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The first sign that everything is going wrong is when Irina throws up on Ilya at three in the morning.
Direct hit.
There is a stunned silence in the dark.
Then Ilya says something in Russian that sounds extremely poetic and is definitely not poetic.
Irina bursts into tears.
Shane bolts upright, slamming his knee into the nightstand.
“Is she bleeding? Is something broken? Am I dying?”
“She is expelling,” Ilya says tightly, standing in the dim light covered in toddler vomit like a tragic hero in a very domestic opera.
Irina wails harder.
Shane blinks at the scene.
“Oh,” he says.
By six a.m., no one has slept.
Irina has a mild fever and the emotional fragility of a Victorian heroine. She refuses to be put down. She refuses water. She refuses logic.
Ilya is pacing the length of their sleek, glass-walled lakeside cottage like he’s preparing for a press conference about it.
Shane hasn’t changed out of his pajama pants and looks like a haunted scarecrow.
“She is too warm,” Ilya says for the fourteenth time.
“It’s 38.1,” Shane replies, squinting at the thermometer. “That’s low-grade.”
Ilya looks at him like he’s personally betrayed science.
Irina whimpers and clutches Ilya’s shirt.
He immediately sits down.
“She needs me,” he says, as if Shane has suggested otherwise.
Shane rubs his face. “We are both here.”
The doorbell rings.
They both freeze.
Irina whimpers at the sound.
“Who would—” Shane starts.
The doorbell rings again. Longer. Aggressively.
Shane drags himself to the door.
He opens it.
Troy, Wyatt, Luca, and Bood stand on the porch holding bags like they’re about to invade a small country.
Behind them—
Harris.
Calm. Composed. Holding a reusable grocery tote and wearing an expression that says he has already assessed the situation and found it lacking.
Harris is the Ottawa Centaurs’ Social Media Manager. He is also Troy’s boyfriend.
And, crucially, the only adult present.
“We heard Irina’s sick,” Troy announces cheerfully.
“You look terrible,” Wyatt adds helpfully.
Harris steps forward, takes one look at Shane’s hair and thousand-yard stare, and says, “Okay. We’re coming in.”
It is not a question.
Within five minutes, the cottage is chaos.
Troy has taken over the kitchen.
Wyatt is opening windows despite it being aggressively Canadian outside.
Luca has found Irina’s stuffed bear and is explaining germs to it.
Bood is disinfecting surfaces with frightening dedication.
Ilya stands in the middle of it all holding Irina, looking deeply overwhelmed.
“What is happening,” he mutters.
Harris appears at his side.
“Give me the timeline,” Harris says calmly.
Ilya blinks at him.
“She vomited at three. Fever at five. Refusing water intermittently. Clingy.”
Harris nods like he’s in a crisis briefing.
“Okay. Mild stomach bug likely. We’ll hydrate. Monitor temperature. Alternate adults so you both don’t collapse.”
Shane stares at him.
“You’re… very competent,” Shane says faintly.
Harris gives him a tight smile. “I manage twenty-five professional athletes and their public disasters. This is nothing.”
Troy pops his head out of the kitchen. “I’m making soup!”
Harris closes his eyes briefly.
“Nothing,” he repeats, less convincingly.
The first thing that goes wrong is, in fact, the soup.
Troy, inspired by vibes rather than measurement, creates something with the sodium content of the Atlantic Ocean.
Shane tastes it and ascends briefly.
Wyatt coughs violently.
Bood says, “We could preserve meat with this.”
Troy looks wounded.
Harris walks in, tastes it, and says calmly, “You salted before reducing.”
Troy blinks. “Yeah?”
Harris takes the ladle from his hand. “Move.”
Ten minutes later, Harris has fixed it.
Of course he has.
“Marry him again,” Shane tells Troy weakly.
“Planning on it,” Troy replies proudly.
Meanwhile, thermometer operations are underway.
Irina does not approve.
She clamps her mouth shut and glares at all of them.
“It is small stick,” Ilya says earnestly.
Irina screams like he’s suggested betrayal.
“Under the arm,” Wyatt says.
Ilya looks scandalized.
“We are not ambushing her.”
Harris steps in.
“Okay,” he says gently, crouching to Irina’s level. “Irina, can we check your superpowers?”
She squints at him.
