lessons (6.2k, h/eated r/ivalry)
here is this!!! here it is. it's here. it's... it's something. just a lighthearted little thing, some silly n sweet stuff because I needed to practice it. HUGE thank you, once again, to @silklined for making me sound like I have a working brain. you are incredible! I appreciate the beta/editing so much! here we are! shane is in a mood, and shane is definitely, absolutely, positively suffering from allergies. it's just allergies. ilya loves shane and lets him pretend.
Married life had taught Ilya many things.
It had taught him the humbling reality that an adult relationship under a shared roof mostly consisted of planning meals, laundry cycles, and standing in the kitchen discussing whether they were out of olive oil. Marriage also transformed everything that was supposed to be communal into territory ripe for possession eventually—drawers became claimed, blankets accrued ownership, and taking his husband’s favorite seat at the dining table was akin to a criminal offense. Even a banal discussion about landscaping options somehow became a debate over financial priorities, a question of morality, and an exercise in international diplomacy until they both remembered they could compromise.
It had not, however, taught Ilya that Shane could turn literally any bad experience into a personal failure. Ilya had learned that lesson long before vows and rings and shared home insurance.
The Centaurs had played Montreal last night.
The Centaurs had lost.
Which meant Ilya woke alone. The space beside him had long since cooled, blanket straightened and smoothed. Pale, early morning sunlight stretched around the curtains. It was the sort of morning that invited laziness and going back to bed.
Ilya remained sprawled beneath the blankets for a moment, staring at the ceiling, his heart heavy with disappointment. Truthfully, he had known better than to expect Shane to waste the morning in bed with him. After particularly ugly games, Shane was a creature possessed. But some indulgent part of Ilya had still imagined another hour or two tangled together under the covers, sunlight crawling slowly across freckles while they kissed each other awake.
Ilya sighed and dragged himself out of bed. There would be no practice today, no meetings, no obligations other than surviving Shane’s mood.
He could picture it perfectly. Clipped replies, distant eyes, compulsive productivity. Shane would spend the day treating himself like a problem to solve. He would bleed guilt over everything he touched, and he would quietly punish himself through absurd little acts of self-denial—like rejecting sleeping in on a day off.
Today, Ilya decided, he would be patient. Today, Ilya would be understanding. Ilya would be whatever calm, stabilizing force Shane needed while he dissected every mistake he thought he’d made, the majority of which weren’t his fault. And then Ilya would drag him back to bed and kiss him until he forgot about hockey entirely.
Then a smell hit him.
Ilya stopped halfway out the bedroom. The odor creeping through their home was bitter and earthy, as though someone had taken the entirety of a forest and boiled it down into concentrate. He followed the smell to the kitchen where Shane stood at the stove, hunched over a steaming pot.
Ilya demanded, “What the fuck is that smell?”
The words escaped him automatically, a reflexive blow. It was like getting hit in the knee during a checkup in exactly the right place, kicking out before your brain could catch up.
So much for being patient.
“Fuck off,” Shane muttered without turning around. He looked wrong, somehow. Curled inward at the shoulders, tense up through his neck. His hair was a mess, like he’d been dragging his fingers through it for the better part of the early morning.
Ilya took a breath and rolled his shoulders. “Seriously. What is that?” The smell truly was awful, medicinal in a way that suggested Shane was attempting to make soup using ingredients gathered from the yard.
“Go away.”
The words would have had more impact if Shane hadn’t punctuated them with a wet little sniffle.
Ilya approached slowly, gaze sharpening as he came to stand beside Shane. Shane sniffled again, nose slightly wrinkled, and his eyes held a wet shine. Ilya stepped behind Shane and slid both arms around his waist, pressing an absent kiss beneath his ear.
“Ilya, stop,” Shane groused. “Get off me.”
Instead, Ilya tightened his hold. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked, gentler now. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying.” Shane knuckled irritably at the side of his nose. “It’s just alleehh-! hh’ISHHh’uh!” He jerked his head sharply to the side, burying the sneeze into the crook of his arm. “snnf! Allergies.”
Ilya closed his eyes briefly, remembering his vow to prioritize Shane and all his idiosyncrasies. Especially after a grueling, embarrassing loss. “Mmh,” he hummed agreeably. “Allergies, of course.”
