Sniffle 'n Sneeze, please

36, she/her, bisexual, may or may not eventually write some stuff                         Hi this is a sneeze kink blog, 18+ only interact plz

[bless-you-babe]

Welcome to my baby Master List!!

In an effort to contribute more to the community, I thought I'd start organizing the few things I've shared so far. Maybe if I write enough fics I'll eventually muster up the energy and creativity to create OCs like so many wonderful folks have! But for now...I'll stick whatever bits & bobs I've got here. Literary sneezing: (I'm constantly falling in love with fictional characters in the books I read and imagining scenarios...I'll try to start writing them up!) Outlander: - "Silver Linings" - Jamie (M) catches a cold on the road

Fourth Wing: - "Human, after all" - Xaden (M) with a cold

Check Please: - Just a lil Drabble - Bittle (M) is definitely not getting sick

Heated Rivalry: - "Maybe" - Shane (M)

[a-fever-pitch]

not in my wheelhouse but in case anyone out there is interested, and since i don't think i've seen it posted, t/om h/olland sneeze from a recent interview 👍

[silklined]

Fic: Magpie (H/eated R/ivalry), 1/1, c. 6k

Ilya: There is nothing to do in Denver, so good we made it a long game The reply is almost instant. Jane: I think Denver is ok. Ilya’s response almost writes itself. Of course Hollander thinks Denver is “ok” because it’s boring like him. Come on, Hollander, you are giving me an empty net. But then Ilya pauses. The speed of the replies means that Shane is somewhere awake with his phone. But it’s 11:30pm in Denver, which means that it’s 1:30am in Montreal. Way past good boy Shane Hollander’s bedtime. Ilya: You are up late Jane: Can’t sleep.

A/N: I've merged book and tv show canon as I've found them the most useful here. The only thing to note, if you care, is that the book leaves an ambiguous number of weeks between the phone calls from Moscow and the Raiders/Metros game in which Shane gets injured, whereas in the show Ilya comes back from Moscow and immediately goes to Montreal: this fic follows the book timeline. Also in the book, Ilya is convincing himself he needs to break up with Shane at this point. On the other hand, I like Shane asking Ilya to come to the cottage when he's in his hospital bed, so (unlike the book) that conversation hasn't happened yet. This is way too much detail for a kink!fic, I know.

Huge, huge thanks to @pyronomous for beta reading and catching my many, many typos and pointing out where my references got obtuse. Any mistakes that remain are my own.

Ilya rolls his eyes. The game shouldn’t have gotten anywhere near overtime, let alone beyond it. Colorado were six games without a win going in, and their starting goalie was out. Boston should have wrapped it up easily, but something wasn’t working tonight. Nothing was wrong, but nothing was especially right either. Perhaps it was just that this was the second of their back-to-back away games at the end of a ten day road trip – and fuck whoever scheduled that – so the whole team was exhausted, but the Raiders’ plays failed to connect as often as they succeeded. Marleau and Hammersmith never seemed to be quite where Ilya needed them to be; they’d probably have had the same gripe about him.

Jane: Just watched the highlights of your game with Colorado. Good job in the shootout.

So yeah, Ilya did do a good job in the shootout, but only after playing the kind of game that his father would have had some choice words about, once upon a time. Mediocre. Second-rate. Lazy.

Still, he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.

Ilya: There is nothing to do in Denver, so good we made it a long game

The reply is almost instant.

Jane: I think Denver is ok.

Ilya’s response almost writes itself. Of course Hollander thinks Denver is “ok” because it’s boring like him. Come on, Hollander, you are giving me an empty net. But then Ilya pauses. The speed of the replies means that Shane is somewhere awake with his phone. But it’s 11:30pm in Denver, which means that it’s 1:30am in Montreal. Way past good boy Shane Hollander’s bedtime.

Ilya: You are up late Jane: Can’t sleep.

There are a hundred ways for Ilya to reply to this. Someone keeping you up? So what else are you doing in your bed, all alone? But his fingers are typing without him really telling them what to do, which almost never happens when he messages in English because he still has to think so fucking stupidly hard about every sentence. Now, however, his body seems to have bypassed his brain: his text back is an automatic nervous response that he can’t fully control.

Ilya: Everything ok?

For a few moments, nothing appears on the screen. But Shane must have his phone in his hand – he’d been so quick to reply to every other message. So he’s thinking about what he’s going to say. Well, ok. Actually talking to each other is still a pretty new thing. Ilya can be patient.

The dots appear, then disappear. They flicker on and off again a few times. Then, the message suddenly arrives.

Jane: I’m sick. I think I can tell you that since we’re not playing for another two weeks.

Even as Ilya is reading the message, the dots dance again.

Jane: Don’t tell anyone. I got sent home from practice and told to stay home and not let anyone see me, in case Pittsburgh finds out.

For fuck’s sake, Hollander. Who would he tell? And how would he explain knowing this very specific bit of information about Shane Hollander’s immune system? Ilya grins, as his thumbs tap out a response.

Ilya: Too late. I already tweeted that you are texting me from your bathroom floor. But I will cancel the Instagram post I scheduled. Jane: Ha ha. Very funny. Jane: But not that kind of sick. I just have a cold.

He has a cold. He just has a cold. How strangely intimate that Ilya knows this. It’s the kind of mundane detail that he always wants to know about Hollander, like the colour of his bedsheets, or how he takes his coffee, or whether he got stuck in traffic on the way home that day. The kind of knowledge that most people have about the person that they’ve been fucking for years – all right, the person they are probably in love with – without even thinking about it, but that Ilya can only ever acquire by accident. Every time one of these details about Shane falls into his hands, Ilya wants to tuck it away in some secret place where he can possess it forever: how Shane folds his clothes before he gets into bed, that he wears glasses for reading.

So Shane Hollander has turned him into a сорока – he’ll look up the English word later –  collecting tiny, glittering scraps and hoarding them jealously in its nest.

Because he’s tired and grumpy about the game, either of which on its own could put Ilya in the mood for some self-flagellation, he considers that it’s not normal to find yourself in this deep, for this long with another person without seeing them sick. Hollander must have been sick a handful of times since they’ve known each other, maybe more. Maybe he’s  one of those professional athletes who combines being super fit with having a terrible immune system – it happens more than people think. Or maybe he gets sick at the same time every year: right after the playoffs end and his body can finally give out, or around now, when the seasons are changing and spring becomes something more certain than a promise. And maybe Hollander has never really noticed these patterns in himself, and he’s never had anyone else to notice them for him. No one to brush his hair back from his forehead, and say, моя любовь, you always catch the worst colds this time of year.

But that won’t happen because you are going to do the right thing next time you meet. You’re going to end it - right after the next time you play Montreal. No more hotels, no more sexting, definitely no more phone calls. Two weeks. That’s all.  

The problem is that Ilya can picture exactly what Shane would look like with a cold. He’d be a little paler than usual, with a slight flush on his freckled cheeks. His stupidly cute nose would be red at the tip from tending it with tissues (far too polite to use his sleeve, of course). He’d allow himself a nap in the day time, and so his hair would be mussed up – kind of like the way it often is after Ilya’s finished with him – and he’d wear those button down pyjamas that Ilya always imagines that Shane wears to bed, maybe with a sweater over the top if he’s chilled and can’t stay warm. And he’d make himself tea – green, probably, or camomile, something caffeine-free and healthy – and he cradles the mug in both his hands, so that the steam rises up, and makes him sniffle.

Ilya lets himself linger on the image he conjured for a few moments, stretching an arm up behind his head as he readjusts his position on the hotel bed, and it’s then that it strikes him. He doesn’t only have to imagine it. Because, since that last trip – last ever trip – to Russia, there is something else that they’ve allowed themselves to do together. And ok, that time it was just for sex, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be for other things too. Because he talks to Hollander now, too. They’re friends.

Ilya: Did you want to Skype? You’re awake. I have hotel room to myself.

Nothing, for a moment, and then dots.

Jane: Sure. But I’m kind of gross. Ilya: I will try not to run screaming Jane: Fuck you.

Ilya grins to himself, and then pulls his iPad from his bag to send the video call request. It rings once, twice and then…

Shane’s face appears on the screen and, oh, he does look sick. In the low light of his bedside lamp he looks… well, exactly like Ilya had imagined he would: pale, tired, a bit sad, and like someone who has spent the better part of the day with a tissue pressed to his nose. The rectangle of the iPad screen frames his face in landscape, dark hair teased across the pillows he’s piled against the headboard of his bed; he must have propped his own device up on the bedside table. The close-up highlights the dark shadows under his eyes and the skin rubbed raw at the tip of his nose. Somehow, the pink flush on his cheeks makes his freckles even more beautiful.

The one detail that Ilya had forgotten was Shane’s glasses. Is he wearing them because he’s been reading to distract himself, or because the cold is making his eyes sore and his head ache? At first, the light bounces off the lenses, masking the dark eyes underneath. But then Shane sniffles and adjusts his position slightly. When he looks at his screen again, their magnification makes his liquid brown eyes even larger and easier to get lost in, even now, when they’re actually liquid: damp with tears, red around the rims, and a little bit swollen, as though Shane has just been rubbing them.

In his mind, Ilya presses a screenshot button, saving this image and filing it away with all the others he has of Shane as he’s pretty sure no one else has ever gotten to see him.

“Hey,” Shane says. He sounds as bad as he looks, his voice lowered and scuffed by his cold.

“Hey.”

Silence.

It’s not that there aren’t things Ilya wants to say. You look fucking awful, Hollander. No wonder they sent you home from practice. Did you know your nose is twitching like a little bunny rabbit? Is someone looking after you? And he’d be able to say them in Russian; make the words sound teasing but not cruel, caring but not sappy, tender but not vulnerable. In Russian, he could make Shane feel better without dropping his own guard. But English is too complicated, and so Ilya doesn’t say anything at all.

Hollander blinks first, an anxious look creeping into his liquid eyes.

“You’re not really going to run screaming are you?”

“No…” He lets himself draw out the syllable, making Hollander wait for what will follow. “But you were very stupid to go to practice.”

In the rectangle frame, Shane’s face visibly relaxes, his lips quirking upwards into a half-smile.

“I am not joking, Hollander.” He keeps his mouth stern but hopes that Hollander can see that his eyes are teasing. “Is not good captaining to die in front of your teammates. Sets very bad example to the rookies.”

Hollander laughs at this, and then seems to immediately regret it when it sets off a damp congested cough. He smothers it into the sleeve of his – yes, Ilya called it – Metros sweater, even though there’s no one there he could possibly infect.

“Don’t,” Hollander protests, congestion dulling his consonants. “Theriault already tore me a new one. Asked me what the fuck I thought I was doing turning up too sick to skate.” He sighs, and sniffs. When he wrinkles his nose, his freckles cluster and constellate like stars.

Hearing Theriault’s remarks sparks a tense feeling in the back of Ilya’s neck that he recognises as irritation. All right, clearly Hollander was too sick to skate. And Theriault wasn’t known for pulling punches; “old school,” was what a winger who’d been traded from Montreal to Boston had called him, which pretty much tallied with what Ilya had seen himself across the benches. Still, a little sympathy for his most valuable player wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Oh well. Ilya would make Theriault’s team pay for that when Boston played Montreal.

Now, he asks, “What did you think you were doing?”

“Hiding that I was sick.” Hollander sniffles again in a way that sounds truly miserable without being self-pitying. “I was doing an ok job until I stepped onto the rink and sneezed four times in a row.”

Probably not an ok job, not possible really, not if Hollander looked anything near as bad as he does now. And so Ilya takes a moment to redirect his anger towards the rest of the Montreal Metros for not telling him to go home and sleep it off. You’d have had to be… well, you’d have had to be Hayden Pike not to have noticed how unwell Hollander was.

“Are you benched for the game?” he asks. Hollander shrugs.

“I don’t think they’ll decide until Friday. I can probably shake this thing before then. They just don’t want it to get out that I’m sick to, um -” Another sniffle. “I think Theriault’s phrase was ‘to avoid unnecessary speculation’.”

“Unnecessary speculation that you are about to die?”

That earns half a laugh from Hollander. “You know how it is. People post all sorts of shit on Twitter.”

That was true. Ilya had once made the mistake of going to buy a new suitcase, and someone took a photo and put it online; by the end of the day at least three of his teammates had texted him to ask if the rumour was true that he was being traded. 

“So yeah,” Hollander adds, filling the silence. “I’m not going anywhere for the next couple of days.”

He reaches up under his glasses to pinch the spot on the bridge of his nose where they rest. Ilya feels like his heart literally squeezes in his chest. Shane’s head must hurt. He looks so tired. If Ilya were a better person, he’d wish Shane get well soon, and hang up, to let him try to get back to sleep. But he’s not.  

“You feel like shit?”

“Um…” Hollander pauses for a moment, and Ilya thinks that he’s going to deny it. But then, perhaps because less than a month ago, he’d listened to Ilya being a sad sack in Moscow, he doesn’t. “Um, yeah. Pretty much.” Hollander sighs, and shakes his shoulders, as though some internal voice just told him to pull himself together, and adds, “I just… I hate when my nose is blocked, and then I can’t sleep because I can’t breathe right, you know?”

Ilya does, indeed, know. As far as he knows, he’s definitely broken his nose three times: once from a high stick, once when playing football – ironic – and once as a result of a punch that he deserved. But there had been at least a couple more occasions when a broken nose was a strong possibility but the hospital visit didn’t seem worth it. All of which had left him with a nose that is very crooked, and mildly congested at the best of times. It’s nothing more than an annoyance, except when he catches cold (thankfully not often) or when something irritates his nose (more often than he’d admit). Then, breathing through it became… well, exactly what Shane is dealing with now.

“You have taken medicine?” Ilya asks. “American stuff works - or knocks you out until your cold is gone.”

“Well, I’m Canadian.” Hollander’s smile is smug, teasing; the kind that makes Ilya want to pin him to the bed, cold or no cold. “No, that stuff makes me feel weird. I took some Tylenol and a decongestant the team doctor gave me.”

“Did it help?”

Hollander seems to be genuinely thinking about the question. “Maybe? I - ”

At first, Ilya wonders if Hollander has stopped mid-sentence because the connection is bad, which would also explain the frozen, distant expression in his eyes. But then those eyes narrow in something like panic, and Shane’s perfect nose scrunches upwards, and Ilya works it out. He’s about to sneeze.

Logically, he must have seen Shane Hollander sneeze before. On the basis of probability alone, it would have happened at some point. He and Hollander have known each other for nearly ten years, give or take. It’s a lot of time. Time on the ice, and time in press conferences; All-Star weekends, and Vegas Awards nights. Time that Ilya has spent studying Hollander in VT sessions he feigned boredom through, in YouTube highlight reels he deleted from his history, in that fucking ESPN documentary that he definitely hadn’t watched over and over. And the time they’ve spent alone together? Two weeks, maybe, if you added it all up.

So don’t add it up, you fucking idiot. Arithmetic is not supposed to be a gut punch.

Enough time, then, to see someone do something as mundane as sneezing. Except that, although Ilya is sure it must have happened, he can’t actually remember it happening. Which makes it very, very important that Ilya is now going to be able to add it to his Shane Hollander collection.

The videocall creates a strange proximity even though they’re really so far apart. The screen frames Shane’s face, showing every eyelash damp with tears, every twitch and wrinkle of his unfeasibly straight nose. The only other time that he’s this close to Shane is when they’re facing off or fucking, and yes, he understands the significance of this pairing – he’s not fucking stupid. 

And there aren’t many chances left to be close like this. Hollander must know it, too - that this thing can’t go on much longer. It’s gone on long enough. There’s only one ending and it’s stupid to prolong it.  So he should take this moment, add it to a collection of memories that will fade when they don’t even see each other a few times a season, when Shane Hollander will just be a name alongside his own in the record books, and whatever they had together might just as well have never existed. 

And then, just as Shane snatches a quivering breath, there is a sound like the movement of fabric, and the screen goes dark.

What the fuck? Has the iPad run out of battery? It was fully charged when he turned it on. Perhaps it crashed? But then the darkness on the screen ripples a little. Not dead, then. The screen is still on, the device still connected to the call, the camera still showing what’s in front of it. So Hollander must have – what, thrown something dark over the top of it? No, not that. As Ilya’s eyes adjust, he can see the outline of something vaguely Hollander shaped shuddering underneath what must be his blanket.

“hh’Tchhheuwh!!”

“Hollander?”

“huh-ISHHeuwh!”

 “We are playing hide and seek now?”

“Isshhhh!... huh-IESHhhh’eugh!” Those two are harsher. Not loud, precisely, but strong, as though Hollander’s body is determined to use all of its superior aerobic capacity to rid itself of the germs that had broken down his carefully maintained defences.

“You are very bad at hiding.”

“Fugck off.” They were followed by what sounds to Ilya like the rustle of some tissues, and some very damp snuffling noises.

“You ok in there?” he asks, half-amused, half-concerned.

From the blankets comes a noise that falls somewhere between assent and a groan. It’s followed by more snuffling before the pile manages to speak. “Sorry, I was gonna mu’dte when thad happened. Save your ear drumbs.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. Hollander’s sneezes were not loud, especially not through tissues and a blanket-cocoon. Ilya spends his time with hockey players: a giant breed, not known for their attention to hygiene or decorum. He’s heard worse.

“I think I can survive your sneezes.” More silence; the blanket doesn’t move. “Are you going to hide in there all night?”

“Baybe?”

“Hollander…”

“Ok, doh.” The blanket-pile gives a heavy sigh. “Bud I really need to blow my nose, so I ab going to put you on hold.”

“You don’t…”

 “One seg’ond…”

The blanket shuffles again. A clattering sound rattles through the speakers, loud enough to make Ilya wince; maybe Hollander knocked the nightstand. Then, the sound cuts and a green pause sign looms on Ilya’s screen. All at once, the room is quiet and empty – just him, alone with his thoughts. Far too many thoughts.

“Hurry the fuck up, Hollander.”

For something to do, Ilya moves the iPad from where it’s balanced on his thighs, knees drawn up to the ceiling, to his own nightstand. More comfortable that way, he’d have said, if anyone was there to ask. But it also means that he can lie on his side and look at Shane, who will look at him, so that it feels like they’re lying next to each other. Then, Ilya can believe, just for a moment, that if he stretches his fingers out then he will press through the screen and touch Shane – smooth down his hair, and tease out the headache from behind his forehead like there aren’t thousands of miles between them.

He reaches a finger forward and lets it hover just above the glass, just as the pause sign disappears and the screen goes black.

