yeah, i caved. it's kink, baby!

In theory, S/antos should have begun to recognize the pattern in her immune response that as soon as the adrenaline of fast paced shifts, skipped meals, and little sleep finally wore off during a few days of real rest, her body had the tendency to fail her.

Really, she thought as she laid in her bed the morning of her second day off in a row, she should have seen this coming. The cold going around the ER had forced many of her coworkers on the day shift to slow their rapid fire pace of work that they were normally so comfortable existing in. It was only a matter of time before she was also taken down by this cold from hell.

Unfortunately, she had convinced herself that she might have escaped it as she left her last shift with her four days off as a beacon glowing ahead of her. The fact that she was wrong only made her grumpier. Her throat started with a telling roughness the previous morning, and by the evening of her first day of rest, she was a sniffling, sneezing mess.

Now, she groaned as she rolled over and checked the time.

6:14am. Perfect.

She sniffled and adjusted her pillow behind her to sit up slightly, hoping to find a way to be able to breathe more easily out of her nose. Her head felt like a cinder block and she coughed lightly at the tickle buzzing deep in her sinuses.

She wondered absently if Huckleberry had come home from his farm widow’s house last night. She hadn’t heard him come in, but he could be very quiet when he wanted to be. She smirked lightly at a memory of her stumbling, bleary eyed, into their shared kitchen for a glass of water in the middle of the night and turning the light on only to find him sitting in the dark, eating crackers straight out of the box, scaring the shit out of her. He apologized like hell and she didn’t let him live it down for weeks.

An odd sense of melancholy settled in her chest as she listened to the quiet of the house around her. He probably spent the night with Amy again. Santos hadn’t seen him since he left the shift they worked together the last day before she was taken out by this cold.

“-hhiih -hiHH’ngxt-chiew…uhgh,” she stifled a sneeze that left her head pounding. She sniffled as the tickled reared again, unrelieved by her restrained release. “-hihh…-hIH -itscHIW- haaTCSIIEW -hiiihCHIEW! *snrfff*.” She groaned again and closed her eyes. Maybe she could sleep a bit more. Despite her fit of sneezes, she still felt a tickle lingering under her congestion. She grabbed a tissue off of her nightstand and blew to try and relieve it.

Closing her eyes once more, she wrapped her duvet closer around herself as a chill swept down her body. She wished she had grabbed some cold meds from the break room in the ER. She didn’t think there were any around…maybe in the back of the kitchen cabinet if she could just find the energy to get herself up to look.

If Huckleberry caught this he’d probably die. She thought to herself. But a part of her hoped he did catch it, and maybe he would come home from Amy’s to get some sleep in his own bed.

“Oh jeez, you don’t look so good…” he would probably say when he saw her. “Did you get that cold too??”

“Damn Dr. Whitaker how did you deduce that one??” She would snap back and roll her eyes.

And then they would probably sit together on the couch watching trash reality tv together, order soup and make fun of the dumb contestants and their silly little scripted problems all afternoon.

“haTSHEW! itchIEW! -hihhH -hiH” she waited for the last sneeze to come with her head tipped back, mouth open and pink nostrils flaring slightly. She took a shaky inhale and hitched and hitched, “hiiHhh…hihHH…HITCHIEW!” Finally.

Maybe she should text Huckleberry and check to see if he did catch this too. But no…she would let him be. If he did catch it Amy would probably love to coo over him for a few days.

And I’ll just stay here, sick as a dog, by myself. She thought bitterly. She was used to it. Despite the last few months of unlikely friendship with Whitaker, she was used to relying on herself. But she couldn’t help but feel a sense of longing to have his annoying ass around when she felt so terrible, even just to go get her some cold meds from the drugstore.

Another shiver wracked her. She definitely had a fever.

Despite herself, she let out a little whimper as she sniffled and another tickle wound its way through her nose. “hATChiew! -hiiHH-chIEW! -hiHH! itcHU!” she sighed and snuggled deeper into the bed.

Slowly, sleep blissfully started to take her.

**** She woke again later with a pounding head.

9:47am. Although she was still wrapped in her blankets and hoodie, her teeth chattered and rounds of shivers felt like they were running through her bones. Okay, really time to go find some meds now. Pulling a soft throw blanket from the end of her bed and wrapping it around her shoulders, she dragged herself into a seated position.

Her nose twitched in protest and she breathed a shaky inhale “hiiHdshIEW! -schIEW! hih…hitchIEw..uhhh.”

Santos sniffled and got to her feet, wobbling slightly on her way out of her room and through the small apartment to the kitchen.

Dialed in on the cabinet she suspected had some cold meds lurking in the back, and wanting to get herself back to bed as quickly as possible, she jumped when she heard a voice from behind her.

”Uhh hey, you good?” She whirled around, and regretted it instantly as a wave of dizziness clouded the corners of her vision and she wobbled slightly.

Whitaker jumped forward and gently steadied her by her arms. “Woahhh there. I see…not so good” he took in her appearance in with a grim look and a wince. “Bad cold eh?”

“N’do gendius, I’mb feeling fandtastic” she replied, but her rasp and heavy congestion took away some of the bite of her words. She coughed lightly into her fist, sniffled, and moved away from her roommate to go back to searching for meds.

“Looking for these?” Huckleberry asked and she looked back to see him holding a new pack of cold and flu meds out to her.

She nodded and took them from him, actually looking at his face and noticing slightly more darkness bagging under his usually tired eyes, and a redness to the edges of his nose.

“Ahh so Am’by didn’dt wan’dt you sticking around to spread the plague?” She asked him as wryly as her current state could allow.

“Ah no, I just thought I’d get out of their hair in case I passed it along…I don’t think it’s hit me as hard as you though” he sniffed lightly and looked at her with an edge of concern around his eyes. “Have you taken your temperature?”

Santos rolled her eyes again and cringed as she swallowed down a dose of cold medicine. Was she really missing him earlier? Of course he would come home and immediately start mother-henning her.

“Im’b a Doctor, Huckleberry, I don’dt need you t-hiihh-“ she was cut off as her nostrils flared. “hiihH- hiT’ngxt! Ngtxh! hitNGXT-CHIEW!” The sneezes sounded painful and she and Huckleberry both winced.

“Hey…okay, why don’t you go sit on the couch and I’ll order some soup for us?” Whitaker took out his phone and gazed over at her expectantly.

Santos grumbled but didn’t argue as she made her way over to the couch and curled up with her blanket.

“Chicken noodle or hot and sour?” Huckleberry called from the kitchen.

Santos felt a smile tug on her lips and though she still felt like crap, her heart felt a little lighter.

And then he had spent his two hour drive back to Montreal deliberating and halfway mourning over sleepy goodbyes and how much they hurt. Ilya hadn’t asked him to stay, jokingly as he usually did, if only because he knew how hard it was for Shane to leave in the first place. He hadn’t wanted to rub salt in the wound, probably, but a wound is a wound is a wound. Being asked to stay wouldn’t have made it hurt much more, maybe it would have even been like a salve that stung at first but made everything feel a tad better later.

At the practice rink, fatigue was really starting to set in. It wasn’t all that surprising; he hadn’t slept properly since… Fuck, Monday night? Between Ilya coming down sick and having his sleep schedule interrupted with lazy daytime naps and Ilya’s grating cough that seemed to kick it up a notch at night, he was racking up a mountain of sleep debt and couldn’t find the time to pay it off. 

Shane leaned forward in his chair, fingers wrapped around a warm paper cup of coffee Hayden had picked up for him. He had taken off the lid a moment ago, first to confirm it was black the way he liked it, then to have an excuse to look at something. Theriault was noticeably pissed, standing at the front of the meeting room and throwing daggers his way as the team settled in their seats, and Shane appreciated there being something to stare at other than his hands. 

He already felt like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. He didn’t need to look like one, too. 

“Tuesday was a win, but don’t let that get to your heads.” Theriault’s gruff voice cut through the morning shuffle, silencing the room. “Tonight’s game won’t be that easy, and we have some serious issues to address.” 

Shane tried to pay attention, but the tension in the room made it difficult. It was so thick he felt like he was swimming in it, batting at it with heavy blinks and slow nods when he felt he was supposed to, but he was really just making educated guesses. His mind lagged about five steps behind, still stuck on the way Theriault would point at something on the screen and motion widely in Shane’s direction like he was at fault for support not following through quickly enough.

“And some of you,” Theriault spat, looking straight at Shane this time, “should learn to read your teammates and know when the fuck to reset instead of pushing a broken play.”

Theriault let the silence stretch just to make a point. 

A few chairs creaked. Someone cleared their throat. Shane ducked his head and took a sip of his coffee.

“I guess it’s no secret we have some very greedy players in the room.”

Shane spent the rest of the meeting shooting apologetic glances at his coffee cup, at the wall, at anything other than his teammates because the elephant in the room was definitely Shane, and Theriault looked suspiciously like a poacher with his laser pointer at the ready. And Shane was sorry for that, but not sorry enough to admit fault when he had been the only one to put the biscuit in the basket on Tuesday—a hat trick, in fact, and they had won. 

Theriault could hold a serious grudge, and after all these years, Shane knew how to weather them. It wasn’t personal, even if it felt like Theriault would jump at the chance to take your first born and throw them in the net as a little incentive to up the defense. It wasn’t personal, but Theriault could lean cruel sometimes, if only because it produced results. It wasn’t personal, but—

“Hollander! A word.” The room was shifting around him—chairs scraping, hurried steps, a watering hole being left abandoned with a predator on the prowl. “Everyone else, gear up and get on the ice.” 

Shane stayed sitting, and Hayden clapped him on the shoulder on his way out. Theriault stood near the front of the room, laser pointer still in hand, tapping it a few times against his palm like he was deciding where to start. 

Shane had been sent to the principals office before, just once, when he had melted down over a kid behind him clicking his pen over and over and over during the most stressful math test he’d ever had in his then thirteen years of life—and pens hadn’t even fucking been allowed on the test, which is what he had yelled, more or less. There may have been a few more fuck’s thrown in there, and his mom hadn’t even known he was capable of saying such colorful words at the time. 

This felt something like that—like being sat in the principals office and waiting to receive punishment for something that only halfway felt like his fault but that which he would take full responsibility for anyway, because that was what honorable men did (according to his mom, his principal, and his in-house hockey coach from when he had been five years old and still learning to hold himself on the ice). 

“That.” Theriault jerked his chin toward the screen, and Shane’s eyes flicked over to the frozen frame. “What, thought you’d get an early breakout? Without clueing in your fucking team?”

“I thought—“

“They see you force a play they’re not ready for, and suddenly they think they’re allowed to be sloppy and take risks they don’t need to be taking.”

“But if they—“

“They aren’t you. You might be able to pull off shit like that, but they can’t.” Theriault’s mouth flattened. He took in a deep breath through his nose and let his shoulders drop on the exhale. “You’re too good of a strategist to be making these mistakes. Do better. Oh, and Hollander, next time you miss practice for a paycheck, you’ll be a healthy scratch.” 

Shane took that as permission to leave. He managed a yes sir because Theriault was the kind of guy who liked to keep those closest to him in line—the kind of retired NCAA dud who talked big about keeping control just to prove how much control he had. To Shane, he was something of a shadow made up like a mentor, a devil in wolf’s clothing because at least wolves would protect their pack when they were threatened from the outside. Sometimes Shane respected him for it, in the way you might give accolades to a tyrant just because you weren’t allowed to give them to anyone else. 

In other words, Shane was scared shitless of a washout turned coach—but one who was otherwise highly regarded, for some reason. 

Practice went alright, if only because Shane overcompensated and used too much of his energy trying to appear in top shape. The tension from the team melted away with their captain in full swing, leading to high energy play run-throughs. Even Theriault appeared appeased, nixing the extra bag skates he’d threatened earlier. Shane, conversely, felt split every which way, maybe julienned for all he knew—pieces of himself sprinkled on the ice, in a sickbed back in Ottawa, two hours behind in a tongue lashing disguised team meeting, seven hours ahead in a roaring arena. 

The dressing room was always loud after a good pregame practice. Their nerves were loosened up enough to take off some of the pressure. Saturday games always felt a hair more important, something about the novelty of the weekend withstanding changes in modern society. In life as Shane knew it, it started with Saturday morning cartoons with sugar glazed fingers, grew into sleeping in an extra hour during teenage rebellion, metamorphosed into just another day to read the news and pay the bills because adulthood liked to do that to a person, but Saturday still felt special somehow. 

He sat at his stall with a towel draped around his shoulders, joggers already on and duffel half-packed. Sounds bounced around him, overlapping and bringing about a bright chaos—the slap of towels on skin, music from a phone propped precariously on a shelf, whoops and groans and harrowing tales of the latest diaper blowouts from the guys who had young kids—and words of sympathy from those who had been there, done that.  

Which, honestly, left Shane with little to say. He was tugging on his shirt when he heard a low, “Hey.” He looked up and saw Hayden leaned against the stall next to him, hair still damp. “You, uh, all good?”

Shane nodded, halfway through the motion before he even understood the question. “Yeah, ‘course.” 

“Yeeaaah,” Hayden echoed, pointedly slower and disbelieving. “You kinda look like shit, buddy.” 

Shane let out a short breath that might’ve sounded like a laugh if it didn’t come out so weathered. “Thanks, Hayd.”

“No, really.” Hayden pushed off the stall, then took a step forward and leaned in. “You look like someone kicked your puppy or something.”

“I don’t have a puppy.”

Hayden laughed incredulously, shaking his head. “Dude, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know.” Shane reached for his hoodie. “I’m good. I just—“ He rolled his shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “Didn’t sleep great. I’ll be good after some food and a nap.”

Back at home, he meant to eat lunch. He knew the importance of fueling after expending energy, of replenishing what he’d burned through. It was foundational knowledge, and normally there was something mundanely satisfying about the whole thing—of doing something right for his body and feeling it pay off in kind. 

But the idea of food sat wrong in his stomach even before he had opened the fridge, turned downright uncomfortable when he stared at the shelves. He realized his prepped meals were days old anyway, past the point of being safely edible anymore, and he reasoned that he was let off the hook from lunch.

He set three alarms on his phone as he walked to his bedroom, spaced out because he always woke up on the first but felt better having the other two as insurance. He plugged his phone into its charger, stripped down to his briefs, and climbed into bed. The weight of the morning pressed into him as he sunk heavy into sleep.

When his alarm went off, he jerked awake with a gasp and then an irritated groan. He must have set his alarm wrong because he had only been asleep for—

Oh.

It was his third alarm, the last of them and twenty minutes past when he had planned to wake. He pushed himself upright too quickly, blinking hard as the room warped around the edges. A thin sheen of sweat clung to his skin, cooling in the open air as the blanket slipped down to his waist. It sent a chill down his spine. 

Oh, no. No, no no. 

He swallowed. His throat felt dry, maybe even sore. Actually, it was definitely sore, and a second swallow informed him of a thick, swollen kind of feeling. He closed his eyes as he tried to take stock of himself—the sore throat, the headache, the prickling unease under his skin.

He last had the flu four years ago, when he had learned the horrors of hanging around germ-ridden children during the holidays—the Pike children, to be specific. It had been an awful battle consisting of new year ailments, best friend cash-outs, and captain duties, but at least Hayden had been able to vouch for Shane’s ill health at the time. Shane had been a decent—very good, even—friend wanting to lend a helpful hand to two very overwhelmed parents. 

(There had been a headline somewhere, of Shane exercising his good will for the benefit of a teammate in need, and sacrificing his health in the process. It had cost him two games, but all the public remembered was how honorable a captain he was.) 

Ilya wasn’t a child, or a Metro, and no one knew Shane had been kissing his influenza-driven tears away. And it wasn’t like Ilya tried to, like, eat his own hands or cough in other people’s mouths the way children did. Shane had been a little reckless, but he had gotten his flu jab a few weeks prior and washed his hands so much the past few days his knuckles were cracking with the proof.

So, yeah, he could be sick, but he doubted it. It felt theoretical, like something you would consider because it was a possibility but not very probable, not anything worth trying to prove unless you were ready to dedicate your life to a miserable cause—being wrong and wrong and wrong and just hoping you might eventually get it right. 

He didn’t really know what he was trying to get at, mulling over the scientific process with his eyes still closed, but the point stood that he wasn’t likely sick. He forced himself out of bed, dressed and texted Ilya and told him to keep up with the medication timetable he’d left for him in the kitchen. He opened his fridge and remembered, just then, that he didn’t have anything substantial to eat—not unless he wanted eggs, but those were for meant for breakfast. 

Fine, he could get something on the way, because fast food places usually had some options that weren’t the worst in the world—a grilled chicken something-or-other, with too much sodium. But he was sweating as it was so a little extra salt would probably be a good thing, and, well, maybe he should have just gone with the eggs.

It was too late, though, because he was already in his car and on the way to the arena. He stopped at a drive-thru on the way and ordered a sandwich, a grilled chicken deluxe monstrosity because it had lettuce and tomato and he could probably use some kind of vegetable. He would just have to tear off most of the bread. He already felt tired, and simple carbs weren’t going to help. 

“Huhh’ishhuh! Oh, shit—ISSH’ooh!” 

He asked for extra napkins at the pickup window, a generous stack of them. He really needed to get a deep clean detail done to the interior of his car. It was so dusty that it was making his nose itch.

At the arena, he picked at his sandwich in front of his dressing stall, hunkered down and curled over his lap like a fiend hiding their stash. It must have looked strange but at least half the team wasn’t in yet, probably finishing an early dinner with their families. It was when Hayden finally rolled in, loudly announcing himself with a whoop and a promise to kick ass tonight, that Shane straightened and crumpled the rest of his half eaten sandwich in its wrapper. 

“Holy shit, is the sky falling? Are pigs flying?” Hayden looked absolutely scandalized, waving his hands at the balled up shame still in Shane’s hands. “Our cap’s eating fast food? What, did that puppy of yours die? Are you grieving?” 

“I don’t have a fucking—hheh! Heh’chssht!” He reached for a napkin in the bag beside him the moment his breath hitched and muffled the sneeze into it just in time. “Sorry, ahem, ‘scuse me.”

Hayden’s eyes widened. “Oh, fuck. Fuck no. Tell me you’re not sick.”

Shane scoffed and dabbed at his nose. “I’m not sick.”

“I’m gonna need you to sound about 110% more sure than that, dude.”

“I’m not. My car is, uh, dusty…” Which sounded even less believable.

“Your car? Is dusty?” Hayden deadpanned. “Buddy, if you think that makes any sense, you’re pretty much confirming you’re on death’s door. What the fuck?”

“Hayd, drop it, okay? I’m fine.” He discreetly pinched his nose through the tissue, doing away with the last of the wetness. He tested his nose with a sniff, pleased with the unobstructed breath, and felt more confident when he said, “Do me a favor and make sure you don’t overshoot your passes tonight.”

“Yikes, alright! Alright, will do. Jesus, what crawled up your ass and died?” Hayden looked particularly proud of himself over that while Shane flushed all the way down past his neck.

Ten minutes before the game, his team was asking for a speech. Shane had already fulfilled his pregame interview and had only sneezed once, very politely into his elbow, at the tail end because dust seemed to be following him everywhere. (He had tried to make a joke about it, which wasn’t very much like himself when he thought about it after, but at least he had gotten a little smile out of the reporter.)

He looked over the room full of his teammates, could see the way they were buzzing with pregame jitters. “Uh, just… Just fucking score?” It sounded more like he was asking for permission, or that he wasn’t really sure what he was saying at all, but no one seemed to bat an eye at their captain’s less than passionate attempt at motivation. 

“We’re going to fuck them up tonight!” JJ beamed like sunshine, because the guy was always such a mood setter, and looked at Shane expectantly. Shane managed a mild mannered fuck yeah because he knew he was supposed to, and it was a well rehearsed line after years in locker rooms. It wasn’t that he didn’t mean it, because it admittedly felt good when he felt tantamount to the joy in the room continuing on, but he wasn’t sure of how it all equaled up at the end of the day, whether his ability to rile up the room (or lack thereof) counted for anything in the unwritten rulebook of leadership. 

If JJ could set the mood then Shane could, at the very least, not do anything to get in the way. 

Adrenaline carried him through the first period with such acute ferocity he was starting to believe whatever had been wrong with him earlier was a blip. It had probably been the result of overthinking, a natural worrier turning himself sick with it. His throat still hurt, yeah, but that was in his head. He was sneezing intermittently, sure, but his nose was just irritated from earlier. He should have had the sense to take an antihistamine, but hindsight was 20/20. 

He scored once with an assist from Hayden and didn’t even avoid the scrum after. That was what a healthy player did, of course, and Shane had been known to get into it every once in a while (quarterly, perhaps, if measuring up against a decade). 

After first period, back in the locker room, the high of it all wore off fast. He wiped his face off with a clean towel and let himself stay like that for a beat, pressing his warm eyes into the soft folds of it. It helped carry him away from the room, the shouts of his team and the distant roar of the crowd, the pressure of two more periods looming in the dark behind him. 

He blew his nose without shame because half of the guys were too, a casualty of heavy exercise on cold ice. Hayden elbowed his side and laughed about something, JJ and Mitty were covering the latest Twitter feud about a team they weren’t even playing anytime soon, for a reason Shane was trying to follow but couldn’t seem to piece together. 

He wasn’t sick, he was quite certain, because the risks just didn’t really add up—but something wasn’t right. He felt underwater, maybe in a fishbowl, or maybe the fishbowl was surrounding him in some sort of strange, inverted aquarium in which he was probably still swimming with the fishes, as they say. 

He got a total of two minutes of ice time at the start of second period before Theriault had them switching forward lines. He dropped onto the bench and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, sucking in a deep breath of cold air. It made him cough a couple times, aimed down at his skates, a dry and irritating little thing that scratched at his throat on the way out. Then his vision dimmed, like someone had reached past his eyes and turned down the brightness without asking—or put sunglasses on him, which he thought was a douchey thing to do indoors. 

“I think,” he started carefully, not to anyone in particular, but closer to the person on his left. He tried to sound as much like himself as he could manage, but slowly because his tongue was moving strangely in his mouth. “I think I’m gonna pass out.”

“What? Wait, what did you just s—”

Hands were on him immediately. One at his shoulder, another at his arm, forcing him upright when he started to list sideways. Loose limbed and halfway under, his head lolled. It felt heavier than he remembered.

