Work Text:
Shane wakes up in the middle of the night, to the sensation of warmth pulling away from him.
He makes some kind of sound and tries to reach for it, but his hand meets only sleep-warm sheets and empty space. The room is pitch black, there is no sliver of light under the bathroom door, no blue glow from a phone screen.
“Ilya?” he whispers, feeling around for the little lamp on his bedside table. He hits his glasses first, his book, his phone, a water bottle, and then finally the lamp. Next, find the lightswitch.
“Go back to sleep”, comes an answer from the darkness. Ilya’s voice sounds strange, muffled and thick.
“Where’d you go? Are you okay?” Shane asks, still fumbling with the lamp. He’s in Ilya’s bed at his Boston apartment, and though he’s stayed over a few times in the last five months, the place still isn't fully familiar to him. Well, the high thread count sheets are, the scent of Ilya’s preferred laundry detergent is, and the scent of him, his shampoo, cologne, deodorant, his skin, a hint of cigarette smoke - all of it lingers in the sheets and surrounds Shane here, making him feel like he belongs. Doesn’t help with the lights, though.
“Yes, I’m here, go back to sleep”, Ilya repeats, and his voice sounds even more muffled and remote, even though Shane is pretty sure he hasn’t moved.
Shane curses and picks up his phone instead, using the screen’s glow to finally see the lamp and locate the switch, a tiny thing situated ridiculously on top of the whole thing in a hard-to-reach spot. He flips it, and when the lamp finally casts its golden glow into the room, Shane instantly forgets his annoyance.
Ilya is sitting on the floor, curled in on himself.
“Ilya”, Shane says and crawls to the edge of the bed to be closer. “What happened?”
He’s not far away, only a few feet from the bed, but he looks like a wreck. He has his back against the wall and his knees up to his chest. Arms over knees, face buried in his arms, fingers grasping at his hair. He's shaking, like he's cold - or like he's crying.
“Ilya”, Shane says again and gets up from the bed, dragging the comforter with him. The room is cold, it’s early December, and Ilya is only wearing boxer briefs.
“Is okay”, Ilya says quietly, not lifting his head. “Don’t come. Just sleep, I will be okay.”
The fuck you will, Shane thinks to himself as he goes over to his boyfriend and unceremoniously wraps the comforter around his shoulders. This is really starting to scare him, but he tries to not let it show.
“Hey”, he whispers as he kneels on the floor in front of Ilya. “Please look at me.”
Despite what anyone might say, at his core, Ilya is sweet. He looks up, not because he wants to, but because it’s what Shane asked for. Their eyes meet in the low light and Shane’s heart breaks at what he sees on Ilya’s face.
His eyes are red-rimmed and brimming with tears, and his pretty cupid’s bow lips are red and raw where he’s been biting at them too hard. His brow furrows as Shane watches him, his lower lip trembling.
“Hi”, Shane says softly. “First of all: I love you.”
That’s the wrong thing to say, or maybe the right one. The tears overflow and slip down Ilya’s cheeks, and his face crumples like a child’s. He makes a wordless noise and lunges forwards, clutching onto Shane’s shoulder, his back, hugging him so tight it almost hurts.
Shane holds him. Smooths his hands slowly up and down Ilya’s back under the comforter, pressing his face into Ilya’s shoulder.
“Second of all”, he whispers, trying to stay calm. “Tell me what happened. Why are you alone on the floor?”
Ilya sniffs and rubs his face into Shane’s t-shirt.
“Is stupid”, he mutters, sounding embarrassed.
“Tell me anyway.”
There’s a long pause before Ilya speaks.
“I had a dream about my mom, and my dad”, he admits at length. “Woke up sweaty and shaking and just... bad. I did not want you to see.”
Shane almost whimpers at that. It hurts, so fucking much, to know that Ilya’s first instinct is still to hide from him, to pull away and go sit on the cold floor, just to keep Shane from waking up.
“It’s okay”, he says as softly as he can. “You can always wake me. Please wake me, I was scared when you were gone.” It’s not easy to be honest, but not seeing Ilya’s face right now helps a bit.
“Wasn’t gone”, Ilya protests listlessly.
“Yeah, well, it felt like that”, Shane says, maybe too harshly. Ilya tries to pull away, but Shane clings on and rests his forehead on Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya is still trembling all over, though it’s lessened a little after Shane covered him in the comforter.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” He’s so out of his depth here. Despite the anxiety he carries around during his waking hours, he’s always been a mostly calm sleeper, and for him, nightmares are pretty rare. He doesn’t know any good coping mechanisms for them.
“No”, Ilya sighs into his shirt. “This is good. Thank you.”
They sit like that for a long, long time. Shane’s knees are starting to hurt and his back feels cold, and he can feel his shoulder gradually getting wet from Ilya’s silent tears. His hands are fisted in the back of Shane’s shirt and it makes the collar pull on his neck uncomfortably. Shane doesn’t care. He’d sit here for days if it helped Ilya even a little bit.
Eventually, Ilya pulls back and drops a kiss on Shane’s neck. Not a sexual ‘I want more’ kiss but a quiet, simple ‘we are here’ kiss. Shane is so, so grateful to have this.
“Can we do the thing we did at the cottage?” Shane asks after a long silence broken only by Ilya’s ragged breathing.
“What’s that?” Ilya asks, and Shane feels the words as warm puffs of air against his neck. “The thing on last morning there, when you rode me on couch and came so hard you got cum on my chin?”
Shane groans and pokes him in the side, smiling secretly when Ilya squirms to get away, ticklish.