Ilya’s first thought is that Hollander has hung up on him. But then a voice, small and far away says “Ilya?” and it takes his breath away. A second later, the screen flickers, pixels reorganizing themselves, and Hollander appears again. The pink spots on his cheeks are brighter, and his hair is ruffled in different directions.

“I’m here. You ok?” Ilya adds, before he could think better of it.

Hollander nods. “Sorry about that.” His voice sounds clearer, but not altogether steady, as though blowing his nose has left him a little breathless.

“Is fine. You are sick,” Ilya says, pleased when Shane gives a small, shy smile of acceptance in response. “Is someone bringing you food while you are under home arrest?”

Shane’s eyes sparkle, which is enough to tell Ilya he’s got something in that last phrase wrong. Fucking English. Still, Hollander clearly finds it charming enough. Maybe he can make a few more mistakes before their call is through.

“Hayden offered, but I’ve got stuff in the apartment.”

“No, that is your team meals. You need soup – sick person food.”

On the screen, from far away in Montreal and right here in the room with Ilya, Shane smiles.

“You’d bring me soup, Rozanov?” he asks, sniffling softly.

“Sure. What kind do you want?” Shane’s smile gets bigger, warmer, and it’s such a rush, making him smile like that, that Ilya presses the joke further. “Might be cold when it gets there from Denver.”

It’s only once he’s said the words that he realises that the joke wasn’t supposed to be funny because he’s in Denver. It was funny because Ilya Rozanov doesn’t send soup to his hook ups when they’re sick. Shit.

But Hollander probably doesn’t notice because he’s too busy ducking under the blanket to sneeze again.

“huh?- ISHH’euhhh!... huh’IISHHhheuh!”

“Будь здоров.” He knows the English phrase; doesn’t use the Russian one unless he’s with another native speaker. But he pulls it out now because Shane said he likes it when Ilya speaks Russian – it’s sexy, is what he’d actually said – and Ilya aims to please. It does seem to pull Shane out from under the covers a little quicker this time. His eyes are still damp with fresh tears, and he still has tissues pressed to his face. Taking his moment, Ilya changes the subject. “Your mom, she will come to take care of you?”

Hollander wipes his nose and scowls, which is strange because it’s not weird of Ilya to think she’ll be there. Hollander’s mother always seems to be there, when Boston play in Montreal, and when the tv cameras flick to the audience in Hollander’s home games. His dad, too. But Mrs Hollander is the presence; she’s the one that people make space for, the one whose hand they shake first. And she seems steely, determined, disciplined like her son, but Ilya also sees the warmth with which they embrace, how she lets her hand rest on Shane’s elbow when they speak, grounding him and guiding him. She seems like the sort of mother who would turn up when her only child was sick - yes, he knows Hollander doesn’t have any siblings. The kind of mother who would turn up even when that child is now a two hundred pound hockey god, even when it meant driving two hours from Ottawa - yes, he remembers where they live - even when it’s just a cold.

Hollander apparently disagrees, because he’s shaking his head.

“No, fuck off. I didn’t call my mom to come tuck me in. I’m not eight years old.” He pouts and adds a note of indignation to his sniffle, both of which are quite eight-year-old things to do, but Ilya doesn’t mention that. Then Shane’s expression crumples and he groans again. “She’ll probably just know I’m sick by tomorrow, though, so I guess she’ll want to come and make sure I’m eating or whatever. How do moms do that – just know stuff?”

The question grips Ilya’s body like a vice, forcing the air from his lungs, and that, in itself, is unexpected. The sharp arrows of other people talking like this don’t usually pierce his armour these days; he can withstand the casual way that they dismiss the generosity and kindness of their families. Anyway, he gets it. He remembers when his own mother’s fussing was humdrum, even annoying. He remembers telling her to go away, leave him alone, stop hovering so much. He also remembers when she did stop hovering so often, and then when the hovering stopped for good. But reminders don’t usually hurt like this.

Hmmm. His father did just die. Perhaps his body is learning how to absorb that loss, like the blood that pools and swells near the skin in a particularly nasty bruise. Or maybe it’s because he’s tired and his team played like shit tonight. Or maybe it’s because Hollander is saying these things and, deep down, he’s glad that Shane can just brush off how much his mother loves him, and how she’s still there to love him, and Ilya hopes it’s a long time before he has to know otherwise.

Anyway, this is a normal thing for Hollander to say. Normal people talk about their normal, not-dead mothers like this all the time. So he doesn’t get to be weird about it. And with that thought, Ilya swallows down everything that seems to be rising in him, shrugs and says, “I don’t know.”

There’s a beat, and then Ilya gets to witness the exact moment that Shane realises why Ilya doesn’t know.

“Oh, fuck, Rozanov – Ilya – I didn’t… Your mom… I shouldn’t…”

“It’s fine,” Ilya says quickly, because Hollander doesn’t know the half of it and it’s not a conversation they are going to have right now, on Skype, with two hours, a land border, and a few thousand miles between them. Also, he’s supposed to be cheering Hollander up, and right now he’s not doing a very good job of it.

And so, yet again, it’s time for a clever bit of work with the puck before he passes the conversation back over.

“How many goals are you going to score against Pittsburgh?” Ilya asks.

Shane smiles, though Ilya can tell it’s mostly relief that his misstep didn’t land harder. But it still makes Shane’s reddened nose wrinkles, and his watery eyes crease at the corners, and it’s tooth-achingly sweet.

“Two,” he says, like he’s already planned out the plays in his head, can already see the back of the net catching the puck as he scores them. He probably does all that visualization shit after he finishes his wholesome yoga on his beautiful deck, which Ilya, for the record, has only watched five times, and definitely doesn’t ever think about when he jerks himself off.

Ilya tuts. “Scott Hunter got two against them last week, and he is twice your age. You should score at least four.”

“He is not twice our age,” Shane says, rolling his eyes theatrically as he presses a tissue to the underside of his nose again. “Hunter’s having a good season, isn’t he?”

“We beat them,” Ilya reminds him. “But yes. Sometimes he plays good hockey. For an old man.”

“Do you think he’s got a new regime or something?”

“I think he is having some very good sex,” Ilya replies. Mostly because he knows it will make Shane squirm – which it does – but also because it has the advantage of being true. Since Christmas, Hunter has had the look of someone getting a regular railing, lucky bastard.

“I cannot just believe you just made me think about Scott Hunter having sex.” Shane is pouting again but through the glasses and the tears his eyes are smiling.

“What do you think his sex face is like?”

“No! No! Stop!” Shane’s stuffy nose makes his shouts of protest impossibly cute, and he’s laughing now – no, giggling. Ilya’s never heard him giggle before, and all he can think is that he wants to hear it again.

“Like this I think?” And Ilya pulls the most grotesque imitation of a sex face he can imagine, eyes half-closed, head tipping back, mouth open, tongue teasing across his lips. He’s not going to make Hollander come this evening; the least he can do is make him laugh.

“Fuck no, Rozanov!” Hollander yells, only with his sore throat, it’s more like a choked squeal. Ilya stores the memory, so he can wheel it out for an impression next time he needs to rib Hollander about something. That how you talk dirty to me, Hollander? He doesn’t need to do that now because Hollander is laughing so much his eyes are watering, though that probably doesn’t take a lot right now. And Ilya is laughing too, and it's so nice to be laughing, to be silly like this after the game and his father, and the fucking shit show of a funeral and…

Hollander’s laughter catches and halts, and a familiar, pained, itchy, expression crosses his face, as looks down desperately, and then pulls up a tissue that must have been from a box just out of frame.

“No hide and seek this time,” Ilya says calmly, firmly. Shane looks nervous for a moment, lips parted, nose twitching, as his hands hover at his chest, tissues open over both of them like a prayer book. But as his eyes flutter closed, he does as Ilya says.

“uhh’ITSCHhh’ghh!” His head snaps forward into the waiting tissues, palms pressed tightly to his nose and anchored on his cheekbones. He holds the tissues in place, through another quivering inhale. “hehh?... iiIH’CHHHhheuh!!”

Shane exhales unsteadily, pinches the tissues around his nose and carefully rubs and lowers them. He opens his eyes for just long enough to throw Ilya a look that is both mortified and brimming with apology, even though there’s no good reason for either. But there’s barely an instance before Shane’s breath catches again.

“hhIHh’YISShhh’EUhhh!” Stronger again, the tissues and his hands barely muffling the sound. Strong enough to pull a breathless, “Ohmygod…” from Shane before the final sneeze hits. “hihh?--JIHHishhh’EUHh!”

The sneeze is strong enough to drag his whole upper chest forward, and snap his head sharply towards his chest. The sigh that follows tells Ilya exactly how exhausted he must feel.

“Будь здоров.”

“You said that before.” Shane has snatched up a fresh handful of tissues, and pressed them roughly up against the underside of his nose again. “What does it mean?”

“Be healthy,” Ilya replies.

“Ok. Well. I’m trying.” Shane’s mouth is set, but eyes are twinkling; Ilya feels the corners of his own mouth turning upwards.

“It’s what you say in Russia when someone sneezes,” he explains.

“Like, ‘bless you’?”

“Yeah, like that. But makes more sense.”

It’s Shane’s turn to smile at this.

“I guess it does,” he agrees. “Tell me how you say it again.” Exhausted as he is, Shane’s eyes are wide, eager. If Ilya didn’t know better, he’d think Shane had a pen in his hand, ready to take notes.

Ilya says, slowly and deliberately, “Будь здоров.” And then he adds, because it’s useful information and because he wants Shane to know this, “Is the informal version. What you say to a friend.”

Shane’s eyes sparkle, and then, diligent student that he is, he repeats, “Bud-zdor-rohv.” His eyebrows furrow adorably as he strings together the unfamiliar syllables. Ilya tucks the image away in the vault, along with the thought that maybe he, Ilya Rozanov, is the sole witness to the one thing at which Shane Hollander isn’t instantly perfect.

Except, of course, it is. He is. Perfect.

Shane must notice Ilya’s smile because he adds, “Was that bad?”

“No,” Ilya says, softly, truthfully. And then, because he needs to pull this game they’re playing back under his control, he adds, laying the accent on a little thicker, “Your Russian very good. You go play in KHL next season. Make many roubles.”

Hollander rolls his eyes.

“I think I’ll pass, thanks.” He scrunches his nose and closes his eyes, and for a moment Ilya thinks he’s going to sneeze again, but instead, it’s a large yawn that he smothers behind his fist.

“I am boring you?”

Shane blushes at this. Jackpot.

“Ngh… Sorry.”  Shane takes off his glasses, and carefully folds back the arms before reaching out to place them somewhere beyond the frame. “Just tired.” He sighs. “But also all… stuffed up. And itchy. Like I’m going to sneeze a billion more times.”

 Моя любовь, are your colds always like this – all in your nose? Do they always make it hard for you to sleep? Come and lie on me, prop your head up, you’ll breathe more easily. Now tell me how you’re feeling. Tell me what helps. I want to know it all.

“You should try to sleep,” is what Ilya actually says.

“I know.” Shane sighs. “But trying to sleep and failing is the worst.”

Yes. Another thing Ilya knows too well. But there are late night drives on the Pike for that, out into the stony and unyielding Massachusetts countryside and the huge dark forests that he’s rarely seen in daylight. There are night clubs, too, and hook-up apps, even if he’s lost his taste for the latter lately. None of these are useful suggestions right now, and none of them have actually cured his insomnia. He knows what the cure would be, though, and if he can’t ask for it himself, he can at least offer it to Shane. 

“Want me to stay on the call?” he asks.

 Shane sniffles, and says, sweetly, “You must be tired though. Long game.”

Ilya shrugs.

“Is ok. Not tired yet.”

Hollander looks so grateful, and it’s almost unbearable - the distance between them, the inevitable ending that they’ve only been delaying all this time, the impossibility of it all, and how much, despite all that, he wants it. Not just what they have now - though Ilya would take it, a lifetime of it - but what in his wildest, stupidest fantasies, they could be if they weren’t who they are. 

He and Shane stare at one another for a moment – or, that is, they stare at the screens that contain each other. The glass they can’t reach through; the thing they can’t touch.

“Could you talk to me for a bit?” Shane says, with another yawn that folds into a damp cough. “Tell me about the game. Tell me how it went.”

“You watched it. You know how it ended.”

“Well then it doesn’t matter if I fall asleep.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Okay…”

Shane smiles, sweetly, sleepily and his eyes flutter closed. Until Ilya begins speaking in Russian, and they open again, wide and full of wonderment. No one’s ever looked at Ilya quite like that before, and maybe no one will again. So it takes all of Ilya’s willpower to say, “закрой глаза… Close your eyes, Hollander.”

Shane does as he’s told, nestling a little deeper into the blankets, and Ilya wonders if it’s possible for a heart to swell so much that it bursts.

He talks about the game with Denver; tries to work out by speaking it aloud, pass by pass, play by play. Lays it on thick when he describes his goal in the first. Tries to get to the bottom of why they fucked up the powerplay in the third. Wonders whether LeClaire will change the timing of the lines for the next game, in three days’ time. Wonders if he should take Marleau out for a drink when they get back to Boston, because it seems like he hasn’t known how to talk to Ilya since he’s been back from Moscow, how to handle the fact that Ilya doesn’t seem like he’s sad. Or maybe he could take him to go look at a car he’s thinking of buying, but he probably won’t buy, and…

A snuffly sound, half snore-half sigh, comes from Ilya’s iPad. On the screen, the tension has left Shane’s forehead, and he has the blankets pulled up to his chin, the lower half of his face lost between them, and the pillows, and the dim light. He’s asleep.

For a moment, Ilya considers not doing anything – keeping the call connected, and closing his eyes, so that they can both fall asleep alongside one another. But it feels like too much, much more than what Hollander asked for. Besides, they couldn’t wake up like this; couldn’t be this way in the daylight.

“Goodnight, Shane,” he whispers. “Feel better soon.”

He reaches over, taps the picture of the red phone, and Hollander is gone.

[lipsmind]

ilya wakes up feeling particularly sneezy. he does in fact sneeze, but just once. he waits, and then is like okay, guess the next two aren’t coming this time. but as the day goes on, he keeps sneezing only in singles. after each one, the itch lingers, but it doesn’t set off any others, just dissipates after a few seconds. shane is equally confused and also kind of bothered by it, because ilya (barring extenuating circumstances) always has three sneezes. it kind of weirdly throws off their day.

but oh well. there have been times that ilya wished he could sneeze a simple normal one sneeze and be over with it. but now that he feels like his nose is constantly tickling in the aftermath of the singles, he kind of misses his usual, maybe not-so-excessive three sneezes.

the whole thing can sort of be explained when the next day, ilya wakes up with a full blown head cold. all of his missed sneezes want out. he’s back to sneezing his triples and half the time he’s getting six or nine in a row instead of just the three. and it’s completely miserable, but at least balance has been restored.

[bless-you-babe]

@toooinks on Threads

Okaaay, so why is this not blowing up?? This is such a precious fan interaction with Connor! I would literally die on the spot if I were her

I'm really sorry to torture y'all like this, but watch this video and you'll know why I had to share it. The LUCK of this woman (assuming she's telling the truth)

[snifflybabe]

missing you

there's something insanely sexy to me about not actually witnessing the snz.

what we are getting into: texting fic, mostly. the long game, hollanov. limited shane POV of ilya's flu.

Jane: practice over i’ve got time before our game 

Jane: [image attached]

Lily: [missed FaceTime call from Jane] 

Jane: [image attached] [image attached]

Jane: for you for later

__

Jane: they just announced you’re a late scratch tonight? 

Lily: [2 missed calls from Jane] 

Jane: call me when you can please 

__

Lily: sorry was asleep 

Lily: watching game now

Lily: saw your goal

Lily: good assist to u from Pike 🤮

__

Lily: going to sleep again 

Lily: game is basically over so i will jinx it and say good win

Lily: will keep my phone on so you can call 

— 

The FaceTime request goes through and Shane squints as Ilya floods into view. Or rather, doesn’t. The screen is dark as Ilya murmurs a greeting. 

“Hey, sorry — you were asleep? I can’t see you. Are you okay?” 

“Sorry,” the dark screen sniffles and sheets shift. There’s some fumbling and then a click of bedside lamp and now Shane can see him. 

Ilya’s adjusting to lie down on his side. He must have turned over once Shane called because he’s got pillow-lines on his cheek and his curls are angled flat, pressed against invisible surface in the air. His eyes are sleepy, visible even through a video call, and there’s a flush to his cheeks and around his nose. 

He snuffles and itches two fingers under his nose, then coughs sharply. He doesn’t seem to be about to say anything else, even though Shane was waiting. 

“Are you okay?” he repeats, watching as Ilya’s fingers move from under his nose to press at the corner of his eye socket, massaging in circles. 

“Mmm. Will be fine,” he sounds hoarse, clearing his throat as he pauses, “just sick. I can sleep it off, yes?” 

“How sick? They wouldn’t let you play?” 

Ilya shakes his head, almost imperceptively. “You are asking information about players from other teams, Hollander? I will have to write the Commissioner about this.” 

He coughs, and Shane’s view shifts, presumably being placed down as he stares at Ilya’s ceiling. 

The sound of a tissue being pulled from a box, the flash of an arm across his screen, and then a muffled sneeze. It’s loud through the tinny speaker of his phone, and Shane hurries to turn down his volume as Ilya sneezes more, devolving into a fit offscreen. 

A relieved gasp for breath as Shane sees Ilya’s face for a second. His upper lip is shiny and the corners of his eyes are wet. Then all sound cuts out and he’s got a nice view of the ceiling again. Crown moulding him and Mom liked for Ilya’s place. 

“Bless you,” Shane says to the silence. He’s pretty sure Ilya muted his end of the call.

 Another tissue flashes across the screen. 

Then, the bottom of a glass. Clear liquid. Shane hopes faintly it’s water and not vodka. 

A beat and then the screen is tilting to Ilya’s face again as he settles back against his pillows. 

“Sorry. Thought you would not want to hear that,” he says, voice and background noise flooding back in. He sniffles again. Shane doesn’t think he’s imagining a glassy look, even through the screen.

“Are you okay?” Shane repeats again, distinctly annoyed somewhere under his concern; he hears how it leaks into his voice. 

Ilya groans, “I am fine, Hollander. Just sick, okay? Fever was what they would not let me play because.” 

He sounds so sick. His English is coming apart. Shane knows exactly what he means, but it’s something he flags sometimes. Sometimes he worries that Ilya intentionally or carelessly fumbles his words when he’s trying to keep him out. He can be very closed off like that. 

