, jogging to the closest trash can to throw them away- and keeping a very tight grip on his phone because he currently felt the kind of tired where it would be easy to muddle up a phone and a crumpled used tissue- and then back to the car, head ducked despite the relative darkness of the parking lot, desperate to remain unrecognised.

…

A short five minutes later, still scrolling guiltily through missed texts, Ilya looked up as the doors opened and Shane's parents got back in.

“Here.” Yuna turned around to face him, handing him a bottle of water from a plastic bag that she then handed off to David, discerning gaze fixed on her son's boyfriend.

“Thanks.” He took the water, opening the cap and taking a few awkward sips.

“Are you hungry, hon? We're going through the drive-thru on the way out, so we can pick you something up, if you want.”

Ilya opened his mouth to say no, his phone interrupting him with a pointed buzz.

JANE: Please eat. You'll feel better. I love you too.

“I’m… a little hungry.”

“Alright-” Yuna started talking to her husband about what possible menu items might be available at the fast food place that might actually do Ilya some good, but he was lost to the ominous clicking of the pressure shifting in his sinuses. “-t do you think, Ilya?”

“hh-sorry- h—! hH—! —! hHNGK!” He ducked into his shirt, hiding his face as he kept his lips pressed tightly shut against the cough-sneezes again, quickly gripping his nose the second they threatened to become anything more. In the short gap afforded to him by the cutoff of oxygen he heard a snippet of the front seat conversation.

“-okay?”

“Shane said it’s always like this.”

“hHPKK!” His ears popped and he winced. How the fuck did Shane do this? “hhIHNGK!”

“Uh-uh. No. Ilya.” He could hear Yuna turning around in her seat again, though his head stayed ducked.

“hHNGKUh!”

“You’ve gotta let them out, honey. Please.”

At this point the pain and embarrassment were motivation enough to comply with her request. The Russian shifted his hand so it was merely holding the hoodie over his face, rather than pinching it. “hKSH! KSH! hKSHuh! hAHKSH! hRSHHOo!”

“Bless you.” Shane’s parents echoed in unison, someone, probably Yuna, patting his knee gently in praise for not accidentally making his own sinuses implode.

“Thank you.” Ilya muttered thickly, snagging a tissue from the box by his side and ducking down further to wipe his nose.

As they started to pull out of the parking spot, Yuna caught his eye in the rear-view mirror. “You really shouldn’t hold them in like that. It’s not doing you any good.”

“Shane does it.” The blond responded petulantly.

“He does?” David glanced over his shoulder, surprised. Shit. Why had he said that?

“Sometimes.” He wondered if he should walk back the statement entirely.

“Never in front of me.” Yuna frowned, Ilya watching her brow furrow in the mirror. “Actually I can’t remember the last time I saw him sneeze.”

Ilya could. But he wouldn’t mention that. Instead he busied himself getting his phone out and texting Shane to apologise for outing him.

YOU: sorry. I tell your parents things.

He couldn’t really think of how to describe the conversation they’d just had, so he stared blankly at the screen, watching the three dots bounce as they pulled up to the drive thru.

JANE: Like what?

YOU: that you sneeze very quietly. it is harder than it looks.

JANE: Why are you telling my parents that?? Wtf are you guys talking about?

“Ilya, bud, do you want soup? They have soup still. Or a sandwich or something?”

“Uh-” Why the fuck did a fast food place sell soup? In the middle of the night? What the fuck, Canada? “A sandwich.”

In a haze of looking between his phone and the front seat and entirely too many questions for a meal he was just desperate to get inside him- because now that he was thinking about it he was very hungry actually- they were through the drive thru. Ilya blinked at the paper bag being handed to him, taking it and peering in. He couldn’t even remember what kind of sandwich he’d gone for, all he knew was it was hot and it was food and it smelled really good.

He devoured that, and the potato wedges, and the doughnut he wasn’t sure he’d asked for, following it up with some kind of tea that he definitely hadn’t asked for, but felt incredible on his throat regardless. Blinking sleepily at his phone, the Russian typed out a quick message.

YOU: got food. was good. still driving

Ilya had no idea where they were, so that would have to suffice as an update for Shane.

Lulled by the repetitive beat of the windshield wipers, and the rain pattering on the roof of the car, Ilya let his head slump against the window. Even with the cool glass pressing against his temple, he felt just a little too hot to be comfortable. Barely awake, he slipped an ever-cold hand under his hoodie, brushing his icy fingertips across his chest and over his sternum, soothed by the goosebumps that sprouted in the wake of his movement.

And before his phone could even buzz with the reply his boyfriend had no doubt sent immediately, he was halfway into slumber.

…

“Rozanov. Rozanov!”

“What?”

“It's your fucking shift dude.”

“Shit.”

Bleary-eyed- had he been sleeping on the bench? How?- Ilya stumbled up and vaulted the boards, scouring for the puck. He couldn't see it anywhere, and the other players, seemingly innumerable,- how was this not too many men on the ice?- were moving fast and unpredictably in all directions.

He skated out to centre ice, spinning dizzily, searching for the puck. Come on, get it together. They’re counting on you.

Out of nowhere a shoulder hit his sternum with a sharp flash of pain that knocked all the air out of his lungs, and caught a glimpse as he stumbled, of Shane, jaw set in anger, unremorseful as Ilya fell down face-first on the ice. Why? What had he done?

