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“Would have been nice of Montreal to come to game tonight!” Ilya chirps as the third period comes to a close and there’s absolutely no way the Metros are coming back from a 5-2 loss in that time. “Maybe next time, don’t leave best player at home!”
In truth, Ilya has been stressed the entire game. Really, since that morning, when Shane hadn’t replied to any of his pre-game texts. He’d been fine the night before in Ilya’s hotel room; more than fine. Ilya’s fairly certain he could count Shane’s teeth marks in the bruise on his arm this morning.
A bitey Shane was super sexy though, so. Small price to pay.
“He’s sick, asshole.” 35 barks back. Ah. Pike.
Ilya sees an opportunity to strike, and pulls up short on the ice, sending a small spray of it off to the side.
“Aw! So sad for you. Give me his room number, I will send thank you flowers for easy win!” Ilya grins, all teeth. They had met at Ilya’s hotel room last night, since he had his own; technically, he had his own house here in Boston, but the drive to and from would cut too deep into his already limited time with Shane.
It probably wouldn’t work, only an idiot would-
“He’s in 1701, liar. They better not be fuckin’ roses, Rozanov.” Pike yells back, obviously thinking he’s clever in the play on words.
-Ilya has clearly misjudged his lover's taste in friends. Pike is a moron.
“No no, I send lilies, funeral flowers for your loss at chance for play offs.” Ilya winks at him, cutting away across the ice.
Pike’s answering scowl turns confused, but Ilya’s already joining his teammates in a victory pile-in at the other end of the rink.
🏒
Shane feels like death.
The salmon he’d ordered in from the night before had seemed fine at the time, but Ilya had only been gone for an hour or two when disaster had struck. He hated throwing up, the feeling of bile in his mouth, burning in his throat; he’d never mastered how to keep it from going up the back of his nose either, it was just awful.
Having abandoned all hope of playing that day, since he couldn’t get more than a few feet from the toilet without his stomach lurching in warning, Shane had warned Hayden to use someone else's bathroom to get ready for the day. Then he’d set up camp.
Stealing the top blanket off of Hayden’s and his own bed, and all the pillows too, Shane had turned the bathtub into a makeshift nest. It was uncomfortable, and incredibly unsanitary, but he couldn’t even imagine trying to clean vomit out of hotel carpet; even the thought sent his insides rolling.
He’d lost his dying phone in the pile of blankets hours ago; sometime after Hayden had left, tossing a Gatorade at Shane and fleeing the sound of his retching in reply.
It was orange, how could Hayden possibly think-
His stomach rolls again, something low in his gut twisting and feeling like a car lurching into the wrong gear. He’s halfway out of the tub, smacking the plastic shower curtain aside, when the rumbling abates.
False alarm.
Exhausted, Shane drops back into the tub and prays for a swift death.
It doesn’t come.
Knocking though, from the hotel room, does.
It’s a deliberate pattern of a knock too, one that would normally have a mildly Pavlovian response kicking Shane’s libido into high gear with anticipation.
Today, there’s too many other things kicking at his insides, leaving him bruised and exhausted, for his libido to even register.
There’s no window in the bathroom, so it’s impossible to tell what time of day it is. He’d lost his watch along the way too, having overshot a grab for the toilet and nearly plunged his hand into the bowl. The watch had been flung towards the relative safety of the hotel room beyond the bathroom door, joining the orange Gatorade bottle that made Shane’s taste buds shrivel up and die just by looking at it.
The knock comes again.
“Ilya.” Shane groans. “No.”
It’s a drawn out sound, pulled from his throat, left raw by the repeated rinsings of stomach acid. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Rozanov; Rozanov can’t see him.
Not like this.
Shane falls back into the tub, whimpering when the vile texture of the shower curtain sticks to his skin; he rolls away, can’t even muster the strength to bat at the staticky material, bunched up as it against the wall. The knocking has stopped; maybe Ilya gave up and has left him here to rot.
Click.
He’s nearly passed out again from exhaustion when the distant sound of the hotel key card lock disengaging reaches his ears. Hayden must be back; Shane hopes he isn’t planning on getting his blankets back, because he’s pretty sure the hotel is going to have to burn these when he’s done with them.
