snottysnz

They always end up near the back of Fabian's shows because of Ryan. He's so tall, it's the only place where he doesn't block anyone's view. And frankly, Shane is okay with it because it also allows a certain amount of anonymity. Every since he and Ilya were outed and became teammates for the Centaurs, his public profile has risen to a level higher than ever before. Now, it's not only hockey fans that recognize the pair, but anyone who watches the news. The media can't get enough of the fact that two professional athletes play on the same team (literally and metaphorically). 

As if on cue, Shane sees Ilya stop and exchange a few brief words with a guy in the crowd, leaning in to pose for a selfie. The man, a lithe redhead, roars with laughter at something Ilya has said, and Shane feels a little tinge of jealously flare in his stomach. It’s not that he would ever suspect Ilya of cheating; they're still as obsessed with each other as ever. And it's easy to see why Ilya is drawing attention from the crowd. He's wearing a tight mesh black top that clings to every inch of his chest in a way that had Shane suggesting they skip the concert altogether when they'd started to get ready earlier that evening. 

“Hi,” Ilya says in Shane's ear, finally reaching their spot. He presses a cold glass into Shane's hand as he tucks himself behind his back. “Sorry – too many people.”

Shane sips at the cold beer, trying to ignore the sweat pooling along his spine in the closeness of the room. Ilya's hips are tucked against his and Shane can feel the muscle of Ilya's chest against his shoulder blades. He leans back a little against his husband and Ilya tucks his head over Shane's shoulder.

“I'm glad we came,” Ilya says over the opening act's final notes. “I'm excited to hear his new stuff.”

The lighting in the club shifts dramatically as an electronic hum fills the speakers. The crowd chatters with excitement as a technician swaps a few cables onstage and sets out Fabian's violin. There's another flourish of lights, a burst of stage haze, and Fabian emerges to a thunderous cheer from the crowd. 

And then the hush. The crowd goes quiet as the first notes fill the air and Shane relaxes a little, trying to get lost in the sound of the strings and Fabian's voice. 

There's a slight jostle of people still as the crowd inches forward and latecomers try to get a better view of the stage. Someone hits Shane's elbow and he barely manages to not spill his beer. A group of giggling women pass in front of them, trying to get to the bar but they're blocked by the roped-off soundboard. They pause to survey the scene and Shane nearly chokes when it hits him – the scent of a flowery perfume applied so heavily that he can practically taste it.

From behind him, there's an irritated sniffle from Ilya, inhaled close to Shane's ear.

Instantly, the blood rushes to Shane's cheeks. The sound of Ilya's sniffles is not novel. In fact, come springtime, it's so present that it reaches the point of annoyance. But here, in the closeness of this club and with Ilya pressed against his back, it portends the inevitable – Ilya is going to start sneezing.

And, the thing is, Ilya's sneezing does something to Shane. Something primal and inexplicable and embarrassing and sweet and all together too overwhelming to happen in a crowded club.

“Christ,” Ilya mutters into Shane's ear and his nose presses against Shane's shoulder, giving a sharp rub against the fabric of Shane's t-shirt. “Did she take a bath in that shit?”

Shane can already hear the falter in Ilya's voice and he doesn't need to turn around to know the expression that's forming on his husband's face. He can see it so clearly in his mind: the slight furrow of his brows, the barely parted lips, the fluttering eyelashes. 

Ngh-TXGHT! Ilya jerks into Shane, his head bobbing in and out of Shane's peripheral vision. 

The crowd of women have moved on, but the damage is done.

Hehh—eh'TSGHT! There's a low rumble of Ryan's voice offering a “bless you” and Shane nearly tells him not to bother. There's going to be no end in sight to this.

Shane stares at Fabian, trying desperately to focus on the performance. He takes a deep, steadying breath even as he feels Ilya's own breath rush in and then – Nhhh-TSGHT! Tsh'GGHT!

Ilya's vodka glass is now on a nearby ledge, abandoned in favour of one hand around Shane's waist and the other rubbing at his offended nose. Ilya tucks his head back against Shane's neck and trails the edge of nose briefly along the skin there.

