you know what is real

"stop grinning"

"only if you do too."

progressand ref under the cut✨️✨️

so when they started officially dating, shane was preparing himself for what he's gonna do when ilya will catch a flu. it was challenging enough managing with his own... body fluids (HA!). and he genuinely didn't know how he's gonna react to ilya's mucus all around. but he was much more scared that a disease would turn ilya into a catastrophe.

he was very dedicated to be a good boyfriend and do whatever needs to be done, though.

what a shock he had, when he figured out, that when he's sick, ilya turns small, trying to hide in the darkest place and disappear. he is quiet, lying in the bed curled into a ball and shivering with fever. shane heart broke, when ilya started to apologize, almost crying, that he couldn't make him food and he's a shitty boyfriend.

never shane wanted to kill more, understanding that this is how probably ilya's family treated him every time he got sick since his mother died.

So when they’re lying in bed one day after a long evening practice, scrolling on their phones, Shane turns towards Ilya and asks, “what’s a ‘slavic stare’?”

“What?”

Shane turned his phone screen towards his husband. It’s a list of ‘Top 10 Athletes with Best Slavic Stare’.

“I am only number four?” Ilya frowned.

“What is it?” Shane pressed.

“Is this,” Ilya tossed his phone aside and rolled over on top of his husband. He had himself propped up on his hands, strong arms bracketing Shane’s head.

Shane looked confused at first. Ilya closed his eyes and set his features. When he opened his eyes, they were gazing up at Shane, chin tilted down. His jaw was set tight with a hard line at his brow. All playfulness had fled his features.

It was the same expression Shane had seen during important games. Games where Ilya wasn’t just trying to win, he was trying to destroy the other team.

“Ilya?” Shane breathed.

But Ilya just stared. It was intense, focused, like his world narrowed down to a single task.

It felt like… how Shane imagined a rabbit would feel caught in the eyes of a wolf.

“Ilya, stop it,” Shane wiggled, hands on Ilya’s chest to push him off. The fact he used about 10% of his strength to do this meant nothing.

Ilya grabbed both of his hands in one of his and pinned them above his head.

He said something in Russian that Shane only caught fragments of. His voice was deeper like it got when he spoke his native language. Shane got “you” “wanted” “good boy” and “me” but it was enough for him to vaguely catch onto the meaning.

“Ilya, I’m…,” Shane whined and unsuccessfully tried to yank his hands back. “I’m tired. I just wanted an…explanation.”

“But you are hands-on learner,” Ilya said in English but with a thick accent, not dropping the stare.

Shane squeezed his eyes close as Ilya dipped to capture his prey.

Mostly because he’s loud. If you’ve ever heard athletes get these massages, they hurt/feel amazing and it is common for athletes to moan/groan/gasp loudly throughout.

So when they’re living together, Ilya is white-nuckled in the kitchen gripping the counters as his husband is laying on his massage table sounding like he’s getting fucked six ways to Sunday.

He can’t even watch because Amanda is there and Ilya doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

He finally caves and heads to the shower when Shane gasps out, “yeah, right there, fuck.”

Shane goes back and forth between weird pointless jealously that people think Ilya is fucking Cliff and relief that this is like a weird added security around their real relationship.

link

But now, he gets so tired whenever Ilya is around. His eyelids start to droop and, even though he's spent days or weeks looking forward to reuniting with his boyfriend, all he wants to do is fall asleep in Ilya's arms.

He decides to go to the doctor for some labs, checking for conditions that would make him fatigued. Words like leukemia and lupus came up on his Google searches, so he braces for the worst.

"Everything is perfect, Shane," his doctor tells him over the phone a week later. "But, you know, if you're worried about it, you could talk to a psychiatrist."

He makes an appointment for the next day with the first psychiatrist he finds. He explains the issue again: extreme sleepiness, maybe even narcolepsy, if Web MD is right. After more prompting, he specifies that this happens specifically around his partner.

The psychiatrist smiles at him. "Do you know much about nervous system regulation?" she asks gently. When he shakes his head, she explains further. "There are some people or settings that cause our nervous systems to feel calmer, and, especially for people who spend a lot of their lives in a state of fight or flight, those soothing feelings can make us tired and sleepy. Maybe your body finally feels safe and able to rest."