Chapter Text
May 2029
Fucking fuck! Shane jumped at the sudden shock of pain radiating up his arm. That had been a low blow. One he was not prepared for despite having played thousands of hockey games, many with injuries, and many during which he was injured. He would not accept this offense, from this opponent, on this day–his fucking birthday!
Shane steeled himself, glaring down at his opponent who was mocking him mercilessly with the gall to flash a million tiny rainbows directly up at his face.
He would not let them win. Gritting his teeth, he reached down, pulling a lethal move–surely enough to fell his enemy…. He yanked up the drain stopper.
The assortment of his daughters’ plastic dishes that had piled up throughout the day, remnants of every snack and piece of birthday cake, sank down pathetically, nesting themselves together. He sighed as he removed them one by one and arranged them in the dishwasher.
“What are you doing?”
Shane jumped at the interruption, quickly closing the dishwasher door. “Just finishing up,” he said. “Did Kaya finally go down?”
“After the fourth book, yes,” Ilya sighed, surveying the kitchen. “Why are you using the dishwasher?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow at this abrupt change in his routine.
Fuck. Well, he’d find out anyway, Shane supposed. “Just a wrist thing, I don’t know… Kinda hurts.”
Ilya’s eyes darkened with concern. At Shane’s advanced hockey player age, ‘just a wrist thing’ could potentially be career ending. “Did you see Aaron about it?”
“Aaron’s gone. Stephanie is the trainer now.”
“And?” Ilya persisted, quickly exasperated by Shane’s obvious avoidance. “Did you go see Stephanie?”
Shane shook his head. “Not yet. It doesn’t even hurt that much. It will probably just go away.”
“Give,” Ilya said holding out his hand. Shane’s eyes darted around at the kitchen. “Your hand, your wrist, whatever it is…”
“Oh…” Shane held out his right hand in compliance, and Ilya took it for closer examination. He used two fingers to massage Shane’s wrist, testing the outside and then the inside.
“Does this hurt?” Ilya asked.
“No.”
“How about this?” Ilya gently flexed Shane’s hand back and forth.
“No, it’s just…”
“Washing dishes?”
“And passing.” Ilya raised his eyebrows. “And shooting sometimes. Like, forehand.”
“And jerking off?”
“Shut up…” Shane said, but his mouth quirked up.
“Shane,” Ilya started. He needed to tread carefully. How could he convey to Shane that he’s an ancient and decrepit million-year-old hockey player, a player who needed to stay attuned to his body and not ignore the aches and pains, without triggering a shutdown?
Ilya wondered if that was even possible. Shane never brought up retirement. It was almost as if he thought it was some abstract, hypothetical milestone that he would never reach. But now, having just turned thirty-eight, he was one of the oldest offensive players in the league, and whether this season or next would be his last was an evergreen source of speculation amongst the league, commentators, and the public.
Ilya hated it just as much as Shane did, maybe more than Shane did, seeing as Shane was far more disciplined at staying off social media. Still, Ilya would hate to pile on, and lately he’d taken it upon himself to protect Shane’s right to make that decision on his own. That wouldn’t prevent Ilya from being honest though….
Ilya took a breath before opting for, “You’re old.”
“Fuck you.”
“It’s true, Shane. If something hurts, it will not just go away. You have to take this seriously if you want to keep playing. Go see Stephanie tomorrow.” Shane looked as though he was searching for something he’d dropped on the floor. “Shane…”
“Okay. I’ll go see Stephanie tomorrow.”
“Good. Because I need you back on dishwashing duty,” Ilya said firmly. He lifted Shane’s hand to kiss it, then leaned in to kiss the sweet grin that Shane had been unable to suppress.
* * *
“You should put the soap on the sponge, not the dish. It lathers better.”
“I know how to wash dishes, Inspector Shane.”
“Oh, yeah? Why do you always leave them for me, then?”
“Shut up. Go sit down,” Ilya instructed.
Shane shook his head as he took a seat at the counter at Ilya’s usual place. Now he had a prime view of Ilya’s nonsensical method for washing up. Ilya's efforts to scrape the leftover food had been half-hearted, the drain was quickly clogging up, and he hadn’t piled the dishes properly, leaving all the forks and knives to sink to the depths of the cloudy water…
Shane cringed as he watched Ilya squeeze a long string of soap onto a plate. Now the dishes were taking forever to rinse clean. His blood pressure rose in anticipation of the soapy film that would be coating their dishes until his wrist was healed.
“Just use the dishwasher, Ilya, it’s fine,” Shane pleaded.
“No! I will do things your way,” Ilya said, smirking at Shane’s reflection in the kitchen window.
“My way includes using those rubber gloves,” Shane said, glaring back.
Ilya waved this off with a dripping wet hand. “Did Stephanie figure out what is wrong with your wrist?”
“Sort of. She said it’s ‘hockey wrist.’”
“What is that?”
“Um, it’s like tendinitis or something?”
“Ah, so it is old person injury. Will you play with it?”
“Yeah, she gave me some exercises to do, and I have to wear a brace, but it fits under my glove. I practiced with it today. I think it will be fine through the playoffs.”
“Good,” he said, adding more soap to the water bath. “But I hate it when they do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make up new injuries. ‘Wrist hurts,’ ‘Oh? It’s hockey wrist,’ Yeah? No shit! I could have told you that.”
Shane smiled. “Knee hurts? ‘Hockey knee.’”
“Exactly. Dick hurts? ‘Hockey dick.’”
“I bet you were the king of hockey dick,” Shane teased.
“Da, Shane, spasibo! I am still the hockey dick king, yes?” Shane laughed, momentarily distracted from Ilya’s lousy dishwashing technique.
His eyes fluttered up to Ilya’s curls, then landed on Ilya’s broad shoulders left exposed by his tank top. Despite being retired, Ilya’s muscles retained definition and they rippled as he handled each plate. The soft pendant light cast shadows on the dimple behind his deltoid, and he shifted his weight from left to right along with his rhythm, and Shane’s eyes traveled down his spine to Ilya’s perfect ass, straining against his sweatpants.
Ilya soon settled into a rhythm of scrubbing, rinsing, and arranging the dishes on the drying rack, his body dancing a smooth, domestic choreography. Shane was captivated, practically hypnotized by Ilya’s movements. Damn, he had no business looking this hot doing simple household chores. Maybe Shane could get used to this.
Before he knew it, Ilya was turning around, drying his hands on a towel.
“What? Why did you stop?”
“All done!” Ilya grinned, holding up his hands as though he’d pulled off a magic trick.
Shane’s eyes narrowed. He pushed his water glass across the counter. “This is dirty,” he said, smirking.
“You ask me to spoil you?”
“How can you say that when you’ve made me do the dishes for eight years? Including on my birthday!”
“Well?” Ilya shrugged. “Now you know why,” he said with a wink.
”Because you’re terrible at dishes…”
”Because I get to look at you, moya lyubov.”