The freezing surface pressed against his face, his chest, his hands- where were his gloves?- and he shivered, too cold and too tired to get up. The Canadian’s assault had wiped the last of the fighting spirit from his system. Ilya stared at the skate marks etched in the white surface, watched as his hot tears fell and melted tiny dips in the ice. That was the only impact he could make here it seemed. That was his only legacy. And it would be gone as soon as they ran the Zamboni over. Faintly he heard voices from above him.

“Is he asleep still?”

“He looks it, but he's shivering pretty hard. Poor kid.”

“It must be his teeth chattering that I've been hearing. I'd turn the heat up but it's fairly high already.”

“He's probably feverish.”

“I’ll pull over at the next stop to check.”

None of the words made any sense to the captain, intercut with the whoosh of passing skates and some song playing constantly over the speakers that he couldn’t place, but found annoying regardless.

“Roz. You’ve gotta get up. We’re losing.” Marleau’s voice. He did have to get up. He was being fucking useless.

The humming that he’d barely noticed buzzing in his ears stopped, along with the music. The ice went dark in front of his face, whether they’d turned the lights off, or he was surrounded by people, he couldn’t tell. Ilya curled in on himself, praying they’d keep playing around him as he fused with the ice, becoming one with it, the cold spreading through his body.

“Vstavay! Tebe ne stydno prosto lezhat?” The voice hit like a puck to the chest and Ilya’s heart skipped a beat. No. Why was he here? How was he here?

Before he could begin to get up, there was a click and the ice was falling away from under him, a black abyss in its place.

“No. No-”

“Mmno.” Strong hands caught him, holding him upright as a blast of cool air hit him and he looked up blurrily into a face he remembered, but couldn’t name.

“Sorry to wake you, I didn’t realise you were leaning on the door, honey. Can I take your temperature?”

“Mm.” He blinked, thinking back to the game. They were losing, wasn’t that what Marleau had said? He needed to get back out there. But he opened his mouth anyway, accommodating the thermometer that was placed into it.

Patiently awaiting the reading, Ilya let himself get lost in the glowing lights he could see through the darkness. His mind had stopped trying to explain where he was or how he was going to get back to the ice, settling for a fuzzy serenity that things seemed to be alright for now, and weren’t the neon lights pretty?

A repetitive beeping interrupted his train of thought, the captain looking around instinctively for some sort of phone or alarm clock, until gentle fingers removed the culprit from his mouth. Ah. It had been right under his nose all along.

Ilya laughed quietly, slumping to one side as he let his eyes drift shut again in the wake of- his alarm? Was that what he’d just done, turned his alarm off? Probably.

“39.6? There’s no way we can leave him alone like this. I doubt he’s even lucid enough to remember his own address.”

“You want to take him home with us?”

“I’d just feel better knowing he’s got someone keeping an eye on him, you know? Until Shane or the rest of his team gets back.”

“Shanee.” Ilya slurred, delight swirling in his chest at the mention of his boyfriend.

“That’s right, hon. Do you want to come back to ours tonight? You can facetime Shane, we just want to make sure you get back safely.”

“Mm-” He wasn’t totally sure what he was being asked, or by whom, but they’d mentioned Shane and that seemed like enough of an incentive. “-okay.”

“Alright, then. We’re not too far out now.” Too far from where, again?

His unasked question went, unsurprisingly, unanswered, as firm hands moved him back to sit upright, and, once he was stable, vanished again. There was a soft thud, then several other noises he couldn’t place, and then he was slumping back down, to meet the cold embrace of the ice again.

Ilya wondered if he’d fallen unconscious, and hallucinated the lights and the voices and the hands. He hoped not. They’d sounded nice. Faintly, the music and humming began again, the ice starting to vibrate beneath his cheek. Ilya crinkled his nose as the buzzing spread across his face.

“hKH! KKh! KSH! hKSH! hKSHUH! hKSH! hhIH-ksh!”

He faintly heard a couple of people say ‘bless you’, but their voices were lost to Marleau’s again. “You’re a fucking mess, man.”

Ilya adjusted his position against the window, unconsciously muttering aloud “Zatknis, Marly.”

…

When he awoke, it was to silence. Ilya blinked sleep encrusted eyes open at the vacated interior of the car, the only sound his own rasping breathing. A sudden tap on the window under his head made him spring away from the glass, eyes wide as Yuna opened the door.

“We’re here. Do you need help getting out?”

“No, thank you. We are where?” He asked thickly, too tired to recognise his surroundings.

“Back at our place, remember? You said it was alright to bring you here, since you were too feverish to be left alone.” Her cool palm pressed against his forehead. “You most likely still are. We can check again in a minute. For now, let’s get you inside.”

“Mmokay.” Ilya wasn’t totally sure that this was the agreement they’d made back in… back in… Toronto, right, but he was perfectly content for Yuna to take charge. If not her, then who? He most certainly wasn’t coherent enough to decide what to do with himself.

So, following her direction, he clambered out of the car, stretching in the cool night air. David stood ahead of them on the path to the house, holding Ilya’s bags. Yuna shut the car door behind him, patting him encouragingly on the back before making her way down the path too.

Ilya started after her, sniffling in greedy breaths of the deliciously fresh and cold air. Ugh, he was too hot again. Before he could catch up with either of his hosts, though, his insatiable desire to fill his lungs with crisp Canadian oxygen came back to bite him. The Russian crinkled his nose, slowing to a stop.