“Thank you so much, I think he is resting now. I will take good care of him, thank you.” Ilya’s lilting voice echoes into the bathroom; it’s the soft tone he usually reserves for very late nights in the dark, when Shane catches him in a soft mood. Or anything to do with a fuzzy animal; Ilya loves animals.
Shane scowls into the scratchy bedspread beneath his cheek; vaguely wishes he were something small and furry just then, so Ilya would come and say soft things to him.
“Hollander?” Ilya calls, voice sounding much too loud, too close. The pounding in Shane’s head from dry heaving the nothing-ness in his stomach is barely helped by the darkness of the bathroom; the only light streaming in from the bedside lamp in the main room.
The lights flick on, and Shane can’t stop his sharp inhale at the pain from the sudden brightness. His body curls into a tighter ball as he drags one arm over his face to block it out.
“Hollander.” Ilya sounds as horrified as Shane feels. “You are sleeping in bathtub. Of hotel. Moya lyubov, is it death?”
My love.
Shane’s cheeks, already hot with embarrassment, threaten to flush hotter.
“You can’t call me names when I’m sick, asshole.” he mutters into the hideous floral pattern of his or Hayden’s bedspread.
He’s fully aware that Ilya isn’t calling him names; he’s been calling Shane that for a couple of months now, and through the judicious application of Google, he’d found the definition. He’d tried looking up ‘Russian insults’ and ‘Russian name calling’ first but none of them had sounded like what Ilya was peppering into his sentences more and more frequently.
An ominous rumble rolls from his stomach, and Shane is distracted away from spiraling into how much he’d like to tell Ilya he feels it too; if only french endearments weren’t so revealing.
Ilya’s knees thunk against the side of the tub when he drops down beside it, pressing his hand to Shane’s forehead. He must’ve just come in from the cold outside, because his palm is chilled and it feels heavenly. Shane tips his face into the touch, humming around the pain in his gut, and hoping against hope that he managed to wipe away all of the spit on his chin from his last bout of retching.
The cool touch helps a little bit of reason seep into Shane’s brain though, and he frowns against Ilya’s palm when he asks, “How’d you get in?”
His words are muffled, but it doesn’t keep Ilya from understanding.
“Sweet cleaning lady; charmed her into opening door.” Ilya says, oddly quiet where he’s normally so boisterous and loud, the brightest thing in the room.
Shane’s frown deepens, and he pulls back from Ilya’s blessedly cool touch to glare up at him; only half of Ilya’s expression is illuminated by the bedside lamp in the room beyond; he’d turned the lights back off at least, in the bathroom. The amount of concern that’s visible on Ilya’s face has Shane’s cheeks heating up all over again.
“She’s not supposed to do that. She could get in trouble.” he grouches, one hand reaching for Ilya’s arm before shuddering back down to the blankets, another bout of pain wracking his exhausted body. His muscles are tired from all the heaving and retching; he’s spent hours at the gym and not felt so worn out before.
“Showed her medicine bag, she trusts I take care of you.”
Ilya, somehow interpreting Shane’s weak attempt to reach for him, puts his palm back on Shane’s face; presses with just the right amount of pressure to make him sink back into the makeshift tub-nest with relief.
“Medicine bag?” he mutters, lips brushing against Ilya’s inner wrist. Feeling brave in the darkness of the bathroom, Shane tips his head back and presses a kiss to the tender skin there.
Ilya mutters something fond under his breath, Russian words spilling into one another.
“Pike says you are sick, so I bring medicine.” Ilya reasons, bringing his palm to Shane’s cheek and rubbing his thumb into the soft skin beneath his eyes.
Shane’s lips twitch with an almost-smile. Ilya likes petting his freckles, he’s found; every time Ilya admires them, it wipes away a memory of when the other kids called them ‘cow spots’, or dirt from all of his brown nosing.
He’s almost entirely out of memories on that front; Ilya really likes his freckles.
“But, Hollander. Listen.” Ilya says, completely serious all of a sudden. It makes Shane’s heart kick in his chest, though even that muscle feels sluggish and tired. “You need smarter friends. Pike, he gives room number away, right there on ice.”
“Hayd told you our room number?” Shane asks, confused. Hayden hated Ilya, had never really understood when Shane explained that his and Ilya’s rivalry had always come more from the media than from each other.
