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It was the middle of the night. A slight breeze rustled the trees and bushes outside the window. All was quiet, even the crickets had stopped chirping by now. Anya was curled into a ball in her dog bed; her breath ruffling the hair on her soft, floppy ears.
Shane and Ilya were both deeply asleep, tucked into each other like usual. Shane’s head was tucked under Ilya’s, in the spot that fit him perfectly. Ilya’s mouth was slightly open, and he was snoring softly. His arm was draped across Shane’s shoulders, tucking him in snugly. Their legs were intertwined with each other’s, no telling where one stopped and the other started. A picture of perfect bliss. Ilya shifted slightly in his sleep, which prompted Shane to stretch out a little bit.
And that’s when it happened.
A sharp, painful sensation exploded into Shane’s left calf, tearing him from his peaceful slumber. The jarring pain had scared him awake, shouting in pain, sending him jumping up and accidentally slamming Ilya’s jaw shut with a klunk. He pushed off of Ilya’s chest in a desperate attempt to find the edge of the bed. He barely registered the “Oof” in his daze.
He scrambled out, hissing in pain, knocking everything off the nightstand in his half-asleep attempts to keep himself upright. It felt like claws were trying to tear his calf muscle straight out of his leg. A low groan sounded in his throat as he grabbed at his leg.
Anya’s head popped out from her bed, barking at the sudden noise, before she lay back down to watch.
“Kakogo khrena??” Ilya exclaimed, rubbing his jaw and trying to disentangle himself from the sheets. “Chto eto bylo? What is happening?” He had almost been knocked out of bed by the commotion.
Shane was hopping on his right foot, his left foot forced into a downward-pointing position by the excruciating cramp in his left calf muscle. “I have a Charley Horse,” he said through a clamped jaw, his hair pointing in every direction, eyes still half closed. He tried to press his left foot down and wobbled a bit, still half-asleep, and the cramp not letting up.
“…A what?” Ilya asked, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, standing up to help Shane. He walked over and let Shane put his arm around his shoulders to stabilize himself better than trying to use the nightstand.
“A Charley Horse. You know, those really painful cramps in your calf muscles?” Shane answered, more awake now. It had to be close to three or four in the morning. With Ilya supporting him, he was finally able to slowly ease onto his left foot and flatten it to the ground, getting the clutches of the cramp to release, finally. He let out a sigh of relief and turned to sit on the bed.
“Moya lyubov, how come you did not just say this?” Ilya said, putting one hand on Shane’s shoulder, the other one caressing his cheek.
Shane leaned into the touch, tired from being woken up in the middle of the night and from fighting off what felt like the worst Charley Horse he’s ever had.
“I have had plenty of these cramps and have never heard one called a horse before,” Ilya chuckled.
“Well, I don’t know why they’re called that, they just are!” Shane answered, but there was no bite in his voice. He was smiling up at Ilya.
“Hold on, I‘ll go get you something,” Ilya said before departing their bedroom.
He was back within a couple of minutes with a few items: a heating pad, some ibuprofen, and a mostly empty pickle jar, save for one small piece of a pickle floating around at the bottom. Ilya knelt next to the nightstand and plugged in the heating pad in the outlet with Shane’s phone, which he picked up off the floor, along with his glasses and a few other odds and ends that had been knocked to the ground.
“Drink this, solnyshko,” Ilya said handing the pinkle jar to Shane.
Shane eyed the jar warily, watching the small piece of pickle spin in circles around the jar. “Uh, no thanks.” The piece of pickle finally settled at the bottom.
“You like pickles,” Ilya stated, still holding the heating pad as it warmed up.
“Yeah, but I don’t drink the juice out of the jar.” Shane swirled the pickled juice in the jar, stalling, watching the pickle take flight again, joined by a couple of seeds he hadn’t noticed before. He could feel his heartbeat in his calf muscle. He really didn’t want to drink the sour pickle juice.
“It would be a good time to start, I think,” Ilya smiled. “It has lots of electrolytes in it, will help with the cramping in your leg.”
“What did you do with the pickles that were in here?” Shane asked, still stalling. He flexed and pointed his foot as he sat on the bed, and the cramp threatened to come back. He grimaced at this, Ilya watching him the whole time, one eyebrow raised.
“They’re in a baggie in the fridge waiting for their home to return to them. I could not get that one out,” he said, casually pointing to the little one dancing around at the bottom of the jar. “Now drink it. You don’t have to drink all of it, just two or three ounces.”
Shane visibly sagged in relief at not having to chug the whole jar of pickle juice and mentally prepared himself. He took a couple of healthy gulps to make sure he got enough and shuddered, the vinegar flavor and strong sour taste of the pickle juice making his face twist up momentarily. “Eugh,” he groaned, and as he handed the jar back to Ilya, he could see Ilya was trying to hold back a smile.
“Not too bad, huh?” Ilya asked, the smile finally breaking away from him. He set the jar on the nightstand and had Shane lie back down to go to sleep.
“Oh, yeah, that was exactly what I wanted to drink at 3:30 in the morning,” Shane joked, biting back a yawn as he lay back. “Refreshing.” He could already feel the tension in his calf starting to recede more than if he had just gone back to bed.
“Do you need the ibuprofen?” Ilya asked. He had set them on the nightstand when he plugged in the heating pad.
Shane considered how the pain was already going away, and how he just wanted to crawl back into bed. “No, I think you worked some kind of magic on me with the pickle juice,” he said, finally giving in to the yawn.
“Here, lie on your side and lift your leg little bit for me,” Ilya directed, yawning too.
Shane did as he was told, and Ilya wrapped the warm heating pad around Shane’s left calf and set the time for one hour. It felt so good and was honestly something he had never thought of doing. His eyes drifted shut as Ilya fixed the disheveled covers from earlier and brought them up to Shane’s shoulders.
Ilya disappeared from the room for a moment after that, presumably returning the pickles to their jar. As he came back to bed and slipped into bed behind Shane, wrapping his arm around his chest, Shane sleepily asked him, “Where did you learn all of that?”
“I have had plenty of these horse cramps before,” he mumbled into Shane’s hair, already falling back to sleep. “I have picked up a think or two.”
“Wow…” Shane slurred, sleep pulling him under. “I usually just go back to sleep.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning, they were relaxing on the couch together. Ilya was scrolling on his phone, Shane reading a book with his legs in Ilya’s lap.
“How are you feeling this morning, solnyshko?” Ilya asked.
“Still sore.” He put his book down. “I could feel my left calf muscle jiggling on every step coming down the stairs. I hate that. And I feel like I can still taste the pickle juice,” Shane joked. “But it could be worse. I would probably be a lot more sore if you hadn’t made me drink it or wrapped my leg in the heating pad.” He smiled and nudged Ilya’s arm with his foot.
Ilya picked up Shane’s left leg and began massaging his calf. It hurt but in a way that also felt so good. Shane didn’t want him to stop. “I read something just now,” Ilya stated.
“What’s that?”
“Why it’s called a ‘Charley Horse’ for this cramp,” Ilya said, working the remaining knots out of the muscle. “In the 1880’s, baseball players used horses to tend to their infields and one of them was named Charley, and he had a bad limp. When baseball players get hurt and limp around, they would get compared to this horse!” Ilya smiled like this information delighted him.
Shane considered this information, smiled, and nodded in agreement.