“hhih…hhH…hhUHh…hhih…hih…”

No matter how much he hitched, and gasped, and squeezed his eyes shut in preparation, the sneeze just wouldn’t come, like his body was too tired to go through the full way with the reflex, every inhale puffing out his aching chest only to have it collapse back in on itself as the payoff failed to come.

“…hihH…hh…hUhh…hhHh…”

“He’ll pass out if he keeps that up.” He heard Yuna say tersely, both parents apparently having stopped to watch his involuntary histrionics.

“hhhihh…hAHKCHOO!” Despite having an excessive amount of warning, he was still taken by surprise, snapping forward into hoodie sleeve covered hands with a single sneeze that dragged all the breath from his lungs, pulled him a few involuntary steps forwards, and made his abdomen ache, lightheadedness sweeping over him in its wake as he struggled to muster the energy to breathe in again.

“Bless you. Just the one this time.” David commented casually, as Ilya straightened up, blinked dizzily, and then started walking again. Yuna was nowhere to be seen, apparently tired of waiting for them and having disappeared into the house.

“Thank you.” He said, distantly, some exhaustion-muddled part of his brain wondering if he’d left the rest of the sneezes behind somewhere, almost turning to look for them before a guiding hand took him by the shoulder and led him towards the front door.

…

A hundred games, half dreamt, half passed, played in flashes in Ilya’s mind. He furrowed his brow against the onslaught, unable to elicit the game he’d just played for dissection. Had they won? Lost? Had he scored? He usually scored. Fuck, what if he hadn’t scored? Who had they even played? If he couldn’t remember it, chances were it had gone badly, right?

“I’ll just take your temperature, and then we can see about some food and medicine.” Yuna sat down beside him on the couch and tapped the device gently against the Russian’s lips, indicating he should open up, “It’s getting late, so it will be something simple. Maybe that pasta that you like? Oh, and Shane’s pretty insistent on-”

Ilya’s nostrils twitched, and his eyelids fluttered forebodingly. Yuna unconsciously reached up from steadying the thermometer and tapped on the bridge of his nose, disheartening the impending sneeze.

“-getting some miso soup into you, so there’ll be that as well.”

The blond stared at her, eyes wide. She had so effortlessly managed to tame his nose in a way that no one, not even himself, had ever, even under the threat of…well, many things, been able to before. What power did Shane’s mother hold in her fingertips?

“Does that sound good, Ilya?”

He nodded, the thermometer beeping the moment his head stilled again, prompting him to cross his eyes to try and stare at the number. It hurt, and he couldn’t read it, but it made Yuna laugh, and Ilya smile, so there was no real loss.

“And then you can call Shane and let him know all about the journey.”

“Shane.” Ilya repeated, reverently, missing the endeared smile that she sent him, eyes unfocused over her shoulder as he visualised his boyfriend’s soft smile, sleep-smothered, lovingly broadcast in no more than 300 pixels, courtesy of shitty hotel Wi-Fi.

“38.9. That’s better, but still not good.”

The captain frowned at that. Not good. Where had he been at with those games again?

“Not to worry. A little meal and some medicine, and you’ll feel better.”

…

The next hour passed in a blur of blankets, a game on the TV that he kept losing track of, an environmentally dubious amount of tissues, pasta that tasted like heaven, soup that tasted like soybeans, and medicine that tasted like Shane had recently relayed his boyfriend’s strong preferences for liquid cold medicine to his parents.

And then he was too tired to sit and make niceties, or to follow the conversation, or to stop himself from curling forward in his chair like a shrimp, and Yuna’s cool fingers were on his forehead again.

“Do you want to head to bed, honey?”

He nodded, a hundred apologies and acknowledgements of their sacrificed evening, and food, and guest room, and most likely health, crowding for space on the tip of his tongue. But he could say nothing, cracked lips so tightly sealed that they may as well never have been separate at all.

“Do you know where you’re going?”

No. He nodded.

“Alright, well- goodnight.”

“Sleep well, kid.”

He pushed himself up from the table, giving an absolutely unnecessary little bow to save himself from having to speak, and stumbled off into the hallway.

Ilya stood for a second, or a minute, or ten, trying to remember the way down the hall to bed. He was far too hot, and that was the only thing his brain would tell him currently, a flashing error window that made it hard to see any of the other tabs he’d had open behind it.

It was so hot that it was almost hard to- no it was hard to breathe. He heaved hollowly, vaguely aware of a numbness spreading over him. Sleep? Was he in bed already?

And then, with a crash, he was on his hands and knees on the floor. Ilya winced, his palms smarting and shoulders aching from the impact. It felt like nothing had ever been so loud.

“You alright?”

There were hurried footsteps behind him and then a hand on his back.

“What happened?” David asked gently.

“I'm sorry.” He muttered, not realising that tears were flowing down his cheeks until he had to sniffle to stop them from coming out of his nose. The pain of rending his lips apart to speak swelled and fused with the countless other excruciations that the fall had awoken. He tasted blood.

“Is he okay?” Yuna called, following her husband into the hall. “Oh Ilya, honey.”

He shrunk into himself, ducking his head down. Idiot. Get off the floor. What was he, a dog?

“Let's get you into bed, alright?” She stroked his hair, a ministration that made the blond feel half comforted, half even more like a canine.

