Chapter Text
Your boy. It was wrong on two fronts. Shane was most definitely not a boy, and he was definitely not Ilya’s, not in any shape of the word. Ilya paid him for a service, it was like tipping a waiter and then trying to take them home in the cab. The waiter was not Ilya’s, Shane was not Ilya’s. Dr Landry was most definitely wrong.
But it felt so delicious to hear.
He needed to pivot the conversation. Ilya was about to ask her a question about the job, in some weird contrived way of getting more information about Shane, when the man himself suddenly appeared looking vaguely harried with the normal amount of anxiety drifting among his other features. His bangs were sticky with sweat against his forehead and there was a sheen of liquid on his cheekbones.
Ilya felt a little guilty for not asking Dr Landry to do the vaccination.
“Sorry, Ilya,” Shane burst out, “I was well…I mean…”
“He was searching for one of the dog’s balls!” Eleanor informed him with a cackle.
“Well… yes, it was kinda that in the most basic sense… What are you all doing here, anyway? Don’t you have labs to look at, Dr Landry?” He maneuvered her away from Anya and Ilya.
Dr Landry gave Ilya a look which made his stomach go all squirrely with the knowledge he had been brought into this little collection of people with nothing but smiles and chatter. He wasn’t lonely in Ottawa, he had his team and Svetlana who he still messaged on occasion, but it was impossible to ignore the warmth that the glance gave him
“Right then,” Shane exclaimed, “since I’m the only one doing my job here.”
“And you look so good doing it!” Eleanor cheered sarcastically, getting up to leave the room with John in tow.
“Hollander,” Dr Landry said with a slight nod with her head, disappearing behind the receptionist's desk. The woman sitting behind it was watching everything with a sly smile, “go and enjoy your consult.” Dr Landry finished with a wave in Ilya’s direction.
Shane turned away instantly, but Ilya gave her a shy salute back.
“Sorry about them,” he murmured as Ilya was led to the consult room, Anya straining in front to walk next to Shane.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Ilya tried in his best Canadian accent, elongating the ‘o’ a beat too long.
He was rewarded with Shane’s twinkling laugh and a small glance back. Beat that, Pike.
🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾
“Toileting okay?” Shane asked Ilya as he clicked away on his keyboard with no visible letters. Ilya looked at Anya as if to ask for her opinion. She stared back from where she was almost eye level on the examination table.
“Yes,” He assumed what she’d been doing up until this point was normal for her, “no vomiting or diarrhea either.”
“Wow, Ilya. Doing my job for me now, are we?”
He was Russian, he did not blush or turn any embarrassing shade of red, but yet an inkling of heat was spreading over his cheeks and he could feel his ears begin to burn. He stared again into Anya’s dark eyes, trying to ignore the pull of the blue scrubs over Shane’s wide shoulders and the way his dark hair curled loosely over the nape of his neck. It was paler than the rest of him, like a blank canvas.
Ilya thought he could be quite the artist.
“Alright then,” Shane pulled him from his thoughts of red marks and possessive touches, he came to stand next to Anya, holding the canister. Anya looked at it with pure distrust. “I’ve just got to ask, does Anya come into contact with anyone who has a bad immune system?”
“Bad?”
“Just like easily ill, anyone with a chronic illness or on any medication. Immunosupressed.”
“I don’t think so,” Ilya murmured, “what type of medication?”
“I think it depends if it inhibits any immune responses, she’d just need to be kept away from those people for around a month just in case she passes on an illness from the vaccine.” Shane said this too casually, the words soft and familiar in his mouth. He looked at Ilya sideways when he was met with silence.
“Ah.” Ilya paused and found a rush of panic flooding his body as he prepared his next words, “if I tell you specific drug… could you tell me if it is okay?”
“Yep, I might have to look it up just in case but yeah, better to be safe than sorry, am I right?” Shane’s calm smile made Ilya feel somehow worse about revealing his… misfortunes. The depression pills did make him feel better, he did get less dark spots during his day like mold, but even saying the name or admitting to anyone and himself what they were felt like failure. His father wouldn’t be pleased, he couldn’t bring himself to feel pleased either. Sadness naturally ruined everyone’s good mood, and Ilya was the anti-sadness. He did everything he could to be happy, but Anya was important and he needed to be with her.
“Uhm, fluoxetine?”
Shane looked at him carefully, Ilya felt like one of his patients under the gentle stare.
“Prozac should be fine, that family of drugs can actually produce immune boosting results like lowering inflammation. So Anya doesn’t have to worry about being near anyone taking those drugs...”
Anyone taking those drugs.
“No matter how close she is to them.” Shane finished.
It didn’t feel as bad as he expected it to, someone knowing about his issues. There was still quite a large dose of panic injected into his body, cold feelings of regret which spread throughout his stomach but it was nice to see Shane still looking at him. His gaze hadn’t changed, there was concern present but it was always there. Instead he still looked at him like he was Ilya, not a project or something wrong.
“Da.” His voice cracked slightly. He cringed. “They’re just used to, y’know, give better performance…”
“Ilya. I know what they’re used for, it’s okay. I just hope the person taking them has support?”
He could only nod, Shane smiled at him and actually touched his shoulder, smoothing him down in a way that made him jealous of all the pats and scratches Anya and the numerous other pets had gotten. It was nice after admitting to being all wrong inside, the feeling of Shane putting him back into his body.
“Alright then, if you could just hold Anya for me?”
Holding Anya was usually difficult. Especially now that she’d decided that she was no longer full spaniel, but rather full worm. Ilya tried to hold her back, but she still managed to retract her head from where Shane was gently tilting her head up to hold her snout. Ilya tried to hold her in what was essentially a headlock, she just smashed her head into his face. Ilya tried to hold her front and back legs, keeping her airborne, but she just rolled herself sideways.