“Hey—no, come on—Shane.“

“I got him.” He was hauled to his feet, and he felt his weight dropping straight through him. “Jesus, okay—easy, get on his other side. He’s about to drop.” 

He blinked, the world coming to him through static. It was like a bad signal, with glimpses breaking through in fuzzy, prismatic ghosts—a violent mess of visual noise overlaying his field of vision. He was dragged through the tunnel and he fumbled in the hallway, skates hitting the ground in heavy thumps as he tried to get his footing.

“I gotta sit down,” he slurred. He felt nauseated, if only because he was so hot in all his layers. “Please.” He then was laid on his back, legs up propped up high in someone’s arms and helmet being pulled off by someone else. He let his head sink heavy to the side, cheek on the dirty floor, but it felt nice and cool and made him groan in relief. 

“Shane, eyes open, buddy. Look at me.”

He looked and looked and looked, blinked and only saw the colors of his breath pulsing behind his eyes and one of the trainers kneeling beside him. Then the world narrowed down to his heart slamming into his sternum and the blur of being moved again, which he really wished they would stop doing before he was ready. 

He was deposited on an exam table and tugged at in so many directions he had to close his eyes or he thought he might scream. There was a pinch to his hand and ice climbing through his limbs soon after, his skates were tugged off and he thought someone might have even been massaging his socked feet, and he was pretty sure if he opened his eyes he would have seen Lucifer himself orchestrating everyone in the room.

“Fuck, what—“ Something was shoved up his nose, swirling in what felt like an honest to god attempted lobotomy. When it was pulled out, he shuddered with a gasp. “Hhehh! Hehh’chsshoo! Huh’isshuh! Huh’isshhh!” 

He felt so tired, and he was genuinely concerned the pieces of his brain dislodged from the backyard lobotomy were in danger of shotgunning through his nose. He curled onto his side with a groan and let himself drift into the misery of it all, still sneezing occasionally into a crushed tissue he’d gotten from—well, he was fucking lobotomized, so it wasn’t surprising that he couldn’t recall. 

“Shane. Did you hear me?”

“Mmh?”

“You have the flu, Shane. When did you start feeling sick?”

Shane opened his eyes, a little panicked. “I… Um… Don’t know.” He swallowed and considered Ilya, and the moment he remembered Ilya first sounded strange over the phone. “Tuesday? Morning. Like, on the phone.”

“Oh?” The team doctor smiled reassuringly, which looked really, really wrong. Shane much preferred when he frowned his way through wrapping injuries in ice packs and bitching about hockey players with anger issues. He sounded very calm, as if he were talking about the weather, when he asked, “What day is it today?”

“Saturday,” he said proudly, because he was certain. 

“Good.” The team doctor put a paltry sheet over him, and Shane barely resisted the urge to throw it off. “Let’s let this saline drip finish up, and we’ll see where you’re at after.”

The next time he came to, Hayden was standing beside him and on the phone. He sounded worried, a little too serious for a guy who liked to boast about his masturbation habits while on a road trip. In fact, two weeks ago he had told Shane he managed three times in one night. Shane had wanted to bleach that memory away at the time and was dismayed that the fever he now understood he had wasn’t doing anything to cook it out of him.

He decided he needed someone else to share the misery of knowing. “Hey. Heeey.” He cleared his throat and spoke a little louder, gripping Hayden’s arm to pull him closer. “Hayden jerked off three times in Buffalo. Like, in the same night.”

Hayden looked a funny mix of horrified and murderous, maybe a little sympathy somehow weaved in there too. “No, he’s totally out of it, I don’t know.” Hayden paused, and Shane heard a distorted voice on the other end. “Yeah, it was 40. Doc said he was just dehydrated, it should come down soon.” 

“24,” Shane supplied groggily, offended that Hayden had gotten his number wrong. “Can’t believe…”

“What, buddy?” Hayden, distracted, patted Shane’s arm. “What was that?”

“I’m number 24,” he muttered. 

Hayden looked genuinely confused, which Shane felt frustrated about. “Yeah, he—no, I’ve got it handled. I’ll take him home… Yes, I’m going to fucking wait. I’m not an idiot.” 

Shane waved Hayden close, then grabbed his shoulder when he didn’t move fast enough. “Hey,” he rasped right into Hayden’s ear. “Can you call Ilya? Tell’im I’m okay?” 

Hayden glanced back at the team doctor, who was busying himself with cleaning up for the night. “Yeah, man, already done. All good.” 

Embarrassingly, Hayden had to help him get changed, then let him use his coat as a lap blanket in the car. Shane spent the ride home feeling caught in the time machine from Back to the Future, oscillating between fast speeds and timelines of the very healthy phone sex from Sunday night and Ilya crying into his chest during feverish witching hours. The present sat somewhere underneath, with Hayden steering them through it all and answering Jackie’s omnipresence, the voice of a god booming from the heavens. 

(It was probably just the miracle of bluetooth, but Shane had his eyes closed and knew better than to question acts of god.)

‘Yeah, Jacks, I know, I know. I got it, it’s like taking care of the kids. No—no, I know you usually—alright, yeah. No, I’m not trying to pick a fight, baby. I’m just—yeah, it was pretty scary. It’ll be fine now, douchebag’s on his way and—no! No, I played nice, I swear.’

Getting inside, once they arrived, was about as pleasant as the car ride had been. Worse, in fact. Shane tried to carry his own weight, which mostly meant leaning in the wrong directions at the wrong times and nearly taking Hayden down with him. 

“Okay—nope. Nope, that’s not—c’mon, dude.” Hayden hooked an arm under his and took most of his weight. “Would rather not have to carry you bridal style, you’re heavy as shit.”

Hayden steered him to the couch, and Shane dropped boneless onto the cushions with a heavy exhale that turned into weak coughs. He muffled them against his sleeve, grimacing.

“Don’t fall asleep yet,” Hayden said, already halfway across the room. “Hang on.” 

Shane stayed like this, blinking blearily at the warm recessed lights on the ceiling. They were dimmed just how he liked them, keeping the room pleasantly cast in a glow reminiscent of sunset leftovers, of when the sun sat just below the horizon and scattered its light particles across the atmosphere in long, reaching swoops of amber. 

Ilya knew how to set the lights like that for him, when he had a headache or a hard day or was sleepy but didn’t want to waste the night. 

“Ilya?”

“Not yet,” Hayden said, returning from the kitchen with a glass of water. He set it on the coffee table and reached his hands out. “He’s on his way.” 

Shane frowned, taking Hayden’s hands without question. He was maneuvered to the corner of the couch, propped up enough so he could drink from the glass of water when Hayden handed it to him. “The, uh… The lights.” He coughed and set the water precariously on the cushion, which Hayden whisked away immediately. “Ilya.” 

Hayden blinked. “Oh, that? Yeah.” He laughed disbelievingly. “He told me to set the dimmer to a quarter. I honestly just thought he was being a fussy prick, but…” Hayden grabbed the throw on the other end of the couch and spread it over Shane’s lap before sitting on the edge of the coffee table. “I’m gonna be honest, you scared the hell out of me. I thought you were, like, dying or something.” 

“Sorry, Hayd.” Shane shifted under the blanket, dragged one heel against the couch just to make sure his legs were still attached. With the way Hayden was looking at him, he hadn’t been sure. “Is coach mad?” 

“What—no! What are you talking about, man? You have the goddamn flu and you scored in first period. No one’s mad.” Hayden paused. “Alright, maybe he’s a little mad, but he’s always mad about something. Fuck that, everything’s fine. We won, and now you get a little vacation, yeah?” 

Shane squinted, trying to decide the legitimacy of what Hayden was saying, and gave up when his nose itched. He rubbed at his eye, which wasn’t very helpful to his nose but was a nervous habit he relied on when he wanted to appear nonchalant.

“Hehh’tshhh’uh! Heh’ISHH’iuhh-ISHh’ehw!” Though, he supposed, that had been quite chalant of him. He probably should have just rubbed his nose after all.

Hayden was gone when he opened his eyes, so he took the chance to wipe his nose with his sleeve. It wasn’t very hygienic of him, but he wasn’t feeling very hygienic as it was. When Hayden returned with a roll of toilet paper, Shane nearly complained, but he was admittedly relieved to have something other than his sleeve to clean his nose with.

There was a stretch of quiet after that. Hayden stayed on the edge of the coffee table, elbows on his knees as he tapped at his phone, while Shane drifted. Time slipped and folded, sent Shane back to the locker room and the ice and, for some reason, his first sunset with Ilya on the beach.

When the front door opened, Shane’s eyes shot open. The sound cut clean through the fog of fever, wired in deep—somewhere under thought, under language. He heard the specific scrape of the key in the lock, the quick click of it turning, the two second pause before the door gave way. A resumption of movement, under the pretense that the two seconds would have given Shane enough time to shout no, stop! if it were necessary. 

It was like the condition of Pavlov’s dog, the way something in his chest pulled taught and made him turn, expectant, toward the door before he consciously knew why.

Ilya barreled in, not taking off his shoes, but he smiled tightlipped and gravely serious, and he looked so very handsome even when his brow wrinkled like that. “Hi, sweetheart. How are you feeling?” 

“Ilya,“ Shane smiled. “Ilya, are we in Ottawa?”

Ilya turned to Hayden, eyes wild. “What did you do to him? Why is he like this?”

“Lobotomy,” Shane said wistfully. “It was awful.”

“Hey, I didn’t—! He just—! I d’know, man! He’s just sick!” 

Ilya sighed. Hayden looked sad, maybe a little mad. Shane thought he might cry, which—oh, yeah, he was definitely doing that now. 

“No, Shane, no, look. We are friends.” Ilya threw his arm around Hayden’s shoulders and Hayden gave a tense looking thumbs up sans smile. “Thank you, Hayden. You did a good job. Now please go home.” 

Ilya steered Hayden toward the foyer, and Shane could hear hushed words bleeding together. He thought he heard the promise of a text, a well wishing of a safe drive, the casualness of people who weren’t really friends but pointedly weren’t enemies. The flu could be very humbling, Shane decided.

He heard the door shifting in its frame, the click of a lock, and Shane lay there at the edge of sleep, sniffling wearily around the sounds of Ilya finally toeing off his shoes. 

“Ilya?” he called.

“Am here.” Ilya crossed the room, shrugging out of his jacket and letting it drop onto the floor. “Right here.”

“Hi,” Shane said, trying for a smile. It came out a little crooked. “You—hihh!” His breath hitched, sharp and sudden, and he turned his head down toward his shoulder. “Hih’TSHHuh! Huhh’ihhshh’uh!”

“Bless you,” Ilya murmured with a frown, already reaching for him. 

He sank down onto the couch and gathered Shane up, one arm sliding behind his shoulders and the other tugging the blanket securely around him. Close and careful, with Ilya’s shoulders trying to curve around him, his whole body becoming shelter like he was handling something very, very important. A bulkhead in the sea of things, a means of keeping Shane afloat even when parts of him were trying to sink under.

Ilya was cool where Shane was burning, and he indulged in the relief as he pressed his forehead into the nape of his neck. He let out a long, shaky breath and let his eyes slip closed. Ilya stroked a thumb absently at the small of his back, under his sweatshirt.

“You are very warm, malysh.” His voice sounded rough, the rasp of nights spent coughing and the nasal quality of congestion that had loosened in the face of recovery, proof of a body pushing forward in messy determination. Shane loved this body, and its rigid muscles and the way they set soft when wrapped around him.

“Mmh.” He snuffled, feeling the slip of a running nose but not wanting to disturb the quiet peace with anything more offensive. “I have the flu.”

“Yes, you do.” Ilya sighed like he was mourning. “I’m sorry.”

Shane pursed his lips, reaching with them until they touched soft, warm cotton. He voiced a soft muah, and again just in case Ilya didn’t hear the first one, just in case Ilya didn’t understand he was searching for him through kisses. “I’m not. I’m not, at all.”

The buzzer for the end of the game is sounding. But that’s impossible. The game is still going on. Shane knows the game is still going on, because, alone in the home locker room, he can hear Coach yelling at him to get the fuck onto the ice. He’s late – the rest of the team have been out there for ages. But Shane can’t join them that because it’s not his Metros kit that’s hanging in the locker room; it’s his juniors kit. It’s his Kingston juniors kit, in the size that Shane wore when he was twelve – so comically small that none of it will come close to fitting. He can’t even get his feet into the skates, and it’s ridiculous to try but he’s trying anyway, because what else is there to do? And Theriault is still yelling that they’re losing the game – and the buzzer is going again – and that’s even weirder because the end game buzzer doesn’t ring twice – and now it’s ringing again, again, over and over and…

Shane opens his eyes. He’s not in the locker room anymore. He’s in his investment apartment, on the couch, where he meant to sit down just for a minute because he felt so exhausted after changing out of his suit. He sniffles, heavy and wet, because his nose hasn’t stopped running since he left the arena, and swallows painfully. He must have drifted off for… Shit. Half an hour, according to the time on his phone, which says ten minutes after ten, and he’s got five missed calls, and the buzzer is going again. But he realises now that it’s not the buzzer for the end of the game; it’s the buzzer for the apartment.

Rozanov. Shit.

He leaps off the couch far too quickly, and nearly collides with the coffee table, his proprioception shot from his body still being half-asleep and his head being full to the brim with congestion. He really needs a tissue, but he also really needs to get Rozanov – who is probably freezing cold, trying not to be noticed, and increasingly angry about what the fuck Shane is playing at. So the first thing he does is press the button to open the front door; he hears the thud of it closing seconds later. Then, he takes a moment to wipe away the crud that’s gathered in the corner of his eyes, and to slow his heartrate and breathing, because apparently being woken abruptly and sprinting a few paces is enough to make him feel like his chest is about to burst open.

The unfortunate consequence of being more awake is that Shane is more aware that he feels like shit. He was supposed to take cold meds before Rozanov arrived, but he hasn’t, and whatever little effect remained from the painkillers and decongestants that he took before the game has now gone completely. There is a stabbing headache behind his eyes, and a dull pain below his ears and across his cheeks. He’s cold, even though the apartment is heated to its usual temperature and he’s wearing a fleece-lined hoodie. So cold, in fact, that he shivers which is hell on his aching muscles – especially on the shoulder that took the brunt of the hit, and is already starting to stiffen. He should see the physio tomorrow, except that he almost certainly can’t because now that it’s not being held back by the meds, his cold is obviously and virulently contagious. He’s having to sniffle every few seconds to stop his nose from overflowing completely. And every time that he does, it triggers a prickling deep in the back of his sinuses that makes his eyes water.

Once his heart feels like it will stay inside his ribcage, Shane reaches into his pocket for a tissue that isn’t there, and then remembers there’s a box on the counter in the kitchen counter. But before he can grab some, he hears the approach of footsteps and a notably sharp knock on the door.

Rozanov wears the coat that he wore last night, and the red-rimmed eyes and pale colour that he wore during the game. His cheeks are flushed too, but whether that’s from the temperature outside or the temperature he’s running, Shane doesn’t know. He steps through the door that Shane is holding open without saying anything, just swiping the back of his wrist under is nose with a congested snuffle.

And then, it happens all at once. Shane has closed the door, and is turning back around, ready to ask Rozanov whether he’d like a drink, when he feels his shoulders slam into the wall of his apartment. It’s not enough to wind him, but, because of his body’s response to the virus and because he’s spent an hour being a punchbag on skates, it hurts. More embarrassingly, it draws a yelp of surprise from him, that the congestion in his head quickly turns into a damp splutter.

“… the fuck!”

Rozanov’s eyes are dark. His mouth is set into an insouciant expression that is entirely at odds with the force at which he has just accosted Shane. He has a fistful of Shane’s hoodie, and apparently no inclination to let it go. As Shane tries to shake off his grasp, Rozanov slams another palm into Shane’s right delt, pinning him back against the wall.

“You told your team that I am sick,” he snarls. His voice is a cracked rumble that resonates in Shane’s chest cavity.

“No.” Suddenly, the half-truths in which Shane has dwelt all day don’t seem to be providing him with the same protection. Technically, he didn’t tell JJ, or Hayden, or anyone else that Rozanov was sick, and so technically he’s not lying now. But he sounds like child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, especially because he has to punctuate his protest with a sniffle, and then because he decides to add. “You told your team about me, too.”

Rozanov snorts scornfully, or perhaps just because he can’t breathe through his nose.

“You miss easy pass from Pike. My teammates are not stupid like him. They would have noticed.”

“Hayden’s not stupid,” Shane snaps. “And you dodged every check that came at you in the first period – you think Boiziau wouldn’t have noticed that?” He sniffs, the pressure between his eyes almost painful now, but he’s not going to back down from this. “I didn’t have to tell him you were sick; he worked that out by himself once I’d pointed out how shit your skating was.”

Rozanov’s whole body tenses and Shane can something dangerous radiating through the heel of the hand that pushes deeper into his shoulder. If it was anyone else, Shane would think that he was about to get a punch to the jaw. But he knows instinctively that Rozanov won’t, would never, do that to him. He doesn’t even really do it on the ice. He doesn’t need to when he leaves most players reeling in his wake, and he prefers to give lashings with his tongue.

That’s kind of what happens now.

Rozanov pulls tighter on the fabric of Shane’s hoodie, and crashes his hungry lips into Shane’s. The kiss that Shane returns contains everything that he’s been holding back all day, through the game.

“I expect it,” Rozanov rasps, mostly into Shane’s mouth. He breaks the kiss, but tilts his head upwards, inviting Shane to pay some attention to his open throat. Shane happily obliges, trailing kisses down his throat, exploring Rozanov with his mouth, sucking and catching his teeth on the too-warm skin he finds there. Rozanov gasps, and chokes out a laugh. There is a damp note to it, and a crackle to his exhale. They really shouldn’t have let him play tonight.

“Everyone thinks Hollander is such a good boy. Hockey prince. But I know better.” Rozanov jerks his head back to centre so that Shane is forced to break off his kisses and look into his eyes. “I know what you’ll do to get what you want. I know what you’re like when you’re… desperate.”

Rozanov takes a step back, and looks down at Shane’s crotch, where the evidence of his desperation is already unmissable.

“Are you mad at me?” Shane asks, hoarse, breathless. He sniffs again, putting more energy to it, in the hope that it might stop his nose running for a few moments at least. The thick, wet sound makes him cringe.

“Of course.” Rozanov releases the hand that is pinning Shane’s shoulder, and rubs the cuff of his sleeve against his own nose. Then he tugs Shane’s hoodie upwards, exposing the waistband of his pants, and slips his hand beneath it. “But only because I know you like it.”

Through his underwear, Rozanov’s hand cups Shane’s hard-on, and Shane feels his hips buck forwards into his touch. Rozanov smiles now, his real smile, the one that changes his whole face; makes his sharp features seem gentler, makes his eyes twinkle and their corners crinkle in with surprising warmth. So Shane smiles too, even though his body still aches and his nose is still streaming.

Rozanov gives a final squeeze on his dick and then whips his hand away, placing it back at Shane’s shoulders.

“Don’t get too excited, Hollander. You need to make it up to me first.”

Shane is about to ask Rozanov just how he can do that when his nose decides that it’s finally had enough of the creeping itch that’s been building and retreating inside of it since he woke up. It starts to tickle more insistently, and when Shane sniffs to try to quiet it, this only triggers the tickle into a burning that makes his eyes fill with tears. There’s no time to slips out of Rozanov’s grasp. It’s all he can do to tuck his head into his left shoulder – the one that Rozanov isn’t pinning down – and pull the cuff of his hoodie over his wrist before he smothers the sneezes into the heel of his hand as best he can.

“huht’ISSHhoo!’ihSHhh’uu!”

The sneezes barrel into one another, Shane’s torso twisting painfully as his head snaps forward with each explosion. He’s making a mess of himself and his hoodie, but doesn’t have time to apologize before two more sneezes follow hard behind the first.

“huh’ISHHHeugh!...huh-huh… huh’EESHHuhh!...Fuhgk…”

The expletive is mangled by congestion and the damp cuff of the sweatshirt that Shane’s forced to sniff frantically into. He doesn’t dare to lift his head and he can barely look at Rozanov, whose usual expression of cool indifference has taken on an unusual softness, but hasn’t morphed into the disgust Shane had expected.

“Bless you.” Rozanov’s voice is uncharacteristically hesitant, as though he learnt the phrase from a text book years ago but has only just had the chance to try it out.

Shane tries to communicate gratitude with a tight nod. Anyone else would have stepped back by now – anyone sensible would have run a mile because Shane is being objectively disgusting – but Rozanov is still standing there, still holding a fistful of Shane’s hoodie, his hand perilously close to where Shane is trying to stem the flood now coming from his nose and preserve the last of his dignity.

“Sorry,” Shane mumbles, trying to extricate himself again, wincing at how full his head sounds. “I really d’eed a tissue.”

Rozanov finally lets go of Shane’s clothing, and while in any other situation Shane would be disappointed about this, it feels like a mercy. But because Rozanov cannot behave like a normal human being ever, he doesn’t let Shane leave to hide in the bathroom where he can blow his nose and get over the mortification of sneezing all over himself in the middle of their foreplay. Instead, Rozanov reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a handful of clean tissues.

For one terrible, inexplicable moment, something in Rozanov’s expression and the way he’s dancing the tissues from side to side in front of Shane’s face makes Shane think that he might be about try to wipe Shane’s nose for him. Thankfully, it doesn’t come to this. After one round of keep-away, and a satisfied grin when it elicits the desired “Fug’k off!” from Shane – Rozanov allows the tissues to be snatched from his fingertips.

Shane closes his eyes as he tries to clear his nose both thoroughly and quietly. He succeeds in doing neither, and he’s pretty sure that Rozanov is staring at him the entire time, with that cool, unreadable gaze that Shane thinks might haunt him for the rest of his life. He’s certainly staring when Shane lowers the tissues, more because they’re so damp as too be useless than because he can actually breath normally again, his dark eyes shining with what might be fever.

“You are a mess.”

Probably it’s the unusual cadences of his English, but Rozanov makes the phrase sounds curious, as though he hadn’t known that Shane could be like this. Even though Rozanov reduces Shane to a begging, panting, spent mess every time they are together; even though he’s devoted a good ninety percent of his interactions with Shane to precisely that end. And Shane’s dick twitches again just thinking about that – about how much of a mess he is for Rozanov, how much more of a mess he’s going to be by the end of the night.

