Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, inspired by Station Eleven (but you don't need to read Station Eleven to understand it), implied secondary character death but no specific deaths are ever confirmed, absolutely zero zombies if that is a concern for you, high levels of pining, rated E because this one is a slow burn until it isn't, Light BDSM, Dom/sub, bondage and communication, Marijuana Use

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-19 Completed: 2026-07-08 Words: 52,765 Chapters: 11/11

Dawn in the Altered World

Summary

The Boston Raiders are making decent time heading up into Michigan when one of the horses almost breaks an ankle on what’s left of the road.

A highly lethal—and highly contagious—virus has swept across the planet, taking down the power grid, toppling society, and leaving behind only a tiny fraction of the population. For a while, it seems like everything is over. This is not the case.

Or: The world ends. Shane Hollander starts playing for Boston. Yes, in that order.

Notes

This fic is directly inspired by Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel. You don't need to have read Station Eleven to understand anything here, but it's an amazing book and I highly recommend it...assuming you can stomach a story about an apocalypse brought on by a respiratory virus. If you want to tap out here, I totally respect that.

Title taken from a phrase in Station Eleven, "twilight in the altered world."

Many thanks to my betas, AcesGroupChat, etben, rarefiednight msilverstar, and beagoldfish. All later chapters are pretty much completed, just undergoing one last polish. Updates on Sundays and Wednesdays.

Chapter 1

Year Seven

The Boston Raiders are making decent time heading up into Michigan when one of the horses almost breaks an ankle on what’s left of the road. It’s winter, early morning. The ground is hard. The only reason Apple didn’t destroy her own leg is that Joy spotted the problem—a deep, sudden hole—just in time, and guided her around it with practiced ease. Apple isn’t even spooked. 

Marleau is, though. He stops the caravan, which of course takes some doing, and calls Ilya down from his own horse to take a look at the stretch of road that almost felled Apple.

“Fuck, that’s not good,” Marleau says, frowning down at the hole. Several others dot the side of the road. “See how clean the edges are?”

Ilya frowns. “A gopher, maybe?”

“Not this far east,” says Marleau. “Shit, dude, these are man-made.” Traps, he means. Which would suggest they’re crossing someone’s territory. People can be weird about that. Prone to panic. Once the preppers ran out of bullets, much of the immediate danger waned. Not all of it.

“The ground is frozen,” Ilya points out. “These could be old.”

Marleau frowns. “You really wanna take that chance?”

This is fair enough, unfortunately. Nobody is announcing their presence, but Ilya and the others have been taking the back roads and there’s a dense forest to either side of them—a lot of cover.

Ilya spreads the word, defense formation. Defense used to mean one thing to Ilya, something to rush past on the ice. These days it also encompasses: the children and anyone who can’t fight retreating to the trailers and getting out of sight. A few scouts riding ahead. The rest hanging back, prepared to rally around the strange assortment of trailers, wagons, horses, and people that make up what is still left of Ilya’s universe. 

Ilya takes point on his favorite of the horses, Katrina, scanning not just the woods to either side but the road ahead. The caravan has a few hand signals; he signs careful to the riders behind him. Quiet.

There’s no other signs of human life, though, as far as he can tell. Then, from up ahead to the right of the road, something streaks past Ilya’s head, too fast to track. Katrina rears back; Ilya murmurs whoa and rubs at her neck until she calms.

An arrow, thinks Ilya. The one thing they don’t have much of: ranged weapons.

Still, there’s no reason their attacker needs to know that.

They don’t have the element of surprise. Ilya pitches his voice to be heard. “Hello!” Ilya shouts. In the cold, the words leave his mouth as vapor. “Before you shoot and miss with another tiny arrow, you should know: there are way more of us than there are of you!” 

“That was a warning shot!” someone yells back. A man’s voice, ragged and tired. Something about it is pulling at Ilya, a fish hook to the chest, but it isn’t. It can’t—

“Yes,” Ilya calls. “And we are warned! We don’t want to hurt you! We could trade if you have anything, or else we can all of us keep walking! But we are many, many strong hockey players and a fight would be bad news for you!”

Somewhere in the underbrush, branches rustle.

Johansson and Kohn pull up alongside Ilya on their own horses.

“What—” Kohn whispers; Ilya shakes his head.

A figure emerges, maybe 40 yards away. In his hands, a wicked-looking metal bow with an arrow notched. It’s trained at Ilya’s head. The man is wearing a black parka with the hood up.

Ilya climbs off his horse, raises both empty hands in the air. There’s a knife at his belt if he needs it, but God, he hopes he won’t.

He hopes—

“Who are you,” the stranger demands as Ilya moves closer, that voice again, and even at a distance, even after the end of the world, even with an arrow aimed directly at Ilya’s head, Ilya feels like a flare is going off in his chest.

“I think you already know,” says Ilya.

The stranger sets the bow and arrow almost gingerly on the ground, and it’s impossible, it’s more impossible than every impossible fucking thing that has already happened, Ilya doesn’t know how he stays on his feet, just that they are 30 yards apart, then 15, then five, and then Ilya is standing there, close enough to see the individual freckles across a slightly older but still vividly familiar face.

“Shane Hollander,” Ilya says, half for the pleasure of saying his name.

Shane’s brown eyes stare back at him and there is no mistake, this is not a dream or a hallucination or any other break with reality. Shane Hollander is here and alive. There’s a scratch on one cheek, the tip of his nose is pink with cold, and his eyes are bright. 

Ilya’s hands ache to reach out and touch him but the last time they saw each other was under the lights of a loud club, music thumping into their skulls, and they were both dancing with other people. It has been many years. Ilya has no notion of what is allowed now.

“Hollander,” he says. Ilya has had a long time to imagine what he might say if they ever met again. Suddenly, none of it fits. Nothing is big enough for this moment. “Shane—”

“You again,” Shane hisses, and then Shane is collapsing in the middle of the road.

2016

Ilya pulls up alongside where the charter plane should be, ready to get the fuck out of Montreal. He is very late. He is prepared for his teammates to snap at him, he is prepared to snap back, he is prepared for everything except the complete absence of a plane. Ilya climbs out of the car, slamming the door behind himself.

“The fuck is going on,” Ilya asks Sebbin, who’s frowning down at his phone.

“It’s that sickness,” says Connors. “They’re trying to quarantine or something.”

Ilya shakes his head, which is still pounding from last night. “What sickness?”

“Didn’t you see on the news?” St-Simon says. 

Ilya doesn’t say that he has spent the past two weeks avoiding most screens because of the likelihood he will be jumpscared with yet another photo of Shane—of Hollander—looking delighted to be somewhere else with Rose Landry. He shakes his head again, as if he will be able to clear the image from his mind of Rose’s hands under Hollander’s shirt in the pink and red light.

“Apparently, all flights are down,” Sebbin says. “Hey, is anyone getting signal?” 

There is a chorus of no’s.

“Until when?” says Ilya. “Flights are down until when?”

Year Seven

It is some small comfort that Shane’s body is heavy and warm, that his breath is still making little puffs of white in the freezing air. He has a holster of arrows strapped to his hip, digging into Ilya’s arm. His parka is black with yellow stripes down the arms. Ilya wants Shane to wake up so that Ilya can tell him Raiders colors look good on you, even though close up Shane actually looks ill. His freckles stand out against his too-pale skin, and dark purple shadows lurk under his eyes. 

“I’m taking him to the doc,” Ilya tells Johannson and Kohn. “Get his bow, and spread the word that we keep moving.”

When he goes to set Shane on Katrina’s back, Shane stirs a little, eyes opening. “My pack,” he says. “Please.” He reaches out, grabs Ilya’s wrist. His grip is stronger than Ilya would’ve guessed, his bare fingers ice-cold against the sliver of skin between the end of Ilya’s sleeve and the start of his gloves. Shane seems surprised at the contact, surprised that Ilya is still there. “My pack,” he says again. “I need—”

“Okay,” Ilya tells him. “Johannson and Kohn will find it.” He shoots them a look, and they nod. 

Shane nods, swallows. “It was behind a tree,” he gets out, like this will help in a forest of them. 

With this communicated, Ilya finally maneuvers Shane onto Katrina. Shane’s body sways terrifyingly to one side, and Ilya jumps up behind him before Shane can fall. It took Ilya a very, very long time to be at all comfortable on a horse, but it is all worth it now, he thinks, wrapping an arm around Shane’s waist and urging Katrina towards the back of the caravan, to where Dr. Wade will hopefully be able to make him well again. 

Ilya cages Shane in as best as he can with the arm not occupied holding the reins. Shane winces if he’s held too tightly, and Ilya is starting to suspect he is actually too warm, feverish.

It is an agonizing ride back to the medical trailer.

“Doctor Wade!” Ilya calls. “Help, please!”

Dr. Wade cracks open the door. She stares up at Shane, slumped within Ilya’s arms.

“Who the fuck is this?” says Dr. Wade.

“Does it fucking matter?” Ilya snaps. “He needs help.” 

“Fair enough,” says Dr. Wade. Together, they get him off the horse and deposit him safely onto the bed. She has a teardrop trailer, like the one Ilya sleeps in. Like the one Ilya sleeps in, it is dominated by the bed, and not designed to hold three people at once.

“What can you tell me?” Ilya asks her, hovering in the doorway.

“He’s got a fever,” she says. “Shut the door and come inside. Or don’t, Jesus. Quit letting in the cold air.”

“What can you tell me that I couldn’t learn by touching him?” says Ilya, stepping closer and latching the door shut behind him.

Dr. Wade sighs. “It could be from an infection,” she says. “See where his coat’s been cut?” Sure enough, there is a jagged line of black electrical tape down the left side of Shane’s parka. “My guess is it’s a wound. Help me get this off him.”

They peel the parka off, and the sweater under it, Shane barely aware enough to participate, and are greeted by a smattering of bruises on Shane’s arms and a mess of makeshift bandages running down along the length of his ribcage—what looks like the remnants of a white T-shirt, also secured to Shane’s side with electrical tape. The cloth is streaked with blood, which looks maybe a day old. Ilya feels as if he has swallowed something very cold.

“Who did this?” Ilya says, too loud.

Shane shakes his head without opening his eyes. “He didn’t make it,” he mumbles.

“I’m gonna have to redo these,” says Dr. Wade. “Good thing we hit that CVS outside South Bend.” It had mostly been a bust, but they’d picked up a few things—chiefly toothbrushes—and Doc is crazy about gauze. Without warning, in one motion, she rips the tape off Shane’s skin.

Shane’s eyes fly open. 

"Fuck!" Shane yelps. “What—?” 

“Don’t worry,” Ilya tells him, stooping down to grab for his hand. “This is Doctor Wade. We found her in New York, and adopted her, like a dog. She is mostly house-broken.”

Dr. Wade frowns at the wound, which Ilya either thinks or hopes doesn’t look too bad. It’s substantial, and clearly it has bled, but it doesn’t encompass any major organs and Ilya has seen people recover from worse. Not often, but it has happened.

“Is it—?” Ilya starts.

“Shut up,” says Dr. Wade. She washes the area with clean water and soap, applies some petroleum jelly to it, re-bandages it with her gauze and tape. She takes Shane’s pulse and feels his forehead. Her expression is hard to read.

Shane seems to drift; Ilya squeezes his hand. “They got you good, huh?” Ilya says to him. “What happened?”

For a second, Shane’s big brown eyes focus on Ilya. “No, this isn’t part of it,” says Shane, carefully enunciating.

“Hey, what’s your name?” Dr. Wade asks Shane.

Shane starts, as if remembering there is someone else in the room. “Uh, Shane Hollander,” he says, on what sounds like auto-pilot.

Dr. Wade nods with zero recognition. “How long have you been feeling feverish, Shane?” 

Shane blinks.

“Hey, how long?” says Ilya, squeezing his hand again.

“Since rookie season,” says Shane.

Ilya’s eyes dart to Dr. Wade.

“He’s dehydrated and severely sleep-deprived,” says Dr. Wade. “I didn’t see any pus or necrosis—uh, tissue damage, which is good, obviously. The worrying part is the fever. Longer than 48 hours and we’ve got problems. I’d give him antibiotics if those still existed, but as it is, he needs to stay very hydrated, get a lot of rest, and remain at a comfortable temperature until he can cool down a little on his own. Too hot is bad, too cold will make him shiver, which is also bad. I take it that you know him?”

“Yes,” says Ilya, as Shane says, “No.”

Dr. Wade glances between them. “Is this a hockey thing?” she says. “You know I don’t believe in contact sports.”

“A hockey thing, yes,” says Ilya.

“Okay,” says Dr. Wade. “There isn’t much else I can do for him at the moment. Do you know, does he have a place he can go? People who will look after him?”

On instinct, they both turn to Shane, who closes his eyes and says only, “This isn’t part of it, either.”

“He can stay with me,” says Ilya, too quickly. “For now.”

Dr. Wade gives Ilya a long, considering look. 

“What?” says Ilya.

“He’s feverish, and I’m guessing he hasn’t slept well for a long time.”

“You said,” Ilya reminds her.

“What I mean,” says Dr. Wade quietly, “is that he’s clearly not in his right mind.”

“Clearly,” says Ilya.

Dr. Wade purses her lips. “If you take sexual advantage of this man—”

“I won’t,” says Ilya, feeling sick.

“Okay,” says Dr. Wade, “because I trust you more than most of your compatriots. But remember, if you do, I’m the best set up of literally everyone you know to kill you and make it look like an accident.”

With Dr. Wade’s help, they get Shane back into his sweater and parka. The caravan is moving again. When Ilya sticks his head outside Dr. Wade’s door, Johansson and his horse are outside, keeping pace. Johansson is holding an unfamiliar hiking backpack with a bedroll belted to it, the bow secured to an outer strap. He jumps down, slings the pack over one shoulder, and rushes to help Ilya carry Shane up to Ilya’s trailer. 

After some struggling, they get Shane’s boots off, as well as the quiver of arrows, and set him on the bed, on his right side, facing the wall. Ilya wrestles the blankets over him.

Johansson drops the backpack on the floor. “That’s his,” he says, unnecessarily. Then, “What the fuck is going on?”

Ilya, who up until now had been mentally thanking Johansson for asking no questions, gives a quick overview of what Dr. Wade said, minus the part about threatening to murder Ilya if he uses the occasion to feel Shane up or something.

“You think it’s a coincidence we ran into Shane Hollander in the middle of nowhere in Michigan?” says Johansson.

“I don’t think this has all been a plot by the Metros, no,” says Ilya, as coolly as he can. “Since the Metros no longer exist—”

As far as Ilya knows, the Boston Raiders are the only even semi-operational hockey team left in North America. Any settlement with goods for trade is overjoyed to barter in exchange for seeing them split up and play against each other; Ilya has heard rumors of soccer games somewhere further south, but nothing else—no other teams and no other sports.

“Oh shit,” says Johansson, “the two of you facing off again? That could draw a crowd.”

Ilya nods as if that is his only thought. “Tell the others: come get me if it is an emergency. Meantime, I will try to keep alive the planet’s second-greatest hockey player.”

Once Johansson has cleared out, Ilya locates his water bottle by the bed. He nudges Shane on the shoulder.

“Drink,” says Ilya, thinking of the first time he ever thought to tell Shane what to do, the headiness of Shane’s obedience zipping through Ilya’s veins, making him feel almost drunk.

Shane’s eyes flutter open. “Don’t wanna,” he manages.

Ilya leans over and presses the water bottle into Shane’s hands. “Too bad, because you will.” This close, he can see the exact moment Shane folds. He watches the line of Shane’s throat as he swallows and swallows. When he judges that Shane has had enough, he takes the bottle back and sets it by the bed. “Good,” he says.

The trailer is unavoidably chilly. There is a draft by the window Ilya keeps meaning to repair, or better, barter with someone to repair it for him. Ilya has long since gotten used to sleeping in his coat. To be honest, he has long since gotten used to being a little bit cold most of the time. But even in his parka and under the blankets, Shane is shivering. 

Dr. Wade had said that shouldn’t happen. Of course, she had also said—

Ilya rubs at the back of his neck, trying to decide his next step.

“You can, you know,” Shane mumbles to the wall of Ilya’s trailer.

“What?” says Ilya.

“Take advantage,” says Shane, and Ilya is not going near that, Ilya is not going to dwell on that for even a second.

“You need to sleep,” Ilya tells him. He wonders if Shane can hear the thread of desperation in his voice. “You want to be good, right? You want to be good for me and sleep?”

“C’mere,” Shane says. He waves his arm behind himself, gesturing for Ilya to spoon up behind him, as if this was something they used to do together often, and not one single time on the day that Shane bolted from Ilya’s life. “C’mere.”

Ilya kicks off his boots. He lowers himself onto the edge of the bed, a bad idea in motion, and lies behind Shane, who inches backwards to bring their bodies flush. Ilya tucks his right arm under his own head, and there is no place for his other arm but around Shane’s shoulders. 

Shane has to be in tremendous pain, but he sighs and tangles his hand with Ilya’s.

“This is,” Shane says, maybe to himself.

Ilya waits several breaths for another word. None come.

“This is…?” Ilya prompts, knowing it is stupid to ask, knowing Shane is clearly not in his right mind, that Shane probably will not remember this tomorrow.

“Part of it,” says Shane. Gradually, he stills, until his even breathing tells Ilya he is asleep.

2016

With their plane grounded, the first thing the team does is try to drive to Boston. Later, they will realize this made no sense; obviously the quarantine would extend to roads, and obviously the quarantine is in effect for a reason. But they are tired and unsettled, restless. Some of them have girlfriends or wives and children back home. Enough of them drove rental cars to the airport that they can pile their gear and themselves inside. They will pay whatever fine is necessary to leave their rentals in Massachusetts, they decide. They set out for the interstate. 

After a slow three hours, they are most of the way to the border when they notice that the vehicles ahead of them are all driving across the median and turning around, heading back to Montreal. A customs officer is walking up to each car, tapping on the window, and saying something. Ilya waits at the wheel, already half-knowing they are not going home but unwilling to take the next step until the officer taps at the glass of the rental and says,

“Please keep your window up and turn around, sir. The border is currently closed.”

“When will it open?” Ilya demands.

“I don’t know,” says the officer. “Please keep the line moving.”

Zadonsky has two children, both under five. Myers just got married; he and his wife put off their honeymoon until the playing season is over. 

“If there is some fee we can pay—” Ilya starts.

The officer just sighs. “Please keep the line moving,” he says again. “Keep your window up for your own protection."

Ilya hesitates. The officer motions for Ilya to cross the median and turn around. In the rearview mirror, the officer coughs into his elbow and moves down the line.

Cell phones are still working some of the time then. Ilya alerts the rest of the Raiders’ cars, to get off at the nearest rest stop, and there they are, marooned in fucking Canada.

(Ilya has one main association with Montreal, but no doubt Hollander is choosing to wait out his quarantine days with his beautiful, smiling, uncomplicated girlfriend. There is no reason to check in on him; no excuse to lurk unwanted by his door; no way it could end besides a pained, closed look on Hollander’s face and another even more final goodbye.)

The Raiders decide, as a team, to stay together. At first, it is for the sake of convenience. After all, when the cellular networks and the wi-fi start working again, when the illness is sorted out and the planes are flying once more, they want to be ready to go wherever their next scheduled game might be, no delays. They hold onto that impulse the way they hold onto their gear, their still-useless cell phones, their plans for the summer.

When the last of them will admit that there is no returning to life before, it still makes more sense to band together, for safety. One man, even a very strong man, scavenging in a seemingly empty part of the city alone is in danger. But twenty-two men, all of them more than ready to fight? Untouchable. Finally, the gear has a purpose, at least some of it: the pads and helmet make them look bigger, scarier, organized like an army is organized. The skates they keep simply because none of the men can bear the thought of throwing them away.

The looters are getting bolder, the Boston Raiders included. When Ilya finally engineers a reason to pass by Hollander’s building, just to see, just to look at it, the doors are busted open, clearly have been for a while. The back door is hanging off its hinges. Hollander had sat on the steps inside once as Ilya waited for his ride, and they’d kissed in a way that had clearly spelled trouble, so sweetly that Ilya had known I will pay for this later, but he’d still been unable to stop, unable to do anything but kiss Hollander’s soft smile again, putting himself even further in the red. 

“Looks picked over,” says Marleau, and it does, it looks like any other upscale apartment building that has already been emptied of food and tradeable goods. No reason to linger. No reason to pause.

By then, rumors have reached them that Border Control is a thing of the past. Of course, so is gasoline, more or less. The major highways are impassable by car anyway, an endless solid line of backed up, lifeless vehicles. They walk to Boston. It takes them eleven days, and when they arrive, nothing is left. If anyone’s family is still alive, they have already moved on, in search of food and supplies. A few of the wives and girlfriends left notes with vague mentions of heading into the country, and the Raiders spend fruitless months trying to track down any of them. Nothing comes of it.

Svetlana had been visiting Russia when the sickness descended; Ilya watches the grief-swollen faces of his teammates and thinks that she did him the ultimate favor, leaving space in Ilya’s mind to imagine for her the kindest possible fate.

Still, the Raiders are lucky, and they know it. For want of any other way to prevent getting lost, they trace North America’s Great Lakes, going anywhere that might still be able to feed them. At night, Varkov lights a bonfire and they sit around it and try not to look each other in the eye, not to think about the past, not to think about the future.

The most common story, for the ones who have survived: everyone has a list of people on their minds. Everyone hopes to God their list has been spared, until life gets ugly enough that it is impossible not to wonder if true mercy would have been a swift death on day one. 

And somehow, over it all, the need to persist. Phones die, the power grid fails, entire city blocks and then entire cities sit eerily still, but what’s for dinner? Where will you sleep? What will you wake up to?

Year Seven

Ilya lies in bed. Shane sleeps in his arms. Ilya tries not to feel any particular way about this, about how easily their bodies still fit together. 

Instead, he thinks. 

It is a good thing that today is designated as a travel day, because Ilya will probably not be needed much. They are moving through a relatively empty part of the state; not many decisions to make beyond forwards. If Shane lives—Ilya freezes, eliminates the thought, starts over. 

When Shane is recovered, whether or not he is allowed to join will come down to a vote. Ilya needs to make sure that vote is in Shane’s fucking favor. Any remaining bitterness towards a Metro—towards the Metro—will surely crumble in the face of the incredible opportunity to get more butts in seats. Even settlements who have seen them play many times before will be willing to barter something valuable to watch Ilya go toe to toe once more against Shane Hollander.

Shane stirs. Ilya can see sweat starting to bloom on the back of his neck. Ilya scoots back, helps Shane out of his parka, tucks the blankets loosely back over him. When Ilya goes to test Shane’s forehead with the back of his hand, Shane grabs Ilya’s wrist and rubs his face against it, like a cat. Ilya has to swallow hard before he can regain control of his own face, not that anyone can see. Shane’s forehead is very, very warm.

Year One

“I could be at the All Star Game right now,” says Ilya sadly. It is late January, and they’re sitting around the fire again.

“Bullshit,” says Cadyn. “You don’t wish you were at the fucking All Star Game. Nobody wishes they were at an All Star Game.”

“It was supposed to be in Florida this year,” Ilya says. “Miami.” That’s not right. “Tampa. Tampa Bay.”

“Didn’t you ask me to help you break a bone so you could get out of it?” Marleau says.

“A small bone only,” Ilya agrees. He sighs. Nobody takes the All Star Game seriously, but it would have been a chance to see—well. It would have been a chance to sit on an actual beach, and shouldn’t that be enough?

Year Seven

A requiem, incomplete—

Goodbye to climbing into the back of a cab in the early hours of the morning—to clicking on a seatbelt and staring out the window, watching the lights of the city rush by. Goodbye to the lights of the city.

Goodbye to the air-splitting shriek of an ambulance speeding past on its way to someone else’s disaster. Goodbye to the bleached lighting and beeping hush of electrified hospitals. Goodbye to the clean, blank smell of antiseptic. Goodbye to anesthesia, and to sleeping through the worst of the pain.

Goodbye to carefully choosing a specific song to underscore or maybe fight an emotion, playing that track in headphones over and over, familiar as an old scar. Goodbye to using headphones. Goodbye to the feeling of entering a nightclub, the thump of the bass winding around the giddy crush of strangers in the near-dark. Goodbye to synthesizers and AutoTune and crisp electronic drumbeats. Goodbye to recorded music, which is to say, most music.

Goodbye to grocery stores, to the prepackaged cheeses and deli meats and the rows of neatly severed vegetables and herbs dewy from a recent misting. Goodbye to free samples and aisle after aisle of clean, dry food, waiting to be purchased. Goodbye to the minor miracle of the frozen section.

Goodbye to vending machines, to automated checkouts, to buying a meal or a pair of pants or a car with only a few taps on a phone. Goodbye to the tick tick tick of tapping out a comment, a thought or a question or a dare and then with one thumb press, sending it nearly anywhere in the world. Goodbye to the buzz of an incoming message. Goodbye to the rush of deciding on a reply, safely faceless on the other side of the connection.

Goodbye the gush of water from the faucet, the artificial breeze of the air conditioner. Goodbye to the certainty that comes from being able to access almost any knowledge on Earth with a few simple search terms. Goodbye to laser light shows and water parks. Goodbye to stepping into the chill of a hockey rink even when outside the pavement is shimmering with heat. Goodbye to light-up score boards and jumbotrons, microphones and cameras.

Goodbye to reality TV and sports broadcasts and cartoons. Goodbye to reruns. Goodbye to waking up at any possible hour, never more than an arm's reach away from images of other people going about their days, always in motion and so very alive.

Year One

In February, they encounter their first real settlement, what Marleau calls a hippie commune and what the residents call Carver Hills. It is an honest to God farm, with a coop full of chickens, and a basement full of jars of preserved vegetables. Off the grid since 2013, one of the farmers says with pride, as if there is a grid to be off of anymore. They are strange people, but friendly, willing to trade, and the team has retrieved a number of useful items in their travels. Can openers, medicine that has not yet expired, things like this. In return, pickled peas and potatoes. 

The farm is remote. Buoyed with good feeling from what must be a rare chance to acquire anything new, the farmers invite the Raiders to camp there overnight. Ilya, who is nominally in charge as captain, hesitates, but if it is a trick, he trusts his team to come out on top. What clinches it, though: the land overlooks a large pond, which is frozen solid. 

That afternoon, Ilya and the others tie on their skates and cautiously take to the ice. Ilya divides them in two (half are “Boston,” half are “Raiders”), they designate goals with mounds of snow, and then they are playing something close to actual hockey. It feels like freedom. It feels almost like before. Everyone is horribly rusty, but by the end, they are grinning like they’ve won the Cup again. Like fish who have been returned to water.

Ilya skates to the edge of the pond. The surface is uneven, imperfect, and yet still somehow it is the best ice he has ever played on. When he looks up, one of the old farmers is watching him.

“Good game,” says the farmer. “Really goddamn good game.”

Ilya nods.

“You know who you looked like, out there?” the farmer continues.

“Ilya Rozanov?” Ilya guesses.

The farmer stares. When he can find words again, he says, “Listen, would you folks mind playing another game after dinner? We could get a good crowd going once more people’re done with their chores. Might help with morale around here.”

“You have chickens, yes?” says Ilya. He smiles. “Maybe for some eggs.”

“Our hens don’t lay in December,” says the farmer. “But I’ve got a couple roosters I’ve been meaning to kill, and we could bake up some bread.” 

Ilya hasn’t eaten bread in months; none of them have.

The Boston Raiders play their first official game since the world ended. Afterwards, they eat fresh bread and chicken soup with kale, and pickled carrots, crowded around tables and makeshift tables in the main building’s cavernous dining room. It is the finest meal Ilya can remember.

Year Seven

The light slanting in through the window of Ilya’s trailer gradually lengthens, then shortens. It is almost dusk when Ilya drifts off, and he knows that Shane’s fever has broken before he opens his eyes, because Shane is not on the bed. Shane is sitting on the floor, his back to the mattress. He appears to be in the process of taking every single item out of his pack and then cleaning it. Ilya smiles. Same old Shane.

“Hey,” says Ilya. Shane startles and glances behind himself, looking oddly caught out, as if knowing that Shane owns a pocket knife is somehow akin to reading his diary. Ilya is not certain what to make of this. “Are you feeling better?” Ilya asks. It’s stilted, and Ilya can hear the strangeness in his own voice.

Shane sweeps all of his belongings back into the backpack and nods, not meeting Ilya’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane says, his first lucid words to Ilya since 2016.

“For what?” says Ilya blankly, sitting up in bed.

Shane looks up at Ilya and says nothing, glances down at his backpack. He hesitates. 

Instead of answering, Shane says, “I don’t really remember this.” He gestures to his left side. “The bandage, I mean. I woke up and it was different.”

“Then you get to meet our doctor for a second time,” says Ilya. “Lucky you.” 

Shane peers around the trailer. There is a pause. Ilya realizes he is waiting for Shane to ask questions. Possibly many questions.

“We’re six days away from what used to be Muskegon,” says Ilya. “They’ve got a settlement there. A big one. Five hundred people, maybe.” A terrible thought crosses Ilya’s mind. “You were alone, right? We didn’t just, uh, kidnap you from—” Your parents. Your team. Rose Landry. “—anyone?”

“I was alone,” Shane confirms.

Ilya feels a rush of relief, and then a rush of a concern so deep it is more like terror. “How long have you been alone?” he asks.

“Not sure.” Shane will not meet Ilya’s eyes. “I didn’t count.”

“Longer than a year?” Ilya guesses. Then, at the lack of any response, “Shit, longer than two years?”

“How would I know that,” Shane says, “if I just told you—”

“Okay,” says Ilya, “you didn’t count the days, but if you got to Spring twice, you know that’s two years, yes?”

Once more, Shane doesn’t answer. Instead, he sighs. “Look, if I said something, while I was out—”

“Like what?” Ilya says.

Shane purses his lips and offers nothing at all.

“You know, you did say something,” Ilya tells him. “You said, ‘Oh Ilya, you’re the best hockey player in the world, how can I get a backhand like yours, you are so handsome and so charming, Ilya you’re amazing and your English is so good, wow!’”

At that, one corner of Shane’s mouth quirks up. Ilya can feel himself starting to grin, a burst of triumph like biting into the first apple of Year Two, the first piece of fresh fruit he’d had in months. 

Then Shane says, “I should go.”

Year Three

In all the time since the sickness descended on the world, Ilya has never heard of anybody ever being reunited with someone they knew, before. Not once. At some point, hoping hurts more than admitting that everyone else Ilya has ever met is likely dead.

They’re passing through a graveyard, all of the headstones blanketed in snow. 

Suddenly, Zadonsky walks directly up to a stone slab, as if invited. He pulls off his glove, and with one finger, writes something in the frosty white. Ilya is right behind him, can read what it says. Tonya. Zadonsky approaches the next stone. Dmitri. They’re the names of his children. Ilya can remember the photos from Zadonsky’s phone. 

Ilya wonders if he should tell Zadonsky to stop. Then he’s tugging off his own glove, tracing Svetlana into the top of another headstone. She should be here, he thinks. She could be their manager. Lovely, brilliant, funny Svetlana. It is a sick absurdity that she will probably never be anywhere again.

For the next half an hour, the team wanders the cemetery, adding the names of their loved ones to the tops of the stones. Ilya writes Dasha for his niece, and then, out of a sense of obligation, Alexei, Grigori, and Polina. He knows now he will never be able to return to Russia. Airplanes are a thing of the past, and there is nobody to build or fuel or pilot a boat that could travel that kind of distance. The knowledge stings at his eyes like the air, but there is a sideways freedom to it as well. 

For obvious reasons, he doesn’t write Shane.

Ilya is finished first. He swallows and pulls his glove back on, waiting for the others to be done. 

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

Year Seven

“Go?” says Ilya blankly. He cannot believe this is happening again. After the cavern between his past life and now, it doesn’t seem possible: Shane still leaving, and Ilya still helpless to do anything but watch him leave. “You can’t. You are recovering.”

Shane’s face shutters, more than it already had. “My fever broke. I feel better—”

“Twelve hours ago, you couldn’t even walk,” says Ilya, not caring if he sounds cruel. “A wounded animal on its own is the first to die, everyone knows this.”

“Fuck you, Rozanov,” says Shane, and fuck you is nothing but Rozanov stings. As if, in the intervening years, Ilya would have forgotten that they are not actually on a first-name basis.

“Tell you what,” Ilya bites out. “Fight me.” That gets Shane’s attention. He sits up straight, eyes locked on Ilya’s. “Right now, fucking fight me,” says Ilya. “If you win, fine, yes, you can jump out of the moving trailer to the middle of fucking nowhere with your cut-open side and your severe sleep deprivation and the ground fucking frozen. If I win, you stay.” Ilya doesn’t let himself linger on that, how good it sounds or how unsteady he feels, just pushes forwards: “At least until we reach Muskegon. But I will win. So.”

Shane says nothing, but he’s breathing hard, the rapid rise and fall of his sternum under his sweater so distracting that Ilya doesn’t see it coming: Shane rears up and punches him in the stomach. It’s a solid hit. Ilya laughs. Trust this fucker to always take the dare, he thinks, scrambling off the bed and grabbing at Shane’s wrist. Shane fights hard but he is still in very bad shape and Ilya fights dirty. He’s careful not to pull at Shane’s wound but he has seen Shane with no shirt and so he knows which bruises to press on. The fight is over in four seconds, maybe five, and then Ilya has Shane pinned under him on the floor. 

Yes, thinks Ilya. Yes. He laughs again, wild. “What do you think,” he murmurs in Shane’s ear, “best two out of three?”

Shane goes very still. His eyes close. His jaw tics. “Okay,” he says shortly. “Fine. I lose.”

