Chapter Text
Shane Hollander is having a lovely, peaceful morning. It’s their first day back at practise after the All-Star break, which he and Ilya actually took off for once, relaxing on a beach in Barbados while Troy and Luca represented the Centaurs. He has already done his morning yoga and taken Anya for a short walk, and he’s just starting breakfast when he hears his husband’s footsteps on the stairs – meaning that his morning is about to get even more lovely, although probably a lot less peaceful.
“Good morning, moy – ggh!”
Ilya’s greeting cuts off sharply with a gagging sound. Shane spins around, concerned, to find that Ilya has stopped at the doorway to the room, grimacing and holding his nose.
“Stop, stop cooking!” he says. “Can you not smell?”
“Smell what?” Shane looks down at the egg white omelette in the pan, which both looks and smells perfectly normal to him. But Ilya seems genuinely upset, so he takes the pan off the heat and turns off the burner.
“Eggs are bad, very bad.” Ilya gags audibly. “Whole kitchen stinks, fucking –”
Ilya – hand still firmly clasped over his nose – rushes over to the windows and throws them open, despite it being fucking February.
“Ilya, it is ten below out there! I can’t smell anything –”
Ilya turns, and puts his hand on Shane’s forehead. “Are you sick? You have blocked nose?”
“I’m fine.”
“You hit your head? I know a guy once with concussion who could not smell for a month.”
“Ilya, I’m fine.” Shane snaps a little the second time, but immediately feels bad about it. “It really smells that bad?”
“Yes,” Ilya says, in a tone of pure disgust. “Almost threw up.” He pauses for a moment. “Still feel…”
He waves a hand vaguely, and Shane frowns. He’s beginning to worry that Ilya might be the one sick with something.
“Go sit in the other room,” he suggests. “I can air out the smell and bring you a fresh omelette.”
Ilya grimaces again. “No eggs today. Please.”
“Okay. Oatmeal, maybe?”
Ilya nods, and the fact that he leaves the room without much of an argument worries Shane almost more than anything else. He closes the doors after Ilya so that the unsmellable smell doesn’t follow him (and so the all-too-real winter air doesn’t reach the whole house), throws out the ruined omelette, and cooks some rolled oats instead. He closes the windows a couple of minutes later, when he starts shivering.
There’s a wooden tray they hardly ever get out on top of the endmost cupboard, and Shane gets it down so that he can take Ilya breakfast: coffee, oatmeal, and a selection of healthy toppings: almond butter, chopped walnuts, a sliced banana. As he carries it down the hall, he can already half-hear Ilya arguing that he needs maple syrup, he’s Canadian now, does Shane want him to lose his citizenship –?
But when he puts the tray down on the coffee table, Ilya only manages a weak, tired-looking smile. He scatters a few banana slices on his oatmeal, then pushes them around with his spoon instead of actually taking a bite.
“You still smell it?” Shane asks, leaning up against his side.
“No,” Ilya says, “but still feel bad. Almost – hung over, maybe? But without the drinking.”
“Still nauseous?” Shane prompts, and Ilya nods. “Maybe you caught something on the flight?”
“Or something I ate,” Ilya agrees, glumly.
“Baby, you shouldn’t go to practise today.”
Shane is half-considering staying home himself. Whether it’s a virus or something they ate, whatever Ilya has is probably coming for him next. If he felt even a twinge of nausea, he’d be calling them both in sick, but… so far, he’s absolutely fine.
“I have skated with worse,” Ilya says in protest, so half-hearted that it’s clear the argument is already won.
“We both have, but the season has been going great and we’re months out from play-offs. The team will live without you for one practise.” Shane pauses. “Also, no-one will thank you if you upchuck on the ice.”
Ilya snorts. “True. Okay, I stay home. Anya will take care of me, right printsessa?”
Shane scoops his own oatmeal off the tray before Anya can stick her nose in to investigate it, and starts eating. Ilya, leaned against Shane with Anya settled on his feet, manages about half of his bowl before grimacing and putting it back on the tray.
Shane rubs his back as Ilya picks up his coffee and goes to drink – only to put it back down sharply, a slightly panicked expression on his face. Shane realises what is happening and shoves the nearby garbage bin at him right in time, as Ilya promptly empties his stomach.
Anya whines in distress as Ilya groans. Shane feels much the same. Ilya’s misery is heart-wrenching, and all Shane can do is rub his back and murmur: “You’re okay, it’s okay.”
The retching noises go quiet. Ilya mumbles a few curses in Russian, and rests his head against the rim of the bin.
“You think you’re done?” Shane asks, gently.
“Hit me out of fucking nowhere,” Ilya complains. “Feels done. But who knows?”
