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, Carter Vaughn, Troy Barrett, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s)

Additional Tags:

Wilderness Survival, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Near Death Experiences, POV Multiple, Field Medicine, the plane crashes, not the one you expect though, Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, Graphic Description of Injuries, NPC Deaths, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s01e02 Olympians (Heated Rivalry), BAMF Shane Hollander

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-14 Updated: 2026-10-17 Words: 185,890 Chapters: 12/14

Carrion Comfort

Summary

Flight 771 shouldn't have been any different than any of the hundreds of other flights that Shane has taken over the course of his career, aside from the fact that it was taking him towards his lifelong dream—towards the Olympics.

It shouldn't have been any different.

BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.

BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.

BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.

It is.

Chapter 1: Takeoff

Chapter Summary

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man

Chapter Notes

Title from Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Translation Note
This fic includes various scenes where a character is speaking Russian, where the POV character does not speak Russian. I decided not to include translations of that dialogue in either the body of the fic or the end notes because I wanted to really sit within that limitation. That said, the Russian can be run through Google translate if you're really curious :)

A huge thank you to dogpound for their corrections to the Russian (ch 1-7) and straight up translation work (ch 8 on)!

It’s a cold comfort, but it is a comfort—Rozanov looks just as surprised to see him as Shane feels. 

Shane barely manages to stop himself from stumbling over his feet when he spots him—sprawled out across five full seats of the waiting area, as if there aren’t dozens of other passengers waiting alongside them. Shameless in the room he takes up; in denying access to it to all others. 

Someone knocks over their suitcase, snapping Shane out of his surprise and making him realize that he’s just standing there, openly staring at Rozanov. 

Shane jerks his eyes away from him, determinately looking anywhere except the other man. He casts a quick look at the other passengers but thankfully no one seems to be looking at him. No one seems to have noticed him openly staring at another player—at his fucking rival. 

Not for the first time when it came to Rozanov, Shane is left with the distinct feeling of having gotten away with something. 

He still can’t quite stop himself from chancing another glance back at Rozanov once enough time has passed that his heart rate has just about fallen back to normal, but Rozanov isn’t even looking at him—his attention back on his phone, held above his face. 

Now unaccountably annoyed, Shane heads for a seat that’s as far from Rozanov as he can get without being worried about missing the boarding call. Tossing his bag onto the floor next to the seat, Shane sits, pulling his phone out as he does. It’s a movement that’s more habit than anything, an unthinking move made in service of sparing him the discomfort of sitting on his phone. 

Still, since he has it out anyways—

Jane: What are you doing here?

Lily: stalking you

Lily: what the fuck do you think I’m doing here

Jane: I meant why are you flying out of Toronto?

Lily: I am not. I flew out of Boston. this is layover. you’ve heard of those, yes?

Jane: Fuck off.

Hitting send, Shane chances another look towards Rozanov. He’s still not looking at Shane, but there’s a brightness in his face as he looks up at his phone. The cross that he never seems to take off is pinched between his lips, curled up in a near-invisible smile as he reads whatever is on his phone screen. Shane’s text, maybe. Probably.

Shane’s stomach does something he really can’t afford to think about. 

In Shane’s hand, his phone buzzes.

Lily: 😢

Shane stares down at the emoji and does not look at Rozanov, even though he’s pretty sure that the other man is now looking at Shane—can practically feel the weight of his eyes against the side of his head. He debates replying—the urge to draw out the conversation a hungry, insistent thing in the centre of his chest—but he has no idea what to say to that. And, more importantly, he shouldn’t be replying. 

He shouldn’t be doing a lot of things, but maybe chief amongst them, he shouldn’t be encouraging Rozanov. 

Shane’s phone screen times out before he can make a decision either way, going black, and he’s left staring at the dim, warped reflection of his own face. He shoves his phone into his hoodie pocket before he can give into the impulse to unlock it and keep staring at Rozanov’s last message. Now more annoyed with himself than anything else, Shane sinks down until he’s practically falling out of the chair, until he’s low enough to thud his head against the back of the seat. 

Fuck. 

This was going to be a fucking long flight. He prayed that he at least wouldn’t be sitting anywhere near Rozanov, though with his luck, they’d be sitting right next to each other, and— god, Canada had better win gold. He could only imagine how fucking insufferable Rozanov would be if Russia beat them. 

He was bad enough after he beat Shane in a regular season game, bad enough after he’d beat him at Juniors. He’d be a fucking nightmare, if he beat Shane in the fucking Olympics. Though the way he got after winning was—

Shane cut that thought off with a shake of his head. He wasn’t thinking about that, the same way he wasn’t thinking about what they’d done the last time Rozanov had been in Montréal. 

Or what they’d done three days ago.

Shane would never, ever admit it—break his legs, threaten to take away hockey forever, whatever, he would still never, ever admit it—but he’d been watching the highlights from that night’s Boston v. Edmonton match-up. 

Rozanov had been playing like a demon that night, putting up five points with two goals, three assists, and clearly feeling pretty fucking good about it too. Cupping his hand around his ear whenever the crowd boo’d him, spreading his arms and tilting his head back after each goal, like he was letting the curses and insults wash over him; anoint him. A god receiving his worship, a devil fuelled by hate. 

It wasn’t until the second goal—Rozanov deking around Zach Warner like the other player didn’t even exist for a fucking filthy one-timer from the dot—that Shane had realized what he was doing. His hand sliding beneath the waistband of his sweatpants entirely without his input or permission. He’d at least been more cupping his cock than anything, so it wasn’t like he’d been actually jerking off to Rozanov scoring. Just, y’know. Resting his hand. There.

The problem was, once he’d noticed it, it was really hard to think about anything else—how heavy his cock felt beneath his palm, the feeling of emptiness deep in his stomach, the steady growth and inexorable hunger of the heat spreading through him. On the screen, Rozanov had been smiling, a rictus of an expression, cruel and delighting in it. Shane had had no idea what he was saying, but whatever it had been, it had had Wheeler looking like he was seriously debating the merits of giving up battling Rozanov for the puck along the boards in favour of putting his stick blade through Rozanov’s eye. 

It was so fucking hot, and god, Shane really didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with him. 

Like always, it had been against his better judgment that he’d picked up his phone. Against his better judgment that he’d opened up his text thread with Lily. Against his better judgment that he’d typed in hey, and then hit send. 

It was definitely against his better judgment—against all measures of common sense, really—that he’d picked up the FaceTime call when it had come through. 

“Hello,” Rozanov had practically purred when the call had connected. “To what do I owe this honour, hmmm? Is very late—past your bedtime, no?”

“Fuck off,” Shane had said. 

“No,” Rozanov had said. “I don’t think that is what you want.”

“You don’t know what I want,” Shane had said. 

“I think I do,” Rozanov had said. “I think you miss me. I think you are dreaming about my cock, yes? Laying awake, thinking about how good I fuck you.” 

“Fuck,” Shane had said without really meaning to, the word coming out embarrassingly breathy. Rozanov’s eyes, already shadowed in the low lighting of whatever hotel room he’d been in, had darkened further. 

“You were,” he’d said, voice confident in a way that had made Shane want to hang up on principle. “What were you thinking about? Tell me.” 

Shane should have hung up. 

He didn’t.

Shane didn’t know what the worst part was—the way he’d moaned Rozanov’s name when he’d cum, helpless to keep the word buried behind his teeth, his eyes fixed on the sight of Rozanov’s fingers wrapped around his own cock, jerking off to the sight of Shane riding his dildo, or how weirdly delighted Rozanov had been to finally get the answer to the question he’d asked Shane years earlier. 

What colour?

If Shane was being totally honest, it was probably the way his stomach went all twisty and strange in response to the way that Rozanov’s face had lit up when Shane had finally, begrudgingly, pulled the dildo out of his bedside table. 

But he refused to acknowledge that, so it couldn’t be the worst part of the whole thing.

It was the fact that Shane had even texted Rozanov in the first place, he’d decided instead, and swore that he’d never do it again. 

Shane isn’t sitting next to Rozanov, which Shane refuses to feel anything but relieved about. He’s not far away—one row in front of Shane’s, in the window seat on the right-side of the plane. Separated only by an aisle and one of the other cushy first class seats that somehow still didn’t feel like they were big enough for one hockey player, much less two sitting side-by-side.

Speaking of which—

“Shit, sorry Hollander,” Carter Vaughn says with a grimace as his leg knocks into Shane’s. Again. 

“It’s okay,” Shane says, waving him off with a distracted gesture. 

Vaughn is doing some sort of complicated quasi-yoga, trying to get something out of his bag, tucked under the seat in front of them. Shane’s more impressed that he’s managed to bend himself the way he has than he is annoyed that this is the tenth time Vaughn has knocked into him since he sat down. 

Shane’s not really paying much attention to what Vaughn is doing anyways—he’s more concerned about whether or not Rozanov is looking at him. 

He thinks he is. It’s quick, subtle. Nothing more than flicks of his eyes, but Shane’s pretty sure he’s caught him glancing back at Shane a few times. Glancing blows, given away in the oil-splash of accidental eye contact that only happens when the person you’re trying not to be caught looking at is looking back at you. 

Maybe. 

It’s hard to tell for sure—the lights are lowered in deference to the late hour, and everything about the way that Rozanov is sitting seems to imply that he’s already asleep too, less than thirty minutes after take-off. Not that Shane’s buying it for a second. Shane’s seen how loose-limbed Rozanov gets when he’s actually relaxed, and Shane can see the tension in his shoulders from here, even with the added obfuscation of the fluffy first class blanket that Rozanov’s got draped over himself. 

Not that Shane cares whether or not Rozanov is looking at him, of course.

He’s just not buying it, is all. 

“So, you excited?” Vaughn asks, finally settling back into his seat, and Shane drags his eyes away from Rozanov. Vaughn is smiling at him, his expression open, friendly. Shane finds himself mirroring it without even thinking about it. 

“To beat you for gold?” Shane asks. “Hell yeah man.” 

Vaughn snorts. “You wish,” he says, bumping his shoulder against Shane’s. “It’s USA this year baby, we’re fucking coming for you.” 

Shane shakes his head, smiling. “You’ll look great in silver Vaughny, don’t even stress.” 

“Oh yeah, good one,” Vaughn says. “Real clever. Very original.” 

“Hey man, just trying to be polite,” Shane says. 

Vaughn snorts, rolling his eyes. “Sure, sure,” he says. “But seriously. These are your first Olympics, right?” 

“Yeah, and yeah, I am excited. I mean— lifelong dream, right?” 

“You know it,” Vaughn says. 

“You played in Vancouver though, right?” Shane asks, and when Vaughn nods in confirmation, adds, “yeah, so you should be used to wearing silver.” 

Vaughn laughs, loud enough that Shane catches Gabriel Paquette shooting an annoyed look at them over his shoulder. Shane smiles apologetically, not sure if it lands or if Paquette even notices—he’s already turned back around, burrowing even deeper into his own blanket. 

Shane chances another look at Rozanov—still pretending to be asleep, fucking faker—before returning his attention to Vaughn. 

“Damn Hollander, didn’t know you had it in you,” Vaughn says. 

You don’t know the half of it, Shane thinks. He doesn’t look at Rozanov. 

Shane wakes with a jolt.

For a second he thinks he’s kicked himself awake—some distant, quickly fading echo of a dream of falling propelling him to wakefulness. And then the whole plane abruptly drops, sending his stomach up into his throat, and Shane realizes that no, it wasn't a dream.

He is falling. 

Next to Shane, Vaughn is pushing himself upright in his seat, looking around and blinking rapidly. Trying, as Shane is, to orient himself after being so violently yanked from sleep. Not that there’s much to see—the lights still set to low, casting everything into shades of grey and black. You don’t need to see to feel it though—around them, the entire cabin is shaking with what has to be the worst turbulence Shane’s ever experienced. 

The plane jolts again, an abrupt, startling drop, and Shane hears someone behind him scream, sharp and bitten-off—a sound that’s more surprise than fear, but one that still sends a surge of adrenaline rushing through his veins. 

If anyone had still been asleep, they certainly weren’t anymore. 

Not that Shane can blame whoever screamed—Shane’s been on so many flights at this point that he’s completely lost count of how many times he’s stepped onto an airplane, and he’s never experienced anything this bad. He can feel the way the plane is shaking in his teeth.

It’s not getting any better either, Shane realizes after a few minutes. The whole plane is shuddering, almost constantly, interspersed with what seems like random, startlingly sharp drops. The kind of motion that sends your stomach up into your throat—the same sort of feeling that other people have always insisted to Shane is the “fun” part of rollercoasters. 

Peering over the top of the seat in front of him, Shane tries to spot one of the flight attendants. He has to stretch to see over the head of the man who’s sitting in front of him, the hulking form of Zayn Roth—who won gold with Shane at Juniors and now is one half of Vancouver’s top-line defence pairing—rising nearly a full head above Shane’s line of sight. It doesn’t help that the flight attendant isn’t where Shane expects her to be; the jump seat empty, buckles hanging loose. 

Still, eventually, he does manage to spot her—pressed close to the bulkhead of the plane, half-obscured by the wall that separates first class from the service area. She looks shorter than Shane remembers, and it takes a second for him to realize that it’s because she has one of her legs braced against the dividing wall, keeping her steady as she holds the plane’s phone to her ear—listening, Shane assumes, to the pilot. 

It’s hard to see much of her expression in the dim light, but her eyes are wide enough to catch what little light there is. And Shane’s had enough panic attacks that he doesn’t need to see her clearly to recognize the look in her eyes. 

The plane drops again, and Shane’s stomach drops with it. 

Vaughn seems to have tracked where Shane is looking, has joined Shane in leaning up over the top of the seats, trying to figure out what’s going on. They watch as the flight attendant nods, seemingly to herself, and then presses a button before lowering the phone away from her ear. For a moment she just stays like that, the phone resting against her chest as she takes the type of careful, intentionally deep breaths that Shane is as familiar with as he is the look in her eyes.

Turning her head, she says something to the other flight attendant, still in her jump seat. Again, the low lighting isn’t quite enough to completely obscure the way that the other attendant visibly blanches. Like the first attendant, she takes several deep, intentional breaths, before stiffly nodding her head. Standing, she reaches for something out of Shane’s line of sight. 

A second passes, and then the cabin is suddenly flooded with light. 

Shane blinks, willing his eyes to adjust. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but something in his gut is telling him that he can’t afford to miss a second of whatever is coming next. 

He wants to look at Rozanov. He wants to make sure that he’s awake. That he’s paying just as much attention as Shane is. 

He forces his eyes to stay where they are. 

The other flight attendant is still doing something out of Shane’s line of sight, so Shane turns his attention back to the woman holding the phone. He watches her take another deep breath. Close her eyes. Silently mouth something to herself. 

When she opens her eyes, Shane can practically see the way that she’s managed to steel herself—a stiffening that Shane recognizes as much as he has anything else she’s done. With a steady deliberateness, she raises the phone back to her ear, looking over her shoulder as she does, pressing something on the keypad. 

A moment later, the plane’s speakers crackle to life. Her voice is cut-through with static but her tone is calm, steady. If Shane hadn’t been looking directly at her—hadn’t watched her gather herself—he’d have no idea that something was wrong. At least, not until he’d processed what she was actually saying.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could please have your attention,” she starts, and all around him the other passengers straighten, joining Shane and Vaughn in craning their heads in her direction. A pause as she takes a deep breath that has all the air draining from Shane’s own lungs; a perfect inverse. She continues: 

“The Captain has requested that we prepare the cabin for the possibility of an emergency landing.”

The reaction is immediate—a surge of noise filling the cabin, wordless exclamations of fear followed by demanding questions. A rush of equal parts fear and annoyance flows through Shane, because they haven’t even given her enough time to explain. Are actively preventing her from telling them anything else, by shouting over each other. Filling the cabin with their useless, crowding words.

Shane shoves down the feelings as quickly as they come, forcing himself to ignore it all—his own fear and the other passengers both. Keeping his attention locked on the flight attendant. 

Her voice doesn’t waver as she continues.

“The crew has been thoroughly trained to handle this type of situation,” she says, her own volume rising in an effort to still be heard over the chaotic overlapping chatter now filling the cabin. “With your attention and cooperation, we can do everything necessary to prepare. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts. Bring your tray table and seat back to the upright and locked position.” 

She keeps talking—giving further instructions without acknowledging any of the questions being shouted at her. The increased volume of her voice the only concession given to the rising tide of noise coming from the passengers; dozens of voices all speaking over each other. The other flight attendant steps out into the aisle, finally revealing what she’d been doing out of Shane’s line of sight—she’d been grabbing the safety demonstration kit. 

Together, the two women go through the same safety steps that they’d gone through before takeoff. Shane watches the attendant holding up an unattached seat belt demonstrate how to fasten the clip, how to pull it tight over your hips. He looks down to check that his own belt is fastened—notices, with a distant, detached sort of observation, that his hands are shaking. He ignores it, tugging to make sure the clip is secure, before raising his head to follow along with the next steps. 

Shane doesn’t mean to. He wants to—needs to—be paying attention to the flight attendants. He has no idea what’s going to happen next, how bad it’s going to be, but he knows that if he’s going to have any chance of surviving this, he needs to listen to what they’re saying. Needs to follow their directions down to the last letter.

He raises his head, but he doesn’t look at the flight attendant. His head instead turning—without his permission or seemingly any input from his conscious mind—to the right. 

Towards Rozanov. 

This time, there’s no guessing at whether or not Rozanov is looking at Shane, no need to try and catch his eye.

Rozanov is looking directly at Shane. 

His head is turned, not even a little bit subtle in the way that he’s craning to see over the seats between them, to catch sight of Shane where he’s hidden behind Vaughn’s broad shoulders. 

Rozanov doesn’t look away when Shane meets his eyes. His face seems paler than usual, his eyes are wide as he stares at Shane. He looks—

He looks—

He looks scared.

Shane doesn’t think he’s ever seen Rozanov look scared. 

Shit, Shane thinks. This is really happening.

The plane is going down.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

The flight attendants are shouting, the phone long-since returned to the receiver, now relying on nothing but their own lungs to punch the words through the thin air. It’s the only thing they’ve said since they strapped themselves back into their jump seats and bent over their own legs—a final, visual demonstration for the passengers to follow along with. 

The same four words, shouted over and over again. Spoken in near perfect synchronicity, with only the slightest slip. They get smoother, steadier, the longer it goes on. Turning into something less like a shouted command and more like a chant. A prayer.

As if, if they just say it enough times, it’ll be enough to save them.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

The bright lights of the cabin flicker, once, twice. Stabilize, then surge, brighter than ever. Go out. 

For a second, there’s nothing but darkness and the sound of screaming, and then everything lights back up, the emergency lighting kicking in, washing the cabin in an eerie, dim red glow. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

No one is asking questions anymore. From around Shane, there’s only screaming. Sobbing. Something in Russian that might be a prayer.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

There’s so much noise that it’s hard to identify what any of it is. What’s coming from the passengers and what’s coming from the plane. There’s something coming from behind Shane that he’s never heard before—something that might be the sound of metal groaning, straining. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

There’s no mistaking the sound that follows as something that could have come from another passenger. It’s impossibly loud, leaving Shane’s ears ringing as the entire plane rocks with the force of the sound that tears through it. 

No, not the sound, it must be the source of the sound, the—

A wave of heat rolls through the cabin and the plane drops, hard and fast. Shane feels himself leave his seat, stopped from rising any further only by the strip of woven nylon that binds him to the seat beneath him. Gravity strains against it with a bruising force, but the belt holds. Shane stays grounded. 

Somewhere behind him, there’s a horrible, meaty thud. Like someone being checked into the boards without any protective gear. Like someone maybe didn’t have their seatbelt done up, or not done up all the way. Like they just hit the ceiling. 

The plane stabilizes. Stops dropping. 

Behind him, another thud. Gravity reasserting itself. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

Someone is shouting—a name. Over and over. Terrified and desperate. 

Unanswered.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

There’s another deafening, brutalizing thunderclap of sound. Shane can’t even tell where the sounds are coming from anymore, his ears still ringing from the last explosion of noise. He doesn’t have time to recover this time either—a second later, the cabin is rocked by something new. A horrible, rending, screaming noise, like nothing Shane’s ever heard before. 

He thinks he might know what it is anyways—instinct, maybe, or just fear. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

The sound of metal, tearing. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

Everything’s shaking, harder than ever, and Shane feels— 

Cold. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

A vicious, freezing, burst of wind whips through the cabin, and that should be impossible, because they’re sealed in here, and—

The cold is bitter and biting, clawing at Shane’s exposed skin, and there’s only one way that could— 

The fuselage, it should be protecting them from—

Except it’s not, so it must have—

It must have—

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

Pressure, bearing down on him. Pressing Shane hard into his seat even as the shaking gets worse and worse, the drops longer and longer.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

Shane doesn’t think he could sit up even if he tried.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

He can’t breathe, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s panicking or if it’s because there’s no air left in the cabin. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

Everything lurches, tilts forward. Shane feels himself slam into the seat in front of him, feels a rush of pain bloom from his face. They jerk to the side, still tilted down, and Shane bites the inside of his cheek, tastes iron as his mouth floods with something hot and thick—blood. His own blood.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

They’re falling. The pressure in Shane’s head is growing, black spots blooming across his vision as he struggles to try and take in even a single, desperate swallow of air. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

Shane thinks about his parents. How grateful he is, that they’re not here.

He thinks about them being told about what’s happened to him. That his plane crashed. That he’s gone. That they’ve lost their only child. 

God, he hopes they get told—that someone calls them. Hopes they aren’t watching it on the news.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

Shane closes his eyes.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

He wishes he had something to hold onto other than his own legs. Wishes that he felt less alone. Wishes he had someone to hold onto instead. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

It’d be nice, Shane thinks, to be holding someone’s hand when he dies.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

He wishes he was sitting next to Ilya. 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

He wishes he could hold his hand.

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

“BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.” 

“BEND OVER, STA—”

Chapter End Notes

This fic is both dedicated to and owes endless thanks to britt (ao3/twt) for the initial idea, for giving me such a compellingly baleful look while telling me that she didn't have the time to write it herself, for the encouragement, and, of course, for the beta.

as always, you can find me sporadically on twitter and even more sporadically on tumblr

citations
AGQRC Announcement Guide & Quick Reference Checklist — Northwest Airlines History Centre
Flight 571: Survival in the Andes with Blair Braverman — You're Wrong About Podcast (not a true citation but I did re-listen to it for this, so it deserves a shout-out)

ETA: totally didn't realize that shouting out that podcast episode might have Implications, so just want to come back and clarify that it is NOT an oblique warning—this fic is certified 100% free of any cannibalism of any variety

Chapter 2: Triage

Chapter Notes

cw: depictions of dead bodies, graphic descriptions of injuries

Something’s burning.

Shane opens his eyes. 

For a second, Shane doesn’t understand what he’s looking at, and then he realizes—it’s his legs. 

He’s folded in half, looking down at his knees.

Despite how close his face is to them, his legs look… distant, wavering. Like he’s seeing himself from far away. Like they’re not even a part of him. 

Like he’s not attached to his body at all. 

Why is he bent in half?

Shane blinks, tries to think, but it’s—

He feels—

He blinks again, and struggles to convince his eyelids to raise back up once they’ve been given license to slide back shut.

They feel impossibly heavy—too heavy to keep open. Especially since Shane’s not sure why he’s even trying to keep them open. He can feel unconsciousness beckoning at him, and he knows that it would be so easy to sink back into that comforting oblivion. 

Far easier than keeping his eyes open, when he doesn’t even know why he should be bothering to try and cling to awareness. 

The darkness blooming at the edges of his vision is welcoming, friendly. All he has to do is let his eyes slide back shut, and everything will disappear. 

Shane lets his eyes slip shut. Lets the darkness swallow him. Lets it—

Something’s burning.

Shane blinks, once, and then again, faster. 

Each rise and fall of his eyelids feels like a fight; like he’s physically beating back the encroaching darkness. It’s so much more effort than it should be, but there’s something, some thought at the back of his mind. It’s exact shape is just out of reach, but he can tell that whatever it is, it’s important: 

He needs to stay awake.

Shane jerks, eyes flying open. He hadn’t even noticed them shut, had been trying so hard not to let them, except—

Nothing’s changed. 

He’s still bent in half. Still looking down at his own legs. Everything is still blurry, wavering. He still feels—

Shane stops. Blinks. Blinks again. Frowns.

It’s not him, he realizes. His vision is fine, it’s—

It’s—

Smoke.

Something’s burning.

The air in front of him is filled with smoke, and Shane doesn’t know why, or where it’s coming from. It’s thick and grey. Twisting around itself in lazy eddies. Winding around his legs, sliding across his lap. 

Turning everything hazy. 

Shane doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know what happened.

There’s a few drops of something red spilled across his knee.

Shane tries to take in a deep breath, tries to centre himself in his own body, but as soon as his lungs expand, he knows he’s made a mistake—

Smoke hits the back of his throat, acrid and burning. His throat seizes, his lungs spasm, and Shane knows that he has maybe a second to brace himself before he’ll start to cough. It’s a feeling Shane is familiar with, at least. The dry, rasping cough that comes from inhaling too much smoke something that he’d had to fight through on more than one camping trip with his dad. Except—

It doesn’t feel like that at all. 

It feels wrong. It feels…

Heavy. 

Wet.

It hurts too, the pain a starburst flash on the side of his ribcage. This, at least, isn’t an unfamiliar feeling. 

Bruised, not broken, Shane thinks. Hopes.

Even though it hurts, he can’t seem to stop coughing. He needs to— to do something. Something that will make it stop. 

He needs to straighten up, he realizes. He’s compressing his own lungs, sitting bent in half like this. Making his body struggle harder than it needs to, for the air it so desperately requires.

Shane needs to sit up. 

He needs to get out of this smoke.

Slowly, carefully, Shane sits up. There’s a second, when he’s about half-way up, where the world abruptly goes blurry and distant, and Shane has enough time to wonder if he’s going to pass out, if he’s going to—

But it’s just a head-rush, and a beat later, the world stabilizes.

Shane wonders how long he’d been sitting in that position. Too long, clearly. The need to move sharpens, blooms into a surge of adrenaline that chases away the last of the darkness. 

His head is killing him and he’s still coughing and he still doesn’t know what happened but he at least doesn’t feel like he’s a second away from passing out.

Shane tries to keep his upward momentum going, hands bracing on the armrests on either side of him as he begins to push himself upw—

A jolt of pain rocks through him and Shane collapses back onto his seat. It takes a second for him to realize that it hadn’t just been pain—something had physically stopped him, the pain coming when he’d run into it. Something wrapped around his hips. 

Frowning, Shane looks down. 

There’s a black nylon band around his waist, a metal clasp in the middle of it—a belt, he realizes. One that is attached to his seat on either side of his hips. It’s done up in front of him—trapping him in place. 

He needs to undo it. He reaches for the metal clasp. 

His hands are shaking so hard that it takes three tries before he’s even able to get a grip on the lever. It’s easy from there, at least, to raise it, and the release of tension sends new pain radiating out from the bruises on his waist and hips. Shane breathes through it, dropping the belt. 

Bruised, not broken, he thinks again. Hopes, again.

The two halves of the belt fall limply to either side of him, metal striking against metal with a clatter that he barely hears.

It’s—

It’s hard to hear anything, actually. 

Shane pauses, trying to listen. It’s made more difficult by the fact that he’s still coughing intermittently, his hearing limited to the small moments of silence that fall between each cough. 

For a second, he can’t figure out what he’s hearing, and then he really wishes he hadn’t tried to figure it out at all.

It’s screaming.

Someone is screaming. 

More than one someone. 

Shane isn’t thinking, head turning to try and find the source of the noise automatically. He doesn’t get that far though—doesn’t get far at all, stopping before he even manages to get a full quarter-turn in. 

Someone’s sitting next to him.

A man, bent over, the same way Shane had been. Limp in a way that belies consciousness, and for a brief second Shane’s breath is stopped for an entirely different reason. It’s a bad decision—his lungs revolting at the stoppage, sending him into an even more vicious coughing fit at the same second that he registers the rise and fall of the other man’s back giving away that he’s still breathing.

Thank Christ, Shane thinks, then remembers—Carter Vaughn. He’d been sitting next to Vaughn. 

Shane opens his mouth to say the other man’s name, but can’t stop coughing for long enough to form words. It doesn’t matter though—either the sound of Shane coughing is enough or Vaughn was already waking up on his own. 

Vaughn moves, just a jerking of his shoulders at first, and then more intentionally. Arms rising from where they’d been hanging limp against the floor.

Shane should probably try and do something to help, but he doesn’t quite manage to figure out what before Vaughn is bracing his hands on the edge of his seat and beginning to push himself up. 

Vaughn’s arms are shaking, but not so badly that they don’t hold his weight. He lets out a groan of pain as he gets himself upright, and he pauses there, head still bent downwards—breathing through pain or dizziness, or both, or worse. 

Whatever it is, it doesn’t last long enough for Shane to start to panic—a couple of seconds later, Vaughn lifts his head the rest of the way up, and Shane finally gets a look at his face.

It’s covered in blood.

“Don’t,” Shane says without thinking when he sees Vaughn raising his hand towards the large gash across his forehead. His voice comes out as a rasp, but somehow Vaughn hears him anyways, his hand stilling, mid-reach as he turns to look at Shane, and—

And Shane thinks he can see bone. He thinks he might throw up. 

A thought—a memory. Something he was told a long time ago. 

Scalp wounds are prone to avulsion.

“Don’t touch it,” Shane says. 

“Okay,” Vaughn says, his voice just as wrecked as Shane’s. He’s blinking in a way that reminds Shane of his own attempts to bring the world back into focus. It doesn’t look like Vaughn’s really managed it yet, his gaze distant, glassy.

There’s so much smoke. It moves, twists. Shane looks around, but still can’t tell where its coming from. But it’s coming from somewhere, and they—

They need to get out of there.

Shane begins to push himself to his feet, now that he’s no longer trapped by his seatbelt. He has to bite down on a moan of pain that wants to tear free of his throat as the movement tugs at injuries he hadn’t yet noticed. It still doesn’t feel like anything is broken though—no sign of that familiar, sharp, nauseating pain. It’s more like every inch of him is bruised. 

Plus whatever’s going on with his lungs. But he can’t think about that right now. 

Shane grits his teeth and forces himself to push through the pain and discomfort. It’s like the playoffs, he tells himself. 

He’s gotta play through the pain. 

“We need to— we need to get out of here,” he says to Vaughn once he’s up.

Vaughn starts to nod, freezing mid-motion with a wince. 

“Yeah,” Vaughn says, then again, “yeah.” He begins to fumble with his seatbelt, and Shane leaves him to figure it out on his own, taking the moment to look around them instead. There’s other people in the seats around them. 

People he’d only seen briefly when they were boarding the—

The—

The airplane.

They’d been on a plane. 

They’d been on a plane, and it had—

BEND OVER, STAY DOWN.

It had crashed.

Ilya, Shane thinks, with a sudden swelling of panic that threatens to stop his breathing entirely. His head-half turns, but he stops himself before his eyes can scan any further than the seat in front of Vaughn. He can’t. He can’t look. Because if he looks—

If he looks, and—

And—

Shane doesn’t think he’ll be able to do anything to help anyone else if he looks, because if he looks, he’ll know, and if he’s—

If Ilya is—

So, Shane can’t look. Because he needs to focus.

Rozanov wasn’t the only other person on this flight. And they need to get out of here. 

All of them. 

Vaughn finally manages to get his seatbelt undone.

“Wait,” Shane says before he can stand. Vaughn stops, blinking up at him. 

“Do you— what’s your name?”

Vaughn frowns, confused. “What’s my na—” he cuts himself off, confusion turning to worry. “Did you hit your head, Hollander?”

Shane huffs. “No— well, maybe, probably, I don’t know… but you definitely did,” he says.

“Oh,” Vaughn says, half-raising his hand again before he seems to remember Shane’s earlier command. “Right.” He clears his throat, lets out something like a laugh—thready and near hysterical. “Uh. Carter. Vaughn.”

“Okay, good,” Shane says. “Do you know where you are?”

Vaughn gives him a look. “Do you?” he counters, and Shane glares back at him. 

It makes his head throb. Shane refuses to let it show on his face. Refuses to let his expression waver. 

Vaughn starts to roll his eyes before seeming to think better of it. Settles on an expression that is somewhere between mulish and exasperated. “I don’t know,” he concedes. “Somewhere in Russia, probably? I’m not sure how long we’d been flying for.”

“Right,” Shane says, taking a deep breath which just makes him start coughing again, his whole chest aching.

He hadn’t even gotten that far yet—that he had no idea where they were. 

No idea if anyone else knew where they were.

“What day is it?” Shane asks once he finally stops coughing.

Vaughn frowns, thinking.

“Wednesday?” Vaughn finally says, in a tone that suggests that it’s mostly a guess. Shane feels a spike of anxiety before he remembers they were on a red-eye, crossing several time zones. It’d been Tuesday when they’d left Toronto though, and Shane didn’t actually know enough to know whether or not it still was Tuesday, or if Vaughn was right.

Shane decides to let it go. “What team do you play for?” he asks instead. 

“The Admirals—well, team USA, this week.” 

Shane nods. Okay. Okay. Good, that was all— that was good.

“Do you—” Shane starts, before his words are cut off by another coughing fit. Vaughn levers himself to his feet with a wince, and some distant part of Shane’s brain acknowledges that as another good sign. 

Vaughn was alert. Oriented to person, place, and time. Breathing normally, at least as far as Shane can tell from where he’s standing. Mobile. 

Green.

Head wounds bleed a lot. It might not be— it probably isn’t as bad as it looks. Shane might be imagining the flashes of white, or mistaking them for something they’re not. 

Shane tries to speak again, and this time manages to get it all out without coughing. “Do you know any first aid?”

“No,” Vaughn says after a moment of hesitation, looking like he desperately wishes that he could say yes. 

Shane nods. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, I can— I’m going to start checking on people, but we need to— we need to figure out a way out. We need— I don’t know where the smoke is coming from. It might be…”

He trails off, losing track of what he was saying, but Vaughn is nodding anyway. 

“I’ll go look,” he says, and Shane nods shallowly in acknowledgement before turning to the woman sitting in the window seat across the aisle from him. He’s relieved to see that she’s already sitting up, wincing as she looks around. She meets his eyes, and Shane’s surprised to realize that he recognizes her. 

Sonia Melendez. Team Canada. Biathlon, if he’s remembering correctly.

“Hey,” Shane says, stepping across the aisle so that he can crouch next to her seat, wincing when it tugs on all of the bruises he can feel steadily forming beneath his skin. “Can you tell me your name?” 

“Sonia Melendez,” Sonia says. She shifts as she speaks, turning towards him. The motion has her wincing again, in a way that has Shane’s focus sharpening. He runs his eyes over her body, but there’s no obvious injuries. Nothing he can see from the outside, anyways. Or through her clothing. 

Like Vaughn, Sonia passes Shane’s level of consciousness check—alert, oriented. Talking to him easily, so her airway is good. She also has no clue where exactly they are, but she does confirm that Shane was right—she competes in the biathlon. She recognizes him, too— pauses, halfway through his questions, squinting at him before somewhat incredulously asking wait, aren’t you fucking Shane Hollander?

Understandable, Shane supposes. He also feels like he isn’t qualified to be doing what he’s doing—is aware of the incredible absurdity of a professional hockey player trying to do triage in a plane crash. 

Unfortunately, he’s also the only one here, so he just smiles tightly in reply, and moves on to—

Wait. Shit.

What’s next?

Shane wracks his brain, trying, desperately, to remember the steps that he hasn’t actually ever had either the opportunity or the misfortune to put into practice in the all years that have passed since he got his Wilderness First Aid. Fuck. He should have taken a refresher course. Should have at least renewed his CPR. He hasn’t— he did the course as a teenager, he couldn’t—

And now they were really here, in the fucking Russian wilderness, and he couldn’t—

He doesn’t know if there is anyone else here who even knew basic first aid, which means that it’s all on him, until proven otherwise. It’s all on him, with who knows how many people’s lives hanging in the balance, and he can’t fucking remember—

Shane forces himself to stop. Takes a deep breath. Ignores how it doesn’t feel like he’s getting as much air as he should be. He can’t think about that right now. Not when there’s people relying on him. Not when his team is relying on him. 

It’s easier, as soon as he has that thought—this isn’t a plane crash, isn’t something out of his worst nightmares. This is just a game, like any other game. And his team is counting on him to pull himself together. To lead them. 

Just like the playoffs.

Shane lets out a slow breath, and feels it settle over him—the calmness that allows him to play hockey at the highest competitive level. 

The composure that he can always coax out, no matter what else is going on, no matter how anxious he is. The steadiness that’s been the bulwark of his captaincy ever since his second season in the league.

Okay. Okay. 

Next steps. 

“Do you think you can stand?” Shane asks. He appreciates that Sonia seems to take a moment to genuinely think it over, rather than immediately agreeing, but eventually she does nod. 

“Great, that’s— that’s really great to hear. Do you need a hand with your belt?” Shane gestures to her lap, where her belt is still resting snug around her hips. 

“Um, yeah,” Sonia says. “I think so. There’s— I think I dislocated my shoulder. Hit the wall on the way down.” 

Shane looks up from where he’d already started reaching for the clip, eyes sharp, and Sonia grimaces at him in response. 

“I’ve dislocated it before,” she explains. “It’s— it feels the same.”

“Okay,” Shane says, deciding to believe her—he can take a real look at it later, once they’re all safely off the plane. He follows through on his aborted movement, undoing Sonia’s seatbelt. Forces down the half-hysterical laughter that threatens to burst out of him at that thought. 

Safe? What was safe? Who even fucking knew what was waiting for them, outside of the plane? 

One thing at a time, he reminds himself, and stands, stepping to the side to give Sonia the space to raise herself out of her seat. She winces again at the moment, but doesn’t waver. 

Green.

“Vaughn—Carter Vaughn—he’s looking for a way out,” Shane says, turning and squinting into the cabin. He can’t tell if the smoke is getting thicker or not, but either way it’s making it hard to see much beyond the few feet of his immediate surroundings. 

“I’ll find him,” Sonia says. “See if I can— I’ll see if he needs help.” 

“Okay,” Shane says, nodding. “If he— if he’s found a way out, I want you to go wait outside, okay? We’ll be— everyone who can walk on their own should get clear of the crash.” 

Sonia’s face is pale with fear and pain, but there’s a steely resolve in her eyes when she nods in reply. Shane has the abrupt, absurd thought that he’s grateful that if he has to be in this situation at all, he’s happy that he’s with a bunch of other professional athletes. With people who are used to doing what they’re told, who have existed for their whole lives as a part of some sort of command structure, whether as a part of a team or just in listening to their coaches. 

With people who are used to working through the pain. 

Sonia moves off towards the front of the plane, and Shane turns his attention to the seat directly behind hers. 

This time, the person sitting there isn’t anyone Shane recognizes. Judging by the grey in his hair and his suit, Shane’s pretty sure he’s not an athlete. Maybe a coach, or someone affiliated with sports in some other way.

Like Sonia, he’s sitting upright. Unlike Sonia, his eyes aren’t open. 

Closing the distance between them, Shane again crouches next to his seat. Fuck. That’s not hurting any less the more times he does it. 

Again, Shane ignores it.

“Sir?” he tries. “Sir? Can you hear me?”

No reaction. Shit. 

“Sir?” he tries again, reaching out at the same time, curling his hand into a fist and positioning it above the man’s sternum. To his immense relief, he doesn’t get the chance to do more than press his knuckles against the front of the man’s suit before he’s groaning. Responsive, and unless he was injured under his suit, responsive to touch, not just pain.

A second later, another relief—the man’s eyes peel open, however reluctantly. His head tilts towards Shane, blinking blearily at him.

“Can you tell me your name?” Shane asks. The man blinks a few more times, then finally replies, in—

Fuck. Russian. 

Okay. Fuck Shane’s ability to evaluate the man’s mental status, then. 

“Do you speak English?” he tries, just in case.

The man replies without hesitation, at least, even though the answer to Shane’s question is evidently no. It’s a good sign, even if Shane has no idea what he’d said. He still wishes he could tell whether or not the man was oriented, but he really doubts that any of the Russian that he’s half-picked up from Rozanov over the years is something this middle-aged man is going to respond well to. 

Rozanov could translate, Shane thinks, and has to lock up every muscle in his body to stop himself from turning around to look for him. 

He can’t. He can’t.

Shane mentally checks off airway and forces himself to move on. 

“I’m going to check your pulse, okay?” Shane says. Just in case the man can understand English. He makes sure to telegraph his movement before he reaches out, picking up the man’s wrist, fingers automatically beginning to search for the man’s radial pulse without Shane needing to look. The man lets him, sitting there passively—he looks pale, sweaty, and Shane can’t tell if he’s calm because of shock or injury or just… fucking Russian stoicism.

Shane can’t seem to find a pulse. He frowns, tries repositioning his fingers as he lets his eyes drift down to the man’s chest. Tracking his breathing through the rise and fall of his chest. It’s too fast, shallow, but it looks like his lungs are moving equally at least, and there was plenty that could explain fast, shallow breathing—the terror of being in a fucking plane crash, for one.

He still can’t find a pulse.

There’s a very real chance that Shane isn’t finding it because he’s just not very good at this, but he has to check. Abandoning the man’s wrist, Shane again makes sure to telegraph his movements as he reaches up, placing his fingers against the side of the man’s throat instead, just under the hinge of his jaw. Nothing. He repositions his fingers, all his focus now on finding any thrum of movement beneath the pads of his fingertips.

There.

Fuck, he almost missed it. It’s regular, but it’s weak. Scarily weak. 

Weak, like the man has lost a lot of blood. Is probably still losing blood. 

Shane’s eyes do a quick scan of the seat, the floor, confirming that he hadn’t somehow missed a giant pool of blood. He hadn’t, which must mean— fuck.

The man was bleeding internally. 

Shit shit shit.

Okay. Next step.

Figure out where the bleeding is.

Dropping his hand away from the man’s throat, Shane begins a rapid body survey, checking the back of the man’s head, scanning for anything on his face that he hadn’t noticed before. There’s a bruise on his cheekbone, but nothing moves when Shane cautiously presses on it, so he moves on. 

Shane checks the man’s throat, his chest, feeling his own heart sink lower and lower with each area that passes his inspection. 

There were only so many options left now, and only so many of those which were capable of causing so large a loss of blood volume. 

None of them were good. None of them were things that Shane could do anything about, not without equipment that he didn’t even know if planes carried. Not that he knew where the plane’s first aid kit was, if there even was one. 

Shane feels his heart drop the rest of the way into his stomach when he reaches the man’s abdomen. 

It’s distended. Rigid.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Carefully, Shane moves his hands to the side, towards the man’s pelvis and feels—

Shane swallows against the sharp, acidic taste of vomit that threatens to rise up his throat as he feels something scrape beneath his hands. It feels like— like nothing he’s ever felt before. Gritty, somehow. 

The man screams. 

Shane flinches, but his hands somehow manage to stay steady, immediately pulling away from the man without knocking against him, without pushing down before raising off.

His heart is pounding in his chest now, a faint buzzing sound echoing in his ears as panic threatens to overwhelm his hard-won calm. Fuck. Fuck.

What the fuck was Shane supposed to do about a broken pelvis?

The panic only lasts a second before a different type of calm washes back over him, distant and detached. 

Nothing. There was nothing Shane could do about a broken pelvis. 

But there might still be other people that he can help. 

Red, Shane catalogues, and pushes himself back to his feet. 

“Just… stay here sir,” Shane says, lamely. Hollowly. “I’ll come back to you once I’ve finished checking on the other passengers.” 

He still has no idea if the man can understand him, but he watches with relief as the man only looks up at Shane for a few seconds before his eyes slide shut. 

Shane turns towards the next seat and tries really, really hard not to hope that the man won’t be alive anymore by the time Shane makes it back to him. 

He fails.

Shane does recognize the man his eyes find next—the man sitting in the seat directly behind the Russian with the fractured pelvis. 

Lachlan Reeves. Team USA. Left-winger, recently traded to Arizona. A man who’s been in the league for maybe two years longer than Shane—who Shane’s played against at least twice a year for the last four years.

Shane doesn’t have to get close to him to know. He walks up to him anyways, just in case.

Reeves’ breathing is a wet wheeze, a strange coming-and-going, rising and falling pattern that Shane’s never heard before. His eyes are open, half-lidded and unmoving.

“Here,” a voice suddenly comes from behind Shane, and Shane can’t help the way he flinches, startled, before turning around. He’s surprised to see that it’s not Vaughn or Sonia standing in the aisle behind him—it’s the flight attendant. The one who’d made the announcement. Who’d talked them through the steps that were likely the only reason any of them were still alive.

Shane blinks, then looks down to the white case that she’s holding. 

The red cross on the front is unmistakable.

“There’s— there’s a medical kit, too,” she says. “For— for doctors? I can get that instead?” 

Shane shakes his head. He has no idea what would be in that, but he doubts he’d know what the fuck to do with any of it. He’ll look at it— he’ll look at it later, or… or fuck, maybe he should look through it now? In case there’s something he needs that isn’t in the first aid kit? Or—

No. Stop.

One thing at a time. 

Shane clears his throat. Tries to, anyway. It feels impossibly tight, like his airway is slowly squeezing shut. It’s not though, not really. He’s pretty sure. 

More likely, it’s from the way that he’s still coughing intermittently. That, or… everything else.

“This is good for now,” he finally says, voice just barely managing to scrape out of the clench of his throat. The woman nods.

“Okay,” she says, flipping the lid open. “What do you need?”

Shane chokes down the insane urge to laugh in reply to that question. 

What do you need?

He needs to not be here. He needs his parents. He needs to figure out how they’re going to survive long enough to be rescued. 

He needs to have thought about that summer camp in Québec as something other than just another thing his mom had signed him up for—relevant to the camping trips he took with his dad, sure, but nothing that he’d ever actually use. Nothing like hockey. Nothing vital.

He needs to have done it more recently than five fucking years ago. 

“Light,” Shane says, instead of any of that. 

The woman nods, beginning to rummage through the box. Shane runs his eyes over her as she does. There’s no obvious injuries, not that he can see, other than a tear in her nylons, beneath which Shane can see a deep redness that promises to soon turn purple. There’s no blood though, and she’s up and moving on her own. Thinking clearly enough to go for the first aid kit. Alert. Oriented. Mobile.

Green.

He blinks, and a penlight is being pressed into his hand.

“Thanks,” he says. “Uh, have you seen—” he stops to cough, the feeling more and more familiar each time it happens, “—there was a guy—”

“Carter,” the woman says, interrupting him. Shane blinks, startled. “He told me to find you,” she explains, “and to give you this.” She raises the first aid kit up a little higher in the air to draw his attention to it, wobbles it back and forth. 

“Right,” Shane says after probably too long of a pause. “Okay, yeah, that’s— that’s great. I, uh— I asked him to find an exit?”

The woman nods. “Yeah,” she says, “we— we got the exit at the front open.”

“Oh,” Shane says, looking over her shoulder towards the front of the plane.

It was still hard to see much, but he thought it was maybe brighter up at the front than it had been the last time he’d looked. Like the smoke was finally thinning as it escaped into the outside air. Circulating in fresh air and— fuck.

It was probably freezing outside. Shane couldn’t feel it yet, which was maybe just the pure adrenaline he was running on, but he’d probably start feeling it sooner rather than later. 

They all would.

One thing at a time, he reminds himself.

“Is it— is it safe, to go outside?” Shane asks. 

The woman nods. “It looks like we’re in a forest,” she says. “I think the plane must have… pushed up the snow, or something. We didn’t even have to use the slide. We can step right out.”

Shane feels some measure of tension drain from him as one of the many sets of worries that he’s been actively not trying to think about—what if they were on the side of a mountain? what if they were perched on the edge of a cliff? what if they were in water?—are wiped clear by her words. 

“Okay, okay, that’s— that’s good. Great. Um. Can you— can you tell Vaughn— or, actually, do you— do you know first aid?”

The woman shakes her head, and Shane is alarmed to see her eyes start to go glassy—like she’s about to start crying.

“I’ve been putting it off,” she admits, voice cracking in the middle. “I kept thinking—”

“Hey,” Shane interrupts, because there’s already way too much happening for him to also manage this interaction with any finesse. Not that he’d probably do any better with it in any other circumstances. “It’s okay.”

She sniffs, nods. “You do, though?” she asks. 

“Wilderness First Aid,” Shane says. “Never thought I’d use it outside of camping but…” he trails off, trying for a smile that he’s sure looks more like a grimace. She still offers him a shaky smile in return. 

“Well, I’m really glad you do,” she says. 

“Me too,” Shane says, and tries to feel it. “Um, I’m going to keep checking on people, but can you go find Va— find Carter, and tell him to start getting everyone out? Anyone who’s alert and can walk on their own.”

The woman takes a deep breath as she nods, and Shane can practically see the way that being given a task has helped ground her. 

“Okay,” she says, glancing back over her shoulder, towards the front of the plane.

“Oh, um, maybe also ask them their name?” Shane adds in a rush, as he abruptly remembers that anyone who might have a head injury really shouldn’t be standing. “And if they know what time it is, where they are?” he continues. “Or, I guess, maybe not exactly that, but something similar, since none of us know—” 

Shane cuts himself off, but he can tell by the look on the woman’s face that she heard the rest of what he’d been about to say anyway. 

None of us know where we are.

And, beneath that, worse:

Maybe no one does.

“Just, questions to try and figure out how aware they are,” Shane continues, trying his best to brush past it, to not let either of them linger on that unspoken truth, though he can tell that he’s already undone whatever lessening of tension that he’d previously achieved. 

“If people seem confused, they probably shouldn’t be standing,” he adds. “Maybe— maybe grab some blankets and coats, if you can? For people to sit on?” 

The woman nods but doesn’t move to leave. “Um, it’s— it’s really cold out?” she asks after a long pause, looking uncertain. “I’m not sure if—”

“It’s not— it’s not forever,” Shane interrupts, and prays that he isn’t lying. “We just— we just need to get out until we can figure out where the smoke is coming from. Until we’re sure that there isn’t… that the plane is safe for us to be in.”

“Right,” she says, nodding again. “Right, that— that makes sense.” 

“Just— just shout, if you can,” Shane says. “Tell anyone who can move to come to you.”

“Okay,” she says, but hesitates, clearly not sure what to do with the first aid kit she’s still holding.

“Leave it there,” Shane says, nodding towards his own vacant seat. 

She follows the direction, but pauses once it’s set down, giving him another uncertain look. 

“Thanks, Shane,” is what she finally seems to settle on, and—

Wait, Shane?

For a brief, panicked second, Shane worries that he maybe has a brain bleed or something, because he has no memory of introducing himself to her. The fear vanishes as quickly as it arrives though as his brain kicks back into gear—Vaughn would have obviously told her Shane’s name, when he asked her to go find him.

“Sorry,” Shane says, “I didn’t get your name?” 

“Erika,” she introduces with a small, wavering smile. 

“Erika,” Shane echos. “Okay. Thanks for your help.” 

“Yeah,” Erika says, her eyes drifting back over Shane’s shoulder, settling on Reeves. Shane doesn’t turn to follow her gaze—he already knows it isn’t good, is already dreading the fact that he’s going to have to return to looking at him soon enough. “You too,” she says, voice distant, before she forces her eyes back to Shane’s face. She gives him a sharp, decisive nod, before turning and walking back up the aisle towards the front of the plane.

Shane takes as deep of a breath as he can manage.

He turns back to Reeves. 

The other man is still breathing, which is a bit of a surprise. Shane tries not to feel any other emotion about it as he tries to judge whether or not it’s gotten worse. It’s hard to tell though—hard to get past how strange it is. 

He’s never heard anything like it—starting from nothing, no sounds of breathing at all, his chest going still for long enough that Shane keeps thinking it’s done. That Reeves is gone. Except then there’s—

There. Barely audible. A whisper of a breath. And then another. And another. Stronger and stronger, rising higher and higher, deeper and deeper, until Reeves is heaving for air, gasping like he’s just come off of a double shift on the ice. Then, it turns, as if his breathing has hit a peak and is running back downhill—going quieter, shallower, calmer, breath by breath, until it’s too quiet to hear. Until it stops entirely.

And then it starts all over again.

Shane is vaguely aware of the sound of Erika beginning to shout coming from behind him. Her voice is admirably steady as she raises it loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the screaming that he’d been working so hard not to hear. There’s less screaming than there had been when they’d first landed, at least. 

He tries to tell himself that it’s only because people are calming down. 

