Chapter Text
It started the same way as these things usually start. Slowly and all of the sudden at the same time.
Ottawa winter mornings were soft grey and cold, the type of cold that makes you wonder if you really have to get out of the bed.
Shane knows without asking. The AC is always at a nice toasty temperature when Ilya gets up. The heated floor (real estate kink, indeed!) is warm under his bare feet. Coffee steams in his favourite cup in the kitchen counter, cream and sugar swirling in the dark liquid.
Shane is nursing his own cup and looks up from his phone when he enters the kitchen, His eyebrow twitches slightly.
“’Morning, malysh” Hum… His voice sounds raspy…
“Morning, love. Are you ok?”
“Ahn? Yeah, why?”
“If you say so…” Not pushing, never pushing.
Ilya sits down and starts drinking, the warm liquid scratching his throat.
“ATCHOOOOO!!!” The sneeze surprises him and startles Shane.
“Bless you!” He pushes the tissues in his general direction. “Getting sick?”
“No, I don’t get sick. Russians don’t get sick”
The mumble sounds suspicious close to “like you don’t blush…”
Ilya doesn’t answer.
The train is brutal. Or maybe he’s getting old… Is this how Scott always feels?? That’s horrible, he should be nicer with old people…
The lights are too bright, the ice is too cold, the training equipment is rubbing in all the wrong places. He’s hot and sweaty and cold and shivering. His body aches and his head hurts and his throat is sore when he tries to shout directions.
The rookies are loud and rough housing too much, Hayes is fooling too much, Bood is touching him too much, Shane is looking at him too much.
Speaking of the devil, his husband slides on the ice (show off!) and stops at his side.
“Are you ok?”
“Yes”
“Ilya…”
“Shane…”
“Love… You have a fever…”
“Are you a thermometer now?”
“No…” He shakes his head. “But I know how someone with a fever looks like…”
“Oh, now you speak fever…”
“Ilya… Come on, go see Terry.”
“I’m fine…”
“No, you’re not. A cold can end up in pneumonia or bronchiolitis if we don’t treat it. We sweat too much on the ice. It’s dangerous. Come on, I’ll go with you.”
“No”
“Please?” Damn those puppy dog eyes!
“10min and the drill ends, yes? I’ll go then.”
“Yeah, fine.” He smiles softly and tucks a lose curl under his helmet. He makes a face when his fingers brush his forehead.
Ilya raises an eyebrow.
“Not saying anything…” Shane sighs. “But you are burning up.”
“10min…”
“Deal”
10 minutes seems a really, really long time… For both of them…
As soon as Wiebe is dismissing them, Shane is by his side.
“Ok, time to go.” He takes his stick out of his hand and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go see Terry.”
“I’m fine, Shane… You sound like a mother chicken…”
“Mother hen, love. And yes, I sound like one because you are sick and you never take proper care of yourself and I love you. So I’m worried and I want to take care of you like you always do for me.”
Something shifts in Ilya’s chest and he’s sure it’s not related to his cold. He looks away from Shane and just nods slightly.
“Ilya…” His hand rests on his cheeks and turns his head towards him. “It’s ok, yes? This is what we are supposed to do for the people we love and care about. You are my husband, I love you more than anything else in the world and you are not a burden, ok? Yes?”
“Yes…” He blames the choked up voice to his sore throat and follows him to Terry’s office.
“Oh well, hello, what’s up boys?” Terry smiles from his desk.
“Rozanov is sick.”
“Oh, ok. What do you feel?”
“I’m fine, Hollander is overreacting.”
“Well, maybe, but it doesn’t hurt to check.” Terry and Shane share a look that Ilya prefers to ignore. “Tell me your symptoms”
“He has a fever, his throat is aching, his body is sore and he’s sneezing. “ Shane supplies.
“Ah.. What? How can you…” Ilya trails off.
Terry laughs. “My wife is just like this, she just knows. Ok, hop on the table so I can check you out.”
Ilya sits on the table, suddenly to tired to fight or pretend. Shane holds his hand.
A thermometer is placed on his mouth and Terry instructs him how to breathe while he listens to his chest.
“Hum… A bit congested but longs are clear for now.” The thermometer beeps. “102,2… Not very good, my boy…”
“102?? That’s wrong, 102 is oven temperature… I would have baked brain by now…”
Shane smiles softly, despite his furrow eyebrows. “102ºF means 39ºC, sweetheart. Still to high but not enough to bake anything.”