Ilya watches Shane’s face and thinks that however many years ago, he would’ve known how to make this moment something else. He would’ve kissed Shane until Shane melted and gave in completely, happily, his attention wholly devoted to Ilya, and all Ilya had to think about for a few hours was their bodies and how good they could make each other feel.

Ilya can barely remember how it felt to be that person most of the time. He climbs off of Shane carefully, minding his side. Shane curls in on himself anyway.

“Don’t worry,” Ilya tells him, “I will only rub it in a little.”

“You didn’t fight fair,” says Shane.

“Oh, because everyone else out there fights so fair,” says Ilya.

Shane doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that. Ilya wonders what Shane has seen since the total collapse of society, but can’t think how to ask. Instead, he glances at the window. He can’t track the exact time by the position of the sun or anything like that, but it is almost sunset and the trailer is slowing.

“We are stopping now,” Ilya informs him. “To eat and to rest. Horses are useless in the dark.” 

“Okay,” says Shane.

The trailer rolls to a standstill. Immediately, as if waiting for this moment, a sharp knock sounds from outside.

“Are you decent?” calls Summer.

“Yes,” Ilya calls back.

“Then open the damn door,” Joy says, with what sounds like some satisfaction.

“Swear jar,” Ilya and Summer chorus together as Ilya unlatches the door. Joy and Summer’s eyes go wide when they catch sight of Shane.

“Wow,” says Summer, “there really is a new guy! Kohn told us, but you know Kohn, I thought he might be exaggerating.”

“This,” says Ilya, “is Shane Hollander. Shane Hollander, these pains in my ass are Summer and Joy.”

Summer grins and waves. Joy gives Shane a nod, trying to look above it all in the way only a sixteen-year-old can.

“Summer,” says Joy, rolling her eyes, “Dr. Wade told us to check on him, and anyway, how could anyone exaggerate an entire person?”

“I thought maybe we found a cat or something,” says Summer with a shrug. “Oh, or a kitten! With little white paws!”

Shane’s gaze is bouncing back and forth between Summer and Joy, as if trying to take it all in.

“You thought he’d see a cat and tell us it was a person?” Joy presses. 

“Hollander only looks like a kitten when he is very angry,” Ilya tells them.

“Wow, fuck you,” says Shane, maybe just from muscle memory. He freezes, hunching his broad shoulders. “Uh, sorry. Swear jar.”

“The swear jar,” says Summer grandly, “does not apply to adults.”

Shane looks back at Ilya. “Wow, very convenient for you.”

Ilya can feel the smile pulling at the side of his mouth. “We tried, you know. With all the shit going on, we could not find a jar big enough. Girls, go find Dubek, I think he has an extra bowl and fork somewhere, for dinner.”

“We’re not your fucking messengers,” says Summer.

“Swear jar,” says Joy. 

“That’s nine, you maniac,” Ilya reminds them. “One away!”

At that, Summer and Joy scamper off.

“This is them on good behavior,” says Ilya solemnly, closing the door against the wind. “So, you know. Be warned. They can also be a total shitshow.”

Shane nods. His eyes look a little wet. He blinks, focusing hard on a spot in the ceiling. “I just. Out there you can kind of forget, about kids? Forget about the whole problem of growing up in this.”

“Yeah,” says Ilya.

“Uh, sorry,” says Shane. And then, “Hayden’s family has a swear jar. Had a swear jar. He and Jackie and their kids.” His voice is slightly shaky. He swallows hard. 

“You haven’t heard from him—?” Ilya ventures.

“I haven’t heard from anyone,” Shane says, “since this all started. Rose had to leave for a shoot and then my phone died, and everything went—”

Not knowing what else to do, Ilya drops down next to him on the floor of the trailer, lays a palm on his shoulder. He rubs up and down Shane’s bicep. Shane doesn’t squirm away but he doesn’t move into it, either. Ilya lets his hand drop.

“Uh,” says Shane, visibly grasping for a subject change, “what happens when they reach ten swears?”

“They get a piece of candy,” Ilya explains. “Or sometimes dried fruit if we don’t have anything else.” Shane doesn’t seem to know how to react to that, so Ilya adds, “Their lives have been very hard. If it helps to say fuck, then they can say fuck.”

“I guess that shouldn’t surprise me,” Shane says with the smallest of smiles. “So, just the two of them, or—?”

“Is two not enough?” says Ilya. “Please, I don’t think we could handle more. I would have—” He gestures to his temple. “—gray hairs. We all would.”

Shane opens his mouth, then closes it.

“What?” says Ilya.

“Nothing,” says Shane.

“What?” Ilya pushes. “I can play this game longer than you. I am healthier and I have been sleeping at night.”

“Is this your family’s trailer?” Shane asks.

“My family is in Russia,” says Ilya, the ache familiar and distant. Then it hits. “You think Summer and Joy are my kids?”

“They’re—not,” Shane says slowly.

“Joy is sixteen,” Ilya points out. “How old do you think I am?”

“I—” Shane shakes his head. “We’re the same age!”

“Yes, I know this,” says Ilya, “you think I am the dad of a sixteen-year-old!”

“You kept saying ‘we,’” says Shane, like this is a rock-solid argument, like Ilya might say, oh, now that you mention it, I guess I did father two teenage children.

“I meant the team, we,” Ilya says. “We, the Boston Raiders.”

“The what?” Shane’s mouth is hanging open. Ilya allows himself to feel just a small bit of triumph.

“Ah yes,” says Ilya. He spreads his hands. “Congratulations. There is one professional hockey team left on the planet and you found us.”

“You’re playing hockey still?” Shane asks. He sounds like a child double-checking the existence of Santa Claus. He sounds dangerously unguarded, like Ilya remembers him sometimes being, before. Ilya wants to bury his face in Shane’s neck and not let go.

“We are, yes,” says Ilya. “We travel a circuit, mostly around the lakes. We go wherever the ice is thick enough, and then cross-train or play on pavement or synthetic rinks the rest of the year. People will trade us many things to see us play, especially on ice. Food, mostly. Michigan is good. There are many old sports equipment stores they can still loot, even now. Muskegon promised us new skates, which we badly need.” He smiles. “The people love us. More than they did, even, I think. And Dr. Wade can treat people wherever we go, that does not hurt.”

“Wait,” says Shane. “So, where are the kids from?”

Ilya shrugs. “The people, they love us. That doesn’t mean all of them are good.”

Year Four

“Hey,” says Dr. Wade in an undertone. “Do me a favor?”

Ilya is about two puffs into a smoke break. A clove cigarette, because nobody has tobacco anymore and he may need his wits about him, which eliminates pot. Lighters are for starting campfires now and someday he will run out of matches, but he had to get out of that awful dinner, at least for a little while.

“Stop smoking?” he guesses. “What, is it bad for me or something?”

Dr. Wade shakes her head. “Well yeah, but. Can we never accept another invitation from a creepy-ass fundie cult? I don’t care if they have supplies, I don’t care if they have land, I don’t care if they own all of Lake fucking Erie, this place is making my skin crawl.”

Ilya doesn’t disagree. There is a thick thread of tension laced throughout Beholden House, and he distrusts on principle any man who introduces himself as a prophet.

Still. “We have no proof they are dangerous, and I don’t know anyone else who will trade us trailers,” he reminds her. “If we want to stop sleeping on the ground, we need more gear, and that means something to pull it in. We’re all getting too old to lie on ice and snow all night and then wake up fine.”

“I know, I know,” says Dr. Wade, crossing her arms. “I just can’t wait to get out of here. Have you noticed the women don’t talk?”

Ilya frowns. He had picked up on how the alleged prophet’s wife would not make eye contact, and that some of the children seemed terrified of him in a way that likely spoke of their upbringing. When he thinks about it now, the silent, jumpy ones were all girls.

“Shit,” he says now. “I don’t think any were at the game, either. Maybe they weren’t allowed.”

“I fucking hate this,” Dr. Wade sings quietly. “I fucking hate this.”

The alleged prophet sees them off the next morning. “Good game, son,” he tells Ilya, smiling like they are all part of the same company, the same league, the same team. “Come back next winter?”

Never a-fucking-gain, thinks Ilya. He schools his features as bland as possible, says something like We’ll see.

The trailers are in good working order. The horses do not seem thrilled to be pulling the additional weight, but they aren’t as grumpy as they could be, and all in all the Raiders are still moving at a decent clip. The thought of being able to sleep on a mattress after a rough game, of being able to recuperate on a surface designed to be comfortable, feels almost impossibly decadent. Ilya hasn’t been this happy to have a room with a bed in it since—it has been a long time.

Ilya’s trailer is moving a little slower than the others, as if burdened with extra weight. When they stop to water the horses, several hours down the road, Ilya checks the tires, the axles, and the hitch before he thinks to look inside. To look, specifically, underneath the bed, where two girls stare back at him, eyes round with fear. 

“Don’t make us go back,” says the smaller one. “Please, please, please don’t make us go back.”

“We can spin,” the older one says, “and knit, and crochet, and mend clothes. We will be so useful, please let us stay—” She is around Dasha’s age, Ilya thinks. The age Dasha would be, if she is still alive.

Their names, he learns, are Temperance and Humility. Ilya could punch a wall, but this would accomplish nothing.

For want of anything better to do, he calls over Dr. Wade. 

“They’re in more or less decent health now,” she says, once they’re out of earshot. “But I don’t think we can guarantee that if we turn around and hand them over to those fuckers. You understand how much work it would be to raise them, right?”

“No,” says Ilya. “Probably not.”

“It’s not like finding a puppy or something,” she says. She’s starting to pace. “We’ll need to think, how will we keep them safe? How can we help them grow up? We have to fucking—nurture their minds, and their spirits. Shit.”

“Okay,” says Ilya.

“Okay?” says Dr. Wade.

“Okay,” Ilya says. “We will have to put it to a vote, but I will play on the heartstrings, very sad, their tragic little faces. Also, they know how to fix clothes.” Nobody that Ilya knows currently owns a pair of completely intact socks.

“Keeping them safe means keeping them safe,” Dr. Wade says. “From you and from anyone else, including your teammates. If any of you tries anything—”

“They are children,” says Ilya, his stomach roiling.

Dr. Wade shakes her head. “That’s no guarantee.”

“We can teach them to fight,” Ilya offers. “We can teach them anything you think they need. You said yourself, we don’t know what will happen if we take them back.”

“Okay,” says Dr. Wade, letting out a long breath. “Tell you what. I’ll help in any way I can, but you’ve gotta promise me this is it, you’re not gonna make a habit of taking in strays. Nobody else, got it? I don’t care how sad their eyes are.”

“I promise,” says Ilya.

Year Seven

“We have taken on other people since,” Ilya concludes. “If someone needs to leave one settlement for another. But always as guests. Joy and Summer are the only ones who have been permanent. And the doctor, of course.”

“You, uh,” says Shane.

“Before you say that we kidnapped them,” Ilya starts, but Shane shakes his head. 

“I was gonna say ‘rescued,’ maybe,” he says.

Oh. “They did all the work,” says Ilya. “We just decided not to turn around.”

“No,” Shane says quietly, “that’s—that’s incredible. And they chose their new names?”

“Ah, so you could tell they were picked out by children?” says Ilya, and Shane huffs an almost-laugh. Ilya resists the urge to preen. “Yes, it was Dr. Wade’s idea. She said it was the least we could give them.”

“That’s amazing,” says Shane. “Really.”

“A true philanthropist probably wouldn’t have let them mend all our socks,” says Ilya with a shrug.

Shane is watching him, just the hint of a smile on his face.

“What?” Ilya says again.

“Your English,” says Shane, “you were right, it’s very good.”

“Thank you,” Ilya says, lightly as he can, “I had no choice, so.” Ilya still can speak Russian, with Kovalev, Varkov, and Zadonsky, but in terms of negotiating with the remaining pockets of other survivors, it is always English. The only exception is when they come across people who speak only Spanish, when everything must be communicated through pantomime and hope.

Shane’s face goes somber. Ilya could kick himself. “I’m sorry,” Shane says. “That you can’t go back.”

“To Russia?” Ilya guesses. “Yes, but also it is complicated. And anyway.” He waves a hand. He doesn’t need to say the rest, that there is no longer any such thing as returning home.

“Yeah,” says Shane heavily.

Ilya checks the window; dark. Given that Summer and Joy have stopped by, he knows it is only a matter of time before he and Shane are interrupted again. 

“Listen,” he says. “You have been on your own for a while, and I think the team might be—a lot. If you want some time away, just say you need a smoke break.”

“I don’t smoke,” says Shane, still marvelously literal, and Ilya grins. “How would you even have cigarettes?” Shane asks. 

“Tobacco, no,” Ilya agrees. “And I am out of cloves for now. But we trade with people who travel west, and they know growers.”

“You mean pot.” Shane sounds a little scandalized.

“Yes, pot,” says Ilya. “You don’t have to actually smoke. Just to use it as an excuse.”

There is a knock on the trailer door. “Hey Rozy,” says Marleau. “Summer said he’s awake?”

“Yeah,” says Ilya, reaching up to open the door.

“Fuck,” says Marleau, staring at Shane. “Shane motherfucking Hollander. This is crazy, man. Like, crazy-crazy.”

“Crazy-crazy,” says Ilya drily. 

“What brought you out to the ass end of Michigan?” Marleau continues, and it occurs to Ilya that he didn’t think to ask this, actually.

Shane takes a deep breath. Ilya can see his Press Conference Face emerge. “Just trying to keep ahead of anything that might want to kill me,” he says.

“Isn’t that the truth,” says Marleau.

“What’s for dinner?” Ilya asks him.

“Smoked trout with walnuts and beets,” says Marleau, and Ilya wrinkles his nose because it’s what they’ve had all week.

Shane laughs, a little raggedly. He stops when he seems to realize Marleau is serious.

“Why,” says Ilya, “what have you been eating?”

“Venison, mostly,” says Shane.

“Kohn said you had some kinda crossbow or something?” Marleau asks, peering past him.

“A compound bow.” Shane carefully leans to the side so Marleau can see.

“That’s some Robin Hood shit,” says Marleau. “You any good with that thing?”

“Very,” says Shane, not arrogant, just as if he is stating fact, and Ilya has to press his lips together to keep from smiling.

“Kohn also said you missed,” Marleau adds.

“If I missed, that would’ve been a warning shot,” says Shane. “If I was aiming for you, you’d be down a guy.”

“Sure thing, Legolas,” says Marleau. “You wanna use those skills to hunt up something that isn’t trout? Rozy would, uh—Rozy would owe you his life.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Ilya cuts in. “He almost died today.”

“Christ, someone’s fussy.” Marleau raises both hands in the air. He glances between Ilya and Shane, as if starting to form a question.

Ilya clears his throat. “Oregan might want help with the food,” he says.

Marleau takes the hint, muttering, “We should not let the goalie cook,” as he retreats.

“You don’t remember firing a warning shot at me,” Ilya ventures, closing the door again so the air won’t get in. “This morning?”

“Kind of,” says Shane. “But I’d been seeing things that weren’t there most of the night.” He shrugs, as if this is the sort of statement a person can just shrug after. “I’m not a hundred percent clear on what did or didn’t happen.”
 
The thought of Shane hallucinating alone in the forest makes Ilya want to—he’s not even sure. 

“What kinds of things,” Ilya demands.

“Did you, uh…” Shane hesitates, and in his mind, Ilya fills in the pause in a thousand different ways, each more incriminating than the next. “Did you carry me on a horse?” Shane asks at last.

“Yes,” says Ilya, almost dizzy with momentary relief. “And I looked very cool, probably. What kinds of things did you see last night?”

“That’s personal,” says Shane, the line of his shoulders very tense, and Ilya remembers in a rush the time that’s passed and the distance between them, the distance that has always been between them. Just because Shane has been alone doesn’t mean he owes Ilya any scrap of information.

“Okay,” Ilya says, tossing Shane his boots. “Coat on, boots on, let’s go eat some dinner.”

A small crowd has already formed around the evening fire. Some of them have brought lawn furniture, scavenged from here and there. Ilya knows it should look strange, plastic chairs dug into the snow, but it has been the material of his life for too long to really register. Everyone is talking as Shane and Ilya approach, but the sound dies off when Shane steps into the light of the flames.

“Okay!” Ilya shouts. “Listen up! This is Shane Hollander, yes, that Shane Hollander! We found him early this morning. He is coming with us at least as far as Muskegon, and then we can decide whether he stays longer. He had a bad fever and he is recovering, thank you Dr. Wade. In the meantime, he has a condition, very serious: if asked a stupid question, he will die. So no stupid questions. Understood?”

“Where’ve you been?” asks Cadyn.

“I was in Montreal,” says Shane. His Press Conference Face has returned. “Then Lanaudière, uh, that’s also in Quebec. I spent some time in Ontario and Manitoba. Eventually, I made it out to the West Coast, looped back around. I tried to keep away from cities so I don’t really have news.”

A murmur of disappointment; gossip is its own form of currency, these days. Shane has to be telling the truth, but Ilya wonders if anyone else can hear the gaps, the empty patches in the story.

“Have you been playing hockey?” says Sebbin.

“No,” says Shane. 

“Why not?” shouts Anderson.

“Nobody to play with.”

“Are you joining up with us?” Zadonsky demands.

“I don’t think it’s up to me,” says Shane.

“It’s partly up to you,” Ilya tells him, which earns him a long, hard-to-read look from Shane.

“Do you want to join up with us?” asks Dubek.

“I would love, uh, the chance to play again, if that’s in the cards,” says Shane quietly.

“Other than the obvious, what do you miss most from before?” Summer puts in from the back. It’s an old topic of conversation, one she’s probably heard countless times since she and Joy started traveling with the team. For the first few years, it hurt too much to talk about, but the past is so distant now, the ache can be almost pleasant. 

“Hmm,” says Shane, gazing into the fire, a faint line appearing between his eyebrows, and Ilya loves that he is taking her question as seriously as the rest. “I guess I’d say protein powder?”

There is general outcry to this. “More than music,” says Kovalev, disbelieving. “More than hot showers, more than hot girls—” Dr. Wade glares at him, and he says, “Sorry, more than hot women—”

“Dinnertime!” Oregan calls, and in the flurry of activity, the impromptu presser dissolves.

“Was that a boring answer?” Shane asks Ilya.

“Don’t worry,” says Marleau from Shane’s other side, before Ilya can reply, “First time it came up, Rozy said something equally stupid.”

“Yeah?” says Shane.

“I don’t remember this,” Ilya says, throwing a warning look at Marleau, but Connors continues unabashed.

“Texting,” Connors reports. “This guy had like a dozen luxury cars, he had models thirst-following him on Instagram, but no. Texting!”

“Sorry that your text game was so bad, you can’t conceive of the loss,” Ilya fires back, which is a categorically terrible chirp, but then Dubek surfaces with a bowl and spoon for Shane, and then they are gathering around to eat reheated smoked trout and walnuts with beets, which Ilya has had for four of the past five dinners, but never with Shane at his elbow.

Ilya has only shared a meal with Shane once before, tuna melts on the day Shane got spooked and ran off, more or less directly into the arms of Rose Landry. Obviously, the reason he left had nothing to do with the tuna melts themselves, or the eating of them. Ilya risks a sidelong glance at Shane anyway. 

Shane, who looks unsettled in a way that Ilya can’t quite put words to, like a person doing an impression of a puppet doing an impression of a person. Shane has finished his food, Ilya notes, although it has only been a few minutes. Around them, the din of conversation. Ilya nudges Shane’s boot with his own, mimes smoking with his eyebrows raised, and Shane nods. 

Ilya leads them a short way into the woods, within shouting distance of the fire but away from the worst of the noise.

“Okay?” Ilya asks.

“Yeah,” says Shane. “You can go back, I just.”

The memory of moving from a crowded, lively place to a private one with only Shane lives in the marrow of Ilya’s bones, apparently. That is the only way he can justify what his heartbeat is doing.

“They can be very loud,” says Ilya instead. “The group.”

“Yeah,” Shane says again. They stand together in silence and Ilya wonders how badly he would fuck everything up if he grabbed Shane by the back of the neck and kissed him. Maybe a little. Maybe a lot. Maybe Shane would leave again. 

Then Shane starts to laugh.

“What?” says Ilya.

“Texting?” says Shane. “You said texting.”

“You said protein powder!” Ilya retorts. “That is not better.”

“No,” Shane says, “Honestly, I would’ve said texting too, if I’d thought of it.”

“Really,” says Ilya. That fish hook to the chest feeling, pulling him in again.

“It was convenient,” says Shane, and Ilya hears, or imagines maybe, a trace of amusement in his voice. “For getting in touch. You know, with my parents. And Hayden and Jackie. The rest of the team.”

“Mm-hmm,” says Ilya. “The rest of the team.”

“And my nutritionist,” Shane continues.

“And your decorator,” Ilya adds, “in case your bed needed somehow even more pillows. Hoarding before hoarding was cool.”

Shane half-laughs. “Amazing. Amazing, the world ends and you’re still an asshole.”

And Ilya knows this dance, knows that his next line is some variation of and you’re still boring, but he hesitates too long and the moment slips away. 

“Are you—” Ilya says instead. “Will you be okay staying in my trailer?” And then, because Ilya at least can hear the naked, endless need in his words, he adds, “Even though I don’t have ten thousand fucking pillows? Nobody else has the room, except Auden, who snores.”

“It’s fine,” says Shane. “I’ll be fine. I’m still pretty tired, though. I might just go crash.”

“Okay,” says Ilya. 

When Ilya does head back to the fire, the talk has died down a little. He waits long enough that nobody could possibly say he is chasing after Shane, and then he excuses himself. 

Back in the trailer, Shane has claimed a narrow slice of bed, almost clinging to the wall. He is clearly sleeping, which is good—no doubt he could use the rest, and also it answers the question of what the fuck Ilya is supposed to do. He takes off his coat and boots, climbs in after him, and resigns himself to a night of trying to sleep.

Chapter End Notes

To be clear, the alleged prophet the Boston Raiders meet is not the Prophet from Station Eleven, who would've been a kid in Year Four. I just think that following a really cataclysmic event, there would be more than one mediocre person using the opportunity to seize power and style himself as a mystic.

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

Incidentally, if you want to stay updated on when a new chapter comes out (Wednesdays and Sundays), you can follow my Heated Rivalry specific blog at emotional-support-pasta.tumblr.com.

Year One, Year Two, Year Three, Year Four, Year Five, Year Six—

Ilya is awake in an instant, heart pounding. For a single second he tells himself his certainty that most of the planet is dead is the nightmare assumption, dream logic at play, and in fact life continues as it always has, but he can only ever believe it until the rest of his brain kicks in.

Year Seven

Ilya wakes up curled behind Shane. He had thought this might happen; the mattress dips in the middle, and the trailer is cold. Two sleeping people confined to a space like this will do the animal thing at least some of the time, and move towards warmth. Ilya’s body already has to fight to keep some distance between them; apparently, in sleep he surrenders.

Ilya had wondered if it would take his mind back to the pre-calamity world again, to return to consciousness this close to Shane, but it doesn’t. They only ever woke up together once, and anyway, there are too many differences between that day, as Ilya vividly and reluctantly remembers it, and now. They’re still fully dressed, the bed is smaller and deeply inferior. Up close, the back of Shane’s hair has been cut haphazardly, as if with a knife, and Shane no longer smells like his old combination of unscented deodorant and laundry detergent.

(In Boston, Shane had been out the door so quickly, he hadn’t even stopped to change back into his own clothes. Ilya had put off returning to his empty bedroom as long as he could, determined to avoid the sight of Shane’s shirt abandoned on the floor. He remembers standing in the doorway, daring himself to pick it up and—what? Throw it away? Burn it? Hold it to his face and take a deep huff? He can’t remember what he wound up deciding. Possibly he kept it, although of course he did not bring it with him to Montreal, so no matter what, it is gone now.)

Shane now smells a little like a campfire and a little like anyone who hasn’t showered in a long time. He is also, Ilya can tell from the cadence of his breathing, fully awake. Shit.

Maybe if Ilya acts hard enough like nothing is weird, Shane will not notice. “Fucking cold in here,” Ilya says, extracting himself and climbing out of bed.

Shane rolls onto his back. His hair is sticking up in several different directions. “You have a draft,” he announces. 

“By the window,” says Ilya, gesturing, because apparently they are locked into the world’s dullest conversation.

“Top or bottom?” Shane asks, and then, flustered, when Ilya only raises his eyebrows, “The draft, I mean. Is it at the top of the frame or the bottom?”

Ilya shrugs. The important thing is that the fucking freezing air always gets in. Shane carefully sits up and climbs out of bed, crosses past Ilya to the window, and inspects it.

“Okay,” Shane says to the wall. “This is great. It’s the lower edge. If it was the upper edge, I think I’d need weatherstripping or caulk or something. But this just takes some fabric.”

He rummages in his pack, produces a T-shirt, and proceeds to roll it very tightly and then jam it into the gap between the window frame and the glass. The air inside doesn’t instantly become warmer but the wind does stop knifing through quite so violently.

“Mister Fix-It,” says Ilya, delighted when this makes Shane duck his head and smile a little to himself. “Hey, say you ‘need caulk' again.”

“Unbelievable,” says Shane, still smiling.

It is a good moment, and Ilya hates to ruin it, knows he has to. “Before we go out there,” says Ilya, “you should maybe know.”

“Know what?” Shane’s eyes are very serious.

Ilya takes a deep breath. There is no good time to bring this up. There is no good way. Like Dr. Wade with the bandage, it is probably better to rip the thing off at once.

“Marleau might know,” Ilya tells him.

“Know what?” Shane says again, slightly louder.

“That we—” Ilya starts, but he has no ending for this sentence. “That I—” He has three possible ways to end that one; Ilya can’t make himself say any of them.

Shane’s lovely brown eyes narrow. “What did you tell him,” he says.

“Nothing,” says Ilya, which is the truth.

“How did it come up?” Shane presses.

“It didn’t,” says Ilya.

“Then how would he—?”

Ilya sighs. “He’s more perceptive than he looks,” he says, which is no answer, but Shane nods like it is, which spares Ilya having to tell the story, so he lets it go.

Year Three

Ilya used to like cities. He is almost sure of that. He liked the nightlife, liked being able to buy a drink or a coffee at any time of day, liked the convenience and the ease. If pressed, he would not have said specifically that he liked the crowds of people, but now with them gone, he is very aware of the quiet, of the emptiness, like the bloody socket of a missing tooth.

They’re sweeping an upscale apartment complex in Chicago, floor by floor, in pairs. All of the doors have already been long since forced open by someone else. There were snowdrifts blowing throughout the ground level, but no footprints; nobody has been here in a long time. 

Whoever had already gone through the building had strange standards for what to take and what to leave. On the top floor, Ilya and Marleau uncover several unopened jars of jam and peanut butter, as well as cans of refried beans, corn, chopped pineapple, and tuna. All of these go into Ilya’s pack. 

It is the same brand of tuna he used to buy in Boston, the chunky blue letters over the outline of a fish. Something he hasn’t thought about in a long time.

Marleau gestures that he’s going to check out the bathroom, which is good because things like shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and painkillers are worth their weight in gold these days, even expired. As long as it’s not moldy, it is better than nothing. Something is better than nothing, the constant post-apocalyptic motto. 

By mutual unspoken agreement, they both avoid the bedrooms, which are where people tended to die back when the plague ripped through the world like an explosion.

Ilya hangs behind in the kitchen, checking cabinets. It has already been too long for most dry goods. The flour smells musty. There is a collection of novelty glasses behind one door; he tries not to think about the people who acquired them.

He turns. Sitting undisturbed on the center island is the January 2016 issue of Gourmand magazine. The cover, crisp and colorful, preserved from years of sun damage and water damage, promises Four Bold New Takes on Tiramisu. Ilya picks it up with his grubby fingers, flips idly through the pages. He tells himself he isn’t looking for anything in particular, but when he reaches a familiar black-and-white spread, his heart is beating in his throat. It’s a Rolex ad, a monochrome slice of a wrist with a watch on the left side, and on the right side, Shane Hollander smiles back at him, wearing a suit and tie, utterly untouched by the ravages of time.

Ilya isn’t sure what he feels. He’s barely present enough to feel anything, to do anything but stare.

Shane’s smile for the magazine is bland and impersonal, not much like the look Ilya had occasionally managed to coax out of him, usually reluctant. But it’s still Shane’s face and his eyes and his sliver of wrist, and something is still better than nothing. With one finger, Ilya traces down the line of Shane’s cheek, the side of his throat. Ilya has licked the sweat off that throat, mouthed at it until Shane turned away, as if embarrassed by his own pleasure. Ilya wonders, had he known how few times they would be together, would he have been more careful? Or would he have pushed harder?

“Hey,” says Marleau, at his back. Ilya jumps, snaps the magazine closed, but he has no way of knowing how long Marleau had been watching. It is hard to imagine that Marleau didn’t notice. They both stare down at the cover for a long moment and its promise of dessert innovation, and then Marleau asks, “Does mouthwash go bad?” 

“Is there a date on the bottle?” says Ilya.

“Yeah, but you know, sometimes stuff is good past what it says,” says Marleau.

“How does it smell?” Ilya says, mostly on autopilot.

Marleau cracks open the bottle, gives it a sniff. “Jesus! Okay, no, it’s bad,” he says. 

While he is distracted, Ilya uses the opportunity to slip the magazine into his pack. He takes a second too long, not wanting to wrinkle the pages, and when he glances up, Marleau is looking right at him. Ilya refuses to explain or apologize. It’s the end of the world; that should count for something.

Eventually, Marleau just says, “Who doesn’t love tiramisu?” and that’s that. They rejoin the others, and life continues.

Year Seven

Ilya is brushing his teeth in the trailer’s tiny, closet-like bathroom when he becomes aware of Shane’s eyes on him. Not admiring or hungry, more just surprised.

“You have toothpaste?” says Shane. He says it like how a person might say Your house has a throne room?

Ilya spits his mouthful of foam down the drain of the minuscule sink. The trailer was designed to have running water but it isn’t worth the trouble; the drain ultimately opens to the ground.

“Lately, they sell it at some of the settlements,” he says. 

“Every single tube of toothpaste made before is years too old,” says Shane.

Ilya shrugs. “They must’ve found a way to make more.”

“How,” says Shane.

“I don’t know,” Ilya says. “You have a toothbrush? Doc can hook you up if not.”

“I have a toothbrush,” says Shane distantly.

“Okay then.” Ilya hands him the little jar of toothpaste. “Don’t use it all,” he adds, just to be an asshole, but Shane isn’t listening.

Shane and Ilya eat breakfast with the rest of the team, Ilya figuring that it might be less overwhelming to ease Shane into the full group when everyone is still half-asleep. Breakfast that morning is powdered eggs, reconstituted with snow melt and cooked over the fire, and stale bread. It is deeply unremarkable to Ilya and clearly wondrous to Shane, who must have been living hand to mouth in a way that makes Ilya’s insides clench.

Today is another travel day, which means there will not be much for Ilya to do. He is contemplating this when Sebbin says,

“Hey, so are we gonna get a demonstration or what?”

“Of what?” asks Ilya, swallowing the last of his sad eggs.

“Of Shane Hollander’s supposed archery skills,” says Feller. 

Beside him, Shane rolls his shoulders. “How’s right now?” Shane says.

Ilya glances over at Dr. Wade, who is drinking a cup of what smells like dandelion root tea and grimacing after every sip. He has to think that if it was going to, for instance, rip open Shane’s wound, she would have words on the subject.

Shane heads back to the trailer. 

“Man,” says Kohn. “Rozy and Hollander in the same room all night. How’d you two keep from killing each other?”

“Sleeping,” says Ilya. “We slept.”

“Great fuckin’ story,” says Varkov.

Ilya shrugs. “He fucking asked.”

It might be a problem, Ilya realizes, sharing a space with Shane in and among two dozen people who have all spent so much time together, they are often extremely sick of each other. Everyone wants fresh rumors, new angles; it will be a little like living with the press.

“Okay,” Shane says, reappearing with the bow. He has his arrows again, strapped to his thigh. “Pick a target fifty yards away.”

“That signpost by the bend in the road,” says Zadonsky, nodding.

“That’s maybe twenty yards,” says Shane. “A regulation hockey rink is about 67, if that helps.”

“Every one of us knows this,” says Ilya, who has surely spent a lot more recent time around hockey rinks, even makeshift ones, than Shane.

Shane is unabashed. “Then show me that you do.”

“The white tree, up there,” Ilya says. “The brown patch on it.”

“Hmm,” says Shane. “Okay.” He stands carefully, pulls out an arrow, nocks it on the bow, aims, and fires.

“Did that hit?” asks Dubek.

Shane’s arrows look home-made, which is to say, they’re the same colors as anything else in a forest.

Zadonsky, Kohn, Marleau, and Ilya jog towards the tree, then back to the group.

“Well?” yells Feller.

Ilya laughs. “Shane Hollander,” he calls. “Assassin for hire Shane Hollander!”

“It hit?” Dubek demands.

“In the dead fucking center,” says Ilya, who has been both drunk and high since the end of the world, but has never quite felt like this. His feet carry him back towards where Shane is standing. 

Marleau gets there first, punching Shane on the shoulder. “Fucking Robin Hood,” says Marleau. “Fucking Katniss Everdeen. You can bring down a deer with that thing?”

“It’s probably way harder to hit a moving target,” Cadyn argues.

“It is,” says Shane. “I can do that too, it just takes a little longer.”

“The map says we should reach Benton Harbor by tonight,” says Anderson significantly.

“He means we’ll have ice to practice on tomorrow,” says Ilya. “Can you hunt us something while we warm up tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yeah,” Shane says, with such casual surety that Ilya wants very badly to kiss him on the mouth. 