Ilya shook his head, declining the help, declining the hospitality, declining the assertion that any of this was ‘alright’.

“No? Are you still dizzy? We can help you.” David offered.

Ilya sat back on his haunches, tears slowing, swaying slightly as he struggled to translate his thoughts. “I shouldn't be here. I'm sorry.”

Yuna clicked her tongue, “And where else should you be, exactly? Because I'm hard pressed to think of anywhere else in the world where you can have two people who love you and won't judge you look after you like this.”

“You shouldn't have to. It’s not fair.” His voice was thick with congestion and his accent was strengthened by the exhaustion and the fever, the way it always was when his mind reverted to Russian mode only. He sounded like some kind of Slavic amphibian and, had Shane been there, he definitely would have pointed that out. But he wasn't there. So why was Ilya?

“We want to. We care about you.” David's hand was firm and strong on his shoulder. It wasn't a warning the way his father's hand used to be, it was a reassurance. “You're our kid, Ilya.”

“I fucked up the game.”

“No, you didn’t.” There wasn’t an ounce of mollification in her words, almost a hint of offense as though he thought he could slip the insult of his own performance, and her scrutiny of it, by her. “Not by any real, important metric. And even if you had,” She emphasized, making pointed ‘See, I’m trying.’ eye contact with her husband, “it wouldn’t have been on purpose, and we are the last people on Earth who’d judge you over it. We know how good you are, Ilya. And we love you besides that, not because of it.”

The captain was miles away from his body right now, hearing the speech in slurred slow motion. So when his breath hitched, he heard it rather than felt it, assuming he was going to start crying again.

“hKH! Kkh! hKKh!-” His eyes widened, dulled reflexes catching on only after the first three sneezes, dragging his shirt up over his nose and ducking forcefully into himself, braced on each side by Shane's parents’ hands.

“-hKKh! hKSH! KSHuh! hKSHuh! hhIH…hhHKSH! hKksh! hSHhoo!” The cool spray felt sinfully good on his burning hot chest, but he was too tired to put any of his usual force behind the expulsions.

“Bless you, bless you darling.” Long fingers carded through his sweat drenched hair.

“Mne zhal. I’m sorry.” Ilya coughed hard into his shirt, static blurring his vision.

“Woah, woah, breathe, kid. In and out.”

Ilya felt it wash over him all at once. This sudden surrender. He felt the tension, the awkwardness, the anxiety drop away. Like he’d finally made it home after a long day. Like he was safe. The danger of discovery he’d felt as the concerned gazes roved his broken body became the recompense of recognition. He was suffering and they knew it. And they cared. They wanted to stop it for his sake, not their own.

Tears flooded his cheeks again, and this time he made no attempt to bite back the shaky breaths that regulated his pain. He was so relieved at the chance to drop the burdensome pretences he’d been keeping up for days, the anxiety that he didn’t belong here that had been lingering in his stomach for years, that he didn’t notice his phone buzzing in his pocket until it was being gently removed.

“Hi, Shane.” He heard Yuna say in a low voice. Shane. “No, he’s okay, we’re just dealing with something right now. Can you call back in a bit?”

The captain couldn’t bring himself to care that his boyfriend could probably hear him crying in the background, because it felt really, really good to cry. Like he was finally draining a reservoir of emotions he hadn’t noticed building in his chest until it started to overflow. The ache seeping out of him, saturating every teardrop, almost making him believe that he’d be perfectly healthy when the tears stopped. Like all the bad in his body was being purged.

It took several minutes for him to finish crying, sitting there on his knees in the dim glow of the hallway, warm lamplight glinting off the tear tracks as he raised his head to blink dewy glazed-over eyes at his observers.

Yuna smiled at him, concern drawing her eyebrows up slightly in a way that would have panicked Ilya at any moment before that one, but instead grounded him, like a kettlebell on his chest. You’re home. You’re safe. You’re cared for.

“Do you feel better?” She asked gently.

“Yes. Thank you.” Ilya’s distant stare drifted away, out of focus as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I love you guys.”

“We love you too, kid.” David’s hand was still strong and firm on his shoulder.

Yuna reached out to smooth Ilya’s curls back from his forehead, cool fingers bringing relief to his scalding hot skin. “We do. So much. We’re so glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” The blond shut his eyes, leaning into her touch, hardly noticing when his other anchor disappeared, until the ministrations stopped and he opened his eyes to see a glass of cool water and a box of tissues being held out to him.

“Here. Drink a little, and we can see about getting you to bed.”

Ilya scrubbed at his face with a tissue, cleaning the tear tracks as best he could. It came away tinged with blood from his ruptured lips. He tried not to stare at it, fumbling for another to blow his nose, and then gulping down half of the water, a gratifying defence against the boiling fire that felt like it was raging inside of him still.

“Up we get.” They hoisted him to his feet, stumbling their way down the hall to the guest bedroom.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, he flopped onto the bed, staring at the ceiling for a moment before Yuna tapped his leg as a signal that he should move so they could get him under the covers. The blond let himself be tucked in, staring adoringly up at Shane’s parents as they helped to get him comfortable, pulling the covers up to his chin, draping a cool damp rag that he hadn’t even noticed anyone leave to retrieve, over his forehead.

“Sleep well, honey. If you need anything, just call out. We’re right down the hall.”

