Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Shane feels like a fucking idiot. 

He types out we didn’t even kiss, and then he deletes it, because the lightning bolt of mortification that shoots through him at the thought of Rozanov reading something so desperate makes him want to die. He rests his head against the side of the elevator, and he tells himself that he has to stop this. Has to stop falling for this. Has to stop feeling like this. It was bad enough that he let Rozanov touch him in the first place, but what possible excuse can he make for tonight? All those months of silence, the way Rozanov acted in Sochi, and Shane just fucking folds? What is he doing? What is this? Why does he feel so awful? Why does he hope he sees Rozanov again soon? There has to be something seriously wrong with him. 

He gets back to his room, sheds his suit as he moves to the bed, and he curls up in a ball, wrapped up in the duvet. He feels like he might be on the verge of panic, but he never quite falls into it, almost like he's waiting for a final push. 

He feels hazy, unfocused, sad. He feels like he must have fucked something up, though he’s not sure what. It’s just this deepening feeling of shame and horror: you’re disgusting. You’re pathetic. You’re so obvious. No wonder he wants nothing to do with you. Everyone’s going to find out eventually that you’re broken and wrong and—

He has to get out of bed and put on a hoodie, because he’s freezing cold for some reason. He trips on the sheet that trails out after him, almost falls. He’s unsteady, like he drank way more than he did. Hoodie secured, he buries himself in the too-big, too-empty hotel bed, and he wishes that Rozanov was with him, and he knows that Rozanov never will be, because that’s not what they do. Rozanov made that especially clear tonight when Shane was leaving, as if Shane hadn’t already known, almost like he was making a point of it. This is all we are. Stop wanting more. I will never give it to you, because I don't want to. This is all you’re going to get. You would have to be an idiot to think there could be more.

So what does it say about Shane, that Shane still wants him so badly? He’s sick. There has to be something wrong with him, to make him crave someone who doesn’t even like him.

Months of silence, and he could have just left Shane the fuck alone, but he hadn’t. He’d followed Shane into that bathroom, and he'd invited him up to his penthouse. Fucking demanded it, actually. And he was definitely into what they did in that penthouse. Shane isn't so lost in the fog of his own bewildered hurt that he can't see that. Maybe those months of no contact and that roughness in Sochi and his cold distance tonight was just Rozanov trying to make things clear. Shane knew he was too pleased and dreamy and unfocused after that last time, in Montreal. Rozanov probably thought Shane liked it too much. Saw the pathetic, grasping want at his core. Probably hated seeing it as much as Shane hates knowing that it exists.  

Maybe, tonight, Rozanov could tell that Shane was feeling…

Well, it doesn’t matter what Shane is feeling. Shane doesn’t even know what Shane is feeling. Shane only knows that everything is bad, and so he pulls the blankets up over his head, and he flips his phone face-down on the mattress next to him, and he wonders what would have happened if he’d been stupid enough to send that text. We didn't even kiss. Would Rozanov have come and found him? Would Rozanov have blocked his number? 

It’s a good thing he’s a coward; he’d rather not know. 

He has three weird dreams in a row that all feature some kind of buzzing sound. He’s being chased across the vast expanse of a frozen lake by a horde of bees, and then he’s in his brand new cottage and all of his smoke detectors are going off at once and he can’t figure out which one is causing the problem, and then he’s talking to his mom at a restaurant but her voice is just a low-pitched buzz and she doesn’t seem to hear him when he says he can’t understand her, and then he finally swims back to consciousness and realizes that his phone is vibrating on the bed next to him, and probably has been for a while. He blinks sleep out of his eyes and slaps his hand around on the mattress to find it. Out in the hallway, a door slams loudly, startling him, and he hears people talking in urgent voices as they move past his door, their footsteps surprisingly loud, like they’re running. 

He catches sight of the alarm clock on the bedside table. It’s three in the morning. 

Who the fuck is calling him at three in the morning? 

He flips his phone over, and he’s greeted with a call screen from “Lily”. He goes to answer it, but fumbles his phone a bit in his eagerness, and that’s when he decides that he really shouldn’t. He pulls his hand back, and he watches the phone until the screen goes dark again. 

As soon as it stops buzzing, he regrets not picking up. 

“Stop it,” he mutters to himself. 

The phone lights up again, this time a text. 

Lily

ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE

When the preview of Rozanov’s text comes on the screen, he can see that he has other notifications waiting for him. 

Like…a lot of notifications. 

He still feels oddly removed. He was never going to be at his best after being woken up at three in the morning, but it’s more than that. He still feels that cold and heavy-limbed and dread-filled combination of shit feelings that have been festering in him since he left Rozanov's room. Since he was getting ready to leave Rozanov’s room, honestly. Everything, all of it, had been so weird and so different from last time, and it has left him feeling adrift in himself. So he’s thinking that’s weird, that’s a lot of notifications, but he’s not freaking out yet. 

He picks up his phone slowly. He unlocks it slowly. He has seven voicemails, twenty-five missed calls, and so, so many texts. 

Rozanov was the last person to text, and he’s apparently texted twenty-two times. Under that is fifteen unread messages from his mother, and then six from Hayden, four from his coach, and then fifty-two from J.J.

“Jesus, J.J,” he mutters. 

As he’s about to click on Hayden’s messages as a kind of pathetic rebellion against himself, a way to prove to himself that he’s not completely gone on Rozanov, another message comes in from his mother. 

The preview stops his heart. 

Mom

okay I just got off the phone with Rozanov and…

Oh, fuck. 

Oh no, oh fuck. What did he do? 

Because clearly Shane did something. Clearly he, what, accidentally recorded and then posted everything that happened last night? Like the world’s most lethal butt dial? But it couldn’t have been an accidental butt-record, because he wasn’t even wearing pants for very long! Was his phone hacked? Was it the elevator cameras, maybe? Did someone post a video of him leaving Rozanov’s room? He imagines he probably looked pretty messed up. Like someone who had obviously just been fucked and then sort of rudely shown the door, right?  

Had he accidentally tweeted Rozanov that pathetic fucking “we didn’t even kiss” message instead of trying to text it and then deleting it? He’d been kind of out of it last night, but that out of it? He’s never been that out of it in his life. He’s not a fucking idiot. Everything in his entire life has been so carefully controlled and curated. He wouldn’t ever mistake the Twitter icon for the Messages icon. 

But what’s the alternative? Why else would his mom be on the phone with Rozanov? She was supposed to be here, originally. Both of his parents were, but with all the shit happening overseas, his dad got called in for an emergency meeting at work, and Shane had talked them both into staying home—probably because, despite the months of silence from Rozanov, he'd been pathetically hoping to be too busy after the awards to entertain them. His mom should be asleep, long asleep. How did she find out that something bad happened before he even did?

His phone lights up again: his mom is calling. 

He almost doesn’t answer, because he’s sliding quickly into panic attack territory and is terrified to find out what happened, but he has to. He can’t force himself to read any of the messages, certainly can’t let fucking Rozanov tell him what he’s done to ruin both of their careers. It’s going to be impossible to face his mom, but at least he knows that she’ll have a plan, and at least he’s pretty sure that she’ll still love him no matter how disappointed in him she might be.

“Mom?” he asks, his voice gritty with sleep and fear and whatever leftover self-hatred has been simmering in him since leaving Rozanov’s room last night. 

“Shane! There you are. Where are you?” 

She sounds so afraid that Shane almost wants to hang up. I did this to her. This is my fault. I must have really fucked up. It must be even worse than I thought. Was there a hidden camera in the suite? Did someone film the whole thing? Have I already been fired for being so fucking pathetic?

“I’m in my room?” 

“Room number, sweetie. What’s your room number?” 

Shane, confused, tells her. 

“Why?” he asks.

His mother’s voice fades out for a second, like she has taken the phone away from her ear. 

“Okay. Shane, baby, have you seen the news?” 

“No, I haven’t seen anything,” he whispers. His mouth is dry, and he wishes that he had something to drink, and he wishes that he was still asleep. His head is already pounding. “What did I do?” 

“What? You didn’t do anything, sweetheart. Did you just wake up?” 

“It’s three in the morning? So, uh, yeah.” 

“Okay. Well, this might be difficult to believe, but something very scary is happening.” 

“But it's not…” He’s so fucked up that he almost says it’s nothing to do with me and Rozanov, right? He stops himself in time, and he has to grip his pillow in his fist to resist the urge to punch himself in the head the way he used to when he was frustrated with himself when he was younger. Jesus, don’t fucking tell her without her asking. “It’s nothing to do with me?”

“No, sweetheart. You’re perfect. You haven’t done anything. I need you to get out of bed and start packing while I talk, okay? You don’t have a lot of time. Just please know that I'm telling the truth. This isn't a joke, or a prank. It’s going to sound very stupid, and I know you’re not going to want to believe me, but I need you to trust me.”

“Of course I…mom, what's going on?”

Someone slams on Shane’s door so hard and so suddenly that Shane startles hard enough to almost drop his phone. 

“What the fuck?” he hisses. 

“Hollander! Open the fucking door! We have to go now!” 

“I, mom, sorry, it’s…” 

“I know, it’s okay. I sent him your room number.” 

“What? Why?” 

“Hollander!” 

“Go let him in. Pack your bag. Ask him what’s going on. Sweetheart, I’ll call you right back. The Boston GM is calling me, and I want to confirm something with him. Ilya can explain everything to you, okay? Tell him I said thank you again.” 

“Ilya?” Shane mutters grumpily, but his mother has already hung up, and Shane finally pushes through the fog in his head enough to go get the door. 

Rozanov is wearing the shirt and dress pants he was wearing last night. His hair is all over the place. He looks rumpled, messy, and very good. His top three buttons are unbuttoned, and Shane’s eyes go there first, annoyingly, before he remembers to try and be normal and moves his eyes back up so he can take in how fucking angry Rozanov looks.

“What are you doing?” Shane asks. It occurs to him that maybe he should be angry with Rozanov. For right now, for last night, for ignoring his texts, for all of it. He tries to hold on to that feeling, but it slips through his mind like water. Still, he can at least pretend. “Why are you texting my fucking mom?” 

“Because you would not answer your fucking phone,” Rozanov shoots back in the same tone, seething, in that too-patient, clipped way he speaks when he’s angry and wants to make sure that his point gets across as clearly as possible. He pushes past Shane, into the room. He has his bag slung over his shoulder. 

“I didn’t do anything, right?” Shane asks. He’s not sure why; his mother already told him that whatever is happening has nothing to do with him. But he still feels sunk in dread, and it’s hard to climb out. Even though it makes no sense, even though he knows his mother would never do it, he can’t help but think maybe she was lying to me. Maybe she just didn’t know how to tell me. Maybe she’s so mad at me that she wanted me to find out from Rozanov because she knew it would be worse. 

Rozanov turns and looks at him, incredulous. 

“What?” 

“Did I tweet something? Or? Were there cameras? My mom said it wasn’t me, but…” 

“Are you okay?” Rozanov asks. His angry face has shifted very quickly to one of concern. That might be a little gratifying, except that he also looks confused, and maybe like he thinks Shane is stupid.  

“Yeah,” Shane lies slowly. “I think I’m okay.” 

“Okay. You just wake up?” 

“What? Uh, yeah. Why is everyone so surprised by that? It’s three in the morning.” 

“I know what time it is,” Rozanov says, but it’s more gentle this time. He grabs Shane briefly by the chin, but that’s more gentle than it seems like it’s going to be, too. He tilts Shane’s head back a little, looks into his eyes. Shane tries not to be disappointed that a kiss doesn’t follow. Fails. “You are just tired? You look like shit.” 

“Great, thank you,” Shane sighs. 

Rozanov laughs a little, and he moves away, and now Shane is trying to pretend he’s not disappointed that they're no longer touching. Rozanov throws his bag on the ground, and then he’s suddenly moving around Shane’s room, packing Shane’s bag for him. When he sees Shane still standing by the wall, he practically growls at him with impatience, and Shane remembers with sudden humiliating clarity the way he’d acted earlier, in his room. Like he couldn’t fucking wait for Shane to leave. 

“Pack up whatever you have in the bathroom. We are going.” 

“What are we, on the run?” 

Rozanov’s annoyance briefly shifts into amusement before he reaches for the remote on Shane’s bedside table. He turns on the TV. 

The news is on. 

“Oh,” Shane says, after a few seconds of digesting the terror on the screen. 

It’s probably disgusting that his first feeling is of relief. 

This really has nothing to do with him hooking up with a man. This really has nothing to do with him really fucking liking it when Ilya Rozanov tells him what to do, uses him, holds him down and fucks him. It has nothing to do with the fact that he apparently needs a cuddle and a kiss afterwards or he lies in his bed all night in a depressed, shivering lump. This has nothing to do with him at all. 

“Hollander! Bathroom!” Rozanov barks. This time, Shane listens. 

He’s starting to wake up now for real. He feels a little less like he’s trapped in his own head. He packs up his toiletries bag quickly, his hands shaking only a little. He brushes his teeth. He uses the bathroom. He can hear Rozanov talking to someone on the phone in the other room, in Russian. His tone is harsh, demanding. Shane almost doesn’t want to interrupt, almost doesn’t want to go back out until the call is over, but of course that’s stupid. This is his fucking room, and the world is ending.

When he emerges from the bathroom, Rozanov meets his eyes and gestures at the bed, wrapping up his phone conversation with a few more angry Russian words and then a whole string of even angrier ones once he hangs up and shoves the phone back into his pocket. He set out a pair of sweatpants and a shirt for Shane to wear, sitting neatly beside his already packed bag. Shane doesn’t remember packing sweatpants, only his dress pants and a pair of jeans and the pajama pants he’s still wearing. So the sweatpants must be Rozanov’s, and it’s so fucking weird and so fucking gross that the thought of wearing them gets him half hard, especially after what he just saw. 

He looks at the TV again as if to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating the first time. It’s still on, though Rozanov apparently muted it to make his phone call. The video they’re showing now is different from the one that was on before, but it’s similar. People running in the streets. Cars clogging the highways, trying to get out of what looks like LA. Fires spreading from building to building. Grainy, frantic, unsteady videos of people with bloody faces and weirdly stiff and jerky mannequin movements running, stumbling, mouths open, teeth snapping. Blood on their faces, blood spilling down the fronts of their shirts. There have been reports for a few days of an illness originating somewhere overseas, spreading so quickly that no one knows where it started. Shane had even wondered if they were going to postpone the MLH Awards about it, because it felt a little tasteless to still hold them when there were all these crazy stories and videos showing up, but of course they’d chosen to pretend that nothing was happening instead.

And now it’s here, and it’s clearly real, and Shane is realizing that those jokes he saw online about zombies weren’t jokes at all. 

“Oh my fucking god,” he breathes, and suddenly Rozanov is in front of him, taking his face in both hands. Shane slaps him away. “Stop it. What are you doing?” 

“Are you having another panic attack?” 

“Probably.” 

“You are breathing okay?” 

“Yeah? Kind of. I mean. There are zombies.” 

“Yes,” Rozanov says, still deceptively patient. “That is why we have to fucking go.” 

He taps Shane’s cheek a little bit with one hand. It’s not a slap, not really. It’s weak, and he has this fond look on his face like he’s amused despite himself, and Shane smiles a little, because he can’t help it. He feels a little more like himself, now, but he’s not exactly sure that’s a good thing. He sort of wishes he could be back in that confused, hazy mental place, even though it was cold and terrible there. 

He gets dressed, unselfconscious stripping down in front of Rozanov even though he still feels kind of stung. He half-watches the news as he hastens into his new clothes. The closed captioning is on, and he glances up in time to read that the anchors are talking about the Canadian border being closed. He freezes, one leg in the borrowed sweatpants. Rozanov glances to see what he’s looking at, and he snaps his fingers impatiently in Shane's face to break his focus. 

“Don’t worry about that now. Will not matter if we can’t get out of the fucking city. Let’s go.” 

“Okay, fuck,” Shane says, and he pulls his hoodie over his shirt because he’s still for some reason freezing cold, and then he follows Rozanov to the door.

Rozanov literally runs to the elevator, and for some reason that is how Shane starts to accept that it’s really serious. Rozanov always has this aura of like sexy mysteriousness when he’s not being a chaotic gremlin, and something about him running for an elevator and then slamming the button until the doors ding open is so deeply uncool that it makes Shane’s stomach clench. 

When they’re in the elevator, Rozanov jams at the ground floor button, too, until it finally starts moving. 

“Uh, okay. So. Where are we going?” Shane asks. Rozanov huffs out an impatient breath as he watches the floor number slowly tick down. 