And he looks so sick. Shane’s heart aches. I’m Shane. Call me Shane. I love you. 

“I just wish I could be with you,” he whispers. He knows Ilya isn’t about to reply honestly right now, because Shane’s too far away to help. (That’s the easiest one to blame.) And Ilya hurts all the time, but hates to feel it. 

Ilya’s glance flicks back to the screen, face unexpectedly open. He rubs at his nose. “Me too, Shane.” 

Then he breathes, shaking off sentimentality forcefully, scrubbing his nose with a click click, “But you would hate to be with me. You would complain about me getting you sick and —“ he shakes his head harder, “—you know. You don’t miss me right now.” 

I would still miss you. I miss you right now so badly I’m afraid I might explode. But Shane isn’t sure he can say that. He’s worried it will make Ilya more sad. And it will make him more sad, too. 

He swallows. “Okay, just — sorry for calling, then. Get some sleep. I love you.” 

“Love you. Я Тебя Люблю.” 

Ilya looks at him for another long second, and Shane can’t hang up, even though that’s the social cue where he’s supposed to. 

After a brief eye-scrunch, Ilya gasps, “G – ghdd – nigh– hh–” 

And then the call ends abruptly. 

Shane takes a look at his reflection in his phone screen, blinks. Okay.

He can’t help texting him after. 

__

Jane: Goodnight.

Jane: I love you and feel better. 

Jane: I’m sorry you’re sick. 

__ 

Jane: I really wish I could hold you. 

__

The next morning, Shane is awakened before his alarm. 

“Hi?” he asks blearily in response to Ilya’s call. 

“Hi,” Ilya coughs down the other end of the line, “was just saying good morning. Couldn’t sleep that well. Sorry.” 

Shane starts to reply, but Ilya has hung up. Well, fuck. He might as well get up. 

__

An couple hours later –

Lily: fever broke now

Lily: sorry about this morning, wanted to hear you 

Jane: I like to hear you. I’m glad you’re feeling better. 

Lily: 🥹🥹

__

Jane: you were sneezing a lot last night. 

Jane: and how is your cough? 

Lily: better

Lily: kind of

Shane watches his screen bounce with ellipses from Ilya for much too long. He watches anyways.

Lily: i hate being sick

Jane: me too

Jane: i hate seeing you sick 

Lily: sorry

Jane: no 

Jane: i mean i guess i miss you a lot

Jane: fuck 

Lily: i miss you too 😙

__

Jane: i’m trying to say i hate when you’re sick because i want to make it better and i can’t because i’m far away

Jane: but i really want to. 

Jane: i don’t like 

Jane: wrong phrasing, sorry. 

Jane: i’m anxious about how you won’t tell me your symptoms and stuff

__

Lily: well, what would you like or

Lily: in your words, be anxious to know about? 

Lily: i cannot stop sneezing at all

Lily: i am coughing up half the lung i have left

Lily: you know because i smoke, not much there to work with 

Lily: i feel gross and sick and i miss you

Lily: i miss you so much i cried to sleep last night. thats why i called. 

Lily: just really really wanted to hear you

Lily: is that good enough? 

[snifflybabe]

hollander and rozanov share a cold

yeah title's not creative. trust me and read it. u trust me, right? :3

ive just had this working for so long i decided to full send it. this is before tuna melt happens. just the unfettered romantic tension between two men who have sex a lot.

CW: a lil sexually explicit, mess, contagion, gay people

The second Hollander thrusts open the grating metal of the door, Ilya rushes up the stairs. He's shoving him back as they race up the stairwell in tandem.

Fuck. He’s missed him so much. He never misses any hookup like this. That’s a very big problem for another day. Because tonight he’s going to fuck Hollander. He’s always so eager for him. Ilya would never say he was the best at sex, if that can be quantified. He’s not the most experienced. Still, somehow, Hollander has made his way to the top of Ilya’s chart of conquests. 

His favourite, unquestionably.

He lets Hollander lead them into his place, fighting off a lingering shiver as he finally gets warm. 

“Fuck, Rozanov,” Hollander has him pressed against the door immediately, hands searching. He can feel his breath over cheek and his calloused fingertips searching under his sweatshirt.

“You took so long to get me,” Ilya complains, not reciprocating quite yet. He swipes his nose on his hoodie sleeve, pressing it there another second and rubbing to get the itch out. It’s running almost as bad as it was on the ice earlier, cold air always turns his congestion to a faucet. 

“Sorry. I was taking a shower...” Hollander trails off in lieu of further explanation. The shame in his voice paired with his hungry eyes means that Hollander has fully-prepped. He’s worked himself clean and open because he knew Ilya was coming. 

Ilya leers at him, wolfish, mouth inches from Hollander. His perfect fucking lips and straight nose and constellation of freckles fill up his vision and he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

“You are always so excited for my cock,” he praises, compliment punctuated with a soupy sniffle. 

Hollander’s sweet eyes glisten with want and he chases after Ilya’s mouth. 

Too bad that Ilya has a moral compass, so he has to stop him. 

“Ah–” Ilya shakes his head and holds his fingertips over Hollander’s mouth before he can reach his lips. “I am sick.”

This breaks every rule in Hollander’s book, surely. Hooking up with a sick person. Ilya has still come over, but he’s waiting to be pushed off and glared at. Maybe he will offer Ilya tea before he kicks him out. Polite Canadian Shane Hollander. He probably schedules his illnesses for the off-season. He definitely doesn’t invite them in from secret hook-ups.

Instead, Hollander surprises him. He frowns and doesn’t push him away. His eyes flick over Ilya’s face. He’s surely staring at the pinkened tip of his nose, the way it scrunches as Ilya has to sniffle again. Playing over their game in his mind, dissecting every time Ilya wiped his nose while on the bench. 

“Do you have a fever?” 

“Nyet.” Ilya confirms this with a shake of his head. “Is just in my nose. Headcold, they say,” he accentuates this for Hollander with a liquid sniffle and pouts at him. 

“Worse now, maybe, because you made me stand outside so long. Waiting for you.” 

Hollander gives him a long, nervous look. The racing thoughts are so visible on his face. Ilya thinks he might be able to reach out and read his mind if he only presses his fingers to his temples. 

He tests this with a double-tap of his fingers to the side of Shane’s brow.. 

“Do not worry, Hollander. My dick still works perfectly.”

He watches for another moment as his expression changes from apprehensive to decidedly needy and smirks. Ah. Maybe it did work.

And Hollander is throwing himself against him so hard their teeth clack together. 

__

Ilya is thrusting hard into Hollander, one hand bracing over his back and the other on the swell of his ass he fucks him into the mattress. 

“Fuck,” he pants, mind swimming in pleasure. Not only English, but all language leaves him when they’re like this. Hollander is so perfect. He thinks he could fuck only him for the rest of his life. He’s so eager for it, so responsive under him. He groans again as he drags his cock back and then forces back in. 

Hollander makes a pretty sound, so he tries to go for the same angle. 

“Fuuck. Snff. Hollander.” 

His nose is running. He knows. It’s running down over his cupid's bow and into his panting mouth. One brave drip comes off his chin and mixes with the sweat at the dimples of Hollander’s back. He sniffles fruitlessly in between gasps. Hollander feels so good. Perfect. Ilya’s felt his cock work inside countless holes, but Hollander’s always makes him need it more. He has never finished fucking him and not wanted to do it again. 

He’s getting into the rhythm. Sniffle, gasp, babble out something coherent. He wishes he could kiss him.

Hollander’s affirmative moans of pleasure are driving him further into a heady pleasure when a sneeze overtakes him. 

"Hheh-- a'dczh'UUoo!"

He ducks his head as it mists over Hollander’s back, not wanting to stop if he doesn’t have to. 

He sniffles, launched into another three more sneezes. They spill out of him, each competing to be first. He ends on a truly pathetic gasp for breath and a dz'iew of a final sneeze.

Well. He sucks back his mucus. There are more important things to focus on.

“You’re gross,” Hollander mutters below him. 

Ilya halts their movement and pulls his hand from its place at Shane’s hip so he can pinch and rub at his septum. It feels fucking euphoric and he allows an indulgent sniffle as he rubs the whole of his palm up at his nose. 

“Oh, I am gross? Shane Hollander likes to lick my cum from his own fingers, but I am not allowed to sneeze?” 

That said – he grabs a hand wildly over for the first article of clothing he can find and presses it to his face, releasing two – oh, no, three. Three more sneezes.

Wait. 

His abdomen tenses with a fourth sneeze into the fabric. This broken nose is never satisfied. He groans to himself as he pinches his septum against the fabric.

He gasps, fighting off dizzying congestion. His head is so stuffy he almost feels bad, if he’s passing this to Hollander. But he said yes. And Ilya was able to play with this cold, so it should be nothing to the unstoppable force of Shane Hollander. 

He blows his nose into the cloth and tosses it aside with cough to clear his throat, then presses his hands back into place. 

“Bless you,” Hollander mumbles.

Ilya grips for the side of Hollander’s chin, squeezes it once. He still really wants to kiss him. 

“Shut up.”

__ 

He’s noticeably more hoarse than when he arrived as he wipes Hollander down with a damp washcloth and murmurs praises. He’d been honest with him earlier – it’s really just a cold, barely an issue beyond a nuisance. 

Still, he feels thoroughly wrung out as he flops back on the bed beside Hollander. Into sheets that he knows smell like him. Any other time, where his nose was working, he’d press his face into the pillowcase and drink him in. Hollander smells so good after sex. Sweaty. Musky. The distinct scent of man that Ilya wants to lap up. He wants to press his flat tongue over his armpits and the fold of his groin and the small expanse of skin where his pecs jut out over his chest. 

Instead, he itches his wrist under his nose and presses up as he sniffles a few times. This cold has left him with much more of a drippy nose than he would like to admit. 

“D’you need to go?” Hollander murmurs as he actively winds himself more around Ilya. 

He should go. “Yes,” he laments, praying that the want doesn’t show in his voice. 

“Goodnight, Hollander.” He detangles himself, stands up and collects his clothes.

As he’s slipping in his hoodie, Hollander sits up in bed, risen from the newly-fucked dead, and shoves a packet of tissues at him. 

“For your cold,” Hollander says in one big breath. His hair is plastered to his forehead. His eyes are sincere.

Ilya laughs and waves him goodnight. He clutches his hand around the plastic of the tissues as he shoves it further into his pocket. He has a feeling he will carry it with him.

__

Shane heads to the team doctor. He does not want to, but he has to. He can count on less than one hand the amount of times he’s gotten sick during a season.

“Uh,” he sniffles and resents as the sound drags in his sinuses, “I have a cold? I think? Or, uh, rhinovirus?” His heart pounds his chest with a steady thrum of betrayal. You caught a cold from Ilya Rozanov of the Boston Bears. 

Rozanov. 

It makes him miss him, which is all kinds of weird and fucked up as he blows his nose and thinks Ilya did this when I saw him last.

The doctor is perfectly reasonable. Checks his temperature, listens to his chest. Confirms he’s good to go. Advises fluids, a decongestant before bed, doesn’t mince words and tells him he’s got a runny nose that’s only going to get worse on the ice and should have towels on hand.

It’s all the more embarrassing when Shane has to come back into the locker room. He’s been cleared for the game, but he’s late in.

“You good?” Hayden asks, thumping him on the back as they change into gear. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, and has to sniffle or it will dribble onto his upper lip. 

“Glad to hear it, man.” 

“I’m good, yeah.”

“You sneezed so much earlier, man,” Hayden shakes his head, sifting through his bag. “Thought you were down for the count. Like, fuck. Flu or something.” 

“All good,” Shane assures him. 

He’s blushing everywhere. He doesn’t sneeze a lot. Like, ever. If he does, he knows the right way to press his knuckle to his nose or his tongue in his mouth and make it quiet. But Ilya never sneezes that way. And this is the cold he got from Ilya. It feels like he’s still around, even when he’s hundreds of miles away. 

Impulsively, he shoots out a text. 

Jane: I got your cold, asshole. 

Immediately, a reply.

Lily: Sorry (((

Lily: but i did enjoy that asshole ))

Jane: fuck off

Lily: feel better Jane <3 

During the game, his phone gets more texts, buzzing as it’s tucked into his bag. 

Lily: maybe i did do biological warfare

Lily: you cannot stop sneezing. Funny they must have cleared you just for you to spend every pause like little scrunched up kitten 

Lily: i almost feel bad. 

Lily: but no. you wanted me to fuck you so bad you have to be sick now. 

Lily: kind of hot. 

[rozsnz]

gullible ☕️

“Shane couldn't sneeze in public without the hockey sites reporting that he was deathly ill and how that should affect your sports betting.”

1.1k includes ilya under the wasian man spell, fluff

January 2014

It was a very normal morning for Ilya. He woke up, brushed his teeth, showered, got dressed, had breakfast (black coffee and a cigarette or two), attended morning skate and then returned home for some downtime before the game.

The game against Montreal. He would be playing against Shane in 7 hours. And then he would probably make Shane come apart in 10. That put a smile on his face.

Upon getting himself comfortable on his couch, he decided to scroll the web. Twitter. It was something that his teammates insisted he get on. "Everyone is on this fuckin' app, bro! You're missing out!"

Scroll scroll scroll. The Toronto Maple Leafs defeat the Detroit Red Wings 3–2 after a shootout in the 2014 NHL Winter Classic. Good for them.

Scroll scroll. Justin Bieber pleads guilty to careless driving. Nobody gives a shit.

Scroll — wait.

Shane Hollander Updates 🇨🇦 @shanehupdates

Shane Hollander was spotted this morning in a coffee shop on Beacon Street 👀☕️

Bless him! He seems to be not feeling too well. Hopefully he feels better before tonight's game against Boston 🤧💙❤️

🔗 [ Video attachment : Shane is filmed by someone in the Café, he's sat by himself in a corner booth. He has a little cup of tea on the table in front of him. He's wearing a blue hoodie with a parka jacket. He seems to glance around before ducking down into a closed fist, shoulders bobbing with his sneeze. One sneeze, then some coughs. He picks up his little cup, and the video abruptly ends. ]

Ilya frowned, allowing the video to replay and replay and replay. Shane had a cold? Was he not going to be playing later on? Fuck. He shouldn't be outside. He should be in bed.

Ilya shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans, standing without a second thought. Shoes, keys, money, and he was out of the door.

Ilya drove himself to his favourite pharmacy nearby, the one with the nice wooden Russian dolls in the window. He had asked about them to an employee once, but nobody who owned the store was Russian. They were purely for decorative purposes.

He grabbed a basket. DayQuil? Yes. Tissues? Of course. Cough drops? Yep. Nasal spray? Sure. Thermometer? Why the fuck not.

After checking out, Ilya got back into his car with the bag full of sick day supplies. He'd never actually witnessed a sick Shane before, so he had no idea what to expect. Would he want all of this fussing? This wasn't even that big of a gesture. Ilya could go further.

To: Montreal Jane

13:28 Room number?

Ilya sent the text, taking a moment to play a new game he found on the App Store. Flappy Bird. Shane probably wouldn't text back straight away.

"Блядь," Ilya cursed as the stupid bird he was controlling face planted into a stupid obstacle. Fuck this game. Delete. Rigged. Bird propaganda.

Montreal Jane

13:31 Eager?

13:31 0814

Ilya jumped in the driver's seat of his car at the sound of the notifications, not expecting Shane to text back so swiftly. Ilya started up the ignition, making his way over to the hotel where the MLH always put their players. They should change hotels every time, really. Very dangerous.

After parking several blocks away (just in case), Ilya made his way to the hotel with his cap low on his head. The secretary was nice enough not to spare him a second glance as he slipped on past the main entrance, heading for the elevators. His thumb smashed the button for floor 8.

After praying to every single God he could think of that no Montreal teammates would come into the elevator, he finally made it onto his desired floor. He stepped out of the elevator, checking his texts again. Room 14.

Ilya knocked on the door, shuffling his feet. Shit, he was still in his adidas slides and socks. Not very sexy. He wasn't here for sex, anyway.

Ilya prepared himself as he heard the door open, expecting to see a red nose. Watery eyes. Cracked lips. Instead, Shane looked absolutely gorgeous. Ah. Of course he was sick and still gorgeous.

Shane pulled Ilya inside by the neck of his shirt, closing the door after Ilya was inside. Ilya had almost dropped his bag of supplies when Shane pulled him again , this time for a kiss. Their mouths moved desperately in a familiar dance before the spell broke and Ilya pulled away with a little sound of alarm.

"You are too sick to be kissing," Ilya frowned, attempting to get his now hard dick soft again. Think about other things, Ilya. Hayden Pike — ooh, okay. Boner immediately flagged.

Shane frowned, blinking at Ilya with a look of devastation. "What? I'm not sick."

Ilya furrowed his brow, assessing Shane's face with his eyes. "But — Twitter said you were. I saw video.. of you."

Shane looked utterly confused as he stepped back, eyeing the plastic pharmacy bag in Ilya's hand. Ilya just stood there, lips glistening with wetness.

"God, I knew someone was recording me!" Shane grinned a little, piecing together the story. "I took my antihistamines a little late today."

"Anti.." Ilya mumbled, wracking all of the English in his brain.

"Hay fever medicine," Shane added, his smile slowly growing. "You seriously believed some article on Twitter? And you went to get medicine for me? Oh my god. This is — so unheard of."

Ilya felt himself blush. Was he even blushing? His neck was hot. His ears were hot. Was he humiliated? "Yes, so funny. Laugh. So gullible."

Shane didn't laugh, he just smiled instead. Ilya was pulled back in for another deep kiss.

Ilya felt his back hit a wall of the hotel, something he normally did to Shane.

Shane had to pull away from the kiss to gasp for air, his pupils blown as he eyed Ilya. "You were going to play nurse?"

Ilya spluttered, the bag still awkwardly in his hand as he held Shane's waist. "I didn't know, okay? Whatever."

Shane rubbed his nose against Ilya's neck, giving the Russian a hug. They never hugged. Only kissed, and fucked. And shoved.

"Thank you," Shane mumbled, stepping back after a moment. "It's nice to know that you'd care whenever I catch my next cold."

Ilya hummed, squishing Shane's waist. "Is fine. There is stuff that could still probably.. help you. With hay fever," Ilya mumbled, pressing the bag into Shane's chest.

Shane peeked inside the bag, a small smile on his face. His cheeks were turning pink.

"Who even gets hay fever in January? I thought this was.. summer thing." Ilya said, watching as Shane went through the bag.