Ilya’s eyes were already closing, drawn into the softness of the pillows, the soothing weight of the comforter, the promise of sleep inarguably imminent. He hummed in confirmation, the sound buzzing with congestion, making his nose crinkle up for a moment.

And then, with a quietly endeared noise from Yuna, and a chuckle from David, they were gone, and the room was dark, and he was alone.

Ilya let himself start to drift off, the ache of malaise in his chest now an odd source of comfort as he knew it would bring the deep slumber of sickness that he so craved after the past few sleep-deprived days.

He could hear Yuna and David talking distantly in the other room, and suddenly he felt like a child again. Helpless and confused, tucked up sick in bed listening to his parents in the hallway outside. But the conversation lulling him to sleep now was in English, not Russian, and though he didn’t know the topic, he could tell from the tone that it wasn’t a whispered argument, his illness wasn’t sowing discord in this house, it was a welcome source of connection. And as sleep claimed him, he was relieved to only feel peaceful gratitude, without a trace of apprehensive guilt.

…

Morning, as it was wont to do, greeted Ilya with the bad news before the good. He had precisely one-and-an-eighth eyes open (the other being squished mostly into his pillow), when his lungs decided they would also like to unfurl and greet the day.

He squashed the coughing fit into a fistful of the comforter, feeling the congestion shifting in his chest, where he didn’t remember leaving it yesterday, but it had apparently settled overnight. An encumbered breath through his mouth only served to make him gag, the blond quickly switching to trying to snort in a breath through his nose, which had predictable results,

“hKK! KKh! hKK! H-” Some small, barely awake part of his brain, that tiny bit of him that kept up the hypervigilance even now, flashed a warning as he heard the door to the room open.

“-KSH! hiHKSH! hIhKSH! hKSH! -” Footsteps, and the bed dipped slightly as someone sat down.

“-hHKSHuh! KSHuh! hAHKSH!-” A hand smoothed his tangled curls, stroking the back of his neck.

“-hKSHoo! hhIHKSH! hRSHH! hhRSH! hHRSHHOO!”

“Bless you.”

Ilya’s eyes shot open. No fucking way.

“Shane!” He turned over, floundering in the sweat-slick sheets, pushing himself up to crawl towards his salvation. He’d unconsciously stripped out of his sweats at some point in the night, so now he threw his mostly naked body into the warm, comforting embrace of- the man he was pretty sure he’d forgotten to call last night. Fuck.

“I didn’t call you.” He squinted up at the Canadian’s face.

“And yet here I am.” Shane smiled lovingly at him, missing the implied apology in favor of the more literal interpretation of his words.

“How?” Ilya pushed his face back into his boyfriend’s chest, trying to breathe in his scent, but too congested to do anything more than make pig-like noises into the fabric of his hoodie.

“I got an early flight.” The brunet kissed him atop the head. “Mom said you collapsed.”

The Russian only groaned in response, the memories of the hallway flooding back.

“Ilya? Did you know it was that bad? You were just going to go back to your house, alone. You could have-” Shane caught himself before the worst case scenario he’d been replaying for the entire plane ride left his lips.

Ilya didn’t bother to retrieve it from him, still lost in the hallway from the night before, listening to the speeches his feverish brain had recorded but failed to process until this moment.

“You're our kid, Ilya.”

“We know how good you are, Ilya. And we love you besides that, not because of it.”

Hot tears sprung to his eyes as the true meaning of the words struck him. He sunk into Shane’s lap, suddenly shaking with sobs. Clearly he wasn’t quite out of the woods with this fever yet.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m not angry.” The reconciliation only served to make him cry harder, so full of love and gratitude that it felt like he would come apart at the seams in right there in the guest bed, in the arms of the man he loved.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. Ya tebya lyublyu. Y- aH- Kkh! Kkh! kKh!-”

Dizzily aware that things were about to get messy, and that he was essentially naked and unable to pull enough bedsheets up from under his and Shane’s weight to cover his face, Ilya slipped his hands into the pocket of his boyfriend’s hoodie, steepling them over his face, with the fabric in between.

“-hKKh! KSHh! hKSH! hKSH! hKSHhoo! hKSHh! hhAHSHh! hhrRAHSHHOo!”

“Bless you, bless you. I love you too.” Shane rubbed a supportive hand across Ilya’s shoulder blades.

“Sorry.” He mumbled, face still hidden. But they both heard the apology for what it was. Not a knee-jerk plea against discipline, but a roguish wisecrack at his situation.

“Hey, you still made an effort to cover, that’s progress. Most people use their own clothes, but-” Shane hopped backwards off the bed as Ilya pushed himself up onto all fours, playful frustration in his eyes.

“You-” The Russian broke off coughing, sitting back on his haunches and then folding in on himself as the spasms wracked his body.

When he finally looked up, Shane had slipped out of his hoodie, standing awkwardly shirtless halfway to the door.

“I was going to get water, but I wasn’t sure if you were going to collapse again in my absence-”

Ilya launched himself off the bed towards his boyfriend, Shane taking his weight easily as the blond draped himself over him, headbutting him reproachfully in the chest.

“Shut up.” He panted raspily.

“Alright.” Shane kissed the top of his head again. “Try not to overexert yourself before we’ve even had breakfast. We wouldn’t want you to-”

Ilya pushed him back against the wall, pressing a hand over the Canadian’s mouth and kissing the back of it, as some kind of scientifically unfounded protection against getting the other man sick.