“We have, I don’t know, twenty minutes now? Maybe a little longer. They have moved flights up to get as many people out as they can. There is one going to Boston, and management got me on it. Easy to ask for two seats.” He looks at Shane as if he thinks Shane is going to object. Shane is just staring at him. “Your mother was calling everyone she could. Managers and agents and players. Everyone. Most people are already gone. Lots of planes went out tonight, earlier. She knew I was here too, obviously. Got my agent's number somehow. I tell her I can get you on the plane with me. East Coast is safe for now. More cases out west, out here. It won't stay that way, probably, but…” 

“Okay. Okay, Jesus. Thank you.” 

“Well, I would not just leave you here, even if your mother did not call,” Rozanov says quietly. Shane isn’t sure he believes him, but he would feel like a dick for saying that, so he doesn’t. “But I was also asleep, so she saves us both. Moscow is already…” He trails off, won’t look at Shane, clearly thinks better of finishing his thought. “Overseas, I mean. It went bad very fast. Now that it’s here, there is not much time.” 

“Okay. The border?” 

“Yes. Border will be closed. No fights. I’m sorry. Maybe it will change later, but until then, at least…” He doesn’t finish that sentence either, and Shane really should know better by now than to assume what Rozanov is thinking, because he’s gotten it wrong at every single step. Still, his stupidly hopeful mind fills in the rest of that sentence with his own wishful: at least we will be together. 

He looks down at the ground, bites the inside of his cheek, tells himself to stop it. Stop deluding himself into thinking this is more than it is. It has always been like this between them, and it’s never going to be anything else, and Shane should know that by now. It’s frankly embarrassing that he keeps twisting things in his own mind until they look more like the things he knows better than to want. Why can’t he be satisfied with what he does have? Why can’t he just let it be enough?

“Thank you,” he says again. He’s not sure why it feels so awkward. Rozanov only shrugs. 

The ground floor of the hotel is less chaotic than Shane would have expected. It’s still chaotic—it’s Vegas—but only a normal amount. Maybe it’s not normally this packed at three in the morning, but it’s not like Shane would know. He’s usually well asleep by now. 

There are a few people still gambling, playing poker, sitting in front of the slot machines. Some of them are even in their pajamas, but others are dressed in evening wear. It breaks Shane’s brain a little bit, and he laughs. Rozanov looks at him like he wants to ask if Shane is okay again, but he doesn’t. He shifts his bag up on his shoulder further and starts through the maze of people, and he moves almost like he’s going to grab Shane’s hand, but he doesn’t do that either. Shane is glad he doesn’t, obviously. Obviously. 

They speedwalk away from the elevators, through the labyrinth of the casino floor towards the exit, dodging waitresses who are still working and people who are drunkenly careening their way from table to table. There’s this very sinking-ship forced gaiety to everyone that makes Shane feel guilty. Not everyone has the pull to get seats on a plane taking off in the middle of the night to take them across the country. These people are probably just dealing with their fear in the way that they can. 

Some of them cheer as Shane and Rozanov walk by, yelling their names, recognizing them. Shane feels only a muted terror at that. There are zombies coming. Does it still matter that he likes to be fucked by a man? When the end of the world is approaching, does it really still matter that the man he likes to be fucked by is his fucking hockey rival? It certainly shouldn't matter that they're being seen in public just walking together!

His phone buzzes in his hand: his mother is calling again. He answers, sticking even closer to Rozanov, not wanting to lose him in the crowd. 

“Shane? Are you boys on your way?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Shane answers. “I assume so. We’re in the lobby. Do we have a car?” 

“Yes,” Rozanov answers. 

“Okay, we have a car.” 

“I heard him, okay. Okay, good. Okay. Are you all right?” 

“I’m okay. Everything seems normal here so far.” 

“Will maybe not be normal outside. Airport may be…tricky,” Rozanov says. 

“What? What does that mean? Like there are zombies here?” Shane asks. Rozanov narrows his eyes at him like he’s trying to warn Shane to be quiet, even though there are multiple televisions at the various bars around the lobby all playing the same newsfeed they’d been watching upstairs.

“People are trying to leave. My agent said there will be, um. Military? Stopping people. Looking at ID, tickets. I forget the word.”

“Checkpoint,” Shane says, at the same time his mother offers it, in his ear. 

“Yes, checkpoint,” Rozanov repeats, quietly. “And maybe zombies too. Who knows?”

“Jesus, fuck.” 

“Shane, sweetheart, don’t listen to him. It’s going to be okay. All reports are that the situation is still contained in Vegas. Just a few local outbreaks at the hospital, and a minor one at the airport earlier tonight, but Rozanov is right. The military is there, and they’re still operating, so it can’t be that bad, okay? It’s all just rumors and speculation. Everything is going to be fine. And I just got a confirmation email from Boston’s manager: he’s sending a security detail with the car.” 

A security detail? That seems a little ridiculous. They’re fucking hockey players. It makes Shane feel even more guilty. 

“Okay,” he says weakly. 

“Listen to me, okay? Are you listening?” 

“Yeah, mom.” 

“I don’t know if you saw it, but currently they’ve suspended all international flights, and I think the situation at the border on the ground isn’t much better. I’m seeing reports of huge backups, and I haven’t found any concrete information either way if people are even being allowed in at all.” 

“Okay. So…” 

“So you just worry about getting to the airport. When you get to Boston, you call me, and I’ll have everything set up for you, okay? Your dad and I are on our way to the cottage now. We figure we’ll be safer there. Ottawa hasn’t had any cases yet, but you never know.” 

“Okay. That’s a good idea.” 

“By the time you land, I will have booked a room for you, and I will keep working on getting you back home in the meantime. I have a few more connections I can try.” 

“Okay, but like…” Shane reaches forward, tugs on Rozanov’s sleeve. Rozanov looks back at him, surprised. “Can I stay with you? In Boston? Until I can find a way back across the border?”  

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Rozanov says incredulously, and it’s weird how he can sound so annoyed while still being so gentle. If he just heard the words, Shane might think they were a rejection, but he's seeing the rolled eyes and the hint of a smile on Rozanov's face. Rozanov reaches out quickly, almost like he’s going to slap Shane’s cheek again—and, pathetically, Shane is sort of looking forward to it—but his touch is fleeting, shockingly soft. He brushes his thumb over Shane’s cheek in a way that would have sent Shane into a fear coma at any other time. Now, it warms him to his toes, and he even leans into it for a second. It’s only then that it occurs to him that he should have probably just let his mother book the hotel room and then gone to Rozanov’s place anyway, but in his defense, this has been a very confusing ten minutes. 

“Uh, yeah, so Rozanov says I can stay with him. Don’t worry about booking anything.” 

“Yeah, I can hear him. That’s not exactly what he said,” Yuna says, but he can tell that she’s smiling. 

“It’s what he meant. I unfortunately speak a little Rozanov.” 

Rozanov makes an amused, disbelieving sound at that, and then he keeps walking, and Shane follows, embarrassed about all of it, already second and third and fourth guessing himself. Had his mother somehow been able to feel that cheek-touch through the phone? Had she heard something in Rozanov’s voice? In Shane’s? He’s usually so much more worried about this stuff, and he is worried about it now, but it’s taking a back seat to his worries about the fucking zombie thing. Maybe that’s for good reason, but still. He has to get his shit together before they get to the airport. There will be cameras. There will be people watching them. He can’t fall apart no matter how fucking weird he still feels, like he’s a plant dying of thirst and Rozanov’s touch is the water he needs. 

Jesus. He needs more sleep. He needs to forget last night. He needs to find a fucking girlfriend.

“As long as you’re sure about that, I’ll work on the border thing instead. I’m glad you’re not alone, at least. I guess I’ll have to stop hating Rozanov so much.” 

“I guess so,” Shane agrees reluctantly. 

By the time they get outside, Shane feels more like himself, and he feels even worse about that than usual. There are horns honking constantly out on the Strip, and they make him jump every time. People are yelling and laughing and screaming, and cars are swerving around each other. None of it sounds like fear, yet, but just like the lobby, it feels like it. Like pre-fear. Fear that’s pretending not to be. 

His head is pounding, and getting worse, but he prefers that to the weird lassitude that has been in him this morning. He can feel his fingers, his arms, his legs. He can feel his heart slamming rabbit-fast against the inside wall of his chest. He can feel nervous saliva flooding his mouth. It’s still better than that floating emptiness, even if it feels worse. 

Rozanov takes another angry Russian phone call while they walk. He doesn’t look back to make sure that Shane is still following him, but he doesn’t have to, because Shane makes sure not to stray. He keeps thinking about how the border is closed and how he’s going to be flying to Boston instead of going home, and how there are zombies here just like there were zombies in those videos on the news, and how he could die now, or in twenty minutes, or in two days. He’s thinking about how he might never play hockey again. He’s thinking about how he might never see his parents again, or Hayden and Jackie and the twins. He’ll probably never see Canada again. He’ll never go home again. It’s impossible to imagine, but he’s sure plenty of people out in LA and overseas thought it was impossible to imagine, too, and they’re still fucking dead, and Shane isn’t special. 

He’s afraid. He might be too shocked to be really afraid, but the fear is definitely still there. He keeps chewing on the strings of his sweatshirt, even though he tries not to do that in public, because he knows it’s kind of gross. 

Rozanov finally turns and checks on him, and he gives Shane an assessing once-over like he can see all the panic swirling in Shane’s head, but he doesn’t do anything about it, and Shane tells himself that he doesn’t mind, and that he wouldn't want Rozanov to do anything about it anyway. 

Finally, they find their car in the pickup area. There aren’t that many people getting cars, which is surprising. The people who are getting into cars look about as rattled as Shane feels, but the people walking by on the sidewalk are still laughing and seemingly carefree. Shane wants to grab them by the shoulders and demand that they take this shit seriously, but he doesn’t. There are two men in suits waiting for them at the giant black SUV. One of them gets into the driver’s seat after a nod of acknowledgement, and the other pulls open the back door for them before he gets into the passenger seat. Both men have guns on their hips. Shane looks at Rozanov incredulously, but Rozanov just gestures for him to go first, and Shane slides in with an annoyed huff. Rozanov finally hangs up the phone. 

“I mean, what the fuck is this?” Shane whispers viciously. “We’re fucking hockey players.” 

“Yes, and we play for rich men with too much money and not enough brains,” Rozanov says. To the driver he says, “hello. Are we good?” 

“Ready when you are, sir,” the driver answers, and then they’re off, merging easily into the slow-moving traffic on The Strip. 

“So they sent fucking bodyguards for you?” Shane asks. Rozanov finally leans back against his seat, his arm stretched across the back of it, his fingers trailing very lightly over Shane’s shoulder in a way that you could read as incidental if you were someone other than Shane.

Shane doesn’t twitch his shoulder out of the way of Rozanov’s fingers, even though he knows he probably should. The warmth of them makes the cold fear recede, just a little. 

“They think they will need us,” Rozanov says. At Shane’s confused look, he laughs. “For hockey. They think this will all be okay. So yes, they pay for security team. They pay for emergency flight.” He rolls down his window and pulls out a cigarette, and he looks over at Shane, considering. Shane sighs and looks away and rolls down his own window, which makes Rozanov laugh again. It’s only when he’s lighting the cigarette that Shane notices his hands are shaking. Shane squishes his own hands between his knees to stop himself from reaching out. “They think it’s worth their money to have me home before the planes stop.” 

“I mean, but they’re not…wrong,” Shane says. He knows that Rozanov thinks he’s a naive idiot about some things. He knows that sometimes he sounds too eager, too earnest. He can always tell when he’s doing it, because Rozanov looks at him in this particular way. Like he’s being amusing. Like he’s being cute. Shane doesn’t always hate it, because there’s something seriously wrong with him, but he does hates it when they’re not naked. “I mean, they will need us for hockey, eventually, right?” 

Now he sounds like he’s begging. Rozanov just stares at him, takes a drag, and turns away to blow the smoke out his window. 

The professional bodyguards in their giant SUV can only do so much when the traffic is gridlocked the way it is as they get closer to the airport. The airport is not very far from their hotel, so it feels like they could have walked faster than this, and he can see that plenty of people are doing just that, but he’s afraid to leave the safety of this giant truck with its tinted windows, and so he doesn’t suggest they abandon it. He takes two more calls from his mother and finally gets around to answering his texts. His coach apparently tried to get him a seat on a flight three hours ago, but Shane hadn’t been awake to see the messages, and he feels guilty about that even though he’s the one who’s dealing with the consequences. He relays the information that he’ll be catching a flight to Boston, though he’s not sure how true that is anymore. Didn’t Rozanov say that they only had twenty minutes? It feels like it’s been longer than that already. 

Rozanov is nervous too, though he’s trying not to show it. He keeps chatting with the driver and the other bodyguard, asking them questions about living in Vegas, about the most famous people they've driven anywhere. Neither man seems to have any idea who they're escorting, which is kind of a relief. The driver keeps talking about different videos of the zombies he’s seen, but he seems to think it’s all some big hoax that just has everyone in the city acting crazy, because he hasn’t seen a real zombie yet. He keeps calling it a viral marketing stunt, over and over again, and it’s making Shane feel insane. Rozanov hums, pretends to agree, looks at Shane out of the corner of his eye with one eyebrow slightly cocked and a smile that’s too restrained to be openly cheeky, but only barely. 

Shane answers Hayden’s concerned texts, and he tells him that Rozanov is taking him to Boston, in part because he thinks Hayden will have something funny to say, but Hayden is probably asleep, and doesn’t text him back immediately. 

J.J.’s (many) texts had all been hysterical zombie-related twitter links or exclamations of “what the fuck!”, so Shane doesn’t feel the need to respond to them. He does click on all of the links, and he does watch all of the videos, and he does start to work himself up to a panic attack. He’s not even sure why he keeps clicking on them, except that there’s nothing else to do, and he feels this weird responsibility to be informed about it. 

Rozanov reaches over and puts his hand on Shane’s knee, and he keeps talking to the driver, and his thumb brushes back and forth over the inside of Shane’s leg, and Shane stares down at it. He should move Rozanov’s hand away. He should open his door and roll into traffic. He should tell Rozanov to stop touching him. He doesn’t. 

There’s a military checkpoint at the start of the long road that leads to the airport. People are being turned away, cars easing back out into traffic, people yelling out the windows, flipping off the exhausted-looking soldiers who ignore them, and at first Shane thinks they’re fucked, but he sees a few cars being allowed to pass, and he starts breathing again. Rozanov is clinging to his kneecap now, fingers folded over it, and it feels weird and ticklish in a way Shane would probably hate normally, but he doesn’t hate it now. He shifts his leg closer, instead. 

They pull up to one of the four lanes, and Shane is trying to listen to what the driver is telling the soldier manning it, but he literally can’t understand what anyone is saying. It’s something that happens to him sometimes when he’s really stressed. It’s like the meaning of the words can’t make it past the noise in his head. He’s breathing okay, he thinks, if in a highly regimented way that means he’s seconds from losing his shit. Rozanov’s hand moves a little further up his leg. Shane still doesn’t move it. 

In the lane next to them is another car. It pulls up quickly, then slams on the brakes, and the car jolts to a halt. The passenger door opens, and a man gets out, and he’s shouting something at one of the soldiers who steps forward to check the car. The soldier pulls out a gun so fast that Shane swears and flails back from the window a little bit. Rozanov grabs him by the back of the neck like he’s planning to shove him down, but the soldier doesn’t open fire. The man is yelling something, pointing behind them, and then suddenly he’s running, pushing past the soldier, bursting through the checkpoint. The woman in the driver’s seat tries to do the same, but one of the soldiers grabs her and throws her to the ground. Two more soldiers are running up, guns out, focused on something further down the road. Shane turns around to look out the back window, and that’s when he sees his first zombie. 

She’s wearing a short pink dress, pale pink, pale enough that the blood really stands out, dark down the entire front of her. It looks like it was a very pretty dress, once. Shane can see where she was bitten, right on her left shoulder. 

Bitten. Just like a fucking zombie movie. 

The bite is round, bloody, crusted over with infection. He can see the way purple lines spiral out from it, up to her neck. How long did it take to turn her into a zombie? Is she still a person under there? Is she afraid? Is she in pain? Is she looking for help? There were no zombies when they left The Strip. Where did she come from? 

“Holy shit,” he whispers. Rozanov turns and looks too, and his hand slides even further up Shane’s thigh in a way that would make Shane immediately hard, normally. Is he for fucking real? 

The woman keeps coming closer. She’s only like four cars back, and she’s quickly closing the distance. There are ways in which she doesn’t look like a zombie in a movie. She isn’t doing that shambling, awkward walk that they always do. She isn’t walking with her hands outstretched. She’s a little slow and unsteady, almost like she’s drunk. She isn’t moaning, at least not that Shane can hear, and her mouth and her eyes don’t look all that fucked up, other than the fact that she’s bleeding from them. 