“Eh. Under, what is word- feels like stress, sounds like something girls wear?” Ilya snaps his fingers, annoyed in the way he gets when a specific word evades him. Shane’s so enamored with the drawn out ‘oh’ sound that Ilya uses to pronounce girls, making it sound like ‘gorhls’, that he nearly misses the question.
“Duress?” he offers.
“Da, duress. Or maybe, fake belief.” Ilya allows.
“False pretenses.” Shane concludes. “You lied.”
“Maybe a little.” Ilya’s usual smirk is softer at the edges, though Shane can only really see half of it in this light. “I tell him I send flowers to you, thank you for easy win tonight.”
“We lost?” Shane frets. “How bad was it? Who played center while I was out? Tell me it wasn’t fucking-”
“Hollander!” Ilya interrupts. “You are telling me you did not even watch game? Stay here-”
Ilya makes as if to stand, and Shane hastily grabs at his arm to keep him from leaving, has to fight back the initial instinct to sink his teeth into Ilya’s wrist and hold him there like that.
“-I call hospital, tell them ‘Shane Hollander is sleeping in bathtub and does not know hockey score for own team's terrible loss, come quick, bring every doctor’.”
“Nooo, Ilya.” Shane groans, smiling. “Stop it.”
Under his hand, Ilya freezes; it takes Shane’s brain an embarrassing amount of time to realize why.
“Ilya?” he asks, sounding scared of all things. “Not Rozanov? Not asshole?”
“Well.” Shane squirms on the stiff cover blankets. “You’re still an asshole.”
Ilya leans in suddenly, folding his arms on the rim of the tub and grinning so wide it dazzles Shane, just a little bit.
“But I am asshole who brings you medicine, yes? So maybe say Ilya again, as little treat just for me.” Ilya teases, half glowing in the lamplight from behind the bathroom door.
“Hmm.” Shane pretends to consider it, internally rearranging his thoughts. Ilya hadn’t run for the door at the first hint that Shane maybe, just a little teensy bit, wanted more from him than the occasional hook ups when their game schedules aligned.
Okay. More than a teensy bit. A teensy lot.
But also, moya lyubov.
That had to count for something.
“I’ll think about it. What was the score? And what kind of medicine?” Shane asks, rolling onto his back in the tub without relinquishing his hold on Ilya’s arm. He runs his thumb against the wiry muscle there, enjoying the coarse scrape of hair against the pads of his fingers.
“5-2, you don’t want to know who played center, and all of them.” Ilya pops up from the floor with a grace that’s probably born of years on the ice, pats at Shane’s arm in a ‘be right back’ fashion before ducking out into the hotel room proper.
“All of them?” Shane croaks, raising his voice to be heard and immediately regretting it when his head and throat both throb in protest.
Ilya returns with two bags, plastic crinkling overly loudly in the small tiled space.
“Da.” he nods sharply, settling himself back on the floor.
With a quick glance at Shane’s face for confirmation, he reaches up towards the bathroom lights and flicks on just the heat lamp fan combo; it’s a weaker light, but Shane isn’t sure how long he’ll last under the warmth that starts to fill the room. He’s already gross, he doesn’t need to add sweaty to the mix.
As his eyes adjust, Ilya upends one of the bags into Shane’s lap, and Shane immediately starts laughing; it hurts, and makes his stomach cramp up in warning, but he can’t help it.
There’s so much.
Dayquil, Tylenol, Nyquil, Neosporin, Sudafed, Dramamine, Pepto Bismol, Motrin, Benadryl-
“What did you- did you just buy one of everything?” Shane wheezes, wiping at the corners of his eyes to clear away the moisture gathering there. He’s not sure if he’s touched or just overwhelmed with his body betraying him like this, but sick as he is, it’s honestly hilarious.
“How can I know what you need? Pike did not give details, and none of these labels are in russkiy, language I read!” Ilya frowns, and despite his insistence that they don’t, this Russian is definitely blushing right now.
“You read English!” Shane protests, not willing to let Ilya sell himself short.
“Da, but labels do not make sense. Suns and moons, not helpful for picking medicine. You are not werewolf-”
Ilya picks up the Nyquil bottle and shakes it at him; the syrup sloshes ominously behind the moon riddled label. He grabs up the Dayquil next.
“You are not flower. Sunshine not make you better.” Ilya drops the bottle back into Shane’s lap, but his pout only lasts until he makes eye contact.
