I'm obsessed with Matty's stifles!! I hope we can get some more soon ❤️❤️
Absolutely! Here you go! 💙💚
Cut Grass, Matty/Nico, 818 words
Read it below or on AO3 (series link: tumblr, AO3)
“We don’t have to say yes. They could hire someone. We could hire someone!”
“No, it’s okay, I’ll do it. It’s fine.”
“Babe, you do realize I see you when the neighbors cut their lawn, right?”
“It’s not like we have a shortage of allergy meds in the house. Nic, Clive is the nicest landlord I’ve ever had, I can mow the lawn while he’s in the hospital.”
Nico takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes with a sigh. “You are very sweet, and it’s going to be the death of you.”
Yeah. The allergy meds have done fuck-all. Nico's waiting at the door with a wet washcloth when Matty comes stumbling back in, eyes swollen so badly he can hardly see.
"Come on, here you go..." He guides Matty to one of the stools at the kitchen counter and presses the washcloth to his eyes, gently wiping the allergic tears away in between shudders of painfully suppressed sneezes. "Oh, shit, hang on—" They hadn't actually closed the door. The breeze coming through in the few seconds it takes to shut it makes it perfectly clear why Nico couldn't exactly have taken over the job: he'TCHIU! h'TCSCHiew! hh.... He gets the door shut. t'CHOO! "Jesus Christ," he murmurs, and swipes at his nose, and turns back to Matty, who has managed to stop sneezing long enough to blow his nose so hard that Nico's afraid he's going to rupture his eardrums.
"Okay. Clothes off, shower, here we go." Matty shakily starts to get up, but Nico stops him. "No, right here, if you track that through the house we're gonna have to do a deep clean."
Nico does most of the work to strip Matty right there in the kitchen, and shakes off the itch that flares in his own sinuses again when he throws the grass-covered clothes into the empty washing machine. He goes back in to find Matty, down to only his underwear, dizzily bracing himself against the counter.
NNNG'xx'tdhh. n'GHH!'dh. hhh...hh. d'DT!'dh.
Nico sighs and leads him upstairs with a hand at the small of his back, Matty's muscles convulsing over and over again. Nico is deeply familiar with the can't-stop-can't-breathe-can't-think loop of allergies gone out of control, but at least in his case he's trying to get the damn pollen out.
Someday he'll push the issue. Today is not that day.
He turns the shower on but stops Matty before he can get in. "Benadryl first."
Matty grumbles but takes the pills, and then stands under the water blowing his nose into a washcloth over and over again.
After a while the sneezing-coughing-blowing his nose loop slows, and Nico can see through the curtain that Matty's slowly working through the steps of washing his hair and his face and his body. He strips and leans against the shower wall, looking through the gap between the curtain and the tile.
"Hi. Want company?"
Matty makes a noise that somehow conveys yeah, okay without anything resembling words. Nico steps in and puts a hand to Matty's waist. Matty sags into the touch, folding into Nico's arms in spite of being six inches taller. Nico smooths his hand up and down Matty's back under steady fall of water.
"Listen. I know you can do it. You just proved that."
Matty shudders into Nico's shoulder with a n'GHT!'hhh....
Nico kisses his temple. "And I'm going to post on that neighborhood message board thing for someone to mow our lawn, because—" —Matty's shaking his head against him— "no, because we can afford it, no problem, and your pride is not worth you not being able to fucking breathe. Okay?"
Matty groans in frustration, but it's also a begrudging fiiiine, so yeah, that counts as a win.
"You are ridiculous and I love you very much." Kissing under each of his eyes where his cheeks are puffy from the swollen sinuses below. "Okay. Let's get you in bed before the Benadryl knocks you out."
"It's elevend a.mb."
"Yup." He reaches behind Matty and turns off the water, then nudges him back onto the bathmat and into his towel. "Hey. We should talk about this for real when you're not allergy-and-allergy-med-drunk, but you know how Clive has been talking about eventually wanting to sell, and us having first dibs?" He towels off his own hair and flips off the bathroom light, gently pressing Matty back into their room and into bed. "I wonder if, once he gets back on his feet, he's going to decide that now's the time. I know he loves putzing around here, but he should actually enjoy his retirement." He snuggles up against Matty under the covers. "We could get a cat. Or a dog!"
"Or both," Matty says, low and half-asleep.
"Or both. Something to think about." Nico kisses his forehead. "Sleep well."
Another shortie for @poetic-illness 💖 also had to do something with this :) <3
——
Shane crashes the day after his first All-Star Weekend as a Centaur.
What was supposed to be silly fun has left him miserably overstimulated.
Practicing with people he’s never played with before. The unseasonable winter heat of Los Angeles that chokes him every time he goes outside, followed by the freezing cold of the airplane that takes him and Ilya back to Ottawa. The press conferences, where everyone and everything is loud and flashy and exhausting. Where reporters have been warned by the NHL to keep questions about Shane and Ilya’s relationship to a minimum but clearly want to ask about it anyway. Ilya gives them all death glares, but really, it’s the league’s fault for having a joint presser with just the two of them.
They’ve just gotten back from the airport, and Shane’s daylong headache has only gotten worse. The ache behind his right orbital bone is unceasing, leaving him squinting even behind his sunglasses. He can’t even get himself to sleep on the car ride home, trying his best to just lean against the window in such a way that the bumps of the road won’t slam his fucking head around too much. Ilya is driving, quietly, and when he puts his hand over Shane’s, Shane pulls his own away, even that small touch being too much for his oversensitive skin. Ilya keeps to himself the rest of the ride, and Shane appreciates the silence. His brain needs it.
It’s all too much right now.
“Too much?” Ilya says as they walk through the front door and Shane kicks his shoes off haphazardly, rather than stacking them neatly on the rack.
Shane looks at him even though his eyes, and his temples, are fucking screaming at him. “Mm,” he says in agreement, sniffling, then goes to curl up in the corner of the couch, trying to meld with the cushions.
Ilya goes into the kitchen, then comes back with a glass of water and some pain pills. He hands them to Shane wordlessly, then turns to leave, when Shane snags his hand.
“Stay,” he says weakly.
“You are sure?”
“Mm,” he says again. He doesn’t want to risk nodding and making his head explode.
“Okay.” Ilya sits next to him and guides Shane’s head into his lap. Shane shivers and fists his hands around his sweatshirt sleeves. Why does he switch so quickly between feeling like touch will burn him and craving constant, crushing amounts of contact?
He feels all the pain pool in the right side of his head where it rests against Ilya’s thigh, but he doesn’t care so long as he can stay like this forever. Or, for now, at least.
Ilya runs a soothing hand over his shoulder, petting him slowly and gently. Shane’s head throbs with every heartbeat. He tries to clear his mind, to ignore everything but the feeling of his husband’s big hand on him. An itch tickles his nose, and he hitches quietly into his covered hand.
“hih..ihHh! hip’schiew! hadt’choo!”
“Bud’ zdor—”
“hahIDTSCHhew! mnguhh,” Shane moans as the stronger sneeze sledgehammers a jolt of pain into his brain.
“Bud’ zdorov. Uh-oh. Sweetheart,” Ilya coos. “I know that sneeze.”
Shane is busy recovering from the feeling of stars exploding behind his eyes. “Huh?” He slurs out.
“You are getting sick,” Ilya says worriedly. “You only sneeze like that when you have a cold.”
Shane doesn’t know what to say other than, “Oh.” That last sneeze had hurt more than the others. And sure, the temperature change had made him a bit sniffly all day today. But a cold?…Hm. Well, maybe. Fuck.
Ilya resumes petting him for a bit, until Shane takes in a sharp breath that catches embarrassingly. “ah-ghHihh…!”
“Oh, Shane…”
“hadt’shuhh!”
Ilya tightens his hand on Shane’s shoulder. “Bless you. One more?”
“HISHhuhh! ah’ISHhoo!”
“Oh, two,” Ilya says with surprise. “Bud’ zdorov, lyubov moya.”
“I thigk I need to lie dowd,” Shane says stuffily.
Ilya presses a kiss to the top of his head - coincidentally, right where another flare of pain has taken root. “Of course. Let’s go.”
Shane whimpers at the jostling of his head as he lifts it from Ilya’s leg, then takes Ilya’s hand. He covers his eyes with his other hand as they walk, Ilya guiding him to the guest bedroom so he doesn’t have to walk upstairs.
In bed, he snuggles under the covers and is faintly aware of Ilya padding around the room, closing the curtains and turning the fan on, leaving a box of tissues next to him. He hands him the water and pills. “Just drink, and then you can sleep, yes?”
Shane takes a small sip, then guzzles down the rest of the glass, feeling the liquid cool something in his burning head. He puts the glass down and smushes his face into his pillow, sleepily rubbing a little at his nose. “Thagk you,” he mumbles out.
“Spi sladko, milyy,” he hears Ilya say softly. Right before dissolving into sleep, he feels the brush of a kiss being pressed to the shell of his ear.
Thinking about someone recovering from a cold being super pumped at how good they’re feeling and then 4 pm hits and their fever’s back and they feel like shit again and they are GRUMPY
Throat burns, ears stuffy, Mom's spaghetti. Off from work, so I knocked this one out. Another awards show-inspired fic. Our boys are EVERYWHERE! Expect another one like this when HR inevitably sweeps the Canadian Screen Awards, I guess. ;) Still have to scream in the tags about many of the incredible fics you guys have posted this week. <3 2.6k words
cw: some mess and a lot more talk about food than I expected
----
“Shane,” Ilya murmured as their limo stopped at yet another red light. “We can turn around if you want.”
Shane opened his eyes from his little half-nap and lifted his head off his husband’s shoulder. “No, I’m okay.” No chance he was going to miss seeing Rose on her big night.
They were on their way to the Hollywood premiere of Rose’s latest movie, the origin story of her X-Squad superhero. Shane hadn’t seen her in months, but they texted multiple times a week and he knew how much she was looking forward to this. He wasn’t going to let the stupid cold that had been brewing in him since last night get in his way of supporting her. Besides, any excuse to see Ilya in a tuxedo was a good one.
Ilya was quiet for a moment. “Okay.” He pressed a kiss to the top of Shane’s head, then smoothed his rumpled hair. “You are very sexy,” he said matter-of-factly, like he was stating “the sky is blue” or “ice is cold.”
Shane ran his hand over Ilya’s bicep. “Speak for yourself.” He looked like James fucking Bond on his way to seduce some women and sip a martini. Vodka, not gin.
Shane, on the other hand, felt like a sniffly, sweaty mess. But he appreciated the compliment anyway. He took a tissue from his pocket and rubbed it beneath his nose. He steeled himself for the sensory nightmare that tonight was going to be — screaming photographers, flashing lights, loud Imax explosions, too too too many people in a crowded theater — but then Ilya was stroking up and down his back and he sighed and let his shoulders drop. “Just a few hours,” Ilya said, “and then bed.”
“Mm, sounds good.” At least Shane’s voice didn’t sound too congested. He rested his head back on Ilya’s shoulder and closed his eyes once more, not opening them until the car stopped.
They managed to get through the herds of reporters and young, pretty starlets rather quickly — despite their relationship having rocked the hockey world, Shane and Ilya were still relatively unknown by plenty of Americans, particularly those in LA. Though Shane was starting to feel overstimulated from the cacophonous rush of noise and the snuffliness of his troublesome nose and the ache in his throat and the heat of his suit, he felt comforted by the touch of Ilya’s palm against his back, the way he entwined their fingers as they walked, the sweet smiles he gave when Shane looked into his eyes. It grounded him, made him feel the red carpet beneath his feet and realize that he wasn’t sinking into it. Ilya Rozanov. It really didn’t get any better than this.
“Guys!” Shane turned at the sound of the excited voice to see Rose, grinning, hiking up the skirt of her long black dress and hustling towards them. Her hair was shorter and darker than when Shane had last seen her, and she had put on some muscle for her latest role. She was done up spectacularly, with glossy red lipstick that made her look like a doll come to life. She looked beautiful, and she looked happy.
“Hi hi hi!” She came up to Shane and threw her arms around him, and he put his hands around her waist to steady her in her dangerously high heels. She kissed his cheek, and he ran a hand over her back in lieu of getting his germy face anywhere near her. She gave Ilya just as fierce and tight of a hug, and something warmed in Shane’s chest to see the small woman nearly knock over his huge husband. “Thank you so much for coming,” she said, her cheeks flushed with delight.
“Thank you for inviting us,” Ilya said, gallantly pressing a kiss to her hand. “Our teammates are very jealous.”
“Trust me,” she said, “I know a lot of people who are jealous that I’m friends with you guys.”
Ilya raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think friendship is what the boys are wanting.”
She winked and stuck out her tongue. “Sorry. I’m not looking to date another athlete.” She looked at Shane. “I had the best one, after all.” All three of them smiled, and Ilya made Shane’s breath catch by putting a hand to the small of his back and saying, “We are both very lucky, hm?”
And then, of course, Shane had to ruin the moment by needing to sneeze. Gasping a high-pitched breath that he hoped wasn’t too audible, he turned his back to his best friend and his man and jammed his face into his elbow. “hh…! hgk’t! hktschh! hgkt’shh! hd’tschh! hn’dtchiew!” God, his sneezes had been plentiful all day, far more than they usually were at the onset of one of his colds. Stifling was difficult, too - Ilya had gently encouraged him over the years to stop lest he injure himself, and he’d pretty much trained himself out of it at this point. Especially because Ilya was fucking right. It did hurt. But he couldn’t be so gross around—
“Bless you!” exclaimed Rose, at the same time as Ilya’s soft “Bud’ zdorov.” Shane took a second to hide in his arm, blinking back the tears in his eyes and sniffling as quietly as he could to clear some of his congestion, before lifting his head. “Thanks, excuse me.” He felt his cheeks heat at the concern on both of their faces. God, being perceived was so fucking embarrassing.
Mercifully, neither of them brought more attention to Shane’s cold, which was growing more obvious by the minute. They chatted a little longer, cameras flashing all around them, until Rose was called over for an interview with some woman named Amelia who had a show about…chickens? Before she left, Rose rubbed a hand over Shane’s shoulder and said, kindness shining in her eyes, “Thanks again for coming. I’ll see you guys in there!”
As the first of the guests began to trickle into the theater, Ilya found a small alcove behind the red carpet and led Shane over. Shane tugged at the collar of his shirt and Ilya wiped away a droplet of sweat that was traveling down his temple. "How are you feeling?”
Shane shrugged. “I’m…here.” He turned his back to the wall, took out one of his wilting tissues, and blew his nose gently, the sound much wetter and squeakier than he would have liked.
Ilya frowned, looking like he wanted to pick up Shane and carry him back to the car. But he knew how much Shane wanted to be there for Rose. “As soon as you are feeling really bad, tell me and we will go, okay?”
He nodded, but he really wanted to make it to the end of the night. If he could play through the flu in the Stanley Cup Final, he could get through a goddamn action movie. “I must look so disgusting.”
“You look beautiful,” Ilya said, voice so tender and adoring that it made Shane blush again. “Is kind of annoying, actually. I look like unseasoned chicken breast when I am sick. You look like…” he thought for a moment. “A nice cock au vin.”
Shane cracked a smile. “You know that’s not how it’s pronounced,” he chided, then let his eyes slip shut when Ilya cupped his cheek.
“I know, Mr. Frenchie. I just mean that you cannot even tell that you are sick. I mean, I can tell, but I know that none of these boring people can.” He pressed his palm, then a long kiss, to Shane’s forehead. “No fever."
Yet, Shane thought. He wasn’t as prone to fevers as Ilya was, but he could tell that this cold wasn’t going to be an easy one. “You don’t look like chicken when you’re sick,” he reassured as the two of them made their way into the theater, Ilya with an arm around his shoulders. “You look like…steak. Like a really good ribeye. With garlic butter. And shoestring fries.”
Ilya chuckled and squeezed him tight. “Thank you, malysh. You’re making me hungry.”
Inside the theater, Shane was relieved to see that they were close to the aisle, only one woman between him and a possible escape route. Rose had apologized outside — I tried to get you guys right near me, but they put a bunch of bigwigs there instead! — but it immediately made Shane calmer. He could get through this. He was a fucking hockey player who ate pain and discomfort for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
At least, he thought he did.
Over two hours into the movie, Shane started to flag. Hard. He’d been wincing a little throughout as the klaxon sounds of cars being thrown across the city of Metropolis by a tentacled sea monster (wait, how was it surviving without being in the sea?) made his head pound. Now, though, he was needing to close his eyes against the flashes of lightning in the sky coming from a magical hammer (what was even going on in this movie)? At least Rose looked badass and was actually insanely believable as a scientist-turned-blue shapeshifter. Shane had even teared up a little at her emotional monologue in front of her X-Squad partner-turned-evil villain. But he wouldn’t admit that.
A particularly bright bolt of lightning triggered something in his sinuses, which had begun itching steadily as soon as they entered the theater. The woman next to him was wearing some kind of perfume and it was…cloying, to say the least. Ilya had even looked over at her at one point with a wrinkle of his own nose, but she hadn’t noticed the Russian telepathy he’d been trying to use to get her to explode.
Fuckfuckfuck, Shane was going to sneeze. In front of all of these people. Not that his sneezes were like atom bombs, not like Ilya’s, but god…this was a nightmare akin to coming out to his parents. Deep down he knew that was extreme, but the wooziness he was starting to feel and the burning spreading from behind his cheekbones to the bridge of his nose said otherwise. Not wanting to move towards his elbow and disrupt the woman or Ilya, Shane hunched forward into cupped hands. “hih-ngkxt! -nnhgkt! gxtsh-uhh! hgx’tiew!” And fuck if that didn’t make the pain in his everything even worse.
As Shane stayed behind his hands for a moment, waiting to see if the tickle was gone and not daring to sniffle, Ilya looked over at him and mouthed a “Bud’ zdorov.” He lay a hand on Shane’s thigh and kept it there as Shane thumbed the tears from his eyes. He felt about as stopped up as a corked bottle of wine. Sneaking a glance at his husband, he saw that Ilya was still watching him, big blue eyes full of worry, and he nudged his knee with his own to tell him, “I’m fine.”
(He was not fine.)
A few minutes later, Shane felt a tickle, alarming in its ferocity, start to make its way up his throat. He held his breath, willing away the sensation of needing to cough, but his body didn’t feel like listening. He covered his mouth once more and coughed itchily once, twice, three times, as softly as he could, before the confusing sensation of needing to cough and sneeze overpowered him. He coughed again, stronger and deeper this time, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the woman next to him look over. He stood up from his seat, mumbling a humiliated “‘Scuse be,” and used his quick strong runner’s legs to dash as politely as he could into the hallway, making it out just in time.
“hyihh! ihhDSCHT! hyy’ISHhh! -YISHhew! hy’ish, ISH, ISHhoo!” He lay back against the wall, gasping, hands wet with spray and cheeks flushed scarlet. He spotted a bathroom at the end of the hall and rushed inside to blow his nose, letting out a few softer “y’ISHhh!” sneezes into his tissues between blows.
The bathroom door began to open, and Shane was momentarily terrified he’d been caught. But it was Ilya, whose eyes widened at Shane’s face, leaking and revolting as Shane knew it to be. “Dorogy,” he cooed, and Shane gave another “hy’IShhoo!” in response.
“Bless you, bless you, God bless you.” Shane practically fell into his arms. “Ssh,” Ilya said when he started to cough uncontrollably into his chest. Fuck, he was going to ruin his husband’s designer suit. “Let’s go home,” Ilya said into his ear.
“Can’t. I have to…Rose…”
“Credits started rolling just after you left. They should be out soon. Scene after credits, I bet,” Ilya said with a roll of his eyes. “If we say goodbye, can we go right after?”
Shane buried his face back into Ilya’s chest. “Please,” he said, voice hoarse and congested from all of the sneezing. Speaking of which, he started to pull away when his breath hitched again, but Ilya kept holding him tight against his chest. “Ilyaah…! hdt’SCHIEW! hy’eshhuhh! hy’ISHHhhuh! -coughcoughcough-” Ilya released him with a "Bud' zdorov," and Shane reached for a wad of paper towels to blow strongly into, not bothered anymore that he was in a fancy suit at a fancy movie premiere and trying not to make a fuss in front of a bunch of fancy people. He was here with his husband, who loved him more than anything. Who didn’t care that he was an exhausted snot monster. Who knew that sometimes Shane got anxious, and overstimulated, and that he cried whenever he watched Youngblood. And wanted him anyway.
As Shane finished blowing his nose, he heard the cinema doors opening and a wave of chatter. Ilya brushed the dark hair out of his eyes and said, “Let’s go.”
Outside, the limos of the rich and famous were circling around the concourse to collect their clients for the afterparty. Shane and Ilya spotted Rose right away — her loud laughter at something Miles had said could be heard from a mile away — and gave her their farewells and apologies.
“Take care of that cold, okay?” Rose said into Shane’s ear as she hugged him again. She must have said something similar to Ilya, who smiled and told her, “I am, I promise.”
“Love you! See you soon!” Rose yelled and blew them kisses as their limo pulled up. “Take Emergen-C!”
As soon as the car door closed, Shane lay his head down in Ilya’s lap. It wasn’t very safe, but hey, his muscular thighs were more comfortable than they looked and they were right there. How could Shane stay away from them?
Ilya ran a hand up and down the curve of Shane’s waist. “I’m so sorry you’re sick, sweetheart.”
Shane hummed. “S’okay. At least we got to see Rose. Oh fuck…hope I don’t get her sick. Or you.”
“Russians and superheroes don’t get sick. How many times must I tell you this?" Ilya laughed, then lowered his voice. "Are you still warm?” At Shane’s “A little, yeah,” Ilya opened the window, then perked up like a dog hearing the sound of kibble being poured into his bowl. “In-N-Out,” he said dreamily.
Shane sat up and gave him a knowing smile. “Yes, we can stop,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
Ilya punched the air and asked the limo driver to take them to the drive-thru, practically vibrating with excitement. “I am getting a Double-Double. And a chocolate milkshake. And animal fries.”
Shane’s jaw dropped. “Ilya, if you eat animal fries, I swear to god I am never kissing you again.”
Ilya shrugged. “Worth it—kidding, kidding!” he laughed as Shane lightly smacked his arm. As they waited their turn to order, Shane lay his head back in his husband’s lap.
“Hey, Ilya?”
“Yes, lyubimyy?”
“Do you have any idea what was going on in that movie?”
Or maybe Rozanov had nothing to do with it. After all, they’ve always come as a pair, ever since the draft. First and second; second and first. Rozanov and Hollander; Hollander and Rozanov. Only, not like that, not… coupled. No, it’s Hollander versus Rozanov, now and always.
Part 1
Part 2
[Delighted by the nice things people had to say about the previous parts. Thank you, thank you. Sorry this took me a month! It's longer than I thought it would be...]
The Raiders have the practice slot before the Metros; the schedulers have left a short gap between the sessions for the photographs of him and Rozanov. So Shane arrives before the rest of his team, changes alone in the home-team locker room, and comes out to the ice just in time to see the last few minutes of the Boston skate. If he’s a little early for the call time, well, it’s only polite to be punctual. If it also lets him take a look at how his opponents are shaping up – maybe one opponent in particular – so much the better.
Rozanov isn’t on the ice. Instead, he’s behind the boards, locked in a intense discussion with two members of the coaching staff. But he has been skating. Though he’s removed his gloves and his helmet, sweat-soaked curls are still plastered to his skin and sticking out at odd angles and his cheeks are warm from exertion. He also looks much, much sicker than he’d looked that morning. The red flush that had previously coloured the tip of his nose has now spread downwards and outwards, and deepened to an angry scarlet. Probably a freezing rink, a head cold, and the rough polyester of hockey gloves and jerseys hadn’t proved an ideal combination over the last ninety minutes. The parts of Rozanov’s face that aren’t rubbed red-raw are strangely pale, as though someone has painted a grey wash under his usual year-round tan. His brow is furrowed, like he’s trying to push away a gnawing headache, and he’s leaning a little too heavily on the boards.
But the most obvious sign that Rozanov isn’t doing well is that everyone’s stopped pretending that he isn’t sick. One of the coaches is alternating between concerned looks at Rozanov and meaningful glances to another member of staff. Another folds his arms to draw a line under something. Rozanov himself is throwing heated gestures towards the players on the rink, though no one seems to be rising to his frustrations. All of which suggests that their conversation is about whether he can play tomorrow: a topic on which they seem to have very different opinions. And when an assistant coach blows a whistle for the end of the practice and the rest of the Raiders left the ice, Cliff Marleau stops to put a concerned hand on Rozanov’s shoulder. It’s immediately shaken off. Marleau shrugs, and heads back to the dressing room with the team and most of the staff, leaving Rozanov alone at the sideline, staring across the rink until his gaze finally falls on Shane, who is pretending to adjust his skates and trying to look like he isn’t watching Rozanov very closely.
