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Shane had been awake for maybe five minutes—it was two in the morning, but he'd been uncomfortably warm for some reason, so he'd slipped out of bed, Ilya still dead asleep next to him, to go to the bathroom, press cool water to his face, drink a bit, turn on the fan—and was just about to get back in bed when he heard little footsteps in the hall.
He glanced back at Ilya. Asleep, though his hand had gone searching for Shane in his absence.
They left their door open, always, in case Nikita needed them. Also, because closed doors in their house gave Ilya hives. So Shane slipped out noiselessly and met their four-year-old in the hallway.
“Hey,” he said, soft, when Nikita, wide-eyed, looked up at him. “What's wrong?”
A lot, by the looks of it. Nikita was red-faced and teary-cheeked, which probably went together, and clutching the macaque stuffed animal he'd gotten last year at the zoo. It was his favorite animal now, but not providing a lot of comfort as Nikita took a huge, shaky breath.
“Okay, okay,” Shane said. He held out his hands, and Nikita nodded, and Shane scooped him up. Nikita snuggled into him instantly, free hand twisting into the collar of Shane's sleep shirt like a life preserver. He gulped back a sob.
Shane brought Nikita back to his room, and settled down next to the twin bed, surrounded by stuffed animals. Anya clicked down the hallway, then poked her nose in to sleepily investigate. Shane waved her off. She maybe actually rolled her eyes at him, but padded back to her own bed.
Shane stroked the back of Nikita's head. “Malysh,” he murmured. “What's wrong? You couldn't sleep?”
Nikita took a shaky breath. “Had a bad dream,” he whispered into Shane's neck.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Nikita shook his head, hard.
“Shh, okay,” Shane murmured. “I know they can be scary.”
“I don't want any more bad dreams,” Nikita whispered.
“I know.” Shane kept stroking his head. He was so warm, curled against him. “They can show up at mean times, hm?”
Nikita nodded.
“It's okay. They can't hurt you, not really.”
Nikita huffed a little. “Easy for you to say.”
Shane bit back a smile at hearing the expression from Nikita, then tried to focus on the conversation again. “What do you mean?”
“Grown-ups don’t get bad dreams.”
“Oh,” Shane said. “Who told you that?”
Nikita shrugged.
“Sweetheart, adults get nightmares, too.”
“You don’t get bad dreams,” Nikia said accusingly. “You’re a grown-up.”
“Well,” Shane said, “No, I don't really get nightmares.” And, thankfully, he really, rarely, did. All of his anxiety came out during his waking hours, maybe. Or maybe it was that normally, when he was asleep, Ilya was holding him, and that was a guarantee to feel safe. Out loud, he said, “But Papa gets them, sometimes.”
Nikita gave another little huff. “Daddy, you don't have to lie to me.”
“I’m not lying to you. I'm telling you the truth. Papa has nightmares sometimes.”
“Papa is too brave to have nightmares,” Nikita mumbled.
Shane tsked. “Having a nightmare doesn't mean you're not brave,” he said. “You know, sometimes the bravest things are doing things you're scared of.” He looked down at the top of Nikita's head. “Are you sure you don't want to talk about what happened in yours?”
Nikita was quiet for a moment. “There was a lion,” he whispered.
“Okay,” Shane prompted, after a moment.
“And he was eating all the macaques,” Nikita sobbed, throwing his arms around Shane’s neck again and crying his little heart out. “Daddy, I tried to stop him but he just kept EATING them!”
Shane was trying very hard not to laugh. He rubbed Nikita’s back, making little soothing sounds. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured. “That sounds very upsetting.” He considered pointing out that lions and macaques did not really overlap in terms of geographic range, but decided that was not the point.
Nikita nodded into Shane’s shoulder.
“But it sounds like you were very brave,” Shane continued. “You tried to get the lion to stop.”
“But it didn’t work,” Nikita wailed, almost directly in Shane’s ear. He winced and tried to rock Nikita a little, hoping to get the volume back down a little. “He still ate them all.”
“Being brave isn’t about what happens after,” Shane said. “Being brave is about what you choose to do.”
Nikita made a snotty little sound, then said, “What?”