Shane can’t help the goofy grin on his face; his face muscles might hurt, but this is… A lot, certainly, but it’s just so sweet.
Before he can drop back and save Ilya from himself and the no doubt rank stench of Shane’s breath, he’s pressing a kiss to Shane’s forehead. Leaning back, Ilya waves victoriously at his spoils.
“Will aaany of this help you?” he asks, asking as if they’re at a buffet and Shane is being a picky eater.
He hates buffets. There’s too many options, and none of them are something he can eat most of the time anyway.
“Maybe?” Shane answers, sifting through what appears to be the entire medicine aisle of a drug store. He finds a pack of Listerine breath strips though, and it feels like being picked in the top three draft all over again.
“What is this?” Ilya asks, snatching the package away when Shane fumbles with it for a second too long. He tears it open, completely destroying the labels and directions; rude, but effective. He gives them a mistrusting look. “Medicine sticky note?”
Shane rolls his eyes and peels out two of the strips, sticking one on his tongue and the other on the roof of his mouth. The burst of mint is a relief, and he drops backwards into the tub in a slump. He doesn’t care for the wet plasticky feeling of the strips, but brushing his teeth is out of the question right now.
He’s usually on pretty good terms with his gag reflex, but with the way his stomach is already betraying him, Shane won’t risk it.
“What’s in the other bag?” he asks, because there can’t possibly be more medicine in it. There’s already one of every brand Shane recognizes in this pile. When Ilya doesn’t move to pick up the other bag, Shane remembers his end of the bargain.
“What’s in the other bag, Ilya?” he asks shyly. And to answer Ilya’s other question, Shane peels off another strip and reaches for the perfect bow of Ilya’s lips.
Ilya immediately opens his mouth and accepts it, and Shane’s toes curl happily, tucked away as they are under a corner of the hideous bedspreads.
“Ah, is mint.” Ilya nods, “Good, but weird.”
His cheeks are also pinker than they were a moment ago, a detail that Shane files away for later use. Ilya makes a face, before pursing his lips and blowing cool, minty air in Shane’s face.
Shane rolls his eyes, unimpressed; it would probably be more effective though, if he weren’t still smiling.
🏒
Ilya is glad that Shane isn’t actually dying, even if he kind of looks like it.
He’s pale, for one; exhaustion evident in a way Ilya hadn’t seen before, even after games that had gone into overtime. It makes Shane’s freckles stand out even darker on his skin, but it wasn’t until he’d turned on the fan light that Ilya was able to see that there were more of them.
Little scarlet freckles, speckling the skin beneath his eyes and along his temples.
He wants to touch them, but doesn’t want to make Shane any more uncomfortable than he already obviously is; he looks worse than Ilya’s team had the morning after winning the cup, when they’d had more alcohol than any one bar could supply and had had to make their way down the strip.
As much as he loves Shane’s freckles though, the more interesting development is Shane calling him Ilya. Maybe giving up some of the goodies in his second bag will earn him more of that.
He’d seen the discarded sports drink on the floor of the hotel room and made a mental note to stick it in the fridge for later; orange was the best flavor for sports drinks, after blue. He’d already dropped the pack of ginger ale on the sheets of the bed, and the mystery of where the blankets had gone was evident; Shane making himself at home in a bathtub though, that was a mystery in and of itself.
Shane begins shuffling all of the medicines back into the grocery bag, though he’s kept out the bubblegum pink bottle. Ilya wordlessly helps him tidy up the rest before manhandling Shane around in the tub.
“What’re you doing?” Shane protests, kneeling by the spigot as Ilya clambers into the tub himself.
“Helping.”
Obviously Shane is ill, and equally obviously, Ilya isn’t going to leave him here to die alone. And a sick Shane was a cuddly Shane, apparently; Ilya wasn't giving up the opportunity to indulge in that.
Flipping the topmost layer of itchy hotel blanket over his legs and patting at his lap invitingly, Ilya watches the minute shifts in Shane’s expression. He’s clearly struggling, so Ilya gives him some guidance.
“Come. Sit. You want second bag, yes? Be good.”
Shane doesn’t so much ‘sit’ as much as he just… slumps over. He maneuvers Shane to be in a more comfortable position for both of them. Ilya slaps blindly over the edge of the tub for the second bag, fingers closing around a chilled water bottle.