He knows it's not.

Shane clicks on the penlight Erika had handed him from the first aid kit. He flashes it across one of Reeves’ eyes, and then the other. Checking to see how his pupils react to the light.

They don’t.

Black, Shane thinks as dispassionately as he can, and turns away.

There’s more movement in the rest of the cabin now. People standing, moving towards the front of the plane. Helping other people to move. Shane ignores anyone who is standing or starting to stand, grabbing a pair of gloves from the first aid kit and pulling them on before picking up the case, walking further down the rows, deeper into the plane.

The seats directly behind where he and Vaughn had been sitting are already empty, but he has to pause at the row after, stepping to the side to make enough room for a woman to step into the aisle. She’s wincing as she moves, favouring her left side in a way that Shane is very familiar with—though it's been a long time since he last broke any ribs himself, he’s seen plenty of teammates hold themselves the exact same way over the years. Still, she’s moving, and her breathing, at least as far as Shane can hear in passing, sounds fine. 

Green, he thinks, and doesn’t stop her as she heads towards the front of the plane.

Shane checks, but the seat next to the one she’d been sitting in is already empty. It’s the last row in first class, and he swallows as he turns towards the curtains dividing first class and business class. They’re moving, swaying back and forth in the no-longer-stagnant air of the cabin. Catching, maybe, the cold wind that must be blowing in through the exit at the front of the plane, the one that Shane still isn’t really feeling. 

Taking a deep breath, Shane mentally braces himself as much as he can, and pushes through the curtains. 

Shane manages to take a single step forward before he jerks to a stumbling stop. 

For a long moment, all he can manage to do is stand there, blinking in shock as he tries to process the sight that greets him.

Raw, torn metal. Wires and tubing, dangling limply in empty air. Three rows of seats and then… snow. An ugly, churned slash of dark soil carving an erratic path through the otherwise pristine sheets of white coating everything. Broken trees and scattered branches. More beyond them, standing tall and proud outside of the range of the brutal, destructive path that the plane had cut through the landscape.

In the distance, far, far past where Shane can make out any distinguishing details of the landscape: a plume of thick black smoke. 

Shane feels himself begin to shake, and he’s not sure if it’s because of the freezing wind now biting at every bit of exposed skin he has or if it’s the shock of how wrong the whole thing looks. 

Fuck. Fuck.

One thing at a time.

Shane takes a deep breath, then another. 

The first step is a struggle, a jerky movement that he has to force his limbs into, but the second is easier, and it only takes two more to bring him to the first of the remaining three rows of seats.

Three rows. All that’s left of the entire back half of the plane. 

That, and the smoke in the distance.

The first man is dead. The woman next to him will be soon. 

Black.

Shane moves on. 

Dead. Black. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Shane nearly starts crying when he meets the eyes of the woman sitting in the middle of the four seats that make up the middle section of the third row. It feels like a miracle, maybe more than anything else he’s seen so far—that she’s alive, her breathing ragged but present. 

A miracle, when Shane can see the brain of the man sitting next to her through the shattered remains of his skull. When the man on her other side is struggling through wet gasps, his mouth smeared red to match the ruin of his throat. 

Black, he thinks, and focuses on the woman instead.

“Hi, I’m Shane,” he says. “Can you tell me your name?” 

“Maya,” she answers without hesitation. 

She’s able to answer his other questions with equal ease. Her breathing is rough, but steadies when Shane asks her to speak, and her pulse is easy enough to find, though her heart rate is faster than he’d like. He’s beginning to suspect that it might be because of pain, something that’s proven right about halfway through the rapid body survey. 

Shane touches her thigh, and she screams. 

Red, he thinks. 

The sound of someone speaking barely registers over the volume of Shane’s spiralling thoughts as he stares down at Maya’s thigh. Now that he’s looking for it, he can see that her right leg is rotated outwards, and noticeably shorter. 

Her right foot is fully off of the ground. 

Christ. He hasn’t looked through the entire first-aid kit yet, but he really fucking doubts they’ve got a fucking Sager splint in there. Or that he’d remember how to use it, if they did. Maybe they’d have one with the med kit, but he kinda still doubts that. 

It’s not like breaking your femur is a common fucking injury at 36,000 feet. 

The same voice speaks again, and this time Shane actually registers that it’s not Maya who’s talking to him—the voice is coming from further away, and is also unmistakably male.

Shane looks up, past Maya.

There’s a man standing on her other side, awkwardly wedged into the row—forced into a sideways lean by the crowding in of the seat backs of the row in front of them. He seems to be completely at ease in ignoring both the dying man whose legs he’s standing between and the body in the seat just behind him—his eyes instead fixed on Shane and Maya, focused and serious. 

He seems almost calm, in a way that lets Shane shake off what remains of his brief panic. 

Shane has no idea where he came from—he’d been taking it one seat at a time, hadn’t looked ahead at who else was in the cabin, but he would have noticed if someone was standing. Looking around now though, he notices that there’s five seats that are fully empty—maybe this man had been helping other people up and out of the plane? Though if that was the case, he should really have gone with them—judging by the way he’s cradling one of his arms close to himself, he’s not uninjured, though certainly still firmly a green.  

“You should get out of here,” Shane says, pointing towards the front of the plane. “Everyone is evacuating.” 

The man doesn’t move. 

“На что было похоже?” the man says. It might be the apparent language barrier, but… Shane gets the strong feeling that he understands what Shane was trying to tell him to do, and is also choosing to ignore him. “Перелом со смещением? Или оскольчатый?” the man continues, gesturing towards Maya’s leg with his good hand. 

Shane stares at him, no idea what the man is saying and no idea what to say in return.

He’s older than Shane—at least in his mid-thirties, if Shane had to guess. His sandy hair reminds him of Rozanov’s, as does the way that Russian sounds spilling from his mouth, low and rough. 

Shane pushes that thought away as forcefully as he can.

He can’t. He can’t. 

“What?” Shane asks instead.

The man’s face immediately twists in something like frustration. Shane finds himself abruptly wishing that he’d followed through on the urge to start learning Russian that had occurred to him more than once since he’d met Rozanov. 

Shane had always shoved that impulse away though. It had always felt too… embarrassing. Desperate. Like asking for the kind of humiliation he’d never recover from, if Rozanov ever found out about it, because what, Shane was going to actually learn a whole new language? A third language? Just for, what, the sake of understanding what the fuck Rozanov was saying to him when he chirped him? What he was saying to Shane when he was— 

No. Shane couldn’t—wouldn’t—let himself give into that.

It would be pretty fucking handy right now though, if he had. 

“Okay,” Shane says. “Uh, I’m Shane,” he says, pointing at his own chest. “And this is Maya,” he gestures towards Maya, who offers the other man a trembling smile and an awkward little wave. 

“Hello,” she says. 

“Hello,” the man says, the word coming out slow, his accent even heavier than Rozanov’s. He points at his own chest. “Яков.”

“Yakov?” Shane repeats, carefully sounding it out as best as he can. He must do a good enough job, because the man nods in reply. 

“Ты понял, какой у неё перелом?” Yakov says, voice pitching upwards in a question, and Shane has… no guesses as to what the fuck any of that means.

“I think her femur might be broken,” Shane replies, because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

“Oh,” Maya says faintly, drawing both men’s attention back to her. “That’s bad, right?” 

Shane looks down at her, finding himself once again at a total loss of what to say. 

Yes, he thinks. 

You’re probably going to die. 

Yakov thankfully speaks before the silence can drag on too long, before the empty air can give away everything Shane isn’t saying anyways. It takes a second, Shane having to run the word back through his mind, for him to realize that Yakov had spoken in English, his accent impossibly thick.

Femur, he’d said, and he nods when Shane meets his eyes. 

“Шину наложим попозже,” Yakov says while making another gesture, an up-and-down motion against his own thigh, then he shakes his head, continuing, “Сперва надо выбраться отсюда.”

“Right,” Shane says, and thinks again about a Sager—he should really go check out the med kit, because no matter how slim the chances are that there’s one with the kit, it would be a million times preferable to whatever the fuck they’re going to have to do without one. And they need to do something—and fast. Before the swelling and bleeding makes it impossible for them to do anything at all. Before Maya can go from red to black.

Shane turns, picking up the first aid kit from where he’d set it on the ground in the aisle. When he turns back around, he’s surprised to find that Yakov has his good hand wrapped around Maya’s right ankle, checking her pulse. 

“Oh,” Shane says, “I already did that. She’s, uh. She’s got a good radial pulse.” 

Shane has no idea why he’s saying any of this. It’s obvious Yakov doesn’t understand him. But he has no idea what else to do.

“Дистальный пульс в норме,” Yakov says with a nod, a satisfied expression on his face. “Судя по всему, обошлось без внутреннего кровотечения, так что пока она в порядке, ничего критического. Нужно вынести её наружу.”

He looks at Shane, expectant. Shane stares back at him. 

“Okay,” Shane says slowly. “Um, there’s a med kit? I can see— I can check if it has a splint in it.” He steps back into the aisle, looking around for a moment before putting the first aid kit back on the ground. He straightens, then holds up a finger in what he’s really hoping is a universal gesture for just one second.

“I’ll be right back,” Shane says, and then looks down at Maya. “I’ll be right back,” he repeats to her. He starts to walk quickly back the way he came, but doesn’t make it far before Yakov’s voice has him glancing back. The other man is frowning at him. 

“Ты куда пошел?” he says. He gestures at Maya, continues, “Нам надо её вынести,” then points at something behind himself. “И этого тоже,” he says, pauses, then adds, “Его первым, иначе помрет от кровопотери. Девушке спешить некуда, подождет.”

Shane looks behind Yakov, but he has no idea what he was pointing at. With no better ideas, he holds up his finger again. 

“I’ll be right back,” he repeats, then turns back around and nearly walks right into Carter Vaughn’s chest. 

“Fuck!” Shane says, heart pounding as he takes a step backwards. 

“Sorry,” Vaughn says, holding his hands up in a pantomime of surrender. He looks past Shane, out towards the rest of the plane—what little remains of it. The curiosity that had been on his face disappears the second that he does. 

Shane watches him, and wonders if his own face had gone that pale, that slack with fear and horror, when he’d first stepped through the curtains.

It’s impressive, really, how quickly Vaughn seems to rally, seeming to physically shake it off as he rolls his shoulders, returning his attention to Shane. 

“We’ve got everyone who can walk off,” he says. “I came to see if you needed help with the ones who can’t?” His eyes drift back over Shane’s shoulder, towards Yakov and Maya. 

“Yeah, actually,” Shane says, shoulders dropping with relief, both at the reassurance that everyone who can move is off the plane and at the offer of help. He doesn’t let himself look anywhere except at Vaughn. Doesn’t let his own gaze drift, even though he can feel a nearly physical pull to turn right, towards where—

He doesn’t even have to look himself, he could just ask—

He’s right there, he could just—

“Do you know where Erika is?” Shane forces himself to say, shoving down the hundred other pleading, desperate things crowding his throat.

“Outside, with everyone else,” Vaughn replies easily. His expression doesn’t change, so at least Shane’s face hasn’t betrayed him—because he’s pretty sure that if even half of what he was feeling was visible, Vaughn would be demanding to know what the fuck was wrong with him.

And god, does Shane wish he knew.

“Do you want me to get her?” Vaughn asks.

Shane shakes his head. “Not necessarily, but can you ask her— she mentioned they have a med kit? I need to check what’s in it.” 

“Sure, yeah, no problem,” Vaughn says. “I’ll be right back,” he adds, turning and jogging back up the aisle. Shane keeps his eyes locked on the empty space left in his departure. Staring down, unblinking, at the floor of the aisle until it begins to blur, and then turns back around. 

He doesn’t look back up until he’s taken two steps forward—safely out of range of whatever he might see if he was to look at the other side of first class. 

When he finally looks up, he’s surprised to see that Yakov looks annoyed. 

“Ну нахера ты его прогнал?” he says, tone demanding, then quieter, like he’s speaking mostly to himself, “Долбаные америкосы.”

“My friend is getting the med kit—the kit that’s meant for doctors,” Shane says as he approaches, looking between Yakov and Maya. “It might have some better supplies in it. Things that will help with…” he trails off, gesturing towards Maya’s thigh. 

“Things?” Maya asks. 

“A splint,” Shane says. “Maybe.”

Something between fear and hope crosses Maya’s face, but Yakov is waving his hand to draw Shane’s attention before she has the chance to ask him anything as terrible as whether or not that will mean she’ll be okay. 

“Его надо стабилизировать,” Yakov says as soon as Shane is looking at him. He gestures behind himself, expression changing from annoyance to frustration when Shane just looks back at him blankly. His brow furrows as he pauses, looking off into the space just to the side of Shane’s head—thinking. Something that Shane thinks he might recognize from Rozanov, from his own face, when he’s speaking French—searching for words, for a way to communicate. 

Shane thinks he’s maybe found it, when his eyes snap back to Shane. Slowly, deliberately, Yakov holds up one finger, then points behind himself. He pauses, then raises a second finger, and points down at Maya. 

One, Shane thinks, and then two. What does— oh. 

Oh shit. 

Shane scrambles to grab the first aid kit, giving Maya an apologetic look as he does. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I think he might— I think there might be someone else who needs help.” 

He looks over at Yakov, who is picking his way out of Maya’s row—satisfied, maybe, that he’s finally managed to communicate what needs to happen next to Shane. Shane looks back down at Maya. 

“You’ll be okay?” he says. He means to make it a statement—a reassurance—but it comes out more like a question. He tries to keep his annoyance at himself off of his face, schooling his voice into something more confident as he adds, “My friend will be back soon, and then we’ll get you out of here. Get your leg splinted.” 

“Okay, yeah, for sure,” Maya says, waving her hand as she puts on a brave face. The fear is obvious beneath, but Shane appreciates the effort. Admires the real bravery it takes, to fake it. Bravado shifts a moment later, turning into something wryly, shatteringly amused. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere,” she says. 

Shane lets out a short, surprised laugh. It makes him cough, which is a relief—it helps disguise the way that the noise had come out like something closer to a sob.

Nodding to Maya, he turns to head around the front of the middle of the row, looping around to where Yakov is standing in the opposite aisle waiting for him. His eyes drift to the seats he’s passing automatically, steps slowing as he begins cataloguing injuries, signs of brea—

Yakov’s voice interrupts him. “нет,” he says. 

Nyet. 

That one, at least, Shane does understand. Shane looks up at him, and Yakov shakes his head. He gestures over the remaining seats in the middle section, all the people that Shane hasn’t looked over yet. 

“нет,” he says again, shaking his head. Then, with an expression like he hates what he’s doing, he raises his hand, forming a fist before dragging his thumb across his throat, and—

Yeah. Shane gets why he hated doing that. It also, unfortunately, works. Shane nods his understanding, and finishes rounding the middle section, ignoring the rasping, fading breathing coming from two of the seats in the row in front of Maya’s. 

There’s an empty seat in front of the one they stop next to. Two people who are obviously dead. The two seats that make up the last row are empty, and Shane can only hope that it’s because Yakov has already gotten them up and out. His eyes drift to the open air behind them and he swallows. Tries not to think about what else might have happened to them. Redirects his attention to the living man sitting in front of them.

It takes a second for Shane to understand what he’s looking at. When he does, he feels his stomach turn over. 

He’s not sure what it is—some part of the plane. A wide but thin piece of metal. Jagged and torn. Driven through the man’s shoulder. He doesn’t seem to be bleeding heavily at least, but his jacket is soaked through with the blood he’s already lost. He’s unconscious too, though Shane isn’t sure if that’s a relief or a sign of something worse.

Movement out of the corner of his eye, and Shane turns his head to see Yakov is pointing at the first aid kit Shane’s still holding. 

“Shit,” Shane says, “yeah, yeah, of course…” he trails off, fumbling the box open. 

Yakov bends his head to it immediately, rummaging through it with his good hand. His expression is frustrated when he finishes, and he doesn’t pull anything out when he leans back, looking at Shane with a twisted expression that communicates as clearly as words would have that he hadn’t found what he was hoping for. 

Shane doesn’t have time to do anything but feel his stomach start to sink before the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps has them both turning. It’s Vaughn, and relief flows through Shane as he sees that he’s triumphantly holding out a big black plastic case. It looks about a hundred times more serious than the flimsy white metal one that Shane’s been carrying around.

Shane turns back to Yakov just in time to catch the way that Yakov’s face lights up at the sight of it. He’s moving already, pushing past Shane, rounding the first row to intercept Vaughn. 

Vaughn slows as Yakov begins to walk towards him, then stops, shooting a questioning look at Shane, looking back and forth between Shane and the man who’s now come to a stop in front of him.

“This is Yakov,” Shane says, and Yakov glances back at the sound of his own name. Shane gestures back and forth between them. “Yakov, Vaughn.” Two men briefly look at each other, nodding a greeting. “Yakov has some medical training,” Shane continues, looking at Vaughn, drawing their attention back to him. “I don’t know what, specifically—I don’t think he speaks much English.” 

“Oh,” Vaughn says. “Okay, sick. I mean, not the English, but—” He’s cut off by an impatient noise from Yakov, who gestures sharply towards the case.

“Ну чего ждём?” he says, then points directly at the clasps holding the case shut. “Открывай.”

Well. That’s clear enough—clear enough, apparently, for Vaughn too, because he nods. 

“On it,” he says, crouching to set the case on the floor. Yakov follows, crouching next to him. 

Shane can’t really see what Vaughn is doing, but there’s a futile clicking noise before Vaughn makes a wordless grunt of frustration. It’s quickly followed by a crunching that makes Shane wince—the sound of something plastic breaking. 

Whatever it was, it must have gotten the case open, because Shane can see the open lid rising up into his line of sight. Shane takes a few steps further up the aisle—curious, but not wanting to get too far away from the guy with the impalement, just in case. 

Even at a distance and half-blocked by the combined backs of Vaughn and Yakov, the differences between the med kit and the first aid kit are immediately obvious. The lid is filled with a black foam into which glass vials have been pressed. Shane recognizes an inhaler too, similarly held by the foam, plus a few boxes that he can’t make out the labels of from where he’s standing. 

There’s other stuff in the bottom half—equipment and maybe stuff like better bandages, all wrapped in sterile packaging that makes it impossible for Shane to tell what it is from a distance. It’s the contents of the bottom half of the case that Yakov is focused on, digging one-handed through the contents of the bottom half of the box. 

“Блять,” Yakov snaps out, sharp enough to make Shane jump. He watches as Yakov repacks the kit, movements careful for all that they’re sharp with frustration. Yakov gestures for Vaughn to shut it again before standing back up. His hand is empty, Shane sees when he turns around, though there’s now a stethoscope looped over his neck. 

Shane’s stomach sinks. He’s not exactly sure what Yakov was looking for, but clearly he didn’t find it. Yakov doesn’t so much as linger for a second in his disappointment though, eyes already looking around them, searching for another solution to whatever is missing from both kits. Shane finds himself mimicking him before he can stop himself, looking around even though he has no idea what they’re looking for.

Yakov’s voice draws his attention back to the other two men. “Vaughn,” he says, slow and careful—the name heavily accented, but clear. 

Vaughn looks startled to have been addressed, but walks over to the front of the aisle where Yakov moved while Shane was doing his futile search of the cabin. The med kit lays abandoned on the floor behind them as Yakov points at the overhead baggage compartment above them, somehow miraculously still closed. 

“Помоги открыть?” Yakov asks.

Vaughn follows the direction of his finger, nods. “Yeah, sure,” he says, reaching up and clicking it open. Yakov’s hand is moving the moment it swings open, pointing now at what seems to be a random piece of luggage.

“Дай это сюда,” Yakov says to Vaughn, who reaches up and pulls it down. Vaughn looks at Yakov as soon as its down, waiting for further direction. It comes immediately, Yakov making an upward swing with his hand. “Ага, и открой,” he says, and Shane watches, feeling slightly bemused, as Vaughn nods in apparent understanding, setting it on the ground and opening it. 

Shane is pretty sure that Vaughn doesn’t know any Russian, but it’s good, he guesses, that he seems to be able to stay on the same page as Yakov despite the language barrier. 

Yakov once again crouches next to Vaughn, not hesitating before he begins to dig through what Shane assumes are a stranger’s belongings. Unlike with both the first aid kit and the med kit, he begins pulling out stuff immediately—shirts, Shane notes. He hands them off to Vaughn without even glancing at the other man to make sure he’ll take them, but Vaughn obeys the unspoken command easily. 

Shane is struck, again, with the slightly disorienting feeling of being glad that, if he has to be in this situation, he’s at least with a bunch of other professional athletes. 

“Хорошо,” Yakov says once Vaughn’s arms are filled with fabric. “Этого должно хватить.” He stands, walking back to Shane, Vaughn trailing behind him. He meets Shane’s eyes over Yakov’s shoulders, a slightly bemused expression on his face—like he’s also surprised by how easily he’s found himself following Yakov’s incomprehensible directions. 

That is, of course, when it finally falls apart. 

It takes way too long for them to figure out what Yakov is trying to direct them to do, his words getting sharper, taking on the familiar shape of what Shane is pretty sure is some form of profanity. They do get there eventually though—rolling the shirts into tight, compact logs. 

Once they’ve got a pile of them, stacked in the empty seat in front of the impaled man, it’s far easier for Yakov to show them what he wants them to do with them—starting them off by carefully placing one of the rolled logs of fabric on one side of the metal protruding from the man’s shoulder. 

The injured man groans when the fabric is pressed down, which at least answers one of Shane’s questions—only responding to pain isn’t great, but it’s still better than some of the alternatives.

“Вот так, окей?” Yakov says, looking between Shane and Vaughn, then gesturing with his chin towards where he’s holding the fabric in place. “чтобы зафиксировать.”

“Oh,” Shane says, “right, yeah, of course.” He turns his head, meeting Vaughn’s questioning gaze. “So it doesn’t move when we move him,” he explains. “We can’t take it out yet—maybe at all—but this way it won’t do more damage.” 

Vaughn nods his understanding. “Okay, yeah,” he says. “What should I do?” 

Yakov answers before Shane can, jerking his chin between Vaughn and his hand, still holding the fabric in place. 

“Держи вот тут,” he says, and Vaughn reaches out, a tentative motion turning more confident when Yakov nods. Yakov pulls his hand away once he’s certain Vaughn has it, moving around him until he’s next to the pile of rolled shirts. He picks up a second one, handing it to Shane then pointing to indicate where he wants him to put it. 

Yakov guides them through placing the rest of the logs with nothing but single-handed gestures and brief commands of nyet and da. 

The injured man becomes more and more alert as they work, groans of pain turning into short, bitten-off screams. His eyes open, though bleary and unfocused, as he pants in pain. Shane tries to talk to him, but the man doesn’t really manage to respond. Shane isn’t sure if it’s because of the pain or something else, but he lets it go for now, because there’s fuck-all they can do for a brain bleed either way. 

When all the logs are in place, Yakov grabs one of the rolls of real bandages from the first aid kit, guiding Shane through wrapping it around the man’s shoulder and under his armpit in a figure-eight pattern, holding the whole thing in place. 

Yakov steps back once the bandage has been secured in place, gesturing upwards with his hand. “Поднимайте,” he says, and together, Shane and Vaughn manage to get the man onto his feet. He’s swaying, blinking rapidly, but he doesn’t fall over when they tentatively loosen their hold. Yakov tucks himself under the armpit opposite the impalement before they can test the man’s ability to stand on his own any further. 

“Я его выведу,” he says, then nods back towards Maya—their silent audience, who’s been watching with wide eyes the whole time. “А ты давай её,” he says, then makes the same up-and-down motion over his thigh that he’d done before, shaking his head as he does. “Шину не накладывай.”

Shane frowns at him. “Don’t splint it?” he asks. 

“Splint,” Yakov echos. “нет.”

“But…” Shane starts, trailing off when he realizes that trying to argue with Yakov is a total non-starter. 

Yakov again holds up one finger. “снаружи,” he says, then points towards the front of the plane. He holds up a second finger. “Splint.” 

Shane chews on his lip, thinking. He feels painfully aware of how much time has passed since he first checked out Maya, how much more time has passed since the plane first went down. He knows that they need to get her femur back into place as soon as possible, before the muscle in her thigh is locked up enough to make it all but impossible, but… Yakov is right. They need to get everyone out first, including Maya. 

“Okay,” Shane says, nodding. Yakov looks at him for a moment longer, dark eyes intense, assessing, before finally nodding, sharp and decisive. 

“Хорошо,” he says, and Shane has to fight not to visibly react because—he recognizes that word. He has no idea what it means, but Rozanov has said it to him, more than once. Shane had kind of assumed it was something dirty but probably not, if Yakov was using it now. 

He really, really hoped not, anyways.

“Увидимся на улице,” Yakov adds, and then he’s walking away, taking the impaled man with him. Shane and Vaughn watch until he disappears through the curtains, and then Vaughn claps his hands together, turning to Shane. 

“Okay, Cap,” he says. “What next?” 

Shane blinks at him for a second, momentarily thrown by Vaughn’s use of that title for him. Judging by the guileless look on Vaughn’s face, Shane isn’t entirely certain Vaughn even noticed what he’d said. 

Shaking it off, Shane turns towards Maya, meeting her eyes. “Now we get Maya out of here,” he says. He smiles at her as he says it, trying for reassuring. She smiles back at him, shaky but there.

“Ready when you are,” she says. 

They move the body out of the seat next to Maya first. 

Shane hates every second of it, but this is going to be hard enough, painful enough, without them trying to work around a body. So, they move him, Shane doing his best not to look at the hole in his skull, to not let anything that’s spilled out from it touch him. At the man’s feet, Vaughn seems like he’s trying to do the same, looking off to the side as they move into the open space in front of the seats. 

They nearly drop him at one point when Shane is hit with another coughing fit. It’s not getting any better, he notes as dispassionately as he can. Is maybe getting worse, wet and deep and wrenching. He ignores it, along with the concerned look Vaughn shoots him. Later, he tells himself. 

One thing at a time.

They return to Maya, raising the armrests between her and the aisle before pausing, Shane considering their options. 

“Do you think you’d be able to move yourself to the edge?” he finally asks, shooting her an apologetic look for even asking. She looks a bit nauseated at the thought, but nods anyways, short and decisive. 

“Okay,” Shane says, watching as Maya braces her hands against the seat. He bends his knees slightly, preparing to lean in and catch her if she seems like she’s going to fall. Maya takes a deep breath, visibly steeling herself, and—

Lets go of the seat, turning to the man on the other side of her. Shane trades a confused look with Vaughn, then turns back to Maya, mouth opening with a question already forming on his tongue. It dies there, as he sees what she’s doing. 

In silence, Shane and Vaughn watch as Maya works the wedding ring off the hand of the man that had been sitting next to her. 

The man who’d been breathing when Shane had first been examining Maya. The man who’d stopped breathing, at some point while they’d been bandaging the impaled man. 

With shaking hands, Maya pulls a necklace out from under her jacket, undoing the clasp and sliding the ring onto it before refastening it. She tucks it back into her jacket, and doesn’t look at them as she once again braces her hands on the seat on either side of her hip. 

Shane clears his throat. “Ready?” he asks. Maya doesn’t look at him, but nods. “Okay,” he says. “One, two—”

It takes three moves for Maya to get to the edge of the seats. She lets out pained yells each time, but doesn’t faint. Sweat is beading on her forehead, and Shane feels like he might throw-up in sympathy or terror or—

He doesn’t. He bends, reaching out with his arms, getting ready to—

A hand on his shoulder stops him, and Shane straightens, looking over to see Vaughn looking uncomfortable but determined. 

“I think I should carry her, Cap,” he says quietly. Shane frowns, getting ready to argue, but then Vaughn’s eyes cut over to the body that they moved earlier—the one Shane had nearly dropped, because of his coughing. Vaughn’s eyes are still steady when they return to Shane, the message in them, delivered in silence, unmistakable. 

Right.

Fuck.

Shane breathes in and out. Once. Twice. He nods. Steps to the side. 

“Okay,” he says, and watches as Vaughn bends, wrapping one arm around Maya’s back, putting the other below her knees. Maya wraps her own arms around his shoulders.

“Ready?” he asks, voice just as quiet as it had been when he’d spoken to Shane. 

Maya laughs, the sound wet, jagged. “Not even a little bit,” she says, and Vaughn huffs out a laugh in reply. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, then stands up. 

Maya screams. How could she not?

Shane’s ears are still ringing when Vaughn begins to head up the aisle. He’s moving as carefully as he can, but there’s no helping the way each step jostles Maya. From behind him, Shane can see just how tense he is, getting tenser as Maya attempts to muffle her pained sobs, tucking her face against his jacket, apologizing. 

Stomach turning over, Shane turns away from them, moving back to the other aisle where they’d left both kits of medical supplies. He repacks the first aid kit as quickly as he can, then picks up the med kit. All of their supplies in hand, Shane turns to the front of the plane—to the aisle through first class that he hasn’t yet walked down. The one that he hasn’t yet let himself so much as look down. 

The one Rozanov had been sitting on. 

Shane takes a deep breath, and does what he’s spent so much of his life doing.

He pushes through the fear.

The first thing he sees on the other side of the curtain is a head of hair, just visible over the top of the back of the last seat in the line of window seats. Two more steps bring him level with the seat, and Shane looks down, stomach sinking as, for the first time since he moved back into business class, he’s hit with the grinding horror of recognition. 

Jaxon Hennessy’s face is covered in blood. His eyes are open. 

Empty. 

Shane had met his wife at last year’s All-Star game. She’d been pregnant. 

Swallowing, Shane looks away. Moves on.

There’s nothing else to do.

He steps forward, eyes automatically skipping over the empty seat in front of Jaxon’s body. Finally, finally, reaching the seat that he’d been trying not to look at ever since he first regained consciousness, since he first realized what had happened. 

Ilya’s seat is empty. 

Shane’s not thinking, not breathing, as he moves forward, the whole word narrowing to that single empty seat. He doesn’t stop until he’s next to it, eyes flicking over it, frantically scanning for any sign of what might have happened to Ilya—Rozanov. 

There’s a small smear of blood on the seat back in front of where Rozanov had been sitting. More blood on the wall of the plane. Drops on the seat itself, the armrest. 

The seatbelt is splayed across the seat, but it’s been unbuckled. Not snapped, not torn. 

Shane takes a breath, thankful, for a brief, shameful second, that there’s no one else here to witness this. To hear how ragged his breathing has become. To see him staring, unable to look away from those small signs that Rozanov had survived. That he wasn’t so injured that he hadn’t been able to move himself, or at least to be moved with help. 

He wants to— to move. To leave—to run outside. 

He wants— needs. To see. 

To be certain. 

Shane takes a shaking breath. He doesn’t leave. 

Shame burning hot and acidic in his stomach at how much effort it takes, Shane turns to the seat behind Rozanov’s empty one, the one he’d ignored, rushing past it without so much as a glance to the person still sitting in it.

Another face he recognizes—Zane Ward, team Canada, defenseman for Carolina. He’s not dead, but Shane doesn’t have to do more than a quick scan of his body to know that there’s nothing Shane will be able to do for him. 

One of the trees that they’d smashed their way through had punched its way through the fuselage on this side. Shane wasn’t sure there was anything that could be done for the bloody, crushed mess of Ward’s chest, even if they’d been in a hospital, with a whole team of doctors working to try and save him.

Which reminds him—Shane looks across the plane, towards the man with the broken pelvis. 

He’s still sitting where Shane had left him, but his eyes are open. Still. 

A horrible, collapsing wave of relief washes through Shane. He swallows down the acidic taste of shame that follows; the feeling of something deep inside of him fracturing irreparably.

Shane turns away. Walks away from Ward, past Rozanov’s empty seat.

The seat in front of Rozanov’s is also empty, but there’s a small pool of blood on the floor beneath it. The seat in front of it had been jammed backwards in a twist of torn metal, and it’s from the lowest point of that snarl of metal that the pool of blood has spread. There’s a depression in the middle of the pool, a smear dragging out from the outside edge of it. 

Like something had been moved after the blood had already started to congeal.

Shane moves on.

The reason that the next seat had been so forcefully shoved back is immediately obvious—another consequence of the tree that had broken through the fuselage. One branch has been shoved cleanly through Weston Beaton’s throat, another driven up through his ribs. 

Shane tries to tell himself that it at least had been quick, and tries not to think about all the times he’s stood on the ice, bent in half, faces inches away from Beaton’s. Of all the times they’ve stood side-by-side, united by the red maple leaf on the centre of their jerseys.

The last seat is empty, and Shane doesn’t have to get close to the other flight attendant to tell that she’s dead—not with the angle that her neck is hanging at. 

Pausing, Shane looks back over the rows, counting without meaning to. 

Twenty-three empty seats, five still occupied.

No one alive left on the plane. 

Shane turns around. He doesn’t look back as he steps forward, and off the plane.

Chapter End Notes

Citations for this chapter below but the biggest citation of all goes to Britt—without her expertise in emergency medicine I would have needed to do so much more primary research for this chapter than I did. Endless thanks for taking [something that's red but maybe survivable] and turning it into an actual diagnosis. I am so indescribably lucky that me opening a conversation with "hey, question about traction" is fun for you.

citations
Rapid Body Survey — Delta Emergency
How to do the primary survey (DR ABC) — St. John’s Ambulance
Managing medical emergencies at 36,000 ft: A guide to Air Canada’s in-flight emergency medical kit — St. Michael’s Hospital (YouTube)
“Is there a doctor on board?”: Practical recommendations for managing in-flight medical emergencies — David Kodama, Bobby Yanagawa, Jim Chung, Ken Fryatt and Alun D. Ackery

Chapter 3: Интерлюдия // Яков

Chapter Notes

cw: depictions of dead bodies, graphic descriptions of injuries

Yakov was not having a great week. 

First, his sister had waited until his last day in Canada to inform him that she had no intention of returning to Russia after she graduated—or ever. The resulting fight had also revealed that her referring to the woman that she’d been living with for the last two years as her “roommate” had, in fact, been a profound understatement of their relationship. 

Ludmila had not appreciated Yakov’s suggestion that she might still meet a nice Russian boy back home—voice acidic as she had informed him that she was what Canadians called a dyke, that she was going to marry Alex, and if he had a problem with any of that he could just fuck off back to Russia and never speak to her again for all she cared.

So. Not a great end to his visit with his sister. And then he’d been bumped off his return flight. And the next one. And the one after that. 

Because there were hundreds of far more important, and far richer, people than Yakov trying to get to Russia right now. Fucking assholes.

It had at least given him enough time to smooth things over with Ludmila. It wasn’t like Yakov cared that his little sister was a lesbian, and he did genuinely like Alex. Even if her accent was terrible, it was sweet, how hard she was trying for Ludmila—to learn Russian, to get to know Yakov, to understand the country that had shaped them both. 

It was just…

They were the only two left. If Ludmila didn’t come back to Russia, then what the fuck did that leave Yakov with? 

The graves of their parents? The crumbling Soviet-era apartment he and Ludmila had inherited from them? His coworkers? People who he barely knew, who were also really the only people he saw, his friends from school and childhood having fallen away over years of shift work and relentless overtime?

By the time he’d gotten a seat on this flight, Yakov had been resigned to the fact that it was only a matter of time until he received yet another email announcing he was getting bumped to a different flight. It wasn’t until the doors closed and the plane began taxiing down the runway that Yakov had been able to fully relax into the knowledge that he was finally, finally, on his way home. 

He’d at least landed in business class, and without having to actually pay for it. The first row, too, so he had extra room to stretch out his legs. And the man sitting next to him had been as uninterested in conversation as Yakov, falling asleep basically the second they’d taken off. It had been enough that when Yakov had eventually fallen asleep, it was with the feeling that maybe things were about to start turning around for him.

And then the fucking plane crashed.

Yakov isn’t certain how long he’d lost consciousness for—if he’d truly lost it at all, or if his mind and body were just struggling to slog toward some comprehension of the impossible thing that had just happened to him. 

The plane had crashed. And Yakov, however improbably, was still alive. 

It’s the smell of smoke that manages to fully snap him back into an awareness of his surroundings, and he pushes himself upright with a groan—letting out a sharp hiss when he puts his weight onto his left wrist. Raising it in front of him, he turns it over, noting the signs of deep bruising beginning to bloom beneath his skin. Careful palpation of the area leaves his stomach sinking, annoyance a hot, biting rush following immediately behind. 

Of course it’s a fucking Colles fracture. Christ. Fucking embarrassing. 

At least it’s not his dominant hand. For what little that’s worth. 

Bracing his left arm against his chest, Yakov turns his attention to his surroundings. The man next to him is obviously dead—the angle of his neck and the way his torso is hanging limp between his spread legs leaving little room for doubt. Yakov checks anyway, because no one’s dead until they’re pulseless. He doesn’t find one, which is more of a relief than anything—there wouldn’t have been anything that Yakov would have been able to do for him, if he had still been alive. 

Just suffering, and then death.

There’s screaming that promises that others might still meet that fate, though it at least also offers Yakov assurance that he isn’t the only one left alive. Undoing his seatbelt, Yakov uses his good arm to push himself to his feet, turning to do a full survey of the passengers around him—what’s left of them. 

Yakov has attended enough high-mechanism MVCs to know just how thoroughly the human body can be torn apart when a machine travelling at high speeds comes to an abrupt and violent stop for just about any reason. And this was something far, far worse than a highway collision.

Even having braced himself for the worst, the sight of the snowy, torn landscape in full view a few meters behind him is a surprise. He supposes it does explain the cold wind that he hadn’t fully registered until this moment.

Running a critical eye over where the plane has torn itself in half, Yakov decides that the floor that he’s standing on seems stable enough. Nothing above him seems like it’s about to collapse either. There’s a few wires sending off half-hearted sparks, but there’s no signs of fire—wherever the smoke he can still smell is coming from, it’s not in his immediate line of sight. 

It’s a shitty pantomime of a scene survey, but it’s as good as Yakov can manage under the circumstances. All things considered, it seems to be about as safe as a fucking crashed, bisected plane can be. And it’s not like Yakov has anywhere to retreat to anyway—or anyone to call. 

A clatter of metal draws Yakov’s attention to his left, and he turns to find the woman who’d been sitting across the aisle from him stumbling to her feet, her eyes wide with fear, clearly panicking as she looks around them. Yakov runs a quick, critical eye over her, though the fact that she’s standing on her own is a good sign on its own. She’s young, he notes, with short, dark hair and pale skin. 

“Hello,” Yakov says, stepping over to intercept her before she can do something insane like head over towards the raw, torn edge of the plane—not that she seemed to be headed in that direction, but Yakov has seen casualties do worse in the grip of terror and shock. “My name is Yakov. I’m a paramedic. Can you tell me your name?” 

For a second, the woman just stares at him, before shaking her head, visibly gathering herself. 

“Karina,” she introduces. 

“Karina,” Yakov repeats with a reassuring smile. “Can you tell me where you are?” 

Karina blinks. Looks around.

“Ah,” she says, “no?” 

Yakov swallows down a burst of entirely inappropriate laughter. 

“Okay,” he says. “Can you tell me what day it is?” 

“Wednesday,” Karina replies quickly, confidently. Good, Yakov thinks. 

“Do you remember what happened?” he asks. 

“Um, the plane was going down,” Karina says. She looks around, swallows. “Went down,” she adds, quieter. 

There’s an accent to her words that Yakov can tell isn’t from anywhere in Russia—heritage speaker, he decides, looking her up and down again, noting the easy rise and fall of her chest. Canadian, judging by her jacket. Minor injuries, if any.

“Karina, you need to get clear of the plane,” Yakov says. Karina glances towards the open air to their side, and Yakov is quick to shake his head when she looks back at him. “Not that way, unless we don’t have a choice,” he says. He gestures towards the curtains separating them from first class. “I’ll take a look up there, see if the door at the front is accessible.” 

This time, it’s Karina who shakes her head. “No,” she says, “it’s okay. I can go check. Her eyes dart towards the other seats surrounding them, her face visibly paler when she looks back at Yakov. “If you’re a paramedic, you should… you should stay here. I’ll let you know— I’ll see if we can get out the front.”

“No,” Yakov says. “If you can get out, get out and stay out. If you don’t come back, I’ll know that there’s an exit. Okay?” 

Blowing out a long breath, Karina nods, doing her best to look certain, confident. “Okay,” she says, and begins to walk away. 

Yakov doesn’t watch her go. He turns to the remaining passengers in the surrounding seats, and he does his job. 

The woman that had been sitting next to Karina is already deceased. There’s another deceased woman in the seat behind hers, but the man next to her, the one sitting against the aisle, is still alive. 

He’s disoriented, which might just be down to blood loss, but could certainly be something more serious—if the man had hit his head hard enough that he’s bleeding beneath his skull, this could just be a lucid interval. Yakov has no way of knowing if he lost consciousness from the initial insult, but hopes that he doesn’t lose consciousness now. 

Either way, there’s nothing that Yakov can do for him, if that is the case—he lacks the skills, the training, to try and address increased intercranial pressure in any way that matters. He watches for the signs anyway: inconsistent breathing, a slow heart rate, widening pulse pressures, which... Yakov doesn’t have the appropriate tools to even evaluate.

Still. Yakov can do something—even if something is very little, consequentially.  

The man doesn’t seem to understand what Yakov is saying to him when Yakov tries to evaluate his mental status, though he does manage to mumble a handful of responses in what Yakov is fairly certain is English, so that may just be down to a language barrier. From Yakov’s quick survey, it seems like the piece of metal that has punctured his shoulder is his only injury, potential brain bleed aside. 

He’s fortunate, too—the shard of metal that’s pierced clean through his chest, subclavicular and gruesome, is also stopping whatever bleeding it has caused. 

Yakov will need to stabilize the metal before he can move him though, an impossibility with his one good hand, unless Yakov wants to put undue strain on his own injury—something that would be detrimental to both himself and whatever other survivors are going to need his help. 

He leaves him where he is for now—he’ll grab someone with two good hands when he has the chance, and come back to him. 

The couple in the two seats behind him—the last pair of seats before the plane is abruptly cut short—are alive as well. More lucid than the man in the seat in front of them too, which is good, though it also means that they all quickly come to the realization that they have no language in common. 

Resigning himself to a protracted game of charades—which is honestly how he communicates with casualties and his coworkers about half the time anyways—he manages to get both of them to agree to him checking them over. They at least seem to be talking easily to each other, which is a reassurance towards their mental status, even if Yakov can’t do that check himself. 

His differential on the woman—Breanna, they’d been able to exchange names at least—is severe whiplash, which seems to be beyond lucky, given their proximity to where the plane broke apart. He palpates her spine to make sure that there’s no actual bone breaks, but there’s no sign of bruising, no tell-tale shift of crepitus. It’s a relief—she probably hasn’t injured her spine, at least, though the same can’t be said for her spinal cord. The next two days are going to be hell for her, especially if he can’t locate any painkillers, but she should live. Will live, if everything goes right. 

Yakov does manage to dig a jacket out from under the seat in front of her—a cushy, insulated down thing—that he folds once, and then again. He places it across her shoulders, and with gestures, manages to get her to hold it beneath her chin with both hands.

It’s no c-collar, but then again, c-collars are fucking shit anyways. Good enough, he thinks, for what he’s sure will not be the last time today.

Matthew, sitting next to her—her husband, Yakov is pretty sure—is less fortunate. Yakov had already had his suspicions based on the way he was holding himself, guarding his belly, and they are as confirmed as they’ll get without a CT scan when Yakov palpates his upper abdomen. The man lets out a short, pained noise, quickly swallowed down with what is clearly meant to be a reassuring smile towards his wife. 

It would be more effective, Yakov thinks as he carefully presses on the surrounding area, if he could stop himself from grimacing in pain every other second. 

Still, there’s something to be said for the lack of Russian stoicism and constitution. It certainly makes Yakov’s job easier. 

There’s not much for him to do for Matthew. If the man is lucky, it’s a lower grade laceration, and will resolve on its own over the next few days. If he’s unlucky… well, either they’ll be found in time for him to get into surgery, or they won’t, and the man will bleed out into his abdominal cavity. 

Even if Yakov had the training for it, it wasn’t exactly like there was a fucking surgical suite hiding up in first class.

Yakov gets the couple out of their seats, and points them towards where Karina had disappeared to—it’s been long enough since she left that he feels confident that there’s an exit waiting for them at the front of the plane. They still clearly don’t understand what he’s saying, but the pointing seems to have done the trick, because the couple simply nods their agreement, and head up the aisle. Wobbling slightly, and needing to lean on each other for support, but steady enough that Yakov only watches them for a couple of seconds before turning his attention to the group of seats in the middle of the plane. 

One deceased, one expectant, and then something unexpected—with another dead man on her other side, there is one survivor in the back row. Yakov meets the woman’s eyes, wide and wet. She’s clearly been watching him, but hasn’t made any effort to move herself. Injured, or maybe just not willing to climb over all the corpses surrounding her. Not willing, maybe, to leave behind the dying man sitting next to her—the one whose hand she's holding onto so tightly her knuckles have gone pale with it.

Yakov nods at her. “I’ll come around to you,” he says, tracing the path he’ll take in the air. Easier, for him to examine her while working around one body, rather than two. She replies back in English, but seems to understand what he was signalling—she doesn’t shout after him or seem to panic when he moves on to the row in front of hers, anyways. Doesn’t try to draw his attention to the man sitting next to her. 

It’s another relief. Yakov didn’t want to think about how he would have tried to mime to her that he was dying. How he could have broken that news to her the way he'd want to—careful, kind—without access to even the most basic of words. Better, that she’s already reached the conclusion on her own.

The man in the seat behind where Yakov had been sitting is still alive, likely the only one in his row to make it—the woman next to him is certainly dead, pulseless and pale, and Yakov doesn’t have the resources or time to stop the two other people in the row beyond her from joining her. Expectant, he mentally categorizes, and turns his attention back to the survivor in front of him. 

The man’s head, hair grey and thinning, is covered in blood, but it's easy enough, through it all, to see where the scalp on the left side of his head has peeled back to reveal the gleam of bone beneath. Yakov uses the light on his phone, which is somehow miraculously still working despite the multitude of cracks now spider-webbing across its screen, to check his pupils, and isn’t surprised to find that his left pupil reacts considerably slower than his right. 

Despite that, this man may still be fortunate: the obvious dent in his temple speaks to a depressed fracture—the shattered bone meaning that the pressure in his skull has somewhere to travel that won’t be choking his respiratory centre, like God’s inelegant skull flap. 

He’s another English speaker, but Yakov doesn’t need to understand what he’s saying to tell that the man is slurring his words. Like Matthew, he’ll live, or he won’t. Either way, Yakov won’t have much control over the outcome.

But he can, at least, get the man out of here. 

Unlike Karina or the couple, the man isn’t able to stand on his own, listing to the right as soon as Yakov gets him upright. He can hear more movement from the front of the plane now though, muffled words replacing muffled screams, so there may be someone he can hand him off to without needing to exit the plane entirely. 

Yakov checks on the impaled man, relieved to find that he doesn’t seem to be decompensating. He’ll hold for a while longer. He makes sure to make eye-contact with the woman in the back row as well, pointing at the man leaning against him, and then towards the front of the plane. He drags his finger back, then points at first himself, and then her. 

“I’ll come back,” he says. “Okay? I’ll just be a few minutes.” 

The woman’s mouth trembles, eyes growing wetter, but she nods anyway. Brave, Yakov thinks, impressed, and offers her a small smile and nod in return, before turning his attention towards manoeuvring the man with the head wound forward. 

Yakov tries not to jostle his broken wrist too much, but inevitably knocks it around on a few occasions, swallowing down the hiss of pain that wants to escape him each time. The man is at least cognizant enough that he’s able to pull back the curtain separating them from first class himself, allowing Yakov to shuffle them through the dividing squeeze without needing to fight with the fabric for passage.

He stops there for a second, taking stock of what was left of the remaining half of the plane. He’d been right, when he’d guessed that the people up here had begun evacuating themselves. Almost half the seats are already empty, people with minor injuries helping each other out. There’s a bright light streaming in from where the front exit must be that promises that they’ve got the front door open, and it's towards that escape that everyone is moving. 

There’re a few people not moving that no one seems to be attending to, including the man directly to the right of where they’d stopped. Yakov looks down at him. Someone had gotten him upright, leaned him up against his seat back, but his head and neck are coated in blood, his skull broken open at the temple, brain swollen and distended where it’s pushed itself through the too-small opening offered by the shattered bone—a less fortunate version of the man currently leaning against Yakov.

Deceased, Yakov catalogues, unsurprised at the confirmation of why some people were being ignored.

He doesn’t get the chance to do anything more before a voice draws his attention forward. The words are incomprehensible, but the tone is not—surprised, and worried. Yakov looks up to find a man hurrying towards him. He’s about Yakov’s height with dark brown hair, his blue eyes wide, scared. There’s a deep bruise beginning to form around one eye, but he seems steady enough on his feet as he steps around the debris littering the ground—blankets and bags mixed with abandoned books and water bottles.

The man doesn’t hesitate when he reaches them—just crowds in on the other side of the man Yakov is supporting, getting the injured man’s arm over his own shoulder, pulling his weight towards himself, and off of Yakov. 

With no small measure of relief, Yakov lets the man’s other arm slide off of his own shoulders, keeping his left arm tucked close to his chest as he steps back. He offers the new man a small smile of thanks, shakes his head in response to whatever he says to Yakov. 

“I need to get back,” he says, pointing back the way he came. “There’s more people back there who need help.” He points at the man he’d been supporting, then at the new man, and then the beam of light pointing the way towards open air. “You can get him outside?” he asks. 

The man frowns, obviously wanting to argue or maybe just ask for more information—any information, Yakov supposes—but is stopped by the same thing that makes it impossible for him to know what information Yakov has already offered. He hesitates, but in the end just nods. Yakov returns the gesture, and turns to head back to the other side of the curtains, leaving the man to help the other off the plane. 

Christ. He was glad that he already knew that there was at least one other person still alive on this fucking plane who also spoke Russian. And, Yakov was pretty sure—or at least was really, really hoping—spoke English as well.

This whole point-and-guess thing was getting old, fast.   

Shaking his head, Yakov pushes back through the curtains and stops, pulled up short by something he hadn’t been expecting. 

There’s someone else back here, upright and moving around. Someone who hadn’t been there when Yakov had left, standing next to the woman he hadn't yet had a chance to assess properly. 

Yakov does a quick scan of the seats he hadn’t yet reached in his sweep of the back of the plane, but none of them are empty. The man must have come in from first class, down the opposite aisle, while Yakov was up front. That, or Yakov had gone completely underwater attending to the man with the head wound, and had missed his arrival entirely. 

The man doesn’t seem to have noticed Yakov’s return any more than Yakov had noticed his arrival, his forehead creased with concentration. One of his hands is around the woman’s wrist in a familiar pose, his eyes on the watch on his wrist.

As Yakov watches, the man nods, apparently satisfied, and says something to the woman. When she nods in return, he reaches out and begins to carefully press his fingers into the contours of her skull—the gesture familiar. He’s wearing nitrile gloves as well, Yakov notes, and feels some small degree of the pressure that had been building in his chest dissipate.

Thank fucking God. He wasn’t going to have to try and keep all these people alive by himself—very literally, single-handedly.

Yakov begins to walk forward, heading towards the opposite end of the row the woman is sitting in, resigning himself to having to squeeze in past two bodies, now that the man has taken up the space that Yakov had planned to occupy. He continues to watch the man performing his secondary survey as he moves. It’s methodical, thorough enough that Yakov lets go of just a little bit more of the tension thrumming through him.

Not only was there someone else here who had medical training, he also wasn’t obviously incompetent. Still, Yakov doesn’t quite allow himself the thought that things might be starting to look up.

Yakov isn’t particularly superstitious, but he’s also profoundly aware of the events that had immediately followed that thought the last time he’d had it, several hours and thirty-six thousand feet ago.

The man’s clothing is unremarkable, Yakov notes as he reaches the row the woman is sitting in and begins to pick his way through the legs of the bodies occupying the other seats—a hoodie and sweatpants—but the watch he’d been looking at while measuring the woman’s pulse is more notable, large and clearly expensive. A doctor? Yakov thinks, and then immediately reconsiders when he takes another look at the man’s face and realizes how young he is. 

Mid-twenties, at best, the man has black hair that hangs over his face, clumped together with sweat. His dark eyes are accompanied by a scattering of freckles that make Yakov want to bump his age down even further. At least part Asian, but not Chinese. Korean, maybe.  

A medical student then, maybe? Though, Yakov reconsiders, medical students aren’t typically as physically strong as this man appears to be. A paramedic student, then? Or maybe even a recent graduate. 