"Trees still exist in January," Shane replied, putting the bag aside so he could continue kissing Ilya.

[hollanovsnz]

His Russian Weighted Blanket (Part 1/3) (H/eated R/ivalry, Shane)

This fic is for @feverfcking who is an awesome friend and SUCH a kind person; he surprised me with some INCREDIBLE art of my dog and I am forever honored and thankful for it!! Blake, thank you for being so generous and sweet and I hope you enjoy masked-up, run-down Shaney with a terrible cold and a worried husband 😘 (The Reddit formatting is terrible LOL but it was a fun experiment! I love making up hockey shit.)

————

🏒 r/OTTCentaurs · Posted by u/StreisandEfxt 1 hour ago

Shane Hollander Wearing a Mask at Scotiabank Centre

[Photograph of Shane Hollander walking through the player entrance of the arena wearing a grey sweatsuit and a black face mask.]

🗨 17 comments ➡️ Share ✔️Save 🙈Hide 🚩Report

~

m00seknuckle: FUCK

69_CAD: fuck…

rozanuts: TABARNAK

2481: [GIF of Dolo from S/horesy saying “Tabarnak”]

~

stillhollzyswife: he looks soooo tired, poor baby

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

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

rozanuts: your mums a buck 80 at least

~

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

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

m00seknuckle: Found the fujoshi

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

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

m00seknuckle: Found the other fujoshi

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

~

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

Cens4PMs: This is so wholesome wtf

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

—————

Pierre Beaulieu @ hockeytalkie:

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

—————

Earlier that morning…….

“You should not go to practice today.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You do that anyway.”

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

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

——

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

“tshhh’ew! hh’kisshhu!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Shane—”

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

Shane opened his mouth to argue but Ilya came up very close to him and whispered in his ear, “Let me do this for you.” Shane’s heart flip-flopped, and he nodded. Ilya kissed the top of his head and they headed inside, waving at some of their teammates along the way, both looking forward to the nap they were going to take together later.

[itsjustaflower]

Happy pride to all the queer snzfuckers here 💛💐

[peachsnz]

A little animation. Just for youuuuu

MINORS DNI! DONOT REBLOG TO NONKINK BLOGS!!

[heyitsmemel]

Fireweed 1/2

Hi! I'm back with my stupid allergic guys! Happy spring!

Summary: 4.3k words. OC enemies to lovers M/M. Bellamy and Nass go camping. Both sneeze. Prince Bellamy discovers a new allergy.

TW: Sneezing fit while driving. Light mess.

My Ko-fi is linked here. If you enjoy my content and feel called to offer something, it is deeply appreciated. Either way, thank you to everyone who reads and enjoys this universe. <3

Part two will be very spicy. But for now, enjoy the buildup ;)

Authors note: Yekitiverse is a magical OC universe inspired by the culture/relationship between Spain and Morocco. It takes place akin to our early 20th century. So there are cars and technology but society is in a transitional stage.

***

“I don’t like this,” Nass complains as he helps Bellamy shove a rolled-up tent into the back of their rental car.

“Only rich people would willingly sleep outside on thin blankets,” Nass grumbles.

He rubs absently at his lower back, like his body remembers too well the years he and Marwa shared a mattress so thin it may as well have been the floor. The best their parents could afford at the time.

“I will make you like camping. I am sure of it.” Bellamy says neatly folding both of their jackets and setting it into the trunk.

“Doubtful,” Nass snorts, though he’s grinning.

“Well,” Bellamy pauses, bringing his hand to rest on the small of Nass’s back. He squeezes, his breath hot against Nass’s neck. “At the very least, I’m sure you’ll enjoy what I plan to do to you in complete privacy.”

Now that got Nass packing up the rest of the car in no time.

The university had a long weekend and for the first time in the history of them knowing each other, neither of them had anywhere to be. No royal obligations, exams, or illness. And the weather was perfect.

It was finally spring in central province, all warm wind and red weeds beginning to bloom along the highways and city streets. Bellamy had suggested a two-night camping trip in the Aylean Woods — three hours from the city, isolated enough that no one would bother them.

Nass knows Bellamy loves being in nature. The prince practically wilted if he spent too long trapped inside. And selfishly, the thought of having Bellamy entirely to himself for three uninterrupted days made Nass’s stomach flutter.

Their relationship had been going well — really well — the past few weeks.

Which honestly terrified him a little.

A few days ago, Nass had accidentally overheard Bellamy on the phone through his bedroom door.

“I sort of have a boyfriend I think,” he’d heard. “A Southerner.”

Nass had nearly dropped the tea he was holding.

“He hates the North,” Bellamy continued, deep voice muffled through his bedroom door. “It’s complicated. But he really likes me. Well, actually he says he loves me.”

Nass’s throat had gone dry at that.

There’d been a pause.

“You can’t meet him, Jorge. I c-can’t bring him to our village.” Bellamy said finally, tone flattening in that careful way it always did when he was upset. “He’d freak out.”

Nass had stood frozen in the hallway staring at the wall.

“I know it’s probably a bad idea,” Bellamy said, an air of finality to his voice. “But when has anything in my life ever been easy?”

The entire conversation had lodged itself beneath Nass’s ribs ever since. Half butterflies and half dread.

Nass had never had a boyfriend before. Just messy hookups in the back of clubs or in cramped dorm rooms.

Now he was dating the prince of Yekiti.

He wants to meet people from Bellamy’s past. He wants to see Bellamy’s home. And he sure doesn’t want to freak out or be a bad idea.

He wants to prove to Bellamy he’s easy to be with. Even if the idea of stepping foot in Northern province — hearing their language everywhere, seeing Northern soldiers like the one that killed his mother— makes nausea curl in his stomach.

And who the hell was Jorge anyway? Bellamy had never mentioned him. Or anyone from his past really.

But this weekend he’s determined to find out more.  

“Did you pack your tincture for motion sickness?" Bellamy asks as he slides into the driver’s seat.  

“Yeah, I packed it. And took some already.” Nass drops into the passenger seat. Being in cars, boats, trains — any form of transportation really — always made him horribly motion sick. It was incredibly embarrassing and inconvenient. “I don’t travel without itt — Hih’Gnxt’Shuu!”

The sneeze pitches him forward.

Ugh. He sniffles thickly rubbing at his tickling nose.

“And your allergy tincture?” Bellamy asks as he starts the car. “In case that continues?”

A smile tugs at Nass’s mouth. Bellamy’s concern is sweet. Ridiculously sweet.

“I have it,” he says, flipping on the radio. His hay fever is significantly worse in the early fall, but the pollen levels have been so high this week it’s affecting him even now in early spring.

Yesterday Bellamy had noticed Nass sniffling halfway through first period and had disappeared to the apothecary before lunch to buy him allergy tincture.

Bellamy notices everything.

“Good,” Bellamy pulls onto the main road as Nass settles onto a Southern radio channel.

“Where did you learn to drive?” Nass leans back into the cushiony leather seat.

He’s somehow unsurprised that Bellamy knows how to drive. He’s learned by now Bellamy knows how to do most things, despite living half his life as a prince.

Nass himself, just learned how to drive last year. Only the wealthiest Yekitians owned cars and in the South transit was still mainly camel or horse.

“I got lessons when I was a teenager,” Bellamy says, as he merges onto a main road. “I never liked my father’s staff doing things for me.”

Bellamy doesn’t seem comfortable with anyone doing anything for him, but Nass doesn’t say this.  

“Why do you never speak of your friends from the North?” Nass asks, watching as Bellamy pulls sunglasses over his light eyes. “Did you not have any?”

“You really think my social skills to be so poor, Nass?” Bellamy raises an eyebrow, but Nass can tell he’s teasing. 

“Of course I have friends.” Bellamy says. “You saw one of my friends in fact. Camille.”

A sharp stab of jealousy hits Nass instantly.

Camille’s hands in Bellamy’s curls flashes through his head. Bellamy kissing her under the red lights of Hookah’s Sex Lounge.

“She didn’t look like your friend that night at the sex club,” Nass says flatly.

Bellamy chuckles at Nass’s tone. “Camille is a very good friend.” He continues. “After I moved to the palace and had to go to private school, she was one of the only people who dared to socialize with me.”   

“Why?” Nass frowns.

His fingers tighten slightly against the steering wheel.

“My brother did not take kindly to suddenly discovering he had a secret half sibling threatening his future throne. At school he made it very clear that speaking to me would have consequences.”

Nass feels immediate disgust crawl up his spine. Jason Velaquez being a bully as a teenager is the least surprising thing he’s heard all month.

“Camille was never afraid of him,” Bellamy continues. “Her father is a trusted palace advisor. So Jason had no real power over her. Though he certainly tried.”

“And then?” Nass presses.

Bellamy gives a small shrug. “Eventually we dated for a few years. But Camille is not a mage and has no interest in living anywhere but the North.”

He doesn’t elaborate further. He doesn’t need to.

“And your friends from before you were a prince? From the orphanage?” Nass asks. He can’t even imagine it. To Bellamy, that time must feel like a past life.

Bellamy’s jaw tightens. Nass thinks he isn’t going to answer but then he does.

“Jorge and Amira,” he finally answers. “They are more like my family.”  

Jorge. The person Bellamy was speaking to on the phone.

“Jorge was born with a degenerative illness and uses a wheelchair. Amira is albino. And I have the king’s eyes,” he waves at his face. “Invalids they called us. And so, we were never adopted. Though I suppose I was technically adopted by the king.”

Something twists painfully in Nass’s chest.

“You must miss them,” Nass comments.

“Very much,” Bellamy says quietly. “I don’t see them often.”

“Why not?” Nass frowns.

Bellamy goes still.

“Because I am the prince,” he says finally, voice clipped. “And my father forbids me and my brother to associate with invalids.”

The words are so cruel Nass almost thinks he misheard them.

Bellamy sniffles softly, rubbing at his nose with the back of his wrist.

“And if anyone saw us together and word got back to the palace,” he continues, “it could make their lives… difficult. So, when I do see them I must be very discreet.”

Silence settles heavily between them.

Nass stares out the window, throat tight. He can’t imagine being forbidden from seeing Marwa. The thought alone makes him feel ill.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“Yeah.” Bellamy clears his throat. “Anyway. It’s hot in here.”

He presses the button for the windows. Warm spring air immediately whips through the car, tangling Nass’s braids together. 

The sharp scent of pine and something sweet he can’t exactly name hits him. Nass inhales, spraying his lap with an itchy and uncovered “Hih’Ttt’Shuuyiew!”

“Bless you,” Bellamy says. “Do you want to take your allergy tincture?”

Nass rubs his face. “No. It’ll only make me sleepy.”

“It will be a three-hour drive,” Bellamy says kindly. “It’s okay if you sleep.”

“That doesn’t make me a very good c-company — “Hih-EsshHUE!”,” Nass wrenches forward with the uncharacteristically loud sneeze, his seatbelt pulling against his chest.

He clears his throat that’s beginning to itch.

“You are good company awake or asleep, Nass,” Bellamy smiles. It’s almost shy.

The sincerity in his voice makes warmth spread through Nass’s chest so quickly it almost embarrasses him.

Maybe Bellamy is right.

Besides, even with the motion sickness tincture already in his system, the rolling highway has nausea beginning to churn low in his stomach.

With a sigh, Nass reaches into his bag, retrieves the allergy tincture, and lets a few bitter drops fall beneath his tongue before washing the awful herbal taste away with water.

After another forty five minutes and half a dozen sneezes later, both tinctures start to kick in. Nass leans back in his seat, letting the steady sound of the car and the drumming of Southern music lull him to sleep.

The next thing he knows, Nass is woken up to a thunderous “hHHh’DZZSSCHh—'uH-!” echoing through the car. He startles awake, neck aching from the awkward angle he’d fallen asleep in, just in time to see Bellamy snap forward with a second uncovered and equally loud “hh! H’uh! hih! IIESHHh'YEUh!”

It sprays all over the steering wheel, the mist sparkling in the sunlight. Bellamy sniffles, face twisted in irritation.

“Skies,” Nass struggles to sit up, “Bless you.”

“Sorry to wake you,” Bellamy pants, knuckling at his nose. Nass can see that his boyfriend had removed his sunglasses, blue eyes red and watering. “Gods, I couldn’t sth! Stifle anymore… hh! — “heH’SCHEUG’Hiih-!”

The car jerks slightly as Bellamy makes a right. He gives another irritated snuffle, his eyes glassy. “Can you check if there are any tissues in here?”

Nass doesn’t think there will be tissues anywhere in a rental car, but he checks anyway.

“Nothing,” he says, poking around the center console. “And I’ve told you many times you don’t need to stifle your sneezes, Bellamy. I don’t care if it wakes me up or —”

"Heh- hH’IYSChhiuEH!!” Bellamy interrupts as if his body agrees, a loose frizzy curl flying into his eyes from the force of it.

Bellamy mutters what Nass presumes is a curse in Northern tongue.

“Bless you,” Nass says, trying not to stare.

“Sorry,” Bellamy coughs. “I can’t stop sneezing for some reason.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Bellamy,” Nass blinks, growing flustered.

 “Ugh,” he gives a stuffy sounding sniffle. “I think I should blow my nose. Do you have an extra handkerchief?”

Nass flushes, all of the blood in his body rushing to his pants. He blinks, adjusts his jeans against his erection then blinks again. Fuck why is Bellamy so hot, how can he say things like this and not have a clue what it does to him —

“N-Nass?” Bellamy asks. Shit. He must’ve have zoned out for a second longer than appropriate.

“Do you have one? We’re on this highway for a while and I don’t know where I can bu! Buy —h’IEGHkSsH’hue!!”

It sprays absolutely everywhere. The steering wheel, the dashboard, Nass even feels some of the mist settle on his arm.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Bellamy sniffles, sounding horrified.

That gets Nass’s attention away from his dick.

“No — shit — I’m sorry, yes I have an extra one,” he twists over towards the backseat, pulling the soft fabric out from the bottom of his backpack.

“Here.” He hands it out to him. “Do you want to pull over or —,”

“It’s fine,” Bellamy makes a face of brief disgust at using a handkerchief, but takes it anyway, calmly removing one hand off the wheel to blow his nose. The aftermath of the blowing wrestles another tickly sounding sneeze from him.

Bellamy groans.

“Bless you,” Nass squeezes his shoulder trying to sound normal. His erection is so stiff he’s nearly throbbing. “What’s setting you off? Hay fever?”

Bellamy always sneezes multiple times in a row so it could just be that. But his blue eyes look very red and irritated. Though as far as Nass knows, the only thing Bellamy is allergic to are cats.

“I — I don’t have hay fever,” Bellamy sniffles, sounding a little bewildered. “In fact, I spend most of the spring and summer outside.”

“You’re living in a new place,” Nass shrugs. “You could be allergic to something here that isn’t in the North. My seasonal allergies are way worse here than back home in the South.”

Bellamy shrugs at this, though he raises the crumpled handkerchief to his face to blow his nose again.

“How was your nap?” Bellamy asks, lowering the handkerchief onto his lap. He rubs at his nose with his wrist.

“Good,” Nass cracks his sore neck. “Are we almost there?”

He is suddenly very desperate to get there and take care of the… problem in his pants. Plus, he can tell they’re getting close. Huge old growth trees dot the sides of the highway, their gnarled roots woven in between flashes of bright red fireweed.

Bellamy nods at the map on the dashboard.

“In about thirty minutes,” he says with a punctuated sniff.

Nass leans back in his seat. Bellamy had changed the radio station, while he was sleeping. Soft Northern flute music blares through the speakers.

“You don’t like Southern music?” he asks, the question coming out a little defensive.

He itches to change the station back to the Southern channel, but he doesn’t. That would be incredibly rude and selfish. Besides, he started seeing a therapist a few weeks ago to work on his…issues with the North and she advised to him to stop and breathe before acting.

He takes a deep breath.

“Of course I do,” Bellamy’s answer comes out polite and diplomatic, just like everything Bellamy says.

“But I also enjoy the music of my people Nass.” Nass has spent enough time with Bellamy to hear the slight hardening in his voice.

And with that, he leans forward and increases the volume. And Nass would never say it out loud, but the Northern music isn’t so bad.

It’s good even.

He closes his eyes, listening to the sound of the flute and Bellamy humming along. He can’t tell how much time has passed, when the distinct sound of Bellamy sniffling has Nass opening his eyes at full attention again.

Bellamy’s right hand is off the steering wheel, scrubbing at the underside of his reddening nose. He has his sunglasses back on again, but Nass is willing to bet his eyes are probably just as irritated as his nose looks. He hears Bellamy take a shaky breath, then exhale.

“Bellamy,” Nass clears his throat. “You should close the windows. You’re clearly allergic to something and having the windows open is probably making it —,”

“AEHD’SSCHhy’uuh!" Bellamy gasps, splattering the steering wheel with an irritated sounding sneeze.  

“Worse,” Nass says barely able to finish the word before Bellamy explodes with —

“hhiH’NGXTtS’suh! Hh! H-ih! “hH’EHGXST’huh! hh! ‘Ah! Heh — “hhK’IISCHhh’ue—hehh’TSSHH’yuuh! HeH—HhDJSCHhh’UH!”

The sneezes are so rapid that Nass doesn’t even hear him take a breath in between.

The car jerks. Trees flash past the windows in dizzying green smears.

Bellamy makes a strangled sound, shoulders hitching violently as he fights for air before his head helplessly snaps down again—

“Hh!—’NkTCHSH’Yue! —huhhh’He’EhSHhhueh!!”

 The steering wheel slips beneath his hands.

With horror, Nass watches the car drift over the yellow line and into oncoming traffic.

“Bellamy—”

h’IEGHkSsH’hue!!” hh! Heh — EH’Mmphh’schu!-HEH’DZSSCHhhY’iuh!”!!”

A horn blares.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNkkkKK!!

The sound tears through the car so loudly Nass’s heart lurches into his throat.

A silver car tears past them in the opposite lane, missing the driver’s side by what feels like centimetres. Nass catches a flash of terrified faces through the window.

His stomach lurches violently.

“Bellamy!” Nass shouts, lunging forward and wrenching the steering wheel back into place. The movement jolts painfully through his shoulder. “Pull over!”

"hh! Heh — hhINtTSSZH’Y’ue!— ‘ah-AEHD’SSCHhy’uuh!!”

Bellamy gasps out, clearly unable to say anything at all. One hand is clamped over his nose and mouth now, the other hand white-knuckling the wheel.

