Chapter 1

Being a professional athlete in a contact sport is an exercise in enduring pain. Sometimes you get benched for three weeks because you have a broken cheekbone after you get hit in the face with a slap shot. Sometimes you play through a strained quad, a bruised shoulder, a mild fever. Most times, it’s just the constant, unending soreness that comes with pushing your body to its limit every single day. Every athlete had an injury they hated most, though, one that’s particularly painful or recurrent or just annoying. Ilya fucking hated injuring his ribs. There is almost nothing you can do with your body that doesn't involve moving your torso, and the pain is deep, throbbing, and gets just a tiny bit worse every time you breathe. Sitting up hurts, lying down hurts, walking hurts, and worst of all, coughing fucking hurts. It was the off-season, August, which was a stupid time to get hurt, and an exceedingly stupid time to get the flu. He was actually halfway to healed from the rib fracture he sustained during a charity game when he started coughing, as Sveta put it when she’d called to laugh at him about letting a third-line player from Florida break his ribs, “like a fucking consumptive.” His head pounded, he couldn’t breathe through his nose, his chest felt like it was going to explode, and the only reason he wasn’t in the hospital was that he’d begged Shane not to take him. Instead, he was in their bed at home, Anya at his feet, inhaling albuterol through a nebulizer. “This is so soft to breathe,” he said, voice barely discernible through his torn-up vocal cords and the plastic mask on his face. The medicine Shane had given him a half hour ago was beginning to sap away the pain and cool his fever, and he could feel his lungs easing with each inhale. Exhaustion had started to outweigh discomfort, and sleep was pulling him in. Shane hummed. He took Ilya’s hand and pressed a kiss to the center of his palm. “You’re gonna have to run that one by me again.” He clipped a pulse-oximeter onto Ilya’s finger. The bags under his brown eyes were six feet deep, he had worry written all across his face, and he was still so fucking pretty. The little device flashed. 96. Could be better, would have to get a little worse before either of them would be willing to have this whole debacle go public. “It feels to breathe like silk feels to touch.” It would have been more convincing if saying two sentences in a row didn’t trigger a volley of coughs that left him panting. Shane put a hand on the back of his neck, cool against Ilya’s fevered skin. “I hate this.” “I know you do,” Shane sighed. The pulse-ox dipped to 95. He leaned forward to press a lingering kiss to his husband’s forehead, on the tiny scar there from a run-in with some high- sticking asshole when he was a teenager. “I will probably die of it.” Shane kissed the dip of his temple, then each flushed cheek, then his stubbled chin. “Thank you for kissing me goodbye.” “You’re not dying.” The Cen’s team physician had been very clear that young, strong athletes did not die of viral pneumonia. “Drama queen.” “I am not drama queen,” Ilya said. The nebulizer beeped, medication fully dispersed, and he pulled the mask off. There was a little red line on the bridge of his nose where the plastic sat, and Shane kissed that too. “If you look up drama queen in the dictionary, it’s got your picture.” “Well, that is not my fault, I am very handsome.” Shane rolled his eyes. “You haven’t washed your hair in a week,” he said. Ilya coughed again, painful and hacking. Shane put a palm on his husband’s shuddering chest and rubbed slow, smooth circles into his skin. When the fit subsided, he continued. “And you’re still the most beautiful man I’ve ever met.” “You could wash it for me.” He tried to raise his eyebrows and give it a little charm, but the cracked and wheezy sound of his voice made it sound more than a little pleading. He didn’t think he had the energy to act on it anyway. Shane swept his thumb over Ilya’s sternum and hummed. “Okay,” he said, “the steam might help your lungs a little. And then I can change the sheets before you get back into bed for the night.” “You don’t have to do that.” “I know I don’t have to, asshole,” Shane wrapped up the nebulizer tubing and put it on the bedside table, between the bottles of pills and bottles of water and bottles of lube. Bottle of lube, unused in a week and a half, but still. “I want to. I get to. Do you need anything while I’m up?” “Tea?” Ilya asked weakly, his throat tightening for reasons that had nothing to do with the virus burning through his system and everything to do with the sweet, caring man who, against all odds, loved him. “Got it.” If anyone had asked why tears started to prick