He’s not surprised that Rozanov is feeling worse; Shane's own cold has definitely come on since that morning. He’d skipped the run he’d had planned to take an afternoon nap on the sofa – something he rarely did – and woken up with an aching head, and congestion pressing between his eyes and under his ears. More worrying was the prickling feeling under the skin across his upper back, which, for him, was usually a sign of a fever coming on. Luckily, more Tylenol was enough to mute the symptoms to a background annoyance. He’d sneezed a couple of times on the drive over but he can still breathe pretty well, even if the cold of the rink is already starting to make his nose run. Still, he looks pretty much like himself – which is more than anyone can say for Rozanov.
Thankfully, the photographer doesn’t have a whole shoot planned. He promises that he’s not going to take up too much time, that he just wants to get some quick shots as back up, in case he can’t get them at the game tomorrow. He has Shane skate a few quick laps with the puck at his stick – which feels pretty silly with no one chasing him - and then ask Rozanov to do the same.
Rozanov isn’t sloppy – he could never really be sloppy, with his near flawless stick handling – but he’s definitely slow. In the quiet of the arena – no fans, no teammates even – Shane can hear his breathing, and it doesn’t sound great. Of course, Rozanov isn’t trying his hardest… But he’s certainly trying a bit, and probably harder than he’d have liked to. Even in a performance for a photoshoot, Rozanov would still want to put on a good show. So even if Rozanov dialled it up tomorrow, if he’s winded like this now then you could catch him, you could totally catch him, and he definitely couldn’t catch you. Plus his recovery is going to be slow and…
Rozanov finishes his loop around the back of the goal and, probably just for something to do, fires the puck towards the open net. It hits the right hand side of the frame with an echoing clang, and ricocheting out towards the barriers, and spinning miserably to a halt in the lonely neutral zone.
“You don’t look so good,” he ventures, under his breath.
The last shot the photographer needs is one of the two of them facing off with one another. As he takes a moment to swap his lens, Shane skates over to a few feet behind Rozanov, and then kneels down to pretend to adjust his skates.
“We can’t all be a pretty boy like you, Hollander.” It’s the type of response Shane has come to expect, but without Rozanov’s usual playfulness. Instead, he just sounds exhausted. Shane tries again.
“That looked like a pretty intense discussion.”
Rozanov sniffs, and mutters something towards the ice that might have been a curse in either English or Russian; Shane can’t tell through the muffled consonants. Then he looks up at Shane, sniffs again, harder, and adds in an icily polite tone, “And how is your cold?”
At that precise moment, Shane’s gloved hand is been half-way to his damp nose. He deliberately lowers it, and fights back the urge to sniffle himself.
“No worse,” he lies. Rozanov rolls his eyes, and skates off – much quicker than is necessary, as if to show that he can – towards the centre face-off spot.
This isn’t the first time Shane has pretended to face off in front of a camera, but it never stops felt weird. It’s hard to fake the tension in his body when there’s nothing at stake, and feels stupid to be gripping his stick, holding it a few inches from the ground, as if ready to strike at a puck that’s never going to be dropped. That was why it has been so easy for Rozanov to make him laugh when they did that shoot in their rookie season. Shane hasn’t thought about that day in a long time, but now, when he does, he can still hear Rozanov’s laughter, can still remember how wonderful it had felt to hear his laughter. Does Rozanov ever think about it? Does he think about any of these moments they have together after they’ve passed? Sometimes, I wonder if I think about anything else.
The photographer wants a thousand little adjustments to their position. Tilt your head a little to the right, no not that much, now put your chin up, drop your shoulder, and so on, and so on. Through it all, and though the set of his jaw suggests he would clearly rather be anywhere than on the ice with a camera pointing at him, Rozanov keeps his gaze locked on Shane – that gaze that, even now, Shane struggles to read. Rozanov’s eyes are challenging him, teasing him, inviting him in and shutting him out, all in the same intense stare.
Shane isn’t good at this staring game. Facing off with other players he avoids it, fixing his gaze on a point on the ice, or staring at the bridge of their nose, because almost no one can tell you’re not actually making eye contact. But with Rozanov, as always, his body thrums with a hot determination to keep up. So Shane stares back, and he keeps staring, even as it starts to feel physically painful, to restrict the air he can force into his lungs. He keeps staring even as the photographer’s instructions, echoing around the empty ice rink, are stretched and compressed into a series of sounds without meaning.
Of course, he doesn’t just want to keep up with Rozanov. He wants to beat him, wants to thrash him, wants to leave Rozanov reeling in his wake. Though, whenever he’s tried to make sense of it afterwards – lying in the darkness of nights in hotel rooms, cocooned in the white-noise of red-eye flights, caught breathless by the crisp chill of morning before an early practice in January – it seems that it isn’t the moment of victory that he savours. No, it’s the competition itself, the struggle, both of them locked together in battle. And then he can’t tease apart any of the strands of this thing the two of them have, can’t work out whether the sex is an extension of the rivalry, or the rivalry is an extension of the sex. Whichever it is, that probably explains why neither of them can end it.
Suddenly, Rozanov blinks. Or rather, he closes his eyes deliberately, squeezing them shut as if pressing something back. When he opens them again, his intense stare has shifted to a dazed look into middle distance. The tension in his jaw has dissolved, his chapped lips part, and his poor abused nose scrunches upwards. Then, in a cyclone of balletic grace, Rozanov pushes himself backwards across this ice, and at the same time swings shoulders and stick up and over to his left and away from Shane.
It’s actually impressive that Rozanov manages to stay on his feet as each heaving sneeze rips through him. He jams his stick into the ice like an anchor, as he hunches over into his left arm, crumpling further in on himself with each successive explosion. Shane feels the involuntarily twitch of his muscles that is usually triggered by a puck skidding across the ice or another player racing past him, the instinctive urge to move towards something at pace. But he fights it back, because he can’t skate over to Rozanov and place a hand between his shoulder blades, can’t slip a steadying arm around Rozanov’s waist while he sneezes his head off.
The photographer laughs, which both breaks the tension, and reassures Shane that no one is going to be scanning his own features for traces of the expression of concern that he is sure must be plastered across them. He forces out a stilted “Bless you” and turns away while Rozanov clears himself up as best he can. The photographer says something throwaway about the flash doing that to lots of people, and starts asking them whether they can swap sides of the face-off spot, so he can get some other angles.
When they face each other again, Rozanov doesn’t stare at him again, but he does flick an exhausted, watery glance up at Shane as they reposition themselves.
“Fuck this,” he mutters, and Shane isn’t sure if he’s talking about the photoshoot, his cold, or both.
“You ok?” Shane mouths, raising his stick again. He’s starting to feel less than okay himself. Now that they’ve been standing still for some minutes, the cold of the rink is stabbing through his layers of clothing, and he’s having to sniffle almost constantly to stop his nose from running.
Rozanov rolls his eyes, as he leans back into the face off position. What do you think?
Shane rubs at his nose and then shrugs, in what he hopes is a reasonably universal gesture for, I know, it sucks to play sick, and risks a small smile. For a second, Rozanov smiles back. Somewhere, far away it seems, the camera shutter clicks.
“Looking good, Hollander!” Hayden’s voice, bright with good-natured teasing, rings out across the ice. Shane turns towards the clatter of skate-blades, pads and helmets tumbling from the home end, a clatter that is quickly accompanied by more shouts, whoops, and the odd wolf-whistle. Shane huffs a sigh, which catches in his sore throat and ends up as a choked, spluttering cough. He really does not need this now.
Rozanov, never the most generous to Shane’s teammates, narrows his eyes. “Idiots,” he mutters, barely under his breath.
“Jealous, Rozanov?”
Shane can’t identify the voice from the shout – there’s a handful of players it could plausibly be – and can’t turn quickly enough to see who it is, and can’t really tell if it’s a response to Rozanov’s mutterings or a random jab, sent out to see if it will land. On another day, Rozanov would probably have spun around and blown a kiss to his “adoring fans” – but not today. Today, Rozanov stands upright like his back aches, which it probably does, and says quietly but firmly, “We are done here, I think.” It’s not a question, and before the photographer can respond, Rozanov adds a short, “Thank you,” and skates off towards the away end.
He doesn’t look at Shane before he leaves.
By the time Shane has finished thanking the photographer himself, trying not to stare after Rozanov the whole time, Hayden is at his shoulder.
“Why do they always pick you for this stuff?” he grumbles.
Because I was the league’s second-top scorer last season. Because I have an Olympic silver medal. Because I’ve been Rookie of the Year, and the League’s MVP. But also because I’m not white and that makes them feel good about themselves, or hit some kind of target. Because I’m also the kind of not-white that won’t put off their readers. Because my mom’s been planning for this since I was in middle school. Because she makes a lot of phone calls even when I wish she wouldn’t, and then I feel ungrateful for wishing she wouldn’t. Because my jerseys sell. So many fucking reasons, Hayden, where do you want me to start?
Shane swallows. His throat hurts. There’s a low static in his ears, and that threatens a sharp pain whenever he moves his head. The cold of the rink is making his nose run. For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t want to be here: on the ice, with his team.
“I dunno, man. The rivalry, I guess,” he mutters, which at least gives him an excuse to look in Rozanov’s direction again.
“Oh, yeah,” Hayden agrees, his eyes also following Rozanov off the ice. “Is something up with him? He’s usually got better comebacks.”
“How should I know?” Shane lies without thinking about it. Lying about Rozanov is second-nature now. “Come on, let’s get on with practice.”
***
It takes Shane and CityMapper two minutes chooses a grocery store that is sufficiently distanced from the Metro’s stadium, his home and his investment property – and as long as he keeps thinking of it as that, then that’s what it is – that it doesn’t indicate any of those locations. A grocery store that Shane visits as quickly as possible, with his hood up, hoping all the time that no hockey fans are doing any evening shopping in the pharmacy aisle.
This cold probably wouldn’t feel too bad if he’d spent the evening at home on the couch, but after ninety minutes of drills in literally freezing stadium, it feels pretty fucking awful. Half-way through practice, his nose started playing this great trick of feeling clogged and on the verge of streaming all at once. And then it kept prickling with the urge to sneeze, an urge that he fought back by jamming it against his shoulder or his glove. But he’s paying for that, because there’s a constant buzzing underneath the bridge that’s making his eyes water, and occasionally provoking a pathetic shuddering gasp that fizzles away into nothing. And now the endorphins have worn off, he’s noticing that the meds he took before practice are wearing off too. His muscles ache, and it’s the ache of an oncoming fever rather than a successful work out.
The sensible thing to do would have been to drive back to his actual home, eat some take-out soup, and sleep until the last possible moment before he has to leave for the game tomorrow. The sensible thing to do would be to text Rozanov and tell him the plan is off; he’s a grown up, he can sort his own cold medicine out, or he can get someone else to do it, because professional hockey teams have people for that. But Shane stopped being sensible six or seven hotel rooms ago, or maybe even before that. Maybe he stopped being sensible that day in Saskatchewan when he saw Rozanov smoking outside the rink. Maybe he hasn’t been sensible for a long time, and nobody’s noticed yet.
Shane keeps apartment well provisioned for the one purpose for which he uses it. Besides that stuff, there’s some beer in the refrigerator, some coffee pods for the machine that Shane can’t remember actually ever using, and maybe a box of protein bars that he took out of his kit bag after arriving straight from a practice. But there’s nothing there that a sick person might need, let alone find comforting.
On his own, Shane would have grabbed the lemon-flavored medicine drink that is objectively the least disgusting thing in the cold-and-flu section, some ginger tea, and an extra box of tissues. But he has no idea what Rozanov prefers, so he also grabs another three vaguely familiar types of cold meds, both Tylenol and Advil, and a second box of tissues just in case. He draws the line at soup; he’s not sure he’s got any cooking equipment in the apartment anyway. But orange juice and tea, those seem like not-weirdly-intense things to provide for someone who is sick, and is also someone that he fucks on the regular, especially when Shane himself is sick too. Yeah, this seems ok.
Or it does until he’s at the automatic register and he remembers that there’s no kettle at this apartment. There’s a microwave – he’s pretty sure there’s a microwave? – but microwaving makes hot water taste weird to him. Maybe the coffee machine makes hot water, but maybe it doesn’t, because he’s never used it so he doesn’t know. So he’s buying tea that he’s not even sure he can make, and what looks like enough medicines to open a small pharmacy.
Jesus, this is ridiculous. He, Shane Hollander, is ridiculous. Rozanov is going to rip him to shreds for going shopping for cold supplies on the way to a hook up. All this for me, Hollander? You shouldn’t have… He’d be insufferable, and the thought nearly leads Shane to drop the grocery basket on the floor and walk right out of the store without it.
But he doesn’t. Because Rozanov had looked really, really sick at practice, and Shane is starting to feel pretty sick himself. So he’s going to take his medicine, and make Rozanov take his too, so they can both get the maximum enjoyment out of this monumentally fucked-up thing that they have going before they wake up feeling even shittier in the morning.
***
Rozanov is ten minutes late, which is enough to make Shane fidgety, but also not enough that a message asking where the fuck he is won’t sound stupidly desperate. It’s not that Shane wants to suggest he can play it cool – that ship sailed in a shower in Toronto half a decade ago – but Rozanov doesn’t need any more lead to make bullets from. At the same time, if Rozanov is too sick to come over, or he can’t get away, or he’s changed his mind, Shane would really like to know now, so he can go back to his real apartment, where he keeps real things like comfy sweaters and fresh fruit, and where his real bed is, and where he might try to sleep off his cold.
“hhh?’hhhh… huh-EISH’www!.. h’ISH’shww!” Shane twists the tissues away from his nose, and then swipes away a tear that’s spilled onto his cheeks, before tossing them to the pile that’s rapidly accumulated in the trashcan and snatching another handful of from the box he’s place on the coffee table.
It’s his nose taking revenge for all the tickles he scrubbed away during practice; that’s the only explanation for why he’s been sneezing and sneezing since he stepped inside the apartment. Obviously it’s not actually that. It’s the dry air from the heat being on, or just that he’s caught what is rapidly turning into the worst cold he’s had in years.
He’s refreshed their chat twice, which fails to make any new messages magically appear. He tries resting on the couch with whatever ESPN has on playing mindlessly in the background, but his muscles, still wired from practice, are too twitchy to sit still. So all that’s left is for him to try to make an apartment that no one lives in seem the tiniest bit like it might be somewhere that would make a sick feel a little more comfortable. He’s put the medicine on the counter where its visible, and now he fetches a plaid blanket from the guest room, and drapes it over the back of the couch.
The buzzer to the apartment rings.
Rozanov looks better than he had a few hours earlier. Not better as in cured – the skin around the tip of his nose is still red raw, and he should really stop rubbing at it or he’s going to make it worse. But as he climbs the stairs towards the door, he looks less strung out, less like his benching tomorrow is an inevitability. He also looks fucking good, dressed for autumn weather in Montreal in a charcoal-coloured woollen coat that he’s buttoned over his hoodie, and a lighter grey scarf wrapped high around his throat. It pushes up the longer strands of his curly hair around his ears, in a way that makes Shane want to twist the spirals around his fingers and pull, hard until Rozanov gasps opens that pretty pink mouth of his.
“hh’tSSHHhew!....hhh’EIshhheugh!”
This makes it all the more embarrassing when Shane literally greets him with a sneeze.
“Fuck. Shit. Sorry.” Shane mumbles into the handful of tissues that he’s pressing hard against his nose. He knows he’s blushing, can feel the heat rising into the top of his cheeks. “Sorry,” he says again, wiping his nose and adding, “This cold is making me really sneezy.”
Good one, Shane. Smooth. Definitely not a phrase that’s going to immediately kill the mood.
Rozanov offers Shane a familiar lopsided grin and there’s a look in his eyes that Shane can’t parse. Then, he raises his hand, and strokes a thumb across the plane of Shane’s cheekbone, exactly where Shane knows that the skin has flushed pink. Rozanov’s fingers are chilled from the cold of the outside, and his touch sends a pleasurable shudder cannoning up Shane’s spine.
“Poor baby…”
Rozanov’s voice is shredded to a low growl that barely makes it out of his throat. The deeper pitch and roughened edges somehow make his accent seem stronger than usual, which would be enough to make Shane want to hum with pleasure. His comment is probably meant to be mocking – knocked on your ass by the sniffles, Hollander? - but also maybe not, because the thumb that stroked across Shane’s cheek is now on the back of his neck, with the rest of Rozanov’s fingers tangled in and tugging on Shane’s hair. Rozanov’s other hand moves to Shane’s waist, slipping into the small of his back and then tugging their hips together sharply, as Rozanov presses his mouth urgently onto Shane’s own, and then traces kisses along Shane’s jawline.
“I can make you feel better,” he whispers into the hollow of Shane’s throat.
Shane moans softly, turning his head and leaning his cheek on to Rozanov’s. Oh. There’s a surface coldness from the walk to Shane’s backdoor. But underneath that is a latent heat, something more than the usual warmth of Rozanov’s skin against his own, that pulls a hiss of sympathy from Shane. It is a heat that is urgent; a sign that should be observed. Shane reaches his hand to the other cheek and presses it, half-conscious that he should be using the back and not his palm if he’s checking for a fever.
He’s no expert, but he’s pretty sure that’s what he finds. Hot, tight, pale skin that Shane wants to kiss and bathe and sooth until Rozanov feels like himself again.
But before Shane can say or do any of this, a shove to the chest sends him stumbling backward in the direction of the bedroom; he has to catch himself on the back of the couch so that he doesn’t lose his footing entirely. Rozanov snorts out a laugh, and tugs off his scarf and coat, abandoning both to the floor as he stalks towards Shane. He wraps his muscular arms around Shane’s body, drawing him upright with a force that almost lifts Shane off his feet, and crashes them together as their lips meet in a ferocious kiss.
Shane’s body is stirring to Rozanov’s, but when he catches a handful of Rozanov’s hair to pull him closer still, the heat radiating off his skin is distracting. Has he taken anything for it? Does he even know about it? As he catches Rozanov’s lower lip between his teeth and tugs gently, and then not so gently, Shane slides a hand up underneath Rozanov’s hoodie and the soft, well-worn t-shirt beneath it to see if he can feel the same burning heat from Rozanov’s torso.
Shit.
Shane presses the kiss more firmly before he breaks away to say, “Um… You feel really hot.”
Rozanov freezes for an instant, and laughs curiously at the choice of verb.
“You feel good, too,” he replies, and adds “You taste even better,” leaning in for another bruising kiss as he presses Shane backwards towards the threshold of the bedroom.
Clearly, Rozanov choose to interpret the sentence metaphorically. He’s also translating Shane’s hands running over the contours of his chest as an invitation to remove some more layers of clothing – something Shane doesn’t mind at all. He’s slipped the hoodie from his shoulders, and now leans away for a moment to pull his t-shirt over his head, which at least gives Shane an opportunity to clarify things.
“No, I mean, it feels like you’ve got a fever.”
Rozanov stares at Shane like he’s lost his mind (and maybe he has). He sniffs damply, scrubs a hand across his nose and then says, “Probably? I am sick, remember?” He starts to kiss Shane again, more tenderly this time, as though trying to remind him of exactly how badly he needs to be taken care of. As they fall through the door to the bedroom, Shane reluctantly pulls away once more.
“Yeah, no, I remember…” He’s a little breathless from the kissing. “I just meant, have you taken anything for it? Do you need to… um… lie down?”
Fuck. He actually said that.
Rozanov laughs out loud, though it’s only seconds before it dissolves into a crackling cough, that he smothers into a fistful of the t-shirt that he’s still holding.
“Yes, Hollander, I need to lie down,” he deadpans. Then his eyes flash and narrow, and he stares at Shane like he can know him absolutely. He drops his voice to a deep, hoarse, whisper and jerks his head over Shane’s shoulder towards the bed that is behind him. “I need to lie down on your bed, with you underneath me, and your legs open. Can you do that for me?”
Yes. Yes. Whatever you want. I’d do anything for you.
“Only when you tell me whether you’ve taken any meds,” Shane insists.
Rozanov rolls his eyes. “This is very boring, Hollander.”
“Just fucking tell me then.”
“No, I haven’t.” Rozanov practically spits out the words, and then coughs. When he speaks again, his voice is like sandpaper. “You are happy? We can get on with it now?”
Shane sighs. “No, I’m not happy. You need to take something. I’ve got some Tylenol in the kitchen.” He goes to move past Rozanov, who catches him by the elbow.
“I don’t need it,” Rozanov replies tersely, only to have his body betray him with a shudder that runs through his shoulders. The room is definitely too warm for that. Reluctantly, Shane shakes off his touch.
“You’re shivering.”
“Because I’m standing here half-naked waiting to fuck!”
“Because you have a fever.”
Rozanov sniffs, likely more from necessity than derision, and tosses the t-shirt to the floor. He opens his arms, exposing his broad firm chest. “Come on…” He steps forward, arm outstretched to pull Shane back towards him, but Shane steps sideways, slipping his grasp. “Hollander.”
Rozanov says Shane’s name like a threat. His eyes are hungry now. They stare at each other in silence for a moment, until Rozanov snarls, “You playing nurse, Hollander – it doesn’t really do it for me.” One side of his mouth quirks upwards, and he drops his eyes meaningfully to the crotch of Shane’s sweatpants. “But maybe, for you...”
“Fuck off, Rozanov.” Eloquent. But in his own defence, Shane’s nose is running and his ears hurts, and every word he has to speak feels like he’s scraping his throat down a cheese grater. He doesn’t need to be making sure that Rozanov undertakes the bare minimum of self-care and he definitely doesn’t need to be fucked around while he does it. He huffs out a sigh, and pinches his nose. “I’m going to get you some meds. Then you’re going to take them. And then we’re going to fuck.”
Rozanov smirks at him again, sniffs again, and mutters under his breath, “So demanding.”
Pretending not to hear this, Shane moves back towards the kitchen. Rozanov doesn’t make eye contact with him, but he does check Shane with his shoulder as he passes. The contact is just hard enough to hurt deliciously, to make Shane’s squirm with the anticipation of the weight of Rozanov’s body on top of his own, and its all he can do to swallow the moan that rises in his throat.
“Hurry back…” Rozanov calls after him.
Shane has every intention of hurrying back. His cold, however, has other ideas. He’s grabbed one of the blister packets and is about to fetch a glass of water when the creeping, prickling sensation that has barely left his sinuses since practice finished intensifies. Feeling his breath start to catch, Shane puts down the glass – because tissues seem like they would be a good idea, and sneezing with a glass full of water does not.
“hhuh’h?… hh-hhh-uhh…”
The tickle in his nose sharpens, the urge swells, but then backs away again, though not completely – which leaves Shane on the cusp of a sneeze that won’t materialize but also won’t disappear. Ugh, it really itches. Should he try blowing his nose? Will that make it better or…
“hehh’ihh.. uhhh….”
… worse. Shit, definitely worse. He rubs his nose, not to suppress the sensation, but to tease it out because now he desperately needs to sneeze, and the only saving grace is that Rozanov isn’t here to witness this whole sorry sight.
“Hollander, what the fuck is taking so long?”
Heavy footsteps on the wooden floors. Fuck. Shane turns towards them and through the blur of tears sees Rozanov, shirtless and beautiful, while Shane himself is clutching a handful of tissues like his life depends on it.
“Hollander?”
“I n’deed to suhh’hh-sdeeze…” he somehow manages to stutter between breaths that catch in the top of his lungs.
Rozanov snorts. “Sneeze then.”
Shane practically moans in frustration, unsure whether the cause of his imminent death is going to be his cold or the embarrassment he’s feeling right now.
“I ca’hh’hhh…huuhhh.” Shane squeezes his eyes shut as another hitch of breath fizzles out into nothing. “You really don’dt have to watch this…” he mutters, eyes still closed.
Rozanov sniffs in amusement – because apparently even his cold symptoms are expressive – and the sound is closer than Shane expects it to be. Then, there is a hand on his waist and another on his shoulder, and then sensation of a too-warm body pressing into his back through his sweatshirt.
“Relax, Hollander.” Rozanov’s whisper is in his ear and everywhere, and Shane can feel the vibrations of his chest as he speaks, can hear the slight crackle every time he breathes out. His cold is probably going to his chest and that’s not great, but he also told Shane to relax, and so Shane tries to do that. He keeps his eyes closed, leaning his weight back slightly against the warm, familiar, mass behind him and matching his breath to Rozanov’s steadying inhales and exhales, until, after what seems like forever –
Obviously, it isn’t actually possible to sneeze so hard that you fall over, but Shane really thinks that he might, if it wasn’t for the hand on his waist and the other one that was rubbing his back gently between his shoulder blades. He could lean back and stay there forever, wrapped up in Rozanov’s arms and against his chest, while Rozanov mutters into his ear things in Russia that Shane doesn’t understand. He could stay here forever, except that Shane really needs to blow his nose. Reluctantly, he presses away the hand that is still resting on his hip bone and stems out of the embrace.