Nass reaches across Bellamy, nearly climbing over the center console to flick on the turn signal just as another itchy  "h’IEGHkSsH’hueY!” sprays across the side of Nass’s face.

Nass jerks the steering wheel hard, pulling them out of the lane and onto the shoulder of the road. Gravel explodes beneath their wheels. Another angry horn sounds somewhere behind them.

“Brake! Brake!” Nass yells over the sound of three more strangled sneezes.

Bellamy slams on the brakes hard enough to throw both of them forward against their seatbelts. The car skids unevenly before jolting to a stop.

Nass leans over, putting the car in park with shaking hands. For a second, he doesn’t move, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He blinks against a wave of nausea.

Gods, they almost got into an accident.

This is why his father and grandmother tell him not to mess with cars. Cars are not safe, they always say. Travelling the good old fashioned way by camel or horse is much safer and —

“hh! ehh’HTSSHH’Yueuh!” Nass blinks again, finally registering that Bellamy is still sneezing his head off. A miserable stuttered gasp from his lover gets him springing into action.

He shoves open the passenger door, grabs the allergy tincture and water bottle from the backseat, then rushes around the car and yanks open the driver’s side door.

Bellamy is still trapped in the seatbelt, sunglasses discarded, handkerchief crushed to his face as relentless sneeze after sneeze wracks through him.

“—AhehDTSSS’shuh! hhH!  “hhh... hhAATCHSHhh’uye!!”

“Gods,” Nass mutters, fumbling with the buckle. “Come here.”

He drags Bellamy upright by the arm. Bellamy stumbles out of the car, disoriented, eyes streaming so badly he can barely keep them open.

“Here,” Nass presses the water bottle into his hands. “Wash your face.”

Bellamy leans against the hood of the car as he unscrews the lid, not hesitating as he dumps cool water over his eyes and nose with a shaky groan. Water drips from his curls, down the sharp line of his throat, soaking into the collar of his pressed green shirt.

Bellamy glances down at the soiled handkerchief in his other hand and makes a disgusted look. Instead, he lifts the hem of his linen shirt to scrub at his wet face.

Nass is so concerned the part of his brain that would otherwise be enjoying this has gone completely silent.

Instead, he watches helplessly as Bellamy pants from the exertion, bringing the water bottle to his lips for a few desperate sips. Then his lover’s face twists again, full lips parting as he lurches to the ground with another helpless and uncovered — “hh! hhK’IISCHhh’Yue!”

Bellamy swears under his breath, eyebrows pinched together in allergic frustration.

“Here,” Nass says quickly, unscrewing the allergy tincture. “Lean your head back. I’m giving you six drops instead of three, okay?”

Bellamy answers with another strangled sneeze, though this time it’s only one. The fit must finally be slowing.

Nass moves fast, tipping the herbal drops beneath Bellamy’s tongue.

He would never say this out loud to his boyfriend, unless he wished to horrify him to no end, but Bellamy’s nose was profusely running, watery rivulets running over his lips and down his chin.

“Here,” Nass says, softer now, pulling his own handkerchief from his pocket. “Use this.”

It’s slightly used, which is pretty unhygienic, but Nass supposed they’d swapped their fair share of bodily fluids by now. And clearly Bellamy must be feeling quite desperate because he does not hesitate at all before snatching the handkerchief out of Nass’s hand, burying his abused nose in the fabric with a relieved groan.

Nass gives him some privacy as Bellamy blows his nose. When he turns back, Bellamy is leaning heavily against the hood of the car, pinching the bridge of his nose between damp fingers. He’s taking slow breaths through parted lips between careful sips of water.

Thankfully, the sneezing finally seems to be easing.

Nass approaches him cautiously, laying a hand on his arm. “Skies, bless you. Are you okay, Bellamy?”

“Yes,” Bellamy sniffles, sounding a bit dazed. “Well. Besides bmy dignity, which I fear did ndot survive that experience.”

His face is bright red down to the very tips of his ears.

“I’m so sorry for scaring you,” Bellamy dabs at his watery eyes with the edges of Nass’s soiled handkerchief.

“It’s fine,” Nass squeezes his arm. “Nothing happened. We’re fine. Are you sure you’re okay? I’ve never seen you sneeze like that before.”

Bellamy flushes even darker.

“Neither have I,” he takes a stuffy congested breath. “A-andyway, I just need a minutde. Thend we cand g-go.”

He can hear Bellamy trying to hide the lingering shock in his voice. Trying to appear calm and collected for Nass.

His stomach twists again.

“Are you crazy?” Nass stares at him. “I’m driving the rest of the way.”

“But it’ll just make you even more motion sick,” Bellamy says faintly, scrubbing at his nose with the underside of his wrist. Clearly whatever he is allergic to is still bothering him.

“Bellamy!” Nass says aghast. “I took medicine. I’ll survive. Besides, what if you start sneezing like that again? We nearly drove into incoming traffic!”

Bellamy pinches the bridge of his nose again. Closes his watery red eyes. “You’re right, of course. That must’ve been terrifying for you. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize for being a human being Bellamy,” Nass crosses his arms.

“Okay,” Bellamy swallows.

Then —

“I have no idea what set me off like that. Skies.”  

Frustrated, he kicks a stone near his shoe. It goes skidding across the roadside shoulder, flattening a cluster of bright red fireweed.

 There’s a brief silence.

Then Bellamy’s expression shifts.

“Nass,” he says slowly. “What are those?”

“What?”

“Those red flowers.” He points at them.

“There not flowers. You don’t have those in the North?” Nass raises an eyebrow.

Bellamy shakes his head.

“They’re weeds. Called fireweed because of their red colour.”

“I see,” Bellamy shifts. “And they grow here?”

“They grow everywhere this time of year,” Nass says, squinting against the sun.

“Right,” Bellamy nods, looking at them thoughtfully. “Okay then.”

And before Nass can tell him not too, Bellamy takes a few steps forward plucking a few fireweeds from the grass. He raises them to the underside of his nose, inhaling experimentally.

He blinks, eyelashes still damp from earlier. And maybe not less than a minute later, Bellamy chest shudders, exploding down with a violent —

“hh-hhh-HA! Hh’AEDTSSCCH’HY’ueeH!” that sprays his trousers in messy droplets.

Bellamy swears, shuddering to the left with another uncovered, equallly massive “heH’SCHEUG’HiiyUhH-!”   

The fireweed tumbles from his hand.

Clearly, he has found the culprit of his allergic misery.

Bellamy blinks rapidly, blowing his nose hard on the leftover available real-estate of Nass’s handkerchief. Then, unexpectedly, he laughs. The sound is soft and a little sad around the edges.

“Maybe it’s a signd to go back to the North,” he says as he rejoins Nass against the hood of the car. “Clearly the people do not want bme here.” He sniffles. “Or the land.”

Nass stomach twists.

“Well, I want you here,” he bumps Bellamy’s shoulder. “And I enjoy your… sneezing. Not when you almost drive us into oncoming traffic. But otherwise,” Nass leans in, pressing his lips to the side of Bellamy’s temple, “I enjoy it very much.”

“Oh, I have noticed,” Bellamy sniffs again, then gives a real laugh at this. The musical sound makes Nass’s stomach flutter.

“I thought I was more discreet than that,” Nass scratches his head.

“You certainly attempbt discretion,” Bellamy turns to him with a shit eating grin. “But the sexual endergy that pours out of you, I must say, Nass, is quite loud.”

Nass blinks.

Bellamy has always been much more observant and perceptive of energies than he is. And Nass would rather eat cotton than admit it, but he fears that is exactly what makes Bellamy a far better mage — and person — than he ever will be.

Still to hear that Nass’s sexual energy is… loud? Well, that gets his cheeks warming.

“Andyway,” Bellamy clears his throat, but it does nothing to ease the congestion in his voice. “If I have to suddenly suffer spring allergies, I am at least glad it’s not wasted.”

“Definitely not wasted, Your Majesty” He can practically hear the lust in his own voice. His eyes drag over Bellamy’s tight green t-shirt. His mouth waters.

He wants to pleasure that man senseless. Even if it is in the woods in a stupid tent. It seems the sex gods have answered his deepest, darkest sexual fantasies. He has his tall, extremely sexy lover, suddenly ridden with hay fever, all to himself for three whole days.

Nass’s dick can hardly stand the thought.

“Let’s go,” he nudges Bellamy. “I am suddenly quite inpatient to get there already.”

Bellamy gives him an amused knowing look, tossing him the car keys. “I’m sure you are.”

They switch seats, Nass sliding into the driver’s side, adjusting the seat and mirrors.

“Can we stop at the next road stall to buy some tissues?” Bellamy asks, stuffing Nass’s sodden handkerchief into his pocket.

 “In case…well… in case that happens again?” He rubs at his red nose.

Nass swallows hard against the thought of Bellamy doing that again.

“Of course,” He says with a laugh. “It seems that tissues are a camping necessity, Your Highness,”

And with that, he starts the engine and pulls their car back onto the road.

[pyronomous]

resumption (2/2, h/eated r/ivalry)

welp… I think this is more indulgent than anything because I love a suffering shane. what can I say, I like to see the guy miserable and unable to hide it, especially with ilya around to make it better :’) I NEEEEEEDED to follow my whumpy lil heart with this. very hard for me to assess the quality of my writing when my brain is just going *heart eyes heart eyes heart eyes* over sick shane. luckily I had the absolutely invaluable help of @silklined, who kindly offered to beta this second part for me. they did such an AMAZING job, and I feel a thousand times more confident about this thanks to their expertise. please know they had a huge hand in this ;) you should go read all their stuff, what an incredibly talented writer! pt. 1 here we goooo: shane is strong. shane is 200lbs of sharp skill and grit. shane has a tightly packed schedule that would make other grown men cry, and he’s very proud of the fact. shane is also presently down with the flu and learns what it means to be seen at his worst and held close anyway. he learns that, perhaps, the only thing he needs to do in return is not pull away from it.

When Shane woke, the offensive clock on his nightstand informed him it was far too early to be checking the time at all, just a few minutes past three in the morning. He had chosen the clock because of the soft blue numbers and how easy they were on the eyes, but the flu seemed to challenge his choice and made him rethink having a clock at all. 

Frankly, he couldn’t remember the trek to bed. He remembered Ilya cajoling him into drinking some tea, remembered letting Ilya dab at the corners of his wet eyes when the realization sunk in that Ilya was truly there. He remembered feeling sick yet comforted, and consequently so sleepy he had let Ilya gather him up in his arms and—

Oh. Apparently, Shane had been carried to bed. 

Ilya was beside him, his hair crushed flat on the side and unruly at the back. Shane shifted closer to Ilya, feeling the warmth of his bare back through the cotton of his own sweatshirt. He nuzzled his nose against the back of his neck and had never wished so vehemently for clear sinuses, just to breathe the familiar scent of love caught sleeping. 

Ilya stirred with a snort, then a cough, and Shane remembered Ilya was sick too—recovering, but still not well. It was almost romantic, in a deranged way, to be weathering the flu together in the same bed. It felt distinctly intimate, a rite of passage in a relationship.

He soothed Ilya with another nuzzle, a soft hush whispered right up against his spine, and snaked his arm around a body that eased into him. Ilya was still asleep, Shane knew, but always angled himself like a sunflower in search of its own solnyshko. 

Shane was nearly back to sleep when his breath hitched, the warmth of it puffing on the back of Ilya’s neck, trapped between them. The sensation of a sneeze in the works was crawling up his sinuses and making him take slow, shallow breaths through his mouth as he wrinkled his nose. 

“Hhehh… Hh’huuuh…” 

The center of his face was throbbing, his nose becoming impossible to ignore now that it had its own pulse. He didn’t want to wake Ilya, not when he was finally getting quality sleep, and he should have been running to the bathroom to sneeze, as quietly as possible, in private. But his concentration was threadbare at best, the immense tickle making it difficult to think anything beyond don’t sneeze, don’t sneeze, don’t sneeze. 

He ducked his chin down toward his chest, hot forehead finding the cool relief of Ilya’s bare back, and he carefully removed his arm from around Ilya so he could worm his hand between them, bringing it to his nose. 

“HhEHH—“

His breath hitched in a strangled vocalization, the worsening surge of the tickle sudden and undeniable. His nostrils flared as the bridge of his nose wrinkled hard. His eyes squeezed shut, whole face tightening. He closed his hand into a fist and pressed a knuckle tight into the right side of his nose where the tickle was at its worst, then he held his breath and stilled. 

“Shane?”

Apparently, Ilya had woken anyway—and swept away Shane’s effort to hold back his sneeze. He stuttered a surprised and overwhelmed gasp.

“Hh’hh’heh’ISSHOO!” 

It tore out of him, harsh and wet against his fist. Now that his nose had started, it didn’t want to stop. It almost felt like a punishment, a vengeful fuck you for ever being denied relief.

“Huh’ISSHHuh! Hh’ISSHHeuh-ESCHH’iuhh!”

Each sneeze seemed to make the feeling worse, like shaking around something fragile until it splintered further and further. His nose felt oversensitive and unsteady, the irritation of sneezing feeding back into the itch in a constant loop. When he heaved a breath, it stuttered in uneven gasps, already starting him on the next sneeze. 

“Hh’ehh’heEH’SHHIUH! EISHH’uhh! HUH’ISSHEUh-ISSHHGh’uh!” 

His body was trembling, muscles quaking with each snap forward that he didn’t have the energy for but was forced into. He was distantly aware of Ilya saying his name, of his back being rubbed, of his hand being forced away from his nose and replaced with a bundle of tissues. 

He couldn’t have said how long the fit went on, a cycle of gasping and sneezing and a few faint groans in between. When it finally began to taper, enough that he could drag in a fuller breath, there was Ilya tending to his nose with pinched rubs and telling him blowing his nose would help. 

“Try, malysh. Here, blow your nose.” Ilya pressed a fresh bundle of tissues to his nose, and Shane was far too exhausted to refuse the support. 

He blew his nose in short, breathless spurts that did indeed help to abate the tickle. Ilya continued rubbing his back through it and murmuring sweet nothings. 

Ilya waited until he was done, then wiped his nose clean with another tissue. He stared at Shane after, assessing him with a look that made Shane smile. He felt very valuable, perhaps a rare sight fit for gemological appraisal. Ilya looked at him as such, closely and carefully. Ilya’s hair still looked aggressively disheveled, almost windswept, and Shane couldn’t help but tug at it.

Ilya’s hand on the small of his back, which had still been rubbing soft strokes with his thumb, inched under his sweatshirt and touched his skin. Shane’s smile twisted into a wincing frown, his skin incredibly sore where Ilya touched. It felt like having a sunburn slapped, but without the smell of saltwater hair and the feeling of sand in shoes. That had happened to him before, at seven years old and during his first ever beach vacation. His cousin had slapped his sunburnt shoulder and reduced him to loud, messy tears.

“I cried odne tibe,” Shane mumbled, recalling the pain of the memory as Ilya’s fingers moved across his back carefully. “Frob a sudburd.” 

Ilya stilled, giving a frown of his own, then his hand moved from under Shane’s sweatshirt to his forehead. The backs of his fingers first, then flipped so his whole palm lay across it, finally to the side of his neck like he didn’t quite believe whatever he was feeling. 

Ilya pulled back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He coughed as he got up, sharp and encompassing and making him stumble a little on his way to the bathroom. 

Shane watched, distantly wondering if learning that his boyfriend had cried over a sunburn a lifetime ago was just too much for Ilya to bear, was the final and unforgivable straw for all the ways Shane could be so boring. 

Ilya came back from the bathroom with a thermometer in his hand, and Shane felt relief wash over him in waves. He had convinced himself Ilya had been packing his toothbrush with his heart already halfway out the door.

Instead, Ilya sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his leg, patiently asking, “How do you feel?” 

“Ubm… Sick,” he admitted uncertainly.  

Ilya made a quiet sound that might have been agreement, or dissatisfaction. He pressed the button on the thermometer and held it in front of Shane’s mouth. “Open.”

Shane blinked, and Ilya waited.

There was a pause in which Shane began to process that something was being asked of him, a request that he understood conceptually but wasn’t sure he needed to act on. It was as if Ilya’s command had slipped through one ear and gone clean out the other side, leaving him blissfully without thought but with the low, gravelly tone of Ilya’s voice still sitting warm in his mind. 

“Shane.” Ilya patted his thigh gently. “Open your mouth.”

With the thermometer set under his tongue, they waited in the quiet with only the sounds of Ilya’s short coughs catching on exhales and Shane’s congested, half breaths through his stuffy nose. They were a sight to be seen, or perhaps heard—a symphony composed of the sounds of sick men. 

Ilya removed the thermometer when it beeped and cursed under his breath, a phrase in Russian Shane hadn’t heard before but held familiar words, something like a plea for help. 

Ilya dropped the thermometer onto the bedside table and slipped his hand behind Shane’s neck, steering him upright with gentle insistence. “Come.” 

Shane let himself be guided out of bed. The stretch between the bed and bathroom became a journey of steps, careful heel-to-toe measurements like he was navigating unfamiliar space. Ilya stayed with him, a steady arm hooked around his waist. 

In the bathroom, Ilya turned him gently and pressed him down to sit on the closed toilet lid. Shane rested his elbows on his thighs and let his head hang. He noted the sound of the shower turning on, the roar of rushing water filling his ears.

Ilya came back into his space quickly, and Shane welcomed him with arms looped around his legs and his face pressed into his bare stomach. He was rewarded with a gentle stroke down his spine, then a tug at the hem of his sweatshirt. 

“Put your arms up,” Ilya said softly.

Shane lifted his arms, half with his own merit and half forced by his sweatshirt being dragged over his head. For a moment he was nowhere, blind and caught in fabric.

“Hh’ISSH’ehw!” 

It caught him by surprise, muffled awkwardly into the soft cotton still half over his face. His body jolted forward with it, and he grabbed blindly at Ilya from the shock of it. 

“Woah, okay, okay.” Ilya caught him immediately, one hand firm at his side as he finished pulling the sweatshirt free. “I got you.” 

Shane blinked, disoriented. “Sorry,” he mumbled thickly.

Ilya pressed a stray kiss to the top of his head before moving on. The rest of Shane’s clothes went the same way, removed carefully with one of Ilya’s hands keeping steady at his side all the while. 

“Fuck,” Ilya muttered suddenly, stopping in his tracks. Shane frowned, lips curving down until Ilya tapped his cheek and smiled warily. “Is nothing. Just, I forgot—wait here, okay? I will be right back.”