When he tries to hand it to Shane, he shakes his head no at it; but Ilya presses the cold bottle to his pale, speckled cheek, and Shane groans in pleasure at the cool touch.
Coaxing Shane into holding the bottle with one hand, Ilya plucks the bag into the tub and riffles through it. With one hand wrapped around Shane’s chest to hold him close, Ilya has to peer over Shane’s shoulder to list off the items he’d brought.
“Tomato soup for mikrov, er, Microwave.” he sloshes the small red and white cup at Shane, but he doesn’t grab for it the way he’d done for the mint strips, so Ilya moves on. “Crackers, nasty salt squares and tasty butter ones.”
Shane’s face, resting on Ilya’s chest, tips upwards; he presses his nose to Ilya’s throat.
“You brought me soup. And crackers.” he croaks.
Ilya frowns down at him.
“Of course? You are sick?” He scoffs, pressing a quick kiss to Shane’s dark hair before adding, “But tomato soup is for later. Hot soup is for now.”
It’s really more ‘warm’ soup now, because the Japanese restaurant Google had led him to had to-go containers, but they weren’t meant to stand up to the chill of the evening.
Plucking out one of the two small containers, Ilya abandons his hold on Shane and peels back the lid enough for him to see what’s inside. The smell of miso soup fills the air of the small bathroom, and Shane’s breath catches; Ilya feels him still against his chest.
“Is okay? You said-”
Ilya’s own heart starts to beat a little faster as Shane makes no move to take the soup.
“-that my mom always made me miso soup when I was sick. As a kid.” Shane finishes softly.
“Extra onions.” Ilya confirms, moving to close the lid since Shane doesn’t seem interested.
Shane’s hands reach out and snatch the soup up though, careful not to spill any and just bringing it to his face to breathe in deep.
“Ilya, I told you that three years ago.” Shane says with wonder, as if it’s impossible to think that Ilya could have remembered such a detail.
“You are sick. Everyone wants Mama’s cooking when-” Ilya protests before snapping his mouth shut.
Shane is taking a tentative sip of the soup, and it makes Ilya’s heart soar that he’s managed to get this right.
“S’good. Thank you.” Shane mumbles into the cup lid.
He drinks up some of the soup, washes it down with some of the disgustingly pink syrup from the bottle; though Ilya has to measure out the capful for him since his hands are shaking so badly from exhaustion. Setting the bag of goodies for later down outside the tub, Ilya tugs Shane back against his chest and waits.
He doesn’t have to wait for very long; Shane’s breath evens out, and he’s asleep before Ilya can count to thirty.
🏒
“Buddy? You dead?”
Hayden’s voice echoes into the bare walls of the bathroom from the hotel room beyond, and Shane only manages a groan as proof of life as he struggles awake. A soft snort of derision from above him has Shane tilting his head back in confusion.
It takes his brain an embarrassingly long time to process why what he’s seeing has his heart jack-rabbiting into a panic.
Ilya, in his hotel bathtub.
Hayden, in his hotel room.
Shane’s never been so grateful for a bathroom door and a bunched up shower curtain as he is right then, because when Hayden sticks his head into the bathroom, Ilya is thankfully, blessedly hidden from Hayden’s line of sight.
Shane stretches his legs out along the meager space of the bathtub, just so Hayden doesn’t catch the outline of Ilya’s own long legs beneath the rumpled hotel blankets.
“There you are. Dude. Are you sleeping in here?” Hayden asks. “Actually, never mind. Don’t tell Jackie I told you this, but she spent the first trimester with the twins camped out just like this in our en suite bathroom.”
Hayden shudders.
“Morning sickness is a bitch.”
Shane’s not sure what he’s even supposed to say in response to that, but thankfully, Hayden is fully capable of carrying a conversation on his own just fine.
“You good? Looks like you got room service to bring you stuff?” Hayden points at the bags strewn across the bathroom floor, and what appears to be a six pack of ginger ales in the doorway.
“Yeah.” Shane croaks out, his throat still feeling raw even though his stomach feels a thousand percent better than it had earlier.
Hayden frowns, ducking out into the hotel room and returning a moment later with a cold water bottle and the hateful orange Gatorade.