Shane went still, surely suspicious at how quickly Ilya accepted his excuse.
Ilya swallowed his amusement and peered over Shane’s shoulder, inspecting the steaming pot. Floating within the dark water were citrus peels, ginger, and what genuinely appeared to be pieces of the shrubs in their yard. “What is this?” he asked. “You make gross soup for allergies?”
Shane made an exhausted noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh. “It’s tea.” His voice cracked faintly on the word, and he cleared his throat afterward. “It’s supposed to help with allergies. I found the recipe online.”
“Online where?” Ilya scoffed. “Medieval doctor blog?”
“Ugh, shut up.” Shane sniffled again, thicker this time, and pulled a tissue from his pocket to wipe at his nose.
“What if this… tea kills you?”
“Then I won’t have allergies anymore,” he snapped.
Ilya barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. Shane, though huffing, relaxed a little into Ilya’s hold.
So Shane wasn’t sick. He just had allergies bad enough to wake early on what was supposed to be a slow Sunday and brew forest tea while looking seconds away from a mental breakdown.
“You sound bad,” Ilya probed gently.
“It’s allergies,” Shane insisted, clearly aware that he did, indeed, sound bad.
Ilya smiled against Shane’s shoulder, then kissed it. This was all too familiar, Shane trying to outmaneuver his own body through denial and stubborn insistence. Shane preferred suffering privately whenever possible, which in practice meant acting annoyed at Ilya when he noticed Shane was clearly having a terrible time.
It was fine, really, because Ilya could wait. There was no need to corner Shane about it now when his nose was pink and his eyes were wet and his voice was nasally. Nature was building Ilya’s case against Shane quite well.
“Right, right.” Ilya settled his chin on Shane’s shoulder and peered once more into the pot with a brow raised. “Does allergy tea taste better than it smells?”
Shane stared down into the murky brew for a long moment, clearly weighing whether honesty was worth the humiliation. He finally admitted, “…Probably not.”
Ilya bit the inside of his cheek and kept quiet, deciding Shane deserved some reprieve.
Ten minutes later, Shane drank his questionable tea while Ilya busied himself with making breakfast. Ilya had cracked eggs one-handed against the edge of the counter and watched Shane take the first sip from the corner of his eye.
Shane had raised the mug with cautious resolve, taken exactly one swallow, then gone utterly motionless in the way prey did upon realizing danger was near. His expression had tightened, and a tiny, tortured flare of his nostrils followed.
Shane was stubborn, however, and he continued drinking with small sips. He swallowed with visible effort, and Ilya kindly continued stirring the scrambled eggs on the stove, pretending not to notice.
Ilya set the bar counter at the kitchen island, complete with eggs and yogurt and fruit cut into neat little pieces because he wanted Shane to actually eat. Shane continued his brave battle against his allergies, taking meager bites of breakfast interspersed with wet sniffles. Ilya noticed every single one and kept his mouth shut.
“Huh’ISHh’oo! -ISHH’uh!”
The sneezes burst out suddenly and hard enough to pitch Shane into an awkwardly angled curl away from the counter. He caught them into the crook of his arm just in time. For a moment, Shane remained frozen there. Then came a slow, defeated reach for another tissue (from a box that had somehow ended up on the counter when Ilya hadn’t been looking).
Ilya lifted his coffee to his mouth to hide his smug smile.
Shane blew his nose gently and looked up just to find Ilya watching. Ilya widened his eyes innocently, while Shane narrowed his, and Ilya took a loud, slurping sip.
After breakfast, they stood at the sink, shoulder to shoulder, while Shane rinsed his mug and Ilya helpfully organized their dirty dishes for maximum soakage. Ilya joked about his excellent dish engineering, and Shane couldn’t help but laugh. A rough cough followed the laugh, and Shane turned it into his shoulder.
Ilya nudged him lightly with an elbow. “Come shower with me.”
Shane looked at him, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
Ilya feigned offense, arranging his face into wounded innocence, because he had only partly meant for it to be taken as a proposition for sex. If Shane wanted, maybe. Which he would, probably.
“For allergies!” he clarified. “Hot water, steam, touching you. All very good for allergies.”
“Touching me,” Shane repeated flatly. “For allergies.”
“Oh, yes.” Ilya turned and leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed, all smiles and warmth. “I can heal you.”