Not that he’s going to tell Rozanov that.

“You’re not looking so great yourself.” That’s a lie, of course. Shane isn’t sure Rozanov could ever look truly unattractive, but he certainly isn’t now. Even with what seems to be a very heavy chest cold, Rozanov looks fucking hot. His curls are tousled from the wind outside, and with his flushed cheeks, he reminds Shane of the angels in those old Italian paintings that his parents dragged him round on trips to the National Gallery. The redness around his nose seems to make his lips look even pinker, which makes Shane even more wild about the thought of them on his own lips, his chest, his thighs, his cock.

Rozanov must know it’s a lie because he laughs and shakes his head as he takes off his coat, throwing it behind him so that it lands in a crumpled heap on the back of the couch. He’s dressed for warmth. No low-v t-shirt tonight, or shirt made from some delicate, silky material that makes Shane’s mind go pleasantly blank when he strokes his hands across it. Instead, he’s wearing an Addidas sweater that looks soft from washing and wearing, and sweatpants that are tenting in the same area as Shane’s own.

Well, clearly he hasn’t put Rozanov off.

The thought of what he’s doing to Rozanov, the fever he’s running, or some combination of the two sends a shiver cascading though Shane’s body. He hisses slightly as it grips his sore shoulder, the seizing of the joint sending an unexpected jolt of

“You are cold?”

“I… I think I have a fever,” Shane admits, with a sniffle that sounds pathetic even to his own ears.

“Do you want me to check?”

Shane’s no doctor, but he’s pretty sure the medically advised method of taking someone’s temperature doesn’t involve tugging off their clothing, and running your hands up and down their body. Nor does it involve slipping your tongue inside their mouth, as your lips press against theirs almost frantically. It definitely doesn’t involve placing your hands on someone else’s hips and grinding them forward into your own, so that your rock-hard dicks rub against each other through fabric that feels, at once, far too much of a barrier, and put under so much strain that it might tear any second.

But Shane doesn’t complain about any of this, because his mouth is too full of Rozanov’s lips, Rozanov’s tongue, Rozanov’s name – the last one escaping in a hoarse moan as he breaks their kiss to draw breath.

Rozanov is smiling at him. He leans back at little, eyes dark and dangerous. Shane can feel a familiar heat rising to his face. It’s not his fever; this happens every time Rozanov’s eyes dance over Shane’s body, like Shane is something that Rozanov wants to devour entirely, to possess immediately and for all time. Shane’s always hated that he blushes so easily, that his feelings appear as a pink flush across his cheeks, like the ink in those toy pens that gives up its secrets the instant a light shines on it.

Rozanov really likes it when he blushes. Shane can see the desire building in him, in the way that Rozanov’s tongue darts over his chapped lips, the way his eyes widen further, like he wants to see all of Shane so that he might know him completely. It should be awful, standing in front of Rozanov, feverish, sniffling and weak. Shane ought to hate being seen like that by anyone, but especially by Rozanov: the only person whom Shane has ever really thought of as competition, who Shane – in moments of gut-churning 3am honesty with himself – has ever worried might only not be better than he is, but better than Shane could ever be. Shane Hollander with a red nose, and sore throat, and a cold that is bad now and will be worse in the morning, is not a version of Shane Hollander than Ilya Rozanov should ever get to see.

But now that Rozanov is seeing it, it only feels awful in the good ways, in the ways that Shane always hates himself for wanting more of. Which means that maybe it’s not just ok that Rozanov sees him like this, but maybe that Shane wants Rozanov to see him like this - if only because Shane wants to know what it will make Rozanov do to him next.

“How’s my fever?” Shane asks, meeting Rozanov’s gaze and enjoying how much it burns.

“Bad, I think.” Rozanov teases his bottom lip in his teeth, runs a thumb across his nose, and then presses Shane hard against the wall, so that he can hook Shane’s hips over his own and take Shane’s weight, his impossibly strong arms wrapping round Shane’s torso, his fingers digging into Shane’s thighs. “Time to put you to bed.”

Shane is propped against the headboard, legs open wide, with Rozanov straddling him, their clothes scattered like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs, a trace of their path to the bedroom. Rozanov’s mouth is exploring the swoop of Shane’s clavicle. Shane tightens his hands around the bedsheets, squeezing them until his knuckles hurt to make sure that he stays in the room, to stop himself from slipping off into some hazy, shimmering cloud of overstimulation.

Fevers always make his skin too sensitive, so right now, the brush of Rozanov’s lips, fingers, curls across his feverish skin is almost too much. He wonders if Rozanov feels the same, if fevers make him dread any contact but make his body more needy, so that any graze from someone else’s is almost unbearable but not being touched would be worse? Because that’s how this is making Shane feel, like Rozanov hands caressing his chest and his dick might make him scream out in pleasure and pain all at once.

Will a fever do the same thing to his cock? Shane’s never had sex when he’s been ill before, so he doesn’t know. But maybe it. Shit. That’s probably not what Shane needs. Sometimes just being with Rozanov, being this close to him, being allowed to touch him – fuck it, just being allowed to look at him without second guessing every which way that his looks might be read – sometimes it was hard enough for Shane to keep it together through all of that. The soft, wet, heat of Rozanov’s mouth on his chest is almost too much for Shane to stand, he can’t imagine what it would feel like if Rozanov placed it around his dick.

Rozanov doesn’t offer that, which is probably a good thing consider that he’s barely able to breathe through his fucked up nose. But he does wrap a slicked hand around Shane’s cock, before stroking up and down with practised tenderness. The moan slips from Shane’s lips almost before he’s realised, and he closes his eyes and throws his head backwards.

No, no, stop, stop, stop…

For a minute, Shane thinks that he must have said the words out loud, because Rozanov does stop – has stopped – nibbling at his throat. His hand is still curled round Shane’s dick, but it’s teasing strokes have paused. But no, Shane definitely didn’t say it out loud, not least because Rozanov would never have passed up with opportunity to laugh at him if he had. And now, even with his eyes closed, Shane is suddenly aware that the weight of Rozanov’s body has shifted, and there is a distance between the two of them that wasn’t there before. So what the fuck is going on?

“ngh’uhTSCHhhhh!”

At that sound, and Rozanov’s hand jerking tight around him and tugging sharply, Shane opens his eyes. Rozanov is sitting a bit more upright, his hand still on Shane, but his torso twisted away. His left arm is thrown up haphazardly across the lower half of his face, and he raises his head above it to take a shuddering breath before the next sneeze hits.

“huhh…hhh’GHHh’chuhh!”

For a moment, Shane held captive by the outline of Rozanov’s shoulders, the perfect v of his torso down to his waist. He can’t do anything but stare at how the muscles in Rozanov’s shoulders and stomach contract and release as the sneeze rips through him. Shane isn’t sure he’s ever seen anyone sneeze that hard. His whole body is taken over with it, and then with the snuffling and tight gasps of breath that suggests the fit clearly far from over.

“hhhh’?.... hhy’yyyhh?... hhh’YHH’tschhhh!’Y’TTTschuuh!”

It an unusual sensation, yeah, but not an unenjoyable. Quite enjoyable, actually, when the sneezes jerk Rozanov forwards so that his hips crash forwards into Shane’s, the base of his shaft rubbing into the underside of Shane’s erection. Especially because, unconsciously, Rozanov’s grip on Shane tightens with each sneeze, enough to make Shane squirm and shift, to rub himself against Rozanov’s hand. And even when practically incapacitated by his sneezes, Rozanov notices that, managing a crooked half smile through hitching breaths and watery eyes, before sneezes again.

“hhh’DJJISHHH’ughhhh!”

Jesus, that one was strong. So strong that when Rozanov’s head snaps forward and takes his body with it, Shane presses up an arm to catch Rozanov’s shoulder, and wraps his other arm around Rozanov’s waist to brace him in position. And if this means that Rozanov’s hips are pulled even closer, up against his own, well that’s just a happy coincidence.

At Shane’s touch, Rozanov’s eyes blink open in surprise. His eyes are damp and dazed as they meet Shane’s, slipping away from focus for a second until Rozanov scrubs his nose into his forearm with determined violence. And then he coughs, with the deep crackling sound that Shane remembers from the rink earlier than night, though its worse now that Shane is closer to it, and there’s no noise to drown it out. When he finally lowers his arm, after swiftly ducking into it again for another wrenching “hhhh’GHHshhhhuh!”, his face is flushed, cheeks tear-stained, and nose scrunching with near-constant sniffles.

“Are you…”

Before Shane can finish, Rozanov pounces forwards to silence him with a very snuffly kiss.

“Hollander,” he growls, mostly mumbling the words into Shane’s lips. “If you ask me again if I want to lie down I will…”

This time, its Rozanov’s turn to be interrupted, not by a kiss but by Shane’s spur of the moment decision to combine the leverage he has at Rozanov’s shoulder with a sharp upward thrust from his hips at the same side. Off balance from leaning forward for the kiss, and definitely not expecting Shane to try something like this, Rozanov topples over to his left, which makes it easy enough for Shane to end up on top of him.

Rozanov looks up at Shane from where he is now lying on the bed, pupils blown, and with a smile registering unexpected pleasure – and, Shane lets himself think, a touch of admiration.

“I’m not asking this time,” Shane says, almost surprising himself when the words slip from his mouth.

“Fuck, Hollander,” Rozanov growls. “You have been practisi’ihhh’ hhhh’YSHHHughhh!” It’s all Rozanov can do to turn his head to one side and direct the sneeze into the comforter that neither of them bothered to pull off the bed. “Nghh…” The groan follows hard behind desperate sniffs and Rozanov clearing his throat harshly. “Can’t fucking stop…”

“I don’t care.” Shane grabs Rozanov’s dick, and enjoys the moan of pleasure that he gets in return. Maybe he is supersensitive after all. Rozanov’s hand is still loosely on Shane’s cock, and so, Shane places his other hand on top and begins to move them both in the same rhythm, indulging in a sigh of pleasure as Rozanov follows his lead.

“hhh’uhhh’?...Uhh’TSCHhh’EUGH!”

“Fuck!” It slips out without Shane meaning it to, because every time that Rozanov sneezes the grip he has on Shane unconsciously tightens, a squeeze and a jerk that is a deliciously sharp interruption to his otherwise sweeping strokes.

Rozanov laughs. “You like that, when I…”

“Shut up,” Shane growls, speeding up the pace of hand on Rozanov’s shaft. But he does, like it. Not the sneezing exactly, though they are both, he thinks, way, way past caring about the dubious hygiene of this whole encounter. But the side effects of the sneezing are… pleasurable. And judging by the way that Rozanov is looking at him, pleased with himself and brimming with desire, Shane knows that he is blushing again.

“Do it for me,” Rozanov says.

“What, sneeze?” Shane laughs, because he assumes he’s misunderstood. But Rozanov is nodding as he’s jerking Shane off, picking up his speed to match Shane’s own.

“Want to know what it feels like,” Rozanov breaths. “So do as you’re… nghh’GHTSchhh!… told.” 

Rozanov’s request is patently ridiculous, not just because its not something that anyone asks for during sex, but also because it’s not possible for someone to sneeze on demand. Except that it doesn’t take much to make Shane sneeze when his nose feels as sensitive as every other inch of him right now. It’s itched and prickled every time that Rozanov has sneezed, as though in sympathy with the tickle he can’t seem shake. And Shane really, really wants to do as he’s told, wants to do that so badly that his body feels like its vibrating with the urge. So, feeling less stupid about it than he ought to, Shane tilts his head back slightly, closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose where bone meets cartilage, and rubs.

From somewhere beneath him on the bed, Shane hears Rozanov whisper an almost reverent, “Wow,” which sends a shudder of pleasure thrilling through Shane’s body. Apparently, even if this doesn’t work, Shane’s eagerness to please is enough to please Rozanov, which also pleases Shane and so…

Fuck, though, it is working. The itch in the back of his nose is building, slowly but surely, teasing tears from Shane’s eyes as it does so. Concentrating on the sensation, and on the tension growing in his cock as Rozanov edges him closer and closer to release, and on the feeling of Rozanov in his hand doing the same, makes everything else in the room go black. After what feels like an age, but can only really have been seconds, Shane feels his breath catch once, twice, and then…

“hhh’EISSHHuu! hhuh'huh-YISHHuuh!”

“Fuck!” Rozanov yells, which must be from some combination of the way Shane’s grasp has tightened round his shaft, and the way that Shane’s hips have bucked against Rozanov’s dick with the force of the releases. “Oh, fuck Hollander, make me come…”

Not caring that his eyes are watering and his nose is streaming, Shane speeds up the motion of his hand even more, rotating his wrist as he does so in a way that draws a rough his from deep in Rozanov’s throat. And then all it takes is for Shane to rub his own cock against Rozanov’s, for everything to blur between their hands, and their dicks, and their moans, before Rozanov comes, with a strangled cry. The release splashes all over his and Shane’s stomach where, seconds later, it is joined by Shane’s as he comes and collapses forward into Rozanov’s arms.

It is a while before either of them moves, other than to place feverish, fucked-out kisses on the other one’s mouths. Shane is nestled into the crook of Rozanov’s shoulder, his limbs tangled round Rozanov’s body. Now the thrill of his organism is receding and the sweat on his body is beginning to dry, Shane can feel that he’s starting to shiver again. He should get under the covers, or put some clothes on, or maybe take a hot shower. But his instinct is to simply pull himself closer to Rozanov, as though the other man could provide all the warmth that he needs.

Rozanov, however, has other plans. He places a tender kiss on Shane’s temple but at the same time lifts Shane’s leg from where it lies across his thigh. Then he carefully sits up, depositing Shane’s head gently onto a pillow.

“Ngghh…Where’re you going…” Shane mumbles. “C’m’back…”

“Just a minute, sweetheart,” Rozanov whispers. Shane feels another kiss being pressed to his lips, and then hears footsteps are padding across the bedroom carpet.

Beneath the haze of head cold and afterglow, Shane hears water running. Not enough water for a shower, so maybe Rozanov is just cleaning himself up. Shane wriggles himself upwards until he’s half-sitting against the headboard, and studies the mess that remains on his skin. Maybe he’ll clean Shane up too. Shane secretly loves when he does that, or maybe not so secretly because he’s pretty sure he’s moans every time Rozanov wipes a warm flannel over his stomach and his dick and wherever else has ended up sticky and salty.

But when Rozanov does come back, its not a washcloth that he hands to Shane, but a mug of something warm, and with a familiar, cutting scent – acidic and medicinal – that cuts through even Shane’s stuffed head. It’s the same cold medicine that Shane made for Rozanov last night.

“You made this for me?” Shane says, which is stupid because who else is going to have done it. And yeah, Rozanov rolls his eyes.

“No, I make it for all the other hockey players with colds that I fuck tonight,” he says, which makes Shane laugh. Normally, this would be fine – good even, because the corners of Rozanov eyes crinkle when he manages to make Shane laugh, in a way that is utterly adorable and that Shane rarely gets to see to otherwise. Except now that his nose is so itchy, and his sinuses are protesting his movement to a semi-seated position, and so now Shane is going to sneeze while clutching a mug of very hot liquid.

The only thing Shane can do is thrust it back towards Rozanov, whose athlete’s reflexes allow him to take it without thinking.

“It’s not right?” he says, for a moment – maybe for the first time Shane has ever heard – sounding genuinely disappointed. “You don’t want it?”

The feeling of a sneeze building is not easy for Shane to speak through, but Rozanov sounds so crestfallen that Shane feels he has to try.

“Doh’hehhh…jusd…reallydeedto-oo’hhh’ISSHhhh’uu! – huh?’huh’ISHHHuuh!”

Shane feels something land in his lap, and opens his eyes to find the tissue box that was on the nightstand has been deposited there.

“So many sneezes,” Rozanov says, settling next to Shane as he blows his nose, and tries not to wince at the sound. “Though not as many as me, I think,” he adds, as he hands the mug back to Shane for a second try.

Shane gives a huff before taking a sip of his drink. Of course, Ilya Rozanov could even turn their colds into a competition.

“Is ok?” Rozanov asks, and Shane notices, approvingly, that he’s cradling a cup of his own, too.

“Yeah, it’s good.”

Rozanov nods. “I hear, better with honey,” he says, which makes Shane smile into his cup, until Rozanov adds, “And someone told me that you can’t microwave the water or it tastes funny, but I think he is a liar. And also boring.”

Shane is about to jab his elbow into Rozanov’s side when he remembers that they are both holding scalding drinks. So he settles for flipping Rozanov the bird instead. Rozanov grins in response, but it falters slightly as he looks at Shane, and Shane knows what he must be seeing. The pale skin, reddened nose, and inflamed eyes that Shane himself is seeing when he looks at Rozanov. Still, it is a surprise when Rozaonov reaches over and presses the back of his hand against Shane’s forehead.

Did you ever have a boyfriend who would feel your forehead to check if you had a fever? And did your boyfriend ever do that for you?

“I think you do have a fever,” Rozanov says, unusually serious. Shane nods and shrugs.

“Probably,” he agrees, allowing himself a little bit of a self-pitying sniffle. He hates being sick – who doesn’t – but he really, really hates how having a fever makes him feel. Like everything that usually stays so well hidden is suddenly right beneath the surface, and the cloth that is hiding it might be pulled off at any time. And so because it’s easier not to think about himself right now, he adds, “I think you have one too.”

Rozanov shrugs as well. “This will help, yes?” he says, holding up the mug as a gesture.

“Yeah, it will,” Shane says, taking another large sip from the mug. “Thanks.”

Rozanov looks down at his own drink, and smiles.

They lie there quietly, side by side, for several moments, their shoulders and upper arms touching. Rozanov must have retrieved his phone from his coat when he went to fetch the medicine, because he’s scrolling through messages and the Raiders Instagram account; Shane pointedly keeps his eyes on his mug so as not to see anything he shouldn’t. For his own part, Shane is content to lie and listen to the muted traffic outside, nowhere near dying away yet, and the snuffling, wheezing sounds of Rozanov’s breathing. Hopefully someone on the Raiders team would make him see a doctor before they flew back.

And suddenly, almost before Shane can think about the consequences of them, the beginning of a phrase is on his lips, almost spilling over before Shane can catch up with it.

“I wish - ”

 I wish you didn’t have to leave. I wish you never had to leave. I wish we could stay together all night, and every night after that.

But he can’t say that. Because this is what they do; they fuck and they leave before morning.

So, instead, Shane tries, “I wish I hadn’t gotten sick this week.”

Rozanov’s teasing huff comes out probably more congested than he’d intended. “So it’s ok if I am sick?”

“Shut up.” Shane swallows the last of the medicine and puts his cup on the nightstand. Then he curls himself into Rozanov, returning his head to its place on the other man’s chest. “Obviously, I wish that you hadn’t gotten sick either.”

It’s not true though. Or rather, it’s not that Shane wants Rozanov sick, but that he wouldn’t mind Rozanov being sick if he could stay and let Shane take care of him. Lying in the dark, as Rozanov starts to thread his fingers through Shane’s hair, Shane lets himself think about a version of the past few days where they weren’t having stolen whispered conversations, weren’t sneaking around at night, weren’t having to leave before the morning. Where instead of being in this stupid show-home, they were in his real apartment, where there was a kettle for tea, and pans to make soup. Where Shane could have tucked Rozanov up in blankets on the couch, and put on a stupid movies, and checked his temperature, and rubbed his back when his cough sounded bad, and played with his hair until he fell asleep. Something like that could be… nice.

Shane’s so busy thinking about this that he almost doesn’t notice that Rozanov is speaking again.

“But better we were both sick, than just one of us.”

Shane hums his assent, and is ready to let the silence fall again. But Rozanov, it seems, is not done with talking, even if his fingers have quieted their soothing motion across Shane’s forehead. When he speaks, he doesn’t look at Shane as he does so, staring off instead into middle distance at somewhere far away, or perhaps, somewhere a long time ago.

“I think I am not very good at being a sick person,” he says.

Shane laughs; even to his own ears it sounds thick and heavy, dragged from his lungs like a dull skate blade.

“No one is good at being sick,” he says.

Rozanov shakes his head, as though Shane has misunderstood something.

“I think,” he says again, “I am not easy to care for.”

It is such a strange phrase – not easy to care for – that, not for the first time, Shane wonders what is being lost in translation when Rozanov speaks to him. Not just because he is speaking English, but because there is so much context for who Rozanov is that Shane doesn’t know. Who made him feel this way, and how did they do it?

Those aren’t questions Shane can ask now; even if he could, Rozanov probably wouldn’t answer them. All Shane can do is hold him a little tighter, and press another kiss to his cheek

“I don’t think that’s true,” he says, forcing out the words as steadily as he can. “I… I want to take care of you.”

Even as he hears himself saying the words, Shane knows that he’s gone too far. This isn’t the kind of thing they say to one another. This is dangerous. And if Rozanov started it, then Shane’s taken it further. They are out in the middle of the thin ice they’ve been skating on for a while now, far from the shoreline, and if it cracks, and there is nothing beneath but drowning.

Luckily, Rozanov finds a branch to drag them back to familiar, safe, grounds. With another huff - half amusement and half derision, and, tonight, also mostly the congestion in his head - he looks down at his softening cock and then back up to Shane, one eyebrow raised with suggestive menace.

“That what you call this? Taking care of me?”

Shane, at least, can follow his lead.

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Or maybe it was ‘taking care’ when you build whole gameplan around your teammates fucking with me because I’m sick? Make me skate so hard that stupid cold turns into nuumoneeya?”

“Pneumonia?” Shane replies, checking his translation.

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“That’s not a thing that happens!” And it wasn’t, right? “Anyway, you did the same to me.”

“Or when you leave me outside on freezing cold street for an hour?”

An hour? Fuck no, is he getting away with this.

“It was ten minutes!”

Rozanov tilted his head to one side as though he were considering this, and then said cooly, “I think more.”

“Shut up – no, it wasn’t. And I bought you cold medicine.”

“Which I make for you,” Rozanov responds, waving his mug as he places it on the other nightstand.

Shane is about to point out that he made medicine for Rozanov yesterday when he was ignoring the fact he was running a fever for Christ’s sake. But he’s interrupted by an annoyingly familiar sensation in his nose, that leaves him scrambling for the tissue box that – even more annoyingly – is only in his reach because Rozanov put it there.