God, Yakov hopes he’s another paramedic. A doctor would certainly have more medical knowledge than a pair of paramedics, but Yakov would take an active paramedic over a student doctor any day. 

Doctors were far too reliant on their expensive machines and fancy equipment—which is to say nothing of the skill and support of their nurses and respiratory therapists.

A plane crash might not be Yakov’s typical call-out, but this was exactly the kind of shit they were trained for—making do with what you have, keeping patients alive long enough to get them to real help with nothing more than a handful of triangle bandages, an amp of epi, and a prayer. Moving the needle, as best they can.

Yakov comes to a stop standing between the legs of the dying man sitting next to the woman, leaning slightly to the side in deference to the seat pushing into his space on his right. The freckled man with the expensive watch still hasn’t seemed to notice Yakov, too focused on palpating the woman’s abdomen. As Yakov watches, he nods to himself, apparently satisfied with what he’s found—or rather, not found. 

He doesn’t really want to interrupt the man, but he also wants him to know that Yakov is there, in case he needs help.

Before he can make a decision either way, the man reaches the woman’s thigh, and any other thoughts in Yakov’s head are lost as the woman screams in pain.

Yakov doesn’t flinch—he’s heard worse, both louder and longer, than the woman’s relatively brief outpouring of pain—but the other man freezes. He at least lifts his hands off her leg before he does anything else, and manages to pull up without first pushing down.

Unfortunately, that’s all that can really be said in favour of his reaction. 

He’s just… staring. 

Yakov follows the man’s gaze, making his own assessment of the evidently injured limb. It’s not difficult to make the differential, not with the way her right leg is noticeably shorter than the left, rotated outwards at an unnatural angle. 

“Broken femur,” he says. 

The other man doesn’t react, though the woman does, turning her head to look up at him. She’s breathing heavily, a few tears tracing slow paths down her face, but she seems relatively composed, and relieved to see him. He smiles back at her reassuringly, then looks back at the other man. He still hasn’t moved. 

“Hello?” Yakov says. “Are you still alive down there?” 

The man physically startles this time, and finally raises his head to meet Yakov’s eyes. He looks even younger up close. That, combined with his, however temporary, loss of composure, has Yakov reevaluating his earlier guess. 

The man is almost certainly still a student, whatever his area of study is. Maybe in his third year of school, or at least Yakov hoped he was—it’d be much more useful than someone in their first or even second year, even if it meant that he wouldn’t have yet had much, if any, practical experience or patient contact. Hoped, too, that he’d at least been right about him studying paramedicine, rather than to become a doctor.

The man blinks at him, then says something in English, pointing towards the front of the plane. 

Of course, Yakov thinks. Why would he be so fortunate as to share a language with what might be the only other person on this godforsaken plane with any medical knowledge?

We will be alive, we won’t die, Yakov thinks, the words coming to him the same way they always did, his Mama’s voice still ringing clearly in his memory, despite how long it had been since he’d last heard her voice. It had been a favourite of hers, brought out any time her husband or either of her children were working themselves up over something they couldn’t control. 

On the other hand, she was dead, and he’d just been in a fucking plane crash.

The man is looking at Yakov, his expression expectant. Yakov stares back at him, impassive. He had just told Yakov to leave, Yakov was pretty sure—could understand that much from his pointing, even if the actual words were a total loss. Which would be a sensible enough command, if Yakov had been a civilian. 

Yakov isn’t a civilian. 

He stays exactly where he is.

“What did it feel like?” Yakov asks, and ignores the way that the man frowns at him, clearly not happy that Yakov wasn’t obeying his command to clear the scene. He points towards the woman’s leg with his good hand instead. “Could you tell if it’s oblique?” he asks. “Comminuted?” 

The man stares back at him, expression blank—uncomprehending. After a moment, he seems to startle back into himself, blinking before saying something that sounds like a question, his voice pitching up at the end. Not that that makes whatever he said any more understandable. Yakov feels himself beginning to grit his teeth together, and forces his jaw to relax.

The man’s face reflects back the same frustration Yakov is sure is visible on his own, so at least they’re both pissed off at the situation. 

That’s something, Yakov supposes. Not much, but something.

The man speaks again, the English still aggravatingly incomprehensible, but certain words and their meaning are unmistakable, despite the abstruse noises surrounding them.

“—Shane” the man says, pointing at his own chest, then at the woman sitting between them, “—Maya.”

The woman turns towards Yakov, offering him a wave and a shaky attempt at a smile. “Hello,” she says. 

Yakov recognizes that one, at least. He tries not to think too hard about how short his list of English vocabulary is beyond that basic greeting. 

“Hello,” Yakov echoes instead, the English heavy and ugly on his tongue. He points at himself. “Yakov,” he introduces. 

The man—Shane—repeats Yakov’s name back to him. His accent is better than Yakov would have expected. Not that that means much, when he clearly doesn’t speak a word of actual Russian. 

“Were you able to tell what type of fracture she has?” Yakov asks, attempting to move them along, even though he knows that any attempt to communicate anything to either of them is likely to be futile at best.

The man surprises him though. Yakov doesn’t understand most of what he says back to him, but he recognizes one word.

“—femur—”

The woman—Maya—says something, drawing Shane’s eyes back to her. Even though she’d spoken in English, the blank look on Shane's face says that he has about as much idea of how to respond to what she’d said as Yakov does. 

“Femur,” Yakov repeats back, when it becomes clear that Shane isn’t coming up with a reply to whatever had been said anytime soon. 

Shane looks up at the English, eyes wide with surprise. Yakov nods in confirmation when he meets his eyes. 

“We can’t splint it yet,” Yakov says, making an up-and-down motion against his own thigh as he does. He points towards the exit. “We should evacuate first.” 

Judging by the relieved look on Shane's face, Yakov thinks that he might have actually understood Yakov this time—probably more because of the accompanying gestures than anything else, but hey. Yakov will take what he can get. 

Except— before Yakov can begin to try and figure out the best way to move Maya, Shane turns away from him, stepping out into the aisle and bending towards something Yakov can’t quite see from where he’s standing. Yakov frowns at his back. 

Okay then. Maybe Shane hadn’t understood as much as Yakov had hoped? Or maybe he was getting something that would help them move her? Yakov had no idea what that might be, but he didn’t have any real way to ask. 

Deciding to ignore him for now, Yakov turns his attention back to Maya. He makes sure to meet her eyes, softening his expression as he gestures towards her wrist, then her ankle, curling his fingers in the open air in the same position he would if he was actually touching her.

Whether she fully understands what he’s asking or not, she nods, and Yakov awkwardly bends, doing his best not to touch her or the man whose legs he’s standing between. He carefully tucks his fingers beneath her sock, taking hold of her ankle. His fingers take up the same position he’d been mimicking in the open air, pressing against her pulse point. 

He finds her pulse easily, quickly, noting with no small measure of relief that it’s strong, regular—a bit faster than he’d like, but that’s not a huge surprise, given the circumstances. 

It at least lets him know that she’s not bleeding out internally—that her broken femur hasn’t occluded or severed her artery, that her nerves are not being wrung thin and painful, deprived of oxygen as the muscles in her thigh contract, pulling the bone ends of her split femur further and further from their natural home.

Shane’s voice breaks Yakov’s concentration, and Yakov looks up to find that Shane has stepped back into the row with Yakov and Maya, a white metal box with an unmistakable red cross on the lid now held in his hands. 

Well, Yakov thinks, eyeing it somewhat dubiously as he straightens back upright, that’s not nothing. Probably won’t be much of a help to Maya, but maybe there’ll be something in there that he can use to stabilize the metal going through the shoulder of the man he’d examined earlier. 

“She’s got a strong distal pulse,” Yakov says, returning his eyes to Shane’s face with a nod. “There’s no reason to suspect that she’s got any internal bleeding—or at least nothing immediately life-threatening. We can move her.” 

Shane stares at him, expression blank, and Yakov tries to figure out how he’s going to pantomime internal bleeding. Before he can come up with anything, Shane says something back to Yakov. There’s nothing in it that Yakov recognizes this time, though. 

Fuck. 

Shane seems to realize this, because he doesn’t say anything else, just steps out of the row. Yakov watches as he looks around for a second before bending down and setting the first aid kit back on the ground. He turns back to Yakov and holds up a single finger. He says something to Yakov, looks down and repeats the same thing to Maya, and then turns and— begins to leave?

“Hey!” Yakov calls after him. Shane stops, turning back towards him. “Where are you going?” Yakov asks. “We need to evacuate her,” he says, pointing at Maya then behind himself, “and him.” 

Yakov pauses, considering the relative conditions of the two patients. 

“Him first,” he says. “He’s going to go into shock if we don’t also get him stabilized. She can wait a bit longer.” 

Shane briefly follows the direction of Yakov’s extended arm, but when he looks back at him, he just makes the same gesture as he had before—raising a single finger. 

Which explains exactly as much as it did the first time. 

Movement from behind Shane draws Yakov’s attention away from trying to figure out what Shane is failing to communicate, and he watches as a man he hasn’t seen before pushes through the curtains separating them from first class. Shane had still been speaking, saying something incomprehensible, but it’s cut off when he turns around and almost runs directly into the man that had come up behind him.

“Fuck!” Shane says, and Yakov finds himself again swallowing down the inappropriate laughter attempting to bubble free of his throat. 

The new man seems to know Shane, judging by the easy familiarity of the conversation they fall into. Walking and talking, Yakov notes, ignoring the words he can’t understand anyway in favour of doing a quick, albeit distant, examination of the new man. 

He’s got a sizable laceration on his forehead that has left his face coated in blood, but he seems steady enough on his feet. Minor injuries, Yakov decides. At worst, someone who won’t die from delayed treatment. 

It’s a differential Shane had likely already reached earlier himself—judging by the way that he’s not attempting his own examination of the man, Yakov is guessing that this might be someone that Shane had cleared when he’d still been in the first class area.

Though he’s starting to question Shane’s understanding of how to prioritize while performing triage, his differentials seem good enough from what Yakov’s observed, and he decides to trust his judgement, and apparent lack of worry for the new man.

Yakov is feeling even more certain, now, in his earlier conclusion—whatever training Shane has had, whether in medicine or paramedicine, he hasn’t yet gotten to the point in his studies where he’s started doing actual field work. 

It’s a gap, certainly, and one that Yakov would be much better equipped to bridge if they spoke the same fucking language, but it’s not a true mark against the competencies that Shane clearly does have. Yakov has no desire to make this whole situation worse by second-guessing everything the other man does—by undermining his skills, and his confidence in them.  

The man and Shane are still talking, and Yakov takes a second look at the man while he waits. He’s big, Yakov realizes. Taller than Shane, and broader too. He’s wearing a jacket, but it’s not so bulky as to obscure the fact that he and Shane look to be similarly built. As long as he doesn’t have any injuries that Yakov can’t see from here, he’ll actually probably be a lot more help in moving Maya than Yakov, with his stupid fucking fractured wrist. 

Of course, it’s right as Yakov has that thought that the man turns around, and disappears back into the first class area. 

Shane turns back around, looking unaccountably pleased.

“Why did you send him away?” Yakov demands when Shane meets his eyes. Shane’s own eyes widen—startled, Yakov assumes, by Yakov’s tone. Like he has no idea that the other man would have been pretty fucking helpful, if he’d stuck around. “Fucking Americans,” Yakov mutters. 

What the fuck were they teaching them, over there?

Shane starts speaking as he closes the remaining distance between them, looking between Yakov and Maya. He trails off as he draws even with them, making a gesture towards Maya’s thigh as he does. It takes a second, but the gesture is enough to eventually make Shane’s meaning click.

Fucking… okay, clearly Shane thinks that they need to splint Maya before they evacuate her. 

Forget Americans— fucking students. 

Christ. 

Yakov fights against the growing irritation brewing in his chest. Yakov has had students before, has been a field training officer for the last three years. He’s used to working with people who don’t yet know everything, who can’t be expected to do everything perfectly on the first try. He’s used to filling in those gaps, and has no problem teaching on the job.

Trying to do so while completely unable to fucking communicate his corrections, on the other hand, is a brand fucking new experience, and not one he’s particularly enjoying. 

“We need to stabilize his injury,” Yakov repeats when Shane finally looks back up at him, gesturing, again, towards the impaled man sitting behind him. 

Shane, again, stares back at him, expression devoid of any signs of comprehension. 

Biting back the angry, frustrated words burning hot and vicious on the back of his tongue—the ones that won’t help anything, the ones that are born of the circumstances rather than of any anger towards Shane—Yakov forces himself to move past his unproductive frustration. 

Fine. Fine. 

So they were limited in their communication. Whatever. Yakov’s whole career was based on working with what he had. 

Yakov briefly considers the possibility of getting Karina back inside to translate but no. That would be irresponsible, and put her in danger that she didn’t need to be in. 

Looking back at Shane instead, Yakov raises his hand, curled in a fist, then extends a single finger. He lets it hang for a second, then uses it to point behind himself. Returning his hand back to the position it had started in, he raises a second finger, once again giving it a second before pointing down at Maya.

It takes a second, but Yakov can see when it finally clicks—Shane’s eyes widening as he realizes that there’s a more critical patient that Yakov has been attempting to redirect him towards. Satisfied that his point has been made, Yakov turns and begins heading back towards the aisle. He can hear Shane saying something to Maya as he goes, probably—hopefully—offering, more successfully, the same reassurance that Yakov had attempted earlier: we will come back for you. 

Whatever Maya says in response makes Shane laugh, though the noise quickly dissolves into a coughing fit that has Yakov pausing, glancing back over his shoulder at the other man. 

He’s been distracted, he realizes, by everything else going on. Resting on the easy assurance of how easily Shane had been moving, speaking. He hadn’t been paying attention to the sound of Shane’s breathing. 

He knows, now, that he’d missed something. 

Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to have a fucking stethoscope. 

Shaking his head, Yakov turns back around. Whatever it is, it isn’t going to be anything he’s going to be able to do something about immediately, and Shane seemed to be managing well enough with it for now. Yakov keeps moving, accompanied by the sounds of more words being exchanged behind him, then the rattle of the first aid kit being picked up. 

By the time he reaches the end of the aisle, Shane has begun to round the first row—Yakov’s row. He slows as he passes the three people still crumpled in their seats, attention fixing itself on the one expectant, his breathing faint, fading, but still visible in the rise and fall of his back.

“No,” Yakov calls out before Shane can get too distracted. Shane looks up, and Yakov can tell that that, at least, is one word Shane recognizes. 

Fucking Christ, this is just— 

Whatever. One word was better than none—an objective truth, even if Yakov feels like he’s going fucking insane. 

Yakov shakes his head at Shane, gestures over the remaining decedents and expectants. “No,” he says, shaking his head again. He hesitates, but the clearer he can be, the better, so he adds a final pantomime to his performance—dragging his thumb across his throat in what he hopes is a universal gesture. 

Judging by the look on Shane’s face, it is. 

Yakov spares one last glance at Maya. She’s holding the dying man’s hand again. She doesn’t look up. 

It’s not a huge surprise, when Yakov finally gets to look through the first aid kit Shane’s been carrying around, to find that there’s not much in there that’ll be useful for an impalement. Still, there’s more in it than Yakov would have expected—supplies that will be actually useful for some of the other injuries he’s seen, supplies that go far beyond the handful of band-aids he’d feared.

Then the tall man that Shane had sent away returns, and Yakov takes it all back. Shane had been right to send him away. 

In the man’s hands, raised triumphantly in front of him, is a large black case that promises to contain much more than the first aid kit had to offer.

The promise is fulfilled when the man—Vaughn—finally cracks it open. The kit is clearly intended for the kind of mid-air medical crisis that requires a doctor, and contains everything from epinephrine and ketorolac to oropharyngeal airways and even an IV kit. It also has a stethoscope that Yakov immediately claims for himself, looping it around his neck, carefully tucking the bell through the prongs so that it won’t fall off while he works. 

For as unexpectedly extensive as the range of supplies in the medical kit is, digging through it makes it clear that they’re still working with very limited quantities of everything from bandages to saline. It makes sense—the kit is designed for a handful of different mid-air emergencies, not a full fucking plane crash—but it’s still disappointing. Yakov bites out a curse as he realizes that they’re going to need to conserve supplies—which also means that triage is not going to end here, in the initial evacuation. 

He’s going to have to keep making decisions about who gets treatment and who doesn’t for however long it takes for them to get rescued. 

If they get rescued.

Shaking off the thought, Yakov stands, casting his eyes back over what remains of the cabin. It would be a huge waste of supplies to use the bandages to stabilize the metal transecting the man’s shoulder, which meant that it was time to improvise. Again.

His eyes land on the closed luggage compartment hanging above them. Perfect, he thinks, and puts the height of the tall man—Vaughn—to good use.

By the time they get the metal stabilized and the man onto his feet, it’s obvious that he’s not going to be able to move by himself. Yakov tucks himself under the man’s good shoulder before he has the chance to fall over then pauses, considering the handful of other people left in the back of the plane with him. 

Yakov can get this man off the plane, but he's not going to be much help in moving Maya with his wrist. Vaughn and Shane were both more than strong enough to manage it, but Yakov didn’t need his newly acquired stethoscope to tell, now that he was listening for it, that Shane’s breathing had been getting worse the longer they’d been working. 

Shallower, in a way that made Yakov nervous about the possibility of him further exerting himself. 

Yakov didn’t have a lot of optimism in his ability to communicate as much to Shane though, and at least with Vaughn helping him, he wouldn’t be taking all of Maya’s weight himself. Yakov will just have to hope that, even as a student, Shane has recognized his own symptoms, and won’t put unnecessary strain on his lungs.

There’s something else that he needs to make sure Shane understands, anyways, that is arguably more important for him to get across. 

“I’ll take him out,” he says, jerking his head towards the man resting at him. He nods back towards Maya. “You get her,” he continues, then gestures up and down his own thigh, keeping eye contact with Shane and shaking his head as he does. “Do not try to apply a splint.”

“—splint—?” Shane says.

“Splint,” Yakov carefully repeats. “No.” 

Shane starts talking—arguing, most likely—but quickly trails off. Yakov can’t tell if it’s because he’s decided to listen to Yakov or because he’s stuck on the impossibility of communicating anything more complicated than yes or no to each other. 

Yakov would hope for the first, but given how fixated Shane had seemed on the idea of splinting before, he certainly wouldn’t bet on it. 

Returning to what had been proven to be a pretty successful communication method earlier, Yakov holds up one finger, then points towards the exit. “Outside,” he says, then holds up a second finger, finishing in English: “Splint.”

He waits, watching as Shane chews on his lip, thinking over, before—thank Christ—nodding his agreement. Yakov keeps eye contact with him a moment longer, attempting to communicate just how serious he is, because if they apply any traction to Maya’s leg, they will be absolutely fucked for moving her until they’ve got a full splint on. 

Shane’s gaze is steady on his though, not flinching away from the eye contact, and eventually Yakov nods, satisfied. 

“Good,” he says, and settles the man leaning against him more firmly against his side, wrapping his good arm around him before tugging them both into motion. 

At least the man whose hand Maya had been holding had stopped breathing sometime in the middle of them stabilizing the impalement. They wouldn’t be asking her to leave him behind—an easier conversation to have, in a shared language, but not one that a student should have to carry alone.

First class is empty, save the same seats that Yakov had noted earlier as being ignored by those still working to evacuate everyone else. Yakov doesn’t bother to do more than do a cursory look over the ones he passes—two deceased, one expectant—though the sight of a severed foot sitting in front of one of the seats does give him a slight pause. Mentally pinning its location, he moves on, past a dead flight attendant and across the front of the plane.

Yakov steps off the plane and straight into an argument. 

“They’re taking too long,” a man is saying to Karina, standing in the snow a few meters from the plane, gesturing angrily towards the door Yakov has just stepped out of. “Someone should go and make sure that something hasn’t happened to them. I should—”

The man cuts himself off at the same moment that Karina spots Yakov, her eyes widening as they meet his over the man’s shoulder. The man spins, following her gaze, and—

Yakov blinks. Blinks again. 

Is that—

Is that fucking Ilya Rozanov?

“Hey,” Ilya fucking Rozanov says, voice no less loud and angry now that he’s addressing Yakov. He crosses the short distance between him and Yakov, points a demanding finger at him as he continues, “You were inside? Did you see two other men? Hockey players?” 

Yakov blinks, his normally unshakable composure briefly leaving him, because he was used to dealing with a lot of different, difficult shit in the field, but having the fucking Captain of the fucking national hockey team yelling in his face was a new one. 

He’s given a brief reprieve when a voice calls out something in English in the distance. They all turn to see a man separating himself from the larger group of survivors now standing and sitting, shivering, in the snow a handful of meters further away from the plane. 

The man begins to walk towards their small group, all of them watching in silence as he approaches. When he gets closer, Yakov is surprised to realize that he recognizes him—it’s the man who’d taken the casualty with the head wound from him earlier. The man is smiling as he approaches, the expression awkward and apologetic, and Yakov relaxes at the sight, the silent promise that he’s not coming over here to join the argument between Karina and Rozanov that Yakov had interrupted. 

He stops when he reaches them, gesturing to the man Yakov is supporting and saying something in English that Yakov doesn’t need a translation to understand.

“Oh,” Yakov says, “yes, thank you.” The man steps closer, sliding his arm between Yakov’s side and the man’s, preparing to take his weight off of Yakov. “Just— be careful of his shoulder,” he adds.

Karina echoes him in a language he doesn’t understand, and thank Christ, Yakov had been right. She does speak English.

The other man nods, says something clipped before he nudges his shoulder into place beneath the injured man’s armpit, letting Yakov step back and take out from under his weight. Yakov looks over at Karina, who shrugs. 

“I told him what you’d said,” she explains. “He said got it.”

Yakov nods, an unfamiliar type of relief flowing through him as the man begins to lead the impaled man towards the rest of the survivors. 

Being so thoroughly unable to communicate with anyone around him while attempting to do his job has been a new and uniquely unpleasant experience, and he vows to not let Karina get more than a few feet from him for however long they were stuck out here. 

“Hey,” snaps a voice to his right, and Yakov is abruptly reminded that there’s actually at least one other person here who speaks both Russian and English. Yakov turns, and finds Ilya Rozanov looking no less pissed off than he had been when he’d first approached Yakov.

“What?” Yakov asks, fighting against his increasingly frayed nerves to keep any sign of anger out of his own voice. The brief reprieve offered by the other man coming to take the casualty from Yakov has at least been enough for him to shake off any lingering shock of having Ilya fucking Rozanov glaring down at him.

Jesus, he’s tall, Yakov thinks, and doesn’t take a step back as Rozanov leans further into his space, scowling down at him.

“Did you see anyone inside?” Rozanov repeats. “Two men? An American and a Canadian? Hockey players?” 

“There were two men inside,” Yakov replies as calmly as he can. “I don’t know if they were American or Canadian. Or if they play hockey. One is maybe a paramedic student or something, I don’t know, neither of them speak Russian. They’ll be out soon though—they’re just getting the last passenger out.” 

Rozanov seems to blanch, paling as his eyes move from Yakov to the empty doorway behind him. Yakov doesn’t have the time or mental space to worry about what that’s about right now though—too aware there’s something left in the plane that he needs to grab now, before any more time passes. 

“I’ll keep an eye out for them,” he offers, then turns, ignoring the questions Rozanov shouts at his back, the sound of footsteps crunching through snow, hurrying after him. He’s reasonably confident that Rozanov isn’t about to physically attack him from behind, and if he does…

Well. It’s not like it’d be the first time that Yakov’s been cornered into taking a swing at a civilian.

“Rozanov!” Karina’s voice cracks through the air, and Yakov does look then—glancing back over his shoulder because actually, maybe it would be good to have some forewarning, if he’s about to be checked into the plane by a very large, inexplicably furious hockey player. 

He’s both relieved and impressed to see that he’s not—Karina has physically planted herself between him and Rozanov as she picks back up what Yakov suspects is the same argument he’d interrupted earlier. Shaking his head, Yakov returns his attention towards the direction he’s headed in, stepping back into the smokey interior of the plane a few seconds later.

Karina’s voice follows him into the shadows, unwavering as she tells Rozanov that no one should be going back inside until they knew it was safe. That Yakov was a paramedic and knew what he was doing. That Rozanov was a fucking hockey player, and should leave the rest of it to the people who actually, again, knew what they were doing.

Yakov snorts at that one, before blocking out whatever else is being said. Stepping into the space separating the cockpit from the first class cabin, he only has to dig through a few of the shelves of the flight attendants’ supplies before he finds what he’s looking for—a handful of small plastic garbage bags. 

Shoving all but one of the bags into his pocket, he returns to the first class cabin, back to the seat that he’d mentally marked the location of earlier. He stops beside the seat, shaking the garbage bag out before bending and picking up the foot he’d spotted on his way out. It’s awkward, getting it into the bag one-handed, but he manages it, sliding the foot into the bag, shoe and sock and all. 

Spinning the loose ends into a rough seal, he wraps the tail around the outside of the bag, then looks around for something to insulate the outside of the bag. He lands on grabbing the scarf off the man sitting in the seat in front of where he’d found the foot. 

Yakov figures the man won’t miss it much—not with the branch that’s bisecting his throat, a second one piercing his torso. Plus, he’s already missing his boots.

Laying the scarf on the floor, Yakov rolls it around the plastic-encased foot, making sure that it’s completely covered by the fabric. Standing, Yakov tucks the parcel under his arm, taking a final look around the cabin, double checking that anyone left here is beyond help. 

He can hear muffled voices coming from the back of the plane, but they don’t sound distressed, or at least no one’s shouting in alarm, so he decides to do what’s best for not only himself but everyone else here, and gets himself the fuck off this fucking plane. 

Outside, he tosses the foot into a snowbank, then crosses to where Karina has managed to back Rozanov up, getting him a few feet further away from the plane. It's still not as far away as the other passengers are waiting, but given Rozanov’s general belligerence, Yakov is impressed she managed to get him to move at all.

Still visibly seething, Rozanov is standing with his arms crossed, already glaring at Yakov as he approaches.

“What was that?” he demands when Yakov reaches them. 

“A foot,” Yakov says, then looks at Karina. “Do y—”

“A foot?” Rozanov asks, cutting him off. “A foot of what?” 

Yakov looks back at him. “No,” he says. “A foot.”

“Oh god,” Karina says, voice faint. Yakov shrugs.

“We probably won’t be found in time for it to matter,” he says, “but you never know. Could be useful for grafts, at least, if the tissue isn’t too damaged.” 

Yakov pauses, but neither Rozanov nor Karina seem interested in asking any follow-up questions. He turns back to Karina, and this time he manages to get out his question without any interruption.

“Do you know who the foot belongs to?” he asks. “I assume they were moved off the plane, maybe even tourniqueted?” 

God, did Yakov hope they’d gotten a tourniquet on the remaining limb. He wasn’t holding out any real hope for the quality of the work, but so long as they’d done something to at least slow the bleeding, the person should still be alive. And Shane can put a better tourniquet on it, once he gets out here. 

There wasn’t much either of them would be able to do, if the amputee has just been freely bleeding this whole time. Not with the two bags of saline that were the sum total of crystalloids they had access to, nevermind their total lack of access to whole blood.

“Oh, yeah, actually,” Karina says, looking over towards the larger group of survivors. “I saw him when they brought him out, it wa—”

They’re interrupted, again, by Rozanov’s too-loud voice calling out a single word. An anger that promises to match Rozanov’s flares to life in Yakov’s chest at the man’s continued interference, and he turns towards him, mouth already open, a command to shut the fuck up already building in his throat. Except— 

Rozanov isn’t looking at him. At either of them. 

He’s looking behind them, at the plane.

Before either Yakov or Karina can make any move to stop him, he’s once again taking off, striding towards the plane. 

Turning to check what’s caught Rozanov’s attention, Yakov sees who’s exiting the plane at the same time as what Rozanov had said finally translates into a word that Yakov actually understands—not a word, but a name. 

Vaughn. 

It’s with some relief that Yakov sees that the two other men had evidently made a decision to assign the exertion of moving Maya to Vaughn alone—he’s carrying her in his arms, walking away from the plane. It’s with less relief that Yakov sees that Shane isn’t with him, but Vaughn doesn’t seem to be panicked in a way that would suggest that something had gone wrong with him, so Yakov decides to trust, for now, that Shane would be out soon.

Maya’s face is pressed to Vaughn’s chest, her whole body curled towards him—to either hide or muffle the fact that she’s crying, something that’s still given away by the way her shoulders are shaking—but Yakov is impressed that that’s all she’s doing. Despite the fact that he can tell that Vaughn is doing his best to move as carefully as he can, there’s no way to avoid the fact that each step that he takes inevitably jostles her leg. Something that Yakov knows, if not from personal experience then certainly from observation, is causing her an incredible amount of pain.

Unfortunately, Vaughn isn’t able to get more than a few metres away from the plane before he’s forced to a stop by the tall frame of the hockey player who’s now planted himself in front of him, blocking his way forward. Yakov glances at Karina, and finds her already looking back at him, her expression as uneasy as he feels. 

That, more than anything, makes his decision for him, and he sends his mental apologies to whoever is missing their foot as he moves to join Vaughn and Rozanov, Karina trailing slightly behind him. Rozanov and Vaughn are already arguing, loud enough that Yakov is able to hear every word long before he reaches them. 

Of course it’s all in English, so hearing the words doesn’t actually do fuck all for Yakov’s understanding of the situation. 

Yakov glances back at Karina, who tilts her head towards the plane. He wants to go back in, she mouths, and Yakov has to summon up every bit of professionalism he has left to not roll his eyes. 

“You can’t go back on the plane,” Yakov cuts in. It has Rozanov spinning to face him, all his fury now redirected at Yakov. It’s not Yakov’s favourite thing ever, but it is better than it being directed at Vaughn and, more importantly, the woman in excruciating pain that he’s carrying, so Yakov will take it, and whatever comes along with it.

Rozanov opens his mouth, clearly gearing up to argue with Yakov instead, and whatever’s left of Yakov’s fraying professionalism snaps—a tether, strained to its absolute limits, unable to withstand whatever this fucking bullshit is.

“No,” Yakov snaps out before Rozanov has the chance to get out so much as a word. “Stop fucking arguing with everyone. I don’t know what your fucking problem is, but that woman Vaughn is carrying has a broken femur, you selfish asshole. Do you understand how painful that is? Get the fuck out of his way, and let him set her down.”

The anger on Rozanov’s face wavers, then collapses all at once, replaced by guilt and something else—something that Yakov doesn’t have enough time to identify before he’s turning away from Yakov, looking over his shoulder at Vaughn and Maya. 

He offers a word, English, towards Vaughn, before stepping to the side, out of Vaughn’s path. Vaughn nods stiffly in acknowledgement to whatever Rozanov said. 

There’s an undercurrent of anger in whatever Vaughn says in reply, but the words themselves come out even, calm—settling, rather than provoking, whatever tension remains between them.

Rozanov nods again in reply before shooting a look towards Yakov. He meets his gaze, holds it, and this time Yakov has enough time to identify the other emotion that had replaced Rozanov’s earlier anger.

Fear. 

Raw, unguarded. Deep enough that now that Yakov has spotted it, it’s all that he can see. 

A feeling bordering on something that might be closer to terror.

He doesn’t have time to wonder what has Rozanov so afraid before movement by the plane is drawing all of their attention back towards the wreck, to where Shane is finally stepping into the sunlight, blinking against the sudden brightness. 

Yakov feels his own shoulders release some of their remaining tension at the sight—the evidence that nothing had gone wrong with the other man. As well as the fact that he’s brought both the first aid kit and the med kit out with him, something that Yakov hadn’t even thought to point him towards.

“Thank Christ,” Yakov says, mostly to himself, then, glancing towards Karina, explains, “That’s the paramedic student.” 

Karina blinks back at him, looking oddly thrown by his explanation. Her mouth opens, shuts. Opens again.

“No? That’s Shane Hollander?” she finally says, the words, clearly intended as a statement, coming out sounding more like a question.  

“Who?” Yakov asks, but, in what is becoming a real pattern, Rozanov’s loud voice cuts through the air before Karina can reply. 

“Shane!” Rozanov shouts, and then he’s dodging around Vaughn, headed towards the other man at a pace just shy of actively running. 

“Ilya,” Shane says, quieter but unmistakable, and drops both kits he’s holding. 

Yakov winces as the kits hit the snow, toppling over onto their sides. The meds are all set into foam, he reminds himself. He’d repacked the medical kit himself before closing it back up. The supplies would be fine.

Shane doesn’t seem to have noticed that he’s dropped what he was carrying, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on Rozanov. Even from a distance, Yakov can see the way that Shane is shaking as he moves to meet Rozanov. He’s not running, but there’s a tension in the way that he’s holding himself that says that he might as well be. 

Rozanov knows him, Yakov realizes, though he has no idea how. Knows him well, too, judging by both of their reactions. A second realization follows the first—Shane must have been the reason that Rozanov was so desperate to get back onto the plane, the thing that had put that look of real, terrible fear in Rozanov’s eyes.

Maybe he was doing some sort of student placement with whatever American team it was that Rozanov played for? Though Yakov had a hard time imagining they’d send their trainees as their medical staff accompanying their star player to the fucking Olympics. 

Yakov is expecting the two men to meet in an embrace, given the urgency with which they’re moving towards each other, but they… don’t. 

Both men come to an abrupt stop with two feet still remaining between them. Halting in perfect synchronicity, as if they’d somehow planned it. 

And then they just stand there and. Stare. At each other. 

It’s Rozanov who finally breaks their strange stalemate, raising his hand to stiltedly pat Shane’s shoulder; once, twice.

“Hollander,” he says, voice tight, frayed. 

The rest of what he says is in English—nothing that Yakov recognizes. And then Rozanov turns around, and walks away. 

Rozanov keeps his gaze down, eyes fixed on the snow, and doesn’t look at any of them as he passes by, heading towards where the rest of the passengers are gathered. Karina and Vaughn both watch him go, but Yakov turns back to Shane, finding the other man still standing exactly where Rozanov had left him. 

Shane is still shaking, his eyes bright in the snow-doubled sunlight, as if he’s just barely holding back tears as he stares after Rozanov’s retreating back. Then he blinks, and his face loses all expression, as abrupt and final as a set of metal shutters slamming shut. Shaking his head, Shane turns around, and heads back the way he came—to collect the kits he’d so completely forgotten about, when he’d first caught sight of Rozanov.

Rozanov—Ilya. 

He’d called him Ilya.

Yakov turns everything that just happened over in his mind as he watches Shane move, shoulders hunched with all of the tension that he’d managed to wipe from his face. 

First: the way Karina had said Shane’s name, as if Yakov should know who he is. 

Another hockey player, Yakov concludes, with no small measure of resignation. Not that that fact discounts the obvious skill and knowledge that Shane possesses, or how much he’s been able to help Yakov already, but it’s certainly less ideal than Yakov’s original assessment of the situation. If for no other reason than the fact that it makes what he’s going to have to help Yakov do far worse for Shane. 

Whatever training Shane has received, Yakov doubts that it covered the type of mental conditioning that helps form a buffer between yourself and the need to cause further pain in the name of helping. Between you, and the decisions that triage demanded of you. Between you, and the brutality of survival.

Then there was Rozanov’s anger. His fear. The familiarity of Shane using Rozanov’s first name. The way that Rozanov had said Shane first, and then Hollander. The way that they had held themselves apart from each other, despite the desperation of their reunion. 

Yakov had just spent the better part of a month with two people who held themselves with that exact same kind of careful distance—the kind of distance that protects as much as it hurts. A distance demanded by the danger inherent in being seen. A distance that is as much an illusion as it is anything else, a secret behind and beneath it all. 

The kind of secret that could make a man half-mad with rage, with the force of a terror that could not afford to be acknowledged, explained, or understood. 

A secret that Yakov now knew, with a certainty born of instinct and adrenaline, years of experience, a month of observation—and one that he could not afford to think about any further. Not now. 

Not with the work that still lay ahead of them. Not with the group of terrified, hurt, freezing civilians huddled in the snow behind him.

“Shane!” Yakov calls, moving through the snow towards where Shane has picked up the medical kit, carefully wiping the snow off it with the sleeve of his hoodie. Glancing behind himself, Yakov gestures to Karina to follow him, who only hesitates for a second before she does. 

Shane looks up at the sound of his name, replies—a question, judging by the lilt of his voice.

“Have you ever put on a tourniquet?” Yakov asks when he reaches him. He waits for Karina to translate, watches as Shane pales slightly before shaking his head, no. 

Well. That’s not a surprise, Yakov supposes, given his new understanding of who Shane is, and what he does. It makes it worse, he knows, thinking about what he’s about to ask Shane to do, that this isn’t what Shane has been training for—regardless of where or why Shane seemed to have any training in the first place. 

And regardless, further, of how competent Shane had already proven himself, Yakov knows that absolutely no one was going to enjoy what comes next.

Chapter End Notes

new POV! I hope y'all like Yakov as much as I do, and enjoyed seeing the other side of his and Shane's "conversations"! this is the only time there's a major POV overlap of the same events in this fic, but I really had so much fun considering the specificity of their views on everything that was happening, especially with the huge language barrier between them.

also! ilya! he's here! he's okay!

points to anyone who spotted the Troy cameo 👀

once again I must give my endless thanks to Britt, who has: discussed treatment paths with me, sorted all the survivors by their CTAS level, reviewed and corrected my medical details, and beta’d all the rest of it besides. she is saving me so many hours of needing to do primary research, it’s actually insane—writing this fic would be going far slower without her! everyone say thank you Britt! she is my only citation for this chapter!

Chapter 4: Captaincy

Chapter Notes

cw: graphic descriptions of injuries

dialogue in italics is in Russian, non-italics is English

Ilya is watching blood drip into the snow from the raw end of Gabriel Paquette’s leg and not thinking about a single fucking thing when the sound of footsteps approaching tells him that he’s officially run out of time. 

Turning, Ilya keeps his face as impassive as he can as he watches Shane approaching with the paramedic—Yakov. Shane is walking close enough to him that their shoulders are brushing, each of them now carrying one of the kits Shane had brought out of the plane.

The paramedic is undeniably handsome, Ilya thinks, looking him up and down as he comes closer. Mid-thirties, maybe, with dark eyes and hair that is uncomfortably similar in shade and texture to Ilya’s own. He’s shorter than Ilya at least, though his build suggests that he’s strong in that compact, muscles-you-actually-use way. 

He’s also absurdly calm and composed for someone who’d just been in a fucking plane crash. A composure that hadn’t so much as wavered when Ilya had gotten into his face earlier. 

And he’s Russian. Of course.

Ilya’s eyes narrow before he can stop himself, and he forces himself to look away before either Shane or Yakov can catch him watching them.

The journalist is trailing behind them, looking uncomfortable, her arms crossed tightly across her stomach. Ilya doesn’t know if it’s because of him, but he feels a surge of shame and guilt wash through him for his earlier behaviour regardless. He doesn’t like that version of himself, the one that reminds him far too much of his father, his brother. The one that’s all rage and hurt, that would rather strike out first than risk giving the benefit of the doubt, and being left vulnerable.

He hates it, even if he sometimes feels like it's all he knows how to be—maybe even all he is. 

Like all the parts of him that were good—all the parts of him that came from his Mama—were buried right alongside her.

Shane clears his throat as their group of three finally reaches the larger group of survivors. Everyone had already been watching them approach, but the focus narrows onto Shane at the noise, all heads turning towards him in near perfect unison. Shane’s eyes widen, even though he’s the one who drew their attention to him. For a second, he even looks like he might be about to bolt—shoulders tensing as discomfort flows over his face. 

But only for a second. 

As quickly as they’d appeared, the discomfort and panic disappear, replaced with something that is unemotional but somehow also isn’t cold, removed. Calm, maybe, in its purest and most neutral form. 

Straightening, Shane looks around the group. His eyes move slowly, travelling from person to person in a way that makes it feel like he’s calling each of them in, one by one. It’s as equally personal as it is detached, and Shane’s eyes don’t linger on Ilya any longer than they do anyone else. It makes Ilya’s stomach twist in a way that has become far too familiar since two awkward handshakes exchanged in a rink loading area in Saskatchewan four years ago. 

It is, at least, easy enough to ignore. He’s had years of practice at it, after all.

“Thank you all for getting yourselves and everyone else off the plane,” Shane starts.

Everyone, Ilya thinks, and glances around the small group, catching more than one other person doing the same. For the first time, Ilya is fully struck by the realization of just how few of them there are. He counts before he can think better of it, and has to fight for breath against the tight clench of panic squeezing his lungs.

Thirty-one. 

There are thirty-one survivors.

Thirty-one survivors, half of a plane, and who knew how many hundreds of kilometers of wilderness around them. 

“I don’t know where we are, or when we’re going to get rescued,” Shane continues, drawing everyone’s attention away from the grim reality of just how few people had exited a plane that had been carrying hundreds of people, “but we’re going to need to work together to make sure we survive until then.”

A few people shift, like they’re thinking of saying something, but no one speaks. 

"First, does anyone have cell service?" he asks.

There's a flurry of movement—people shaking their heads, others pulling out their phones to check—followed by a second round of heads shaking, murmured no's as those who hadn't checked yet confirm their lack of tether to the outside world. Ilya doesn't move. He'd already checked, when he'd first exited the plane, and hadn't been surprised to see the reception bars on his phone replaced with the symbol that promised that there would be no calls for help. Something that had now been confirmed, thirty times over.

In the silence left behind by that grim response, Shane continues.

“Okay, we'll keep an eye out for a satellite phone, but the first priority is shelter. It’s still early in the day—” Shane pauses, eyes flicking between the sun and the horizon, “around nine A.M., so we’ve got a good amount of daylight left, but we’ve got a lot to get done before sunset.”

What the fuck, Ilya thinks incredulously. Had Shane actually just calculated the time by what—the fucking position of the sun? Who the fuck knew how to do that?

Apparently impervious to the incredulous look coming from Ilya—and surely, quite a few others, because seriously, what the fuck—Shane turns towards Vaughn. 

“Vaughn, can you take, um—” Shane flicks his eyes over the group, nothing more than a flash of dark eyes before he lands back on Vaughn, continuing, “Barrett, and go back into the plane. See if you can figure out where the smoke was coming from? And if there’s a fire, see if you can put it out.”

Vaughn nods easily, like he’s been taking orders from Shane his whole life. Which—

This is Shane as Captain, Ilya suddenly realizes. Shane Hollander, Captain of the Montréal Metros; so different from Ilya’s own bombastic approach to captaincy that Ilya hadn’t even recognized it at first. In any other circumstances, it might be something that Ilya would grab ahold of with both hands, moulding it into bullets that he could shoot back at Shane in the form of quick, brutal chirps. Designed and deployed for the singular purpose of provoking a reaction, any reaction, out of the other man.

Ilya can’t do it though—not here, not now. Not when it’s somehow perfectly suited to the hell they’ve found themselves trapped in. Ilya can practically feel the way that the certainty in Shane’s voice is offering the others exactly the type of safe mooring they needed to stave off a complete collapse into panic and fear. 

There’s a calm surety to the way Shane is standing; loose, but ready. A confidence to the way that he lists off what comes next that is nearly visibly being transferred to the small group of survivors as he continues. 

“Be careful,” Shane is saying to Vaughn. “If you think you’re in danger, get out of there—your safety is the priority, okay? The plane is our easiest option for shelter, if we can be sure it’s safe for us to be inside of it, but we do have other options. It’s not worth you dying over, or getting more injured.” 

Like he’d somehow read Ilya’s mind, Vaughn fires off a lazy salute.

“You got it, Cap,” he says, nodding towards Barrett as the other man moves to join him, both of them walking forward to stand just behind Shane. They stop there—waiting to hear the rest of the play, Ilya thinks with an amusement that is as caustically judgemental as it is bleak. 

Shane doesn’t so much as blink at Vaughn calling him Cap, already moving on—turning back to the larger group, running his eyes over them with a considering, calculating look on his face. Finally, he points at first one man, and then another.

“Roth, Kivelä,” Shane names each man as he points at each of them, “can you see if you can get around to the back end of the plane? Check if the cargo hold is intact, and if anything is left inside it?” 

Like Vaughn, Roth and Kivelä nod without any sign of hesitation or doubt—the easy, trusting deference that all players are used to showing their captains. Ilya wonders if that’s why Shane keeps calling out hockey players—because he knows, or maybe just hopes, that they’ll listen to him without arguing out of pure habit. 

He reconsiders that assessment as Roth and Kivelä break free of the main group to stand as a pair to Shane’s right, mirroring the position Barrett and Vaughn have taken up behind Shane’s other shoulder. Paired together like this, it’s clear that none of the men that Shane have called out have any major injuries—Vaughn looks nearly grotesque with his whole face covered in blood, but it’s dry enough that it’s started cracking, flaking off, and none of the others seem significantly worse for wear, aside from Barrett’s black eye. 

These four might just be the ones that Shane trusts not to fall down dead the second they leave his line of sight—or at least, to not immediately do something stupid, and get themselves killed. 

A third option: they’re the only people whose names Shane knows. 

Ilya wouldn’t put it past Shane to think it was rude to give someone whose name he doesn’t know an order, plane crash or no plane crash. Canadians were just like that, and Shane even more so than most.

“Everyone who feels up to it, we need to start collecting firewood,” Shane interrupts Ilya’s internal debate. He’s back to looking at the larger group, meeting people’s eyes easily, unflinchingly as he continues: “Once we’ve got a fire going, we’ll be able to dry out deadfall that’s been on the ground, but to start, we need to focus on looking for dead wood that hasn’t fallen into the snow.” 

Shane looks out at the forest surrounding them, scanning the trees. 

Ilya can’t help it—instinct or stupidity or both. He follows his gaze. 

The deep, rich green of the needles decorating the branches of the surrounding trees are muffled by the snow hanging heavy from their limbs. Obscuring enough that even the denseness of the trees can’t compete with the overwhelming whiteness of the snow that lays atop and around them, dominating the wilderness surrounding them. It rises and falls in the gaps between the trees; dunes shaped by the wind, flowing over the clear stretches that would be full of grass and flowers in the summer.

The only real interruption to the pristine brightness of the snow is the ugly scar of churned dirt and broken boughs left in the plane’s wake. A brutal, destructive path leading directly to the broken and warped fuselage that they’d somehow, impossibly, walked free of.

“We’re looking at mostly evergreens,” Shane says as he turns back to the group, apparently finished with his survey of their surroundings, “so look for trees where the branches are missing most of their needles, or where the needles that are left are yellow. The bark will probably be really cracked and damaged as well. Test them by bending them—we’re looking for ones that will snap off easily, since we don’t have any tools for cutting yet.” 

Yet? Ilya thinks, aware of the tinge of hysteria the word carries, even inside his mind. Does Shane think they’re going to find, what, a hardware store out here? Somewhere they can purchase an axe? 

Oh yes, hello, I’ve just come from the plane that crashed, you may have seen us fall straight out of the sky? We’re looking to purchase an axe. 3,000 руб? Very reasonable, thank you. Do you accept American dollars?

“Go in pairs,” Shane continues, interrupting Ilya’s imagined conversation, “and don’t go far if you can help it. The snow will help, in knowing where you’ve come from, but try to keep the plane in sight if you can.” Shane pauses to squint up at the empty sky, and Ilya swears to God, if he tries to tell them that he can tell if there’s going to be a storm or something else equally insane, Ilya will… 

Well, he’s not sure what he’ll do, but something. Possibly drastic. 

Almost certainly violent. 

Luckily for Ilya’s sanity and potentially Shane’s physical well-being, Shane doesn’t say anything about the weather when he returns his gaze to the earth, and the people standing in front of him. 

“Anyone who doesn’t feel up for it, just stay where you are. Now that we’re free of the plane, Yakov—” 

Another boon for Ilya’s sanity: Shane finally shows that he’s not some sort of magically perfect Canadian savant for plane crashes as well as hockey by stumbling to a stop, glancing awkwardly between Yakov and the larger group.

“Um, sorry, I should have— I’m Shane? Hollander? If we haven’t met. And, uh, this is Yakov. Tereshchenko. He’s a paramedic. I know we looked at some of you while we were evacuating, but now that we’ve got some more time, we’ll be taking another look at everyone. Oh, uh, and this is Karina. She speaks Russian, so she’s going to help me and Yakov because I… don’t.”

A quiet murmur passes over the group—a collection of half-hearted hellos whose awkwardness somehow manages to perfectly match Shane’s. It has the unfortunate side-effect of settling Shane back into his skin, and a second later he’s right back to being the bizarrely composed version of himself he’d been since he’d exited the plane. 

Well, since shortly after he’d exited the plane.

Ilya thinks the way that Shane had said his name has imprinted itself on Ilya’s bones. If they somehow manage to make it out of this alive, he’s going to be seeing the look on Shane’s face when he’d spotted Ilya every time he closes his eyes for the rest of his life. Ilya had already been aware of just how dangerous and precarious the ice he’d been walking across had been; he’s certain, now, that there’s no hope for him. 

It’s going to crack beneath him, if it hasn’t already.

Sooner or later, Ilya Rozanov will drown for Shane Hollander. 

Rolling his shoulders back, Shane opens his mouth, but before he can say anything else, a tentative voice from behind him has all eyes turning to Karina. 

Hand half-raised like she’s asking a question in school, Karina blinks against the weight of the attention that has suddenly focused on her, but she doesn’t waver as she speaks, “Sorry, but I’d… I’d actually really rather… not? Translate? No offence, but I don’t— I don’t know that I can, uh. Be there. For. The stuff you were talking about earlier.” 

Understanding chases frustration over Shane’s face, but before either can fully settle into place, Karina is continuing, now pointing towards Ilya. 

“He could do it?” she says, throwing Ilya right under the bus. 

Ilya tries his best not to show any emotion on his face as all eyes now turn towards him. Including Shane’s. He tries his best, too, not to acknowledge even to himself that the bus that Karina is throwing him under is one that means that he’ll have a real excuse to stick right by Shane for the foreseeable future, one that no one can question him for. 

Or the fact that, for that reason, it’s a bus that he’d quite willingly throw himself under—no external push needed. 

“Yes,” Ilya says as blandly as he can manage, “I can be translator.” He meets Shane’s eyes as he speaks, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t tell what Shane’s thinking or feeling. If Shane is feeling anything at all. He knows he’s thinking something though. Shane’s always thinking—neurotically, obsessively. 

After what feels like minutes but can’t have been more than a handful of seconds, Shane nods, just once, short and sharp. “Okay,” he says, “Rozanov, you’re with me and Yakov.” 

So he’s back to being Rozanov then. Ilya supposes he only has himself to blame for that—he’d called Shane Hollander first, after all. 

It shouldn’t feel like as much of a loss as it does. 

At least he gets to be one half of one of Shane Hollander’s chosen pairs of hockey players, assigned and anointed by the Golden Boy himself. The best pair, really. First and second greatest players in the league.

There’s a brief, stumbling flurry of movement as people pair off, the two other pairs of hockey players headed back towards the plane as the others spread out. Ilya doesn’t move, taking the opportunity to take another look at their surroundings. 

What little time he’s spent outside of Moscow has always been in other cities, back when he’d been travelling around the country, playing in different youth tournaments. He’s never seen much point in leaving the city—has never understood the fascination people in North America seem to have with camping and hiking. The whole thing just another entry in the endless list of things that he finds baffling about their culture. 

Why anyone would want to spend their time in some horrible tent, sleeping on the hard ground, getting rained on and bitten by bugs and maybe mauled to death by a bear is utterly inexplicable to him. Why do that, when you could be in a hotel instead? When you could have a soft bed and cold vodka and maybe even room service? Or even better, just stay at home—warm and comfortable in your own bed.

He is, perhaps, just a little bit, regretting his past avoidance now. 

Maybe if he’d spent any time outside of rinks and cities, the wilderness surrounding them would seem less terrifyingly stark and empty. 

Ilya had known, of course, just how vast and untamed much of the tayga is—he’d paid some attention in school, even if he hadn’t cared to try particularly hard at it, already knowing by the time he was ten that hockey was his future, if only because it offered him the surest chance at escape, so long as he was good enough, worked hard enough. 

Knowing was different than seeing though, and Ilya is struck, suddenly, by how impossibly small he feels—how small they all feel. From above, they would be nothing but tiny black specks, rendered inconsequential and near invisible by the sheer size of the wilderness surrounding them. 

The forest bracing them on all sides is old in a way that is nearly suffocating, the weight of the untold centuries it had existed for pressing down upon their small, short human lives. They were far enough south that the trees here had grown dense and tall, and Ilya was at once thankful for it, knowing just how cold it got in the north, and more fearful, for how much more difficult it would surely make it for them to be found. 