Well, okay, so that is fucked up. 

But they’re not milky white, and her mouth isn’t purple or black, and maybe Shane should accept that she is going to look different, because she isn’t a zombie in a movie. She’s a zombie in real life. There are going to be rules. There are going to be ways to identify them. There are going to be timelines of infection and there are going to be rates of infection and there are going to be, like, ways to fight them. He just doesn’t know what they are, yet, and he really doesn’t want to find out like this. 

The woman staggers and falls, trips on something, and that’s when Shane sees that there are more of them behind her, a little ways back, and that’s when he notices that the ones further away are moving a lot faster than she is. 

“Rozanov,” he breathes. 

“Okay. Okay,” Rozanov says, almost impatiently, like he's warning Shane not to panic, worried it will trigger his own. “Get out. Everyone get out!” The driver and bodyguard both scramble out of the SUV, taking off down the street, away from the checkpoint and the zombies. They don’t look back once. Shane can’t be too upset about it. He’d probably do the same thing in their position. He fumbles with his seatbelt, grabs his bag. The soldiers are still gathering on his side of the SUV, so he slides toward Rozanov, who steadies him with a hand on his shoulder and dips his head a little so that he can ensure that Shane meets his eyes. “We run, yes? Okay? Can you run?” 

“Fuck you! Can you run?” 

“Let’s see who gets there first,” Rozanov says, trying for cheeky but falling immensely short of it, instead sounding intense and challenging. He tugs Shane’s arm, pulling him out his side of the car. 

The soldiers open fire, and Shane is so startled by how fucking loud it is that he almost falls flat on his face, his foot hooking briefly in Rozanov’s seatbelt, but he manages to catch himself on the door, and he staggers to his feet. Rozanov is already running, and he isn’t the only one. Car doors are opening everywhere, people lurching out of them, screaming. Rozanov looks back at him, annoyed. 

Fuck. Okay. 

Shane runs. 

The soldiers yell at them to stop, but they don’t open fire, even though Shane is sure that they will. Maybe they realize it’s a lost cause. Every car door is opening, every person in every car is running. The soldiers probably could shoot all of them, but they apparently won't, and so Shane should be using that hesitation to his advantage and getting the fuck out as fast as he possibly can.

The problem is that there are so many people running, and Shane is trying not to get in anyone’s way, trying not to shove his way through. Not that anyone else is giving him the same courtesy. Some man basically bodychecks him into the side of a car, and it feels like hockey, and Shane wishes he had his skates. Wishes he was enough of an asshole to shove back. Rozanov is still running up ahead, and of course he’s pushing through people. 

Fuck it. Fuck it, okay. He has to catch up. 

He ducks into the next lane of traffic, and he keeps low, and he runs as fast as he can, and he dodges people when he can but he shoves through them when he can’t, and he keeps going. He feels sick, and he feels terrified, and he wishes that he didn’t have to, and he wishes that they’d gotten here a little faster so they could have just driven through the checkpoint like normal people, and…

Behind him, gunshots ring out, but he doesn’t think they’re aiming towards him, and he doesn’t think he could even turn around to check. He just has to keep going. Keep going. Don't look back. There's another sound rising with the shooting. This horrible, inhuman wailing. Are people being attacked and bitten? Or is that just what the zombies sound like? He wants to cover his ears, but he can't. He focuses on his feet. He finds Rozanov's head over the crowd, zeroes in on it. He has to catch up. He has to keep going. Rozanov will never let him hear the end of it if he falls behind. 

A guy in front of Shane trips and goes down hard, rolling onto his hands and knees, and Shane jumps over him, almost goes down too. Doesn't even think about stopping to help. Sure, it's the same guy who slammed him into the car earlier, but that doesn't mean he won't feel guilty about it for probably the rest of his life. 

Which won't be very long, probably, if he doesn’t hurry the fuck up.

He's gaining ground on Rozanov, because he’s faster than most of these people now that he’s not being so precious about it. He could pick Rozanov out of any crowd, he thinks. He can always see him, head bobbing ahead. That confused haziness from earlier is completely gone from him now, and all he can think about is wanting to catch up with Rozanov. Wanting to fucking beat him. 

There's another checkpoint ahead, just outside the doors to the airport. The soldiers are already moving forward, shouting to be heard over the panic. They’re saying things like form an orderly line and have your tickets ready, and Shane thinks they’ve lost their fucking minds. Don’t they realize why everyone’s running?  Shane reaches Rozanov at last, grabs onto the strap of his bag, and Rozanov looks at him, eyes tracking over him like they do sometimes after their more violent games. Like he’s looking for bruises. He doesn’t say anything, but he puts his hand on Shane’s shoulder as if to make sure that everyone knows they’re together. He has his phone out, and he has the ticket information open. One of the soldiers checks it, and then he waves Shane and Rozanov through. Shane feels weird, almost like wait, that’s it? You’re just going to let us in? He wonders how many of the people trying to escape the zombies have tickets on their phones. He wonders how many people are going to be politely let through before there’s a whole horde of people trying to get in. He wonders if it makes him a horrible selfish dickhead to be thinking that he and Rozanov have to move faster now because they have to get on the plane before the plane sees the panicked crowd of people coming and takes off without them.  

They go through a set of doors, and then up some stairs, and then they’re moving across a giant open tiled floor. There’s a splash of blood on the tiles at the top of the stairs, with some caution tape around it, but other than that, the airport seems oddly normal. More security than usual, maybe. There are soldiers here, too. But there are bored-looking TSA agents standing at the check-in points, and there are people waving him and Rozanov forward, and he clings to those things as normal, as signs that things are still working sort of like they’re supposed to, because he has to. It feels like he's trying to outrun a tsunami. He knows the wave is growing behind him, the water swelling. He knows it will catch up soon, but all he can do is keep his eyes in front of him and try like hell to stay ahead of it. 

Now that they’re inside, the panic is starting to loosen its hold on his chest. He feels more like he usually feels during intense games. Games with stakes, games he knows he has to win. If ever there was a game to win, it’s this one, so maybe that makes sense.

Rozanov gets them through TSA by flashing his phone with the tickets, which probably come with some kind of super pre-check or something. They don't even have to put their bags down. One of the agents congratulates Rozanov on his season and his MVP win, and Rozanov laughs and thanks him, sounding vaguely close to hysterical. They walk through the security area, and they keep going. 

After TSA, Rozanov stops suddenly, looking wildly around, muttering to himself, and Shane can see his panic now, in a way he couldn't before. Rozanov is trying to figure out where they’re going, Shane realizes. Their gate. 

“Let me see,” he says, grabbing Rozanov's wrist and pulling his phone closer to his face so he can read the gate number. He knows exactly where to go, because he always memorizes airport layouts just in case he’s running late for a flight, and he turns them in the right direction. Rozanov breathes out a relieved sigh, and nods, and follows. 

The inside of the airport is less crowded than Shane expected, but he knows it won't stay that way for long. He can hear people starting to come through the doors behind them. They're yelling, frantic. A bigger group than he would have expected. Shane likes to think he’s a good person, a polite person. He’s the person his parents raised him to be. But he knows that not everyone is like that, and he knows that if they see an opportunity to take his spot, they will take it. So he breaks into a run, and he can hear Rozanov’s sneakers squeaking on the tile right behind him. 

Rozanov gets on the phone with his agent, huffs out a breath when he's done, and tells Shane that they have to pick up the pace but they haven't missed the flight yet. 

“There are zombies on the fence,” he says, and he speeds up. Shane's not sure he wants to know what that means, so he speeds up too. 

At the gate, a harried and relieved-looking flight attendant waves them through and then follows them. Shane can hear the sounds of people yelling behind them, echoing in the cavernous airport, but he's afraid to turn around and look, so he doesn't. 

The plane is small-ish, packed. Shane feels guilty, and apologizes to the flight attendant in a whisper for keeping them waiting. 

“There are still twelve people missing,” the flight attendant assures him in an equally hushed voice. “We were giving you all a final five minutes. You two made it just in time.” 

Rozanov grabs Shane by the strap of his bag and pulls him down into two first class seats near the front that apparently have been waiting for them. He pushes Shane gently into the window seat, and Shane sinks into it gratefully. When Rozanov smiles at him, it’s surprising. It’s so unlike the way he usually smiles. Smirking and arrogant and amused, sure. Shane has seen that on Rozanov’s face plenty of times. But this is a bright and eager smile. It reminds Shane of that time they couldn’t stop laughing when they were trying to film that commercial. Shane smiles back at him, and he lets the relief of seeing it sink into him, and he resists the urge to do something foolish like lean his head on Rozanov’s shoulder, or something even worse like trying to kiss him. Rozanov reaches over and grabs his knee again, like he did in the car, and Shane lets that be enough. 

No one is paying attention to them, and it’s nice. It’s nice because they’re not boarding this plane as representatives of their teams. They’re not here as hockey players. He doesn’t see anyone he recognizes, and that doesn’t mean, necessarily, that no one recognizes him, but he still feels more safe, removed, than he should. He wonders if it will be different when they get back to Boston. Will there be photographers waiting? Will they have found out that Rozanov and Shane got the last flight out of Vegas? Will they want to ask them about it?

He has never been through a zombie apocalypse before, so it’s hard for him to figure out. He knows that, like, globally, no one really cares about him, technically, but he’s always been surrounded by people who care way too much about hockey, and he knows that in his little corner of the world, he is important to them. He’s someone whose opinion is sought after. He’s someone who they will want to talk to, even if he never has anything technically interesting to say.

What will he say if they ask why he’s in Boston? Will they think he’s being traded? Will they suspect anything about why they were together in Vegas? No, that’s fucking stupid. They were at the same awards show. 

“You are doing the breathing thing again,” Rozanov says quietly, and Shane nods, not quite looking at him. 

“Yeah,” he admits. 

“You are okay?” 

His thumb is pressing against Shane’s knee, through his sweatpants. His sweatpants, Rozanov’s sweatpants, on Shane’s legs, and Shane wants to pull away from Rozanov’s touch, bark at him to not touch him, but he doesn’t. 

“No,” he admits. Rozanov makes a noise at that admittance, but it’s hard to tell what kind of noise it is. Maybe it’s a scoff. Maybe it’s pity. Maybe it’s annoyance because…

He’s catastrophizing again. This is so fucking stupid. There are zombies outside. He saw them. And he’s sitting here worrying that the guy who fucked him a few hours ago is annoyed by him and that people are going to know he wants to be fucked again if he gets off a plane in a few hours with a guy who has every reason to be seen with him. He’s worried that someone is going to look over and see that man’s hand on his knee and is going to immediately be like “wow, they’re those famous hockey players, and they’re definitely fucking” instead of the much more reasonable “aw it’s sweet that they’re comforting each other, because there are fucking zombies outside.” 

The world is ending, and he’s acting like it’s ending because of what happened in Vegas, and it’s fucking not. None of that matters anymore. It might not matter ever again. He should worry more about that.

The voices around them are drowning out his thoughts, and he grits his teeth to keep from reaching for his ears to cover them. He wants to yell at everyone around him to calm down, shut up. He doesn’t. He does something very stupid and puts his hand on top of Rozanov’s, on his knee. He thinks Rozanov will prove his pessimism right and pull his hand away, but of course he can’t even do that. He goes briefly tense, and then he shifts a little closer, so his shoulder presses up against Shane’s. Fuck. Why couldn’t he be an asshole about this? Him being so weird and distant in that penthouse was the second blow after Sochi, and a third one might kill Shane’s pathetic feelings completely, and he needs that. He doesn’t need to be reminded of how soft Rozanov can be. 

An injured man in the very front row is starting to demand that the plane take off, and the flight attendant is trying to talk to him, trying to tell him why they haven’t yet, but Shane can’t hear what she says over all the fury from everyone else. 

“Look out the window!” one woman pleads from the row behind Shane, repeating it when the flight attendant doesn’t hear her the first time. Shane lifts his window shade so that he can see what she’s talking about, and he feels Rozanov leaning over his shoulder to look, too.

He finally understands what Rozanov’s agent meant, on the phone. Pressed up against the fence that lines the runway are people. Probably zombies. They’re coming from The Strip, he thinks. The side of The Strip that he and Rozanov hadn’t been on. He remembers his mom saying something about the hospital. Had they gotten out of the hospital? Had they landed here on another flight, and then they got out, and now they're loose in the city, infecting everyone? He doesn’t know. He feels now like he should have asked. 

Mentally, he knows he has still been treating the zombies as largely hypothetical. There were only a few of them when they were in the car, but there are a lot more than just a few of them on that fence, and he watches them. Tries to count them, even though they’re so far across the runway that he can’t make out their features. He sees the way they scrape their fingers over the chain-link fence, trying to grab hold, trying to break through. Why are they doing that? Why do they want in so badly?

How is this happening? How is this real life? And why don’t they fucking take off? Are they just going to sit here and let the zombies break into this fucking plane like a can of sardines? He can’t be trapped here and waiting for zombies to kill him. He just can’t.

“Is okay,” Rozanov says into his phone, still breathing heavily from their run. “We are here. I have him, yes. He is okay. Of course, Mrs. Hollander. I will tell him.”

He hangs up, and his good boy voice goes away, and he looks at Shane with the same edge of hysterical adrenaline overload that Shane feels. 

“She says to answer your fucking phone,” he says, and Shane laughs and fumbles for it in his pocket. The screen won’t turn on.

“Dead,” he says. Rozanov hums and types into his own phone. “Are you texting my mom?” 

“So she won't freak out again, yes.” 

Shane almost leans his head on Rozanov’s shoulder, then. Some leftover impulse from their hookups. There are always a few soft seconds when they've both just come and it's, like, allowed to get close, snuggle. And maybe it's just because they were running and fighting their way here, and so he's breathing heavy and on the edge of panic, like he always is whenever they're together, and his instinct is to cuddle close. 

Maybe, damningly, it's more than just instinct. Maybe he just wants to be held. He stops himself just in time. 

“Thank you,” he says, and he leans his head in the opposite direction, against the cool window, instead. “Seriously, thank you, I…”

He thinks about waking up on his own time, alone in his hotel room. He thinks about trying to get to the airport on his own, trying to get a flight, finding the entire place overrun. He probably wouldn’t have left his hotel at all, because surely it would have been all over the news by then. He would have been stuck here in Vegas, hiding in his room, terrified to leave, as the city fell around him. Based on the zombies by the fence, it seems like things are moving as quickly here as Rozanov said they moved overseas, and he would have been alone until he died while Rozanov flew back to Boston and his parents tried to save his life from fucking Ottawa. 

“Yes, okay,” Rozanov says, almost gently, but it also feels like a dismissal. It reminds Shane of last night, or this morning, whenever it was. The way he'd been so cold and distant, like he had been trying to remind Shane that all they are is fucking. Like it was a punishment for trying to talk to him in Sochi. Like Shane had seemed too needy and needed to be taught his place again. Fucking humiliating. Bad enough to want Rozanov so badly, but to want him too much in a way that makes Rozanov feel like he has to fucking correct him like a misbehaving dog? Maybe he should have just stayed in his hotel room and died. 

He wants to say something recklessly obvious, like, tell my mom to find me a place to stay in Boston after all, because he can't be stuck with Rozanov during a zombie apocalypse. Not when he feels this wretched every other time Rozanov looks at him, because the searing heat of his want followed by the coldness fucking hurts. Not after Sochi, not after the way he'd looked at Shane like Shane was some pathetic, grasping fan begging to be fucked. Shane should have walked away in that bathroom last night, and he should have stayed gone. Why hadn't he? 

The flight attendant finally says something to someone over the phone at the front of the plane, and then two more join her from the back, and then they're closing the door. People start cheering. Shane watches out the window to make sure that the fence is holding, and it looks like it is. The zombies don’t look like the ones he’d seen earlier. They’re not moving as fast, as determined. They’re listless. He takes note of it. Maybe they only start moving fast when they sense a food source? 

Then the plane is moving, and Shane feels Rozanov leaning against him again, but he knows Rozanov is only looking over his shoulder, out the window, and it makes Shane's stomach clench with misery because he wishes it was more. He stares at the zombies along the fence line. He hears people gasping and screaming as the fence finally breaks in one spot, and suddenly the zombies aren't listless anymore. 

They hear the plane. They’re coming towards the noise, Shane thinks, but then he sees people on the tarmac, closer, people running, trying to reach the plane, and he understands; they're the ones who have worked up the zombies. 

He is sick with guilt and with relief that the plane is taxiing quickly, moving too fast for anyone to catch them. He thinks of the TSA workers who were so polite to him. He thinks of the people who were following them from the cars outside and just weren't fast enough to catch up. He thinks of everyone desperate and scared just like he would have been in his hotel room if his mom and Rozanov hadn't worked together to get him out. 