Shane sniffed and averted his gaze. “I already showered.” He turned the faucet off and stepped away from the sink. “Maybe after we work out.”
Ilya stared at him in genuine disbelief, just for a brief moment. He had already suffered six straight days of practices, games, and Shane’s morning yoga routines. Some days had stacked all three.
“No.” Ilya pushed off of the counter and left the kitchen with complete peace, abandoning Shane to his compulsive exercise regimen while Ilya claimed his rightful place on the couch. “Today is for rest.”
By the time Shane wandered into the living room, Ilya had already spread himself on the couch beneath a blanket with Anya tucked against his legs.
Shane stopped short at the sight. “Seriously?”
“You should try resting. Will fix your allergies problem, maybe.”
Shane looked scandalized. “You always feel better with active recovery.” His voice was slipping into his captain cadence, an old habit Ilya wished Shane would have left back in Montreal (which wasn’t true, but he much preferred when Shane used that voice in the bedroom). “Ilya, it’s basic condition-… ihh-ing… hh’ISHH’uh!“
Ilya smiled, positively coy. “We can actively recover in the shower,” he offered sweetly. “But nooo, you need to do some scary bosu ankle shit.”
“It’s for stabilization,” Shane gritted through his teeth, rubbing irritably beneath his nose with a tissue procured from his pocket. “You had that high ankle sprain just last season—“
Ilya waved a hand dismissively. ”Aahh, whatever. Healed in a week.”
“It absolutely did not heal in a week.”
“Well I played after a week. Was fine.”
Shane stared at him incredulously, seeming to weigh whether this argument was worth expending energy over. Somewhere beneath the internal battle and oncoming definitely-not-a-cold, affection flickered helplessly through the exasperation on his face.
Ilya, of course, found this adorable.
“I love you, and I love your strong ankles,” Ilya conceded. “But I am going to rest and watch Youtube.”
Shane prepared for the home gym alone by filling his water bottle and arming himself with pockets full of tissues. Ilya watched this preparation from beneath his blanket on the couch and released a long-suffering, dramatic sigh.
Shane lifted one hand behind himself in a gesture that made Ilya laugh loudly and long enough to follow Shane all the way down the hallway.
Ilya remained sprawled over the couch with Anya curled against him in a warm little crescent while a nostalgic Vine compilation played on the television—an old comfort. The video had started as actual entertainment, the strange humor of a bygone but familiar era, and gradually devolved into background noise while his mind wandered elsewhere.
Mostly, it wandered toward Shane. Specifically, he was imagining Shane sneezing through calisthenics and growing increasingly more frustrated.
He didn’t have to wonder about Shane and his failing workout for long. Footsteps sounded down the hallway far too soon. Ilya glanced at the time on his phone. Shane couldn’t have been gone for even an hour, likely closer to half that.
Usually Shane returned from workouts flushed with heat and self-satisfaction, loosened with the restless static worked out of his system. Exercise settled Shane in a way Ilya envied sometimes. Ilya always emerged from hard training with energy crawling under his skin, but Shane always seemed sated and relieved.
Now, however, Shane just looked pale.
He would probably still pass a cursory public outing. No stranger on the street would stop to ask after his wellbeing. He didn’t look awfully ill, but Ilya knew Shane’s face too intimately. Shane’s eyes were always easy for Ilya to read, and they were presently glazed with fatigue. The skin beneath them had begun to shadow faintly violet. Even his posture looked wrong, sagging under the weight of feeling unwell.
“How was your workout?” Ilya asked casually, fixing his attention back on the television.
“Fine,” Shane insisted, but he ruined the illusion by ducking into the crook of his arm. “Huh’ISHH’ooh!”
Ilya muted the television.
Shane narrowed his eyes as Ilya unfolded himself from the couch. “Don’t start.”
“I say nothing,” Ilya replied with saintly calm. He crossed the room slowly, enjoying the suspicion gathering across Shane’s face.
Ilya slid both hands over Shane’s hips. Shane looked downright silly, averting his gaze and taking a slow drink from the water bottle still in his hand, trying to appear unaffected. Ilya slipped his fingers beneath the hem of Shane’s shirt, spreading his hands over warm skin and feeling the subtle flex of muscle beneath them.
“Mmh,” he hummed approvingly. “Thank you, exercise.”