“This is so gross,” he mumbles, the words mangled between congestion and tissues.
Rozanov makes a humming sound in the back of his throat, as though to suggest he’s seen worse – and yes, honestly, they both have seen worse, do see worse, on a weekly – no daily basis, in their dressing rooms. But to give Shane some space and a chance to regain a little bit of dignity, he steps back and pretends to be deeply absorbed in the packets of cold medicine that Shane has left on the counter.
He’s still looking at them when Shane has cleaned himself up, tossed the tissues in the trash that he wishes he could literally burn, and retrieved the glass that he set down an age ago.
“What is this?” Rozanov says suddenly, holding up the box of the lemon-and-honey drink that’s Shane’s preferred medicine of choice.
“Cold medicine. You mix it with hot water. You’re not supposed to take it with Tylenol so I guess it’s the same thing? It’s lemon flavour,” he adds, wondering if any of the answers that he’s given are what Rozanov wanted to know.
“It’s not tablets?”
“No, it’s a drink.”
Rozanov looks at the box again, eyebrows narrowing a little as he studies it. “I want this,” he says, pushing the box over to Shane.
“Um, sure.” Shane turns back to the cupboard to swap the glass for a coffee mug. “Oh, but I don’t have a kettle here so I’ll have to heat the water in the microwave.”
“Okay…?” Rozanov is giving him that look again – a look that most people who have known Shane long enough give him eventually, the look that means he’s acting like he’s from another planet altogether.
“I always think that water tastes different when it’s been heated in the microwave and not boiled in a kettle. I can always tell when someone makes tea that way and…” Shane stops, because he knows he’s babbling, but also because Rozanov is smiling at him, smiling properly now, so that his eyes crinkle in the corners and his whole body relaxes with it. “What?”
“You’re so weird,” Rozanov says, but it’s not an insult.
“And you’re an asshole,” Shane replies, and it’s not an insult either.
The microwave hums in the background, glowing warmly in the half-lit kitchen. Rozanov pulls himself into one of the stools on the other side of the counter and leans forward on his elbows, arms wrapped around his own torso. He kneads the heels of his hands into his eyes, and suddenly looks tired. It’s only when Rozanov shivers again that Shane remembers that he’s not wearing anything on his top half.
The throw from the guest room might come in useful after all.
“Here.”
Rozanov looks up in surprise as Shane drapes the blanket over his shoulders, but he gives a small smile, and nod of thanks as he gathers the folds together across his chest. His eyes are a little too bright, and he still doesn’t look warm.
Did you ever have a boyfriend who would feel your forehead to check if you had a fever, or put a blanket round your shoulders, and let you fall asleep in his lap?
And how is it possible that this feels so much more of a risk than anything else he’s done with Rozanov? But risks – calculated risks – are how you win hockey games: shots from angles that should be too tight, the check that might come too late, the pass that you hope your teammate will read. So Shane has taught himself not to be cautious; nothing ventured, nothing gained, as his dad would say. To the victor, the spoils. Maybe doesn’t work like that with Rozanov, but neither of them has any other metaphors than hockey tonight.
Shane reaches over and presses the back of his hand to Rozanov’s forehead and feels the fever burning there. Rozanov closes his pretty eyes and sighs, as though he’s been waiting a lifetime for someone to do this. They stay there still for a moment before the microwave pings.
“It’s better if you add honey to it, but I haven’t got any here.” Shane’s talking just to fill the space between them, as he tips a sachet of the powder into the water and begins to stir. He’s never understood how other people know exactly the right amount to talk in any given situation. He either says too much or not enough.
“hhgh’Nghchhh!” Rozanov’s sneezes so violently that it sounds physically painful, his head crashing forward onto the arms he has folded over in front of him. “hhh’EGNH’hh!” He lifts his head, lip curling toward his inflamed nose, as he catches his breath before snapping forward once again into steepled hands. “hhh’Ntschh!N’tschhh!djTschhh!”
“Bless you.” Shane slides the mug across the counter until at Rozanov’s left elbow, and then, as an afterthought slides the tissue box there as well. Rozanov still hasn’t lifted his head. “Hey, are you –“
“hhgh’Xtchhh!-hh’TXghhh!”
“Jesus,” Shane says, once he lifts his head to snatch some tissues from the box. “Are you still breathing?”
Rozanov blows his nose and chokes out a bitter laugh that quickly crumples like paper into a hacking cough. Shane nudges the drink again.
“You should drink that while it’s hot.”
Rozanov sniffs, takes a large sip and then grimaces.
“This is disgusting,” he says. Shane shrugs sympathetically.
“I did say it’s better with honey. I can get the Tylenol, if you like.”
“No – is fine,” Rozanov says, steeling himself for another sip. He looks down at the lack of a mug in front of Shane. “You are not…?”
Shane shakes his head. “I can’t for another – two hours, maybe? I took something before practice.”
“Sucks to be you.” Rozanov takes another drink. The steam must be making his nose run, because he scrubs at it again.
“It does,” Shane agrees. “But sucks to be you, too. Being sick on the road is the worst.”
Rozanov looks at Shane, the thumb and finger of his left hand teasing the blanket that Shane draped over his shoulder. He sniffles and says, “I can think of worse.”
“Are they going to let you play tomorrow?"
Rozanov snorts. “You want to know so you can decide whether to call out sick?”
“No.” The anger prickles through Shane’s shoulders. “And fuck you. I’m playing.” He takes a sip of his water. “I’m asking because I hope they let you play, too. Like you said before, it’s – it’s more fun when you’re there.”
Rozanov sips his drink again, and draws out another tissue to scrub his nose with.
“I can play if I don’t have a fever,” he mutters.
“Oh.” Shane runs a finger around the rim of his glass. “Maybe tomorrow it will…” His voice trails off.
Rozanov shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Look, um…” Shane tries. “Um… we don’t have to… If you just want to – ”
“If I want to lie down?” Rozanov’s mouth quirks upwards. “I come all the way across this city, to your murder-alley, when it’s freezing cold, and I am sick, for the only thing that can make me feel better…”
He’s smiling properly now, as he gets to his feet, blanket draped over his chiselled shoulders like he’s a marble statue in a museum. His tongue darts out to moisten chapped lips that are, nevertheless, slightly parted, expectant. Lifting the mug to those lips, Rozanov drains the rest of the liquid.
“Now, I took medicine like a good boy, you will come and join me?” Rozanov raise one eyebrow, flicks his head back towards the bedroom. and leaves without another word.
Silently, slowly, deliberately, Shane counts to twenty, and then he follows Rozanov, just as he knows he always will.
A little H/eated R/ivalry one-shot based off of this post I made about the uniquely Canadian treasure that is Buckley's Cough Syrup.
---
Shane added the last scoop of protein powder to the blender and pulsed the smoothie until it was fully mixed. As he poured it into a glass, the bedroom door opened and Ilya emerged, bundled in a hoodie and joggers with their duvet around his shoulders.
“Sorry, did I wake you with the blender?” Shane asked.
“No,” Ilya grumbled, flopping down on the couch. “Was awake. Need a change of scenery.”
“Did you get any sleep?”
“Some.”
“Are you feeling any better?” Shane continued.
“Shane, it is just a cold. I will live.”
And right on cue, as if his body was out to prove otherwise, Ilya began to cough. He tucked his face into the duvet, curling forward and muffling the hoarse barks with the thick blanket.
Smoothie abandoned on the counter, Shane went to sit next to Ilya.
“Hey,” he said softly. “That sounds pretty painful.”
“It will pass,” Ilya replied hoarsely as the coughs died down. He rubbed at his nose wearily. “I am fine, Shane.”
“I would feel better if you took something. You're not going to get any rest with a cough like that. There's some DayQuil tablets in the medicine cabinet and -”
“Shane,” Ilya interrupted. “I said I'm fine. You can make me better without stupid whatever you call it orange gel pills.”
He flopped sideways into Shane's lap, nestling his head against Shane's thigh. Shane's fingers went automatically to Ilya's curls, tracing gentle circles against his scalp.
“If I got some cough syrup, would you take that?” Shane asked.
“No, I'm comfy. Don't move.”
“Ilya...”
Hehhh...ehh'TSGHHHT!
Shane flinched as the man in his lap sneezed damply against his thigh and then snorted back a thick sniffle.
“Ilya, we have practice early tomorrow and there's no way I'm sleeping in the same bed as you if you're keeping me awake coughing all night,” Shane said.
Ilya turned his head and glared up at Shane from under the shelter of the duvet.
“You wouldn't.”
“Oh I absolutely would. I'll sleep in the guest room.”
Ilya cleared his throat with a cough, nuzzling his head against Shane's leg.
“Fine. I will drink your stupid syrup. Why is this country so obsessed with syrup?”
Shane leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Ilya's temple.
“Good. I'm going to get a truly Canadian cough syrup. It'll be a cultural experience for you.”
“Will you also get ice cream if you're going out?” Ilya asked.
“Ice cream is bad for you when you have a cold. Makes more mucus.”
“That is why I will drink syrup – so that I can have ice cream after,” Ilya retorted.
Shane rolled his eyes as he gently transferred Ilya's head from his thigh to a throw pillow.
“I will get ice cream. Any other requests?”
“No. Come back quick.”
---
Shane returned with shopping bag in hand to find Ilya still bundled up on the couch, but now with the tissue box resting on his lap and several discarded tissues scattered around the coffee table and floor.
He deposited the bag on the kitchen counter and went into the powder room, grabbing the trash can and passing it over the back of the couch to Ilya.
“I swear, if you get me sick with your gross tissues all over the place, I will exact my revenge when you least expect it.”
“We share a bed, Hollander,” Ilya rasped. “Too late to worry about tissues. I will cough on your pillow.”
“Not after you drink this,” Shane replied, removing a small plastic bottle from the shopping bag.
Ilya squinted at the label.
“Buckley's?”
“Uniquely Canadian, since 1919,” Shane said as he broke the seal on the bottle cap and dug in the kitchen drawer for a teaspoon. “You can mix it with honey, if you want.”
“I can just drink it,” Ilya said. “Can't be worse than Russian mix of vodka with garlic juice. Should've told you to just buy some garlic.”
Shane quirked an eyebrow but didn't say anything as he handed the spoonful of liquid to Ilya.
“I recommend you drink it like a shot,” he advised.
Ilya tipped the spoon into his mouth and swallowed. And then gagged.
“What the fuck is that, Hollander?” he choked out, his eyes starting to water. “Oh my god. Tastes like a rotten pine tree. But also spicy?”
He coughed harshly and reached for a tissue, spitting in to it.
“I hope you bought good ice cream. I will need it to forgot that taste.”
Shane laughed and leaned over, kissing the top of Ilya's head.
“They had an ad campaign for a while that said it tastes like a hockey puck.”
“No,” Ilya replied, still making faces from the taste. “Have tasted a puck. That stuff is worse.”
“But it works,” Shane said. “You already sound less stuffed up.”
“Shane. Focus. Ice cream, please.”
Shane took out the pint of ice cream and grabbed a spoon from the drawer, passing both to Ilya.
“Your reward.”
Ilya reached out and grabbed Shane's hand.
“No. You will give me real reward later when this cold is gone.”
Or maybe Rozanov had nothing to do with it. After all, they’ve always come as a pair, ever since the draft. First and second; second and first. Rozanov and Hollander; Hollander and Rozanov. Only, not like that, not… coupled. No, it’s Hollander versus Rozanov, now and always.
[Thank you so, so much for all the kindness for the first part. More actual sickfic in this one! I still know nothing about hockey.]
Shane is the first to arrive – obviously – so he sits in the inoffensively beige hotel conference room. He makes small talk with the Metros’s publicist and the assistant from the magazine, picks at a fruit platter someone has ordered for them, and bats away his mom’s texts about going to dinner with them after the home game with non-committal replies. The Tylenol kicked in before he left the house, and so his headache is better but he’d prefer to be sprawled on a sofa than sitting in a leather conference chair, trying to look attentive.
How long is this going to take? How much are they going to want him to say? He’s not good at judging these things: when someone wants a bit more out of him, when he’s giving too much detail about a play, when a yes or no question is really an invitation to say something more.
He’s in the middle of planning out answers to some questions he expects the reporter will ask when the door opens and in comes Rozanov, with a woman who Shane assumes must be a publicist for the Raiders.
They linger in the doorway for a moment, as the woman – who is a foot shorter than Rozanov but clearly no push over – stops him to say something in a low, serious tone, that Shane thinks might include the phrase “ninety minutes then we’re done.” Rozanov’s response is to frown and shove his hands in his pockets. It doesn’t faze the publicist. She gives back a look as good as the one that she got, and then leaves Rozanov to go and shake the hand of magazine assistant, with a warm and bright smile. Clearly, she’s used to his bullshit.
Shane is leaning forward over the edge of his chair, half way to his feet, when he realises that no one is expecting him to get up and shake everyone’s hand. So he’s left in that awkward position when Rozanov catches his eye. This is the kind of keenness to please that Rozanov drags him about on a regular basis, but today it doesn’t even elicit a smile. All Shane gets from Rozanov is a raise of his eyebrows in response to Shane’s own nodded greeting, before Rozanov stalks over to a chair as far away from Shane as it’s possible to be. Really doubling-down on the narrative that we can’t stand each other.
Trying to watch Rozanov without looking like he’s watching Rozanov, Shane pretends to be responding to a message while peering over the top of his phone. Rozanov has pulled out his own phone and is shuffling awkwardly around in chair. It’s small for his height and his broad shoulders – stop thinking about his shoulders – but not so small that it should be uncomfortable. But Rozanov does look uncomfortable, and he doesn’t stress about interviews the way that Shane does. Shane’s done enough press with him to see that Rozanov has little patience with dumb questions, but he also likes to have some fun with reporters, showboat a bit, say something for the commentators to chew over at the next match. Today, he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, to the extent that he pulls up the hood of his sweatshirt and hunches down inside of it over his phone.
Something’s not right.
Shane taps the messaging icon on his screen, and, ignoring the newest message from his mom, flicks open the chat headed Lily. He raises his eyes for a last shaded glance up at Rozanov, and is about to start typing a message asking Rozanov what the fuck is up with him, when Rozanov sneezes.
Shane doesn’t even have to pretend not to notice it. Despite Rozanov smothering his nose with the cuff of his hoodie, the volume of the explosions crashing loudly into one another is enough to draw the attention of and scattered blessings from everyone else in the room. With a sniff and frown, Rozanov nods a barely-polite thank you, and goes back to scowling at his phone, leaving Shane to remember that he really shouldn’t be staring at him.
Why didn’t he spot it from the moment Rozanov walked in? Because it’s so fucking obvious, and must have been even before he sneezed like a machine gun. He’s sniffling, there’s an unfamiliar stiffness to his body, and he looks like he might murderer the first person who raises either of those things with him. Shane types quickly into their chat.
- Are you sick?? (10:07am)
Rozanov’s eyebrows narrow as he sees the message arrive. His jaw tightens a little as he reads its contents, and then begins to type back furiously, making the familiar rippling dots appear on Shane’s screen. Seconds later, the reply pops out.
Lily: Worried I’ll infect you? (10:07am)
Shane looks up at the screen to find Rozanov grinning wolfishly at him. It’s Shane’s turn to frown, and he considers flipping Rozanov the bird, before turning back to his screen instead
- No. I wanted to check that you’re
The three rippling dots appear again on Rozanov’s side of the screen, making Shane stop typing mid-sentence. Then another bubble appears.
Lily: I’m still going to kick your ass on Saturday. (10:07am)
Pushing all thoughts of soup-buying and forehead-feeling far, far down in his brain and jamming the delete button as hard as he can, Shane erases his attempt at sympathy. His phone can autocomplete his new reply.
- Fuck you (10:07am).
He glances across the room to see the corners of Rozanov’s pink, soft lips creep upwards. Shane can see that he’s typing something else, but at that moment the door opens again, and a vaguely familiar man around his dad’s age walks in, who must be the interviewer. Shane loops his thumb over to lock the screen before he tucks his phone away, but as he does, he catches sight of the last message Rozanov has sent.
Lily: That was what I missed doing last night. (10:08am)
Heat rises in his face and there’s a sudden dryness in his throat that Shane knows is nothing to do with the cold that he’s starting. He can’t look at Rozanov, but Shane’s sure that he must be smiling.
The interview proceeds much as the publicist had pitched it to Shane. The reporter asks Shane about the end of the last season and the first couple of games of this one, and then asks Rozanov the same. They both address their responses to him and don’t engage with one another, which Shane supposes fits with the narrative that they hate each other’s guts and allows him to studiously avoid looking at Rozanov for long periods, even though that’s difficult when he keeps rubbing his nose and eyes, snuffling in between sentences, and interrupting his responses to cough into his sleeve.
Shane doesn’t know how they haven’t all noticed he’s as sick as dog. Perhaps it’s because Rozanov is still a great interviewee. He’s funny, and apparently entirely candid. If he throws verbal jabs at other players’ that Shane is pretty sure will get returned for real on the ice, he’s also genuine in his praise for his teammates. He’s giving great copy and the interviewer is lapping it up.
Or maybe everyone has noticed he’s sick, and is too polite to mention it, or his publicist had briefed everyone not to ask about it on pain of death. Their conversation in the doorway makes sense now. The Raiders’ coach must be furious that his star player is doing interviews instead of sleeping off his head cold.
The fact that no one has mentioned Rozanov’s cold makes Shane a little more relaxed about his own, which can’t be anywhere near as visible. The intense air conditioning in the room isn’t helping that swollen, about-to-be-congested feeling in his sinuses, but he’s not actually sniffling yet. Likewise, his voice feels a little precarious, but sipping water every time it threatens to give out on him seems to be working so far. Once or twice when it’s faded a bit during an answer, Shane thinks he’s caught Rozanov giving him a strange sort of stare, but it never lingers long enough for him to work out what it means.
Still, he’ll be glad when this is over, and he’s pretty sure Rozanov feels the same. There’s a moment when the reporter’s attention diverts from them as he pulls something up on his laptop to show them, and Shane risks a longer glance over. Rozanov slumps forward for a moment on his elbows, kneading his eye sockets with the heels of his hands. It’s only a moment though. When the reporter looks up again, Rozanov is lounging in his chair, with a cough into his fist the only indication that anything might be amiss.
“Ok, I’d just like you to watch this and tell me your thoughts,” the reporter says, tapping the trackpad of the laptop to set a video running.
It takes Shane less than a second to work out what he’s watching, because the first thing he sees is Rozanov, five years younger than he is now, dressed in a suit and tie. It’s draft night. It must be a few minutes before the draft was actually made because Rozanov isn’t holding a jersey, and he looks twitchy in a way that doesn’t tally with Shane’s memories of him playing up for the cameras as they were photographed together.
You just remember thinking how hot he looked.
And Rozanov does look hot. Unlike most of the draftees, who are awkward in jackets and dress shoes, he wears the suit like he’s used to it. The camera lingers on him speaking to his father, his curls cropped a little more closely than he wears them today. Then he looks up, staring into the distance like he’s trying to work something out, and the camera catches a slight flush on his cheeks – oh yeah, it was really warm in that room – and the way that he teases his lip in anticipation. And the realisation of just how young Rozanov looks strikes Shane so quickly that he can’t help it; he laughs.
“What are you laughing at?”
“You!”
It’s the first time they’ve spoken to each other all morning; first time in months, in fact, apart from texting. The first time they’ve held each other’s gaze for longer than a stolen moment. Rozanov’s eyebrows narrow quizzically. His eyes might be red at the rims from his cold but his gaze is steely, and his chin is jutted forward as though he’s issuing a challenge.
“Me?” he says cooly, his cold pitching his voice lower than usual and roughening its edges.
“Your baby-face,” Shane clarifies, gesturing towards the screen just as the camera cuts to a shot of Shane himself. And in that second, Shane realises the irony of what he's said. If Rozanov looks young, Shane is a puppy, who doesn’t know what to do with the limbs he’s still growing into. His cheeks are bright pink, and they’ve not yet quite lost the fullness of his late teens. His dad had needed to tie his tie for him, and he remembers how uncomfortable his shirt collar was and the way that his shoes pinched. He’s holding a glass of something that he’s too nervous to drink. God, how did he forget he looked like that?
So it’s Rozanov’s turn to laugh. And if it’s not the unrestrainable outburst of pure pleasure that Shane has heard too infrequently, it still makes his heartbeat quicken.
“You are the one with baby face,” Rozanov says. He turns away to smother a cough in his fist. When he looks back, he’s frowning but there’s something light in his eyes. “Did you even need to shave then?”
Shane’s laughing at himself now, which is something only Rozanov can really make him do. They are holding each other’s gaze and Shane can see Rozanov’s pupils widening. There’s a warmth radiating from his eyes that matches the one that Shane can feel rising in his cheeks, and moving down to the skin of his throat.
He needs to stop this. There are four other people in the room, for fuck’s sake, and they are all of them are looking at him and Rozanov. Of course they are. They’ve barely acknowledged one another in thirty minutes, and here they are now, bantering back and forth, and staring like they could never take enough of each other in.
So Shane looks away, just in time for the clip to cut forward to the draft itself. Luckily, the camera focuses on Rozanov as soon as Boston pick him first, so Shane doesn’t have to watch himself experience that particular gut punch, after he’d been imagining himself as the first pick of the draft for as long he could remember. But it turns out that he wasn’t great at hiding disappointment, because its there in his face as he’s called second, even though he smiles politely, warmly even, as he’s handed the Metros jersey, and he dutifully holds it up for the camera flashes to begin.
“You really wanted to be first pick.” Rozanov’s voice pulls Shane back to the room and the present. He looks back, perhaps before Rozanov expects him to, because Shane catches him rubbing his nose on his sleeve, before he quickly drops it away.
“Doesn’t everyone want to be first pick?” Shane replies, because it seems silly to lie about that now. And yes, it will be Rozanov’s name in all the draft stats in the books and the number one next to his name on the player cards that Shane collected over as a kid. But there are other lists, and a career is a long time, if you’re lucky. He can give this one to Rozanov. “But, yeah, no, I think you deserved it – after the Prospect Cup, I mean.”
“I did deserve it,” Rozanov agrees, with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. Shane rolls his eyes.
“Ilya Rozanov - modest to a fault.” The reporter smiles at that one; clearly them needling one another is what he’d been hoping for.
“But I did!” Rozanov raises his voice a little, which means that he has to pause to cough again. Shane tries to join in with everyone else pretending to ignore it – because, come on, they must be pretending by this point, it’s so obvious Rozanov is pretty sick. But he’s not sure how good a job he’s doing because that cough doesn’t sound great, and when Rozanov starts talking again, his voice is husky and fraying. “You were promising, yes, and fast. But you weren’t - ” Rozanov pauses, the English word escaping him; in its place, he makes a gesture like the shape of a ball.
“Rounded,” Shane supplies helpfully, before he realises that he’s literally helping Rozanov to tear apart his own game.
“Rounded, yes – not rounded,” Rozanov agrees. “I was full package. Easy choice.”
The comment is cutting but not inaccurate – which suggests that Rozanov probably spent more time watching Shane on the ice than he’d ever let on, back then, at least. And Shane is about to make just this point, when Rozanov starts speaking again.
“But you won Rookie of the Year, and you deserved that, so…” He trails off, his hands weighing their relative accolades in the balance.
It’s at that unfortunate moment that Shane’s eyes start to water. Because the watering is also accompanied by a buzzing sensation right at the back of his nose, Shane knows that it’s because he’s about to sneeze. But he also knows that to everyone else, it probably looks like he’s been moved to tears by such suddenly generous praise from his greatest rival. And even if it was possible to explain any of this without sounding completely insane – no, no I’m not crying, my eyes are just watering because I’m getting a cold and I’m going to sneeze any second now – Shane couldn’t because it’s really hard to talk when you really, really need to sneeze. And even harder when Rozanov is giving him that strange stare again, like Shane is a puzzle that he’s struggling to solve.
“h’Tschhuu!” Shane has his head tucked tightly into his elbow so he can’t see whether or not everyone is looking at him, but presumably they are. The strength of the sneeze surprises him a little, and if he’s covered it scrupulously, he doesn’t think he’s done much of a job of suppressing the sound. One of the publicists blesses him and he manages to open his eyes and nod a quick thanks before the second sneeze sends him ducking into his sleeve once more. “hihShhh’uu!”
He sniffs, hopefully discreetly, then swallows, and tries not to look pained at the uncomfortable pressure now building between his throat and his ears. He knows he should be grateful that his colds rarely – if ever – go to his chest, but the trade off for that seems to be that they get stuck in his head. The congestion is always the worst part.