He watches the zombies running. Running. Great, they’re even faster than they were when they were weaving through traffic. That's fantastic. This couldn't have been a slow zombie apocalypse? He turns his face away from the window, and he bites his lip, and he tells himself that he's not going to panic or cry, but of course that has never worked before and it doesn't work now. He presses his face into his knees and he breathes through the fear. Rozanov makes this little noise in the back of his throat, and he rests his palm for a second on Shane’s lower back, but then he takes it away, and he doesn't do anything else, and of course that's fine. Shane shouldn’t need anything else anyway. 

Shane wakes up huddled against the window, neck uncomfortably squashed into a terrible position. How did he fall asleep like that? Someone put a blanket over him, apparently. That's good, because he feels cold and awful again, like he did when he woke up the first time. He pulls it around his shoulders more tightly, and he risks a look around. 

Everyone around him is either watching the news on the back of their seats or is looking at their phones. People are still crying, but it seems more muted now. It doesn’t give Shane the headache it gave him earlier. A flight attendant is offering someone a mini bottle of alcohol two rows up, smiling like everything is normal. 

“Hello Sleeping Beauty,” Rozanov says dryly from next to him, and Shane sighs. Glances at Rozanov and tries not to look as raw and wounded as he still feels. Rozanov is looking back at him, amused. He has two empty bottles of mini vodka in front of him, and an unopened can of seltzer. He gestures at it, and Shane takes it, annoyed to be so grateful. 

“Where are we?”

“Still have an hour. You can sleep more.”

Shane nods, but he takes a few more sips of the drink instead, and he scrubs his hand over his face. Rozanov watches him, looking hollow and a bit afraid. 

“What's wrong?” Shane finally asks. “Did something happen?”

“No. Well, not anything new. Obviously, no good news.”

“Vegas?” Shane asks. 

“Just like LA,” Rozanov admits. “They showed it up there.” He gestures to the big TV screen near the front of the plane. It’s now showing some kind of nature documentary. “Turned it off when people were, ah. Upset. Not that it matters.” He looks out into the aisle, to all the glowing screens around them. His own seatback entertainment system is off.

“Fuck. Do we know who made it out? The players, I mean?”

“Not yet. We will hear, probably. Eventually.”

But Rozanov is speaking in that patient way he does sometimes when he thinks Shane is being stupid. It's not mean, exactly, but it's also not nice. It's like he's teasing Shane but doesn't think Shane is aware enough to notice. Shane thinks of the way he'd looked in the car on the way to the airport, when he was talking about the Boston manager getting him on the plane because he still thinks there will be hockey to play. 

“You think this is it, don't you?” When Rozanov shrugs, Shane lowers his voice, leans in closer. “Bullshit. Just tell me. I'm asking what you think. I can handle it.”

Rozanov sighs. 

“Yes,” he says, and it sounds almost like an unburdening. “Yes, I think…I think it is too much, too fast. I think Russia and China and half of Europe are already done. I think we are next. Okay? Happy? Fuck.”

He scrubs one hand over his face, and Shane watches him. Sees the way he looks tired and scared. Thinks of those phone calls in Russian. Thinks of Rozanov's family. 

“I'm sorry,” he says. “About Russia.”

“Yes. Me too. Go back to sleep.”

“I don't think I can.”

“Okay.”

It's quiet, a little bit defeated.

“Have you slept?”

“Don't think I can, either,” Rozanov admits. Shane nods. He wants to say something insane like lay your head in my lap, maybe it'll help. He doesn't. 

The injured man in the front row leaps up from his seat when they’re almost in Boston. Shane is getting out of his own seat to use the bathroom, but he stops himself from climbing over Rozanov’s annoyingly sprawled legs because he assumes that the other guy is desperate, from the way he so suddenly lurches to his feet.

But then the wounded man turns around, and Shane sees the look on his face, and Shane remembers the way the woman in the pink dress had looked, and then the man howls. 

A woman in the next row screams, and then everyone is screaming, and one of the flight attendants is yelling something, and a burly man in a leather jacket is storming up from near the back of the section, shouting at everyone to sit down. 

How did no one notice that the injured man was getting sick? 

How did no one notice that he was turning?

Shane’s wondering when the man was even bitten, and he’s wondering when the man got on the plane, and he’s wondering how long they’ve been in the air. He’s thinking about the incubation period. The zombie shuffles into the aisle, his teeth snapping together twice, this horrible bone-clacking sound, confused and shying away from the light, not as coordinated as the ones in Vegas, on the runway. Maybe it takes a while for it to really set in? Shane's not sure why he’s trying to analyze it, but his brain just keeps getting stuck on that stuff. Like if he gathers enough information, he’ll know what to do to fix it. 

People are trying to scramble away. One woman in the aisle seat braces herself against her seatmate, leaning as far back as she can get, but it isn’t far enough, and Shane thinks she’s going to be bitten too, but then she lifts both of her feet off the ground and kicks the zombie in the chest. The zombie careens down the aisle, arms flailing, right towards Rozanov. 

Rozanov, who is still sitting in his seat, his seatbelt on, looking shocked. 

Shane practically trips over Rozanov’s legs in his haste to block him from the hit. The zombie is falling backwards, arms pinwheeling almost comically as it loses its balance, and Shane gets it in a headlock before he even registers what he’s doing. The zombie’s arms are jerkily trying to claw back at him, but the burly man in the leather jacket and another woman across the aisle grab the zombie’s arms and hold them back, and Shane keeps them all from getting bitten by keeping his forearm tight across the zombie’s throat.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rozanov asks. 

“Something stupid,” Shane admits, panicking, but then he's smiling a little over his shoulder, incredulous at his own bravery. He can’t exactly believe it either, but it took less than three seconds for him to act, and he's kind of fucking proud of himself. The guy in the leather jacket turns out to be a cop, and he snaps the zombie’s arms behind its back with handcuffs, and then he thanks Shane, and he takes the zombie by the scruff of the neck and shoves it up towards the front of the plane, talking to the flight attendant in a low, urgent voice. 

“Is he fucking arresting a zombie?” someone asks, and there’s this hysterical wave of laughter that goes through the rest of them. People are still unsure if they should panic or not. Shane looks down at himself, makes sure that he doesn’t feel anything wrong. The woman across the aisle puts her hand on his arm. 

“You’re okay,” she says. “He didn’t get you. It’s okay.” 

“Okay, so like, was anyone else on this plane bitten?” asks a young woman in the front row of economy, leaning around the curtain that separates the sections, and there’s more hysterical laughter. 

Shane is a little worried he’s going to throw up, and his hands are starting to shake, and so he quickly makes his way to the bathroom at the very back of the plane, ignoring the clapping and cheering that some people offer him. He waits for any exclamations of oh my god that’s Shane Hollander, but he doesn’t hear them, if there are any. He’s relieved about that, at least. He goes into the bathroom, and he's not going to panic. He uses the bathroom and he washes his hands and he's not going to panic. He looks at himself in the mirror. There’s some blood smeared just under his chin, and he’s terrified for a second until he wipes it away with a wet paper towel and realizes that it’s just a smear, probably from the back of the zombie’s head when Shane was trying to choke it out, like that’s just a normal thing to do. 

The panic is setting in, now, but he tries to fight it back. He scrubs at his face, desperate to have the blood off him. Someone knocks on the door, and he tries to even out his breathing again to only medium amounts of success, but he doesn't want to keep them waiting. 

He opens the door, and Rozanov is on the other side. His expression falls into one of concern. 

“You are having panic attack,” he says. 

“I’m actually not.” 

“You are. Is okay. I will help,” Rozanov says, with this weird, exaggerated pity, and then he’s shouldering his way into the bathroom, which is so stupid, because there’s barely any room for the two of them in here. He shuts the door behind himself, grinning wildly, and he turns on the sink, starts washing his hands for some fucking reason.  

“Rozanov, what…” 

“Shh,” Rozanov says, and suddenly his hands are reaching for Shane’s sweatpants, and Shane swallows an outraged gasp. Rozanov waits. “You don’t want to?” 

“We’re in a fucking airplane bathroom, and there’s a zombie out there,” Shane hisses incredulously. 

“Yes. That is not an answer, though.” 

“We shouldn’t.” Rozanov still waits, one eyebrow up. Because, okay, yeah, that’s not an answer, either. “Fuck. Fine. Oh my god. This is such a stupid idea.” 

“Your dick doesn’t seem to agree.” 

“Yeah, well, it has terrible taste. You should know that by now.” 

Rozanov snickers at that, presses a warm kiss to Shane’s mouth, and Shane melts into it. Oh, finally, he thinks desperately. Finally, finally. 

“You can be quiet,” Rozanov says, and he covers Shane’s mouth with one hand while another hand shoves Shane's sweatpants down. He’s crowding Shane back against the sink, and Shane feels a sudden jolt of pleasure as his cock is freed, pressed up against Rozanov’s, both of them held together in Rozanov’s hand. 

“Shit, holy shit,” Shane says, muffled by Rozanov’s palm. “This is so fucking dumb.” 

“Oh, is it?” Rozanov asks savagely, and he removes his hand from Shane’s mouth just so he can kiss him again, smothering the sounds that Shane is making, and Shane is glad both because he doesn’t want anyone to hear them and because he knows that they will be these pathetic little whimpering sounds, because it actually is really fucking hot, mostly because he doesn’t want it to be. 

“What the fuck,” he breathes, and Rozanov covers his mouth again with his palm, and he presses a kiss to his forehead instead of his mouth this time, and it’s so weird and gross and fucking annoying that that’s what pushes Shane over the edge. He’d be more embarrassed about it if Rozanov didn’t follow him almost immediately. 

“Always wanted to do that,” Rozanov finally says, and he shoves Shane out of the way so he can wash his hands again for real this time. Shane snaps out of it, shoulders Rozanov out of the way so he can make himself look presentable. Rozanov grins at him, amused by his roughness, as always. 

“That can’t be the first time you’ve fooled around in an airplane bathroom,” Shane says. Rozanov rolls his eyes. 

“You think I am a much more exciting slut than I am,” he says. He kisses Shane one more time, surprisingly sweet, and then he unlocks the door and exits without looking back. Shane lingers in there for a lot longer than he probably should, and then he peeks out, heart pounding. No one even looks at him, too busy watching the news. He hurries back to his seat, where Rozanov is already lounging, looking not at all wrecked. He winks when Shane gets close, and Shane scowls at him, and the burly cop with the leather jacket comes out from behind the curtain at the front of the plane, and he comes over to shake Shane’s hand, which is mortifying. 

“You saved a lot of people by stopping him when you did,” the cop says. Shane stammers out something awkwardly grateful for the thanks, and his face burns as he sinks back into his seat. A few more people clap for him; Rozanov claps louder than anyone, looking smug as shit as he does. 

“Shut up,” Shane hisses. 

“No, seriously, so heroic,” Rozanov says.

“Heroic. Okay. Whatever. Shut up. I couldn’t let you get eaten by a zombie. I need a place to stay once we get to Boston.”

“Right. I am your sugar daddy.” 

“Please don’t say that ever again.” 

“Is that not the right phrase?” 

“You fucking know it’s the fucking phrase. Shut up, Rozanov!” 

Rozanov cackles, pleased with himself, and he keeps touching Shane for the rest of the flight. Gentle touches on Shane’s knee. Grounding touches on his shoulder, like he can sense when Shane is getting tense. It’s so fucking weird and destabilizing. Shane keeps remembering how he was acting in Vegas, and now there’s this. This is more like what he was expecting after that night in Montreal. Rozanov had been so gentle and kind of cool about it, and he'd kissed Shane afterwards with even more gentleness, and Shane figured things would just, like, progress from there. That it would become fun and light and kind of nice, because despite himself, Shane really does like Rozanov. Rozanov’s an asshole, but he’s funny, and he always takes Shane out of his comfort zone in a way that ends up not being very uncomfortable at all. Vegas was fucking weird, but isn't that the whole saying? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Maybe that weirdness can stay there too. 

When they land, a bunch of people in HAZMAT gear board the plane first and remove the zombie like he’s an unruly passenger and not a frothing-at-the-mouth monster. The cop confirms that no one was bitten in the process of taking the zombie down, and he points out Shane as the “hero” who did it, and Rozanov leads another round of applause and completely ignores Shane's humiliated glare. 

“Holy shit, you're fuckin’ Shane Hollander,” says one of the HAZMAT guys in a thick Boston accent. Shane's brain whites out in confused terror for a second before he realizes this guy is just using the word as flavor, and is not actually accusing Rozanov of fuckin’ him.

“Yeah,” he manages to say. “That's me.”

Rozanov charms the HAZMAT guys immediately by ordering them to freak out about him, too, which of course they do, once they realize he's the one slouched in the seat next to Shane. He charms all the workers they file past when they are finally allowed to deplane. Probably half of them are Raiders fans, but not many are big enough fans of hockey in general to recognize Shane as Rozanov's hesitant shadow. The ones who do recognize him make a big deal about it, but Rozanov plays it off beautifully, pulling a friendly arm across Shane's shoulders and regaling them with a mostly made up tale of his heroics in rescuing Shane from Vegas because he couldn't live in a world without his “only competition”. Shane just follows his lead, feeling helpless. He doesn't know how Rozanov does it. How is he not terrified to even look at Shane in public? Every time Shane thinks about Rozanov when he’s around other people, he feels like he should be closing his eyes and turning to face the corner in puritanical shame, but Rozanov is touching him and jostling him and laughing at him, and he makes it seem so natural. So normal. Shane is the fucking weird one, as always, stiff and uncomfortable and probably looking like he wants to murder Rozanov, like an offended Victorian maiden who can’t stand to have her shoulders touched, even though the real problem is that every time Rozanov touches his shoulder, he wishes Rozanov was touching his dick. 

There are a few photographers and reporters from local news stations waiting beyond the security line to get quotes about the situation in Vegas, but they're just looking to grab some random passengers for statements, and they don't seem to notice Shane or Rozanov keeping their heads down and speeding past, and Shane can breathe a little easier once they’re out of the way of them. 

They have to clear a military checkpoint on the way out, but it's sloppily set up, and everyone basically just gets a temperature screening and a pupil check and they're good to go. Shane lets himself feel a little stupidly hopeful. Like, oh, they've clearly figured out something about the virus if they're checking our pupils, right? Maybe that means they'll find a cure soon. Like he didn't just flee from a major city that fell to zombies in a span of a few hours. 

Rozanov makes some more phone calls once they hit the street. There are news vans parked outside, anchors delivering their reports into cameras, so Shane just stares at the sidewalk and follows Rozanov’s shoes. It doesn't seem like anyone expects them, or is looking to get quotes from them. He feels stupid for being worried about it. It's the end of the world. Who cares if a couple of hockey players are getting off a plane? It’s easy for Shane to forget sometimes that not everyone in the world is as obsessed with hockey as he is.

Rozanov gets them into a car that Shane hadn't even realized he'd ordered. The people on the sidewalk are rude, and they're pushy, but they're not panicked. This is just Boston, and it's normal, and it's such a fucking relief. 

Their driver, naturally, only wants to talk about the zombies, especially since he figures correctly that they're coming from one of the last planes cleared to land at Logan for the foreseeable future. Rozanov indulges him, which is a relief, because it means Shane can tune the whole conversation out. It's hard not to listen to Rozanov when he speaks, though. It would make Shane’s life a lot less complicated if he was better at it. He stares out the window and he listens with a half-smile as Rozanov rants and laughs and tries to play things off like he wasn't afraid at any point. He sounds faintly amused, in a fatalistic way, as he describes the chaos of Vegas. 

Shane’s anxiety makes a valiant effort when they exit the Uber and walk down the sidewalk in front of Rozanov’s building, like he should be more worried that any of these people walking by could recognize them. His anxiety loses the battle to his exhaustion for once, though. He can’t find it in him to give a shit. 

He wants to take a shower. He wants to be inside, behind a locked door. He wants to charge his phone so he can call his parents. He doesn’t really care what hockey podcasts will say about him if someone takes a picture of him and Rozanov walking together now.

He's become so used to the all-consuming panic about this particular secret being discovered, and it's strange to poke around inside his head and discover that it's just…gone. 

Well, probably not gone. Paused momentarily. Temporarily on hiatus to make room for technically larger concerns.

Rozanov’s apartment is all black and gunmetal gray. It’s impersonal. He seems self-conscious about it, a little bit, but only for a second before he remembers to hide it away, and it makes Shane feel oddly soft towards him, which he knows is a mistake. Shane plugs in his phone as soon as he can, and he neatly places his bag on the floor just inside the front door, not knowing where else to put it. He asks if he can take a shower, his tone way too polite, because he's for some reason briefly hung up on the fact that he's a guest. Rozanov looks at him witheringly until Shane just goes and does it. 