Shane looks back at Ilya then. Their eyes connect. 

There are times it is difficult to believe that Ilya ever had Shane on his knees, ever carefully eased into his body only for them both to learn—maybe at the same time—just how badly Shane needed to be fucked, ever spent years being the one who got to face off against Shane Hollander on the ice and also to make Shane Hollander come undone later in secret. Then there are times where it feels so blindingly obvious that Ilya isn’t sure how everyone doesn’t already know. 

Ilya has no reason, really, to assume that Shane would want to start making that particular bad decision again. It’s been seven years. Shane could still be hung up on Rose Landry, or even someone he’d met since then. Shane could simply be tired of Ilya’s bullshit. Shane had reached for Ilya while delirious with fever but of course that is no promise of anything else.

Which means that Ilya really needs to leash the part of his brain whispering that the next time they’re alone together, Ilya should crowd him against the nearest surface and murmur in his ear, Hey, you should have a reward for your little trick with the bow and arrow, get on your knees and I’ll give it to you. Take off your clothes and I’ll give it to you. Tell me this time you won’t go and I’ll give you anything, anything at all.

“I hope you don’t think you’re playing tomorrow,” Dr. Wade tells Shane towards the end of breakfast.

It’s her first words to him since he was hallucinating in her trailer. “Don’t mind Doc,” says Ilya. “She lost her bedside manner in a tragic accident many years ago.”

Shane politely pretends not to hear. “I know,” he says to her, but his shoulders sag a little. “Realistically, I’d need to condition and train for months before I might be able to keep up.”

“No,” says Dr. Wade, “I meant because it’s a sport with tackling in it and you have a knife wound.”

“It’s called checking,” says Shane, automatic.

Dr. Wade rolls her eyes. “Well! If it’s called checking, then—”

Ilya tries to imagine how it would feel, to go so many years without playing. “But he can skate, right?” says Ilya. “If the rest of us keep our distance?”

“Nothing strenuous,” says Dr. Wade. “Shane, do you mind coming back to the medical trailer once the caravan’s moving again? I should take a look at your injury.”

“Of course,” says Shane.

“Don’t let her gauze fetish scare you,” Ilya counsels. “The safe word is—”

“Maybe don’t try to chirp someone who can and will prescribe you cod liver oil,” Dr. Wade interjects, standing up and rinsing her mug with snow.

“It is a sad thing, when an eye doctor goes mad with power,” Ilya tells Shane.

“Ophthalmologists complete four years of med school and then some,” Dr. Wade says, “and I don’t recall seeing you there, Ilya.”

A flicker of something crosses Shane’s face, but then everyone is packing up breakfast and it’s Ilya’s turn to scout ahead for the caravan. 

Year Two

The team is scavenging the remains of a Walmart Supercenter somewhere in upstate New York. All of the canned goods and dry goods have been picked clean, and of course the produce department is empty except for some long rotted-away herbs, but there are clean socks still in their plastic, a smattering of camping supplies, and new if cheap-looking hockey sticks. The Holy Grail would be new skates, of course, but this Walmart doesn’t even have a section for them.

It’s dark in the store with no sickly fluorescent lights overhead. Ilya’s flashlight probably has another twenty minutes in it, although other than checking for medicine with a long shelf life, he can’t think of much else to take. The blank, dead TV screens and electronics will be there until this place crumbles into the ground.

Ilya stops. There is a very quiet scrabbling sound coming from several aisles over, in the pharmacy section. Ilya pulls his knife with his free hand and leans into the next aisle to see, hoping for either a wild animal or an unarmed human.

Standing amidst the shelves and shelves of headache remedies and cough drops is a woman maybe ten years older than Ilya. She has deep shadows under her eyes. When she sees him, she startles, violently. Clutched tightly in her hand is a keychain-sized can of what Ilya assumes is pepper spray. It’s bright pink.

“I will fucking mace you,” she snarls. “Don’t come any closer!”

Varkov and Kovalev step over. Varkov has a baseball bat and Kovalev has a shovel. Ilya can’t imagine how frightening they must look from the outside.

“Not another step,” says the woman. “Not another goddamn—have you wrapped that?”

“What?” says Ilya.

Without putting down her pepper spray, she nods to Kovalev. “You’re limping a little. Your foot?”

“Ankle,” says Kovalev. He had a bad fall on the ice a few days ago; Ilya has been telling him not to put too much weight on it. Then, “What?”

“I’m a doctor,” she says. “Your ankle, can I take a look?”

Kovalev turns to Ilya, confused.

“Why,” says Ilya.

“Because the Hippocratic Oath unfortunately extends to gangs of terrifying hooligans,” she mutters.

“Put the mace down and then we can talk,” says Ilya. 

“Put down your knife and tell your fucking henchmen to drop their weapons and I’ll think about it,” she says.

Ilya lays his knife on the ground. Kovalev and Varkov follow suit. 

“You really should wrap your ankle,” says the woman, slipping the mace back into the pocket of her coat.

“I did,” says Kovalev. He unlaces his boot and pulls out his foot, which he has swaddled in strips of T-shirt.

She shakes her head. “Not sure how you managed this, but that is somehow both too loose and too tight,” she announces. She reaches over to the bandages section, hums for a second, and grabs a box. “Get rid of that shit and let’s start over.”

By the time she’s done rewrapping Kovalev’s ankle, Ilya’s had time to think.

“What is your name?” he asks.

She pulls herself to her feet with some trouble. She’s not in great physical shape; bad joints, by the look of it. 

“Dr. Ellen Wade,” she says, “but Dr. Wade is fine.”

“Are you traveling with anyone, Dr. Wade?” 

“No,” she says. “Not anymore.”

The Raiders have never spoken about adding someone else to their number, and Ilya knows he might meet resistance. On the other hand, coming back with a doctor is considerably better than coming back with a few packages of tube socks.

“How do you feel about hockey?” Ilya asks.

Dr. Wade’s answer is, Ilya will later realize, almost shockingly diplomatic by her standards. “I don’t think about it very much,” she says. “Why?”

Year Seven

Ilya rides ahead. He thinks about various plays he wants to try tomorrow with his half of the team. Feller’s skating could use some work after he fell hard on his knee a few games ago. Kovalev could stand to strengthen his forehand. Cadyn’s playing has been getting sloppy in general, but Ilya needs to be careful about how he handles that because Cadyn can be incredibly defensive in the face of criticism. 

If Shane does decide to join, Ilya and Marleau will have to shuffle their rosters. Adding another player into the mix will likely unbalance everything, but Ilya thinks they could use an unbalancing. The last few games have been starting to feel predictable. The crowd gathered to watch might not have noticed yet, but Ilya could feel staleness creeping in. It can be hard not to coast, as the only surviving hockey team and one of very few forms of entertainment for the people who still remain. The tour they’re doing relies on momentum and word of mouth. In the long run, coasting would be fatal.

He hopes for now that Shane is resting; he has no doubt Dr. Wade has made her case. It occurs to Ilya then that he isn’t sure whether or not Shane has learned how to ride a horse, but if Shane doesn’t know now, he could probably pick it up in a few days.

These are the safe thoughts to have about Shane Hollander. Ilya is not going to reflect on the rest of it while out in the open, balanced on Katrina’s back with the winter sun in his eyes. Of course, by choosing his trailer for Shane to live in, Ilya has already waved goodbye to any notion of privacy, something he maybe should have considered first.

The caravan doesn’t stop for lunch on travel days. Connors rides up to relieve him, and then Ilya doubles back to the trailer. If Shane has been poking around, he’s already found that Ilya, like everyone else, keeps his living space stocked with snacks. 

Of course, if Shane really pokes around, there’s a chance he could find Ilya’s January 2016 issue of Gourmand, the one with the spine long-since broken at the pages of Shane’s Rolex ad. Ilya keeps it underneath his mattress, resting on one corner of the bed frame, like he’s a teenager hiding pornography. 

It would be almost defensible if that’s what it was, if the ad in question was for, say, the underwear brand he knows Shane modeled for, or Speedo or something. There would be an easy explanation then; for obvious reasons, jerkoff material is in short supply now. No, the really damning part is that the only skin Shane is showing is his wrist, face, and neck. If Shane sees it, Ilya will have no explanation. 

But when Ilya climbs into the trailer, Shane is lying on the bed, seemingly none the wiser.

“Hey,” says Shane, sitting up.

“Hey.” Ilya latches the door shut behind himself, kicks off his boots, takes off his jacket, and sits on the floor. It really is warmer in the trailer with the draft sealed. Shane’s body heat probably helps, too. “What did Dr. Wade say?”

Shane looks aggrieved. “That I need to rest,” he reports.

“Must be hard for you,” says Ilya, not without sympathy. He reaches under the bed, pulls out a box, unearths a jar of shelled pecans, and hands Shane a generous fistful. “Here.” They chew in silence for a few seconds. Then Ilya finds what he was actually looking for.

“Is that a jar of chicken meat,” says Shane, confused. “That you keep under your bed?”

“Carver Hills,” Ilya tells him. “They raise chickens for us when we come through.” Shane is staring at him as Ilya pops the lid. “It has been canned,” Ilya adds. “Like this, it is good for a year.” Ilya locates his fork, spears a piece of chicken for himself, and holds the jar out to Shane. “This is lunch, by the way. You still have your fork from last night?”

Shane nods, looking dazed. “You’re rich,” he says.

By pre-sickness standards, the Boston Raiders are nomadic circus performers, maybe a step up from being homeless. That they have enough food to eat like athletes puts them now in the upper echelon of society. Ilya feels strange about this, sometimes. He knows it’s not fair to have so much. Being able to offer Shane chicken like it’s nothing does feel good, though.

“Mm,” Ilya agrees, chewing. He swallows. “I already said.”

“No, you said you were beloved,” says Shane. 

“Both,” Ilya says easily. He holds the jar out again. “Eat,” he says. “Now that it’s opened, it won’t keep.” 

They split the chicken, strangely companionable. Ilya tells him about his half of the team, their various playing styles, some of the wrinkles that need to be smoothed out before the next game. Shane listens, and after a while, cautiously offers advice. It’s mostly good advice, but then, Shane did captain the Metros for two consecutive Cup wins. 

When the chicken is gone, Ilya swigs half the liquid in the bottom of the jar and offers the rest to Shane, who grimaces.

“It’s broth,” says Ilya. “It’s good for you.”

Shane eyes it dubiously.

“Drink it,” Ilya says.

“No,” says Shane, who is already taking the jar. He takes a cautious sip and then downs the rest.

Ilya stashes the jar in his box of jars; anyone who cans anything will make a favorable trade for them.

“Good job,” says Ilya. 

“Fuck you,” says Shane, but when Ilya looks up at him, he’s almost smiling.

Ilya had rules, back when they used to fuck. Chief among them was not to hang around once they were done. Basking in the afterglow together was not worth it, was in fact dangerous. The trouble with lingering is that it has only ever made Ilya want to linger more, to wear out his welcome or worse yet, to reveal some glimpse of the bottomless pit of his own desires.

He is remembering those rules now. He is remembering why they existed.

“Well,” says Ilya, standing. The caravan is not moving so quickly that he can’t climb out. He tugs his boots back on, pulls on his coat. “Remember to rest, or Dr. Wade will get you.”

Shane says nothing. He opens his mouth, then closes it. 

“What?” says Ilya.

“She speaks really highly of you,” Shane says.

“Of course she does,” says Ilya, who had no idea of this until now. 

“She calls you Ilya,” says Shane. 

Ilya thinks, You could, too, if you fucking wanted to; I gave you the chance. 

Maybe that is unreasonable. “Yes,” Ilya says, “she does not believe in the old boys club, something like that.”

Shane nods, although he doesn’t look pacified. Annoyed? Lost in thought? Jealous?

“Also, I am not fucking her, Hollander,” says Ilya, one hand on the door latch. 

“I didn’t ask,” says Shane, maybe a little too quickly. Maybe not.

“Okay,” says Ilya, stepping out of the trailer into the crisp mid-day sunlight.

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

A quick content warning for marijuana use in this chapter, and (unrelated) violence.

Ilya rides up and down the caravan, checking in on people. Joy needs more yarn—black, not acrylic, please—or failing that, raw wool she and Summer can spin. Sebbin suspects that when Kovalev and Varkov furtively speak Russian in his presence, they’re mocking him. Oregan is self-conscious that nobody has complimented his cooking in the past week. St-Simon feels like Auden is no longer pulling his weight on chores. Summer wants to know if Shane will teach her how to fire a bow.

Ilya reminds Joy that Muskegon will have a better yarn supply than any already-looted store between here and there. He listens in on Kovalev and Varkov’s Russian-only conversation—they’re commiserating about having hemorrhoids—and recommends they pay a visit to Dr. Wade. He suggests that Oregan try cooking something that isn’t smoked trout, walnuts, and beets. He tells St-Simon he will keep an eye on Auden, and tells Summer that it is up to Shane.

Dinner that night is something involving a lot of powdered milk that Oregan calls “smoked trout chowder” but it is, at least, different. You cannot win them all.

Summer seizes on the opportunity to make Shane sit next to her, on the other side of the campfire. Maybe ninety percent of Ilya’s awareness is on the talk around him, and ten percent is on Shane nodding very seriously at whatever Summer is saying. She could be making the case for becoming his archery student, or she could be telling him about ancient Egyptian mythology, which is her latest obsession. Most established settlements have some sort of library; she keeps trading her last book about ancient Egyptian mythology for another one.

Halfway through dinner, Connors is telling a funny story about something that happened at the previous settlement, a case of mistaken identity, with occasional shouted input from Kohn and Dubek, when Shane makes direct, deliberate eye contact with Ilya across the fire. Despite his resolve to spend less time alone with Shane, Ilya inclines his head slightly towards the woods, Want to get out of here? Shane nods, and slips off towards the forest.

Ilya watches him go. A plan is forming. It isn’t necessarily a good plan, but there is no time to reflect on that. Ilya has a joint in one pocket of this coat. Ilya has never once successfully had sex with anyone while stoned—too easily distracted—so maybe if he gets himself high enough, he will lose focus on Shane, who will reap the benefit of another night of uninterrupted, unbothered sleep. 

Ilya grabs a stick from the fire and carefully holds the smoldering end to his joint. A few people see, but it is no secret that Ilya smokes up sometimes. He replaces the stick with a wink.

“You’re smoking?” says Shane flatly as Ilya joins him at the treeline.

Ilya says nothing; the fact that he’s actively taking a drag on a joint probably answers the question.

“You have hockey practice,” Shane says.

Ilya holds the smoke in his mouth, breathes it down, and exhales, to the side, so as not to blow any in Shane’s face. Polite. 

“I have hockey practice tomorrow,” Ilya says. “I will be sober by then.” He has three more joints left and that’s it. He’ll need to trade for more soon; in the meantime, he has to enjoy each high as much as he can. Savoring anything is a luxury these days. Ilya closes his eyes, trying to gauge how he feels. He inhales, drawing the smoke into his mouth. Lets it sit. Breathes it into his lungs. 

There is a pause. 

“It’s still bad for you.” Shane’s voice sounds a little odd, like he’s reading his lines from a script.

“Many things are bad for me,” Ilya agrees. He opens his eyes. Shane is looking right at him, or at least, at the joint between his lips. Ilya blows out the rest of the smoke to the side again. He thinks, maybe, that Shane’s eyes are following his mouth, not the joint. “You want to try?” he says, so that Shane can recoil and shake the moment off. 

Shane says nothing for a few long seconds. Shane, who, come to think of it, needs to relax more than anyone else that Ilya knows.

Ilya holds out the joint. “All of the—all of the cool kids are doing it,” he says.

“Yeah?” says Shane. “Where are they?”

Ilya snorts, but this is not a no. He is aware that he could just tell Shane to do it; Shane might. For reasons Ilya doesn’t feel like looking at too closely, it feels like a betrayal to even contemplate this.

Instead, Ilya smiles, reassuring. “You are worried,” he says. “What, that it will show up in a drug test? That the cops will come and arrest us? That photos will be leaked to TMZ?” 

“No,” says Shane. “Of course not.”

“Then what?” says Ilya. “You will feel too good?”

“Maybe,” says Shane, sincere. His forehead scrunches like he regrets speaking. “Sorry, ignore me, I just.”

“You can feel good.” Ilya might already be high, to speak so earnestly, so stupidly. “Nobody is going to come slap the feeling out of you. There aren’t enough people left for that.” He ashes the joint on the snow. 

They both watch it for a second, the little glowing ember. It’s called a cherry in English, Ilya knows, and somewhere in here, there is a joke about first times, but he can’t find the shape of the words.

“You don’t have to,” says Ilya, “if you don’t want—”

Shane reaches over and plucks the joint from Ilya’s hand. “How do you,” he starts, and Ilya coaches him through it. Okay, inhale, not too deep. Hold the smoke in your mouth for a second. Now breathe it in. Now breathe out.

Year Five

Ilya is sitting in his trailer, looking down at the last match he’ll ever own. Matches are not something that can be made at camp, nor by the craftspeople that have slowly started to emerge in the years since everything fell apart. Making matches requires—he’s not sure—chemicals. Sulfur? Things that are hard to come by, at any rate. Machines, probably.

It is strange to do something knowing it will be his last time. Most people glide right over every last anything in their lives, blithely unaware it’s finished until there is nothing left. Ilya has held onto this lone match for months, but just because it is finite, doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

Ilya strikes his final match. The flame flickers into being with a flourish. It will end, the way everything ends, but for now, it burns bright.

Year Seven

Ilya might have miscalculated. They only smoked about half the joint but Shane is very, very high. Shane is leaning against a tree, his posture loose and relaxed, and there is a softness to his smile that is hard to look at directly, like the sun.

Shane is absolutely without a poker face right now. Ilya has a terrible feeling that, if asked a direct question about it, Shane would happily tell the world everything he and Ilya used to do behind closed doors.  

Particularly when it is a long time until they will reach another settlement, some of the Boston Raiders get off together in private, a businesslike exchange of sexual favors. Ilya has never gotten involved in this, other than to tell Sebbin off for coming to him to complain about it in the first place. Keep your eyes on your own dick, Sebbin. If they’re not forcing anyone and it doesn’t make their game worse, why the fuck should I care?

Most of the team seems to agree. A few of the older or more religious men don’t understand it, but they have stayed together for seven years partly through a willingness to look the other way when another player is being foolish or strange or annoying. It is not as if anyone can get themselves traded elsewhere.

Of course, it goes without saying that every guy trading casual handjobs with his teammate would rather have a woman. For them, this is just another example of making do, like living chiefly off powdered eggs and dried fish, or shitting in the woods.

Ilya does not know what they would make of his own pre-collapse history with Shane. He is in no hurry to find out. Shane, sober tomorrow, would never forgive Ilya for exposing the secret of those years to a pack of strangers, Ilya is sure of that much.

“Hey,” says Ilya cautiously. “How are you doing, Hollander?”

“You’re here,” says Shane, smiling again.

“I’m here,” Ilya confirms, trying to decide how he’s going to dig himself out of this particular hole.

“You’re not gonna—” Shane sketches a hand in the air, in a way that probably means something to him.

“What?” says Ilya. He and Shane should probably leave separately. Can he trust Shane to make it back to Ilya’s trailer without stopping to say something suspect?

“Dissolve,” says Shane. He appears to be almost talking to himself.

“What,” Ilya says again.

“When I got this,” Shane says, pulling at his coat and sweater like he’s about to show Ilya his bandage. Ilya tugs both back down, and Shane continues, unconcerned. “I saw you.”

“I know, we met you on the road,” Ilya reminds him.

Shane shakes his head. “Before then.”

“You hallucinated me,” says Ilya.

“Maybe,” says Shane, cagey, which at least explains You again. 

It might be worth staying out here, thinks Ilya, until the crowd at the fire starts to disperse, or until Shane is closer to his right mind.

“What did I do?” says Ilya.

“You told me to stand up,” Shane says. “That it’d be very fucking boring if I died in the snow. You’d walk in front of me and then you’d—” He makes the gesture again.

“Dissolve,” Ilya fills in.

Shane reaches over, takes Ilya’s face in his cold hands. “Don’t fucking do that again,” he says. His right thumb rubs at the stubble on Ilya’s jaw, as if briefly distracted by the texture. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Ilya says.

When Ilya went jogging at eighteen or nineteen, and he was down to the last mile, he used to push himself to run harder by imagining Shane Hollander just ahead of him, always a little faster, always out of reach. Maybe it’s not so different.

“Okay.” Shane beams. “Okay.”

“Do you need some water?” asks Ilya.

“You’re here,” says Shane again.

There are many questions Ilya wants to ask him, and as it is, Shane seems incapable of lying—a train of thought that makes Ilya feel like the worst kind of thief.

“Let’s just breathe for a while, yes?” Ilya says at last.

Eventually, he sends Shane back to the trailer. Ilya is careful to rejoin the people clustered around the fire for a while before making his excuses.

“What were you and Hollander getting up to out there?” Johansson asks as Ilya stands. There’s no malice to it, no implication, Ilya doesn’t think. Nobody has thought to connect those particular dots yet, even as a joke.

Strictly speaking, Ilya isn’t supposed to talk about smoking up around the children; something about setting a good example, but Ilya was never meant to be anyone’s role model. He mimes a joint with his fingers, holding up his other hand to try to block this from Joy’s line of sight.

“I see what you’re doing, genius,” Joy grouses.

“Didn’t know Hollander unclenched enough for that kind of thing,” says Auden.

“Well,” says Ilya, “he is high out of his mind.”

Everyone still present laughs. “Sorry you’re gonna have to deal with that,” says St-Simon.

“Thank you,” Ilya says gravely, and then he departs.

The trailer is illuminated from the inside as Ilya approaches. Shit. The interior lights are solar-powered so there’s no real worry of resources wasted, but Ilya had been half-hoping Shane might have fallen asleep.

Shane’s face splits into a grin when Ilya walks through the door. “Hey,” he says, from where he’s lying on the bed. He’s on his back, blankets up to his chin, taking up more than half of the mattress. Ilya suddenly has grave doubts about how sleeping is going to go tonight.

At least Shane has had the presence of mind to remove his boots. He’s also shucked off his coat. Also, his sweater. 

“Hey,” says Ilya.

Shane’s eyes follow Ilya’s to the sweater. “I got really hot,” Shane says, “and then I got cold again.” 

“Feverish?” Ilya tries to keep his voice level.

Shane shakes his head. “Normal-hot. Then normal-cold.”

Ilya can see Shane’s bare shoulders by the glow of the interior lights, which is horrendous. Shane’s shoulders are not. Ilya was a bad person for suggesting they smoke together in the first place; he can see that now. 

“Are you mad at me?” says Shane. 

Ilya shakes his head. 

“Then why are you—” Shane mimes a frown.

“You are going to feel very silly tomorrow,” Ilya says.

“I feel very silly now,” says Shane.

This could mean a lot of things.

“You are okay?” asks Ilya, sitting awkwardly on the edge of his own bed.

“I don’t.” Shane looks thoughtful. “I’m not sure. I’m kind of—floating?”

“Okay,” says Ilya. “And that’s good?”

At that, Shane’s eyes widen slightly. “I don’t know if it is or not,” he half-whispers. He sounds genuinely worried. “I don’t—I don’t think I’m supposed to.”

“Hollander,” Ilya says with a sigh, “it’s fine. You are fine. You will wake up tomorrow no longer high. And then I don’t know if I will be fine because you might try to kill me, but—”

“I wouldn’t,” says Shane with ironclad certainty. “I would never.”

“See how you feel tomorrow.” Ilya kicks off his boots. Getting more undressed around this version of Shane feels like a mistake. “Either way, go to sleep. This will end.”

“Could you,” Shane starts. Stops. Frowns as if deep in thought.

“Could I…?” says Ilya. 

“Could you hold me down,” says Shane, “so I can stop floating?”

Ilya is not remotely stoned enough to think this is a good idea. He’s stoned enough to want to do it, though. To stop fighting his every instinct, and tuck his face against Shane’s neck and just lie there for a night. 

He’s paused for too long. He can tell that he has.

“Why not?” says Shane quietly, and Shane is still high, Shane almost certainly won’t remember this, so there isn’t much reason to lie.

“Because you will hate me tomorrow,” Ilya tells him.

“No, I won’t,” says Shane, stubborn.

“Yes,” says Ilya, “you will.”

Shane shakes his head. “It’s just a day. It doesn’t have power over me.”

“You are very high still,” says Ilya, “and I am not. So it falls to me to—”

“What,” says Shane, “just let me float off?”

Ilya sighs again. “Shane,” he says, slowly and clearly, “you are not floating.” 

At that, Shane sits up. “Whoa. Okay, that’s worse,” he mutters. Underneath the bruises and the bandage, his body is less muscled than Ilya remembers, still powerful-looking. Ilya wants with an intensity that defies whatever might still be in his system.

“Lie back down,” says Ilya. “Right now.”

“I don’t have to do what you say, just because it feels good,” says Shane.

It is late. Ilya is so tired. He lays a palm on Shane’s shoulder, pressing a little. “Lie down,” Ilya says, and Shane does so, immediately, no hesitation. Ilya looks down at him, at the strength of his shoulders and the freckles sprinkled across his cheekbones, at his perfect eyelashes, at how much calmer he looks under Ilya’s hand.

Ilya’s mouth is dry. That happens, sometimes, with smoking pot.

“Please,” says Shane. He pauses, licks his lips. “Can you—”

Ilya doesn’t think about it. He turns off the lights and slips under the blankets. Taking care not to put any of his weight on Shane’s bandage, Ilya climbs over and levers his body on top of Shane’s. It feels exactly as good as Ilya had imagined, maybe better—the warm, solid presence beneath him, the way Shane finally stills.

“Yes,” says Shane softly, as if he has just won something impossible. They breathe together in the dark, chests rising and falling in tandem. When Shane falls asleep, Ilya knows with total clarity that what he needs to do is to climb off of Shane and pretend this didn’t happen. 

He doesn’t. He sleeps.

Ilya wakes up with his face mashed into Shane’s bare collarbone. By the time he’s peeled himself off of Shane and forced himself out from under the blankets, he’s registered that Shane is awake, and has been for at least a while. The silence stretches between them. Ilya is an idiot, a greedy fool.

Shane says nothing. Shane, he realizes, does not intend to break the silence. 

There is no way past this moment other than through it. “We got so high last night,” Ilya tells him, mostly to have something to say.

Shane freezes. “Uh,” he says, swallowing. “Did I—?”

This is the second time Shane has gotten weird about actions taken while not in his right mind. Ilya notes this, and then he says,

“Yes, you did a striptease for the doctor and then you tried to propose to her.”

Shane’s eyes scan the room and land on his sweater, still lying beside the bed.

“You sang her a song, too,” says Ilya. “‘O Canada.’ It was haunting.”

This earns a smile—not the soft grin from last night, but something much smaller and slightly more survivable.

“Asshole,” says Shane. 

Ilya throws Shane his shirt. “Why ask me if you won’t believe me?”

“Nobody’s forcing you to make shit up,” says Shane, pulling on his sweater. But when his head re-emerges, he’s watching Ilya carefully, as if trying to read in Ilya’s face what he’d actually done.

After a few long seconds, Ilya takes pity on him. “No, don’t worry,” says Ilya. “You played it safe. No striptease, no singing. You got too hot and then too cold. It was like talking about the weather.”

“Boring?” Shane guesses.

“Very.”

“So, practice today,” says Shane instead of rising to the bait. 

“Yeah,” Ilya says.

“How are you feeling about it?” Shane asks, slipping on his coat. 

Ilya doesn’t have it in him to say that hockey practice is a very welcome but relatively unremarkable event in his life. 

“It is important to remember our fundamentals,” he says solemnly.

“Fuck off,” says Shane.

A practice day means meat at breakfast—bacon, in this case—along with the usual powdered eggs. It means renewed chatter among the caravan as they make their way out to the lake. It means opening the equipment trailer—the smell is unbelievably foul, which is why they no longer keep anything else in there—and donning their gear. It means setting up their boards—shitty, waist-high plywood on rickety stands that would absolutely collapse if someone seriously tried to check a player into them, but better than nothing. And it means a sliver of life from a bygone era, briefly narrowing their concerns to the next game and nothing else.

In this case, it also means Shane, Joy, and Summer departing with Shane’s bow and arrows, Oregon’s sharpest knife, and the team’s largest cooler into the nearby woods.

Ilya runs his drills with his half of the team: Feller, Kovalev, Dubek, Connors, Cadyn, Auden, St-Simon, Sebbin, and Anderson. He makes Dubek work on his forehand, he makes everyone work on their stick handling, he keeps an eye on Feller’s skating, and he tries to be as tactful as he can about Cadyn’s recent total fucking lack of finesse. He experiments with some of the plays he’s been thinking of, a few of which need work and one which goes so smoothly that stupidly, he wishes Shane were there to see it.

They’re winding down when Joy and Summer jog out to the makeshift rink.

“How’d it go?” asks Connors.

“We got a buck!” Summer yells. 

‘We,’ Joy mouths, rolling her eyes.

Oregan literally cheers. A few others, as well.

“Fuck yeah,” says Marleau. 

“We need help moving the cooler back, it’s very heavy,” says Summer. 

“Heavy as shit,” says Joy, “he wouldn’t let us do it alone and I told him he shouldn’t lift it with his wound.”

“Smart,” says Ilya, because Dr. Wade is busy watching the horses and trailers. To lug the cooler, he dispatches Myers and Ward, who rarely talk and thus rarely complain.

“It was disgusting,” says Summer proudly. “Pulling all the guts out.”

“It really was,” Joy says. “If it wasn’t kind of impossible for us, I think I’d become a vegetarian.”

Shane returns a few minutes later, with Myers and Ward carrying the cooler between them. As with the target shooting yesterday, his victory doesn’t seem to surprise him.

“What kind of shape is the deer in?” asks Oregan anxiously, no doubt dreading the prospect of skinning a wild animal.

“Steaks,” says Shane. “I figured, the more we broke it down, the better.”

Oregan grabs Shane into a loose headlock, laughing. “Somebody get this guy outta here before I kiss him on the mouth!”

Ilya isn’t certain what his face does at that. He busies himself with putting away the equipment, something he normally delegates to whoever has pissed him off the most.

Dinner that night is deer steaks with pickled kale. The absence of smoked trout is already a gift. That the venison came from Shane makes every bite feel important in a way Ilya doesn’t have words for, and doesn’t really want words for, either. He likes the idea of Shane providing for the group, that’s all. It will help convince the others to vote for him to stay.

Summer has claimed the spot at the campfire next to Shane again, which is probably a good thing. A little distance. Not that it did Ilya much good last time, he thinks, watching Summer chatting away and Shane nodding patiently.

After dinner, Oregan fills the washing pot with snow and sets it over the fire. Shane watches as everyone clamors for their wash bowl. When people start to retreat to their trailers with their hot water, he follows Ilya back to theirs, looking curious.

“We get hot water to scrub with on practice days and game days,” says Ilya inside the trailer. “Didn’t Summer explain this to you?”

Shane shakes his head.

“What was she talking about?” asks Ilya.

“Birds,” says Shane. “She doesn’t think flamingos are real.”

“Okay,” says Ilya, who may have started that rumor out of boredom. He nods at the door to what used to be the bathroom, which at least has a grate in the floor so the rest of the trailer doesn’t get wet. “Do you want first shower or should I?”

“You can go first,” says Shane.

When Ilya starts to pull off his shirt, Shane very deliberately averts his eyes. Shane didn’t have complaints about Ilya’s body before, and in the years since, Ilya has maintained his muscle mass as if his life depended on it, because it does. Ilya can’t decide if Shane is trying to send a message—please stay away—or if Shane has decided to deny himself, for typical, Shane-related reasons.

The soap and towel are in the bathroom where Ilya had left them. He washes up as quickly as he can, trying to ensure the water will still be hot for Shane. With the door closed, the space is so small, it feels like taking a sponge bath inside an airplane bathroom. Being the size of a grown man, it is necessary to do a lot of strange contorting.

Ilya wraps the towel loosely around his waist. When he slips out the door, Shane is leaning off the bed, running a knife blade over and over the edge of what looks like a broken piece of a mug.

“What are you doing?” says Ilya.

Shane doesn’t look up. “Ceramics are pretty good for sharpening knives in a pinch,” he says.

“Okay. The soap is in there,” Ilya tells him.

Shane nods, tucking the knife and the mug fragment back into his pack. Beside him on the bed is a towel he must have also extracted from the pack’s depths. The towel is bright orange. It has Garfield’s face on it. Ilya is not sure how he missed it before, except that he was looking at Shane. 

There is very little space to cross the trailer, but they scramble past each other and then Shane is disappearing behind the bathroom door.

Ilya reaches under the bed to find his cleanest clothes. He puts them on and reflects on today’s practice. They’ll be following the curve of Lake Michigan up to Muskegon, meaning a string of practices for the next few days, which is lucky. Ilya’s half of the team sorely needs it, and judging by how Zadonsky and Ward were grimacing at dinner, Marleau’s half might need it, too. 

Shane is taking a long time. He deserves his privacy, though. Ilya wonders when was the last time Shane was in a position to wash himself with remotely hot water, in a place where he could let down his guard long enough to focus on it. Ilya hopes the answer isn’t 2016.

Still, Shane doesn’t emerge. Ilya mentally reviews every single play he wants to try tomorrow—still nothing. 

Shane deserves his privacy, but this is getting genuinely ridiculous, and there is no point overthinking it. He crosses to the door and knocks on it.

“Everything alright?” says Ilya.

“Fine,” Shane says, and Ilya can hear the gritted teeth from here.

“Okay, but the water must be cold by now,” Ilya points out.

A long pause, and then Shane says, haltingly, “I can’t reach my back.”