“Excuse me,” Shane says briskly, trying not to sniff again. That’s difficult, because the tingling in his nose has retreated, but hasn’t gone away altogether. There’s still a lingering, incredibly distracting irritation, which he knows means that he’s going to sneeze again, but not instantly. No, he’s going to sneeze again only after minutes of itchy, watery, snuffly torture, because this is something his supposedly perfectly-tuned body does to him sometimes: leaving him stuck in the middle of a sneezing fit, during which he’ll barely be able to concentrate on the question, let alone answer anything.
The reporter has moved on to asking Rozanov about that rookie season, showing some footage of a Raiders match against Detroit. Shane knows why he’s showing it, because it’s a match in which Rozanov shot a goal from inside the neutral zone, a hit of such pace and precision that the puck skips past everyone, including the Detroit keeper, who was left looking around trying to work out how it happened. The only person who didn’t look surprised at the goal is Rozanov himself, who pantomimed a bow to the crowd and then skated cooly back to the center circle, as though he might just do the same thing again. Shane remembers all of this because he watched that goal over and over, also trying to work out how it happened, how he could do the same thing, how he could be as good as Ilya Fucking Rozanov.
He’s thankful now that the sheer spectacle has drawn everyone’s attention to the laptop screen, so that Shane can mumble a polite, “I’ll just be a second,” waving his phone like he needs to take a call, and slip out into the corridor until he can pull himself together.
Once he’s put ten yards between himself and the conference room, Shane stops. Thankful that the room seems to be on a quiet corridor, he swipes away a tear that’s broken containment, and leans back against the wall. His nose is burning now, and his eyes are watering even more, forcing him to wipe away more tears, sniffle even more desperately, and, fuck it, reach for the tissues he’s stashed in his pocket for emergencies.
Unfolding the tissue over both of his hands, he presses it to his nose, trying to rub away the itch – but, of course, it doesn’t work.
“Just fucking sneeze or don’t,” he mutters under his breath, while his body refuses to do either. So he squints up at the halogen strip on the ceiling in the hope that the light might help his nose hurry up with it already.
“Did my skating overwhelm you with its beauty, Hollander?”
Oh fuck, no. No, no, no. Why is Rozanov here?
To watch you make a complete ass of yourself, of course.
Shane snaps his head downwards to look at Rozanov, who is several feet away but moving towards Shane, eyeing him up and down with an extremely amused look on his extremely smug, extremely handsome face. Shane, unfortunately, doesn’t have time to take much of Rozanov in, and certainly not time to reply. Because whether it’s the sudden movement of his head or the surprise at discovering he isn’t alone, his nose decides that now is exactly the time to -
“hhhiIHshh’yoo!... ht!’Shhheuu!” He snaps forward over steepled hands, pressing the tissue as tightly over his face as he can to dampen the noise. He can hear Rozanov laugh, a gentle chuckle of exasperation, roughened by his own cold.
“Ah. No. I think is that you’re allergic to my game.”
Shane manages to open his eyes and shift one hand from the tissues so he can flip Rozanov the bird – a gesture that only makes Rozanov laugh again, as Shane feels his breath catch again.
“hhhi’yihh?... hhhhTchhew!...hhTishhh’ooo!” The fourth sneeze – because, of course, there had to be four right now – is stronger than the others, and seems to be enough to get rid of the desperate buzzing in his head. For now, at least. Shane blows his nose as softly as he can, and raises his head to find that Rozanov is now right across from him, leaning on the opposite wall of the corridor. He pulls down the hood of his sweatshirt, as though to get a better look at Shane without it.
“You’re sick, too,” he says, and its not a question. Up close and without his hood now, Shane can see quite how pale Rozanov looks. There are dark circles under his eyes that suggest his cold didn’t let him get much sleep last night, and the underside of his nose is pink.
“Maybe. Maybe getting sick,” Shane admits. His voice sounds worse after the sneezing fit, and he can tell Rozanov hears it too, so he adds quickly. “Not as sick as you though.”
Rozanov doesn’t look happy about the comparison but he doesn’t deny it either. He coughs lightly, and drags the back of his hand across the tip of his nose in what looks like frustration. Considering that nose looks like it’s been broken more than once, having a head cold is probably enough to really mess up his breathing.
Might be worth trying to outpace him on the break tomorrow, especially if you tell the others to help you run him round a bit – give his lungs a bit of a work out. If yours are up to it, that is.
Shane shuts down the hockey part of his brain, and looks up and down the corridor, checking once again that they are completely alone. Satisfied that they are, he drops his voice and asks, “Is that why you didn’t want to see me last night?”
Rozanov rolls his eyes in response. Obviously.
“You could have told me. I waited up for you.”
“Cute.” But if Rozanov’s smile is self-satisfied, his eyes look genuinely pleased at Shane’s apparent devotion to – well, to whatever their arrangement is.
“Fuck off, Rozanov.” Either the Tylenol is wearing off, or the bright lights in the corridor are making Shane’s headache worse. Whichever it is, he doesn’t have the patience for Rozanov’s bullshitting right now. And besides… “Didn’t think you’d care if you got me sick.”
Rozanov shrugs.
“No point in me turning up if you’re sneezing so much you can’t skate straight. Win would be too easy. The rest of your team sucks.” Rozanov might be running his mouth off as usual, but the toe of his right sneaker, which he’d slid across the floor until it was parallel to and pressed against Shane’s own, is now hooked round the back of Shane’s ankle. “But I can’t give you my cold if you’ve already got one.”
Scientifically speaking, Shane is pretty sure that this isn’t how it works. But Rozanov’s point stands. If they’re both going to be playing sick anyway, neither of them has to worry about catching anything. Which is convenient, to say the least.
Rozanov continues, his foot sliding higher up Shane’s leg, “So if I was to come over tonight, usual place at…”
“…8:30.”
“8:30, I would find the door…”
“… on the latch.”
“… on the latch. Good.” Rozanov sniffs, and rubs his nose like he’s trying to scrub it from his face. “Ngh… I should go back. Someone will come looking. Wondering why we do not want to answer any more stupid questions. Would be bad enough without even more stupid cold.”
As if on cue, it’s then that Rozanov’s eyes lose focus for a second. Then a few things happen at once. Shane hears Rozanov’s breath catch in the top of his chest, his nose scrunches upwards, his eyes close, and his lips twist into something between a gasp and a snarl. And then he’s motionless for an instant, before he folds forwards, cuff pressed to his nose, upper body arching left away from Shane, as the sneezes crash out of him with the same intensity that Rozanov shows on the ice.
“ahgh’TXSHHH!-hhgh’Xtchhh!-hh’TXghhh!-hhhh’! ….nhghhh…” The fit dissolves into a sigh, and then a string of syllables in Russian. Shane doesn’t understand them, but he’d bet good money that they constitute some barely translatable expletive.
“Bless you,” Shane says, resisting a sudden urge to run his hand over the exposed nape of Rozanov’s neck. “Can you skip practice?”
Rozanov straightens up and clears his throat. He shakes his head. “I have a cold, not broken leg. Besides, they want to take photos of us, remember?”
Fuck, Shane hadn’t remembered. He just hoped that they’d be taken from enough of a distance that neither of them would look as shitty as they both clearly feel.
“Well, just, um… Take care of yourself,” he says. Rozanov grins again.
“Oh, are you worried about me, Hollander?” he replies, pitching his voice upwards in a babying tone as he walks away. Then he stops, turns, and fucking winks, and then adds in a low growl, “You should be.”
phewwww MAN you guys, my life is getting busy, which has made writing painfully slow. It didn't help that I couldn't resist expanding this section more and more - it just felt right.
Did NOT expect to torture sweet Shane quite to this level, but hey, it just happened. (and I let it lol)
I really hope y'all like this long boy chunk! Your reblogs, comments, and tags have kept me motivated to keep going!
It may take me a bit for the next section (and I may allow myself to indulge in some other lil drabbles first) but I do plan to follow Ilya on his travels next. Poor guy. (evil laugh)
Anyway, if you need to catch up, here's Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3!!
CW: productive coughing, anxiety, angst, fever
Oh and the . . . are just meant to denote a long pause between texts!
Fic under the cut! <3
* * *
Ilya brought a kitchen towel out with the plate of simple toast with butter. Shane hated eating on the couch, and was always griping at Ilya about spills and mess and blah blah blah. So, he laid the kitchen towel across Shane's lap under the plate to catch any crumbs. Then he planted a sloppy kiss to the top of his head and commanded, "Eat."
Shane picked up a piece of toast, ever obedient.
After making sure everything was in easy reach (tissues and water, TV remote, latest boring book) Ilya headed to the kitchen to start prepping his ingredients.
He fell into the old routine of rinsing and chopping with ease - it always calmed him to cook. Sometimes a home recipe like this brought on a rush of confusing and overwhelming emotions - a touch of homesickness for something that didn't exist anymore, unease, anger...sorrow.
But today, with the background noise of British Bake Off and Shane's quiet sniffles and throat clears, he felt at peace. Like maybe every time he made something like this for his boyfriend, the negative memories were gradually being replaced by something positive, the light pushing out the dark.
Ilya heard the clink of the water glass being set back down, followed by the sound of Shane sneezing a couple of times, groaning softly, and blowing his nose.
Ilya smiled, "Bud'zdorov!"
“Thagks!” Shane called back.
Shane's sneezes were usually so controlled - tight, half-stifled things that didn't sound satisfying at all. He was always trying to go unnoticed, spread as few germs as possible and avoid any attention. So, of course, Ilya loudly blessed him if they happened to be in public. In private, he'd successfully berated his boyfriend out of the habit of strangling his sneezes around him - he was proud of that. Shane had been missing out on the satisfaction of simply letting a good sneeze fly. Ilya could tell that he got more relief that way...plus it still made him shy and embarrassed afterward, which was fucking cute.
His sick sneezes were different - wetter and stronger, like they really took over his whole body. Like he couldn’t restrain them if he tried. And that was, somehow, pretty fucking cute, too. To be fair, he found pretty much everything Shane did to be basically adorable.
Including when Shane wandered over as Ilya was chopping potatoes - blanket wrapped around his shoulders and held in place with his left hand, tissue box in his right. He looked sleepy, all warm and fuzzy - his lids heavy and movements slow as he took a seat at the kitchen counter.
He stopped Ilya before he could even try to scold, “I just d’needed to stad up for a bit, I was getti’g restless…besides, I wadt to see how you bmake this fambous Russiad soup.” He turned to cough lightly into his elbow and then settled in further, arranging the blanket more comfortably and leaning his elbows on the granite, “So, what step are you od?
Ilya sighed. He just sounded so…stuffy and miserable. It was virtually impossible to say no to him. So, instead of insisting he go back to resting more comfortably on the couch, or even teasing him about the state of his voice, Ilya began explaining each part of the process, checking the recipe on his phone now and then to be sure he wasn’t forgetting anything.
Shane was watching each step attentively, as if he were trying to file the information away for later use. He’d pulled a couple of tissues from the box and was wiping his nose every now and then, sometimes simply holding the clump of tissues there as if it took too much effort to pull them away.
Ilya was adding the cabbage and sauerkraut to the broth when he glanced up to see a far away look in Shane’s eyes - he had a couple of tissues pressed to his face, and seemed to be trying to rub the sensation away, even as his breath faltered.
“So- hihh- *hkm* what uhb, i’gredients did you say yooo-ihh? Sorry, say you could’t fihh - fide?”
This was clearly a losing battle. Ilya just waited, brows raised.
Shane gave in, spinning fully around on the kitchen stool, “Hh’MPSH'shhuh! HHih- NngsSSHh’ieww!!”
The sneezes came back to back in a rush, so powerful as they jerked him forward that Shane almost tipped forward off the stool. Ilya dropped the ladle into the pot, alarmed, and reached up to steady him by both shoulders just in time. He continued to hold him there as Shane got his bearings and blew his nose.
“Okay?” he asked, spinning his blushing boyfriend around to face him.
Shane looked down, “Yeah” He cleared his throat, keeping the tissues to his face until he could swap them for a fresh bundle, “Sorry, I-” He gasped again, but this time Ilya was ready, leaving one hand on his shoulder in unspoken reassurance, and to keep him from spinning around again.
“Ngk'zzsSHhewwh! Ghh - fuck, I- HiIH-!? HihH’zzSSHhieww!!”
“My poor boyfriend,” Ilya said, knowing that the word always brought a smile to Shane’s face, “You’re like that dwarf from that story, the movie with the…what is it?”
Shane gave into a waterlogged chuckle, despite himself, “S’dow White? Yeah, uh *hkm* Sdeezy, right? Sorry, I just cad’t seeb to…” his gaze went hazy again, and he shook his head before dipping down with a softer, almost subdued, “Hh’chsSH’iew!” He cleared his throat, cheeks flushing under his freckles, “umb, stop.”
Shane looked like he might start apologizing again, so Ilya cut him off with a Russian blessing, the more formal, reverent version this time, and passed him more tissues.
Shane kept his gaze averted, gently blowing his nose. That seemed to quell the fit at last. Ilya could sense Shane’s discomfort at the growing pile of tissues he kept tucking away in his lap, so he stooped to reach for the trashcan, holding it out casually as he stirred the soup and began adding the chicken.
Shane smiled gratefully, tossing his trash into the offered bin. He settled back into his seat to watch the soup simmer and bubble, the house slowly filling with the rich smell. Not that he could actually smell, not fully. But, there was a hint getting through after that last noseblow, at least.
Ilya gave the soup one more stir before turning the stove to low and placing the lid on top, “It has to um…simmer for about half an hour. Let’s go back to the couch.”
“Okay…” Shane stood, grabbing the tissue box as Ilya tugged a falling corner of blanket back up for him, “NHL rembatch to pass the timbe?”
Ilya cocked a brow, “You feeling up to it?” When Shane nodded, he smirked,unable to resist “Are you sure? I’d feel bad destroying you like this - you know, in your weakened state.”
Shane pretended to be offended, but he was a breath away from a laugh “You wish!”
Ilya fought the urge to race him to the controllers, instead getting them comfy and cozy and refilling Shane’s water before mock-cannonballing onto the couch, making Shane laugh again. For once he wasn’t annoyed when he was reminded, once again, that he actually really sucked at stupid video game made-up hockey. He gained a small lead once when Shane had to turn away to sneeze (“Rozanov! Not fair!!”) but it never stuck. He had happily lost to his boyfriend twice when the kitchen timer buzzed.
Shane insisted on helping Ilya ladle out the bowls of soup, carrying one back to his nest of blankets on the couch. Ilya grabbed the remote on his way, starting up Great British Bake Off where Shane had left off.
Shane smiled fondly at him, “We don’t have to watch this, you can put something else on.”
But Ilya just shook his head, getting comfy hip to hip with Shane and reaching for his spoon, “No, I want to see who will win - the woman with the 10 cats or scary mustache man.”
“Oh, so you’ve completely ruled out the divorced gym teacher??”
Ilya scoffed, “Please. He has no chance, you know this.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, eating their soup and watching the show. Even though Shane was sure Ilya had been kidding, he was watching attentively, and gave him a cocky look when the gym teacher did, in fact, get eliminated.
“This is really good, Ilya, by the way.”
Ilya looked up, almost shyly, “You think so?”
“Definditely. I bead, I cad’t eved taste that well right dow add it’s still delicious.”
Ilya practically glowed from the praise - it made Shane’s heart ache with love.
“I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve made it for you.”
“Right? I guess we’ve…dever had the timbe while I’ve beed sick.”
“Yeah…”
Suddenly their soup bowls had been set aside and Ilya was gently repositioning Shane beneath him on the couch, laying him on his back before allowing some of his weight to press down as he kissed him - letting the overwhelming tenderness he was suddenly brimming with flow through his every touch. Shane sighed beneath him, pushing his hands up and into Ilya’s hair with a slight tug. They lost themselves in each other for a while, moving languidly together without their typical frenzied sense of urgency - content with gentle kisses, slow caresses, and murmured words. Eventually, Shane’s breath caught and he turned away, this time to cough into his elbow - the sound was deeper now, and it took him a moment to stop.
Ilya pulled back to sit up, reaching for the water glass on the coffee table with a sympathetic hum, “Moya lyubov, it sounds like it is going to your chest.”
Shane cleared his throat, taking the glass gratefully. “Sor-” His apology was cut short by Ilya’s exaggerated glare. “Thagks,” he said instead.
They finished their soup then, and Ilya quickly deposited both bowls in the dishwasher. He knew Shane wouldn’t relax if he left them out, even exhausted and distracted as he was. When he returned to his spot on the couch, he pulled Shane down to lay his head on his lap, where he closed his eyes and sighed. Ilya ruffled his hair affectionately, “Take a nap, Hollander.”
“But…it’s the middle of the…day,” Shane said, already drifting.
Ilya just smiled, running his hands through Shane’s hair as his breath evened out into soft snores, letting the last episode of the British Bake Off show play on.
…The cat lady won. Of course.
* * *
6:30 PM:
Ilya: Hi Yuna I’m sorry to bother you. Do you have a thermometer I could borrow?
Yuna: Of course! Are you sick, honey?
Ilya: No, I am fine.
Yuna: Ilya…does that mean what I think it does?
Ilya: ?
Yuna: Is Shane there?
.
.
.
Ilya: Yes
But I made him come, please don’t be mad at him.
Yuna: Are you at least being careful and keeping your distance?
Ilya: If I said yes would you believe me?
Yuna: No…probably not.
.
.
.
I’ll be there in half an hour.
* * *
Shane slept restlessly, in fits and starts - he wasn’t clear on exactly where reality ended and his dreams began. He had vague memories of a pillow being slid under his head, sweating and kicking the blankets off one moment and shivering the next - someone pulling the blankets back up to his chin. At some point, he dreamt he heard his mother’s quiet, concerned voice, the front door opening and closing in the background. Then his dreams shifted again.
When he awoke later, from a dream where a demented version of his junior league mascot showed up on the ice at an olympic game, he had no sense of how much time had passed, only that it was even darker in the room…and that his head was pounding.
He fought a wave of panic as he freed his arms from the tangle of blankets and moved to sit up. Why was he so clammy? What time was it? Was Ilya still here or had he left? He hadn’t gone to practice already had he? No, that made no sense - he couldn’t have slept through the whole night…could he?
He opened his mouth to call out into the quiet house, but his breath caught on the inhale and suddenly his lungs were seizing, his chest heaving. He brought the blanket up belatedly and shook his head, disgusted. The coughs were much more productive now, crackling with phlegm. He tried to slow down his breathing, to get a break so he could find the tissue box, which had to be around here somewhere…but he just couldn’t stop. Accepting defeat, he squeezed his eyes shut and gave himself over fully to the fit.
But then there was a warm hand rubbing soothing circles on his back, and a bundle of tissues being pressed into his free hand. Ilya murmured soft encouragement as Shane exchanged the blankets for tissues. In his fuzzy state, Shane wasn’t even sure if the words were in English or Russian, but either way the meaning was clear, “Breathe. You’re ok. I’m here.”
Finally, the fit passed. Shane spit into the tissues, too exhausted and relieved in the moment to be embarrassed. He was cold again, chills running up and down his spine.
“What tibe is it?” he croaked.
Ilya tsked, “Only 8, don’t worry - we’re fine. You sound terrible, moya lyubov.”
Ilya’s brows were furrowed with worry as he cupped Shane’s face in one hand. Shane wanted to reach up and smooth the lines there, to tell him it was okay, he was fine. But, the truth was, he felt miserable - achy and shaky and SO tired. Plus…it hurt to talk.
Instead he just let Ilya take him fully into his arms, his cheek resting just above Ilya’s collar bone, his eyes drifting shut. They stayed there for several moments, rocking ever so slightly, ever so slowly, until Shane felt a twinge deep in his sinuses and tried to pull back. But Ilya squeezed him tighter, placing a kiss to the top of his head. So Shane just tucked his face down, freeing one arm so he could cup a sleeve-covered hand over his nose and mouth.
“hh’tchshh! Hh’dTSHh-euhh!”
The pair of sneezes were small, but heavy and laden with exhaustion. Ilya blessed him, pulling back to brush some sweaty hair off his forehead, “Hang on.”
Shane gave a little whine as his boyfriend pulled away, not caring how pathetic he sounded - he wanted to shrink down to a tiny size and crawl into Ilya’s shirt, fall asleep there curled up against his chest for the foreseeable future…maybe forever.
“Shane? Shane.”
Wait, when had he closed his eyes again?
Ilya was crouched in front of him, holding a thermometer and gently tipping Shane’s chin up. Despite himself, Shane felt a hot rush of lust at the familiar gesture - he opened his mouth immediately and Ilya guided the thermometer under his tongue. Shane sighed, leaning his temple against Ilya’s shoulder, trying to keep his eyes open.
* beep beep beep *
Shane fumbled for the thermometer, redirected Ilya’s hand so he could see the number on the tiny screen: 38.9
Ilya inhaled sharply, cursed under his breath, and then seemed to rally, “Ok. More medicine, then shower, then bed.”
He reached over to the coffee table, into a shopping bag that Shane hadn’t noticed before, (Had that been there since the afternoon? He didn’t think so.) and pulled out an unopened bottle of theraflu.
“Wait,” Shane rasped, “where did you get that?”
But Ilya just shh’d him, pouring out a full dose of the dark liquid, following it quickly with a cool glass of water.
The rest of the night passed in a blur - shivering in the shower while Ilya held him close and apologized quietly in his ear for the lukewarm temperature of the water, sounding almost pained - Ilya helping him to towel off afterward, bringing him soft and comfy clothes to sleep in - being tucked into the bed and feeling a cool cloth laid on his forehead - gentle hands stroking his back and carding through his hair.
Then…nothing.
* * *
He woke again a few hours later, appalled to find himself drenched in sweat, the comforter bunched down around his feet and the sheets beneath him damp. He was relieved to find that, other than the sensory nightmare of the sweaty clothes and bedsheets, he felt better. Still a little weak, completely stuffed up and slightly achy, but no longer shaking with chills, his headache reduced to a dull ache.
Ilya was asleep beside him, fully clothed and on top of the covers, sitting up against the headboard as if he’d just paused to rest for a moment. Shane hated to wake him, but his head was lolling at an angle that was sure to leave him with a stiff and aching neck if he stayed like that much longer. Plus, he really could NOT stay in this bed for one more minute with these sweaty sheets.
Ilya came awake at Shane’s touch with a start, clearing his throat and scrubbing a hand over his face as he rolled his head to stretch his neck, “What’s wrong?” he mumbled, groggy, then shook his head to clear it, eyes focusing on Shane, “Are you ok? Is your fever worse??”
Shane, more lucid now than he’d been in hours, felt a sudden jolt of guilt seize him - Ilya was obviously tired, and so worried for him. He had to get on a plane this evening. He should be getting rest before his next round of games, not fretting over his fully grown boyfriend, who should be capable of taking care of himself.
Shane swallowed, sniffled some of the congestion back, as if it did any good, “Ndo, ndo, I uh…I thig’k it broke actually. I’mb sorry,” he blushed, “I’mb so gross. Add the bed…” He found himself unable to describe his sensory discomfort in detail, “I just ndeed to chadge the sheets, get clea’d up a bit.”
Ilya was still trying to wake up, his mind slow to translate Shane’s muddled, stuffy words, “Wait- it what?”
Oh. Right. Ilya might never have heard that word used in this context, “Sorry, I mead - I thig’k it’s better. It just mbade mbe sweat a lot, so…do you have ad extra set of sheets?” He looked down at his hands where they rested, feeling thoroughly ashamed, “If you just tell mbe where they are, I’ll go get theb add-”
“Shane,” Ilya’s voice was steady and soothing now as he cupped Shane’s cheek, fingers moving up into his dark hair and thumb rubbing ever so lightly back and forth over his freckles, “Go shower.”
“But-”
“Ah-ah - I have extra sheets, will take me 5 minutes to change them. Go rinse off and I will be done by the time you come back.
And he was right. Shane had showered slowly, unable to resist a full lather, loitering as the steam helped to loosen some of the junk in his sinuses and chest. Once he was out and towel dried, he was able to blow his nose to the point of some relief, finally. He could ALMOST breath through it now, though he knew it wouldn’t last.
The bed was made up, comforter pulled back a bit so he could slide right in. Ilya was finally getting ready for bed, changing out of the clothes he’d worn all day. He stopped by to give Shane a lingering kiss on his forehead (clearly gauging his temp) on his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
Shane meant to stay awake until Ilya came back, but the relief from the hot shower, his body’s fatigue after fighting the fever, the comfort of the fresh clean sheets - it was all too much. He fell into a deep sleep moments after his head hit the pillow.