When he's done, his phone has enough juice, and he immediately picks it up to call his mom and let her know that he’s safe. Rozanov surprises him by handing his phone over on his way to shower, as Shane is still waiting for his mom to pick up. Shane looks down at it and sees that it’s open to a grocery order. Rozanov points at the phone, indicating that Shane should add stuff, and Shane’s heart does that annoying clenching thing that it does whenever he thinks about Rozanov lately, pain and pleasure all mixed up at once. He nods in thanks and starts adding his usual grocery staples to the things Rozanov has already put in the cart. 

“Shane?” Yuna asks, sounding a little frantic when she finally answers, after enough rings that Shane is starting to worry. 

“Mom, hi.”

“I can't believe I almost missed your call. We're just unpacking the car. Rozanov texted me that you guys landed? Did you get back to his place okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. My phone was dead, and I really needed a shower, so…”

“That's good, okay. You're safe. How's Boston?”

“It seems normal. I don't know. But Vegas was normal too.”

He feels like crying, suddenly. He puts Rozanov's phone back on the kitchen counter and then huddles on the giant black leather couch in the living room, near the armrest, like he's trying to take up as little space as possible. He knows he’s on the edge of panic, but he manages to hold it off for a little while longer, because he doesn’t want his mom to worry.

“I know, sweetheart. I've seen…I'm glad you got out of there in time.”

“Yeah,” Shane says, again swamped with that difficult gratitude because Rozanov is the only reason he did. He imagines his mom is feeling kind of the same, and she doesn't even know the half of it. 

“Okay. So. I don't have news for you on the border front. Everywhere has grounded flights for now, but we don't know how long that's going to last. All the official statements are about trying to stop the spread, so ground crossings remain open for now with heavy checkpoints where they’re checking for symptoms and any injuries like bites, scratches. As long as you don’t have anything like that going on, you should be good. Worst case, you can rent a car and drive up here. It might take a while to get through, but it's better than nothing. The bad news is that every rental place near the airport is out, which I guess makes sense, because Logan was one of the last airports down there taking planes. I’m still trying, though. I’ll find something. Maybe you can ask Rozanov if he has any ideas.” 

“Yeah,” Shane hears himself say. “Yeah, I can do that. I'll ask him. Thanks, mom. I love you.”

“I love you too. I'll call you in a little bit.”

Shane knows that his mom would stay on the phone indefinitely with him if she could. And, sure, there’s a part of him that wants that. He’s scared and kind of alone without her, and he wishes that he was with her, and he wishes that he was at home. But there’s another part of him that’s relieved when she lets him go. He feels itchy and exposed here already, awkward in a place that’s not his, awkward around Rozanov after Vegas. Maybe that should make him even more desperate to leave, but actually, talking to his mom about leaving and driving to Canada just makes him feel heavy. He thinks about the way Rozanov wouldn’t even kiss him last night. He thinks about Rozanov trying to spare him from his real opinions on the plane. He thinks about Rozanov’s hand on his dick in the airplane bathroom. Just. Fucking. All of it. The thought of renting a car and running away now makes him feel like a coward. He really doesn’t want to. He thinks it probably won’t matter by tomorrow, anyway. He thinks he wouldn’t even make it to the border.

He wonders if he's ever going to play hockey again. He wonders if he's ever going to skate again. He wonders if he's going to make it past tonight, or if the zombies will come. Maybe the guy Shane put in a headlock on that plane is going to infect the HAZMAT team, and then the hospital workers, and then the police, and then everyone. Maybe the zombies are going to just run their way across the whole country, and over the border into Canada, and then everything will be over, just like Rozanov said.  

He wonders if he wants to survive the first wave or if he’d rather just die and get it over with, but he only entertains that thought briefly. He shakes it off and shoves it back into the corner where he shoves all of his unwelcome thoughts. Thoughts like what he’d do if he got a career-ending injury, or what he’s going to do when he has to retire and doesn’t have hockey anymore, or whether he’s ever going to find a girl he wants even half as much as he wants Rozanov. 

He pokes around this area of Rozanov’s apartment, trying to give himself something to do, but it's surprisingly boring. It looks exactly like the kind of first apartment a lot of guys in the league purchase to have somewhere to retreat, before they grow up and start wanting a house a little further from the practice rink. Shane’s own apartment is similarly kind of bland, but that’s more because he doesn’t know what to put in it. This feels starker, devoid of personality in a way that’s surprising, because he knows that Rozanov has so much of that. There are no pictures of his family, no pictures of anything. The TV on his wall is enormous, and he has black-out curtains on the giant windows on either side of the TV, and his couch is gigantic and comfortable, but none of it feels like the belongings of a person who spends a lot of time here. Which is fair, Shane supposes, because Rozanov doesn’t spend a lot of time here, but it still makes Shane uncomfortable. 

He gives up on finding anything interesting, and he sits back down on the couch and tackles all the new notifications that came in when his phone was dead. Hayden has finally gotten back to him, and he says that he and Jackie and the kids and Jackie’s parents are all heading out to the Hollander cottage, because his mother has invited them. Shane feels tears burning behind his eyes. He's glad they're all going to be together, safe. He texts something to that effect, and he says that he’s going to try and head up when he can, even though it feels like a lie already. 

He tells his coach that he’s safe in Boston and that he has a place to stay. It’s stupid how nervous he is that the reply is going to be some variation of I know where you’re staying, harlot, especially since when he does get a reply a few seconds later, it’s just a thumbs up emoji.

He laughs at himself and puts his phone down on the coffee table, and he rests his head against the back of the couch. Stop being so fucking weird. Nobody cares about the hockey shit as much as you right now. They’re worried about the rest of the world. You should be more worried about the rest of the world, too.  

Rozanov comes out of the bathroom. No shirt. Sweatpants. When Shane turns around and sees him, he feels himself perking up, too obvious, and he feels dejected—and embarrassed to be so dejected—when Rozanov heads to the kitchen instead of moving right for the couch. Shane is wearing the pajama pants he'd put on in Vegas last night, after getting back to his room feeling cold and uneven. He'd folded Rozanov’s borrowed sweatpants neatly and left them on the bathroom counter. He wonders if Rozanov smiled when he saw them. Shane had been hoping he would. 

Rozanov moves around his space easily, confidently, as if Shane isn't even in it. It makes Shane look back unfavorably on his own insane nerves when Rozanov came to his place in Montreal. Rozanov picks up his phone from the counter and completes the grocery order without even making any jokes about what Shane added, which is another disappointment. Shane watches him carefully, hoping for at least a quirk of an eyebrow or a roll of the eyes, but there’s nothing. 

Shane is never sure what to expect when it comes to Rozanov, and just when he thinks he starts to understand him, every time, Rozanov does something different that fucks with his head. 

Like, Rozanov basically jumped him in that airplane bathroom, and now they’re in his apartment completely alone and with no plans for the rest of forever, and he wants to ignore Shane instead of fucking him? Shane knows he’s bad at picking up on social cues at the best of times, but he’s pretty sure this would be confusing even to someone better at it.

Rozanov gets himself a glass and then pours something amber-colored from a bar cart into it. It's only then that he looks over at Shane, questioning. Shane shakes his head, but then immediately regrets it, and nods instead. Rozanov finally cracks a wry smile, and it loosens the clenching in Shane’s heart, at least a little bit. Rozanov pulls out a second glass, and he pours a little less liquid into this one. He sits next to Shane on the couch, on the next cushion over, not quite close enough, and hands over the glass. Shane takes it, now regretting that he’d changed his mind. He doesn’t want to drink this shit. Rozanov still doesn’t reach for him. He turns on the fucking news. 

“Lie down if you want to get comfortable,” he says suddenly. He takes a sip of his drink and eyes Shane, still pressed against the arm of the couch. “You look like a fucking hostage.”

Shane laughs a little, because yeah, he probably does. He’s tense with confusion and fear and the always-present anxiety that he’s going to mess things up again between them. Send Rozanov reeling away again. He doesn’t lie down, but he does untuck himself a bit, puts his feet on the floor, sits more straight instead of huddling into himself as they watch. Rozanov watches him, calculating, in the way he does sometimes, like he’s weighing his words before he speaks them. Shane always pretends not to notice. He knows it’s not always easy to find the right words in a second language, no matter how fluent you get. 

The news is playing a clip that he saw already, back on the television in Vegas. Briefly, Shane finds it in himself to hope that maybe that means they’re running out of footage. Maybe that means that something is slowing down. 

He looks over and sees that Rozanov is gulping down whatever’s in that glass like it’s water. Shane takes an experimental sniff of his own, and wrinkles his face in disgust at the strength of the fumes, but then he chugs it anyway. It’s bourbon or something. He’s pretty sure you’re not supposed to chug it. It doesn't taste good, technically, but it’s not as bad as he was expecting from the smell, and he sort of likes that it’s gross and painful and burns going down a little bit and makes his eyes water and his nose water and makes his throat feel like it wants to close up. It feels grounding in the same way that sex with Rozanov can feel, like when he’s thinking it’s a terrible, fucked up idea but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to do it. 

“Thank you,” he says. He puts the glass on the coffee table, and he sees Rozanov watching him. “For the drink. I think I needed it.” 

“Mm. Me too. Will you lie down now? Rest? You still look like shit.”

Shane looks over to say something and sees that Rozanov is holding his arm open, gesturing to his lap. Shane has half a second of thinking that maybe Rozanov is trying to ask Shane to blow him—which, like, Shane will, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a weird way to get to it—but then he realizes that Rozanov is apparently trying, by hinting at it twice now, to get Shane to lie down on him. 

And, well. 

Blame it on the zombies, blame it on the drink, blame it on the fact that he got barely any sleep last night and the fact that he’s stuck in another country and that he’s pretty sure the world is ending. This isn’t really them. It’s not what they do. After that time in Montreal, Shane had thought that maybe it could be what they did, but not in any real way. In a hopeful fantasy kind of way. Like, this would be his best case scenario: a world where casual sex could also mean occasionally cuddling and definitely always kissing afterwards. Shane has known all along who Rozanov is, and it’s not like he expects anything different. He likes Rozanov. He likes what they do. 

But that doesn’t mean that the silence after Montreal didn’t hurt, and that doesn’t mean that last night didn’t hurt, too.

Rozanov has always been a bit of a dick, but with Shane there has always been this flirty undercurrent to it that makes his dickishness into something charming, something teasing and light. Shane still doesn’t know what to think about last night. He’s not sure he can explain even to himself what he feels about it. 

But, okay. They’re going to be stuck in this apartment together. Rozanov is cut off from his family in Russia, and Shane is cut off from his family, too. And Shane is afraid, and he doesn’t know what to do, and there are two things in the world that he knows he’s good at: hockey and doing what Ilya Rozanov tells him to do (as long as they’re off the rink). So, sure. Fuck it. Why not? 

He tries not to look like he’s overthinking it as he slowly lies down. He tucks his feet up on the couch, and he lays his head on Rozanov’s thigh, and despite his nervousness, it’s immediately the right choice. Rozanov breathes out slowly when Shane does it, in this restrained kind of way that makes Shane think he’s relieved, and his hand comes down onto Shane’s hair, his fingers brushing through it, and it’s really…nice. It’s so nice. Shane closes his eyes, and he feels a little bit like a pampered housecat. That’s probably a fucked up thing to be pleased about, but he is pleased.

He wakes up to Rozanov slapping his face gently, bending close. 

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” he says again, and Shane huffs out a laugh and sits up, blinking blearily. Rozanov clucks his tongue a little, looking reluctantly fond.

“What?” Shane asks, wiping the back of his hand over his face. Is he drooling? Great. 

“Nothing. You had a good nap, apparently. You look, um. Rested.” 

“I don’t think I feel it.” Reality stumbles back into Shane’s mind, and he curses. “What time is it? What’s happened? Is anything…?” 

“Boston is still okay. New York, too. They are doing, ah. ‘Martial law', starting tomorrow. Boston probably will too, but nothing yet. No cases on east coast at all. Vegas is the last one that went bad, but some parts of Texas aren’t doing hot. Our food got delivered, so I want to get up and grab it. Make sure neighbors don’t steal it. Otherwise, I would let you sleep.” 

Shane jolts to his feet, embarrassed suddenly. 

“Okay,” he says. “I can get it? If you want?”

Rozanov gives him an odd, almost-affectionate look, and then he stands up too. He leans in for a kiss, and Shane obliges automatically, flushing. It’s not any different from Rozanov’s usual kisses. It’s half-filthy, half-possessive, all heat and warmth and everything that makes Rozanov sparkle on and off the ice, for Shane, in ways he can’t bear to look at out of the sheer humiliation of it. 

“I can get it. Get another drink if you want.” 

Shane still feels a little loose-limbed, a little fuzzy, and he’s not sure if it’s because of the single glass of bourbon or if it’s just the very understandable shock of everything else on the planet, but either way he doesn’t think adding another drink to the mix is a good idea. Still, he gets up and pours himself a second glass anyway, because he wants the haziness right now. He doesn’t want to be here. 

Rozanov comes back in carrying a bunch of bags, and Shane realizes that he probably should have at least followed him and helped him, and he feels like an idiot all over again. He at least helps Rozanov unpack and put the food away. He tries not to react too much when one of the things he pulls out is a six pack of ginger ale cans, but he knows he stares at them a little too long, and he sees out of the corner of his eye that Rozanov glances at him, and he sees that Rozanov’s ears go slightly red as he turns around and continues unpacking. 

Shane looks at the sheer fucking volume of food that Rozanov has ordered, and he's thinking about the days that are going to stretch out in front of them. He's thinking about how he has nowhere to be, no routine to keep up. He's thinking about how the world is ending, and about how he's staying in Rozanov’s home, and about how he and Rozanov can fuck as much as they want, and suddenly last night’s certainty that this thing with Rozanov is all a huge mistake that has to stop feels idiotic. 

Maybe last night was weird and different, and maybe Shane’s feelings were really fucking hurt, and maybe they aren't used to seeing each other this much, and maybe they will be sick of each other by tomorrow. 

Maybe. 

But maybe not. 

“Can we, uh,” he starts, not knowing how to finish his thought. Rozanov sighs as he paws through one of the bags to find something specific. 

“Talk about what?” he asks, patient, knowing. Shane swallows. 

“Uh, no. Not what I was going to say, actually,” he replies. “I was gonna say ‘fuck’.” 

Rozanov looks up at him sharply, through his still-drying curls, a doglike enthusiasm on his face that’s both endearing and flattering.  

“Hollander, you are so smart,” he says. “Unpack what needs to be in fridge, and then yes, obviously. I will let you blow me as thank you for saving you, and then I will fuck you as thank you for saving me, and then maybe later I will fuck you again.”

“Will there be a specific reason for that one too? Or is that one just for fun?” 

“To thank me for letting you stay here,” Rozanov answers.  

“Sure, like a rent payment,” Shane laughs, reaching for a block of cheese and tossing it to Rozanov so he can put it in the fridge. Rozanov fumbles with it, drops it, looking startled. 

“Oh my god, Hollander. You are so sexy it hurts sometimes. Yes, rent payment. I think it’s late, too. You might have to work extra hard to pay it.” 

“Mm, I don’t know. That doesn’t track. I would never be late on rent.” 

Rozanov laughs harder, slams the fridge shut, and moves around the kitchen island with a sudden speed that’s gratifying. 

“That is less sexy roleplay, maybe, but I think we can make it work.” 

He kisses Shane then, and as always it’s scorching. He could kiss Rozanov forever, he thinks. Nothing feels like it. He’s so glad they’re kissing now, and that it’s not going to be like Vegas, no matter what comes afterward. 

Rozanov turns him around and presses Shane down so his chest hits the kitchen island.  

“Really? Here? Right with all the food?” Shane asks, unable to help the tremulous want in his voice even as he’s also disgusted. That’s the worst part of all this: he’s not pretending to be disgusted. He really does think it’s gross. The airplane bathroom was fucking disgusting. It’s just never gross enough to cancel out the want, and it’s fucking dizzying. He’s usually so good at following his own rules. Rozanov laughs breathlessly, and he presses his forehead against Shane’s back. 

“Everyone thinks you are not funny,” he says, wonderingly. “They are so wrong.” 

“It’s unsanitary,” Shane argues, but he’s still spreading his legs wider as Rozanov slots his thigh between them, and he’s still gasping and shaking already. Just like in the airplane bathroom, he knows he shouldn't, but that hasn’t stopped him with Rozanov yet, and it certainly isn’t going to stop him now. Rozanov is touching him, hands trailing up Shane’s sides, tucking under his shirt. His fingers are cold, but they’re slowly warming on Shane’s skin. 