The plane had come to a stop at the edge of the treeline, the trees it had taken down on its way through them perhaps something that had helped them survive, offering some resistance, slowing their free-fall from the sky. Though hitting the trees had had its own price, and Ilya swallows the taste of bile at the memory of the bodies he’d seen when he’d finally got himself free of his seat. 

On one side of the plane, the forest dominates the landscape, the dark, menacing shapes of the trees cutting high into the empty sky above. On their other side, the drifts of snow slope downwards until they even out. Ilya catches a strange shine in the distance past where they flatten. He squints at it, taking maybe too long to finally realize what he is looking at—ice, reflecting the sunlight where the snow had blown clear of the surface of the frozen lake next to them. 

Ilya thinks about how close they’d come to landing in the water, and quickly turns away from it before the thought of how much worse it might have been can fully settle. 

Behind them, in the direction they’d come from as marked by the churn of dark earth and shattered wood, is a tall plume of dark smoke. Ilya doesn’t look at it either. Doesn’t think about it. 

“Rozanov.” Shane’s voice cuts sharply through the air, and Ilya turns immediately, grateful for the reprieve from his own thoughts. 

The first thing Ilya notices is that there are now far fewer people still lingering in their immediate surroundings, those who could move having evidently headed off in search of firewood while Ilya had been too lost in examining their surroundings to notice. Ilya does a quick count—of the thirty survivors, fifteen have remained behind, plus Yakov, Shane, and Ilya. Of those, eight were on the ground, sitting on the blankets and coats that Ilya had helped the flight attendant and Kai Robertson—American, right wing, Captain of the Anaheim Hammerheads—bring outside.

It’s one of those on the ground that Yakov and Shane are crouched next to, Shane waving him over with an impatient snap of his wrist when Ilya meets his eyes. Ilya heads over, feeling more aware of how he’s walking than he possibly ever has before in his life. There was no way to undo his initial, instinctive reaction to finally seeing Shane emerge from the fucking plane, but he could do his best not to make it worse by seeming too eager to obey his commands now. 

Even if it’d been years since he’d accepted the truth that there were few things he wouldn’t do if Shane so much as snapped his fingers at him, he didn’t need to advertise it quite so obviously. Certainly not to Shane, never mind all the other assholes stuck here with them. 

Ilya comes to a stop next to Shane and Yakov, who’ve got the two cases Shane had brought with him from the plane open on the ground next to them. One holds a collection of ordinary-looking first aid supplies, while the other seems far more serious—glass vials set into black foam, a middle section populated with zippered black bags set aside to reveal smaller clear plastic cases and sealed bags holding who-knows-what. 

He doesn’t think that the supplies that Shane is holding came from either box though—he has a Sharpie in one hand, a white plastic garbage bag in the other.

Ilya turns his eyes towards the man sitting on the ground in front of them, and is once again confronted by the sight of the raw, meaty end of Gabriel Paquette’s leg. Despite the belt that Ilya had watched Barrett and Roth fasten above his knee, the torn flesh is still steadily dripping blood, staining the snow beneath it a bright, brilliant red. It’s propped up on a rolled-up blanket, hanging in the air, and Ilya wonders if it wouldn’t be better to have it on the snow—you were supposed to ice injuries, right? And surely if anything deserved to be numbed, it would be a fucking— Christ— a fucking amputation.

“We need to place a tourniquet,” Shane says, and Ilya frowns, eyes flicking briefly to Shane before returning to the place where Paquette’s foot should have been. It’s nearly nauseating to look at, but for some reason, Ilya finds himself struggling to look away. His mind keeps returning to the way that Yakov had announced it so casually when he’d left the plane for a second time—a foot. Paquette’s foot. Bundled in a scarf, and chucked into a snow bank. 

Fuck. 

“It has already got tourniquet, no?” Ilya says, gesturing towards the belt. 

“No,” Shane says, then corrects with a shake of his head, “well, yes, but… it’s not good enough?” He starts confident but is obviously wavering by the time he finishes speaking, his voice pitched up in a question, his eyes cutting towards Yakov with an uncertain expression. 

Yakov nods, apparently not needing Ilya to translate the question—understanding, just from the look on Shane’s face. 

It sends a sharp jolt of something like anger through Ilya, surprising in its suddenness, its intensity. A thought, beneath it—something like how dare you? 

You don’t know him. You can’t. 

You don’t even speak the same language.

“We need to apply a second tourniquet,” Yakov says to Shane, then turns, tilting his head up to meet Ilya’s eyes. He continues, “the belt is… well, it’s not nothing, but it’s very Hollywood medicine, yes? Very American.”

Ilya snorts before he can stop himself. He immediately feels annoyed with himself, forcing all traces of amusement from his face as quickly as it had come. 

“So what, Shane needs to take off the belt?” Ilya asks, and Yakov shakes his head.

“No, we leave it where it is for now, but Shane needs to apply a second tourniquet, here—” he points to the meatiest part of Paquette’s calf, both Paquette and Shane’s eyes following the gesture, “—to actually control the bleeding, and to give him at least a chance to keep the knee. And it needs to be much tighter.” Yakov stops speaking then, his face twisting in something that Ilya can’t quite name—trepidation? Dread? Nothing good, whatever it is. 

“He says you need to do second one, on calf. Belt is not good enough,” Ilya says to Shane, then turns back to Yakov. “Why does Shane have to do it? Why can’t you do it?” 

Yakov gives Ilya a look like he thinks he’s stupid, making a jerking motion with his head towards his own chest. Ilya follows the gesture and immediately feels like the idiot Yakov clearly thinks he is. Ilya doesn’t know what’s wrong with Yakov’s wrist, but the way he’s holding it, not to mention the dark bloom of bruising forming beneath his skin, makes it obvious that there’s something wrong with it. 

“Okay,” Ilya says, brushing past the moment with as blasé a tone as he can manage, “so Shane puts on a better tourniquet. How?” 

It’s a frustratingly slow process—Yakov first explaining what comes next to Ilya, then Ilya struggling to find the English to explain it to Shane in turn—but they get there eventually, with a plastic garbage bag, folded into a wide band, wrapped around Paquette’s calf, the two free ends of it wrapped around the Sharpie in turn. 

Ilya had started feeling self-conscious about towering above them about halfway through the process, and had joined the other two men in crouching around Paquette’s legs. And if he’d intentionally placed himself between Yakov and Shane, well, that’s no one’s business but his own, and certainly isn’t something he’d ever admit to anyway. Besides, it’s the best place for him to be, really, to act as a translator between the two men.

“Now, he needs to use the marker to tighten the bag,” Yakov says, miming a twisting motion in the air with his good hand. “I’ll let him know when he can stop.” Yakov pauses, looking at first Paquette, then Shane, before turning to Ilya. His expression is twisted into an apologetic grimace, and Ilya feels his stomach begin to sink before he even speaks. Yakov’s words only serving to reinforce—to justify, to confirm—Ilya’s apprehension.

“It’s going to be very painful,” Yakov says. “You need to warn them both. The man—Gabriel, yes?” Yakov pauses, looking at Paquette, who nods uncertainly in response to the sound of his name. Yakov nods back, then returns his attention to Ilya, continuing, “—he will probably scream. Tell them that it needs to be very, very tight. That Shane has to keep going until I say to stop, no matter how bad it hurts.” 

“Fuck,” Ilya says, and Yakov grimaces in sympathy, then gestures towards the other two men—a silent order. Tell them. 

Ilya suppresses the urge to roll his eyes, to dig in his heels against the unspoken command.

“Next you turn marker, to tighten bag,” Ilya translates, eyes flicking between Shane and Paquette. “It will hurt, but it must be very tight. You must turn until Yakov says to stop. Not sooner, even if…” Ilya trails off, not sure how to say what else Yakov had said—not because he doesn’t have the English, but because knowing the words and knowing how to use them are two entirely different things.

Paquette speaks before Ilya has the chance, finishing for him. “—even if I ask him to?” he says, a wry, sardonic twist to his mouth. Dread and fear both clearly readable on his face. Ilya knows his own expression is apologetic when he meets Paquette’s eyes, but Paquette doesn’t flinch away from it, meets his gaze with a steady resolve despite the fear.

“It’s fine,” he says, then turns to Shane, meeting his eyes. “It’s fine,” he repeats, his gaze on Shane steady, determined. “Do what you gotta do man. And just… ignore anything that I say, or whatever.” Paquette huffs out a laugh, one utterly devoid of any real amusement. “I mean, I already got my foot ripped off,” he continues, “I doubt this is gonna be worse than that was.” 

Yakov’s eyes are moving between them as they talk, but Ilya doesn’t bother to translate any of that—the way that Yakov is acting, Ilya has the uncomfortable feeling that this might actually be worse. He doesn’t say that either, in either language.

“Okay,” Ilya says to Yakov. “They understand. Shane will not stop.” 

Yakov nods, then looks at Shane. He mimics taking in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Shane mirrors him, seemingly without thinking, and Ilya feels another sharp and inexplicable jolt of something shoot through him—not jealousy, he refuses to feel jealous over fucking Yakov and his stupid calming breaths. 

Ilya shakes whatever it was off as quickly as it comes, focusing back on whatever new and awful thing he’s about to bear witness to. 

Just one more thing to add to all the other horrors he’s seen in the last few hours. Another nightmare to add to the dozens that had already littered the barren roadway of his life, long before the plane had ever crashed. Long before he’d left Russia for the first time.

As is apparently his fucking constant habit, Yakov was right. 

Paquette begs Shane to stop. 

Shane’s face is visibly paler by the time he finishes tucking the Sharpie under the band of the garbage bag, securing the tourniquet in place. His hands are shaking. Ilya doesn’t blame him—his hands are shaking too, and he didn’t even do anything. Just crouched here, watching. 

They all pretend to not notice the way that Paquette’s breath is still coming out in shuddering gasps, the wetness that he hastily wipes from his face. 

“See?” Paquette says, his voice rough, as tight and trembling as the smile he attempts as he continues, “Wasn’t half as bad as losing the foot in the first place. Barely felt anything, to be honest.”

Shane’s answering smile is no more steady than Paquette’s, but it’s there, and real, and Ilya abruptly decides that Gabriel Paquette is the best player on the Calgary Chinooks. Greatest Captain in the Pacific Division. Ilya’s favourite goalie in the whole Western Conference. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, “and look on bright side, you will still be better goalie than half of league, even with one foot.”

“Ilya,” Shane hisses as Paquette turns towards Ilya, eyes wide with surprise. 

Ilya waves off Shane without looking away from Paquette, keeping eye contact with him as he continues, “Sundström already plays like he’s lost both feet, yes? And Polášek likes to go so far from net, is like he is one lost in wilderness.”

“Câlice, Rozanov,” Paquette says, shaking his head, but the surprise has faded, replaced with genuine amusement, for all that the smile he wears wavers slightly at the edges, “you’re crazy, you know that right?”

“It has been said before, yes,” Ilya says, waving his hand dismissively. “But is just jealousy. You know who is crazy? Middleton. Breaks more sticks than Detroit defenceman but still can’t get save percentage above .850. Is very sad, no?”

Paquette actually laughs at that, and Ilya doesn’t bother to hide the smug tilt to his smile as he glances towards Shane. He’s satisfied to find Shane already looking back at him, even more satisfied to note that the exasperated expression he’s projecting isn’t enough to hide the amusement in his eyes, the way the corners of his mouth are tilted ever so slightly upwards. 

He rolls his eyes when Ilya looks at him but the pretend annoyance is firmly undone by the way that he can’t seem to quite fully hide his growing smile.

Ilya tucks the warmth that spreads through him at Shane’s smile away, burying it in the centre of his chest, and turns back to Yakov. 

“What’s next?” he asks.

Yakov doesn’t reply right away, looking back and forth between Shane and Ilya instead. Ilya can’t read the look in his eyes, but there’s something calculating about it. Observing, if nothing else.

Ilya tries to keep his own expression equally inscrutable. Prays that the fission of fear that races through him like ice does not make its way into his eyes.

Yakov blinks, and focuses on Ilya.

“We rinse the wound,” he says, “and then have him apply direct pressure on the end of his leg. We need to stop the bleeding, but we can leave bandaging it properly until we’re not working out in the snow.”

Yakov reaches into the more serious box then, and pulls out a bag filled with clear fluid, one that Ilya recognizes from the scattered handful of times he’s needed to get an IV himself, even if he doesn’t know exactly what it contains. One of the plastic boxes is opened up next, and then Ilya is back to translating—guiding Shane through getting a syringe out, screwing a needle into it and then sticking the needle straight into the bag.

It’s slow going—Shane filling the syringe, then unscrewing the needle, leaving it still stuck in the bag as he empties the syringe out over the stump of Paquette’s leg. He repeats it three times before Yakov gestures for him to stop, apparently satisfied. Yakov hands Ilya a roll of tape, has him tape over the end of the needle still stuck in the bag of clear fluid before he carefully places it back into the box.

With the bag safely stowed, Yakov grabs a wrapped bandage, handing it to Ilya to open before passing it over to Paquette. The goalie takes it despite his obvious trepidation, expression intent as he listens to Yakov’s instructions, delivered via Ilya. 

Between Yakov’s gestures and Ilya’s translation, they finish with Paquette settled, still sitting in the snow, his leg elevated and pressing the bandage hard against the end of his leg. Paquette’s face twists in pain at the first touch of the bandage, but he visibly grits his teeth, powering through it in a way that Ilya can’t help but be impressed by. 

Best goalie in the whole league, Ilya decides. Aside from Savvy, of course.

“You are tougher than you look, Paquette,” Ilya says as Yakov and Shane begin to collect up their respective kits, getting ready to head off in search of their next victim. 

Paquette laughs, surprised and strained. “Fuck off, Rozanov,” he says, and Ilya shakes his head.

“No, am serious. You are very tough. Tough enough to be Raider. You should leave Calgary. Come to Boston.”

Paquette laughs again. 

“Right, I’ll get right on that,” he says. 

Ilya nods. “Yes,” he says. “Call agent, say you are done playing for shitty team. Tell them, send me to best team in league, to play with best player in league.”

Paquette frowns, the expression too big, too obvious, to be serious. “I thought you said you wanted me in Boston,” he says, “why are you telling me to go to the Metros now?” 

Ilya blinks in surprise, before scowling at Paquette, who’s abandoned his own frown in favour of a self-satisfied smile. A burst of laughter from Shane has Ilya’s frown deepening further, though he can’t quite stop himself from glancing at Shane, savouring how much lighter he seems for it, even if it’s just for a second.

“Tch,” Ilya clicks his tongue, waving dismissively at them both. “Canadians are all the same. Wrong about everything.” 

“Whatever you’ve gotta tell yourself, Rozanov,” Shane says, flashing a smile at Ilya that has his heart—embarrassingly—skipping a beat. 

“Is truth,” Ilya says, insistent, but Shane ignores him, turning back to Paquette. 

“You’ll be okay here for now?” he asks, and Paquette nods. 

“I’ll be fine,” he says—lies, probably, he looks terrible; pale despite his flushed cheeks, sweat beading on his forehead. 

None of them calls him on it. “Shout if you start to feel worse,” Shane says instead, in that tone of voice that Ilya is beginning to recognize as his Captain Hollander voice. 

Paquette must hear it too, because he nods again, face serious. “You got it, Cap,” he says. 

From up close, Ilya can see the way that Shane does briefly stumble over the title—it’s subtle, just a couple of too-fast blinks, a second of stillness, before he’s moving past it, standing to join Yakov, who’s ignoring them all in favour of surveying the scattered handful of passengers who’ve remained behind. 

“Arm,” Yakov says, pointing before setting off, Ilya and Shane trailing silently behind. 

Ilya is once again having trouble looking away.

The skin of the inside forearm of Luka Ayers—Canadian, left wing, Captain of the New Jersey Saints—has been pushed back, crumpled up at his elbow as if it was the sleeve of a shirt. Leaving a cleared stretch of the bright red interior of Ayers’ arm exposed to the air, open from wrist to elbow. Ilya doesn’t know enough to know what he’s looking at, but he knows that it’s nothing he should ever be seeing—that no one should ever be seeing on a living human, much less on their own body. 

Ayers’ look of pale, blank shock is proof of that, if nothing else. 

Bands of muscle, curving in familiar shapes for all that Ilya has never seen them laid bare like this. Thin tubes like tiny plumbing lines laying atop them. Other things—stringy, thready, winding through and around them. All of it that same colour—the bright, brilliant red of newly spilled blood. Of raw steak, freshly purchased from the butcher. 

Ilya’s stomach turns over at that thought, and he finally manages to pull his eyes away from Ayers’ arm, turning his focus over to Shane and Yakov instead. The two men have pulled the same bag from earlier out, pulling the tape covering the needle off so that Shane can screw it back onto the syringe.

Between Yakov’s gesturing with his one good hand and Ilya’s translated instructions, Shane pours a careful sluice of saline over the raw interior of Ayers’ arm, and then another. Yakov points Ilya back towards the bag and the tape after the second wash, and Ilya again seals the needle to the bag before putting it back in the box, the same way he’d watched Yakov do it earlier. It gets him an approving nod from Yakov, which makes Ilya feel both annoyed and pleased. 

“Okay,” Shane says, voice somehow still steady as he hands the empty syringe back to Yakov, looking between him and Ayers. “What next?” 

“Now, you push the skin back into place,” Yakov says before Ilya has the chance to translate Shane’s question.

“What?” Ilya says, turning to stare at Yakov. “Push it—”

“Back down his arm, yes,” Yakov says in a tone that makes Ilya narrow his eyes at him—overly patient and borderline patronizing. “If we’re lucky, the circulation is still there, and it’ll heal back into place. Otherwise, Luka here will be looking at quite a few skin grafts—better that we save the skin, if we can.” 

“And that works?” Ilya asks, incredulous. “It just… reattaches itself.” 

Something like a smile tugs at the corner of Yakov’s mouth. Ilya’s eyes narrow further. 

“Essentially, yes,” Yakov says, then gestures at Shane. “Tell him,” he says. Ilya keeps his narrow-eyed stare fixed on Yakov for a handful of stubborn seconds before turning to Shane with a sigh. 

“He says you need to push the skin back down,” he reluctantly translates. 

Ayers visibly blanches at the words, but to his credit Shane’s own expression barely wavers—just that same handful of too-fast blinks that Ilya could now recognize as Shane fighting to keep himself from reacting to something. 

“Okay,” Shane says, and does it.

Ilya doesn’t throw up, but it’s a nearer thing than he’d have liked. 

Vaughn and Barrett return while Shane is finishing wrapping a roller-bandage around the gauze pads he’d used to cover the inside of Ayers’ forearm. Ilya turns to them with more eagerness than he’d ever admit to, or otherwise experience—he’d spotted a woman holding a blood-soaked scarf around her hand, and had an unpleasant feeling that he knew where they were headed next. 

“Plane’s cleared,” Vaughn announces in a tone that is far too upbeat for their current circumstances. 

“Yeah?” Shane asks, glancing at them for only a second before returning his attention to fixing the bandage in place. 

“Yeah,” Vaughn says, looking down at what Shane’s doing with an openly curious expression—like it’s interesting, and not at all disgusting or horrifying. Though to be fair, at this point, Ayers’ arm is no longer visible, leaving just the white of the bandages covering it to easy observation—it’s Ilya, not Vaughn, who will never be able to get the sight of the raw red interior of Ayers’ arm out of his head. 

“What was it?” Shane asks, standing back up and turning to face Vaughn and Barrett. 

Shane’s arms move as he does, like he’s about to wipe his hands on his sweatpants; a habitual, instinctive motion. He freezes at the last second, clearly remembering that they’re covered in blood. After an awkward beat, he manages to turn the motion into a gesture instead, herding them all a few meters away from Ayers, so they can talk without him hearing. 

“The source of the fire?” Shane continues, clarifying—or prompting, maybe. Vaughn seems to have tracked Shane’s aborted movement, and is now looking at Shane’s blood-covered gloves. To Ilya’s satisfaction, that, at least, has wiped away his earlier curiosity—now replaced by a horrified expression that is far more appropriate for the situation. 

“Electrical fire in the cockpit,” Vaughn says, forcing himself to look away from Shane’s hands to meet the other man’s eyes. “We found a fire extinguisher under the pilot’s seat though. Barely took anything to put it out.”

“Oh fuck,” Shane says, eyes widening. “The pilots, I didn’t even think—”

Vaughn cuts him off with a shake of his head. “Don’t worry,” he says, mouth twisting. “They were— there wasn’t anything you could have done.” 

Shane looks equal part nauseated and relieved as he absorbs that information. “Okay,” he says, then again, stronger, “okay. That’s— that’s good. Great.”

“Does that mean we can go back inside?” Barrett asks, arms wrapped around himself as he shivers. 

Pussy, Ilya thinks derisively, looking at Barrett’s jacket, his sneakers. He has no way to know the exact temperature, but it can’t be more than five or ten below zero. He thought Canadians were supposed to be better than this—though, he has a vague memory of Barrett maybe being from the west coast? And Ilya has been to Vancouver enough times in the middle of the winter to know that it’s far warmer there than any other Canadian city he’d ever been to. So perhaps it wasn’t actually a surprise, that Barrett didn’t seem able to handle even a little bit of cold.

“Um,” Shane says, hesitating. He shoots a glance at Ilya for some unfathomable reason before turning back to Barrett. “Yeah, if anyone’s super cold, they can go inside. We should start getting everyone in coats, if they don’t have one on already, too.”

“But?” Ilya prompts, ignoring the surprised look both Vaughn and Barrett shoot at him. If they didn’t hear the but at the end of that, it was because they were stupid hockey players who couldn’t pick up subtle hints if they punched them in the face—not because Ilya was good at reading Shane, specifically. 

“But,” Shane says, drawing out the word as he chews his lip. “I’d rather wait until Roth and Kivelä get back before we start moving everyone back inside.”

“Why?” Ilya asks at the same time that Barrett speaks, offering—

“I’ll go check on them.” 

“Thanks, Barrett,” Shane says, ignoring Ilya. 

Barrett nods at Shane, avoids looking at Ilya, and takes off, following the line of Roth and Kivelä’s footprints through the snow down, towards the back of the plane. Ilya is vaguely aware of Vaughn wandering off towards some of the other passengers, most of his attention fixed on Shane. 

“Why?” he asks again. 

“Because,” Shane says slowly, like he’s thinking it through even as he speaks, “if the cargo hold is intact, it’ll be better for us to set up to shelter in there than in the cabin.” 

“What?” Ilya asks, thinking of the padded, cushioned seats inside the cabin. He has no idea what the cargo hold of a plane looks like, but he doubts it includes anything other than bare metal. “Why?”

“What’s happening?” Yakov interrupts before Shane has the chance to reply, voice tight with obvious frustration. Ilya has a second of feeling bad as he turns towards the other man—he remembers the feeling, when he’d first started competing in international tournaments, of being surrounded by people speaking a language he didn’t understand and making no effort to help him to do. 

“Vaughn and Barrett were able to find the source of the smoke, and put out the fire,” Ilya explains. “Something electrical, in the cockpit.” 

Yakov’s face gives away his relief at that—the confirmation, probably, that they’re not going to have to figure out a way to build a shelter.

“But now Shane is saying it’ll be better to stay in the cargo hold if it’s intact,” Ilya quickly adds, eager to have someone join him in his outrage.

Instead, Yakov just nods. “Makes sense,” he says. Ilya stares at him for a beat, feeling unaccountably betrayed. 

“It’s on the ground,” Shane cuts in, not bothering to ask Ilya for a translation. Though Ilya has to wonder if he even noticed them talking—when he looks back at Shane, he finds the other man staring down at the snow beneath them, brow furrowed in thought. “Dirt and snow are both insulating,” he continues, words turning more confident the longer he speaks. “It’ll be easier to warm up the space and keep it warm than it would be a space that has cold air freely circulating beneath it. And if it’s intact, we’ll only need to worry about covering the one, uh, hole, to keep the heat in.”

Shane glances at Ilya when he says the word hole, cheeks pinking slightly, and Ilya decides that he doesn’t really care about the fact that he’s going to be made to sleep on a cold metal floor after all. Who can care about something as petty as comfort when Shane’s looking at him like this—all flushed and flustered. Shane’s always pretty, with his freckles and stupid hair, but it’s even better—or worse—like this, with a blush staining his cheeks, trailing down his throat. 

Ilya wants to bite him. 

“Okay,” Ilya says, and Shane looks briefly surprised, like he was expecting Ilya to keep arguing with him. 

“We can move the seats down there though,” Shane says, words coming out in a rush, like he’s still attempting to stave off the argument he’d been bracing for. “The cushions, whatever we can pull out and move. All the blankets and clothing that we can find too—anything insulating.” 

“Okay,” Ilya says again, which just makes Shane look even more deliciously thrown. “What?” Ilya says, letting some of the satisfaction he’s feeling leak into his voice, “You expect me to turn down a sleepover with you, Hollander?” 

Shane’s eyes go wide. “Shut the fuck up,” he hisses, shooting an entirely too obvious glance at Yakov. 

“Don’t be scared, Hollander,” Ilya says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “He does not know what we’re saying. That you are asking to cuddle for warmth.”

“Wha— I— I did not say that,” Shane argues hotly, lowering his voice despite the fact that there’s no one else around other than Yakov who, again, cannot understand them. 

“Mmmmm, it was, how do you say, implied,” Ilya drawls, his smile growing as Shane’s flush deepens. 

“Fuck you,” Shane snaps. 

“Other way around, remember?” Ilya says, feeling more settled in his skin than he has since the moment he realized that the plane was going down. 

His smile is far too genuine, he knows, but he can’t be fucked to try and tamp it down—not with how much of a relief it is, to feel like this again. To forget, just for a second, just how fucking terrified he is. How much danger they’re in.

“Or maybe you need reminder?” he adds, and savours the way that Shane’s eyes flash with anger. “Would probably be good for keeping warm, no?” 

“You— I don’t— fuck off, Rozanov,” Shane says, before pointedly turning to Yakov. “What next?” he asks. 

“He wants to know what to do next,” Ilya says, not looking at Yakov—giving himself another second of enjoying the sight of Shane’s flushed cheeks, the way he’s nearly shaking with anger. 

Except when he finally, reluctantly, drags his eyes over to Yakov, it’s like having a bucket of ice water being dumped over his head—Yakov’s expression is amused, mouth curled up slightly at the corners as he looks between Ilya and Shane, but it is, once again, far too observant of a look. Knowing, in a way that makes nausea churn in Ilya’s stomach.

Ilya forces his face back to its usual impassive blankness and meets Yakov’s eyes without flinching.

“Now, we see what that woman is hiding under that scarf,” Yakov says, proving Ilya’s instincts right by nodding towards the woman he’d noticed earlier.

Ilya must make some sort of face, because Shane’s bony elbow is hitting his side a second later. “What did he say?” Shane asks, voice demanding, forehead already creased into a frown when Ilya turns to scowl at him.

“We check woman with scarf on hand next,” Ilya translates, gesturing in her direction. 

Shane follows the direction of his hand, but Ilya keeps his own eyes fixed on Shane. He sees the moment Shane sees the woman he’d pointed towards, watches exhaustion and resignation slide across his eyes, tugging at his shoulders. It lasts only a second before the now familiar quiet determination takes its place, Shane’s back straightening as if physically bracing himself against whatever they’re about to have to deal with next. 

“Don’t worry Hollander,” Ilya says, “is probably nothing.”

Shane shoots him an incredulous look, and Ilya smiles back at him. 

“Is papercut, maybe,” he continues. “Or, ah, what is it, when you get bit of skin by nail?”

“A hangnail?” Shane offers, now visibly fighting not to smile. 

“Yes. Yes. Hangnail. Easy fix. No problem.” 

Turns out that it’s less about what the woman does have under the scarf and more about what she doesn’t have—three of the fingers from her left hand.

It’s an easier amputation to deal with than Paquette’s foot, at least—no tourniquet.

More difficult to deal with is the man hovering around them the whole time, because it turns out that the woman—Petra—is married to Robertson. The American is obviously feeling guilty for bringing his wife on the death plane—which is ridiculous, in Ilya’s opinion, because how could any of them have possibly seen this coming?—and has decided to make his guilt everyone’s problem. 

Shane somehow manages to keep his tone even, patient, as he answers the same questions over and over. Captain Hollander, again. Ilya can see the way it’s starting to wear on him though, the way it’s threatening the surety with which he’s been working. Yakov’s presence is a bulwark against it, sure, but Yakov can’t understand what Robertson is saying to refute him directly. And Ilya is getting sick of trying to translate both the actually important things between Shane and Yakov and Robertson’s stupid, repetitive questions. 

Luckily, no one has ever accused Ilya of being patient or nice. Which means that this, perhaps, is another way that he can help Shane—an advantage, of being known as a pest, and an asshole. No one is expecting him to be polite. And he can say what Shane can’t.

“What are—” Robertson starts, again, and Ilya decides that he’s had enough.

“Shut the fuck up, Robertson,” Ilya snaps, standing and stepping away from Shane and Yakov so that he can add the weight of his size to the force of the glare he aims at the other man. Robertson is admittedly both taller and bulkier than Ilya, but whatever. He is American. Not so scary, even as he turns to glare right back at Ilya.

“You have medical degree?” Ilya continues, ignoring the way that Robertson’s fists clench at his sides. “You are doctor now? No? Then you shut your mouth and let Hollander do his job.” 

“Fuck off, Rozanov,” Robertson says, teeth gritted. “It’s not like Hollander is a fucking doctor either. No offence, Holly,” he adds on belatedly, shooting an apologetic look down at Shane. 

It’s probably for the best that he does—it means that he completely misses the way that Ilya rolls his eyes in response. He’s not quite as fortunate with Shane, who’s eyes slide from Robertson to Ilya just in time to catch it, narrowing his eyes when he does. 

Not helping, Shane mouths.

Ilya raises his eyebrow in a wordless reply—what do you want me to do?

He’s not sure if Shane somehow managed to read the question from Ilya’s expression alone or just knows him well enough to guess what he’s thinking—either way he just shakes his head in response, the movement as small and subtle as he can make it. 

Ilya gives him a pointed look back—so I was right, you don’t have a better suggestion.

“No, Hollander is not doctor,” Ilya says aloud, drawing Robertson’s eyes back to him. “But is paramedic assistant, yes? Very good boy, follows directions very nicely.”

“Fucking Christ,” Shane mumbles under his breath. 

“So you shut up and let him help wife,” Ilya continues, ignoring Shane, “and stop with stupid distracting questions.” 

“Rozanov, I swear to god—” Robertson starts, taking a step towards Ilya.

Whoops, Ilya thinks, and braces himself for the punch he’s certain is now headed his way. 

It doesn’t come—Robertson jerking to a stop mid-step, hands not even up yet, at the sound of his wife’s voice snapping out his name. He turns towards her, guilt once again taking over his expression. 

Petra’s own anger softens in response to the look on her husband’s face. “Baby, I’m okay,” she says. “Rozanov is, unfortunately, right. You need to just let Shane help me.” 

“Sorry,” Robertson says, blowing out a harsh breath as he raises his hands to run them through his hair. He winces mid-motion in a way that has Yakov’s eyes sharpening as they lock onto him, the stiff way he holds himself even after dropping his hands back to his side. “Sorry,” Robertson repeats, apparently unaware of the assessing look now being levelled at him. “You’re right, I’ll just— I’ll stop. Sorry.” The last is directed at Shane who, of course, just waves him off. Petra holds out her right hand, opening and closing her fingers in a beckoning motion. 

“C’mon Kai,” she says. “Hold my hand.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Robertson says, closing the distance between them and dropping into a crouch. He takes his wife’s hand, bending to press a kiss to the back of it. He says something else to her, quiet enough that Ilya can’t quite make it out. 

Ilya waits for another few seconds, before cautiously retaking his earlier position—crouched between Shane and Yakov.  

With their audience now biting his tongue, it doesn’t take long for Shane to have the stumps of Petra’s fingers cleaned, the procedure of withdrawing fluid from the bag a near familiar routine at this point. 

Yakov doesn’t even bother to help this time, just leaves it to Ilya and Shane to manage. With the stumps cleaned, Yakov passes Ilya a sterile pad, instructing Shane to lightly moisten it with more of the saline and then use a roller bandage to hold it in place. Shane nods, already moving to reattach the syringe to the needle when Yakov stands up. 

Shane stops what he’s doing, all four of them looking up at Yakov, surprised. But Yakov just waves them off.

“You’ve got this,” he says to Shane, then to Ilya, “He’s got this.”

Ilya frowns at Yakov, but the other man doesn’t seem like he’s going to say anything else. After a beat, Ilya turns to Shane, doing his best to smooth his expression into something more supportive.

“He says you have this,” he says. 

Shane looks at Ilya, and then back up at Yakov. He opens his mouth, the look on his face saying clearly that he’s less certain about that fact than Yakov seems to be, but Yakov is already turning around, beginning to walk away, and whatever protest Shane had dies, unspoken. 

Yakov has almost made it to the door of the plane, moving quickly despite the deep snow, when Shane finally shakes off his surprise with a literal shake of his head. His expression is somewhere between determined and nervous as he returns his attention to drawing up more fluid into the syringe. 

Robertson also looks like he’s considering protesting their sudden lack of supervision, but thankfully for the sake of his wife, Shane’s composure, and Ilya’s face, decides, in the end, not to say anything—turning back to Petra instead. 

Ilya is helping Shane gather the supplies back up, what’s left of Petra’s fingers now covered by white bandages, when Yakov finally reemerges from the plane. He tosses something into the snow near the plane in passing, barely breaking stride as he does, seemingly already focused on figuring out what’s next, his eyes scanning over the scattered survivors. 

They’re too far away for Ilya to see what Yakov had thrown, but given where he’d tossed it—the same snowbank that held the bundle containing Pachette’s foot—Ilya feels like he has a pretty good idea what it was that Yakov had gone into the plane to retrieve. 

Averting his eyes, Ilya focuses on closing the first aid kit rather than the growing collection of wrapped body parts lying in the snow like a grotesque pile of presents. Next to him, he’s vaguely aware of Petra and Robertson pouring another round of effusive thanks on Shane, who looks equal parts pleased and like he kind of wants to bury himself into the snow to escape their praise. 

Ridiculous. Second best player in the league and he still shies away from attention like a cat being threatened with a spray bottle. It’s always been completely baffling to Ilya—he loves attention, loves it when all eyes are on him—but it is very… Hollander. 

Captain Hollander must be at least somewhat used to it though, because Shane does pull himself together enough to reply—Ilya’s only pretending not to listen in, but even if he actually hadn’t been paying attention to what Shane was saying, Ilya would have been able to tell by tone alone how annoyingly humble and gracious Shane was being. 

Fucking Canadians. 

Ilya stands, taking the kit with him. Shane rises a beat later with an air of relief that Ilya wonders if anyone but him would even be able to read on him. Departing from Petra and Robertson with an order for them to call him back over if Petra starts to bleed through the bandages or if either of them feel worse, Ilya and Shane walk over to meet Yakov where he’s stopped, halfway between the survivors and the plane. 

Yakov’s gaze is intent as they approach, evaluating. He doesn’t look at them, just continues his silent survey of the collection of injured passengers. Movement draws Ilya’s attention towards the edge of the forest behind him, where he can see other people picking their way through the snow in pairs, occasionally pausing by a tree to tug at a low-hanging branch. Even from this distance, Ilya can see that some of them are carrying branches, the search for firewood evidently not a fruitless one.

Of course not, Ilya thinks. How could it have been, when Captain Hollander had given them their orders?

Shane’s voice draws Ilya’s attention back to the two men standing in front of him. “Can you ask him who’s next?” he says, looking between Ilya and Yakov. “Probably the guy with the impalement, right? Do we take out the metal?”

Ilya has already opened his mouth in preparation of echoing the question to Yakov when he does a double take, frowning as he looks Shane up and down. 

“What?” Shane asks, immediately defensive, self-conscious. His arms jerk, like he wants to cross his arms, held back only by the awareness that his hands are still covered in blood. 

“You are shaking, Hollander,” Ilya says, forcing the words to come out flat, cutting. Not worried, because he’s not worried. 

“Oh,” Shane says, looking down at himself like he’s surprised by the reminder that he occupies a physical body. To Ilya’s surprise, there's a small smile curving Shane’s lips when he looks back up, meeting Ilya’s eyes. “I guess I’m just… I dunno. It’s been… it’s just… helping people, you know?” he finishes with a shrug, and no, Ilya does not know. English is his second language, and even he knows that none of that was a real sentence. 

He says as much to Shane, which makes Shane scowl at him. Ilya is relieved to see that even glaring at Ilya, there’s still something pleased lingering at the edge of Shane’s expression. 

“He wants to know what to do next,” Ilya says, turning to Yakov before he can do something stupid like reach out and poke at Shane’s beautiful freckled face. 

Yakov, apparently oblivious to the conversation happening right next to him, blinks as he turns towards Ilya, as if pulling himself back from somewhere very far away. 

“What?” Yakov asks.

“He wants to know who to look at next,” Ilya says. “The man with the metal through his shoulder, no? Do you take it out?” 

Yakov blinks again, then frowns. “No, definitely not,” he says. “It’s probably the only thing keeping him from bleeding out right now. If it wasn’t subclavicular… maybe. But where it is, no.” He shrugs, eyes drifting away from Ilya, back over the scattered people in the snow in front of them, flicking from person to person before finally landing on Shane, then Ilya. “The man with the impalement is going to die, anyway.” 

Ilya feels himself go still, all expression dropping off his face, Yakov’s words landing like a blow.

“What,” he says, voice flat. 

Yakov shrugs again, the gesture far too casual for the words that follow: “If we get rescued in the next three hours, and get taken directly to a hospital, he would maybe survive.” Yakov’s lips twist in a parody of a smile, utterly devoid of any amusement. “But I do not think we are getting rescued in the next three hours. Do you?” 

No, Ilya thinks, but can’t quite bring himself to say it. Yakov must read it on his face anyway, or in the silence that Ilya lets stretch between them because he nods as if in reply.

“We have very limited supplies,” Yakov continues. “We need to conserve them, prioritize those who are the likeliest to survive.” His eyes flick briefly towards the injured people before returning to Ilya. “That man’s chances of survival are next to none,” Yakov says, voice even, as calm as it has been throughout all of their exchanges, with the memorable exception of the moment he’d snapped at Ilya for getting in Vaughn’s way. 

Yakov raises his hand, managing to point in a way that’s subtle enough that Ilya doubts anyone in the larger group would catch it even if they were looking directly at them. 

“He is also going to die,” he says, and Ilya follows the direction of his extended finger to a man whose greying hair is matted with drying blood. “The three we have treated will not die of blood loss now, at least, but if their wounds get infected…” he trails off with a shrug. “We do not have antibiotics,” he continues, blunt and matter-of-fact. “There won’t be anything we can do. That man too,” another point towards a man Ilya does not recognize, “he is bleeding internally. Liver lac. Maybe it is a mild bleed, and will resolve on its own. Maybe it isn’t, and he will die. Either way, there is nothing we can do for him.”

Yakov meets Ilya’s eyes, his gaze steady, unflinching from the terrible reality he is outlining to him.

“There are probably others,” he continues. “More internal bleeding. Possibility for infection. Things that won’t show up for a while. People who will die over the next few days no matter what we do. There will be more, the longer it takes for us to be rescued. If we run out of supplies.”

Something in Yakov’s expression softens, just a bit. 

“It is what it is,” he says. “You do the best you can with what you have. Accept that you cannot save everyone, save the ones you can. The eyes are afraid but the hands are still doing it, yes?” 

Ilya opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again. 

“I do not want to tell him that,” Ilya says. It isn’t what he meant to say, but it is the truth. 

Yakov’s expression, horribly, softens further, into something approaching sympathy—or maybe just pity. 

“He needs to know,” Yakov says. “He doesn’t have the training I thought he did, so I don’t know if he already knows. And he should be… forewarned. So he can prepare himself.”

Ilya abruptly remembers what Yakov had said to him, when he’d first left the plane, when Ilya had demanded to know if he’d seen Vaughn and Shane on the plane. The thing that had made him panic, worse than he’d already been. That had made him certain that something horrible had happened to Shane. 

A paramedic student or something. 

Ilya understands better, now, why Yakov had made that assumption. Though he still doesn’t understand why the fuck Shane knows so much first aid in the first place—not to mention all the shit he’d said about the forest and building a shelter. The fucking telling the time from the position of the sun. 

It was very Hollander though. Very prepared for anything. Like that American organization—Boy Searchers, or whatever.

“Does he need to know now?” Ilya asks. “To keep helping?” 

Ilya is giving far too much away, he knows—maybe not in his expression, which is still as blank as he can make it, but the question itself is vulnerable, leaving his tongue coated with a bitter taste; bile and blood. He can’t not ask it though—for how little time they’ve actually spent together over the years, there are things that Ilya knows about Shane that he suspects few other people do. Sides of him that this dangerous thing between them brings out, that Shane probably otherwise would keep hidden. 

“He can be… specific,” Ilya continues, not wanting to lay Shane bare to this man, this stranger, but needing to give him something. Something to justify Ilya’s persistence. An excuse, to keep him from looking any deeper. “And he needs to be focused, no? Not…”

Panicking. The word trips and tangles before it can escape from Ilya’s tongue, and he trails off into silence.

It’s not fair, maybe. An assumption that Ilya should not be making. Shane has been calmer than Ilya would have ever expected, if he’d ever imagined them ending up in this very specific, insane situation. But he was also being all… Captain Hollander. 

Captain Hollander, Ilya was realizing, did not panic. But Captain Hollander was not Shane.

Yakov looks at Ilya, his gaze heavy, considering. He glances at Shane, then back to Ilya.

Shane, who Ilya is certain is about five seconds from interrupting them to demand that someone say something in English. Who is probably looking between them, equal parts angry and scared. Furious at not understanding; afraid for the same reason.

Ilya does not look at him to check. 

“No,” Yakov finally says. “He does not need to know immediately.” He sighs, his eyes again flicking to Shane, then back to Ilya, “There is nothing we can do for any of the ones who are going to die anyway.”

“Okay,” Ilya says—breathes, really. The word comes out with far too much gratitude. Yakov, thankfully, doesn’t react to it. 

“Rozanov,” Shane snaps, apparently having had enough. “Seriously?” 

Ilya is reluctantly impressed. He’d certainly lasted longer than Ilya would have, in the same situation. Longer than Ilya would have guessed he would.

He still doesn’t look at him. 

He keeps his eyes on Yakov. 

“What do I tell him?” Ilya asks.

“Tell him we’ve been talking about monitoring those we’ve already treated,” Yakov says without hesitation, the lie coming quickly, easily. “The minor injuries can wait until we have shelter set up.”

“He’s saying that is just keeping an eye on people now,” Ilya says, finally turning to look at Shane as he switches back to English. “The less bad stuff can wait until not sitting in snow.”

Meeting Shane’s eyes, Ilya finds all of the fear and anger he’d been expecting. Interrupting the otherwise outwardly calmness of Shane’s expression, his back straight and jaw set as he meets Ilya’s gaze, unflinching.

“That’s all?” Shane asks.

Ilya hesitates, searching for a response that isn’t a lie, but isn’t the truth he so desperately wants to avoid either. 

“I am not sure how to say rest,” he finally settles on, “but that is, uh, how do you say—gust of it?”

“Gist,” Shane corrects, but he seems to accept Ilya’s explanation, judging by the slight lessening of the tension in his jaw, his spine. 

Or not—a second later, he’s frowning, and Ilya holds back a sigh.

Shane surprises him though, his question not at all what Ilya had been expecting: “What about Maya?” Shane asks.

“Maya?” Ilya asks, but Yakov interrupts before Shane can clarify.

“He’s asking about the broken femur?” Yakov asks, looking between Shane and Ilya. “Tell him that we should get our shelter set up before we deal with that too, if we can. It’ll be a lot harder to move her afterwards.”

“Maya is broken… leg bone?” Ilya checks, turning back to Shane. “Big leg bone? Femur.” He gestures towards his own thigh, searching his memory for the word in English. 

“Femur,” Shane translates for him before Ilya can find it. “Yeah, that’s Maya.” 

Ilya nods. “Yes,” he says. “Broken femur. Cannot be treated until in shelter.”

“What?” Shane asks. “Why?” 

“Ah,” Ilya says. “Will make her hard to move, yes?” 

“Oh,” Shane says. “Right, yeah, that… that makes sense.” Looking down, he adds, “Fuck, that’s what he was trying to tell me.” 

The words are spoken in nearly a whisper, probably more to himself than Ilya, and there’s a wry twist to his mouth when he looks back up. Something bitter, and self-depricating. He looks between Ilya and Yakov. 

“Tell him I’m sorry for not understanding him earlier,” he says.

Ilya waves his hand dismissively. “He says is no problem. Is about what he expects from American.” 

Outrage is a welcome replacement for self-reproach as Shane gapes at Ilya. “He did not,” he says, “you didn’t even translate what I said!” Then, a beat behind, “And I’m Canadian.”

“Don’t need to,” Ilya says. “He is Russian. We are very understanding of sad Americans, only knowing one language.”

“Again, I’m Canadian, you asshole,” Shane says. “And I speak French.” 

“Tch,” Ilya clicks his tongue, “is basically English.” 

“Mon tabarnak,” Shane snaps, “m'a tu t'l'a décâlisser ta gran' yeule.”

“Wow, very rude Hollander,” Ilya says, not bothering to fight off the smile spreading across his face.

“Fuck off,” Shane says. “You have no idea what I said.”

“Yes, I do,” Ilya says, then sniffs. “Is very hurtful, Hollander.” 

Shane rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t try to hide his own smile. Ilya lets it wash over him, a soothing balm to all the parts inside of him that went cold and hollow at Yakov’s earlier words—his brutally clinical assessment of who would live or die. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Shane says with a shake of his head, before nearly visibly forcing himself to refocus. 

Ilya tries not to mourn too much, when Shane’s smile is replaced by a frown of concentration. 

“Okay,” Shane says. “The minor injuries are one thing, but I want to get Maya’s leg treated as soon as possible. I know— wait,” Shane cuts himself off, looking at Yakov then back to Ilya. “Can you ask him, is she gonna be okay to wait?”

Ilya looks at Yakov. “The broken femur—Maya,” he says, “is she okay to wait until we get a shelter built?” 

Yakov raises one hand, tilting it back and forth. “There wasn’t any sign of internal bleeding,” he says. “I should do another pulse check, but as long as nothing’s changed since I last checked, it won’t kill her. But it’s causing her a lot of pain right now, and in these circumstances, the faster we can relieve that by moving the bone back into place, the better—especially with how limited our supply of painkillers are. There’ll be swelling, too, that might make it more difficult to apply traction the longer we wait.” 

Ilya nods, looking back at Shane. “She’s not going to die,” he says, the words tasting bitter as they leave his mouth; a lie by omission. Ilya brushes past it, the rest of the truth—other people will—left unspoken as he continues, “but will be harder, the longer it takes before uh, putting bone back.” 

“Fuck,” Shane says, glancing towards the back of the plane, where Roth, Kivelä, and now Barrett have yet to reemerge. When he returns his gaze to Ilya there’s something set in it. Settled. A decision that’s been made. “You said Yakov was talking about treating minor injuries, is that all that’s left?” 

“Yes,” Ilya says, another not-quite lie—from what Yakov had said, there’s nothing they can do for the rest anyways. “And can wait, until inside. Others, just need ah. Watching.”

“Okay,” Shane says. “Okay. Do you think you could help him with that, while I go check out what’s going on in the cargo hold?” he asks. “I’d ask you to go, but…”

“Then there would be no one to translate, yes,” Ilya finishes for him, then turns to Yakov. 

“Watching people, can I help do it, or do you need Shane to stay?” he asks. Continues, at Yakov’s raised eyebrow, “I can keep translating, and Shane can go and help moron hockey players figure out shelter.” 

Yakov’s expression clears, turns amused. “Yes, unless something changes, everything else can wait until we have shelter,” he says.

Ilya nods his agreement. “Is plan,” he says, clapping his hands together and biting back a smile when he catches Shane jumping at the unexpectedly loud noise out of the corner of his eye. “You go use strange Canadian survivalist genetics to get shelter built so none of us freeze to death, yes?” he continues, turning back to Shane. “And I’ll stay here, be nurse.” 

Shane snorts. “You’d be a terrible nurse,” he says, looking at Ilya with an expression that has no right being as fond as it is. Not ever, and certainly not when Ilya is trying to be annoying—trying to put them both back on steady ground. Safe and familiar.

It is making it very difficult for Ilya to not feel things he cannot afford to be feeling. 

“Not true,” Ilya says, bullying his way past it. “I make Paquette laugh, and he is missing foot.”

“Yeah,” Shane says slowly, amusement dropping in favour of something more serious, “you did.” 

His eyes move over Ilya’s face, like he’s searching for something in Ilya’s expression. Or maybe like he’s already found whatever it is, and is surprised by its presence. 

“Okay, enough chit-chatting,” Ilya says loudly, feeling weirdly exposed under the force of Shane’s gaze. Unsettled, still. “What are we, bunch of grandmothers? Go, go.” 

Ilya waves his hands at Shane, shooing, and Shane laughs, shaking his head. His body shifts, readying for movement, but hesitates, looking between Ilya and Yakov.

“You’ll yell if you need me?” Shane asks. It’s probably meant to be another order from Captain Hollander, but it comes out sounding more like a question. 

“We won’t,” Ilya says, all swagger and bravado. A familiar and comforting mask that nonetheless wavers and slips as soon as he catches the uncertain look in Shane’s eyes. “But if we do,” he adds, words coming out softer than he means them to, “then yes. Will yell.” 

“Okay,” Shane says, then again, “okay.” He takes a deep breath, then turns and walks away. 

Ilya watches him go, keeping his eyes on Shane’s retreating form. It’s too obvious, but Ilya can’t bring himself to look away. Following Shane’s path as he carefully picks his way down the slope of snow that buttresses the back of the plane. It’s only when Shane has finally, fully disappeared from view that Ilya turns to face Yakov. 

His throat feels tight, like his windpipe is collapsing into itself. Stealing the breath from his lungs, making it impossible for him to breathe. Making him dizzy with fear and a lack of oxygen, both. 

Ilya knows it’s all in his head though. 

He isn’t the one who sounds like he can’t breathe.

Softly—too softly, fear in his voice that he can’t quite hide—he asks:

“What’s wrong with him?”

Chapter End Notes

okay I know legally goalies can’t be Captains but I love goalie captains, so we’re just pretending that Calgary is following the Canuck’s example with Luongo.

it was a different fun challenge with this chapter to take the medical stuff and then consider what Ilya would or would not know, and what he'd understand about what they're doing! there's less precision in the language used around the medical treatments in this chapter as a result, though what is actually being done is still accurate (and if there are any mistakes, they are all my own). noting as well that Ilya's ideas should not be followed (sticking the stump of your leg directly into snow would be... a terrible idea).

thank you once again to britt (ao3/twt) for the beta and for all the help with the medical stuff. her willingness to speculate on what she'd do in the same situation with the same limited supplies is making a huge difference in this fic (never in my life would I have come up with the method they use for withdrawing the saline from the bag on my own). this story is far richer for her involvement 💜

Chapter 5: Shelter

Chapter Notes

cw: graphic descriptions of injuries, death

dialogue in italics is in Russian, non-italics is English

It was the crash. The fuselage cracking, tearing apart. The abruptly lower barometric pressures. Dropping from 36,000 feet to sea level in a matter of minutes. A body, revolting against the sudden change, one way or another: 

One way: through nitrogen bubbles, forming in the bloodstream, threatening to poison his whole body. 

Another: through a breath, held without intent, bringing the full force of the pressure change to bear on the delicate structures of the lungs that are just as necessary to survival as each heartbeat.

“Shane is a professional athlete,” Yakov says over the ringing in Ilya’s ears. “He’s young, healthy, and strong. There is no reason to think that, whatever it is, it won’t resolve on its own.”

Ilya hears his own voice, as if from very far away. 

“There’s nothing you can do?” 

His voice is too loud. Angry. Even though he’s not sure if he even feels angry. 

He has no idea what he’s feeling. 

They’d survived the crash. Shane had survived the crash. He hadn’t broken anything, wasn’t bleeding. They were on the ground. He was fine. He was supposed to be fine. 

He was supposed to be safe. 

“No,” Yakov says, voice infuriatingly calm. “Normally, I’d be giving him high-flow oxygen, but we don’t have oxygen. We have to just wait it out.”