Shane laughed into his boyfriend’s palm. And Ilya felt not derided, but doted-on, adored, valued, special… sick. He felt really fucking sick, still.

By some miracle, he manages to make it home without accidentally sneezing on a fellow commuter. Front door barely shut behind him, he shudders out of his coat and makes a beeline for the bathroom. Stepping in front of the sink, he reluctantly looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. Certainly not a sight to instil confidence. It's worse than he had feared.

The culprit is there on full display, of course, front and center of his tired, bleary-eyed, slightly puffy face. For the past - god, what might it be? Eight hours now, at least? - he has known all too well what it feels like, but it's only now that he's had the chance to actually survey the damage, as it were.

He winces at the sight, but his expression quickly morphes into something less sharp, less intentional. Feeling the dreaded sensation pull at his facial muscles once more, he stubbornly fights to keep his eyes open as his mouth relaxes open and his eyelids droop.

"Huhh..."

The last thing he sees before his eyes fall involuntary shut is the star of this terrible show he has found himself in. His nose. Huge on his face. High in the air from his head tilting back, his nostrils take center stage. Scarlet ovals flared wide open, pulsing impatiently -

"Hh...! Huh...! H'DJSHNXGHiew!"

He sneezes uncovered, straight down toward the sink. Something between a bark and a wet snarl, the sound distinctly angry. He can feel the spray land on his hands that are gripping the sink.

"HEH'DJSCH! HIH'DDJSH! HEH, HEHH, -H'TJJSCHew!"

Horrible, awful, disgusting.

(Bliss.)

Leaning over the sink, shaking his head groggily, twin strings of drool and snot, thin as spider silk, slide from his nose and mouth into the drain. He sniffles, or tries to, and his nose gives a whistling squelch instead. He opens his eyes again, looks up. His gaze flickers across the mirror for a moment, as though searching in there for something other than his own reflection. His eyes soon revert back, however. Drawn by the sheer spectacle.

Fuck, but he looks a mess. His normally immaculate hair is standing every which way, his eyes are puffy pink slits, his lips chapped, his nose painful-looking, so red and inflamed it looks like he's taken a punch to it. He knows that, technically, it can't actually have swollen to twice its normal size, but it certainly feels like it. His nose isn't exactly small to begin with, and with all the rough treatment it's been put through lately... well. It definitely isn't pretty.

Hand not entirely steady, he reaches up against better judgement and touches the tip of his nose. Bright red bulb, shiny with inflammation, too warm to the touch. Itch immediately stirrs inside it, spidering up and down his nasal passages, making his eyes water.

Right. No time to waste.

Blinking hard and scrunching his nose to buy himself some time, he hurriedly reaches into the medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror and pulls out his antihistamine nasal spray.

Bracing himself, he gingerly inserts the nozzle tip into his left nostril, but his nose is already on such high alert that he doesn't have time to press down and release the spray to where it might, hypothetically, do some good. For the second time today, he sneezes full force without so much as a second's warning, a clipped double sneeze that echoes off the tiles in his bathroom. He opens his eyes and meets his own gaze in the mirror again. A look says more than a thousand curse words.

Next try he actually manages to push some spray up there, but again his nose rebels on him, violently evicting the medicine with a sharp "Eh'TDSHHjsh!" before he can contain it.

For fuck's sake.

Attempt number three. This time he pinches his nostrils closed before he can take another breath, squeezing tight as the repressed reaction shakes his diaphragm with strangled little "hdT-!, htTT-!, hdtT-!"-sounding sneezes. The action leaves him dizzy and his eardrums pop, but this time around the medicine stays put. He can't wait for it to start working. Even just the slightest bit of relief would be a massive improvement compared to his current situation. Sensing a small break in the ongoing fit, he lets go of his nose just long enough to push a second dose into his right nostril, then promptly squeezes it shut again. His nostrils twitch in his grip, the sharp menthol-y sting of the medication prickling horribly.

"heh'dt-! eh'dtj-! 'ttdjNXGH!"

Finally daring to loosen his grip of his nose, he looks at his reflection once more and cringes at the sight. Why couldn't he just have... moderate hayfever? Itchy eyes, runny nose, some sneezing here and there. Annoying, sure, inconvenient, absolutely, but not... not this. Not this embarrassing, crippling, dramatic spectacle of an allergy. A nose that demands him to drop everything to deal with its constant temper tantrums at having to breathe a little spring air. Speaking of breathing, his nostrils have begun to twitch again with little fluttering hitches. It's not that his nose has started to tickle again - it never stopped tickling in the first place - but rather that the ever-present irritation spreads and grows in intensity, its crawling, bristling needles of sensation blooming all throughout his nose, hijacking all other mental and physical functions. His breath stutters, his eyes overflow, his face twitches and contorts into all sorts of ridiculous expressions while his hands fan limply at the air in front of his face. For all he knows, the only thing this accomplishes is to waft even more pollen into his nose, but the action is reflexive, barely conscious. His chest heaves and expands, head rearing back, upper lip curling, baring teeth. His nose itches. God, it itches so bad. He wishes he could reach his fingers up there and just scratch, wildly rake his nails across the inside of his nasal passages with complete abandon. It's as if someone has packed his nostrils full to the brim with a mixture of dust, pepper and chili powder, or a million tiny feathers, or the world's most potent itching powder, or...

