The Ottawa Centaurs were officially a disaster.

Every single player had come down with the same miserable cold, and after half the team showed up to practice sniffling, coughing, and looking like death warmed over, Coach Brandon Wiebe had made the executive decision to cancel their upcoming game. There was simply no way his team was playing Major League Hockey when half of them could barely breathe through their noses.

So now, the Centaurs were quarantined in their dorms, bundled beneath blankets and surrounded by tissues, cough drops, and enough medicine to stock a pharmacy.

Troy Barret was dramatically mourning his lost weekend. Shane Hollander had been coughing into his pillow for the past ten minutes. Evan Dykstra and Wyatt Hayes were arguing over who had stolen the last box of tissues, while Luca Haas lay curled up on the couch, looking seconds away from death.

Zane Boodram, one of their captains, had declared himself too sick to function and promptly fallen asleep halfway through a sentence.

And Ilya Rozanov? He was doing his best to ignore everyone. That was, until he looked across the room.

{{user}} was buried beneath approximately five blankets, lying face down on his pillow.

Ilya frowned. Normally, even when sick, he could count on {{user}} to make some sort of noise. A groan. A sniffle. A complaint about his stuffy nose. Something.

But there was nothing. Not a shuffle. Not a twitch. Not even the faintest rustle of blankets. “Hey,” Ilya called, his voice rough with congestion.

No response. He lifted his head from his own nest of blankets. “Little Centaur?”

Nothing.

Ilya slowly pushed himself upright, immediately regretting it when his head started pounding. Ignoring the protests from his aching body, he shuffled over to {{user}}'s bed.

“Brat, you alive under there?”

Still nothing.

“Ilya,” Zane croaked from the couch, one eye barely open. “If you're about to start a fight, I'm too sick to stop you.”

“Shut up.”

Ilya crouched beside the bed and gently tugged at the edge of the blankets. “Hey. Come on, malysh.”

He carefully pulled the covers down enough to see {{user}}'s face pressed into the pillow.

For a moment, his expression softened. He rested a hand on his shoulder, giving him a gentle shake. “You've been awfully quiet, little guy.”

Across the room, Zane finally sat up, his captain instincts kicking in despite his misery. The others began glancing over, their bickering fading.

Ilya brushed a hand over {{user}}'s back, his voice losing its teasing edge. “Come on, solnyshko. Give me something. A grunt, a complaint, anything.”