Chapter Text
Look. Normally Ilya was the one who made the impulse choices in their relationship, but that didn’t mean Shane never did. Just that it was incredibly rare and most of his friends would have said it was out of character. His parents might have even driven him to the hospital.
But sometimes in life you don’t make the choice, sometimes, the universe makes it for you. Which was definitely why when Shane opened the front door to get the paper before Anya and Ilya were awake and he heard a faint meowing he didn’t question anything.
He did stand in the door like an idiot for a second though. To be fair no coffee had been consumed yet, and even though it was a cold spring morning it wasn’t the bracing cold every Canadian (and transplanted Russians) knew in their souls.
But then he heard the noise again, so small and pitiful, and he felt compelled by a force larger than himself to seek out the source. What he found was a tiny black kitten crouching in their bushes shaking with cold.
Shane scooped it up without hesitation, and immediately tucked it into his sweater. Shane closed the door, mind going blank he had no idea what to do next. The poor thing had stopped shaking as violently as it had been but it was still distressingly pathetic, with its little head poking out of Shane’s sweater. Shane was worryingly fond of the little thing after the twenty seconds they had already known each other, and seeing it looking so distressed was making him very stressed.
“Ilya!” He called, and there was enough distress in his voice that he heard Ilya leap out of bed with a shout and a thunk. Anya reached him first, tail wagging.
Ilya basically threw himself down the stairs, dressed only in socks and underwear and rushed up to Shane, checking him over for signs of harm. Anya was also picking up on his elevated mood and began barking.
“Shhhh.” Ilya and Shane said at the same time. It was absurdly early in the morning and the last thing either of them wanted was for Anya to wake up the entire neighborhood.
Shane realized there could be more kittens outside. Or even a parent. But he was struggling with communicating this and the source of his distress, so he simply removed his sweater kitten inside, with some difficulty and pressed it into Ilya's hands. Then he threw open the door again and began searching around in the bushes.
Inside he heard Ilya exclaim lightly before he began to coo at the kitten. There, Ilya was much better with animals than Shane, he would know what to do.
Shane waded further into the bushes, scratching himself pretty thoroughly in the process before determining that wherever the kitten had come from it was alone. He returned inside to find Ilya completely besotted. The kitten was sitting gingerly in his hands and its shaking had stopped. Ilya was petting it with such a careful hand that he was almost not touching it.
“What now?” Shane found his voice after a second. He wished he had his phone to take a photo of this moment. Ilya looked up at him, and then looked mildly horrified. Shane looked down to see that his torso had taken quite the beating in the bushes. He had scratches all across his body and several of them were bleeding. “After I deal with this.”
Ilya laughed at him and followed him into the bathroom, still holding the kitten. Anya followed closely at his heels, whining slightly, seemingly also wanting to meet the kitten, but Shane was worried about her behavior around such a small creature. Ilya also seemed to have this thought because he shut her out of the bathroom.
The scratches didn’t take long to tend to. During the time Shane was cleaning things up Ilya handed him back the kitten and went to get his phone. And some clothing.
“There's a twenty four hour vet that's not too far from here,” Ilya said, “we can take him there and see what is going on. I put Anya outside for a bit. She has never seen a kitten before so I don’t want her startling him.”
Shane smiled at his husband standing in the arch of the door, just as worried as he was about this tiny kitten that had literally landed on their doorstep. He really wished he could get a picture of it, just to prove to everyone who ever called Ilya Rozanov an asshole how much this man cared.
“Do we have something to transport him in? I don't want to just hold him, what if-”
Ilya cut him off, “don't worry I have a box downstairs, and I started the car.”
Now Shane really felt like the world had turned upside down. Ilya was over preparing for everything and Shane was impulsively scooping up kittens. Even if he couldn’t think of a single person who would have been able to leave a kitten outside. At least he hoped not.
The cardboard box had been lined with soft fluffy towels and one of Anya’s stuffed animals that she wouldn't miss. Her journey as a big sister was already beginning. Shane deposited the kitten who began protesting the lack of human warmth immediately. He gently placed the box in his lap in the passenger seat of the car while Ilya let Anya back in and locked up the car.
It was a non travel day but they still should probably let their teammates know they both would be at the very least late to practice. Shane pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the current situation.
The team's response was lightning fast and so overwhelming Shane debated turning off his phone. Since Troy was in the group chat and Harris was with Troy, Shane promptly got several links for first time cat owners. He opened them but didn’t start to read them yet. He had no idea if they were keeping the kitten, he didn’t know if he belonged to someone, he didn't even know if his husband wanted a cat. Shane wanted a cat. Shane wanted this cat, which was kind of unexpected. His family had had a cat when he was young but he only vaguely remembered it.
Ilya drove to the emergency vet like the entire car could fall to pieces at any time. He even used his turn signal. He only broke the speed limit by a few kilometers. Shane wanted to swoon, but he was trying to keep the kitten contained in the box. The kitten was desperately trying to rejoin with Shane’s sweater. And after about three minutes of struggling to prevent this he decided that there wasn’t really a reason for him to disallow this. The kitten's needlesharp claws pierced through his sweater as it climbed up to the pouch in his sweater. It crawled inside and began once again purring.