“hhh’EISHHhhhh!’ISSHHhhhh!”

“And now you sneeze on me to try to win argument.”

Shane blows his nose sharply, and drags himself to a sitting position. Rozanov is grinning at him, and Shane knows there’s no point in continuing the back and forth, except that he can’t let Rozanov win after saying something so completely stupid.

“That doesn’d even make sense,” he grumbles.

“Yes, it does. And you are going to sneeze again,” he adds, matter-of-factly.

“What? No, I’b…” But he is. Right now. “hhh-IShhheuhh!... hhh’ISHHhhhewhh!

“Bless you,” Rozanov replies in a sing-song tone, his confidence with the phrase obviously increasing.

“Oh, fug’k off.” Shane gives Rozanov’s hamstring a soft kick, and shakes off the hand that is resting on his hip bone. He’s not sure where he’s going – shower maybe, or the kitchen for some tea, or to see if there’s something – anything - else in what he bought that might help him stop sneezing. But he doesn’t have to listen to this in his own… well, not actually his apartment, but a building that he owns.

“No, no, Hollander…” Rozanov’s wheedling tone can’t disguise the laughter in his voice, as he grabs Shane’s forearm, tugging him back towards the bed. “You cannot leave. This is not ‘taking care’. I will be cold.”

He pouts, and its adorable. Annoying adorable.

Shane is still about to tell Rozanov to go fuck himself when he realises, suddenly, that Rozanov has grabbed the arm furthest from him – so the arm that has the shoulder that didn’t get slammed into the boards, and so isn’t beginning to stain with indigo and burgundy bruises. The tenderness is so unexpected from Rozanov, who is a professional asshole first and a hockey player second, that it snatches the air from Shane’s lungs, and he thinks that the only way to get it back might be to kiss Rozanov and never stop.

As their eyes meet, he thinks Rozanov can see it. There’s something about the way that his grip loosens a little, about the tremble in his breathing as they are both frozen in the moment, trying to work out what the hell they are supposed to do next.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. You have got to stop this, Hollander. Sell your fucking apartment. Delete Rozanov’s number. Don’t ever think about what he’s doing, what he’s thinking, whether he’s thinking about you. This has got to stop.

It’s not going to stop. 

A familiar sick feeling is back in Shane’s stomach, and he’s about to shake off Rozanov’s grasp, when he realises that he doesn’t have to, because Rozanov’s grip on him has already loosened. His upper lip curls, his nose scrunches upwards and his whole body crumples forward.

“hk’TSKHHHhh!’HUH’tschhh!’NGH’tschhh!..... huh’TX’schhh!.... hhh’TXX’SHHhhh!... uhh’huhh’DJSHHH’ghh!”

“Jesus Christ, do you always sneeze like that?” Shane mutters, extending the tissues to him.

Rozanov snatches a handful and blows his nose loudly. Then, he looks at Shane balefully over the tissues, and gives a reluctant nod.

“Well then, bless you, I guess.”

Rozanov finishes wiping his nose, though he’s still sniffling. He meets Shane’s eyes, and he’s not grinning now, and nor does he look like he’s about to rip into Shane again. It’s not even the cool, studied indifference that Shane is used to from Rozanov. It’s something quieter, less performed, more… sincere.

“Thank you,” he says. “And thank you for the tissues. And thank you for… ‘taking care’.”

He opens his arm, an invitation for Shane to return his head to Rozanov’s chest. It’s the worst idea in the world, and Shane doesn’t need asking twice.

“It’s ok. I… I don’t mind.”

I like it. I love it, actually. I would do it forever, if you would let me. Would you let me, Rozanov?

Rozanov tightens the arm around his shoulder, as Shane nestled his head back into Rozanov’s shoulder. Rozanov doesn’t say anything, but it feels, somehow, like he understands. They are silent like this for a moment, Rozanov teasing his fingers through Shane’s hair, Shane stroking the back of his knuckles across Rozanov’s bicep.

Oh, fuck it.

Shane clears his throat.

“Next time you’re sick… I mean, if you’re sick again, and… and you want someone to complain to, or I dunno… Well, you can, um, let me know.”

“You will ‘take care’ again?”

“Yeah, I’ll ‘take care’ again.”

Rozanov laughs again, and it’s still horribly congested – enough that Shane does start to worry that skating yourself into pneumonia might be a thing. But it’s also warm and kind. It’s laughter to wrap yourself up in against a cold day, and a colder world. Shane wonders who else knows that Rozanov’s laughter can sound like that.

“You will ‘take care’ from Montreal, when I am in Boston?”

“We can text. Or whatever.”

“Or whatever.” Rozanov leans down, and kisses Shane gently on the forehead. “Is your fever talking?”

“No,” Shane says, looking back up at him. “No, I mean it.”

“Ok.” Rozanov smiles, and it is beautiful. He is beautiful. Sick, and exhausted, and beautiful. “Ok. Maybe I do that.”

----

The interview and the photographs are published two weeks later. Shane discovers this when he arrives at practice to find the magazine’s front cover stuck on the wall in his usual stall. It’s someone’s – probably, JJ’s – idea of a good joke. Chirping their captain for being a pretty boy apparently never gets old.

Shane glances at the cover. By now he can pretty much guess the straplines word for word.

Hollander v. Rozanov - Head-to-Head with the Eastern Conference’s Greatest Rivals!

The cover photo is one that was taken at the practice: he and Rozanov facing off against one another. Because, like, they’re rivals? Really fucking original.

Carefully giving the picture only the most cursory glance, Shane turns back to his assembled teammates and their howls of laughter. He rolls his eyes, curses them playfully – whichever of you motherfuckers did this is skating laps – and makes a show of pulling down the cover, to some really old lines about when he’s giving up hockey for modelling – “because the pay is nearly as good and your workmates are hotter!”.

But Shane doesn’t screw up the cover and toss it in the trash, like he’s done on other occasions where his teammates have tried this gag. Instead, when no one is looking, he tucks in inside his kit bag in a space where it won’t get crumpled.

After practice, he’s deliberately slow getting changed, so that he’s the last one left in the locker room, once he’s told Hayden to go ahead and get them both a coffee, that he’ll be right out. And then, once the room is empty, Shane takes a deep breath and pulls out the picture.

Someone must have done some touching up or whatever, because neither he nor Rozanov looks anywhere near as sick as they actually were. The only real evidence is a tiny bloom of pink around the tip of Rozanov’s nose, and a pinched flush on Shane’s cheeks, both of which might be down to nothing more than the cold of the rink. Nothing that any one would notice. Almost like the two of them being sick never happened.

In fact, the more notable thing about the picture is that the two of them are smiling at each other. Not really smiling, or laughing, not like they were the day of the CCM shoot all those years ago, like they must be in some pictures that were on a photographer’s hard drive, but probably don’t even exist anymore. But they are smiling, lips quirking upwards in a way that might be read as confidence, or a playful challenge, or enjoyment of competition for its own sake, even though Shane knows that it was none of those things at all. And Rozanov knows it, too.

All at once, it strikes Shane that, aside from his parents, Rozanov probably knows Shane better than anyone else. And of everything fucked up about this whole fucked up thing they have, that might be the most fucked up thing of all.

He lays the cover on the bench, pulls out his phone and snaps a picture – to send to his mom and dad, if anyone asks. But he doesn’t send it to them; he sends it to Lily.

The read notification flicks up and immediately the three dots start flickering on the screen.

              Lily: Congratulations. You are second hottest hockey player in the picture

Shane huffs, and types his reply.

Good job they had Photoshop to make you look like you weren’t dying from a cold.

Shane is about to put his phone away, because Hayden’s going to start wondering where he is, but then something comes over him and before he can think too hard about it, he adds:

              You survived, then? No pneumonia?

Lily: No. I was not going to die before we could beat you in December

December. Six weeks. Nineteen games. Not that he’s counting. Shane taps his response with particular fervour.

              You wish

              Lily: You wish 😉

Shane stares at the message for a while. He knows it’s a dumb joke, in response to another dumb joke. It doesn’t mean anything. It can never mean anything. But still… But still.

You wish.

I do.

Wyatt must’ve known that their captain needed a distraction, because Wyatt’s just a sweetheart like that.

It’d been a bittersweet victory for Ilya tonight, winning in Boston – his old barn – to a chorus of boo’s and a torrent of abuse thrown his way pretty much any time he so much as touched the puck, by the same notoriously passionate fans that used to scream themselves hoarse cheering him on. The fans that had been proud to have ‘Rozanov’  emblazoned on the back of so many of their jerseys. He’d shrugged it off and been cracking jokes all night, pretending it hadn’t affected him, but for those with eyes to see, it had evidently worn at him. On the bus from the arena to the airport, and for the first half of the flight, he’d been sullen and unnaturally reserved.

It was a high stakes game with ‘must win’ media narratives attached on both sides. For the Centaurs, a crucial two points on offer to bring them within striking distance of clinching a play-off spot after a difficult loss in Pittsburgh at the start of their road trip. For the Raiders, a crucial two points needed to simply stay in play-off contention at all.

The Cens’ 4-2 win ended up securing the Raiders’ elimination from the play-off race.

God, no wonder the guys are tired.

Hell, Harris was feeling tired enough himself just watching on, covering it online. It was all worth it in the end, though, as they were going home with four points out of a possible six and needed just two more overall to finally get the ‘X’. One more win. Preferably at home, in front of their own fans, at their next game on Saturday night.

Tuning out the chatter and activity around him, Harris refocused his attention on his laptop screen, balancing on the tray table in front of him, the raw, ‘behind the scenes’ video footage from across the multi-day trip freshly uploaded onto into his Premiere Pro workspace.

He’d started these sort of multi-day, mini travel vlog style clip compilations a while ago now, and the fans had grown to love them. Really, they ate up any chance to get to know the guys beyond the rink and get a peek behind the curtain – Harris knew how that felt, given that he’d been one of them, growing up. Not to blow his own, or any of the rest of his team’s trumpet, but secretly liked to think that using their social media channels to break down a bit of that barrier between players and fans, showcase these guys’ personalities, had helped contribute to the Centaurs’ growth as a franchise. One silly TikTok meme trend video and silly questionnaire at a time.

Honestly, the team had become like Harris’s second family. They’d accepted him unconditionally, no questions asked. And as someone who grew up loving hockey, someone who the sport helped through some really tough times, but was essentially told by the culture at large that being gay put him at odds with that world and made him unwelcome within it, he’d never expected to be able to have… this. That family atmosphere, the healthy locker room environment they’d cultivated, was a major USP and it was something Harris loved so much about the team and about doing this job. He wanted to capture that; make it part of their brand.

They had a much-needed day off tomorrow, and technically, he could probably push the editing to Tuesday, but who knew what else could be sitting on his desk, or in his inbox, that he’d also have to deal with by then? No, it was easier to just lock in, do it now, and schedule it to post so he could forget about it. No matter the jealousy he felt creeping in that all the other guys were able to kick back and relax; their jobs done.

Exactly, Harris. They did their jobs tonight and won. So stop whining, even inside your own head, about having to do yours and just get on with it.

God, dinner felt like it’d been years ago at this point. Maybe he was a little hangry.

If he was being honest with himself though, it had probably more to do with the fact that he’d been feeling a bit icky ever since they took off. They’d dimmed the cabin lights to allow people to sleep, so the glow of the laptop screen was starting to make his eyes ache. Combine that with the weariness from the general lack of sleep accumulated over the previous few days, the recycled air drying out his throat, and the cabin pressure messing with his sinuses, making them thick and sore, and he’d admit he was definitely not the happiest camper.

But that wasn’t anyone else’s fault, so he should probably just keep to himself and not make his, admittedly rare, moodiness anyone else’s problem. He just needed to get back on solid ground, curl up in his boyfriend’s (magnificently toned) arms, in their own bed, and get a good, long sleep.

He only got as far as reviewing the first video file from the massive collection he’d just dumped into the software, when he caught movement in his peripheral vision. Speak of the devil…

He turned to find Troy hanging over the vacant aisle seat beside him, drawn back to him from wherever he’d been off goofing around with some of the few other guys that remained awake. He’d scored the go-ahead goal that led to the win tonight, a nasty 90mph wrister that Boston’s goalie had wrongly anticipated he’d pass to the centre where Ilya was deceptively tapping for it. Harris could’ve burst with pride uploading Troy’s individual ‘goal’ gif. Tonight’s first star, it’d clearly left him a little too buzzed to sleep.

Harris removed an AirPod.

“Hey…” Troy trailed off, eyes lingering expectedly on the empty seat. “Can I sit, or do you want to be left alone while you’re working?” As if to sweeten the deal, he brought his hand round from where it’d been hanging behind him out of sight, producing a can of Coke Zero and a little bag of salted pretzels. “I’m not above bribery.”

Despite his mood, Harris couldn’t help but smile. Turns out that’s just kind of one of Troy’s love languages – bringing him stuff, namely his favourite beverages and snacks.

Harris would bet he was some kind of retriever in a past life. “Of course, go for it.”

Before Troy could even move to sit down though, after another painful swallow, Harris caught himself. “Actually, wait! Before you sit down, while you’re on your feet, would you mind grabbing me a tea from one of the stewardesses, please?”

Troy glanced towards the back of the plane where said stewardesses, looking amused but almost as tired as the team they were serving, were unfortunately stuck in a conversation with a couple of well-meaning, but ultimately immature, rookies who seemed like they were trying to charm them in some way. Okay, a rescue mission as well. His mouth twitched into a smile.

“Sure, what kind?”

“Preferably green if they have it, but if not, really anything will do so long as it’s hot. And wet.”

The innuendo somehow flew right over Troy’s head. “You’re cold?”

Harris shrugged. “It’s always a little chilly on airplanes, right?”

Troy appeared to accept that as a valid answer, nodding before he went to go and retrieve the tea. By the time he came back, the steaming little cardboard cup looking particularly tiny in his rather large hand, Harris had given in and pulled a little bottle of aspirin out of his bag, shaking two pills out into his hand to wash down with the Coke Zero.

“What’s hurting?” Troy asked, brow now furrowed as he slid into the aisle seat.

“Just my head a little bit.” Harris waved it off dismissively. “Too many late nights on the road.” It felt a little bit silly complaining about being exhausted to someone who tended to wrack up over 20 minutes of ice time a night, on top of the same travel schedule Harris was experiencing, only even more frequently.

The travelling didn’t usually bother Harris this much, though. And with that, a tiny, foreboding niggle of doubt embedded itself. Troy’s questions were only making him feel a little more nervous as well. Stacking the chilliness on top of the tiredness…

On top of the sore throat on top of the sinus issues…

Troy handed Harris off the tea, making himself comfortable, oblivious to his boyfriend’s held-off, but impending, doom spiral. He leaned slightly into Harris’s side as he returned to his work, one AirPod still out, and hooked his chin over Harris’s shoulder, watching the screen. Although Troy impeded the full range of motion in his left arm, he was a welcome weight; a welcome warmth. Flush with a sudden affection, and with his fingers still warm from holding the hot cup, Harris curled his fist and brought them up to stroke Troy’s cheek. He basically melted into his touch.

“What’cha doing?” Troy eventually asked, his voice soft and syrupy slow.

Harris switched the tabs quickly between his editing software, the Centaurs’ Twitter page, and their Instagram account. “Just editing my little behind the scenes ‘DITL’s and replying to some comments.”

Troy looked confused, and Harris let out a chuckle. 

“‘DITLs’? Now you’re making up words just to confuse me.”

Harris barked out a laugh. “All this time and you still have no real idea what all I actually do day-to-day, huh?”

“For sure, yeah. You… come at us with a little mini mic and ask dumb questions,” Troy answered, his smile teasing.

Harris’s mouth dropped open, clearly indignant. “The questions your fans are clamouring for the answer to! Like ‘Did you make your bed this morning?’, ‘Is this princess treatment or bare minimum?’, and, my personal favourite, ‘Who on the team would be most likely to fall for a phishing scam?’”

Troy gave him a pointed look at that last one. Harris bit his lip to keep from laughing.

“I’m sorry, baby, but you’re just mad because most people chose you.”

“I fucking wouldn’t…” Troy grumbled, just like he had on the day Harris had gone around asking it, before mumbling, “...because I’d ask you first and you’d know.”

After that they settled into a comfortable rhythm – Harris working, Troy watching him work. Whatever the hot tea had managed to loosen up in Harris’s airways, worryingly, it had him alternating between clearing his throat and sniffling with an ever increasing frequency. Despite it being pretty much right in Troy’s ear, if he noticed or was bothered by it, he didn’t show it. Something about Troy watching over his shoulder in dazed, sleepy, silence, lulled by the low rumble of the engines, was only making Harris sleepier too, his eyelids getting noticeably heavier by the minute.

Finally admitting (temporary) defeat, Harris saved his progress and sat fully back, scrubbing the sleep from his eye.

“Ugh, I can’t wait to be back home in our own bed,” he said, partly through a yawn.

Troy tilted his head to look up at him, tired eyes shining with agreement. “Same. Still a little while to go yet, though. And we need to pick Chiron up on the way back.”

Normally, if they were away together for no more than a couple of days, they’d save hassle and money and just leave Chiron at Harris’s parents’ place. But when they were gone for longer, like this, they just didn’t want to impose on them or put them under any more strain with all the animals that were already running around. So they’d started putting Chiron in this fancy kennel – more ’doggie hotel’, really – type of place. Shane and Ilya take Anya there as well and had highly recommended it. Ilya had started to joke that she and Chiron were ‘cousins’ who were ‘going on vacation together’.

“Awww,” Harris cooed, picturing his fluffy little face and how excited he’ll be to see them again. “I’ve missed him so much.”

“Me too. The worst part of it is, though, is that he’s apparently having the time of his life. He won't want to come home with us.”

They’d been getting pretty frequent updates from the kennel staff, including pictures and videos of Chiron completing commands for yummy, nutritious treats, frolicking in wide open fields on one of at least two walks he got per day, and, adorably, making friends with the other dogs.

“Did you see the last load of stuff they sent over from today?” Harris gushed, already pulling his phone out.

They were very much an ‘opposites attract’ kind of couple when it came to the scale of how glued you could be to your phone – Harris was just about the easiest person in the world to reach at any given time. Troy? Not so much. Honestly, whether Troy had or hadn’t seen them, he just wanted to look at them again regardless.

“No! I saw the notification before the game earlier, but I was kind of locked in and didn’t want to take myself out of the moment.”

They huddled together over Harris’s phone screen as they poured over the assortment of pictures and videos, their gazes mutually adoring. As much as he loved Chiron and did just want to look at the pictures again, Harris would be lying if he said that he wasn’t also just simply enjoying being close to his boyfriend – suddenly feeling a little greedy about it. He just about resisted the urge to fully lay his head in the crook of Troy’s neck, to turn his face inward, away from the screen lights, close his eyes, and rest in the deep dip of Troy’s shoulderblade like he would do if they were at home.

“That’s totally his girlfriend,” Harris pointed out instead, gesturing towards the pretty, well-groomed springer spaniel that kept appearing in so many of the snaps, never too far from Chiron’s side. One of them was captioned “Chiron and Cora! Best buddies ❤️”

“Wow,” Troy mused, comically deadpan. “Our boy’s really straight, huh?”

Harris’s chuckle burst out of him in a rather undignified snort, the pain making him wince before he could fully catch himself. “Apparently so! Who would’ve thought? Sdnff. Where did we go wrong, babe?”

Troy ‘tsk’ed. “We didn’t raise him that way. And besides – he’s too young to have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or an… an anything-friend.”

“He’s two and a half now! Nearly three.”

“Exactly. He’s still a baby.”

Harris shot him a look. “Very much a teenager in the canine world.”

Troy averted his gaze, but dipped his head a fraction closer, mumbling. “Well he’ll always be a baby to me. Our baby.”

Harris’s chest fluttered. Oh God, that’s so cute I have no idea what to do with it. He sighed, but it came out warm and affectionate. “Such a protective dad.”

Unfortunately, it appeared like that fluttering didn’t want to stay in his chest. The hot tea had dulled the ache in his throat, and eased some of the pressure in his head, but now, from that, a crawling itch suddenly wound all the way up into the back of his nose. Gasping, he pulled out of Troy’s personal space, turning away and burying his face into the crook of his arm.

“hhh’UH’AEHTSSCH’hue!” Even muffled, the sneeze was loud and abrasive, cutting through the low din of the chatter around them as it tore out. Ouch.

“Bless you!” Wyatt chimed, his kind face popping up from over the back of the seat. It must’ve caught Shane, Ilya, and Bood’s attention as well, who were looking on as they briefly lowered their cards.

To Harris’s surprise, he found he couldn’t properly respond, his breath seizing in his lungs as he geared up for another, hot on the heels of the first. “Th-hh? Thanks, su’hhh…sorry– hhuh’EHTCHH’hoo!”

Huh. He barely ever sneezed more than once at a time. Which… could mean nothing.

“Bless you, man,” Wyatt repeated, standing up and reaching over the seats to clap a warm – firm – hand to Harris’s shoulder on his way out into the aisle, heading off towards the bathroom.

Troy’s brow creased. “You okay?”

Harris reemerged from his elbow with a reflexive sniffle. He’d really rather pretend he didn’t notice how heavy it was. But the thing about growing up with a chronic health issue was that you sort of got to know how your body worked on a much more intimate basis than most other people. You learned to be observant; tended to know when something was up. All there was beyond that was either denial or acceptance.

God, one more sneeze like that and he’s definitely going to need a tissue. Then it’s essentially game over.

Shit. No.

“Yes!” he said quickly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Yes, of course, silly. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Troy considered that for a second, but didn’t appear to know how to put what he was thinking into words; like the right ones were just out of reach somewhere. “I don’t know. You just seem kind of…”

Harris held his gaze as Troy’s eyes flitted about, studying him. Something in him battled to help Troy out; usually he would. Just a couple more beats and then…

Troy gave up, dismissing his own thought with a shrug. “I don’t know. Never mind. Ignore me, I’m probably just…”

Harris’s mouth twitched into a small, private smile.

“Tired?” he supplied for him this time.

Troy gave a slow nod, yawning as he slumped down a little further in his seat. “Yeah, that.” He leaned back into Harris’s space once more like a clingy house cat. Getting a proper look at him now, Harris could see the slightly hollow-looking exhaustion in the ice blue of his eyes, post-game adrenaline all but drained away.