“It is like trying to wash yourself from inside a mini fridge,” says Ilya.

From the other side of the door, Shane hums. “Dr. Wade said not to do anything that might reopen my cut,” he says. Cut, as if Shane was simply careless with the edge of a piece of paper, and not recovering from another person trying to slice him open. “I just—I can feel the grit on my skin,” he says. “It’s gross.”

“You want help?” Ilya suggests.

Another long pause. “If you wouldn’t mind,” says Shane at last.

Would Ilya mind?

“Hand me the bowl,” says Ilya. “I’ll go get some hotter water.”

Shane cracks open the door enough to pass the bowl through, and Ilya pulls on his coat and boots. The washing pot is still on the fire. Ilya empties out his tepid bowlful and refills it from the pot. It feels borderline too hot now, steam curling from the surface, but the walk back is bound to cool it a little.

Inside the trailer again, Ilya latches the door shut, steps out of his boots, and shucks off his coat. He pushes up the sleeves of his shirt and knocks on the bathroom door. 

“Water,” says Ilya.

Shane opens the door, turning to put his back to Ilya. It really is a small space. There is no way to step into the—“room” is generous—without walking Shane into the wall of the shower.

“Pass me the soap?” says Ilya. Shane hands over the lump of soap. “Pass me the towel?” Shane surrenders this as well.

Ilya dips a corner of the towel in the water, which is still nicely hot, and lathers it with the soap. He turns his focus to Shane’s back.

Ilya used to have a lot of opportunity to enjoy this particular view—the breadth of Shane’s shoulders, the muscles playing across the wings of his shoulder blades, the dimples on his lower back. The past seven years have robbed him of some bulk, but not all of it, and Ilya still wants to put his mouth on Shane’s bare skin.

Shane, whose whole body is so tense that he could be made of wrought iron. Before Ilya can think better of it, he reaches up with one soapy hand and squeezes lightly at the side of Shane’s neck. Shane jumps about a foot into the air.

“Don’t worry,” says Ilya, “I won’t—” He’s not sure how to end the sentence because he’s not sure what Shane’s afraid of. I won’t hurt you. I won’t take advantage of you. I won’t kiss you, I won’t use your first name. I won’t subject your body to the enormity of my appetites. “It’s just a bath,” Ilya says instead.

Shane nods. 

“You won’t melt,” says Ilya. “You are not a witch, right?”

“Shut up,” says Shane. 

“Stay still,” says Ilya.

Ilya starts in on Shane’s left shoulder. The soap is coarse, handmade from a settlement in Ohio, and Ilya is as careful as he can be not to scrape at Shane’s skin with the lather. Ilya washes with the corner of the towel, rinses with handfuls of water straight from the bowl, letting it run down into the drain. He gently wipes at Shane’s shoulder blade, sluices more water down Shane’s skin. 

Shane stays still. By the time Ilya has gotten to the back of Shane’s neck, Shane seems more relaxed, and Ilya is fighting not to pant like a dog. He washes the line of Shane’s spine. He washes Shane’s right shoulder. Belatedly, he realizes Shane probably could have reached this part, but Shane says nothing. Neither does Ilya, who washes Shane’s right shoulder blade and then, gently, the small of his back.

When Ilya’s finished, he’s used all the water in the bowl. “Okay,” says Ilya, mouth dry, “you’re clean.” 

Shane turns around, eyes dark. Ilya reaches to hand him the towel. Shane doesn’t take it. He stares back at Ilya. 

“You—” says Shane, low and quiet, almost like he’s in pain.

Ilya opens his mouth, no idea what he’s about to say. There must be some clever comment he can make, some feint away from his own appalling tenderness, some way he can keep desperately dancing away from the impossibility of what he actually wants.

Shane closes his eyes. He opens them again. Then he’s folding to his knees, resting his cheek where Ilya is half-hard in his jeans, and looking up at Ilya through his lashes, as if to say Can I?

Ilya nods. He drapes the towel, still mostly warm and dry, over Shane’s shoulders. Shane’s expression shutters for a second, then clears. He reaches for Ilya’s fly.

In the eternity since they’ve done this, Ilya had started to wonder, to ask himself if sex with Shane Hollander had ever been as devastating as he remembered it, or if Ilya had simply been lonely and nineteen (and twenty, and twenty-three, and twenty-four—). He’s certainly witnessed the way that his teammates sometimes polish their memories from before, adding a layer of shine that was not there at the time, particularly about people who are now gone. 

And so it is dizzying to realize, standing there in his trailer as Shane eagerly swallows down his cock, that Ilya’s memory had exaggerated nothing. Shane is exactly as enthusiastic, and his mouth is hot and wet and still intimately familiar with how to bring Ilya off. The sight of Shane at Ilya’s feet, eyes closed and lips red and spit-slick on Ilya’s cock is almost enough by itself. Ilya rakes his hand through Shane’s hair, grabs him by the nape of his neck not to thrust but just to anchor himself, and Shane moans in the back of his throat.

“Fuck,” Ilya says, his head knocking back against the bathroom doorframe. It’s probably for the better that he is struggling to form any other words. He could incriminate himself badly.

Ilya knows that by the standards of the current world, hockey has granted him access to luxuries most survivors can only distantly recall: liquor, pot, seasoned food, the feeling of relative safety. At this moment, none of it compares to this, the warmth of Shane’s clever, desperate mouth.

“I’m—” he warns, and Shane opens his eyes, looks up at Ilya, and sucks hard, hollowing his cheeks. Ilya comes so hard it is a minor miracle he stays on his feet.

When he returns to his body, and to the trailer, Shane is still on his knees, breathing unsteadily, his face tucked against Ilya’s thigh. His cock is flushed and looks uncomfortably hard.

Ilya clears his throat. When he thinks his voice will be steady, he says, “Get on the bed. On your back.”

Shane stumbles to his feet, manages not to trip over his own pack, closes the very small distance between the shower and the mattress.

Ilya kicks off his pants and underwear and takes off his shirt, too. When he reaches the bed, Shane is lying there, wanton and beautiful, and leaking onto his stomach a little. Ilya sits on the sheets, wraps his hand around Shane’s cock, gives it a few pumps.

“Arms above your head on the bed,” Ilya tells him. Shane complies immediately. Ilya grins. “Look at you,” he says. “Such a—such a nice picture.”

Shane closes his eyes and swallows. He keeps his hands where he’s told, even when Ilya deliberately slows his pace until Shane is shaking all over.

“Please,” says Shane eventually.

“Mmm, please what?” says Ilya.

“Please, sir—” Shane tries, mostly breath. Not quite what Ilya is going for, but it is something to think about later.

Ilya laughs softly. 

Shane opens his eyes. “Please let me come.”

In another life, in a hotel room somewhere, Ilya would have made him say it louder, but the walls are not that thick and the next closest trailer is not that far away. Ilya speeds his hand, sucks at the insides of Shane’s thighs, then closes his mouth around Shane’s cock just in time. He swallows until Shane is twitching away from him, then climbs back up Shane’s body, carefully avoiding his bandages, to kiss him on the mouth.

Shane melts into it, but pulls away after a few languid kisses. “I don’t know if I can go again,” he says.

Ilya doesn’t actually know if he can, either. It had not occurred to him to try. He reaches down, pats Shane’s hip just above where his leg is hooked over Shane’s.

“I’ll give you a second to get your beauty rest,” Ilya says.

“Fuck you,” Shane mumbles. His hair is still wet, from before. Ilya pulls the blankets back up around them. “Thank you,” Shane adds.

“Thank you for dinner,” Ilya tells him, heart pounding strangely in his chest. 

Small mercies, Shane only huffs a laugh. “Anytime,” says Shane vaguely, politely.

Holding you to that, Ilya thinks but does not say. “Good,” he whispers. “Then I will keep putting out.”

Shane wrinkles his nose. He seems more relaxed, Ilya thinks. Then Shane yawns. Then he’s asleep.

In a perfect world, they would both go on to enjoy the best sleep of their lives. Late in the night, Ilya wakes up because Shane is thrashing violently under the blankets. 

“Hey,” says Ilya. If Shane’s wound reopens, they are in real trouble. “Hey.” He pins down Shane’s legs with one shin, gets a hand on each bicep, squeezes hard. “Hey.”

Shane stops kicking. “Hey,” he says. It is too dark to see, but Ilya can feel him sag back into the mattress.

“Bad dream?” Ilya ventures.

“I woke you up.” Shane’s voice is creaky with sleep, clipped with regret.

“I sleep like shit sometimes, too,” says Ilya. “That’s life in the apocalypse.”

“I’m sorry,” says Shane. “I’ll try not to—”

“What, have a nightmare?” Ilya interjects. “You know it doesn’t work that way.” 

Silence descends. Ilya wishes he could see Shane’s face. 

Shane sighs. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You were kicking, hard,” says Ilya. “If you break both my legs, I won’t be able to play.”

“It’ll be fine,” Shane says. “We just need to not sleep on top of each other.” He pulls his body out from under Ilya’s, away and towards the unforgiving metal wall of the trailer. Something deep in Ilya’s brain cries out, but what is he supposed to do, tell Shane no? Force Shane to cuddle with him?

Leaving the room after sex is no longer possible, but Shane is right, a little distance is smart. Ilya needs to keep that in mind. He needs to make it a point not to touch Shane without a reason. He needs to remember that he and Shane do not have the kind of relationship that merits sharing their worst nightmares with each other, curled up together in the dark.

Year One

A rifle is much louder up close. The teenage boy trying to block the road across upstate New York is a terrible shot, but Ilya cannot afford one of his team getting clipped or worse by a stray bullet. 

“Put the gun down,” Ilya’s saying. “Please, put the gun down.”

The kid is too keyed up to listen. “You can’t go this way!” he shouts. His eyebrows are so blond, they almost disappear into his forehead. His eyes are wide and his weapon awkwardly held, like a toy or a joke. It would be almost funny, except for the punchline: the gun is real, and it is loaded.

“Then let us turn around,” says Marleau. “We’ll all walk away—”

“You can’t know we’re here!” yells the boy. “None of you are leaving alive!”

The muzzle of the shotgun swerves from Ilya to Marleau to Connors. Blam, a hole in the tree behind them. The team has numbers, at least for now, which means they’ll win no matter what. It is a question of what the cost will be, in the meantime.

Ilya would like to say all of it happens in the heat of the moment, but it is a calculated decision: the boy is maybe seventeen and terrified, but he keeps pulling the trigger, and Ilya cannot let his own team bleed. 

He tracks the kid’s eyes. Not so hard, really, to dart up behind him when he’s preoccupied with yelling threats at the others. Ilya used to be known for getting past a team’s defense, for throwing his body into the place it was needed with brutal accuracy.

Blam. A bullet nearly hits Oregan. 

Ilya grabs for the gun. The metal is hot even through his gloves. He wrenches it from the boy’s hands, as hard as he can. The rifle clatters on the ground. The boy scrambles for it, still unwilling to give up, and Ilya makes a decision then, a conscious, knowing decision. 

When the boy’s forehead splits open against the icy ground, the sound of it is worse than a thousand gunshots.

Chapter 5

Year Seven

The next morning at breakfast, Summer, Dubek, and Oregan are all vying for a spot around the fire near Shane. Ilya leaves them to it. Since half the team still seems convinced they can’t stand each other, it would be at best suspicious to follow him around, at worst pathetic. 

Summer and Dubek are pressing Shane with questions about bow hunting, with Oregan occasionally interjecting something that seems to be unrelated, judging from the way Dubek’s forehead keeps wrinkling.

Marleau appears at Ilya’s elbow. They watch as Dr. Wade squeezes past Oregan to whisper something in Shane’s ear. Shane and Dr. Wade depart in the direction of the medical trailer. 

“What’re you thinking?” Marleau says.

“Three days until next game,” says Ilya.

Marleau nods, thoughtful. “Think Muskegon will pussy out on us?” 

“They had fucking better not,” says Ilya.

Modern ice hockey skates tended to involve nylon, graphite, and carbon fiber, not to mention high grade steel for the blade. Ilya knows that if humanity ever does regain access to such things, their first move will not be to manufacture more hockey gear. 

It is true there are sports supply stores, even specifically hockey supply stores, that are not yet looted to the dregs; most people were focused on food or survival gear in the early days, and skates are such a specialty item that scavengers don’t always think of the price they could fetch in the right setting.

Still, even a very good pair of skates can’t last longer than a few years of concentrated use, and there will come a day when some urban explorer will uncover the last pair of decent skates on earth. Ilya can only hope he is dead or at least long retired by then.

“When do we talk about what happens if I get Hollander on my team?” asks Marleau.

“When it happens,” says Ilya. “If it happens.”

“What, would he be captain then?” Marleau says.

“That would be between you and him, I think,” says Ilya.

Marleau hums at that. “Might be nice to take a break for one half of a goddamn second,” he says. “What’s he gonna do for skates?”

Ilya shrugs. There’s the official pay the settlement agrees to, and then there’s the little extras tossed their way by individual townspeople in the euphoria of a game day. As the Raiders’ star player, he benefits from this above and beyond anyone else. Usually, if it’s something like food, he shares it with the group. It is an easy way to maintain loyalty. Sometimes, though—

“Motherfucker,” says Marleau, nudging him hard in the ribs, “are you hoarding extras?”

“One pair,” Ilya tells him.

“You two better be the same fucking size,” Marleau points out, and there is no way to tell him that Ilya has seen his bare foot close enough to Shane’s bare foot to be almost certain of it. “What about the rest of the gear?”

The local scavengers roughly know the team’s schedule; they will have had time to prepare. The odds are good that somebody shows up looking to unload pads, helmets, and sticks—things that are almost useless the rest of the year. Ilya has already decided that whatever he makes on top of his negotiated pay will be put towards outfitting Shane as well as possible. It is just a down payment on further earnings later. He thinks the rest of the team will buy this. Hopefully, including Shane.

Shane finds Ilya after breakfast, when the camp is packing up. His mouth is a thin line, his gaze jittery and distracted, his face the kind a person might make before saying, Last night can never happen again. Your wanting sickens me. Do you think I could still room with Auden?

“Can we talk,” says Shane, barely a question.

Ilya nods, curt. “In the trailer,” he says. “Once we’re moving.”

Ilya is still enough of a coward to avoid it as long as he can. He finds places to be, things to do, up and down the caravan for maybe half an hour. When he can put it off no longer, he climbs through the door of the trailer and latches it behind himself. Shane is sitting on the bed, looking like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

The road is bumpy enough that standing is stupid, especially with Shane’s pack taking up so much space on the floor. Ilya sits on the bed as well, giving Shane as much room as he can.

“So,” says Ilya, feeling like he is being lined up for the firing squad. “Talk.”

Shane takes a deep breath. “Dr. Wade says I can start skating today if I want, but that it’ll probably be six months before I can play actual hockey again,” he says with a wince. “If not longer.”

This tracks with Ilya’s very limited experience of post-plague wound recovery. “And?” he says, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“And?” Shane repeats, incredulous. “Six months. And that’s before I can even start training in earnest. It could be a year before I’m any good at all out there. It could be more.” 

Ilya politely doesn’t point out that in six months, it will be spring. They only know of a handful of full-size synthetic rinks in traveling distance. The slippery plastic is meant to mimic ice; it does this imperfectly. It’s hard on skates. Playing on foot in an abandoned parking lot is still an option, but also not ideal. Something is better than nothing. With that said, in all likelihood, Shane is looking at very little ice hockey for the next eleven months.

“Then we wait,” Ilya tells him. “What, you have some other place to be?”

Shane stares at him. “And what,” he says, “I just freeload here with your team for an entire fucking calendar year?”

“Freeload, train, keep us stocked with meat,” says Ilya, “and when you are ready—” Maybe if he makes himself shrug as he says it, it will not sound like something he has been daydreaming about. He shrugs, but Shane is not looking at him.

“Who would agree to that?” says Shane, his voice rising. “You said yourself, your people aren’t exactly hurting for food—”

“Maybe we are tired of eating smoked fish,” says Ilya. “Maybe we are tired of six years playing the exact same lineup against the exact same lineup. Maybe we are very tired of how hard Johansson telegraphs every single fucking move he ever makes on the ice.”

“He did when I played against him, too,” Shane mutters. “It felt like I could see the fucking future.”

Ilya has to smile a little at that. “But you are cleared to skate?” he says.

“What’s the point,” says Shane, “if I’m never as good as—?”

“Me?” Ilya fills in. “Well fuck, why start now?”

This startles a reluctant laugh from Shane. “Asshole,” he says. “I used to beat you all the time.”

“Yes, you have determination,” Ilya agrees. “And discipline. Focus. Dedication.” Shane is looking at him very oddly. “All of those incredibly fucking boring things. The people who used to make those—what were they called? With a mountain and a word?” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” says Shane. “Maps?”

“No. ‘Perseverance’ and then a mountain, or a tree.” Ilya gestures. It is not even a language issue anymore, he doesn’t think, he just cannot for the life of him remember the term. “A picture, on the wall. A poster.”

“A motivational poster?” Shane guesses. 

“Yes,” says Ilya. “You are a motivational poster maker’s wet dream.” He reaches over, pats Shane on the thigh. Low on the thigh. He doesn’t want to—he’s not sure.  

“And if I never get there?” says Shane. “I could learn to play again, and still not be...”

“Cross that bridge when we come to it,” Ilya says.

Shane does not look satisfied by that. “This is my life.”

“You’ll get there,” says Ilya. “It is not as though you will be too distracted partying. One thing the end of the world did not change.”

Shane frowns but he can hardly argue otherwise.

“Hey,” says Ilya, as if he’s just thought of it, “what is your shoe size?”

“Twelve,” says Shane. “Why?”

Ilya doesn’t need to convert it into skate sizes because he wears the same. The bright red box is shoved far under the bed, close to the wall. It takes some doing to unearth. 

When he emerges, Shane is staring again. “What are those?” 

Ilya lifts the lid, although it must be somewhat obvious by now. They’re CCM Tacks, spotless and unused, with the clean, gleaming edges of something that has been perfectly preserved from the old world.

“You can’t,” Shane says. He shakes his head. “I was gonna—try to trade for someone’s old skates when they get new ones in Muskegon. You can’t give me those.”

“I mean,” says Ilya, “I can.”

“You shouldn’t,” says Shane.

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Yes, because I have such a great record of doing what I should do. Look, our old skates are not in the best shape. We are getting new ones for a reason. Not to mention, the smell. You don’t want them.”

“I can’t pay you back,” Shane says.

“You can,” says Ilya. “Take down another deer in a week when we’re back to travel rations. Problem solved.”

“These are worth more than a deer,” says Shane, his eyes still locked on the box and its contents. With one reverent finger, he traces the stitching on the tongue of the left skate.

“Then two deer,” Ilya tells him. “Three. Who gives a shit? You’re good for it.”

Shane looks guardedly back at him.

“Look, I am the captain, right?” says Ilya. “I am doing my job. You need skates and you need to get back on the ice before you can practice. If you can never play again—we took a risk, it didn’t pan out. That is how risks work. Meantime, the sooner you start, the better. So, start today. Simple. Easy. If anyone asks where they came from, tell them the truth: that I am the best captain on the planet.”

“And this isn’t because…?” Shane starts, stops. Fixes Ilya with a searching look.

Ilya sighs. “It is not because we’re—” Present tense implies it will happen again. That is assuming too much, he knows. He drops his voice. “Not because you look so good on your knees, Hollander.”

Shane shivers very slightly, eyes dark, and fuck, maybe about this one single thing, Ilya is assuming the correct amount.

“Separate issue,” Ilya continues, standing. The road is no smoother but if Ilya keeps sitting on this bed, he is going to do something truly stupid, like try to convince Shane to lay his head in Ilya’s lap. Not as a prelude to anything else, even. Just to rest.

He nods to the box. “They are yours. Understood?”

“Yeah,” says Shane. “Okay.”

“Hot water tonight,” says Ilya, making his way around Shane’s pack to the door.

“I figured,” Shane says.

Ilya unlatches the door, raises his eyebrows. “Let me know if you want help with your back again,” he says, stepping back out into the chilly morning sunshine before he can see the look on Shane’s face.

Ilya can’t tell if practice today is easier because his half of the team is getting back into the rhythm of playing together, or because he is just moving more freely in his body after an orgasm, but either way, it is a welcome change. 

He is extremely aware of Shane on the ice, although by rights, he shouldn’t be. Shane is sticking to where Marleau’s half of the team practices, and the two sides have a long-established gentleman’s agreement not to spy on each other. Ilya isn’t trying to, but when his eyes get a second to themselves, he keeps glancing over. It’s hard to judge, and logically Ilya knows that Shane will need to do a whole lot of practicing before he can play hockey at a professional level again, but he’s still a natural on the ice.

Knowing that Shane is out there, even just skating, makes Ilya work harder. Maybe it always has.

At dinner that night, Shane is surrounded by Summer, Dubek, Oregan, and Anderson. Kohn launches into his favorite story, about ice fishing in Minnesota. When Ilya points out that everyone on the team has already heard this story, many times in fact, Kohn points to Shane and says,

“This motherfucker hasn’t yet,” which is probably a good sign, in terms of keeping Shane on the team. 

It does mean hearing the story again, though.

“So, first of all, the thing you’ve gotta understand,” Kohn is saying, “is that ice fishing isn’t just sitting around a lake with a hole punched in the ice. Or, it didn’t used to be. It was a whole—it had an economy to it.”

“I blame you for this,” Ilya tells Marleau in an undertone.

“How is this my fault?” Marleau whispers back.

“It’s your job to tire him out until he can’t talk this much,” says Ilya.

“Another reason to be glad about getting a fucking demotion next season,” says Marleau.

“If they vote he can stay,” Ilya reminds him.

“They will,” says Marleau. “Everyone knows we need something to shake things up. Kovalev has been this close to suggesting to you that we start each game with a live coyote in the middle of the ice, just for variety.”

“And the fact that it’s him—” Ilya starts.

“The rest of the Metros have probably been dead for seven years,” Marleau cuts in. “I haven’t heard anyone holding grudges about that.”

“It’s still if he decides to stay,” says Ilya, “And if he’s cleared to play by then. And if he wants to be captain. And if—” 

“Oh, he’ll stay,” says Marleau, totally assured.

“You don’t know that,” says Ilya.

“Yeah, I do,” Marleau says.

Ilya badly wants to believe him. “You can’t fucking prove it.”

“You saw him out there today,” says Marleau. He doesn’t make mention of breaking the gentleman’s agreement, which Ilya appreciates. Instead he shrugs, then gestures to the circle of chairs around the fire. “He’d have to be actively crazy not to want a piece of this. He’s maybe a little weird, but like. Goalie-weird. He’s not nuts. And you built something good.” 

Kohn is getting to his favorite part of the story. “The whole truck, through the ice,” he’s saying. Just out of Kohn’s eyeline, Summer is mouthing along with him; that’s how often everyone but Shane has heard this story. “Whoosh!”

“I did,” Ilya tells Marleau. “But you know. You did, too.”

Year Three

The ice is melting. The trees are starting to sprout little green buds. Ilya hates all of it, hates the sight of the fat singing robins, hates that it means hockey will be over again until late November at least. They’re in the northernmost part of Minnesota, but it doesn’t matter. Spring comes every year regardless.

Living how they do feels impossible, sometimes. They rely so much on strangers’ appetites for some form of novelty. People won’t pay nearly as much to watch hockey played on foot. In the spring, the Boston Raiders will eat through all their carefully stockpiled food stores, will have to revert to trapping, fishing, and foraging like they did the first year. Whenever he has to turn his thoughts back to that time, Ilya’s whole mind starts screaming.

“We still need to pick a route for the next couple of months,” Marleau tells him that night, away from the others. “We’ve heard enough rumors, I think we can be pretty sure Columbus and Indianapolis have synthetic rinks tucked away somewhere.”

“Skating on plastic,” says Ilya. 

“Beats nothing,” says Marleau.

“It will dull our blades,” Ilya says, “and we don’t even know where they are.”

“Blades can be sharpened, at least for a while,” Marleau points out. “And the closer we get, the better chance someone will be able to take us there.”

“Chance,” says Ilya.

Marleau spreads his hands. “Sometimes, that’s all you get.”

“What is the fucking point,” says Ilya.

“We’re better off on the move,” says Marleau, as if that is the question Ilya asked. “I mean, the food alone—we can’t afford to eat down any one area.”

Ilya shakes his head. “What is the point of any of it,” he says. “Any of it at all.”

“We’ve got people fucking depending on us,” Marleau reminds him, as if Ilya could forget. 

“I can’t do it,” says Ilya.

“Okay,” says Marleau. “You got us through a fucking lot. If you need someone else to carry the torch—”

“I should be able to do it,” says Ilya. “It’s my team. I was the one who said, maybe there was a way we could keep playing—”

“Oh, sorry,” Marleau interjects. “You should be able to do it all? Every single fucking thing? You should be, what, a fucking hockey god? The god of, not just the sport hockey, but also all travel planning and logistics, who never needs a fucking ounce of help with anything?”

“Jesus,” says Ilya.

“Anderson’s got the map,” says Marleau. “I’ll meet with him. We’ll come up with something.”

“You don’t have to,” Ilya says.

“The alternative is we’re nowhere,” says Marleau, patting him on the shoulder. “Hey, cheer up. This will all be an icy, snowy hellscape again before you know it.”

Year Seven

“I do what any decent second-in-command would do,” says Marleau. 

“More than decent,” says Ilya. 

Marleau claps a hand over his heart. “Fucking charmer,” he says, “what, do you want a handjob or something?” and Ilya laughs.

Kohn is thankfully winding down his story. “So that’s why, if you ever buy a car in Florida, you’ve gotta always remember to check the wheel wells for lake muck,” he concludes.

“Thank you,” says Shane. “I’ll keep that in mind?” It’s definitely more of a question than a statement.

Kohn nods, apparently satisfied.

“When is Shane Hollander gonna buy a car in Florida?” Anderson protests.

“I don’t know the fucking future,” sputters Kohn.

Shane looks up. His eyes connect with Ilya’s. Maybe if Shane winds up staying for the rest of his life, Ilya will get used to this feeling. Then again, maybe not. Ilya nods in the direction of the trees; Shane shakes his head very slightly. That he seems to be having an okay time fills Ilya with the sense of accomplishment that Marleau was probably aiming for. They have created something, for the short time they are alive, and that does count, at least a little.

Chapter 6

Shane stays at the campfire until it is time to distribute the hot water. “Sorry you’ve gotta share with Rozy,” Dubek tells Shane, “this guy fucking reeks like a dead skunk after practice. Always has.”

Probably it is a matter of time before someone makes a don’t drop the soap joke. Ilya doesn’t see Shane reacting well to that. In comparison, he will take chirps about how bad he smells all day long. 

Still. “Funny,” Ilya says, “coming from you. We don’t need to set traps, Dubek, we could just wave your under armor at passing animals and watch them fall.”

“We can’t try that with yours ‘cause they wouldn’t be safe to eat,” Dubek shoots back.

Ilya flips him off with the hand not holding the water. Shane follows him into the trailer, shutting the door behind them. After a second, Shane bolts the lock, too. With Shane’s backpack square in the middle of the limited floor, there are not many places to stand. They’re almost pressed up against each other. 

Their eyes meet. Ilya could take one step forward into Shane’s space. One step—

Shane looks at the floor.

“You can take first shower,” Ilya offers, passing him the bowl.

“Thanks,” says Shane. He takes a breath. “I think—I’ve thought about it, and I think I’ve found a way I can wash my back, without help.”

Ilya nods. There is no other possible response. He can’t make Shane need him. “Okay,” he says, turning away.

“Uh,” Shane says. “But. I—”

Ilya twists back to face him. Shane says nothing else. “But you—?” Ilya prompts.

Shane closes his eyes, opens them again. “I still,” he says quietly.

“You still what?” says Ilya. He thinks he may be starting to smile.

Shane’s gaze sweeps the trailer, like there might be someone else hiding inside. “Don’t make me say it.”

“I’m not making you do anything,” Ilya says. “But if there’s something you want, you should tell me.”

“Someone’s gonna hear,” says Shane, voice low.

“Everyone is showering,” says Ilya with a shrug. “I will hear, of course.” Ilya gives in and takes the step closer. Shane doesn’t back away. Of course, he can’t go far, given how the walls of the trailer are set up. It brings their faces inches apart.

“Of course,” says Shane. He looks down at the bowl of water in his hands as if seeing it for the first time. “I think we should try to save some of the water,” he says, which was not what Ilya was expecting.

“For what?” says Ilya.

“For after,” Shane says.

Ilya smiles. 

“Please don't ask me ‘after what,’” says Shane with feeling.

Ilya lays a hand on the back of Shane’s neck and kisses him. Shane kisses back so immediately, it’s like that is what he was waiting for, and Ilya finds himself rapidly losing track of time. The bowl of water is still in Shane’s hand; the lip of it is digging into Ilya’s side, and it has to be getting cold. Ilya can’t bring himself to care.

When Ilya makes himself pull away, Shane sways forwards for a second. Resting their foreheads together is probably against the rules Ilya has for himself, but fuck it, the world has ended, this is what Ilya wants, and in this moment Shane doesn’t seem opposed.

“Be quick,” says Ilya, swatting at Shane’s thigh. 

Shane smiles, and disappears behind the door.

Ilya sits on the bed. The thing about doing this twice, he thinks, is that it is almost a pattern. Anyone can hook up, out of boredom or curiosity, especially in this world where there are so few forms of entertainment left. Doing it again implies there could be times after this, implies they might make it a habit. The thought of coming back to the trailer and having Shane every night makes Ilya so hard he can’t see straight. It is something he would have never dared to imagine, before.

He taps his foot on the floor and tries to think of something that will calm him down. Practice. Muskegon. Shane pushed back against getting new skates to the point that it would maybe be unwise to rush to outfit him with gear in three days. On the other hand, when he is recovered, every second without the things he needs to play hockey will be torture. Ilya could simply acquire these things now and keep them with the rest of the equipment, but it is hard to hide something that big from someone in the same caravan, let alone someone who lives in his trailer.

The door opens. Shane steps out, naked, hair wet, folded clothes tucked under one arm. Ilya leans back and allows himself a long moment of looking. He doesn’t bother to be subtle about it.

“I didn’t want to have to get up and hang the towel back up,” says Shane, which probably makes sense in his brain, but Ilya is not arguing. Ilya peels off his clothes, not trying to hide how he is still half hard.  

“I left the water in there,” Shane says after a long pause, as if this was not obvious.  

Ilya takes the single most efficient shower of his life. He leaves maybe a quarter of the water in the bowl. When he emerges, Shane is lying in Ilya’s bed, under the sheets looted years ago and the zipped-open sleeping bag that used to be Ilya’s entire setup, and the faded quilt that Ilya won after a game in Wisconsin. The sight of Shane, naked, in and among the daily trappings of Ilya’s life, does something to Ilya that he decides not to examine too closely. 

“Hello,” says Ilya.

“Hi,” says Shane. He lifts one corner of the blankets, politely offering Ilya space in his own bed, and Ilya has to kiss him for that. He circles around Shane’s pack on the floor, drops his own clothes, and climbs onto the mattress, under the sheets, on top of Shane, who smiles up at him. 

Ilya takes Shane’s face in his hands and kisses him over and over, knowing this is foolish, knowing there is a limit to how long he can do this before it becomes too sweet, too reverent, knowing it must end sooner than he’ll want it to. A hard lesson, which even the most devoted hoarder learned once supply lines broke down: given long enough, everything has an expiration date. Most things can sicken a person eventually. 

Still, he kisses Shane until they’re both breathing hard, until Shane’s lips are wet and red and his gaze is unfocused. 

Shane pulls back. “What do you want to do,” he asks, and his breathlessness eases the ache of knowing that probably they’re done kissing for the night. What do you want? An impossible question. Ilya wants everything. He wants Shane’s mouth, he wants Shane’s hands, he wants to fuck Shane until Shane is too blissed-out to remember human language. That last one is probably a lost cause, since Ilya doesn’t own anything like lube, and any condoms made before Year One have long since expired.

“Do you still have your dildo,” says Ilya, and Shane shakes with laughter, hides his smile against Ilya’s shoulder.

“No,” Shane manages, still laughing, “when I went on the road, I didn’t pack my sex toy, what’s wrong with you?”

“The bare essentials,” says Ilya with a grin. “Shane Hollander needs food, water, shelter, hockey, and a good hard fuck.”

Ilya’s smile slips just a little as he says it; Shane’s laughter dies in his throat. Ilya wonders if they’re sharing the same thought: that it has been a very, very long time since Shane had all of these things.

“It’s okay, we will fix it,” Ilya tells him, patting him on the thigh.

Shane looks unsure of himself. Ilya pushes his luck and kisses Shane again. He is not gentle; it’s still a kiss. Shane breaks it off, but Ilya thinks he might look less haunted. 

“What about you?” says Shane.

“What about me?”

“What are your essentials?” Shane says, scooting back to prop himself up on his elbows, and there it is, a taste of the well of endless questions Ilya remembers.

“I am a simple man.” Ilya shifts to let Shane move, careful of the bandage. Then he leans in to cage Shane against the pillow. “Food, water, shelter, something worthwhile to do—hockey is good for that—and, hmm…” He sucks at the side of Shane’s neck, feels Shane shudder under him. “Sex with someone who is just panting for it.”

“’m not,” Shane manages.

“Yet,” says Ilya, generous. “Give it time.” There is no longer any locker room to have to worry about. Ilya bites low on Shane’s throat, where his shirt will cover, soothes the bite with his mouth, bites again. Pulls away to look at Shane. Mentally, he considers what is still available to them. “I want to rim you.”

