Chapter Text
By the time Ilya admitted to himself that something was actually wrong, he was already halfway to the hospital.
The pain had started as an irritation, which was probably why he had ignored it for as long as he did. At first it had been one of those vague, unpleasant stomach aches that could be explained by what Shane liked to call “bad lifetstyle” choices. He had woken well before dawn with a sharp cramp low in his abdomen, rolled onto his back, waited for it to ease, and then become very annoyed when it didn’t. That was the first stage of most discomfort in his life: not concern, not caution, just irritation that his body had decided to become inconvenient at a time he had not approved.
He had tried all the usual things. He had gotten up, because lying still had made the pain more obvious. He had stood in the kitchen with one hand braced against the counter and sipped water in slow, controlled swallows. He had considered coffee, then rejected it on sight before it make him want to throw up. He had told himself it would pass, because things usually did, and because he had never been the kind of person who wanted an audience for feeling bad. There was something humiliating about naming pain too early. Better to wait. Better to see if it could be managed quietly. Better, always, to deal with it yourself.
That instinct had become so natural over the years that it barely felt like a choice anymore. When he got sick, he stayed home and slept it off. If he had the flu, he made tea and took medication and ignored his phone. If he got injured, he treated what he could until someone in the organization got involved and made it official. Even smaller, ordinary miseries had long ago turned into private matters. He didn’t like being watched when he felt bad. He didn’t like people fussing. He especially didn’t like the way concern sometimes made him feel younger than he was, or lonelier than he wanted to admit.
Under different circumstances, Shane would have been there, fussing over him and Ilya would have happily let him. He would have noticed before Ilya said anything at all, would have taken one look at him standing too still in the kitchen and asked questions in that steady, impossible tone of his.
But Shane was not there. He was somewhere over the ocean with his parents, on the way back from Japan after one of his cousins’ weddings, and unreachable in the most literal sense. He was in the air, phone off, probably uncomfortable and sleep-deprived and dealing with his own family in the polite, patient way he always did. Ilya had known that when he woke up, and that knowledge had settled over everything else with a particular, quiet heaviness. Not because he expected Shane to fix anything but because there was a difference between being alone by habit and being alone with no other option.
He might still have stayed home if the pain had remained merely sharp. Unfortunately, it did not.
Instead it got worse. Sharper, more specific. Harder to ignore.
By the time the sky outside had started to lighten, he was already leaning forward without realizing it, his breathing shallow because anything deeper pulled at his stomach hard enough to make his vision flash. He tried standing up straight and immediately regretted it. Tried walking it off and had to stop halfway between the kitchen and the living room, one hand pressed to his side, waiting for it to pass.
It did pass.
Then it came back worse.
That was enough.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Hospital.”
Getting dressed took longer than it should have. The shirt was easy enough, but bending down for his shoes was not. He paused there for a second, eyes closed, then finished anyway because there was no point dragging it out.
By the time he stepped outside, he was already sweating slightly, more from the effort than anything else. The hallway was empty, which helped. He didn’t feel like explaining anything to anyone.
The drive wasn’t great. Every small bump in the road made the pain sharper, more noticeable, and he had to focus more than usual just to stay steady. He thought about turning around once, briefly, then dismissed it.
By the time he parked and got inside, he stopped pretending this was something he could just ignore.
The emergency department was exactly as bleak as emergency departments always were: too bright, too cold, and populated almost entirely by people who looked as if they would rather be anywhere else. It made him want to turn on his heels and run away, if only every step would stop feeling like someone was stabbing him with a hot knife.
He gave his name and date of birth, then explained the pain as briefly as possible. Even to his own ears, it sounded flat, almost detached, like he was describing something minor instead of what it actually felt like.
The woman at the desk asked where it hurt, when it started, whether he felt nauseous. He answered everything without going into detail, keeping it short.
He could hear the strain in his voice anyway.
He ignored it.
When she told him to sit and wait, he almost laughed. Sitting down felt like a bad idea, but there wasn’t really another option.