Inspired by the collective insanity we’re all experiencing thanks to a certain awards show last week, here’s Ilya presenting at the NHL Awards with a terrible cold. Thankfully, even when he’s feeling his worst, he’s got his husband right by his side. Set after T/he L/ong G/ame. 2.1k words
cw: mess, discussion of suicide/mental health
——
On a sweltering summer day in Las Vegas, the crowd at the NHL Awards applauded as Generic Rock Band with Song in Car Commercial About Off-Roading left the stage. Shane was waiting in the wings, checking his watch.
“Five minutes, Mr. Hollander.”
Shane nodded and thanked the stage tech before making his way towards the hallway bathroom. He needed to collect his husband, who had gone to blow his nose in private.
“haAAASSCHh’oo! haAASZCH’huhh! -AESHHhhoo!”
…And to sneeze. Shane could hear those clearly from outside the door, and he was grateful that the hallway was empty. Ilya was not shy about sneezing by any means, but Shane was sure that he would rather not be subjected to a(nother) random player’s chirps about the earthquakes rocking the casino.
Shane opened the door to the sight of Ilya braced against the countertop, panting a little. He somehow looked even worse than he had just twenty minutes ago. His face was flushed red, and his eyes looked glazed over, glossy and wet. His nose was an angry scarlet - the foundation and concealer had lasted about five minutes before they'd been scrubbed away completely by tissues - and Shane wanted to get some soothing balm on it as soon as possible.
“Bless you,” he said as he walked in and closed the door gently. “They need us in five.”
The NHL was airing a segment highlighting charitable causes in the hockey community. Because, y’know, “Hockey Cares.” While Shane wasn’t thrilled with being used as a PR prop after the insanity of the last year, he was happy that the Irina Foundation was at least receiving some well-deserved attention.
Ilya had started feeling under the weather two days ago, and by the time they’d landed in Vegas last night he’d turned into a full-blown mess of sneezes and congestion. His cold seemed to be all in his nose, poor guy.
Shane had begged Ilya to rest for the day, to let him speak about their foundation and hockey camp on behalf of both of them, but Ilya had refused. “For Mama,” he’d mumbled on his way to the shower that afternoon, and that had shut up Shane’s assertion that he was being a stubborn mule. Oh. Of course.
So, despite his anxieties about Ilya’s wellbeing, Shane had left the hotel room with his husband in tow, both of their pockets stuffed with tissues. They had skipped the red carpet, though - the pictures on Getty Images would all have been of Ilya red-nosed and bleary-eyed and/or sneezing violently from the flashing camera lights. Not ideal. (It probably would have made Shane sneeze, too.)
Ilya turned towards Shane with a wet sniffle and a big scrunch of his nose. God, did he look gorgeous in his cleanly cut tux, big broad body shown off in all the right places. His tailor deserved a fucking raise. His hair was disheveled but somehow it served to make him even more handsome, like a devil-may-care bad boy who let his curls run wild. Illness, Shane had to admit, looked good on him.
This was the same bathroom where, a decade ago, Shane had angrily confronted Ilya about his ghosting and rejection. Where he had put his head on Ilya’s shoulder, teary-eyed and hard as hell. Where Ilya had spoken to him in eloquent English, the words making Shane shiver and desperate to rut against him, where Ilya had made him feel open and vulnerable and wanted. Now it was the scene of something softer, more domestic. A place where they both felt very known and very loved.
“Okay. Just…one more minute.” Ilya put his head in his hands and let out a sigh that seemed to come from his very bones, then smacked his cheeks a little to wake himself up. He looked dazed, unfocused, blurry around the edges. Hopefully his fever, which had been hovering around 38 degrees for most of the day, would go down soon.
Shane took out his pocket square and started dabbing at the sweat dotting Ilya’s hairline. He folded it over and touched gently beneath Ilya’s nose as a thin trickle of moisture started to drip from his nose. Ilya gave a thick snuffle, nose wrinkling along with it, and he took the proffered cotton and turned away to blow loudly into it. The thick honking echoed through the bathroom and Ilya muttered something miserably in Russian that ended with the word for “elephant.”
The harsh blowing must have knocked something loose in Ilya’s sinuses, because he doubled forward with the handkerchief held tight to his face.
“HRISHHhhuhh! HRUSHHhhooo! -HRSCHHhuhh!”
“Bless you,” Shane began before Ilya gasped and folded down towards his knees.
“HAESCHhhh! AESHHhuh-ESHHhuhh! Fugck,” Ilya moaned after the brutal fit, then blew with more trumpeting honks, swishing the fabric back and forth against his nose to clear both nostrils. After a moment, he held up the pocket square, his cheeks turning even redder. “I will wash,” he said in a gravelly voice.
Shane winced in sympathy, his heart aching for his man. “It’s okay. I think…you might not want to keep that in your pocket all night.” Having a discussion about a soaking wet handkerchief with anyone else would have disgusted Shane. But Ilya was different. Ilya was his. And he was Ilya’s. Shane would be damned if the ill centerman, already burdened by fever, was going to make himself even more uncomfortable tonight from worrying over a scrap of fabric.
Ilya hummed in agreement, then gave a final huge blow and tossed the sodden cloth into the trash. He rubbed his arm across his eyes with another sigh and let Shane take him in a gentle hug with some rubs to his back. “Just a few minutes up there and then we can go,” Shane reassured before pulling away. “Unless you—"
“Nyet,” Ilya cut him off sharply. He screwed his face up and let out a little breath. “Sorry. Nyet, is okay. I want to.” His hand reached up to where his crucifix was resting against his chest. “But thank you, lyubimyy.”
“Of course, Ilya.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some tissues. “Few more, in case you need them.”
When they were called onstage along with a small cluster of current and former NHL players, Shane and Ilya waited for their turn to speak. Shane had never been good at this sort of thing, talking from a teleprompter in front of a massive crowd of people while also live on television. But Ilya, even while feverish, was a natural, making the crowd laugh with a crack about how he and Shane didn’t have any bombshell announcements to make this time.
“Mental health is important,” Shane said at the end of their speech. “If you are struggling, please know that you’re not alone and that you are loved and wanted here. Call the 9-8-8 suicide hotline in the US or Canada if you are experiencing a crisis and need support. Thank you.”
During the standing ovation, Shane glanced at Ilya and could tell that he was fighting back a sneeze, eyes narrowed, breath shallow, hand raised to his chin and a finger pressed beneath his nose as if he was in a thinking position. Their microphones had been shut off, so Ilya made a great snorting noise then removed his hand with a relieved sigh. Shane put a hand on his warm lower back and Ilya looked at him with gratitude in his eyes. He seemed a little unsteady, so Shane kept his hand on him until their segment was over and they could exit the stage.
When Shane turned around after he’d walked down the backstage stairs, Ilya was still gripping the guardrail, body frozen between one step and the next, pinching the bridge of his nose. When his sleepy-looking eyes met Shane’s, Shane held out a hand and helped lead him to level ground. “We’re all done,” he murmured with a little smile, and that was all it took for Ilya to practically collapse into his arms.
Even though the backstage crew and the show directors and the guys from Nickelback (hey, Shane actually knew that band!) were running all around them, Shane held Ilya tight to him. He was never going to pass up the opportunity to hold his husband in his time of need ever again, even if it happened to be in front of Chad Somethingorother. They had spent far too many years unable to act on their feelings in public, to give each other a little kiss or put their arms around each other or hold hands while walking down the street. Shane wasn’t much of a PDA guy, but the fact that he hadn’t been able to express his love like any other couple could had fucking killed him. Now he didn’t want to ever let Ilya go.
When they got to the hallway, Shane put his palm to Ilya’s forehead. “You still have a fever, honey,” he said, watching Ilya’s face visibly relax at the word “honey.” “Let’s go back to the room, okay? Then you can sleep all night and all day tomorrow.”
Ilya sniffled, looking at Shane with those beautiful, glassy blue eyes. “Thought we had to leave tomorrow.”
Shane pet his hand over Ilya’s curls. “Pulled some strings.” He’d been grateful that their luxurious suite had been available for a few more days - there was no way in hell he would have let his husband get on a plane like this. Shane would have spent a few nights at even the seediest, dirtiest, most cum-stained hotel on the Strip if it was the only place available. But…he was happy they didn’t have to.
As they walked hand-in-hand back to their room, Shane ran through his mental checklist re: How to Care for a Sick Ilya Rozanov. He’d unpacked the Day- and NyQuil from his suitcase, and had stocked up on extra tissue boxes and gallon water jugs from the CVS down the street. Before they’d left for the ceremony, he’d lowered the blinds and put up the “do not disturb” sign so their hotel room would be cool, dark, and less strenuous on Ilya’s definite headache when they returned. Now, as soon as he got Ilya settled in their room, Shane was going to pick him up some matzo ball soup from the deli near the lobby. (Scott Hunter had actually recommended it to Shane when they’d run into each other before the awards ceremony, taking one look at Ilya and muttering “get him some Jewish penicillin.” And if it was being recommended by a native New Yorker, then Shane knew it must be good.)
Ilya was shivering as Shane swiped his keycard into the door with one hand, the other rubbing long strokes over Ilya’s back. Once inside, Shane helped Ilya remove his suit jacket, then held him close as he snaked his arms around Shane and dropped his head to his shoulder. Shane could feel the heat radiating from him.
“Time for some more medicine,” he said. “We’ve got to get that fever down.”
Ilya jerked upright, untangling himself from around Shane's waist and struggling to grab a tissue from his pocket as his breath hitched wildly. Shane plucked a few from one of the boxes he’d placed nearby and held them over Ilya’s nose and mouth. “It’s all right,” he comforted as Ilya made a high keening noise in his throat.
“ehEH—hhih? HAESZCHHhh! HAASHHhhh! HAADTSCHhoo! Hnhghh, Ёб твою мать!” he spat out the very impolite phrase, then slumped his shoulders in defeat. Shane threw away the tissues then grabbed a few more, giving the gentlest pinch to Ilya’s nose when he just snuffled. “Blow for me,” he said quietly, soothingly.
Ilya obeyed with perhaps the loudest honk of the day, and Shane could actually feel Ilya’s nose vibrate from beneath the tissues with the force of the blow. He wiped delicately before throwing those tissues away too. “Do you feel any better?”
Shane’s poor stuffy husband tried to take a breath through his gorgeous crooked nose, but was met with nothing but a squeak. “I…don’t know,” he admitted, and Shane couldn’t help but melt at the sight of his adorable sick man, miserable though he was. He chuckled a little, despite himself.
“Come on, myshka, let’s go to sleep.”
In bed, Ilya lay with his head pillowed on Shane’s chest as Shane played with his hair. “We did good,” he mumbled out. “We make a good team.”
Shane smiled. “We do.” He listened to Ilya sniffle a little more, then tightened his arms around him. “She would be so proud of you, Ilya.”
Ilya was quiet for a moment. “She would be proud of me,” he said sleepily as his eyes slipped closed, “for marrying you.”
From this prompt list. Last year; this year; AO3 (where they will eventually end up).
Matty's pacing, staring out the windows at the cold October rain in between checking his phone to see when it's supposed to end.
"Matty, it's supposed to rain all weekend. Come sit down."
"There's shit I was supposed to do, though." Matty's a little too pale; eyes bruised with exhaustion. "And I won't have time next week."
"I know. It's okay."
"Well, when the fuck am I supposed to do it, then?"
Nico raises his eyebrows at him, and Matty's anger collapses in on itself immediately.
"I'm sorry. I'm just... really tired." He scrubs a hand down his face, but doesn't stop pacing.
And right on the verge of getting sick, Nico wants to add, but he knows from long experience that it would do the opposite of help.
Luna jumps up on the couch, silent as her namesake, and something about the change sets off Nico's perpetually, ridiculously sensitive nose. hh'TCH! Matty looks over, checking on him, and the calculation happens in the space of time it takes to pull in a breath for the second sneeze. Nico doesn't go out of his way to cover his allergy sneezes or his no-apparent-reason sneezes when it's just them at home; he only bothers when he thinks he might be getting sick (or knows he is) and is trying (usually in vain) to spare Matty from the germs. He pointedly buries his face into his elbow for the following h'ETCH'mmph! CHHH! TSCHMPH! and indulges rather than fights the sniffling afterward.
"Okay?" Matty asks, watching him closely from across the room.
"I think so?" He'd slept well the night before, so instead he channels the fatigue of the previous week, which had genuinely been quite long.
Matty frowns and steps closer. There's the faintest tickle in the back of his nose, and it's easy for Nico to fan the flame, arm already raised to catch the sneeze. hh'ET'TCHuu! Nico pulls the blanket tighter around himself for effect.
"Babe?" And this might be overkill, he knows he's already convinced him, but just in case-- "Will you come lie down with me?"
There's a minute or two of rearranging, with Jupiter trying to add herself to the couch and being absolutely affronted for about 30 seconds that there's not enough room for two men and a cat and a large dog on their one living room couch, before getting over it and lying down right beside them on the floor.
"Okay?" Matty murmurs once they're settled, his eyes starting to close and then opening again to check over Nico one more time.
Nico hums in agreement, nestling in against his husband and their soft nest of pillows and blankets.
"Do you feel like you're getting sick?"
"I don't think so." Running a hand through Matty's hair. Matty's eyes close in response to the touch.
"You should rest, just in case." Matty's voice is going vague with sleep. Nico kisses his forehead and tucks in the blankets around them both.
"Yeah," he says, even though he's pretty sure Matty can't hear him anymore. "That sounds like a really good plan."
ok I’m so sorry if this is a lot BUT!! For fic requests, maybe something placed in that spot where they’re not yet a couple but only barely, kind of around the all stars in Florida when Shane stopped seeing Rose but before the cottage. Where their relationship is finally being seen as more serious by the both of them but they’re still trying to find their footing.
They haven’t seen one another sick yet, and Ilya is still a tad uncomfortable with being tender and soft with Shane, but when Ilya shows up to Shane’s place as planned the day before a game he finds Shane just so sick. Shane basically stumbles to the door, hair and clothes a mess, voice congested and raspy, nose red and snuffling, squinting confused at ilya - he had been so busy sleeping and being miserable he had gotten his days confused (and was hoping he wouldn’t be sick by the time they planned to meet so he had put off cancelling plans).
Shane is just so embarrassed to be seen like this by ilya, but Ilya is adamant about coming in and taking care of Shane. Shane fights against the mortification of being seen drippy and sick and gross, the way how bad he feels is making him overly emotional and sensitive and needy, and how much he doesn’t want to be any of those things. Ilya fights against the rising tide of protectiveness he feels, the soft warm squirmy feelings he doesn’t really want to address yet, the sweet soft way Shane keeps looking at him, and he really really tries hard not to let an I love you slip
Hi Blake <333 Thank you so much for this request! It's not a lot at all, I love all the sweet little details so so much! Hope you enjoy :)
Hockey fans, the "Mike" is definitely Mike Milbury LMAO
An (Un)healthy Scratch (H/eated R/ivalry, Shane)
Ilya first saw the news while scrolling through Twitter in his Montreal hotel room.
--
Pierre Beaulieu @ hockeytalkie:
Shane Hollander (illness) is out for next two games against NYA and BOS, per reports #MTLMetros
--
Illness? Ilya frowned. He picked up the remote and turned on CBC Sports. Some boring suit-and-tie analysts Ilya didn’t care to learn the names of were yammering around a long table, their chairs spaced comically far away from each other.
“The Metros camp has confirmed that Shane Hollander won’t be playing in this weekend’s back-to-back set of games due to illness. Surprising news, since he hasn’t missed more than one game at a time in his entire career so far. Mike, how do you think Montreal can compensate for losing their captain as they near the playoffs?”
“Montreal had better hope that Hollander gets well soon. They need all the scoring power they can get if they want to make it to a top three playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Frankly, as good as they are, they can’t do that without him.”
Fucking assholes, Ilya thought. Can’t give him a goddamn second to breathe. He had to shut the TV off before he threw the remote at the screen.
He let out a long breath and texted Shane:
Lily:
You are sick?
No response.
After a few minutes of waiting, Ilya felt unusually antsy. He and Shane had planned a few days ago to meet at Shane’s apartment tonight - since the All-Star Weekend, they’d been texting nearly every day - and Ilya wasn’t sure he should show up if Shane wasn’t answering. What kind of illness could he have? It would have to be something pretty bad for him to be out for two games straight. Ilya tried to resist the urge that had been clawing at his heart since he first saw the news report - to go to Shane and offer him care. To soothe him from whatever was making him feel unwell. To kiss and cuddle and comfort him.
Fuck. Ridiculous. What a stupid, terrible idea.
Still…he wanted to make sure that Shane was okay, at the very least. Maybe he was even okay enough to sleep with. Sexually, of course. Not sleep with sleep with.
Sighing, Ilya grabbed his jacket and left the room before he could convince himself not to.
——
The cab dropped Ilya off in front of Shane’s building, and he zipped up his jacket against the chilly air. Before he knocked, he checked his reflection as best he could through his phone screen and ran a hand through his windswept curls in an attempt to tame them. He closed his eyes. What the fuck was he doing? He didn’t even know if Shane was home. But where else would he be? Not at the arena tonight, he knew for sure. Definitely not, as he would have assumed a few weeks ago, with Rose Landry. An unpleasant feeling that felt suspiciously like jealousy surged through him.
He knocked.
After a few moments, the door opened a crack. “…Ilya?” came a small, hoarse voice.
“Is me,” he replied.
Shane opened the door fully, and Ilya felt his face fall. The man looked awful. His skin was white as bone - hell, even his freckles looked pale - save for the deep flush in his cheeks and his fiery-red nose. He was wearing an oversized sweatshirt with the hood covering most of his messy dark hair, flannel pajama pants, and two different colored socks. His face was creased with sleep marks, and, though Ilya would never tell him, a small spot of drool dotted the corner of his mouth. He’d clearly been woken by Ilya’s knocking, and a pang of guilt went through Ilya as Shane sleepily rubbed his eye with a fist.
“Oh,” Ilya heard himself say.
Shane stared at him for a moment, mouth open, then he put his head in his hands. “Oh fuck. It’s today. I forgot to text you…Look, you need to go. You can’t be here.” His eyes were wide, panicked, like a spooked horse that needed calming. He moved to close the door, but Ilya grabbed it and held it open.
“Can’t be here? Why?”
Shane was not making eye contact. “I, uh…I’m really sick.”
“I can see. And?”
“And it’s…gross,” he said, a hand tugging nervously at his long shirtsleeve. A rosy pink flush was creeping up his face to his ears. It was adorable.
You are so beautiful, Ilya wanted to say, then squashed the thought down into a little ball and threw it away in the trash can of his mind. “Not gross,” he said instead. “Not you.” Before Shane could respond, Ilya put a hand on his shoulder and ushered him gently back into the apartment. He guided Shane back around to face him. He looked even more unwell up close. The light in his eyes was dull, defeated. Dark circles hung beneath them. And his nose…a deep red against his wan skin, his nostrils and septum looking particularly irritated and scrubbed half to death by what Ilya assumed was frequent tissue usage. Ilya brushed his fingers against Shane’s cheek. “How long have you been feeling not well?”
Shane shrugged. “Coach sent me home during practice yesterday,” he said, eyes casting downward, his face turning a deeper red than before. He looked so…ashamed. Like he had done something much more unforgivable than catch a cold (flu?). Something twisted in Ilya’s stomach.
Not long ago in Florida, Shane had held Ilya in his arms and rocked him back and forth as he cried. Ilya wanted to do the same now. He settled for enveloping him in a hug. Shane lowered his head onto Ilya’s shoulder.
“…Don’t wanna get you sick…” he mumbled.
Ilya kissed the top of his head. “Do not worry about that.” Shane tightened his grip against Ilya’s waist. They broke apart, and Shane muffled a little cough into his arm. “Sit,” Ilya said, gesturing to the couch. Shane complied, looking small and rumpled in his pajamas. “Have you taken any medicine?”
“This morning,” Shane said. His voice was an absolute wreck. “Ilya, please, it’s okay, you can leave...” He started to cough again, deep, congested barks that must have been killing his throat. Ilya sat next to him and put a hand on his heaving back. He started murmuring sweet nothings in Russian as Shane took in a deep gasping breath and turned his back to him.
Oh. Ilya had heard Shane sneeze a few times before, soft little things that he found adorable and sweet, but these were harsher, wetter, a little louder. Not like the ones he tried his best to hold in and hide. “Bud’ zdorov.”
“Thags…” Shane had a hand over his nose, his face scarlet. “Uhb. I’ll be right back.” He scurried away to the bathroom and shut the door. Ilya heard the sound of him blowing his nose, more coughing, and the sink being turned on and off. Ilya took the time to grab a box of tissues from Shane’s bedroom - the air was stale, and the trash bin was overflowing with tissues - and started going through the kitchen cabinets. Shane stood a distance away from him, looking hesitant to move closer. “What’re you doing?”
“Have you had food?”
“Uh…no.” Shane put his arms around himself. He looked like he was freezing. Ilya went to the thermostat and turned up the temperature a few degrees.
“Hollander. You need to eat something warm. Will help your nose and throat.” Ilya went back to scrutinizing the pantry and fridge. “Do you keep any normal food in your apartment?”
Shane quirked an eyebrow. “What’s ‘normal’ food?”
“Is what I said. What normal people eat.” Ilya squinted at the label on a box. “What is…'qwee-noh?'”
“Quinoa,” Shane corrected. “It’s a seed, I like to eat it with fish—”
“Mhm. I am going to order you takeout. Soup,” he said when Shane opened his mouth to protest. “From Chinese restaurant the other week.”
Ilya thought of that day fondly. It had been shortly after their reconciliation at the All-Star Game, just a few weeks ago. After an especially long session of what Ilya tried not to think of as lovemaking, Shane had been unusually indulgent and ordered them egg flower soup and fried rice from one of his favorite restaurants. They’d eaten on the couch, watching highlights from the game they had played against each other hours before, Ilya trying - and failing - not to stare as Shane sat next to him in only a Metros sweatshirt and boxer shorts. Something Ilya said had made Shane throw back his head in laughter, and before they both knew it Ilya was kissing his neck, and they were right back in bed where they had started the night…
Ilya was broken from the thought when Shane started to gasp again. He turned around to see him duck into his cupped hands, covered by his sweater paws. “hh’tschhhiew! hhih…ihh! hyishh’uu! hadt’choo! hadt’CHIEW!…nghhh…” He grabbed a few tissues and held them to his poor red nose.
“Bud’ zdorov,” Ilya said. He had more important things to do than reminisce right now. Or think about how happy that memory made him. Or give in to the instinct he had to protect this man from his hurting. He’d felt that way towards Shane for a long, long time, actually. Stop it, Rozanov. Ilya took a menu out of one of the infuriatingly neat drawers in Shane’s kitchen and called for delivery.
___
The two ate quietly at the table, a blanket wrapped around Shane’s shoulders.
“Soup is hot enough?”
“It’s great. Thank you.” Shane looked up from his meal, a warmth shining through his glassy eyes. He smiled shyly, and Ilya felt warmth shoot through him too.
“You are welcome.” Ilya concentrated on adding more wonton strips to his own bowl to resist leaning over the table and kissing him. He knew Shane would freak the fuck out if he did that, and he wanted to keep him comfortable, especially since he was clearly feverish. He placed his hand over the other man’s instead. “You’re so cold,” Ilya said with surprise.
Shane took his hand away. “Sorry.”
“Hollander. Good Canadian boy. Stop apologizing. Eat more soup.”
Shane nodded without a retort, finishing his soup like Ilya asked. He just wants to please. Ilya ignored the unwelcome(?) thought. Once they were done, Ilya took Shane’s hand - it was much warmer than before, slava bogu - and led him into bed. The navy comforter was soft, familiar. Peaceful. Shane. They lay under the covers and Shane looked up at him from beneath his lashes. Those gorgeous brown doe eyes…they looked heavy with exhaustion, and a little wet.
“Tired?” Ilya ran a hand over his silky dark hair.
“Kinda.” Shane turned away again, nose buried in his elbow, and for a few moments Ilya thought his need to sneeze had gone away. Then he pitched forward. “haah…! ahh’choo! adt’chyew! ah! ah-CHOO!” Had Shane been feeling better, Ilya might have gently teased him for having the most textbook sneeze of all time. A literal “achoo.” How basic. How cute. But when Shane turned around, Ilya saw a tear slip down his face from the force of the sneezes.
“Bud’ zdorov.” Ilya reached for a tissue and dabbed the tears from Shane’s eyes as he sniffled.
“Mmh, thanks…don’t know why I feel so shitty…” he buried his face into Ilya’s shoulder, wrapping his arms tight around him.
“You have the flu,” Ilya reminded him. “And…” he put a palm to Shane’s clammy forehead. “…da. Still a fever.”
“Everything hurts,” Shane said softly. Judging by the embarrassment on his face, it must have taken serious effort to admit this to Ilya. (To anyone?)
