Shane has always been a big napper. When he was young, school really tired him out. So many different people around him for such an extended period of time, expectations of certain behaviour, having to socialise, having to pay attention, having to answer questions, the constant hum of fluorescent lights overhead. He came home exhausted and in need of a nap more often than not. There were also the panics. Sometimes they were big, sometimes they were small, but they usually left him feeling wrung out and he didn't really function well until he'd had a nap after one. Becoming a professional hockey player hasn't changed this, if anything it's made it a useful skill. A little post-practice nap is sometimes just the thing he needs and a pre-game nap can make all the difference to his play. With the constant travelling and endless timezone changes, napping becomes a necessity.
Ilya, however, never quite got the hang of it. He knows a lot of his teammates nap whenever and wherever, falling asleep before games in hotel rooms or resting up on the road, snores filling the team bus or plane, but Ilya can't quite get there. It's probably a remnant from childhood, from not feeling safe enough to let his guard down like that. He can't even imagine what the reaction would have been if his father had come home to find him asleep on the couch. He was certainly quick enough to accuse him of laziness without Ilya handing over additional ammunition for free.
But Ilya loves holding Shane when he naps. He loves how quickly his body grows lax, loves the gradual shift in the depth of his breaths, loves the warmth of his body pressed against him, loves his sleepy little sounds and scrunched little face when he wakes up, loves that Shane trusts him enough to be that vulnerable around him. Shane doesn't really know that Ilya doesn't nap, not with how often Ilya's the one to suggest one, not with the way Ilya makes sure to feign coming out of sleep as soon as he feels Shane shift in his arms in that particular way that suggests he's waking up. He doesn't want to risk Shane feeling like Ilya's doing him a favour with holding him through his naps, doesn't know whether he can admit how much he loves their naps even though they never include Ilya falling asleep. He likes the way things are. He doesn't want to risk it changing.
Eventually it does change though. Not because Shane discovers Ilya's secret of never actually falling asleep but because, a few years into their marriage, Ilya start... actually falling asleep. He never plans to. He loves getting to spend that time resting with Shane while staying alert enough to catalogue his every sleep-muddled sigh, his every shift. He just feels so warm, so full of love, so incredibly safe that one day he just... drifts off. After that it keeps happening. He has Shane in his arms, he's enjoying his breathing, he's loving this moment, he doesn't want to lose consciousness, he wants to stay in it, but his eyelids are drooping. He lets them shut, just for a minute, but then he wakes up to Shane's smiling face, his eyes soft and sleep-warm, his hands gentle as they cradle Ilya's face and run through his curls, and he can't be mad at himself for having missed out on those precious moments if this is what he gets to wake up to. Time is no longer a limited resource. Safety is no longer conditional on remaining alert. He has the rest of his life to enjoy this, to let himself be lulled to sleep by Shane's breathing and waking up to his soft touches. He can let his eyes drift shut and trust that Shane will still be there when he wakes.