at the corner of his eyes as his husband walked away, he would have said that he fucking hated having broken ribs. Ilya dozed while Shane moved around the apartment. Through the thick haze of fever and fatigue, he could pick out occasional noises he recognized. The kettle whistling in the kitchen, the water running in the bathroom, the sound of a camera shutter that he was a little too tired to protest, the clink of a mug being set down. Even through closed eyes, the world swayed around him, and time distorted as he lay propped up against the pillows, unable to move. He wasn’t quite asleep, but images drifted through his mind like dreams nonetheless. A pale, cold hand, a hospital bed, the murky depths of a lake. He couldn’t have told you how long it was before he felt the back of Shane’s fingers against his cheeks, then in his hair, then down his neck to his shoulder. The air smelled like ginseng and sweat. “Ilyoshka,” Shane whispered, “bath’s almost finished. Do you want a sip of your tea?” Ilya nodded. He did not need the help Shane gave him to get the mug to his lips, but he didn’t protest. The tea tasted almost exactly like the one his mama used to make him when he was sick as a kid, herbal and honey-sweet. “I love you,” he said because it was the truest and only thought in his wrung-dry brain. “I love you too. I’ll love you more with clean hair.” “So cruel to me while I lay here dying.” “You’re not dying. Stop saying that.” The process of getting to the bath was a bit of a blur for Ilya. Shane’s arms were around his shoulders, then his forehead was against the edge of the smooth tile sink, and cold hands were tugging at the hem of his shirt. Then he was coughing, and those same hands were on his cheeks, smoothing over his heavy eyelids. Then Shane was helping him into the steaming water, which he must have put some kind of salt into, because the moment the water kissed his sore, bruised ribs, he could feel tension seeping out of his strained muscles. “Hollander, you are… how do you say in English? чудотворец. Miracle maker.” Shane laughed, and Ilya pried his tired eyes open to see a smile light up his face. He hadn’t been smiling much in the last few days. “And you,” Shane said, “are very sweet when you’re sick. Tip your head back.” Ilya did as he was asked. The steam really was helping. Shane put a hand on Ilya’s forehead to shield his eyes and tipped a mug full of warm water through his hair. Then, gentle, careful fingers were scratching at his scalp, massaging away his lingering headache. He dragged his eyes open again (when had he closed them?), to see his husband kneeling next to the bathtub, the look on his face so fond it looked almost painful. “So pretty on your knees for me. Maybe I could return the favor,” he teased, though the words came out slurry and breathless. Shane snorted. “You can’t breathe through your nose. If I put my dick in your mouth right now, you’d suffocate.” He scooped up another mug of bath water and poured it through Ilya’s curls. “It would be worth it.” Any other day, he would have made good on his offer, but he was tired. So tired that it felt like his bones were made of lead, foreign and heavy and apart from his body. He could feel a washcloth being run over skin, which must have been his, but the weight of the water made his vertigo shift from swaying to sinking, and he thought that he must have been much too far away for Shane’s hands to reach him. He was starting to feel a little nauseous. “If I leave you here for five minutes to change the sheets, are you going to drown?” There was a hand on his cheek. He leaned into it. “Я не- I don’t know. Probably not.” “Ilya.” It held a note of a reprimand. Understandable after almost a week of taking care of a feverish Ilya, who had been somewhere on the scale between bitchy, whining, or incoherent the entire time. He was leaning towards incoherent now. He blinked hard a few times to rouse himself. “No,” he said. “I won’t drown.” “Good. I love you. Stay put.” He did try. He closed his eyes and focused on taking deep breaths, long, slow inhales to let the steam loosen the horrific tightness in his chest. But, as the minutes trickled on, the warmth of the water stopped feeling soothing and started to prickle at his skin. He tried to turn on the cool water, but when he got his fingers around it, the angle wrenched at his ribs, and he was only able to get the tap trickling before he gave up. He put his head under the dribble anyway. It stung his skin, icy instead of cool. The nausea continued to rise in his throat until he had no choice but to ungracefully lever himself out of the tub and onto the floor. That was where Shane found him when he came back, with his cheek on the toilet seat, naked