“Yeah,” says Shane, with a speed that makes Ilya want to absolutely devour him. He gets Shane on his stomach and licks into him until Shane is squirming and white-knuckled on the sheets. Shane moans, a quiet, bitten-off sound and Ilya feels like the most powerful man on earth. He redoubles his efforts, stops only when Shane starts to whimper.

“Turn over,” says Ilya. Shane clambers shakily onto his back and throws an arm over his eyes. Ilya reaches up and lifts it away, laughing softly at the look on Shane’s face. “You think you can hide how bad you want it?” Ilya says. Shane stares at the ceiling, looking a little offended and very turned on. “Hey,” says Ilya, “hey, I’ll let you come, all you have to do is admit it.”

“I,” says Shane. He swallows.

“All you have to say,” Ilya tells him, “all you have to do is look me in the eye and say, ‘I’m a desperate slut for you.’”

A bead of precum rolls down Shane’s cock. 

“I’m a—” Shane gets out. He stops.

Ilya smiles. “Oh, so close. Look at me.”

Shane drags his eyes back down to Ilya. His pupils are blown. “I’m a desperate slut for you,” says Shane in one breath.

Ilya spits in his hand and wraps it around Shane’s cock. “Yeah,” says Ilya as Shane gasps. “Have you been thinking about this? Lying in my bed, begging me with your whole body?” Ilya says, and Shane nods. “Slut.” Ilya says it a little too fondly; he hopes Shane is too close to orgasm to notice. Ilya grips tighter, moves his hand faster. He watches the rapid rise and fall of Shane’s chest. “That’s right,” Ilya tells him. “Lie there and take it.”

Shane arches off the bed and comes. He sags back bonelessly into the mattress.

Ilya takes himself in hand. “I want to come on your face,” he tells Shane, who nods again, closes his eyes, and opens his mouth. Fuck.

Ilya straddles Shane’s chest, still fucking his own fist. “Say it again,” Ilya orders, and Shane doesn’t have to, their agreement is over, but he still licks his lips and says,

“I’m a desperate slut for you.”

“Yeah, you are,” says Ilya. “You’re my perfect little slut.” 

Something about Shane’s open mouth and that combination of words takes him over the edge. 

When his vision returns, he looks down at Shane’s face, at his own cum spattered across Shane’s cheekbones and lips. He takes one selfish moment to memorize the sight. Then he climbs off of Shane, backtracks around Shane’s backpack to the bathroom, and dips a corner of the orange towel in the washing water. 

“Hold still,” Ilya says. He wipes Shane’s face first, careful but not too careful. Then he starts in on the mess on Shane’s belly. 

Ilya is almost done when Shane cracks an eye open. “Are you using my towel?” he says, sounding scandalized. 

Ilya laughs; he can’t help it. “That is where you draw the line, Hollander? Your face is fair game but your towel—”

“The towel is harder to clean,” Shane protests.

“Yes, and your face is only easier because of the towel,” says Ilya.

“You could use yours,” says Shane, but he gamely lets Ilya finish cleaning him up. 

Ilya brushes his teeth. He rinses the dirty part of the towel with the last of the water and drapes it over the shower wall, because he has a feeling Shane will complain if Ilya leaves it on the floor. When he returns to the bed, Shane has rolled over and claimed his spot along the wall.

Which is good, really, Ilya thinks, lying on the opposite side, facing the opposite direction. It’s better than sleeping on top of each other. The only awkward part is that they are both clearly still awake.

“How was practice?” says Ilya.

Behind him, he hears Shane shift slightly. “You were there.”

“I was busy with my half of the team,” Ilya says.

“Are you trying to get me to spy on Marleau’s half?” Shane asks.

“No,” says Ilya. “I have played against Marleau’s half for six years. I know his secrets.” This is starting to feel like a lost cause, making conversation like they’re friends. Still, Ilya can do this, he thinks. Ilya is sociable. If they’re going to be living together, it would be sort of insane not to talk to each other sometimes. He decides to give it one more shot. “How was it, to skate again?”

“Oh,” says Shane. “It was—good.” A pause. Ilya wonders if this is all the response he’s getting, and then Shane lets out a long breath and adds, “Kind of a relief?” 

“You were worried you’d forgotten,” Ilya supplies.

“Yeah,” says Shane. He shifts again, rolling onto his back. “Uh, how did you know?”

“We went—I don’t know—many months without, when the plague hit,” says Ilya. “The first time we were free to stop and get out there on the ice, some of the men cried.”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “I get that. I think maybe I tried to tell myself it wouldn’t be as good as I remembered.”

“How could it be, right?” says Ilya.

“I had my skates for the first maybe two years,” says Shane. “Until the boots really started to crack.”

Ilya rolls onto his back as well. “You were skating?” he asks.

“Every day I could, for the first two years,” Shane says. “It was the only time when I…” He trails off. “Well, you probably know.”

“Mm,” says Ilya. “Yes.”

“And then I had to leave,” says Shane, “and they were falling apart anyway, so.”

Had to leave. What the fuck does that mean?

“Why?” Ilya asks, before he can stop himself.

“I was using them every day I could,” says Shane, sounding confused.

“No, why did you have to...”

“Because eventually,” Shane says, “I had to admit that nobody was coming.”

He tries to picture Shane waiting for someone—waiting for years, in vain. Then he tries not to. Ilya runs through Shane’s list of places, from the first night. 

“Where?”

“Lanaudière,” says Shane. Quebec, he’d said.

“Who were you waiting for?” Ilya asks.

“It’s a long story.”

“Yes,” says Ilya, settling into bed, “and I have many very important places to be right now.”

Shane sighs. “When I was a kid, maybe ten, I stayed up late one night and saw a horror movie I knew I wasn’t allowed to watch.”

“Okay,” says Ilya, briefly trying to imagine a life where such a small departure from the rules would be even worthy of remembering.

“It was a zombie movie,” says Shane. “Dawn of the Dead.”

“Haven’t seen it,” Ilya tells him.

“Well, it scared the shit out of me,” Shane says. “To the point where I had to come clean and tell my parents why I couldn’t take the shortcut through the cemetery anymore.” He swallows. “So I explained to them I was afraid of, uh, the zombie apocalypse. They weren’t mad or anything. I think they knew the fear had been enough punishment. And they said all the things you’re supposed to say, ‘Zombies aren’t real’ and ‘That will never happen.’ None of it worked. I was still terrified.” Shane takes a long, rattling breath. “And then my mom said, ‘Okay, Shane, zombies aren’t real, but should they become real, let’s make a plan.’”

Ilya nods. Bizarrely, he finds himself wishing he’d gotten a chance to meet Mrs. Hollander.

“So, uh, my parents had a cottage in Lanaudière,” Shane continues. “We decided, okay, it’s pretty remote out there, a lot of forest, so if zombies surface, we’d be in good shape. Plenty of cover. Food, even, if you know how to hunt. And that became kind of our joke. Especially once I wasn’t living with them anymore. Whenever things were really going wrong in the world, we’d say, ‘Is it bad enough we need to meet up at the cottage?’ I wound up having my own place built out there, uh, not because of that, but if it seemed like something awful was gonna happen, we’d still talk about it sometimes. ‘Is it meet-up-at-the-cottage bad?’”

“So when…” Ilya says.

“I couldn’t reach Rose,” says Shane, and Ilya hums like hearing Shane say her name isn’t a punch to the gut. “I knew she was filming but I didn’t know where, she wasn’t picking up my calls, and my phone died, and then phones were down. I thought about trying to find her, but they were being so secretive about the movie, I would’ve had to search the city, block by block. Plus, we’d only been dating about a month and I didn’t want to look—” He breaks off. “So I waited three days for her, in my apartment.”

Ilya nods again, although Shane absolutely can’t see. In a way, the early days were the worst. Not knowing at first how seriously to take the warnings. Not being able to rely on everything that had previously worked, and never being prepared for it. The sick dread at the back of the mind whispering that maybe this really was the end. The first wave of deaths.

“I figured I didn’t know where to find her but she knew where to find me,” Shane continues. “And after three days—they still had cars then, she could’ve just called a cab unless they’d quarantined the cast for some reason—I packed a bag and drove to the cottage. I left her a note, I left her directions, and then I waited.” He swallows again. “When she didn’t come, I thought, maybe it wasn’t serious. As much as I—uh. But my parents. My fucking parents. I really thought they were coming,” says Shane quietly. “I really thought... for the first year and a half, I told myself it could be any day.”

“That is…” Ilya takes a breath, fighting the bone-deep urge to reach out. His arms hurt, from not holding Shane. He rolls over to face Shane instead, as if he might be able to read in the dark what degree of comfort could be allowed. “That is a long time.”

“They were traveling when the sickness hit,” says Shane. “Vancouver, y’know, the opposite side of the country. So I kept telling myself they’d hit delays, coming back. I just—I couldn’t stand the thought that I could leave, and then they’d get there, and I’d be gone and we’d miss each other.” Shane shifts on the bed; possibly he is wiping his eyes. “I know it was a long time to wait. I know it was too long. I knew it then, too. But I...” 

“You stayed, what, two years?” Ilya asks.

Shane nods. Ilya can hear it, more than see it—the brush of his hair against the pillow.

“You have more patience than me,” says Ilya.

“I think,” Shane says, directed not at Ilya but at the ceiling of the trailer, “I’m just, uh, above-average at lying to myself.”

Ilya can feel within himself the moment he loses the battle not to touch him. It is impossible. It is intolerable. Ilya maybe forgot, last time, how quickly he tended to burn through his own rules when it came to Shane.

“Hollander,” says Ilya. Normally, Ilya has to remind himself to stick to Shane’s last name, but here it is easy, necessary. Here it is a shield. “Jesus,” Ilya says, rolling onto this side and reaching across the gulf of bed separating them. He’s only intending to go in for a quick shoulder pat, the same as he would do for any teammate in such clear distress. When his hand lands on Shane’s bare shoulder, though, Ilya finds himself pulling his body forward into Shane’s space, until they are tucked together, Shane’s back to Ilya’s front. Shane, whose frame under the blankets has gone very stiff.

“Okay,” Ilya says, “you can continue.”

Shane breathes out. “With what?”

“You were going to tell me what happened next,” says Ilya. “After you left.”

“I wasn’t,” says Shane.

“Yes,” Ilya says, “because you have many important places to—”

“Because it doesn’t make a good fucking story,” Shane says quietly. “I met up with some survivalists. When they learned I could use a bow, they let me stay with them. We didn’t—”

“So you didn’t learn it from them?” Ilya interjects. “Bow hunting.”

“My grandpa,” says Shane. “Uh, my dad’s dad. He was really into it. That was the main thing he’d talk about. So for a while, I cared a lot. Then hockey got more intense and my mom told me I didn’t have to keep hunting with Grandpa if I didn’t want to. And I realized that I didn’t want to, at all.”

“Oh,” says Ilya. “He was an asshole?”

“He was a difficult man.” Shane says it like he’s heard it many times before.

There is a long pause.

“So, the survivalists,” Ilya prompts.

Shane sighs. “We didn’t get along. Eventually I left.”

There are so many missing pieces in those two sentences, thinks Ilya, it is more gap than story. People who have banded together for safety do not exit the group over a mere difference of opinion.

Ilya speaks before he can stop himself. “Why?”

“What does it matter?” Shane says, sounding exhausted.

“You are too boring to fight with like that,” says Ilya.

Shane yawns. It is not convincing. “I should probably sleep soon,” he says.

“Yes,” says Ilya. “Two years, fuck.” He cannot imagine anyone waiting that long for him. The team depends on him but they can’t afford to go leaderless for so long. If Ilya went missing, he would be replaced, as he should be.

“I know it was stupid,” Shane starts.

“No,” says Ilya.

They lie together, long enough that Ilya thinks maybe Shane has fallen asleep.

“Thank you,” Shane says at last, untangling himself from Ilya’s arms and sliding back towards the wall.

Year Three

The team is five miles out from the cemetery, fingers still aching from the snow, when realization hits Ilya as distinctly as hunger or exhaustion or cold. The fact that he will never see Shane Hollander again means Ilya no longer has any reason to deceive himself. 

What is the use of editing his memories, of insisting on saying Hollander, not Shane, in his own head? What is the point of pretending that the only thing that appealed about the 2017 All Star Game was the beach? Why tell himself, again and again, that Shane was merely a rival who happened to be very good at taking Ilya’s cock? Why let himself live in the fiction that this is all Ilya lost? Does it matter that their final time alone was cut short not by the arrival of the sickness but simply by the weight and size of what Ilya was trying to ask for?

Fundamentally, Ilya’s lies about Hollander—about Shane—have not been survival lies. There is a difference, he reminds himself. 

A survival lie works like this: for every step you make yourself walk on an empty belly, no food in sight, you tell yourself you will be fed again. For every night you curl up on the ground with only a tarp and a sleeping bag between you and the hard-packed snow, you write yourself a story that one day you will own a mattress and a place to keep it. Survival lies only work if you can believe in them at least a little, but sometimes by believing hard enough, directing the engine of your body towards the problem hard enough, you can transform them into truth. Survival lies are as necessary as eating, as breathing.

To lie is an act of hope, in some way. Ilya never had Shane to lose, and also Ilya has lost him. It is what it is, and it will never be more than that. The pain of it whistles sharp as the wind through Ilya’s brain, on and on. 

Chapter 7

Year Seven

Ilya wakes in the middle of the night, hands shaking, adrenaline spiking through his veins. He can’t immediately remember what he dreamed, and he doesn’t try to call it back. No part of him wants to.

“What?” mumbles Shane.

“Nothing,” Ilya says, as quietly as he can. He flexes the arch of his foot against Shane’s ankle.

“You were shouting,” says Shane.

Ilya runs a hand down his face and groans. Among everyone else he has met since Year One, it is generally understood that if someone startles you from sleep by making noise in what is obviously a nightmare, the only sane response is to ensure they don’t hurt anyone, including themselves, and then to pretend it didn’t happen.

“Just a shitty dream,” Ilya tells him. “I am fine.”

“What happened?” Shane asks. 

Ilya stares at him. Unfortunately, it makes no real difference in the dark. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It could help,” says Shane.

“I don’t want to talk about it any more than you did, last night,” says Ilya, as evenly as he can. Then, because he cannot help himself, “Not so fun from this side, is it?”

“It’s not fun from any side,” says Shane, mulish, and Ilya can’t argue with that.

“Go back to sleep,” he says instead, already resigned to watching the daylight slowly unspool through the curtains.

Just past dawn, someone starts pounding on the trailer door.

“What the fuck is happening?” Ilya calls.

“You need to pick the advance team,” says Joy.

“Jesus fucking Christ, now?” Ilya says. “Right now? It is barely light out.”

Shane sits up, making a questioning sound that is almost a word.

Fortunately, Shane still folds his clothes so it’s not hard to separate that tidy little pile from Ilya’s, strewn conveniently around the floor. Ilya dresses as quickly as he can and throws Shane’s clothes at him.

“They don’t leave for another day,” Ilya points out. “There’s no reason to choose right now.”

“People are wondering,” says Joy, without remorse.

Ilya takes a sip of water and watches Shane scramble to put on his sweater. “Are ‘people’ you, Joy?” he asks, mostly to stall.

“Can you just open the goddamn door?” Joy snaps.

Ilya does a quick check. He and Shane are both dressed, and in their own clothes only. He opens the door.

“Have you decided yet?” says Joy. “The advance team?”

“What’s the advance team?” asks Shane.

“They ride ahead,” Joy explains, impatient, “Without a million pounds on the horse, so they can actually go fast. They let the settlement know we’re coming a day or two before the rest of us get in. Mostly by making a ton of noise. It’s like the one fun thing we ever do.”

“Lies and slander,” says Ilya. “You can go if you bring Summer, and make sure she doesn’t get in trouble. And tell, hmm.” Ilya wracks his brain for one player from each side who hasn’t been on the advance team in a while. “St-Simon and Myers, it’s their turn.”

“Got it,” says Joy, racing away.

“Why aren’t you going?” asks Shane as they head down to the fire for breakfast. “Seems like it would be up your alley.”

“Making noise?” Ilya guesses.

“Showmanship,” says Shane. “That kind of thing.”

Ilya shrugs a shoulder. “It is better for morale if they take turns. Joy and Summer generally go, because we don’t know how to stop them, but the other two spots rotate.”

Connors is walking by, as if summoned by the mere possibility of chirping Ilya. “And Rozy can’t ride for shit,” says Connors.

“At least I skate like I’ve seen ice before,” says Ilya.

Connors just laughs. “The first fifteen times he tried to get on a horse, he fell on his ass,” he reports.

Shane turns back to Ilya, as if trying to read the truth of this in his face. “Fifteen, really?”

“I rode well enough to save your life,” Ilya points out. “Can you ride, Hollander?”

“We did horseback riding at summer camp when I was a little kid,” says Shane, “but it’s been a while.”

“Well at least it probably won’t take you fifteen tries just to do step one,” Connors says cheerfully. “It was a real crash course on Russian swears. I think even Varkov picked up a few new ones.”

Breakfast goes fine; practice, on the other hand, goes great. Judging by the angle of Marleau’s smile afterwards, this is true for both halves of the Boston Raiders. The thought of playing with a newly energized team against some actual competition is cause for real celebration. 

The mood is high enough that at dinner, Ilya breaks out the scotch a fan gave him in Minnesota. It is decided that everyone on the team will do a shot, pouring the liquor into their mouths at a height because sharing a bottle with that many people is a no-go after the sickness and nobody owns a shot glass. The scotch goes from Myers to Zadonsky to Varkov, and then Oregan hands it to Shane, waiting expectantly.

“I’m not on the team,” Shane protests, trying to pass it to Dubek, who pushes it back to Shane.

“Don’t let a formality like that fucking stop you,” says Dubek, laughing.

“We vote right after next game,” says Ilya, just to make it official. “Whether or not Hollander can stay.” He tries hard not to imbue the word with anything easily identifiable as fear or hope. “After my side wipes the floor with Marleau’s, and before the next two games where we’ll do the same.” There is a chorus of good-natured dissent. “And before we unleash you fuckers on Muskegon.” A few cheers at this; they haven’t been to a proper settlement in a while.

Shane is still holding the bottle. He hesitates.

“Need help?” says Oregan.

“No, I get the idea,” Shane says.

“Then take your godawful poison and keep it moving,” says Johansson.

“A guy who used to drink Natty Lights like they were water doesn’t get to call aged scotch poison,” says Cadyn. “Fucking sacrilege.” 

“Drink, Hollander,” says Ilya. “Or don’t. Your call.”

Shane drinks. He does better than a lot of the guys, in that most of it seems to actually land in his mouth. Then he grimaces, wiping his chin and handing it off to Dubek.

“Is it bad?” says Anderson.

“It’s scotch,” says Shane with a shrug. “It tastes like someone put an old cigarette in a blender.”

“In a good way!” Cadyn shouts.

All in all, it is a good night, even before Ilya steps into his trailer with their portion of the hot water to find Shane already there, waiting.

“Hi,” says Ilya, “what’s—”

“Marleau’s half is gonna destroy your half,” says Shane, eyes bright.

“Oh, you think so?” Ilya says. A thought dawns on him. “Does this have anything to do with when I asked for your advice about my team? Are you a double agent?”

“No,” Shane sputters, “of course not, I would never. I just have a good feeling.”

Ilya sets the bowl of water in the bathroom. “That’s good,” he says, as sternly as he can, “because the penalty for being a double agent around here is very, very high.”

“Oh?” says Shane.

“Yes,” says Ilya. He steps closer.

“How high?” Shane asks, breathless.

“I’m trying to decide,” says Ilya, taking another step, until he is almost nose to nose with Shane. “I think first you would have to take off all of your clothes, and then, you know, you would be at my mercy.” Ilya steps away. “But you don’t have to worry about this, because you said you are not a double agent.”

“Such an asshole,” says Shane, but he’s smiling. He reaches over and pulls Ilya back in. Ilya kisses him, then pushes him in the direction of the bed before the kissing can get out of hand. Shane goes immediately, lets himself be pushed.

“Hey,” Ilya says, climbing on top of him, minding the side with the bandage. He crowds further into Shane’s space, pushing, until Shane is lying on the bed and Ilya is braced over him. “What do you want?”

“I want you to fuck me,” says Shane. Then he freezes. “That’s not—I get why we can’t,” he adds in a rush.

“I don’t have anything for it,” says Ilya blankly.

“Yeah, I know,” says Shane, “it was stupid, forget it.”

“No,” says Ilya. He rolls off of Shane, lies next to him on the bed. “The problem—there are three problems. First, I don’t have lube. This is solvable, with time, because most settlements sell cooking oil.”

“They do?” asks Shane.

Ilya nods. “We don’t have any because Oregan tends to use rendered fat from bacon or chicken, and I don’t think you’d want that inside of yourself. But it is a thing that can be bought. They make it with olives or soybeans or sunflower seeds. If you’re not allergic—”

“I’m not,” Shane says, eyes wide.

“Okay,” says Ilya. “Second problem. Much bigger problem. I haven’t fucked anyone since the last condoms expired, but that doesn’t put the risk at zero.”

But Shane looks thoughtful. “Everything is a risk,” he says. “Going on the road is a risk. Playing hockey with no way to treat concussions is a risk. Eating foraged food is a risk.”

“I would say maybe don’t decide that right now,” Ilya tells him. “If you catch something, probably any medicine to treat it is too old. You would have it, forever.”

“I’ll think about it,” says Shane. “What’s the third problem?”

“The oil would stain the sheets,” says Ilya. “I don’t have a way to clean them without the others seeing.”

“We could, on the floor,” says Shane, immediately, like he’s been thinking of it.

Ilya laughs, delighted.

“It was just an idea,” Shane says, more or less to the ceiling.

“You want me to fuck you on the floor?” asks Ilya, sitting up.

“I want you to fuck me so bad that the details don’t really—” Shane breaks off because Ilya is kissing him.

“Fuck,” says Ilya, laughing into Shane’s mouth. “You’re so hot.” Shane relaxes into it, and they kiss for longer than Ilya would’ve thought he could get away with. “We don’t have to,” says Ilya.

“I know,” says Shane.

“Even if we got oil,” Ilya says, “I could just finger you until you are wrecked and helpless and trying not to moan. That is fun for me, too.”

Shane’s face takes on the look he gets when he can’t decide if he should be offended or deliriously horny. It’s mostly in the eyebrows.

“I don’t moan,” says Shane, and Ilya grins, lit up with the feeling of an oncoming victory. “I don’t,” Shane insists. “You make me sound like a—”

“Like a what?” says Ilya with great interest.

“We should shower first,” Shane says, and it’s obvious deflecting but he does have a point. They trade off scrubbing down in the bathroom, and then they are both clean and naked in Ilya’s bed. Ilya has no idea what he’s going to do when the string of practices and games ends and they no longer have nightly access to hot water.

Ilya sucks at Shane’s neck, grinds his cock against Shane’s thigh so that Shane can feel his interest.

“What do I make you sound like?” Ilya murmurs.

Shane laughs a little, shakily. “Fuck, there is no distracting you. You’re like a fucking missile.”

“I want to hear you say it,” says Ilya.

Shane closes his eyes. “What did you call me before? A pathetic—”

“Desperate,” Ilya corrects.

“A desperate slut,” says Shane quietly. His face is unreadable.

“I like you desperate,” Ilya says, one word away from a bigger and worse confession. His heart is pounding. “Is very hot, to watch you struggle.”

At that, Shane opens his eyes.

“You could fight me but you don’t, because you want it so bad,” says Ilya. He gets one hand on Shane’s pec, and moves down Shane’s body until he can tongue the underside of Shane’s quickly hardening cock. “Yes?”

“Yeah,” says Shane. “Fuck.”

Ilya takes him into his mouth. Every time Shane starts to moan—little, quiet, bitten-off sounds—Ilya pulls off and counts with his fingers, holds his hands up so Shane can see. (“Fuck you,” Shane gets out at number five, so breathy that it sounds like more, please.)

They’re at nine when Shane comes, biting into his own fist in what is surely an attempt to muffle—

Ilya swallows thoroughly, then releases Shane’s cock from his mouth. “Ten,” says Ilya with a smile. “Tell me again that you don’t moan?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Shane mumbles, “and come here.”

Ilya climbs back up the bed. Shane pets at Ilya’s hair, and then crawls down the bed and fits his wet, hot mouth around Ilya’s cock. Ilya cards his hand through Shane’s hair, tracing nonsense patterns on Shane’s scalp as Shane’s throat flexes around him. Ilya lies back and savors the feeling. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. Shane looks so relaxed like this, so natural, as though the hard part for him is all of the time when he’s not sucking Ilya’s dick.

When Ilya comes, Shane stays down there, with his head resting against Ilya’s hip. Ilya has to pull his hair before Shane yawns and crawls back to the pillow. Shane turns over, rolling towards the wall, and suddenly the notion of ending every night like this is absurd.

“You know what the problem is?” says Ilya.

“Uh,” says Shane, in the dark. “The end of the fucking world?”

“The problem.” Ilya rolls onto his side, bringing himself closer to Shane. “The problem is that it is too fucking cold in here.”

It’s not. Shane’s improvised weatherproofing has held. With two bodies in the bed, the trailer is more comfortable than it has been in a long, long time.

“What?” Shane says.

“You did a bad job, blocking out the wind,” Ilya tells him. “You did a bad job, and now it is freezing, and it is your fault.”

“No, I didn’t—” Shane protests, thankfully not sounding hurt so much as confused.

“So I think,” Ilya continues, moving across the bed by slow degrees, “I think you need to live with the consequences.”

Shane goes still. “Oh,” says Shane. “I guess, uh. I guess I do.”

Ilya lays a hand on Shane’s shoulder, gently pushing until Shane is lying on his uninjured side. Ilya inches his way forwards, slots their bodies together. He drapes his arm over Shane, too high to put pressure on his wound. The feeling of that much of Shane’s bare skin against his own is dizzying. He isn’t sure how he’s survived it before.

“That’s not—” Shane says, tense. “This isn’t fair.”

“To who?” Ilya says, stroking his hand unseeing over Shane’s chest.

Shane is quiet for a moment, then he says, “You don’t really want—”

“I told you what I want,” says Ilya, reasonable. “I want you to pay for the piss-poor work you did with the window. Pay for it with your body, Hollander.”

This close, Ilya can feel Shane’s breathing, ragged. “It’s late,” Shane says. “We shouldn’t.” It sounds like convince me we should.

Mentally, Ilya makes a note of this, for days in the future when they don’t have practice the next morning. Out loud, he says,

“Yes, it is late. So keep my bed warm. That’s the cost. See, I can be reasonable.”

He can imagine Shane’s concentrating face, mulling this over. “What if I wake you up?” says Shane.

“Then I’m awake,” says Ilya. “I know what I’m in for. I have been awake before.”

“It’s not that simple,” Shane says.

“It can be,” says Ilya, tapping his thumb at the base of Shane’s throat, “if you keep me warm and go to sleep.”

Shane sighs, settles in. “Okay,” he says. Ilya can feel his body slowly relaxing, muscle by muscle. “Okay.”

Joy, Summer, St-Simons, and Myers leave on their horses early the next morning. They pack with them enough food for the journey, bars of soap from Ohio to barter for rooms to rent, and the flag Joy and Summer sewed during their first season with the team. One one side in enormous letters it says, BOSTON RAIDERS and on the other side HOCKEY GAME SOON. St-Simons and Myers are wearing their jerseys over their coats, and Summer and Joy both have the black sweaters they knit for game days.

The people of Muskegon already have some idea of when the team will be arriving, but it doesn’t hurt to give them a reminder. Ilya knows from experience that when the advance team rides at full tilt into the center of town in their almost-uniforms, it makes for a memorable sight.

Breakfast feels subdued without Summer underfoot to offer unasked-for bits of Egyptian mythology. She loves to tell unsuspecting adults the story of Osiris getting chopped to pieces. Maybe after her fire and brimstone upbringing, it is refreshing to her, to take in a story where the god is the one who suffers. Ilya suddenly craves Shane’s take on this, but they are surrounded by the remainder of the team, and they both seem to be trying not to approach each other too much in public.

Blessedly, as far as Ilya knows, nobody has yet worked out that he feels anything out of the ordinary for Shane. Probably it would be pushing their luck to try to maintain the fiction of outright animosity, but the team seems to accept that Ilya and Shane have progressed from bitter competitors to coworkers who regard each other with some shadow of distant respect and nothing more.

Their final practice before the game goes as smoothly as it can for Ilya’s half of the team, given the absence of St-Simon. Shane’s optimism from last night about Marleau’s chances is heartening, too. All jokes aside, Ilya would always rather have a match where both sides are playing their best; not just because it is more fun, but also because the more thrilling the game, the likelier some word of mouth will carry them into a better position down the road in Traverse City, and beyond.

After practice, Ilya is waiting for his and Shane’s hot water when Oregan sidles up to him.

“Hey,” says Oregan, “Been a while since we’ve done one of these votes on bringing a new guy in. What’s the, uh, format? Like, do we give testimonials?”

When it came to Summer and Joy, Ilya had kept it simple: These two girls were leaving a bad fucking situation and they can mend old clothes, don’t you want to slip on a pair of socks and not immediately see your own toes? Don’t you want to tie on your skates and not feel the insides rubbing against your feet?

The only vote against had been Feller, who was worried that any aiding in the girls’ escape could get back to the alleged prophet and his followers. Everyone else had been swayed, either by Dr. Wade (“Honestly, I think if the girls are okay with cutting their hair and wearing modern clothes, nobody from their old lives will recognize them at a distance—which is all they’ll ever get because we are never going back”) or Zadonsky (“What? And you think we couldn’t fucking take those culty fuckers?”).

Voting in Dr. Wade had been even simpler. Found a doctor. Any objections? (None.)

Ilya considers this. “Do you want to give a testimonial?”

“Fuck yeah,” Oregan says. “That guy fucking rules.”

“You and anyone who wants to, can speak,” says Ilya.

“Right on,” says Oregan. “I’ll tell the others. You know, with Shane Hollander hunting for us, that’ll free us up to take less of our payment in food,” he adds. “Settlement to settlement, that could add up.”

Ilya nods. He’s thought of this. It is definitely something he plans to bring up before the vote. “We could upgrade our gear more often,” Ilya says.

“Yeah,” says Oregan, “or even just buy shit for fun. Little hats for all of the horses or something.”

“That is…an idea,” says Ilya, because technically it is. There is no fully understanding the mind of a goalie; this is something Ilya made his peace with long ago.

“He’s fucking funny, too,” says Oregan.

Ilya feels an odd pang of something, that he isn’t allowed to say I know—in fact I have known this much longer than you.

“That’s good,” he says instead.

“I mean, the guy thinks flamingos are real,” Oregan says, laughing. With that, he wanders off.

“I think my little joke about flamingos might have gone too far,” Ilya says, back in the trailer, hot water bowl tucked under one arm.

Shane pauses, hands on the hem of his sweater. “Motherfucker, I knew that was you,” he says. “What’d you say to Summer? She was convinced.”

“Keep going, Hollander,” says Ilya, gesturing for Shane to take his sweater off. Shane’s got the first shower.

This earns Ilya an eye roll, but also the sight of Shane peeling off his sweater. Ilya’s eyes trace Shane’s collarbone, his chest, his belly. Shane’s bruises from the first day have turned yellow-green. His bruise from Ilya’s mouth could do with a refresher.

“I told her if phoenixes weren’t real, why trust the bright pink stilt bird that drinks upside down?” Ilya says. “Hard to argue.”

“Except you were lying, and they exist,” Shane points out.

“Details,” says Ilya, shrugging as he steps closer to Shane.

“Do they really drink upside down?” Shane asks.

“Yes,” says Ilya.

“Really?”

Ilya pulls Shane nearer by the back of the neck. “Why would I lie about this?”

Shane opens his mouth, closes it, shakes his head. “How would you even know that, though?”

“Have you ever been to a zoo, Hollander?” says Ilya.

“Of course I h—” Shane breaks off because Ilya is mouthing at his neck. Ilya trails down Shane’s throat until he reaches the mark he’d made earlier, and sucks. “Fuck,” Shane breathes as Ilya’s hand not holding the bowl trails down Shane’s back. “We need—we need to wash up first.”

“I don’t want to wait,” Ilya says into the wet skin of Shane’s throat.

“Maybe,” says Shane, “we could, uh—”

Trying to do two sponge baths at the same time in a space so small they can barely both fit is a disaster—a comedy and a tragedy rolled together. Ilya bangs his knee on the door and his elbow on the wall at the same time, and that’s just in the first thirty seconds.

“We can never tell anyone,” Ilya says as he towels off by the foot of the bed.

“Agreed,” says Shane vaguely.

Ilya looks up in time to catch Shane covertly trying to sneak a look at the curve of Ilya’s ass, as if worried Ilya might notice, as if they haven’t hooked up every night for the past three nights, as if it is not a foregone conclusion that Ilya is about to kiss him.

Their eyes meet. Ilya deliberately lets the towel drop. Shane almost trips over his backpack on his way to the bed. Ilya laughs until he has Shane pinned underneath him, at which point Ilya has better things to do with his mouth.

Afterwards, when Shane tries to roll away towards the wall, Ilya just tugs him back. “What, did you think last night was a one-off?” Ilya murmurs into Shane’s ear.

“I don’t know,” says Shane. “I didn’t—”

Ilya runs a hand over Shane’s thigh. “Just to be clear,” he says. “I get this—” He tucks his body more firmly against Shane’s, drapes his arm over Shane’s shoulder. “—whenever I want it, because it’s fucking cold in here. This is the deal.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” Shane says, calmly enough, but his breath is coming a little faster.

“Any objections?” asks Ilya.

A pause. Slowly, Shane shakes his head.

“Game day tomorrow,” says Shane.