He managed it anyway, lowering himself into the plastic chair carefully, slower than usual. The waiting room settled around him in that strange way hospital spaces did - quiet, but not really. Low voices, tired faces, names being called out every few minutes.
Across from him, a kid was curled into her mother’s side, half-asleep, holding onto her sleeve. A man near the wall pressed an ice pack against his jaw. Somewhere behind him, someone kept coughing, steady and repetitive, impossible to ignore.
Ilya leaned forward, elbows on his knees, one hand pressed against his stomach, and stayed still.
This, too, he could do alone. He had done worse alone. He had sat in hotel bathrooms at nineteen with a fever and a trash can in front of him because the team was on the road and he refused to be a problem. He had once taped his own hand in an apartment kitchen because everyone else was busy and he didn’t want to wait. He had gotten very good, over the years, at reducing himself to the necessary facts. If something hurt, he dealt with it. If he was sick, he endured it. There was no value in making a scene. Part of it came from home. His father hadn’t tolerated weakness - not even small things. Complaining, showing pain, asking for help, it had all been treated the same way.
Like something to grow out of.
Ilya had learned quickly not to do any of it.
Being with Shane had changed it.
That was the part he didn’t like. It hadn’t used to be like this. He would have just dealt with it, same as always, without thinking twice. Now, sitting there, he was aware of the absence in a way that felt unnecessary- like his brain had decided this was something that mattered.
Ilya shifted slightly, frowning.
Great.
Shane had made him soft.
His phone buzzed in his pocket before he could think too hard about it. He pulled it out, blinked at the screen, and frowned when he saw Hayden’s name.
For a second, he considered letting it ring out. Then he answered, because ignoring Hayden would only guarantee more annoyance later, and because he was tired enough that he lacked the energy to commit properly to his usual pettiness.
“Yes,” he said.
His voice sounded off even to him, rougher than usual, thinner but he pushed past it.
“Hey,” Hayden said. “Is Shane around?”
“No.”
“Still?” Hayden asked. “I thought he landed today.”
“Delayed. He is still flying.”
There was a pause.
“…Okay,” Hayden said. “So you’re alone?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“…What are you doing?”
Ilya frowned slightly, annoyed. “What kind of question is that.”
“I don’t know,” Hayden said. “You sound weird. I thought maybe I called at a bad time.”
“A bad time,” Ilya repeated, slower now.
“Yeah,” Hayden said, a little more awkward. “Like, are you busy, or..”
Ilya stared at nothing for a second, then said flatly, “I am at the hospital.”
There was complete silence.
“…You’re not” Hayden stopped. “You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“…Oh,” Hayden said, and there was a very obvious shift, relief first, then confusion. “Okay. Good. I mean not good, but…okay.”
Ilya blinked. “That is a strange reaction.”
“I just thought you were in the middle of some- never mind,” Hayden said quickly. “Why are you in the hospital?”
“Stomach pain.”
“That sounds… not normal.”
“It is inconvenient,” Ilya corrected.
Hayden didn’t take the bait.
“How bad?” he asked instead.
Ilya shifted slightly in the chair and immediately regretted it, the movement pulling sharp enough that his breath hitched for half a second before he forced it back under control.
“Manageable,” he said.
There was a pause.
“…You’re obviously lying,” Hayden said.
“I am not lying,” Ilya said, a little sharper than he meant to. “I am here. That is all.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the part I’m asking about.”
Ilya exhaled slowly, pressing his hand a little more firmly against his side.
“Bad enough that I came here,” he said finally.
“That sounds worse than ‘manageable.’”
“You are focusing on the wrong part of this.”
“What is the right part?”
“That I am dealing with it.”
Hayden went quiet for a second.
“…Right,” he said. “By yourself?”
Ilya looked down at the floor.
“Yes.”
It came out like the obvious answer.
On the other end, Hayden didn’t say anything right away, and that silence stretched just a little too long.
“…Okay,” he said finally. “Which hospital?”
Ilya frowned. “Why.”
“So I know where you are,” Hayden said, patient now in a way that was already starting to get on his nerves. “Which one?”