Shane hurries to go grab a more suitable container – a big plastic mixing bowl that can safely be bleached when they’re through this – and trades it for the bin so that he can safely throw out the garbage bag full of vomit. Immediately, he starts gathering sick-day supplies: Gatorade, ginger ale, a sleeve of crackers.
When he returns to the living room, Ilya rolls his eyes fondly.
“I already do not feel so bad,” he says. “Better out than in, yes?”
But he’s still holding the mixing bowl on his knees.
“Hopefully that was the worst of it,” Shane says. “Do you need anything else? You can text me anytime, obviously – maybe I should just ask mom to come over and check on you?”
“Solnyshko.” Ilya smiles in the way he does when he’s trying not to laugh, and Shane is so relieved to see an actual, genuine smile on his face that he doesn’t even care he’s being teased. “Go. You are in charge of practise now, you cannot be late.”
Shane pauses and takes a second to look at Ilya’s face. His heart does a little flip, as always. Even sick, his husband is beautiful, and Shane is so fucking lucky that he gets to fuss and take care of him.
He presses a kiss to Ilya’s forehead.
“Feel better,” he says. “I love you.”
Then he hurries out the door.
#
The next few days are strange. Shane half-expects to come down sick at the rink, but whatever is wrong with Ilya, it never hits him.
Even stranger, it keeps hitting Ilya. Oh, it comes and goes – waves of nausea and fatigue interspersed with periods where Ilya feels completely fine – but it doesn’t stop. Ilya throws up again after dinner on the first day, and complains of nausea all through day two.
On day three, buoyed by the success of 24 hours without vomiting, he insists on coming to practise. Shane can see him grimacing occasionally through drills, but almost believes he’s recovered – until Ilya abruptly breaks formation, skates over to the boards, and vomits over the side of the rink.
Wiebe sends him to medical for a lecture from Dr Terry about not giving the rest of the team norovirus, and tells him to stay home until he’s actually feeling better.
No-one else gets sick. Ilya doesn’t feel better. The nausea is pretty persistent, although the vomiting is thankfully only once or twice a day at most. Shane makes him ginger tea and miso soup and nags him about his hydration levels.
“Enough! If I drink any more, I will never leave bathroom!”
Ilya is snappish about the whole situation, especially after he misses travelling with the team to Winnipeg for their first game back from the break. He’s been cleared to exercise at home, but his first “recovery” work-out leaves him so drained that he falls asleep for half the afternoon. When he wakes up and realises, he’s so frustrated by his body’s betrayal that he cries, and Shane can’t do anything but hold him and try to offer comfort in spite of the growing pit in his own stomach.
As they round out a full week of symptoms with Ilya seeming, if anything, like he’s getting worse, Dr Terry comes to their house to take a blood sample. The following evening, Ilya takes the call.
“You have the results? Yes, that is fine. Of course. I should bring Shane? Okay, yes. See you tomorrow.”
Shane watches Ilya end the call with his breath catching in his chest.
“Appointment tomorrow morning, 8am.” Ilya explains.
“He said I should come?”
“No, that was me asking,” Ilya admits. “But… I think, good news can be given over the phone, yes?”
His voice is shaking a little.
They haven’t talked about this. They’ve both been avoiding the What If It’s Serious conversation. But now, with a doctor’s appointment first thing tomorrow, maybe they can’t avoid it any longer.
“It might not be bad news,” Shane says, reaching for a hope he’s not sure he feels. “Maybe they need to run more tests. Maybe he wants to prescribe you something. It could be lots of things.”
“Could be,” Ilya agrees, his voice hollow. He rubs at his face. “You will come with me anyway?”
“Of course,” Shane says. “Baby, you know that I’ll be there whatever happens, right? Good times or bad, in sickness and in health. Always.”
He pulls Ilya towards him, resting their foreheads together. Shane holds onto his husband as tight as he dares, now that the body in his arms seems fragile in a way that it never has before.
“I love you,” Ilya says, and there’s a horrible edge of desperation to it.
“Ya tebya lyublyu.” Shane runs his fingers through Ilya’s hair, shielding Ilya inside his arms. Ilya is shaking, and Shane might not be much of a fighter, but if he could punch this disease in the face he would gladly beat it to a bloody pulp.
“It’s going to be good news,” Shane says, as though saying it firmly enough will force the universe into obeying. “When it turns out we’re worrying over nothing, I’m going to say I told you so.”
Ilya manages a half-smile at that.
“Okay,” he says, burying his face into Shane’s neck. “I am sure you are right.”
They stand like that for a while, holding each other tight and pretending they believe everything will be okay.