and dripping wet. He was a little too woozy to catch the rush of motion that followed. A towel was wrapped around his shoulders, another run over his head, under his eyes to catch the tears that had fallen. “What happened to staying put?” Shane’s hands were on his cheeks. Ilya shook him off. “I tried. I felt-- bad. Sick. Too hot.” He retched again, tea and bile, then coughed, then panted against the pain until he had enough breath back to say, “I’m fucking pathetic.” “You’re not pathetic. You have two broken ribs and pneumonia.” “You shouldn’t have to do this.” “There’s no ‘have to’ here. I’m- this is my job, Ilya. I like my job. You wouldn’t bench me in the middle of a play because you worried it was too hard, right?” He was quiet, and there was something searching in his gaze. Ilya shook his head. No, he wouldn’t. “So, don’t ask me to stop taking care of you.” His voice was firm, commanding, more than it usually was outside of the rink. “Okay.” He started coughing again, which really just proved Shane’s point. They hadn't done the ‘through sickness and health,’ part of the wedding vows, but he supposed this was what people meant when they said that, the freedom to fall and know that someone would be there to catch you, that they would do it gladly just to know that you were safe. “Okay,” Shane said when the coughing abated, and Ilya stopped clutching at his chest. “Let’s get you into bed. There are clean sheets and an ice pack waiting for you in there.” “You love me.” It was a statement, not a question. He tipped forward, his forehead colliding with Shane’s chest. Strong arms looped around him, held him tight. He could feel the rumble under his cheek when Shane spoke. “So much.” They settled in their bed, which for the first time in days didn’t smell like fever sweat, Ilya’s head in Shane’s lap, an ice pack pressed to his ribs, and a cool cloth on the back of his neck. The sun was beginning to set, golden light trickling through the blinds. Shane was holding the ice pack steady with one hand and reading a book with the other. He wasn’t even looking in Ilya’s direction when he said, “Stop fighting sleep, baby. You’re going to lose.” “No,” Ilya said, petulant. “I want to keep looking at you.” “I will be here when you wake up,” Shane replied, endlessly sweet and patient. Ilya couldn’t believe his luck. “I’ll probably be the one to wake you up. For dinner or your next neb, whichever comes first.” “What’s for dinner?” “Mom is bringing over some kake udon.” “She loves me.” “Everyone loves you, Ilyoshka. Rest. Please.”

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary Things get worse.

Chapter Notes

hitting ilya with my disability beam because no one is in charge of me. also, my apologies for the cyrillic, i simply love to remember that i used to speak little a russian. See the end of the chapter for more notes The problem with giving your heart to someone is that then your heart is outside of your body. Sometimes your heart is half a world away. Sometimes your heart is on a plane that almost crashes. Sometimes, Shane was learning, your heart is unable to take a deep breath without wincing, and they told you that your heart had viral pneumonia, but the coughing hasn’t gotten any better. Sometimes, you see the barest tinge of blue in the plush, cupid’s bow lips you’ve been getting distracted by during photoshoots for more than a decade, and you call the fucking hospital. The fluorescent lights that hung in the ER room flickered, and a headache was beginning to pool behind Shane’s eyes like muddy water in a ditch. He was staring at a text he’d been writing and rewriting, trying to tell his mom that he needed support without sounding like a fucking child. He settled on, ‘I don’t know that I’ll be awake enough to drive to the pharmacy when we get out of here,’ folded his arms on the thin hospital mattress and let his head come to rest on his elbow. A moment later, there were fingers running through his hair. “What are you thinking?” Ilya’s voice was nearly gone, even though Shane had been plying him with honeyed tea and cough drops for days. His exhaustion had reached the point that he wasn’t filtering himself, so instead of saying something normal, he said, “I really wish this wasn’t happening.” More than anything, he just wanted the whole ordeal to be over. He wanted Ilya to not have to suffer; he wanted to stop feeling like something terrible could happen at any moment. He wanted a full night of sleep and to take Anya on a walk around their neighborhood and to have sex. Ilya hummed. “I wish so too,” he said, too honest. Shane suddenly had another wish. He wished that Ilya had chirped him, or told a dirty joke. He hated seeing him this sick. “I want to go home.” “I