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Ilya is on his stomach in the low lighting of their bedroom after particularly strenuous activities. He’d cleaned them both up and changed the sheets while Shane bathed languidly and then he’d joined and they made out for a bit and it was all just luxurious and warm.
Now Shane is taking his time, stroking the pads of his fingers over some of his favorite moles. One larger one right on his shoulder blade, perfectly round and lightly raised. A small one directly in the center of his spine. He presses a kiss to it and Ilya hums around a smile. Another up where the back of his shoulder starts becoming the top, flat and dark. One Shane notices when he props his head on Ilya’s shoulder when he’s wearing a tank top or shirtless.
His hand trails down, thumb passing over the part of his body where his side turns into his armpit. It’s more visible now with the way Ilya is laying, hands stuffed under the pillow his head is resting on.
He halts as his thumb grazes over it, suddenly going from tenderly loving on his husband to clinical real quick.
Shane scrambles over to the side table as Ilya shifts. “Just…stay,” he says sharply. And like a good boy…Ilya does as he’s told, but with a frown.
“What are you—,”
“Shh!” Shane hisses. “I’m seeing something,”
He pulls the skin so it’s more taught and he can get a better look at the mole, internally running through the ABDCE’s of checking for skin cancer. He knows this mole. He bypasses ABCD and stops at E. Evolving.
“This one changed,” he mutters, rubbing his thumb over it. “It’s more raised and it’s bigger,”
He takes a picture. “Fucking…Jesus Shane, a little warning please!” Ilya blinks against the sudden flash.
“Sorry I care about you and don’t want you to have fucking skin cancer!” he replies hotly, tears welling already.
Ilya shifts, sitting upright and immediately embracing him. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m sure it’s fine…you check my moles…obsessively…even if something is wrong I’m sure they can just cut it out and it will be fine, yes?” he tries to assure.
“I'm making you an appointment for tomorrow,” he isn't asking.
And again, because Ilya is indeed a good boy he nods softly against Shane’s shoulder, rubbing his hands over his bare back. “Okay, lyubov,”
-
Shane doesn’t sleep. He pulls out his computer and researches all the different types of skin cancer until melanoma is blaring in bold red, all caps letters in his brain. He stares at the photo of Ilya’s mole. The one that fucking turned on him. Shane is trying very hard not to resent all of them right now. He tries to carefully take another look as the morning light creeps in, without waking Ilya up but he rolls over with a grunt, still sleeping. Unbothered.
It’s 5:13.
He takes Anya out.
He makes a smoothie.
He goes for a quick run.
He showers hastily.
He books an appointment with Ilya’s dermatologist Dr.Emily Allen for 8 am.
He breathes a sigh of relief that she has any availability and that they have a day off.
At 6:45 he rouses Ilya.
“Baby, you have an appointment with Dr. Allen at 8,” Shane whispers, sitting flush with his husband’s hip, smoothing a hand over his chest.
Shane is fully dressed. He’s been fully dressed for half an hour.
Ilya groans and grabs his phone from the side table with his eyes still closed. He clicks on the lock screen, squints against the too bright light, then smacks his phone down on the bed. “Malysh, is not even 7 yet,” he grumbles, his hand finding Shane’s knee.
“I know but you should shower and eat something and we have to leave like twenty minutes before to get there ten minutes early—,”
“Is first appointment of day, Shenya, doors will not open till 8,” he complains dropping all his articles in his sleepy state.
Shane huffs and then…whines…like a toddler. “Ilyaaaaa, please,”
Ilya’s sleep filled eyes bounce over Shane’s concerned face, hands clutching his second cup of coffee. He closes them briefly and sighs. “Okay, malysh, I’m up, I’ll get up, bozhe moy,”
Pleased, Shane leans over and kisses his forehead and Ilya grabs the back of his neck, gentle but firm.
“But I need kiss…right now,”
Shane rolls his eyes foregoing his brushing teeth pre kiss on the mouth rule just this once for a hot and steamy, tender kiss that lasts longer than strictly necessary and for half a second makes him reconsider the early ass appointment.
No.
He yanks back.
“Okay, I’ll make you your yogurt bowl,” he’s up and out the door before Ilya can protest.
-
“Okay, yep, I’d like to have this biopsied,” she sets down the dermatoscope after inspecting the offending mole for several minutes.
Shane’s blood runs cold.
He doesn’t feel vindicated.
The word ‘melanoma’ pounds against his skull.
Ilya’s hand reaches out, summoning him beside the exam table from where we was previously sitting across the room. Shane just goes to him. “What uh…what kind? What can you tell? Are you going to do the biopsy now? Will he need surgery? Will he need chemo? Oh god—,”
“Shane! Dorogoy, you must breath,” Ilya cuts through the spiral expertly, shifting away from Dr. Allen’s touch to placate his hysterical husband, wrapping his arms tightly around him.
