Ok but like. 100% Ilya has stress dreams where instead of finding his mother he finds Shane
The little kid brain of âI know this person I love is sad but they love me and other family members so surely they would never choose to leave me, oh shit wait they just chose to leave me and the other people they loveâ is always sticking there in the back of his brain. His rational conscious adult self may know how to reason that itâs not an active concern, but his sleeping self is always going to have that fear hovering and ready to take hold
Shane will be having a hard time for one reason or another, clearly upset or struggling, and Ilyaâs subconscious starts getting to work worrying until finally he has a nightmare one night
He is his child self walking to his motherâs room, part of him knowing how heâll find her but powerless to stop himself from opening the door. Except then heâs an adult and heâs opening the door to their bedroom where Shane is laying just like his mother had been, one hand hanging over the side of the bed, eyes closed, so very still. He gently takes Shaneâs other hand and squeezes it, softly telling him itâs time to wake up from his nap. Ilya is waiting, Anya is waiting, Hayden and his children are waiting, David and Yuna are waiting, their team is waiting. Shane just needs to wake up now
But Shane doesnât wake up. He just lays there so very still, eyes closed, skin cool to the touch. His chest isnât moving in that way Ilya loves to lay his head against, his eyelids arenât twitching with REM sleep, he isnât murmuring softly in his sleep. Itâs not right, Shane has so much life in him at all times and this is just so still, itâs not how Shane should be
Ilya tries to shake him, to tell him itâs time to wake up now, but Shane isnât moving. He starts panicking because no no no, this canât happen, not with Shane, not with his Shane. But his own mother was willing to leave her husband and children so really anyone can leave anyone at any time. Hell, Ilya has had his own dark moments of harming himself and leaving Shane behind so why canât Shane do the same?
He is shaking Shane harder now and heâs begging, he is pleading, with Shane, with God, with anyone or anything that will listen to please let this not be happening, not Shane, not this, not this one bright good brilliant thing in his life that is worth everything else put together. If Ilya did something wrong then he should be punished, heâll accept anything if it means Shane is ok, please just give him one last chance and heâll do better, heâll deserve his husband, just please donât leave, Shane, please please please-
And then he wakes up in their dark bedroom and his chest is heaving and he is terrified out of his mind as he feels desperately at the empty bed next to him until he feels warm skin and hears a soft, confused, sleepy Shane sound and immediately he breaks because oh thank god thank god Shane is here, heâs still here, Ilya hasnât lost the love of his life and the center of his world
Shane half awake starts to ask whatâs wrong but Ilya is covering him, wrapping around him like a koala and sobbing and he canât get the words out as to what is wrong quite yet because he knows what itâs like to beg for a horrible thing to just be a bad dream only to realize it is all too real, and this time he had the greatest fortune imaginable that it actually was a dream and the man he loves is alive and in his arms and holding him and rubbing his back and whispering soothing words into his ear. But he knows what itâs like for that horrible thing to be real and now heâs had a taste of what it would be like to lose Shane in that way and nothing in the world could ever be as terrible as that feeling
The nightmares donât happen often but they do happen, generally triggered by stress in Ilyaâs life or seeing something hurting Shane that he canât fix, that nagging fear pulling at him that once again someone he loves is hurting and the consequences are out of his control
Shane holds him and comforts him through every nightmare and asks Galina if there is anything more he can do, but she tells him he is already doing everything he can by loving his husband as much as he can and being there when the fear takes hold
And as awful as the feeling is every time it happens, as they grow older and see other married couples do the âLOL I hate my spouseâ jokes, Ilya is grateful that he is so hyper aware of how lucky he is to have his husband by his side and that every single day he is aware that he has found the greatest thing he could ever possibly have found and he will spend every day making sure his husband knows he is loved, making sure awake Ilya does everything for awake Shane that sleeping Ilya promises he will do if sleeping Shane will wake up just one more time
