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Ilya wants it to be different this time. He wants Shane to stay after, to cuddle with him, and to be something they can never be.
He knows this when he watches Shane move sluggishly across the ice and when Shane sends him a text saying he's sick and, therefore, not coming.
He should let it go. Let it wait until the next time they're in the same city. Let it end entirely.
But he finds himself texting Shane back anyway.
Lily: So? You know I'll take good care of you 😏
Ilya can practically sense Shane's annoyance, his hesitation (though he can never quite predict the response).
The perfectly mannered Canadian boy always seems to surprise him.
Jane: want me to bring a stethoscope?
Ilya laughs a little at the response itself and a little that Shane is so easy to convince that that this is what he wants. That it's what they both want.
But he doesn't know how Shane is going to react to him offering more than just physical intimacy.
But he's going to try to do it anyway because he can't resist this man and his infuriatingly adorable freckles.
He searches his pantry while he waits for Shane to show up and comes up with two cans of Chicken Noodle soup.
XXX
When Shane enters Ilya's house, he can faintly smell chicken noodle, and he wonders, briefly, if he's in the wrong place.
He knows Ilya said he would take care of him. But that's not what he'd meant. Not with the suggestive smirk at the end.
Besides, more than anything, that's not what they are, not what they've ever been.
Shane sniffles as Ilya drapes an arm over him and leads him to the couch.
He tells Shane to sit and wait for his soup and hands him a ginger ale.
There's no hint of anything suggesting what they would normally be doing.
And Shane isn't sure what to do with it. There's a part of him that wants to relax into it, and let Ilya do this. There's another part, possibly a stronger part, that knows they can't do this, not in any real way. That makes him itch with anxiety. That makes him want to run.
He settles on the couch, a weight heavy in his stomach.
He glances in the kitchen and sees Ilya carefully ladling soup into two bowls.
The weight lifts slightly.
He can let Ilya do this. He can.
Ilya sets the soup on the table in front of him and tells him to eat.
As he does, Ilya turns the TV on to sports commentary following their game and rests his feet on Shane's legs.
He pulls his own bowl up to his chest and takes slow careful spoonfuls while watching Shane from the corner of his eye. "It's good, yes?"
Shane nods, because it's fine, nothing special about the soup itself really, only who made it.
"Good," Ilya says, like he needed that reassurance.
And Shane feels a little lost.
He already has a pounding headache and a sore throat (eased some by the soup) but Ilya isn't doing what he expects, and he doesn't know what to do with it.
Fortunately or unfortunately, he's too tired to muse on it for long. He finishes the soup and dozes off on the couch.
XXX
Ilya knows he needs to wake Shane up, remind him that he's going to miss his team's curfew or flight or whatever it is that's stealing Shane away.
He knows this, but he can't resist watching Shane rest under the Raider's blanket Ilya's draped over him.
It's a possessive feeling of not wanting to let Shane go even after he's already stayed longer than he ever has.
And Ilya knows that he's made a mistake somewhere because they haven't even done anything.
He doesn't even care, really, that they haven't.
It's not all he wants.
Not anymore.
XXX
Shane wakes up to Ilya's hand on his cheek, cool and soothing to his overheated face.
"You need to go, yes?" Ilya asks.
Shane looks at the clock on Ilya's TV and sighs. He really, really does.
Ilya helps him sit up, and he puts his head into his hands as the room tilts slightly.
"You okay?" Ilya asks.
And the answer to that is no, no he isn't. He'd love to say it's because of the cold or whatever this is, but it isn't.
He finds that leaving is the last thing he wants to do, and it scares him. It scares him so much.
He shakes his head.
"I have medicine," Ilya says.
Medicine isn't going to help the real problem, but Shane just nods.
Ilya goes into the kitchen and, after some rustling, comes back with some Tylenol and Sudafed as well as more Ginger Ale.
Shane takes it all gratefully and wonders what he should do when he knows deep down that they can't do this. That he can't.
He doesn't say it though. He only thinks it.
He lets Ilya help him into his coat and before he knows it Ilya is kissing his forehead, "Goodbye, Shane. Feel better."
He brushes his fingers over his temple in the cab ride back to his hotel, feeling the whisper of Ilya's touch.
Maybe, he thinks, he's allowed to want this too.