“We are keeping him.” Shane said, his heart so captured by this little creature, “right?”
They had just pulled into the parking lot which was good because Ilya fully turned to look at him shock on his face. “Of course we are keeping him. He is literally perfect. Where the fuck is he?”
Shane gingerly lifted the flap of his pouch to show Ilya two gleaming yellow eyes squinting at him.
“Oh thank god.” Ilya smiled, “Anya needs a sibling. Besides, the girls will love him.”
Shane rolled his eyes. Ilya had a running joke that Shane and he were going to have twin girls. He wasn't sure but he had a hunch it had something to do with ‘beating’ Hayden at having children somehow. Truly the logic was so purely Ilya that Shane wasn’t sure it could be explained out loud. Nevertheless he had suffered through several such jokes. Not that he was against having children, in fact he and Ilya were looking into the adoption process, it was just very strange to make choices to comply with their nonexistent children.
Shane got out of the car and walked into the vets without replying to his husband, who followed behind him cackling.
The vet staff was very polite and kind and sat them in a room to wait for whenever a doctor could see them. Shane was a bit worried about the kitten becoming hungry or thirsty at some point but before he could voice this the door flew open and a jovial woman strode inside. She was a firmly middle aged Indian woman with big red glasses and cupcake scrubs.
“Hello hello!” She sang, before clasping her hands to her chest, “Ah! My two favorite hockey stars! How are we today? More importantly, how is our patient?” She looked around the room confusedly.
Shane smiled, this was the best kind of being recognized. She had acknowledged it, and then decided it wasn't very important. Which Shane found very refreshing. Carefully he extracted the kitten from its cocoon.
“Oh hello! Here put him up on the examination table. Now, what brings us in today?”
“Well,” Shane began, “I uh-found him outside about half an hour ago.”
“Alone! In the cold!” Ilya exclaimed.
“Oh no.” She lifted the kitten up and began to examine him. He squeaked in protest. “Unfortunately not an uncommon occurrence. Ah! A boy!” Gently she opened his mouth slightly and looked at his teeth, “ok he's about seven weeks, so he can eat solid food. But he looks a bit underfed. I am going to take him back and get his weight and heart rate, then we can give him a few shots and he's good to go.”
“Does he have a chip?” Shane asked, even though he hated to bring it up. If someone had abandoned him they weren't getting him back. But if the little kitten had escaped someone's home somehow and they were out there worried for him, well Shane couldn’t keep him from them. Next to him Ilya tensed.
The doctor gave him a thin smile, as if sensing his fears. “I’ll check, I don’t feel one but it could be in a weird location. But don’t worry, I don’t think someone is looking for him.”
The next several minutes felt incredibly long to Shane. With the adrenaline crashing Shane was thinking longingly of coffee. Ilya, the night owl of the two of them, was probably even more groggy but the excitement had kept him alert. Shane shifted from where he was standing to sit next to Ilya in one of the horrible grey chairs that could be found in the examination room of every medical practitioner regardless of species. He lay his head against Ilya’s shoulder, he could almost hear the stress coming off his husband in waves.
He opened his mouth to say something, but Ilya beat him to it. “What are we going to name him?”
“Albert.” Shane said without thinking.
“Albert?! Oh god that's awful. You are definitely not naming the girls.”
Shane rolled his eyes but he was blushing, “I like the name Albert.”
“Of course you do. It's boring.” he sighed dramatically, “Cant believe you are saddling a beautiful cat with this name. It sounds like a forty year old man. Why are you giving him a human man name!”
“You sound like a forty year old man.” Shane muttered. “Fine, what do you want to name him?”
Ilya thought for a second, tapping his chin with his pointer finger, “I really like the name Albert for some reason.”
“God you're such an asshole.” Shane laughed. “What would you have named him if not Albert?”
“Misha.” Ilya smiled. Shane wasn’t sure from an etymological standpoint, but from an Ilya stand point he was pretty sure that was the equivalent of naming a cat fluffy or mittens. He was about to question him further when the vet returned, Albert in hand.
“All set! I couldn’t find a chip, but he's healthy and a proper weight.” She deposited him on the exam table and with no nonsense speed gave him two shots. Albert didn't seem to notice, he was squeaking with delight at seeing Shane again. “It;s a little bit early for him to be away from his mom, so I will give you a brochure about what to expect and what to feed him. And a list of cat supplies.”
She handed Ilya a bag full of papers and a few toys. Shane wanted to refuse them, knowing their next stop was going to be the pet store where Ilya was going to spend upwards of four digits on this cat.
“Oh and for our records what is this little fella’s name?”
“Albert.” Shane and Ilya said in unison, with various degrees of excitement.
They paid their bill and then spent a fortune on cat supplies before heading home. They set up a room in their house for Albert to become accustomed to before they could begin letting him meet Anya and explore the rest of the house. The team was of course blowing up the group chat trying to get news on the kitten.
Ilya replied with a picture of Shane fast asleep on the floor with Albert curled up on his chest. What a morning.