Shane rolled his eyes. Ilya took the water bottle from his hand, pushed the mouthpiece closed against his hip, and tossed it onto the couch.
Ilya kissed just beneath Shane’s ear and smiled against the skin when Shane exhaled softly. Ilya followed the line of his throat downward with slow kisses, feeling Shane’s pulse thrum hard and quick against his mouth. Bit by bit, Shane loosened under his hands. Triumph stirred warm and pleasant inside Ilya’s chest.
“Shower now?” Ilya murmured against Shane’s neck.
Shane huffed a weak laugh. “It would be faster if I just rinsed off alone.”
“Maybe true.” Ilya hooked a finger beneath the collar of Shane’s shirt and tugged it aside, just enough to mouth lazily at his collarbone. “But I think maybe you need a little more exercise first.”
“That’s not even—“ The protest dissolved as Ilya kissed his throat again. Shane tipped his head to the side automatically, allowing Ilya better access even as he muttered, “You’re so annoying.”
“Mmh, definitely true.”
The matter of the shower became less an invitation and more an inevitability as Shane’s arms looped around Ilya’s neck, pulling him even closer.
Not that Shane had been trying especially hard to resist.
In the shower, Shane melted under Ilya’s touch. He braced both hands against the tiled wall with his head tipped forward, breath catching in ragged moans. Every sound pulled from him carried a roughness now. His nose ran unchecked over his philtrum in a way he either genuinely didn’t notice or had decided to ignore in favor of more important matters.
There was something sacred in these moments. Shane spent so much of his life wound tight, holding himself in a perfectly polite package. But here, flushed and shaking and reduced to primal instincts beneath Ilya’s hands, he became raw and open. It was deeply intimate, watching Shane unravel like this with Ilya buried deep inside him.
Through it all, Shane never once kissed him on the mouth. Jaw, yes. Throat, repeatedly. Once to Ilya’s nipple with so much lust behind it that Ilya nearly forgot his own name.
It was absurdly transparent. Apparently Shane believed he was conducting infection control measures all while wrapped around Ilya in a cloud of steam and desire. The earnestness of it charmed Ilya so thoroughly he could hardly decide whether it made him want to laugh or ruin Shane completely—or both, more likely.
After their shower, Shane dressed in clean clothes (dark jeans, oddly, maybe he thought dressing up made him appear in better health?) and stood before the bathroom mirror, going through his routine of toner and some kind of sunscreen he always nagged Ilya to use. Ilya leaned shirtless against the closet doorway and watched him quietly.
Shane looked exhausted now that adrenaline had worn off. His nose remained stubbornly pink, eyes heavy lidded. Every few moments he sniffled softly, yet he stood determined, as though refusing to let an oncoming cold compromise proper skincare. The sight filled Ilya with such unbearable affection he nearly proposed another round in the shower.
By the time noon rolled around, Shane announced he was going to do a working lunch so he could relax later in the afternoon.
“A lunch date with your laptop?” Ilya teased from the kitchen. He waited impatiently beside a pot of water refusing to boil, a box of pasta in his left hand. “I’m much hotter than emails.”
Shane popped his pre-prepped meal into the microwave, not even sparing Ilya a glance. “Debatable.”
“Wow. Shower Shane would agree with me.”
Ilya made pasta drowning in butter sauce and parmesan while Shane sat at the table answering emails between bites of salmon, increasingly congested sniffles, and periodic pauses to tend to his nose with tissues.
“Nngkh!”
Ilya’s back was turned as he plated his pasta. The noise had come strangled, but Ilya was certain Shane had sneezed—and probably been dangerously close to blowing out his eardrums trying to silence it. There followed one careful sniffle, and by the time Ilya reached the table, Shane had schooled his expression into bland composure.
Shane finished eating first but lingered at the table with his laptop while Ilya worked through his pasta. Halfway through his meal, Shane went into the kitchen to rinse his meal prep container and returned carrying a clean fork.
“Can I have a bite?”
Ilya looked up, brow raised. “You want some?”
“It’s a day off,” Shane replied seriously. “I can have one bite. Two, if I want.”
Ilya had to work especially hard to keep himself from grinning while Shane twirled exactly one modest forkful. Under normal circumstances, he would have stolen a bite using Ilya’s fork without hesitation, but Ilya kept this thought to himself.