“Ah, does that mean you want me to stop?” Rozanov asks, a parody of gentleness, just like he did on the plane. He knows Shane so well. It should be more humiliating than it is. Shane glares over his shoulder, but he doesn’t say anything, and Rozanov’s answering smile is blindingly bright. Shane expects Rozanov to start opening him up, preparing to fuck him here, but instead Rozanov leans in and kisses him as he tugs down Shane’s sweatpants and wraps his fingers around Shane’s cock. 

Shane loses himself in the sensation of it, the way he always does. No matter how anxious he is about everything, his mind screeches to a white hot halt every time Rozanov’s hands are on him. It’s so insane. It doesn’t make any sense. It never feels this good when he has his own hand on his own dick. It’s not just about the pleasure. It’s Rozanov. It’s something about him. Shane whines as he pushes himself into Rozanov’s grip, and he can feel the hard, hot length of Rozanov through the layer of sweatpants separating them, and Rozanov is mouthing up the side of his neck, whispering in Russian, and Shane feels very exposed and very open, and he feels…better. Better than he has since, fuck, maybe Sochi. It’s so stupid. 

He hunches his shoulders forward and grips onto the kitchen counter and he thinks about the way Rozanov had looked at him in Sochi and he thinks about the way Rozanov was with him last night, but it’s hard to think about those things when Rozanov is whispering into his ear as he jerks him off, switching back to English so Shane can understand the filth he’s whispering. 

So hot, so sexy for me, so good for me. Had to rescue my princess from Vegas, didn’t I? Oh, you like that, don’t you? Princess? No one makes sounds like you. No one takes me as well as you. I will have you every day until it all ends. Yes? 

For some reason, that’s what makes Shane come, embarrassingly fast, and he lets his forehead thunk down on the counter. 

“Wow,” Rozanov says. 

“Shut up.” 

“So desperate for me!” 

“Shut up. Oh my god.” 

“That was, hm. One third of rent payment.” 

“Fuck you,” Shane laughs, but he turns around and kisses Rozanov anyway. “Where’s your fucking bedroom?” 

“I thought maybe couch, next.” 

“What, is there a list?” 

“I only have so much furniture, Hollander, and who knows how long we’re going to be here? We have to use all of it. I will fuck you for real on this eventually.” He knocks his fingers against the countertop like he’s testing its structural integrity, and there is something so weirdly charming and boyish about it. It makes Shane smile. 

“Fuck, okay,” he agrees hazily, and Rozanov's own smile goes huge and wild with want. 

They're lying on the couch, both of them completely naked—which is, it turns out, not Shane’s favorite sensation, skin on leather, because even though he’d insisted they put a towel down, there was only so much that towel could really do—and Shane has been grumbling about how they need to clean up and he needs to sleep in a bed before he fucks up his back, and Rozanov has been chirping at him about being such an old man. 

Shane's phone rings. It's his mother, and she's trying to Facetime him. 

“Oh, fuck, no,” Shane groans, scrambling for his clothes, which are all the way across the living room, for some reason, by the front door. “Put your fucking clothes on!”

Rozanov laughs at him again. It's technically good that Shane has forgotten his initial anxiety, the fear that he wouldn't know how to act around Rozanov like this, and wasn’t sure they’d be able to spend this much time together. He’s forgotten everything except Rozanov’s pleasing lightness, the force of his smiles. 

He also, unfortunately, has temporarily forgotten that Rozanov is a dick who finds his suffering hilarious. 

He whips Rozanov's sweatpants at his head, and Rozanov puts them on, still laughing. Shane struggles into his own clothes, heart pounding. He realizes that he's more afraid now than he was when wrestling a zombie on a plane, and he's so annoyed at himself for being so dramatic. He checks his reflection in the little mirror by Rozanov's door, and he looks red-cheeked and breathless and, sure, freshly fucked. Great.

“Maybe I just let her think I got eaten by a zombie,” he says. Rozanov looks at him, unimpressed, and accepts the call. Fuck you, Shane mouths as he rushes over. 

Rozanov puts on this bizarre impersonation of a man who didn't just have his dick in Shane's ass, politely distant, as if he's never learned how to talk to someone's parents before. 

“Hello, Mrs. Hollander. Hi. Hollander and I are just unpacking groceries.”

Shane bumbles into frame, sitting down beside Rozanov on the couch, leaving what he hopes is a normal amount of space. 

“Hi mom,” he says, and he tries desperately not to feel like a disgusting, hedonistic freak, fucking on Rozanov's couch in the middle of the day while his mom was probably trying to work out a way to get him back across the border. God, what is wrong with him?

“Sorry, I just wanted to see for myself that you’re all right,” she says with a watery sigh, like she’s afraid that she’s being overbearing. Shane understands, because he knows that he and his mom have a lot of the same anxiety issues. He wishes he could be more honest when he quickly tells her that he doesn’t mind the call. She hums like she’s not sure she believes him, but says, “groceries were a good idea, Shane.”

“Uh, it was Rozanov, actually,” Shane says, and Rozanov smiles awkwardly at the camera in response. “How are you guys doing?”

“Good, good. I'm sure you heard the Pikes are heading here? They're stopping to pick up some more food, but I don't want you to worry, we're very well stocked here.”

“That's good,” Shane says. He doesn't want to say that he's not particularly worried about them. They're in the middle of nowhere. They're together. They have hunting supplies, fishing supplies, even if they don't really like doing either of those things. He's more worried about him and Rozanov, in a city. Surrounded by people who could be zombies soon. “Um, thank you. For inviting Hayden and Jackie.”

“Of course, sweetheart. We're putting feelers out to everyone, really. Safety in numbers, I guess. We've got a few more people on the way already. I'll let you two get back to it. Everything still okay in Boston?” 

“Yeah,” Shane says, though he has no fucking idea. The city could be burning down around them right now and he wouldn’t have a clue. 

“Okay, that's good. I'll call you when I hear anything about the border, okay?”

“Yeah, great. Thanks, mom. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Yuna says, and then the call is dead, and Rozanov is laughing and putting down Shane’s phone and kissing him again, and Shane is swatting him off, but he's laughing, too. 

“This is so fucking stupid! Oh my god. Why did you answer?”

“Because I knew you would make your angry little kotyonok face at me, and I thought it would be funny.” 

“What does that mean? That word you said.” 

“Kitten,” Rozanov says, shit-eating grin wide on his face, growing wider when Shane scowls. “Yes, like that.” 

Another kiss, this time on the nose, and Shane is taken aback by it. Not in a bad way, really, except that it terrifies him. It's just so soft. Before he has time to think about it, Rozanov is standing up and heading to the kitchen, scrubbing a hand through his hair, to finish unpacking the groceries, complaining about something he is just now realizing he forgot to add. Shane watches him go, lets his heart rate calm down. 

This is only the first day, he reminds himself. You can’t come totally unglued on the first day. At least wait for the second. 

In the mid-afternoon, Rozanov has a few calls with his coach and his teammates, and Shane lingers in the room, listening to the one side that he can hear, which isn’t much. Rozanov listens a lot more than he talks, and he’s sullen and clearly over the whole thing, making yapping motions at Shane with his hand like a child. When the call is over, he groans and throws his phone across the couch. 

“No practice for a week,” he says dryly. “Because of course this is all going to be fixed in a week.” 

“I think Theriault is having practice today,” Shane says, knowing it will make Rozanov laugh. “He seemed pissed I wasn’t going to be there.” 

“Idiots. All of you are idiots.” 

“Hey, don’t include me in this. I don’t make those kinds of decisions.” 

“I’m surprised you don’t walk to Canada now so you don’t miss it.”

“I’m not that delusional,” Shane admits quietly. He smiles a little so Rozanov doesn’t worry that he’s getting too in his own head, though he suspects he might be. Suspects it even stronger when Rozanov just looks at him, considering. Clearly seeing more than Shane wants him to see. “It might be nice to practice, though. Just, I don’t know. Get my head off the whole zombie thing.” 

“Right, of course,” Rozanov says with a grin. “Because you are hockey crazy, and not a normal person.” 

“Shut up. I’m normal.” 

“No,” Rozanov argues softly, but he looks like he wants to kiss Shane again, and Shane tries not to be too disappointed when he doesn’t. “I have an idea, though.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“You will probably argue, say ‘no, Ilyusha, people cannot see us out in public because they will know we are fucking, because there is no other reason for two men in same league to hang out’.” 

“Ilyusha? Is that what I call you now?” 

“Only if you want me to fuck you again, immediately, probably, so wait a minute. This actually is a good idea. We go to practice, here. Raiders practice arena. Not real practice, obviously. Just for fun.”

Shane grins a little, waiting for the punchline, until he realizes that Rozanov is done and waiting for his reaction. Shane knows that he’s hard to read sometimes. His parents have always told him that, and sometimes his friends mention it, usually jokingly, but there’s a sense that it’s not entirely a joke, like there’s something more to it. Rozanov is watching him like he thinks he can pick up the emotions on Shane's face if he looks hard enough. 

“You’re serious.” 

“Yes,” Rozanov says, but he still has that kind of shit-eating smile on his face, like he’s waiting for the lecture that Shane will obviously be giving him. Shane feels self-conscious about it, suddenly. Like, yeah, it is a bad idea for them to be out in public, but Rozanov’s smile feels like a dare, at the same time. Like a challenge. And Shane hates backing down from those. 

“How would that even work?” 

“Practice rink is two streets away. Is public, yes. People will see us, but I promise not to try to fuck you on ice, so they won’t know anything. It might be fun. We can tell everyone how your mother saved us both in Vegas, if you want, or we can just tell them that I saved you. I like that story better anyway. And then we can tell them you fought a zombie on the plane to save my life. Also very good story. And then we beat the shit out of each other in skates. You will say something about how the ‘PR’ is bad, or whatever, but I don’t think so. I think they will like to see us being friends, with everything else so shit. I can even call the Boston PR team, let them come down and take some pictures. Unlikely friends at the end of the world, or something.” 

Or something is something that Rozanov says a lot, and Shane is starting to understand that it’s something he says particularly often when he’s looking away from Shane’s eyes, which probably means that or something is what he says when he’s afraid that he’s showing too much, and wants Shane to believe that he’s not fully serious.

And so, yeah, Shane should blow him off. He should say are you out of your fucking mind, Rozanov? They should stay inside here. They should not go to the fucking Raiders practice rink. No way. 

But, well. 

Rozanov clearly wants to do it, and Rozanov clearly thinks the world is ending, just like Shane technically also does. Shane can only keep deluding himself for so long that the world isn’t going to be over, that things are going to be fixed eventually, before he comes to terms with the fact that he has probably played his last hockey game. 

And Rozanov is offering this chance to him. It won’t be a game, but it will be something. Hockey in a professional capacity. Hockey in a place where people will be watching them. What if it’s the last chance he ever gets to be on skates? 

Doesn’t he want his last skate to be with Rozanov, anyway? It’s only right. 

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Shit. Okay. I think I want to.” 

Rozanov’s smile brightens every dark feeling still lingering in Shane’s chest. 

“Really?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Shane agrees, and this time it’s even easier. 

Rozanov makes a few calls, and as predicted, Naomi from PR is ecstatic at the idea. Shane considers texting someone from his own team, or at least his mother, but ends up sending a very formal email to Katie on the Metros PR team, letting her know that he and Rozanov are going to be seen in public together at the Raiders rink. He keeps the email light, says multiple times I know this isn’t a big deal, what with everything going on, but also pitches it in the same way Rozanov did: it’s a good look for both of them, to be sportsmanlike as the world is falling to pieces. 

Like that fucking matters at this point, but still. Rozanov was right when he pointed out that most of these people still think that there will be hockey to play, and that this stuff will still matter. Maybe some of them are just going through the motions, because there’s this sense like you have to keep moving forward even if you’re sure that everything is over, just in case you’re wrong.

Rozanov is almost giddy as they walk together to the practice rink. He chirps Shane relentlessly, which is no surprise, and is almost a bit endearing, because it makes Shane relax a little. They’ve showered since fucking on the couch, obviously, and Shane is dressed in his jeans and t-shirt and jacket from Vegas, and he knows that he looks normal, and that no one will technically be able to tell how they’ve spent the last day, but still, it’s strange to be out in public like this, and he knows that half of Rozanov’s chirps are probably meant as a distraction. 

Naomi meets them at the practice rink, looking a little incredulous when they show up, like she’d assumed it was a prank. 

“I’m not used to you coming to me with anything,” she points out when she shakes Rozanov’s hand. “More used to you ducking my calls and suddenly forgetting English every time you don’t want to do something.” 

“Yes, well. Today is special,” Rozanov says. “Hollander is trapped in my apartment with me until the borders open. I think he will be too tired to kill me for being a bad host if I kick his ass in hockey first.” 

“Wish you’d waited until we could get that on camera,” Naomi says with a wry sigh, but she smiles as she shakes Shane’s hand. 

“I’m sure that’s not the last antagonistic thing he’ll say,” Shane says, and Naomi laughs. 

“No, it’s definitely not.” 

They draw a crowd, because of course they do. The Raiders practice rink is in the middle of a busy area, and people keep popping in. Word must be spreading somewhere, probably on Twitter. A few of the other Raiders show up, like they needed to confirm it with their own eyes, and are surprised and pleased when it turns out that Shane is actually there. They’re a lot more friendly than Shane was expecting. He tries to imagine his team being as jazzed about Rozanov showing up to their space, and he feels guilty for how unfavorable he knows the comparison would be. 

Rozanov insists loudly that he and Shane can take on every Raider who shows up, and then of course they have to try to prove it while the growing crowd cheers. 

Shane has the time of his fucking life. 

He doesn’t know if it’s because of the whole end of the world thing, or if it’s just because skating with Ilya is so different from skating against him. Shane has always admired the way Ilya skates, has always admired his game, and it’s lighter like this, with no stakes, and Ilya’s smile makes him look so young and carefree and…

Rozanov. Rozanov’s smile. Jesus. 

Rozanov is lethal on the ice, as always, his passes clean, his shots beautiful. He hams it up for the crowd, raising his arms so they cheer louder. Shane laughs at him, and shakes his head, and pretends to be annoyed, but he does a terrible job of that. 

It’s weird. It’s not like Shane has ever not loved hockey. He has always loved hockey, and of course before today he would have said that he loves hockey just as much as he always has. 

But hockey is fun today in a way it hasn’t been fun for a while. And of course that makes sense. Like, he’s not a kid anymore. There are stakes to all of his games. There’s pressure, and there’s press, and there are people who are winning or losing money based on his performance, so of course he takes it fucking seriously. He loves it, he will always love it, but the hockey-adjacent stuff that isn’t hockey of course comes bleeding into it. It’s not a huge deal. It doesn’t make him like hockey less, technically. 

But this? This is just for fun, and it’s so fucking fun. 

They skate for hours, until the sun goes down, and until Naomi tells them they have to wrap it up. She seems to be in an even better mood than she was when they first arrived, and she hugs Shane with an enthusiasm that he returns, and then he and Rozanov say goodbye to the others, and they walk back to Rozanov’s place. Shane asks, a little nervously, if he wants to go get drinks with the other Raiders, and Rozanov looks surprised, like he hadn’t even considered it. 

“No,” he says. “I have dinner plans.” 

“Oh. With me?” 

“Yes, with you, fucking idiot,” Rozanov says fondly, and Shane laughs. 

He scrolls through his phone, later, after getting out of the shower again. He sees the pictures and the videos that were posted by the official Raiders Twitter account, retweeted by the Metros. He smiles at the look on his own face, the joy there. He knows the Metros fans will be happy with the shot of him making a disgusted face at Rozanov trying to offer him a Raiders practice jersey. The Raiders fans will be pleased at the pictures of him signing autographs for the kids outside the practice arena. His mom will be pleased at the pictures of him wearing his Reeboks. Everyone will be pleased, and Shane still got to have the best day in years. Not everything always has to be about keeping himself small for hockey, maybe. Maybe that’s the lesson he should be taking from this. Or maybe it’s just because he got to spend the day with Rozanov, in public, liking him openly, and maybe he should be more worried about that, but he isn’t. 

Rozanov cooks chicken with pasta, which Shane normally wouldn't eat, but fuck it. The world is ending. He's tempted to cling to his diet and his routine as much as possible, but he doesn't notice what Rozanov is making until it's already halfway done, and he would feel awful to refuse it, and so he doesn’t. They sit at the kitchen counter, and Shane looks down at the surface and thinks about Rozanov's hand wrapped around his cock right here, and he thinks about Rozanov’s huge smile on the ice, and he has to blink himself back into awareness when Rozanov clinks his fork against Shane's plate, like he's been trying to get Shane's attention. He looks annoyed. 

“Sorry, what?” Shane asks. Rozanov gets this disbelieving little smile on his face for a second. 