As if his plan had been to move at all. He wanted to say as much, but Ilya was gone faster than he could manage a single word. He felt horribly alone now, one hand bracing the counter beside him as he shivered, the air sliding unpleasantly against his overheated skin. 

“Huh’ISHHuh—‘TSH’uh!”

Two sudden, messy sneezes that had him curling forward, the second weaker and doing nothing to relieve the buzzing feeling suddenly taking hold of his sinuses. He stayed there for a moment, with his hand hovering uselessly in front of his face, breath stuttering in uneven hitches.  

“Have to sneeze?” 

Shane’s watering eyes shot up. Ilya had returned with a glass in one hand and his other closed in a loose fist, and he was taking in the sight of him. Shane nodded absently, then tilted his head to slide his gaze toward the bathroom light. 

“HH’ISHHoo—ISHH’uhh!” 

“Oh? That helps me too sometimes, looking at something bright.” Ilya gently nudged the glass of water into Shane’s hand, then offered him two tablets. “I learned something new about you.” 

Shane swallowed the pills down without fuss. His throat hurt with it, but he greedily drank half the glass of water, as if the first little sip had reminded him how parched he was. 

Ilya undressed, just his boxers, then helped Shane into the shower. When the water hit his skin, it sent a shudder up through him that made his teeth clack together. He flinched hard, pulling back instinctively. “It’s cold—“

“No,” Ilya said firmly, his arm tightening around his waist and effectively stopping his escape. “Is warm, Shane. Your skin is just warmer. Trust me, give it time.”

Shane obeyed, because that was what he did now—followed the path Ilya set, step by step, without needing to see where it led to. Letting Ilya tend to him, take care of him like Ilya had allowed Shane to do earlier in the week. What was love if not a give and take, if not an exchange of trust?

So Shane leaned into him and closed his eyes, letting his cheek rest on Ilya’s shoulder as Ilya adjusted the angle of the shower head so the water fell more evenly over Shane’s back. One arm stayed steady around Shane’s middle, anchoring him, and his other moved—a hand over his shoulders, down his arm, across his back. 

Shane’s consciousness narrowed down to sensation. The steady drum of water, the slide of Ilya’s hand, the quiet rhythm of breathing into each other. The steam seemed to be doing good for both of them, easing Ilya’s cough and Shane’s burning sinuses. The tension in him slipped away, muscles loosening as his body adjusted to the temperature of the water, his weight settling more fully into Ilya’s hold. 

At some point, Ilya pulled his shoulder back and took Shane’s cheek in his hand, fingers gentle but insistent as he forced him up a little straighter. “I will wash your hair, okay?” Shane made a vague sound that he hoped Ilya understood as a yes. “Close your eyes.”

Ilya placed a hand at the base of his skull, guiding him to tilt his head back to wet his hair. His fingers combed through gently, the drag of fingertips against Shane’s scalp. It made Shane sigh, long and loose. 

Shampoo came next, worked into a lather. Ilya’s fingers massaged careful circles and scratches, a firm pressure that wasn’t too hard but enough to make Shane feel hypnotized. His forehead drifted toward Ilya’s shoulder unconsciously. 

“Hey, no. No, stay up.” Ilya adjusted him again. “It’ll hurt if you get soap in your eyes.” 

“Feels so good,” he muttered drowsily. 

Shane knew Ilya must have been indulging him. It was slow and gentle work, certainly going on longer than necessary, but it was the best Shane had felt all night and Ilya seemed to recognize it. They stayed like this for a stretch of time, with Shane melting into Ilya’s touch, until his breath caught. 

“Hhuh!” Ilya’s fingers paused, and Shane lifted his wrist to his nose. “Hh’ISHHh!”

The sneeze caused him to jerk forward, the motion throwing off his balance just enough that he would have tipped if Ilya hadn’t tightened his hold.

“Hehh’ISHhuh! So-sooh’ISHHeuh! Sorry, fuck.”

“Easy, easy.” Ilya steadied him, holding him tightly to his chest. “Is okay, just sneeze.” 

Shane sniffled wetly, dragging his wrist firmly under his nose. “Doh, it’s okay… Thigk I’b donde.” 

Ilya waited a few more seconds, just enough to make sure, then helped Shane rinse his hair. Ilya’s fingers started at his forehead, swiping suds back carefully away from his face, then raked through his hair to help the water wash everything away. 

Ilya turned the shower off and they exited together. Cold air rushed around them, sharp against Shane’s wet skin. He shuddered hard, shoulders curling inward. The shower, which had been comforting, now felt like a trick. Perhaps this was a Herculean task. Maybe showering with the flu was one of the 12 Labours, with the act of standing wet and cold being the price to pay for working a fever down. 

But then Ilya was moving, reaching for a towel and wrapping it around Shane’s shoulders, drying him off with careful presses of the towel rather than dragging it in scratchy passes, and Shane felt soothed. Shivery, uncomfortable, but deeply loved. 

It settled somewhere deep in Shane’s chest, that kind of attention—in being learned so thoroughly by another person. Ilya, full of force and rough edges in so many corners of his life, was handling Shane with a kind of gentleness that made him feel frighteningly known. It was as though Ilya knew by instinct which parts of Shane needed softness without ever having to place it into words. 

Ilya managed to get them both dried and dressed, a pair of shorts hanging low off his hips purely for the convenience of them, and Shane more carefully tugged into a loose shirt and sweatpants. Once Shane was back in bed, propped up against the headboard, Ilya reached for the thermometer and held it out to him. 

Shane frowned, edging more towards a wince. “Agaid?” 

“Yes, again.” 

He put the thermometer under his tongue and watched Ilya while they waited. Really watched him—his damp, unruly hair; the crease between his brows; the way his hands rested on Shane’s thighs like he couldn’t not touch him; the way he looked at him, assessing from the top of his head, his face, the climbing numbers on the thermometer. 

The thermometer beeped, Ilya took it, and Shane quietly considered that the act of loving someone had less to do with grand declarations and a lot more to do with selecting soft, warm clothes and taking temperatures.

Ilya squinted at the thermometer, and his shoulders dropped with a sigh. “Better,” he said, sounding relieved. “Still high, but better.” Ilya set the thermometer aside and started adjusting Shane, guiding him lower down the bed, easing his head against the pillow, pulling the blanket up to his shoulders. 

Shane swallowed. He was, essentially, being tucked in. “Ilya.”

Ilya’s hands paused, now hovering over Shane. “Yes? Are you okay?” 

“You… I, umbb…” 

He could feel the words sitting somewhere in his gut, formed in intention but not taking the shape of language. It was the slow, aching pull of tenderness tangling up with the sharp sting of embarrassment. Now with a sound mind, or closer to one, he was painfully aware that he had been washed, dried, dressed. He had failed, even, to hold himself up. He had let his body become more an extension of Ilya’s, or a burden to him, than something within his own control.

The truth of it, though, was that something else was threaded through every moment. It had been care in motion, as if Shane was allowed to need him, as if Shane needing him wasn’t an inconvenience but a circumstance that Ilya met eagerly and entirely willingly. 

The hands that pressed him face-first into mattresses, that gripped him with the edge of a challenge, that stole touches at the worst moments just to prove they could—those same hands had held him upright under a shower, had tenderly wiped his nose clean, had generously washed his hair. This version of him, weak and unsteady and unable to care for himself, hadn’t changed anything fundamental. The world hadn’t come crashing down. In fact, the world felt a little lighter, like Ilya had decided to shoulder it with him without being asked. 

But how would he say any of that? The enormity of it, gratitude and vulnerability and love, sat somewhere in the aching center of him. He wouldn’t be able to find the words tonight, and maybe not ever—not in a way that would feel like enough. So instead, he croaked a soft, “Thagk you for helpig mbe.”

Ilya smoothed his hair back, palm flattening briefly against the crown of his head in a gentle, reassuring press. “Always.”

The rest of the dark, early morning hours passed in stretches of restless sleep and bouts of hazy consciousness. Sometimes Shane woke to find Ilya scrolling on his phone beside him; at others, he woke to fingers carding through his hair. Once, horrified, he woke to Ilya coaxing him up so he could change his shirt because he had apparently sweated through it. 

The day arrived somberly. There was no glowing sunrise, no hopeful sense of renewal—just weak, muddled light leaking around the curtains and Shane waking with the immediate realization that he still felt like absolute shit. 

The flu had settled into him completely now. His skin was oversensitive and hurt just from the rustle of his clothes. His body ached with a deep, heavy soreness. His sinuses throbbed and buzzed in miserable little waves, and he was so congested he had to breathe through his mouth, making his throat feel rubbed raw. 

Ilya was asleep on his side, one arm thrown over Shane’s waist protectively. Even now, still recovering and obviously exhausted, Ilya slept like he was holding the hope of the world in his arms, like rest was secondary to keeping Shane close and cared for. 

Shane loved him with such terrible force it seemed to circle back around into fear. Could you love someone so much that it stopped being healthy? Maybe there was some kind of recommended limit, beyond which devotion crossed a line and became pathological. 

Throughout the day, Shane’s house transformed. It carried signs of ill health. Tea mugs accumulated, half full and abandoned after naps between doses of cold medicine. Damp washcloths were left draped over the edge of the bathroom sink. Crumpled tissues bloomed in strange places (the bathroom counter, tucked into folds of blankets, inexplicably on the windowsill in the kitchen). 

“How mbady boxes do I have stashed away?” Shane asked hoarsely, blinking blearily at the fresh box of tissues Ilya placed on his lap. “That’s gotta be… What dumber is that?” 

Ilya flattened the empty box in his hands, probably for recycling. “Three,” he said. Then he glanced at Shane, his mouth twitching into a crooked little smirk. “There is two left, but with both of us… I should order grocery delivery, for tissues. And food.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

“Ten boxes of tissues, yes?”

Shane huffed a weak laugh that dissolved into grumbling coughs muffled into his sleeve. Ilya stepped closer and spread a warm hand over his chest, rubbing slowly while Shane coughed himself miserable. When the coughing eased, Ilya brushed his knuckles over Shane’s cheek. 

“You sound so bad, Shane.” 

“You soud worse.” 

Ilya raised a brow. 

“Doh, really,” Shane insisted. “Your cough really does soud bad.” 

“I’m getting better.” Ilya looked Shane over, pursing his lips. “You, well…”

Shane lowered his gaze, fixing it on the corner of the bed. Ilya hadn’t meant any harm, Shane knew, but the truth of it reminded him that Ilya had a life waiting. Soon, Ilya would stop spending entire days wrapped around Shane. He would leave for Ottawa and slide back into the rhythm of his normal life while Shane remained in Montreal. 

It was ridiculous how distressing the thought was, as if that hadn’t been their arrangement for the past couple years. 

Ilya sat on the edge of the bed and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Shane’s mouth, palm cupping under his jaw. 

“You will get better too,” he said softly. “Maybe slower than me, because I am very strong. But your strong boyfriend will take care of you.” 

The joke should have calmed something in him. Instead, emotion climbed unexpectedly into Shane’s throat, hot and awful. 

“How logg?” he asked quietly. His voice strained despite his effort to steady it. “Udtil you go back?” 

“Hey.” Ilya’s expression softened. “Don’t worry about that right now.”

But Shane did worry. He worried because he wanted this horribly domestic version of them forever, wanted Ilya worrying about their stock of toiletries and asking him about grocery orders. He wanted to settle in bed at night without counting down days. He wanted—

“We have time,” Ilya said quietly. He brushed his thumb beneath Shane’s eye, stopping him from spiraling further. “I have to go to Ottawa on Tuesday to see my team doctor. Get cleared for light practice, probably. Maybe play game Wednesday.” He continued slow strokes over Shane’s skin. “So we still have a few days, okay?”

Shane nodded. A few days shouldn’t have felt as precious as it did, but relief still coursed through him. Relief that Ilya would have more time to rest, and selfishly, that Shane would have two more nights not spent alone.

Their conversation dissolved into murmured pillow talk, little sweet nothings and encouragements whispered back and forth until Ilya coaxed more water and medicine into him, and eventually guided him out to the couch with the promise that a change in scenery might make him feel better. 

By late evening, Shane had become part of the couch.

He lay cocooned under two blankets, his head propped up against one end of the couch and his legs resting in Ilya’s lap. A nearly unwatchable slapstick comedy played quietly on the TV, only really on for Ilya’s benefit while Shane dozed between bouts of coughing and sneezing. 

It had been funny at the time, when Ilya actually added ten boxes of tissues to the grocery order, but now Shane thought Ilya had demonstrated great foresight. 

“Huh’EISHH’uh!” His head throbbed with it, and he scrubbed weakly at his nose with a tissue. “Heh-! Hehh’ISHH’iehh! H’ITSHHooh! Ugghh.” 

Ilya assessed, watching him with the same low-level concern he’d been wearing on his face all day. Then, he carefully slid out from underneath Shane’s legs. “I will heat soup.”

Shane answered with another sneeze. 

“After we eat, I think we go to bed.” Ilya stroked his palm gently over the top of Shane’s head as he passed the couch. “You want chicken noodle? Or miso?”

Shane wanted neither. Really, all he wanted was to remove his entire respiratory system, and possibly his musculoskeletal system while he was at it; he was sore in places he didn’t even know he could hurt. But the instant miso cups Ilya bought were small, more drink than meal, and it sounded marginally less miserable than trying to choke down noodles. 

“Mbiso,” he croaked. 

Ilya returned a few minutes later, carrying two cups of instant miso soup. “Sit up,” he instructed. 

Shane struggled his way into something resembling a half sitting lounge. Every muscle protested the movement, but when he accepted the soup, he nearly groaned at the warmth of it in his hands. Ilya drank from his own soup cup while Shane slowly sipped at his. 

He was halfway through the cup when his nostrils flared. The tickle came on so suddenly he let out a strangled sound before he even registered he needed to sneeze. He pinched his nostrils tightly while his other hand reached blindly toward the coffee table, trying desperately to set the soup down lest he spill it all over himself and the couch. 

The cup disappeared from his hand at the last possible second.

“Hh’nnghk’uhh!” The first sneeze was forcibly contained behind his pinched fingers. It hurt everywhere. “Owwwhhuh-hEH’TSHH’iewhh—ISHH’ooh!” 

Tissues were pressed into his hand, and Ilya murmured a soft blessing while Shane groaned miserably as he cleaned himself up. He finished with a thorough blow. By the end of it he felt entirely drained, all the energy wrung out of him by half a cup of soup and three poorly timed sneezes. 

Quietly, Ilya gathered both soup cups, Shane’s still only half-finished, and disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned, he crouched in front of the couch and held his arms open toward Shane. 

Shane, without a word, sank into Ilya’s arms. He allowed himself to be gathered up, Ilya’s arms fitting securely around his shoulders while Shane buried his face against the slope of his neck. He let his eyes slip closed, all tension draining under familiar warmth. 

Ilya’s hand settled against the nape of his neck, thumb moving lazily through the short hair there. “We should go to bed now,” he murmured. “You need sleep.”

“You do too,” Shane countered grouchily, voice muffled against Ilya’s shoulder.

Normally Ilya would have struck back, would have found some way to beat Shane at his attempt to smart him, to tease Shane into smiling just for the sake of it. Tonight, he only hummed softly and pressed a lingering kiss into Shane’s hair before helping him carefully off the couch. 

He held Shane’s hand the entire walk to the bedroom. 

Shane leaned shamelessly against Ilya while they brushed their teeth, side by side at the bathroom sink. At one point, he caught Ilya watching him in the mirror with sleepy fondness, toothbrush hanging from the corner of his mouth. 

“What?” Shane mumbled around toothpaste foam.

“You are very cute when sick.”

Shane rolled his eyes and brushed his teeth a little more aggressively, if only to stop himself from smiling.

When he finished rinsing, Ilya wiped the corner of his mouth clean with his thumb before guiding him gently toward bed. The sheets were cool when Shane climbed in, a relief against his feverish skin. He curled toward Ilya, and Ilya gathered him close instinctively.

Shane rested his forehead against Ilya’s collarbone and listened to the slow rhythm of his breathing. It had deepened noticeably, slow and even. Apparently, Ilya had fallen asleep almost instantly. It struck Shane suddenly that Ilya must have been exhausted. The entire day had revolved around Shane and his temperature, and his liberal use of tissues, and his love of freshly brewed tea. 

Aching with the realization, he tilted his head up and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the center of Ilya’s throat before he let sleep drag him under, too. 

Unfortunately, the flu rendered sleep very difficult, indeed. Shane surfaced abruptly from a shallow fever-dream less than an hour later because a cough caught at the back of his throat. It made his chest ache and his eyes water. 

Ilya stirred under him and passed a sluggish hand over his back. Shane stayed still, listening carefully. He desperately wanted Ilya to get more rest. 

When he was certain Ilya was still asleep, he carefully shifted off of Ilya and onto his back. He swallowed against the soreness in his throat and tried to settle back down, but his sinuses had packed themselves completely shut, as though cotton were stuffed deep into his skull. 

Slowly, cautiously, he reached for a tissue on the nightstand and attempted to blow his nose, one nostril at a time, with the smallest amount of pressure possible. The congestion remained stubbornly immoveable, but somehow his nose was still managing to run. 

Shane sighed miserably and, out of desperation, tore off two small pieces of tissue, stuffing them into his nostrils so he wouldn’t have to wipe at his nose every few seconds. The skin around his nostrils was rubbed raw and painful, anyway.

It felt deeply pathetic, but also incredibly effective. 

For a while, he lay on his back like this, staring into the darkness and trying to ignore the pressure throbbing behind his eyes. It was miserable business, but Ilya was at least sleeping soundly. 

“Hh-hIIH!”

He clamped a hand over his nose, trying to smother the tickle out before it worked into a sneeze, but the congestion only made the sensation worse, pressure building painfully. 

“Hhgh’SHHoo!”

Yeah, that fucking hurt. 

Sneezing while this congested felt genuinely agonizing, the force ricocheting painfully through his blocked sinuses. 

“Hh’GSHHiuh!”

“Shane?” Ilya mumbled drowsily. “You okay?”

Shane was beginning to suspect Ilya possessed some inexplicable biological reflex to react to the sound of Shane suffering. Perhaps a survival instinct, ancient and deeply coded in his DNA. Maybe Russian men had once survived brutal winters by instinctively waking whenever their lovers sounded ill, entire bloodlines preserved through aggressive caretaking and sheer emotional vigilance. 

“Mby dose…” Shane tried to sniff and immediately regretted it when he choked on a cough. 