“Here, drink up. You need the fluids. Coach got the room extended for another night, but you’ll have to get your own flight back. The rest of us are headed home.”
Hayden pauses as he stretches his arms as far as possible into the bathroom to hand off the drinks. “You’re not, like, contagious? Right?”
Shane snorts, taking great care in balancing the drink bottles on the edge of the tub. “Pretty sure food poisoning is about as contagious as morning sickness.”
“Oh, good. You want me to stay? Jackie won’t mind, she might actually kill me if I leave you here alone to die.”
Around his waist, hidden from view by the tacky floral blanket of the hotel room, Ilya’s arm tightens almost imperceptibly.
“Uh. No, that’s okay.” Shane shakes his head, grateful when his eyes don’t feel like they’re free-rolling around in his skull this time. “I’m gonna rest up, should be back at practice on Monday.”
“That’s great dude!” Hayden grins. “Need anything before I hit the road?”
“Tell him to put soup in fridge.” Ilya whispers, almost inaudibly.
Shane swallows hard, eyes darting to Hayden’s face to see if he’s heard that, but his friend is still smiling expectantly at him.
“Uh, yeah. Could you stick this in the fridge for me?” Shane leans over the tub edge and shoves the bag containing the second thing of soup towards him. “I don’t think I can get out of the tub just yet.”
“No worries.” Hayden snatches up the bag and disappears. “Stay hydrated, I’ll catch you on Monday!”
“Bye.” Shane calls weakly, slumping back against Ilya’s chest.
They listen to Hayden moving around in the room for a moment, gathering his clothes and packing his bags.
“Hey-”
Hayden suddenly appears back in the doorway of the bathroom, nearly giving Shane a heart attack as he sits upright again, shoving at Ilya as if to hide him even further. Ilya’s chest shakes with contained laughter, and Shane shoots him a fierce glare.
“Are these mine? Or yours?” Hayden’s confusion is pretty warranted, considering that the black Adidas he’s holding up are actually neither of theirs.
They’re Ilya’s.
“Oh, those are uh. Those are mine.” Shane manages to squeak out, and he can feel his cheeks flushing red.
“Don’t worry man, I won’t rat you out to Yuna for not wearing your Reeboks.” Hayden assures him, clearly misinterpreting Shane’s embarrassment.
He disappears from the doorway again, and calls out another farewell before the door to the hotel room finally clicks shut for the final time.
“Oh my god.” Shane groans, dropping back into Ilya’s arms and pinching at his chest when Rozanov has the audacity to laugh.
“You were so scared!” Ilya’s glee is annoying, but catching. Shane can feel the corners of his mouth tugging upwards in an answering grin.
“Shut up. I can’t believe we didn’t think about your stupid shoes.”
“Ah, no. Adidas not stupid. Very comfortable.” Ilya points out. “Also, how does Pike not know his own shoes? The fuck?”
“He says it’s ‘Dad Brain’ and I’ll understand someday.” Shane shrugs. “At least he got me cleared with Coach to stay for another couple days.”
“Mm. Yes, is good. But not here.” Ilya corrects, wrapping both arms around Shane’s middle and giving him a squeeze before planting a loud smacking kiss on Shane’s forehead.
Shane frowns, tipping his head back and giving Ilya a questioning look.
“You come to my house. Get better there, with real food from real kitchen, not microwave soup.” Ilya insists, and Shane’s cheeks flush again.
“I don’t want to impose-” he begins, but Ilya is already shaking his head.
“Don’t be polite Canadian now, Mr. Bathtub nap. You will come to my house. I will take care of you. Maybe we fuck when you feel better.”
Shane snorts, startled into laughing by Ilya’s blunt words.
“Besides-”
Mischief is curling into his tone, and Shane turns suspicious eyes on the smirk that Ilya is leveling on him now.
“I have much bigger bathtub for napping. Practically king size.”
Shane drops his forehead against Ilya’s chest and groans, exasperated. But he can’t help the smile that he hides against Ilya’s shirt.
“Asshole.” he mutters.
“No, Ilya.”
Shane sighs, long suffering, but he’s still smiling as he thinks of the soups, and the crackers, and the frankly ridiculous amounts of medicine Ilya brought him.
“Ilya.” he finally agrees, pressing a grateful kiss to the long line of Ilya’s throat.