“Right,” Shane mutters, “Anya you really know how to make this difficult, don’t you?”
The spaniel didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed.
“At least we know she’s definitely healthy, god Anya,” Shane swore as he lifted the dog off the table to the floor. “Sit, Anya.” She stared at him, still tapping her paws against the floor and definitely not sitting.
“Sit.”
Both Anya and Ilya’s ears perked up.
Being a captain of a hockey team meant that Ilya was often in control, it meant that he’d had to learn how to bring authority into his voice, how to make people listen and act. Shane’s voice was low, almost dangerous. It was comparable, in some ways, to a growl. There was a threat nestled beneath the low notes. Anya heard it, she sat. Ilya fought the urge to.
He stepped over the dog, one leg on either side, to sit nearly on her but still keeping the weight entirely in his feet. Ilya watched in amazement as he casually held her head with large hands, practically encasing her skull, and blocked a nostril with a thumb to squirt the canister into the other. Anya seemed amazed as well, blinking in confusion and flapping her tail slightly against the floor as she reckoned with how she’d been tamed.
“Good girl,” Shane cooed, stepping away from her fluidly. If his scrubs pulled at his shoulders, they did despicable things to his thighs.
Anya sneezed and looked a little embarrassed at being manhandled with such practiced ease. Ilya wanted to roll onto all fours and simply say ‘me next’.
“That was very,” Ilya had opened his stupid mouth and now he had to think of a normal word, “quick.”
Great. That one definitely had a few sexual connotations.
He got a small grin in return, “I’m well practised, what can I say?”
“Da.” Even Shakespeare would be jealous of the poetry flowing from his lips.
The typing began again in full force. “Anything else you wanted to discuss while you’re here in person?” Which was a subtle nod to their voice messages but yet it still burnt something through Ilya.
“No just,” Ilya placed a stack of hundreds on the desk without a word, “for the help.”
Shane’s whole body stiffened as he turned to take in the money. He even stopped typing.
“Ilya. You know you pay at reception, right?”
“Yes, yes, of course. This isn’t for now. This is for all the extra help.”
“Ilya, what on earth are you on about.”
His words ran away with him, like a flood from his mouth he couldn’t stop or control, “And come to the barbecue, please? You can have money for payment for going to the barbeque.” He barely took a breath as he rambled on, “I think your mom is worried about you, and there will be dogs and patchy cat I need you to check, just to make sure they’re all healthy. They’re mostly Harris’s.”
He wanted to see Shane again, and if there’s one thing he’s learnt from his family it’s that time means money. He didn’t mind having to pay for Shane’s time, the man deserved the money and it was a good service.
“I don’t want your fucking money, jesus christ,” Shane pinched the area between his eyes. There was a large gap where the faint hum from the small fridge swallowed all the air in the room.
“Ilya, thank you for the invite, but I can’t make it to the barbecue.”
“Why? You are not busy.” Which may or may not be true, but looking at the clinic's opening hours and the times when Shane was most online, Ilya was banking on him being free.
“You don’t know that. And my mom isn’t worried about me, she’s neurotic and insane and just stressed about her job, she knows I’m fine.”
“She loves you, she is worried. I think she misses you.”
“The hell do you mean misses me, I talk to her and dad like all the time.” He frowned, “why are you even involved in this?”
“I think she’s just scared you are lonely, you live alone and you are single and they cannot understand why, I cannot understand why.” He practically whispered the last part, “I think they would really like it if you could come to our barbeque.”
Shane turned on his heels, suddenly more interested in a poster on the wall. It was a cartoon dachshund with a nut over its face. ‘There’s more than one way to crack a nut!’. Ilya saw the dachshund's childish grin and wanted to rip it off the dog’s face.
“I don’t know why my mom just can’t understand that I don’t want to have to spend my free time with stupid immature jocks.”
He seemed to retract the statement in the awkward gasp he made after the last word had barely made it out his mouth. He turned and looked at Ilya. Ilya looked back.
“I will not pry anymore,” Ilya said.
“Ilya, I didn’t mean that you’re an immature jock, of course you’re not, I just…”
“So your mom’s colleagues, who she loves and wishes you would meet, are stupid? My bestest friends are stupid? You do not trust us?”
“Why are you so obsessed with my mom? You don’t know her, you don’t know how she feels about me.”
“She talks about you, you cannot ignore love.”
“Right, okay.”
Shane refused to meet his eye.
“You will think about it?” Ilya dares to ask.
“I will think about it, Rozanov. Is that it for today?” The dismissal was practical, professional. It really made Ilya feel like he’d overstepped, but he already knew he had. He didn’t need Shane pointing it out to him, like some dumbass.
“Yes, thank you.” He paused, holding Anya’s lead and ready to exit the room without Shane by his side. “That is still your money though, even if you are not coming.”
“I don’t want your stupid money, Rozanov. God.” He practically spat the last words like a hissing cat.
Bile rose in Ilya’s throat. He was somehow losing this man, who he’d only known for a month. He wanted to tell Shane how his mom talks about him, tell him how much it’d mean to him if he came to this stupid team barbeque. He wanted to hurt the man in some sordid way and then make it up to him again in the next sentence.
“Well,” he tilted his head cruelly, “I may be stupid jock, but I definitely don’t need the money as much as you do.”
Shane still didn’t turn to him, he got no reaction. His brother would punch and fight. Another player would slam him into the boards and get taken off by the refs. Shane’s fingers were spread out either side of his keyboard as he leant against the desk. There would be no retribution, no punishment.
“Goodbye, Rozanov.”
Only dismissal.