Shane closes his eyes, fighting the building desire. Ilya knows exactly what effect his sneezes have on Shane by this point and he's clearly trying to take advantage of it.

“Not here,” Shane growls softly. “Jesus, Ilya.”

“Can't help it,” Ilya whines into his ear. “So itchy...I....heh...ehh-TSGHT!”

Mercifully, Ilya is stifling the sneezes but Shane feels a small rush of warm air as Ilya sneezes against his t-shirt. 

Concussion recognition tools, Shane thinks, trying to bring his focus to the most boring thing he can think of at present. They'd recently reviewed concussion protocols for their Game Changers hockey camps. What are the reasons you should immediately call an ambulance? Neck pain...double vision...loss of consciousness...

TSHH! Hehh'khtshh!—eh’tsghtt!

Ilya's hips are pressing against Shane's ass as he sneezes and Ilya is holding on to Shane...he is fucking doing it on purpose. And it's working. Shane can feel the insistent press against the fly of his jeans. Thank god the club is dark.

“Are you alright?” Ryan asks, staring at Ilya. 

There's a thick sniffle next to Shane's ear and then the low rumble of Ilya's voice, now congested-sounding.

“Some had on too much perfume. Sorry – this happens -I just – I –ehh—hehh'TSGHTT!”

Shane has to bite his lip to stop a moan as Ilya bumps against his ass again.

“Maybe we should step outside?” he says through gritted teeth. “Get some air?”

“Yes, good idea,” Ilya agrees.

They make their way across the back of the club – Ilya still occasionally shuddering with suppressed sneezes and Shane trying to subtly hold his hands over his crotch.

Ilya shoulders open an exit door past the bathrooms that leads out to an alley behind the club. It's a warm summer night and insects buzz around a nearby utility light mounted by the door.

“Oh my god,” Shane groans, leaning against the brick wall of the building. “You can't do that in public, Ilya.”

“Do what?” Ilya says innocently, coming towards Shane and reaching down to palm over his jeans. “Make you so hard you nearly cry?”

“I swear, either you stay out here until you stop...until you stop doing you know what...or we might as well just call it a night and go home now,” Shane says, pushing Ilya's hand away even though he wants nothing more than to be touched.

“Or we could -”

“I am not letting you give me a hand job in a back alley downtown, Ilya.”

Shane looks up at his husband for the first time since the perfume assault, and a rush of affection and desire washes over him. Ilya's nose is pink at the edges and his eyes are starting to water.

“Especially not like this,” Shane adds, reaching up to thumb a bit of irritation away from Ilya's eyelashes. 

Ilya sniffles and shrugs.

“Fine. Longer we wait, less I sneeze.”

“I know that isn't true,” Shane says with a smirk as he takes out his phone to call their car service. He taps a few buttons on an app and pockets the phone again. “They'll be on the side street in two minutes.”

“Oh, fuck. It’s Hayden.” 

The look Ilya gives him is utterly offended. 

“He just had a baby, I haven’t talked to him in weeks,” Shane argues, swiping his thumb across his phone screen to answer the call. Ilya groans. “Hey, buddy.” 

“Hey! Is this a good time?” Hayden asks, voice cheerful and tinny from the receiver. 

“Yeah, uh—uh, how’s, um…” 

“I haven’t spoken to you in, like, a month,” he goes on, talking over Shane’s stammering. “I mean, the season ended and you just… vanished.” 

“I know, I’m so sorry.” 

Ilya rolls his eyes and flops back onto the couch, only to crunch back up a moment later to crush a sneeze into his fist. And then, because he’s Ilya, another double, and one more after a moment’s hesitation. Shane glances over to mouth bless you at him, and Ilya waves him off. He’s been sensitive all day, nose twitchy and pink around the edges from irritation, and he’s not been able to go more than fifteen minutes without sneezing. He’s blamed it on the (in his words) “stupid fucking Canadian foliage,” and while he’s taken a dose of antihistamines, they’ve not kicked in yet. Or aren’t doing shit. Come to think of it, they’re probably expired. 