“Oh, ok.” Ilya blushes. “Stupid Fahrenheit system…”
“Open wide” Terry asks, pointing a light with a hand and pushing his tongue with a stick.
Ilya can supress a gag, tears springing to his eyes. He pulls away from the doctor.
“Oh sorry, sensitive, I see. Ok, just open your mouth as far as you can and put your tongue out. That’s it, perfect.” The light swipes left and right. “Yeah, a bit red but no signs of infection.”
Terry quickly checks his ears (clean), his blood pressure (a bit high, but on the normal range) and puts a weird thing on his finger to check the oxygen (a tad low, but nothing very concerning.
15min later they are send home with a prescription for NyQuill, anti-inflammatories and throat lozenges and with orders to drink plenty of fluids and rest for at least 3 days. He gives both of them a leave of absence.
Ilya grumbles all the way through the quick shower and even quicker packing they do.
Shane braces himself for the next days’ ordeal.
Shane stops at a pharmacy. Ilya is still pouting about not driving home.
“Ok, what flavours of syrup and lozenges do you want?”
Ilya just shrugs, looking out of the window.
“Ilya… Don’t be like that… Tell me what you want?”
“Go home, sleep, train tomorrow.”
“We’ll go after I buy your medicine. And no training.” He pats his legs affectionately. “Come on, orange or cherry for the NyQuill? The lozenges can be cherry, strawberry, orange, lemon, honey…”
“Whatever…”
Shane sighs “Love, come on, work with me… Pick a flavour, please.”
“Don’t know any…”
“What? Did you never take flu medicine? Not even as a kid?”
“Yes, of course…”
“Ok, what flavour you had?”
“Medicine flavour…”
“Medicine flavour?” Shane pauses for a second. “Oh, no flavour choices in Russia?”
“Da… Yes…” Ilya looks away. “We take as it is and that’s it.”
“Ok, awful. You’re sick, you deserve sweet things.” Shane thinks for a second. “I like orange. Tastes less artificial.”
“Ok, that one.”
Shane kisses his cheek, frowning at the heat. “Ok, thank you. Stay here, I’ll be back in a minute.”
He comes back to a dozing off husband, cheek pressed against the window.
Ilya startles at the sound of the door.
“Sorry, love. Let’s go home, I’ll order groceries by DoorDash”
He just hums and lays his head again.
Ilya can’t lie anymore. He feels miserable. His head hurts, his throat is sore, his nose is stuffed, his body is achy, his hot and cold and sweaty and shivering and feeling gross all over.
He doesn’t complain when Shane rushes him to bed, opening the bed covers and propping pillows.
He watches him putting bottles and packs of medicine on the nightstand. A bottle of water. A box of tissues.
His heart aches and swells and his eyes are a little blurry. This man loves him so much and so well and he doesn’t deserve this…
“Ilya… Ilya!! “ Shane is right in front of him. “Love, are you with me?”
“Da..”
“Take of those clothes and hop into bed, I’ll be right back.”
He changes into sweatpants and an old t-shirt (one that he took from Shane’s drawer, just because is softer than his own, of course) and lays against the pillows.
Shane comes back with a washcloth and a thermometer, putting the first on his head and the second on his mouth.
He takes a small bottle from the nightstand and starts rubbing something on his chest. It smells strongly as mint. Ilya holds a sneeze.
“Sorry, sweetheart. Vicks helps clearing your nose. You sound all stuffy.” He checks the beeping thermometer. “Still at 102. Time for medicine.”
Ilya flushes when he holds a cup of NyQuill to his mouth. “Not a child…”
“I know, but I like to do things for you. Just indulge me.”
He takes the medicine without complaining. It’s tastes good. Much better than the Russian one.
“Ok? Not to bad?” Shane smiles.
“No, it’s sweet.”
“Just like you” He kisses his forehead. “Ok, what do you like to eat when you’re sick?”
“Nothing…”
“You have to eat… What do you want?” He frowns at his shrug. “Ok, what did your mama give to you?”
Ilya frowns. He doesn’t want to think about his mama. Not when he feels miserable and Shane is being so nice with him.
He shrugs and looks away.
“Oh love…” Shane lays with him and pulls him to his chest. “Sorry, just want to know what you want to eat when you’re sick… Your comfort foods…”
“Da… I know… Sorry…” He snuggles his shoulder. “Soup? Please?”