“Here,” Harris said, bending over to lift his scarf – large, woolen and adorned with coloured stripes – from where he’d discarded it on top of his bag after boarding. For it technically being Spring, he’d thought he’d been stupid for bringing it in the first place, only to be vindicated by the relatively unseasonable cold snap Boston was experiencing that actually made it entirely worth bringing. He folded it up, then propped it between his shoulder and the curve of his neck, indicating for Troy to lay his head down.

“Go ahead,” Harris prompted, when Troy didn’t immediately take him up on it, despite how tempted he looked by the offer.

“Are you not going to have a nap too?”

Harris’s smile turned regretful, peering at his waiting laptop screen. “I’m so close to having at least the first part of the video done – we only have about an hour left ‘til we land and if I focus, I know I can finish it by then.”

Troy shot him a familiar look, vaguely disapproving, but ultimately accepting. He was well used to Harris’s workaholic ways by now. In lieu of adding anything more, Troy tilted his chin up and pressed a quick, featherlight kiss to the underside of Harris’s jaw before finally laying his head down on his makeshift pillow.

“Ew,” Ilya and Bood chirped simultaneously as they passed by, the two of them and Shane having abandoned the game entirely and began making their way to their actual seats. Bood with a wide, teasing smirk, and Ilya almost comically straight-faced.

“Not in a homophobic way, obviously!” Bood rushed to follow up, full of sudden ‘potential allyship fuck up’ fear. “Just, like, in a lovey dovey, ‘get a room’ kind of way, y’know?”

“I meant it homophobically,” Ilya cut in, much to Shane’s horror, earning himself a smack on the arm as Shane shoved him onwards.

“Ilya! Jesus, sorry about him.”

It was all Harris could do to prevent himself bursting out laughing. Okay, so they’ve got a tired, cranky captain who probably shouldn’t be bothered for the remainder of the flight. Got it.

Meanwhile, Troy simply flipped them the bird before settling back in and getting comfy against Harris’s shoulder again.

Dr. Jack Abbot considered himself a touch more observant than the average guy. Years of military and ED experience tends to do that to a man—sharpen his eye, hone his pattern recognition. So he really couldn’t help but notice how consistent Dr. Michael Robinavitch was. He was certainly a bit of an stickler, very particular about everything from arriving at the hospital at least 20 minutes before his shift actually started, to religiously using hand sanitizer every chance he could, to the way he knotted his boot laces. And yes, the man was introverted on a good day and downright antisocial on a bad one (although always friendly and compassionate with his patients), but Abbot made it a personal goal to wear him down until the pair was teaming up for traumas, working in easy tandem, and eventually even spending most free evenings together.

So it was really just proximity that made Abbot start noticing those little things, the things that even Robby himself didn’t seem to notice. Quirks, mostly. Like how he always took his third coffee of the day black, no sugar, but always chased it with something sweet. Or the way he rotated between his two most well-loved zip-ups in three-day intervals. Or perhaps the fact that he really did try not to smoke, but always found himself bumming one off of Dana after losing a kid to a trauma. And like most of Robby’s little quirks, the rain one started as a coincidence. At least, that’s what Abbot told himself the first six times.

But by the seventh—well, by the seventh, he was leaning against the central hub, arms folded over the counter, watching Robby try (and fail) to stifle his fourth sneeze in under a minute into the shoulder of his hoodie (because God forbid he put down his newspaper for a second).

“Hh—h’Kkxtch—TCHhh—eh’EHTCHUUu”

“Bless you, bless you, bless you” Abbot said, with a very careful neutrality, like he didn’t want to scare the other man off.

It was a slow shift, around 2 a.m. on a summer night cooled by the unexpected precipitation. These moments, the slow ones between the thrilling rush of multiple traumas and back to back to back patients that seemed to stream in endlessly during day shifts, were the ones when Abbot really got to know his fellow attending in the first year or so of working together. When they could pass off the odd walk-ins to residents and pass the time by catching up on charting and reorganizing the staff room snack stash.

Robby scrubbed at his nose with the back of his wrist, not looking up from the crossword he was working on. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve said that every time,” Abbot replied mildly.

“Maybe that’s because I am fihh—hhah’tIUSHH—” Another sneeze escaped, seeming to have snuck up on him—sharp, sudden, violent enough that he folded slightly forwards in his chair.

Abbot tilted his head, eyes narrowing just slightly. “Mm.”

Robby glared at him through watery eyes. “Don’t ‘mm’ me.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Abbot pushed a tissue box toward him.

He snatched up a tissue with more force than strictly necessary. “You mm’d. That’s worse.”

Abbot pushed off the counter and stepped around the desk to where Robby was seated, taking a stool closer to him, gaze flicking briefly to the window. Outside, rain streaked down the glass in thin, steady lines—gray sky, slick pavement, the whole dreary package. He looked back at Robby. Then back at the rain. Then back at Robby.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Robby said immediately, “keep it to yourself.”

Abbot couldn’t help but bark a laugh at that. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re about to.”

“I’m just thinking, Robby.”

“That’s worse.”

Abbot stood up again, clasping his hands behind his back and starting to pace the length of the hub. “Out of curiosity,” he said, in the tone of someone who was absolutely not asking out of curiosity, “have you noticed any correlation between—”

“No.”

“—your symptoms and—”

“No.”

“—precipitation patterns—”

“Absolutely not.”

“—because I’m starting to notice that—”

“H’eHHsTCHUU—”

Abbot stopped pacing to arch an eyebrow at him. “You did that on purpose.”

Robby sniffled indignantly. “How could I have possibly—?”

“That was eight, by the way.”

“You’re counting?”

“I started after the third.”

“Why would you—” Robby broke off, pinching the bridge of his quickly reddening nose. “It’s just allergies.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know. Dust. Pollen. Life.” He looked up from his crossword with a rare wry smile. “You, probably.”

“You’ve never had allergies like this because of pollen.” Abbot’s mouth twitched. “Other than when it rains—”

“I am not allergic to rain, Jack.” His usual edge was undermined by the congestion in his voice.

“I didn’t say you were.”

Robby blew his nose (rather obnoxiously in Abbot’s opinion, but that’s neither here nor there). “You’re certainly implying it.”

“I’m considering it.”

Robby opened his mouth, probably for another snippy retort, but was cut off by— “hahh—TCHHUUh’H—h’hih’tCHKx’uh”

Abbot didn’t even bother hiding his interest now. “Bless you again. That’s ten, Rob.”

“Jesus Christ, stop counting!”

“I’m collecting data,” Abbot replied easily with a small shrug.

“I am not your—heh—dahhta—hihh’h’etrUSHCHU!” Robby scrubbed at his nose, more frustrated with the misbehaving appendage than with Abbot.

Abbot hummed sympathetically. “Bless you, Robby.”

Robby just grunted in response, not looking at him as he attacked his nose with a fresh tissue.

Abbot tapped his chin thoughtfully. “We could test it.”

That made Robby look up. “No.”

“Controlled exposure—”

“No.”

“Short intervals—”

“Jack, stop talking.”

“Indoor versus outdoor variables—”

“Dr. Abbot.”

He finally paused, looking at Robby with wide, innocent eyes. “Yes, Dr. Robinavitch?”

“If you try to walk me outside in a storm like a lab rat, I will report you.”

Abbot considered that. “Ethics board might frown, yes.”

“Might?”

“They’re notoriously anti-rain-allergy research.”

Abbot was rewarded by a short, surprised laugh for that one. He grinned back at Robby widely.

Robby stood, slamming his pencil down on the desk like he was betrayed by his own expression of amusement, and started stalking off. “I just have a cold or something.”

“Only when it rains?” Abbot trailed after him into the staff room, where Robby was pouring himself a glass of water.

Robby glared at him over the rim of his cup. “It’s a coincidence.”

“Eight instances is not a coincidence.”

That gave Robby pause. He looked back at Abbot, an odd expression on his face. “You’ve been tracking this for eight instances?!”

Abbot shrugged, indifferent, reaching out for Robby’s glass for a sip of his water. “It’s been rainy in Pittsburg.”

Robby stared at him for a minute. “That’s deeply weird.”

“It’s medically thorough.”

“It’s obsessive.”

“It’s science.”

“It’s insahh—insahhne—heh’het’TRCHUU—Jesuhhs—HEH”TTRUUSHU!”

Abbot’s eyebrows shot up, slightly startled by the force of them. “…Bless you.”

Robby sniffled weakly. “I hate you.”

“I think the traditional response is ‘thank you,’” Abbot replied drily, holding out the tissue box he’d (rather cleverly) brought with him like an olive branch. Then added with a a smirk, “And you don’t hate me.”

Robby snatched the box, bringing another handful of tissues to his streamy face. “I hate this conversation.”

“Which is about your possible hypersensitivity to—”

“Don’t say it.”

“—rain.”

Robby made a sound somewhere between a groan and a strangled laugh, throwing the (now empty) tissue box at his head. “You cannot be serious.”

Abbot stepped closer, lowering his voice like he was sharing something confidential. “Think about it.”

“I refuse.”

“Every time it rains—”

“I’m leaving.”

“—you exhibit acute nasal—”

“I am actively leaving.” Robby, voice thick, brushed past him to the hallway towards the back storage room.

Abbot followed immediately. “—symptoms consistent with—”

Robby stopped short just outside the storage room and turned on him. “If you say ‘rain allergy’ one more time—”

A cold gust of air swept through the corridor as the automatic doors at the far end slid open. Someone rushed in, dripping, shaking water from their coat.

Robby inhaled, burying his face in his sleeved elbow—

“—hEH—eStCHUUU!! rETCHHUu—” he gasped slightly, folding at the waist, one hand braced against the wall— “hHEH—TRUSHHUU! Fucking Christ.’

Impeccably timed. Abbot placed a gentle hand at the small of his back, steadying him. Robby straightened carefully, eyes glistening with irritated tears and nose red. He looked at Abbot with a dignified levelness (particularly valiant considering the display he’d just put on). “Don’t.”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything.”

Robby sniffled again. “You’re thinking it.”

“I am.”

“Well, stop thinking it.” Robby’s usually kind brown eyes were red-rimmed but cold as ice. His withering glare, of course, was weakened by the fact that his nose was red, slightly drippy, and (believe it or not) twitching.

Abbot barked a laugh, unable to help himself. His 6-foot-1, motorcycle-riding, medical-stunt-pulling, objectively badass (and occasionally terrifying) colleague had a nose twitching like a bunny rabbit. “I can’t.”

Robby dragged a hand down his face, trudging into the storage room with a defeated resignation. “I’m transferring departments.”

Abbot trailed after him, still smiling more than he really ought to be. “You’d still encounter rain.”

“I’ll move to a desert.” He reached up to the top shelf for a new box of tissues. The bottom of his scrub top lifted with his arm, revealing a trail of dark hair that disappeared beneath the hem of his pants. (Not that Abbot was looking. The redness creeping up his ears had nothing to do with Robby and the warmth of their proximity and the fact that they were so close now that Jack would smell the cigarette smoke clinging to hhis shirt. Obviously not.)

Abbot just poked him in the side. “Don’t worry, I’ll visit.”

“Don’t.” Robby, having retrieved his chosen prize, left the room, not even looking to see if Abbot had followed.

Abbot clasped his hands behind his back again, insufferably pleased, still tailing him like an overexcited puppy. “We’ll need to design a study.”

“We will be doing no such thing.”

“I already have a framework.”

Robby plowed back into the break room, all but collapsing onto the sofa. “I’m begging you to delete it.”

Abbot lingered in the doorway, blocking the view of any stray passers-by. He tilted his head, watching as Robby scrubbed at his nose again, eyes watering, dignity rapidly eroding under the weight of relentless, poorly timed sneezing.

“You know,” Abbot said, softer now, voice somewhere between gentle and conspiratorial, “for the sake of medical advancement—”

“Abbot.”

“—and your own well-being—”

“Jack.”

“—you might consider—”

“Jack, pleahhh—hehh—”

Robby squinted at the overhead lights, eyes watering and nose quivering, trapped for a moment in the limbo.

“hh—hehh—come ohhhn—”

A beat of silence while Abbot watched, waited for the inevitable while Robby resisted in vain until—

“HheH’teCHRUU—! H’HheTCHHUU’uH!!”

Abbot nodded to himself, as if that settled it. “And that makes one hundred sneezes, folks,” he said to no one in particular.

“HaH’iRRISHUU!”

“Our lucky winner is Dr. Michael Robinavitch—“

“hn'HUH—heH’etCHHUu! Hah—hhh—”

“—whose grand prize—“

“Hh'ETSCHHh—ETSCHH’uh!”

“—is an antihistamine and a nap.” Abbot paused, shutting the door and setting down on a chair in front of the couch. “Seriously, brother. Take a benadryl and draw the blinds. I promise I’ll wake you if anything good comes through.”

Robby, breathing through his mouth and looking absolutely spent for the fit, stared at him with wet eyes. He looked exhausted and maybe a bit bewildered. “You promise you’ll wake me?” His voice was gravelly (even more so than usual) and congested.

Abbot made an X over his heart. “Scout’s honor. Trust me,” he added, softer, genuine now.

Shane’s drive home from the arena had been easy and quiet, with his husband leaned back in the passenger seat and only occasionally making comments on how they could spend the next couple days. (‘Snnfffsnf! We can get—snnf!—Christmas tree tomorrow. Take Anya with us. And look online for—snnff-ggh’mm—new orm… Orma… Eh, decorations.’) To Shane, it sounded more like there would be a lot of lounging in order, and a lot of sniffling. (‘Ornaments. Snnngff! And we’ll see.’)

Anya had been with Shane’s parents since yesterday afternoon, dropped off before they headed to the arena, what with both Shane and Ilya being under the weather and having back-to-back games. It had been the most logical choice when neither of them were at their best and were going to have two late nights in a row. 

Ilya had been less than pleased but agreed under the reality that Anya would happier not being alone so much—and having a staycation with her grandparents (Shane’s mom had feelings about that, and she most certainly had voiced them).

Normally Shane loved coming home to Anya, loved watching how Ilya would crouch in greeting and kiss words of endearment into her fur like he hadn’t seen her in days, like it wasn’t ritual to spend his pre-game nap with her in bed. But tonight Shane was glad to share a quiet homecoming with him. He enjoyed the way they were transforming right over the threshold of their front door, going from tired but fulfilled teammates to a pair of husbands with colds who had no obligations beyond dragging each other to the couch between kisses. 

They were both sniffly and exhausted in that weathering-a-cold way, but the high from winning back-to-back games was taking its time to fizzle out. There was still enough of a buzz left in both of them, and there was no good reason to withhold their bodies from each other when they were already sharing the same cold.

Ilya kissed him gently at first, awkwardly and between steps, little pecks with parted lips that were more for the sake of keeping contact as they ambled further into their home. Shane reacted with short hums of appreciation and roaming hands, because Ilya’s lips felt far too good against his face to possibly interrupt but he desperately needed to place himself somewhere in the scope of exercising his need for Ilya in return. He wanted to have his cake, eat his cake, and fuck it too. 

Being on the receiving end of Ilya’s mouth, when it was at its most tender and occasionally its most filthy, filled him with so much warmth he didn’t know what to do with it all. It bled into him until it spilled over, because Ilya was nothing if not a giving lover, and Shane needed a place to store the excess of it (re: right back into Ilya’s waiting palms, and he knew they would be handing it back and forth, back and forth all night). 

Shane knew, and weakened over the idea, that no one else would ever have the privilege of experiencing just how selfless Ilya’s mouth could be. They got vicious digs, while Shane got—

They collapsed on the couch together, Ilya lounging in a half-lying sprawl in the corner of the sectional while Shane hovered in a straddle, and Ilya dove forward to mouth at his neck. Shane saw sun-kissed curls as he let his eyes fall shut, and he swore it could have been the light of god flashing over him because surely this had to be heaven.

“—ISHH’ewh!”

That had come out of nowhere, courtesy of said curls tickling over his already irritated nose, and there was nowhere to turn when he hadn’t even known it was coming in the first place.

So, yeah, Shane had sneezed on top of his husband’s head.

And yeah, that put a fucking wrench in the mood.

And—of course Ilya was still kissing his neck like nothing had happened.

“Ilya, wait—“

“Mmh?” 

Ilya kept going, and Shane had half a mind let him because his skin was being tugged into Ilya’s hot mouth as he sucked right on his pulse point, just the way he liked. He groaned and was rewarded with a generous swipe of Ilya’s tongue, which was a very convincing argument against—well, there wasn’t any argument at all, but his nose twitched and reminded him of why he asked Ilya to wait in the first place. 

He sniffed sharply, nose wrinkling, and weakly pushed at Ilya’s shoulder. “Maybe—ahh!—maybe we’re too sick for this.”

That got Ilya’s attention. 

Too much of it, maybe. Ilya straightened, lifting his head and inching back to sit taller with Shane still straddling his lap. His lips were already tinted red, swollen in that just-been-kissed way Shane could die staring at just to prove the point that he could stare at them forever. 

“You feel bad, malysh?” 

Ilya took his hand off of its place at Shane’s hip and touched the back of his wrist to Shane’s forehead, then his cheek. It was a choice so deliberate and thoughtful that it made his stomach flip, which was truthfully a little perplexing. Apparently he needed to add his husband’s capacity for concern and care to his ever growing list of ways Ilya could get him off. 

It was also thoroughly frustrating, because he could feel himself getting harder with each passing second. 

“No, we just... This is kinda gross, Ilya,” he mumbled but didn’t feel all that sure, and that uncertainty proved real as it carried over into his voice. He could hear it, the way it sounded like he believed what he was saying but only halfway meant it. The way his words formed in his mouth one way and shaped into something else entirely once they were out of him.

Ilya rolled his eyes, head falling back in exasperation. “Right. Because nothing we do is gross, ever.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

Ilya cupped his hand over Shane’s crotch. It wasn’t exactly a squeeze, but it was enough to make Shane loosen his breath and tilt his hips. “Right now I know your dick is hard enough to rip through your pants.” 

But then Ilya was pulling his hand back, and Shane let his own hand ghost over the same space, pressing oh-so-slightly because he was suddenly very aware of the lack—and, in part, because he had to physically hold himself back from letting his hips follow Ilya’s hand like a dog to its fucking master. 

Ilya looked down at this, eyes all fire and gratification, like the look he got during a face-off he was confident in winning. Sometimes Shane missed seeing that look on the ice, head-on with Ilya playing dirty and trying to piss him off. And he wasn’t sure how much he liked seeing it in bed these days (which was a lot, actually, but he was a sore loser and he usually lost to this).

“No, never mind. I think you don’t need this as much as me.”

“That’s—“

“No, no. I need to fuck you so bad I will let you sneeze everywhere.” Ilya motioned in a wide swoop down his body, then sagged in a resigned, overly dramatized way like it was somehow possible to collapse when he was already pressed into the couch. “But you will let big scary germs win.”

Shane’s jaw clenched. His temple pulsed. Ilya was playing an angle Shane could see from a mile away, and it was working. “Alright! Alright.” He still wasn’t keen on the idea of sneezing all over the place, and on his husband, but his cock was really starting to ache. He gave it a squeeze because, fuck, he couldn’t help it. “Fine, you win. You win.”

Ilya lolled his head to the side, feigning hopelessness. He wistfully voiced, “Ooh, but I will also sneeze on you probably. You won’t like that.”

Shane gritted his teeth. “Can’t you just, like, try not to?”

“It will happen, Shane.” Now Ilya was all serious business, pitching his voice higher and letting his body follow. He traced his fingers over Shane’s arm. “By accident, of course. But I cannot control a sneeze.”

Shane considered this. It was true, and it was silly that it needed to be said. The whole conversation was silly, in fact, but Shane had a feeling Ilya wouldn’t back down. Shane wouldn’t have, anyway. Probably. It was hard to understand how the scales tipped when his weeping dick was on the line. 

Maybe Ilya, and his tendency to give Shane everything he wanted, was the only way Shane could ever stand to lose. In a way, it made Shane feel like a winner by association—and because he always got an orgasm out of it.

“…can sneeze… me…” 

“What? Sorry, can’t hear so well.” Ilya smiled subtly, a smug and self-satisfied sort of kink to his lips that made Shane want to kiss it right off of him. Ilya motioned at his ear in a lazy wave. “Very stuffed up because I have a cold.”

“You can sneeze on me! God, you can fucking sneeze wherever the fuck you want.”

If he had known that was all it would take, Shane would have said it ages ago. (Minutes, actually, but what were numbers on the timeline of desire? He’d never been very good at math.) Sure, maybe he had been the one to stop their doings in the first place, but he had been wrong for it. He could admit that now, with Ilya’s mouth crashing into his.

Shane apologized for it the way he knew how. With his mouth, trailing rushed and frantic kisses across a strong jaw, the soft underside of it where he could practically taste his pulse, the nape where he could best smell the perfect mix of Ilya and shower room soap—

“H-hheEH-“

Shane started to pull back. Ilya’s hold on the back of his head tightened, fingers tugging his hair so taut it was practically a dare to keep fucking around and find out that his hair wasn’t actually as married to his scalp as he thought. Ilya was simultaneously pulling his hair and pushing him so hard against his collar that the tip of his nose flattened wide against his skin.

“-h’ISSHHT!”

Ilya laughed heartily as Shane broke away to roughly rub two fingers under his nose, partly out of shock and partly because it was still tickling.

“Fu-uuh!-huh’ISSHooh! Fuck you! What was that for?!” He ground the heel of his palm against the underside of his nose, which he knew was arguably gross, but it was itching so badly. It was next level torture, almost on par with the way his dick was twitching in his pants. “Kind of—huh’ISSHuhh! sdnnff! Kind of seems like you want me to sneeze on you, pervert.”

Ilya looked reasonably amused by that. “Mmh, no. But I don’t mind, and I want you.” His voice dipped low, gravely from his cold. “And I want you to kiss my neck some more.”

(Shane was dismayed to realize he had another item to add to the list of things that turned him on, and it was his husband’s voice when he had a cold. At some point, maybe he’d have to resign from jotting any of it down and just put Ilya, Ilya, Ilya instead. It would sum up the list quite nicely.) 

Ilya grabbed his bicep with strong fingers. It was like Ilya could ball up all his need in his hand and make Shane feel it through his grip alone, so Shane let himself be pulled forward in a trance fueled by Ilya and his cold-ridden voice, and his insatiable hunger, and so what if they sneezed on each other when he was pretty sure that later he was going to come so hard the proof of it would end up on both their faces.