Ilya made a soft sound of understanding and rolled toward him. Even half asleep, his hand found Shane’s face in the dark, broad palm nice and cool against his hot cheek. 

“Come here.”

Shane shifted closer beneath the blankets, and Ilya’s fingers moved over his face, carefully mapping it in the dark. His fingertips pressed gently beside Shane’s nose, then along his sinuses in slow practiced motions. The pressure hurt at first, making him wince, then slowly began to ease some of the tightness. 

Shane let out a low, appreciative groan.

“Mmh, feel good?” Shane could practically hear the little smile in Ilya’s voice.

Shane made a soft sound, and Ilya’s fingers continued to work carefully in touches more gentle than seemed possible for such strong hands. It wasn’t enough to clear the congestion completely, probably not even enough to be able to properly blow his nose, but enough that the throbbing behind his eyes lessened into a dull, nearly unnoticeable ache. 

“How do kndow how to do this?” Shane asked, bewildered. 

Ilya’s fingers slowed briefly as he answered, “My mother.” 

Ilya was able to say these things, late at night with the world quiet behind sleep and without the bright hours left to expose him. It was like he saved his sadness for the dark, when only its silhouette was visible in the low light, its details swallowed kindly by shadows.

And it had been stated so simply, not an invitation for probing or a request for comfort. It was an explanation, a humble offering of information caught between I trust you with this and I trust you won’t make me talk about it. It was a house of cards, a building without a proper frame, a structure one breeze away from catastrophe—of Ilya falling apart. And Ilya trusted Shane enough to chance it anyway. 

Ilya once had a mother, too. Once, Ilya had been loved freely and tenderly, by a woman who had pressed cool hands to feverish skin and learned the exact places to soothe pain from her son.

Shane could picture it, Ilya’s mother sitting beside him and teaching him care through patient hands, passing her love so ordinarily neither of them knew how important it would become later. People passed, and parts of them continued moving through the world. What Ilya kept for himself, the remnants of his mother’s love, lived on in his hands and was being selflessly handed over to Shane. 

Shane shifted closer, tucking himself warm against Ilya’s chest, and murmured in practiced yet still clumsy Russian, “я тебя люблю.” 

For the briefest moment, Ilya went very still. Shane felt the pause of his breathing, the way his body tightened sharply before relaxing again. Then, Ilya lowered his face into Shane’s hair with a gentle nuzzle. 

“Terrible accent,” Ilya whispered against the top of his head. 

Shane smiled weakly. “Dod’t lie, I’b very good. It’s… It’s just the codgestiod, that’s all.” 

“Wooorst accent.” But Ilya’s arms wrapped tightly around Shane, pulling him impossibly closer, then continued gentle rubs along Shane’s sinuses with his thumb. “But good effort.” 

Eventually, little by little, Shane’s breathing eased. He was halfway to sleep when he sneezed again, suddenly and helplessly right into Ilya’s chest. 

“Hh’ISHHuhh!”

The force of it startled both of them. Then, Shane realized with horror that he still had tissue stuffed in his nose.

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned, mortified. “I’b sorry… This is so gross.” 

He twisted away from Ilya and pulled the damp tissue free, quickly wrapping it in a clean tissue before abandoning it on the nightstand. He had the foresight to grab a few more tissues just to keep in his hand.

Beside him, Ilya laughed softly. “Yes,” he agreed. “Is very gross.”

Shane groaned again, but through a self-deprecating laugh, and Ilya pulled him back into his arms. 

“But,” Ilya continued, sounding awfully fond, “this is also love.”

Something warm spread through Shane’s chest. He pressed the tissues to his dripping nose and settled heavy into Ilya’s arms again, forehead finding the crook of Ilya’s neck on instinct. 

“I could do this agaid,” Shane admitted softly after a moment, voice edging on shy. “Every flu seasod, forever.”

Ilya made a quiet sound against his hair that might’ve been a laugh. “Every flu season? For the rest of our lives?”

Perhaps it was the fever, but he nodded. Shane considered that he was essentially proposing under the pretense of surviving future respiratory illnesses together, which honestly sounded perfectly reasonable to him at the moment.

“I like flu-Shane,” Ilya mused. “He loves me very much.”

“Healthy Shade loves you too,” Shane argued weakly. “Healthy Shade loves you without sdeezig od you.”

“Healthy Shane, sick Shane.” Ilya smoothed his fingers over Shane’s hair in gentle, slow pets. “All my Shanes.”

Love was a lot of things. Sometimes it was bright and cinematic and made Shane think happily-ever-afters weren’t only for fairytales. Sometimes it was mild summers spent in Lanaudière, or puzzles at his parents’ house during family dinner nights. 

And sometimes love looked like this, curled together in the middle of the night with fever sweat cooling against Shane’s skin, crumpled tissues gathering on the nightstand, and Ilya holding him like there was nowhere else he’d rather be. 

[pyronomous]

pauses (7/7, h/eated r/ivalry)

I have consumed an ungodly amount of caffeine and not enough food over the past two days and I texted an ex at 1am. either I’ve reached a state of nirvana or am on the brink of a total crashout. or both? no wonder so many novelists lose their ever loving minds. how do they do this day after day, how how how? shoutout to everyone who has encouraged me along the way with likes and tags and replies. seriously, I could cry just thinking about it :) this community's willingness to lift each other up is so special to me. and very special shoutout to @hollanovsnz for inspiring me to try out narration-interrupting sneezing I had this gif of ilya crying on shane looping in the background the ENTIRE time I wrote this part. please take a look, it's so worth it.

without further ado, here is the final part— in which ilya is very sick, and shane struggles with words but excels in physical touch (and google searches).

pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, pt. 4, pt. 5, pt. 6

Ilya was being scarily compliant.

How many times had Shane asked Ilya to grow up, to listen to his advice because sometimes he knew what he was talking about, to fall in line when a situation required a more delicate approach? Ilya was a mischievous kind of person who really enjoyed setting Shane on edge, and Shane spent a lot of time halfheartedly scolding him for it. 

Now, Shane was wholeheartedly regretting it. 

He had taken Ilya’s temperature (39.2), made him eat a bit of yogurt (3 spoonfuls, something easy on his throat and to settle his stomach for medication), dosed him up with cold and flu tablets (2) and ibuprofen on top of it (400mg), and got him to drink half a glass of water (to wash down said medication, around 200ml). 

Shane accomplished all of this within fifteen minutes, down to the haphazard notes on his phone for tracking, if only because Ilya was ragdolling around and giving Shane absolutely no pushback. He hadn’t even asked Shane why he was suddenly in his house, feeding him medicine and throwing caution to the wind. It was as if the flu had taken all of Ilya’s essence and left his body behind, flushed and sweat soaked. 

This was much more frustrating than Ilya’s tendency to lean provocateur over passive lover, or maybe it was just that now Ilya was stripped bare and Shane selfishly wanted it all back. 

Or maybe Shane just always had something to complain about.

He surprised himself with the thought. Shane had never been a very introspective person, but Ilya shaped him into more of a human than he’d ever known he could be. It was inexplicable, the power of caring for someone so much. 

I love you, he thought. I love you, I love you, I love you.

“I need to get the sheets changed,” he said accordingly. “Come on, I’ll help you up.”

He leaned in, sliding an arm behind Ilya’s shoulders to help him upright. Ilya seemed awfully uncoordinated but no less made the effort to lean into Shane’s stable hold. Ilya was heavy, muscles whipcord tight in a way that always made Shane question how junky breakfast sandwiches and ice cream could amass into such a body, but Shane was strong too.  

He helped Ilya onto the chaise near the window. Ilya gave a full body shiver, looking uncomfortable and fully absent, his rheumy-eyed stare fixed on nothing in particular. Shane covered Ilya with the throw at the end of the chaise as an afterthought. 

(Ilya wasn’t the type to have an extra set of sheets, and Shane had complained about it just days after Ilya moved in. A week later, there had been three identical sets waiting in the linen closet, courtesy of Ilya caring so much, and three separate hickeys on Ilya’s chest from a thankful and thoroughly loved Shane.)

Shane stripped the bed and tossed the damp sheets on the floor because he didn’t have time to put things in their proper place, then redressed the bed with clean sheets. He did a sloppy job with his shaking hands, but he desperately wanted to get Ilya back in bed. 

“Do you think you can handle a quick shower? Just to rinse—“

“—zZdshooh! RrHh’sSCHuuh! Hh-hehh-gd’schhiuuh!”

Shane turned to Ilya and watched him curl into the thin throw blanket, aiming his sneezes down at it with no real intention other than that his head snapped down with them. 

“Never mind,” he said gently, more for himself. “Bless you.” 

Ilya sniffled in response, a congested sound that made Shane reach for the box of tissues on the nightstand. He pulled a couple out and moved to the chaise, pressing them into Ilya’s hand. Ilya blinked down, only curling his fingers around the tissues.

“Ilya? Hey.” Shane kneeled, catching Ilya’s eyes just for the sake of making sure he was still in there. He took the tissues back from Ilya’s hand and wiped his nose for him with a gentle touch. Ilya’s head tipped forward, following the touch automatically, and Shane couldn’t remember a time he’d ever seen Ilya so pliant. “Alright, bed. You need to be in bed.” 

Ilya made a sound of agreement, a thick grumble sticking in his throat, but it eased Shane’s anxiety by a hairline. At least Ilya wasn’t totally lost to the fever, at least he could still appreciate the idea of resting comfortably.

He kept his arm anchored around Ilya’s bare waist as he guided him back to bed. The fever was doing a number on him, but Shane figured being next to naked wasn’t helping. He got Ilya get settled in bed, propped against the pillows and duvet pulled up to his waist, then set out to find something comfortable for Ilya to wear.

He momentarily considered if it was even worth getting Ilya dressed. He would undoubtedly sweat through any clothes, but he supposed it was much easier to change his clothes than to keep changing the sheets. 

He settled on a loose long-sleeve and pulled it over Ilya’s head, guiding his arms through and tugging the fabric down into place. His fingers brushed over fever heated skin all the while, mentally clocking that he should check his temperature again soon, just to make sure the medicine was at least keeping it steady.

“RRH’SCHOooh!”

“Oh, fuck—“

The sneeze broke loose against Shane’s arm, and the expletive slipped out in tandem. It took a moment for his mind to catch up, to process the sensation, warm and damp against the back of his hand that was still braced on Ilya’s stomach.

And the reality that he was still being sneezed on.

“Ggh’ZDSCHuuh! YhH’SHhh-ISHhuh-ghH’SHOo!”

There was a brief, horrible pause in which Ilya looked at Shane’s arm, then up at his face, and then Ilya’s expression shifted. He looked completely crestfallen, guilty in a way that looked wrong on on him, and Shane hovered his hands near Ilya nervously. 

“Oh, no, it’s—Ilya, it’s fine. You’re fine.” 

Ilya turned his head, still looking stricken, and Shane placed his hands on Ilya’s shoulders. 

“It’s fine,” he said firmly.

“I’b sorr—“

“I know,” Shane cut in, softer but no less certain. Just to prove a point—to both of them, probably, but he would dissect that later—he pressed a placating kiss to the top of Ilya’s head and squeezed his shoulders. “I know, it’s okay.”

Had Ilya not been sick, they probably would have laughed it off quickly enough. Shane would have complained and dramatically scrubbed his hands under hot water, Ilya would have made a joke about the honor of being baptized by a hockey god, but they both knew the parameters were different during flu season. Shane would have been just as, if not more, mortified if the tables were turned. 

“Get some rest.” He squeezed Ilya’s shoulders one more time. “My mom’s coming by soon with some soup. Call if you need me, okay?” 

_________________________

Okay, so he was still dramatically scrubbing his hands under hot water, but he was doing so in the kitchen and out of Ilya’s line of sight. He used a healthy four pumps of soap and scrubbed up to his elbows. His sweatshirt had already been tossed in the laundry room with the dirty sheets.

Feeling sufficiently clean, he sat at the table with the packets and bottles of medication, crosschecking as he set alarms for doses. He was in the middle of searching the maximum dose of ibuprofen appropriate for an adult when his mom texted, indicating she had arrived. 

He tried to make it a quick affair. His mom, for all her good intentions, had a very hard time relinquishing control. He let her ask questions, answered as kindly as he could manage, and rushed her out with a promise to call her in the morning. 

The evening crawled on. He changed Ilya into a clean shirt when the one he had put on him earlier grew too damp. He pushed fluids and kept the bed clear of used tissues. He even convinced Ilya to have a few bites of soup.

Two hours and a few rewetted cool cloths later, Ilya held a cognizance in his eyes that made Shane want to fall to his knees in a belated prayer because he didn’t believe in God, but he could still set his gratitude in places he didn’t understand. With Irina, maybe, and wherever she watched from. 

He hadn’t really planned on sleeping in bed with Ilya because it seemed like an unnecessary (and very germy) risk, but he hadn’t really planned on this evening at all. It was unfamiliar, a little scary, but Ilya made Shane’s muted voice of instinct speak up. So Shane sat up in bed with Ilya, scrolling through an article about the workings of fevers and keeping his free hand on Ilya’s blanket-clad thigh. 

“Hhah’DZSHHooh! Ugh… Snndfff!” Shane wordlessly passed Ilya a tissue even though the box sat between them, within Ilya’s reach. He listened as Ilya blew his nose and continued thumbing over his screen. “Shade?”

“Hmm?”

“Shirt.”

“What?” He frowned and turned his head to look over.

“Hot. Help mbe take this off.” 

“Oh—yeah? That’s good, I think.” He set his phone down and gently swatted Ilya’s hands away from the bottom hem of his shirt, deciding it would be easier if he did it without clumsy, flu-fatigued help. “I think that means your fever’s coming down.”

“Good.” Ilya coughed into his bare arm after his shirt was off. “I hate fever. Terrible.”

“Terrible,” Shane agreed, reaching for the thermometer on the nightstand. “Have you ever been this sick before?”

“Probably. Whed I was yougg, baybe. Dnot sindce... Si’ihhh’hahh—“

Shane had more tissues ready—

“Hh’aAHDZCHUuh! Yhh’HIDDSCHhh!”

—to push into Ilya’s waiting hand, who was anticipating Shane would answer to the call—

“—GDZTCHhuhh-hh’huuh’dZZSsh-ETSCHhoo!”

—of his nose fucking losing it.

“HhehH-HEH’JDSHhooh!”

“Holy shit.”

Ilya blew his nose after Shane handed him another fresh handful of tissues, then again when Shane gave him more. 

“Ugghh. Sorry.”

“No, I just… That just sounded like it hurt. Are you okay?”

“Mby dose is goig to break agaid probably.”

“I don’t think that’s poss—“

“Is a joke, Shade. You thigk I ab stupid? You thigk this fever cooked mby braidn, huh?” 

It was more like Ilya than he’d sounded all night, and Shane kissed him for it. On his forehead, far away from his running nose, but happily. Ilya looked notably happy about it, too.

“I’b really glad you are here.” 

“Me too.”

_________________________

Shane dozed intermittently. He found it difficult to sleep deeply even on an average night, despite his daily dose of the magnesium supplement his nutritionist swore by, and tonight proved to be more of a challenge. 

Ilya was snoring louder than usual, which he couldn’t help, and Shane also couldn’t help the way it ground his nerves to dust. On the other hand, snoring meant Ilya was getting sleep, which he desperately needed if he had any hope of feeling better come morning. Maybe the dichotomy between relief and distress wasn’t so stark, after all. Or maybe Shane was really losing it and could no longer tell the difference between the two.

All he knew was that Ilya was snoring, the feverish heat was so stifling that Shane had done away with his own shirt some time ago, his head was starting to hurt from the lack of sleep, and if he could go back in time, he still would have forgone a quiet bedroom and chosen a two hour drive with all that followed. 

He held onto that thought and kept his eyes closed.

It was nearly four in the morning when Shane woke with a start.

He had been half-dreaming of growling engines, of machines struggling to power on and push through their work, and it all seemed so out of left field until he realized that the grating noise was happening in real time right beside him. 

“Fuck, fuck, Ilya.”

That was a fucking terrible cough. 

Shane reached to turn on the bedside lamp. Ilya was faced away from him, curled in on himself and shaking the bed with it. Shane grabbed at him in a panic, pulling him to his chest to raise him up and firmly rub his back. 

“Ilya, breathe. You need to breathe.”

Which wasn’t likely helpful to say, but if he meant it enough, if it helped even marginally, he would keep saying it until he went hoarse.

“Shhh, shh. Breathe.”

The coughing slowed, but Ilya’s breaths took on a staccato quality, a sign that he was either building up to a sneeze or, worse, crying. 

“Hhuh’ddjshh!”

A sneeze, then.

Ilya’s cheek settled on his collarbone, and Shane finally registered how immensely warm he was. His fever was back up, and Shane felt torn between measuring it with the thermometer and holding Ilya a little longer, at least until his own heart settled.

“You’re really hot, Ilya.” For a brief moment, Shane held hope on the cusp of his breath. He was waiting for Ilya to agree, to make an innocuous joke Shane could roll his eyes at. It was the Ilya whom Shane was trying to carefully coax out of fever.

All he got was another stuttered breath, only this time it was tears that followed.

It broke his fucking heart. He would have preferred being sneezed on again.

He threaded his fingers through Ilya’s hair, smoothing it back just so he could press his cheek flush against Ilya’s forehead. His other arm wrapped around Ilya, keeping him close and holding him in place. He could feel the heat of him sinking into his skin, could feel the gentle stridor of weak crying straight from Ilya’s throat vibrating messages of help me, help me, help me into his chest. 

He held Ilya’s head in his hands, his face against his chest, and he kissed, and he kissed, and he kissed because it was all he could do. He thumbed away loose tears, Ilya’s and a few of his own when he really couldn’t help it. 

“—ihhdj’shh! Nngh’jdshh!”

Shane knew that would keep happening, Ilya sneezing into his bare chest, and it didn’t matter. It didn’t fucking matter, because Ilya was sick enough he was crying about it, and it made Shane feel like his world was crumbling in consequence. He could withstand a little sneezing if it meant keeping Ilya close for the end of the world.

“Ddzh’ishhuh!”

A lot of sneezing, perhaps, but the point remained unchanged.

He checked Ilya’s temperature four times over the course of the next hour, in 15 minute increments, just to make sure it wasn’t getting any higher. He made Ilya take more medicine, made him shiver his way through cool cloths being gently wiped over his neck and back. Ilya didn’t complain, but Shane wished he would. 