“Yes,” says Ilya, “and voting you in as well, after.”

“You don’t know that they will,” Shane says quietly.

“Oregan wanted to see if he could speak on your behalf,” Ilya tells him. “He said that you rule, and that you are funny.” Ilya lets this sink in for a second, and then he adds, “How did you fool him, Hollander?”

“Maybe anyone seems hilarious when they’re handing you free deer steaks to cook with,” says Shane.

Ilya hums. “I think Dubek will speak for you, too,” he says. “Anderson might as well. He seems to like you.” It is funny, in a way, that Shane has charmed both goalies to his side. “The fucking, the goalie whisperer.”

“Goalies are just people,” says Shane, “like anyone.”

“If you say so,” says Ilya, still relishing the feel of Shane in his arms. Ilya isn’t sure what he’ll do when it’s no longer cold enough outside for plausible deniability. Maybe by then, Shane will be so used to Ilya holding him at night that it won’t occur to him to question it.

Ilya is aware that what he is doing is a little strange. Still, Shane doesn’t seem to genuinely mind it. Maybe Shane doesn’t enjoy being held nearly as much as Ilya enjoys holding him, but Ilya wants to believe that if Shane had an actual problem, he would say something. 

(He ignores the part of his brain patiently pointing out to him that Shane has said something, a few times, including This isn’t fair. Shane had also told Ilya that he wanted to forget about what had happened, that first time in the showers—right until he was giving Ilya his room number. There is a difference between real protest and what Shane does sometimes, and Ilya has to be at this point the foremost expert at reading this difference. That has to count for something.)

Chapter 8

Chapter Notes

They arrive at Muskegon in the early afternoon. A good portion of the townspeople have turned out to watch the Boston Raiders approach; there is even a scruffy attempt at a small brass band, which is new. Ilya and the rest of the team dismount. They leave their trailers and most of the horses at a local park, drop off their equipment by the rink, and then they’re walking through the meager remains of the downtown, the crowd at their heels.

Myers, St-Simon, and Mayor Gorka are waiting outside the Frauenthal Center, an old theater or something that is probably very significant to the people here. The marquee reads “WELCOME BOSTON RAIDERS!” except the I is a 1 and the last S is a 5. Somehow, the result comes off as charming and not slapdash.

“Good afternoon, friends!” says Mayor Gorka, a tiny, cheerful-looking woman who is also the most cut-throat negotiator on the whole Great Lakes ice hockey circuit. There’s a reason why the team is playing a series of three games here, and it’s not out of any special desire to spend more time in western Michigan.

The mayor shakes Ilya’s and Marleau’s hands, notices she’s got an audience, and starts in on a speech welcoming the team and congratulating herself for securing multiple days of hockey for the people of Muskegon.

“What took you guys so fucking long?” asks St-Simon under his breath.

“We stopped to have a party without you,” says Ilya. “Where’s Summer and Joy?”

“Somewhere inside the theater,” says St-Simon with a shrug. “They made a friend.”

“What kind of friend?” whispers Dr. Wade.

“Relax,” says St-Simon. “A girl around Joy’s age.”

When Mayor Gorka finishes her remarks, she goes down the line of players, shaking everyone’s hand. She stops when she gets to Shane. Her eyes go wide.

“Holy shit,” she says, “are you Shane Hollander?”

“Nice to meet you,” says Shane.

Gorka looks at Shane and then back at Ilya, as if waiting for the magic trick reveal. “How did you—”

“We ran into each other on the road,” says Ilya.

“I’m such a fan,” says Gorka. “Oh god, I loved the Metros, they were my second-favorite team—after Detroit, of course. Will you be playing this week? I would love to see you face off against Rozanov, I think all of us would, holy shit.”

It occurs to Ilya for the first time that maybe Gorka’s negotiating style came from a natural resentment towards Boston.

Shane blinks, as if slightly overwhelmed by the onslaught.

“He’s recovering from a serious injury,” says Ilya.

Gorka swivels back to Ilya, eyes narrowing.

“One I had nothing to do with,” Ilya thinks to add.

“Is Rose Landry with you?” Gorka asks Shane. “This is crazy.”

Shane shakes his head. There is something robotic about the motion. “Uh, no,” he says stiffly. “I haven’t seen her since before—you know, everything.”

Gorka nods, eyes fixed on Shane, which is lucky for her because Ilya is trying to glare a hole into her forehead.

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she says. “So, Shane, do you think you’ll be back next season?”

“Remains to be seen,” says Ilya. At that, Gorka fixes Ilya with a frosty look, as if Shane’s precarious place on the team is Ilya’s fault.

Just then, Summer, Joy, and a third girl with brown skin and elaborate braids burst out of the front of the theater.

“Aw damn, did we miss opening remarks?” Summer calls.

The three girls cross to where the team is standing. Summer and Joy are covered in a thick layer of dust; their new friend is immaculate.

“Yes, you timed it perfectly,” Ilya says. He can’t even pretend to be mad. Mostly he’s just impressed at how absolutely caked in grime they are. “Pleased to meet you,” he says to the third girl.

“Hi, I’m Fatima,” she says without an ounce of shame.

“Fatima knows where all the secret passageways are,” says Joy breathlessly.

“It’s amazing,” laughs Summer. “So many spiders!”

“Okay,” says Ilya, “have fun. Everything’s parked at Celebration Square if you need something. Are you coming to the game tonight?”

Joy turns wide-eyed towards Fatima, who says, “I know where all the stray cats gather, too.”

Armed with this information, Joy looks beseechingly at Ilya.

“Just be back in time for the vote tonight,” Ilya tells her. “Summer, can we count on you to do the puck drops?”

“Hell yeah,” says Summer, brushing a wad of cobwebs out of her hair.

“The kids do the puck drops?” says Shane, a crease forming between his eyebrows.

“Never mind that, the kids get a vote?” protests Auden. “A full vote, that counts as much as ours?”

“Of course,” says Ilya. “They’ll have to put up with him as much as the rest of you.” To Shane, he adds, “Yes, we changed the rule since we don’t have refs. The girls throw the puck onto the ice from a safe distance. They have a lot of practice.”

“Fatima, does your family know where you are?” asks Gorka, and Fatima rolls her eyes. “You should probably check in with them first,” Gorka says.

Fatima and Joy reluctantly slink off.

“So,” says Gorka brightly, “shall I show you to the rink?”

Ilya smiles, sharp. “Let’s see our payment first.”

Gorka walks them to the back door of the arena, where off in a side room sits a small mountain of shoeboxes, as well as provisions for the next leg of the journey: bales of hay and sacks of oats for the horses, and then dried fish, powdered eggs, powdered milk, and pickled vegetables for the humans.

“Everything should be right here,” says Gorka. “We have a pair of skates for every size you gave me last time.”

It feels a little like Christmas and a little like a drug deal. The men, including Ilya, descend upon the boxes, ripping them open and trading with each other until everyone has a new set of skates that fit. A wave of relief washes over Ilya. It is possible that he was not aware of the full toll of everyone on the team playing with skates whose leather was about a day away from splitting until now, when he is freed from that worry, at least for a few years.

As Marleau inspects the rest of the supplies, Gorka pulls Ilya aside.

“If you come back next year with Shane Hollander on your lineup,” she starts.

“Then I’d expect an increase in pay,” says Ilya.

“We would definitely be open to renegotiations,” says Gorka. “We can be flexible. Write out a wishlist and I’ll see what we can do.”

Ilya nods, thinking that a firm offer would be more convincing to the team, but this is at least a start.

“Everything’s in order,” Marleau reports.

“Good, good,” says Gorka, rubbing her hands together. “Now, time for some hockey.”

A handful of small religious groups continue meeting now and then throughout the settlement, but by consensus, the church bells ring only whenever something exciting is going to happen downtown, both an hour before and also at the onset. They’re ringing now.

Muskegon is one of few places the Boston Raiders play that actually has a proper rink, inside an arena. Now that there is no central heating, it is cold enough indoors in the winter to maintain the frozen surface. A holiday from setting up and contending with their plywood boards.

The brass band is playing again as the team steps into the room, something instrumental that certainly sounds like Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok.”

Ilya takes a somewhat mixed view of American pop songs. He doesn’t mind this one, though. Hearing music in general is something of a novelty. Summer and Joy both have sweet voices but all of the songs they know come from their lives at Beholden House, which is to say, they can mostly sing an assortment of deeply spooky hymns. They have shown no interest in trying to learn any of the Russian dance music that Ilya could conceivably teach them.

The band finishes and then it’s the Magpie Singers’ turn. Ilya tends to prefer the music at Bay City—whoever picks the program there has better taste, in Ilya’s opinion—but the Magpies’ voices are improving, at least. They open with “Uptown Funk.” Ilya watches the crowd do the call and response (“Too hot—” “Hot damn!” “Call the—” “Police and the fireman!”) and wonders at what point everyone assembled will be too young to remember a world with either a police force or a fire department. Everything is volunteer-led now.

If a crowd of twenty was too much for Shane a few days ago, 200 is surely too much now, particularly 200 people singing the same Bruno Mars song at the top of their lungs. When Ilya glances over, Shane is sitting on the bench, taking it all in, wide-eyed and silent. Ilya considers asking Marleau to make sure Shane’s not too overwhelmed, then realizes there’s likely nothing Ilya could tell Marleau to do that would help anyway. Ilya will have to trust that Shane will go get some air if he needs it.

“Shut Up and Dance” is, as always, the song signalling the end of the music portion. The two halves of the Boston Raiders enter the ice and begin their warmups.

Gorka gives the signal; Ilya skates out to the center of the rink. He gives himself a moment to appreciate the feeling of brand-new skates and relatively well-tended ice.

Loudspeakers and megaphones are a thing of the past. So are professional announcers. Ilya cups his hands to his mouth, pitches his voice to carry.

“People of Muskegon, are! You! Ready! For a hockey game?” he shouts, spreading his arms as the crowd roars. “We are the Boston Raiders, here to play for your entertainment! I am Captain Ilya Rozanov!” He mimes loud cheering. Maybe half the onlookers cheer, while the other half boo. Ilya grins. A reaction is still a reaction. “This loser over here is Captain Cliff Marleau, booo! Booo!” Marleau flips Ilya off good-naturedly, as the fans in the stands boo and cheer in reverse. “On his side, playing for Boston, for a starting lineup we have number 12, Morris Myers, and number 39, Fred Kohn, on defense! Jared Ward, number 29 is on left wing! Cliff Marleau, number 7 himself, is their center, and on right wing, number 91, Boris Zadonsky!”

“And then! On MY team! The Raiders! The best team in the whole goddamn world!” Ilya yells. “For defense, we have number 3, Victor St-Simon and number 18, Bryce Feller! My left wing is number 33, Ivan Kovalev, and my right wing is number 14, Sam Dubek! And at center we have number 81, ME!” The spectators go wild. Well, about half of them do, but that’s enough.

Gorka does the ceremonial puck drop, and then Ilya is facing off against Marleau for the actual start of the game. Summer flings the puck onto the ice from the side of the rink, where it lands with decent accuracy at the center line, Ilya takes possession, and then they’re off.

The game is close, all the way through—the good kind of close, the kind where both sides are playing at their best, pushing themselves hard, and meeting each other as equals. Any time Ilya spots an opening, one of Marleau’s players is there an instant later. The play moves back and forth, again and again, across the ice, nobody quite managing to score.

They close out the first period zero to zero, with a reluctant Dr. Wade keeping time on a battery-powered stop watch from their carefully hoarded stash.

“What’s gotten into Marleau’s guys?” says Feller as everyone chugs water and catches their breath. “I swear to fucking God, Johansson faked me out? Johansson!”

“They’ve definitely leveled up,” Connors agrees.

“Do we really have to wonder why?” says Dubek. “I mean, that’s the Shane Hollander effect, right? Just him being here is lighting a fire under their asses.”

Ilya glances over at Marleau, who is talking very seriously with Shane, heads bent together.

“Okay,” says Ilya, “they’re better than usual today, but we are fucking amazing. We can still take this.”

When the second period ends, they’re still zero to zero, and then roughly one minute before the end of the third period, Varkov manages to slip one past Anderson, and that’s it—Boston has beaten the Raiders.

“Best of three, remember,” Ilya reminds his players, who are no longer accustomed to losing roughly half the time. “We have a decent shot; we could still win the series.” He thinks, Shane is going to be insufferable about this. He smiles.

The good thing about camping in the park is that the town has constructed a fire pit, specifically for visiting guests. Varkov’s fire comes together faster than usual. The bad thing is the lack of privacy. Fans keep coming by, asking for autographs or just wanting to say hello, and it takes a long time to get the entirety of the Boston Raiders to settle down enough for an actual meeting.

It doesn’t help that Joy does not arrive for a full hour.

“Late,” Ilya chides when she does finally take her place in the circle, looking not at all apologetic.

“We didn’t set a time,” she says, “and even if we had, I don’t have a watch.”

“The church bell chimes at the start of every game,” says Zadonsky, “and you know roughly how long it will take.”

Joy’s face clenches in annoyance, probably because he is right. “Are we gonna sit around and give me shit for not doing a thing you literally didn’t tell me I had to do,” she says, “or are we voting?”

“Swear jar,” murmurs Summer.

“We are first going to remember not to be a huge dick for no reason to Zadonsky,” says Ilya, “and then yes, we will discuss this. Boston Raiders, I put it to you: should we allow Shane Hollander to join us?”

Oregan pats Shane on the shoulder, takes a deep breath and stands. “How is it a question? Even if he didn’t know hockey, he can hunt. That’s him pulling his weight—way more than his weight—right there. We can start bartering less for food and more for whatever the fuck we want.” Blessedly, he does not bring up horse hats again, just leaves it open for the rest to fill in as they see fit.

“Booze,” says St-Simon thoughtfully.

“Pot,” says Anderson. “Magic mushrooms, even.”

Shane does not look overjoyed at the direction this has taken.

“Those, uh, condoms they sell now,” Kovalev puts in. “The ones made from sheepskin—we could actually fuck again at settlements, Christ.”

“Uh, point of order,” says Dr. Wade, without looking up from the extremely lumpy, uneven blanket she’s been trying to knit for over a year, “sheep intestine condoms don’t prevent STI’s, just pregnancy. None of you are giving some nice girl chlamydia. Or guy,” she adds as an afterthought. There is an uneasy shiver of laughter. “But yeah, the less we have to carry all our rations on our backs, the freer we’ll be.”

“We’ll also need more food,” says Feller.

“Yeah, but one person’s worth,” Summer says. “Shane can do a lot of things but he can’t eat an entire deer in one sitting. And if he teaches more of us how to hunt, that increases our, um, chances even more.”

“Also, can we talk hockey?” adds Johansson. “Holy fuck. Having him at practices boosted our game, no question. We haven’t played like that in a long time.”

“You fuckers have never played like that,” Connors says easily.

Ilya glances around the circle. At Summer, at Feller, at Shane, who looks slightly tense.

“Listen,” says Ilya, “you all know. Hollander and I are not friends. But with him around, the game is more interesting. More exciting, both for us and for the people watching.” He surveys his crowd again. He thinks that Cadyn, Johansson and Kohn seem surprised. So does Shane, actually. “Amazing, considering how boring he is,” Ilya adds, and Shane maybe relaxes ever so slightly. “Those who know hockey will pay us more with him in the lineup, Mayor Gorka included.” Ilya gives the group a rundown of his conversation with her.

“You don’t think you’re biased, Captain?” Sebbin interjects, and Ilya feels his blood run cold.

“What?” Ilya manages.

“Feeding into your whole rivalry thing will get you even more attention,” says Sebbin. “That’s what you want, right?”

Ilya laughs, partly from relief. “Do you want to leave behind our best source of meat and the guy who will push us all to play better, earning us even more in the process,” he says, “so that you can teach me a little lesson about playing nice?”

“Okay, but can we talk about what really matters?” says Cadyn. “Let’s say Marleau gets Hollander on his team. That means they have an extra player, which means they’ll be able to trade out their center more than us, which means an unfair fucking advantage.”

“I can address this one,” Marleau says. “I’ve been thinking, if Hollander does end up playing for Boston, I might take a break.”

“What?” says about half the circle, including Ilya.

Marleau shrugs. “I’ve been trying to hold the line against this fucking maniac here,” he nods to Ilya, “for six whole years. I’m tired. If Hollander wants my spot, he can have it.” There is a wave of protests. “I’m not going anywhere,” he adds. “And I’m not stopping tomorrow. But I was thinking I could referee. Might be nice to not have to self-ref all the time, and then we could have actual puck drops. No offense,” he says to Summer.

“It’d give me more time to do my Egypt research,” she says, unbothered.

“There, see?” says Marleau. “Who’s gonna tell us all about gods getting chopped up if I don’t take a vacation?”

“That’s not what we’re voting on right now,” says Ilya. “We’re voting on whether or not Shane Hollander can be a Boston Raider. Anyone else have something to contribute?” Silence. On impulse, Ilya says, “Hollander, anything you want to add?”

All eyes go to Shane.

“I would be happy to keep hunting for the group,” he says. “And I would, uh, love a chance to play hockey again.” He blinks quickly. It could be smoke from the fire. “You’ve created something remarkable. All of you have. I would take it very seriously if you let me join. And I would do everything possible to make it worthwhile for the team. If that means only playing in games on a rotating basis to keep the numbers fair, I would do that. If it means allowing Marleau to retire, I’ll do that. Uh, thank you for listening.”

“So how are we doing this?” says Dr. Wade. “Simple majority? Unanimous only? Something else?”

“How did you handle it with Joy and Summer?” asks Shane. His voice is almost level. “It should probably be the same process, right?”

“They needed eighteen yes votes,” Ilya hears himself say.

“So, roughly eighty percent.” Dr. Wade nods. “That means, of the 25 of us, Shane needs twenty yeses. Sound good?”

Actually, it sounds fucking terrifying. Feller, Sebbin, and Cadyn all appear to be in the no camp, which means there’s only room for two more dissenters, and a lot of the group hasn’t spoken at all. If Shane falls short, Ilya will need to—what, find a casual, no-strings way to follow him out into the wilderness and recruit a new hockey team together from scratch? But if Ilya demands special rules for Shane, that could fuel resentment and add to the no votes.

“That works,” says Ilya. “We go around the circle, starting with Oregan.”

Oregan is a yes. Anderson is a yes. Myers, Zadonsky, and Ward are all yes. Feller is a no.

Varkov and Johansson say yes. Marleau, Swanson, Kohn, and Delaney say yes. Smitts says no.

Ilya feels like he has swallowed ice water.

Summer, Joy, and Dr. Wade vote yes. Sebbin votes no. Dubek votes yes. By Ilya’s count, Shane needs five more yes votes, with room for two more people to say no.

Cadyn says no. Kovalev says yes. Foster says yes. St-Simon says yes. Auden says no. Motherfucker.

Connors says yes, and for one long, stupid second, Ilya’s wondering where the final vote will come from before he realizes in a rush who hasn’t voted—who is the only member of the Boston Raiders who hasn’t yet spoken on the matter.

“Yes,” says Ilya.

“Fuck yeah!” shouts Oregan. “Fuck yeah!”

“We’re in a public park,” says Joy. “Keep your voice down.” She ducks her head. “Congrats, though.”

Dubek jumps up to give Shane a bro hug, and then suddenly half the team is surrounding Shane, slinging an arm around his shoulders or slapping his back, pulling him into the briefest and manliest hugs possible.

Cadyn hangs back. “There won’t be problems, will there?” Ilya asks him.

But Cadyn shakes his head. “The team decided,” he says. “The team will live with it. Including me.”

“Yes, we are all a team now,” says Ilya. “If you or anyone else do anything to make him feel less than welcome—” He does not bother trying to contain the snarl in his voice. “—it will be bad for your health. Understand?”

“Got it,” says Cadyn.

“Good,” says Ilya. “Tell the others.”

“Yep.” Cadyn is trying to put a noticeable distance between himself and Ilya.

“This is so touching,” says Dr. Wade. “But I am begging you all, maybe we mark the occasion by getting our hot water and showering?” She wrinkles her nose. “Like, possibly right now?”

Oregan just laughs and digs out the wash-water pot.

“Hey, captain,” says St-Simon, “me and Connors and Marley are gonna go out on the town after. Or, you know, what’ is left of it. Wanna come?”

Muskegon has no night life to speak of—not anymore, and probably not before Year One, either. But on game days, there are a certain number of house parties, and as a member of the team, it is not hard to get invited.

On the other hand—

“I think I might call it a night,” says Ilya.

“It’s not even nine yet, grandpa,” says St-Simon.

“Yes,” says Ilya. “But I am tired, from carrying you all on my back.”

“Carrying us to a loss with Boston?” says Connors.

“Think he’s worn out from lugging that ego around,” says Marleau good-naturedly.

“Someone must do it,” Ilya agrees. “Go have fun. Don’t have so much fun that you give anyone a disease, or the doctor will kill you and also me.”

Connors, St-Simon, and Marleau head off to get their water, laughing.

The crowd around Shane is still going strong. When Ilya glances over, Shane is looking back at him.

“Congratulations, Hollander,” says Ilya.

Shane nods. It could be all in Ilya’s mind but he thinks maybe Shane’s posture is slightly looser, more open.

“You can have first shower,” says Shane. This makes sense; his well-wishers are not letting him go anytime soon. “See you back at the trailer.”

The trailer door has barely clicked shut behind Shane before Ilya is on him, kissing him until neither of them can breathe.

“Hey,” says Shane, resting their foreheads together as they pause for air, “what’s—”

Ilya shakes his head and kisses Shane again. They stumble blindly to the bed, stripping off Shane’s coat and tripping over his backpack in the process, and Ilya laughs. Ilya isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to stop laughing.

“I guess you can unpack now.” Ilya shoves Shane onto the sheets and goes in for another kiss.

“What?” says Shane, turning his head. Not a problem, Ilya kisses his neck instead, tugs at Shane’s sweater until Shane peels it off so that Ilya can tongue at yesterday’s bruise.

“You can put everything away, so we can stop injuring ourselves on your backpack,” Ilya tells him. “I don’t know how we’ll find room in here, but probably we have doubles of some things, and you could sell them or give them to someone else on the team—” He stops; Shane’s body has gone very tense under his. “What?”

“I think I should probably stay packed,” says Shane. “Once we can negotiate for more gear, I was gonna see about putting in a request for my own horse and trailer.”

Ilya looks away for a second, trying not to feel stung. “Okay,” he says. “That will make it harder for us to—” He gestures between them.

“Yeah,” Shane says, “But we should probably stop at some point, right?”

Blood roars in Ilya’s ears, like static. Ilya climbs off of him but there is nowhere to go in this fucking trailer because Shane’s fucking backpack is still taking up most of the floor.

“What,” Ilya snaps, “you got scared for no fucking reason so you are running away again?”

“I just think,” Shane is saying, “if we keep doing this, uh, one of us is gonna want things the other one won’t wanna give, or be able to give. And since there’s nowhere to go, it’s probably better to end, uh, end this before it reaches that point.”

It isn’t as though this is coming out of nowhere, Ilya reminds himself. There were clues. He had just chosen not to see them. One of us is gonna want things. Ilya almost wishes Shane would just come out with it, would just be honest and say to Ilya’s face the problem is you and your mortifying, bottomless, starved-dog hunger. Probably Shane thinks he is being kind.

“When were you planning on telling me this,” says Ilya. He hears his own voice as if from very far away.

“I wasn’t sure,” says Shane. “When I found the right moment, I guess.”

And you thought now was the time? Ilya wants to say but doesn’t, because Ilya was the one who forced the issue by assuming Shane would want to essentially move into their—into Ilya’s trailer after six days together. Ilya knows he is the one who is acting crazy, not Shane. He knows, but it doesn’t—he can’t—

“When you found the right moment,” says Ilya blankly. “Were you going to let me fuck you raw first?”

Shane blinks, folding in on himself slightly. “I don’t know,” he says quietly, and somehow the simple honesty of this hurts more than a definitive yes or no.

It is probably not ten o’clock yet, and Ilya has taken his shower already. Took it carefully, to save water for Shane and for cleaning up each other after. Stupid. Ilya finds his coat, puts it on. Pulls on his boots.

“I am going out,” Ilya says, “to find someone fun.” He lets his lip curl in a sneer. “Don’t wait up.”

Ilya goes out. Liquor is much harder to come by than it used to be, but he is Ilya Rozanov; where he goes, people tend to break out the good stuff. Ilya locates a house party and drinks an amount that would make Shane Hollander act worried, purse his lips, say You’ve got a game tomorrow. Fuck that. Ilya has been playing games for six years without Hollander around to pretend to care.

It is very dim inside with no electricity; there are candles in the corners but they don’t do much besides make the air near them uncomfortably warm. Someone is playing the piano in the next room over. Someone is trying to dance with him. A woman, dark hair, pretty. Ilya tries to move with her and is struck by the memory of pink and red light in a Montreal club. How can the world end and still he is stuck dancing with a beautiful woman, trying not to think of Shane? How could he have traveled around the Great Lakes six times and have moved so little?

Outside, it is cooler. The woman from before is standing next to him. Mercifully, she has a spare cigarette and matches.

Ilya inhales, tries to appreciate the rush of nicotine. Exhales, remembers showing Shane how to smoke, Shane’s lips wrapped around a joint, Shane begging to be held down.

“I think you’re thinking about someone else,” says the woman, plucking the cigarette from his fingers and taking a drag.

Two drinks ago, Ilya might have been able to manage some charming bullshit. I’m thinking only of the beautiful dark-haired lady next to me, who is so generous with her tobacco.

“Yes,” he says instead.

“Me too,” she says. She leans over and kisses him, her lips warm but the motion somehow impersonal. Her cigarette is still burning in her hand and he takes it from her, inhales, exhales.

“Who are you thinking of?” he asks, offering her the cigarette again.

“Does it matter,” she says, ashing it. “They’re all fucking gone.”

Everyone is grieving someone. Everyone has ghosts. Ilya is not special in this regard.

“Do you wanna come up to my room?” she says, passing him the cigarette. “I don’t have condoms but we could do mouth stuff. You can close your eyes and picture whoever-she-was if you want.”

It is a kind offer. The thought of it makes Ilya want to dry heave on the sidewalk.

“You are very beautiful,” he tells her. “You should find someone who can be with you for your own sake.”

“That’s sweet,” she says, “but right now, I’d rather hook up with you.”

Ilya carefully returns her cigarette to her fingers. “I am sorry,” he says. “I think neither of us are getting what we want tonight.”

He walks back to the trailer alone, brushes his teeth in the dark. He can tell Shane is awake; probably he woke Shane up, coming in. There is nothing to say to him at any rate. Ilya lies on the far edge of the bed and waits for sleep.

Chapter End Notes

Sorry, folks. But hey, they've still got three chapters to work it out! If you want to come yell at me on Tumblr, once again the relevant sideblog is emotional-support-pasta.

Chapter 9

Ilya wakes the next morning in a cold, empty bed, mouth tasting like ash, temples throbbing like a second and worse heartbeat. His memory of last night still has an awful clarity to it, as if watching himself in instant replay. Here is where he asks for too much, and assumes it will be given freely. Here is where he strips off his armor and shows Shane the white-hot beating core of himself. Here is Shane, politely looking away.

Shane makes himself scarce all through the day. At breakfast, he manages to be on the opposite side of the fire. It doesn’t hurt how much of the team is still thrumming with excitement that he will be joining them. Shane is besieged by back slaps and high fives. Ilya couldn’t get close if he wanted to.

The game starts at dusk. Thankfully, Marleau’s guys are as hungover as Ilya. Any time Boston starts a passing play with Shane’s fingerprints all over it, Ilya takes a mean satisfaction in shutting it down. It’s the closest Ilya can come to slamming Shane against the boards, destroying Shane’s beautiful handiwork by throwing his own stick, his own body in the way.

The Raiders win, two to zero. Ilya hangs around long enough for a round of congratulations and then he is outside, vomiting in what once was a parking lot.

“Gross,” says Joy.

Ilya flips her off, retching. When he opens his eyes, she is still standing there. 

“What,” says Ilya.

Joy takes a deep breath. “I was thinking,” she says. Something in her posture strikes him as just a little rehearsed. “We’ve been making good time. If we pushed our horses a little harder, we could afford to stay an extra day here before Traverse City.”

Ilya shakes his head, reflexive. The thought of lingering around for another twenty-four hours makes his stomach clench again.

“Please?” says Joy. “I never ask for anything.”

“You ask for things all the goddamn time,” Ilya protests. He spits on the cracked blacktop, but the acrid taste in his mouth remains. He needs water. 

“No, I don’t,” says Joy.

“You asked for yarn,” he reminds her. “A few days ago. Black yarn.” He left his water bottle in the trailer, he thinks. He crosses back towards Celebration Square, Joy following on his heels.

“That doesn’t count.” Joy sets her jaw, stubborn. “That was so Shane could have a sweater in our colors. I never ask for anything for me.”

“Why would we stay another day,” says Ilya. “We’ve already been here too long. What would we do with more time?”

“Dr. Wade could see more patients,” says Joy.

“Oh,” Ilya says, “is that why? You are such a philanthropist, your request for yourself is so that more people can experience Dr. Wade’s special brand of care?”

“The horses could rest,” Joy presses.

“Until we push them harder to get to Traverse City,” says Ilya.

Joy is silent for a long time. They reach the square, where the trailers are parked. Maybe half the team is there, milling around before heading out for the night.

Joy takes another deep breath, exhales. She looks around as if someone might be listening in. “I want to spend another day with Fatima,” she says. “You don’t know what it’s like, being surrounded by stupid hockey players all the time with nobody my age to talk to.”

“Traverse City will also have people your age,” Ilya points out. “The sooner we get there—”

Joy’s expression goes nuclear. “I never ask for anything!” she yells. “I never—why can’t I have this one thing, this one goddamn fucking thing? Summer asks for shit all the goddamn time, and she always gets it!”

Oregan looks up from the dinner pot. Summer retreats into her and Joy’s trailer, eyes wide. Shane, Dubek, and Anderson peer across the fire at where Joy is continuing her absolute meltdown.

“Summer asks for library books about Egypt,” Ilya says. “You’re asking us to change our schedule just so you can hang out with some girl you barely—”

“Why is Summer always the baby?” Joy demands. “She’s thirteen! You know what I was doing at thirteen? Fucking taking care of Summer!”

“Hey,” says Zadonsky, mercifully stepping in. “Sometimes it helps to take a breath and count to ten before you—”

“Fuck you,” says Joy. “Just because your own kids are probably dead doesn’t make us one happy little family.”

Zadonsky’s face falls. 

“Jesus Christ,” snaps Ilya. “Joy, that was way over the line and you know it.”

Joy has the hunted look of a cornered animal that bites because it cannot comprehend safety. Ilya watches her and feels the terrible sting of recognition.

“Fuck you too,” Joy hisses. “Like you’ve got everything all figured out, Captain.” She stalks off in the direction of town.

“Where the fuck are you going?” says Ilya.

“I don’t know yet,” Joy shouts.

The crowd after a game can get rowdy. Joy is sixteen. Ilya can only imagine what Dr. Wade would say about Joy’s relative safety alone in an unfamiliar area.

“At least take someone with you,” Ilya says.

“No way,” says Joy, “all of you have fucking pissed me off.”

Ilya rubs the back of his neck, really wishing he had another solution. “Has Shane Hollander pissed you off?” he makes himself say. “Has he done anything at all to you?”

“No,” Joy grumbles.

“You’re not allowed to go off alone at night,” says Ilya. “You know this.”

Joy scowls. “Fine. Whatever. Come on, Shane.”

Shane crosses over to her, looking beyond lost. Ilya should be feeling some satisfaction, but the truth is, Shane has done nothing at all to deserve this.

“Are you sure there’s nobody else you’re not mad at?” Shane asks. “The doctor, maybe?”

Joy snorts. “Fuck Dr. Wade.”

“You’ll be fine,” Ilya tells him. “Just make sure she’s safe, and don’t let her kill anybody.”

Shane nods solemnly, looking as queasy as Ilya feels.

They’re gone all the way through dinner. Joy never skips meals. “I should let them know we saved them some food,” Ilya tells Marleau.

“Your funeral,” says Marleau. “What got into her?”

“No idea,” says Ilya, standing.

He finds them in an otherwise deserted playground by the lake. They’re sitting on the swings, Shane’s knees almost to his chest on the low seat. Their voices carry in the still winter air.

“—don’t think I’m doing this right,” Shane says. “There has to be somebody else you can tell.”

Joy shakes her head. “Nobody who would for sure be okay with it,” she’s saying.

“Rozanov would,” says Shane. “I know he would.”

“You keep saying that,” says Joy, “but how can you really know?”

“Hey!” Ilya shouts, before the temptation to listen in on Shane’s reasoning grows too great.

They turn to look at him. Shane’s shoulders loosen a little in relief. Joy tenses.

“I don’t know you well enough to help you,” Shane tells her. “Please. I promise he won’t be a dick about it. If I’m wrong, I’ll try to convince them to stay another day.”

“Won’t be a dick about what?” says Ilya.

Joy’s eyes trace waist-high weeds of the overgrown blacktop. “Fatima’s not just some girl I barely know,” she says. “She’s really cool. I’ve never met anyone else like her.”

“Yes,” says Ilya. “Well, you do live with twenty-three big smelly hockey players, your younger sister, and a very cranky doctor, so—”

“It’s not that,” says Joy. “She, um.”

“You can tell him,” says Shane. “You can.”

“Fuck,” Joy says. “Fuck.” She wipes at her eyes. “The first year you let us live with you, I was fucking terrified,” she says, “did you know that?”

Ilya nods; he’d known, a little. It had been hard to miss. Summer and Joy, silent, eyes wide, perched at the campfire like birds perpetually a second away from flight.