“You have one track mind, Hollander. Are you thinking about your rent payment already?”

“Well, you charge so much. I have to work it off somehow. What were you saying?”

“I asked if you were going to be boring and insist on sleeping on the couch or in guest room, or whatever,” Rozanov says, and Shane can see that despite his attempt at looking unconcerned, he’s tense. Shane thinks of how he felt lying in Rozanov's bed in Vegas, Rozanov not even looking at him. Not even touching him. Not even kissing him. He thinks about Rozanov trying to hint, twice, that Shane should lie down in his lap. He thinks about Rozanov calling him Sleeping Beauty and Princess and kissing him on the nose and saying he had a fucking angry kitten face.

“Oh, uh, no,” he says. He considers his next words carefully. “I guess I don't really see the point in that.”

“Okay, good,” Rozanov says, like it's nothing. Shane really does envy him sometimes. How does Rozanov just exist in the world without everything crushing him at all times? He makes it look so fucking easy.

Sure, there’s no point not sleeping in Rozanov’s bed, and Shane wants to sleep in Rozanov’s bed, but of course he overthinks how weird it's going to be to sleep in a bed with Rozanov. This whole fucking thing is weird. He left Rozanov's hotel room technically this morning convinced that Rozanov didn't even like him, and now Rozanov is carefully watching him to make sure that he eats enough, and he's texting Shane's mom, and he's ordering his food and jerking him off at the kitchen counter and touching him afterward, pulling him closer instead of pushing away, and he’s taking him fucking skating. So, like, maybe it’s not weird that Shane is so confused. 

They sit on the couch again after dinner, and they watch more of the news. Most of the Midwest and all of the East Coast are still holding strong, but there have been some isolated cases in Atlanta, and a bunch in Florida, people who apparently boarded flights after being bitten, before the planes were grounded. Both of those places feel too close in a way that Shane doesn’t like. Rozanov clearly doesn't like it either, because he turns off the TV just as soon as the local anchor confirms no cases so far in Boston and delivers a stiff monologue about all the precautions the governor and the mayor are taking to ensure the safety of their city.  

When the TV is off, Shane realizes how tired he is, but he knows that it will be less nervewracking to sleep in Rozanov's bed if they fuck first and then just fall asleep afterward. It will feel less like a plan, then, and more just…incidental. He accepts another drink from Rozanov’s bar cart—and tries not to react too much to the fact that Rozanov pours some ginger ale into it before he hands it over, which very much does improve the taste, though he thinks that's an opinion that would get him murdered by bourbon-enjoyers—and he drinks it quickly so that he can climb into Rozanov's lap and kiss him. He's not sure why he's expecting Rozanov to object, but of course Rozanov doesn’t. He breathes out a content sound instead, and then he kisses Shane, and pulls him close, and makes these breathy little sounds against Shane's mouth that make Shane smile. This is so the opposite of how things were in Vegas.

“Let's go to bed,” Shane says finally, and Rozanov nods in a way that’s eager enough that it doesn’t allow Shane to doubt for even a second, which he really appreciates. They stumble down the hall to the bedroom, kissing, and then Rozanov falls back onto the bed, and Shane climbs on top of him. He really is feeling tired now, but he's gotta push through it to keep it from being awkward to sleep together. 

Plus, his dick certainly isn't tired, and he knows he won't sleep well unless he gets off. 

Rozanov fucks him for, like, the third time in twenty-four hours, and Shane thinks vaguely about how he sometimes goes months without having sex at all, and sometimes goes weeks in the middle of the season without even feeling the urge to jerk off, but somehow when Rozanov’s around, Shane is always at least a little hard. It really is baffling how he can always want this even though he so often ends up feeling hurt by it afterward. 

Is it worth it? He'll ask himself, every single time, and yet the next time he gets his chance, he’s sinking down to his knees in front of Rozanov again and eagerly mouthing at his dick through his pants. So the answer must be yes, even though the math of it makes no sense. 

It feels worth it now, with the lights off, with Rozanov’s sheets smelling like him. They're cool against Shane's overheated skin, and silky smooth. They probably are silk, knowing Rozanov. They’re nice. 

Rozanov is less chatty than usual. It's just “okay?” “Yes” “okay?” “Yes” breathed between them. He makes Shane come twice with the kind of determination that always makes him so difficult to face on the ice, and Shane lies there afterward, breathing hard, feeling a comfortable haze settle over him. 

“Okay?” Rozanov asks again as he crawls back into bed, after disposing of the condom and cleaning Shane off, the way he always does. Shane nods, and he turns towards Rozanov, and he sees Rozanov's eyes glittering a little in the dark. Shane wonders if he's crying, but is too afraid to ask, or even suggest it. He tilts his head down, pressing his forehead to the skin of Rozanov's neck, and he's so glad when Rozanov puts his arms around him, pulls the blankets up to their shoulders. 

Mission accomplished. They're too fucked out to be awkward. Shane's a genius.  

“Okay,” Shane agrees, and then he drifts off to sleep. 

He wakes up expecting to find that Boston has fallen just like Vegas, especially because he is yet again woken up by the buzzing of his phone on the bed next to him. He sits up, flailing out of the covers. It’s his dad calling this time, which makes him nervous for a second. It’s not like his dad never calls him, but he usually lets Yuna handle the actual call while he just yells supportively in the background, typically only half aware of what Yuna is calling Shane about anyway. 

Rozanov is gone, which is probably for the best, even though it’s not a Facetime call. It would be weird to talk to his father with Rozanov looking probably devastatingly hot in the morning light. There’s a pang of something uncomfortable to think about the fact that Rozanov apparently got out of bed so early, though. Where did he go? 

“Dad?” he says into the phone.

“Hey, bud!” David says, and Shane releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, because his dad sounds as calm and bright as ever. 

“Are you guys okay?” he asks anyway. 

“Yeah! Yeah, Shane, we’re doing okay. We actually got a lot of action going on here! Hayden and Jackie and the girls are here, and Sharon and Leona from down the road are coming to stay, too. We’re expecting Uncle Chris any minute, and he’s got a full truck of supplies to unpack, so I figured I’d call before we got into it. I wanted to make sure you’re doing okay there. Rozanov isn’t being too hard on you, is he?” 

“Uh, no, dad, that’s not exactly how I’d put it,” Shane says miserably, putting his forehead in his hand. 

“Okay, that’s good. I know he can be, well. ‘Kind of a dick’, according to your mother. You should see the way she has to keep correcting herself now that we owe him so much.” 

“Yeah,” Shane says, and now he’s thinking about all those stupid jokes about owing Rozanov for rescuing him from Vegas, and he might cringe out of his skin if he doesn’t change the subject. “So, um. Anything about the border? Or the planes? We’re set here for a while. We got a ton of food, and the building seems pretty secure, so I’m not like super worried about it, but…” 

“Nothing yet. Sorry, bud. It makes sense to lock up the air travel, and obviously people are trying to get home. I’m sure you saw that Toronto has a few cases now, and Vancouver, well.” 

“Right,” Shane says, and again he thinks of that look in Rozanov’s eyes in the car in Vegas and again on the plane. Trying to talk around his pessimism like an adult not wanting to blow up a kid’s dreams of Santa Claus. “Yeah, um. I know things are…” 

“Yeah,” David says, finally, after Shane can’t say anything else. 

He says his goodbyes to his father, who promises/threatens that Yuna will be calling as soon as she’s done seeing the others settled in. Shane doesn’t want to tell them not to call, obviously, because he knows that every call could be their last. Still, it feels stifling, all the way from here, which makes him feel guilty. He always feels guilty when he’s around them and thinking about Rozanov, because he knows he’s keeping this massive secret from them, and he knows that they wouldn’t understand any of it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish he could tell them, sometimes. 

He lies back down for a second after he hangs up the phone, but he knows he won’t be going back to sleep. He goes through his texts dutifully. Theriault seems to think that it should be as simple as Shane hopping on a plane and getting back in time for practice, though he does mention that a few of the guys are taking time off “out of an abundance of caution”. Shane politely answers that he’s doing his best to get back home, and privately he hopes that that’s the last he’ll hear of it. 

He checks in with Hayden and Jackie, and he texts a few of his friends from childhood, but there really isn’t anyone else he wants to reach out to. It feels so disingenuous at this point, with the weight of the last day pushing down on him. He remembers the zombies running across the tarmac, busting down the fence. He remembers the soldiers opening fire. He remembers the zombie on the plane. It’s all coming here eventually. It’s probably coming here soon. Outside on the street, people are honking, annoyed to be in traffic, probably on the way to fucking work or something, and Shane is just like, fuck. When is it going to come here, too? Because obviously it’s coming. 

He shuffles out to the living room and finds Rozanov sitting on the couch and playing PlayStation like the world isn’t ending. He’s drinking coffee, and he pauses his game to look over at Shane. 

“I cannot watch the fucking news anymore. You can look on your phone,” he says, his jaw clenched in a way that Shane doesn’t want to argue with. 

“I don’t want to watch it either,” he admits. “No cases in Boston, still?” 

“No cases.” 

“Okay. I’m going to head out for a little bit, do some shopping.” Rozanov looks at him incredulously. “Like, clothes shopping, getting some supplies, or whatever. Not food. Do you have a printer?” 

“A what?” 

“A printer? Like to print things?” 

“I know what a printer is. Why the fuck would I have a printer?” 

“Paperwork?” 

“My agent does all my paperwork. Of course you do paperwork.” 

“Do you have a laptop?” 

“I have a phone!”

“Oh my god, you’re broken as a person. There are phone activities, and there are laptop activities. Everyone knows this. Shut up. Okay, so I’m getting a printer, and a laptop.” 

“What, you need to do your taxes?” 

Shane laughs a little, and he shrugs into his hoodie. 

“No,” he says. “I need to do research.” 

Based on Rozanov’s mood, Shane isn’t surprised to find himself going shopping alone. He’s actually a little relieved. It’s good to get a break. Not like Rozanov has been bothering him at all, but that’s actually part of the problem. 

He normally doesn’t like shopping, but he doesn’t mind it when he has a list, and when he knows exactly what he’s looking for. He takes an Uber to a few stores where he knows they carry clothes he likes. He picks up more than he needs, probably. He can already hear Rozanov bitching about all the space Shane is going to be taking up in his apartment, but he can also hear him shutting the fuck up as soon as Shane offers to suck his dick for the storage fee. It puts kind of a pep in his step. 

He goes to a sporting goods store and finds that the lines are insanely long, which is no surprise. Half the city is pretending that nothing’s wrong, but the other half are like Shane, probably telling whoever’s waiting for them at home that they’re going out to grab some supplies “just in case”. Shane gets in line with a carriage full of supplies and makes awkward conversation with a Raiders fan who does a cartoonish double-take when he sees who's standing behind him. Shane is expecting the guy to be an asshole, because Boston fans typically are, but Blake just starts rattling off Shane’s stats like he has them memorized, and then he asks a few genuinely insightful questions about what Shane thinks Boston can do to improve their defense situation, and Shane is relieved, because this is the exact kind of conversation he loves. 

“What are you doing in Boston?” Blake asks eventually. Shane imagines telling him I’m staying with Rozanov because we’ve been fucking for years. He thinks it might be kind of funny. Maybe he’s already been spending too much time with Rozanov. Instead, he chokes out an awkward recap of how he’d ended up on a flight to Boston because Rozanov was one of the only other assholes still asleep while every other hockey player was getting the fuck out of Vegas. Blake doesn’t seem to suspect anything weird, or maybe he doesn’t care, and just wants to talk about hockey some more. Shane can relate. 

He buys a bunch of shelf stable rations and a few things that he feels silly buying, like baseball bats and machetes, because he figures they’ll make better weapons than guns. He buys water sterilization kits and firestarter kits. He buys sleeping bags, and he buys winter jackets and flannel shirts and gloves and hats and scarves, and he buys rope, and he buys a toolkit and a first aid kit. Rozanov is going to think he’s lost his mind, but picturing his aghast, befuddled expression puts Shane in an even better mood, so he can’t regret it.

He goes to Staples and picks up a laptop, some binders, a three-hole punch, one of those industrial printers, a bunch of extra ink, plastic sheet protectors, and a shitload of paper, and he loads all of it into the Uber. His driver is getting tipped too well to complain about all the shit now basically filling his car, but he seems bemused, and a little bitter, like he wishes he could afford to go out and panic-buy a bunch of supplies instead of spending what could be one of his last days on earth ferrying around minor celebrities. Shane ups his tip five hundred dollars out of guilt, then thinks better of it and adds a zero out of even more guilt, and then he calls Rozanov to help him unload the car when he gets back. 

Rozanov looks at him exactly like Shane expected, and it makes Shane smile. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Rozanov asks, and Shane laughs. 

They carry everything upstairs, and Rozanov shows Shane to a room that looks like it was probably meant to be a second guest bedroom, but he decided to turn it into an office that has nothing in it but a desk and a swivel chair. 

“One of the guys said I should buy a gaming PC, so I bought a desk, but then didn’t see the fucking point, with PlayStation,” Rozanov admits grumpily. “I forget this room exists, mostly.”

“You really don’t have any furniture,” Shane notes. 

“Mm. I will fuck you on the desk, though,” Rozanov replies. 

“Well, yeah, obviously,” Shane says. “But not now. Go play your game or whatever.” 

Rozanov laughs under his breath and wanders out of the room. He lifts his arms above his head, exposing a trail of skin at his back, and it’s really hot that he thinks that’s going to work, but unfortunately for him, Shane is about to be in the zone, and not even the promise of Rozanov’s dick is going to be enough to get him out of it before he’s ready. It would be like Rozanov trying to fuck him during a hockey game. 

He spends the next three hours setting up the laptop and the printer, going online, buying an irresponsible amount of ebooks and doing a shitload of internet searches for easy step-by-step instructions for various things, printing out everything he can. How to hotwire cars. How to siphon gas. Lists of medications and what they can be used to treat. How to start a fire in the wilderness. How to decontaminate water. How to DIY stitches. How to knit. How to mend clothing. How to grow your own vegetables. How to optimize soil fertilization on a larger scale farm. How to take care of chickens, and cows, and horses. How to cook fucking everything. He keeps thinking he’ll run out of questions eventually, but his anxiety can actually be really helpful sometimes, and this is one of those times. He just keeps coming up with more. What would I need to know if the world ended tomorrow? What would I need to know to keep us alive for a year, for five years, for ten? 

“What the fuck,” Rozanov says, coming into the room with a sandwich piled on a plate, along with some potato chips. He’s staring at Shane like he’s never seen him before. Shane’s stomach grumbles before he can say he doesn’t want it, and Rozanov drops it on the desk like it’s incidental, like it’s not a big deal, but it makes Shane’s heart throb a bit with happiness that he made it at all.

“The internet is going to go down at some point,” Shane answers. He shows Rozanov the two binders he’s already started filling: one for each of them. “If you can think of anything else to add…” 

Rozanov briefly looks like he wants to make fun of him, but then he sighs, and he slides closer, and he lifts Shane’s chin up so that Shane’s forced to meet his eyes. He smiles a little. 

“New house rule,” he says. 

“Okay?” 

“Glasses stay on, malysh.” 

Shane flushes, reaching for his glasses. He’d forgotten he was wearing them. Rozanov tuts softly, and he pulls Shane’s hand down to prevent him from taking them off. 

“I just need them for reading,” Shane mumbles. 

“And I cannot believe how sexy they are. Like hot librarian. Perfect fantasy. Show me your little book. It’s doing it for me.” 

“What did you call me?” 

“Hm?” 

“That thing you said, in Russian.” 

Rozanov looks briefly confused, caught out, and Shane thinks he won’t answer, but of course he just shrugs one shoulder, looks unbothered, smirks in a way that probably anyone else on the planet would call “unpleasant”, but which is unfortunately very hot to Shane personally. 

“Oh. It means, um. I guess you would say eager little slut,” he says thoughtfully. 

“Jesus, Rozanov. Great, thank you so much. Really sweet of you to say.” 

“Ah, malysh. If I thought you wanted to hear sweet things, I would say sweet things,” Rozanov teases, kissing him, clearly way too pleased with himself. “Do you want sweet things?” 

“No,” Shane lies defensively. Rozanov hums, laughs a little. 

“I didn’t think so. Krasivyy, solnyshko, dorogoy.”

“Do I even want to know what those ones mean?” 

Rozanov answers happily, “they mean I am a very smart man who can say whatever I want to an eager slut with cute glasses.”

“Stop,” Shane laughs, but he leans back a little in his chair. Rozanov grins savagely, knowing that he has him, and leans his weight back against the desk, his hand trailing idly down the front of Shane’s shirt.

“Did you find everything you needed at the store?” 