know. I’m sorry. I’m sure they’ll be quick.” The doctors had taken blood and done their tests, listened to Ilya’s lungs, and wheeled him off for a chest x-ray. Yes, they’d said, he’s progressed from viral to bacterial pneumonia. His asthma and the rib injury and the flu had hit like successive punches, and it weakened his lungs enough that bacteria took root in them. But, his blood oxygen levels were fine. His peak flow was fine, though the test made him wince. His labs were fine, and the x-ray didn’t look bad. It was all good news. But after doing the tests and waiting for a pulmonologist and then watching as the fluids and pain medicine trickled into Ilya’s bloodstream drop by drop, they’d been sitting in the emergency room cubicle with the flickering light for almost five hours. The sun was starting to rise, not that they could see it. It was miserable, and they’d done it all to get sent home with antibiotics and a steroid inhaler and a promise to follow up with Ilya’s GP. His phone pinged. It was Rose, who said, ‘Hockey Twitter seems to think you and Ilya are in the ER? Are you both okay?’ He sighed. Running a quick search of their names turned up a few dozen posts, the snowfall that would kick up an avalanche as the East Coast woke and people started logging on. For the most part they were sweet and worried, but one caught his eye, a reply to someone wishing them well. ‘It’s always something with these two. Getting pretty tired of it.’ He let out a long, slow breath. “What is it?” The fingers in his hair stilled. “Someone saw us here and posted about it. Rose was just letting me know.” There wasn’t much to do about it that hadn’t already been done. He’d called Farah while Ilya was doing spirometry, and she was connecting with the Centaur’s PR team and drafting a statement for Shane to post. “We can keep it super simple,” she’d said through a yawn, “I’ll handle it. You focus on keeping both of you sane and healthy.” He loved her for picking up at three in the morning, but waking her added to the growing mass of guilt in his chest. “Has no one ever told these people to mind their own business?” “I guess not. Don’t worry about it,” he said, picking his head up to catch Ilya’s tired eyes. “We’ve got it covered. Farah says it’ll be fine.” “For us, that means it will be on SportsCenter by morning.” He put on a bad American accent, “Is this the beginning of the end for Ilya Rosanov’s career? Is he going to recover by fucking October?” He sank a little deeper into the mattress. He was shivering, so Shane pulled the scratchy hospital blanket up his legs. “The doctors said-” “I know what the doctors said,” Ilya snapped. He started to say more, but his voice caught, and he coughed instead, wet and painful. He moved to cover his mouth, but the IV in his arm tugged. It was awful. Shane wanted to scream. As soon as he was done coughing, he started to shiver again. “I’m going to go find you some more blankets,” Shane said. He needed to get up, move, feel something that wasn’t fear or worry or guilt. Blankets, he could do; he could be useful. “Shane.” “Not mad at you,” he said, with his hand on the doorknob. “I’m just going to find you some blankets, okay?” “I’m not cold,” Ilya protested. “Then I’m going to find you a nurse.” He shut the door behind him. He did flag down a nurse. Ilya is shivering, he told her, could someone check his temperature and bring some extra blankets? Thank you so much, he said, you all have been so wonderful to us. But the voice that asked those things, calm and polite, didn’t feel like his. He was screaming; surely his throat was raw with it by now. Before he realized what he was doing, he called Rose. She picked up on the first ring. “Hey,” he said, “sorry to wake you.” That didn’t sound like his voice, either. “You didn’t, babe, I have an early call today. What’s going on, are you okay?” She didn’t sound tired, but she was an actor; it was her job to lie and be believed. “We’re okay,” he said, and only then did his breath snag in his throat. He pushed past it. “Ilya’s fine, the doctors are just double-checking and sending us home with more meds. They think the worst of it is the asthma.” “That’s good,” Rose said gently, like she was trying to soothe a wounded animal, “They’re not admitting him for monitoring or anything?” “No,” he said, “his rib fractures are still healing, which was a shock because they’re fucking killing him, but they said it’s probably costochondritis that’s causing most of the pain. We’ll talk to PT about it once he can, like, breathe again. Half the reason I brought him here was because I thought he might have punctured a lung, so that’s…” he ran out of steam. A group of doctors rushed past him with a person on a gurney, and he flattened himself against the wall to get out of their way. “That’s great,” Rose said, when it became clear that he wasn’t going to continue, “Are you okay, though?” “I’m fine.” He couldn’t summon more than that. “You don’t sound fine.