Ilya hesitated for a second, then gave it.
“The Civic.”
Hayden repeated it quietly.
“…Okay.”
“They haven’t done anything yet,” Ilya added, not entirely sure why he was explaining. “I am waiting.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
Another pause.
“…So you’re actually just sitting there right now?” Hayden asked.
Ilya let out a short breath that almost passed for a laugh.
“Pike, unless Shane has learned to teleport from the middle of the ocean, yes.”
That got a small exhale from him, closer to normal.
“Right,” Hayden said. “Okay. Did they say what it is?”
“No. They asked questions. Then they made me sit in this terrible chair.”
“Sounds rough.”
“It is,” Ilya said, automatically.
He leaned back carefully, letting his head rest for a second.
Then-
“They are taking me,” he added when he saw the nurse approaching.
“Okay.” Hayden paused. “Text me when you know something.”
It came out awkward, like he wasn’t sure how to say it without making it a bigger deal.
“I will be fine,” Ilya said.
“Yeah,” Hayden said after a second. “Just—let me know anyway.”
Ilya ended the call before he could respond.
The nurse led him through a maze of curtained bays and narrow corridors, everything smelling faintly of antiseptic and clean fabric, the kind of sterile that made the whole place feel temporary. He answered the same questions again for a different person, then again for another - when had the pain started, had it moved, was he nauseous, did it get worse when pressed and each answer seemed to make things move a little faster around him.
By the time the doctor pressed along the right side of his abdomen and Ilya sucked in a sharp breath before he could stop himself, the tone had shifted completely.
“We’re going to get some imaging and bloodwork,” the doctor said. “It may be your appendix.”
“My appendix,” Ilya repeated, like saying it out loud might make it less real.
“It’s fixable. No need to worry”
That wasn’t the word he focused on.
The tests didn’t take long, but the waiting dragged in a way that made it feel much longer than it actually was. By the time the doctor came back, Ilya was lying on a hospital bed behind a curtain, one arm taped where the IV had been placed, the medication taking the edge off the pain without fully dulling it. It left everything slightly blurred, like he could think but not quite escape the feeling of something being very wrong.
“It is appendicitis,” the doctor said, matter-of-fact. “We don’t want to wait. I insist on surgery, it can be scheduled as soon as in a couple of hours.”
Ilya looked at him for a moment before nodding, because there wasn’t really anything else to do. There was no way he could go home like this even if he tried. He asked the questions he was supposed to :how long, how invasive, how soon he could leave and heard himself sounding steady even though he didn’t feel it. The doctor answered everything in the same calm tone, explaining that it was routine and that he would stay overnight just to be safe.
Ilya nodded again, and only after the doctor left did he let his head fall back against the pillow and stare at the ceiling.
He was scared.
He wasn’t scared of the surgery itself, not exactly. It was everything around it, the speed of it, the way the morning had turned into this without any warning, the bed and the IV and the fact that people were now talking about taking him somewhere and putting him under like it was just another step in the process. And underneath all of that was the quieter, more uncomfortable thought that Shane wasn’t there, that no one who actually knew him like that was here.
He thought, briefly, of the kid in the waiting room curled into her mother’s side, and shut his eyes before the thought could go any further.
This was ridiculous. He was fine. He could handle this. He had handled worse, and he didn’t need anyone here to do it again.
It just didn’t feel like that right now.
He picked up his phone, stared at it for a second, then typed:
appendix. surgery in a bit.
He sent it before he could think too hard about it, then immediately regretted it. The message looked worse written down : too direct, too exposed, and he dropped the phone back onto the bed with more force than necessary, like that would undo it.
Time didn’t move properly after that. The medication made everything feel slower without actually making it pass any faster. Nurses came and went, someone checked his blood pressure, someone else handed him forms to sign, and he signed them without really reading, his hand steady in a way that didn’t match how he felt. He had to atleast try to be strong.
By the time footsteps stopped outside his curtain and someone pulled it back, he was half-dozing in that uncomfortable in-between state where you’re not quite asleep but not fully present either.