Ilya ran his hands up and down Shane’s arms, his shoulders, his back. Shane hummed with pleasure. “Better…” His eyes closed and, shortly after, he started snoring quietly against Ilya’s shoulder.
Two thoughts ran concurrently through Ilya’s head:
We can’t be anything.
and,
Loveyouloveyouloveyouloveyou
He needed to leave for practice in a few hours. He also probably should wake Shane up and guide his head towards his pillow so he didn’t hurt his neck. But, for now…this. As Shane slept, Ilya stared up at the ceiling.
What’s the appropriate etiquette when your multi-year situationship and rival has the worst flu and an inability to care for himself? AKA Ilya shows up at Shane’s hotel room despite it going against everything the two of them have established: detached, sexy, non-committal. Shane’s fever renders him indisposed, and Ilya is forced to navigate a new— but not unwelcome— dynamic. A newfound vulnerability is forced upon Shane, one that exposes some of the pressure he carries; luckily Ilya is remarkably skilled at working past his mask. An internal question nags at both of them: “what are we?” Part two of “Idiot”. Crossing off “forehead kisses” for fic bingo from this post. 3.6k words.
Somehow this fic spans over maybe 10 minutes… this means a third part is necessary obviously. The sneeze spellings are majorly inspired by @themiseryandcompany ‘s fic “untethered”, which I 100% recommend reading if you haven’t already!
CW for flu, fever, dizziness, crying, abject self neglect, very brief mentions of spray/mess— not in detail. It takes place in 2016, so the two of them are well established in their situationship but still unfamiliar with intimacy without sex. Also, it comes before the scene where Shane says Ilya’s English has improved (at least I think it does), keep that in mind when reading the dialogue! Fic beneath cut.
— 8:32 —
For the third time today, Shane is pulled out of a heavy stupor by the buzzing of his phone. Reluctantly, he blinks his eyes open after the fifth Bzzzzt. He’s met with a too–bright screen and letters that blur into one another. A shiver makes its way from Shane’s abdomen and through his chest, inspiring a wave of goosebumps to bloom over his exposed skin. When had he taken off his hoodie?
He allows himself another second of stillness, his body all but refusing to move. A sixth buzz from his phone cuts through the silence of his hotel room, and with a tired groan, Shane raises a hand. His muscles ache in protest as he fumbles to find his phone; he feels heavier than usual, as if an invisible force is pulling him down, begging his body to press itself deeper into the mattress. It takes a few blind swipes at his screen for him to successfully answer the call.
“Hollander?”
Ilya. A smile whispers over his lips as his eyes slip shut again. He conjures up images of his rival: scenarios that recur in his mind far too often for him to continue pretending he doesn’t like the Russian. A warm, phlegmy hum rumbles in his chest.
“Hollander?” The voice repeats, sharper this time. “Let me in.”
Ilya’s accent sits sweet in Shane’s feverish mind. He pulls apart every syllable and pronunciation, and a quiet voice surges from the back of his mind— the delirious desire to reply, “let me in.”
“Shane.”
That gets his attention. It’s rare that he gets to hear his first name from Ilya’s tongue. Usually it’s intermixed with moans and whispered praise. Never like this; never concerned, never tender.
“Yes?” His tongue fumbles to form the single word, laying awkwardly in his mouth, just as his eyes sit awkwardly in their sockets. Too wet, too heavy, too uncomfortable.
“Are you okay?” The tone is imperceptible to Shane— worried, maybe, or irritated. If he were more cognizant of just how concerning his behavior is right now, he might have realized Ilya sounds scared, though that would be unlikely. Because Russians don’t get scared.
“Mhm.” Shane hums. “Cold.”
A little breath of relief sounds from the other side of the phone, but the cotton in Shane’s ears swallows it away. “Okay. Can you let me in?”
“Uhmb…” Shane’s brain churns, too far on the verge of sleep for him to fully understand what’s being asked of him. A soft rapping on the door draws his attention across the room, and after a moment he registers the task at hand. He hasn’t felt this out of it in who knows how long, but he forces himself to roll over in bed anyways. It’ll be worth the pain— the aching of his muscles and screaming of his joints— to fulfil Ilya’s request.
Shane pushes himself into a seated position with a groan. His body implores him to sink back into his mattress, throbbing in waves of tidal discomfort. His heart rate reacts similarly, bolting upwards and echoing from his chest to his head. The racing thump thump thump melds with a high pitched ringing as he pushes himself up and onto unsteady feet. They stumble, clumsy and weighted.
Another knock sounds from nearby, and Shane slowly moves towards it, his body swaying as if gravity has taken a hold of him and decidedly tossed him off balance. Shane bites his tongue so as not to groan again; apparently, his need to hide his discomfort doesn't stop with fever.
Getting to the door zaps whatever ounce of energy he’d managed to recover during his brief reprieve in bed. The doorframe supports the majority of the weight as he fights with the handle, tugging downwards as his ears continue to ring. He’s barely cognizant of the fact that Ilya Rozanov is standing on the other side of the door, waiting patiently with takeout and a bag of shitty CVS medicine he’d bought just for Shane. Finally, the door slips open, and the rivals stand face to face— well, as much as that’s possible when Shane’s body is pulling itself towards the floor with an alarming determination.
Shane blinks, stunned as he makes out the hazy details of the man standing in front of him as if they hadn’t been on the phone not even a minute prior. “Whadt are you doing here?” He whispers, in part from surprise and in part because his voice is absolutely wrecked.
A shiver courses through Shane as he takes in Ilya’s presence, the cool air from the hallway biting at his exposed skin. He’s only wearing boxers and white ankle-high socks; when he had stripped off the rest of his clothing, he isn’t sure. His skin is coated in a sheen of sweat. Dark hair sticks out in all directions, partially plastered to his face alongside small, intricate indentations from his blanket.
“I told you. I come over.” Ilya answers as if it was completely normal for him to be there. As if it was his job to come to Shane, to hold him to his chest, to pepper kisses over his skin, to care for him. He holds up the plastic CVS bag. “I have things.”
“Ilya.” The name sits pleasantly on Shane’s tongue— sweet, reminiscent of hours spent in bed, kiss drunk and horny. Now, even seeped in thick congestion, it’s still soft. “I’mb contagious, “ he warns. Despite barely remaining upright, Shane’s first thought is of Ilya’s health. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he spread this godawful flu to anyone else, let alone someone he cares about… No, that can’t be right. Someone he fucks.
Ilya shrugs, gesturing dismissively. “I don't know what that means. This… 'contagions.’" He sidesteps Shane easily, inviting himself inside and squinting as his eyes adjust to the nearly pitch black room. “Jesus, Hollander. You are like vampire.”
His taunt hands unanswered in the air, absent of any retort or half-hearted “fuck you” from Shane. The click of the door shutting is all that follows for a few seconds. Shane’s remaining energy is split between keeping himself upright and suppressing a cough that’s threatening to bubble up from his chest. Every breath feels static-y, crackling behind his ribs and forcing little hiccups. He lasts all of four seconds.
Lungs twist in on themselves until his chest constricts, and Shane struggles to raise an elbow as he pivots away from Ilya. The cough breaks through his helpless attempt to hold it back; he lurches forwards, air and phlegm fighting in his chest as they’re rejected from his system. His feet stumble over one another as he tries to put more distance between himself and his rival, but Ilya sets down his bag and breaks the gap between them in two strides.
“Okay, is okay.” The reassurance is quick, loud enough to be heard over Shane’s coughing, but soft enough to ease his racing mind— though, he’s mostly focused on the task of getting enough oxygen at the moment. Ilya’s hands settle firm just above his hips. “I’ve got you.”
Shane shakes his head, trying to step away again, but his legs are unwilling to move. His body resigns himself to the utterly humiliating experience of coughing to the point of breathless gasps. He’s practically trembling by the time his breathing slows, and his eyes slip shut for just a moment.
Ilya’s stomach drops. Suddenly, he’s back in the rink, in the middle of the game, riding the high of yet another goal before he turns. He looks for Hollander— he’s always looking for Hollander— but just as he finds his rival, Shane drops to the ice. Panic coils in his chest, unsteady and uncertain.
Without thinking, Ilya steps even closer, supporting Shane’s body against his own and raising one hand to the nape of the sick man’s neck. Shane’s skin radiates heat; his fever has yet to break. Fingers press themselves just below Shane’s hairline, applying a firm but gentle pressure. It’s something Ilya’s mother used to do for him when he was dizzy, he thinks. He continues the administration until he can hear each tight breath even out, his hand holding onto Shane like a lifeline.
The massage rouses a quiet, congested hum from Shane, whose head lulls forwards against Ilya’s shoulder. His previous anxiety over spreading germs has dissipated, replaced by the need to be close to Ilya, to be held. The Russian’s fingers slide up and part brunette hair with ease, scratching Shane’ scalp just enough to ease a bit of tension. “You have fever.”
Shane nods.
“You should be in bed.”
Another nod. Ilya grins. “You are very obedient when you are sick, yes?”
A quiet ease has settled in Shane’s chest, willing him to press himself further against Ilya. His body is still straining to stay upright; shaky legs tremble beneath him, restless and irritated with their inability to hold his weight. His breath falls hot against Ilya’s neck.
“Come on. To bed, Hollander.” With a final squeeze to the nape of Shane’s neck, Ilya begins to pull away just enough to guide Shane towards the bed.
His legs move stiffly, knocking against the floor with uncoordinated steps as he struggles to process Ilya’s words. Just two minutes ago he had been ‘Shane’, but now he’s ‘Hollander’ again.
“Why?” The question falls from his mouth without permission, his tongue acting of its own accord.
“Why do you need to go to bed?” Ilya raises an amused brow at the sick man. “Have you looked in mirror?”
“Ndo… why do you—” a prickling teases through his sinuses, burying itself in the center of his face, “call mbe -sndff-” the sniffle is urgent, his body trying to warn him of the building sneeze. He blinks, lashes fluttering shut and forming a wet rim. Even as he raises an elbow to cover, he continues, “Hhhollander?” The question is broken between pauses and sniffles, his speech slowed with fever, as if each word is a struggle to say.
“It is your name.”
Shane can’t do anything more than shake his head in response, caught between frustration with his need to sneeze and Ilya’s purposeful misinterpretation of his question. It’s not the answer he wants, and Ilya knows that. Teary eyes squint towards the back wall of the hotel room as Shane’s mouth falls further agape. His carefully crafted composition is broken by the thrumming buzz that’s now traveled to the tip of his nose, forcing a delicate flare of his nostrils.
His chest expands with quiet little hitches, building on top of one another until he turns away from Ilya, pressing his nose as far as he can into the crook of his elbow and swallowing a wet “nGTt—sSChh’ew!”
A delicate casting of spray falls over his bare skin, but he barely has time to cringe. One of Ilya’s hands runs up his spine, steadying over his lower back while the other holds his waist again. Sharp pain bursts from his sinuses and through his temples at his attempt to stifle and yet he does it again.
“hhNGxt’—tshh!”
There’s a moment of silence as Ilya waits to ensure he’s done. “Bud’te zdorovy.” He can hear all too well the discomfort Shane’s causing himself by stifling. “Don’t do that.”
Shane stumbles towards the bed, blindly reaching for the tissue box with one hand as his nose remains pressed to his elbow. By some miracle, he manages to find it, immediately snatching a few tissues and wiping off the dampened skin of his arm before tending to his nose. “Sorry.” The apology is immediate, followed by a dazed silence. “I kdow,” he’s interrupted with a light cough, “id’s gross.”
Ilya blinks in confusion, “what?”
With a tissue held over his nose, Shane looks towards Ilya. It’s too dark for him to make out any expression on the Russian’s face. He offers no response to Ilya’s question, unable to clarify his feverish mumblings as the itch thrums through his nose again. Reddened, raw skin burns in protest as he pinches the appendage shut beneath the tissue.
“nGGd—tcChh!uh… hhHh…” a stuffy exhale is intermixed with a quiet sound of discomfort, closer to a whimper than a whine. Shane’s head is filled so tightly with pressure that it might just burst. “nkXCHh’iew?!”
Ilya winces on behalf of Shane when he hears the painfully suppressed stifles. He steps closer once again, placing both hands on Shane’s shoulders and applying just enough pressure to coax the other man back onto the bed.
“Sorry.” Shane whispers again, eyes brimming over with tears as he mentally berates himself. Part of him wants to tell Ilya that he knows he’s gross, that he’s equally as disgusted with his inability to stop sneezing as the Russian seems to be, but that he just can’t stop. The other part begs for him to tell Ilya how much it hurts, how the weight of his head is suffocating, how each breath sits like concrete in his chest. All he manages is another pinched, “hg’GXdt—schh!” and a second whimper.
To his surprise, a hand wraps around his wrist and tugs his hand down away from his nose. “I said to stop. Why do you do this?” It’s not meant to be a reprimand, but Ilya’s concern must come across that way. All of Shane’s discomfort is burning at the ends of his eyes, clinging to lashes as shame tries to tease out tears. His bottom lip wobbles, though his face remains hidden in the darkness of the room.
Ilya’s brows furrow in concern at his rival’s silence, and he reaches for the lamp positioned on the nightstand. It turns on with a noisy click. Shane squeezes his eyes shut when the light permeates through the room, causing another stab of pain in his head.
“Hey.” Ilya’s voice comes soft. It’s low and accented in the way that Shane loves. A hand lifts Shane’s chin up gently, a thumb brushing across his cheek. “Look at me.”
Shane shakes his head, eyes remaining closed because tears are really beginning to leak out, skirting over his rosy cheeks as they fall. Now that Ilya can see Shane, he realizes how truly miserable the other man is; he’s fever flushed, teary, and unable to regulate any of the discomfort surging through his sick body. He’s even miserable enough to disobey Ilya’s request for him to look up. It’s strange to see Shane disobedient; Ilya doesn’t like it.
“O, moya lyubov. You are so sick,” he hums, settling a hand over Shane’s forehead while the other continues to hold his chin. The sick man leans into the touch, nuzzling Ilya’s hand as if asking him for more. “Why the tears?”
Shane just shakes his head again. He leans towards the Russian, pushing past his hand and pressing his face against Ilya’s hip, allowing his weight to fall forwards. Ilya waits patiently. He brushes his fingers over Shane’s temple before letting them travel to his scalp to scratch against his skin.
After a minute, Shane mumbles, “I tried nodt to.” The fabric of Ilya’s clothing muffles his voice, but he’s attentive enough not to miss the quiet, incoherent admission.
“Not to what?” Ilya coaxes when Shane falls silent again. He leans down to kiss at the top of Shane’s head.
“Be sigk…” a liquid sniffle and a light cough interrupts him. “I kdow I’mb gross righd now. I’mb sorry.”
“You apologize too much.” Ilya tuts, planting little kisses over Shane’s hair before straightening up. “You are not gross. Sick, yes, but not gross.”
Shane’s thick, congested breaths against Ilya’s hip say otherwise, and yet he sounds entirely genuine. His tone persuades Shane to tilt his head up, just enough so he can look at Ilya’s face, as if he’ll find some hint of dishonesty there. He’s met with an expression he can’t read: Ilya’s lips are curved downwards— not quite a frown, but getting there— but his eyes are soft. There’s no frustration pinching between his brows or creasing at his forehead. His face just shows a loving, concerned adoration.
Shane’s adams apple bobs in his throat with a swallow, grating against its sore interior enough that the burning in his eyes returns. Within a second, one of Ilya’s thumbs is brushing over Shane’s neck as if he could wipe away the lingering pain.
“Have you eaten?”
Shane nods; his head swims with the movement, clouding with a dizzy haze, and he leans forward again. His nose presses damp to Ilya’s pants, face hidden in the fabric. The truth sits unspoken on his tongue: he’s too tired to cook, too drained to stand, too feverish to convey that he’s neglected his every need since waking up this morning. Ilya looks down at him, eyes pinched with doubt.
“I brought soup.” He says simply. “Miso. I have not had it before, but the restaurant said it is Japanese.” When his statement goes unanswered, he adds, “and chicken. In case you did not like Miso.”
Again, Ilya’s words hang unanswered in the stagnant air. When Shane pulls away seconds later with a hazy expression and twitching nose, Ilya understands why. Shane presses a palm to the Russian’s hip— whether it’s an effort to brace himself or distance himself is unclear. Every breath comes out stuffy and thick, dredging through the phlegm in his chest and unable to exit from his blocked nose. Still, a little hitch manages to break through —hh— just as Shane’s expression becomes truly desperate.
“hHn’gGXtch!”
Even in his feverish delirium, Shane buries his nose in his elbow and fights his body to stifle the sneeze. It’s nothing like his typical stifles, which are quieter and more skillfully suppressed. This sneeze, if it can even be called that, hits the wall of congestion in Shane’s sinuses and falls short of escape.
“Bud’te zdorovy, moya lyubov.” The soft-spoken Russian words work to soothe Shane’s growing headache. They do little, however, to diminish the embarrassment aching in his chest. Seconds later, his embarrassment is won over as the itch flares through his sinuses, determined to torment him.
Shane’s hand sits warm and clammy against Ilya’s waist, keeping him an arms length away as if that makes any difference. With a dazed expression, Shane lowers his elbow and exchanges it with fingers that pinch his flaring nostrils shut.
“igGSXxt—ch’uh’!”
A searing pain splinters from Shane’s sinuses to his temples, fracturing his focus enough that a whine slips from his lips. Moisture threatens to spill over his fingers, and he pinches his nose harder as he swallows a second, “nNGGXTt’tsch!”
Its congestion is barely suppressed despite his best efforts to stifle; it still sounds audibly wet, and Shane flushes with renewed embarrassment. Pink burns from his cheeks to his ears in a shameful warmth that exposes him further. At the sound of a little tut from Ilya, he looks up, met with a few tissues being extended towards him and sheepishly accepts, curling in on himself as he tends to his nose.
Once he’s confident his nose won’t drip over his upper lip, he lowers the wad of tissues and mumbles, “Fugk. I’mb sorry.” And he sounds it: truly, entirely sorry for having performed a bodily function that he cannot help.
“For what?”
A confused blink, a stuffy sniffle, and a delayed, “for sdeezing.”
Ilya almost laughs at the absurdity of the statement, but he knows he has to tread carefully right now. Instead, he reasons, “you have seen me sneeze a hundred times. Why is this issue for you?”
Shane looks just as confused as he had before, brows creased as he attempts to process the situation in his feverish stupor. “You told mbe to stop…” he says it as if it was obvious, as if it made perfect sense that Ilya had told him to stop sneezing.
Fingers pinch the bridge of Ilya’s nose in exasperation at both himself and Shane before he clarifies, “I was saying stop because—” He struggles to find the right word in English, the translation lingering on the top of his tongue. He gestures to Shane’s hand, “—the pinching you do, whatever it’s called. It hurts you, no?”
“Oh…” is all Shane manages in response. He blinks, looking utterly stupified at the revelation that Ilya isn’t mad at him for sneezing. He isn’t disgusted or waiting with bated breath for Shane to turn his back so he can reveal that the Metros captain has succumbed to the utter humiliation that is the flu.
“Jesus, Hollander.”
Shane’s lips part, allowing a shallow breath to fill his lungs. It’s followed by a swallow, saliva burning as it slides down his throat, teasing and painful. For what feels like the hundredth time that day, Shane has no witty retort for Ilya. He has nothing more than the flu and a rising fever.
Ilya steps away, starting back towards the door, and Shane feels his chest fill with a sharp regret, spurring him to speak. “Waidt.” His fingers clutch at Ilya’s sleeve without second thought. His eyes, usually soft in the presence of the Russian, are sharp, panicked.
“Hey.” Ilya softens, stepping back towards him in an instant. “I am going to get the soup, yes? And medicine.”
Shane’s grip doesn’t loosen.
“Two seconds. That is it.” He waits patiently, watching Shane’s expression relax as he gradually processes Ilya’s words. Wordlessly, Ilya kisses Shane’s forehead, letting his touch linger. A little crease forms at the bridge of his nose as he presses it to Shane’s skin. He doesn’t pry the sick man’s fingers off or pull away; he just waits for Shane to drop his hands to his lap. “You’re okay.” The whispered reassurance comes so naturally that Ilya doesn't even notice he says it, “I’m here.”
Why, any rational person would ask, is Shane Hollander standing in the center of a match against the Raiders when he has the flu? The answer would be idiocy. Pure and utter idiocy. AKA Shane comes down with the flu and doesn’t put the pieces together until he’s midgame against none other than the Boston Raiders. He and Ilya are in a fucked up situationship, but the Russian might care more than Shane had initially anticipated… Part one of fic bingo from this post here!
Thank you @lilies-and-hyacinths for beta reading and giving wonderful feedback :3 you're amazing!
CW for contagion, flu, fever, dizziness, fainting, alexithymia (Shane’s inability to identify and understand his symptoms/feelings), and a bit of mess— not in detail. 5.5k words. There will absolutely be inaccuracies with hockey terminology and gameplay; never in my life have I watched a hockey match </3 Also the timeline and location don’t entirely match up with the show. With that said, I had no choice but to put Shane in a Situation.
Shane Hollander’s dedication to hockey isn’t up for question. Not by his fans, not by critics, and certainly not by his team. Even with rumors of him being unsociable, complex questions about strategy are always met with coherent, well articulated answers; there’s nothing about the game that he doesn't know— except when not to play it, apparently.
For most players, having the flu is enough of a deterrent for them to step aside and trust their team to play without them; playing with one member down or subbed out makes more sense then putting someone on the ice when they’re not at their best, everyone knows this. Even Shane knows this, which is why Hayden Pike has been benched for this afternoon’s game and temporarily quarantined so as not to risk spreading the flu to the rest of his team. Hopefully it’s not too little too late.
For the past few weeks, a particularly terrible strain of the flu has been ravaging through each and every team participating in this year’s NHL games. As a result, an unprecedented amount of players have been forced to the sideline. So Shane’s been taking extra precautions so as not to get sick; he’s always cautious about germs and contagion, especially during competition, but he’s become even more obsessive since hearing about the flu. He can’t get sick. He’s a team captain for fucks sake, and he knows his mom has arranged some brand deal that rides on his performance being nothing short of perfect.
The fact that he happens to be playing against Ilya Rozanov today has nothing to do with his need to remain healthy. Why would it?
— 6:00 AM —
The piercing ring of a hotel alarm clock breaks through the sleepy silence hanging in Shane’s room, forcing him to open his eyes and leave the cozy reprieve of his covers. Goosebumps immediately spread over his skin as he extends an arm towards the nightstand, fingers fumbling to turn off the alarm.
He blindly presses whatever buttons he can find on the little alarm clock— how can something so small have so many buttons? The beeping continues every other second, loud enough that Shane’s certain his neighbor must be able to hear it through the paper-thin walls.
“C’mon.” A groan falls from his lips as he pushes himself upright and leans over to flick on the lamp. His eyes squeeze shut in response to the bright fluorescent white of the bulb, a splinter of pain forming in the center of his forehead. After what feels like ages, he manages to stop the assault to his ears and collapses back into the bed. A tight pain still pinches between his brows, forcing another soft— surprisingly stuffy— groan.
He raises a hand, gently massaging two fingers against the bridge of his nose just between his eyes. Tension eases ever so slightly, releasing a bit of discomfort and coaxing his eyes closed once more. Typically, Shane would be up already. He’d already have coffee brewing. He’d be checking in with his team to make sure they’ll be game ready.
He would not, under any circumstance, be falling back to sleep.
But heavy lids are tugging themselves downwards, blanketing over his eyes and refusing to budge. The mattress is doing its part to lull him back to sleep too, hugging sore muscles and offering a comfort he craves. One more minute. Shane concedes.
Just one more minute, then he’ll pull himself out of bed and start his routine. So what if he’s a little behind schedule?
— 9:49 am —
A panicked Shane dashes through constantly shifting dreams, jumping from reality to reality, all while running too slow. A buzzing sound chases after him, too loud, too tangible, too real— Shane’s torso snaps upwards in bed as another buzz cuts through his dream, a surprised inhale stuttering in his chest and forcing a cough before he can register the fact that he had fallen back to sleep. Muscles twinge and ache in protest when he raises a fist to his mouth, doing his best to stifle the rattling cough despite being alone in his hotel room.
The continuous buzzing draws his attention once he’s done, buried somewhere beneath his blankets. Shane blinks slowly, his brain two steps behind as he tries to decipher what the fuck is going on. Everything is clouded beneath a hot, bleary haze; heat clings to his skin in a sticky sheen of sweat. The hotel must have turned down the AC in an attempt to save on electricity.
As Shane rifles through the tangled knot of blankets, the buzzing of his phone grows louder, as if it's irritated that it had taken him this long to answer its call. Finally, Shane’s hand wraps around the electronic’s frame and pulls it from the mess of sheets, thumb swiping right to answer the call before he even reads the ID.
“Shane? Where the fuck are you?”