Shane hadn’t thought that life lessons were meant to be delivered at three AM after macaque dreams, but well, they’d arrived here anyway. He shifted Nikita so that he was in Shane’s lap still, but could look up at him with those huge dark eyes. Shane brushed tears off his warm red face. “You were trying to do the right thing,” Shane said. “Yes?”
Nikita nodded, unsure.
“Even if the lion did eat them all—” Nikita looked like he was about to sob again, but Shane hurried on. “It would be much more sad if nobody tried to stop the lion at all, right? So it’s good that you tried, even if it didn’t work out like you wanted.”
Nikita’s lower lip poked out. Shane tried not to melt in response.
“And you were brave,” Shane repeated. “Because the lion could’ve eaten you!” And then, before Nikita could really process that to its end, Shane tickled Nikita, who instantly turned into a squirming, shrieking creature, all limbs and laughter. Shane quit quickly, because he was still hoping to let Ilya sleep through the night. He’d seemed tired yesterday. Not in a worrisome way, except that Shane always worried.
Nikita carefully put himself back against Shane’s chest, his forehead against Shane’s neck. The stuffed macaque had been abandoned to the floor.
“What are Papa’s nightmares about?” Nikita whispered.
Shane wasn't super clear on that, actually. He wasn't even sure some of them qualified as nightmares. He just knew that Ilya had a kind of fraught relationship to dreams. He did know that occasionally he woke up to Ilya's shaky hand stroking Shane's hair away from his temple, and there was something about the way Ilya looked at him that told him Ilya had dreamed about Shane's concussion, that time on the ice with Marlow. He knew that Ilya sometimes dreamed of his mother, but those made him sad, not scared, and they were normally—these days—only around her anniversary. And he knew that sometimes, he woke up first, because Ilya was trembling, or shaking his head, or restless, and Shane would very carefully murmur his name and tell him he was there and hold his hand, until Ilya either settled back into a deeper sleep or woke up mumbling Russian.
But he wasn’t sure how much of that Ilya wanted Nikita to know right now. At the same time, he didn’t want to brush off Nikita’s question, either.
Shane settled on, “Different things. I don’t know if he’s ever had a nightmare about a lion, but you’d have to ask him.”
“Is Papa scared of lions?”
“Well, Papa says he’s not scared of anything, but—”
Nikita shook his head. “That’s not true.”
“Yeah, I know, your papa is a—”
“He says he’s scared of some things.”
Shane had narrowly been saved from calling his husband a liar, which he tried not to do in front of Nikita for the sake of parental unity, even though Ilya absofuckinglutely was a liar, but now he was stunned into silence. He paused, then said slowly, “Did he tell you what he was scared of?”
“Loons,” Nikita said confidently. Shane exhaled a laugh. Of course. “And some spiders. He showed me the evil bad spiders on his phone. He said all the other ones are nice, but we should leave them alone.”
Shane tried not to laugh again. More evidence of his lying husband: Ilya was scared of every spider. He was glad that he’d tried to teach Nikita not to be, though. Maybe Shane would have help removing spiders from the shed now, instead of Ilya being utterly useless at it. The only spider Ilya was actually okay with were daddy long legs, which he made of for their name, and then had still screamed when Shane dropped one on his leg.
“And he said he was scared of the dark when he was little,” Nikita continued. Shane bit his lip. He hadn’t known that. “But he said in Russia there are nocnitsa that live in the dark and they come in and give you nightmares, and—DADDY! What if there’s a nocnitsa? Here?”
Shane had no fucking idea what a nocnitsa was. Mostly, at least in front of Nikita, Ilya was vague about Russia, noncommittal about most things except for food and the fact that they could not go visit. Was a nocnitsa a ghost? Some made up fairy tale thing? An actual animal that Ilya was ascribing magical powers to, the way he did loons? “I—they don’t live in Canada,” he tried. “Papa said they’re in Russia, right? There’s a whole big ocean in between us and—”
“They could have come on a plane,” Nikita moaned. “Like Papa.”
“Papa is not an invasive species,” Shane muttered, though he knew at least half of the MLH would disagree, for various reasons. He tried to rally. “Listen, Nikita, there’s no nocnitsa here. I made sure they can’t come inside.”
“How?”