And between all this lust, they were still fully clothed. It was ridiculous, and he would have to fix that later. Soon probably, but he was already back at Ilya’s neck. 

It was hard to tell whether the dip of Ilya’s neck was wet from the way he’d been mouthing at it moments ago, or because he had sneezed on it. Probably both, which was what he would think if he had the wherewithal to form even half a thought. 

“HhH-HAAHDt-dzZSHOO!” Ilya sneezed, and now Shane understood why it had been so easy for Ilya to keep kissing through it. “Yhh’HIDSCHHT! Ghh-hehh-heED’ZSCHUuh!” 

“B-Bleshh’oo,” he managed absently around his wandering tongue, still trying to find a point of entrance, trying to find a place where he could bury his whole mouth right into Ilya’s throat and feel the vibration of those sneezes directly from his vocal cords with the whole of his tongue. 

Ilya chuckled, if a little breathy, and Shane started seeing stars. Whether it was laughing, or sneezing, or talking—he just needed Ilya to keep on so he could taste his way around the shape of Ilya’s voice. “So polite, solnyshko.” Fuck. “Always—snnghff!—so polite.”

Shane adjusted his hips, angling so he could rut his groin right up against Ilya’s stomach and, in turn, feel his balls drag over Ilya’s thick, hard length. It was an odd contortion, one where his spine was curving every which way, but Ilya felt so good. He wanted to thank whoever had the idea of making athletic joggers so thin, maybe mail a note or write an email because he was just that grateful—and very certain that whoever designed these things also had a beautiful husband whose dick they needed to feel the details of even through clothed foreplay. Functional fashion, or something, and his praise for it. 

“Fuck, oh fuuuck. Ilya.” Just as he felt he was about to come in his fucking performance pants (yeah, already, but only because Ilya was tugging his hair again and making awfully crazed noises), Ilya placed his hands against his chest and made him come up for fresh air. 

“Stop, stop.” 

“Noooh-hah’IXSCHewhh! No, I can’t—“ Shane led with his lips, eyes hooded and caught in building up to another sneeze, and not having the capacity to care, as he dove back in. This was a primal kind of revolt in the face of denial, stripping him of sense and manners and the ability to cover his fucking mouth, apparently. “Hhuh! ‘ISSHHhueh! Please—“

“I was wrong, I think.” Ilya’s hands were firm on his chest, effectively stopping him from doing anything other than sneezing on Ilya’s outstretched arms. Ilya said, breathless, “You need this more than me, maybe.” 

“Fuck off, I don’t need anything.” But his voice came out thin, so obviously a lie it made his face flush hot because who was he to deny he needed anything when he had chased after his husband sneeze-forward.

“You need to take off your clothes before you come in them.” Ilya tried to sound smug, and it almost landed, but he also had that low rasp that meant he was on the brink of losing his fucking mind, too. “You do want me to fuck you tonight, yes?” It was a surrender, maybe an admission that Ilya was coming completely undone, or at least that was how Shane wanted to take it. 

“Yes, yes, please yes.” 

Ilya grabbed the hem of his sweatshirt and let his fingers slide past to reach the shirt under it, too. It was a practiced motion, one they’d had down pat by the time they were early twenty-somethings and in need of finding the fastest way to get their clothes off when trying to fit hookups into their threadbare pockets of time. This, a decade later, felt just as urgent as that. 

Shane was bare from the waist up in record time, and Ilya took a moment to be greedy. Shane was impatiently pulling on Ilya’s Adidas long sleeve (‘You know you don’t have to be a stereotype, right? You can wear Reebok, too.’ ‘Shane, I told you a thousand times, I am Russian so I must wear Adidas. Is my duty.’) and Ilya was interfering with sloppy kisses to Shane’s chest. 

“Ilya,” Shane complained on a tight breath. Ilya stopped momentarily, and Shane was about to celebrate the victory by ripping Ilya’s shirt off when—

“HaaHHD’DJSHuuh! Hh’DZSCHuuwh!”

Right onto Shane’s bare chest, but instead of wasting time by allowing Ilya to gather his bearings, he capitalized on the little cognitive hiccup and yanked Ilya’s shirt over his head. Lust could make a person overlook a lot of things, including having his husband’s sneezes spattered over his chest. 

And now they were equally bare chested. Shane wasn’t winning, but they at least had equal footing. Then Ilya coughed a laugh and knuckled at his nose and said, “You—snnfsnnfff!—want me so bad,” and it didn’t feel very equal anymore.

Well, at least he got to stare at his shirtless husband now. And he also knew how he might be able to tip the scale in his favor this time. 

He lifted himself from the couch and took a couple heel-to-toe steps back as he slid his hands past his pants. He pushed them down and grabbed himself through his boxer briefs, all while he kicked his pants to the side in what he hoped would be a shocking enough diversion of routine to make Ilya sweat. 

Ilya watched with heavy eyes. His hands were bracing the cushion under him.

Shane slipped his fingers under the waistband of his briefs, adjusting his erection so the head of his cock slipped out and hit the open air. He felt a little silly, putting on a show he needed to sniffle his way through, but at least Ilya was sniffling too—with his mouth hung wide open. Shane let his head fall back with a slow groan, ghosting his fingertips over his still covered shaft.

—and that was when Ilya scrambled off the couch to get to him.

Ilya had his hands on Shane’s waist in an instant, grip nearly crushing as he toed Shane backwards in slow, pointed steps. Their stomachs were touching, Shane’s cock trapped between them and Ilya coercing them into moving like they were a single entity. 

Ilya was close, the sliver of space between their lips so small there was hardly enough room for their stuffy breaths. The side of Ilya’s nose was pressed against Shane’s, and he felt like he might sneeze again, but he forgot why that ever mattered. 

Ilya advanced still, until Shane’s back pressed against the frigid floor-to-ceiling window facing their backyard. He made a sound, a soft mmhf at the sudden thunk, and he knew there was nowhere left for Ilya to push. He chanced a glance, just a flick of his eyes up to meet Ilya’s, and felt appeased when Ilya stole his mouth in a kiss. 

His lips were so plush and warm and gentle, Shane had the urge to barrel forward with his teeth. Love could be funny like that, sometimes making violence feel like the answer to tenderness. Or maybe it was just that tenderness whetted an appetite, and Shane was only human. All animal, respectively. 

“Hheh’ISHHuh! Sor-sooorrh-ihh’HISHHeuh!” He barely had the sense to pull out of the kiss before he sneezed, but instinct luckily took over. Sneezing into Ilya’s mouth would have been a step too far for him, even this far gone. Instead he directed them over Ilya’s shoulder at the last second, shivering as he was pulled from the daze of a well earned kiss. The window was freezing against his back, what with snow sticking to the ground outside, and it was doing something strange to his nose to have the weather creeping into his skin. “Heh! H’IISHHehw-heh’ISHH’NG’uhh!”

“Ooh, sorry, malysh. Is too cold, yes?” Ilya took a quick step back and brought Shane with him, keeping them belly to belly, as if they might not survive the winter otherwise. He rubbed warm hands down Shane’s goosefleshed back, pulling a few pleased shivers out of Shane, and pressed a couple steady kisses to the corner of his mouth. “We should go to the bedroom. Will be much warmer.” 

“Yeah, good idea.” Shane couldn’t stop sniffling, and really, neither could Ilya. “Need some tissues, anyway.”

He considered picking up his clothes left in front of the couch, but his nose really was running. The spilling over his philtrum kind, which he hated, and his cock was still hard and mocking him, twitching and pulling the waistband of his briefs with it—which he hated, too. 

Which is why he didn’t say anything when Ilya dropped trou right there, bare naked with Shane still pressed up against him in front of the window, and carefully toe-step-toe-stepped them off. He let Ilya drag him along, clothes forgotten on the floor because they’d still be there later for Shane to bitch about. He could set himself and all his particularities aside to make room for Ilya and his messes, and the way he was wet-nose-kissing his neck again. 

They didn’t separate until they reached the bed, which Shane tried to point out was where they were actually supposed to touch, but Ilya shushed him and pushed him back onto the mattress with a smile. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of Shane’s briefs and pulled them off in a quick, clean swoop—but hey, Shane had at least helped by lifting his hips. It mattered, that they were a team at home too.

“You need tissue, yes?” Ilya had a twisted smile on him, the kind that made Shane’s toes curl in sometimes great and sometimes not so great (terrifying) ways. It was a smile he used for threats; when he threatened to suck Shane dry, when he threatened to break a rival's nose for checking Shane too hard into the boards. 

“Uh… Yeah,” Shane said warily. “Please.” 

Ilya hovered over Shane, leaning in to press a soft, chaste kiss against his forehead. It was a diversion, a clever one that let Shane’s guard down just enough so Ilya could wipe Shane’s nose with his briefs still clutched in his hand. Shane jerked his head sideways and scrubbed the back of his hand against his nose like that might do anything to take the action back.

“Christ, Ilya! That’s fucking gross.”

“Sorry, you would like it better if it was my dirty underwear, huh? Sexier that way.” Ilya brought Shane’s briefs to his nose, the same ones he’d just used to wipe up Shane, and blew his nose into them like it was some fucked up competition. 

“Stop fucking around—“

“Mmh, I think you like it.” Ilya finally dropped the briefs, which Shane made a note to toss in the trash later (or burn, or throw in the trash and burn the whole trash can), and prowled his way on top of Shane until they were chest to chest with Ilya’s nose brushing over freckles. “At least, he does.” Ilya rutted his hips against Shane, sliding their cocks together. “He likes it very much.”

“It’s—ahh—you’re just—mmhh…“

“Just? Just so sexy you want to sniff my underwear like pervert?”

“Fuck off! No way.”

“My underwear holds my dick, your mouth holds my dick, why not have your mouth hold my underwear?” Ilya held Shane’s gaze, and Shane didn’t back down, keeping an irritated glare. “Ahh, you’re no fun. Fine, get your tissue. Blow your nose like a…” Ilya motioned in the air as he pivoted his knee against the mattress to sit beside Shane. “Like a… What is that thing? David says a lot. Model…”

“Model citiz—uh… Maybe don’t bring up my dad when we’re about to have sex.” Shane frowned and craned his body sideways, just enough to finger-grip the corner of the tissue box. He inched it into his hand and pulled the entire thing back with him, yanking out exactly two tissues so he could fold them over and properly blow his nose. “We should keep this in reach… M’going to need more of them.” 

“Whatever you want.” Ilya smoothed his palm along Shane’s shoulder, massaging circles into his trap with his thumb. “Now can I fuck you?” 

Shane, momentarily, was at a loss because yeah, he still wanted to be fucked, but there was a lull in the energy after all the shivering and the brief-blowing and god—even his dad. But if he looked at the facts, he was still hard and Ilya’s dick looked ready to shoot off. 

(Which was hot, sure, but it also pissed him off because why did he go all jelly-boned and blood-down-south when Ilya felt his forehead and sounded sick, while Ilya seemed to get off on testing his limits—except, really, that did something to Shane too, so…)

Ilya smirked. “You look like you want to eat me.”

And damn it, he did. 

Because truthfully, Shane liked to make Ilya laugh. Not the kind of laugh when he was two seconds away from a one-two-punch, when his mouth would curl and his laugh sounded more like an angry spit. He liked making Ilya laugh with teeth on display and cheeks flushed with that cherry-tint joy, and so maybe Shane had to be the punchline sometimes, if only because Ilya loved teaching Shane that embarrassment didn’t always have to be kept close. It could happen, and then it could pass, and he would be okay. 

There was just no good reason for Shane to feel embarrassed when Ilya loved and loved and loved. 

Ilya seemed to understand when Shane suddenly croaked, “I love you.” 

They were a mess of limbs in an instant, opening their mouths in a wild, untamable greed. Their recycled breaths, one chest to another—between the two of them, they probably weren’t getting enough oxygen, which Shane would use as the excuse for how he kept kissing the corner of Ilya’s mouth when he barely turned his head to sneeze (hHR’SCHUUuh!).

If only the brain were advanced enough to take orders from someone desperate enough, if only a person could pick and choose when to see everything in slow motion. If Shane had a choice, every breath would be draggingly slow, every touch would be felt with such sharpness he would be able to pinpoint every inch of his skin and the corresponding touch. Instead, he was a mess of gasps and shivers and heat pooling in his belly, and it made it all so hard to keep a single cognitive thought. 

It came in blurry snapshots, of hip bones grinding into each other and sniffly kisses left sticky on every possible inch of skin, of being lifted and deposited nearer to the head of the bed, with a pillow so thoughtfully tucked under his sacrum while his legs were forced to bend above him. 

Ilya’s mouth was scribing, writing his hunger straight down Shane’s torso with his tongue and marking it further with teeth. Shane took hold of one of his own legs, freeing Ilya’s to roam his chest and grab greedy palmfuls of muscle. Shane’s cock was jumping on his stomach, the head of it staring straight at him from this angle and begging to be touched, but he couldn’t remember how to move his other hand from its clenched grasp in the sheets. It was his only anchor as Ilya moved his mouth down. 

“HhDT’ZSCHHT!” 

Shane felt it on his balls first, a strange wisp of cool air barely escaping past clenched teeth like Ilya had at least actually tried to stop the sneeze from escaping. 

“HuUH’DZSCHuueh! HaAH’DJSHhuuh’zZDJSHOoh!” 

Now he felt them on his inner thigh, leaving behind a dampness that cooled in a way he could pretend was made from hungry kisses. It was funny, the way his cock lurched at the thought. Perhaps being sneezed on wasn’t the worst thing. He wasn’t going to add it to the list or anything, but they did have the same cold, and he never cowered in the face of having Ilya’s saliva kissed onto every inch of him, and half his DNA was probably fused with Ilya’s by now if the past thirteen years had anything to show for it—

“Oh, fuck—”

His hips jumped involuntarily, Ilya’s tongue slipping lazy circles around his rim. He felt like a live wire, fraying at the ends and sparking with electricity that just needed somewhere to go. Ilya passed his tongue with variation—in fat strips, wet and smooth; in agonizingly slow, firm pushes; in wet kisses that felt like suction. 

Shane settled into it, raising his hips to meet Ilya’s mouth because fuck, Ilya always made him feel like he was allowed to take and take and take. 

(His entire history of learning about [good] sex and understanding how it could feel like this, was with the man between his legs. This was the man who first taught him how to take fingers down his throat, how to arch on a face and not worry himself to death over the probability of suffocation by ass.)

“Hh’DSZCHuhh! Hh’ADZSCHUuh! RRH’SCHOoh!”

With the angle, Ilya’s nose bumped right into Shane’s taint, an uneven and regrettably short-lived rhythm with each sneeze. It left Shane crying out in surprise and absolute delirious praise. It was so overwhelming it made him shiver all the way to his fingertips, hardly noticing as he sneezed around wanton moans.

“Mmnh’iSHHeuh—ohmygod-ohgod-ohh’TSHh’h’IH’shhuh!” 

(Fuck it, sneezing could go on the list, too.)

Ilya growled, a dangerous sound Shane could always clock as meaning he was about to get his ass split and handed to him. Shane gave a distressed groan when Ilya’s mouth pulled away from him, but it choked in his throat when Ilya grabbed his cock in a loose hold. His thumb rubbed the underside of it gently, and it was too dry but too good to do anything about it other than let him.

“Open.” Ilya’s voice sounded wrecked, a little congested and thoroughly thick with the heaviness arousal brought on. Ilya shoved two fingers into his mouth, and he sucked instinctively. “Mmh, good.” 

Ilya pushed his fingers deeper, pressing down on the back of Shane’s tongue and nearly choking him. Shane forced his tongue up, separating Ilya’s fingers wide and swirling his tongue around them. Ilya looked positively ready to reward—or punish—him for it. 

“Hh’k!”

Shane tried to pull away, nostrils flaring wide and him struggling to breathe with Ilya finger-fucking his mouth, but Ilya doubled down and curled his fingers on either side of his bite. His thumb pressed firmly under Shane’s chin, and the hand on his cock squeezed. Shane’s eyes rolled back automatically.

“No.” Ilya said it firmly, a command. “Stay.” 

“Hhg’SHHngh! HhG’gshhngh!” 

It was a power play, probably, because then Ilya’s fingers were out of his mouth and touching his rim, one bravely prodding past the tight ring of muscle. And Shane didn’t have time to be mad when—

“Fuck! Fuck, please—“ 

Ilya worked his fingers faster than usual, already knuckle deep and spreading him. Ilya’s hand moved from his cock to the back of Shane’s knee, forcing his hips to rock back again. Shane, mouth hanging open, gripped hold of his own cock to hold it still or hold himself back or just to hold for the sake of it because exactly what is he supposed to do when—

“HhaAH-HAH’DSCHHuh!” 

Ilya’s fingers crooked when he sneezed, forcing the tips of them so hard against Shane’s prostate he thought he might die. He might die like this, with words stuck in the back of his sore and scratchy throat, with his nose running and and his eyes squeezed tightly shut in silent, excruciating ecstasy. 

“You like?” 

And fuck him, because how was he supposed to answer that with his throat so tight and head so gone. He dragged a breath, wheezing and desperate, willing himself to stop writhing in search of more. 

Ilya took his fingers out. “Answer me.” 

If he thought he had been close to death before, this was something beyond it. This was incoherence, this was being at the edge of bliss and having it ripped from you and left empty. It was worse than death, a searching amble through purgatory with every other place just out of reach—and sorely missed. It was yearning for anything.

“I like, I like, I fucking like, please just—aahh—“

“Yes? Just?” 

“Fuck me, please, fuck me, I-need-you-in-me!”

Ilya had a bottle of lube already in his hand (procured by magic was Shane’s guess, but he’d been flying halfway to another dimension), squirting a generous amount. He felt what he assumed to be the ministrations of Ilya slicking himself up, and then the gentle, delicious push of thick head against his entrance. He went in surprisingly easy, Shane’s body opening up in welcome.

“Hheh! Heh’ISHHeuh!” 

Shane sneezed, and Ilya let out a wounded noise. 

“FUCK—do that again.”

Shane had sneezed, of all the things he could have done, and Ilya asked him to do it again.

“Wha—Ilya, what, what are you—“ He felt frantic, fingers gripping Ilya’s shoulders so tight he might leave marks. Shane was ready to be filled to the brim and Ilya was tense and still, asking him to sneeze. He hooked his hands behind Ilya’s neck and pulled him down closer, to which Ilya had to brace his elbows against the bed as he hovered, red-faced, right over Shane. “Fuck me, god, just fuck me.”

“You—feel so fucking good. When you sneeze. Is like…” Ilya moved again, a slow pull out and in, and groaned. “Feel fucking tight.” 

Shane wasn’t sure he understood, but Ilya was fucking him again, and that was all that mattered. Slowly, enough that he could practically feel the details of Ilya’s cock against the sensitive walls inside him. He rolled his hips, matching Ilya’s pace and letting a stream of nonsensical sounds fall out of him. 

“HHURHh’ISSCHUuh!” That landed on Shane’s shoulder, and simultaneously sent Ilya’s hips snapping forward in a much harder, deeper thrust. “HUH’DZSHUh!”

So maybe Shane didn’t understand what Ilya had liked about Shane sneezing while inside him, but Shane certainly could get behind Ilya sneezing again when it made him fuck so hard. 

Ilya drew his hips back and thrust his cock back in, intentionally this time. Shane’s lower half felt somehow numb and on fire, his swollen cock trapped between their bellies as Ilya fucked him more and more and harder, with the head of his dick pressing Shane’s prostate as he went in and passing over it in luscious thrusts. 

“Oh god,” Shane rasped. He clutched at the back of Ilya’s neck, fingers twisting in sweat damp curls and pulling hard in an effort to gain some semblance of control. He wanted to stop his back from bowing, from angling his hips any further away from the perfect rhythm Ilya was keeping, but the pressure of Ilya’s abs on his cock was near impossible to resist. “Holy shit, I can’t—“ His groans evolved, changing shape as he came further undone, leaving him a mess of husky whimpers and shaking limbs. He turned his head, hiding his cheek against the sheets when he let out a particularly loud whine.

Ilya wouldn’t stand for it. He stole Shane’s mouth in a kiss, bringing him back, and mumbled hysterically into his mouth, “Stay, stay, because your nose—so red, and fuck, so cute—and freckles—make your face look… nngh, like beach… with sunset, and—oh god—need to look—“

Ilya didn’t sound far behind, or maybe Shane had the race backwards entirely. Maybe Ilya was closer, or maybe there wasn’t any finishing line at all. Ilya sounded positively insane, like he could barely form a coherent thought. And Shane only half understood what Ilya meant about his red nose and his freckles and sunsets, but it sounded and felt so good coming from his mouth, muttered into Shane’s. It sounded like Ilya was in a place of worship, like perhaps alters weren’t the only place you should get down on your knees and beg, and that made Shane feel like a god.

“HUDT-DZSCHuuh! RRH’SCHUuh!” 

Ilya’s sneezes misted Shane’s cheek and Shane felt fucked to heaven and hell and—god, Mordor, for all he knew. But he did know he was flying from his body, the frantic pull of a universe he’d never been, and he needed Ilya’s mouth to bring him back. He grabbed Ilya’s face, palms on cheeks and fingers gripping his scalp, and kissed him hard. His balls pulled tight and his cock jumped angrily between their stomachs, spilling wet and hot and sticky. He gasped his breaths and groans with his tongue in Ilya’s mouth.

He was still shuddering through his orgasm when a sudden, sharp jolt pricked high in his nose. Sneezing after coming happened sometimes (he’d heard from Hayden, something about seeing an article on it and it being some kind of neural something-or-other.), but it had never happened to him. And not with Ilya still inside of him.

“Heh-fuuuuck’ISSHOoh! Hh’iishh’ISSHeuh’ISHhoo!”

He could feel it, coming back to his body now, the way he clenched around Ilya’s length. He felt how Ilya pulsed in response, and then Ilya groaned tight and high and stuttered, slamming into him and stilling. 

Ilya collapsed on top of him after, effectively stealing the breath from Shane, both of them sagging with tired hurrumph’s. Their chests heaved together, pressing into each other in a seesaw sort of synchronization, with Shane’s chest up when Ilya’s went down, and vice versa. Their hearts pounded in tandem, trying to burst out of them and lay plainly on the sheets beside them like a reminder that they were still there, the hearts behind it all. 