Dr. Allen smiles softly, scooting back so she can look at them both. “The spot concerns me and truthfully, I can’t give you definitive answers until we do a biopsy. I’ll do that today. I’m going to excise it today and send it to the lab where pathologists will see what’s what okay?” she looks between the two men as they both nod, wrapped around one another. “We’re going to get another room set up for the procedure, it should only take about fifteen minutes. You’ll have some stitches you’ll have to keep clean and dry for about 48 hours, but all of that will be in the aftercare instructions, alright?”
“Thank you, Dr. Allen,” Ilya offers something of a smile.
“Of course, Ilya, I’ll come get you when we’re set up. A nurse will come back with a gown, but you can leave your pants on, just no shirt,”
Dr. Allen leaves the room and Shane whips around to face him. “Fuck Ilya what if it’s really bad? How did I miss this? I thought we had a mutual understanding,” he’s crying so desperately and Ilya is confused about who this ‘mutual understanding’ is with but that’s not the pressing issue at the moment. “And oh my god, I’m a basket case right now and you’re going through something so scary and—,”
“Shane, malysh, is okay, really, this will be quick, I’m…I’m not so worried,” Ilya nods with a soft smile. It’s a half truth.
He really does believe that even if this is something, Shane hovers over his moles like a helicopter parent enough that it won’t be that bad.
That doesn’t mean he’s not scared but…it does mean he’s learned to trust someone with something like this.
So he can take care of his Shane’s big feelings.
“Do you want plan or distraction?” Ilya asks, facing his husband head on.
Shane considers the options with a miserable look on his face. “Plan first then we can deploy distraction if needed,”
Ilya smiles and presses a soft closed mouth kiss to his husband’s lips.
“Or just go right for distraction I guess,” Shane huffs a laugh.
“We could…here on the table…or in the bathroom,” Ilya drags him even closer.
“Fuck off,” he rolls his eyes with a little smile but the frown returns immediately. He needs to talk about it. He needs the plan.
“Okay, plan for today, I am going to get the mole excised and you are going to text Terry and Wiebe what’s going on because they should probably know since I will have to be a little careful, yes. Do not use scary words like melanoma, moy lyubov,” he points a finger at his ever catastrophizing man. Shane grumbles but nods. “Then you will text your parents and see if they are around this morning and if they are then we will go pick up Anya and go over to their house for the rest of the morning and lunch and we can even pick up some of the Russian pastries maybe?,” Shane nods. Good. “After that we will assess. If you cannot handle people then we will go home and continue your movie education, maybe take our girl for a long walk, hm?” another nod this time with a small smile. “If people are okay we will see if Troy and Harris, maybe Luca, maybe Wyatt, want to come over for dinner and video games, da?”
Shane’s eyes float over Ilya’s face with such warm open tenderness it almost kills him. “Da,” he whispers back, kissing down Ilya’s forehead to his nose then cheeks and chin and then lips.
And then the nurse walks in with the paper gown.
-
Anya charges inside as soon as the door is open to her grandparents’ home nosing through a sliver of open space.
“Oh, who’s the best girl?” they hear from he other room, Anya having found her favorite grandparent who always gives her food scraps despite Shane’s protests. Yuna. “Hey boys,” she smiles up from her crouched position where she’s scratching all over the furry baby.
“Ooh pastries,” David grins from the kitchen table, patting the spot near his plate signaling Ilya to bring the box to him. He obliges, resting them in the middle of the table and moving into the familiar kitchen to grab three more plates and a cup of coffee. “What do we have to thank for the impromptu visit? I figured you’d be spending the day together,” David peeks into the pink box.
Yuna floats to the table, assuming her place beside her husband and wrapping her hands around a mug, waiting for answers.
Ilya passes out the dishes. “Thank you, sweetheart,” Yuna smiles up at him instantly clocking the look passed between the two men. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” is what comes out of Ilya’s mouth as Shane says “Well…,”
David is midway through a vatrushka but carefully sets in on his plate as he realizes this isn’t just a last minute visit with the in laws.
Ilya’s head is tipped back in exasperation and Shane’s worrying at his lip looking at him. “Um…,”
“One of my moles might be trying to kill me,” Ilya eventually blurts with a shrug, plucking a pastry from the box.
“What he means,” Shane takes over pointedly. “Is that I found an irregular mole last night and we went to the dermatologist today and she said it concerned her so she excised it and sent it to pathology and now we have to wait a week,” he pauses for dramatic effect. “For the results,” he pulls at his lashes absently and without even looking, Ilya, mid bite, redirects Shane's hand, holding it tightly in his lap.