“That’s a grown-up secret,” he said. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
Nikita pouted. Good. Annoyed with Shane was better than scared of a monster. Shane frowned, though. Nikita’s face was still red, and he was still really warm. Shane had been willing to chalk both up to the crying and the nightmare, but—
“Shane?”
Shane and Nikita both jolted to look up. Ilya was in the doorway, hair a mess, eyes slightly wild, looking like he’d bolted down the hall. Shane hadn’t heard him, but he’d been focused on Nikita, and Ilya was eerily good at moving quietly. Maybe he was a fucking noc-whatever. He was certainly a nightmare.
Except that Shane really couldn’t call his husband a nightmare when he looked like this, pressing a hand to his heart now that he’d found Shane and Nikita sitting together. When he breathed what seemed like a huge sigh of relief and said, “I found you. Okay.” He gave a little breathless laugh. He was sweating slightly, the collar of his sleep tank a darker gray than the rest of it, his temples a darker gold. “Okay.”
Shane stared at him. “Are you good?”
“Sorry,” Ilya said, and Shane was, as usual, completely charmed by the way he said it these days, the o Canadian and the rr Russian. “I just—I woke up and you were gone, I—I must have—I think I was dreaming.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, then seemed to recognize that Shane was with Nikita, whose face was still wet. “Oh, sweetheart, what woke you?”
For one lunatic moment, Shane actually considered the possibility of a nocnitsa, whatever that was. Then he landed on a much more likely possibility.
Nikita said, voice shaky, “Daddy?”
Shane looked down, just as Nikita puked on him.
“Ah, fuck,” Shane said.
“Oh,” Ilya said in surprise. He came into the room farther, reached for Nikita. “I can get him in a bath, you go shower—”
“Nope,” Shane said. “You, back to bed.” Nikita was crying again, babbling I didn’t mean to, and Shane just said, “Shh, Nicky, it’s alright. I know.” He got to his feet, bringing Nikita with him in his arms. There was not a lot of vomit, though none was always preferable to any. Ilya was still looking at him, baffled. Shane pressed the back of his clean hand to Ilya’s forehead.
“Ah,” Ilya said.
“Yeah,” Shane said. “Back to bed.”
-------
It was not, thank fuck, an actual stomach bug. Just a fever that Nikita’s little body wasn’t as equipped to handle gracefully. So Shane showered in his boxers with Nikita, then he changed his mind and he got Ilya, who was hovering anyway, to take a cool bath with Nikita, in the hopes it would help both of them. It didn’t, really, it ended up with Nikita in tears again and Ilya shivering a little, but at least everyone was clean. At least, for about half an hour, before Nikita was sick again, this time into a bucket instead of onto Shane. By this point, Ilya had refused to let Shane take over again, mumbling save yourself when he tried.
They were both supposed to have practice in the morning, but Shane texted Wiebe, letting him know Ilya certainly wasn’t coming, but Shane was hoping to. Hoping was kind of the wrong word—he wanted to stay back, take care of Ilya and Nikita, but he and Ilya had made a deal. If Nikita was sick but they weren’t, they rock-paper-scissored to see who would stay back from practice. If it was a game, Nikita went to Yuna and David, unless he was very sick, in which case Ilya would stay back. If either Shane or Ilya was also sick, then they were the one to stay home with Nikita. So far, the only time Nikita had been ill enough that they would have kept Ilya out, Shane had already been out with a broken wrist.
It wasn’t flawless. Nikita spent a lot of time with Yuna and David anyway—especially David, now that he’d retired, Yuna liked to keep busy. Nikita had two working parents, which was true of many, many kids, Shane told himself. He’d grown up with two working parents. Shane tried not to just do whatever the opposite of what homophobes wanted, he tried to do what he wanted, but it was hard not to preemptively try to justify himself and his choices. He knew Ilya was always closer to retiring for Nikita’s sake, but he wanted to make sure it was because Ilya wanted to, not because the worst people were making a whole big deal out of this is why two players shouldn’t be married, this is why gays shouldn’t have kids, they should have waited to have kids until they retired, who fucking retires just because they have kids—
No one gave a fuck if a straight hockey player had kids and left them behind all the goddamn time. No one cared about Hayden’s life situation.