“And what if it doesn’t resolve on its own?” Ilya asks.

For the first time since Ilya had asked what was wrong with Shane, Yakov hesitates. 

“It’ll likely be a few days before we know if it’s getting worse, either way,” he finally says. “If it’s decompression sickness, he’ll probably start experiencing joint pain first—you can keep an eye out for that. We both can—any indications that he’s experiencing pain or weakness, stumbling, leaning. If it’s pulmonary barotrauma, we’ll likely see the development of pulmonary edema. But there’s no sign of that right now.” 

“What are the signs?” Ilya asks. “What—how do you know he doesn’t already have pull— whatever you said.”

“Pulmonary edema,” Yakov repeats, then continues, “Right now, his cough is dry, unproductive. If it progresses into pulmonary edema, it will become harder for him to breathe, and will start sounding wet. He might start coughing up sputum or… or blood.”

Ilya goes cold. “He will die,” he says, voice flat, empty. 

A memory, unbidden: a closed door, left unlocked. An arm, stretched out, still and pale and cold. An empty pill bottle. Begging and pleading that goes unanswered.

“He is young, healthy, and has strong lungs,” Yakov says, voice steady, certain. “There is no reason to believe that it will not resolve spontaneously on its own, even if it gets worse before it gets better.”

“What do I do?” Ilya asks helplessly. “There has to be something I can do.”

“You can keep an eye on him,” Yakov says firmly. Final. “Watch for weakness, pain when moving his limbs. Shallow or rapid breathing and cyanosis—his skin turning blue. Changes in behaviour, confusion, memory loss, trouble speaking, or getting more than a few words out at a time. Aggression. If you notice any of that, you tell me.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, “Okay. I can do this.” He can. He runs the list of symptoms back through his mind, committing them to memory. 

“And try to keep him from exerting himself too much,” Yakov adds. “Helping me, telling others what to do, that is one thing. Don’t let him try to lift anything heavy, go out collecting firewood, the like.” 

“Ah,” Ilya says, lips twitching upwards in a parody of a smile. “That may be more difficult. He does not like to be told what to do.” 

Yakov’s expression mirrors his; an exhausted, sardonic amusement. “Maybe not,” he says, “but I get the feeling that if anyone can get him to listen, it would be you.”

Ilya fights not to flinch at the certainty in Yakov’s voice. To bury his instinctive urge to deny, deflect, defend. 

He didn’t mean it like that, Ilya tells himself. He doesn’t know. 

But he might, if Ilya reacts.

“Maybe,” Ilya forces himself to say, making his voice as bland as possible. 

Yakov is still looking at him, his expression careful, cautious. Like he’s waiting for more—for Ilya to get angry again. To yell, the way he had earlier. 

Fuck. 

Ilya has already given too much away. He feels exposed, frayed. His nerves raw and weeping. The accumulated aftershocks of too much fear and pain and uncertainty. All of it ongoing, with no knowledge of when it will be over. 

If it will ever be over. 

If any of them will make it out of here alive.

Ilya doesn’t say anything, and eventually Yakov nods like Ilya’s silence told him enough in itself.

“Okay,” Yakov says. “Let’s go check over our casualties then.”

Ilya frowns at him. “You want to look at the dead people?”

For the first time, Yakov’s professional mask breaks—he laughs. 

When he’s done laughing at Ilya—and after explaining that casualty means something different in emergency medicine—Yakov hands Ilya a pair of blue gloves. They’re the same kind that Ilya has seen doctors and nurses wear before. The same kind Shane has been wearing. 

He pulls them on with no small measure of trepidation, remembering how bloody Shane’s had become. Wonders if his are going to end up the same.

“We’ll start with the people I haven’t examined yet,” Yakov says, watching Ilya pull them on. “Then circle around to check on the ones that have already been treated.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, and picks up the two medical cases when Yakov gestures towards them, following after Yakov as he begins to head back towards the loose cluster of injured passengers. 

The snow crunches beneath his feet as he walks, the sound the only familiar thing about this situation. The snow here might be cleaner and brighter than it ever was in the city—whether Boston or Moscow, churned to a grey slush nearly as soon as it fell—but it was still snow. It still feels the same beneath his boots, still sounds the same as it compacts beneath his weight. 

Ilya glances back behind him, but even with the new angle offered by moving further from the plane, he doesn’t spot Shane. There is activity at the rear of the plane though—Kivelä and Barrett dragging bags from inside the cargo hold, unceremoniously dumping them onto the chewed-up mix of dirt and snow before heading back inside. A second later Roth appears, carrying two suitcases that he similarly tosses to the side before turning and heading back inside. 

It’s a level of efficiency and care that would have him well suited to work as a baggage carrier for an airline, if he was ever looking for a second career. 

Some of the people collecting firewood seem to have returned as well, a small pile of branches now growing on the ground just to the side of the raw, torn mouth of the cargo hold. There’s another pile being built next to it that Ilya thinks might be rocks, though it’s difficult to tell from this distance. Ilya has no idea why they’d be gathering rocks, but has to assume that that has been another directive given by Captain Hollander. Another order obeyed, without question, by his faithful team. Another piece of the complex web that would keep them alive. 

Despite once again having Shane out of his line of sight, Ilya turns back towards his current mission feeling surprisingly bolstered. Shane having a plan for how all of them were going to survive was one thing; seeing it start to come together was another. 

One thing for him to give the order to collect wood; another to see that they’ve been successful. 

One thing for him to order the cargo hold be inspected; another to see signs that whatever they’d found there has spurred on further action.

Now it was Ilya’s turn, he supposed, to do his part to bring Captain Hollander’s plan to fruition. 

There aren’t many people who have opted out of collecting firewood that Shane and Yakov haven’t examined or treated yet. 

Nico Thompson—Canadian, first-pair defenseman, Minnesota Nomads—is at least four inches taller than Ilya, his dark brown hair only partially covered by the white and red Team Canada beanie he’s wearing, his blue eyes red-rimmed but steady. He’s standing when they come up to him, holding himself stiff and rigid. He passes the series of questions Ilya relays—what Yakov tells Ilya is a neuro assessment—with ease, but grimaces when Yakov touches his neck, hisses in pain when Yakov presses his fingers into the skin. 

“Whiplash,” Yakov says, then gets Ilya to roll up a jacket for Thompson to hold around his neck. Not life-threatening, but painful—more and more, over the next 24-hours. Someone they might offer some of their meagre supply of painkillers to. “No damage to the spine that I can see or feel, though,” Yakov finishes, sounding pleased.

Sonia Melendez—Team Canada, biathlon—is wearing the same beanie as Thompson, her long black hair appearing from beneath it in two frizzy braids. The tan skin of her face is pale with pain, and it doesn’t take long for Yakov to identify her dislocated shoulder. Ilya winces in sympathy when Yakov makes his diagnosis. He’s only dislocated his shoulder once, off an ugly check when he’d still been a teenager, but he still remembers how much it had hurt. Yakov has Ilya put it back in place, carefully talking him through it, step by step. 

“It’s beyond my scope of practice,” Yakov dryly explains. “But I’ve done it before, outside of work. It’ll save her a lot of pain, and the longer we leave it, the worse the swelling will get—the harder it will be to put it back in. The more damage that might be done, if we decide to try and reduce it later.” 

He has Ilya explain the risks to Melendez before he does it though—nerve and tissue damage, fractures—and the fact that this is technically not something Yakov has the formal training or medical clearance to do. 

Melendez listens to Ilya’s explanation, then quirks a half-smile. “Eh,” she says. “Do your worst, Rozanov.”

Ilya does his best instead, relief blooming hot and heady in his chest as he feels the bone pop back into place. Melendez lets out a quiet hiss of pain, face twisted into a grimace that quickly smooths out into relief. 

“Fuck,” she breathes, a wild, too-wide smile splitting her face. “Christ, that’s so much better.”

Ilya grins back at her, aware that his own expression is just as feverish as hers.

Shit. He really is becoming Nurse Rozanov. He briefly imagines himself wearing one of those sexy nurse costumes that he’s seen at Halloween parties in America before—the ones with the short, low-cut white dresses and little hat with a red cross on it—and swallows down a laugh. 

The image shifts to Shane wearing one instead, and Ilya hastily forces himself to think about… anything but that. 

He does put a mental pin in it first though—something to ask Shane about, if they made it out of here. He imagines the outraged squawk Shane would make at the suggestion, how red he would turn, and ducks his head to hide the way his smile has shifted into something far smaller and far realer. 

Luckily, he doesn’t have to hide it for long, with Yakov sending him off to canvas the other patients for something that they can use as a sling for Melendez. He’s back within a few minutes, Petra’s scarf in hand, along with her apologies for the dark spots of blood splattered across the pale fabric, rust brown and stiff. 

“I mean, what’s a bit of blood when I’m getting a cashmere sling,” Melendez jokes as Yakov guides Ilya through tying it, carefully settling her arm into the cradle of fabric. Though, judging by the way that Melendez can’t seem to stop gently petting over the scarf after Ilya gets it tied, it might not actually be as much of a joke as she’s trying to make it. 

“Is very important,” Ilya says. “Improves odds of being named most fashionable plane crash survivor, yes?”

Melendez laughs, shaky and surprised. “Just let me know when the runway show is,” she says.

“Don’t worry,” Ilya says. “Cannot miss it. Comes after building shelter but before cuddling for warmth.” He punctuates the last with a wink, pleased when it draws another laugh from Melendez, this one slightly less shaky, slightly more real.

Yakov is looking at Ilya when he turns away from Melendez. There’s a considering look on his face, but it’s different from the one he’d been wearing earlier, when he’d been watching Shane and Ilya interact. 

“What?” Ilya asks, the word coming out more snappish than he’d meant for it to.

Yakov just shakes his head though, and motions them onwards.

Cody Hendrix—Team USA, speed skating—is wearing only a sweatshirt proudly declaring his national allegiance, his star-covered jacket having been sacrificed to the long, ugly cut on his leg. Ilya’s stomach turns when Hendrix lifts the blood-soaked fabric that he’d been keeping pressed tightly to the wound to show it to Yakov. He thinks about watching Shane push the skin back down on Ayers’ arm earlier. Wonders if he’s about to be asked to try and sew the man’s skin back together. 

It is a relief, to learn that he is not. 

“I probably know as much about that as you do,” Yakov responds dryly when Ilya asks. “I don’t think trying to learn the skill now is in anyone’s best interests.” 

He bends over, examining the wound more closely for a moment before sitting back up on his haunches. 

“Tell him to keep putting pressure on it,” he tells Ilya. “We’ll bandage it once we’re inside, use adhesive strips to get the edges closer together if we can. It’ll leave a bigger scar than it would if we had the ability to suture it, but he’ll live.”

Hendrix looks as assuaged to receive this news as Ilya feels delivering it—which is to say, equally as relieved as not.

The rolled jacket the woman is holding around her neck suggests that this isn’t the first time the couple they approach next have encountered Yakov, something that’s confirmed when Yakov greets them—Breanna and Matthew—by name. 

“We’re big hockey fans,” Matthew tells Ilya, wincing as Yakov pushes against his side, checking to see if the liver lac he’d identified earlier has gotten worse. 

“We’ve been saving for years for this trip,” Breanna adds, shooting a tentative, wavering smile towards her husband. “After Vancouver, we decided that the next time gold metal overtime hockey gave us heart attacks, we’d at least be there to have heart attacks in person.”

“Overtime?” Ilya asks, smiling. “No, Russia will beat America in regulation.”

That draws a stronger smile from Breanna, but it’s her husband who replies, starting with a loud snort that he seems to immediately regret, judging by the way he winces. Still, he perseveres: “You wish,” he says, with the kind of confidence that only a hockey fan can manage. “Russia’s getting bronze. If you’re lucky.” 

“Hmmm,” Ilya says. “We will see.” 

Ilya kinda doubts that they will, but he’s not about to say that aloud to anyone, much less this man, one of the ones Yakov had pointed out to him earlier. 

There is nothing we can do for him, Yakov had said, but Ilya could do this—could watch his eyes brighten with the familiar banter of competition, and not say anything to make it dim.

Jack Cervantes—who plays for no team, but is Canadian and loves the Winter Olympics and has enough money from whatever it is that he does to buy himself a ticket on the most cursed flight to Sochi—points Yakov and Ilya towards a spot on his lower left ribcage, telling them that he’s pretty sure that he fractured a rib. Yakov touches the spot, his face held in a careful expression that Ilya is becoming more and more familiar with—his patient face, Ilya thinks. Calm and neutral, giving nothing away. 

“It hurts up here too,” Cervantes says, gesturing to the left side of his chest. “But it didn’t at first, so maybe it’s like, pain transference? That’s a thing right?” 

“It is,” Yakov confirms when Ilya translates. He palpates the area Cervantes indicates, then adds, “but I do not think that is what is happening here. Can you ask him if it’s worse when he breathes in?” 

Cervantes confirms that it is, and Yakov looks at Ilya. 

“Ruptured spleen,” he says. “Impossible to confirm without imaging, but he’s exhibiting Kehr’s sign.”

“Is there anything we can do about that?” Ilya asks, though he’s fairly certain he already knows the answer, because what the fuck could they possibly do about internal bleeding. 

Sure enough, Yakov shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Hopefully it is just a minor tear and will resolve on its own, though the fact that it’s bleeding enough to irritate his left phrenic nerve is not a great sign.”

“And if it’s not a minor tear?”  Ilya asks, however reluctantly. 

He doesn’t want to know, just as much as he needs to.

“Hours. Maybe a day, if he’s lucky,” Yakov confirms.

Ilya does not tell Cervantes this, leaving him with only the command to limit his movement and exertion, and to call them back over if he starts to feel worse. 

There still won’t be anything they can do if he does, of course, but at least they will know that it is happening. At least Cervantes won’t be alone.

Jonathan Barry—a Canadian in the mining industry who has the incredibly bad luck to have picked the worst possible time to fly to Moscow for a business meeting—looks utterly miserable when they come up to him, sitting on a woolen peacoat in the snow, his expensive suit wrinkled, tie askew. Ilya’s nose wrinkles instinctively at the sight of the half-frozen vomit that has melted its way into the snow next to him, but Yakov doesn’t react, crouching down next to him as easily as he has anyone else. 

After having Ilya run through a series of questions—what is your name, where are you, what day is it, do you know what happened to you—Yakov flicks the penlight that he’s taken to wearing clipped to the collar of his t-shirt between Barry’s eyes. His expression doesn’t change, but Ilya thinks he sees something like relief in his eyes when he turns back to Ilya. 

“Concussion,” he says. “He’ll require observation and regular checks, but so far I’m not seeing any signs of a bleed.” 

Ilya nods, easily translating Yakov’s outlining of the concussion protocol to Barry. 

This, at least, is something that he—and every other hockey player here—knows well.

Sadie Stewart—another deeply unlucky Canadian with a passion for winter sports—is another easy diagnosis, and another brief moment of respite. 

Even if they’d been in a hospital, the treatment for her ribs—cracked, but not displaced—would be the exact same as it is here, in the middle of the tayga: nothing.

It probably says something about athletes, and their ability and stubborn desire, both, to downplay their injuries that Vincent Oak—Team Canada, luge—doesn’t call them over to him earlier in their slow circling through the remaining passengers. 

Fuck, Ilya thinks to himself, staring down at the jagged spear of bone emerging from the split skin of Oak’s forearm. Secondly, and more distantly, comes the thought that bones are less white than he’d thought they would be.

Ilya is expecting Yakov to tell him to go get Shane, or to inform him that it’s finally time for Ilya to get his own gloves bloody.

“He can wait until we’re in shelter,” he says instead. “He’s not freely bleeding, and he’s got good cap refill. We’re going to need to rinse the bone before we do the reduction, and it’ll be better to do that inside.”

“Seriously?” Oak asks, eyes wide, when Ilya translates Yakov’s treatment plan. 

“Will be very cold, to do it out here,” Ilya says. “Do not want popsicle arm, no? Covered in frozen water?” 

“I mean… no…” Oak says, reluctantly. 

“Just ask Ayers,” Ilya says, raising his voice loud enough for the other player to hear, his head turning in their direction at the sound of his name. “Was even worse than getting skin removed in first place, right Ayers?” 

“Fuck off, Rozanov,” Ayers shouts reflexively before walking over to join them. 

“Tell Oak,” Ilya says when he comes to a stop next to them, gesturing to the other man. “Very bad, getting arm washed off in cold. For Russian, is probably no problem, but Canadians are not so tough. Better to wait until shelter is done.” 

“Christ, you’re an asshole,” Ayers says, shaking his head, but Ilya’s pretty sure it’s just a cover for the smile he’s trying his best to hide. “It did suck, though,” he continues, directing his words towards Oak. He looks at Oak’s arm, and grimaces. “Probably not as much as getting that, but if they say it can wait, I’d take them up on it. Rozanov is full of shit, but Yakov is a good paramedic.” 

“Tch,” Ilya says when Oak only offers Ayers a half-smile in reply. “So rude. No respect for Nurse Rozanov.”

“I’d rather have Nurse Rachet than Nurse Rozanov,” Ayers says dryly, and Oak’s smile grows in reply. 

“Same,” Oak says. 

“Oak, I am hurt,” Ilya says, turning to him with an exaggerated pout. “We only just meet, and I am nothing but kind.”

“Sorry Rozanov,” Oak says. “Your reputation precedes you.” 

“What, that I am very sexy and best at hockey?” Ilya says. “Should just make you want me as nurse more, I think.”

“Where did Hollander go again?” Oak replies with an exaggerated look around them. 

It’s probably not a real question—just a continuation of the same joke, but Ilya answers anyways: “Hollander is building shelter,” he says. “We will be inside soon, and will fix arm then, yes?” 

“Okay,” Oak agrees, sounding like he actually means it this time. 

Ilya nods, satisfied, and leaves Ayers with Oak. 

It’s not just Yakov who recognizes the woman lying on the blanket that they’re approaching. Sitting next to her, Vaughn watches them approach with a wary expression, eyeing Ilya. 

“Maya,” Yakov greets. “How are you doing?”

“How are you doing?” Ilya dutifully translates. 

Maya is pale with pain, skin damp with it; the strands of her blonde hair that have escaped the loose bun on the top of her head stick to the sides of her face. Despite this, she attempts a smile in reply, directed mostly towards Yakov.

“Okay,” she says. “Not worse, anyways.”

Ilya translates, glancing at Vaughn as he does. Vaughn nods, a subtle movement that Maya doesn’t catch, her head turned away from him, but both Ilya and Yakov do. Ilya doesn’t know that Vaughn knows shit about shit to say whether or not she’s doing worse—his face, still covered in blood, not lending much to the sense of him as a trustworthy observer—but he supposes it’s the best they have. Yakov seems to believe it anyways, or maybe just believes Maya’s words—he nods in reply. 

“Tell her that she’s on the top of the list, as soon as Shane’s got shelter set up,” he says. “I’m just going to check the pulse in her foot for now, make sure that nothing’s changed.”

Maya nods in reply to Ilya’s explanation, which Yakov must take as permission, crouching down next to her ankle and sliding his fingers under the top of her sock. 

It’s obvious like this, in a way that it wasn’t when Vaughn was carrying her, that something has gone horribly wrong in Maya’s leg, for all that it is outwardly less gruesome than the bone sticking out of Oak’s arm. The leg Yakov is touching is twisted outwards, and visibly shorter than the other. 

Vaughn watches, concern obvious on his face as Yakov adjusts his grip on his ankle, but Maya doesn’t react to his touch, other than letting out a single, small, pained noise. It doesn’t take long before Yakov is nodding in satisfaction though, withdrawing his hand. 

“Good,” he says. “Strong and regular.” He looks up at Ilya. “Tell her that there’s no sign that she’s bleeding, and she’ll be okay until we’re able to splint it.” 

Maya bites her lip when Ilya finishes speaking. For all her visible relief at learning that she wasn’t bleeding, there’s something hesitant in her expression, like she’s holding herself back from speaking.

“You can ask,” Ilya says. “If you have question. And don’t worry about it being dumb,” he continues, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder in roughly the direction of the other passengers, “it can’t be stupider than anything that idiot hockey players have already asked.”

Maya huffs out something that’s maybe meant to be a laugh. Next to her, Vaughn snorts, far realer and louder.

“Alright,” she says. “Yeah, I was just wondering, uh, Shane had mentioned a splint before too. And I was just wondering what that… means?”

“We’ll be doing an improvised splint,” Yakov explains when Ilya relays Maya’s question. “We don’t have a traction splint, but honestly, they don’t work half the fucking time anyways. We’ll have to see what we can find, but it shouldn’t be difficult to get the materials for it. We’ll apply traction to her leg—” he pauses to gesture towards her leg, making a pulling motion in the air, downwards, towards Maya’s feet, “—to move the bones back into place, then splint it to hold it in place. It’ll hurt a lot less once we’ve done that.” His voice turns reassuring at the end, turning to direct it at Maya, like the expression on his face and the tone of his voice will be enough to communicate his meaning, even with the language barrier.

He might be right—Maya visibly loses some of the tension she’s carrying, even before Ilya repeats it back to her in English.

“You can’t do any of that until we’ve got the shelter built?” Vaughn confirms, and at Ilya’s nod, stands, brushing snow from his pants. “I’m gonna go help them do that then,” he says, then looks down at Maya. “You’ll be okay?” he asks. 

She waves her hand. “I’ll be more fine once we’ve got shelter, apparently,” she says. 

“On it,” Vaughn says, snapping off a lazy salute, then nodding at Yakov and Ilya before he heads off, towards the back of the plane. 

They leave Maya there, and move on to checking over the remaining people Yakov and Shane had already examined. Two of them are new to Ilya—the man with the bloody head that Yakov had pointed out earlier as someone who was going to die, and the man with the piece of metal sticking out of his shoulder. Who is also going to die, Ilya remembers, and does his best to wipe all emotion off his face as they approach the man with the greying hair. 

As soon as Ilya gets a closer look at him, it’s clear what’s going to kill him. Ilya doesn’t need to know anything about medicine to understand that being able to see part of his skull isn’t a good sign on its own, nevermind the broken shards that are rendered clearly visible thanks to the way his skin has peeled back from the injury. The rough chunks are sinking inwards, the fault-lines spreading out from the deepest point speaking clearly to a single point of impact. 

The pattern is uncomfortably familiar, like the fractal splinters that spiderweb out when something heavy is dropped onto concrete, except this is a man’s skull, and Ilya has to look away as Yakov shines his light into the man’s eyes. 

Yakov gives Ilya a series of questions to ask the man, but his words are so slurred that Ilya can’t figure out what he’s trying to say, much less if any of it makes any sense. He thinks he at least catches a name—Leon—that he passes on to Yakov, along with the fact that he couldn’t tell what else he was saying. Yakov’s face is impassive as he listens to Ilya’s translation, but there’s something grim in his eyes when he stands back up, meeting Ilya’s eyes with a shake of his head.

Ilya doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know. 

Yakov doesn’t let them linger on it at least—redirecting both his attention and Ilya’s to the man’s shoulder. Ilya is relieved to realize that he can’t actually see the places where the metal enters and leaves the last man’s skin, his shoulder covered by a collection of now-bloody shirts that seem to be holding the metal steady. His answers are at least slightly more intelligible, though his voice shakes throughout, and more than one of his sentences simply trail off into silence. Ilya does get another name—Max—as well as a confirmation of the man’s profession: another journalist.

Ilya wonders if he’s someone Karina knows. If they maybe work for the same network, or have met covering other international competitions. Though perhaps not—Ilya didn’t give her much of a chance to speak during their argument earlier, but it was obvious just from looking at her how young she is. Younger than him, maybe, and Ilya wonders if maybe it was her Russian alone that earned her her spot covering the Olympics. 

He’s trying to distract himself. He’s self aware enough to know that. He allows himself to do it anyway. 

Better that than lingering on the knowledge that the man sitting in front of him, the man whose shaky responses had included a reference to his children, is almost certainly going to die before they are rescued. 

If they’re rescued, his traitorous brain reminds him, and he shoves that thought away along with the rest—the good, the bad, and the distracting.  

Robertson and Petra have moved to sit next to Paquette, which is convenient for the sake of them checking back in on the amputees. Yakov seems happy, too, with both Petra and Paquette’s injuries, so at least Ilya isn’t having to deliver some terrible news about how one or both of them are about to bleed out or lose even more of their limbs. 

The argument about Robertson letting Yakov look him over that Ilya has to relay is less pleasant, ending only after another intercession by Petra. Ilya really owes her—she’s almost certainly saved him from a black eye twice over at this point, since at a certain point Ilya had stopped translating and had started simply arguing with Robertson directly.  

Yakov finds bruising on Robertson’s back, but Ilya’s brief spike of fear that he’s about to be told that yet another survivor is doomed to die from internal bleeding is quickly laid to rest by Yakov’s reassurance that the size of the bruise and the level of pain is indicative of nothing worse than bruised kidneys. 

Another small bright spot: the look on Roberston’s face when Ilya informs him that he’ll likely spend the next few days pissing blood.

“Rozanov.”

Ilya’s heart jumps in what he tries to tell himself is relief as he looks up from where he’d been trying his best not to stare at the depression in Leon’s skull. 

“Hollander,” he says as cooly as possible to compensate for his treacherous heart. After a glance at Yakov, who gives him a nod, Ilya crosses to meet Shane halfway. Shane isn’t looking at Ilya as he approaches—scanning the survivors that he and Yakov had been treating instead. Checking on them, making sure everyone looked okay. Captain Hollander, again. 

Ilya does his best to block them all from his sight when he comes to a stop in front of Shane. Leon and Max had been looking worse and worse as the morning dragged on toward afternoon, the sun now nearly directly above them, rendering their ashen skin and vacant eyes stark amidst the snow.

Shane doesn’t need to see that. Not yet. 

Luckily Shane doesn’t seem inclined to keep looking around Ilya, tilting his chin slightly to meet Ilya’s eyes. “How’s it going up here?” Shane asks.

Ilya shrugs. “Is okay,” he says, continuing before Shane can ask any follow-up questions, “just waiting for shelter. Is taking forever though.”

Shane glares at him. “We’re going as fast as we can,” he says. 

“But is going?” Ilya asks, dropping the antagonism for a second. “Cargo area is good?” 

Shane snorts. “I don’t know if I’d say good,” he says, “but it’s workable.” 

Movement draws Ilya’s attention past Shane, to the sight of Vaughn and Roth emerging from the cabin of the plane, each carrying what looks like a stack of seat cushions. Shane turns, following the direction of Ilya’s eyes. 

“We’ve emptied the hold,” Shane says, turning back to Ilya. Like a moth to flame, Ilya’s eyes are drawn back to meet Shane’s own. “The cargo was on these big palette things that were locked in place, and we had to— whatever. We figured it out, got it all emptied out. Erika and Karina are going through the bags now, pulling out all the clothing and toiletries.”

“The toiletries?” Ilya asks, frowning, and Shane nods. 

“Yeah,” he says. “We’ve only got the two bags of saline in the med kit, so they’re looking for any contact solution.” He pauses, shrugging, a far more familiar expression briefly passing over his face as he does—awkward and uncertain. A glimpse of Shane peeking out from beneath the mask of Captain Hollander. “We won’t be able to use it as like, fluids, but it’s sterile. Can be used to rinse wounds, if we need it. I think.” 

“Okay,” Ilya says, taking Shane’s word for it. Ilya’s—uneducated and mostly meaningless—approval seems to bolster Shane, because he straightens, confidence returning to him. 

Ilya, once again, tries not to feel anything in particular about that. 

“The cargo was wrapped in these tarps,” Shane continues. “Barrett’s laying them all out now, tying them together so we can use them to cover the, uh, entrance to the cargo hold. And I’ve got the rest of the guys bringing down anything that can be used as insulation or padding from the cabin.”

“Captain Hollander,” Ilya says in a teasing lilt, and is rewarded by the sight of a slight flush rising to stain Shane’s cheeks.

“Shut up,” he mumbles.

“No,” Ilya says—and really, Shane should know better by now than to think that there’s anything that will ever make Ilya shut up. “You are captain of this plane crash, yes?”

“You do realize that makes it sound like I was the one who crashed the plane, right?” Shane replies, voice dry.

“No,” Ilya says. “Then you would be captain of the plane. You are not. You do not even know how to fly plane. You are captain of plane crash.”

At least, Ilya assumes Shane doesn’t know how to fly a plane, but really, who knows? Ilya certainly hadn’t expected Shane to know all the other shit he’d revealed already. For all Ilya knows, Shane might spend his days off flying little planes all around Montréal.

Shane’s mouth twitches like he’s having to fight to hold back a smile, and Ilya doesn’t bother to try and repress his matching smile. 

“Shut up,” Shane says again, louder this time. Ilya opens his mouth to reply, but Shane gets there first, words rushing out to beat Ilya to the punch. “You’re just mad that you’re not captain for once.”

“No,” Ilya says, more sincere than he meant to be. He hastens to cover it up, making his voice bright, teasing, as he continues. “Captain this group? No way. Too many Canadians. Why would I want to captain bronze-medal team?”

“Fuck off,” Shane says, not managing to hide this smile this time.

“I think I am alternate captain,” Ilya muses, tapping his chin. “Focus on keeping up morale, yes? So you can be Captain Serious. Captain Wilderness. Captain Paramedic.”

“I’m not— I just took one course,” Shane says, blushing again. 

“Must be some course,” Ilya says skeptically. 

“It was only a couple days,” Shane says, looking embarrassed. “And it was a few years ago.” 

“Ah, I see,” Ilya says. “This is just more perfect Shane Hollander then.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Shane says, because he might be perfect at a lot of things, but comebacks to chirps is not one of them.

“No, is very impressive,” Ilya says, insistent. “When you decide you are tired of being second-best hockey player you can be paramedic instead. Show up in ambulance like, bonjour, I am Shane Hollander, would you like mouth-to-mouth?” 

“People who need mouth-to-mouth aren’t awake, Rozanov,” Shane says, looking deliciously smug at having an actual retort this time. 

“I don’t know,” Ilya says. “I was pretty awake.” 

Shane’s blush gets even darker, even as he looks around to see if anyone is near them.

“You are impossible,” he hisses once he’s confirmed what Ilya had already checked—there’s no one near enough to hear them. 

“I have been told,” Ilya says, feeling far more cheerful than he had been. Yakov’s earlier words are still lingering in the back of his mind, a bleak, leaden weight, but Shane doesn’t seem any different than he had the last time Ilya had spoken to him. It’s still obvious that he’s not breathing as deeply as he should, but it doesn’t seem any worse, and Ilya clings to that fact with everything he has.

He will not die, Ilya thinks, something between an order and a prayer. A command, issued to the universe. A prayer, to the God he’s not sure he really believes in anymore. Though he also maybe believes in Him more, now, than he had yesterday. 

It might have been how it would have turned out regardless of divine intervention, but the frantic, desperate prayers that had run through his mind, over and over, as the plane went down had been answered.

Shane had survived. 

“Okay, whatever,” Shane says, drawing Ilya back to the present. “I just came over to ask for your lighter.” 

“My lighter?” Ilya asks, curious about why Shane needs his lighter—to start a fire, probably? For some other mysterious wilderness survival thing? 

Shane doesn’t seem to take his question that way, because he rolls his eyes. “Don’t even,” he says. “I know you have one.” 

Ah, Ilya thinks. 

“I do not know what you are talking about,” Ilya says, digging into his pockets. “Never in my life have I brought something I wasn’t allowed to onto plane. I am very good boy, never break any rules.”

“I thought I was the good boy,” Shane snipes back, and whatever colour had managed to fade from his cheeks returns with force as he belatedly registers his own words. Ilya watches Shane physically force himself not to look around them again, to keep meeting Ilya’s eyes with a stubborn tilt to his jaw. 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Ilya says, pulling his lighter free from his pocket and holding it out towards Shane. Shane reaches his own hand out to take it, and Ilya pulls his hand back, just enough to let him lean in and lower his voice, finishing with, “You are still my good boy.”

Shane’s eyes widen at the Russian, and Ilya has the brief, terrified thought that Shane has somehow learned Russian. Reality quickly reasserts itself, washing away the momentary fear—Shane absolutely has not learned Russian. 

Ilya might not entirely discount the possibility of Shane deciding to learn Russian for some reason and also deciding to keep it from Ilya, but there was no way Captain Responsible wouldn’t have used it to communicate with Yakov if he had learned it. 

Another return to reality: Shane glares as he snatches the lighter out of Ilya’s hand.

“I am confiscated,” Ilya says mournfully, straightening back up, moving out of Shane’s space.

Shane snorts. “Figures you’d know confiscated,” Shane says and then, because he’s Canadian and apparently can’t help himself, even with Ilya, adds, “thank you.” It’s disgustingly sincere. 

Ilya will never understand these people. 

“You are starting fire?” Ilya asks, because he still can’t think of any other reason for Shane to ask for his lighter.

“Yeah,” Shane says, spinning the lighter in his hand. “The group that was getting firewood found enough dry wood for us to get started. They’re collecting more deadfall now, so that we can start drying it out.”

Ilya hums. He doesn’t know how much wood is needed to keep a fire going all night, doesn’t know how much wood has already been collected, but he gets the feeling that Shane isn’t just thinking about tonight. 

That he’s thinking in terms of days, not hours. 

Ilya swallows back the acidic taste of bile, clearing his throat. Something else occurs to him then, which doesn’t really help the churning in his stomach. Still, he forces himself to ask: 

“What about food? Water?” 

“Erika told us where to find it,” Shane says, oblivious to what Ilya is actually asking, or maybe just pretending not to. “We’re bringing that down too.”

“Is there…?” Ilya presses, though he’s not quite able to bring himself to voice his real question.

The look on Shane’s face makes him wish he hadn’t. Still, Shane visibly bolsters himself, forcing a cheer he’s obviously not feeling into his voice.

“Luckily, because the flight was a red-eye, there hadn’t been any meal or refreshment service yet. And there’s actually two galleys in the part of the cabin that—” Shane cuts himself off, swallowing hard before he continues, “so there’s a decent amount of food. We’ll need to ration it, obviously, but we’re good on food and water for now.”

“And alcohol?” Ilya asks. He puts on an exaggeratedly hopeful expression as he asks, which at least manages to wipe some of the bleakness from Shane’s face, replacing it with a far more familiar look of exasperation.

“No vodka,” Shane says, faux sternly. “That is officially for medical use only.”

“Boooooo,” Ilya says, savouring the small smile it draws to Shane’s face. 

“There might be beer or something,” Shane allows.

Ilya scrunches his face up. “Canadian beer? Might as well just drink piss.”

“Careful,” Shane says. “We stay out here long enough, that might be your only option.”

“Piss?” Ilya asks, staring at Shane before gesturing around them in a broad, sweeping motion. “We are surrounded by snow, Hollander! Is frozen water! All that fancy Canadian wilderness training and you do not know this?”

Shane’s laughter hits Ilya like a nearly physical blow and Ilya thinks, again, that even if he does survive this, he’s not sure he has any hope of surviving Shane Hollander.

The movement around the back of the plane increases as the afternoon passes, more and more people returning from searching for firewood to join in the effort to get their shelter established before night descends. 

Ilya watches from a distance as the cabin is emptied of anything that might be useful—luggage and coats, seat backs skinned from their metal frames, trays full of what must be food and drinks. Watches as a pile of bags, emptied of everything valuable, grows larger and larger, piled higher and higher in the churned dirt left in the plane’s wake. 

Listens, as Shane’s voice cuts through the air, shouting out quick, decisive commands to his team of survivors as they affixed a piecemeal system of rope and bungee cords to the exterior of the plane. Watches, as they attach them to the tarps Barrett had apparently finished sorting out, stretching them across the entrance to the hold. 

Shane’s voice again cuts through the noise as sporadic arguments break out whenever someone drops something, whenever a piece of the plastic sheeting slips. Ilya can’t quite pick out actual words, but he can read the tone well enough, even at a distance—recognizes it, from Sebbin and Dubek bickering over which of them were to blame for a breakaway, from Savvy accusing Saint Vicky of blocking his view of an incoming puck. 

The sun has tipped halfway to the western horizon when Leon dies. 

His eyes are shut when they approach him, but he’s been in and out of it all afternoon, so it won’t be the first time that they’ve had to shake him awake to check on him. It isn’t until Yakov tenses next to him that Ilya realizes that something is wrong. Ilya watches, dread growing in his stomach, as Yakov crouches down next to the man, reaching out and pressing his fingers against the side of the man’s neck. 

Please, Ilya thinks, nearly holding his breath as he waits. He’s not sure what he’s even hoping for—Yakov had said that Leon was going to die, and wasn’t it better, for it to have happened? For it to be over? For him to no longer be suffering, confused and in pain? 

Maybe. Maybe it is ultimately better, but there’s no feeling of relief when Yakov looks back at Ilya, meeting his eyes and shaking his head. 

Ilya doesn’t know what he’s feeling. Nothing. Everything. Too much and not enough. 

We missed it, he realizes, and feels his face and fingers go numb with the knowledge that the man had been totally alone when he’d died. Propped up in a snow bank in the middle of the wilderness, thousands of kilometers away from home. 

He startles when he feels a hand land on his shoulder, not having even noticed Yakov standing back up, much less closing the distance between them. Ilya looks at him, but has to look away just as quickly when he catches the look on Yakov’s face—worried, searching. 

“What do we do with him?” Ilya asks before Yakov can do something even worse, like ask Ilya if he’s okay. 

There’s a long pause, but Ilya refuses to look back at Yakov. He keeps his eyes fixed on some indistinct point over Leon’s shoulder, and breathes. Deep and even. Feeling nothing. 

“We’ll leave him here for now,” Yakov finally says. “We can wait to move him until we’ve got everyone else moved down into the cargo hold. It shouldn’t be much longer now.” 

Yakov was right. 

They’re looping back around to their amputees when the sound of voices growing nearer has them diverting, moving to meet the group of men approaching from the back of the plane. Ilya’s eyes land on Shane first, but he makes them quickly move past him, flicking from face to face. He’s not surprised to see that it’s mostly hockey players again—Barrett, Roth, Vaughn, plus another he doesn’t recognize, but assumes is also an athlete, going by his very patriotic jacket and obviously physical build.

“We’re good to start moving people down,” Shane says, and Ilya allows the sound of Shane’s voice to draw his eyes back to the other man. He looks exhausted, but not otherwise any worse for wear, from the last time Ilya saw him. Ilya’s not sure how noticeable the exhaustion even is, if anyone else would ever notice it—Shane’s back still held straight, his voice certain, unwavering. 

He looks so serious. Too serious—weighed down by all the lives he’s made himself responsible for. Ilya wants to say something teasing, something to lighten that terrible weight, if only for a moment, but they’re now surrounded by people who would understand him no matter what language he chose. They’re already watching Ilya, or at least the hockey players are. The faces of the men standing behind Shane are set, stony. Like they’re bracing for Ilya to argue; expecting him to fight against any order that comes from Shane, despite the fact that Ilya hasn’t hesitated to follow Shane’s commands all day. 

“Okay,” Ilya says. 

Shane doesn’t relax, but the men behind him do. For a second, Ilya thinks that it’s because Shane doesn’t trust that okay after their conversation earlier—is still waiting for the blow to land—before realizing that Shane hadn’t been bracing in the first place. He’d approached assuming that Ilya would listen.

Ilya doesn’t know which would be worse: if he’d assumed that Ilya would listen because it was Shane asking, or if he knew that, for all the shit-talking Ilya did, he wouldn’t be contrary just for the sake of being contrary. 

Not here, at least. Not now. 

Not with so many people’s lives still on the line.

The answer to which it is might be visible on Shane’s face, if Ilya searches for it, so he turns to Yakov instead, explains:

“They’re ready to start moving everyone into the hold.”

Yakov nods. “They’ll need to be careful, moving some of them,” he says. “Tell them that I’ll tell them how to move them, the order to move them in.”

So that they don’t try and move Leon passes between them, unspoken. 

Ilya turns back to Shane and the others. “Yakov will give directions,” he says. “Who to move, and how. Some you will have to be careful with, yes? No tossing people around like hockey bag.” 

Roth snorts. “Yeah, okay Rozanov,” he says, “like you—”

It is, unexpectedly, Barrett’s elbow driving into Roth’s ribs that cuts off whatever else he was going to say. Ilya raises an eyebrow, but Barrett avoids his eyes when Ilya tries to catch his graze. With a mental shrug, Ilya moves on, returning his attention to Shane. 

“Alright,” Shane says, eyes bright, intent. “Who first?” 

Maya lets out a short, tight scream when Vaughn picks her back up—carrying her in the same bridal carry that he’d had her in when they’d first emerged from the plane—but it’s in otherwise relative silence that the injured survivors begin to make their way down to the cargo hold. Most are able to move on their own power anyways, or at worst braced against another person, aside from Maya. Paquette, too, is carried, the goalie’s arms slung over Roth and Barrett’s shoulders, their arms clasped together beneath him in a four-handed seat.

“Vaughn,” Ilya calls out before the other man can get too far, keeping his voice flat, emotionless. Vaughn pauses, looking back at Ilya with a question clear on his face. “Come back when you’re done,” Ilya says in answer. “We have one more.” 

He gestures with a thumb over his shoulder towards where Leon’s body remains propped up in the snow, Yakov standing guard over him to prevent anyone else from trying to move him. 

Vaughn nods, and Ilya lets out a relieved sigh when no one else attempts to stay behind with pointless offers of help. With the rest of the injured and their helpers either departed or departing, they are safe, for now, from the spread of the knowledge that the list of survivors has grown even shorter. It’ll be impossible to avoid, once they join the rest, but Ilya will take whatever reprieve he can. 

Ilya walks over to Yakov, joining him in standing silent vigil, waiting for Vaughn to return. 

They don’t have to wait long, and Ilya doesn’t bother to hold back his groan when he sees that Vaughn isn’t alone. 

“Does he think we need supervision?” Ilya mumbles as he watches Vaughn and Shane approach. 

Yakov laughs, a quiet sound, mostly under his breath. “You, maybe,” he says, and Ilya shoots a half-hearted glare at him before turning to face his fate. 

“Alright!” Vaughn says, clapping his hands together and rubbing them, “What’s the sitch? We gotta carry this dude?” He attempts to lean around Yakov, to get a better look at the body they’re hiding behind him, but Yakov shifts to the side, blocking his view. Vaughn either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t think it was intentional, because his smile doesn’t waver. 

Fucking idiot, Ilya thinks, not really meaning it, but needing somewhere to direct his anger over this whole situation. 

Anger over his own helplessness. Anger over the fact that there was nothing any of them could do. Anger that this was just another thing that Shane was going to be forced to carry, because Ilya knew him well enough that Shane would take the full weight of Leon’s death on his own shoulders, deserved or not. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, ignoring the way that Shane startles at his tone—his voice coming out acidic and aggressive, when he’d been aiming for flat and unaffected. “But not to hold.”

“What?” Vaughn says, frowning in confusion. 

Maybe there’s a good way to say it—a right way. A gentle way.

Yakov would probably know how to say it, but he can’t, so it’s Ilya who speaks, Ilya who says:

“He’s dead.”

Vaughn’s eyes go wide, but Ilya doesn’t get a chance to see what else he might be feeling, his attention shifting to the side of him at the sound of Shane’s voice; quiet and shocked.

“What?”

Shane’s face is pale, stained orange on one side by the setting sun. His eyes are wide, and he seems to almost waver in place, like Ilya’s words had physically struck him, left him reeling. 

“He died a few hours ago,” Ilya says, surprised by how gentle the words come out, despite how much anger his previous words had been laced with. 

Too obvious, he thinks to himself, but he can’t seem to find that anger anymore. Can’t make the words come out with any of the harshness that their rivalry deserves when he continues:

“We did not want to move him in front of others,” he explains. “Would make them, ah, freak out?”

“Yeah,” Shane says, voice a thousand miles away as he nods. “Right. Makes sense.” 

“Yeah,” Vaughn echos, clearing his threat. “Yeah, that’s— good call, Rozanov.” 

Ilya nods in his direction, short and sharp, but doesn’t look at him, unable to drag his attention away from Shane. 

Shane, who doesn’t seem to be returning to Ilya, gaze distant and blank. It has anxiety buzzing beneath Ilya’s skin like a thousand angry hornets, a directionless fear that he feels totally unequipped to deal with. All he can think about is his Mama—

And it’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid, foolish and misplaced, because this is nothing like that, this is—

This is a moment, a second, a singular point in time, trapped in the midst of stress and fear and pain, but—

But she had been so blank, so often, and then forever. 

“Shane,” Ilya says, then again, louder, “Shane.”

Shane blinks, then blinks again. Shakes his head, and meets Ilya’s eyes. 

For all the terrible things in them—for all the blame that Ilya can already see Shane pulling down atop himself—it is still a relief. 

He’s here. He’s here.

“Vaughn and I will move him, okay?” Ilya says.

“Okay,” Shane echoes, voice small, and then, stronger, as Ilya practically watches him pull Captain Hollander back over himself, “Okay. Yeah.”

“Um, move him where?” fucking Vaughn cuts in, and Ilya manages to find his lost anger again after all, jerking his head towards Vaughn, venomous words pooling on his tongue. They don’t make it out, faltering and then disappearing as Ilya realizes he doesn’t actually have an answer for him. 

“The cabin,” Shane answers instead. 

“The cabin?” Vaughn and Ilya say at nearly the same time, to Ilya’s annoyance. 

Shane nods, shrugs at the incredulous looks being aimed in his direction. 

“It’s where everyone— where all the others are,” he says. “And it’s below freezing, so it’s not like they’re going to…” He trails off, apparently not wanting to think about what would happen to the bodies if it was above freezing any more than any of the rest of them do. 

“Yeah,” Vaughn says slowly, “but…” he trails off, making a face in reply to the questioning look Shane gives him. “It’s just… it’s right above our heads?” he finally finishes.

Judging by the look on Shane’s face, he’s as enthusiastic about that idea as Ilya is. 

“What is it?” Yakov’s voice cuts through the silence.

“Shane wants to put the body in the cabin,” Ilya says, turning towards the paramedic. 

Yakov tilts his head, seeming to turn the idea over in his head for a moment before nodding. “Might as well,” he says. “It’s where the rest are. And it’d be a waste of energy to bury him.”

“Vaughn does not like that they’ll be above us,” Ilya says, leaving out the fact that he is also not particularly fond of that idea.

Yakov shrugs. “Better than leaving the body out to get scavenged," he says. “Maybe some birds, but nothing bigger will approach, not with all the movement and sound coming from the hold.”

Ilya feels his eyes go wide with alarm. “Something bigger?” he asks. “Bigger like what? Wolves?”

“I’m from fucking Moscow,” Yakov says, “how should I know what’s out here?” He gestures around them before continuing, “I’m just saying, bigger animals will be scared off by all the sounds of people.” 

“Do you know that?” Ilya asks, turning to fully face Yakov. “Or are you just saying that?”

Yakov hesitates, and his voice is less sure when he speaks again. “I think animals are scared of people, no? They don’t go near large groups of humans, unless they smell food. And all of our food is frozen or sealed.” 

“Is it?” Ilya says, because he doesn’t know that that’s true. “What if—”

“What’s he saying?” Vaughn interrupts.

“He is saying above is good, because animals will be scared of human sounds, and not come to eat bodies,” Ilya says, turning towards Vaughn. He feels slightly vindicated, by the way that Vaughn visibly blanches at Ilya’s explanation. 

Shane, for some unfathomable reason, nods. 

“That’s actually a great point,” he says. “There might still be ravens or other birds, during the day, but anything bigger— well, they probably wouldn’t want to come into the cabin anyways, not with the smoke and other smells, but if that isn’t enough of a deterrent, the sounds that we’ll be making should keep them away.”

“Should?” Ilya asks.

“Will,” Shane corrects, firmly. Ilya narrows his eyes at him, unconvinced. “Will,” Shane repeats with added emphasis. “We just need to watch our food. Bury the empty containers away from the plane, that sort of thing.”

“What are we even talking about here?” Vaughn jumps in. “Like, when you say bigger animals, what are you talking about?”

“Bears, yes?” Ilya says, glancing back at Shane. “Wolves?” 

Shane frowns at him. “I mean, you’re from here,” he says. “You’d know better than me.” 

“I am from Moscow!” Ilya says, throwing up his hands. “How should I know what is out in middle of forest?” 

He only realizes that he’s basically said the exact same thing Yakov had after the words are already out. Oh well. Not like anyone here would ever know that. 

“What about Siberian tigers?” Vaughn says, sounding nervous.

Shane shrugs.

“There are no tigers here,” Ilya says.

“Okay, but do you actually know that?” Vaughn challenges. “You don’t even know if there’s wolves or bears!”

“Is in name, dumbass,” Ilya says. “Siberian.”

“There aren’t any Siberian tigers here,” Yakov says, and Ilya gestures towards him, vindicated, only realizing a beat too late that Shane and Vaughn would have no idea what he’d said.

“Yakov agrees,” Ilya clarifies. “No tigers.”

“Okay, so just bears and wolves then,” Vaughn says. “Awesome.” 

“Maybe bears and wolves,” Shane stresses. “And, again, they won’t approach a bunch of humans so long as we don’t leave food lying out to attract them.” 

“And bodies are…?” Ilya says, too caught up in the back-and-forth of the argument, only really thinking about what he’s said when he catches sight of Shane and Vaughn’s face. Any feeling of levity disappears as quickly as it came, snuffed out in the silence that stretches out following Ilya’s words. 

“The bodies will freeze overnight,” Shane eventually says, quiet and subdued. “They won’t smell them.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, with no better idea of what to say. Wishing there was something he could say, that would bring back the brief moment where Shane had seemed to forget about the grim task in front of them.

There’s nothing that he can say though. Nothing any of them can say.

They move Leon in silence. 

Ilya is sweaty in a way that promises to quickly become uncomfortable, not helped by the fact that the air temperature is quickly lowering along with the sun. Moving the body had been difficult, the cold and rigour forcing them to move him in the same position he’d died in. The whole thing made more difficult by the fact that it had just been Vaughn and Ilya lifting him, as Yakov couldn’t, and Ilya refused to let Shane, help. 

Still, Ilya grabs Shane’s arm at the top of the slope leading down to the back of the plane, pulling him to a halt. He ignores the glare that Shane levels at him, the question beneath the anger.

“You go ahead,” he says to Vaughn, repeating the same in Russian to Yakov. “I need to catch Hollander up.”

It’s a good excuse—Vaughn nods easily, turning and continuing onwards. Yakov hesitates, looking between them, his eyes too shadowed by the fading daylight to read, but eventually he too turns, walks away. Ilya waits until they’re both fully out of sight before he turns to Shane, belatedly realizing that he’s still holding his arm. He releases his grip, his hand feeling abruptly far colder, even though realistically, there was no way he’d been feeling the warmth of Shane’s skin through his jacket. 

“What?” Shane asks, when too long has passed without Ilya saying anything. 

“Are you okay?” Ilya says, the question falling out of him before he can think better of it. 

Shane gives him an incredulous look. “What do you think?” he asks, his voice sharp, biting. 

“Are you?” Ilya repeats, pressing. 

Shane huffs out an angry breath. “Of course I’m not fucking okay,” he says, lowering his voice, though the words are no less angry for it. “None of this is fucking okay. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, people are dying, and I can’t fucking do anything to stop it!”

“Shane—” Ilya starts, but doesn’t get any further. 

“Don’t,” Shane snaps. “Don’t. You can’t— you can’t do this here.” 

“We are alone, Hollander,” Ilya says, gesturing around them—at the tayga stretching out around them, vast and empty. At the site of the plane crash, silent and still. The dead above, the living below; neither here, with them. “I just want to—”

“What?” Shane says. “Flirt with me more? Is this really the fucking time?” 

“No,” Ilya says. “No, that is not— I just wanted to…” Ilya trails off, not sure what he wants to say. Not sure what he can say. 

Afraid that anything he does say will give away more than he means to. 

Fuck. Maybe Shane is right. This is stupid. Ilya shouldn’t have stopped him. Should have just gone inside with Vaughn and Yakov. Should have just kept right on pretending. 

Except Ilya has seen more dead bodies today than he has ever seen in his entire life. Men he knew, men he’d played against for years. Leon, whose last name he didn’t even know, whose face he’d never forget. 

Ilya feels exhausted, worn down, his nerves rubbed raw, stripped bare. He’s not sure he has any pretending left in him. 

“You don’t have to carry this alone,” he finally says. Not the whole truth, but enough. More than he had ever intended on giving away. “You’re not alone, Hollander.” 