Or pollen. That hateful, inescapable stuff that seems to coat every surface outside in a powdery film. Just now, when walking up to the house, he had seen it floating on the surface of the rain puddles in his driveway, like watercolor splotches of pale yellow. So much of it. Everywhere. Sticking to everything. His coat, his hair, his eyelashes. Grass. Birch. Oak. Hazel. Riding on the breeze, infiltrating his every breath.

"hihuh... h'hih, hih, huhh...!"

Reddened eyelids drift to half-mast, his gaze goes unfocused, then crossed-eyed. His nostrils spasm fitfully, seeming to flare wider with each consecutive breath until they're gaping open, perfectly circular, frozen in limbo. His head is thrown back, chest straining against his shirt, his lungs full to capacity, his face a cartoonish caricature of an allergy sufferer on the cusp of a truly devastating sneezing fit.

"huhh...! hhHHUH...!"

He can't think for itch. For a brief moment, his entire face seems to consist of itch, his nose its red-hot singularity. Stinging, burning, all-consuming. A crisis of itch.

"-AAHH...!!"

A beat. His body is so ready, so desperate to sneeze that it actually starts the process, producing a half-strangled "AH'DJh-...!" at the back of his throat, but then... it doesn't follow through!? His voice manages a pathetic, whispered "...tsheww"-sound, a toothless imitation of the release he was promised. His entire nose aches with disappointment. Fat, itchy tears spill down his face, adding their salt to the metallic taste in his mouth. Groaning, he grinds the lower part of his palm up against his nose, then again, and again, working the bulbous tip back and forth with aggressive fervor, attempting to ease the itch inside by rubbing his nostrils together. It barely makes a difference, and the screaming tickle high up in his sinuses threatens to drive him mad. He snatches a handful of tissues from the box on the sink and blows for all he is worth, immediately soaking the paper all the way through. Another handful, same result, but the blowing seems to be helping at least a fraction. Gasping and cursing, he buries his nose in a third wad of tissues, massaging the bridge of his nose through the paper all the while, giving a final, resounding blow... one that sets his nasal passages vibrating at just the wrong frequency. The resulting tickle goes off inside his head like a fire bomb:

"AHDTJSHCH-HIH!! -ADTJSCHIH!! -ATJCHIH!! - - - h'ddtjTTJSCHSCHHIIH!-djshIH!dschIH!tjshIH! dtjSHIH! ddtjiSSCHIEW! 'DTJSHIH! -dtsh!-djish!-ddtsch!-tsh!-ttsh!-djshdshtjsh'TTSCHH!!"

Bliss. Torture. Bliss. Torture. The faint flicker of relief each sneeze grants him feels so good, even as the unbearable itch reignites immediately after. Goosebumps break out on his arms and his whole body tingles with sensory overload as he keeps sneezing and sneezing and snh... huhh-

"HUH'D---tjshih!-ttjsh!-dtjsh!-ttgsh!tsh!ttsh!dsh!ddjsh!---"

He hates the rapid-fire sneezes the most. They make him feel so out of control, not to mention dizzy from the lack of air. Each frantic, breathless double-triple-quadrouple-quintuple bursting out of him only seems to aggrivate his nose further, triggering an endless chain reaction of allergic frenzy.

"---DDJSHih!-TDJJIH!-ATTJIH!-TJSHIH! AH'TSH!DJSH!DDJSH!DSHTJSH'TSH'GKSH!!"

He has to stop -

"---GTDJ'XSH! HZDJSH! ---DTSH!DTSH!TTJSH! Huh.... huh, huh, huhh...!"

He can't stop.

"AAH'GDJSHIEW! AH-AH-ACKDJSHHEW! ---JJSHU! NXJSHUH! TJSHIEW!"

It's never-ending. That dreadful, squirming, crawling sensation of panicked nerve-endings writhing inside the tight confines of his swollen sinuses. Like a nest of angered ants, swarming and biting.

"AH'KGDJSHHIW!"

But maybe it's...

"GH'DTSCHEWW!-TCHEW!"

...finally starting to...?

"HP'TDSCHUH-TSCHUH!-tCHEW!"

Tingling lips parted, pouring eyes blindly shut, pulsing nose pointing at the ceiling -

"HAH'TDDJSCHHIEWW!!"

Bent over the sink, nose buried deep in his... fifth? six? handful of tissues, one hand gripping the side of the sink for support. Panting. Lightheaded. Exhausted. He tries to sniffle but is so brutally congested at this point that he barely makes a sound, his nose only manages a kind of wet squeak as he wipes it. Like a fucking clown nose, he thinks mirthlessly. Big, red, and making ridiculous noises.

"Guh..."

Please, that must be it, right? He has been sneezing non-stop for at least five minutes straight. His nose is so stuffed-up at this point that it feels physically heavy on his face, pulsating dully and aching with pressure. His abdominal muscles are sore, his throat raw, his eyes stinging, but his nasal passages don't feel like they are actively on fire anymore? Ever so carefully, he wrinkles his nose, scrunching his nostrils first to the left, then to the right. Waiting, breath withheld. It still tickles, of course. That feather-light buzzing tingle won't go away for at least another two months (god help him), but at least for the moment it seems his sinuses are no longer in absolute panic mode.