“I thought, the Prophet could see it, could see it in me,” she says now. “I thought you’d all see it, and then me and Summer would be out there alone with nothing. The Prophet used to say—”

“Hey,” says Ilya softly, “Hey, hey. You know you don’t have to call him that anymore.” Slowly, giving her time to react, he reaches out and squeezes her shoulder through her coat. “You know you can call him anything you want to. Including ‘That Fuckface.’”

Joy laughs, a little wetly, and scrubs at her eyes. “Well, the Shithead said he could see what was inside us,” she says. “Everything. And, uh.”

“It’s okay,” says Shane.

“I fucking know you think it’s okay,” says Joy. “Dr. Wade says it’s okay,” she says. “Like, I can hear her voice in my head, how she’d tell me there’s nothing wrong with me, that I’m not doing a bad job of being a person or a girl or a woman or whatever. But, um. I prayed for years, for fucking years for God to take it all away, to just let me be good. I just, it seemed like such a simple thing to ask for. Let me be good. Like if I worked a little harder, if I acted a little better, if I asked Him in the right way, if I thought and felt and did the right things, He’d have to—” Her voice breaks. She waves an arm.

Shane is watching her intently, brown eyes glassy.

“If I just say this is who I am, then I have to admit that I can’t stop it,” she says. “I have to admit that God is never gonna come down and take it away. And fuck, I really wanted to believe in that. Even after I lost the rest of it, I really wanted to believe He could still make me stop.”

“Is, ah. Fatima maybe a little more than a friend?” Ilya ventures.

Joy stares at him. She nods, shakes her head, and shrugs. Then she sucks in a deep breath. “I don’t know,” she says. “But I’m a lesbian.”

“Can I give you a hug?” says Ilya.

Joy bursts into tears. “Uh, yeah,” she gasps out. “Yeah.”

Ilya bends down, carefully wraps her in his arms. “Hey,” he says. “Hey Joy. Thank you.”

“For what?” Joy chokes out.

“Now we don’t have to worry about you getting pregnant on the road.” says Ilya. “That is huge for us.”

“Fuck you,” Joy hiccups, squeezing back harder. “Fuck you, Shane was wrong, you’re terrible at this.”

“He said I’d be good at it?” says Ilya. 

“Ugh,” says Joy.

“Dr. Wade is right,” says Shane, blinking slowly. “Uh. Nothing is wrong with you, and being good has fuck-all to do with who you want to be with. You know that, right?”

“I know, I know,” Joy sighs.

“And you know you have to apologize to Zadonsky?” Shane pushes.

Joy leans back from the hug. Ilya lets go and straightens. “Yeah, I guess,” says Joy.

“You guess?” says Ilya, mock disbelieving. “What did we even save you both dinner for?”

“I’m not hungry,” says Joy.

Shane shakes his head. “It’s been a hard day,” he says. “You need the nutrients.”

“Sure thing, Protein Powder,” she says.

Ilya laughs. “Now that’s a chirp,” he says. “We taught you well.”

“Thank you.” Joy gives a watery smile, and wipes again at her eyes. “So, can we stay another day?”

“I’ll think about it,” says Ilya.

Joy nods slowly. “What are you gonna tell the others?”

Ilya and Shane exchange a look.

“What do you want us to tell the others?” says Shane.

“Uh.” Joy pinches the bridge of her nose. “I can explain it to Dr. Wade. Everyone else, can we just say I was being a hormonal teenager?”

“You are a hormonal teenager,” says Ilya.

Joy punches him on the arm, hard.

“Hey!” Ilya protests. “I was just learning my lines!”

They’re most of the way back to camp when Shane looks over at Ilya and says, “Can I talk to you after dinner?”

Ilya nods. He’s not sure he can trust himself to speak.

“So,” says Ilya back in the trailer, what feels like hours later, after Joy has said sorry to Zadonsky, and Zadonsky has accepted, and Joy and Shane have had their share of the food. Ilya sits down on the edge of the bed. 

“Yeah,” says Shane, perching next to Ilya, who tries to take this as a good sign. “Okay. Uh. I haven’t had much time to work out how to say this, so bear with me.”

“Okay,” says Ilya.

Shane clasps his hands together, then lets them drop. Ilya prepares himself for the worst. What could be more painful than what has already happened? His mind spins in all directions. Shane is leaving, Shane is dying, Shane has decided to rededicate his life to tracking down Rose Landry—

Shane sucks in a breath, lets it out, fidgets with his hands again, catches Ilya looking at him.

“I’m just—very aware of how I can’t unsay this, once I’ve said it,” Shane gets out.

“Probably you should just say it,” Ilya tells him, stomach churning.

“I’m gay,” says Shane.

Ilya laughs and laughs, partly from relief. “Ah, yes. So Joy has started a trend?”

“It’s not funny,” says Shane stiffly.

“You had gay sex with me this week,” Ilya points out, still laughing.

“Yeah, but you’re not gay,” Shane says.

Ilya wobbles his hand in a so-so gesture. “Wait,” he says, “Rose Landry—”

“Is great,” says Shane. He freezes for a moment, as if hit by the full force of the realization that probably he should say ‘was.’ “I really, really tried, but. It never would’ve worked out.”

Ilya considers this, considers how long he has been jealous of a ghost. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Who else would I tell?” says Shane.

This is a fair point. Ilya isn’t sure what he was hoping Shane would say. He stares down at Shane’s pack, still taking up most of the floor space.

“There’s something else,” says Shane.

Ilya turns then, taking in Shane’s somber, determined face. Confessing to being gay has not resolved the tension in his shoulders. It hasn’t freed Shane in the way it seemed to free Joy.

Shane lays his palms on his thighs. He’s quiet for a very long time. 

“It’s worse,” says Shane eventually.

“Worse than—” Ilya starts, half a dozen jokes clawing for purchase inside his mouth. Even if it makes Shane snap at him, it might at least lessen the tension in the air, a weight like hands pressing down.

“Yes,” says Shane, cutting him off. “It is, okay? Whatever you’re about to say, it’s worse.”

“Okay,” Ilya says.

“I’ve—killed people,” Shane says at last.

“Before or after the sickness?” says Ilya, and Shane’s eyes widen.

“After,” says Shane, “obviously after, Jesus.”

“Then where is the problem?” Ilya says. “You wouldn’t do it without a good reason.”

“A good reason?” Shane hisses. “A good—it’s murder. I committed murder.”

“The man who stabbed you—?” says Ilya.

He didn’t make it, Shane had mumbled, that first day in the medical trailer with a fresh knife wound running down the side of his ribs, and Ilya had barely thought anything of it, beyond maybe a little relief that the task of killing Shane’s attacker had already been handled.

Shane bows his head. “He, uh, kept coming at me. I couldn’t stop him.”

“You had to,” says Ilya, and Shane turns to look at him, eyes wide.

“I think he was scared,” says Shane. “Like, an adrenaline response. Someone else might have been able to get him to—”

“He attacked you,” says Ilya, “yes? You did not see him and shoot him with an arrow out of fucking nowhere?”

“I—yeah,” Shane says. “He attacked me.”

Ilya has never been alone on the road but he’s heard stories. One of the many mercies of traveling with the Boston Raiders; even the most desperate thief can do the math on trying to rob someone surrounded by two dozen other people. Shane would have been on his own for years. Shane had said he’d made a point of avoiding the cities. No fucking wonder, if this was the window he’d gotten on post-plague humanity.

“He wanted something you had?” says Ilya.

“He didn’t say what he wanted,” says Shane. “He could’ve been out of food, or maybe he needed medicine—”

“Mm,” says Ilya, “My sympathies are not with him.”

Shane squares his jaw. “I killed other people, too.”

“More bandits?” Ilya says. “You know, it isn’t murder if they try to kill you first. Do they not have self-defense in Canada?”

“Those survivalists I stayed with,” says Shane, as if Ilya hadn’t spoken. “I didn’t tell you everything. They weren’t— They hated that I was better at hunting. They hated me for it. They made that very clear. But I couldn’t leave them. I knew I couldn’t go.”

Ilya’s stomach roils, wondering what leverage they could’ve held over Shane, if it was threats, or some sort of blackmail, although he can’t think how that would work, or—

“They had canned food and army rations,” Shane is saying. “But it was running out, and they weren’t good enough hunters to live off the land by themselves.”

“You were trying to keep them alive,” says Ilya slowly.

“And then I left,” says Shane. “Do you understand?”

“How long did you stay?” Ilya asks.

“Thirty-five months,” says Shane, “and there is no way they’re still alive. There were four of them. They’re dead because I couldn’t deal with—” He shakes his head.

“These men,” Ilya says, “they were unpleasant to you?”

Shane almost laughs, a dry, rattling sound. “What does that have to do with whether or not they deserved to live?”

“So, yes, then. Very.” Ilya draws up every piece of knowledge he has accumulated about survivalist types. “They were racist?” he hazards.

“Uh,” says Shane. “Yeah. And, uh, other stuff, too. Homophobic.”

“And now they are dead,” says Ilya. He shrugs. “Good. You didn’t owe them thirty-five months of your life. You didn’t owe them one month.”

“You can’t mean that,” says Shane.

“Watch me,” says Ilya.

Shane shakes his head again. “After everything that’s happened, to cause even more death—”

“Everything that’s happened,” Ilya repeats. “You mean the plague? You mean when nine hundred ninety-nine out of a thousand people died for no fucking reason?”

Shane’s eyes have gone shiny. “Yeah,” he says quietly. Ilya wants to touch him, can’t fathom what the rules might be anymore.

“That was senseless,” says Ilya. “That was meaningless. That was babies dying in the arms of their mothers, who were also dying. This—nobody forced those men to be terrible to you.”

“It was the end of the world,” says Shane. “Nobody was at their best.”

“The end of the world did not make them awful,” Ilya tells him. “It did not make them racist. You don’t know they are dead, but if they are, at least there was a reason.”

“You can’t be okay with this,” says Shane, voice low. “You’ve been out there with your team for years, making people happy, doing this wonderful thing, rescuing children—literally rescuing children, while I—”

“What,” says Ilya, “do you think I haven’t killed anyone?” Ilya can feel Shane’s gaze on the side of his face. He redirects his own eyes to the floor. “Everyone has done something they regret,” Ilya says. “Nobody’s hands are clean anymore.”

“It can’t be that simple,” Shane says.

“Why not?” says Ilya. “Why the fuck not? You are alive. I am alive. Everything else is—details.”

“You weren’t there.” Shane’s voice is flat, distant. “They took me in. I knew they wouldn’t survive being abandoned, and I still did it.”

“Abandoned,” says Ilya. “And these were adult men? Not a box of puppies?”

“It would’ve been kinder if I’d shot them all in the head,” says Shane quietly.

“You gave them three years,” Ilya argues. “If they were not begging you for tips with the bow and arrow, then they did not want to live that badly.” 

“Thirty-five months,” says Shane. 

Ilya reaches over to lay a hand on Shane’s shoulder. He still doesn’t know if that’s alright, doesn’t know if Shane will shove him off, or worse, go horribly still.

Shane closes his eyes and pushes into the touch. He catches himself a second later, eyes flying open, but it’s too late. Ilya twists, gets his other hand on Shane’s opposite shoulder, and telegraphing his next move as slowly and deliberately as he can, giving Shane every opportunity to slip away, he carefully wraps Shane in his arms.

“Oh,” says Shane, sounding dazed. “You still—? Even though…”

“Yes,” Ilya tells him solemnly. “Even knowing you are gay.”

Shane laughs a little then, choked but unmistakable from this close, and tightens his grip on Ilya. They are both contorting oddly to make the angle work. Ilya cannot imagine caring.

“If you’d been there,” Shane starts.

“I would not have stayed for thirty-five months,” says Ilya. “Maybe a week, if they were lucky.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Shane insists. “And you would’ve had your team to think about.”

“So would you,” says Ilya, “if you’d had a team.”

This earns a noncommittal hum from Shane, but also one of his hands has migrated from Ilya’s back to the nape of his neck, toying with his hair.

“Mm,” says Ilya. “You are changing the subject.”

“I’ll fight with you more tomorrow,” says Shane. 

This is likely true.

“Why?” Ilya says. “What are we doing now?”

Shane pulls back to look at him. 

“You said you didn’t want to, anymore,” Ilya reminds him.

“No,” says Shane, vehement. “I never said that.”

Ilya feels as if he is losing his mind. “You did,” he says. “Last night. We were right here.”

“I said we shouldn’t,” Shane says. “And, uh, I’m less and less sure about that.”

“Less and less…?” says Ilya.

Shane stares at him. Ilya cannot imagine what Shane is looking for, but he seems to find it.

“We should,” says Shane. “I want to, uh, very much. If you...”

Ilya gives up on sitting side by side. He stands, crowds into Shane’s space, leaning forward until Shane has to flop backwards onto the bed. Again, he moves slowly, leaving Shane ample time to change his mind and flinch away. Shane stays put, lying on the bed, eyes dark. Ilya crawls up Shane’s body until their faces are level once more.

“What do you want to do,” Ilya murmurs.

“You can choose,” says Shane, breathless.

Ilya kisses him, slowly. “I can?”

“Anything,” says Shane.

“Anything?” Ilya repeats. His first thought is, Tell me you aren’t moving out, so it’s all down to his second thought, whatever that might be.

“Anything,” Shane says again.

An idea is beginning to take shape in Ilya’s mind. “’Anything’ is a big offer,” he says against Shane’s lips. “I might get greedy.”

Shane cranes up to kiss him. “Please,” he says.

He knows it’s only been a day, but Ilya has missed this, has missed Shane’s mouth, how heartfelt Shane’s every move feels. Despite this, after a few more kisses, Ilya makes himself pull away.

“What,” Shane starts.

“Shower first,” says Ilya, “and we’ll need water, after.”

“I can go get it,” says Shane.

Ilya shakes his head. “I’m the one who needs to wash,” he says. He smiles. “You stay here and think about what I might do to you.”

Ilya stands, pulls back on his boots and coat, grabs his wash bowl from the bathroom, and then gives in long enough to kiss Shane one more time on his way out the door.

At the fire, Joy is braiding Summer’s hair and laughing with Fatima about whatever kids their age laugh about. St-Simon and Anderson are arm wrestling, with Kohn, Johansson, and Kovelev loudly taking bets.

“Is Hollander okay?” asks Oregan from the other side of the fire-pit. “He was quiet today.”

“Just tired, I think,” says Ilya, pouring his portion of hot water.

“Connors and Marleau went out,” Oregan adds. “I think they were headed due West, if you wanna catch up later.” He seems to mull this over. “That’s less helpful after the sun’s gone down, I guess.”

“No,” says Ilya, “I’ll probably just go to bed.”

“Oh shit,” says Oregan.

Ilya feels himself freeze for a second, wondering if someone has put the pieces together, but Oregan just frowns and says,

“Are you tired, too? You don’t think something’s going around, do you?”

Ilya grins his most irritating grin. “I am only worn out from beating all of your asses, two to nothing,” he says. “I need to rest up so I can do it again tomorrow.”

“Wow, eat shit, Roz,” says Oregan.

“I already did, when you made that chowder,” Ilya shoots back, both of them laughing as Oregan pelts him with snowballs all the way back to the trailer.

“What did you do,” Shane asks, inside, when Ilya has set down the bowl and is shedding his now very snow-covered coat.

“You assume I started it,” says Ilya. He steps out of his boots and checks to make sure the door is locked.

“Yeah,” says Shane, “I do. And I think—”

Ilya pulls off his shirt, smirking when Shane’s next comment seems to melt into the ether. He crosses over to the bed and tugs at the hem of Shane’s sweater, easing it off of Shane’s body and over his head. When the fabric is tangled around Shane’s forearms, Ilya stops him with a hand to the chest.

“Keep it there,” says Ilya. At Shane’s questioning look, he adds, softly, “I don’t have anything to tie you up with, so.”

Shane shudders, but after a moment he frowns. “I don’t want to stretch this shirt out,” he says. “I only have three long-sleeved shirts.”

Ilya owns more than that. Someone might notice if Shane wore Ilya’s clothes, but nobody’s first guess would be that they are—well, whatever it is they’re doing. ‘Hollander’s been on the road by himself for too long; he needs to borrow something’ would be an easy enough sell. They could probably get away with it, he reasons, and anyway, he likes the thought of Shane wearing his things. But that is talk for another time.

“Then don’t struggle,” says Ilya, patting Shane on the knee. “Stay still.”

“What, you’re gonna leave me like this while you shower?” Shane says, breath coming a little faster already.

“Of course not,” says Ilya. He reaches down, undoes the button on Shane’s jeans, unzips the fly. “Lift up your hips,” Ilya tells him, and Shane glares even as his hips raise a few inches immediately, almost eagerly. “Good.” Ilya strips off Shane’s jeans and underwear and leaves them in a tangle on the floor. “Lie back.”

Shane obeys again. Ilya looks at him, his dark hair on the pillow, his arms bound by the sweater, his strong thighs. Shane is half-hard, and getting harder the longer Ilya admires him.

“Someone could come in and see,” Shane still mutters, flushing.

“The door is latched and the curtains are closed,” says Ilya. “The only person who can see you is me.” He crowds in close. “We won the game today,” he says. “I deserve something pretty to look at, yes?”

“I—” Shane stammers.

“Yes,” Ilya prompts him, pressing a kiss to his mouth.

“Yeah,” says Shane. His eyes have gone slightly unfocused. “Okay.”

Ilya considers taking a long shower, drawing it out, but he is only human. Alone in the bathroom, he scrubs and rinses off in what is more likely record time.

Chapter 10

When Ilya steps out of the bathroom, Shane is still lying on the bed, forearms still pinned together by the dark blue fabric of his sweater. It’s an inspiring sight, even as Ilya notes how the crumpled sleeves are loose enough that trying to keep it on would probably be harder than shrugging it off. As impromptu bondage goes, not ideal. 

Not terrible, though. The flush on Shane’s face has spread down to his chest, which is still not as red as his straining cock. Ilya loiters in the doorway, fighting a grin.

“You didn’t move at all, did you?” says Ilya, impressed but not totally surprised.

Shane doesn’t so much as crane his neck to look back at him, but his eyes move to track Ilya crossing the room. “You told me not to.”

“Aw,” Ilya croons, fitting his palm to Shane’s overheated cheek. “So good for me.”

Shane closes his eyes as Ilya’s thumb strokes across his freckled cheekbone. “Are you gonna let me come?” says Shane. “Is that part of this?”

“Why,” says Ilya, mock-sympathetic, “is someone feeling impatient?”

“Just wondering,” Shane mumbles.

Ilya settles at the foot of the bed, wraps his hand around Shane’s bare ankle. He kisses the delicate jut of bone at the outside, open-mouthed. 

“Yes,” says Ilya, “I will.” He gives in, lets himself smile. “Eventually.”

Ilya kisses up Shane’s leg, taking his time with it. 

“Am I allowed to talk?” says Shane. He’s doing an admirable job staying still, but his muscles are starting to jump under Ilya’s hands. 

“Mm, you are,” says Ilya. He lifts Shane’s calf and mouths at the back of his knee.

“What’re you doing?” Shane says. His eyes are open again. He’s watching Ilya warily.

“You have nice legs,” Ilya tells him. “I like them.”

“And if I, uh, ask you to go a little faster—” Shane is probably working hard to keep his voice level; it’s getting a little breathy at the edges.

“This is about what I want,” Ilya reminds him, pressing another wet kiss to the soft crease behind his knee. Shane’s breathing is starting to go ragged. Ilya breaks off to watch the rise and fall of Shane’s chest, then starts in low on his thigh, kissing and biting until Shane is trembling under him.

“But I might,” Ilya allows. “Depends on how pretty you beg me.”

“Please,” says Shane immediately, voice low. “Please, please, I’ll do anything—”

Ilya is making slow progress up the thin skin of Shane’s inner thigh. He pulls off, says, “You already promised me anything. This is poor negotiation.”

Shane exhales, shaky. The tip of his cock is shiny with precum. “Please,” Shane tries again. “I—uh.”

“Your thighs are amazing,” says Ilya. “Always have been. I could spend an hour here, easy.”

Shane doesn’t seem to know how to take that. He swallows.

“So why shouldn’t I?” Ilya continues, sucking a bruise just underneath the crease where Shane’s leg meets his body.

“I’ll suck your cock,” says Shane, “if you—”

“You’ll already do that,” says Ilya. “If you really want me to move faster, you’ll have to try harder than that.”

“Please,” says Shane, wildly. “I’ll be a good, a good little slut for you, I’ll—”

Ilya has been hard since he stepped out of the shower and saw how carefully Shane had kept his arms bound in the sweater, but the words still go straight to his dick.

“Yeah, you will. My eager, needy slut.” Ilya doesn’t try to keep the warmth out of his voice.

“Yeah,” Shane says, breathless, “yeah, I’m your—” and Ilya’s resolve is shattering. Ilya pulls away to wrap his lips around Shane’s cock. He’d had plans, at some point, about edging Shane within an inch of his life and then sucking him off so well that Shane would maybe forget to find somewhere else to live. This will have to do instead. Ilya bobs his head, barely has time to get a rhythm going before Shane is coming down the back of Ilya’s throat.

Ilya is swallowing the last of it when Shane slides off the bed, kneels on the floor, and with his arms still imprisoned, takes Ilya’s cock in his mouth to the root, like something from a wet dream.

“Fuck,” says Ilya softly. “Fuck, I should keep you in here like this all the time, only let you out for hockey.” Shane moans low in the back of his throat, and Ilya huffs an almost-laugh. “Yeah, you like that, don’t you,” says Ilya, “naked and tied up and ready for me.” He comes quickly enough that he should probably feel embarrassed. 

When Ilya is fully back in his body, he reaches down and untangles Shane’s arms from the sweater, lets the shirt drop to the floor.

“Thank you,” says Shane.

“Get up here,” says Ilya.

Shane climbs onto the bed. Ilya pulls the blankets over them both, yawning, and turns out the light. Shane hesitates for maybe half of a second, and then, without the slightest prompting, he crawls directly into Ilya’s arms. 

“I can’t believe you,” says Shane. He tucks his head under Ilya’s chin, cuddles in closer. “Making me lie there for your whole shower,” he murmurs into Ilya’s chest. He yawns. “Also, not fair, how hot that was.”

Ilya lifts a hand to card his fingers through Shane’s hair, thinking that if this is the prize for not fighting fair, then he may never follow the rules again.

“Final Muskegon game tomorrow morning,” says Shane.

“Yes,” says Ilya, gently petting at Shane’s hair, “and on behalf of the Raiders, we look forward to beating the pants off of Boston.”

“That’s not what I,” Shane starts, “I mean, no, Boston’s gonna flatten you. But I was saying, Summer was telling me the people here hold a market, after the last game.”

“They do,” says Ilya, not entirely sure where this is going.

“I might see about trading a few things,” says Shane. 

“What,” says Ilya, “do you have even more secret skills? Hockey and French and bowhunting, and then you make soap carvings when nobody is looking?”

“No,” Shane says. “Just some stuff I’ve been holding onto. My bedroll, that kind of thing.”

Shane getting rid of his prior camping gear is almost total confirmation that he intends to stay with the team for a very long time, and maybe with Ilya specifically. Even if it’s only because the Boston Raiders are his one chance at playing hockey again, the fact of it is too bright to look at head-on, like the noonday sun.

“Okay,” says Ilya, swallowing past the lump in his throat, trying to ignore his heart thudding in his chest. Shane has to be able to hear it, but mercifully, he says nothing. “What do you think you will buy?” Ilya asks after a moment, fighting for a steady tone, for casual words, for anything other than Say it again. Tell me you mean it.

“Not sure how much I can afford,” says Shane. “I don’t know the, uh, exchange rates on anything. But now that I’ve got skates, I wanna see about trying to get pads, if that’s possible.”

Ilya hums. “Possible, yes. But there might be an easier way. Find me after the game. After we’re done knocking Boston into the dust.”

“You mean after Boston annihilates you?” says Shane, and even without a sightline to his face, even in the dark of the trailer, Ilya can hear the smile in his voice.

“No,” says Ilya, “I mean when we pound Boston.”

“No, Boston’s gonna cream you,” says Shane. 

Ilya laughs. “Boston is going to what?”

“Shut up,” Shane says, and Ilya can clearly picture the affronted look on his face. “It’s a real expression. It’s a thing people say.”

“The Raiders,” Ilya announces, “are going to make sweet and tender love to Boston—very romantic, lots of eye contact and, and rose petals.”

At that, Shane laughs. “I’ve never heard that one before,” he says. “I’ll give you that.” 

They are both maybe a little bit loopy, but Ilya thinks they’ve earned the right.

At breakfast the next day, the team makes a list of their requests for Gorka next season. As always, nobody volunteers to be the one to write it all down.

Sometimes, being in charge is exciting and sexy, and other times it means taking on the tasks nobody else is willing to do. Ilya digs out the team’s notebook, which was rescued from an abandoned flooded basement three circuits ago, the pages wrinkled and the lines blurred from long-ago water damage. Auden locates a cracked ballpoint pen, and Ilya, whose English handwriting is a scrawl at the best of times, gets to work.  

“Liquor,” says Johansson.

“Ask for high-proof unflavored vodka, if they’ve got it,” says Dr. Wade. And then, at Varkov’s approving chuckle, “No, I mean I can also use that to disinfect my tools.”

“Candy,” says Sebbin.

“Spices,” says Oregan. “Any spice. Any dried herb. Salt would be monumental.”

“A second bow,” Summer puts in. “So we can cover more ground hunting.”

“A full set of gear for this guy,” says Dubek, slapping Shane on the back.

Relief rushes through Ilya’s entire body, that he or Shane won’t have to be the ones to bring this up. He nods, continues writing.

“Come on,” says Ilya, “what else. Dream big.”

“If we’re dreaming,” says Shane, and just in case, Ilya tries to prepare himself to hear ‘a horse and another trailer.’ “I’d want gloves for field dressing anything in the future,” Shane says instead. “Uh, they make gloves just for that, but any waterproof gloves would be better than nothing.”

Ilya writes waterproof gloves and tries not to note the manic, soaring feeling behind his breastbone.

“Stick tape,” says Cadyn. It’s so mundane, Ilya almost laughs.

“A cat,” says Auden. “So we wouldn’t have to worry about mice getting into our food stores.”

“Yes!” Summer half-shouts.

“How would we keep it from running away?” asks St-Simon.

“Excuse you, because it would love us,” says Summer.

“We could ask for a tame cat that likes people,” Auden reasons. “It would probably stick around if we fed it and paid it attention.”

“If we’re talking about taking on some animals, I wanna put in a request for chickens,” says Anderson. 

“It’d be nice having a live food source traveling with us,” muses Connors.

“Oh yeah!” Anderson says. “That’d be another plus.”

“Yarn, of course,” says Joy. “Not acrylic. And, uh, maybe a guitar?”

“Do you know how to play?” asks Ilya.

“And a book on how to play guitar?” Joy says. 

By the time they’re done compiling their list, the church bells are sounding. Shane looks up, startled. 

“Doesn’t that mean—?” Shane says.

“Don’t worry,” Ilya tells him, “they won’t start without us.”

“Won’t people be mad?” asks Shane.

“The bells ring an hour before the game starts, and also at the opening,” says Kohn. “How could you not know this, man? They rang ‘em yesterday, and the day before.”

“There’s been a lot going on,” Shane says, and nobody can really argue with that.

They walk to the rink, the people calling out to them as the Boston Raiders cross the remnants of the downtown. Some of the townspeople press food and other small items into the players’ hands. Ilya collects an assortment of odds and ends: a smooth flat stone painted with the old Boston Raiders logo, several joints, a bottle of ice wine, a plastic magnet of a dinosaur with ‘81’ carved on its back. 

Maybe halfway there, a kid solemnly hands Shane an entire loaf of bread, wrapped in a piece of cloth. 

“Thank you,” Shane says, clearly taken aback.

“Oh cool, do you think word’s gotten out about who you are?” Oregan asks.

On the top of the loaf, the dough has been scored in the shape of a 24. 

“I think so,” says Shane.

Inside the building, the sound of hundreds of people cheering. More than half of the settlement has turned out; the final game always draws the biggest crowd. 

There was a time when an audience of 300 would have seemed impossibly small. Even this arena was designed to seat maybe ten times that. Now, it is very likely the most people in one place that Ilya will see until next circuit.

Ilya announces the lineup, Summer executes the puck drop, and the last Muskegon game of the year begins. It’s close, it’s close all the way through, but Ilya is prepared now for Boston to be playing better than they’ve ever played before. They are one to one by the end of the first period, still one to one when the second period is over, and then, with thirty seconds left on the clock, Ilya slams the puck over Oregan’s shoulder, and like that, the Raiders have won.

In the stands, people are screaming and cheering and booing. If Ilya closed his eyes, he could pretend that the plague never happened, that this is a normal game in a normal city and that soon he will be flying back home to Boston. He looks for Shane in the crowd instead, finds him talking earnestly to Marleau, no doubt strategizing how to make next win even harder. He wants to wreck Shane, to make him come until he’s sobbing in Ilya’s bed. It’s not even noon yet.

Ilya changes quickly, in what would’ve been the locker room and what is now apparently used for cold storage in the winter. Various cuts of venison hang along the walls. He won’t get a chance to wash properly until the fire tonight, sweat drying gritty on his skin, but at least he doesn’t have to keep his under armor on any longer. 

When he emerges, the crowd has not noticeably thinned. He finds Mayor Gorka in the stands, talking with a bald man who is probably another town official of one sort or another.

“Good game,” says Mayor Gorka when she sees him.

“Very good game,” Ilya agrees. “And I think we should have a talk, about playing more games in the future.”

“Right now?” Mayor Gorka raises her eyebrows.

“Hang on,” says Ilya. Shane is making his way over to them.

“Shane Hollander,” says Gorka when Shane is in hearing distance. “I take it your influence is the reason Boston hung in there for so long?”

“It was a good team effort,” says Shane. “We did what we could.”

Gorka nods and smiles as if this conveys actual information.

“I understand you’re negotiating terms for next year?” Shane adds. “Do you mind if I sit in?”

“Not at all,” says Gorka, shaking her head. “Feel free.”

They convene in the same side room as before. Ilya produces his list from breakfast and reads it out loud, since there is no conceivable way she would be able to read his writing. He adds food for the horses and enough non-meat rations for the team that nobody will die of scurvy, and then he doubles every demand that can be doubled, because aim high, right?

“What do you want with two guitars?” says Gorka. “Are you starting a band?”

“That is our business,” says Ilya.

Gorka exhales. “That’s a pretty ambitious list,” she says. “And I don’t have more hockey gear beyond the skates I already gave you.”

“Yes,” says Ilya, “but you know people who do. There will be sellers at the market today. You could negotiate with them.”

“Some folks might not appreciate the mayor using public funds to buy hockey helmets,” says Gorka.

Ilya waves a hand. “It’s no different than kitting us out with food. That was public funds, too. The people did not seem to mind.”

Gorka smiles tightly. “Look, we can certainly meet your food requests, and I can ask around about the cats. For the rest of it, let’s be honest about the world we live in. Muskegon is doing well. Muskegon is probably one of the biggest settlements you visit on the whole circuit. You can’t afford not to play here. Where else would you go?”

“We might head south,” says Ilya. “The ice will hold in the coldest part of the winter, and there are lakes.”

“South?” Gorka repeats blankly. “Where?” She’s looking right at Shane.

They’d talked about this a little last night, after they were done ribbing each other about who was going to win. (“Look, Gorka hates me and loves you; if she tries to play hardball with us, can you do the thing with your eyes?” “What thing with my eyes?”) They had not specifically discussed this.

“Uh, Cincinnati, maybe,” says Shane. He doesn’t do the thing with his eyes but he does manage to look decently earnest.

“Cincinnati.” Gorka presses her lips together into a thin line. “Not as much of a hockey culture down there.”

“We think they might, uh, appreciate the novelty,” Shane says. “Tap into a new market.”

“Well, let’s keep talking,” she says. “There’s no need to run down to Ohio just yet.”

In the end, the deal they agree to is: root vegetables, canned tomatoes, and pickled greens for the humans, hay and oats for the horses, a large box of maple sugar candies, one guitar and an instructional book, half a handle of vodka, a bottle of garlic salt and a mostly full bottle of dried parsley as well as a small jar of paprika, a full set of hockey gear, a bow, any available stick tape, four pairs of waterproof gloves, several skeins of wool yarn, and two cats. Ilya forgot to let her bargain him down on the number of cats; he hopes they’ll be friends, if cats have friends. Maybe that will make them less likely to run.

Half of the pay, including the vodka, the seasoning, and the gear, will be up front. The rest will be collected next circuit, where Boston and the Raiders will play another three games. As it happens, there is no talking her down from this, and given that it provides Dr. Wade with time to see more patients, Ilya doesn’t actually try that hard.

Shane insists on getting the whole agreement in writing, itemized and signed. Ilya watches as Gorka carefully copies down their list and scribbles her signature at the bottom. It occurs to him they should’ve really been doing this from the start.

They shake on it, Gorka lingering adoringly over her handshake with Shane, and then Shane and Ilya are heading back to camp. “Is it always that easy?” asks Shane.

“No,” says Ilya. “Usually it is very difficult. We were lucky today that she was distracted trying to fuck you with her eyes.”

Shane laughs. “Fuck off, she was not doing that,” he says.

“Okay,” says Ilya. “Sure.” They’re almost back to Celebration Square when he thinks to ask, “How did you know about Michigan and Ohio?”

“What?” says Shane.

“They hate each other,” says Ilya. “Always have, I think.”

“Oh,” Shane says. “I wasn’t sure where Cincinnati is. I just knew it was south of us.”