Ilya nods. “Yes, that,” around a mouthful of pastry.
“Oh,” Yuna is worried, but Ilya seems very unconcerned though she supposes he has a tendency to downplay things just like Shane has a tendency to blow things out of proportion. “That is scary, how are you feeling Ilya?”
Shane looks to him as if he’s wondering too.
Ilya shrugs, brushing his fingers on his napkin. “I think…,” he looks at Shane then at his in laws. “I trust that Shane has done a very good job taking care of me…and my moles,” a lopsided smile appears on his face causing a ripple effect around the table. “And whatever happens it will be fine,”
“You’re not scared at all?” Shane presses, scooting closer like there’s a gravitational pull.
He sighs and looks around around. “A little, yes,” he concedes. And something about it, the way he says it and doesn’t qualify it, softens the room a bit. Shane just nods and then takes a pastry, his other hand still wrapped in Ilya’s. David talks about his book club and Yuna talks about her garden and trying to grow some herbs indoors in the winter.
The morning rolls through and they make sandwiches for lunch and David pulls out his homemade pickles and forces everyone to rate them on a scale of generic brand to Grillos and give notes so he can improve.
Hugs are a little tighter and a little longer but no one says anything more about the biopsy.
They opt for movies the rest of the day not wanting to feel like they have to tell people something they don’t have answers for yet. They watch Juno and it makes both of them crack up and cry a little bit. There’s a long walk at some point and then they order Thai food because that’s Shane’s favorite carry out and they share a curry and pad thai and spring rolls and right now everything is okay.
-
Ilya and Shane keep it very professional when they’re at work. Ilya thinks maybe it’s a bit extreme. He’s been more regularly affectionate with Cliff Marleau in the locker room than he is with his own husband, but Shane likes the separation and the second they are in the car their hands are always intertwined or a hand is on a knee or at the back of a neck.
Usually.
Now, he’s watching from his side of the room with a deep crease between his brows. Or from the other side of the ice with a frown. Or from two seats down from Ilya looking like he’s about to have a panic attack.
And Ilya isn’t sure how to manage it because he knows Shane is fighting the urge to touch and worry over him.
It results in so much fretting when they get home.
Checking the wound.
Checking more moles.
Doing far too much research on melanoma for anyone other than an actual dermatologist.
On day five Shane reluctantly leaves the locker room with a long glance cast to his husband after Weibe asks him to his office to discuss some play and the entire room turns its attention to Ilya.
“Bro what is with the creepy stalker stare your husband keeps giving you?” Troy asks immediately.
Followed by Luca “It’s honestly really scary!” he chimes looking truly terrified.
“I haven’t asked because I thought it would stop after a day or two but clearly something is going on,” Bood adds.
Ilya pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Fine…I will tell you,” he points his finger around the room at all the med staring at him in varying states of undress. “But you cannot talk about this with Shane, yes?”
A few ‘yes cap’s and several nods and Ilya sighs once more, grumbling internally about how no one fucking noticed when he was ogling Shane every time they played together for seven years but now they can put two and two together.
“One of my moles had to be excised and is being biopsied and Shane is freaking out, that’s all,” he throws his hands up and turns back to his stall hoping to avoid any big emotions. He’s already dealing with one sensitive boy at home he can't be expected to manage everyone's emotions.
Unfortunately that’s not quite what happens.
The room stays eerily silent and he knows he has to turn back around and face his stupid, caring, soft, nice team.
So he does.
People are honest to god crying.
Bood claps his shoulder with glassy eyes. “It’s gonna be fine Roz,”
“Yes, I know!” he tries to wrench away.
“Is this why you haven’t been practicing full speed and you were no contact for those two days?” Luca sniffs.
“Um, yes, but it’s—,”
“Buddy, treatment for cancer has come so far, you’re gonna be fine, I’m gonna text Lisa right now,”
“Wyatt, seriously do not, I don’t even know—,”
Troy swipes a stray tear. “We’re all here for you and Sha—,”
Shane pushes back into the room, stopping dead in his tracks at the team slowly crowding around his husband. “What’s ha—,” he wheels around to Ilya. “You told them,” not a question.
Ilya’s voice pitches up and he manages to get himself out of Boyd’s grasp, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “They were asking why you were being…weird…so I told them and now they are all like this even though there is nothing to be upset about,”
“Hey! It’s scary!” Dykstra whines. “You’re like one of our dads at this point,”
Ilya turns back to his locker. “Bohze moy,” he turns his head around. “I am not talking about this anymore weirdos, we will tell you if there is anything to tell, okey?”