The meds must finally be starting to take effect. Either that, or his body is simply too exhausted to keep firing on all cylinders like that. Whatever the reason, he'll take any respite he can get.

At least now, he's able to keep his eyes open for long enough to find his way to the shower. He can't wait to get under the hot water and finally rinse all of that p... p-pollen off...

Don't think about it.

Of course he's still covered in the stuff. It's on his shirt collar. His sleeves. His hair. His face.

"Hh..."

No. He flat-out refuses.

"Huh... hh... "

Shirt, trousers, socks, underwear. In a mad scramble, he's shed them all and dropped them on the bathroom floor. Then he's in the shower, nearly slipping on the floor tiles in his haste to get in there before his nose can take him hostage yet again. Faceing the shower head, he doesn't even care that the water is freezing at first. If anything, the cold spray feels good and soothing against his flushed, itchy face.

"Hhuh --- djsh!"

The sneeze is weak, half-hearted, spray meeting spray, barely audible over the sound of the shower.

He might as well not have sneezed at all, the way his nose doesn't even register this sisyphean attempt to scratch at the itchiness inside.

Wincing deeply, he jams an outstretched forefinger up against his sore septum and starts to rub his nose again. Lightly at first, but soon he is applying more pressure, crushing his nose upwards, shortening the sloped bridge into a mass of crinkles. Finger sawing away, back and forth beneath his nostrils, pushing their inflamed insides together and grinding them against each other. The itch is a throbbing heat all throughout his nose, but searing sharpness has been replaced with a duller, more muted sort of irritation now, one that doesn't threaten to make him sneeze every two seconds. Instead, he's stood there scrubbing away at his face, not wanting to stop despite how tender and sore his nose is becoming. It feels so good to rub, to finally be able to scratch the itch that's been plaguing him for hours and actually feel it have a soothing effect rather than make it worse. A sigh of relief, then an almost sensual whimper escapes him, as he switches the position of his hand and starts pulling his nose up and down with his fingers wrapped around either side of it.

"Nnh... fuck..."

The squelching sounds are disgusting, and he couldn't care less. Eyes blissfully shut, fingers working away, loosened congestion mixing with the shower water and running down his lips.

All day he has been so. fucking. itchy. From the second he woke up and started off his morning by sneezing violently six times in a row into his pillow. All throughout his workday which ended with a disastrous sneezing fit and an humiliating early exit. Nine hours of this. Non-stop. Of the histamine-drenched nerves in his nose, eyes, ears and palate screaming bloody murder.

And now it's letting up.

One final, sensous pull on his nose, from brow to tip. He lets go of his grip just as the last remnant of a tickle sparks back to life in the raw depths of his sinuses. A pinprick stab of sensation, one big, quick gasp, and he is thrown forward with possibly the most satisfying sneeze he has ever experienced in his twenty-odd years of suffering from hayfever.

”AHH --- ! 'AATTDJSHOOohh!-ohhhh god.”

And so, for one, long, blissful moment there in the shower, his nose feels completely clear, calm, and unaffected by the raging springtime outside.

A sniffles, their nose twitching, the sneeze evaporating in its tracks. crisis averted, for now... but their nose still tickles furiously.

it isn't long before their breath is starting to hitch again. this time, B presses their finger up to A's nose again, with enough pressure that they can feel the slight dampness against their finger.

"don't sneeze," B instructs.

"i can't h-help it," A mouths voicelessly, their breath hitching. "i... have to... hH... hAHH..."

this time, B—sensing impending disaster—pinches A's nose shut. A snaps forward with a messy,

"hAh'dXXtt!"

the sneeze is quiet, thankfully, but it still holds all the force it would've had if A had been able to let it out.

worse, A's nose is tickling even more now. they try and fail to communicate that the pressure of B's fingertips against their sinuses is more ticklish than relieving. soon, they're jerking forward with another: "hAHH'nNGxt!"

"you need to hold back," B admonishes. "i'm not about to risk getting caught."

"i'm trying... but it... hIHh... t-tickles so badly... hih... hiIh.... hiIIHhh..."

with the next sneeze, B clamps a hand over A's nose and mouth. A hits their hand with a spraying, "'TTSHHiish-!", which mists B's hand with thousands of droplets. their nose is openly running now.

the footsteps outside the door pause. B moves their index finger back under A's nose.

"what did i tell you?" they chastise. "if you sneeze again, we're going to be in serious trouble."

what follows is 2 minutes of intense ticklish torture A has ever experienced. they have to sneeze so badly, but every time they come close, B stops the sneeze in its tracks with a finger under their nose, or pinches their nose shut so the sneeze has no room to go anywhere.

"hhih... HIiih... hiiHHh...!!"

the tickle is almost unbearable, they need to sneeze so badly. on the other hand, B quiets them with little sympathy: "don't even think about it," they say. "i'm not going to let you sneeze."

after what seems like an eternity, the footsteps head off in the other direction. there's the sound of a heavy door shutting, and then they're alone again.

relieved, B lifts their cupped hand from A's mouth, seemingly forgetting that A's resolve was just seconds away from crumbling. meanwhile, A can't possibly hold back anymore. after minutes of denying themselves the relief their body so desperately needs, after every holdback and every false start fed directly into the itch in their sinuses, they can't take it anymore. A explodes forward with an absolutely drenching sneeze...

"HEHH'TCHHIIIIIew!!"

...directly onto B's face.

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