“This tells us how strong you are today,” he explains, holding up the thermometer like it’s high-tech equipment.
Irina considers this gravely.
“Strong,” she says.
“Yes,” Harris nods solemnly.
She allows it.
The room goes silent.
The reading beeps.
38.2.
Ilya inhales sharply.
“It’s fine,” Harris says immediately. “Still mild. She’s hydrated. We’re good.”
The fact that he says we instead of you makes something in Shane’s chest unclench.
Around noon, Shane hits a wall.
He’s standing in the kitchen staring at the lake like he’s considering moving into it permanently.
Harris appears beside him.
“You need to sleep,” Harris says.
“I can’t.”
“You can. Ilya’s calmer. We have coverage.”
Shane looks toward the living room.
Ilya is on the couch, Irina asleep against his chest.
Troy is whispering loudly about defensive strategies.
Wyatt is building a pillow fort.
Luca is attempting to assemble the humidifier upside down.
Bood is reading the instruction manual correctly.
Harris steps in, flips one part of the humidifier, and it starts working immediately.
“How,” Shane breathes.
“Common sense,” Harris replies.
Shane laughs weakly.
“You guys didn’t have to come.”
Harris’s expression softens.
“Troy panicked,” he says. “And then he panicked about you panicking. So here we are.”
Shane swallows.
“Go sleep,” Harris says firmly.
And somehow, because it’s Harris saying it, Shane listens.
What could go wrong?
Several things.
The humidifier makes a noise like a distressed walrus.
Troy sets off the smoke alarm during Soup Redemption Round Two.
Wyatt tries to silence it by waving a dish towel aggressively.
Luca locks himself on the deck again.
Bood calmly turns off the alarm at the breaker panel.
Through it all, Harris moves through the cottage like a crisis coordinator.
He hands Ilya water.
He rotates cold cloths.
He reminds Troy to lower his voice.
He confiscates Wyatt’s third attempt at reorganizing the medicine cabinet.
At one point, he gently pries Irina from Ilya’s arms so Ilya can stretch.
“You are no good to her if your back gives out,” Harris says matter-of-factly.
Ilya actually listens.
That alone proves Harris is magical.
Shane wakes up two hours later.
The cottage is still chaotic—but organized chaos.
Troy’s soup is edible.
The humidifier hums steadily.
Wyatt is reading a children’s book in a dramatic announcer voice.
Luca has completed the pillow fort and labeled it “Recovery Zone.”
Bood has arranged popsicles by color.
Harris is sitting at the dining table with a laptop open.
“Are you working?” Shane asks, baffled.
“Scheduling posts,” Harris replies without looking up. “We’re pushing community engagement this week.”
Shane laughs.
“Of course you are.”
Harris glances up at him, then nods toward the couch.
Ilya looks less frantic now. Still tired. Still protective. But steadier.
Irina stirs and spots Shane.
“Daddy,” she says weakly.
He crosses the room immediately.
“Hey, bug.”
She pats his cheek.
“Team,” she murmurs sleepily.
Everyone freezes.
Troy gasps like she’s just recited Shakespeare.
Ilya’s eyes go glassy.
Harris smiles faintly.
“Yes,” he says softly. “Team.”
By evening, the fever dips.
Irina is tired but no longer miserable.
The lakeside cottage looks like a daycare collided with a locker room.
Shane sits beside Ilya on the couch.
Their shoulders touch.
“You spiraled,” Shane murmurs.
“I did not,” Ilya says automatically.
Harris clears his throat pointedly from across the room.
Ilya sighs. “Maybe little.”
Shane threads their fingers together.
“You’re a good dad.”
Ilya leans his head against Shane’s.
“I do not like when she is hurting.”
“I know.”
Across the room, Troy wraps an arm around Harris’s waist.
“See?” Troy whispers loudly. “We saved the day.”
Harris raises an eyebrow. “You salted the soup into oblivion.”
“Minor setback.”
Wyatt tosses a pillow at them.
Luca salutes from inside the pillow fort.
Bood hands Irina a popsicle like it’s a sacred ritual.
Irina licks it, squints at the room full of loud, ridiculous adults, and says softly:
“Loud.”
Everyone laughs.
Ilya presses a kiss to Shane’s temple.
“Team,” he says quietly.
And this time, with chaos and common sense and soup redemption all around them, it feels exactly right.