Ilya finished his lunch while Shane puttered around the house in restless little circuits, tidying areas that already looked clean and repeatedly vanishing down hallways to blow his nose in private, maybe because he hoped that being out of sight would place him truly out of mind—or at least out of range of sound (it didn’t).
Ilya kept easy conversation speckled between Shane’s self-directed tasks. Upcoming games, next week’s road trip. He reminded Shane to add some snacks to their grocery list, easy and dry things to pack for their next flight. Shane tapped on his phone while he stood at the back door, waiting while Anya sniffed around the yard.
This kind of normalcy mattered to Shane, as did his image of good health, apparently. Ilya allowed him to keep both for now.
By mid-afternoon, after the dishes were loaded and the lap blankets on the couch had been rearranged to look effortlessly draped and home decor catalogue ready, Shane announced, “I’m going to lie down for a few. I need to decompress my spine.”
Ilya nearly choked holding back a snort.
The excuse was absurd on its own, but they were married. They spent plenty of time existing separately in the same house without reporting their movements to each other like coworkers clocking breaks. But Shane had a funny habit of narrating his behavior when he knew it would appear suspicious.
Five minutes later, Ilya wandered into the bedroom and found Shane fast asleep.
He had collapsed awkwardly atop the blankets, curled on his side in a way that surely wasn’t helpful for his spine. One arm was trapped beneath the pillow, a crumpled tissue still held loosely in the hand resting under his chin.
Frankly, he looked sick.
The tension was gone from his face, leaving behind the exhausted reality underneath. His mouth was parted to compensate for congestion, and he was breathing noisily. He looked warm and worn out and painfully human in a way that tugged hard at something protective in Ilya’s chest.
Ilya quietly backed out of the room. He found Anya’s leash and took her on the long route through the neighborhood to give Shane uninterrupted peace and quiet. Crisp fall air bit pleasantly at his cheeks while Anya trotted happily beside him. Ilya carried one-sided conversation as they went.
“Your dad is pretending he’s not sick,” Ilya informed her gravely as they walked. “Very embarrassing for him. He’s a terrible liar, you know.”
Anya looked up at him.
“Exactly,” Ilya said, feeling affirmed. He rewarded her with a treat from the pouch at his waist because Anya’s trainer had stressed the importance of consistent reinforcement, and Ilya took fatherhood extremely seriously. Eye contact on walks, apparently, ranked among the top five most important behaviors to instill in dogs. Ilya had initially been a little dubious, but he had also very thoroughly checked the trainer’s credentials and trusted expertise where his daughter was concerned.
At the next crosswalk, he told Anya to sit.
“Smart girl,” he murmured warmly, crouching down to scratch behind her ear. Then, more solemnly, he said, “When we go home, you leave Dad alone, yes? No jumping, no making him throw your toy one million times. He needs rest. You only bother Papa.”
Anya tilted her head, and Ilya chose to interpret this as agreement.
Ilya returned with Anya expecting a quiet home. He knew it wouldn’t be completely silent. Anya’s nails skittered excitedly across the tile the moment he opened the front door (he needed to book an appointment with her groomer at the spa), and he heard the low, muffled hum of the washing machine in the mudroom leading to the garage. But he had expected the particular stillness of his husband asleep upstairs, napping his way through a cold he refused to acknowledge as anything more than allergies.
Instead, he heard cabinets closing in the kitchen.
Ilya stopped in the wide passage to the kitchen and crossed his arms.
Shane stood at the island, hair rumpled and sweatshirt sleeves pushed up his forearms, while he aligned the corners of a kitchen towel. Ilya cleared his throat, and Shane looked up slowly at the sound.
“You are folding towels,” Ilya observed calmly.
Shane glanced down at the towel, frowning, then looked at Ilya again. “Uh… Yeah?”
“Why?”
Shane rolled his eyes weakly. “They were clean.” Halfway through smoothing the folded towel, he stopped and wrenched to the side. “Hh-! Hh’ISHH’uh!” He had caught it in the crook of his arm, but he still washed his hands after. Then he grabbed another clean towel from the small basket on the island and resumed folding.
Ilya watched it all with a soft smile. Earlier Shane had been sharp and defensive, but sometime during his afternoon nap his cold had sunk deeper into him, blunting all that nervous energy and leaving him fogged over.