They laughed.

It was light at first, just breathy little chuckles of disbelief, and then it morphed into belly deep laughing, and holding each other through it. 

Shane wiped at his eyes, tearing from both his cold and the laughter. “What the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know.” Ilya laughed again, lifting his head and grinning with boyish joy. Shane couldn’t help but kiss him again, a gentle peck. “But I fucking love it.”

“Mmh, yeah. Me too, actually.”

Ilya got up and stumbled into the bathroom. Shane could hear the shower turn on but he stayed on his back, still trembling through glowing aftermath, little vibrations easing through him even when Ilya came back and wiped him off with a warm, damp cloth. It cooled his skin and made him shiver, full bodied this time, and in turn made him sneeze. 

“Huh’ISSHeuh! Heh! H’ISSH’uh!”

“Bless you.” Ilya held out his hand. “Get up. Shower is warm now.”

They showered together, lazy touches and lazier kisses as they washed their sweat (and germs) down the drain. They were both shivering as they took turns towel drying each other’s hair, teeth chattering and soft sniffles punctuating the sleepy silence they had settled into. 

Once finished, Ilya patted Shane’s ass through the towel looped around his waist. “Wear your Christmas pajamas. The thick ones, or else maybe you get worse.” 

“You’re one to talk. Wear yours, too.” They had matching ones, from the Christmas before when Ilya had insisted.

They both wore more clothes to bed that night than usual. Shane could count on two hands the number of times they had gone to bed with both of them covered limb to limb. The chill of early December didn’t usually stop them from needing to be skin to skin, but this shared cold made it trickier.

They settled under the blankets together, with Ilya on his back and Shane curled into his chest. Ilya’s hand crawled under Shane’s fleece shirt until he was up to his elbow in it, hand flat between his shoulder blades. Shane’s hand slid under Ilya’s matching shirt, until his arm was resting over his stomach and his hand was cupping over prominent lats.

Sleepy and sated, Shane didn’t feel the need to pull away when he sneezed a soft, “Heh’isshuuh!” At the same time, Ilya wrenched forward, over Shane’s head with a stronger, “HAh’DZSHOoh!”

“Bless you,” Shane muttered, while Ilya said in perfect synchronization, “Bud’zdorov.”

It set off a war of blessings.

“À tes souhaits.”

“Gesundheit.”

Shane scoffed. “You don’t even speak German.”

Ilya raised a brow. “But I know Gesundheit.”

“Okay, then, salud."

“Uz veselibu.”

“What’s that one?”

“From Latvia.”

Shane balked. “How do you even know that—“

“I am smart, Shane. And Latvia is a neighbor country. To Russia.”

“Yeah, but… Russia’s huge.”

“And Canada is sooo close to Mexico, Mr. Salud?”

“Okay, go to hell.”

“Hah! So you lose.”

“No, that’s my blessing. Go to hell. I’m gonna say that next time you sneeze.” 

That made Ilya wheeze a laugh, which then made Shane playfully thwack his palm against his side. They settled again, Ilya still punctuating the calm quiet with sleepy, adoring chuckles, and Shane smiling into his chest.

Unfortunately, between the two of them, Shane was the first to sneeze next. “Hheh! Heh’iSHHeuh!”

“Go to hell, Shane.”

“Oh, fuck you!”

a/n: as you can see, I’m thoroughly confused about how I want to use parentheses and italics :’)

now I understand the power of writing porn. I wanted it to go on forever!!! I couldn’t stop!!! I grappled over just how many ways I could write he snz and moan like a whore and snz again without it becoming more redundant than it already is. I guess everyone deserves to cum in the end amiright 

this is so ridiculously horny. if I thought fluff could pull emotions out of me, ho boy! whatever this is, I’m gonna live in it now. 

also, what is the least cringey way to write ass eating? I have no idea but I refuse to write ‘fluttering hole’ and I would like some more alternatives to it.

The ER had that particular kind of noise that meant it was a normal day in the worst possible way—monitors chiming, stretchers rattling over tile, voices low but urgent. Controlled chaos. Dr. Robby moved through it like he always did: quick, efficient, and just a little bit faster than everyone else. Clipboard in one hand, pen tucked behind his ear, he finished scanning a chart and handed it back to Dr. King.

“Repeat the labs in an hour,” he said. “And page me if—”

He stopped abruptly, swallowing carefully.

“Hh—”

No.

His breath hitched once, sharply. “Hehh—”

Not now.

“Hheh—h’KkxTCH!”

The sneeze was small but violent, clamped down to the back of his throat, face buried into the crook of his elbow. He stayed there for a moment, head lowered, like he was studying something on the floor. God damn it.

Then he straightened.

“Ahem. Excuse me,” Robby continued, voice perfectly steady if a touch rougher than usual, “page me if the potassium drops below three.”

Mel blinked, a little uncertain. “…Right.”

Robby nodded briskly and walked away before anyone could look at him too closely. He made it almost to the trauma bay before the tickle came back, deep-seated and vicious.

No, he told himself firmly. Not happening.

He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and kept walking. The fluorescent lights felt a little too bright today, the air-conditioning a little too cold. His nose prickled, the sensation drawing every ounce of his attention. He scrubbed a hand quickly under it and forced his breathing to stay even.

You are a grown man. You are a physician. You can out-stubborn a sneeze.

“Hh…heh—”

He shook his head violently, trying to shake it off, backtracking away from the central desk before anyone laid eyes on him.

“Hheh—hehhm—”

He pivoted sharply into an empty supply alcove.

“HrRHh’IUSHHh’IUH! …hAH—hrRH’EHKKrTSSCH’iUH!—fuhckk—ehheh—ESHKKCHUU’Uh—”

The third sneeze bent him forward with an annoyed grunt. He grabbed a wad of gauze from an open box and pressed it to his nose, eyes watering. The rough, porous material did little about the viscous mess beginning to pool in the fibers of his mustache, but it did succeed in aggravating the already-irritated appendage until—

“Fhuhh—hRRAS”TRUSHHH’uH—jesus chriihh—IIRHS’STChHHRR’USHh”

Great.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Perfectly under control.

“Robby.”

Robby froze.

He turned slowly.

Dr. Abbot was standing in the doorway, arms folded, expression somewhere between concern and deep, unimpressed patience.

“…Hi,” Robby said. His voice, even to his own ears, was thick with congestion.

Abbot tilted his head slightly. “You hiding in a closet sneezing into surgical gauze?” he asked mildly.

Robby immediately straightened and tossed the gauze in the bin. “No.”

Abbot looked at the trash can. Then back at him.

Robby cleared his throat. It came out gravelly. “Allergies.”

“Mm.”

“Happens every year.”

“Mm. Starting this year?”

“Dust,” Robby added, grasping. “Hospital dust. Dry air.”

Abbot did not move. “Robby.”

“I’m fine.”

“Rob.”

“I’m fine.”

As if summoned by the lie, Robby’s nose twitched violently. He pinched it between two fingers, turning slightly away.

“Hh…h’ng—”

He tried to smother it against the sleeve of his hoodie, swallowing the explosive itch that seemed to permeate through.

“—kKXTCHH’uh—Heh’KknXTChh—hhhuh’rrurSSH!”

The sneezes escaped anyway, the trio painful against his throat.

Abbot handed him a packet of tissues without looking remotely surprised. Robby stared at them.

“…Where did those come from?”

“Preparedness,” Abbot said simply. “I know you.”

Robby took one, trying not to feel as if he was accepting defeat in a minor but humiliating war. He blew his nose quickly, neatly, and shoved the tissues back.

“I have a cold,” he said.

“I gathered.”

“It’s very mild.”

“You sound like a lawnmower full of gravel.”

“I do not.”

Abbot’s eyebrow lifted.

Robby opened his mouth to argue—and then abruptly turned away again.

“Hh…hfuhck—”

Abbot stepped a little closer, placing a steady hand on Robby’s back and pressing a fresh tissue into his hand. And just in time—

“hEH’STETSCHHH’UHH’h’h’heh’uHHRR’RASsTTUHSTCH!”

“…Bless you,” Abbot said.

Robby sniffed miserably and wiped his nose. “I’m working.”

“I see that.”

“I’m perfectly capable of working.”

Abbot snorted. “You wanna put money on that?”

Robby squinted at him. “You’re being very calm about this.”

Abbot shrugged. “You hide things from everyone else.”

Robby folded his arms. “And?”

Abbot gave him a small, knowing smile. “You’ve had that cold since yesterday morning,” he said.

Robby blinked. “…How would you possibly know that.”

“Because,” Abbot replied easily, “you are not as sneaky as you think. You sneezed three times during rounds, scare the living daylights out of poor Whitaker, and claimed it was ‘sunlight.’”

“It was bright.”

“And you drank six cups of coffee.”

“I like coffee.”

“And you took decongestants out of the staff cabinet and pretended you didn’t.”

Robby stared at him.

Abbot waited.

“…You were watching me?” Robby said finally.

“That’s most of my job.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Jack started to grin. “It’s true, it’s in my contract: keep an eye on Robby when he’s being a stubborn idiot.” He punctuated with a pointedly raised eyebrow.

Robby said nothing, just rubbed his face with both hands.

“Hh—” He stopped, jamming his knuckle under his nose with more force than strictly necessary. “Fucking—hn”

Abbot handed him another tissue without comment. Robby took it, glaring through watering eyes before ducking into steepled hands.

“Hheh—het’rnXXTkCH!”

“Christ, Rob, don’t hold them in like that—“

“HrAST’TRUSCHHT’uh—huhheh’HET’trRUrSHH—hah—”

Robby gasped a bit, leaning back against the wall to steady himself. Silence for a moment.

Then Abbot said, gently, “You’re miserable.”

“I am functional.”

“You’re sneezing your brains out.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“You’re sniffling every forty seconds.”

“I’m not.” He paused, scrubbing at his nose his a soiled tissue. Then added in a mutter, “Too congested to sniffle.”

“That’s not better.”

Robby blew his nose again, defeated. “…I hate being sick.”

“I know.”

“And if you tell anyone—”

“I won’t.”

Robby narrowed his eyes. “You absolutely will not tell Dana.”

Abbot smiled faintly. “I absolutely will not tell Dana,” he said.

Robby relaxed slightly.

Then Abbot added, “Unless you keep trying to see patients while actively losing a fight with your own sinuses.”

Robby opened his mouth.

His breath hitched again.

Abbot sighed and held out another clean tissue, a peace offering.

“Hh…hh’RRUSTSCHHu’UH!”

“Bless you.”

Robby took the tissue. “Thanks,” he muttered begrudgingly.

“Go home, brother,” Abbot said, uncharacteristically gentle. “Get some rest.”

Robby grunted. “Fine.” Then, because he just couldn’t help himself, “I am fine, Jack.”

“No, you’re not,” Abbot said shortly. “It’s okay though. Get out of here.”

Lucky for Shane, one of his best talents is masking everything that’s happening inside his head and setting on a polite face.

Unlucky for Shane, he has no ability to control the way his other head twitches when Ilya turns around, shuts the door like an afterthought, and says, “You have allergies?” 

“No, I don’t –” 

“You are sneezing so much.” He eyes Shane suspiciously. 

“Are you getting sick? Is this sabotage, Hollander? I am leaving for pre-season and you have this evil plan to infect me?” 

Holy shit. Ilya wants to fucking kill him. 

“No. Shut up.” Shane tries his hardest to remain casual. He sits at one of the stools at their kitchen island to hide the evidence from Ilya, who is still studying ingredients.

“Something’s bothering me, I guess.” Truer words have never been spoken. 

It’s not even the sneezing that is making him so hard. It’s the fact that he’s sneezing and Ilya is watching – even though he’s not really paying attention – and hearing everything. It’s that he’s present for every bit of Shane’s unraveling. 

It’s that Shane can’t control this unraveling as it happens. He’s trying, really fucking hard, to control it. He doesn’t want to sneeze. And that’s even worse because all the blood is rushing from his brain straight to his cock the longer he tries to tamper down the itchy feeling in his sinuses. 

He watches as Ilya fixes himself dinner. Shane had offered to make him something, when he’d arrived, but he had insisted on fending for himself. It’s off-season. I will find my own combination of foods I want to eat from Shane Hollander’s rabbit kitchen.

He scrubs at his nose. It’s still testing him. 

Ilya had arrived at their cottage and immediately swept Shane up in his arms. These arms included a bone-breaking hug and a forceful, hungry kiss. 

Shane had been all in, until he registered that Ilya was wearing something new on his skin. Whatever scent he had on had, unsuspectingly, made its way from his boyfriend’s pulse points and up into the recesses of his nasal cavity. And it had fucking burned. And itched. And… 

All this to explain why he’s been struggling ever since. A stifled fit into his boyfriend’s shoulder as they embraced had been the start. And now, three more itchy sneezes pinched between his forefinger and thumb — he understands why Ilya took notice. 

“Shane.” 

“Ilya.” 

Ilya sets down the spoon and leans against the counter, arms crossed. The evil-scented fabric of his shirt pulls across his muscular shoulders. Shane’s nose twitches traitorously as he tries to hold the gaze 

“Is it me?” Ilya asks. He doesn’t sound offended. He sounds more curious. A little careful, in the particular way he gets when he’s working something out.

Shane’s brain runs a very quick cost-benefit analysis. Cost: I have a weird kink. You’re going to chirp me about it forever. No, I can’t explain it. Benefits: My dick is so hard it hurts and I need you to touch me right now. Please. And maybe you’ll sneeze for me sometime. 

“It – hh – whatever you’re wearing,” he says. “I think I’m sensitive to it.”

Something shifts in Ilya’s face. He reaches his wrist to his nose and takes a deep, thoughtful sniff. 

“My cologne?”

“I think so.” Snf. 

“Hm. It is new. Test?” 

And Ilya is shoving his wrist under Shane’s nose before he can react. 

Shane’s mouth falls open with an involuntary moan because this just pushed a hidden button inside him. He claps a hand over it and shifts back in horror, but not before he gets a huge noseful of itchy musk. 

“Ehh’IkKh’SHhUu!!” He follows this up with three more desperate attempts at stifles. It’s so tickly, the scent, forcing its way into the back of his sinuses and activating some deep trigger. He’s been fighting it off, but to have it presented like that, so strongly. Like a hit of smelling salts.

Wetness leaks from his eyes and bursts between his tightly-clenched fingers at the tip of his nose. 

He needs to get out of here now. He will as soon as he can catch a breath. Ilya’s staring, he knows this for certain even with his own eyes screwed shut and free hand steepled over the lower half of his face. 

He gasps, head flicking up in an imitation of rage and giving his best glare to his boyfriend between irritated, watery eyes. He’s not where Shane had last seen him  – he’s standing beside Shane with a damp paper towel in his hand. 

“Sorry котик, I just rinsed my arms, okay?” He sounds genuinely regretful as he goes to wipe under Shane’s eyes, then all of a sudden stops with a jolt. His hand is half-raised to Shane’s face, but his gaze is down at — 

“Huh,” is all Ilya says, so quiet Shane almost misses it. He resumes wiping at Shane’s face. As if that isn’t ominous.

As the damp paper towel swipes under Shane’s nose, it triggers another sneeze. His immune system has been thrown into overdrive and is reacting on a hair trigger. 

“H’h’E’shz’ieWWw, hh!, hh, sor— eh’zS’CHEIWw!” And it’s right against Ilya’s large palm.

An itchy, desperate outburst of relief, freeing him from the violent building in his nose. It’s possibly the hottest thing he’s ever experienced. And also the most mortifying. He gasps out an apology between desperate, liquid sniffles, but he’s becoming even more distant and floaty. 

He’s so fucking needy. Ilya saw his visible arousal and ignored it. This never happens. So it’s a game for him, then. A game that Shane really wants to lose. 

He thinks Ilya is onto him and he’s being gentle about it. He wants him to call him out, to pin him up against the countertop and embrace his every filthy desire. 

“I…” his eyes are streaming, burning irritated red at the sides, and he wipes a wrist over the moisture, sniffling, “I…”

Suddenly, Ilya forces in. He flicks his tongue at his cupid's bow, collecting up wetness Shane hadn’t known was there. He moans involuntarily at the contact, words falling away. Ilya licks around his nostrils and sucks a wet kiss at his philtrum. He should, really, force him off. But he’s beyond high off the feeling, and Ilya is always his drug of choice. 

“You are sneezy from my cologne?” Ilya asks, as if his tongue hasn’t been making Shane crazy.

His whole body is on fire as he groans; and, finally, allows himself to palm at his own dick. Sparks tingle across his whole body with the contact. He might need aftercare just from this. 

“F-fuck. Yes. It’s – uh, shit. Touch me, please. I like it. When –” He can’t articulate it, but Ilya stops him with a primal, biting kiss to his lower lip. 

“You like to sneeze?” Ilya asks, voice lilting, yet sincere as he pulls away and runs a hand down Shane’s waist. His other hand thumbs at his cheek and moves towards the edge of his nostril. 

“No. I don’t think it’s –” he’s panting, floating in ecstasy; his eyes are still closed as he pulses with pure, unadulterated want. 

“I think maybe you do, no?” His boyfriend squeezes a hand over his dick and he moans with want. Moans. He feels the need for him rise up behind his eyes, splitting into bursts in his aching sinuses.

“It’s weird,” Shane complains with a careful sniffle, finding himself. He forces Ilya’s hand away from his leaking cock. “Fuck off.” 

“Is hot, too. If you like it? I will want to make you…” Ilya, the dirty bastard that he is, lets his voice trail off and licks his lips as he pauses for emphasis, “sneeze?”

“Fuck off.” He tingles, whole-bodied. Ilya is completely right, of course. Because there’s no way Shane would have ended up with anyone except someone who can read him completely. His brain is going static-y, like an unreachable channel.  

Ilya darts his tongue out to the tip of Shane’s nose and he gasps, shoving him off. 

He squeezes his nose between two tightly-held, flat palms as he stifles, once, twice, expression pinching as he shudders with the feeling. 

“I think you like that,” Ilya teases. He palms at Shane’s dick again and he shudders, moans, “but I will shower, okay?” 

If he insists, then Shane will wait. Even as he's so hard that he's seeing spots.

However, between the frigid, drizzly, crowded Friday afternoon commute to campus and the 40 minutes he’d had already to sit here in the lecture hall and defrost, he was beginning to fear he may have overestimated his rate of recovery. Every symptom that had felt – less reprieved, and more just about adequately masked – by the medication he’d desperately thrown back this morning was starting to creep back in, their weight increasingly oppressive. It was like they’d been waiting round a corner ready to jump him the minute he dared let his guard down.

His sinuses felt unbearably full and heavy and sore again, the pain unavoidably distracting as it radiated up into his head and behind his eyes. He couldn’t stop sniffling either, cringing slightly at how loud it sounded in the silence of the hall. And–

“hhih’IHTCHhh’ue! huh’ehtz’sssh’ue! …….. hihh’ehmpfsch’yue!”

Kyle inwardly groaned into his tissue, the sneezes as insistent and laden as they had been recently. He mopped up his nose as best he could, unable to resist a very soft, very quick and quiet, attempt at a blow before lowering it, taking the opportunity to nudge his glasses back up in the same fluid movement. He’d gone through three tissues already from the stash he’d shoved into his coat pocket before he’d left the house earlier, and at this rate he’d run out well before they finished up here. Resigned, he tucked the one he’d just used into the crease of his lap rather than fully retiring it.

God, he’s so fucking gross right now.

Apparently the girl a few seats down from him agreed, as he just about caught the tail end of a dirty look she’d sent his way before quickly turning back around when he met her eye. Honestly, he can’t even blame her. This close to the holidays, if the roles were reversed and she brought this cold into class, he may have been tempted to give her a dirty look as well.

To add to the misery of it all, Eric had been out of town at some Harvard alumni event up in Massachusetts since Monday – the day this thing first properly hit – and had planned on staying on an extra couple of days afterward to catch up with some old college friends. Kyle had found himself caught somewhere between being relieved that Eric hadn’t been around to see the sorry state he’d ended up in, and annoyed that he’d had to take care of himself.

Either way, he was due back later this evening and they had a plan. Eric may not generally be as much of a fan of trashy, low-brow reality TV as Kyle is, but he likes The Amazing Race for the travel and culture aspect, so they watch it together and they have a couple of episodes to catch up on. Also, a documentary looking back through the archives and history of the New Yorker that’d piqued their interest burning a hole in their Netflix list. On top of all that, he had a promise from Eric to pick up the spiciest, sauciest noodles to be found from their favourite Thai place on his way home.

The lengths Kyle’s willing to go to just to be able to taste food right now is a little bit frightening, even to himself.

He just had to get there first. Part of that process, however, he’d planned to involve a couple hour stint in the library after this lecture got wrapped up. He’d blitz through as much of his one outstanding assignment as he could, then beat Eric home so he could shower off the day, change, and light some candles; make it as romantic as he could, given the circumstances.

At this point however, with how lethargic he was feeling, even an hour in a crowded, stuffy library might be pushing it. He could do his work at home, but he also knew himself very well. If he went home straight from here, he’d end up sitting down on the couch just to take the load off for a second, which would turn into lying down, laptop bag oh so unfortunately out of reach, which would then turn into him not getting back up for it.

No, he was going to lock in. Fuck this gross-ass cold, fuck his exhaustion and also his feelings, he had a busy work schedule next week, this paper needed to be done now. He was going to earn those noodles and the warm, comforting home he was planning to find in Eric’s lap for the evening.

Fuck, he’d missed him.

4:30pm couldn’t come around soon enough, and thankfully, it eventually did. His congestion had built to the point where it was starting to feel like a brick wall sitting in his face and his head was swimming so bad it was getting a little hard to concentrate around it. He needed some fresh air. The walk over to the library would wake him up a bit, and he’d probably feel better. He hoped.

As the other students started filing out of the room, Kyle bundled himself back up to face the weather outside – thick woolen scarf, hat, then coat on top, his last tissue half-used and balled up in his fist. He’d do well keeping it there, he thought. With the amount of trouble his nose had been giving here, inside, it was going to be a nightmare stepping out into the cold.

On his way out of the hall he pulled out his phone and switched it back on, only to be met with the rapid ‘ping’-’ping’-’ping’ of a slew of missed notifications all coming through at once. His heart dropped, alarm bells immediately starting to ring. Oh God, what’s happened?