He shifts his attention back over to Hayden, resolving to end the conversation as quickly as possible. Part of him squeezes guiltily at the thought of trying to head off his best friend, but he and Ilya don’t really get to have time with each other. It’s always a calculation, and now that they’re not fighting the rest of the world to be together, he doesn’t want anything to interfere. 

“But how’s—Amber, right? How is she?” He slaps Ilya’s hand away when he starts walking his fingers up his thigh, then glares at him. If he can just wait five minutes… 

Ilya brings his hand up to rub at his nose again, and immediately flinches into his chest with two sneezes, and then a third after a moment’s hesitation. His jaw drops slightly, eyes hazy, and fuck, he’s not done. 

“She’s doing great!” Hayden is saying, and from his voice, it’s clear that he’s beaming. “Perfectly healthy, and just adorable. You got the pics I sent you, right?” 

“Oh, yeah, the pics are cute.” 

Next to him, Ilya chokes through another silent triple. He’s flushed a faint pink from embarrassment across his cheeks and the tips of his ears, his eyes starting to water from allergic irritation, and his tongue is poking out of his mouth just slightly as he squints vaguely. 

“She’s been feeding really well, too. Latching consistently and everything; she’s been much easier than Arthur.” 

“Aw, good, good,” says Shane, angling his torso away from Ilya and doing his best to ignore the apparent allergy attack occurring five feet from him. “And, uh, Jackie’s good, too?” 

“Yeah! Definitely tired, but nothing unexpected.” 

“Is it better than, um…” 

Ilya, having decided that he does, in fact, need Shane’s attention immediately, weaponizes the downtime between sneezing and moves closer to Shane, pressing his face into the back of Shane’s hoodie and making a soft whining noise that makes him grit his teeth. 

Oblivously, Hayden continues talking. “This is going much better than Arthur’s, yeah. Jackie’s been in touch with her doctor about it, so…” 

Whatever else he says disappears under the static that consumes his mind once Ilya twitches with another fit, mashing his nose directly into Shane’s spine and apparently relying on the fabric to muffle the sound for him. “h’Mptsh! mp’tsHh–tshh! mK’iew!” 

“Oh my God,” Shane exhales. 

“What?” 

“Yeah, no, I–I remember that, that was a tough time,” Shane chokes out. “Look, Hayd, I’m so sorry, but I–I’ve gotta run, I’m supposed to be handling a couple of things for my mom—” 

“No, yeah, of course! Just text me when you actually have time, I’ll make sure you can talk to Ruby and Jade, too.” 

“That’d be great. Talk to you later.” 

He cannot hang up fast enough. Shane twists and is met with an eyeful of amused, albeit allergic, Russian. 

“Not very Canadian of you,” he observes. 

“You know exactly what you’re doing.” 

“Oh, it’s my fault that my immune system does not like your country’s stupid plants?” 

“Ilya.” 

“Shane,” he repeats, mocking. It’s undercut by another little gasp, and then Ilya raises his fist and ducks into it with a set of itchy, utterly ineffective half-stifles. “ihy’schh–tshh–shh’uh! kh’gKT!” 

“Bless—” 

“gk’TSH’uh! ih’yshh–shh–shhiu!” 

“Bless—” 

“TSHH! hy’KSHH—eh’tshh!” 

“Are you done?” 

Ilya sniffles. “Mbaybe.” 

Shane raises his eyebrows. 

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.

*

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.”

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 horrifically tired. He felt horrifically 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 only 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 divert himself from some underlying anxiety, with a task he couldn’t even seem to perform on autopilot right now.

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 deemed more suitable than his bare 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 slightly closer, purposefully slow, but still somehow managing 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 with a frown.

“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 the brunet fiddled absently with the hem 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, either too lost in his own thoughts or his hearing muffled by the illness. He seemed anxious, but not imminently so, eyes fixed on the screen, not flitting in the direction of the door as Ilya found his own gaze 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, eyes suddenly attentive and focused.

“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, pushing the sensation down as he ran through the motions to make himself presentable.

