Chapter Text
It wasn’t fair.
The game that night had been amazing. Ottawa beat Vancouver 5-2 at home, and Shane had scored three of those goals. A freaking hat trick! He did a great job with the media after, won player of the game with his team, and gave a kickass speech to the locker room. The whole team went out for froyo after, and they were going to drop when they got home.
Sounds great, right?
Wrong.
When they finally got home and settled, Papa had practically ignored Shane.
It was all, ‘Luca, eat more dinner. Luca, take your pills, Luca, let me get the heating pad for you.’
What about Shane? He was hungry. Sort of. And he had gotten way more checks in the game than Luca had. If anyone was hurting it was him.
So he sat at the dinner table, quietly stirring in his own anger while Papa practically smothered Luca with attention, even though Shane had been the one to get a hat trick, not Luca. Luca didn’t even score once, why was he getting treated like a king?
Eventually, Papa noticed how shallow Shane’s breathing had become and how hard he was gripping his fork. “Shanya? What is wrong?”
Shane took a breath and held it in, keeping his gaze on the plate in front of him. “Nothing, Papa.”
---
Luca was having a hard day.
Morning practice was supposed to be easy, but every drill felt worse than doing suicides. He was sloppy, out of breath, and his legs and arms ached like he had worn them out, which frustrated him because he hadn’t done anything actually strenuous.
The game had been fine. Luca hadn’t contributed much, but at the very least he hadn’t made any major mistakes.
After the game though? He was fucking exhausted. He was dizzy, tired, and in pain. His right ankle hurt like it used to when he would get growing pains as a child, but now it seemed like it was for no reason at all.
He stuck it out though, got through froyo with the team so they could celebrate Shane and the win, but when he got home he let himself go.
Papa had to carry him to the table because when they got inside he had collapsed on the couch and refused to move. He didn’t want to be difficult, he was just so tired and it felt physically impossible to get up.
Thankfully his Papa seemed to understand. He sat him down and crouched next to the chair to look him good in his eyes.
“Not feeling good, hm?”
Luca shook his head and reached out both arms for his Papa.
Instead of pulling him into a hug like he wanted, Papa took his hands in his own and lowered them back down, squeezing them gently and holding onto them while he talked.
“What is hurting you tonight, malysh?”
Luca shrugged. “Mm…My ankle is achey. An’ my head ‘s spinny.”
“I am sorry, moy malysh. I will get heating pad for the leg before we eat dinner, yes? Then we will do medicine and bath before bed time.”
“Okay.” Luca agreed easily, though the fatigue was obvious in his voice.
“Okay.” Papa repeated back, finally releasing Luca’s hands and pulling him in for a hug. “Come here my sweet boy. Is okay.”
Luca sighed into the embrace and nuzzled his head into Ilya’s neck where it belonged.
Luca had been fortunate that these harder days were few and far between, but they really hit you when your career depended on physical performance, which is kind of hard to achieve when you feel like shit. He was on some medicine now, gaining back some weight, and some of his symptoms had improved, but the ones that mattered just got worse.
---
Ilya could tell Luca had been putting on a brave face all day. That’s why when they got home, he wasn’t surprised when Luca let his guard down. If he had a safe space where he could freely express his pain, Ilya was going to work like hell to keep it.
The one thing they all wanted for Luca when he joined their family so many months ago was for him to feel comfortable, and with his sudden (but really not so sudden when they think about it) health issues, it was even more important that he have a safe space to let it all go, and be taken care of the way he deserves.
So Ilya did what he could. He couldn’t magically fix whatever unknown cause to his problems was, but he could help manage the symptoms.
He got the heating pad for his ankle. He stayed at the dinner table for almost an hour, getting every bit of food he could convince Luca to eat in him. He gave Luca his iron pills because as it had been discovered a few weeks ago, the kid was anemic.
It was the least he could do, and he wished he could do more, but Terry and Lisa had insisted on waiting for more test results, seeing more specialists, taking more medicine. It was stressful, having so many paths to go down with no sense of a diagnosis or solution.
Ilya was really worried. Throughout all the testing they had seen three specialists already. A hemotologist, nephrologist, and an allergy specialist.
First, because of his hemoglobin levels they saw the hemotologist who then diagnosed him with anemia and referred him to the nephrologist because there was blood in his urine.
Then when the nephrologist found nothing wrong, and told Luca to ‘drink more water and you’ll be fine’ they kind of came to a standstill. No cause found for the anemia, and only mild symptoms.