Hayden stood there, looking slightly out of place, like he wasn’t entirely sure what he was walking into.
For a second, he didn’t say anything. His gaze moved quickly from the IV, to the bed, to Ilya - and then he let out a quiet breath and filled the silence the only way he knew how.
“You look terrible.”
Ilya blinked at him, then frowned. “That was a long drive just to be rude.”
Hayden stepped inside, letting the curtain fall behind him, still carrying a bit of that awkwardness in the way he moved, like he hadn’t quite settled into being there yet. “You said surgery like it was nothing,” he said. “That’s not normal.”
“It is common,” Ilya replied, though it came out a little slower than usual.
“That’s not the same thing.”
There was a brief pause, the kind that sat just long enough to be noticeable, before Ilya looked at him again and said, more quietly, “You drove all the way.”
Hayden shifted, hands slipping into his jacket pockets as if he needed somewhere to put them, and gave a small shrug that didn’t quite hide the fact that he wasn’t entirely comfortable.
“Yeah,” he said. “Well. You sent a text like that.”
“You did not have to drive all the way from Montreal for that, Pike.”
“You’re literally about to have surgery!”
“It is a small organ.”
Hayden stared at him for a second. “They are removing an organ from your body, Rozanov.”
Ilya breathed in a little too harshly at that, giving away his fear. Hayden looked guilty.
“Sorry that’s- probably scary to you. I didn’t mean-“
Ilya looked away first, irritation coming back quickly, easier to deal with than anything else that was trying to settle in its place.
“This is unnecessary,” he said. “You didn’t need to make it into a whole thing.”
Hayden dragged a chair closer and sat down, still a little stiff about it but clearly not planning to leave. “I didn’t make it into anything,” he said. “You texted me like you were rescheduling lunch.”
“I was informing you.”
“You were underselling it.”
“I am not-” Ilya stopped briefly, shifting slightly and pressing his hand against his side when the movement pulled at the pain. “underselling anything.”
Hayden noticed that, even if he didn’t comment on it directly, and something in his expression tightened just slightly before he looked away.
“Does Shane know?” He asked after a moment.
“He is on a plane,” Ilya replied.
“I know.”
“He would have worried”
Hayden looked at him like he was about to argue otherwise but stayed quiet.
“Well…and we wouldn’t?” he asked, like he was offended.
The question landed harder than Ilya expected, enough that for a second he didn’t have an immediate response.
Before he could come up with one, the doctor returned, and everything shifted again.
“All right,” he said. “We’re ready.”
The nurse moved in, adjusting the bed, explaining something about anesthesia and what would happen next, but Ilya only caught pieces of it. The room felt smaller suddenly, more focused, like everything was narrowing down to the next step whether he liked it or not.
Hayden stood up beside the bed, still close enough that Ilya could see the tension in the way he held himself, even if he was trying not to show it.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
“You don’t have to stay,” Ilya said finally, his voice quieter now.
Hayden’s expression shifted, something softening and tightening at the same time. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
He didn’t move.
The bed started to roll forward, the motion pulling at Ilya’s stomach just enough to remind him that the pain was still there under everything else. And underneath that, something sharper pushed through - the fear he had been avoiding up until now, sudden and difficult to ignore now that things were actually happening.
He didn’t want to think about it.
Did anyway.
He wished, briefly and with more force than he expected, that Shane was there and that he was not alone.
But he wasn’t alone.
Instead, Hayden walked alongside the bed as they turned into the hallway, matching the pace without saying anything.
For a second, Ilya let himself feel what that meant.
Then he pushed it down.
“Try not to bother anyone,” he said, because it was easier to go back to that. “You always ask too many questions.” He muttered, like a last-ditch effort to pretend that Hayden hadn’t just made him feel better about the whole thing by simply caring enough to be there.
Hayden let out a short, surprised laugh. “Go have your surgery, Rozanov.”
It was closer to fond than anything he had heard Hayden say to him.
Ilya held onto that longer than he meant to as they wheeled him away.