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “It means you sound exhausted.” There was a rustling sound on the end of the line, like Rose was pulling on a sweater, or lying back in her blankets. He imagined that it was still dark in California, that the room she was in was low-lit and quiet. If he was there with her, maybe he’d be able to take a full breath in. “Is there anything I can do?” “Not anything you can do from LA,” he said. “Would it help if I told the people that neither of you are dying?” “Farah and the social media people are working on it, they should have something in the next couple hours.” “Yeah, but I can have something out in the next 30 seconds, and then you’ll have a little bit of breathing room until the professionals wake up.” Shane sighed. It wasn’t a terrible idea. People who have never experienced fame think that it would be easy to ignore what people are saying about you, but it isn’t. In fact, it’s almost impossible. Impossible to not seek it out, to not internalize it, impossible to stop feeling the millions of eyes on your back every minute of every day. Even the thickest skinned person will start to struggle. ‘It’s always something with these two. Getting pretty tired of it.’ Read: I wish these faggots would just be quiet. Shane was not the thickest skinned person. “Okay,” he relented, “Thank you.” “I wish I could do more.” There was a loud knocking on Rose’s end of the call. “Shit, that’s probably my driver. Tell Ilya to feel better.” He let out a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “That’s all I’ve been doing for a week and a half.” “I know, babe. I’ll handle the mob, you handle your man. I love you,” she said. “Love you too.” He hung up the phone. The doctors and the gurney were gone, but he stayed still with his back to the wall. A moment later, he got a Twitter notification. '“Ilya’s fine”—Shane Hollander, on the phone, 45 seconds ago.' He liked it, shoved his phone back in his pocket, and went back to his husband’s room. Ilya hadn’t moved from where he’d left him, still in bed, still with an IV in his arm, still shivering. It didn’t even look like he was cold; it looked like he was shaking to pieces, a violent full body tremor. Shane was at his side in a second, brought his husband hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. His skin was still warm with fever. One of the machines started beeping. “Hey,” he said, “hey, shh, what’s going on? Can you tell me what’s happening?” A nurse was hot on Shane’s heels. She went to the monitor that was alarming and silenced it. “Hi there,” she said. She was their age, maybe a little younger. Her smile was sympathetic, but her eyes held a professional worry as she looked at the two of them, at the monitors, at the computer on the desk, and back. “I heard you were a little chilly. I can grab you some blankets from the warmer, but I do need to get a quick temperature first, especially because your heart rate alarm is going off, okay?” Ilya squeezed his hand hard. It seemed like it was the only thing about him that wasn’t shaking. “Не холодно,” he forced from between his chattering teeth. Not cold. Shane’s mouth tasted bitter. How had he been worrying about what people thought about them, when there was plenty to worry about right here? “Sorry, what was that?” The nurse slid the thermometer under his tongue. “He said he isn’t cold.” He learned the word in a much less terrifying context. Na ulitse kholodno. It’s cold outside. Segodnya idet sneg. It is snowing today. The thermometer beeped, and the nurse frowned. “38.8. Has this happened before when you’ve been sick?” Ilya shook his head. He squeezed Shane’s hand again, urgent. “What is it, love?” “Я боюсь.” Shane brought Ilya’s hand to his lips again, and pressed a long, insistent kiss to his skin. “He says he’s scared.” His voice broke over the words. For the first time since they’d come to the hospital that he’d felt anything other than numb, worried, or tired. Heat welled behind his eyes. “Okay,” the nurse said, “that’s totally fair. No one likes being in the hospital. Have you ever had a panic attack before?” Ilya’s gaze, fever-bright and wet with tears, met Shane’s. In those eyes, fear, shame, fatigue, desperation. He nodded, small and shaky. “Does this feel like that at all?” “Yes,” Ilya said, his voice barely there. “Okay,” she said again, not confirming, but soothing, “if you think it would be helpful, I can ask the doctor to order a little bit of Valium for you. It might