“No. Or, maybe after, but I meant - the thing where we’re honest about what we’re feeling and thinking.”
Ilya groans and bonks his forehead against Shane’s shoulder. “I have to do this?”
“Well, there’s no ‘have to’”, Shane says, going back to petting Ilya’s back. “But I’m gonna. I’m thinking that it sucks I have an early flight back to Montreal tomorrow. I’m thinking I’m gonna have a really hard time of it, this time. And I wanna make sure we FaceTime every day until we get to be together again, okay?”
It’s a little under three weeks until their Christmas break. They’ll spend it together, one day with Shane’s parents and two at the cottage, just the two of them, but it never feels like enough.
Ilya doesn’t say anything, only holds onto Shane, so he keeps going. “I’m feeling - lonely, a lot. I miss you already, even though I’m not even gone yet. I feel like maybe there’s a distance I can’t cross.”
“Shane”, Ilya says in a small, broken voice. God, Shane wants to punch something. Wants to do something, anything to stop Ilya feeling so bad, but he has no idea what to do. He has all this love, filling his chest until he feels like his heart might burst open, and there’s still nothing he can do.
“My dream was - my mom, before everything happened”, Ilya whispers. “A real memory. I was maybe nine or ten years old, and I had gone to her at night because I was - I don’t even remember. Sad, or scared, something. Father was not there, so I could curl up with her and she would sing to me. She wasn’t any good at it, kind of - flat? And never remembered very many words. But I liked it so much.”
Shane just holds him and lets him speak, feeling his own tears leaking and slicking the warm skin of Ilya’s shoulder where it meets Shane’s cheek.
“We fell asleep like that, and then I wake up to father dragging her to the kitchen. Yelling at her there. She is raising me to be weak and sad like her.”
“God, Ilya”, Shane whispers. “You’re not -”
“I am, though”, Ilya interrupts, and Shane lets him speak.
“I am sad, I’m so sad sometimes, I don’t know - maybe it is in my blood, or maybe it was her, or maybe my father just. Ruined me and Alexei both, in two different ways. But I am so sad sometimes.”
Fuck. He sounds devastated, frightened, and Shane doesn’t know what to do. He cups Ilya’s face in his hands and pulls back a little so their eyes can meet, and the pain he sees in Ilya’s face almost breaks him.
“Sad like… your mom?” he forces himself to ask, even though it terrifies him.
Ilya shakes his head. Leans in to press a teary, salty kiss to Shane’s lips. “Sometimes, yes, I think, almost. But I don’t want to die. I promise I will not leave you.”
Shane lets out a sob and kisses Ilya deeper, desperately, trying to pour all his love into it.
“Please tell me if that ever changes”, he whispers, pressing their foreheads together. “I’m shit at this but I want to help. I love you so much.”
Ilya laughs, just a little bit, but it’s the most beautiful sound. “I know.”
They stay like that for another long moment, both sniffling.
“What can we fix?” Shane wonders out loud after the silence starts feeling too heavy. “The distance is our biggest problem, obviously, and the Ottawa plan will help, but it’s still an issue.”
“Will be better, next year”, Ilya agrees. “But two hour drive is still more than I like. And we can’t…”
“Be seen in each other’s neighbourhoods all the time, yeah”, Shane finishes the thought. “But you know what?”
“What?” Ilya asks, and steals another small kiss. Shane doesn’t mind at all.
“I’m gonna buy a house”, Shane decides, brushing Ilya’s cheeks with his thumbs, brushing away tears. “Something private, in Vankleek Hill or Hawkesbury or somewhere around there.”
“Could just say Timbuktu”, Ilya grins through his tears, “Would mean the same to me.”
Shane laughs and peppers him with little kisses, once, twice, three times. Presses their foreheads together. “They’re halfway between Ottawa and Montreal. So we can get to a safe, private place together as quickly as possible. I want to prioritize this. Us. I want every extra minute I can get with you.”
Ilya tears up again, and for a moment Shane fears he accidentally said something bad. Then Ilya buries his face in his neck again and says, “I love you so much. No one in history of humanity ever loved anyone as much. Is crazy.”
Shane grins like an idiot and hugs Ilya so tight he makes a little ‘oof’ sound. “Right back at you. It’s unnatural, how much I love you. They should do like a scientific study on us.”
“Study us like… bugs”, Ilya agrees, nonsensical and perfect.
Shane nods, laughing. “Microscopes and all.”
It takes a little more time, but he manages to draw Ilya back to bed. He pulls the covers over them both and gathers Ilya close to him, his head on Shane’s chest and all his limbs wrapped around Shane. He’s too hot now and Ilya’s holding on a little too tight, but Shane would never say a word about it. This is exactly where he wants to be.
“We’ll be okay”, he whispers into Ilya’s hair. “We have a good plan and we’re smart. We’ll make it.”
“You sound more like Yuna every day”, Ilya mutters, and Shane can hear the smile in his voice.
It won’t be easy. Neither of them knows how to communicate like normal people. They can’t tell each other things when they’re small and manageable; they both keep stupid secrets and hide their fears until they eventually flow over or blow up. They’re not mature adults with patience; they want it all now, and they get so excited and so emotional and so frustrated and so angry and so sad. But still - despite all of that, Shane still believes in this.
He has Ilya right where he wants him, safe in his arms. There’s a future where they get to be together. Ilya wants to get there with him, and eventually they will.
Shane listens to Ilya’s gradually slowing breathing, watching over him as he falls asleep, hoping he won’t dream anymore. Knowing that even if Ilya does, Shane will be here to wake him up.