“Whadt?” His voice sits too heavy in his throat, having to fight through a wall of congested phlegm just to be heard.
“Jesus man… Are you sick? You sound like Hayden.”
The mention of being sick snaps Shane out of his reverie, and by reflex he immediately denies the accusation. “Ndo. Why are you calling?” He stops himself from adding ‘and who is this?’ — that probably wouldn’t be received well.
“It’s almost ten.”
Fuck. Shane practically throws himself out of bed at that, ignoring the way his hotel room lurches to the side and spins unpleasantly. Aching feet carry him to his suitcase and he starts to dig through his neatly folded clothes as the person— who he’s now deduced is probably one of his teammates— continues, “look, the game’s not until two thirty, but—”
“I kdow.” Shane interrupts, offering a tired, “Fuck. I overslept.”
His teammate goes silent. Shane Hollander doesn’t oversleep, every member of the Metros knows that; they tease him for it relentlessly: his neat schedules, his need for routine, his obsessive insistence that they follow the same pre-game plan for good luck.
Shane takes the moment of silence to strip off his sweatpants and boxers, ignoring the way they stick to his skin, hot and damp with sweat. Weird.
“Okay…” comes the teammates' belated answer. “Well, we’re all getting lunch before the game. I’ll text you the details.”
“Cool.” Is all Shane offers in response, too focused on staying upright as he struggles against his athletic shorts. The headache he’d previously woken up with is starting to bloom again, egged on by the white lights and lack of caffeine in his system. He just needs some coffee to get the day started, that’s all. He ends the call, tugs off his t-shirt and pads over to the little coffee station in the corner of his hotel room.
Three cups of coffee and a shower later, his headache has grown from a mild irritation to a full on ache. It’s taken residence behind his eyes, leeching out towards his temples in an attempt to spread further.
— 11:30 am —
No amount of caffeine or tylenol is sufficient in combatting Shane’s headache. He feels hungover: heavy and sluggish in all the wrong ways. He must’ve slept worse than he had thought. No wonder he’d fallen behind schedule this morning.
When he meets his team at a nearby restaurant— something nice, healthy, and big enough that they can seat most of the Metros— he’s met with a mix of reactions: a little teasing at his break from routine, a joking “look who decided to show up?” alongside a jeer of “captain oh captain!”, and a few concerned glances. Shane smiles as amicably as he can, hoping his lips curve into a pleasant smile rather than the grimace he’s been sporting all morning. It’s as if his body has forgotten what that’s supposed to look like, and all he manages to muster up is a half-hearted, awkward twinge of his lips. No one seems to mind, they’re more than used to Shane’s behavior by now.
He doesn’t pay attention to the seat he’s offered. Usually he’d opt to sit with Hayden, but with his friend gone, he doesn’t have any particular preference in company. Besides, the conversation goes over his head, jumping from topic to topic so fast he can barely play catch up. Occasionally, a bark of laughter will pierce through the cotton filling his ears and jab at his headache.
Still, no one seems to pay him any notice. It’s not unusual for him to go quiet, especially before games, when he’s so caught up in going over strategy that he’s likely to ignore whoever’s speaking to him— on accident, of course, he’s not trying to be rude. Today there’s no strategy rattling around in his mind. He’s not reviewing gameplay or statistics or mapping out how he anticipates the game to go. In fact, he’s hardly cognisant of the fact that they’ll be playing against the Raiders in under four hours.
He’s too distracted by the sensation in the center of his face that won’t stop tugging at his sinuses. It’s not quite an itch, but more so a prickling irritation that grows with each stuffy inhale he takes. Every few breaths, it twinges at the base of his nose, urging tears to his well in his eyes. He blinks them back into submission, slipping a napkin off the table and glancing around to see if anyone is looking his way. They aren’t, all preoccupied with the social distraction they need to unwind before a game.
The napkin’s material is rough against his septum, doing a poor job of wiping away the moisture collecting there, and doing an even worse job of appeasing the buzzing in his nose. Shane’s expression falters, brows pinching together as the prickle becomes a fully fledged itch. Tenting the napkin over his nose in anticipation, he waits… and waits… his attention is devoted to the sensation, ebbing and flowing with each breath, keeping his expression caught in limbo. He must look like an absolute idiot with the bottom half of his face shielded, his eyes squinted and glassy, and his brows pulled upwards.
“hhmPDsSXChh!” Both hands secure the napkin over his nose and mouth as he muffles the first soft expulsion. He waits, posture hunched, as a second lingers.
“Bless you!” Someone claps him on the back, catching him by surprise. His body reacts before he can, drawing a sharp breath before another “hih’zSSXchHhuh!” is caught damp against the cloth. He squeezes the napkin over his nose, dragging it down and pinching away any moisture. “Exguse mbe.”
His chair scrapes against the floor as he pushes it back, disappearing from the table before anyone can comment on the second sneeze. How he manages to find the bathroom is beyond him; his legs feel like stilts: stiff, uncomfortable, disconnected from the rest of his body. But they’re nothing compared to the absolute sludge of concrete that’s taken refuge in his head. His ears thrum with every step, the pounding of his heart growing to a deafening volume as he fumbles to lock the single stall behind him. He had skipped breakfast, and clearly his body isn’t happy with him.
Shane’s brain turns to autopilot. He washes his hands, blows his nose, washes his hands again, and then repeats that process several more times. By the time he’s done, his nose is pink and flushed, already glistening with a damp sheen despite his best efforts. He blinks at the Shane that meets him in the mirror— dazed, sweaty, with dark circles beneath his eyes.
Before his feverish brain can focus long enough to reach the conclusion that he might just be sick, a pang of anxiety hits him. His gaze shifts, staring down at the shoes tied snug around his feet and realizing he’d left his Reeboks at the hotel. His mom had only one request for him: “Wear your Reeboks if you go out honey.” It was simple, right? All he’d needed to do was put on a pair of shoes.
If Shane hadn’t been feverish, sleep deprived, and neglecting his body’s every need, he might’ve realized that this was a total non-issue. Key word being “if”. Shane rushes back to the table, collects his jacket, puts twenty bucks on the table to help pay for the bill, mumbles incoherently about forgetting something, and then dashes out of the restaurant.
His lunch sits uneaten on the table.
— 2:00 pm —
Time is playing a mean trick on Shane today, passing too quickly all while making him feel like he’s moving in slow motion. Movements that typically come naturally to him require more effort; even tying the laces of his skates feels difficult, fingers fumbling over one another as he struggles to tie them tight enough.
The roar of the crowd is gradually growing louder in the background, though the locker room does a relatively good job of drowning out the cheering. Only a few people are talking, most are preoccupied getting themselves ready to go out on the ice. The room fills with the typical pre-game noise: the re-taping of sticks, the click of skates against the floor, the rustling of layers as they put on their gear.
Everything sits too heavy on Shane’s body— too tight, too hot. It presses into his skin in all the wrong places, and he itches to peel it off. Usually he finds comfort in putting on the layers of pads and guards, fashioned to protect his body from damage. Today, he’s suffocated by it all, almost as much as he’s suffocated by the congestion that’s settled in his sinuses.
He just needs to push through the discomfort. Once he’s on the ice, he’ll be okay, he’s sure of it. He has to be.
A quiet buzz sounds from beside him, the screen of his phone lighting up with a notification from Lily. He snatches it up in an instant, as if someone might see and decipher that the pseudonym is his rival’s.
‘You are ready to lose?’
Shane stares at the letters, reading and re-reading the message, eyes narrowing as he lingers on ‘to lose.’ His feverish brain struggles to brush off the taunt, letting Ilya get under his skin in all the wrong ways. He blinks down at the screen, vaguely registering the fact that his nose has begun to twitch.
A minute passes before he receives a second text. ‘1345. Ramada Plaza.’ His breath catches in his chest when he reads it, nostrils flaring in protest of the sudden inhale.
Shane shoves his phone back into his locker, reaching for a pack of travel tissues he has hidden in the bottom of his bag instead of replying. His hands shake as he tugs one out; it catches on the plastic, reluctant to release from its enclosure. The delicate paper tears in half on its way out, leaving Shane with a flimsy, half destroyed tissue that almost dissolves into nothing when he presses it to his septum.
The appendage takes no time in forcing out a stuffy, “hHdtsSSCsh’uh!’ that absolutely wrecks the tissue held to his nose. He’s used to embarrassingly long build ups, ones that tease him and toy with his nose for sometimes minutes on end. So the expulsion takes him by surprise, casting a damp spray over his fingertips that leave them glistening. He wipes his cupid's bow with the sorry excuse of a tissue as best he can, cringing at himself and trying not to let the surplus of germs get to him.
Shane disposes of the tissue before dousing his hands in sanitizer, making sure that the gel works over every inch of his skin. When he’s finally satisfied, he glances at his phone again. He’d missed a notification from Lily: ‘When I win, what will you give me as reward?’
‘The flu’ would be the most realistic answer.
Shane doesn’t get the chance to think of a response. One of his teammates nudges his shoulder, and he looks up to find everyone’s eyes on him. Oh, right. They’re about to go on the ice and warm up, now is usually when he gives a pre-game speech. He clears his throat, swallowing back a mix of anxiety and phlegm.
“Uh… We all kdow the plan today. Gedt out there, give idt our all, and –sndff– win.” He pauses, clearing his throat again. The rest of the speech comes naturally to him, thank god; he’s given enough of them that he could do it in his sleep— or with a rising fever, apparently. Words fall from his tongue one after the other without second thought, strung together into sentences that somehow inspire enough confidence in the team that they’re willing to ignore the thick congestion in Shane’s voice.
— 2:30 pm —
Gametime.
Every one of the Metros goes silent once they’re on the ice, each of them falling into various stretching and warm up routines, skirting around the rink to get a feel for it. The roar of the stadium is deafening, echoing loudly and pushing Shane’s headache past the point of return. Commentators fight against the cacophony of cheers, speakers pushed up to their maximum volume in order to be heard over the crowd.
All too soon, the time to prepare for the game is over, and it’s as if reality has hit Shane over the head with a two-ton brick. Now that he’s standing on the ice, it dawns on him that the symptoms he’s been experiencing for the past 24 hours weren’t pre-game jitters, but the beginning stages of the flu. Whether it was fever or sheer insanity that convinced him he was healthy, he doesn’t know. What he does know is that he’s sick. And he absolutely, one hundred percent, should not be standing face to face with Ilya Rozanov in the center of the rink. His previous ignorance is replaced with panic, thrumming hot in his chest, coursing head to toe in a dizzying rush.
Ilya’s expression looks a bit confused when Shane finally meets his eyes— had he said something? Maybe, but Shane doesn’t have a chance to figure it out. The whistle sounds, and with that, the game begins.
His movements are sloppy, seconds too late with every swing and block he attempts to make. Ilya claims the puck from him in an instant; he fails to register the taunt “like taking candy from baby” before his rival disappears into the rink. The rink that spins around Shane, catching him off guard every few minutes when it suddenly tosses him off his kilter.
How much time has passed, he can’t say. It’s once again playing games with him, speeding up so quickly that all he can do is skate back and forth across the ice uselessly. To make matters worse, he doesn't have a single inkling as to what the score is, fever has taken away that ability. Never in his life has Shane not known the score of a hockey match, and it becomes absolutely evident to himself and his team that he’s fucked.
There’s color; a blend of reds, whites, blacks, and yellows skirting around over the ice, all of it in patterned whirls. It dances with each of the player’s frames, seemingly a step behind them— a momentary lag in his vision. The colored bursts only fade when lids, heavy and slow like molasses, suddenly fall closed.
How odd. He doesn’t remember telling his eyes to shut.
“Hollander!” Far-off voices form an ugly harmony, varied in pitches, in intensity, but stinging nonetheless. The abrasive sounds ring through his head. Stop, a voice pleads, it’s too loud. His skull’s ache renders him useless.
“The Metros captain seems to be taking a pit stop in the middle of the rink. He’s certainly worse for wear this evening, and the Raiders are taking full advantage of this uncharacteristically poor performance.”
The echo of the commentary registers in Shane’s mind after a few painstakingly slow seconds. He forces his eyes open, colors surrounding him in a blur, so much so that he nearly stumbles backwards. By some miracle, he remains upright, but that doesn't make him any more capable of participating in the match.
Brunette hair clings to his face beneath his helmet, wet from heat that swallows him in a sweltering haze. Stuffy, heavy breaths force their way between his lips; if the stadium weren’t so loud, each exhale would have been an audible huff.
“Hollander!!” Sharper this time, closer, accompanied with a hit to his shoulder as one of his teammates passes by and snaps him out of his reverie. Everything comes back at once— too sharp, too loud, too hot.
‘The game.’ He reminds himself. How could he have forgotten; he’s standing in the center of it for fucks sake.
But flakes of shaved ice still sit uselessly beneath his unmoving skates. It’s as if his body has become separate from his mind, entirely incapable of moving, despite the fact that his brain is screaming at his legs ‘move, move, move!’
They tremble instead, forcing him to shake like a leaf beneath the layers of clothing and thick padding he adorns. Another body passes by him, blurring into a mash of red and white. He wonders where Ilya is, if he’s one of the smudges of black and yellow skirting around in front of him. Cheering thunders through the stadium just as the shivering begins to overwhelm Shane.
Ilya. Shane thinks, forcing his head to turn to the side so he can look for his rival. The stadium turns with it, churning into a blur that forces a few heavy, unhelpful blinks. His breaths are coming quicker, thinner, and he staggers, stumbling on the ice. “Ilya.”
Beneath layers of gear, Shane’s skin feels charred, burning to the point of no return. He feels the soreness of his throat as he repeats, “Ilya,” though his voice is useless against the commotion of the crowd. Chest heaving, vision blurring, Shane’s feet work to push himself towards the edge of the rink, his body turning to fight or flight.
“It looks like Hollander is trying to exit the rink despite only being twenty minutes into the game. Although, I’m starting to wonder if he’s been here at all. We’ve never seen such an abysmal—”
Shane blinks again, looking down at the moving ice in surprise. He just barely realizes that it's his skates he’s watching when the ringing in his ears worsens tenfold. His head lulls downwards, then jerks up as his body fights to stay conscious. Only seconds later, his vision blurs, the world tilts, and he falls into a sea of deafening black.
“Shane Hollander has just passed out on the ice! The medical team is making their way to him now, but it looks like Rozanov is the first to reach his side. Rivals or not, that’s astounding sportsmanship from the Raiders’ captain."
After hours of pampering, sitting in the ER, and having his vitals taken and retaken, Shane is finally back in the comfort of his hotel. Fatigue has burrowed deep in his chest, and it pulls him down onto his bed before he can so much as think about the food left in the minifridge.
He’s spent the last few hours in and out of consciousness, just cognizant enough to answer the medics questions and take the medicine shoved at him. He remembers little to nothing about the match or the chaos that had followed aside from a phone call from his mom. She’d switched between yelling at him for his sheer idiocy and asking if he was okay for what felt like ages, and he hardly had a voice to respond, nor the mental energy to process whatever lecture he was being given.
There’s a wetness on his face, tears perhaps, or sweat. He’s not entirely sure which— maybe both. Then there’s the softness of clean sheets, of a mattress, of blankets that calm the burning of his skin and offer a relief that tries to tease out more tears. God, he’s exhausted. It’s no surprise that the flu test had signalled as positive almost instantly, or that his fever had been over 102 by the time he got off the ice.
Feelings of embarrassment and shame linger, mulling through the thick fog in his mind, though they’re not nearly as prevalent as thoughts of Ilya. His phone had died soon after his call with his mom and he’d been left without a charger. Not that he should be messaging Ilya right now. They didn’t do that. They did casual, noncommittal sexting. That’s it.
The memory of an unsent text burns in Shane’s memory: we didn’t even kiss.
Then, another memory, just after he and Ilya had spent hours exploring one another’s bodies; rounds of sex with brief intermissions of teasing, or silence. Shane almost preferred the silence, to sit in a calm haze with Ilya before they fucked until they were too tired to continue, too content to be devoured by kisses.
With a groan of discomfort, Shane rolls over and tugs a cord up onto his bed, shoving its tip into the base of his phone and willing his eyes not to slip shut as he waits. Now that he’s laying down, alone, he has nothing to distract him from the ache of his fever. Heat combs its way up his sides, dancing over his torso and planting goosebumps in its wake. It licks at his skin, leaving a dampness that clings to every inch of his body. He wishes it was Ilya blanketed over his body rather than sickness.
Shane watches the blank, black screen of his phone in anticipation. He shifts so half of his face is plastered to the mattress, one eye smushed shut as the other continues to watch the screen. Congestion pools in the center of his face before slipping down within his nose and dripping out of the pink appendage. He snuffles uselessly as a drop of moisture creeps over his upper lip. The sensation is enough to urge him upwards. Pushing himself upright is slow, dizzying to the point of exhaustion, but he manages to sit up and grab a tissue just as his expression goes slack.
He tents the tissue over his nose with both hands, waiting in utter desperation as an itch toys with the sinuses— prickling here, burning there, loosening the wall of congestion in his right nostril while blocking up the left even more. “hh’uHh” He sucks in a stuffy breath, but it falls short, coming out as nothing more than a huff. And so the build up begins.
By the time he finally manages to catch a wet “hhHnsSChh’uew!” into the folds of the tissue, his phone has returned to life. He blinks down at the screen, keeping the tissue in place as he watches the missed notifications pop up— missed calls from both his parents, from Hayden, from Ilya.
“ih’DzsSCHhmph’uh!”
The second sneeze soaks the tissue entirely, leaving it flimsy and torn between his hands. Against every habit and need for cleanliness he has ingrained in him, Shane sets the mess of tissue aside and replaces it with a few new ones.
Blowing his nose is no easy feat. It takes him ages to make a dent in the wall of phlegm and congestion that just keeps coming, but eventually he’s able to breathe through one side of his nose. The pile of tissues beside him has tripled in number, and he cringes as he gathers them into a disgusting wad and stands. The world shifts, blurring with little black smudges and throwing him forwards a bit. He stumbles, somehow managing to catch himself before falling face first onto the hotel’s carpet.
After washing his hands for as long as he possibly can and dragging the miniature trashcan from the bathroom to his bedside, Shane settles into his mattress once again. Sweaty palms press into his eyes, rubbing hard enough to ease the ache that’s been settled behind them since this morning.
Bzzzt! His phone sounds from beside him. Then another. Bzzzt!
Dropping his hands from his face with a quiet whine of protest, Shane picks up his phone and answers without second thought— he really should check caller ID before doing so, but fever has dulled any sense of reason he has.
“Hollander?”
Shane freezes, opening his eyes and finding that he’s not on call with his mom like he’d expected, but rather on facetime with Ilya. The Russian doesn’t wait for a response, his hand running through tousled hair as he curses. “Jesus fucking christ. You do not answer your phone all fucking day. Is not that hard to pick up, yes?”
“Uhm…” A cough sputters out, caught against Shane’s sleeve. “Sorry.” He rasps. “It died.”
Ilya’s eyes are pinched at the corners, his face creased with worry. “Of course it did, fuck.” He studies Shane’s complexion, eyes flicking from his rival’s adorably pink nose to his glassy eyes. If he notices the dried tears on his cheeks, he doesn't mention it. “Where is your hotel?”
Shane just blinks in response, mouth held slightly agape since he can’t breathe through his nose. “Whadt?”
“Your hotel. Where is it?” When Shane doesn’t reply again, Ilya mutters a curse in Russian before trying again. “Where. Are. You. Staying?” He annunciates each word slowly, as if speaking to a very young, very stupid child. Shane has to stop himself from smiling at Ilya’s pronunciation of “where”— vhere.
“The Hampdton.” His brain stalls. “I don’t… I can’t… fugk tonighd.”
The Russian looks at Shane with an expression he can’t place before shaking his head. “You think I do not know this? Idiot. What is your room number?”
Once again, Ilya isn’t met with an answer right away. Except this time, it’s fairly clear that Shane can’t reply. His eyes are squinting, focussed on some far-off corner of the room as his mouth falls further agape. Dewy lashes flutter shut just as he raises his arm, burying his nose in the crook of his elbow. If this had happened any other day, he would have muted himself and moved out of frame— although, if it was any other day, he wouldn’t be on facetime with Ilya Rozanov.
He waits, his breath catching in a soft “hhh” that flares his nostrils outwards beneath the fabric of his hoodie. Ilya watches him stay stuck like that for almost ten full seconds, cherishing the vulnerability he sees in that moment, before he comments, “Fuck Hollander. You even make sneezing boring.”
Shane blinks in surprise, as if he’d forgotten he has an audience, but it’s enough to break his focus, and he pitches further into his elbow as his expression collapses. “hih’MpHDsSSChh’ue!” The damp, soft sneeze is followed by a wet cough, buried deep into the fabric of his hoodie. Ilya waits until he’s done before murmuring, “bud’te zdorovy.”
Finally Shane comes to his senses enough to set his phone to the side and mute himself, practically choking over a stuttered breath as he dives back into his elbow. His entire chest rattles with the coughs, lungs tightening and throat searing with enough pain to bring tears to his eyes. Blearily, he reaches for a tissue, clearing his nose once again.
The whole ordeal takes a few minutes, and Shane’s ears are almost too stuffy to pick up on Ilya’s comment. “You sound like you have lion in your chest.”
Shane clears his throat, mumbling, “you meand frog in mby throadt?” in confusion before it dawns on him that Ilya could hear him. He fumbles to pick up his phone again— not muted. His face burns with embarrassment.
“Ah, there you are.” Ilya hums when Shane pops up on screen again. “Now, tell me your room number.”
“386.” The answer comes immediately; if Ilya asks something of him, he’ll answer, of course he will. “Why?”
“Okay. I will go there soon.” With that, Ilya hangs up, leaving Shane wide eyed and thoroughly confused. The aching of his head returns as soon as the call ends, and once again, he’s left without any distractions from his symptoms.
Shane falls into a delirious sleep minutes later, fully convinced he’d dreamt the whole conversation.
the dashes got so messed up when i pasted this from docs </3 please believe me when i say it looked pretty. anyways, thank you for reading!!
ok so I finally finished being torn to shreds by finals and can join the h/eated r/ivalry fun! I have read a total of one (1) fic so far bc I was banned from enjoying things until I locked in, but I have been writing this in the backgrounddd. anyway, have a little all star moment, idk what year, don't ask meee, pre 2017 tho.
also shoutout to @poetic-illness for explaining the concept of hockey 700 times until it went into my brain enough for me to write this, and for waiting like three weeks for me to finish it lol.
I hope you enjoy! ♡
fandom: h/eated r/ivalry
word count: 5.5k
cw: sneezing, general illness, contagion, stupidity on so many levels
Shane struggled slightly as Ilya pushed him against the wall. He was trying not to let the feeling of the Russian’s tongue in his mouth freak him out. Obviously this always slightly freaked him out, but right now… was it wrong not to tell the other man he was sick? Was he not telling him because he didn't want him to stop kissing him or because he didn't want him to know? Would he even stop kissing him if he knew? Probably not.
As though reading his mind, Ilya stopped kissing him and pulled back. Shane licked his lips and tried to be subtle about gasping for air. He couldn't really breathe through his nose anymore.
“What is wrong with you?” The blond asked, bluntly.
Shane's heartbeat quickened, and he saw on Ilya’s face that he could feel the speed of his pulse change with his hand still wrapped around the Canadian’s throat. His eyes narrowed, searching Shane's face for answers.
“Nothing.” And after a second he added “Fuck you.” But he really meant ‘move on’. Either keep kissing me or leave, this is the last thing I want to talk about. Shane tried to convey that message with his eyes as Ilya inched closer again.
“You're lying, Hollander.” His words were a whisper, low, dangerous, almost a warning.
It was too late to tell him now, he'd essentially sabotaged the other man's ability to play at his best by infecting him. Technically that didn’t matter that much for this weekend, but he knew the Russian needed to be perfect and to set records like he needed the wins on regular games, always proving he deserved to be there. “Shut up.” He spun them around so Ilya was the one pressed against the wall, leaning in to kiss him aggressively as emphasis for his words.
Ilya, to his credit, shut up. He took a fistful of Shane's shirt, kissing him back as he pulled him in to grind against his hip bone needily.
This time there was no room for gasped breaths in between kisses, Ilya keeping their faces so tightly pressed together that Shane couldn't pull away. He could feel the Russian's warm breath coming in pants through his nose against Shane's cheek. Must be nice to take full breaths like that.
They kept kissing until the Canadian’s lungs started to burn and he pushed hard on Ilya's shoulders until he was able to pull back.
Ilya kept his grip on Shane's shirt, though he let him step back a pace or two, watching like a hawk as the brunet caught his breath.
Just as he felt like he could breathe again, his heart dropped as he felt his nose start to itch. He couldn't attend to it with him standing right there, watching.