“I took Anya on a walk,” Ilya said casually while shrugging off his jacket. He laid it over the back of a barstool at the island counter. “Your back feels better?”
“Yeah. Laying down helped.”
“You nap?” Ilya eyed the red sleep wrinkle still pressed across Shane’s cheek.
“No.” Shane sniffed thickly, then cleared his throat. “Just... laid down for like ten minutes? Maybe fifteen.”
Ilya crossed the kitchen under the excuse of heading toward the refrigerator for a drink, and he let his hand slide briefly along the back of Shane’s neck as he passed, thumbing at the hair at the nape with gentle affection. Shane was warm, probably from his nap, but not fever-hot. Relieved, Ilya grabbed a can of coke from the fridge and retreated to the living room.
The rest of the afternoon passed in domestic bliss, unremarkable in the best way. It was the kind of ordinary Ilya had once assumed life could never possibly become for him. A decade ago he’d imagined spending his thirties much the same as his early twenties, drinking his way around cities and keeping warm in unfamiliar beds. Instead, it was this, tossing Anya’s toy lazily across the room whenever she dropped it into his lap while his husband disinfected already clean countertops and snuffled into tissues.
This was, truthfully, much better.
By evening, it was impossible to miss that Shane was getting worse. His entire nose had gone pink now, a flush spreading delicately over the bridge and sides of it. Congestion won steady ground, leaving his lips faintly parted with quiet breaths through his mouth. His voice roughened, too. Even his sneezes had changed, sounding tired.
“Hh’ISHhh-‘ISH’uh!”
Shane no longer seemed embarrassed about them, either. Earlier he had politely buried them into his elbow, and now he halfheartedly caught them in tissues.
What truly convinced Ilya that Shane felt awful, however, was that he didn’t hover over Ilya when he had said he would handle dinner.
Normally Shane supervised Ilya’s cooking. At his best, he tried to be helpful. At his worst, he moaned and groaned about nutritional value. He had eased up on his strict diet over time, but he still liked their meals to be reasonably balanced.
Tonight, Shane simply leaned against a wall nearby, staring off and looking miserable.
“I was thinking baked chicken,” Ilya announced. Anya’s head perked up from her food bowl, chicken apparentlyfar more enticing than her specially tailored meals Ilya paid too much for. “Roast vegetables on the side?”
Shane blinked at him. “Huh?”
“Chicken. Vegetables. Healthy things.” Ilya motioned to the ingredients he’d been steadily gathering on the counter. “For dinner.”
“Oh. Yeah?” Shane nodded, rubbing at his nose. “That sounds… really good, actually.”
What Ilya truly wanted wasn’t anything Shane would want to eat. Chicken parmesan, Chinese takeout, last night he had even thought about ordering from the new chicken wing place in town. He wanted something glutinous, a meal the team’s dietitian certainly wouldn’t have planned for them while on the road these next two weeks. But Shane looked terrible and certainly didn’t need to fret over poor dinner choices, so Ilya took pity on him.
“Go sit on the couch.” Ilya nudged lightly at Shane’s hip as he passed him, heading for the cabinet where they kept the baking sheets. “Don’t bother the chef.”
Shane narrowed his eyes faintly but definitely seemed too tired to argue. “Fine,” he surrendered.
Ilya prepared dinner while Shane suffered in the living room.
From the kitchen, Ilya periodically passed the wide passage leading to the living room. Every time Ilya chanced a look, Shane was further sunk into the couch. At first, Shane had been sitting upright, some forgettable home renovation show playing in the background. Soon after, he had curled into the corner piece. By the time Ilya had the chicken and vegetables in the oven, Shane was nearly horizontal, only his dark hair peeking over one of the cushions.
“Hh… H’ISHHh!”
A muffled groan followed several seconds later.
Ilya sat in a stool at the island and scrolled through his phone. Twice while dinner cooked, Shane disappeared upstairs.
The first time, Ilya caught movement from the corner of his eye and looked up just in time to see Shane trudging slowly toward the staircase. A minute later, muffled sneezing echoed faintly down the hallway overhead. Shane returned soon after with a fresh box of tissues and the small wastebasket from their bedroom.