It was hard, balancing their obligations with Nikita. But they’d wanted a kid. Ilya, in particular, hadn’t wanted to be an old father when they started. Shane wasn’t sure how much of that was tied up in Ilya’s own dad, and how much was just something in Ilya demanding a child now now now.
So in the morning, Shane got up anyway, even though he’d gotten roughly four hours of sleep. Ilya had ended up sleeping in Nikita’s bed, which was going to fuck up Ilya’s back, but Ilya had just mumbled something about protecting the macaques and refused to let Shane move them in the night. Shane had changed his own sheets, and sprayed everything down with cleaner, and stayed in his own bed. He’d been a lot cooler, now that the fever-warm heater had moved down the hall.
He made himself a smoothie. He made Ilya and Nikita one, too, one with more fruit and less protein and added ginger, to try to settle Nikita’s stomach. He left that one in the fridge, with a sticky note outside.
He went back to Nikita’s room, knelt by the bed. He laced his fingers with Ilya’s. “Hey,” he murmured.
Ilya shifted his head slightly. He was still too warm. “Hey,” he mumbled. “You are going?”
“Yeah. Do you need anything?”
He shook his head. “We are okay. You… texted Wiebe last night, yes? I am not misremembering?”
“No, no, I did. He knows you’re not coming today. Team says to feel better.”
“I will try,” Ilya mumbled. He caught Shane’s wrist as Shane stood. “Bring back a milkshake?”
“I’ll get right on that. Do you need anything else? I left a smoothie for you and Nika in the fridge.”
“Mm.” Ilya seemed half asleep. “Another blanket.”
“I don’t want you two roasting—”
“Lyubimyy,” Ilya mumbled. “Please.”
So of course Shane found another blanket, this time one big enough to actually cover both his husband and their child, because Nikita had wrapped himself up in all of his own blankets. Just like his father.
Shane kissed the top of Nikita’s head, then Ilya’s temple. “I’ll see you guys later,” he whispered. “Call if you need me.”
“I love you,” Ilya mumbled.
“Ya tebya lyublyu.”
------------
Practice was fine, though Shane’s head wasn’t quite in it. Bood, as usual, had taken the alternate captain lead. Shane had tried not to breathe too close to anyone else, not wanting to spread whatever it was that Ilya and Nikita had, but as usual, it was probably too late. Ilya had literally licked Troy’s face yesterday, in a triple win of stirring up jealous-Shane, grossing out Troy, and making Harris laugh so hard he choked on his water when he found out. Shane had brought an extra vitamin C drink for him in preemptive apology.
Shane stopped to get a milkshake on his way home. He got a small one for Nikita, too, though he was less likely to want it when he felt ill.
He was right. When he got back, Nikita was curled up on the couch in his pajamas, sleeping while cartoons played on the TV. Anya had her head tucked into his knees. Ilya was in the kitchen, wearing boxers and a Hollander sweatshirt and looking like he’d forgotten what he was doing.
“Hey,” Shane said, and Ilya spun around, smiling. Shane wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone go paler, faster. “Woah, there,” he said, stepping quickly over to him, bracing a hand against Ilya’s arm. “Careful.”
“Sorry,” Ilya mumbled. “I… little bit….”
“Woozy?”
Ilya hesitated, then nodded, the motion uneven.
“Here we go,” Shane said, maneuvering Ilya into a chair. He handed Ilya the larger milkshake. “Drink.”
“Oh,” Ilya said, after a sip. “Yes. Thank you. I’m not sure I… ate lunch.”
Shane threw him a sharp look.
“Not very hungry today,” Ilya said. “Oh—no, I had crackers, and little bit of soup, with mysh’.”
“Okay, well, drink the milkshake. Have you checked his temperature lately? I can put his milkshake in the freez—fuck, I should’ve checked your temp before you—”
“I am only a little over 38,” Ilya said. “And Nikita was 38.5. Maybe half an hour ago.”
Shane chewed on his lip. He went over to Nikita, pressed a hand to his cheek, reassured himself that he was warm but not burning. Anya wagged her tail, and Shane pet her too.
“Is not so bad,” Ilya said quietly.
“I’m normally the one telling you that, for this.”