Ilya stood up too, brushing a thumb over his boyfriend’s cheek, subtly double-checking that the meds he'd taken at breakfast had brought his fever down. “You are okay?”

“Please don’t ask me that right now.” Shane said tightly.

“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.

“Hello, 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 affection he'd missed out on for so long, 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, excuse me for a minute, 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 would go and 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, without having returned to it, Ilya remaking the bed with fresh linen once it looked like the sheets wouldn't be dry in time. But what had called him away so urgently?

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 that 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's suppressed suffering several rooms away.

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, agreeing with whatever he was asked to corroborate, spitting out the same few talking points, short circular sentences that made it sound like he'd recently suffered a concussion.

Just as he was bracing his hands against the edge of the couch to get up, familiar footsteps re-entered the room, Ilya's shoulders dropping immediately as the tension of his Schrödinger's boyfriend situation was resolved. Hollander was both alive and dead until Ilya could lock eyes on him again.

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, and how that would have affected their season overall. It was actually a kind of fascinating hypothetical.

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 the three of them walk out onto the patio, making their way to sit at the table, Yuna and David facing the water, Shane facing the opposite way. Ilya watched him stare blankly at the glass, knowing his boyfriend was looking back, but unable to see the blond through the sun glancing off the windows.

He frowned, before turning to the fridge, retrieving the ingredients Shane had had him collate 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.” What fucking burritos had he seen that were bigger than him?

“Okay. Get drink before they wonder what we are doing in here.”

“Ugh.” The Canadian stared out through the windows at his parents’ backs, Ilya feeling his boyfriend's muscles tense up under his hands. “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, and I just- God, why can’t I just be normal?” He thunked his head against his boyfriends chest.

The blond frowned, surprised. “What?”

“I don’t know.” He straightened and 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.

Shane pulled away with another little sniff, eyes focused out the window again, checking his parents hadn’t seen the brief 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 an overwhelming 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 enduring such discomfort. 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, fulfilling some awful anxiety-fuelled prophecy that Hollander had set for him, becoming the very thing he'd sworn to protect him from. So maybe he was just angry at the situation, or the salad, or the virus ravaging his boyfriend's body. That seemed like a suitable target for his rage.

…

Ilya shoved a forkful of leaves into his mouth, and stared angrily into his bowl as he chewed them. His angry stare could 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.” He looked up at Yuna's sunny smile. 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 own bowl of assorted plants.

“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 provided. 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 pose for barely a second, before his hands were back in his lap again. That was the signal. He needed them to leave.

Serendipitously, the tickle in Ilya’s nose was unfazed by his nervous system shifting towards fight-or-flight mode as the instinct to protect his boyfriend kicked in. He sniffed, and glanced up at the windows, letting the bright sunlight shrink his pupils and trigger that one misplaced connection 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 kindly 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 puck.” He responded evasively.

“Il-” Shane 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 really know he could. He just assumed. 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, now that he was listening to the breathing patterns echoing in the small room. 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, despite the urgency that he knew he needed to convey.

“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 was swallowed by nothingness, and his legs were swallowed 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. Or if he was calling an ambulance? He really had only been out for a minute, right? “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 snapping up to fix 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 stop 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, a powerful, concentrated itch building at the point of contact, and travelling through Shane's nose like wildfire, “I have to finish.”

“hyEHTDSHh!” Shane covered his entire face with the handful of tissues he’d been accumulating in preparation 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 onto the patio slowly, arms folded and cradling each other at the elbow, walking around the table to where both Yuna and David could see him, serious as a surgeon coming to deliver post-op news.

“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. He definitely didn't care. He couldn't. But still. He had the unignorable sense that he was about to drop something precious between the slats of a sewer grate with his next words. “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. Every second that Shane was alone was another opportunity for him to cough himself unconscious again.

“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. One of his favorites. 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 straight-up 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, 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 crouching on the patio, 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.

Ilya's panic faded, affection taking its place. “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 still 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 do not feel these things as much with me. Like you have to hide. Because I love you, and I do not want you to hide. Ever.” 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.