make you a little drowsy, but it should take the edge off the panic. Would you like me to go do that?” Ilya shook his head. “Why not, Ilyosha?” Ilya made a frustrated noise, low and tight in his throat, then, “English-” “I’ll translate. Why not?” “Я справлюсь. Я не хочу-” “Что? Илья-” “I don’t want to interrupt,” the nurse said, her gentle voice taking on a note of authority, “but I do want to clarify something.” She looked at Ilya, “I understand that you don’t want to take medication for this, but your heart rate is getting on the high end of what I’m comfortable with, and I can hear that you’re starting to over-breathe. With your asthma, that could trigger an attack, potentially a severe one, and I am sure we'd all rather avoid that. I think that this medicine is the best path forward. Do you understand?” She looked to Shane, “Do you need to translate any of that?” “No,” Ilya said, shaking and struggling for air, the absolute picture of misery. “Medicine is okay.” Shane put a hand on his husband’s cheek, and kissed his sweat-damp forehead. “Okay,” the nurse said, tone softening, “I’ll be right back with a small dose of Valium. It’s fast-acting, so we should be able to get you feeling better soon, alright?” Shane sat on the edge of the mattress and pulled Ilya’s shaking form into his side. The tremors were relentless. He pressed another kiss to the crown of Ilya’s head, to his temple, his hairline, his fever-flushed cheek. “I know deep breaths hurt,” he said into sweaty golden curls, “but try? For me?” Ilya nodded into his neck, and they sat there, in that horrible room with its flickering lights, silent but for Ilya’s wheezing breath and the beeping of the monitors. “You’re okay,” he said, a few minutes later, as the nurse reappeared, “everything's going to be okay.” She made Ilya confirm his name and date of birth through chattering teeth, then pushed a syringe of clear liquid into the IV port in his arm. She also, sweetly, brought an extra warm blanket that she tucked around Ilya’s feet. It only took about a minute before the violent shaking started to ease, tapering off to occasional spasms, then to stillness. The unsteady puffs of breath against Shane’s neck started coming slower and deeper. Ilya hummed. “Good drugs. Why was I against these?” Shane let out a sound that was very nearly a sob, of relief or of exhaustion, he could not say. “Better?” “Much,” he said. “I hate this. Sorry for snapping at you.” He picked himself up off of Shane’s shoulder. His eyes still held a feverish shine, but the wide-eyed, panicked look was gone, replaced with a half-lidded, drowsy one. He looked better, though that wasn’t saying a lot. His skin was sallow, the bags under his eyes deep and dark. ‘Always something with these two,’ an unkind voice in his head repeated. ‘Getting pretty fucking tired of them.’ He had a new wish, his best one yet. He wished he could protect this kind, smart, funny, sexy man from all the pain the world sent his way. “Don’t be an idiot.” Shane tugged him close again, comforted by his weight, the gentle rhythm of his lungs still working, his heart still beating. “I’m sorry I left.” “Where did you go?” “I called Rose. The people online were getting to me.” “They can’t get you,” he said, words getting a little slurry around the edges as he settled into Shane’s neck, “you’re mine.” A little mistranslation, but one Shane didn’t mind in the slightest. “I’m glad you’re here.” He closed his eyes and tried to follow his own advice. Deep breaths. He didn’t like imagining a version of Ilya that didn’t have him here. Ilya in a hospital room alone. Ilya in his penthouse in Boston, struggling for oxygen, shaking fingers around his inhaler. He shook his head. “I’m glad you’re not shivering yourself apart anymore.” “I was scared,” Ilya admitted, in English this time, slower and steadier. Shane brushed a finger over Ilya’s lip, rosy pink, if a little chapped. “I know,” he said, “I was too.” He would need to check the hospital gift shop for chapstick. He would need to call his mother and ask if she could be at their house when they got back. He’d have to approve the statement from Farah and answer the text messages from the Cen’s group chat. Anya needed someone to let her out and someone to give her breakfast. He needed at least a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. All of that would have to be for later. For now, Ilya was okay, his heart rate slowing, oxygen level stable. This, the work and the worry, was what it meant to give your heart away. Still, with his husband in his arms, Ilya's long pale eyelashes fluttering closed against his skin, it was the best choice he’d ever made.

Chapter End Notes

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