“Soup? Just that?”
“Yes…” He thinks for a second… “And juice?”
“Soup and juice? Of course. Vegetable soup? Chicken soup? Orange might be too acid for your throat…”
“Vegetable… The thick type? And berry juice?”
“Ok, love. One creamy thick soup and one berry juice on the way” He types on his phone. “Anything else?”
“No…” He pauses, Shane pauses too. Always giving him time. “Maybe…”
“Maybe…”
“Raspberry… hum… The thing you put on toast?”
“Raspberry jam?”
“Yes… That.”
“Ok, love. Any specific type?”
“No, just normal.”
Shane orders soup, juice and raspberry jam. He also orders Gatorade (the red one), four flavours of meal replacement shakes (including a mixed berries one because he’s sensing a theme going on), cookies and cream ice cream and a few boxes of different teas. And bread for the jam.
Ilya wakes up to the sun setting outside the window. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but Shane is no longer beside him.
He drinks some water and shuffles to the bathroom. He avoids the mirror. He feels 10 times worse.
“Shane?” He croaks when he gets to the living room. He feels sick and achy and sweaty and miserable and abandoned.
“Here, sweetheart!” His voice comes from the kitchen.
Ilya sighs when he sees him. “You left…”
Shane stifles a chuckle at his husband’s whining tone. “Just heating your soup.”
“I don’t need soup.” He drapes himself around Shane. “I need you.”
Ok, this time he chuckles. But he doesn’t coo, so there is that. “Needy baby… I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon.”
“Soon?” Ilya pouts. “So you’re going away later??”
“Ilya, shush. Stop straining your throat.” He pops a lozenge out of nowhere and into the other man’s mouth. “Not going anywhere. Not now, not later, not ever” He holds his hand up. “Remember? Married and all that jazz?”
“Jazz?”
“Way of speaking.”
Ilya hums, resting his head on Shane’s shoulder. He shakily sighs.
“What’s that, love?” Shane nudges him.
“Nothing…”
“Tell me…”
“I’m annoying you…”
“No, you aren’t”
“You called me needy…”
“And you are. You are sick, so you get needy. As you suppose to. Just like I do…”
“You’re not needy…”
“You never saw me sick… Ask my mom. I’m needy. And demanding. And a general pain in the ass.” He turns to hold Ilya properly. “You’re being needy, yes. And also sweet and trying so hard to not be a burden, even when you aren’t one. You never are. So, stop it, ok? You aren’t annoying or a trouble or making me do anything I don’t want to do, ok? Yes?”
Ilya nods against his shoulder.
“So, let me take care of my needy baby, like he deserves to be taken care of, ok?” He nods again. “Besides, if my mom dreams that I gave anything lower than star treatment, she’ll kick my ass. You’re her favourite!”
Ilya chuckles softly and sneezes. Hard. Against Shane’s shoulder.
He recoils, body tensing. “Sorry… Sorry…”
He pulls back, eyes downcast, arms hugging himself.
“Hey, hey, where are you going?” Shane smiles. “Not the worst bodily fluid you sprayed on me, silly goose. Come here, come back.”
“You hate people sneezing around you…”
“You’re not people. You’re my person.” He pulls him to the couch. “And you shouldn’t be walking barefoot and barely dressed on the kitchen tiles. Sit.”
He sits. Shane throws him a sweatshirt (one of Shane’s, old and soft and smelling like him. Or so he thinks. Damn stuffed nose), puts a blanket on his lap, hands him a bowl of soup.
He doesn’t complain anymore. He doesn’t apologize. He just accepts.
He accepts the soup and the juice and the medicine and the thermometer and the wet washcloths on his forehead.
He accepts when he feels his husband changing the later in the middle of the night and the soft beeps of the thermometer that he didn’t even feel being put on his mouth and the Vicks paste being applied on his chest at 2a.m. and the blankets being adjusted up and down his body.
He accepts the love and the care and the small bowl of ice cream after taking his dose of ibuprofen and the soft touches and the forehead kisses (half affection, half checking his temperature).
He accepts and holds back the tears when Shane asks him if he wants the jam on a toast or just a spoonful, because this is Shane and of course that he did his research.
And when he wakes up on day 4, fully healed and ready to hit the ice, he looks to his side and Shane is already awake and smiling at him.
And he realizes that he can do this, he can accept this level of love and care. Maybe he even deserves it.
At least, Shane seems to think so…