Ilya shrugged.
Shane went back to the kitchen, not wanting to wake Nikita. “Any other symptoms?”
“Headache,” Ilya muttered. “Well, everything aches, but I don’t know what is from Philadelphia and what is from this. Nika, still with the nausea this morning, he was sick again. But not after the soup, I think he is on the mend.”
“What kind of soup? Did Mom—”
“I made the soup,” Ilya said. “Told Yuna I did not want her to catch this, did not want either of them worrying about us.” Then he shrugged. “David’s recipe, though, yes.”
Shane stepped between Ilya’s knees. Ilya looked up, smiling slightly, even as he had to squeeze his eyes shut before he could really focus on Shane.
Shane wrapped his arms down around Ilya. Ilya let his head rest against Shane’s chest.
“Go get some sleep,” Shane murmured. “In our bed.”
“You will only have to change sheets again,” Ilya mumbled.
“I don’t think so,” Shane said. “I have a headache.”
Ilya lurched back, had to grip the seat to steady himself, and looked up again. “You do?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna set some stuff up so we don’t have much to deal with tomorrow—”
“Just practice again.”
“Yeah, and either you’ll be well enough to go and I’ll stay back with Nikita, or we’ll both be here.” Shane sighed. “But I still feel okay for now. So go get some extra rest.”
“You will come join me soon?”
“Do you want me to?”
Ilya gave Shane a blank stare, only slightly dampened by the pink in his cheeks. “Yes,” he said. He sighed. “You on one side of me, Nikita on the other. I will save you from his kicking.”
“Oh, like you don’t kick me?”
Ilya stuck his tongue out. Shane caught the straw and shoved it back in Ilya’s mouth instead. Ilya rolled his eyes.
“You don’t want to leave Nikita out here?” Shane asked. “Will he wake up if we—”
“He will wake up if I go more than ten feet from him,” Ilya said, tired and fond. Mostly tired. “I don’t know how he knows. Be ready for that tomorrow, we will have to calibrate him to you instead.”
Shane kissed the top of Ilya’s head. “Okay. I’ll come join you as soon as I can.”
Ilya nodded, then carefully got to his feet. He padded down the hall with his milkshake.
Like he knew, Nikita’s eyes blinked slowly open.
“Don’t worry, mysh’,” Ilya said, coming back with empty hands, just as Nikita’s eyes filled with tears. He switched to Russian. “Don’t worry. I’m right here. Come, we are going to nap somewhere else, yes? Somewhere Papa can stretch out and not fall off? Anya, you stay with Shane. You can come with him.”
Shane made a small noise. Anya hopped down off the couch and padded her way over to him.
“Nikita, do you want a milkshake?”
“Nyet,” Nikita mumbled.
“In the freezer,” Shane said.
“Okey.” Ilya’s voice got fainter as he carried Nikita, wrapped in his blankets, down the hall. “You are very heavy, you know that? You are going to grow so big. Alternatively, Papa is so fucking tired. Don’t say that word, but you know that.”
“I’m gonna grow so fucking big,” Nikita said.
“You are going to get me in trouble with your grandmother.”
Shane smiled down at Anya, then said, “So. Meal prep for tonight, for tomorrow, and then we can join them. Sound like a plan?”
Anya flopped down at the edge of the kitchen, content to watch. Maybe half an hour later—he’d skipped some things, rearranged parts of the meal plan—he filled three water bottles and brought them down the hall.
Nikita was playing a game, eyes fever-glassy, on Ilya’s phone. It was one of the few times they let Nikita on a touch screen anything. Ilya was knocked out.
Or, Shane thought he was. When he went to get in bed, Ilya’s eyes flickered open, and he immediately dragged Shane closer. “Stay,” he mumbled.
“I will, I will.”
Ilya shivered, and Shane pulled a blanket over him.
“Was he okay, today?” Shane whispered.
Ilya nodded.
“Were you?”
Another nod.
“No more nightmares?”
Ilya rolled over, tugging Shane’s arm with him, so that Shane was the big spoon and Ilya was wrapped up in him. Shane tucked his hand under Ilya’s waist.
“No more,” Ilya mumbled.
Shane kissed the nape of his neck. “Good.”