Shane’s lips twitch upwards, unamused. “I thought the whole point was that we are alone.” 

“Yes,” Ilya says, risking a step closer. “We are. You are not.”

“Fuck,” Shane breathes out, eyes shining, catching the last of the light. 

Fuck it, Ilya thinks, and erases the remaining distance between them, pulling Shane into a hug. Braced, even as his arms wrap around Shane, for the shove that he’s sure is coming. 

For a moment long enough to seem endless, Shane doesn’t move. His body is so tense that Ilya can feel the way that he’s shaking with it, his breathing shallow in a way that doesn’t seem to be entirely from his injured lungs—more like he’s holding his breath. Like he’s bracing, the same way Ilya is. 

And then, all at once, the tension drains from him, and Shane sags into Ilya’s embrace. His face tucking into the crook of Ilya’s neck, his breath fanning hot and damp over Ilya’s skin. His arms wrap around Ilya in turn, fingers clutching at the back of Ilya’s jacket, twisting in the fabric. 

Shane’s breathing slows, steadies. Still not deep enough, still hurt, but better. Holding only the hurt the world has given him, and not the hurt he is giving himself. 

“I’m scared.” 

The confession is whispered into Ilya’s skin, so quiet Ilya almost doesn’t hear it, even with the silence of the forest pressing down around them. 

“I know,” Ilya says, his arms instinctively tightening, as if, if he can just hold Shane tight enough, close enough, it will be enough to fix everything. To keep him safe. “I am also.” 

The tarps have been affixed over the back of the plane at an angle, two separate panels overlapping, crossing over each other. Where they reach the ground, they are held in place by rocks and chunks of metal; pieces of the plane. There’s a hole at the top, just above where they cross over each other, which may have been intentional, judging by the smoke that is rising from it, just visible against the swiftly darkening sky above. 

Shane leads Ilya through the squeeze of the overlapping bases of the tarp, but Ilya doesn’t move any further, stopping to take in the sight in front of him. 

It’s a mess, but somehow incredibly organized in a way that Ilya is pretty sure is pure Shane, even if it might read as Captain Hollander to everyone else. 

The source of the smoke is obvious; a fire, set into a small ring of rocks that must have been gathered up by the firewood collectors. It’s on the ground just beyond the metal edge of the plane, positioned just below the hole at the top of the tarps. Probably it would be better for heating if it was more central, but then there would have been nowhere for the smoke to go, gathering under the ceiling above, choking them the way the smoke filling the cabin had threatened to when they’d first crashed. 

The metal floor of the cargo hold itself is barely visible; most of it covered by the deconstructed chairs extricated from the cabin above. Scattered across these make-shift beds, the survivors sit in small clusters. The injured that Ilya had spent most of the day with are all at the front—closest to the fire, Ilya realizes. Where they will stay the warmest. 

It is surprisingly warm in the hold, a sharp contrast to the cold that had been building outside. Ilya thinks it will probably get warmer, with all these people gathered into the relatively small space—the cargo hold is as deep as the cabin above, but the ceiling is lower than Ilya would have expected, leaving less empty air for the heat to dissipate into. 

Shane has joined Yakov and Vaughn where they’re standing near the firewood—two piles, Ilya notes. One visibly drier than the other. Karina is standing with them, along with Erika, so translation is probably covered. Ilya walks over to join them anyways. 

Both women are more warmly dressed than when he’s last seen them, Ilya notes. Karina is now wearing a second, thicker, jacket, and Erika’s skirt and tights have been replaced with a pair of sweatpants that are far too big for her, along with a coat that equally threatens to swallow her up. Her braids have been let down from the tight bun she had them in, and in its stead a ridiculous team Canada beanie perches atop her head, the pom-pom at the top wobbling with each move she makes.

“—sugar from the pop,” Karina is saying as Ilya comes to a stop next to Shane, who nods in reply. 

“Makes sense,” Shane says, then looks at Erika.

“Do you need…?” he trails off when she shakes her head, a wry smile twisting her lips. 

“Nah, me and Carter’ve got this covered. Right, Carter?” 

Vaughn visibly startles at being addressed, but quickly recovers, nodding with that same too-cheerful-for-the-circumstances smile. “Yeah, don’t worry about it Cap. You’ve done enough.” He turns his smile to Erika next. “So, do I get my own uniform, or…?” 

Erika laughs, the noise surprised out of her, judging by the look on her face. “I don’t know that you’d fit into my spare skirt,” she says. “Your ass is way bigger than mine.” 

Her cheeks immediately darken, but Vaughn just laughs, following after her when she quickly takes off, as if trying to outpace her embarrassment. She leads Vaughn towards the pile of trays next to the two med kits—the food and drinks that they’d brought down from the cabin, Ilya realizes, at the same time that he realizes just how hungry he is. 

It’s a feeling he should probably get used to, he thinks. Despite Shane’s earlier reassurance that they’re good for food and drink, Ilya is certain that they’ll be rationing it just as carefully as Yakov is rationing the medical supplies. 

Speaking of which—

“I’m just gonna…” Karina says, gesturing towards nothing before taking off, picking her way through the cushions covering the floor of the hold. Ilya doesn’t blame her. He knows what’s left for them to do—the things that they’ve been waiting to be inside shelter for. 

He’d run away from it too, if he could. 

Instead, he turns towards Yakov and Shane. “Time for splints?” he asks, unsurprised when Shane nods, expression grim. 

“Maya first,” he says, then shoots a questioning look at Yakov. 

“Femur first?” Ilya translates, and Yakov nods. 

Perfect. 

Ilya couldn’t wait to find out just how horrible this was going to be.

There’s no immediate springing into action—each step of the splinting described and translated first, the plan outlined in full. Yakov has gotten it pretty much ready to go, in the time that Ilya and Shane had spent outside, everything they’ll need set out in a neat pile next to where Maya is laying down, stretched across a series of seat cushions. There’s not actually anything from either of the medical kits in the pile—instead, there’s a handful of scarves, a couple of belts, a beanie and a hockey stick. 

“Seriously?” Ilya asks, looking between Yakov and the stick.

“Yes,” Yakov says. “We were lucky to find it, really. There would have been other options—I was thinking we’d use a couple of the handles from the luggage—but this is much better. It’s straight, and solid. About as good a splint as you could ask for.” 

“If you say so,” Ilya says, and doesn’t wince when Shane breaks the blade off the end of it. 

Shane gets everyone’s attention before they do anything else, interrupting the mimicry of meal service being performed by Vaughn and Erika. Offering a warning about what they were about to do, and the fact that Maya would likely be making noise while they did it. 

There’s a hesitation, when he says the word noise, that has Ilya leaning towards Yakov.

“She’s going to scream again?” he asks.

Yakov snorts, eyes cutting between Ilya and Shane. “Maybe,” he says. “But when the bone moves back into place… it’s a huge relief. People tend to make a noise that can sound… sexual.” 

“Like orgasm?” Ilya asks, surprised and more than a bit incredulous. Surely there’s no way bones moving could ever feel good—much less that good. 

“Yes,” Yakov confirms, amusement obvious in his eyes even as his voice remains flatly professional. “We warn new paramedics about it. So that they do not laugh.” He raises his good hand to point at Ilya. “Do not laugh.” 

Ilya rolls his eyes in reply, though he’s privately grateful for the warning. He knows himself well enough to know that he might have laughed, without the warning—from surprise, if nothing else. 

Yakov has Ilya do the pulling, over Shane’s objections. Yakov had already told Ilya, earlier, that as soon as they’d dealt with the remaining broken bones he’d listen to Shane’s lungs, and Ilya was as eager to get to that as he was to make sure that Shane didn’t unnecessarily strain himself any further before then. 

It’s both harder and easier than Ilya expects; more and less effort. One hand around Maya’s ankle, the other around her foot. A deep breath—for both of them—and then Ilya pulls. He grits his teeth against the pained noise that she makes, forces himself not to relent, to keep going even though it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. And then, all at once, it does: not a release of tension, but a moment of realignment as, with sickening ease, Maya’s foot moves towards him, despite the fact that the rest of her body remains stationary. 

He is forced to once again feel gratitude towards Yakov—the noise Maya lets out as her bone slides back into place has Shane blushing and briefly glancing away. There’s a few muffled, shocked laughs from the other passengers, but they’re barely audible under the sound of Maya panting for breath. There’s tears streaking down her face, but the expression she wears isn’t one of pain, but of relief, unmistakable. 

Ilya doesn’t move, keeping the tension on Maya’s foot as Shane and Yakov begin to move around him, Yakov first checking her pulse again. At his nod, Shane lays the hockey stick down between her legs, the beanie wrapped around the end positioned between her thighs acting as a makeshift cushion. The blade of the stick goes against her foot, and then the scarves and belts are brought out, tying both of her legs together with the stick in the middle. 

When they’re done, she’s totally immobilized from the waist down, with her legs splinted against each other. Ilya understands now, far more clearly, why Yakov had wanted to wait until they were settled into their makeshift shelter before they did this. He can’t imagine how they would have moved her, if they’d done this outside. 

“Wow,” Ilya says as he sits back, Yakov finally signalling that he’s good to let go of her foot. “You are mermaid now.” 

From the corner of his eye, he sees Shane mouth the word mermaid to himself, like he’s somehow never heard the word before. For her part, Maya just snorts, propped up on her elbows, looking down at her own legs. 

“Honestly?” she says after a brief inspection. “You’re not wrong.”

“I am never wrong,” Ilya says, which earns him another snort, this one from Shane. He doesn’t look at Ilya though, meeting Maya’s eyes from where he’s kneeling next to her. 

“How does it feel?” Shane asks. 

“Better,” Maya says with feeling, the relief that she’s feeling as obvious in her voice as it had been on her face. She scrubs roughly at the drying tear tracks on her face, as if worried they’ll undermine her claim. “Seriously. So much better.” 

Shane’s face mirrors the relief in hers as he nods. 

Oak is next, starting with the now-familiar routine of rinsing the jagged end of bone sticking out of his arm, then the split in his skin that it emerges from. After some discussion, and Ilya trying, and failing, to try and translate the ingredients in the contact solution, they use it for the initial rinse, followed by the sterile saline—a compromise between conserving the bagged saline and the uncertainty around whether or not contact solution can be considered sterile. 

It’s not as much of a physical effort to move this bone back in—both the bone and the muscles surrounding it smaller, weaker—so Ilya steps back, letting Shane once again bloody his gloves. He forces himself to keep watching as Shane pulls on Oak’s wrist though the sight of the bone sinking back into the torn skin of his forearm has his stomach turning over. It’s worse, seeing so clearly what’s happening, in a way that he hadn’t been able to with Maya’s leg. 

It doesn’t take long, at least, and then the bone is gone, once again hidden from sight, back beneath the flesh of Oak’s arm, where it belongs. 

Yakov talks Shane through bandaging the wound left behind by the returned bone, then has Ilya join him in making a splint and sling, one that wraps under the elbow and then over his opposite shoulder, fixing Oak’s arm against his chest. Using his own body to keep it stable and in place. 

The relief on Oak’s face is less intense than it had been on Maya’s, but it’s still there, and Ilya tries to let the sight of that relief overwrite the memory of the pained noises Oak had made, the wet sucking sound of the bone disappearing back beneath his skin. 

The last fracture they need to splint is a surprise. 

“Your wrist is broken?” Ilya asks, staring at Yakov. 

“Did you think I was holding it like this for fun?” Yakov asks, gesturing towards himself, to where he’s holding his left hand against his chest, same as he has all day.

Ilya glares at him, and turns to Shane rather than reply. 

“Yakov’s wrist is broken,” he tells him. “He needs splint now.”

Shane’s eyes go wide with surprise, so at least Ilya probably wasn’t a total idiot, for thinking it might be a sprain or just badly bruised or something. It is annoying, to think about how much of that assumption had been based on how few signs Yakov had given of the pain that he must have been in, all day. 

It’s easier, at least, than either of the other fractures—there’s nothing they need to pull into place. After a brief hunt for something hard and straight, but smaller than a hockey stick, they come up with a set of long wooden knitting needles, unearthed in Paquette’s carry-on—

“What? It’s good for dexterity. And it’s something to do on long flights. Okay, you know what, fuck you Roz, it’s not that embarrassing.”

—which are laid against the inside of Yakov’s forearm, the heads of the needles against his palm. Shane wraps a roller bandage around the whole thing, fixing the makeshift wooden brace in place. There’s no real indication on Yakov’s face if it feels better or not afterwards, but he does allow his arm to swing away from his chest, flexing his fingers before nodding his apparent approval. 

Ilya watches him move it, testing. He doesn’t wait any longer when he finally catches Yakov’s eye though, asking:

“Shane now?” 

It’s too quick, too eager. Demanding and nakedly desperate. It’s also already done, already spoken, with no way to take it back. Yet another accidental exposure of his soft underbelly that Ilya is helpless to do anything about. 

Yakov doesn’t comment on it directly, but Ilya can see it on his face, can hear it beneath the words that he does say. There’s no part of what Ilya hasn’t been saying that Yakov hasn’t heard, and Ilya can only hope that the other man has enough mercy to keep it to himself. 

“Shane now,” Yakov agrees.

They’re already off to the side, out of the way—Shane crouched over the med kit, putting away the last of the bandages. Ilya crouches down next to him, keeping his voice low enough that they won’t be overheard. 

“Yakov wants to listen to your lungs,” he says, and watches Shane freeze. It answers one question, immediately, at least. 

Shane had noticed it too. 

Ilya watches his face, watches as Captain Hollander wavers. It’s only for a second, but it's enough for Ilya to see the fear there. The stubbornness too; the stubbornness that’s all Shane. Ilya thinks that it’s the thing that kept Shane from letting Ilya fuck him for two years. He knows it’s the thing that will win Montréal the cup, sooner or later. 

The team that they’ve built around Shane is strong, but it wouldn’t be enough without him—without his drive, his determination. The way that hockey flows through his blood and bones, the way the ice sings beneath his feet. That lets him play the way he does; like he knows what everyone else is going to do before they even do. That makes Ilya’s breath catch in his throat, sometimes, when he watches him. When he takes over the ice, like he’s the only player out there. Like he’s the only one who matters.

He’s going to say no. Ilya can already see it, the impending refusal clear in the set of his jaw.

But Shane always somehow manages to surprise him, even after all these years.

“Okay,” he says, and when he meets Ilya’s eyes, Ilya realizes his mistake—Shane is stubborn, sure. Refusing himself comfort—refusing pleasure—in a thousand different ways. But he’s brave, too, and has never met a challenge he was willing to back down from. His hockey career proves as much to all others, and he’s been proving it to Ilya—differently, secretly—ever since Ilya caught him checking him out in the showers. Ever since he opened to Ilya’s knock.

“Okay,” Ilya echoes. It somehow manages to come out more like what he’s actually saying. 

It sounds like thank you. 

They stand in unison, and Ilya nods at Yakov. 

Yakov puts his stethoscope on with the ease of long practice; easier, now that he can use his fingers on his left hand. He gestures them deeper into the shadows, trying to keep the action as subtle as possible as he first places the circular part of the stethoscope high against the right side of Shane’s chest. 

Ilya keeps his voice low as he repeats Yakov’s directions back to Shane, watching as Shane takes in one deep breath, and then another. Yakov’s expression is intent as he listens, but gives frustratingly little away. He moves the stethoscope to the left, has Shane breathe again. Again; lower, moving back to the right side before listening to the left. Back and forth, lower and lower. Breath after breath. 

“Turn around,” Yakov says, drawing a circle in the air that is enough, without Ilya even needing to translate. Shane turns, and Yakov repeats the same on Shane’s back, drawing a ladder down his spine before finally removing the stethoscope from his ears. 

“Equal air entry bilaterially,” Yakov says, looping his stethoscope back around his neck, the circle bit deftly tucked between the y of the tubes, holding it in place. “But there’s fine crackles bilaterally in the bases.” 

Ilya opens his mouth to ask—demand—more, but Yakov is continuing before he even gets so much as a word out. 

“It means that there’s some fluid in his lungs,” he says, meeting first Ilya’s eyes, and then Shane’s, offering Shane a reassuring smile. “But it’s not impeding his ability to take in air, and if one of his lungs was going to collapse, it probably would have happened by now.” Yakov looks at Ilya again. “Like I said before—he’s young, strong, and healthy. Unless something else happens, I feel pretty confident that Shane will keep getting better. We’ll want to keep an eye out for the same things we talked about earlier, and I want him to keep avoiding putting additional strain on his lungs as much as possible, but for now, there’s no reason to panic.”

Ilya lets out a breath of his own—slow and shaky, before he turns to Shane. The smile that Yakov had offered him seems to have given Shane some reassurance, but the fear hasn’t fully dissipated from his eyes; the tense way that he’s standing gives away the anxiety he must be feeling, waiting for Ilya to translate. 

“There’s some signs of, ah, liquid in your lungs,” he says. “Likely from the crash—the change in…” he trails off, waving a hand around.

“Pressure?” Shane guesses, and Ilya nods. 

“Yes. Yes. The pressure. But he says you are still breathing the same on both sides, and it will probably get better on its own.” 

Ilya watches as the tension slips from Shane’s shoulders. “He’s sure?” he asks. 

“As sure as he can be,” Ilya says, not wanting to lie and knowing that Shane would rather know the truth, regardless of the uncertainty that it leaves them with. “If your lung was going to collapse, would probably already have happened. You will let him know if it becomes hard to breathe, yes? Or if it hurts, anywhere. But will probably be okay.”

“Okay,” Shane says, then again, looking down and seeming to speak more to himself, “okay.” He looks back up, eyes moving between Ilya and Yakov. “Is there anything he can do?” he asks. “Anything I can do?” 

Of course, Ilya thinks, unaccountably fond. Shane Hollander. Always looking for what he can do. 

“Do not over-do it, yes?” Ilya says. “Take it, uh, easy.” 

Shane snorts at that, shaking his head. “Right,” he says, voice sharper than Ilya thinks he is trying to make it, burying whatever humour he was aiming for. “Good thing that we’re in such a relaxing situation then, eh? Not like there’s a thousand things to do or anything.” 

“I think it is a good thing you are surrounded by so many big strong hockey players,” Ilya says. “You’re the captain of the plane crash, remember? You tell everyone what to do, do not do it yourself. Is not your job.” 

“Stop saying it like that,” Shane says, reflexive. “And it’s not like a captain leaves his team to do everything for him. Well, maybe you do, but that’s not how I captain.” Shane’s eyes grow brighter as he speaks, like chirping Ilya is restoring something that he briefly lost. 

“Please,” Ilya says, waving his hand dismissively despite the fact that he can’t quite manage to entirely tamp down on his smile. “Raiders would be lost without me.”

“Yeah,” Shane says, something Ilya can’t interpret briefly crossing his face. 

“Does he have any questions?” 

Yakov’s voice has both Shane and Ilya startling, turning towards him. Shane’s eyes are wide in a way that suggests that he, like Ilya, had entirely forgotten about the other man standing next to them. 

Ilya clears his throat. Schools his expression as he turns back to Shane. “Do you have any questions?” he asks. 

Shane thinks it over for a second, but eventually shakes his head. 

Yakov nods. “I’m going to finish up with the remaining patients,” he says. “Check on the people we haven’t yet seen.”

“You need help?” Ilya asks, readying himself for a reprise of Nurse Rozanov—to insist on it, if needed. Whatever it takes, to get Shane to actually take a break. 

“Yes,” Yakov says, expression apologetic, though Ilya doesn’t think he has anything to apologize for, not when he continues, adding, “but it should mostly be minor bandaging at this point—Shane can rest. We can come get him if we need him.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, though he knows his face is giving him away—can see as much, in the way that Yakov is looking at him with something like sympathy. Still, Ilya does his best to wipe away the gratitude before he looks at Shane. 

“He says that he will check over the rest now,” Ilya says, quickly continuing as Shane opens his mouth, probably to say that he’ll help, “I will be nurse again,” he says. “You will rest. Eat something.” Shane still looks like he’s about to protest, so Ilya adds, “take it easy, remember?” 

It isn’t hard to read the annoyance on Shane’s face, but eventually he does nod his agreement, so Ilya decides to take the win for what it is. He grabs the kits, gesturing Yakov away, hustling off before Shane can figure out some way to argue against the paramedic’s directions. 

Ilya isn’t sure how long he spends going from passenger to passenger with Yakov, but he’s exhausted and hungrier than ever by the time he throws himself down next to Shane. 

He’s discarded his gloves—finally bloodied, thanks to having to hold close Hendrix’s leg and Vaughn’s head while Yakov applied little strips of some sort of sticky tape to keep them closed—and is choosing to ignore the few drops of blood that ended up on his jeans. Ilya is filthy anyways, in a way that has him nearly itching for a shower, something that isn’t going to change even if he managed to find something in the piles of salvaged clothing that would fit him. 

He’s half expecting Shane to shove him away. To hiss some sort of warning about being too close. To scold Ilya for being too obvious, especially with Yakov settling in closer to the survivors who are in the worst shape, leaving them without the easy excuse of Ilya needing to play translator to defend their proximity. 

Shane does not do any of that though, handing Ilya a can of coke and an aluminum tray covered in plastic without comment. Ilya takes a second to observe the empty tray and can of ginger ale next to Shane that promises that he’s already eaten himself, before he turns his attention to his own dinner. 

It’s disgusting—cold and congealed and clearly meant to be heated before serving. It’s also the best thing Ilya’s ever tasted. He barely takes the time to breathe in between bites, the plastic fork scraping against the bottom far too soon. He spends some time dragging it over the bottom and sides of the tray, hunting up every last piece of sauce he can. He briefly considers licking it fully clean, but decides in the end that that indignity can hold for a day or two. 

Slowly, regretfully, Ilya sets the empty tray to the side. He cracks open the can of coke next, chancing a look at Shane as he does. It’s the first time he’s looked at him since he’d started eating, and he’s expecting to find Shane avoiding his eye—or, at best, looking disgusted by how quickly Ilya had eaten. Instead, he finds Shane watching him, head fully turned towards Ilya, something fondly amused on his face.

“What?” Ilya snaps. 

“Hungry?” Shane asks, and Ilya scoffs, but can’t really find the words to deflect the accusation. 

“Maybe,” he admits instead, mumbling the confession into the mouth of the can as he takes a drink. The sweet, sugary taste of the soda explodes in his mouth, fizzing against his tongue. He decides that he can at least recover some of his dignity and doesn’t bother to hold back a moan at the taste, making it even louder instead, exaggerated. 

The amusement on Shane’s face doesn’t so much as waver. 

“I found something else, earlier,” Shane says. 

“Oh?” Ilya asks, not sure where this is going. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, then casts a furtive look around them. Ilya’s eyes follow his, tracing a path around the room, but no one is looking their way. Too focused on their own food or their own conversations. 

The clusters that had formed by the time Ilya had entered the hold haven’t shifted much, and he is amused to see how much, except for the patients at the front of the hold, they are clearly based on either sport or nationality. The only notable exceptions are Karina, who has joined Yakov in his watchful post, and Erika, who has settled next to Vaughn where he sits with Robertson and his wife. 

A nudge to Ilya’s side draws his attention back to Shane, and he looks down to see Shane is holding out a pack of cigarettes, Ilya’s lighter pinched against the top by Shane’s thumb. 

Ilya lets out a gasp that is only slightly exaggerated, making Shane huff out an amused breath. 

“No smoking inside,” Shane warns as Ilya takes the pack from him, tucking it safely into his own pocket. 

“Ugh, Hollander, always with the rules,” Ilya complains. “Is not even inside. Is cargo hold of crashed plane.” 

“Which we’ve made into our shelter,” Shane points out, ignoring the pouting expression Ilya directs at him next. 

They fall into an easy silence—easier than Ilya thinks they might have ever shared. He’s tempted to go out for a cigarette—nearly painfully aware, now that Shane’s brought his attention to it, just how badly he’s craving one—but he is equally reluctant to leave. To shatter this small moment of stillness, of comfortable silence. Of listening to Shane breathe next to him, each inhale an assurance of his continued survival. 

“People are going to keep dying,” Shane says. His voice is quiet, but certain. Ilya glances at him, but Shane isn’t looking at him—now staring into the empty air in front of them. His expression is distant, resigned. Ilya keeps looking for a long moment, but he doesn’t find any sign of self-recrimination. Just the weariness of someone with too many responsibilities. Burdened with an understanding of the reality of their situation that nearly everyone else has been spared. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, and Shane nods.

“That’s what you and Yakov were actually talking about earlier, wasn’t it?” he asks, turning to meet Ilya’s eyes. “He was telling you who isn’t going to make it.” 

Ilya again searches Shane’s expression, but no matter how hard he looks, he doesn’t find any sign of anger or blame.

“Yes,” he says.

Shane’s eyes shut, for just a moment. Eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. His lip wobbles, but only for a second before it firms, sets. His eyes, when he opens them, are steady, even if they are also brighter. Wet with the tears that he refuses to let fall. 

“Okay,” Shane says. “Tell me?” 

“In the morning,” Ilya says. “You need to sleep, sweetheart.”

The word slips out without Ilya’s permission, and he can only be grateful that it came out in Russian. That Yakov and Karina are both on the other side of the hold; nowhere near close enough to have overheard it. 

It’s a sign of how tired Shane is, maybe, that he doesn’t ask. That he doesn’t argue, just nods, slow and resigned. 

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re probably right.” 

“I am always right,” Ilya says, more out of habit than anything—the words come out without any of his usual exaggerated, egotistical flair. 

Shane looks around again, but still, no one is looking their way. 

“Stay?” Shane asks, so quietly Ilya nearly doesn’t hear it. 

Always, Ilya thinks. 

“Okay,” he says.

Ilya isn’t surprised when Shane falls asleep first, his head tilting to the side to land on Ilya’s shoulder. Between the fire to their side, the seats beneath them, the blankets and jackets pulled over them, the hold is more than warm enough for them to survive through the night. The shelter that Shane somehow managed to pull together out of nothing only the second way that Shane has saved them all today. 

Still, Ilya has the thought, just before he follows Shane into unconsciousness:

Even if he had nothing but this—nothing but the warmth Shane pressed against his side, the rise and fall of his chest matching Ilya’s own—it would be enough, to keep him alive.

Chapter End Notes

broke my streak of posting weekly :(( unfortunately work has been a shitshow recently slash will continue to be a shitshow for the next three to four months, so my writing time is currently completely confined to the weekend. this chapter is the last of the super crunchy medical stuff though, so hopefully I'll be able to get back to posting a new chapter roughly once a week in the near future!

a comment on the previous chapter about phone reception made me realize I totally missed addressing that—thank you to SunHands for posing that question! slight edit has been made to chapter 4, but for anyone reading along, confirming that they do not have cell reception

thank you to everyone else who's been leaving comments as well!! I treasure each and every one, even if I never know how to respond to them—your enthusiasm for this story truly means the world to me

my endless gratitude also goes, as always, to britt (ao3/twt), for the beta and for doing research (!!) of her own in the name of fact-checking this fic. her investment in this story is so much of the reason I'm managing any sort of pace in writing this fic.

finally, posted an image of the seating chart for the plane on tumblr and twitter for anyone who's interested/been trying to visualize it!

citations
Aerospace Decompression Illness — Richard A. de la Cruz; Roselyn W. Clemente Fuentes; Sundonia J. Wonnum; Jeffrey S. Cooper.
Decompression Sickness — Jeffrey S. Cooper; Kenneth C. Hanson.
Pulmonary Barotrauma — Dawn Kennedy-Little; Tariq Sharman.

Chapter 6: Interlude // Troy

Chapter Notes

cw: internalized homophobia, f-slur

Troy wonders if this is maybe some sort of karma. 

A week ago he’d gone to a club with Kenny, awkwardly mimicking his friend’s flirting with the women there, waiting until Kenny had dipped with a wink and a gorgeous blonde under his arm so that there’d be no one to see when Troy left alone. 

There’d been no one there to witness, either, when he’d jerked off in his apartment at two a.m., the volume on the gay porn he’d been watching turned down as low as it could go without being silent, despite the fact that he lived alone. 

Then, the next day, he’d checked Trenton Hahn into the boards and called him faggot, the word spat out with all the venom that Troy had ever felt towards himself.

So yeah, maybe this is some sort of karma. Though if it is, Troy does think it’s maybe a bit disproportionate. Sure, he slings slurs around the ice and the locker room as easily as any of the guys he’s ever played with, and he can’t bring himself to look head on at what the type of porn he watches might mean about himself, much less how badly every attempt he’s made at hooking up with women has ever gone, but… 

But surely none of that adds up to a plane crash, right? 

Like. An actual fucking plane crash. 

The fact that he’s survived the actual fucking plane crash might be a sign that the universe doesn’t have it out for him entirely, but he isn’t totally convinced. 

There’s already been at least one post-crash death, after all. Troy isn’t an idiot. He’d seen how stiff that guy had been sitting in the snow, despite Rozanov’s attempts to hide the body. Not to mention the fact that the man hadn’t been with Hollander and the rest of them when they’d finally returned to the hold. They hadn’t announced it or anything, but Troy probably wasn’t the only one who’d noticed that their number was now one fewer than it had been the day before.

So. There were still plenty of opportunities for other things to kill Troy—exposure for one, starvation for another—plus the fact that they had no idea when they’d be rescued. 

If they’d be rescued. 

At least Troy isn’t in charge of this shitshow—not that anyone in their right mind would put an 18-year-old rookie in charge of fuckall, much less a fucking plane crash. No, that honour went to Shane Hollander, and thank god for that. 

Troy doesn’t know the guy very well, or at all really—they’d missed each other in the Juniors circuit entirely, with Hollander being drafted the year Troy had started in the WHL, and this was the first international tournament since Troy had graduated to the MLH. All that Troy really knows about him is that he hates playing against Hollander, and that the commentators never fucking shut up about his hockey IQ. 

He isn’t sure how hockey IQ somehow manages to translate into insane wilderness survival skills, but wherever they come from, he’s incredibly thankful that Hollander possesses them. 

Honestly, if he had to guess, Troy figures that Hollander’d probably taken some sort of course about surviving fucking plane crashes. It seems like the kind of thing he’d do. Troy had heard from Marshy—who’d played with Hollander on the Metros for two years before being traded to Toronto—that Hollander was obsessive about preparing for games. Like. Way more than anyone else on the Metros, much less anyone else Marshy—or Troy—had ever played with. 

According to Marshy, Hollander spent all his spare time doing shit like watching game tape of other teams over and over again. To the point where the coaches would lean on him for game strategy. He’d also told Troy that Hollander had an actual whiteboard for writing plays on in his living room; that he didn’t come out with the team basically ever because he was too busy Beautiful Mind-ing their next five games to do shit like go to the club with the guys. 

Troy’d been a bit skeptical, when Marshy had been telling him all that, but he wasn’t anymore. Not here, not now. Not while he was sitting, wrapped in a blanket, in the cargo hold of a crashed plane that Hollander had somehow figured out how to turn into an actual shelter before nightfall. Not while watching Hollander coordinate the distribution of that morning’s rationed servings of food and water with what is, frankly, an almost creepy level of confidence and composure. Not while watching him move amongst the injured, checking on each of them alongside the Russian paramedic.

Really, it was Rozanov—currently trailing behind Hollander like a lost duckling or a menacing bodyguard—who was the real surprise. 

First, there’d been the way that Rozanov had argued with Vaughn and the journalist—Karina, Troy is pretty sure—about being allowed back on the plane. Troy had been too far away to hear most of it, but he’d caught part of the fight he’d been having with the paramedic, when Troy had gone over to take the guy with the piece of metal through his shoulder off his hands. They’d both been speaking Russian, which hadn’t really done much towards helping Troy understand exactly what Rozanov’s issue was, but it had been clear through tone alone that Rozanov had been like… genuinely freaking out. 

That had been weird enough on its own, but then Hollander had come out of the plane, and Troy was pretty sure he’d heard Rozanov yell “Shane” before literally running towards the other man. Which, Troy was pretty sure he could count on one hand the number of times he’d ever heard a hockey player use another player’s first name when they were friends. Much less two guys who were famously bitter rivals—two guys who supposedly hated each other.

Even weirder, Hollander had seemed equally relieved to see Rozanov. He’d dropped the kits he’d been carrying when he’d seen Rozanov—had moved to meet Rozanov halfway, even. Except then they’d just… stood there? And then Rozanov had patted Hollander on the shoulder before joining the larger group Troy had been standing with like nothing unusual had just happened. Like he hadn’t just reacted to seeing Shane fucking Hollander emerge from that plane like Hollander was his husband returning from the war.

If he had to guess, he supposed there might be something to that? Like, to the actual rivalry. To being pitted against one other player above all others for your whole career, constantly being compared to him. To being pushed together, too—whether side-by-side at a press table or set against each other on the ice—at every single one of the MLH’s stupid dog and pony shows. 

Even if you hated each other as much as Hollander and Rozanov did, that was a lot of time to spend together. Enough time for some sort of bond to form, even if it was one based on animosity. 

That had been Troy’s first thought, at least. Especially with how Rozanov didn’t stick around to actually check that Hollander was okay. 

He’d started to reconsider when Rozanov hadn’t tried to argue Hollander’s orders, seeming to accept Hollander taking up the mantle of their leader without so much as a whisper of objection. Rozanov was a Captain too, after all. And if there was one thing that literally everyone who watched his interviews, much less played against him, knew, it was that Rozanov had an ego approximately the size of Russia. 

Despite this, Troy had been forced to reconsider further when he and Vaughn had gotten back from putting out the fire in the cockpit—

The sight of the charred face of the pilot, the ripped up body of the copilot, his blood sprayed over the inside of the window, coating the mess of broken wood that had been jammed through his body, both things that promised to haunt Troy’s nightmares for the rest of his life. 

—and had seen Rozanov crouched next to Hollander, close enough that their shoulders had been touching. He’d stuck just as close by him when they’d moved to meet Troy and Vaughn. Standing right next to him and listening without comment while they’d given Hollander their update on the fire. He’d seemed to understand what Hollander was thinking even before Hollander had spoken out loud too, which was just…

Weird. The whole thing is just. Fucking weird. 

Still, it had been the memory of that closeness that had had Troy cutting off whatever fight Roth had been about to try and pick with Rozanov when they’d come up to help move everyone left outside down into the hold. It’s a split-second decision, based on Troy’s deeply felt and entirely confusing certainty that Roth picking a fight with Rozanov was basically like picking a fight with Hollander. 

It isn’t worth it, no matter how much of an asshole Rozanov is. 

Whatever the fuck is going on between them, Rozanov is clearly aligned with Hollander, and Hollander is the one keeping them all alive. 

The one who is, for lack of a better description, captaining this plane crash. 

And honestly, Rozanov isn’t being that much of an asshole. He hasn’t tried to start an actual fight with anyone since… well, since before Hollander had come out of the plane. Sure, he’s sniping out snide remarks the same way he always does, but Troy is pretty sure that acting like an asshole is basically like breathing for Rozanov—if he stops, he might actually, literally, drop dead. 

Plus, despite all the shit-talking, Rozanov still hasn’t stopped helping Hollander. Hasn’t stopped backing up Hollander’s orders with his words and body both. Is still trading whispered little asides with him, conversations that are clearly meant for the two of them alone.

Which, actually, brings Troy to the weirdest part of the whole thing: last night, he’d watched as Hollander and Rozanov had fallen asleep leaning against each other.

That in particular has been so fucking bizzare that Troy doesn’t have the slightest idea of how to even begin to try and understand it. He should probably stop trying to, for the sake of his sanity if nothing else, but… well, there isn’t much else for him to think about, aside from a whole lot of things that he’s trying really, really, hard not to think about at all. 

Troy isn’t even supposed to be here, is the thing. He wouldn’t be, if fucking Withers hadn’t fired that rocket of a slapshot directly into Nelson’s face three days ago. Or if Nelson had just fucking moved—had reacted at all to the sight of the solid rubber bullet speeding towards his head. But he hadn’t, and the puck had instead slammed into his face with all the force of a freight train. 

Still, Nelson had managed to get off the ice under his own power, so Troy hadn’t thought much of it when he’d caught it on the highlight reel later that night, after they’d finished their own game. It had barely even registered, actually, because what the fuck did Troy care about Detroit? 

That had changed the next morning, when Pebbles dropped a tweet from Detroit into the group chat—the team announcing that Nelson would be on IR for at least a month with a concussion and broken jaw. A second tweet from CBC Sports was sent by Buchy a few minutes later, officially confirming that Nelson was out for the Olympics. 

Six hours later, Troy was on the phone with Hockey Canada. 

Getting the call had been a shock, though it maybe shouldn’t have been. Troy had been at the Canada Olympic camp in Calgary that summer, after all, despite having played a sum total of zero MLH games at that point. 

Getting invited to the camp had felt like an accomplishment on its own for that reason, even if his name hadn’t been on the final roster when it was announced in December. The fact that his name was in consideration at all had felt huge, when he’d first got the call about coming to the camp. The invite alone evidence that his performance in the WHL and at the World Juniors had been good. So good that the GM and AGMs of Team Canada had put Troy on their long list of players for the fucking Olympics.

It had felt less impressive after he’d told his parents, but Troy is used to that. 

His mom had been proud of him at least—she’d been just as excited as he was, that he’d get to spend a few days hanging out with players he’d been looking up to his whole life. He’d tried his best to just focus on that after hanging up the phone with his parents.

His dad… whatever.

Just… whatever.

Troy is used to it.

The point is, Troy had known he was on the list. He’d also known that he was having a decent rookie season so far—11 goals and 18 assists in 48 games, which was pretty fucking good for a rookie, even if, as his dad loved to remind him, his +/- was currently at -3. Whatever. +/- was a stupid stat anyways. He’d still been moved up to the second line a few times, had successfully killed five penalties on the first kill unit in January, and had even gotten a short-handed goal just after Christmas.

But, even with all of that, he’s also still a rookie. 

A relative unknown, on a list of players that included guys with far longer records of being reliable third-line right wingers. Guys who had years of experience playing at the level required to be picked for the Olympics. Guys who management could be certain wouldn’t buckle under the pressure. 

So while it had crossed his mind, when he’d read the news about Nelson, that he might get the call-up, he’d dismissed the thought just as quickly as it had come. There were just so many other guys that he’d figured would be on the list ahead of him. It had felt stupid to have thought, even for a second, that he might be the one they called to replace Nelson. 

Soren Shirley, Casey Laine, Maverick March… fuck, even Emerson Brockhouse should have probably been higher on the list than Troy, if for no other reason than the fact that the dude somehow managed to consistently get at least 60 points a season despite playing for fuckass Ottawa.

Who knows though. Maybe Hockey Canada had called them first. Maybe they’d called every single other right-winger on the list before finally giving up and calling Troy. Maybe everyone else had just had the good sense that Troy obviously lacks, and said fuck no. 

Troy wishes he’d said fuck no. If he had, he’d probably be sitting on Kenny’s ridiculously oversized sectional with the rest of the guys right now. The grey Toronto winter outside no match for the warmth of Kenny’s condo, for the easy camaraderie of lazing around with the guys, playing ‘chel and day drinking. 

Except—everyone had to know their flight had gone down by now, wouldn’t they? So maybe they wouldn’t be playing anything. 

Maybe they’d be watching the news, checking twitter. Speculating about what had happened to all the unlucky fucks who’d been on flight 771. Smothering, with crude jokes, any actual feelings they might have about the reality that a bunch of guys they knew—guys they’d played with or against, some since they were in mites—were probably dead. 

Troy’s stomach twists at that thought, and he hunches further into himself, staring down at his hands, clenched in his lap. 

His parents—his mom—had to know by now. He wonders if she thinks he’s dead, or if she’s still holding onto hope. He wonders what his dad is saying to her—if he’s managed to scrape together enough emotion to have an actual normal, human, response, or if he’s just telling her to stop fucking crying. 

He wonders how they found out—if someone called them, or if they saw it on the news before anyone had the chance to.

The search will have started for them by now, right? Troy tries to think of any time he’s heard about a plane disappearing, about what was done to find it, but comes up totally blank. Well, except for Amelia Earhart, but that’s not exactly the same thing—and was in the, like, 30s or whatever. Long before satellites and… black boxes? Troy’s pretty sure that’s what they’re called—the things that give out emergency signals and tell searchers where a plane is.

Wait, was that real, or just a TV thing?

Raising his head, Troy looks around the hold. It doesn’t take long to spot her—Emma. 

Or, no, wait. 

Not Emma. 

Erika. 

Maybe? 

No, yeah. 

Erika. 

Troy is pretty sure he remembers, now—that was what Vaughn had called her, when they’d been making their way around the hold the night before. The two of them going from person to person, handing out their dinners-slash-rations for the day—which had managed to be maybe the best thing Troy had ever eaten, despite being basically a glorified TV dinner, served ice-cold with a side of pop.  

The flight attendant is still with Vaughn, Troy notes. Sitting with him, the two of them talking quietly with each other. Really, that’s all anyone was doing right now—lingering in quiet conversation or in silence over the remnants of the small ration of food that she and Vaughn had handed out that morning. Waiting for… something. Whatever came next. Whatever Hollander said they needed to do. 

He stays where he is for a few more minutes, debating with himself. Weighing his need to know with his desire not to interrupt—with the knowledge that there’s no way that this isn’t going to be awkward as fuck. 

Troy is a lot of things, but he isn’t stupid, and he isn’t blind. He’d seen the cautious looks Vaughn had shot his way more than once the previous day. Like he was just waiting for Troy to start arguing back against Hollander’s orders. Like he was waiting for Troy to start acting like the asshole he was—like the asshole everyone knew him to be.

The Guardians had only played the Admirals twice so far that season but it had been enough, apparently, for Vaughn to decide that Troy might be a problem. 

Part of Troy did want that—to start acting like an asshole. It was safe, familiar. A shield that he was long accustomed to hiding himself behind. It would feel good, he knows, to settle back into it. Into something that he knows and understands, in the midst of a situation that is so completely outside of the scope of anything else that has ever happened in his entire life. That is fucking terrifying.

The rest of him is just… too fucking tired and scared to fight. Too tired to put any energy into an act that was more work than he likes to acknowledge, even to himself. Too scared about the very real possibility that he might die out here to want to push everyone else away from him. He didn’t want to…

He didn’t want to die alone. 

It would make it worse—or at least, be weird as fuck—to say any of that to Vaughn though. To any of the other guys here. So, whatever. They’d keep looking at him like they were just waiting for him to snap, and he’d just… keep his head down. Mind his own business. Do whatever Hollander said. Hope that whatever it was, it would be enough for them to make it out of here. 

He needs to know though. If help was coming. For himself and—actually, it was probably also information that would be good for Hollander to have. If he didn’t know it already. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

Fine. 

Fine.

Swallowing a sigh, Troy pushes himself to his feet. He keeps the blanket wrapped around him as he picks his way across the seats and jackets scattered across the floor of the hold. He probably looks incredibly fucking stupid, but he can’t quite make himself leave it behind. Not when it’s making him feel just a tiny bit more… whatever. 

Just—whatever. 

Neither Vaughn nor Erika do him the favour of seeing him coming, so he ends up hovering awkwardly near them, waiting for them to notice him. Not willing to interrupt the conversation they were having about—their families? 

Troy’s stomach turns over again as he thinks again about his mom. 

Fuck, she must be so fucking scared. All of the families must be, for all the people on this flight. Most of them an entire ocean away. Waiting, helplessly, to hear either the best or worst news of their lives. None of them knowing what happened to the plane. If anyone had survived. 

“Barrett?” 

Vaughn’s voice draws Troy’s attention back to the present and— great. Both him and Erika are now staring up at him and Troy has no idea when they’d stopped talking. How long they’d been watching him just standing there. Waiting for him to notice them. 

“Uh, hey,” Troy says, lamely. Christ. Great start. 

“Hey,” Erika says, open and friendly. Vaughn doesn’t say anything, just frowns. 

Fuck. Troy can’t keep just— looming over them. He drops into a squat which… well, it’s not great, but it’s better. He thinks. Maybe.

“Sorry to, uh, interrupt,” Troy starts. 

Vaughn’s frown hasn’t wavered, his expression somewhere between expectant and protective. Erika seems more welcoming of his presence, or at least tolerating of it—the curiosity in her eyes mostly hidden by the polite, friendly customer service face she’s wearing. 

At least it’s easier to look at Vaughn today. Troy had been having trouble meeting his eyes yesterday, catching them drifting, over and over, to the glint of white at the centre of the bloody split on his forehead. Now, cleaned and bandaged, it’s far easier for Troy to keep his eyes focused on Vaughn’s own. Not that he really wants to meet his eyes. 

Troy clears his throat and forces himself to continue.

“I was just wondering, if you’d know, uh, whether anyone knows where we are? Like, they would, right? Because there’s an… emergency beacon, or whatever, that planes have? The, uh, black box?” 

“Oh,” Erika says.

A series of emotions flick across her face, too fast for Troy to parse. He recognizes what it settles on though—he knows what it looks like, when someone is trying to figure out how to best deliver bad news. Preparing themselves to manage others’ reactions. 

Troy’s stomach begins to sink, even before she finally continues:

“Well, a black box isn’t actually—it’s a data recorder. Neither of them have any transmission properties.”

“Right,” Troy says. So that was just TV bullshit then. Fucking fantastic. 

Erika’s continuing before Troy has the chance to spiral too far though. 

“You’re thinking of the emergency locator transmitter,” she says, and Troy feels his heart rate kick up at the word transmitter. From the corner of his eye, he catches the way that Vaughn’s eyes go wide, finally peeling his wary gaze off of Troy as he turns to look at Erika instead. 

Erika doesn’t look excited though, and just as quickly as it had flickered to life, Troy feels the little bit of hope growing in his chest sputter out. 

“It’s designed to be activated automatically when a plane crashes,” she continues. “Once it’s activated, it transmits a signal to whatever satellites are nearby with the plane’s location.” 

Which— Troy doesn’t get it. Why Erika still looks like she’s preparing to deliver bad news, when that all sounds like great news to him. Like, the plane definitely crashed. And if the signal is going to satellites, then it shouldn’t matter that they’re in the middle of fucking nowhere Russia. Troy doesn’t know much about how satellites work, but he’s pretty sure they’re like… everywhere. Unlike, apparently, fucking cell towers. 

“Does— does this plane not have one?” Troy guesses. 

Erika shakes her head. “All planes are legally required to have them at this point,” she says. “You can’t fly in Canada without one.”

“But?” Vaughn prompts this time, when Erika again hesitates to continue. 

“ELTs only activate properly something like 80% of the time,” she says, visibly bracing for their reactions. “And I don’t… I don’t know where it was located exactly. If it was in the half of the plane that…” 

She trails off, and Troy’s mind flashes to one of the many things he’d been trying really hard not to think about since the previous day—the distant sight of a column of black smoke rising from the forest. 

Troy has no idea where fuel is stored on a plane, but comparing the light grey smoke from the electrical fire in the cockpit that he and Vaughn had had to deal with with the thickness and darkness of the smoke he’d seen in the distance, he had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew the answer anyway. And if the fire in the cockpit had been enough to destroy all the equipment in there—and it had been, they’d checked, once they’d gotten the fire out—he wasn’t sure how well any electronics would fare against a fire fed by jet fuel.  

He doesn’t want to think about that. He’s been trying not to think about it. 

He does now—can’t stop the thought in time, slipping past all of his carefully constructed walls. 

The hold that they’re sheltering in is small. A fraction of the total plane. Less than half. And in the remaining section of the plane, there were far more seats than there were in either business or first class. Tightly packed, row after row after row. 

Troy has no idea how many of those seats had been occupied, but he remembers the size of the crowd of people around the gate when they’d been boarding. Knows that it’d been far more people than the thirty-one—thirty, now, fuck—that had survived from their section of the plane. 

More than a hundred, maybe. 

Another thought, one that makes him nauseous to even think it. It crosses his mind anyways:

Please let them have died before the fire started.

Vaughn is talking, and Troy desperately latches onto the distraction offered by the sound of his voice. Pushes every other thought out of his mind. Forces himself to focus on what Vaughn is saying. 

“—off course?” Vaughn finishes, and Erika shakes her head, the pom-pom on top of her toque wobbling with the motion. 

“Not before we went down,” she says. “We’d been on course up to that point, so it’ll just be a matter of how far we moved off the flight path while descending.”

“How far do you think we went?” 

Erika shrugs helplessly. “I have no idea,” she says. “I don’t— not too far, probably? We—” she cuts herself off, swallows. “We descended pretty quickly, but it was still from 36,000 feet to ground level. With a starting speed of around 900 kilometers per hour, we would have kept travelling forward for… um, a while? I don’t… I don’t actually know how to calculate that.” 

Troy has no idea how to even begin figuring that out either, and judging by the blank look on his face, Vaughn is equally clueless. 

Fuck. 

For the first time in his life, Troy finds himself wishing he’d taken physics in high school.

“Still,” Erika continues, forcing a cheerfulness into her voice that she’s obviously not actually feeling, “it means that we’ll be within the initial search area—they’ll begin with where we were meant to be.” Her mouth twists, something far more genuinely amused crossing her face. “And I’m sure that someone with SAR knows how to actually do that math.”

Troy takes that in, lets it unspool a fraction of the fear and uncertainty wound around him. Erika was right—if they hadn’t been off course when they’d begun to go down, they’d have landed within the area where any search would start. And for sure there would be people far smarter than him involved in that operation, who’d actually be able to figure out where that area is based on where they’d last been and how fast they’d been travelling. 

It’s not much, but it is something. 

Something that could be hope, if he was stupid enough to let it. 

“Thanks,” he says belatedly. “That’s— I really appreciate you answering my questions.” 

It’s an ugly, stumbling expression of gratitude that doesn’t say half as much as he wants to. Erika smiles at him though, small but genuine. Vaughn, on the other hand, is back to looking at Troy through slightly narrowed, suspicious eyes.

Troy swallows the instinct to snap at him, to prove him right, and continues: “Have you, um. Not to like, tell you what to do or anything but have you… told Hollander? Any of that?” 

“Oh fuck,” Erika says, her eyes going wide even as Vaughn’s narrow further. “No, I haven’t. Shit. I should— I should tell him.” 

“I mean,” Troy says with an aborted, half-shrug, “only if you want to.” 

Perfect. Now they’re both giving him looks. 

“Yeah, no, I do,” Erika says, shooting a look at Vaughn before standing. “Thanks, uh…?”

“Troy,” Troy says after taking way too long to figure out what she’s looking for. 

Erika nods. “Thanks Troy,” she says, giving Vaughn another look before she begins to walk away, heading across the hold to where Hollander, Rozanov, and the paramedic are now having a conversation near the entrance to the shelter. 

Troy watches her go, wanting to make sure she doesn’t trip on the collection of people and fabrics scattered across the floor, even though there’s nothing he could do if she does. He finally shakes himself out of the pointless impulse when she gets clear of the worst of it, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he realizes that Carter Vaughn is still just. Sitting next to him. Staring at Troy. 

“Uh,” Troy says. “She— she seems nice?” 

Vaughn just keeps looking at him, and Troy has to fight not to fidget under his gaze. He has no idea what Vaughn is looking for, so tries to force his face into something like… polite. Neutral. 

Finally, Vaughn shakes his head. “Right,” he says flatly, then pushes himself to standing, following after Erika without so much as a glance back at Troy.

Yeah, Troy thinks. That— that feels about right. 

Troy doesn’t bother to go back to his original spot in the hold, settling onto the cushions Erika and Vaughn have vacated. Watching, from a distance, as the two of them have a long conversation with Hollander. Rozanov doesn’t move from Hollander’s side the whole time, though he occasionally turns to say something to Yakov—translating for him, probably, the same way he had been yesterday.

It’s weird—maybe even weirder than watching Rozanov be all buddy-buddy with Hollander. Troy’s been watching Rozanov be an asshole both on and off the ice for almost four years at this point. Has gotten a personal taste of it, this year, in the couple of games they’d played against Boston in the fall. Troy had been excited for it, though he’d downplayed it to anyone who’d asked. 

It was just… it was cool, was all. Having the chance to play against Rozanov. Rozanov was a great player, and Troy had… whatever. 

The point is, they'd only been on the ice together for like, a shift and a half, and Rozanov had somehow managed to get out four separate insults against Troy’s play, his mom, and, with an accuracy that had been slightly unnerving, Troy’s habit of always picking Rozanov whenever he played ‘chel with the guys.

So this version of Rozanov, who was being, by all appearances, nice, is just… it’s fucking weird. 

As if being in a fucking plane crash wasn’t bad enough. As if everything about this situation wasn’t scary enough, unfamiliar enough, Troy now also has to deal with this—the fact that Rozanov’s asshole persona is maybe just as much of an act as Troy’s is. Or at least, that he’s capable of setting it aside in the name of the greater good, or whatever. 