The second trip upstairs happened barely fifteen minutes later. Ilya hadn’t seen Shane leave, but he heard Shane climbing the stairs and stopping halfway up while he coughed.
Ilya frowned down at the vegetables he was turning over on the baking sheet. He wondered how much more miserable Shane needed to be before he would admit to his cold outright.
It was a double-edged sword, really. Shane’s stubbornness over this cold irritated Ilya, but it also reassured him. If Shane felt truly awful, he would eventually stop pretending otherwise. Shane still trying to salvage dignity meant he probably felt well enough to push through.
When dinner finished, Ilya worked on piling two plates and called Shane’s name.
He didn’t answer.
Ilya expected to find Shane asleep on the couch but instead found him curled under a blanket with the tissue box on his lap, awake but thoroughly wilted.
He looked awfully exhausted, staring off with his gaze unfocused. His eyes were dull with fatigue and were watering. And congestion had settled heavily across his face now, the space around his sinuses appearing almost puffy.
His nose, especially, looked worked into the ground. His nostrils were rubbed raw and swollen, the kind of angry red one might expect to see played up with makeup in a commercial for cold medicine. His nose looked sore enough that sympathetic pain prickled over Ilya’s skin just looking at it.
Ilya had the overwhelming urge to gather Shane up in his arms and carry him straight upstairs. Change him into warm pajamas and put him to bed properly, press kisses into his hair until he fell asleep.
Instead, Ilya crouched in front of Shane and put a hand on his shoulder. “Shane.”
Shane blinked at him, sleepy and embarrassed.
“You look so sick.”
A miserable groan escaped Shane instantly. He dragged both hands over his face and left his palms pressed against his cheeks. “I know, I know,” he rasped. “I thought it was nothing.”
“No, you thought it was allergies,” Ilya taunted, and Shane closed his eyes briefly in shame. Ilya pressed the back of his hand to Shane’s forehead and found it warm, maybe, but still not feverish. He asked softly, “How bad do you feel?”
“Not that bad.” Shane sighed softly and leaned into Ilya’s touch. “No fever.”
Ilya raised a brow, encouraging him to continue.
“I, uh… checked already.” Shane hesitated just long enough to sniffle. “While you were making dinner.”
“Ah, sneaky.” Ilya brushed a thumb softly under Shane’s eye. “I thought you didn’t want me to hear you sneeze your brains out.”
Shane huffed a weak laugh and ducked his head shyly. “No, I’m sure you… heard that anyway.”
Rather than confirm, Ilya pressed a chaste kiss to Shane’s forehead and stood. “You should eat. I will bring it here.”
Shane nodded once and murmured a tired, “Okay.”
Shane wasn’t normally one to eat full meals on the couch, nothing beyond a light snack, and the simple compliance stirred concern inside Ilya’s chest. He supposed he was glad, however, that Shane was up to eating at all.
Shane leaned fully into his cold now that he acknowledged it. He ate in small and distracted bites between sniffles and coughs, rough little things he muffled dutifully into crumpled tissues. Once, with the fork halfway to his mouth, his breath hitched warningly. He dropped the fork and fumbled for a tissue.
“Heh’ISHHh’iew! Fu-uuh’ISHH’uh!”
“Wow.” Ilya rubbed a firm hand over Shane’s back. “Your allergies are really terrible.”
Shane shot him a bleary glare over the tissue held to his nose. “Shut up.” His voice came out wrecked, cracking at the end.
“You want some more allergy tea? I think we have so many ingredients outside.”
Shane rolled his eyes, but the irritation behind them had dissolved completely now that he no longer had to defend himself. He was embarrassed, maybe, but definitely relieved. He looked tired and soft and willing (open, vulnerable, loved).
Ilya took the blanket from his own lap and wrapped it around Shane’s shoulders, cocooning him further in warmth. Shane accepted this without protest, even offering Ilya a shy little smile. When Ilya scooted closer, so that their thighs pressed together, Shane didn’t move away.
Shane might have asked Ilya to keep his distance, when he was younger and struggled to give into simple pleasures in the face of more responsible choices. Tonight, Shane merely sniffled and leaned subtly closer. A year of safety, held in Ilya’s arms with the world watching and coming out better for it, had made it easier for him to give in and claim what he wanted.