“Yeah. I think so. There’s probably something I forgot, but…” 

“I do not think that’s possible. You bought everything. You bought a whole new wardrobe.” 

“I needed some clothes.” 

“You can’t just wear my clothes?” Rozanov asks, sounding so sincerely curious, and then he finally dances his fingers beneath the waistband of Shane's pants and wraps his fingers around Shane’s cock at the same moment he leans in to claim Shane's mouth. Shane gasps into the kiss, needy, hungry. Rozanov keeps pulling back to look at him in his glasses, smiling a little dopily, and Shane is thinking, oh, he might actually be serious about liking them. He’s so fucking weird. Wait, why is it so hot to me that he thinks my glasses are hot? Am I the weird one?

“I didn’t want to assume,” he manages to choke out. 

“Mm. Very polite of you,” Rozanov says. “My polite Canadian malysh.” And then he pushes Shane’s chair back further, and he gets on his knees under the desk, and Shane sighs happily, and leans back, and lets it happen.  

He calms down a little bit after that, consents to taking a break from thinking of every single catastrophe that could ever happen for the rest of his life. He feels like he covered most of it, and he figures if he thinks of anything else, he can jot down a note on his phone so he can remember to look more stuff up later. He can tell that Rozanov is a little concerned about Shane's long period of hyperfocus because he’s doing that thing he sometimes does where he looks Shane over like he’s trying to read his mind, and because he keeps finding reasons to keep him close and out of the office. Kissing him and touching him and teasing him about stupid stuff that has nothing to do with his binder. Shane feels on edge about it in a way he doesn’t really know how to describe even to himself. Like he’s afraid of what Rozanov will see if he looks too closely. 

Which is stupid, because even Shane doesn’t know what he sees when he looks at his own fucking feelings closely. But still. Rozanov always seems to figure out exactly what he needs. 

Rozanov shows him some of the online noise about Shane showing up to the Raiders practice rink yesterday. It’s all sort of funny: the comments, the edge of panic, the vibe that everyone is pretending to give a fuck about two hockey rivals hanging out while people are dying. It makes him feel a little sick, but there’s also this moment when he feels like…he’s not sure. 

It’s just that there’s this one tweet buried among the rest that’s fairly popular, very liked and retweeted or whatever. It’s this girl who apparently thinks they’re fucking, and the fact that she’s right would normally send Shane into a panic, but Rozanov explains quickly that plenty of people think that various players are fucking. They don’t actually know anything. It’s just noise. Shane nods and tries to pretend that he’s capable of being cool about it, even though he knows that Rozanov knows that he isn’t, so he’s not sure why he tries. Rozanov grins and holds on to the inside of Shane’s thigh, and Shane reads the tweet. 

Let the historical record show after the zombie wars that hollanov were secretly in love the whole time. 

And, well. 

‘Secretly in love the whole time’ is doing some heavy lifting, and it makes Shane feel itchy to read those words while sitting next to Rozanov, because he doesn’t want to give anything away—not that there’s anything to give away except Shane being fucking dramatic and weird, obviously—but something catches in his chest when he reads the tweet anyway. 

It’s kind of nice that the probable last pictures of them on the internet will be them being friendly. Smiling at each other fondly. Laughing, skating around each other. Goofing off. It won’t be any of the stupid fucking posed “rivalry” shots the MLH loves to post. It won’t be them glowering at each other during a face-off. It will be them, closer to the truth than anything else ever has been publicly. 

He can’t say any of that to Rozanov, of course. So he laughs, and he keeps scrolling, and he reads aloud some of the funnier tweets, and Rozanov keeps his hands on him the entire time. 

The good mood doesn’t last, of course. As much as Rozanov tries to keep him occupied the entire day, Shane eventually insists that they have to at least turn on the news to check. It's more of the same, but it’s actually maybe a little more optimistic than yesterday. The army made some headway in LA. New York set up a quarantine zone for its infected. Massachusetts has seen some isolated cases in Fall River, but they’re currently all in quarantine and under heavy guard. 

Rozanov isn’t as moved by the seeming good news. 

“This is what it was like in Russia,” he finally says. “Before. Can we stop?”

“Yeah, of course,” Shane says. He reaches for the remote, and he changes it to ESPN, which is showing a replay of an old Admirals game. Rozanov releases a shaky breath and runs his hand down his face. 

“Sorry,” he says, his voice strangely small. 

“I don't like watching it either,” Shane assures him, which isn't necessarily a lie, but it's also not really the truth, either. He's fascinated by it. He'd watch it all day, if he could. The world is falling apart in real time, and Shane is the sort of person who has to watch a thing like that, pick it apart, drive himself insane with it. But of course he doesn't like it. It's terrifying. He can catch up on his phone, though, when Rozanov isn’t sitting next to him. “I'll cook dinner tonight, okay?”

Rozanov looks at him with an odd expression that shifts on his face for a second, like he's running through a collection of chirps to try and decide which one to use, but in the end, he only nods. 

It's kind of nice, hanging out with Rozanov all day. It's weird, especially with the anticipation of the zombies hanging over them, but it would have been weird no matter who he was with. He has a moment of thinking about, like, what if he had made that plane back to Montreal that his coach tried to get him on? He would have been in Ottawa by now, with his parents and Hayden and Jackie, and he would have probably felt a lot more safe, and obviously that would have been the ideal. But it kind of makes his stomach swoop to think that Rozanov would have just been here in this impersonal apartment, alone, if he wasn’t already dead in Vegas because Shane’s mom didn’t wake him up.

They eat dinner together, and Rozanov makes fun of his bland food, but it's muted, and Shane couldn’t take it personally if he tried. They play some PlayStation together, and Rozanov makes fun of him when he has a sudden thought and has to rush back to the laptop to print out a few more instruction manuals for things. Like simple electricity, how to make your own soap and toothpaste and penicillin. 

“You are planning for ten years away,” Rozanov marvels when he leans over Shane's shoulder to look down at the laptop screen. 

“Well, yeah, I guess. I keep thinking about how we have all these resources now, but they're not going to last forever. So we might as well give ourselves an advantage while we still can.”

Rozanov is looking down at him, his expression a little tilted, a half-smile sitting softly on his face. 

“Okay,” he says finally, and he leans down and kisses Shane. It's gentler than usual, and Shane wonders at it, but not in a bad way. 

Shane snaps out of his latest bout of research hyperfocus at almost midnight, because his eyes are burning, and because he can't think of any more apocalypse needs, and because he hears Rozanov speaking in Russian in the other room. His voice is low, urgent, but it doesn't sound upset. Maybe he's on the phone with his family? Maybe they're okay?

Shane considers staying in the office, but he heads out anyway, with this vague thought that Rozanov has been literally texting his mom, so maybe it doesn't have to be weird that they're involved in speaking to each other's families now. Rozanov’s eyes go to him immediately when he walks in, and Shane hesitates, hovers, but Rozanov gestures at him to let him know it's okay, and Shane is relieved. 

The conversation doesn't last very long once Shane arrives. Rozanov looks softer like this, pacing around in front of the muted TV. He looks anxious, too, in a way that Shane largely only recognizes because of his own panic, and not because it looks familiar at all on Rozanov’s face. 

Before Rozanov hangs up, he says the same sentence in Russian a few times, sounding more upset every time, broken up by what seems to be the other person on the phone speaking back to him. When the call ends, he looks down at his phone for a little bit afterward, as if trying to contemplate what to do next. Shane feels very sorry for him, suddenly, and very sorry that he walked in when he did. 

Because they don’t do this. 

They aren’t like this. 

How awkward is this going to be? 

But he sees that Rozanov’s eyes are wet, and he sees that they're starting to get red, and he doesn’t even think. He crosses the room and pulls Rozanov into a hug. Rozanov stiffens against him, and Shane is thinking, great, now you’ve really fucked it up, but then Rozanov just hugs him back with so much force that Shane collapses backward onto the couch. Within a few seconds, he’s laid out flat, with Rozanov heavy on top of him, like this is exactly what Rozanov had planned. Maybe it was. Shane certainly can't really see Rozanov’s face with it pressed into his neck like this. It feels like a move made to hide his tears, and it’s mostly only so recognizable to Shane because Shane would also rather die than show emotions in front of other people, so he gets it. 

He rubs his hand over Rozanov’s back for a little bit, enjoying the weight on him and the soft puffs of air against his skin. He can feel that Rozanov wants to cry, but he understands why he doesn’t let loose. He keeps thinking that’s not us. We don’t do that. He’s sure Rozanov is thinking the same. This apartment is big, but maybe he feels like Shane has seeped into it too much. Maybe he feels like he can’t escape and cry on his own. Shane feels a little guilty about that, actually. 

“I’m sorry,” he says as he continues to rub Rozanov’s back. “Was that your family?” 

Rozanov clears his throat, and when he speaks, his voice is so controlled that Shane knows he’s trying very hard for it to be. 

“It was my friend, Svetlana. She is safe, on vacation with her family on some Italian island. No traffic in or out, no cases. Total quarantine. They have food and farms and people taking care of each other, and the locals are very nice, she says.” 

“That’s good. I’m glad to hear that.” 

“Yes. She is my best friend, since we were little. I need her to be okay. She was able to talk with some people in Moscow. She says that there are still some places that are okay. Groups of survivors. Most of the city is gone to shit, but she says maybe…” He breaks off, sighing. “It doesn’t matter.” 

“It does. It’s okay.” 

“No, I mean…I don’t know. I can’t explain to you.” 

“What do you mean? You can try?” 

Rozanov scoffs a little, but he burrows closer to Shane, so it doesn’t feel entirely like  rejection. 

“Your mother was so worried about you that she called every person she has ever met to find someone to help you. She called me.” Like he can tell that Shane is going to say something stupid like, well, yeah, she’s my mom, he barrels onward. “My brother, last three days, as Moscow is falling apart, he is calling and asking for more money. More money for bribes, more money for safety. More money so they can buy food and weapons. I send money, of course. I always send money. But then the banks are closed because Moscow is fucked, so I cannot send more, and I tell him that, and so then he doesn’t answer my calls. Is he alive? Are the phones down? Is my father still alive? Is my niece?” 

“I’m so sorry,” Shane says, because he can hear the tears in Rozanov’s voice now, and it makes him so angry to think of it, to think that Rozanov can be so alone when he has always seemed to sparklingly huge to Shane. Like he deserves to be surrounded at all times by people who are as charmed by him as Shane is. More than Shane is, maybe. People who can be honest about being charmed by him, at least. 

“They were always asking for more. More, more, more. And I know what he does with that money. I know that he…” He heaves out another scoff, like he’s disgusted with himself. “It doesn’t matter. I am useless to him now, until the banks come back. I hope he bought what he said he would buy, but I don’t know. And I will never see them again, or Sveta, and I…” 

He lapses into silence, and Shane can feel the hot wet splash of tears against the skin of his neck, and he buries his face into Rozanov’s hair and holds him tighter, like he’s trying to keep Rozanov from physically coming apart in his hands. Like that's something he would be remotely capable of doing. He’s so sorry that he’s the only person here, because he's always been so terrible at trying to comfort people. He never knows the right thing to say. But Rozanov is holding him back just as tightly, so maybe this is okay. 

I will never see them again, he hears, and he thinks of all the times that Rozanov has seemed amused by Shane's planning, like he thinks it’s all going to be pointless. Like he thinks they’re just waiting around to die. Shane holds Rozanov tighter, and he thinks to himself that he’s going to prove him wrong. 

The next morning, Shane’s mother requests another Facetime call, but at least this time he and Rozanov are both dressed and in the kitchen, eating food. Sure, Rozanov is wearing only his pajama pants, and sure, the t-shirt Shane is wearing is Rozanov’s, but it’s an improvement over last time. 

Rozanov waves at the camera when Yuna and David say hello, and he seems less awkward. All of it is less awkward. Shane has been worried this whole time that it will feel like he’s overstaying his welcome, or like he won’t like Rozanov anymore when they’re in the same place for too long. Except Rozanov has been really sweet, if condescending, and if a little abrasive, and Shane just likes him even more, now. 

“So the border is officially open for limited crossings. I think I could probably get you in, based on your profile. Any luck on getting a car? You might want to try and make it out today. Things are starting to look pretty grim.” Yuna’s voice is too calm, and Shane can identify the anxiety laced throughout it the way he has always been able to with her. 

“Yeah, okay,” Shane says. He glances up at Rozanov through his eyelashes, not wanting to be caught looking, and he sees the way Rozanov is very carefully chewing his food, and the way he very carefully swallows it before pushing the rest of the omelet around on his plate with his fork, frowning. “Hey. You'll come with me, right?” 

Rozanov looks up with surprise, seeming caught. 

“Um.” 

“You can’t just ride it out in this apartment by yourself,” Shane says, hopefully sounding concerned like a normal friend. Just a cool bro making sure that another cool bro survives the apocalypse. That’s valid, right? He’d maybe be more freaked out about trying to play it cool if there weren't zombies, but there are zombies, and after holding Rozanov on the couch while he cried yesterday, Shane has been feeling unfortunately very tender about him, and the thought of abandoning him is nausea-inducing.

“I…okay,” Rozanov says, not arguing, and Shane is relieved. He’d been prepared for a much tougher negotiation, and his tactics aren’t exactly the kind that can be deployed on a Facetime call with his parents. 

“Are you sure? What about hockey?” Yuna asks, and David sighs a little in the background. Rozanov looks at Yuna and then Shane, and he smiles a little incredulously. 

“Oh, I see,” he says. “You are the same.” 

“We’re not the same,” Shane mutters. 

“Half the team has gone home to be with their families,” Rozanov says diplomatically to the phone. “Coach has given us the week. Very nice of him.” 

If Shane’s parents hear the dry fatalism that clogs every word, they don't let on. 

“Then we would love to have you up here with us,” David says from the background, and Yuna quickly agrees. 

When they hang up, Rozanov is watching him carefully, a little doubtfully. 

“You mean this? You want me to come?” 

“What? Yeah. Of course I do. Don’t be fucking stupid.” 

“You think we can be normal in a house with your parents?” 

“Probably not, but what choice do we have? It’ll be better than staying here by yourself,” Shane says, and Rozanov hums thoughtfully. 

“Okay. We take my car, then. No need for rental.” 

“Okay,” Shane says, happy to have a plan.

Except then they turn on the news. 

And then they see the traffic gridlock. 

And then they see the footage of the zombies bursting from some tunnel somewhere, chasing down panicked motorists. Rozanov goes to the window and twitches aside the curtain; they’ve had the black-out curtains drawn since Shane got here, neither of them wanting to risk anyone spotting him. 

“Ah, okay,” Rozanov says, stepping back to let Shane look. Shane steps up, squeezes in next to him, and Rozanov wraps an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close. 

The traffic in front of Rozanov’s apartment building is backed up as far as they can see. People are running, wearing backpacks, fleeing on foot. Abandoning their cars. Shane can’t see any zombies, but he knows it’s only a matter of time. 

“Oh,” he says. 

“Hm,” Rozanov agrees. “Why don’t you tell your parents that we will have to stay here, yes? I will start meal prep so we will have something to eat when the power goes out.” 

Shane looks at him, surprised. Rozanov doesn’t sound terribly shocked; of course he doesn’t. He’s been expecting this the whole time. Technically, so has Shane, but it feels different. It’s a shock anyway. He feels tears in his eyes, and Rozanov makes an unhappy sound and swoops in. He kisses Shane gently, much more gently than he has so far. 

“Shane,” he says, holding Shane’s face. “Call your parents. I will cook our food. You will get to use your stupid binder to help us stay alive.”

“This is it,” Shane says, swallowing back a thousand other words he wants to say. Rozan–Ilya. Fuck it. Like, what’s the fucking point of pretending he doesn’t—? Ilya leans in and pulls him into a hug. 

“Yes,” he agrees. “This is it. And maybe we could get very drunk and figure out best way to kill ourselves while also fucking, but I don’t think you would like that.” 

“No,” Shane agrees, tightening his hold. Ilya hums and kisses him on the forehead. 

“Okay. So we don’t. We keep going. Yes?” 

Shane pulls back to look at him. Like it’s just that simple. Ilya really is impossible to figure out, sometimes. How did they get from Vegas to here? He thought…well. Apparently he was wrong. Unless it just makes more sense to hold Shane close than let him go right now, given that they’re alone in this, but he doesn’t think that’s it. He thinks maybe he was right the first time, in Montreal, when Ilya fucked him and Shane was thinking that Ilya was kind and gentle and maybe liked him just as much as Shane unfortunately liked him back. Maybe Vegas was the fluke. Maybe the rest of it was real. 

“Yes,” he says. “We keep going.” Together, he can’t quite work up the courage to say. But, like, it’s implied.