It’s making the whole thing feel even more surreal than it already had been.

Movement draws Troy’s attention back to the group standing across the hold, just in time for him to watch as Vaughn and Rozanov leave their shelter, squeezing through the overlapping tarps. Erika and Hollander stay where they are, still talking, but Yakov moves away a moment after the two players, beginning another loop of the injured people sitting and lying on the ground near the fire. 

Troy runs his eyes over the group, and tries really, really hard not to wonder which of them is going to die next. 

It’s not long before a distraction presents itself, at least, in the form of Vaughn returning, now holding… wait, was that an axe?

Where the fuck had he found an axe?

Rozanov isn’t with him, and Troy spends a brief, half-hysterical, second wondering if Rozanov had said something so annoying that Vaughn had murdered him with it before coming back inside. 

Vaughn basically bounds over to Hollander, presenting the axe to him like it's some sort of trophy. He’s grinning, the same broad, cheerful expression he’s been directing at what kinda feels like everyone except Troy—the same expression he’d somehow managed to maintain through all but the worst of the previous day. 

There is, Troy decides, something wrong with that man.

A few minutes later Vaughn is cleared of all potential murder charges by the return of Rozanov. Hollander makes a face when Rozanov comes up next to him, nose wrinkling. He says something to him, and Rozanov actually laughs. He says something in reply, then shoots Hollander a wink. 

A fucking wink. 

Hollander doesn’t even look annoyed by it, either. Well, he looks like he’s trying to look annoyed, but it’s not particularly convincing, not with the way he can’t quite manage to completely hide the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. It is, again, fucking weird. 

Troy’s watched enough of Hollander’s interviews to know that he’s usually great at hiding any and all emotions, even in the face of the worst of what the media likes to throw at him. But for some reason, he now seems to be totally incapable of hiding the fact that he seems to be finding Rozanov what, charming? Anything but the biggest asshole in the entire MLH? 

Seriously. What. The. Fuck. 

Troy casts a look around him, to check if anyone else is seeing this or if he’s maybe just like, started hallucinating from sheer terror and exhaustion. No one else seems to be paying any attention though, or at least no one’s staring at the two Captains with a confused look to match the one Troy’s sure he’s doing a piss-poor job of hiding on his own face. 

Maybe this is normal? Maybe this is just how they act when they’re away from the media? He’s never seen them together outside of the spotlight of the camera, but most—maybe all—of the other guys here would have attended at least one ASG with them. So, maybe this isn’t actually a surprise to anyone other than Troy? Maybe they’re like, secretly friends, or something? And just play up the rivalry for the sake of the media?

Maybe the reason that no one else seems to be reacting to them acting like this is because they’re like, used to it? And this is something that Troy would have found out for himself anyways, in a few days, running into them palling around the Olympic Village.

Holy shit. Maybe this is just what being, like, in the inner circle of the best of the best is like. Getting to know shit like the fact that Rozanov and Hollander are secretly friends. 

Troy wonders what other secrets you get to find out, when you get invited to shit like the ASG and the Olympics. Like, do you get to know who’s doping? Who has a secret love child? Which players are cheating on their wives? Which, okay, that one isn’t really a secret—it’s probably most of them, but still. Finding out for sure is different than just assuming that they all suck. 

Do you get to find out which players are gay? Troy thinks, and has to duck his head, worried that the thought is somehow written out across his face. 

Marshy had said something like that about Hollander, amongst all the other shit he’d told the guys about his former Captain—not that Marshy was even close to the top of the league, but he had played with Hollander for two years. 

He hadn’t said it directly, of course, but it had been obvious, what he’d been hinting at. Talking about Hollander dumping his high school girlfriend the day after the draft. The fact that, on the rare occasions when he did actually go out with his team, he always went home alone. That he’d never been so much as photographed with a chick, much less brought one to an awards ceremony or whatever. That he went stag to every wedding, to every team event.

Like the other shit Marshy had been saying, Troy had been skeptical at the time but… maybe? 

Troy risks a quick look over at Hollander, who seems to be entirely ignoring everyone else around him in favour of glaring at Rozanov. God, he’s so fucking hot. It’s a thought that Troy has dodged, every time it’s previously flitted across his mind, but this time, he lets it linger. 

Shane Hollander is hot. Shane Hollander might be gay. 

Troy realizes that he can feel his face beginning to heat up, and forces himself to look away. Shoves the thought away with the ease of long practice. 

Even if… even if, it’s so not the fucking time. 

Troy can’t think about that. Not here. Not when he’s fucking… trapped. Not when there’s still a non-zero chance they might all die out here, in the middle of fucking Siberia or wherever the fuck they’ve crashed. 

“Listen the fuck up!” 

Rozanov’s voice is far louder than is really necessary, given how quiet everyone was already being, but it is effective—everyone turning towards him instantly. Though the scowls that Troy catches on some of the guys’ faces, when he looks around to see if anyone didn’t listen the fuck up seem to say that they have no intention of actually listening to Rozanov. 

It’s probably for the best, then, that Rozanov doesn’t seem to actually be planning on talking—once he’s satisfied that he’s successfully gotten everyone’s attention, Rozanov steps back and to the side, making a sweeping gesture towards Hollander as he goes, accompanied by a showy half-bow. Hollander rolls his eyes in response, but it's accompanied by another badly hidden smile, and he doesn’t actually say anything to Rozanov about it. 

Clearing his throat, Hollander takes a step forward, eyes sweeping across the crowd, and Troy finds himself sitting straighter without really thinking about what he’s doing, or why. It’s just— there’s something about the weight of Hollander’s gaze. Like he’s not asking for their attention—like he expects them to give it, the same way he’d expect them to give 110% on the ice, and would be disappointed in them if they didn’t. Which— everything else aside, Hollander is Troy’s Captain. 

And he really, really doesn’t want to let him down.

“So, good news,” Hollander starts, “Erika,” he gestures towards where Erika is standing next to Vaughn, “has confirmed that we were still on our original flight path before the crash.”

Hollander’s voice doesn’t falter over the word crash, not even a little bit, and Troy has the completely irrelevant thought that it’s too bad, that they almost certainly aren’t going to actually make it to the Olympics. He’d have really liked to find out what it’s like, to play under the direction of Hollander’s calm certainty. Not that Troy doesn’t appreciate it in their current circumstances, but. It certainly would have been a more pleasant way to find out that Hollander captained like he was the North Star—like all anyone else had to do was follow him, and they’d find their way home. 

“Because of that,” Hollander continues, drawing Troy’s attention back to reality, “in all likelihood, where we’ve landed will be well within the starting search radius.” 

A murmur of voices washes over the room, and Troy sees more than one person slump in obvious relief. The brief swell of sound abates as quickly as it had started though, everyone falling silent when Hollander raises his hands, palms facing outwards. Cautioning. 

“It’s good news,” he says, “but we don’t know how long it will take for them to find us. It could still be a few more days.” 

Another wave of hushed reactions, far more tense than the last, sweeps over the room. Whatever relief Hollander’s previous announcement had offered easily replaced by the more familiar, adrenaline-sharp bite of fear. 

Hollander shakes his head, a silent refutation of the growing fear creeping its way through the hold. “All that that means is that we’re going to need to keep managing our supplies—rationing our food.” 

Rozanov leans forward, whispering something to Hollander, and Troy watches as Hollander fights off a smile, though his attention on the crowd in front of him doesn’t so much as waver.

“We’ll also need more firewood,” Hollander continues as if Rozanov had never spoken. “It’ll likely be a bit more work today since the group that went out yesterday—” Hollander pauses, nodding his thanks to each of the people who’d gone out gathering wood the day before, “—likely cleared out most of the easiest to gather wood from the immediate area. The good news is that we have an axe—” Hollander raises the axe, giving it an awkward waggle, a reassuring show that he is actually as human as the rest of them, “—so we’ll be able to break down any larger deadfall, and can cut down a tree if necessary. 

“We’ll be looking for volunteers again, who are feeling up for it, to go out and do that,” Hollander continues. “Anyone who does will be getting a larger portion of rations.”

Why does this feel like listening to morning announcements, Troy thinks, and has to swallow down the urge to laugh. He wishes there was someone sitting near him he could whisper that to. He wishes there was anyone here he was friends with, really, or at least friendly with. Fuck, he misses Kenny. 

“Anyone with a serious injury will also be getting more food,” Hollander says. “For the rest of us, we’ll be keeping our portions smaller to conserve our supplies. We have roughly six more day’s worth of food, at that rate of rationing, which should be more than enough to get us through to being found, so I don’t want anyone to worry about that.”

Troy isn’t the only one to visibly relax at that reassurance. He looks around, wondering if anyone is going to argue. Roth has a slightly pinched look on his face, but doesn’t say anything. Rozanov, too, doesn’t look very happy, but based on when he started to look unhappy, Troy suspects it has less to do with the rationing and more to do with Hollander not including himself in the group with more serious injuries. Which is… Hollander seems fine? 

Fuck, unless he’s got like. Internal bleeding or some shit like that. Fuck. Was Shane Hollander dying? Troy feels nearly nauseous at the thought, and tries to push it from his mind. Rozanov would probably be acting even more insane, if Hollander was actually dying, based on how he’d acted when Hollander was still in the plane. If Rozanov isn’t freaking out, Troy won’t either. 

Which is one of the stranger thoughts he’s had, in a day full of them. 

The only thing that sounds worse than stomping around the Russian wilderness in runners that were absolutely not meant for snow is just sitting around, so when Hollander wraps up his morning announcements, Troy joins the group gathering at the front in preparation of gathering more wood. Hollander directs them all to the pile of extra clothing stacked to the side, and Troy gratefully pulls on three more pairs of socks, trying not to think too hard about who their original owners might have been. He grabs a warmer coat too, remembering how cold he’d been the day before, and, with some reluctance, one of the dorky Team Canada toques. 

“Everyone make sure to grab a pair of sunglasses too,” Hollander says, pointing to a small collection of cases and loose sunglasses stacked to the side of the clothing. 

Troy looks at the pile, then back at Hollander. He’s probably not the only one wearing their confusion clear on their face, because Hollander doesn’t wait for someone to ask before he’s explaining:

“The snow will be reflecting the sunlight back at you, which can lead to snow blindness if you don’t protect your eyes,” he says. “We’re lucky, actually, that it didn’t cause any issues yesterday—it’d heal on its own, but it can cause pain and difficulty seeing. So if you start to get a headache or your eyes start to feel gritty, anything like that, come back right away.”

Right. Troy thinks he remembers seeing a movie where that happened once. He was pretty sure the dude in the movie had gone fully blind though. And had then frozen to death or something. But Hollander said it would heal on its own, so maybe that was just more Hollywood bullshit. 

Troy digs through the pile for a minute, eventually landing on a pair of huge round frames. They’re definitely women’s sunglasses, but they’re big enough to cover his eyes and then some, which Troy figures is more important than how fucking gay he probably looks in them. At least there’s no mirrors around to confirm how stupid he looks. He notes that he’s also not the only guy choosing size over style, which helps somewhat settle the spike of anxiety that sliding them on causes. 

There’s nine other people, who’ve stepped up to the front along with Troy, and once he’s done getting dressed, Troy takes a moment to look over the group to see if there’s anyone he knows among them. He spots Roth first, and then Robertson. Troy’s kinda surprised to see him—he wouldn’t have guessed that Robertson would be willing to leave the hold, given how closely he’d been sticking by his wife since the crash. 

Troy didn’t get a clear look—which he is not mad about, seeing Paquette’s foot had been bad enough—but he’s pretty sure that Robertson’s wife had lost a few fingers.

There’s one other guy that Troy recognizes as a fellow hockey player, a dude that he’s pretty sure is the Winnipeg Mkwak’s starting goalie. Troy has no idea what his name is though. Hollander had definitely called him by his name yesterday, several times, so Troy should probably know it, but he’s coming up totally blank. He thinks it maybe starts with a K or something? It’s definitely one of those incomprehensible Nordic names with far too many vowels, so whatever. Troy’s not surprised that he can’t remember it. 

There’s a few others whose faces seem vaguely familiar, which Troy figures means that they’re probably also athletes competing for Canada, but not hockey players. He also recognizes the woman who was arguing with Rozanov the day before, who he’s pretty sure is a journalist. 

“Anyone here used an axe to cut wood before?” Hollander asks once they’re all finished layering up. There’s a moment’s pause, before one of the other athletes tentatively raises his hand. The hesitation doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in Troy, something that Hollander seems to share, judging by the look on his face. The man straightens under Hollander’s attention though, his arm rising higher, steady and certain. 

“I spent most of my summers getting dragged up and down the Rockies by my parents as a kid,” the man says. “It’s been a few years since I last had the chance to go, but I know how to use an axe.” 

Hollander nods, holding out the axe. “Be careful,” he cautions anyways, before his mouth twists upwards in a half-smile. “We really don’t need any more injuries.” 

The man laughs, taking the axe. “I’ll be careful,” he promises. 

“Okay,” Hollander says, then runs his eyes over the whole group. “Pair up, and make sure to stick with your partner,” he says. “If you can keep the plane in sight, great, but if you need to go farther, make sure you’re keeping track of the direction you’re moving in. Mark your path if you can. I had a look earlier, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to snow, but if it starts to look like it might or if you start to get too cold, anything like that, turn around and come back to the plane right away. No matter how much wood you have or haven’t gathered.”

“Yes,” comes a loud, familiar voice from right behind Troy, making him flinch in surprise. He looks over his shoulder, not surprised to see Rozanov wearing a smug smile—pleased with himself, for startling Troy. “We are all already lost,” Rozanov continues, turning his smile towards the larger group. “Do not need to get lost as individuals, да? Will need to form search party. Very annoying.” 

Troy snorts. He doesn’t know that annoying would be his choice of descriptor, but it feels very in character for Rozanov. He catches Roth rolling his eyes in response to Rozanov’s warning. Robertson looks nearly as unimpressed as Roth, but the goalie looks mostly amused.

“Shut up, Rozanov,” Hollander says before anyone else has the chance to speak. His tone is far too mild for the words he’s saying, which kinda undermines the whole thing, as does the way that Rozanov’s smile only widens in reply. 

“Никогда, я знаю, тебе нравится меня слушать,” Rozanov says, winking at Hollander, who manages to actually look a little annoyed this time, scowling in reply. 

Nearby, the journalist makes a choking noise, and Hollander shoots a brief, oddly panicked look at her, before turning back to Rozanov, redoubling the force of his glare. He looks pissed for real this time, and Troy feels himself shrinking back from it, despite the fact that it's not even being directed at him. 

Rozanov, on the other hand, seems about as phased as he ever does by someone glaring at him, which is to say, not at all. 

Fuck, what Troy wouldn’t give to know what Rozanov had just said. It had to have been super rude, for the journalist to react like that. Though he supposes he can make some guesses, based on her reaction and the type of things he’s heard Rozanov say on the ice. 

It seems to take actual effort for Hollander to stop glaring at Rozanov but eventually he manages, turning his attention back to the rest of them “Any questions?” Hollander asks after casting his eyes across the group. A handful of people shake their heads no, and Hollander nods. “Okay,” he says. “Good luck.” 

It’s as clear a dismissal as Troy’s ever heard, and he follows the others in squeezing through the gap between the overlapping tarps. He chances a final glance back before he goes, and isn’t at all surprised, at this point, to see that Rozanov and Hollander have drifted back together. Standing only a handful of inches apart, they’re speaking to each other in hushed voices. Hollander still looks pissed, while Rozanov looks oddly… placating? 

Shaking his head, Troy returns his focus to watching where he’s going. 

Fucking weird.

Troy notices it when he comes back from collecting firewood: there’s one less person amongst the patients gathered around the fire than there had been the day before. 

Someone else has died. 

Troy is back to sitting alone, blanket draped over his shoulders and arms wrapped around his legs, staring blankly at the floor of the hold in front of him, when his whole body is abruptly rocked by the force of someone dropping heavily onto the cushion next to him. 

He’s not sure who he’s expecting to see when he lifts his head—one of the other guys from Team Canada, maybe, or even Hollander, doing some sort of individual Captain-to-player check-in—but he’s in no way prepared for the sight of Ilya Rozanov lounging next to him. For all that he’s been sitting for a handful of seconds, the other man looks as settled as if he’d been there the whole time—leaning back on his hands, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He’s not looking at Troy, his eyes scanning the rest of the hold instead with a shark-like intensity. 

Troy is certain that Rozanov knows that Troy is looking at him, but he still doesn’t turn to meet his eyes. Doesn’t say anything to explain his presence—or even just a greeting, to break the steadily lengthening silence stretching behind them. Troy is painfully aware of the fact that the silence is just getting more and more awkward, the longer that they go without either of them saying anything. 

There’s nothing on Rozanov’s face to give away why he came over here though, why he finally peeled himself away from Hollander to sit with Troy, of all people. He hasn’t even so much as glanced at Troy, since he sat down. Meanwhile, Troy’s still just sitting here, staring at Rozanov like an idiot. 

Fuck. Troy has been staring at him. 

Troy jerks his head around, going back to staring at nothing. He can feel the back of his neck heating though, and he knows the movement was too fast, too sudden. Even if Rozanov had somehow failed to notice Troy staring at him like a total creep, there’s no way he’d missed that. 

Fuck. 

Fuck fuck fuck. 

Okay. It’s fine. Troy can save this. He can be cool and normal. It’s not like Ilya Rozanov is the only famous MLHer he’s ever met. Sure, he’s Ilya Rozanov, but Troy just needs to not think about that—needs to think about him as just another hockey player. Not as the guy who scored 54 goals his rookie season. Not as the guy who’s been battling it out with Hollander for top scoring in the league every season since. Not as the guy who—

“Uh, hey,” Troy blurts out, and just barely resists the urge to pull his blanket over his head when Ilya Rozanov finally turns to look at him. God. If he thought it had been bad before, it’s nothing compared to having Rozanov’s full attention on him. Troy wishes he could just sink straight through the floor. 

“Troy Barrett,” Ilya fucking Rozanov says. 

He knows my name, Troy thinks, and immediately wishes he hadn’t—the thought makes him absolutely zero percent calmer about the whole situation. At least he hadn’t said it out loud, otherwise he would probably have to kill himself out of sheer humiliation. 

“Um,” Troy says. “Yes?”

Christ. Troy wonders if it's possible to die of embarrassment. 

“Congratulations on making Team Canada,” Ilya Rozanov says. “Is impressive, for rookie.”

“Oh,” Troy says. “Uh. Thanks?” 

Rozanov nods as if Troy had replied with something totally normal. Troy wonders if he’s noticed that Troy is apparently incapable of anything other than single word replies. Probably. Based on the way he plays, Troy is pretty sure Rozanov notices everything.

“Historic rookie season, for sure,” Rozanov continues. 

Troy frowns, confused. “Um,” he says. “Not really?” 

Wow. Look at that. Two whole words. Good for him. 

Seriously though, he has no idea what Rozanov is talking about—Rozanov had been the one with a historic rookie season. He’d scored the most goals for a rookie in the modern era, beating fucking Ovechkin by two. It was the third most goals scored by a rookie of all time, and Troy privately thought that it was still a bit insane that Rookie of the Year had gone to Hollander that year, even if Hollander had had better stats than Rozanov overall, and more total points. 

Like, sure, assists were important, but Troy had actually gotten hard the first time he’d seen Rozanov pull off his signature shot, and—

Wait. No. Fuck. Fuck. That is really not something Troy wants to be thinking about while sitting like, two feet away from the guy. 

If he gets hard now, he really is going to have to kill himself. 

“First rookie in history to survive plane crash,” Rozanov counters, thankfully cutting off Troy’s inner chant of don’t get hard don’t get hard don’t get hard.

Which— yeah, okay. Troy supposes that’s true. Still, it’s not exactly like it’s an accomplishment that Troy worked for himself—he’s pretty sure his survival is down to nothing more than blind luck.

“I guess,” Troy says. 

“Maybe you even get Rookie of the Year for it,” Rozanov says cheerily. 

“Pretty sure that’s going to Kent,” Troy says, because sure, he’s been having a pretty good rookie season, but Kenny was on pace for at least forty goals. Troy knew where he landed, in the hierarchy of players making their MLH debut this year, and it wasn’t anywhere in near the top. 

Rozanov hums, doubtful. 

“Dallas Kent has not survived plane crash,” he says. 

“No, but—” Troy starts, then cuts himself off, squinting at Rozanov. “Wait, are you… are you trying to cheer me up?” 

There’s no hiding the incredulity in Troy’s voice, but in his defense, it’s a truly insane thought—crazy enough that Troy wouldn’t have ever dared voice it, except for how he can’t think of a single other reason for Rozanov to be gassing him up like this, when they both know perfectly well that Kenny is a better player than him. 

“Cheer up?” Rozanov asks with a scoff. “No, what do I look like, candy stripper?”

“Striper,” Troy corrects weakly, trying really, really hard not to think about what Rozanov would look like as a stripper. 

Rozanov waves him off. “нет,” he says, “I am Nurse Rozanov. Here to check on patients.” 

“I’m not hurt?” Troy says. It comes out more like a question, which he thinks is fair, honestly—he’s starting to wonder if he somehow hit his head at some point while he was out collecting firewood. Or maybe he’s having some sort of delayed shock reaction to the plane crash. 

“Hurt is not just body,” Rozanov says, his voice weirdly intense as he taps a finger against his temple. “Is also mind, да?” 

“Are you asking if I have, like, PTSD?” Troy asks, back to being incredulous. 

Seriously, who is this man and what has he done with Ilya Rozanov? Troy thinks. First the whole Hollander thing, and now this? He feels like he’s going crazy—has to fight back the urge to look around and check if anyone else is hearing this. 

Fuck. Maybe this is another one of those top-players-only secrets: Ilya Rozanov is actually a really nice guy. 

Another thought occurs to Troy then, one that only serves to make him feel even crazier: is Ilya Rozanov worried about me? 

Rozanov shrugs. “You have been very quiet,” he says. “Sitting all alone.”

Okay. So. It’s not that Rozanov is worried about him—he just thinks Troy is a friendless loser. 

Awesome.

“Yeah, well…” Troy starts at a mumble, avoiding looking at Rozanov. He can’t really figure out what else to say though, just trails off awkwardly. It’s not exactly like he can argue—he has been sitting alone. But he also doesn’t want to admit to Ilya fucking Rozanov that he doesn’t feel like he should be here—again, because he doesn’t think the universe needed to smack him down this hard, but also because he’s a fucking 18-year-old rookie who probably didn’t deserve to make the Canadian Olympic team in the first place. 

Like, he knows some of the other guys here, but only barely. He’s certainly not friends with any of them. And as Carter Vaughn has made very clear, it’s not exactly like he’s built a reputation for himself over the past few months as someone that they would want to be friends with. 

“Is okay, if you want to be alone,” Rozanov says when Troy fails to add anything else. “But not necessary, if you do not want.” 

“No, yeah, I’m fine being alone,” Troy lies, because Christ. He just needs this entire conversation to end. The sooner Rozanov goes back to haunting Hollander, the sooner Troy can start trying to forget it ever happened. 

Rozanov hums, again doubtful. God, Troy wishes he’d stop looking at him. His gaze on Troy was far too heavy, too focused. It felt uncomfortably like he was peeling back all of Troy’s layers, one by one. Like he was seconds away from peering right into the rotten heart of him. 

Unbidden, the memory of Troy getting hard over one of his goals again pops into his head, and—

No. Absolutely not. 

Troy tries, desperately, to think about anything—literally, anything—else. 

Unhelpfully, his mind moves onto Hollander. 

Shane Hollander: very hot, maybe gay. 

God, Troy is seriously going to end it all. If Rozanov wasn’t still just fucking looking at him, Troy would be hitting his head against the side of the hold. 

Maybe if he gave himself a concussion, his traitorous brain would finally leave him the fuck alone. 

“You are liking it?” Rozanov asks, and Troy has a brief, hysterical half-second to think what, thinking about Shane Hollander being gay? before Rozanov continues, “Playing in Toronto?”

“Oh,” Troy says, “uh, yeah. It’s cool. The team is good, and, I mean, playing on Kenny’s wing is… yeah.” 

“Is not too intense?” Rozanov asks. “Toronto media can be…” 

Troy makes a face before he can think better of it, but luckily Rozanov just laughs. 

“It’s definitely a lot,” Troy admits, since he’s already blown any chance he had of lying or glossing over it. “They’re… I mean, you’ve played in Toronto before.”

“Quietest barn in the MLH,” Rozanov says, way too cheerfully. Troy scowls at him before he can think better of it. 

“It’s not that bad,” he lies. 

It is. It is that bad. Troy hadn’t even realized how bad it was, until they’d played their first away game that season, and he’d experienced just how loud other team’s fans got. Fuck, he thought he would be leaving the ice with hearing damage, the first time they’d played in Boston. 

“No?” Rozanov says. “So is not—”

Whatever Rozanov was about to say—almost certainly another dig at Toronto—is cut off by the sound of harsh cursing coming from Troy’s right. 

Troy turns to see one of the guys who he’d been out collecting firewood with earlier. He was one of the people Troy thought he vaguely recognized but didn’t know the name of—another Canadian Olympian. Currently bent in half, picking through the various pieces of improvised insulation lining the floor, scowling and muttering under his breath. 

“Do you need hand?” Rozanov asks, and Troy glances back to find Rozanov has also started watching the other man. There’s little expression on his face, but there is something cautious in the way he asks the question, his tone guarded: wariness mixed with concern. 

The guy’s head swings up, his eyes wide as he stares at them. Troy is alarmed to see that he actually… looks kinda awful? He’s sweating even though he’s pulled off the jackets he was wearing when they were outside, now down to just a t-shirt that sticks to his skin. Troy doesn’t know how he isn’t freezing, though the lack of layers might explain why his skin has an almost blue tint to it. Though that wouldn’t explain the sweating, or the way he’s breathing—fast and shallow, like he’s fresh off a too-long shift.  

“What?” the man snaps out, way angrier than Troy was expecting. 

Troy feels his eyes widen in surprise, and he again looks back at Rozanov, trying to figure out what to do. It’s both a comfort and not, to see some measure of his own alarm reflected back at him on Rozanov’s face. Though Rozanov is doing a much better job of hiding it than Troy suspects he himself is—his own face almost certainly giving away every inch of his unease. 

Moving slowly, Rozanov pushes himself to his feet and Troy scrambles to follow. Once standing, Rozanov carefully raises both of his hands, palms out as if in surrender—or like he’s trying to show that he’s unarmed. 

“What are you looking for?” Rozanov asks. “Maybe we can help,” he adds with a small gesture towards Troy.

Troy isn’t sure how he feels about being included in this but sure, yeah. Why not? He can help with… whatever this is.

He wonders if this is what the other players on the Raiders feel like, watching Rozanov pick a fight, knowing that they’re going to have to help finish it. Doomed by their Captain’s insistence on constantly running his mouth. 

Not that Rozanov is being antagonistic—or at least, not intentionally so. Despite that, the guy doesn’t seem like he’s receiving Rozanov’s mild words in the spirit Troy is pretty sure they’re genuinely meant in. Instead, he kinda…

He kinda looks like he’s just getting more pissed off.

“Fuck off,” the man spits out, as if in confirmation of Troy’s thoughts. “I’m not— it’s not— I’m going to die.”

“What?” Troy says without thinking. His voice comes out way higher pitched than he means it to, but like, seriously. What? 

What does that mean? He thinks he’s going to die? Why? He looks… well, he still looks terrible, but Troy wouldn’t say that he looks like he’s dying.

“I’m going to die,” the man repeats, the aggression in his tone a bizarre contrast to the actual words he’s speaking. 

“Shane!” Rozanov shouts without taking his eyes off of the man. “Yakov! Подойдите. С ним что-то не так.”

Oh, that’s not going to go over well, Troy thinks. Sure enough:

“What the fuck did you just say?” the man says, taking a threatening step forward, and then another. 

The man’s fists are clenched at his sides, his eyes wide and wild. His breathing is getting worse with his growing anger—short, sharp breaths, and fuck. Fuck. Troy has no idea what’s going on, but clearly this guy is not receiving Rozanov’s attempts to talk to him well. 

Taking his own step forward, Troy tries to put himself slightly between the guy and Rozanov without being too obvious about it. He ignores Rozanov’s hissed whisper of Barrett, keeping his attention on the man freaking out in front of him instead, mimicking Rozanov’s posture of surrender—hands up, palms out.

“Dude, you need to calm down,” Troy says. “Rozanov’s not—”

“Don’t tell me to fucking calm down!” the man cuts him off with a yell, taking another step towards Troy. 

Troy has to fight not to step back. He can feel his heartbeat in his throat, mind racing as he tries to figure out what the fuck to do. He has no idea what the fuck is happening, or why everything seems to just keep escalating. Shit. This isn’t— Troy is usually the one escalating things. He’s never had to try to do the opposite. Doesn’t even know where to start.

“Sorry,” he says as quickly as he can, because that seems like a safe enough place to start. “Sorry, I don’t— but dude, I think you’re— I think you should sit down or something? I think there’s maybe something… wrong. With you.”

Troy knows, the second the words leave his mouth, that it’s the wrong thing to say. The man’s face twists, a warped, wrathful mask, and Troy doesn’t have time to try and say anything else before the man is rushing forward.

He closes the final few feet between them in seconds and is in front of Troy before he has the chance to do anything but blink. A fist swings at his face, and this, at least, Troy does know. Except that when Troy goes to step back, to duck under the man’s approaching fist he discovers that his blanket—the one that had been wrapped around him, that had slipped off his shoulders when he’d stood without him noticing, that he’d totally forgotten about—is now tangled around his feet. 

Troy’s heel catches in the fabric, and in the few seconds it takes for him to stop himself from toppling backwards, he runs out of time. 

The man’s fist slams into Troy’s face, and fuck. Fuck. Of course the man’s punch would land on the same cheek that Troy hit off his knee when the plane went down. 

Troy’s vision whites out as pain rockets through his skull, his head snapping back with the force of the blow. It’s enough, with how off-balance he already is, that he does fall, arms flailing helplessly for something to catch himself on as he tips backwards. There’s nothing for him to grab though, and a second later he finds himself flat on his back. He lands on one of the cushions, luckily, but the fall is sudden and hard enough that it still briefly knocks the air right out of his lungs, leaving him winded and helpless on the floor of the hold.

The guy looks like he’s getting ready to follow Troy down, the anger on his face showing no sign of having lessened for having successfully landed a punch on Troy. Troy fights to get his arms under him, to get enough leverage to at least push himself backwards, to try and get some distance from the furious man. 

Before either him or the man has the chance to move, there’s a blur of movement from Troy’s left, and he ends up just laying there, useless, as Rozanov slams into the guy, taking him down in a tackle that’s more football than hockey. 

A second later and there’s more movement from Troy’s left as Hollander and Yakov rush into view, moving as quickly as they can over the uneven surface of the hold. Beelining for Rozanov who is now basically wrestling with the guy, fighting to try and keep him pinned to the ground. 

“What the fuck?” Hollander asks as he draws even with the two struggling men. He doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s dropping roughly to his knees, grabbing one of the man’s arms and pinning it to the ground. 

“He got very angry, out of nowhere,” Rozanov grits out. “Hit Barrett.” 

“Out of nowhere?” Hollander asks, voice sharp, incredulous. “You weren’t provoking him?” 

Rozanov almost loses his grip on the guy as he turns his head to look at Hollander, a look on his face that’s almost… hurt? Not that Hollander notices, too focused on fighting against the other man’s renewed struggles and a second later the expression disappears from Rozanov’s like it was never there as he turns his attention back to the man now fighting against them both. Wiped away so completely that Troy half wonders if he’d imagined it in the first place.

“Riley!” Hollander says. “Christ, dude, calm down. What are you doing?” 

“Что случилось?” Yakov says, joining Hollander in dropping to his knees. He positions himself next to the man’s head though, well out of the range of any flailing limbs as his eyes move rapidly over Riley’s thrashing form. 

“Он вдруг взбесился ни с хуя,” Rozanov says through gritted teeth. “Сказал, что умирает.”

“Бля,” Yakov says. “Ты можешь его успокоить? Или подержи как-то, чтоб он не дергался? Мне надо послушать легкие.”

“Riley,” Rozanov says. “You need to stop moving. You are sick, okay? You need to let Yakov listen to your breathing.” 

“I’m fucking fine,” Riley snaps out, but he doesn’t sound fine—his breathing sounds worse than ever, like the fighting has made whatever was already going on about a hundred times worse. The inability to take in a full breath at least seems to be helping to drain the remaining fight out of him—he doesn’t look any less pissed off, but his movements are slowing, turning sluggish and weak. 

“Это та же хрень, о которой ты мне раньше говорил?” Rozanov asks, looking at Yakov. “Может быть и у Шейна?”

“Да,” Yakov says, expression somber, focused. “Думаю, что да.”

“Fuck,” Rozanov bites out, sharp and vicious. 

“Hey, hey. Riley,” Hollander says, ignoring the conversation in Russian happening right next to him. “You sound like you’re having a lot of trouble breathing right now. I’d really like Yakov to listen to your lungs. Can you let him do that? Please?” 

“I don’t…” Riley starts then trails off. He blinks at Hollander, the expression on his face suddenly and completely lost, like he has no idea what happened—like he has no idea how he ended up being pinned to the floor by the two best players in the MLH. “What?” he eventually asks, and finally, finally, stops the last of his meagre attempts to shake off Hollander and Rozanov, his whole body going abruptly limp.

Hollander waits for a moment, but when Riley just continues to passively lie there, he cautiously leans backwards, straightening so that he’s no longer looming over the other man. 

“Rozanov and I are going to let go of your arms now,” Hollander says. “When we do, I’d like you to sit up—” he continues, glancing at Rozanov with something that Troy can’t read in his eyes. A question, maybe—one that Troy has no hope of understanding. Rozanov must give some sign of understanding though, because a second later Hollander is turning his attention back to Riley, finishing, “—and let Yakov listen to your breathing.”

“Усадить его?” Rozanov says, looking at Yakov. “Чтоб ты послушал?”

Yakov nods, and Rozanov mirrors the gesture before turning back to Riley. 

“We let go now,” Rozanov says. “And then you sit up.” 

Neither Rozanov nor Hollander look at the other again, but they somehow manage to be perfectly in sync as they release Riley’s arms and shuffle backwards, fully removing themselves from Riley’s personal space. Troy is pretty sure that the move is intended to help Riley feel less threatened, less caged in. He’s not sure how possible that even is though—not after Rozanov tackled him. Not to mention how poorly both Troy and Rozanov’s attempts to show that they weren’t threats earlier worked to keep him calm. 

After a pause that probably feels longer than it actually is, Riley sits up. Troy only realizes he’s holding his breath in expectation of a renewed struggle when Riley doesn’t try to do anything else. The trapped breath escaping him in a relieved rush as seconds pass and Riley continues to just sit there, passive and unmoving. 

There’s no anger left in Riley’s face, just confusion and fear. 

Bile stings sharp at the back of Troy’s throat, as he watches Hollander, Rozanov, and Yakov fall easily into the smoothly coordinated dance of instruction, translation, and action that he’d seen from a distance the day before. It’s clear that there’s something seriously wrong with Riley, and for all that Troy is relieved to no longer be in the middle of a fight, he’s equally afraid of what might come next. 

Still, for all that the lingering rush of adrenaline still has Troy’s heartbeat pounding in his throat, whatever aggression had briefly taken over Riley does at least seem to be over. The other man continuing to sit, unmoving. Not doing anything other than obediently breathing when told, allowing Yakov to move his stethoscope over his chest without comment. 

Yakov’s face is carefully neutral the whole time he’s listening to Riley breathing, an expression that doesn’t change when he raises his gaze from where it had been fixed on Riley’s back to meet Rozanov’s eyes instead.

"Напряженный пневмоторакс,” Yakov says. “В плевральную полость попал воздух, из-за этого случился коллапс легкого. Может привести к остановке сердца, если ничего не делать.”

Rozanov doesn’t do as good a job as Yakov of hiding his reaction—his face goes pale, eyes flicking between Yakov and Hollander. 

“What?” Hollander asks when what is apparently too much time has passed without Rozanov offering a translation. He’s better at it than Rozanov—if Troy wasn’t as close to Hollander as he is, he doesn’t think he’d ever have detected the subtle thread of anxiety that winds its way through Hollander’s voice as he continues, “What did he say?” 

Rozanov swallows. “He has air in chest,” he says, the words spoken in a tone that is rough enough to almost read as angry. Troy thinks he probably would have interpreted his tone as exactly that, if he wasn’t again sitting so close to the other men—close enough to see the way that Rozanov still isn’t quite completely managing to keep his fear off his face. “One of his lungs is collapsed.” 

“Fuck,” Hollander says. 

“Shit,” Troy whispers.

“That’s bad, right?” Riley asks.

Yeah, Troy thinks, looking at Hollander, who is doing a better job than Rozanov of keeping his fear from his face, but can’t quite keep it from his eyes. That’s bad. 

As if to prove Troy right, Riley chooses that moment to topple sideways, unconscious. 

Fuck, Troy thinks, sitting there dumbly as Yakov snaps out a series of directions to Rozanov, who takes off at a run, back towards the front of the hold, where they’ve been keeping all the medical stuff. 

I could have done that, Troy thinks, except that it doesn’t really matter, Rozanov’s translation services apparently temporarily unneeded as Yakov gets Hollander to lay Riley out through gestures and incomprehensible Russian alone. 

Fuck, Troy thinks again as Rozanov skids back onto the floor next to Riley’s unmoving body, the medical kit he’d brought with him open and pulled apart between one blink and the next. 

He was right, Troy thinks blankly.

He’s going to die.

Twenty-eight. 

Chapter End Notes

I read Role Model as research for this chapter, which officially makes it the only book of the series I’ve read lol. I was doing a bit of reverse engineering on what rookie Troy would have been like, given the events of that book take place so long after the events of this fic, but hopefully it has helped make Troy sufficiently Troy-like!

I didn’t fully make all the connections until this until this chapter, but on March 8, 2014—about a month after this fic takes place—Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared en route to Beijing. With all its 239 occupants presumed dead, that flight was the deadliest incident involving a Boeing 777—which is the same plane I used for this fic—until Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in August of the same year. Was a bit of a trip to realize all this while trying to figure out what plane disappearances Troy might be familiar with lol (the answer is none: to this day nearly every plane that has gone missing has had like. less than 10 passengers).

this is such a small thing, but I’m having fun with it—I’m trying to be true to specific regional language variations in this fic, which is why I have our BC boy Troy using ‘dinner’ rather than ‘supper’ as Ontario's own Shane Hollander would, all the Canadians using ‘pop’ to Ilya’s ‘soda’, and Ilya using ‘beanie’ instead of ‘toque’ (a true sacrifice that runs contrary to every belief I hold dear, jsyk).

(That said, unless you’re a New Englander and you spot something super egregious, please just let me live lol—I’m not fact checking myself on every word anyone is using).

Winnipeg's team name is Nishnaabemwin, and translates to bear :)

my endless gratitude goes, as always, to britt (ao3/twt), for the beta and for once again reasserting that I'm a) funny and b) still can't spell for shit (I will reveal nothing but the way that I had spelled camaraderie did make her laugh out loud).

citations!
How does a jetliner go missing with all of today’s technology? — The World
Emergency Beacons Not Fool-Proof When Jets Go Missing — NBC
Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) — Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) — r/MH370
ELT signals, or lack thereof seem curious — r/MH370
Requirements for Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELT) — Transport Canada
Canadian Aviation Regulations, Part VI, Subpart 5 — Government of Canada
This is How Canada Talks — Zack Gallinger and Arik Motskin
Nishnaabemwin: Odawa & Eastern Ojibwe Language Resources

Chapter 7: Vega

Chapter Notes

cw: original character death, non-graphic surgical procedure, active resuscitation efforts (CPR), f-slur (but in a fun way!)

The first thing Shane is aware of is the cold. The second is the smell of something burning. 

Though the air around him is relatively warm, his back is freezing, the hard surface he’s leaning against like ice. The snap and crackle of a burning fire is reassuring at least, the scent of wood smoke nothing like the sharp, metallic tang of an electrical fire. 

Wait, what? An electrical fire? When would he have…

Shane blinks his eyes open, heavy and gritty with exhaustion, the converted cargo hold of the plane swimming into focus in front of him a second later. The sight has the memories of the day before slamming back into him all at once; a heavy, overwhelming rush that has his stomach turning over with a sudden twist of nausea. 

Of course his back is cold. He fell asleep leaning against the metal wall of the hold, the blanket wrapped around him and the two coats he had layered on underneath not quite enough to protect against the full extent of the chill radiating from the metal surface. At least the air inside of the hold is still warm, though the temperature has understandably dropped overnight. Looking around, Shane is relieved to see that no one else was dumb enough to fall asleep against the coldest part of their shelter. 

Well, except for Yakov, leaning against the wall opposite of the one Shane had fallen asleep against, arms carefully crossed over his chest as it rises and falls in the steady rhythm of sleep. Karina is next to him, but she’s thankfully laying down, fast asleep where she’s curled up atop a handful of the cushions they’d torn from the cabin above them, a large puffy coat spread over her like a blanket. 

Shane takes in the dark circles under the paramedic’s eyes, obvious despite the distance and the dim, flickering light offered by the fire and feels his stomach turn over again. The choke of guilt settles heavy in his throat as he continues to watch Yakov sleep. 

Fuck. 

Yakov had probably been up most of the night checking on their patients while Shane had slept on, totally oblivious. He’d also clearly had to wake up Karina to translate for him, because Shane was not only fucking asleep, he’d also fallen asleep against the only other person capable of helping Yakov communicate with the other survivors. 

Not that Ilya was there anymore, making his vague memories of falling asleep against the other man feel even more distant and surreal. Shane would be half tempted to think that the memory—the feeling of leaning against Ilya as he’d slipped into sleep, the other man a solid line of warmth against Shane’s side—was actually nothing more than a dream, if it wasn’t for how his side feels almost as cold as his back does, as if some source of heat had been only recently removed from it.

Shane hadn’t thought about it—any of it. 

He hadn’t thought about the fact that anyone could have looked around the hold at any point during the night and seen him and Rozanov falling asleep leaning against each other. Not the fact that, for all Shane knew, everyone had. He hadn’t thought, either, about the fact that the injured survivors would need to be checked on during the night. That he’d essentially abandoned all his responsibilities to Yakov without so much as a word to the other man, leaving him to do all the work alone. 

Shane had just… he’d been so fucking tired by the end of the previous day. He hadn’t been able to think about anything except finally getting the chance to sit down. To rest.

His limbs had felt like lead, by the time he’d sat down. As heavy and clumsy as if he’d just played six periods of overtime playoff hockey. He’d barely been able to string together a single coherent thought either, his brain feeling more like oatmeal—oatmeal that had been sitting out for too long, left to go mushy and cold. Hopelessly beyond saving and so congealed that it’d take actual effort to scrape it into the trash, leaving behind so much gluey residue that you’d need to leave the bowl to soak in hot water for at least an hour before you’d even be able to begin to attempt to scrub it clean.

Fuck, Shane wishes he could wash his skull out in the same way. Wishes he could scrape out all the memories of the previous day, wash away every single thing he’d witnessed, everything he’d done. 

The sounds—of screaming, of shearing metal. The bodies. The column of black smoke rising from behind distant treetops. The people he hadn’t been able to do anything for; the people he’d let die. The ones he had helped. The ones who still might die, no matter what he did.

Leon.

Shane can feel the weight of it all, already beginning to press back down on his shoulders, threatening to flatten him onto the ground. He forces himself to his feet instead, keeping his blanket wrapped around him as he begins to pick his way across the hold as quietly as he can, painfully aware of the fact that he seems to be the only person awake. 

He’s not super successful, not with how irregular the insulation they’ve cobbled together for the floor is. For every five muffled footsteps he manages there’s at least one where his foot lands instead in one of the gaps between cushions and clothing and blankets, shoe striking raw metal with a muffled clang that makes him wince each time it happens.

Still, whether due to exhaustion or because the sound isn’t actually as loud as it feels in Shane’s head, no one stirs as Shane moves from one sleeping person to the next. He keeps his checks to only the patients that he and Yakov have kept clustered near the fire, because there’s no way he’d be able to check on everyone without tripping over something—or someone—and waking everyone up. The ones nearest the fire are the worst off anyways—the most in need of being checked on regularly. Shane may have left Yakov to do that alone for the rest of the night, but he could at least take a single turn, and leave Yakov to sleep a bit longer. 

Shane reaches the last person—Maya, blankets carefully wrapped around her immobilized body in their best attempt to make an impossibly uncomfortable position slightly more bearable—and lets out a relieved breath, some of the tension he’d woken up with temporarily abating. They were all breathing, and though he didn’t like the tone of Max’s skin, waxy and pale even in the faint firelight... for now, at least, they were all still alive. 

No one had died in the night. 

Shane moves over to the piles of firewood next, noting how few pieces remain in the pile of fully dry wood. Crouching, he touches the end of the pile that had been gathered from the ground, and is relieved to find that he’d been right. After—he glances at his watch, checking the time—nearly twelve hours, all but the largest pieces of the previously wet deadfall are completely dry. 

They’re going to need to gather more wood today, but as long as they can keep the fire going, it won’t matter whether it’s wet or dry to start. It’d still probably be more work than it had been the previous day—Shane hadn’t been out into the woods himself, but he assumed that those who had been out collecting wood the day before had probably cleared out all the nearest and easiest to gather wood. 

Fuck, what he wouldn’t give for a fucking axe.

Shane shakes away the thought as soon as it crosses his mind. There’s no point in thinking about things he can’t change, or wishing for things they don’t have. He grabs a couple of pieces from the dwindling pile of fully dry wood, turning back towards the collection of embers and mostly-burned pieces that was all that remained of the most recently added firewood. 

Judging by how much there was, Shane figures that Yakov had been adding more over the course of the night, a realization that causes the guilt still lingering in his throat to thicken and spread. 

On the other hand, Yakov is clearly as much of a city boy as Rozanov is—the remaining unburnt wood was haphazardly stacked over and across each other in no discernable pattern. Christ. They were lucky that none of it had rolled off and over the shallow ring of rocks containing the fire. 

There’s enough of a gap between the fire and anything flammable that it probably would have been fine either way, but. Still.

Shane makes a mental note to give a demonstration to everyone on how to best add more wood to an already-burning fire, and grabs one of the wettest pieces of wood from the pile of deadfall to push at the wood already in the fire, rearranging them until they were all collected into a mostly even pile at the centre. He adds the new pieces, laying them atop the old in a tipi pattern, wiggling each piece to ensure that it’s stable and won’t move even as it burns down. 

He stands, once he’s satisfied that nothing disastrous will happen with the fire while he isn’t watching, and brushes his hands off on his sweatpants, cleaning off the dirt and ash and bits of bark as best as he can. He tries not to think about how dirty his pants are at this point, because he really can’t afford to have any sort of breakdown right now, much less one over something as stupid and small as the fact that he’s wearing dirty pants. Even if one of the many things that they’re stained with is blood. 

Standing, Shane takes another look over the gathered injured survivors, the light growing as the new wood begins to catch alight, fresh yellow licks of flame washing over bark in a hungry rush. Eyes moving from face to face, he once ends again on Maya. Satisfied that nothing has changed while he was stoking the fire, Shane turns, and—

Freezes.

Turning back around, Shane looks from person to person, counting. Stops. Counts again. Gets the same number. 

Twelve.

There had been thirteen of them, gathered around the fire, when he’d gone to sleep the previous night. 

Shane stares at the empty spot where the thirteenth person should be, and desperately tries to remember who had been there. 

It had been a man, he thinks. He— he hadn’t been one of the ones Shane had helped with, had been one of the people Yakov and Rozanov had treated while Shane was figuring out how to turn the gaping hole at the end of the hold into a quasi-tipi. He hadn’t been anyone Shane had recognized either—a random person, travelling to Russia as a spectator, rather than an athlete. 

Shane couldn’t remember seeing any obvious injury on him, remembered him making his way down to the hold under his own power, so it must be… it must be something internal, right? That had made Yakov want to keep an eye on him. Which—it couldn’t have been good, whatever it was. Shane didn’t need to get all the details from Yakov to know that there wasn’t anything they could really do about internal injuries, except for hope that they didn’t get worse. 

Still, the man had walked down to the hold unaided. Maybe he’d just gone outside to pee? 

The churning nausea in Shane’s stomach said otherwise, but Shane knows from experience that it’s a feeling that’s just as often a liar as it is appropriate. 

Walking over to the entrance to the shelter is far easier than crossing over to the patients had been, the rough dirt beneath his feet still mostly frozen, offering few chances for his footsteps to make more than the barest of sounds as he crosses over it. Squeezing through the overlapping tarps, Shane isn’t entirely prepared for the way that the brutally cold air hits him the second he steps outside, sending a shiver through his whole body. 

It’s nice too, though—in a way. The harshness of the freezing wind stinging against his face a reminder that he, at least, is still alive. The cold filling his lungs chases away the last of the exhaustion dragging at his eyelids too, and he blinks out at the frozen landscape that greets him. 

The sun isn’t up yet, though the sky to the east has begun to lighten with its approach, the growing glow chasing the stars off the horizon, replacing them with the sight of distant clouds dusted with gold, indigo fading into a softer shade of blue. The forest below is still more shadows than anything, the tips of the trees the only real sign that what stretches out in front of him is a forest and not just an endless, looming wall of darkness. The snow that covers the ground almost seems to glow in contrast to the dark mass hovering above it, though it is still more shadow than anything else. 

There’s not yet enough light to see if there’s still smoke rising from where the other half of the plane landed. 

Turning his back on the sunrise, Shane picks his way across the ground to where churned dirt gives way to snow that is now more footprints than not. Enough that it’s impossible to tell what might be new prints and what might be from the day before, though the snow still has enough give to it that he can feel it compress beneath his running shoes. The sound seems louder than it actually is in the silence of the early morning, its only competition the distant, sleepy sound of birdcalls—even the birds only just barely beginning to stir awake.

Turning the corner of the plane, Shane sees that the faint scent of cigarette smoke carried to him by the wind hasn’t led him astray—in the deep shadow cast by the body of the plane, the cherry-red glow of the end of Rozanov’s cigarette shines like a lighthouse beacon, guiding Shane to shore. Drawing closer, Shane isn’t surprised to see that Rozanov is huddled into himself, his free arm wrapped around his stomach as he stomps his feet to keep them warm. 

Unlike Shane, Rozanov hadn’t brought his blanket outside with him, and apparently also hadn’t bothered to put on a second coat. Which was for the best, maybe—Shane didn’t love the thought of their communal coats being stained with the stink of cigarette smoke—but still left Rozanov shivering in the cold wind that raced across the snow before slicing down the fuselage.

“You look cold,” Shane says.

Rozanov’d clearly seen Shane coming—had probably heard him, even before that—and so doesn’t startle when Shane’s voice breaks apart the pre-dawn stillness. Still, he doesn’t offer any other reaction, just takes another long drag off his cigarette as he watches Shane move closer. The shadow cast by the plane makes his normally light eyes appear nearly as inky black as the sky above, and just as impossible to read. 

“I am not cold,” Rozanov finally says when there’s only a few feet left between them. “Russians do not get cold.” 

Rozanov’s whole body twitches, as if with an aborted movement—like he was about to stomp his feet again, before realizing how thoroughly that would disprove his already obvious lie. 

Shane rolls his eyes. “Sure you don’t,” he says, and crosses the last few feet of empty snow separating them, stretching out one of his arms as he does, the end of his blanket still clutched in his fist: a silent offer. 

Rozanov’s eyes flick over Shane’s face, searching, in a moment that stretches out just long enough for Shane to start feeling awkward. He’s just about to drop his arm, swallowing against the sting of rejection, which arrives with a far harsher bite than Rozanov should warrant. But Rozanov is moving before the feeling has the chance to fully settle, stepping forward and into the curve of Shane’s outstretched arm, reaching up with his free hand to take the end of Shane’s blanket into his own grip. 

He still has his cigarette in the other hand, and he doesn’t drop it as they both move to close what little distance is left between them, their sides pressed together as they both move their arms in sync, hands drawing together towards the centre of their chests, wrapping the blanket more firmly around them both. Shane wrinkles his nose with how close he now is to the smoke drifting from the end of Rozanov’s cigarette, but he swallows back the instinctive urge to complain about the smell, to remind Rozanov how bad they are for him. 