He gets ten times the amount of pats on the back and even a couple hugs, from Wyatt and Luca, on the team’s way out the door and then it’s just Ilya and Shane left, moving on autopilot. Suddenly Shane is wrapping his arms around Ilya’s middle from behind and resting his chin on his shoulder. “You okay?”
Ilya huffs a small laugh. “Yes, I am okay,” he turns, still encircled in Shane’s arms. “Are you okay?”
Shane’s mouth flattens and his eyes look off beside Ilya’s head. “I am…pretty stressed,” he sighs. “The meeting wasn’t about a play it was about if I could keep my head on for tomorrow’s game,”
“Oh?” Ilya’s eyebrows raise.
“Yeah, not in like a…Voyageurs way but like…genuinely checking in…like Weibe said he’s sure he would be a wreck,”
“You played the last two games,” he points out.
Shane levels him with a look. “I played like shit the last two games,”
Ilya tilts his head back and forth. “For you…your ‘playing like shit’ is still better than many people’s best day,”
“That’s not the—,”
“I know, moy lyubov, what did you say?”
“I said I’m more stressed than usual and until the results are back I don’t know if I’ll be able to perform my best and he said we’d cut down my time a bit, see how I’m doing tomorrow, but…it’s early enough that the results shouldn’t affect too much and we’ll get the information soon enough anyway, so…,” Shane shrugs.
He says it all so clinically and devoid of feeling.
But Ilya knows he’s gutted.
He was called ‘hockey robot’ for years because he was capable of performing the same way time and again and usually he can still do this.
Now though, as hockey has depreciated in value within the context of his life and other things have appreciated, sometimes it becomes affected. It makes Ilya’s heart hurt both in the way that he knows it means he cares so much about him and he knows Shane sometimes wishes he could be ‘hockey robot’ again.
“Two more days, malysh,” Ilya swipes his thumbs over Shane’s freckles and draws him in for a lush, soft kiss.
-
“Alright, let’s see,” Dr. Allen pulls out a couple folders and opens up something on her computer. “So, Ilya you have what appears to be Stage I melanoma,” Shane’s heart falls directly out of his chest and onto the floor and Ilya reaches over and grabs his hand, squeezing so fucking tightly to bring him back to reality. “Take a breath,” she encourages softly. “I know this sounds very scary, but stage I means it was caught very early which gives Ilya and excellent prognosis. It very likely means I’ll just have to do a wide local excision around the site we biopsied, just to be sure I got all of the melanoma cells,” Shane’s chest constricts at that word. “I want to also do a sentinel lymph node biopsy from the nearest lymph nodes to be absolutely certain it hasn’t spread, but it is truly just precautionary,”
Shane sucks in a breath that rattles through his chest. “Okay, okay when does he do that?”
He looks over to Ilya who is rubbing his back softly and still squeezing his hand tightly. Shane can offer some kind of comfort here. He can do this. He squeezes Ilya’s knee and he turns to Shane with a soft, concerned smile. “I am okay, dorogoy,”
“They weren’t supposed to do this,” he whispers almost desperately.
Ilya blinks at him a moment then seems to realize, his smile turning more amused. “My moles?” he clarifies.
“Yes!” Shane hisses seriously.
Ilya laughs brightly and Dr. Allen smiles a little to herself. He pulls Shane over to him and kisses the top of his hair. “Oh, I love you so much, malysh,”
“I love you too,” he grumbles full of fondness.
-
Ilya is kind of holding his arm away from himself since leaving it down puts pressure on the surgical site. Dr. Allen is running through the list of aftercare instructions with Yuna and Shane while David sits beside Ilya, a warm hand on his forearm, rubbing a thumb back and forth absently.
It was all easy enough. Outpatient. Local anesthesia. The three weeks of no strenuous activity is kind of a bitch, but Terry agrees with Dr. Allen so no ice time for Ilya. Biopsy results from the lymph nodes will come back in a week. Stitches out in 2-3 weeks. Then this tiny little cancer scare can be a blip in their rearview mirror.
Right?
Wrong.
Yearly checkups and that’s alongside, Shane’s now bi monthly mole checks and obsessive sunscreen application process. Not only that, but apparently the entire team has turned into dermatologists often poking him at random in the locker room, pointing out various moles for Shane to inspect, sometimes in the middle of the room. He's literally seen his husband researching that magnifying glass tool Dr. Allen uses.
He has learned that Shane has names for certain moles and he whispers to them sometimes, willing them to ‘stay good’ and ‘not fuck this up’.
“You are crazy person, moy lyubov,” Ilya responds, voice thick with love and affection.
Shane rolls his eyes and frowns. “They know they aren’t supposed to do that,” he huffs, pressing a kiss to Ilya’s forehead and walking away to get the sunscreen.