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“Hayden!” Shane rushed after him, clearly excited to see him.
“Not now.” His voice didn’t sound normal.
“Hay?” The small nickname left his tongue and Hayden had whipped around.
“What? What could you possibly want?” He was was startled by the gaunt appearance.
“Hayden?” He whispers, the figure coming towards him some. That’s not Hayden.
“What? You wanted my attention.” It’s eyes somehow darken.
“You’re not…”
“How do you know?” His teeth are sharper, skin has turned gray.
“Hayden?” He asks again. The monster looming over him, waiting for him to be easy pray. Good thing for it he falls on his ass trying to back up from it. He wants to scream out, to cry, to get help, but he’s silent. Backing away in an attempt to escape what is going to happen, when the monster unhinges it’s jaw in a scream Shane can help but scream with it.
He does scream, it’s quick and loud and he’s in the dark. Holy shit it’s dark and that thing is going to get him and why is it so dark? What the hell?
“Shane?” He hears a sleepy voice ask and he doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t even know what’s wrong with him. He wants his mom, he wants someone who can stop whatever the hell that way.
“Shane? It’s me.” The side lamp turns on he sniffles loudly, wiping his nose with his shirt. Ilya looks concerned, tiredness still in his eyes but concern painting his face.
“Ilya?” He whispers, scared it’s another monster figure wearing Ilya’s skin to hide its grotesque form.
“What is wrong?” Shane can’t think of words after Ilya asks him though, a quiet sob escaping his lips. “Hollander?” Shane rushes to collapse into him, properly sobbing now.
“Hayden… Hayden was that monster from the movie.” Shane bubbles out, hiding his face in Ilya’s neck.
“Oh, Shane, the nun can’t get you.” Ilya tries to calm him, rocking him side to side.
“Yes it can!” This was a very serious problem and Shane would like it if Ilya would take it seriously. He stayed hidden, finding his thumb in the process in an attempt to calm himself down as Ilya rocked back and forth.
“Hey, hey. No. Where’s your paci?” He asks softly and Shane doesn’t know? Why the hell would Shane know? He feels Ilya start to move and it stresses him out.
“No. No. No.” Shane shakes his head no as well, trying to get his point across.
“Why no?”
“Don’t leave me.” He nearly begs and he’s thankful when Ilya sighs, adjusting the pillow before leaning on it some.
“Can I get you a new one? Your thumb will bleed.” He says it gently and Shane doesn’t care as long as they don’t have to get up. “Okay,” he feels Ilya move and open the bedside table before hovering it in front of him, “here we go.” He says it softly.
Shane takes it quickly, a desperate hue to his motions as he continues to cry. He’s an adult, a basic nightmare shouldn’t be eating him like this, but part of him thinks it just feels good to cry. Actually cry. He lets tears fall around Ilya and his parents, but not a good full on cry. He usually does it home alone and this is a nicer experience. He gets to feel soft kisses to his head, hands on his spine, and the promises of love.
“Hey, do you want blankie?” He guesses Ilya is trying to soothe him, he does need to calm down.
“My blankie.” He specifies, any blanket could be a blankie, but his blankie, Shane’s blankie was different.
“Shane’s blankie.” Ilya says it softly, handing the object that slowly became a bigger part of his sleep routine than he’d care to admit. He rubs it on his damp face, trying to get any comfort from it. He doesn’t know why his movements are sloppy. Usually he does it with ease, but right now he’s failing. Ilya seems to notice this, reaching over for the tissues.
“No.” He tries to move his face away from him.
“You have snot.” Ilya isn’t asking, Shane knows that because he feels his nose wiped anyway. Multiple times much to his dismay before Ilya starts wiping by his eyes. They’ve probably used at least five tissues and Shane just slumps forward on him.
He can’t describe how he feels. That alone is probably a large part of his problem. He just knows it’s nice. It’s nice to be held. It’s nice to rub his blankie. It’s nice to suck his paci slowly. It just feels nice all things considered.
“Do you want water?” Ilya asks him when Shane stays quiet for a long time.
“No.” He doesn’t want to get up. He feels shaky and doesn’t trust himself to not only dump it on himself, but Ilya too.
“Want to talk about it?” Not really, he whines loudly hoping it gets his point across.
“That movie we watched.”
“The movie I said we should not watch?”
“Yeah, the monster was Hayden.”
“Pike is a monster, but he is not pure enough to be nun.” Shane laughs a little at his response.
“We should have just went to bed.” Shane decides, it’s what Ilya had suggested but the team had been talking about it and he wanted to see it.
“Hey, you’re okay.” He hadn’t realized years slowly started falling again.
“Am I?” He didn’t feel okay. He felt weird. He felt tired and weird and he didn’t know what else.
“Yes. You are okay. I have you.” Shane buried himself into his chest again. “Oh, мой ребенок.” Ilya coos at him.
“Why do you call me that?” Shane asks, looking up at him. Ilya grabs another tissue, attempting to clean his face under his pacifier.
“мой ребенок? My baby?”
“Yeah. You don’t all the time.” He didn’t, mainly at night or when they were curled up for too long like they were now.
“Because you are. My baby. My little baby.” He says it softly, kissing his head.
“I’m not little.” He feels little. He feels like he’s small, but he needs outside perspective.
“Sometimes you are.”
“When?” He doesn’t know when, he doesn’t totally get what he means. Hell, Shane doesn’t know what Shane means.
“When you are like this. When you want your paci or blankie or rocked. You’re my little baby. мой ребенок.” Ilya sounds fond, so fond.
“Oh.” He whispers back, rubbing his blankie a moment before doing it to Ilya’s nose a couple of times. He’s not sure how to say thank you any other way and he thinks Ilya will understand. He does when he laughs a little bit.
“Thank you for sharing.” He picks up a side and rubs it on Shane’s face too. “Always sweet.” He coos again at him and Shane can feel his face flush.
“Leave the light on?” He asks, feeling sleepiness slowly winning him over.
“We can leave the light on.” Ilya says, kissing his head a couple of times. After comfortable silence blankets the room Shane looks up at him and smiles slightly behind his paci. “You can be as little as you want.” He tells Shane and Shane hides his face to advert his gaze. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was positive it was said with love.