Then, one day they noticed Luca’s lips were swollen as hell. Like, lip filler level swollen. The team had teased him about it at practice, and Ilya didn’t think anything of it until it persisted for a whole week. So he called Lisa and she referred him to an allergist, where they discovered it wasn’t an allergy related cause.
So, another standstill. At this point Luca had been getting tired more easily, his joints hurt him more often than usual, and the iron pills were not taking great effect. He was pale and cold often and the weight he gained from their efforts was hard to keep on. The swollen lips had gone down, but they made a reappearance every once in a while.
They were going to see a gastroenterologist next week since the allergy doctor had suggested that it could be celiac due to the lip swelling, and from there…Well, Ilya just prayed they would find something. Nobody ever wishes to find a condition, but for Luca a condition could mean treatment, and maybe finally getting better.
---
Throughout their long winded bedtime routine, Ilya could tell Shane was pissed. Shane sucked at hiding anything, and his anger especially.
At dinner he was quiet, and wouldn’t stop throwing half jealous, half angry looks at Luca.
In the bath he refused all of his bath toys, and didn’t bother to hide his scowl when Ilya took Luca out early because he was getting cold.
While Ilya was rocking Luca to sleep, Shane turned the TV volume up to thirty just to make Ilya come back to the living room to tell him to turn it down.
When it was finally Shane’s turn to be read to and rocked, he practically exploded at Ilya after stewing in his own negative thoughts for so long.
“No! Why would you wan’ to even ask me to go to sleep?” Shane yelled at Ilya after he simply asked if he was ready for bed.
Ilya took a deep breath. It had been a long day for him too and he didn’t want to say the wrong thing. “Shane. I think I know what upsets you, but will you tell me so I can know what you think has happened.”
Shane crossed his arms over his chest and slumped down on the couch. “You don’ like me anymore. Luca is your favorite baby.”
Ilya sighed and sat next to Shane, keeping his eyes in front of him because he knew it was easier for hard conversations to happen without constant eye contact. “Mm. Is not true. Why do you think this?”
Shane huffed and started fidgeting with his wedding ring. “Well, you do whatever he wants and always take care of him first.”
“Not always. But tonight, for the most part, yes. Why do you think I did that?”
Shane huffed again, this time throwing his hands up. “I don’t know!”
“Shane.” Ilya warned.
Shane lowered his hands and took a breath. “Because Luca hurts.”
“He was in pain, yes.”
“But I hurt too! I got bruises from the game, more than he did.”
Ilya smiled sadly at that. “Yes. We will put the cream on it at bed time like always.”
“Good.”
“But Luca hurts in a different way, you know this. He can’t control or prevent it, it just happens and it is constant and he has to hide it a lot. A bruise you can see, but his pain you cannot.”
“Yeah, I guess…”
“I suspect, he was dealing with that all day. At practice, at game, and now at home. And he got bruises too, on top of that pain. So when he gets home, and doesn’t have to hide it anymore, I think its fair that I help him, yes?”
Shane thought for a moment, and Ilya waited. He could actually see the moment the realization had set in that he was wrong, and he let it happen.
“Oh.”
“Yes. I also take more time with him sometimes because he needs to eat lots to gain weight, right? And he hates taking his pills when little, and he gets colder sometimes because of his anemia. There is all reasons we have talked about to why he gets what he does.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I just want you to understand I am not ignoring you. Sometimes it is hard to have two of you, and just one of me. I want to give you all my attention equally. But is not possible. Do you know why you have later bed time than Luca?”
“Umm…No?”
“Is because I want to spend as much time as I want with you. If he is asleep me and you can have all night to cuddle and talk and read and rock, or whatever you want. He does not get that. He does not, well usually, he does not sleep in our bed. You have me all night to yourself.”
Shane finally smiles a bit when he hears that. “I guess I do. And…Maybe I do like having some alone time while you put Luca to sleep.”
Ilya matches his smile and takes Shane’s hand into his own. “Yeah? I am glad. Also, I am so proud of you for tonights game. Three goals against the Canucks? That is my boy!”
Shane let out a giggle and snuggled into his Papa’s side. “Was alright…”
Ilya gaped and tugged Shane closer, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “Better than alright, it was…Extravagant.”
“New word, Papa?”
“Yes, did I use it right?”
Shane laughed and shook his head. “Close enough.”