Do y'all know that full-body drop that happens right when you get comfy and are on the verge of sleep?
Of course it’s happened to Shane and Ilya; who hasn’t experienced the phenomenon?
It's always been normal for Ilya to rest against Shane, his head against his broad chest, while familiar fingers work around his curls, soothing both of them simultaneously. Once in a blue moon, while watching Boston game tapes for the hundredth time, Ilya will begin to nod off and feel his heart suddenly drop to his ass, though too tired to make a joke about startling in his boyfriend's arms and just lulling back to a comfortable, hazy, sleepy headspace.
Shane would have let out a soft snort, lowered the TV volume to let Ilya get some much-needed rest, and forgotten about it in the morning.
It is only after a certain point that it starts to mean something to both of them, together.
It is now a few weeks into the new year of 2021.
They are now fiancées, cuddling in their respective positions, making everything feel so much warmer, so much headier.
Shane has a hardcover book propped up against his chest, looking sleepily over the frames of his glasses as the stats threaten to slip off the page and join him and his equally exhausted Ilya in sleep.
Things have been better between them, evening out as their breathing does too. Ever since the weeks after the emergency landing.
The one that grips Ilya in a split second with such fervor that he thrashes against Shane's lax body.
That minuscule, split-second feeling of free-falling in his own bed just returned with a vengeance he didn't know was possible. It isn't until his breath hitches that he realizes that he gripped his lover's forearm, his fingernails leaving fleshy dents in the tan skin, as if the body behind him was the very armrest he used as a lifeline.
In a clouded daze, he leaps to pat the bed around him frantically to find his phone-- to let Shane know how he feels-- to tell him he loves him--
But the cool metal of the ring on the hand grasping his shoulder firmly, turning him to face the man he didn't know he would ever have like this, snaps him out of his panic.
Instead, looking into his fiancée's eyes through the glasses he loves so dearly breaks a dam in him he didn't know he'd ever have to let loose.
Ilyas eyes burn in simultaneous embarrassment and relief, a confusing mix of too big emotions for such a small bodily nuance. But all he knows now is that the book is hastily tossed onto the duvet, and he is being cradled against a bare torso, and his tears are flowing easily in the divot of Shane's collarbone.
He is being rocked back and forth, but so slowly, so steady, unlike the ungodly turbulence he endured such a short lifetime ago.
He can faintly register coos and sweet nothings coming from right above his head, but the simple muttering of "you're safe, Ilya" finally gets him to sleep, where the panic hadn't let him before.
In the morning, he explained to Shane what he felt, though he tried playing it off as stupid, pushing for both of them to forget it.
But just like Ilya could never forget the rapid free-fall that high in the air, Shane could never forget the small yet heartbreaking twitch on their mattress that meant so, so much more.
It happens again, a repeat of that night, because of course it does: the body always remembers things we want so desperately to forget, even if it's reminding them in the comfort of their own bedroom. Reminding them of how important and monumental that day in January was, and how it gave them the chance to even be in the same bed with cool rings around their fingers and necks when it matters most.
And of course, Shane is there to hold him throughout every drop, his personal lifeline.
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