His eyes caught a text notification from Aram, though it was quickly eclipsed by a bunch from Kip that’d all come in over the course of the last 45 minutes or so.

Kip: SOS

Kip: We have a situation

Kip: Sorry

Kip: Please help

[ Missed call from: Kip ]

Kip: Call me when you can!

Kyle raced to his contact, hitting the ‘call’ button and pressing his phone to his ear as he walked. Kip picked up within a couple of rings, the sound of bar chatter loud and immediately apparent in the background.

“Oh thank God. Hi–” he rushed out, sounding frazzled. To be fair, as much as Kyle loved Kip, the poor thing was not the most organised of people or linear of thinkers, so had a tendency towards chaos and quite often lived in some state of frazzle-ment; it was okay, though, because Scott was the total opposite, so they balanced each other out. But he sounded particularly frazzled right now.

“Christ. First of all - take a breath, babe. Who’s died?” Kyle said. He heard Kip take in a lungful of air, before pushing it back out, stalling for a couple more seconds, like he didn’t want to continue. It only set Kyle’s teeth on edge that little bit more.

“So, Aram’s just called out sick,” Kip replied, hesitating before adding on, “...and no one can cover.”

Fuck. That’ll be what Aram had texted him about.

Then, it hit him. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Kyle had been working with Aram the last night before he’d entered his own self-imposed quarantine, so it was probably him that’d created this mess. He must’ve been silently despairing just a second too long, though, as Kip rushed to fill the silence.

“I just– I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to do. It’s already getting busy, we’d need two people here anyway, but with the game on in a bit…”

In fairness, he wasn’t wrong about that. Taking advantage of the reputation the Kingfisher had earned itself as being a regular haunt for famous hockey players, a reputation that had only been helped when it’d been bought over by the Scott Hunter and Eric Bennett of the New York Admirals, they did a whole bunch of fun food and drinks promotions on the nights the Admirals played at home. Both in the run up to the game, and during the game itself. It tended to pack the place out. One bartender was definitely not enough.

The people truly did yearn for gay sports bars, who would’ve thought?

“Fuck mbe…” Kyle groaned out, before his breath caught in his chest as a fierce tickle ignited in his sinuses. Raising his hand that was still clutching the tissue, he managed to smother the sneezes that rapidly followed. “hheh’IHTzssh’uh! hhhuh’EHSSssch’yue!”

“Bless you.” Kip let out a weak, almost apologetic, laugh. “But damn, Eric hasn’t been gone that long…”

There may have been a time when that kind of joke, as innocent as it was, alluding to that kind of scenario, may have done something for him. Actually, no, there was a time, not overly long ago, actually, when it definitely would have done something for him. It may have taken some introspection, a bit of soul-searching, and the kind of inner healing kick-started by finding the person he was actually supposed to be with – a man he’d truly fallen in love with and who loved him back the same way – but as much as Kyle genuinely loved Kip as one of his dearest and closest friends, it was clear to him that that’s all they were ever destined to be.

As undeniably gorgeous and as much of a total sweetheart as Kip is, Kyle could see now his infatuation had probably been more about himself and his own baggage than anything else – about fixating on having something he thought he needed, or should want. Chasing this image of an ‘ideal’ relationship that Kyle had always failed in obtaining before when he did give in and freely and wholeheartedly try to pursue what he was attracted to. He’d tried to create this idea of him and Kip in his mind that, looking back on it now, Kyle could only really describe as some form of romantic psychosis.

Was that a thing? If not, he was coining it.

Despite himself, Kyle humoured him with a huff of a laugh, followed by a thick, nasty-sounding sniffle that even he cringed at. “Well, sobeode clearly ndeeds to keep mbe warm at ndight.”

Kip made a sympathetic noise. “Look, you’re obviously still sick, I can hear that, and I’m not asking you to come in, I’m really not, I just…” he trailed off, the sentence hanging uselessly. “What do I do?”

See, this is what Kyle got for getting too much of what he wanted in life all at the same time. He had as close to his dream career now as he was ever going to get, becoming general manager of the Kingfisher, with as much freedom as he could want to execute his vision for the place now that Eric and Scott co-owned it. But being able to do that whilst also having the time to study a bit as well (he was this close to finally finishing that goddamn masters…) and travel and see the world as much as he and Eric do, sometimes he couldn’t believe just how good he had it nowadays.

Except right now, when it was very much his responsibility to fix this.

Kyle sighed. “Have you called everyode? You’re sure there’s ndo ode available?”

“Yes.”

“Everyode? You’re sure?”

Kip assured him again that he had. Between wanting to be absolutely certain and perhaps feeling a little desperate, Kyle resorted to running through the individual names of different staff members, even those who may not work there consistently all year round, but would pick up shifts here and there, help them out, and slot into the seasonal rotas when they were able to.

“What about Eden? You asked Eden, right? She takes ady shift going.”

As a still fairly newly out trans woman whose egg had finally cracked during her last year of undergrad this year just past, Eden arrived at the Kingfisher still in the process of trying to find herself and her tribe. She was sweet and earnest, outgoing, and very eager, and they’d all been quick to take her under their wing. She was a hard worker and nice to be around, so it hadn’t been hard to incorporate her into the team. Also, as their resident broke college student (now that both Kip and Kyle were significantly less broke and both skirting the edge of getting out of the post-grad academia saw trap), she was known to snap up any and all shifts people wanted to give away.

“Yeah, I-” Kip started automatically, but cut himself off. “Wait, no. I thought she was out of town visiting family?”

The wave of relief that flooded through Kyle was almost dizzying. “Ndo – she was back in the city this mbording. I saw on her idsta story. Ask her and let mbe know what she says – after a week at home in rural Indiana I’d bet mby Buffy boxset that she’ll take it, if even just to see other queer people in the flesh again.”

Said boxset was a special edition complete set and he’d gotten it signed by Sarah Michelle Gellar at Comic Con when he first moved to New York. It was one of his most prized possessions. People knew he didn’t play around when it came to swearing on it.

“Wow. Okay, got it. Sorry, I didn’t know she was back or I would’ve tried her first. I’ll call her, thank you. And I’m sorry for bothering you, I know you said you were going to give class a shot today, and Eric’s back in town tonight, so you’re probably tied up.”

“It’s okay, really, sdnfff–” Kyle reassured him. “I went to class. Regretted it mbore with every second that passed, but life goes on. And I thidk Eric just left Cambridge ndot that long ago, so he won’t be back for adnother few hours anyway. But yes, for what it’s worth, we have a very important date todight with the couch, the TV and sobe Thai takeout so spicy it’ll–”

There was a swell in the background noise on Kip’s end of the line. Kyle could tell even just by that that the bar was starting to get busy, immediately filling him with concern. “Are you there ndow by yourself?”

Kip made a vague sound, like he was delaying the deliverance of news he didn’t want to impart. “Jules – very kindly, because she’s an angel whom I love very much–” he pointedly directed off to the side, “–hung back a bit here to help out while I tried to sort this shit out…”

After a couple of silent beats, Kyle, with growing trepidation, could sense Kip wasn’t done. “...but?”

“But… she has a thing she can’t be late to so she has to go in like ten minutes. It’s okay, though! I’ll get on the phone to Eden, she should be able to get here soon, and New Yorkers will have to learn to have some patience. What could possibly go wrong there?”

Kyle chuckled, though it was tinged with resigned acceptance. There was no question in his mind and in his conscience what the right thing to do was.

“I’mb leaving campus ndow, okay? I’ll come cover udtil Eden can get there. I’mb gonna jump id an Uber – because fuck getting ond the subway looking this rotted – so I should be there sood–”

His voice gave out on him in the last couple of words, roughly straining before he was cut off with a wet, chesty cough rising in his throat. Christ, okay, that was new. That can’t be good. The tissue was as good as useless at this point, but all the same, for posterity, he still scrambled to raise his fist to smother it in. Then, off the back of that itchy, fluttering irritation– “hhIH’EHtchh’shue!”

“Bless you. Oh God, are you sure, though?” Kip clucked, his voice warm and apologetic. “I thought you said you were getting better – you still sound awful. Look, don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine for a bit by myself, truly, and Eden doesn’t live too far away, she should be able to get here quickly…”

Kyle had already made his mind up, though, no matter how much it pained him. He couldn’t leave anyone in the lurch like that, least of all Kip. For a promo initiative that’d been his idea in the first place. At least it got him out of having to drag himself to the library like this.

“It’s fide, okay? Hodestly. It’s probably mby fault Aram’s sick in the first place adyway, so really, it’s the least I can do.”

—---------

What was it about trying to get somewhere in a hurry that ended up guaranteeing you hit every red light and every pocket of heavy traffic possible on the way there?

Eric got asked to do these alumni events fairly often – at least once a year – and he generally didn’t mind doing them, especially not now that he was retired and had the time. He supposed his chosen post-graduate career path was a bit of an outlier among other Harvard alums and that was probably why he got asked to come back and speak so much. Maybe they thought it was fun to switch it up, having a professional hockey player on the stage alongside all the extremely accomplished doctors, engineers, writers, scientists, academics, and entrepreneurs he couldn’t help but sometimes feel maybe a little bit deficient in comparison when stacked up against them.

Don’t get him wrong, he loved hockey. He was proud of what he’d achieved and the career that he’d had, and it’d undeniably been his passion for so much of his life and his body bore the scars to prove his dedication to it. At the end of the day, though, when these other people were talking about curing cancer, being in contention for a Pulitzer, and developing systems to take people to the moon, and he was talking about getting hit with pucks for a living and talked to his goalposts, there was a bit of a disparity there.

But hey, he won a Stanley Cup out of it.

Eric had had a nice time, both guest speaking and getting the opportunity to catch up with some of his friends from college who’d stayed in the area and built a life there after they all graduated, friends that he didn’t get to see nearly enough. But he was more than ready to be home again, especially knowing that Kyle had been sick the last few days he’d been gone.

God, he’d sounded so terrible on the phone those first couple of days that Eric seriously considered just cutting the trip short and coming straight back. After successfully working it out of him that he was running a fever, he probably would have, if not for Kyle himself very firmly threatening that he’d ‘actually be mad at him’ if he did so. Of course, Kyle’s a ‘big boy’ who can ‘take care of himself’, as he so dismissively put it, but he shouldn’t always have to; not anymore. Eric didn’t want him to.

After a couple of days in bed, with all the promises under the sun made that he’d been drinking enough fluids (including the potent but very effective herbal tea Eric swore by, and kept reminding him was in the kitchen cabinet), eating at least semi-properly, even if he didn’t feel like it, and actually getting some proper rest, Kyle claimed to have started turning a corner yesterday. Eric had tried to convince him against his plans to force himself back out to go to class, to give it a miss this week, actually let himself recover completely over the weekend, and then try again the following week. Or he may end up backsliding. But when Kyle gets an idea in his head and truly makes his mind up about something, however, it’s hard to dissuade him.

Pulling up to yet another red light, an incoming call flashed up on the car’s bluetooth system. Ah, speak of the devil…

Eric accepted it quickly, immediately met with the distant rumble of a moving vehicle and muted sounds of the city.

“Hey, honey. How are you?”

He heard Kyle clear his throat in preparation to speak, though it didn’t sound like it did much at all. When he spoke, his voice was wrecked, ripped to shreds and choked with illness. Eric was taken aback; he’d spoken to him this morning, and he’d sounded nowhere near this bad.

“Oh, you know, just peachy. Truly, ndever beed better– sdnffffl. How’s the drive?”

Eric hummed in sympathy. “Yeah, it sounds like it. The traffic situation’s not been ideal. At this point, I just want to be home.” He sighed. “But I should be able to make the time up somewhere on the way, so I'm still planning on being home around 8ish. I’m guessing that’s class all wrapped up, then? How was it?”

“Yeah, I got out of there just after 4:30. It was… ad old mban talking about old things. Mby brain’s so foggy right ndow that’s about the height of the informbation that permeated.”

Eric could see the deflection for what it was, hear the misery and fatigue redoubled in his voice than what he’d remembered from earlier. His chest ached a little and he didn’t even want to say ‘I told you so’ – didn’t see what that would gain at this point other than piss Kyle off when he clearly already felt bad. At this point, after not having been able to so far, all he wanted to do was help.

“Well, now that it’s over and done with, just get home and get warmed up. Y’know what? A nice, steaming hot shower will do wonders for loosening up all that crap in your head,” he said, before adding with approval, “You’re in a cab now, right?”

“Yeah, I amb. About that, though…” Kyle said, hesitated for a second, then let out a humourless huff of laughter. “As mbuch as I just love hearing your voice, I was actually calling to give you a heads up that I’b having to go to the Kingfisher here for a little bit. I’b ndot planning on staying long, but with the game on–”

Eric’s brow creased. “What? Why?”

“Because I’ve given Aram mby damn plague and he called out, so ndow Kip’s been left on his own, short-staffed on an Admirals hobe gabe ndight, and it’ll be at least an hour udtil we can get someone else in to cover,” Kyle grumbled, sounding thoroughly annoyed with himself. “I mbean, I’mb out adyway, s-so…. hhh’ehh.. hhiH’ihtchsss’chue! hUH’ehhzsssch’ue!”

Eric winced at the force of the sneezes, damp, sore, and scraping, like they were being wrenched from him, even muffled through the tinny filter of the phone line. “Bless you. Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Kyle gave a dejected sniffle. “There isn’t really adother option.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“Okay, then. Probably ndot, but again, there isn’t really adother option.”

Eric sighed. “You sound really sick, sweetheart – worse than earlier, by a significant margin. I just don’t want you to get any worse.”

Okay, he knew the deployment of ‘sweetheart’ could be risky at times like this, the chances of it either weakening Kyle’s resolve or simply annoying him even further, usually standing at around a 50/50 split depending on the circumstances. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

Kyle’s voice softened. “It’ll odly be for like an hour, hour and a bit. Udtil Eden gets in to take over. I’ll probably still beat you hobe, but I just wanted to let you know in case adything happens and I end up–”

“You can’t work a full shift like this,” Eric cut in firmly.

“Well, I cad’t just leave Kip in the lurch like that either. Look, it absolutely wod’t be a full shift, though, I probise. Trust mbe, baby, I wadt to go hobe as mbuch as you wadt mbe to go hobe,” Kyle shot back, before his voice took on a teasing lilt. “Adyway, it’s your business I’b keeping afloat, so really, you should be thadkful.”

Eric understood that Kyle was probably right, and nothing could really be done. That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

“If I instructed you, as owner, to go home instead anyway, would you do it?” Eric asked weakly, knowing it was useless.

“I would…” Kyle paused, like he was truly considering it. “...say that that would represedt a questionable power imbalance that I ordinarily mbight find kind of sexy, but for right now, I’d have to overrule.”

Eric shook his head. “So stupid. What’s the point of owning the place, then?” he muttered to himself, laced with affection. “Just get home as soon as you can, okay? I’ll do the same.”

“Trust mbe, the second I can leave, I’b out of there. I’ll see you later – drive safe, I love you.”

“Will do. Love you too. Bye.”

—----------------------------------

By some stroke of luck, Eric did manage to shave some time off his commute back into the city. The later it got, finally coming out on the other side of rush hour and seeing the roads open up as the late fall sky quickly grew darker, the more he was able to make back. He quite liked driving, finding solace in the quiet monotony of it, even though he didn’t get to do a whole lot of it since moving fully back into the city after the divorce. At no point could he fully relax on this drive, though. His conversation with Kyle just left him concerned and all the more antsy to get home.

Eric had been checking his phone periodically where he (safely) could, and he hadn’t had any indication from him that he was heading home. He just hoped that meant he’d been too tired, or too preoccupied after getting back, to do so, rather than him having gotten stuck at the bar somehow.

An ominous feeling coiled in his stomach when he opened the front door and there were no lights on downstairs, and he toed off his shoes in the dark. His home was his safe space, he’d cultivated it carefully. It felt odd not to feel immediate, uncomplicated comfort being back in his own surroundings, being welcomed back by the art on the walls, by each chosen piece that all held such meaning to him, after being away. Tonight, he barely looked at them.

Climbing the stairs, the kitchen that greeted him also lay dark, showing no signs of life. To his left, though, in the open-plan living space, a single lamp glowed, bathing the room in a dim but warm, buttery hue.

Approaching with gentle footsteps, Eric peered over the back of the couch, sagging with a sudden ease to find Kyle laid out there, fast asleep. His long figure was swallowed up by a thick black knit turtleneck, his jeans still on. He seemed to have been able to get his shoes off, at least, and his fingers were curled loosely around the leg of his glasses, where his hand lay haphazardly on the pillow his head rested on.

He must’ve crashed pretty much as soon as he got home, whenever that was.

God, he’s so fucking adorable.

Getting a little closer, though, Eric frowned as the other man’s ghostly pallor became only more evident, save for his nose and cheeks, which were flushed varying unhealthy shades of red and pink. He could hear his breathing now too, crunchy, congested, and impeded on exhale. Yeah, whatever recovery he’d managed in the last couple of days, this thing was fighting back.

Eric let the bags he’d been carrying slide off his shoulder and out of his hands, before crouching down at the edge of the couch. First, he slipped the glasses – Kyle’s second favourite pair – out of his grasp and set them safely aside. Then, after a moment of hesitation, weighing up if it was worth possibly waking Kyle up or not, he rested his palm as gently as he could against Kyle’s forehead, disheartened but not entirely surprised to find a slight, unnatural warmth there. Though it didn’t appear at first to fully wake him, Eric felt Kyle lean his face further into Eric’s hand, it being cool from the outdoors.

Kyle must’ve been coming round though, as he started sniffling like mad, his slack expression twitching in irritation with each short, blunt sniff. Eric only noticed then, his heart aching for him a bit at that point, that his nose had been running a little bit in his sleep, the poor thing. Nothing crazy, but he’d likely be mortified when he woke up and realised.

A short, one-handed dig in his coat pocket brought up nothing, and with no tissue box in sight, without much more thought about it, Eric pulled his sweater sleeve up over his thumb and carefully dabbed away the moisture slicking the painful looking skin.

Even just that gentle touch seemed to be too much though, as Kyle’s eyes, swollen and tear-filled, fluttered open, levelling him with a dazed, un-seeing glance, before quickly closing again, his mouth dropping open as his nostrils flared. When his other hand emerged from where it’d been trapped under his body, it unfurled to reveal a fistful of tissues he promptly buried his face in, twisting his head away from Eric’s hold as his body spasmed with the sneezes.

“hah’ehtssschh’huh! hhUH’ehtsssh’ue!.... hhh?.... hiH’EHTzssch’yue!..... h’uH’EHTCHhhh’oo!”

“Bless you–” Eric moved his hand to Kyle’s hip, his thumb stroking affectionately as Kyle gave his nose what sounded like a much-needed blow, his eyes streaming in the process. “Aw, buddy…”

Kyle, teary-eyed and all, shot him an impressive look over the top of the tissues. “To be hodest, I’b ndot sure how to feel about you calling the love of your life, ‘buddy.”

“C’mon, I’m Canadian. It’s affectionate,” Eric argued with a smile. It was nice to hear him joke, and Eric felt tension loosen in him that he hadn’t even fully realised he’d been holding. “How are you feeling?”

Kyle groaned. “Like death that sobeode’s taken out of the fridge and mbicrowaved. Hot on the outside, but still cold and gross in the mbiddle – sdnfff. Inedible.”

Eric chuckled at the analogy. “Yeah, I think you’re running a bit of a temperature there, so that actually checks out. How long have you been home for? You got away quick enough from the bar, right?”

“I odly ended up being there for about an hour. Dod’t get mbe wrong, it mbay have been ode of the longest hours of mby life, but to be fair to Eden she did hustle to get over ASAP. Has the gabe even started yet? What tibe is it?”

“That’s something, at least,” Eric accepted, moving his hand up to card his fingers through Kyle’s hair. “And it’s just coming up to 8:30, I think? Last I heard we were two goals up.”

“Yay,” Kyle delivered in the most unenthused, deadpan tone, and Eric couldn’t help but laugh again. Well if hockey wasn’t going to cheer him up…

“Okay, well, in terms of something I would like to think is edible – though the ladies behind the counter gave me some very wary looks when I asked for them the exact way you told me to order them, and warned me against it several times…” Eric reached behind him and produced the takeout bag, emblazoned with the logo of their local Thai place.

“As promised – the ‘spiciest noodles they had’”

He’d feared what he had enabled several times on the journey home from the restaurant. Even just the aroma it filled his car with, despite being mouth-wateringly rich and undeniably delicious, spelled ‘danger’. But the way Kyle’s still half-sleepy face lit up just now made all the strange glances worth it.

“Oooooh, yay. Actual ‘yay’ this tibe,” Kyle smiled. “Thed they’re just as spicy as I want them. Mbight even have a shot at tasting them.”

Extracting his hand from Kyle’s hair, Eric gave his back an affectionate little tap before moving to his feet. Thankfully, if being a goalie has done one thing for him, it’s taught him how to get up from the floor with some degree of fluidity. It’s easier for him in skates, though. On ice.

“Go get changed into something comfy and I’ll plate up.”

Looking down at Kyle now though as he looked back up at him, eyes bright – slightly too bright – but openly loving and happy to see him, with a nightmarish cold needing to be nursed, cuddled up on the couch where he’d passed out while waiting up for him – that ease that Eric usually felt upon returning home, the comfort he’d been waiting on before but hadn’t found, it finally washed over him.

The emotion of it swelling in his chest, he leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to Kyle’s forehead. Then, to each flushed cheek. Then, his red, sensitive nose, despite how it scrunched underneath his lips in protest at how Eric’s facial hair must’ve tickled it.

“I missed you.”

“I mbissed you too.”

Eric went to pull away, but was caught in place by a very pointedly enacted, sad, needling puppy face, the way Kyle’s chin tilted up telling him exactly what he wanted.

Eric relented embarrassingly quickly. It never took much – his self-preservation instincts apparently paper thin when it came to pretty blond boys who loved art as much as he did and knew how to play his body like a well-tuned instrument. Leaning back in, he completed the circuit and kissed Kyle properly, the ‘welcome back’ tasting vaguely like mentholated cherry on the other man’s lips.

Suddenly, Kyle spoke again, his voice hushed, markedly vulnerable. “I thought I was getting better.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

“I just… wadted to be better.”