“Uh I'm gonna go-” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the bathroom “-clean up.“
Shane rolled his eyes on purpose and wrinkled his nose involuntarily. “Let go.”
“No.”
The itch was starting to become a problem now. Shane felt his nostrils flare, and hoped to hell it read as anger. “Fuck you, man. Let m-” He gasped as the itch flared, one hand coming up to try to rip the blond’s hand from his shirt as the other scrubbed over his face as if he was frustrated.
Ilya only held on tighter. “What is wrong with you? Tell me or I don't let you go.”
Shane, utterly helpless to resist, twisted as far from his rival as he could with him holding on to the front of his shirt, pinched his nose tightly, and ducked in the direction of his far shoulder.
“hhEhNGT!”
He didn't turn back. He didn't need to see that look on Ilya's face, and besides, he knew he was blushing, which would just be another thing for the Russian to tease him about.
“God bless you.” He said the words slowly, savouring them. There was intrigue in his tone, and it sent fiery anger through Shane's veins. He felt like an animal in a zoo, trapped, observed, ridiculed. How stupid of him to think this was a good idea, something to take his mind off how shitty he felt. As if Ilya wasn't going to notice.
“Thanks. Fuck, I’m sorry.” He muttered, chancing a look back at him.
The blond’s face was unreadable, and his grip loosened on Shane's shirt as he spoke. “You don't have to apologise. If you didn't have to do it, clearly you would not have.”
Shane felt his face heat up again, and he dropped his gaze to the floor. It snapped sharply back up though, when he felt Ilya's cool palm push back his hair to rest on his forehead. How he could keep a hold of his stick on the ice when his hands ran cold anyway was a mystery. The gloves only did so much. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed it either. Every time their hands touched it sent a shock through him, for multiple reasons.
“The fuck are you doing?” He ducked away.
Ilya remained unbothered. “You're warm. You're sick.”
“I'm…I'm flushed. I'm fine.”
Ilya cocked his head. “I am making you blush, then?”
“No.” Shane stared back at him, defiantly, caught between a rock and a hard place. And unfortunately the hard place wasn't-
“You are sick, then.”
“No.”
“People do not turn pink for no reason, Hollander.”
“I’m not- this was a bad idea.” He smoothed down his hair one handed, walking towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Ilya pushed himself off the wall, starting to follow. “This is your room.”
Shane hunched his shoulders, scrubbing at his nose where he was reasonably sure the Russian couldn’t see. “I’m walking you out.”
“So polite.” Ilya’s tone was impassive, even as he closed the gap between them, spinning Shane around by the shoulder and pressing him up against the door.
The Canadian felt like his nose was a massive neon sign in the middle of his face, screaming ‘I’m sick as hell, look at me!’. Ilya’s eyes were fixed on it, making him mentally kick himself for abusing it so violently on his way to the door. It was probably bright red. Fuck. He could feel it still prickling with itchy desperation, the instinct to expel this shit from his system almost irresistible.
The blond reached up, totally mesmerised, and drew a finger, feather light, around one of the brunet's flaring nostrils. And now the instinct was completely irresist-
“heh-” Shane panted, trying to fit his arm between their chests so he could reach his face.
“Something wrong?” Ilya’s eyes flashed with amusement as he blocked him.
“M-hh-ove.” He gritted his teeth, fighting with every muscle in his body to hold it together.
“Or what?”
Shane looked at him as incredulously as he could with his eyes half shut and his nostrils flaring and then shifted all his weight onto one foot…on top of one of Ilya’s.
“Ow!” The Russian looked down, pulling his foot away and taking a step back. “You could have just-”
“hEHNGTt!”
“-said ‘please’.” He waited for Shane to turn back from where he’d ducked off to one side. “God bless you.”
“You don’t have to say that every time.” He sighed, reaching for the door handle.
“What, ‘please’? I think you do.” Ilya reached a hand over his head to press on the door, keeping it from opening.
“Just go. I'm not going to fuck you.” The energy was draining from Shane fast, and with it his patience.
“Why? Because you are sick?”
Shane snapped immediately, willing to try anything to get this asshole out of his room. “So what if I am? Why do you care?”
Ilya’s expression didn’t shift. “First, you just put your tongue in my mouth. Second, we are teammates right now. I need to know if you are going to pull your weight.”
Shane scoffed, and then swallowed clumsily, trying not to cough. “Of course I’m going to pull my fucking weight. I’m fine.” It was not a particularly witty defence, but he wasn’t in the mood to go back and forth endlessly.
“Yeah, right.” A flicker of roguishness crossed his face, and he leaned in, kissing the Canadian deeply, tongue quickly making a circuit of his mouth before Shane could push him away.
“What-”
“Now I am ‘fine’ too.” Ilya smiled wickedly, taking his hand off the door and letting Shane open it.
“You’re such an idiot.” He muttered, as though his heart wasn’t pounding in his ears.
“Don’t die, okay? It won’t be boring enough playing without you.”
“I’m not gonna die,” Shane started to shut the door, ignoring the jab. “It’s just a cold.”
“Ha!” Ilya pointed a triumphant finger at him. “You admit it!”
“Fuck off.” And he shut the door, frustration at himself for the slip rising in his chest. Shane sighed, his tongue tracing the path Ilya’s had taken as if trying to replicate the feeling it had given him. This game was going to be a shitshow. If both of them made it that far, that was.
…
A knock on the door roused Shane from a feverish slumber on top of the covers. He’d blown off the days activities, getting up just long enough to send a few apologetic messages, order room service that he barely ate, and stretch on the balcony for all of 30 seconds before he got too cold and tired. Who the fuck-? Actually, he didn’t care. He needed every second of rest he could get before the events started. He wasn’t getting up unless the building was on fire.
Shane was just burrowing back under the hoodie he was using as a makeshift blanket, being too hot to put it all the way on but too cold to leave it all the way off, when his phone dinged.
“Ughh.” He groaned, fumbling around for it without looking.
Lily: Answer the fucking door.
Shane stared blankly at the screen. Shouldn’t he be at the bar? Or the gym? Or picking up some random woman just for the fun of it? Or picking up some random woman because his usual booty call was utterly disgusting right now. Did Ilya even know the phrase ‘booty call’?
Lily: I hear you groaning. Answer the door.
With another sigh that he immediately regretted, wondering if Ilya had heard that too, Shane pushed himself to his feet and staggered in the direction of the door. The second it was open, Ilya was pushing past him and staring at himself in the mirror.
“What the fuck did you do to me, Hollander?”
“Wha- nothing, you did it to yourself!”
“Yes,” Ilya spun to face him, eyes darkly contrasted hollows that made Shane’s widen, “After you did it to me.”
His accent was stronger than usual, and coupled with the congestion and apparent shortness of breath, the words were barely discernible. Shane wondered if he’d run up the stairs rather than taking the elevator or if the illness was just hitting him that hard.
“I’m… sorry.” He really didn’t know what else to say, wondering why this hadn’t just been a text. Or a few days of the silent treatment. Something more distant. More Ilya.
“I’ll forgive you,” He grabbed his hoodie by the bottom, pulling it up and over his head. Shane shivered, watching him immediately break out in goosebumps. “After we fuck.”
“Right now?” The Canadian frowned, thinking of the ache in his muscles, and the prickling in his skin at the thought of taking his clothes off, despite the perfectly temperate room.
“Yes, right now. I can’t breathe with my nose. We can use the shower if you’re cold.” Ilya started walking decisively in the direction of the bathroom.
“…yeah alright.” Shane headed after him, drawn in by the idea of steam and heat, and someone to hold him up if he got dizzy this time. Although actually, Ilya might be equally likely to pass out under the warm water if he was anywhere near as sick as he looked.
…
The sound of the water drumming on the tile was irritating. It felt like it was physically tapping on his ears, and Shane wanted to recoil, to turn the shower off, to block the water. A quick glance at Ilya told him the Russian was probably thinking the same thing, brow furrowed in frustration. Was this awkward? Waiting here together? Should he have said something, or taken his clothes off or-?
Shane glanced back at the shower, still no steam rising from within. As annoying as the sound may be, it was a whole lot better than standing under freezing water. Although maybe not for his fever, which was probably the thing causing him to be so damn sensitive to the sound in the first place.
“Do you have more towels?” Ilya broke the annoyingly-not-silence.
“Oh uh, yeah. In the wardrobe probably.” His mind was too full of fog to think that far ahead. He just wanted to be warm and satiated, with no ‘afterwards’.
Ilya stepped out of the bathroom to get the necessary linen, and Shane used the time to glare at the shower and give himself a once over in the mirror. It was hard to say which one of them looked worse.
“H-Hollander-” Shane looked to the doorway, to see the blond had returned, and was holding out the towels to him with a frantic look on his face. Well that certainly seemed worse.
“What?”
“T-ahh-ake them.” He insisted.
Shane took the towels obediently, startling at the speed with which Ilya snapped away from him, leaning out of the doorframe, only visible from the neck down as he-
The Canadian watched mesmerised as his abs contracted with each sneeze, and he shifted his grip on the doorframe from one hand to two, almost clinging on for dear life.
“Fuck.” They said in unison, once Ilya was finished.
“Bless you. Are you-”
“Don’t.” Ilya waved a hand, dismissing the question before it had even been asked. “It’s always like that.”
Shane watched him unceremoniously strip down the rest of the way, pressing past him with a meaningful look on his way to get into the shower.
“You getting in? It’s warm.” Ilya held out an inviting hand.
“Uh, yeah.” He put the towels down, fumbling his own clothes off, partially uncoordinated from the fever, partially rushing to not be standing naked in the cold for too often, partially longing to fall into Ilya’s waiting hands.
…
The two rivals lay splayed flat on the bed side by side, both breathing noisily through their mouths, with the occasional sniffle as the congestion the shower had dislodged shifted around.
With a slight groan of effort, Ilya pushed himself up so he was resting on his elbow, studying Shane, who got busy studying the ceiling and pretending like he hadn’t noticed. After a few seconds, the Russian moved closer, leaning in until Shane was forced to look. He grinned triumphantly at the small victory, prompting the Canadian to try to kiss the smirk off of his face.
Ilya rolled over so he was on top of Shane, pinning him to the bed, and deepened the kiss, both of them sniffling desperately, neither wanting to pull away to breathe. It was a competition now, who could go the longest-
Apparently Shane could go the longest at the undefined challenge, because Ilya pulled back before he could finish the thought, sitting straight up, knees either side of his rivals hips, and head tilted back slightly. Shane wondered if he was just dizzy from the limited oxygen the kiss had permitted, or if Ilya was swaying slightly.
“You okay?”
“I h-huh-have t-uhh-ikKH! hKk! hiHKk!- snee- iHKSHh! - sn- kKSHh! KSHhuh! hhUHKSHHoO! Fuck.” Ilya lowered the fist he’d been sneezing into, or at, really, and sniffled forcefully.
“Bless you.” Shane smiled, amused by the sight of his rival overtaken by desperation, unable to even get his words out without sneezing. That was unreasonably adorable.
“Thank you.” The Russian looked down, noticing his grin. “What? My suffering makes you happy?”
Shane stretched up, lacing his fingers together behind Ilya’s neck and pulling him back in, the fever and the vulnerability of it all making him forward. “You don’t look like you’re suffering. Are you?”
“Never.” Ilya kissed him, before wrinkling his nose and rolling off him, frustrated. “Ugh, fuck, this angle.” He rubbed at his nose, sniffling again as he tilted his head back to the ceiling.
“There’s tissues somewhere.” Shane tried to look helpful rather than captivated, sitting up to look.
“No.” The blond reached out, smacking passively at his chest with a cold hand to stop him from getting up. “Switch.”
“No, because then I’ll…I’ll be at that angle.” The Canadian said, awkwardly.
“So what? Your turn to suffer, my turn to be happy about it.”
“Shut up.” Shane lay back down, going back to staring at the ceiling. He could practically feel Ilya pouting in his direction.
They lay side by side for a little longer, the heat from the shower lingering enough that they didn’t feel the need to get under the covers. After a minute, Shane noticed the congestion in his head was beginning to shift, giving him a welcome reprieve from the headache he’d been noticing on and off all morning, but also sparking a feather light tickle in the back of his nose.
Shane stopped breathing for a moment, assessing the intensity of the itch, before suddenly pushing himself out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Ilya caught his wrist as he went past, gripping tightly.
“I- heHNGTt! I’m sorry, I have to-.”
For reasons unknown to Shane, the blond let go of his wrist easily, not pushing the issue, never taking his eyes off him, though, Shane able to feel his gaze on his back on his rapid route to the bathroom. As he shut the door, the Canadian took a shaky breath, raising his hand in preparation to stifle again and then startling at Ilya’s voice calling through from the bedroom.
“God bless you, by the way.”
He rolled his eyes, debating replying when his nose decided for him. Shane took a couple of steps away from the door, as though the short distance would make a difference in Ilya’s ability to hear him. He pinched his nose, avoiding his reflection in the mirror as he turned away for additional privacy.
“hhNGTt!” To his surprise, he found the itch not quelled after the single sneeze. His nose was practically buzzing with the need. Shane reached out, fumbling for the faucet and flicking it on. “hehNGTt!” This one bent him double, and he had no time to straighten up before, “hEhNGTchuh!”
Shane winced, blinking dizzily as he steadied himself on the sink. After a second he reached out and turned the tap off, staring at himself in the mirror exhaustedly. There was near silence, just the faucet dripping into the sink and his own breathing echoing off the tile, before Ilya’s muffled voice was audible through the door again.
“Bless you again, I assume.”
“Fuck you.” He called back, passively, though anxiety welled in his chest at the thought of Ilya imagining what he was doing in there. Why couldn’t he just pretend not to know, like a normal person?
Shane grabbed some tissues from the counter, blowing his nose as softly as possible before washing his hands and reluctantly leaving the bathroom.
“So, you come in my mouth, but you will not sneeze in front of me.” Ilya tilted his head to study Shane as he slinked back to bed.
The Canadian's brain took a second to catch up with that insane sentence, freezing at the side of the bed when he'd processed it. “What?”
“You are always trying to run away. Why? It is natural.”
“It’s-” Shane shook his head, slipping under the covers with a shiver.
“It’s what?”
His eyes closed automatically as he got comfortable, a welcome respite from Ilya’s discerning stare. “It’s nothing. Now either shut up or fuck off, I’m going to sleep.”
“You will eat, right?” Shane felt the bed move as the blond slipped out. Why had he hoped Ilya would pick ‘shut up’ rather than ‘fuck off’?
“Mmyeah.” He mumbled.
“What will you eat?”
“When will you wear wigs?” Shane responded, with a laugh that didn’t feel entirely like himself.
“What?”
“Shut up, I’m thinking.” He found himself halfway through mentally cataloguing the available food at his apartment before he remembered where he was. “Room service I guess.”
“You want me to order it?”
“No.”
“It took you two minutes just to decide you want ‘room service’ to eat, Hollander. You think you can hold a phone conversation?”
Ilya had a point, and Shane proved it by groaning incoherently in response.
“Okay. I will order, and then go. I have to ‘arrive’ soon.”
Shane went silent, remembering that technically, Ilya wasn’t even supposed to be in the state yet. They’d managed to get there early enough for a little fun before the events were due to begin, but now he was kind of wishing he’d spent the extra time resting at his apartment, and Ilya had spent the time as far away from him as possible. That way at least one of them would have been on top of their game for this week. Through the comforter over his head, he heard Ilya talking to the front desk, a muted thrill of anxiety running through him at the thought that they might notice the different accent from the last time he’d called.
The Russian hung up, and walked over to ruffle Shane’s barely visible hair. “Is done. See you for press, tomorrow.”
“See you.” The Canadian responded, although it was barely audible. He waited sullenly for Ilya’s footsteps to cross the room, and the door to open and shut before poking his head out. Wait, what the fuck had he actually ordered him?
…
Shane shifted his position against the wall for the fourth time in as many minutes, the fever and the anxiety combining to make him the most uncomfortable in a suit that he’d ever felt. And that was saying something. Situations where he had to dress up like this were not exactly his favourite. He sighed, rolling his shoulders back as he adjusted his stance again, the starched fabric of the suit rustling irritatingly as he did so.
“What?” Ilya almost snapped, studying him with a frown that was half focused scrutiny, half a defence against his headache.
Shane met his eyes immediately, unable to stop himself from voicing his anxieties now that he’d been prompted, “Just- what if they figure it out? Like we're sharing a fucking cold and we're not even on the same team normally. That's pretty fucking obvious, right?”
They were about to go into a press conference, just the two of them standing out in the corridor, waiting for someone to come out and bring them in. They could hear chairs shifting and the hubbub of reporters catching up with one another from inside the room. It was the waiting that was the problem, really. If they could just go in and get it over with… but no, they had to stand out here waiting, with nothing to do. Not a great setup considering their reported animosity for each other. What if they’d gotten into a fight and bludgeoned each other to death with the sponsored metal water bottles they were both currently sporting?
“Maybe.” Ilya's gaze turned distant as he thought for a moment. “It would be easier if more people were sick, yes?”
“Sure, but suddenly everyone's got immune systems of steel, seems like.” Shane sniffled softly as he lamented the lack of contagion resulting from their camaraderie.
“Maybe you should put your tongue down more of their throats.” Ilya cleared his own to make a point.
“Fuck off.”
The Russian moved closer in defiance, making the most of the pillar between them and the press room that partially shielded then from the view of anyone walking out that way.
Shane said nothing, inhibitions fever-dulled, desire to be touched, comforted magnified by the malaise, swallowing thickly as Ilya's face moved closer and closer to his, hands squeezed tightly around his water bottle as if holding it was an excuse not to move away. The blond captured his lips softly with his own before pulling back again. They shouldn’t be doing this. Not here.
His hand closed around the Canadian’s, tugging it away from the cool metal, and for a second Shane thought he was trying to be romantic. But no, he was just pressing his own water bottle into his other hand, freeing up both of his own so he could cup Shane's face as he kissed him. Fuck, they really shouldn’t be doing this.
It was daring, dangerous, and completely exhilarating, and as much as it chased away the nerves with something brighter and sharper, it didn't particularly help with how he was feeling physically, and Shane found himself sniffling helplessly against Ilya's cheek, trying to keep himself together. In more ways than one.
When they broke apart, he turned in the direction of his shoulder to sniff a little more forcefully, turning back with a wince, “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
Ilya pressed a single finger under his chin, tilting it upwards and then poking experimentally at his septum with his other hand. “We are both sick. It doesn’t matter.”
“D-hh-on’t do that!” Shane twisted his head out of Ilya's hands, crinkling his nose in an attempt to fight back against the automatic response.
“Why?” If he hadn't been so caught up in the need to sneeze, he would have been absolutely infuriated by the question, he was sure.
“B-ihh-ecause, it's gonna-” Shane attempted to shove Ilya's water bottle back into his hands, but the blond made no move to take it, “-make me sn-ihh-eeze you f-uhh-cking idiot.”
Ilya didn't respond, and his eyes were fluttering shut automatically, so he couldn't even see the Russian's expression as he fought the building urge, tooth and nail. Could he drop the bottles? There was nowhere to put them down and Ilya was clearly not going to be decent and take them. He could still feel the blond standing in front of him, keeping him trapped against the wall. Would it be more noticeable if he dropped the water bottles on the floor and sneezed silently or if he held on to them and sneezed aloud? But no hands to stifle meant no hands to cover, either, and with the Russian right in front of him…There was no good option here.
Just when Shane thought it was all over, and there was no way he could breathe without coming apart, he felt Ilya’s cold fingers suddenly pinching his nose shut. He opened his eyes to see that intense, daring look in the Russian’s gaze, but before he could process what was happening the shock washed away and the itch returned full force.
“hHNGGTt!”
Ilya’s hand retreated, but Shane’s eyes stayed closed, breath still catching and stuttering.
“Another?” He questioned, intrigued, attentive to the brunet’s stricken expression.
Shane could only nod. The strong, supportive grip returned. The urge to sneeze competed for attention with the butterflies in his stomach. Don’t think about it. Don’t fucking think about it.
“hHNGTTch! Sorry.” He muttered on the exhale, unable to stifle perfectly without the comfort of his own hands in control.
Ilya moved his hand to hold Shane’s chin instead, pulling him closer, forcing him to meet his gaze. “God.” He kissed him. “Bless.” And again. “You.” The third kiss was deeper, and the Canadian could feel him smirking into his mouth. Heat rushed to his face at the realisation of what had just happened, what he’d just done. He willed the blood away. Literally go anywhere else, he couldn’t walk into this thing blushing. Or wait, no- not anywhere else.
Ilya pulled back, immediately glancing over the hand he’d used to pinch Shane’s nose with passive curiosity. “How the fuck do you do that? I thought your head was going to explode.”
Shane shrugged, trying to regain the concept of 'casual'. “Practice.”
“Will you teach me?” Ilya took a step back, straightening his tie. “It looks useful.”
“Fuck no.” He was glad to already be flushed, because the image in his brain was enough to send all the blood to his head three times over, “I think it’s pretty bad for you anyway.”
“Then why-”
The door of the press room starting to open cut Ilya off. He snatched his water bottle back, taking a big step backwards as Shane ran a hand under his nose, checking he was presentable. He felt like he was still blushing. Fuck, was he blushing?
“Alright, we're ready for you guys now.”
“Thank you.” And without a glance backwards, Ilya was walking in. Shane took a staccato breath, suppressed a shudder, and followed him.
…
It was the same questions as usual, essentially. The expected questions, anyway. He answered them with barely a second thought, mind still out in the hallway. Until-
“Shane, somebody mentioned that you were feeling a little under the weather recently, is that going to affect your game at all?”
Shane’s heartbeat thumped in his chest, the lights suddenly ten times brighter, accusatory. Somebody had mentioned? Who the hell would even know that? He'd barely hinted at it when he'd cancelled yesterday. “Uh-”
“You heard wrong.” Ilya interrupted, leaning forward pointedly into his microphone. “I am sick. Not Hollander.” He punctuated the statement with a rough sniff, and a cough that he had the grace to direct slightly away from the microphone.
Floating outside of his body, Shane heard himself mutter, “Yeah.” into the mic before Ilya started saying something about what could and couldn’t affect his game. As far as Shane could tell, there was very little in the ‘could’ list.
He slowly returned to inhabiting his physical body again over the next few questions, and was halfway through some bullshit about camaraderie, when Ilya twisted sharply away in his seat.
“kKH! hiHKk! KKHh! hhihAGHKkh! hhAHSHHhoo!”
The first few sneezes were almost coughs, but the force with which they shook him was unmistakeable. He caught the first few against his fist before switching to using his hand simply to shield his face from the press, palm towards the cameras as he sneezed in the direction of the floor.
Shane leaned forward into the mic as he watched him sit back in his seat. “Uh, bless you.”
The room of reporters echoed his sentiment and Ilya nodded tiredly. “Thank you. Please, continue.”
Honestly, he wasn’t sure he could, his mind back to racing at a million miles an hour. Now that Ilya had confirmed his rumoured illness, Shane had to try even harder to keep from showing a single symptom. They were on the same team, it wasn’t unlikely that they would catch this shit from each other, but when they were only supposed to have been in the same state, let alone the same room for like 20 hours…
“So, yeah. Probably the most important element of performance.” He finished lamely, unable to fully recall the question.
“Great, thank you.” The reporter acknowledged him, before the next question started.
It wasn’t a long conference, as there were other players to fit in, and since they hadn’t actually played anything yet, there wasn’t too much to talk about. Shane found subtle ways to rest his aching throat and sniff back the congestion that the microphones and cameras wouldn’t pick up. Ilya frequently excused himself mid-sentence to clear his throat or drink some water or sniffle against the back of his hand, Shane’s knee softly knocking into his in wordless comfort when he seemed to be struggling.
They stood, nodding in response to the reporters’ thanks, Shane following Ilya back to the door. He was so focused on getting out of there, he barely noticed when the blond stopped abruptly, and almost crashed into the back of him.
“You okay?” He muttered, mindful of the still hot mics and lenses in their vicinity.
“ihHKk! KKkh! hKk! hhiHKKh! huhHKSHh! KSHh! hhAHPSHhOo!” Was Ilya’s only response, starting by ducking slightly away from the cameras and winding up setting his water bottle down on the table they were still standing behind so he could cup both hands over his nose and mouth.
“Bless you, man.” Shane awkwardly clapped the Russian on the back as he slipped around in front of him to open the door, the instinct to be more familiar with him, more caring, fighting against his logical attempts to repress it.
“Yeah.” Ilya mumbled, retrieving his water bottle and heading out into the corridor without looking back at the field of reporters who’d also mostly murmured blessings in response to the display. A display that Shane was sure would be circulating the media for the rest of the week, longer if they lost. Fuck, he'd really have to keep it together if he didn't want to be in that headline too.
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