It took time, and some patience, and some (all) frayed nerves to get through the worst of it, but Ilya’s temperature calmed. Ilya slept soundly now, and Shane still had the address of the nearest emergency department set on his navigation app just in case. He fell asleep somewhere around the tenth re-check of the estimated arrival time.

Hours later, he woke to Ilya blowing his nose (very loudly, and very obnoxiously), looking pale and bedraggled and still unwell, but noticeably better. 

“Wow, Shade, you look like shit.” Ilya raised a brow, a glint in his eye. “What, could dnot sleep?” 

Shane, with his relief palpable and needing a place to go, climbed on top of Ilya and kissed all over his clammy but much cooler face. “Your—fucking—fault,” he grouched between kisses.

Ilya laughed, coughed, and laughed again. He rolled them over, pinning Shane under him, and trailed quiet thank you’s from the right side of Shane’s neck, over the front of his throat, and to the left. 

_________________________

By Friday morning, Ilya was well enough to lounge on the couch and groan over Shane’s obsessive need to watch tapes of his last game on Tuesday.

Shane had missed optional practice yesterday and was skipping mandatory practice today, with the fabricated excuse of a brand deal commitment and a promise that he would be more than ready for their pre-game practice tomorrow. And Theriault had been more than pissed, tearing into him with you’re a hockey player first and brand whore second, and Shane knew he would be paying for it further tomorrow.

Still, it was hard to feel ashamed about it when Ilya was sprawled over his lap, still sniffly and just slightly flushed, using Shane’s phone because he had wanted a second Clash Royale account to test decks or practice clan formations or whatever he’d rambled on about until Shane gave in. 

“Wait, wait, Shane.”

“Yeah?”

“What is this?”

Shane craned his neck forward, seeing that Ilya wasn’t tapping at the game anymore and was now on his browser. 

“Hey, no! Give me my phone!”

“Oh, no-no-no. No, I must see this.”

“Ilya!”

“This is… Woooow, Shane. This is bad for you even.”

“God, fucking leave me alone.”

“No, I love it. You are so crazy about me, you have to search every crazy question for my health. Medicine dose, even. You know it says on the box, yes?” Ilya laughed, a brazen and wheezy and gloriously happy kind of sound. “You looove me.” 

Shane, aching with something overwhelmingly tender, smiled with a shy laugh of his own. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Maybe in a week’s time he would be back to nagging Ilya over his choice of breakfast, or admonishing him for a second-day wear of his favorite shirt, or something else that didn’t truly matter in the grand scheme of things. He didn’t worry about it, because Ilya would find him human all the same and love him for it. 

Ilya, in turn, would quip back twice as hard. He would find something unrelated to tease Shane about, trying on which insult of the day would make Shane most irritated and wear it proudly, would get on his nerves just to come back with a kiss to make it better.

And Shane would love him for it. 

[caramelfuzz]

Part 2 of this fic, sick il/ya runs into sh/ane who's out partying with his team after a victory over il/ya's team. Thanks to @hollanovsnz for helping me with the mini hockey reference I made lol. See if y'all can spot it!! I wanna try to crank out the next part tonight or tomorrow but I feel the need to post this part tonight so I'm gonna do it before I lose my nerve.

The streets of Montreal were cold, not that Ilya was surprised. He should have brought a real coat. Maybe he'd pop into a bar, have a drink or two. Yeah, that'd warm him up and help him sleep.

He lit a cigarette and began to walk, following the sound of raucous laughter from around a corner.

His nose stung when a harsh wind blew against his face. It made his eyes water, and suddenly he was pitching forward with a wet, spraying fit.

“Hhh’nTSCHhh! Ehhh’HECKSCHHhhh! Hehhhh’HEHHH… ZZTSXHHhhh!”

He coughed, running his sleeve beneath his streaming nose. Stupid cold air making his stupid eyes water. The lights of the nearby bar further impeded his vision, halos of light blurring with the tears in his eyes. He could barely see, let alone watch out for other human beings that might be in his path, so it wasn't a surprise when he nearly ran into someone.

“My bad, man.”

That voice was familiar…

He turned to apologize or at least acknowledge the other person, blinking hard to try to clear his vision enough to see while forcing a cocky grin onto his face.

“Rozanov?”

Shit, it was Shane fucking Hollander.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Shane sipped his ginger ale while the rest of his teammates downed their third shots of the night. He didn’t understand how they could drink so heavily after a grueling game, but he supposed they deserved to celebrate. They'd beaten the Raiders which was always cause to celebrate. Not to mention, they had the next few days off for the holidays.

They were in some random bar, whatever had been closest after the game, and most of them would not be driving home.

“I’m going to get some air!”

Hayden nodded and waved, gesturing that it was fine for Shane to retreat from the chaos.

He hurried across the street, hoping to find somewhere quiet enough that he could breathe, and nearly ran into a passer-by.

“My bad, man.”

He murmured offhandedly.

The figure turned slightly and nodded their acknowledgement.

Wait, it kind of looked like--

“Rozanov?”

The Russian’s distinctive profile flinched, but as Shane got closer he could see a smile playing on Ilya’s lips around a lit cigarette.

The other man didn’t speak, just nodded toward an alley and knuckled at his nose. They stopped just outside of the alley, though Shane purposely kept his back to the street so his face wouldn’t be seen easily.

Ilya took a drag of his cigarette, nonchalant as ever. Great, so Shane had to initiate conversation as usual.

“What’re you doing out here?”

Bluish green eyes glanced between Shane and his lit cigarette, a smirk gracing his stupid pretty face.

“Fuck you. You smoke in your hotel room all the time. You’re not just here for a smoke.”

He watched Rozanov’s throat work with a swallow before he spoke,

“Is good city.”

Something sounded off. Plus, normally Ilya would have insulted him by now, or offered a roundabout congratulations for the Metros’ win. They’ve done this song and dance several times, so why hadn’t Ilya whispered a room number to him yet? Or groped his ass?

“Shit, is your team out with you?”

He looked over his shoulder, preparing to play off their interaction as trash talk or something.

He vaguely heard Ilya sniff through his frantic search through the scattered faces across the bar. None of them appeared to be Raiders players.

“They are asleep, probably.”

“Why are you so quiet, then?”

Ilya took another drag from his cigarette, then made a strangled sort of snort, grabbing onto his nose like he was snatching a loose puck in the corner of the rink.

“hhh…hih’YIttTTSCHhhh!”

“Bless you!”

“hehhhh’HSChh’SCHTIEW!”

“Bless y--"

“UDTSCHhhH!”

“Bl--"

“S-hhhh! Save your b-brEHHHhhh!-breath, Holladder, fug’k!”

Ilya adjusted his grip on his nose to speak, brows furrowed as he apparently tried to massage the thing into submission. Upon closer inspection, Shane could see how horrible Ilya looked. And he wasn’t done sneezing, either.

"hYIEHh’eEEKkzZSChIEW! Hehhh’IFFSCHHHH’SCHIEWWWW! HEhhh’HECKSCHHHhhhh! ehhh’HEHHHH! hhhh’bBSCHHHhhhh!! sNGRrfF! Ugh, fugk mbe…”

Shane found himself flinching with each quaking sneeze, head bowing a bit each time Ilya’s upper body snapped forward. Damn. He’d of course seen the other man sneeze, plus there was more than one compilation video online of the Russian player’s impressive fits both on and off the ice, but Shane worked hard to avoid clicking on those. He was mostly successful, but now, seeing one so close, it was breathtaking. For both of them.

“HHH’RRTSCHHHhhhh!”

Ilya swayed in front of him, the final sneeze apparently knocking enough wind out of him to make him dizzy. Shane placed a steadying hand on his rival’s shoulder instinctively, though his mind was a cacophony of anxiety and arousal.

“Shit, uh, bless you. A-are you sick?”

He didn’t know what else to say. ‘That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, please take me to your hotel room and fuck me while you keep sneezing’ felt incorrect.

“Ndo, Russiands do ndot get sigk.”

Came the hoarse, stubborn reply. It was ridiculous enough to knock the wit back into Shane’s stupefied, slightly aroused mind.

“Sure they don’t, and I assume that’s why you don’t have a fever that I totally can’t feel through your sweatshirt too?”

“Yes.”

Shane reached a hand up to Ilya’s brow, the other player very belatedly reaching up to swat him away. That was a bad sign.

“What’s your room number?”

“Ndo, Holladder, I candot fugk you todight. Mby f-father…”

“I don’t want to fuck, Rozanov, you’re sick as a dog!”

He wouldn’t mind Ilya’s fever-warm mouth sliding over his--no, he needed to focus!

“What’s your room number? Let me walk you back there and get you settled.”

“Uh....”

“You don’t remember your fucking room number??”

He hissed, and the Russian man flinched, wrapping his arms around himself and averting his gaze. Shane sighed. Damage control surrounding Ilya Rozanov was apparently becoming his specialty.

“Okay, uh, you try to remember your room number and I’ll go tell my team I’m going home. Just… try not to keel over while I’m gone?”

[caramelfuzz]

I'm so incredibly weak. Have the first part of my silly little il/ya snzfic. He's sick as shit after a bad loss of some kind, Mayhaps akin to the loss his dad was so pissy about in ep 1, but he's got a nasty cold. Sh/ane will appear in the second part if I ever decide to finish/post it, but I've got a million thousand fics I need to finish and therefore this may get pushed to the back burner for a while.

Disclaimer: I know literally nothing about hockey and have only watched the first two eps of h/r Sorrie friends. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know!!!!

Also, all of the phone convos in this are in Russian, I was just too lazy to do the whole Google Translate thing.

Sick il/ya fic

Ilya was dragged from sleep by his damn phone going off for the third time in a row. It was past midnight, who the fuck--of course.

“Whatd, what is it, Alexei?”

He snapped into the phone, consonants dulled by exhaustion and congestion. He felt like shit.

“You sound like shit.”

“You kndow whad, fugk you.”

His finger hovered over the ‘end call’ button.

“Dad wants you to call him back.”

“I’mb tryigg to sleeb, cand’t you tell himb-”

“Now, Ilya.”

His brother’s tone caused a pit to form in his stomach. That was not a good sign.

“Fide…”

“Blow your nose, dumbass. He’s pissed enough already and if you talk to him sounding like that, I’ll have to hear about it for weeks.”

Ilya winced, but grabbed a handful of toilet paper. He’d used up all the tissues in the hotel room yesterday, and he’d rather chafe the shit out of his nose than call the concierge to ask for more.

“Okay, I’ll blow before I--”

“Do it now, I’ll let you know when you sound normal enough for him not to notice.”

Ilya’s cheeks heated up, but he was too fucking exhausted to argue with his brother. He set the phone beside him on the bed and started the painstaking process of blowing his aching, overfull nose. He was three balled up stacks of toilet paper into the process when he felt the telltale zing of pain-turned-burning tickle shoot up his sinuses.

“HHHHH? Heh'EISSH! HAGK'SCHIEWW! Hhh’tssSHUuh!! H’tsshuUh!! Hah’AHTSHIEuw!!! huh’ESHHh! ASSHuh! IESHAHH! hHAD’dzZZSshHIEW!! Fug’k!”

Dizzy, he gave a final gurgling blow before picking his phone back up.

“--had 8? Suck my dick, I know his idiot nose best!”

The color drained from Ilya’s burning cheeks when he realized what was happening on the other end of the line.

“Are you taki’gg fucki’gg bets ond mbe?”

He spat, only for his brother to guffaw into the phone.

“Of course we are, baby brother! You’re the sneeziest person I know and your nose never fails to win me money! Now call dad, you still sound like shit!”

The line went dead. He should have known better than to trust Alexei to have anyone’s best interest at heart but his own, but he had a fever to blame for that lapse in judgement.

Your nose never fails to win me money… what the fuck? He thought about the fits he’s had on the ice, had Alexei been betting with his friends on those too? His eyes burned, mortification pooling in his chest and making his teeth ache. He’d always been a sneezy person, a quirk that his father never failed to remind him was annoying and disgusting.

His phone began to buzz. The Colonel. Fuck, he needed a cigarette.

He sniffled and snorted in a futile but instinctive effort to clear his voice before answering, a pang of dismay weaseling into his stomach as his nose tickled mercilessly. After he broke his nose for a second time, his habitual sniffles began to tickle his nose horribly. Usually he could tamp it down and breathe through it, but with this cold virus inflaming his sinuses, he was oversensitized to every passing tickle.

“Finally answering me now?”

“Sorry, papa, I was hhhhasleep…”

“Lazy! After a loss like that, you ought to be running drills overnight with your useless team! You are the captain, make them do better!”

“Hhh… Hehh’DDSHHT!”

“Disgusting, Ilya! You know better than to do that into the phone!”

“I t-tried to turnd…”

“No excuses! You sound terrible, do you know why you are sick again? Because you lack discipline!”

Ilya’s eyes glazed over as his father continued his tirade, mumbling soft apologies every so often. He needed air and a fucking cigarette.

He had to start pinching his nose against the tickles invading every few minutes while his father’s tirade continued until finally,

“I will see you when you return home in a few weeks, correct? And we will continue this conversation.”

Ilya’s heart skipped a beat, dread forming a knot in his stomach.

“Yes, papa. Good n'hhhehhh-night.”

The moment the line went dead Ilya pitched forward and sneezed openly onto the bed several times. His post-fit haze was interrupted by the sound of thumping on the wall beside him. Shit, he’d been too loud again. He squeezed his eyes shut, embarrassment and shame flooding his chest. Too loud, too sneezy, too weak.

He needed to clear his head.

“Fug’k it.”

He muttered as he crawled out of bed, goosebumps breaking out over his arms. He grabbed a hoodie, his lighter, and a pack of cigarettes, then hurried out of his room.

[hollanovsnz]

Had to finish this cozy cliché comfort piece. I just love to give my sweet Shane a sweet cold.

(also, remember one of the greatest moments in NHL history? because I sure do)

——

Ilya is writing a grocery list in the kitchen when Shane finally emerges from the guest bedroom, looking just as tired as he did before his nap. The tufts of dark hair peeking out from beneath his sweatshirt hood are messy and sticking to his forehead. He has the stumbling gait and pinched expression of someone emerging from a deep slumber into the brightest of lights. His nose is already dusted pinker than his cheeks. He looks fucking miserable.

It hasn’t been the easiest weekend for Shane, but honestly, he’s personally caused the majority of his stress. Nobody really cared about the All-Star Game or Skills Competition - it was all just an excuse for the league to garner ratings and for the players to dick around for a little bit (pun not intended) before the season started to ramp up. It was pretty much a slumber party with the NHL’s best.

But Shane didn’t give a shit about any of that. He wanted to play actual hockey, contribute to his actual team, instead of sit around and watch some guys hit a puck at 100 miles per hour. “It’s a who-has-the-biggest-dick competition,” he’d complained once to Ilya, who politely did not mention that Shane himself was the owner of one of those biggest-dick All-Star records, and proud of it.

Despite his disinterest, Shane still took the All-Star Game seriously - way, way too seriously. The fans had voted in some random goon to play for the Pacific team, a cruel practical joke against a guy who could hardly even fucking skate. And yet, somehow, that goon had helped demolish the Atlantic team with a hat trick and an assist. At the final buzzer, Ilya had looked over and seen his husband’s face twist, very briefly, with fury and disgust. No matter the importance of the game…Shane loved to win and hated to lose.

He’s paying the price now for the intensity of his emotions. This looks like it is becoming the cold from hell, and it’s only been a day. Still half-asleep, he gives a scrunched-up snrf that crinkles his nose adorably while staring dazedly at Ilya. “Tibe’s it?” He says, his voice deeper than before, and a little hoarse.

“6-ish,” Ilya says. “Are you feeling any better?”

“Doh,” Shane sighs out, looking irritable and defeated. Despite this, Ilya can’t help but melt at how cute Shane looks when he’s all tired and sniffly. No masking, no politeness, just his mildly grumpy self getting full up with a cold.

Ilya holds out his arms, and Shane shuffles over to faceplant into his chest. Ilya lets out a little “oof,” surprised at the ferocity of Shane’s cuddling. “You are so out of it, lyubov moya,” he says with a chuckle.

“Warm,” Shane mumbles.

“Are you cold? Let me get you a blanket.”

“Mmh, no, stay,” Shane says, pressing his cheek harder into Ilya’s sternum.

“Want to go on the couch? It will be more comfortable.” Shane allows Ilya to walk him over so long as he keeps an arm around him. And Ilya does, because he could never deny such a sweet request from his Shane. (The request is asked in more of a gruff, grumbly manner than a sweet one, but Ilya is happy to oblige anyway.)

On the couch, Shane pulls Ilya’s arms around him. “Tighter,” he says, and Ilya complies. Shane sighs and his head lolls back onto Ilya’s shoulder. “So good,” he says, before his breath hitches and he snaps his head to the side. “ahh’ishhew! ky’IShhuhh!”

Ilya doesn’t tell Shane that he felt some of the spray hit his arm. He’d be fucking mortified. Instead, he kisses his temple. “God bless you,” he says, and Shane shivers when he lays back in Ilya’s arms. Ilya presses his wrist to his forehead - no fever, just shivery from his little sneezes taking everything out of him? Oh god, how fucking adorable - and says, “Are you hungry?”

Shane shakes his head. “Maybe later.” He turns into Ilya’s chest. “hmph’choo! hn’isschmff!”

“Bud’ zdorov,” Ilya says, a complete pile of mush. Just when he thought his man couldn’t get any cuter, he does that.

“Fuck, this is a cold,” Shane mutters. “I hate it when you’re right.”

Ilya cracks a smile. “I am always right.”

“Shut up.” Shane reaches into his hoodie pocket, pulls out a crumpled tissue, and turns away from Ilya’s hold to blow wetly. Ilya frowns and runs a hand over his back. “You sound terrible already, sweetheart.”

“Goddammit,” Shane says. “Road trip this week.”

“You need medicine and plenty of rest, then. Can’t have our best player feeling bad.”

Something lights up in Shane’s eyes, his ego responding to the praise. “Mmkay. Come to bed with me?”

Ilya nods. “Okay, malysh. Let me just get some things together for you.”

“Love you,” Shane says as he makes his way upstairs. Ilya hears two more itchy “hy’IPTSChhh! hy’isshiew!” sneezes as he climbs.

Ilya takes Anya outside, then gathers together a little care package of medicine, water, crackers (even though there’s no way in hell Shane will eat in bed), and tissues for his husband. When he gets to the bedroom, Shane is fast asleep. Ilya watches him and hears the little stuffy catch in his breathing. Later, he will put some Vicks on his chest and give him kisses everywhere he can. For now, he just lets him rest.