Ilya laughs.

“Shut up,” says Shane, “I’m not from here,” but he’s laughing too.

They reach the trailer. Shane steps inside, Ilya at his heels. Shane unbuckles his bedroll from his pack.

“To trade?” says Ilya.

Shane nods.

“Why, what do you still need?” asks Ilya.

“Uh,” says Shane. “Can you lock the door?”

Ilya does, and then he sits on the bed, waiting.

Shane scrubs his hands down his face. “Okay,” he says. “You don’t have to do anything about it. I wanna make that clear. We can keep doing what we’re doing, you don’t. And anyway, the other night when we fought, if you found someone, that’s—I get it.”

“I didn’t,” says Ilya. Shane stares at him. “Well, I did,” he amends. “She was beautiful, and we kissed, but. She had a room. I didn’t go with her.”

“Why not?” says Shane.

Ilya studies his thumbnail. “Because it wouldn’t have solved the problem,” he offers.

“What problem?” Shane asks quietly. He drops down to sit on the mattress next to Ilya.

There is no air in the trailer, suddenly. A real health hazard. Ilya gives him a look that says you should know exactly what problem I’m talking about, but Shane is undeterred.

“What problem?” he says again.

Ilya groans, and tries to imagine a way out of this conversation that wouldn’t end with Shane sitting alone on their bed, or worse, bolting again. He fails. 

“The problem,” Ilya says, “where what I want, what I actually want, end of the day, is to go back to this stupid tiny trailer and get off with you, and then trick you into letting me hold you.”

“You didn’t trick me,” says Shane, indignant. “I’m a grown adult, I could tell what you were doing.”

“No,” says Ilya heavily. “You couldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t have gone along with it if I didn’t want—” Shane says, like it’s that simple.

Ilya shakes his head. Shane reaches over and grabs Ilya’s hand, tangles their fingers together, squeezes. Ilya squeezes back. He feels completely cracked open. 

“I love it,” says Shane fiercely. “I love what we do, I love how you make me feel. And yeah, that includes after.”

It’s Ilya’s turn to stare. He sucks in a breath.

“I’m not asking you for anything different,” Shane says. “But I wanna go to the market and see what I could trade for some oil. And we can just—like you said, we could stick to, if you still, uh, wanted to finger me.” He’s starting to blush a little. Ilya watches, fascinated. “I’ve thought about it and I really want you to fuck me but I also get that it’s a big question, so we don’t need to decide right now if you want time to think.”

“If I want time to think,” Ilya murmurs.

“Yeah,” says Shane in a very reasonable tone of voice, “I don’t want to spring it on y—”

He breaks off, probably because Ilya is kissing him hard on the mouth.

“I thought about it,” Ilya announces into the narrow space between his lips and Shane’s. “And I think you should bring back as much oil as possible.”

“Oh?” Shane says, half-laughing.

“Yeah, oh,” says Ilya, and then somehow they have to stop kissing long enough for Shane to go to the market. 

In the meantime, Ilya occupies himself by checking in with the rest of the team, letting them know what Gorka has agreed to and smoothing over any minor disputes. Oregan is genuinely emotional at the prospect of cooking with flavorings again. Feller is concerned about how they will evenly share the vodka. Summer and Joy cannot agree on cat names. St-Simon is, as it happens, allergic to cats.  

Ilya tactfully pretends he can’t see Oregan’s tears at the thought of garlic salt. He suggests to Feller that they keep the vodka in the equipment trailer, which is opened rarely enough that it will be easy to monitor. He lets Summer know in no uncertain terms that each of them only gets to name one cat. He assures St-Simon that the cats will not be allowed in the trailer St-Simon shares with Auden.

Then he finds Joy. “Listen,” Ilya tells her. “I can’t hold back the entire team so that you can—for your social life.”

Joy nods grimly. She doesn’t push back, doesn’t even open her mouth to protest.

“But what I can do,” Ilya says, “is a reverse of the advance team. You, Summer, Connors, and Zadonksy can stay behind for a day, and then ride hard to meet up with us again.”

He knows it’s a lot of work to indulge a teenage crush, knows that in the long-term, the odds are good it will end in heartbreak for Joy anyway. Somehow, he still can’t stomach making her move along with everyone else. Blame his fucking sentimental streak.

Joy’s eyes have gone round. “Really?” she says.

“Yes, really,” says Ilya. 

She springs forward and hugs him. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you, thank you.”

“I’m not a monster,” Ilya says, patting her on the back until she releases him. “You know, when you turn eighteen, you can decide for yourself if you want to keep traveling with us, or settle down somewhere.”

Joy frowns. “What would Summer do, though?” 

“She would only be a year younger than you are now,” Ilya reminds her. “She would miss you, but she could live out another three years on the circuit, and then she could also decide.”

“It’s really our choice?” says Joy.

“Of course,” says Ilya. “Who else’s would it be?”

Joy shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “What’re you gonna tell everyone, about why I’m staying another day?”

“The truth,” Ilya says. “A part of it, at least. That you made a friend. That you needed a break because you are tired of living in the shadow of twenty-three very famous hockey players.”

“Famously annoying hockey players,” Joy mutters, and Ilya laughs.

“So this is the thanks I get,” he says.

At that, Joy leans forwards and hugs him again. “Thanks,” she says, “really.”

“Alright,” says Ilya, ruffling her hair over her protests. “Get out of here.”

The final night, the residents of Muskegon always hold a feast at the Frauenthal Center, with the Boston Raiders as the guests of honor. This probably is very touching. 

The trouble is, when Shane returns to Celebration Square, carrying a small, lumpy parcel that does not seem bottle- or jar-shaped, he barely has time to stash it in the trailer before they must all leave for dinner, and there is no way to privately check in with him, to learn whether or not Shane was successful in his trading. Shane seems to be avoiding Ilya’s eyes, which could be a good sign if he is trying not to blush in front of everyone, or a bad sign if he is simply disappointed at himself.

Ilya ends up at the opposite side of the room, trapped in conversation with several old men who apparently played hockey in their youth, and are eager to relive their past games, maybe second by second. Ilya nods along with their stories, trying not to too obviously track where Shane is and what Shane’s face is doing.

Mayor Gorka gives a speech and Ilya hears not one word of it. The meal is cornbread and some sort of stew; Ilya barely tastes it. When Gorka calls the old men, Ilya’s captors, over to her, Ilya seizes on the excuse to get up and start making the rounds from table to table.

Shane is sandwiched between Anderson and Oregan, the three of them laughing about something. Shane isn’t guffawing with his head thrown back like Oregan, but his smile and his laugh both seem genuine. The sight is distracting enough that Ilya does not immediately volunteer anything.

When Oregan looks up and sees Ilya, he shushes Anderson and Shane. “Sorry,” says Oregan. “Just some goalie humor.”

“What, Hollander tends goal now?” says Ilya. “When did this happen?”

Anderson shakes his head. “Don’t even worry about it, Captain.”

“Having a good night?” Ilya asks them.

“Decent,” says Oregan.

“I’ve got high hopes for the afterparty,” says Anderson.

“Me too,” says Shane, looking right at Ilya, who masters his own expression only by biting on the inside of his cheek. A warm, expansive feeling unfurls in Ilya’s chest. He has a sudden stupid impulse to show off somehow, do a backflip or lift something heavy where Shane can see.

“Didn’t you say you were gonna pack it in after dinner?” Oregan asks Shane.

“Yeah.” Shane nods. “My high hopes are you’ll have a good enough time you won’t all be whining and hungover on the road tomorrow.”

“Definitely hungover,” Ilya says. “We will see about whining,” and Shane laughs.

“It’s trippy to see you two getting along,” Anderson must feel the need to say.

“Why would I have problems with Hollander?” says Ilya, with a careful lightness. “He’s a Boston Raider now. We won.” He grips Shane’s shoulder and gives it a little shake, friendly.

“And all it took was being the last team in the entire world,” Shane says drily. Anderson and Oregan laugh. 

The dinner lasts roughly a lifetime after that. There are toasts and speeches by each of the old men from earlier, none of their voices carrying far enough across the wide, crowded room. The children, apparently organized by Fatima, sing a song, and Ilya spares a thought on whether or not this is behind Joy’s newfound interest in learning guitar. Then the brass band is back, playing a series of tunes that are probably of great local importance. They are not bad, actually, and Ilya tries to wring some enjoyment out of hearing music again, but every note is another second that Ilya can’t have Shane all to himself in their trailer.

Ilya smiles and claps at each song and makes conversation with whoever is in speaking distance. He compliments the volunteers who made the dinner. He compliments the volunteers who organized the dinner. He grins when townspeople praise his playing, and he grins when the others scowl at him for crushing Boston’s hopes of a surprise win.

All the while, he is aware of Shane—where he is, who he’s talking to, whether or not he seems to be enjoying himself. Shane stays until the dinner is winding down, and then makes his excuses. Ilya forces himself to stay a little longer.

“Another early night?” says Connors, appearing at his side.

“Think so,” says Ilya. He shrugs. “What can I say? There is something to be said for not spending the early morning vomiting into the community garden.”

“If you say so,” Connors says.

“Everything good?” says Marleau. Something in his face suggests to Ilya that he has clocked Shane’s absence.

“Everything’s great,” Ilya tells them, clapping Marleau on the back. “Do another shot in my honor.”

When Ilya arrives at Celebration Square, Shane is crouched by the fire pit, carefully tending to a fledgling campfire.

“Do you know where Oregan keeps the wash water pot?” Shane asks. “He’s definitely out for the night and I didn’t wanna have to go out and do this after.”

“Here,” says Ilya, digging out the pot and filling it with snow. “Of course you know how to start a fire from scratch.”

Shane peers up at him. “Suitably boring?”

“The correct amount,” says Ilya. He sets up the pot onto its tripod.

Shane keeps feeding sticks into the blaze. Ilya watches him, watches the warm light flickering across his face.

“Can’t everyone do this?” says Shane after a few minutes.

“No,” says Ilya. Then, “I can’t. If I had been alone out there, I would have been dead the first cold snap of the season.”

Shane shivers, almost imperceptible in the dark. “Then I’m glad you had your team.”

“Our team, now,” says Ilya, crouching next to him.

“Our team,” Shane agrees. “Hey, thank you.”

“For what?” Ilya says.

Shane flashes him a look, disbelieving. “For everything? For the skates, and the team, and the chance to—”

“What else could I do?” Ilya interjects. “Let Shane Hollander slip through our fingers?”

“Once I’m cleared to play again, I don’t even know if I’ll still be Shane Hollander,” says Shane quietly.

“Of course you will be,” says Ilya, with a little too much conviction. “I mean, I will beat you but it will be close.”

“Asshole.” Shane knocks their shoulders together.

Ilya thinks about wrapping an arm around Shane’s back, pulling him in. He pictures himself doing it, outside under the stars. But Varkov, Ward, and Myers are approaching, drawn in the way humans can be by a fire at night.

Varkov and Shane apparently have differing fire lighting strategies. Ilya listens to them compare notes for a few minutes, then he stands and stretches, yawning.

“Sorry,” Ilya says, “that was so boring, I think I blacked out for a second.”

“Fuck off,” says Varkov. “Go practice riding a horse.”

Ilya retrieves his and Shane’s wash bowl. “Go practice shutting the fuck up,” Ilya tells Varkov.

“You’re going to bed now?” says Ward. “You really are getting older.”

“And yet my ancient ass still managed to beat you all,” Ilya points out, filling the bowl.

There is an answering chorus of “fuck you”s.

“I might call it a night, too,” says Shane, levering himself back to standing.

Varkov glances between Ilya and Shane. “Oh,” he says, “I know what this is.”

Ilya doesn’t look at Shane. He doesn’t shift the expression on his face. “Oh?”

“Hollander’s afraid you’ll use all of the hot water,” says Varkov.

“Yeah,” says Shane, laughing a bit too loudly, but nobody else seems to notice. “He’s really, uh, greedy. About the water.”

“Keep talking like that and I’ll use all of it,” Ilya says.

“Race you to the trailer?” asks Shane.

“While I am weighed down with a huge bowl of nearly boiling water?” Ilya says. “You’re on.”

Shane wins. The minor annoyance of this is soothed by the brightness of Shane’s smile as the trailer door snicks firmly shut behind him.

Chapter 11

Chapter Notes

Quick content warning: this chapter contains a scene with some CNC. Shane and Ilya are both very clearly into it, but the scenario they're playacting would be dubious consent at best.

“So,” says Ilya.

“So,” says Shane.

Ilya’s gaze falls to the awkward little bundle sitting in the middle of the bed. He sets the wash bowl in the bathroom and crosses back to the parcel, wrapped with pulpy home-made brown paper. Inside is a jar of what’s definitely oil, as well as several squat little candles.

Ilya turns one of the candles over in his hand.

“They’re candles,” Shane says.

“I can see that,” Ilya tells him. “Why—”

Shane rubs at the back of his neck. “Buying oil by itself felt a little…”

“Gay?” Ilya guesses.

“Uh,” says Shane. “Yeah.”

Ilya grins. “Most people would see a big strong hockey player buying oil and go, oh, he wants to fry something,” he points out. “But oil with candles, that’s different. That’s making a night of it.”

“They were selling both,” says Shane, reddening adorably. “Do you really think anyone thought—?”

“What, that you were on an errand to get fucked?” says Ilya. Shane is starting to tense up; Ilya takes pity on him. He steps behind Shane, wraps his arms around him, nips at the side of his neck. “Probably they thought you wanted to give some girl a massage. If you act confident, most people won’t give it a second look.”

“Huh,” says Shane, as if he has never thought of this before.

“Next time, I will trade for the oil,” Ilya says, reaching under the hem of Shane’s shirt for no other reason than to get his hands on more skin, “and you can watch and see how it’s done.”

“Like you’ve ever done it before, asshole,” Shane says, pressing himself more firmly against Ilya, who rolls his hips against Shane’s ass. This close, he can feel Shane fight to keep his breathing steady. “They said the oil should be good for three months,” Shane adds.

“If it lasts that long,” says Ilya, considering. He traces a hand up and down Shane’s belly, light.

“You think we’ll do this that often?” Shane gets out.

“Maybe,” Ilya murmurs. “Ask me nicely and we’ll see.”

“Please, please fuck me,” says Shane, voice almost breaking. “Please. I’ve been waiting.”

“All through those speeches tonight,” says Ilya, licking at the shell of Shane’s ear. “Were you hard under the table, thinking about it?”

Shane nods.

“Hours and hours of those old men talking,” Ilya says, mock-sympathetic. “Did you—”

Shane shudders in Ilya’s arms. “Not hours,” he says. “It’s been days.”

“How long?” says Ilya.

“At least since you showed up on the trail when I was bleeding,” says Shane.

“That wasn’t really me,” Ilya feels compelled to point out.

“I knew that,” Shane says. “Most of me knew that. I mean, how could you still be alive?” He shakes his head. “My body wouldn’t get on the same page. I kept begging you for one last time. Or, I’m pretty sure I did. I couldn’t always track the difference between thinking and saying it out loud.”

Ilya’s grip on Shane tightens. If Marleau hadn’t noticed the traps by the road, if Shane hadn’t fired that warning shot, if the Boston Raiders had taken another path that day—Shane’s presence in the trailer at all hangs by such a delicate thread, gossamer-thin.

For a long moment, neither of them say anything.

“Shane Hollander needs food, water, shelter, hockey, and a good hard fuck,” Ilya recites.

“Yeah,” says Shane, quiet.

Ilya kisses him low on his neck. “Take off your clothes,” he says. He lets Shane go, gives into the temptation to stay long enough to watch Shane step out of his boots, undress, and fold his clothes into a tidy stack. Then Ilya kicks off his boots and heads for the shower.

Shane’s hand on his wrist stops him.

“You don’t have to,” says Shane.

“I haven’t washed since before the game,” says Ilya. “Probably I smell right now.”

“You do,” Shane says easily, and then the amusement drops out of his voice. “But, uh.” Ilya studies his face. Shane’s eyes dart to the floor. “You don’t have to,” Shane says again. “You won.”

There is a pause as Ilya attempts to connect these two ideas in his head. “I smell like victory,” says Ilya.

Shane laughs—a quick exhalation, an unexpected treat—and looks back at Ilya.

“I smell like victory, and you hope some of it rubs off on Boston,” Ilya presses.

“No,” says Shane, still smiling. “Fuck you.”

“Then what?” says Ilya.

“God,” Shane says. “Just, when you won, in that moment, you looked so—”

“So…?” says Ilya.

Shane shakes his head. “I don’t know. I wanted to, then.”

“Right there on the ice?” says Ilya softly, reeling Shane back in. “Where everyone could see how well you take it?”

“That’s not what I,” Shane starts, but he’s swaying towards Ilya as if hypnotized. Ilya kisses him on the mouth, lingering, runs his hands down Shane’s bare back.

“They would all be able to see how bad you need my cock,” says Ilya between kisses.

“What about you?” says Shane unsteadily.

“What about me?” Ilya fires back. “I won the game. I’d have to claim my prize.” Ilya kisses him again, a hard, biting kiss that Shane melts into completely. “I’d say, ‘Bring me Shane Hollander,’” Ilya says against Shane’s mouth.

Shane makes a desperate, hungry sound in the back of his throat. They’re standing close enough that Ilya can feel the reverberations.

“And they would,” Ilya adds. “The people love me.”

“Half the people love you,” says Shane. His eyes are dark. His breath is coming fast. “The other half were rooting for Marleau.”

“Half is enough,” says Ilya. “They would bring you to me, and they would fucking cheer as I stripped off your clothes.”

It’s absurd and they both know it. Beyond the clear and simple impossibility of it all—even in the realm of overheated fantasy, Ilya can’t think of any way they could fuck on the ice without, at best, risking some broken bones.

Shane is silent for long enough that Ilya pulls back to look at him. At the hectic flush on his cheeks, and his no doubt painfully hard cock.

“And then?” Shane says, swallowing.

“Get on your hands and knees,” says Ilya. “Find out.”

Shane drops to all fours. Ilya strokes his hand up and down Shane’s spine, less like petting a dog and more like tracing his fingertips along the surface of a very expensive sports car.

“Are you gonna fuck me,” mutters Shane, “or just touch my back all night?”

Ilya fits his still-clothed body over Shane’s, grinning. “I guess this solves the question of whether or not you’ll struggle,” he murmurs into Shane’s ear. “Out there in the rink, in front of all those people.”

Shane shudders. “I mean, I couldn’t,” he says. “You won the game.”

“I did,” Ilya agrees.

“So it’s your right,” says Shane.

Talking like this, spinning a fantasy together—it’s giddy new territory, like discovering they are both fluent in some other language.

Ilya crowds in and licks a stripe along Shane’s neck. “They told me I could have anything,” he invents. “But you are, what? Scared? Angry? Gagging for it so bad you barely know you have an audience?” He bites gently.

Shane’s breath catches. “I know they can see us,” he says unsteadily. “And I think—I want it, a lot, but I’ve never done it before, not...”

“With hundreds of people watching,” Ilya fills in. 

“With—with a man,” says Shane.

Ilya beams at the back of Shane’s head, kisses Shane’s shoulder. “This is your first time being fucked?” he says. He stands, retrieves the jar of oil from the bed.

Shane nods.

Ilya wonders if this is Shane’s way of asking him to be careful. Certainly he doesn’t mind.

“Then I will have to go slowly,” says Ilya, peeling off his clothes. He thinks Shane might relax at that, ever so slightly. “That is better anyway. With so many people in the stands, we should give them a show.” Ilya grabs the jar, pours a generous amount of oil into his palm, screws the lid shut again, and sets it aside. “Don’t worry,” Ilya tells him. “Nobody will be judging you. They know the rules.” He lets his voice drop. “None of them need to know how many nights you’ve touched yourself, thinking of this.”

“I haven’t,” says Shane.

Like this, it is easy to loom over Shane a little. “You haven’t let yourself,” says Ilya.

Shane’s head drops. “I haven’t let myself,” he says.

Ilya folds to his knees and drapes himself over Shane’s back, closing his eyes to better enjoy the warm press of skin on skin as Shane bucks back against him. He rubs a slick finger around the rim of Shane’s hole and presses in, up to the first knuckle.

Shane hisses. “God,” he says, “fuck, please.”

“Such a natural,” says Ilya into his ear. “You’re gonna give it up so good, I can tell.”

“Fuck,” says Shane, “please fuck me.”

Ilya pushes his finger in deeper, huffing a half a laugh as Shane arches his back. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

“Never,” Shane pants. “I’ve been waiting for so—” He breaks off as Ilya finds the spot he’d been searching for. Shane moans in the back of his throat.

“Careful,” says Ilya softly. “Everyone will be able to tell that you want this.”

“Don’t care,” Shane mumbles, biting back what might be a whine when Ilya pulls out his finger.

Ilya kisses the skin he can reach—one of the divots in Shane’s lower back—as he drips some oil directly into Shane’s hole and presses in two fingers this time.

“Oh,” says Shane.

Ilya keeps talking, partly to distract himself from coming before they even start. “You don’t care?” Ilya says, his voice low. “You don’t care if they all see how much you need me to fuck you?”

“Just—oh,” says Shane. “Just do it, please, fuck me.”

Something about the way Shane’s voice cracks on please makes Ilya want to go slow, to be tender enough to get himself into trouble, but also to eat Shane alive, to glut him with pleasure until Shane is helpless to do anything but take it.

Ilya goes as slowly as Shane will let him. He stops twice to add more oil.

“Please,” Shane is chanting. “Fuck me, fuck me—”

“Poor kotik,” Ilya says, a little fond and a little mocking, “you are drunk on how badly you want my cock.”

When he reaches around with his free hand, Shane is gratifyingly hard in Ilya’s fist. “No,” says Shane, shaking, “wanna come with you in me, please, I’ll do anything.”

You need to stop promising me that, Ilya thinks, letting go in favor of grabbing at Shane’s pec, rubbing at the nipple. Shane gasps, and pushes back against Ilya’s fingers.

“Okay,” Ilya tells him, “I am going to collect my winnings now.”

“Yeah,” says Shane, “please—”

Ilya frees his hand, grabs Shane by the waist, and slowly presses in.

Neither of them can say anything for a long moment.

Memory did not prepare Ilya for this, maybe because they’ve never done this without a condom and maybe because the mind at rest cannot conjure this much sensation at once. Inside, Shane is very hot, slick from the oil, and vise-tight.

“Holy fuck,” says Shane, almost reverent, more breath than words.

Ilya lets himself thrust in and out a few times before he trusts himself to speak. “And the crowd goes wild,” he manages to rasp out, grinning as Shane’s laugh unspools into another gasp. “Like that?”

“Yeah,” says Shane. “God, don’t stop.”

Ilya wants to do this all night. He tries to forestall the inevitable, to think unsexy thoughts, but everything keeps coming back to the hot clutch of Shane’s body around Ilya’s cock, the sweet little sounds Shane is making, the slap of skin against skin as Ilya fucks him harder, harder.

“Oh,” Shane breathes, arching his back to meet every thrust, “god, yes—”

Ilya can feel his self-control starting to unravel. Sweat is dripping off his face but he can’t wipe his eyes, can’t move his hands from where they’re white-knuckled at Shane’s waist. He watches, mesmerized at the muscles of Shane’s flexing back, at his own cock moving in and out of the greedy clench of Shane’s hole. Shane keeps moving against him, so clearly wanting this with every inch of his body, and Ilya loses track of himself, of the game they’d been playing, of what words exactly Ilya is panting as he thrusts into Shane again and again.

Shane comes, with a beautiful bitten-off moan. He murmurs something that sounds like “don’t stop” and so Ilya doesn’t, keeps fucking Shane even as Ilya loses the rhythm entirely, is only half-aware of his own voice panting out, “Ya tebya lyublyu” as he follows Shane into orgasm.

When Ilya’s vision returns, he is lying on top of Shane on the floor of the trailer, his softening cock still buried in Shane’s ass. He tries to pull out. Shane hooks an ankle around his leg.

“Stay,” says Shane. His voice sounds a little rusty.

Ilya obeys, mind racing. He is reasonably sure he had the sense to say the most incriminating part only in Russian. After all, Shane is not freaking out. Shane is lying there, languid and post-coital, sweat beading on the nape of his neck.

“For how long?” Ilya says. “We are going to get gross, Hollander.”

“Mm,” says Shane.

There is no reason to overreact. There is no reason to panic. From Shane’s point of view, nothing has changed. He sounds blessedly near sleep anyway. All Ilya needs to do is make sure they remember to wipe the floor and wash all evidence of sex off their bodies, make it back to the bed, get some rest—

“What does it mean?” Shane asks, quiet but too distinct to ignore.

Shit.

“What?”

“What you said,” Shane presses.

“Gross means sticky and sweaty and covered in cum,” Ilya stalls, and Shane knocks his foot against Ilya’s, not quite a kick.

“Before,” says Shane. “You were speaking Russian, I think?”

Ilya closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “I called you kotik,” he says. “That means kitten.”

“Oh, fuck all the way off,” says Shane, but he’s stroking his toes along Ilya’s ankle. “And the other one?”

“Also means kitten,” Ilya tries.

“No, it doesn’t,” Shane says, with maddening certainty.

“And what, you are fluent now?” Ilya reaches for bluster like a threadbare coat, like his heart is not jackhammering in his chest.

“It’s too long of a word to be an animal,” says Shane. 

“Three words,” says Ilya, before he thinks to stop himself.

Beneath him, Shane goes very still.

Fuck.

“It’s been a long day,” says Ilya at last. “You are tired, I am tired, we should drop it.”

“Do you want to drop it?” says Shane.

Ilya stares at the back of Shane’s head. “Is that even a question?” And then, dangerously, “Don’t you?”

Shane shakes his head. “Ilya. What did you say to me?”

Ilya swallows, blinks hard. “Do you really want to have this conversation while I am still balls-deep inside you,” he makes himself say, but it comes out horribly unsteady.

Shane is moving before Ilya can register it, slipping out from under Ilya with a wince. They wind up sitting on the floor. Ilya’s knee is beginning to protest but when he starts to fight his way to his feet, Shane says,

“Wait.”

“Waiting,” Ilya snaps. “Fine, I am waiting, what am I waiting for?” He stares up at the walls. They are unadorned, except for a few scraps of yellowing tape, leftover from whoever owned this trailer before it fell into the clutches of the alleged prophet; Ilya has never bothered to scrape it off. Altogether, the effect is shabby, sad, neglected.

“Uh,” says Shane. He sounds so unsure of himself that Ilya almost looks back at him. “Are we dating?”

“Are we,” Ilya repeats blankly.

Shane volunteers nothing else.

“No,” says Ilya, “we’re not dating. Look around, it’s the end of the fucking world.”

“But if it wasn’t,” Shane continues, resolute.

“What is the point?” says Ilya. “It is.”

“I’m not even sure that’s true,” says Shane. “Two weeks ago, yeah, I would’ve called this the apocalypse, no question. But there are settlements full of people, and fresh bread and toothpaste and hockey games. Anderson was saying a traveling theater troupe follows the same circuit we do in the Summer, putting on plays.” Ilya risks a look at Shane and regrets it immediately. Shane’s eyes are shining. “I think.” Shane says, “this might be an end, but it’s not the end. I don’t know if the end is ever coming.”

“We live with a hockey team,” Ilya tells him. “And there is not another way, if you ever want to play again.”

Shane clears his throat. “Dubek said some of the players hook up sometimes.”

Ilya shoots him what must be a look of pure disbelief. “I promise you,” says Ilya, “they are not dating.”

“No,” says Shane, “but even if someone ever happened to catch us doing something, their first thought wouldn’t be that we’re...”

“Finish the sentence, I fucking dare you,” Ilya says, but for once, Shane doesn’t take the dare.

“I want to keep doing this for the rest of my life,” says Shane instead.

Ilya’s breath catches in his throat. He knows he should say something, but just forming words is an impossibility.

“And I can’t pretend that it doesn’t mean anything to me,” Shane is saying. “Because it does.”

Ilya shakes his head, reflexive.

“And I think it might, to you, too,” Shane continues haltingly.

“You don’t,” Ilya manages to say at last.

Shane is silent for a moment. “I don’t what?” he says.

“Any of it.” Ilya hates the waver in his voice. “You left, in Boston.”

“I left,” says Shane. “I realized what I wanted, and how much I wanted it, and then you, uh, kept talking about girls, so.”

Ilya had forgotten about that. It had been part of a plan that at the time had seemed very clever. Some way to extract what he’d wanted from Shane without making any admissions of his own.

“The other day,” Shane says, “when we were talking about things we missed. Texting. I missed texting with you the most.”

“Of course,” Ilya makes himself say. “I was amazing at it.”

Shane laughs, and shakes his head. “I’m not sure that’s true.”

“No, no,” says Ilya, “I was incredible, I remember that much.”

“Hey,” says Shane. He reaches over and takes Ilya’s hand, like it’s nothing. “Is it so crazy that I would enjoy spending time with you?”

They’re back to this again. Ilya swallows, looks away.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ilya says, “what I—we can’t. Anything, we can’t.”

Shane’s thumb strokes over the back of Ilya’s palm. “In some ways, maybe we already are,” he says, and it sounds so good, so simple—

“You aren’t thinking,” Ilya tells him. “What it would—how it would actually be.”

“What if I told you that I’ve thought about how it would be a lot,” says Shane quietly.

“You would live a lie?” Ilya grits out. “You hate lying—”

“When did I ever say that?” Shane demands.

“You don’t have to,” says Ilya, “you’re terrible at it.”

“I’m not that bad,” says Shane.

Ilya silently looks over at the bed, at the parcel of abandoned candles.

“You could teach me how to lie better,” Shane says. “I wish we had more choices, but we don’t. We can’t give up on playing, and I don’t know if I even can stop, with you—”

“You need it that bad?” says Ilya, aiming for snark and audibly missing.

“From you, yeah.” Shane says it with almost casual conviction.

Ilya half-laughs. He scrubs a hand down his face.

“I’m not joking,” says Shane.

“I know,” says Ilya.

“Nobody on the team is gonna see us together and assume,” Shane says. “They’ll think, oh they’re friends now. Friends who get off together, maybe. None of them will think…”

“Think what?” says Ilya thickly.

“What did you say to me in Russian?” Shane asks.

Ilya forces himself to look Shane in the eye. Ilya is blinking so much his vision is strobing, but nothing can be done about that.

“Oh,” Shane says, quietly. Then he lunges at Ilya, kissing him hard on the mouth. Ilya kisses back, confused but still unwilling to turn down a kiss from Shane. When they finally break apart for air, Shane is smiling, a shy little smile.

“What?” says Ilya.

“I love you,” says Shane.

“Fuck.” Ilya tips their foreheads together, tries to soak it in. “Say it again?”

Shane stares back at him, smile widening. “I love you, Ilya.”

Ilya nods. “You guessed right,” he says. “What it means.”

“I wasn’t guessing,” Shane says.

“Fuck,” Ilya says again. “Fuck. I love you, too,” and then they’re kissing again.

“We should get cleaned up,” says Shane between kisses.

“We should,” Ilya agrees, claiming his mouth once more.

Some time later, Shane says, “We should get cleaned up, and then we should go to bed, and then maybe you can trick me into holding each other?”

Ilya pulls back a few inches. He can feel himself starting to grin. “Maybe I can,” he says.

Year 8

Later, Ilya will remember much of this time as a series of images, as if with the demise of cameras, he is keeping a cascade of photos stashed away in his mind. They tend to share a common theme.

Shane walking the trail alongside the horses, with a heavy jug of water in each hand for strength training.

Shane in Traverse City, offering Ilya a handful of dried cherries given to him by a Metro fan.

Shane learning how to say Ya tebya lyublyu.

Shane doing squats by firelight in what was once the parking lot of an Arby’s.

Shane’s reluctant grin when Ilya manages to trade their candles for another jar of oil.

Shane laughing with Anderson and Oregan around the campfire.

Shane doing push-ups inside the trailer, his now-unpacked backpack tucked under the bed.

Shane’s proud smile when Summer brings in her first buck, unassisted.

Shane helping Oregan grill deer steaks.

Shane doing chin-ups on a tree branch somewhere in Pennsylvania.

Shane arguing with Dr. Wade about training too hard, something about “diminishing returns,” but ultimately obeying her orders to rest.

Shane attempting to sing along when Joy plays pop songs on her guitar, somehow getting every single lyric wrong.

Shane beating St-Simon in an arm wrestling contest just outside Toronto.

Shane’s voice heard faintly from outside the trailer, talking with Marleau and then coaxing Ilya out into the fresh air of early spring.

Shane pulling on all of his gear to play on a synthetic rink somewhere in Ohio, his first game since the collapse.

Shane haltingly telling Ilya about living with the survivalists, the slowly unwinding horror of it.

Shane wrapping his arms tightly around Ilya for the duration of Ilya’s story about stopping the boy with the rifle in New York.

Shane’s laughter when he and Ilya realize that the sleeping bag layer of their bed is not just waterproof but oil-proof, which is to say, they could have been fucking on a mattress the entire time.

Shane’s astonished face as Ilya slowly presses his cock into him that night.

Shane doing yoga in the trailer, moving into downward dog.

Shane glowing with triumph the first time he captains Boston into a win against the Raiders.

Shane in Ilya’s bed every night, tangling their bodies together, earnestly listening, arguing and chirping, making Ilya laugh.

Shane insisting that the world is not yet over, and proving it by slow degrees.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you for making it all the way through! If you wanna come hang out, my Heated Rivalry sideblog is emotional-support-pasta.tumblr.com and also I made a playlist for this fic, which is here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6gp3rtcxUSML4QDz7btOxW?si=5lozOLXnSc2gmLigzLso-A

Thanks again for reading!