By the time Ilya finished his plate, Shane had managed a little over half of his own. It wasn’t ideal, with their busy week ahead, but it was enough, especially given that Shane was fully leaned into Ilya’s side now and flagging hard.
“You are done?” Ilya asked quietly.
Shane nodded, drifting somewhere closer to sleep.
Ilya carefully helped Shane back against the couch, tucked the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He gathered their dishes and carried them to the kitchen, listening to muffled television punctuated by the occasional cough while he rinsed the plates. He started the dishwasher before he returned to the living room and dimmed the lights low, then sat on the couch, opening one arm invitingly toward Shane.
Shane looked at Ilya for approximately two seconds before practically crawling into his lap.
He wasn’t particularly graceful about it, either. It was a desperate grapple, frantic in his reach as his fingers curled at the front of Ilya’s shirt. Shane buried his face in the crook of Ilya’s neck and shuddered out a sigh that signaled a homecoming.
Ilya had been waiting for this, watching Shane white-knuckle his way through the day. Gathering Shane closer, Ilya shifted to bear the brunt of Shane’s surrender.
“Good,” Ilya murmured into Shane’s hair. “Much better.”
Shane only coughed softly in reply.
For a long while, they stayed like this. Ilya scratched his fingertips gently over the hair at Shane’s nape. Shane tucked his head lower, giving Ilya more access.
“Huhh-! Heh’INGSH’ieh!”
The sneeze burst suddenly, directed at a bunch of blanket clutched in Shane’s fist that rested on Ilya’s chest. He groaned into the blanket after, muffled and miserable.
“Bless you,” Ilya murmured into Shane’s hair. “You are allergic to me, I think.”
Shane’s fingers halfheartedly pressed into his ribs.
Ilya smiled and kissed the crown of Shane’s head. “Practice tomorrow is optional. You should stay home.”
Shane stiffened, and Ilya soothed him with a pass of his fingers through Shane’s hair.
“I’m probably okay,” Shane murmured after a beat, though even he sounded unconvinced.
“Mmh.” Ilya continued stroking gently through his hair. “We have a road trip soon. Better you rest now.”
Shane’s shoulders rounded just slightly, a subtle tensing Ilya had learned meant Shane was preparing to shoot back yet was bracing for a retaliation to follow. He was two steps ahead in everything he did, on and off the ice.
“Hih’ISHHh’uh! -ISHH’uh!”
Except when his cold sent him five steps back.
Ilya waited, and Shane eventually sighed against his chest. Embarrassment hung heavy in his voice when he croaked, “Yeah, maybe…”
Ilya brushed his lips, perched in a soft smirk, over Shane’s hair in slow passes back and forth, a sort of drawn out kiss disguised nuzzle. He breathed Shane’s scent as he took stock of the home around him. Anya slept curled nearby on the rug, paws twitching faintly in dreams. The dishwasher hummed distantly in the kitchen. Shane’s breathing warmed steadily through the fabric of Ilya’s shirt, growing slower and softer yet a tad noisier the closer Shane drifted toward sleep.
Married life, Ilya thought, had so many lessons.
Today, it had reminded him how love settled into ordinary places—into grocery lists and lap blankets, and eating dinner on the couch. Into open arms, and letting your husband crawl into them without needing words.
Maybe years from now marriage would teach him other things, too. It would teach him how Shane’s hair would silver at the temples first, how his laugh lines would be earned, which insecurities would soften over time and which would stubbornly survive.
Maybe it would teach him that head colds wouldn’t always be eased into with the excuse of allergies. One day Shane might wake up with a catch in his throat and climb into Ilya’s arms unabashed before even getting out of bed.
It would teach him every version of Shane through time. In turn, it would offer Shane the same.
That thought frightened him a little. He would reach an age he never imagined for himself, with a person he loved there to witness it. It was a terrifying thought, loving someone long enough to have decades of him remembered. The proud moments, and the lowest.
That, he realized, was marriage’s greatest lesson.
It was learning, over and over again, how Shane would show Ilya that he wanted to see it all, and that he trusted Ilya to watch him grow and change, too. It was spending thousands of ordinary days learning each other by heart, only to find there was always something new to love. It was coming to understand he would never really reach the end of knowing Shane, and being grateful that there would always be more to learn.
And if that was what Ilya would remember his life as, decades of learning Shane, then he could think of no greater life spent.