It would be hypocritical, probably, given that Shane was the only reason he has any cigarettes to smoke in the first place. Plus, even though it's ridiculous and runs completely contrary to everything Shane knows and believes about smoking… he kinda feels like Rozanov deserves this. Especially after seeing how badly he had wanted to immediately go outside and have one the night before, when Shane had first handed him the pack, but hadn’t—choosing, instead, to stay with Shane. 

So, doing his best to ignore the smell, Shane focuses on the softness of the blanket where it brushes the back of his neck. The warmth of Rozanov’s body pressed against his. The way that Rozanov’s lips curve around the end of the cigarette when he lifts it back up to his mouth. He turns his head away from Shane when he exhales, sending the grey-blue plume of smoke drifting out towards the frozen lake, invisible in the darkness. 

Shane gives himself until the last of the smoke has dissipated before he speaks. 

“Have you seen anyone else come outside?” he asks. He can see Rozanov turn to look at him out of the corner of his eye, and as much as he doesn’t want to—as much as he doesn’t want to risk reading the answer on Rozanov’s face—Shane can’t help but mirror the motion, turning to meet Rozanov’s eyes. 

There’s little for him to find on Rozanov’s face, and Shane isn’t sure if he’s relieved about that or not. Still, it’s easier, standing this close, to see the way that Rozanov’s eyes flick over Shane’s face in turn, as if he too is attempting to find some truth hidden in Shane’s features. 

Shane isn’t sure what he finds—isn’t sure what there is to find, what he wants Rozanov to find—but it has Rozanov blowing out a heavy breath. His body slumps with it, the motion drawing him even closer to Shane, and it’s that movement that gives Shane the answer he failed to find on his face.

For as certain as he is that he’s right—and for as much as he doesn’t want to have it confirmed—Shane still needs to hear Rozanov say it out loud. 

“He died, didn’t he?” Shane asks.

His eyes slide away from Rozanov as he speaks, drifting to the endless, uninhabited wilderness beyond him. There’s nothing out there but shadows and silence, but Shane keeps his attention fixed on the emptiness of the landscape, refusing to give into the magnetic pull that urges him to turn back towards Rozanov. Tries, instead, to pull some of that emptiness into himself, willing the ice and snow to smother the sick feeling of guilt and fear burning through his chest like acid. 

The silence stretches on for long enough that Shane starts to think he might have to ask again, and fuck Rozanov for that, for making Shane—

“He did,” Rozanov says, interrupting Shane’s brewing anger before it has the chance to build itself into something real. It’s like a kick to the chest, leaving nothing but exhaustion behind as Shane again mentally curses Rozanov for not even letting him have that. Not allowing him the grace of giving him something as clean and simple as anger to cling to, to burn away the other thousand ugly things churning in his chest. 

“When?” Shane asks. He can hear how empty his voice sounds, but he can’t be fucked to force emotion into it. Not here, not with the wind and Rozanov as his only audience. 

Rozanov’s weight shifts next to him, and Shane isn’t sure if it’s because he’s still trying to keep warm or if it's a sign of discomfort. He doesn’t look at him to check, just waits for Rozanov’s answer—more certain, now, that it’s just a matter of when, not if, Rozanov will hand Shane the truth. He’d all but admitted as much the night before, when he’d told Shane that he’d tell him who was going to die in the morning. Which—

Well. Shane supposes he now knows who one of the people on that list is—was. Even if he still doesn’t know his name. 

“Middle of night,” Rozanov eventually says. His accent clings to the words, heavier than Shane’s heard it since the first time they met, and Shane wonders if it’s exhaustion or fear or just being here, in Russia. 

If the freezing air filling their lungs feels different to Rozanov. If he can feel the weight of his motherland wrapped around him even out here, with nothing around them to give away that they aren’t in the Canadian boreal forest instead. 

“Yakov woke me up,” Rozanov continues, and Shane blinks quickly, trying to chase away the sharp sting of tears that burn at the corner of his eyes as the wind picks up, sending a spray of crystalline snow into his face. “Told me Cervantes had died. Asked me to help move him up to cabin.” 

“Was not surprise,” he adds, confirming Shane’s earlier suspicion. Shane isn’t sure if that makes it better or worse, that both Yakov and Rozanov had already known that the man—Cervantes—was going to die. “He had… селезенка?” The blanket rustles as Rozanov makes an awkward gesture with the hand still holding his cigarette, pointing down towards his own side. “I do not know word in English. It had… torn? Ah, burst? Was bleeding.”

“Spleen?” Shane guesses, the word slipping from him thoughtlessly, helplessly. 

Rozanov shrugs. “It was… Yakov had thought maybe… but probably not.” 

Shane nods, his thoughts feeling distant, foggy. 

A ruptured spleen. That was… bad. Not survivable, not here. Maybe not even if they’d somehow been able to get to a hospital the day before. And certainly not something that Shane would have been able to do anything about, either way. 

“Hollander,” Rozanov says, but his voice is as distant as Shane’s own thoughts, muffled and distorted. “Hollander,” he says again. “Shane. Can you look at me?” 

The sun must be getting closer to edging up above the horizon, Shane thinks. The empty vast darkness that he’s been staring at is beginning to unflatten, the shapes of trees and bushes pushing their way into existence. The grey dunes of snow that dominate the stretch of land between the plane and the lake similarly beginning to emerge from the shadows. Brightening with each passing second, crawling their way from grey to white. 

“Ебать,” Rozanov says, and Shane sways as Rozanov’s elbow awkwardly knocks against him. His eyes track the path that the cherry-red end of Rozanov’s cigarette cuts through the air as he flicks it away, following its arcing path until it disappears, swallowed up by the snow. 

Ilya’s fingers are a shock when they press against Shane’s cheek, freezing cold as he uses them to gently turn Shane’s face towards his own. Ilya’s eyes are wide, scared. Fixed on Shane’s face. 

Shane’s stomach drops at how easily readable the emotion is in them, the world suddenly snapping back into focus as his heart rate abruptly kicks up. 

“Дорогой,” Ilya says, his voice giving away his worry just as clearly as his eyes are as they move across Shane’s face, searching. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Shane says. He thinks that the lie might have been believable, if he’d managed to force his voice to come out louder than the whisper it just barely emerges as. 

As it is, Rozanov doesn’t have to say anything for Shane to know that he doesn’t believe him—his doubt is spelled out clearly across his whole face, from the crease between his eyebrows to the pinch of his mouth. 

“I’m fine,” Shane says again, but this time, at least, his voice doesn’t betray him.

“Okay,” Rozanov says. “Да. Yes. You are fine.” 

He doesn’t look any more convinced than he had before, but his tone isn’t challenging. Not like it had been yesterday, when he’d just kept pushing until Shane had cracked open, had let all his fear come pouring out. Maybe he can tell that Shane needs this—needs the lie, needs to be believed. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to risk getting punched. 

“So?” Rozanov asks, and Shane frowns. 

“So?”

“What is plan?” Rozanov asks. “I know you have plan, hm? Captain Plane Crash.” 

Rozanov’s hand moves as he speaks, drifting from Shane’s cheek to where his neck meets his shoulder, squeezing in a move that is as oddly grounding as it is annoying. A welcome distraction, too, to the heat burning through Shane’s cheeks at the realization that they’d just been standing there with Rozanov’s hand cupping his face. 

“Okay, that really makes it sound like I crashed the plane,” Shane complains. 

“Sorry,” Rozanov says, sounding anything but. “English is not my first language, you know,” he continues. “I meant captain of plane crash.”

“Not better,” Shane grumbles, ducking his head to try and hide the smile that he can’t quite keep off his face. 

It unfortunately means that he ends up looking at where their hands meet—holding the edges of the blanket together, sure, but as he takes in the way their fingers have, at some point, tangled together, he realizes that they’re basically also holding hands. 

He should let go. He doesn’t want to let go. He lifts his head back up, because if he’s not looking at it, he can at least pretend it’s not happening—or at least, that he never noticed it. 

Fuck, the way that Rozanov is looking at him isn’t any better. It’s almost affectionate, except that’s not what they do. That’s not who they are, what this is. 

“The plan?” Rozanov prompts again, and the teasing tone in his voice is, at least, something Shane knows how to deal with. 

“Right,” Shane says, taking in a deep breath before slowly letting it back out. “Right, okay. Um. I mean, it’s mostly just to try and survive until we get found? The search will have definitely started by now—or at least, has started getting organized. I don’t know how long it takes for search and rescue operations to actually get off the ground.”

Shelter, food, water, Shane thinks. Shelter is covered for the foreseeable future, at least. Food they were good for for a couple of days. Same with water, and that was also replenishable, though it would be risky. They’d need to boil any snow they got off the ground, and—

“So this is whole plan?” Rozanov asks, interrupting Shane’s thoughts, his voice full of exaggerated skepticism. “Don’t die?”

“What?” Shane asks, startled. “No, ob—”

“Is not very good plan,” Rozanov interrupts. “Is plan I could come up with, I think.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Shane says, Rozanov’s smile widening as Shane’s attempt to push annoyance into his voice falls completely flat, “obviously that’s not the whole plan.”

“Okay,” Rozanov says. “So tell me the whole plan, then.”

“I’ll tell you the plan if you tell me who’s going to die,” Shane returns, challenging. The amusement drops off Rozanov’s face like it had never been there, his eyes once again wandering over Shane’s face, searching. 

“Shane—”

“You promised,” Shane says in a near-whisper before Rozanov can start to argue with him. 

The silence stretches out longer this time before Rozanov finally breathes out, heavy and resigned.

“Yes. I did,” Ilya says. “Okay. I will tell you.” 

Shane attempts a smile. “Good,” he says. “Otherwise I won’t tell you about how we’re going to get potable water, and you really will have to drink piss.”

The disgusted, offended noise Rozanov lets out is almost enough to wash away the sick taste of fear and guilt coating the inside of Shane’s throat.

Almost.

There’s more people awake by the time they make it back inside, and Shane does his best to ignore the sharp spike of anxiety that rushes through him as heads raise at the sign of movement from the entrance to the shelter, a dozen people watching him and Rozanov re-enter together. It doesn’t mean anything, he tells himself. It doesn’t look like anything. 

There’s a hundred different, perfectly reasonable and normal reasons for him and Rozanov to have been outside at the same time, and it’s not like anyone is going to ask. Probably. Maybe. They shouldn’t—they should all be more focused on themselves, on survival, anyways. 

Or they’ll be looking for any distraction they can find, his brain unhelpfully offers, but he shoves that thought away. Does his best to follow one of his mom’s favourite pieces of advice—don’t go borrowing trouble. 

Yakov is among those awake, at least, and getting a full update from him on what he’d observed over the course of the night is a welcome distraction. He also confirms what Rozanov had told Shane outside—Max, the journalist with the piece of metal through his shoulder, is almost certainly going to die before they’re rescued. That everyone that they’d bandaged up the day before was at risk of an infection that they wouldn’t be able to do anything about. That there was a chance that other internal injuries might present themselves, both the ones that Yakov had already identified and ones that weren’t yet noticeable. 

None of that was guaranteed though, and Shane tries to hold onto that thought, to make it the heaviest amongst the thousands of worries crowding his head. 

More people are awake by the time they’re done talking to Yakov, and Shane can see the way that heads keep turning their direction. Can feel the expectation in their eyes crawling down his spine as they look to him to find out what comes next. For him to tell them what comes next. 

Captain Wilderness, echoes in his head, words heavily accented. Captain Plane Crash. Captain Paramedic. 

Fucking Rozanov. Shane really wishes it didn’t make him breathe easier just to think about the other man mocking him for being so serious. 

Catching Vaughn’s eye from across the room, Shane waves his hand, gesturing for the other man to join him. He watches as Vaughn smiles and nods, nudging Erika, who stands and follows Vaughn in picking their way across the hold towards them. 

“What’s up Cap?” Vaughn asks once he’s close enough to speak without yelling. 

Shane takes another deep breath—as deep as he can, still not as deep as he should be able to.

“You two up for handling meal service again?” he asks, watching as Vaughn’s smile grows.

“I dunno,” he says, cutting his eyes towards Erika, “I still don’t have the right uniform for it.” 

Erika’s cheeks darken, even as she resolutely keeps her eyes on Shane, refusing to look at the man standing next to her.

Vaughn, for his part, looks delighted. 

“I thought we decided your ass was too fat for skirt, Vaughny,” Rozanov drawls unhelpfully, then, muttered towards Yakov, “Хотя, мне кажется, её больше волнует, как он будет выглядеть в юбке, чем то, подойдёт ли она ему по размеру.” 

Shane can’t even begin to guess what Rozanov had said, but whatever it was, it draws a snort from Yakov. He shakes his head, cutting a look towards Rozanov that doesn’t need any translation—Shane’s seen that exact exasperated look directed towards Rozanov from approximately half the men in the MLH.

“Happy to help,” Erika says, tilting her chin up, pointedly ignoring the comments from the peanut gallery. 

Still smiling, Vaughn finally returns his attention back to Shane. “Yeah, no problem Cap,” he says. “We’ve got you.” 

Shane lets out a laugh, fighting not to wince when it comes out more than a bit thin, hanging flat and heavy in the air between them. Vaughn doesn’t seem to notice, at least, or at least has the grace to pretend he doesn’t. Erika doesn’t do as good of a job of hiding the concern in her eyes, but it’s easier to ignore, from a stranger. Shane keeps his eyes on Vaughn. 

“Is there anything else we can do?” Vaughn asks and Shane shakes his head. 

“The rest can wait until everyone’s had a bit of food and water. We’re going to need to start rationing the food though. We all needed the full meal yesterday, but we can’t keep doing that. Not if we want it to last long enough for us to be rescued.”

Shane doesn’t mention that he doesn’t actually know how long that will take—how long he should be planning for, if it should be days or weeks. 

“How do you want to divide it?” Erika asks. 

“Do all of the packages have their calorie counts on them?” Shane asks, and Erika nods. “Okay,” Shane says, relieved. That makes things so much easier. “Let’s go through them.”

Shane and Erika head over to where the plastic tubs of all the food they’d been able to find in the two galleries are stacked up. It doesn’t take long to go through them, sorting the packages based on their calorie counts. Shane does the math in his head as they work, and is relieved to realize that his estimate the previous day hadn’t just been wishful thinking—they had enough food to last them at least six days. 

Fuck, he hopes that’ll be long enough for them to be found. He doesn’t even want to think about how they’d go about foraging—or, god forbid, trying to figure out how to hunt. 

Right now they have food, and Shane forces himself to focus on that.

With provisioning that accounts for slightly larger portions for the most injured and anyone who did more work like getting more firewood, everyone would be able to get at least 500 calories a day. The pop would help—it wasn’t good sugar, but it was sugar, plus an extra hundred or so calories a can. It would help keep people’s energy up, and delay their bodies turning to breaking down their muscles in lieu of glucose. 

None of it’s enough, not by a long shot, but it’ll keep them upright. 

It’ll keep them alive.

Luckily, even the dinners are pretty low calorie—the highest is 427—so they won’t have to divide things into such pitiful looking portions that people will riot. 

Or at least, Shane hopes they won’t. 

It would start to look a lot sadder the more meals they attempted to divide them into though.

“How pissed off do you think people will be if we keep it to two meals a day?” Shane asks Erika once they’re finished sorting it all into piles, still crouched down next to the bins. 

He keeps his voice low as he speaks, hoping that the volume of the fractured conversation Rozanov, Yakov, and Vaughn are having behind them—which, from what Shane had caught of it, seems to be a continuation of the previous day’s argument about Siberian tigers—will keep the question unintelligible to everyone else nearby. The last thing he wants is for people to start to panic. 

It feels like a bit of a miracle that everyone has stayed as calm as they have so far, but Shane is pretty sure that a lot of that has to do with the fact that he’d been able to give everyone such clear next steps. That he’d been able to unite each individual’s fear and anxiety, focusing it towards a series of collective goals. There would be fewer of those, now. More downtime for people to begin to spiral. Especially if people continued to die.

They’d been lucky, so far. Odds were good that at least a few people had noticed that there were now two fewer survivors now, but there’d been few witnesses to the deaths. None that were outside of the circle of Shane and—okay, fine, his fucking Alternate Captains. 

Yakov, Rozanov, and Vaughn. 

What a team. 

Erika snorts out a half-laugh, before matching Shane’s low volume when she replies: 

“Normally, I’d ask how good your reflexes are—for dodging the things people would start to throw at you,” she tacks on in reply to the confused look he shoots her, “but honestly, given the plane crash of it all? I think they’ll be fine. So long as they’re getting some food, and it doesn’t look like we’re about to run out.”

As if on silent cue, they both turn to look down at the piles of food spread out in front of them. It doesn’t look like a lot, spread out like this. It isn’t a lot. 

There’s also not really anything Shane can do to fix it. 

“We’ll keep it in the bins,” Shane says. “It’ll be less obvious, that way, how much there actually is.” Erika nods, and helps him return it all to the bins, keeping the piles sorted as they stack them back inside the, thankfully, mostly opaque plastic. 

They end up with a spare bin, which Shane feels a brief spike of panic about before Erika suggests that she use it to collect the garbage, armed with the easy explanation that they need to remove anything that smells like food from the hold. Shane shoots her a grateful look, and Erika smiles back at him, small but real. Like the day before—like with all the other survivors—Shane can tell how much it helps, for her to have something to do. 

Armed with the empty, newly deputized, garbage bin and loaded up with small snack bags of pretzels, Erika and Vaughn set off to once again make a slow rotation through the hold. 

Ripping open his own bag, Shane stands near the fire, surveying the hold. He’s not always the best at reading or understanding other people’s emotions, but even he can’t miss the way that the atmosphere in the hold turns almost palpably grim as Erika and Vaughn make their way through the room. He catches more than one person grimacing in response to being handed one of the bags of pretzels, others just looking worried, looking between the bag and the stack of bins. 

The previous day’s anxiety beginning to reassert itself as, one by one, each of the survivors comes to the realization that getting a full meal the night before had probably been a one-off. 

“Trade a pretzel?” 

Rozanov’s voice shakes Shane free of his own building anxiety, and he turns to find the other man holding out a single pretzel, his face serious. Shane feels his lips twitch upwards without his permission, and has to fight to keep his face from giving him away entirely. 

“They’re the same pretzels,” he says. 

“No,” Rozanov argues, “yours are special. Captain’s pretzels.” 

“They’re the same pretzels, Rozanov.” 

“Ah, I see how it is,” Rozanov says, slowly shaking his head with an exaggerated expression of solemnity. “Captain of plane crash does not want to share with his lowly Alternate.” 

Shane doesn’t quite manage to stop the snort that breaks free from him. 

“Fine,” he relents, refusing to look at why. Taking Rozanov’s proffered pretzel, he holds out his own bag, watching with far too much amusement as Rozanov takes his time, peering into the bag. Humming quietly to himself, as if debating over some big, important decision, before he finally reaches in and picks out a single pretzel. 

It looks exactly the same as the pretzel he’d given Shane. 

With a self-satisfied smirk, Rozanov pops it into his mouth, crunching through it with an exaggerated hum. 

“Good?” Shane asks, fighting with everything he has not to smile. 

“Delicious,” Rozanov says. “Much better than lowly Alternate pretzel.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” Shane says, more resigned than surprised at how fond his voice sounds.

Rozanov, as if to prove Shane’s point, just fucking winks at him. 

“So, when does army of wood pickers muster?” Rozanov asks before tipping his head back, sticking out his tongue and shaking the last of the crumbs from his bag into his mouth. 

It is truly, profoundly, humiliating how much effort it takes for Shane to try and focus on the fact that Rozanov just asked him a question and not on the long line of his throat, the way his tongue curls, wet with spit just barely visible in the firelight. A tongue that Shane has tasted, has felt lick over hi—

“What?” Shane asks, forcing his eyes back down to his own bag before his body’s usual reaction to that memory can threaten to make this situation even more embarrassing. He frowns as Rozanov’s actual words finally filter through the haze of his sudden arousal. “Muster?” Shane echoes, taking a risk in raising his head, turning his frown towards Rozanov. 

Rozanov is, thankfully, just staring down mournfully at his now thoroughly emptied bag. He blinks at the sound of Shane’s voice, turning to meet his eyes. 

“Yes?” Rozanov says. “Is not correct word?” 

“No, it’s— it’s the right word, it’s just… where are you picking up these words?” 

Rozanov shrugs. “Lots of museums in Boston,” he says. “Many battles they are proud of.”

“And you’ve actually gone to those museums?” Shane asks skeptically. 

Rozanov shrugs again, looking a bit... embarrassed? “Was rookie,” he says. “Raiders’ front office thought it would be, ah, interesting? Get to know city. And America.” The embarrassment fades, replaced with a more contemplative look. “Is very strange country. Very obsessed with history, when they have so little of it.” 

Shane raises an eyebrow, and Rozanov lets out a soft laugh. 

“Cities there, they are so young, да?” he says.

“Sure,” Shane agrees slowly, “but I mean, Boston is probably one of the oldest cities on the continent.” 

Rozanov tilts his head, conceding. “So?” he says. “When is muster?”

“I figured I’d let people, uh, enjoy their breakfast for a bit,” Shane says, ignoring the look Rozanov shoots him. 

Whatever. Shane knows he’s not… procrastinating, having to address everyone. Not really. He just wants to give everyone the time to ease into their day without the stress of being reminded of how precarious their situation still is. And he wants to do at least one full rotation of the injured with Yakov before he moves on to other things. 

“I was thinking I might also have some people go out and start collecting snow,” Shane continues before Rozanov can verbalize any of the judgement he’d already so eloquently expressed in the look he’d given him. “Boiling it is going to be a pain in the ass, and it’s going to take forever to get enough for everyone to drink, so we should really start doing that now, before we run out of bottled water.” 

The kettles and carafes from the galleries had been amongst the supplies that had been brought down from the cabin the day before, so it would be easy enough for them to start filling the kettles with snow. Shane is less certain about how close they’ll need to get the kettles to the fire for them to start boiling—if they’ll need to figure out some way to suspend them over the flames, or if just putting them next to it would be enough. 

Shane isn’t too worried about it, either way. It’ll be easy enough to figure out what’s needed, and starting now gives them more than enough time for them to trial and error their way to the right solution. 

“That will be enough?” Rozanov asks, and Shane is surprised to hear a note of genuine worry in his voice. “Boiling? To get all—” he waves his hand, vague and all-encompassing, “—gross things out of water?” 

“I mean, it’ll kill off any bacteria,” Shane says. “We might have to pick a stray leaf or two out, depending on how careful people are about the snow they’re scooping up, but I think we’ll live.” 

Judging by the look on his face, Rozanov isn’t convinced that a stray leaf might not actually kill him. Shane bites down on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling. He really hadn’t realized, before this, just how much of a, like, city boy Rozanov is.

“It’s too bad that it doesn’t look like it’s going to snow,” Shane teases. “We could catch it as it fell. Guaranteed free of leaves or dirt.” 

Rozanov’s expression shifts to one of incredulity as he stares back at Shane. 

“Oh, you are weather man too now?” he asks, performatively throwing up one hand, and Shane has to actively choke down a sound that he thinks might have come out horrifically close to a giggle. “What, next thing you tell me is you can navigate by stars? Can… can build house out of sticks? Can build sled, to slide us all the rest of way to Moscow?” 

Rozanov’s voice gets progressively louder as he continues until Shane can’t swallow it down any more, laughter bursting out of him even as he tries to keep it as quiet as he can. Rozanov only looks more outraged at the sound of Shane’s laughter, though there’s something in his eyes—like he’s secretly also a bit pleased. Like making Shane laugh was maybe what he was actually aiming for the whole time. 

It wouldn’t be a surprise, if it was. Shane had noticed it the day before—the way that Rozanov uses humour to calm people down. It’s mostly delivered as rude chirps, but still. It works. Has been working—to keep people steady. To keep them together. 

Shane wonders if this is maybe what Rozanov is like as a Captain. If he’s getting his first, secret look at Captain Rozanov through his position as the… Alternate Captain of this plane crash. 

It’s different, than Shane would have expected, if he’d thought about it before. Quieter. Less… sharp. Not that the loudness and sharpness wasn’t still there, but it was blunted by the moments that it wasn’t. Like the tide, ebbing and flowing. Shane tries to imagine what Rozanov’s pre-game speeches are like, and quickly reaches the conclusion that there’s no way that they’re anything but loud, but he suspects that the sharpness there too, is balanced out by a softness. 

He’s seen the way Rozanov stands by the gate; always the last one off the ice. Offering his fist out to each of his teammates as they skate by, telling them, one by one: I love you. 

“Hollander?” Rozanov says, and Shane realizes that Rozanov had stopped ranting about Shane’s secret Canadian abilities a while ago. That Shane has left the silence to stretch out far too long, lost in his own mind. 

Shane shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says. “Thinking.” 

Rozanov is frowning at him, but Shane turns his head, avoiding his eyes under the guise of looking for Yakov. Shane wanted to do a rotation through their patients before he addresses everyone after all. Get caught up on anything he’d missed while he’d—selfishly, obliviously—slept through the night. 

Shane focuses on that, because if he doesn’t, he’ll keep thinking about it—what Rozanov is like as a Captain. The strange twist that had seized his stomach at the realization that Rozanov hadn’t just been trying to make Shane laugh. That he was treating him the way he was everyone else. The thing that had settled like lead in the bottom of his stomach at the memory of the way that Rozanov threw his affection at his teammates like it was nothing.

The realization that that was what Shane was right now: Rozanov’s teammate. 

Nothing else. 

Rozanov tells the truth this time, when Shane asks and Yakov answers. It’s a relief, at least, to learn that there was nothing that any of them could have done for the man who had died—Yakov had been all but certain he would, when he’d first examined him the day before. It was a miracle, really, that he’d lasted as long as he had. A kindness, too, Rozanov haltingly translates, struggling the way he has been since the day before over what are obviously medical terms he’s never had any reason to hear or learn in English. 

Cervantes had died in his sleep. Peacefully. Without pain. 

It’s a relief to learn that nothing else has changed since the day before—what Ilya had told him earlier in the morning was still accurate. Max was almost certainly going to die, something that probably would still be true even if they were rescued in the next hour. The wound through his shoulder was already showing signs of infection, and they didn’t have any antibiotics. 

There was nothing for them to do but wait, and try to make him as comfortable as possible. 

Shane tried not to think about how many of the other survivors had open wounds—wounds that they had sterilized as much as possible, but which were still bandaged in the open wilderness, in the emptied cargo hold of a crashed plane. Wounds which could so, so easily develop infections of their own. 

Dealing with sepsis—much less septic shock—is so far outside the scope of the training that Shane had done, but when one of his instructors had mentioned it, off-hand, Shane hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking. Question after question, until his instructor had had to beg off answering, redirecting them back to the actual course materials. She’d still met Shane early before class the next morning, delivering answers that she’d looked up the night before. 

Shane had been quietly pleased at the time, more accustomed to annoyed brush-offs than people who were willing to meet his interest with a reciprocated desire to find out the answers. Now, he can’t help but slightly regret it—can’t help but think that ignorance might be better than knowing just how helpless they were. 

Rozanov is looking at Shane, watching him with eyes that are far too openly concerned in a way that kinda makes Shane want to claw his skin off. A sensation that is absolutely not being helped by the way that Yakov is looking between them, his gaze far too perceptive for all that his expression remains carefully, pointedly, neutral. 

For what had to be the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours, Shane finds himself desperately wishing he spoke Russian. He’s barely holding himself from dragging Rozanov outside, from demanding he tell Shane every single thing he’d said to the paramedic. Though Shane isn’t actually sure what would be worse—learning that Rozanov had said something to give them away, or learning that he hadn’t. 

That it had been something else—something spoken in silence, in body language and glances both caught and dodged. Something that could just as easily be Shane’s fault. That he hadn’t been aware of, that he wouldn’t know how to stop. 

“Shane.” Erika’s voice cuts through the rapidly worsening spin of Shane’s thoughts, and he turns towards her, relieved and grateful. 

His chest still feels tight, like there’s something wrapped around it, further restricting his already difficult breathing, but it eases slightly at the distraction offered by the serious look on Erika’s face. It makes Shane realize just how dangerously close he’d been to working himself up into a panic attack in front of everyone, but he pushes that knowledge away as firmly as he can. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks instead. “Did someth—”

“No, sorry,” Erika cuts him off, shaking her head as she comes to a stop between Yakov and Rozanov. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Thank Christ, Shane thinks. He already feels so precariously close to the edge, struggling to keep all the threads of this fucking awful situation pulled tightly to his chest. He can’t deal with anything new—or, well, he could, he will, if he has to, but. 

It’s nice to not have to. 

“No,” Erika continues, “it’s just— Carter and I were talking to Troy—”

Barrett? Shane thinks, fighting not to frown as, almost like he’d been summoned by the sound of his own name, Vaughn suddenly appears at Erika’s shoulder. He looks past them both, to where they’d both been sitting, and sure enough, there’s Troy Barrett. He looks strangely small, sitting there, alone. A blanket wrapped protectively, defensively around himself. 

He’s only eighteen, Shane suddenly remembers, and turns to look at Rozanov before he can think better of it. Rozanov isn’t looking at Shane though—he’d apparently had the same impulse as Shane had, is looking past Vaughn and Erika, towards Barrett. He’s frowning, and Shane wonders if he’s thinking the same thing that Shane is. If he’s also remembering what it had felt like, to be an eighteen-year-old rookie; so much younger than everyone else in the locker room. Younger than most of the other rookies even. 

Shane shakes the thought off, because he has to. Because Erika is still speaking, explaining—

“So they might know where we are?” Shane asks as what she’s saying fully registers. “Like, exactly where we are?” 

Erika shrugs, an apologetic look on her face. 

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know if it— if it activated properly. If it’s still working. But I do know that we were still on our original flight path, when we started to go down. There wasn’t any other airport nearby that we could try and divert towards. It was Moscow or the forest, so…” she trails off, shrugs again. “I don’t know when exactly the pilots were last in contact with anyone else, if they got a message out to air traffic control or another plane, but—”

“—even if they didn’t, we’re still in the area that they’ll look first,” Shane finishes for her as the full implication of what she’s been saying washes over him.

Erika nods, and even with how difficult Shane often finds it to read other people’s expressions, it’s easy enough to see the relief in her eyes. 

It isn’t perfect—it isn’t like they know for certain that anyone knows where they are—but it’s something. There isn’t any way that they won’t try looking for them—Shane knows that, at least, for certain. Not with how many professional athletes had been on their plane, not with the fact that they’d all been headed to the Olympics; ugly, but true. 

And it means that it’s less a question of if they’ll be found, but when. It means that they’re not looking at months of being out here, of being stranded in the boreal forest, struggling to survive. It means that they’re looking at days, not weeks.

Days. Shane can do days. 

He can keep it together for a few more days. 

He can keep them all together.

Shane obviously isn’t the only one feeling buoyed by Erika’s revelation. Vaughn is practically bouncing on his toes next to her, though the way that his smile sits on his face—just a bit too wide, a bit too wild—gives away that Shane also isn’t the only one who’s close to the edge. 

“So, Cap?” Vaughn asks. “We’re all fed and watered—what’s next?” 

Days, Shane thinks again. It doesn’t actually change much—they still need more firewood, still need to start making more potable water. Still need to be careful with their food, because Shane would rather be rescued with food to spare than to run out completely. Still nothing he can do, about the fact that at least one more person will probably die before they’re found. 

It doesn’t change much. 

It changes everything. 

Shane answers Vaughn’s too-wide grin with one of his own. 

“We need more firewood,” he says. “And to start boiling snow.” 

“Oh!” Erika says, eyes going wide. “I can actually help with that.” Her cheeks darken as Vaughn turns to look at her, but she doesn’t falter, continuing: “There’s an axe, up in the cockpit.”

“Erika,” Rozanov says, voice somber, “when we are rescued, I am nominating you for Order of Canada.” 

Shane turns to look at him, incredulous. “Seriously? How— why do you know what that is?” 

Rozanov, the fucking bastard, just winks, and refuses to say anything else. 

Shane doesn’t notice that Rozanov had slipped away until he hears him yell. 

“Shane! Yakov! Подойдите. С ним что-то не так.” 

Shane’s head whips up, eyes frantically searching, scanning the hold for—

There.

Near the back of the hold. Rozanov and Barrett, facing off with Dominic Riley. Team Canada. Speed skating. He looked furious, fists clenched at his sides as he took a step towards the other two men. Shane stands, abandoning the first aid kit he’d been in the middle of re-sorting. Barrett moves at the same time, stepping forward to put himself between Riley and Rozanov, hands up in a silent gesture of surrender. 

Shane turns, and finds Yakov also standing, his eyes wide with the same alarm that Shane feels rapidly rising in his chest, his heartbeat pounding in his ears as a wave of adrenaline surges through him. Yakov turns, meets Shane’s eyes, and they don’t need to share a language for Shane to know that they’re thinking the exact same thing. 

They turn back towards the argument happening on the other side of the hold, just in time to watch Riley punch Barrett in the face. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

Shane’s already moving, not even thinking about it as he jumps over people and seat cushions alike. Moving like he’s on the ice, instinct and muscle memory, his eyes seeing and his body reacting before his brain has even finished processing what he’s looking at. Aware, the way he is of his wingers, that Yakov is moving with him, flanking him as they rush across the room. 

Barrett falls down, and Rozanov tackles Riley to the ground. 

There’s only a few metres left between them, and Shane crosses them in seconds. 

Riley and Rozanov are twisting together on the ground, Riley’s movements wild and animalistic as he attempts to throw Rozanov off of him. It’s unthinking, desperate, and probably the only reason that Ilya hasn’t fully succeeded in pinning him down. Rozanov is bigger than him, likely stronger too, but Riley clearly isn’t thinking about that. Isn’t seeking leverage, or any way to use his smaller size to his advantage; just throwing muscle against muscle, in a fight he can’t win. 

“What the fuck?” Shane says, dropping to his knees. He doesn’t wait for an answer, grabbing one of Riley’s arms and pinning it to the ground. 

“He got very angry, out of nowhere,” Rozanov says, voice tight with the effort of trying to keep the struggling man pinned. “Hit Barrett.” 

“Out of nowhere?” Shane snaps, disbelieving. “You weren’t provoking him?” 

Yeah fucking right. Shane knew this was a stressful situation, but there’d been no sign from any of the survivors of growing tension—the type of tension that could spill over into violence. Not from Riley. Not from anyone. 

Everything had been fine. Everything had been fine.

Rozanov’s grip slackens for a second, and Shane grits his teeth, redoubling his own efforts to keep Riley down, whose own thrashing has increased in response to the brief moment of reprieve offered by Rozanov faltering. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Shane sees Yakov move into position, dropping to his knees next to Riley’s head. The part of Shane that isn’t focused on Riley notes that he’s situated himself safely out of the range of Riley’s thrashing limbs. 

Good, Shane thinks, and moves the entirety of his attention onto Riley. 

Now that he was closer, Shane could see even more clearly just how thoughtless RIley’s struggling was. It was like the other man wasn’t even in his own head, his eyes wide, manic as he fought against their hold. 

“Riley!” Shane says, trying, without much hope, to snap the other man out of it. “Christ, dude, calm down. What are you doing?” 

Riley’s breathing is far more laboured than can be justified by their brief struggle, Shane realizes, and his heart sinks. 

There’s something wrong. More wrong than he’d thought, because this isn’t anger—or at least, it isn’t just anger. 

Yakov and Rozanov are speaking, a sharp back and forth in Russian that Shane mostly ignores, focused on the man beneath them. 

Riley’s skin is soaked with sweat—which really isn’t helping them keep him pinned to the ground—but despite that, it doesn’t seem like he’s overheating. The opposite, really. His skin has an almost bluish tint to it, like he’s so cold that all his blood vessels are shrinking in response. But that’s usually limited to your lips, maybe your hands and feet if it’s really bad. This is—this is all over. 

He’s not getting enough oxygen, Shane thinks. 

“Riley,” Rozanov says, the sound of English finally pulling some measure of Shane’s attention back towards him. “You need to stop moving. You are sick, okay? You need to let Yakov listen to your breathing.” 

Shit. Shane had been right. Another bright burst of adrenaline spikes through him as he frantically runs through the things that he knows might be causing him to not get enough air. 

Inflammation in the airway. Asthma. Pneumonia. Pulmonary embolism. Respiratory infection. Pulmonary hypertension.

All bad.

“I’m fucking fine,” Riley snaps out, but it’s not even close to convincing. 

His breathing is worse than ever, though at least it does seem that whatever brief burst of anger had led him to punch Barrett, to fight Rozanov and Shane’s, is finally fading. That, or he’s just running out of energy, his strength sapped by the lack of oxygen. 

“Fuck,” Shane says under his breath as the realization hits him. 

That’s why he’d gotten so angry. Not because Rozanov or Barrett had said something to him, but because his brain isn’t getting enough oxygen, right along with the rest of him. His rage just another symptom of hypoxia, no different than the cyanosis staining his skin. 

Rozanov and Yakov are speaking again. With Riley no longer fighting as hard against his grip, Shane chances a quick, gauging look towards Yakov. There’s not much to see there though—the paramedic has just as tightly a controlled grip on his expression as he has every time Shane has looked at him over the body of a patient. 

“Fuck,” Rozanov bites out, and Shane’s eyes slide to him. His familiar face is far easier to read, but Shane’s growing dread only doubles at the look on his face. 

Ilya is scared. 

Fuck.

They eventually convince Riley to sit up, the last of the fight draining from him as if it had never been there. The passiveness is almost more scary than the aggression. Maybe only because it was such an abrupt and complete reversal—going from fighting with everything he had to shake them off to just… sitting there. Giving no reaction to the feeling of Yakov’s stethoscope travelling over his chest in a pattern Shane recognizes from the day before—from it being traced on his own body. 

“Напряженный пневмоторакс,” Yakov says as he finishes, leaning back and returning his stethoscope to its home around his neck. “В плевральную полость попал воздух, из-за этого случился коллапс легкого. Может привести к остановке сердца, если ничего не делать."

His expression is still careful, professional. Giving nothing away.

Rozanov’s does. 

Another surge of anxiety and adrenaline rushes through Shane, and he distantly wonders how that’s even possible—surely, at some point, he’d run out of both. Surely there was a limit to how much fear he could feel. To how much adrenaline his body could produce. 

“What?” Shane asks when neither man says anything else. “What did he say?”

Rozanov swallows in an attempt to stall, or maybe in a fruitless effort to pull himself together. 

It would be terrifying, if Shane hadn’t already been certain that whatever is happening is bad. That whatever Rozanov is going to say will mean nothing good for Riley—might very well be a death sentence. 

“He has air in chest,” Rozanov says, confirming the worst of Shane’s fears. “One of his lungs is collapsed.” 

“Fuck,” Shane says. 

“That’s bad, right?” Riley asks, the first sign he’s given since sitting up that he’s following along with anything happening around him. Shane looks at him, no idea how to answer. It’s the same sort of helplessness that he’d felt the day before, when Maya had asked him the same question. Knowing only that his immediate response—the certainty that her broken femur had meant that she was going to die—wasn’t something he should voice out loud. Shouldn’t voice out loud now, either. 

Maya hadn’t died though. She was still alive, somewhere behind him. Splinted and immobile, sure, but with a pedal pulse that hadn’t wavered once. Her odds of living to be rescued were as good as they could hope for, and far better than Shane had first thought.

Shane had been wrong.

Maybe he’ll be wrong this time, too, as he looks at Riley and thinks you’re going to die. 

Maybe. Maybe. 

It is, of course, just when Shane is halfway to convincing himself that Riley might survive this that Riley falls sideways, abruptly and completely unconscious. 

Fuck, Shane thinks as Yakov says something to Rozanov that has him leaping to his feet, taking off towards the front of the hold. 

“На его спине,” Yakov says, gesturing over Riley’s crumpled form. “Быстро.”

Shane moves as fast as he can, scrambling over the seat cushions to trade places with Yakov. Curling his hands under Riley’s armpits, Shane lifts Riley up, using his knees to shove away the cushions that Riley had been sitting on, then lays him back down on the bare metal floor of the hold. At his feet, Yakov does the same thing, pushing away the cushions and straightening out his legs so that they end up with Riley stretched out between them, supine. 

“Порви футболку,” Yakov says, making a motion in the air like he’s taking hold of something, then pulling it apart. “Мне нужен доступ к грудной клетке.”

Shane nods, understanding the gesture if not the words.

Reaching down, he takes a handful of the front of Riley’s shirt in each fist, raising the fabric off his skin before yanking his hands in opposite directions. 

He’s relieved when the thin, sweat-soaked fabric gives quickly, though not easily, staying intact at the collar and hem. Pushing himself upwards, Shane leans over, across Riley’s torso, grabbing either side of the newly split fabric just above the hem. He repeats his earlier motion, now with a better grip, pulling them apart hard and fast. 

The extra leverage is enough—the hem tears in half. 

Shane drops the two edges of the shirt, letting the fabric slide off Riley’s chest. The collar is still intact, and the sleeves, but it’s good enough, giving them full access to Riley’s chest and sides. He doesn’t have time to do anything else anyways before Rozanov is back, dropping to the ground before he’s come to a full stop, sending him skidding into place near Riley’s head, the big black med kit gripped tightly in his white-knuckled hands.

Yakov stands, catching Shane’s eye as he moves. “Пульс,” he says, tapping two fingers against the side of his neck. Shane looks down, mirroring the motion on Riley’s neck. It’s easy to see where he should be putting his fingers—Riley’s neck veins are distended, standing out round and luridily blue against the rest of his blue-grey skin.

The ease makes it worse, when he pushes his fingers just in front of the largest, and feels nothing. 

Shane adjusts, trying a different spot, laying down another finger, distantly aware of Rozanov setting the kit onto the ground next to him, snapping the claps open. Of Yakov kneeling back down, next to Riley’s side. Shane looks up when Yakov settles, catching Yakov’s eye and shaking his head. 

A silent confirmation: no pulse.

“Блядство,” Yakov says, then puts his hands together, miming a motion that doesn’t require translation, nodding his head towards Riley. “Да?”

“Yeah,” Shane says, breath catching in his throat as he moves from kneeling above Riley’s head to the left side of his chest. On the other side of Riley, Yakov and Rozanov are talking—

“Иглы,” Yakov says, “мне нужна игла.” 

“Ебаный пиздец,” Rozanov says.

—but Shane does his best to block them out, focusing instead on locating the right spot on Riley’s chest. Follow the nipple line, find the base of the sternum, Shane thinks, and places the heel of his right hand against Riley’s bare skin. He puts his left hand over top of it, interlacing his fingers, curling his left hand around towards his palm but leaving the right hand splayed out. Elbows straight, shoulders centered above his hands. 

100 to 120 beats per minute, Shane thinks, and tries very, very hard not to think about the fact that he’s never done this on anything other than a mannequin. Focuses, instead, on the rest of the directions: Push to a third of the chest’s depth. Lift off fully between compressions.

Shane glances up, wanting to check—hoping for a nod of approval or something, anything to reassure him that he’s not about to make this all worse—but Yakov isn’t looking at him. His attention is locked on the inside of the med kit, Rozanov holding the top half clear as Yakov’s eyes flick rapidly over the carefully organized supplies. Shane watches long enough to see Yakov reach in with his good hand and pick up one of the smaller plastic containers, grabbing a pair of nitrile gloves with his other hand in the same motion, before he returns his attention to the bare chest stretched out beneath him. 

One, Shane thinks, and pushes down. 

He’s vaguely aware of the conversation happening next to him—

“Что он делает?”

“Реанимирует.”

“А легкие—”

“Чем быстрее сделаем прокол, тем больше шансов, что он сможет дышать сам.”

“Блять.”

“Здесь должна быть игла с катетером, в идеале четырнадцатого или шестнадцатого калибра. Пятисантиметровая.”

—but it would be background noise even if he spoke the language, Shane’s focus narrowing onto the numbers muttered under his breath, to ensuring he reaches the correct depth with each compression. 

It doesn’t feel any different than doing it on a mannequin, and then, between one compression and the next, it feels nothing like a mannequin as something beneath Shane’s hands breaks, snapping, or maybe popping, coming loose, under the pressure. He can feel it collapsing under his hands, fracturing and spreading. It’s a horrible feeling, but one he’d been expecting—he knew that CPR frequently results in the sternum dislocating, or the ribs breaking. 

It’s the next compression that has him swallowing the taste of bile.

The mannequin he’d trained on had been firm—hard plastic, with just enough give to allow them to accurately perform the required depth, to measure whether they were hitting the right pace. The first few compressions on Riley had been the same, the firm resistance of muscle and bone a surprisingly accurate mirror to the mannequin. 

The next time Shane pushes down he meets no resistance. It’s… soft, his hand sinking easily into the centre of Riley’s chest. Pushing past where he’s broken apart cartilage or bone or both—forcing him to abruptly shift his calculation from whether he’d gone deep enough to whether he’d gone too deep. 

Six, Shane thinks, and tries desperately not to think about anything else. 

Seven.

Eight.

Movement, and Shane glances up to see Rozanov with a needle in one hand, looking between Yakov and the gloves the other man is holding out towards him. 

“Надевай перчатки,” Yakov says.

“Чего?” Rozanov says. “Схуяли я?”

“Некогда переводить,” Yakov says with an impatient shake of the gloves. “Надо действовать быстро, иначе он труп.”

Shane watches Rozanov take the gloves, his expression distant, like he isn’t really seeing what’s in front of him, even as his hands quickly work to pull them on. 

“What?” Shane asks, not daring to say anything else. Not sure he can, without losing count. His eyes flick between Rozanov and Yakov, before refocusing on the chest collapsing beneath his hands. 

“Is no time for translation,” Rozanov says, voice completely flat. 

“To translat—” Shane starts to ask, before cutting himself off, the answer obvious. 

There’s no time to translate what needs to be done next. 

A needle. Gloves. A collapsed lung. No pulse. 

Yakov was going to have Ilya try a needle decompression.

Shane swallows, watching in brief flicks of his eyes as Rozanov opens the needle's packaging. His hands are shaking, so slight that Shane could easily have missed it, if his eyes weren’t being drawn, again and again, to the movement of Rozanov’s fingers as he carefully turns the needle, attaching it to the syringe he’d picked up at some point. It’s one of the ones from the IV kit—one with a catheter attached. 

“Вот здесь,” Yakov says, pointing at a spot on Riley’s side, just above one of his ribs. “Дави по направлению к головке ребра. Если почувствуешь щелчок или давить станет легче, прекращай.”

Rozanov nods in reply, moving closer to Riley’s side, his face pale as he positions the needle where Yakov had pointed. 

“Стоп,” Yakov says, holding a hand out towards Shane, palm out, and when Shane raises out of his next compression he keeps going—lifting his hands until they’re suspended in the open air above Riley’s chest. 

Shane’s own breathing rattles in his ears in the sudden stillness. He’s abruptly aware, in a way that he hadn’t been before, of just how hard he’s breathing. Of the way his shirt is sticking to his back beneath his jacket, soaked with sweat after what couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes of compressions at the most. 

On Riley’s other side, Rozanov takes a deep breath, and goes completely still.

The slight trembling in his hands stops as if it had never been there, the tension that had been pulling his muscles taut giving way to a different tension; the anticipation of movement, not fear. It's a stillness Shane recognizes from the ice; from the moment before Rozanov pulls off something that no one else in the league would be able to do. 

“Медленно, но верно,” Yakov says. “Дави посильнее, не сомневайся.”

Rozanov breathes out, and pushes the needle forward. There’s a moment where it’s clear that he’s not using enough force, and Yakov opens his mouth to correct him, but Rozanov adjusts before he can get so much as a word out, his arm shifting as he puts more pressure behind it, and the needles slips smoothly and easily into Riley’s skin. 

“Хорошо,” Yakov says, “продолжаем.”

The needle moves deeper, and Shane can see the moment it hits the pleura; given away by the minute twitch in Rozanov’s hand, the only sign of a sudden decrease in resistance.

“Хватит,” Yakov says. “Теперь оттяни поршень.”

Rozanov pulls back on the syringe, and Shane feels himself sway with relief at the sight of air filling the empty tube, the small amount of blood that accompanies it barely enough to form even a faint film on the clear plastic. Yakov’s own relief is just as clearly written on his face, and he nods, reassuring, in reply to the scared, questioning look Rozanov shoots at him. 

“Отлично,” he says, “То, что нужно.”

It’s Rozanov’s turn to have relief wash over his face in response to whatever Yakov just told him. 

“Так, убирай катетер с иглы,” Yakov says, pointing at the catheter and making a sliding motion towards Riley’s chest.

Rozanov follows his directions, pushing the catheter down until it’s flush with Riley’s skin. 

“Молодец,” Yakov says, his eyes intent, fixed on each minute movement of Rozanov’s hands. “Теперь доставай иглу.”

Rozanov pulls the needle free of Riley’s chest, leaving the catheter behind.

There’s no missing it, the sound obvious the second the needle and syringe are removed. Far louder than Shane would have guessed it would be; proof that Rozanov had placed the catheter exactly where it needed to be. 

The hiss of air, escaping. 

“Пульс,” Yakov says, meeting Shane’s eyes while tapping the side of his own neck. 

Shane reaches down, pressing his fingers against the side of Riley’s neck. Adjusts, adding another finger. Adjusts again. 

“Fuck,” he hisses, and moves back into position, locking his hands together. 

“Shane…” Rozanov says, but Shane ignores him. He doesn’t have time to look at him. To wonder about the strained, scared tone that stains his voice as he says Shane’s name. The clock is ticking—has been ticking. Is running out. 

One, Shane thinks, and pushes down. 

Two.

Three.

“Switch,” Rozanov says, voice rough. Shane doesn’t know when he moved, didn’t notice when he’d come around to kneel next to Shane.

Shane lifts his hands, half-collapsing to the side to get out of Rozanov’s way. He’s panting, his skin soaked with sweat. He watches as Rozanov, face set into a stony mask that gives nothing away, takes the same position that Shane had just occupied. The way he shapes his arms and hands a perfect echo of Shane’s previous stance. 

“Раз,” Rozanov whispers, and pushes down. 

“Switch,” Shane says. 

“Switch,” Rozanov says. 

“Pulse check,” Shane says, and Rozanov pauses just long enough for Shane to press his fingers against Riley’s throat. To register the lack of even the faintest sign of movement beneath the pads of his fingers. He swallows. “Switch,” he says. 

“Switch.” 

“Switch.”

“Switch.”

“Swi—”

“Все, хватит,” Yakov says, his arm swinging out in front of Shane, blocking him from moving back into the spot that Rozanov had already begun to vacate as soon as Shane had spoken. “Прекращайте. Он уже мертв.”

Shane ignores him, pushing into Rozanov’s space, forcing him to make room for him. Yakov’s outstretched hand is still blocking him from Riley’s chest. Shave shoves it out of the way, locks his own hands together.

Constant, consistent compressions were key. You can’t stop for longer than it takes to check for a pulse. The brain needs blood to keep circulating through it to avoid neural deficits. In the absence of a heart beating on its own, it’s up to the people performing CPR to ensure the continued perfusion of blood through the brain. 

They can’t stop. Shane can’t stop. Not until Riley’s heart starts beating on its own again. 

He can’t stop. 

Yakov’s hand moves back into view before Shane can resume compressions, hovering over Riley’s chest and keeping Shane from putting his hands down. Shane pushes it away again, rougher this time. 

“Hollander—” Rozanov starts, but Shane cuts him off before he can say anything else.

“Stop it,” he says, not sure if he’s talking to Yakov or Rozanov or both of them. 

Shane’s voice comes out thin and breathy; nothing like the firm, commanding tone he’d been aiming for. He doesn’t have enough air for anything else though, his shoulders heaving with how hard he’s breathing. He’d compare it to getting double shifted, except in this case, he did have a break. It just wasn’t long enough for him to catch his breath, not after so many rounds of compressions. His own heart was pounding in his chest, and he could feel the sweat running down his spine. 

Shane puts his hands back into position. Yakov’s hand isn’t blocking him this time.

“Shane,” Rozanov says, his voice so gentle it sets Shane’s teeth on edge. 

Rozanov hasn’t moved out of the way he has each previous time they’ve swapped. He’s still kneeling right next to Riley’s side, barely a handful of inches of empty air keeping him and Shane from touching. He’s breathing almost as hard as Shane is, and Shane can see, out of the corner of his eye, that Rozanov’s hair is stuck to his forehead, soaked through with sweat. 

Shane’s shoulders tense as he prepares to push down, but he doesn’t get the chance before two large hands suddenly shoot into his line of sight, taking hold of his forearms. He tries to keep pushing anyways, but Rozanov’s grip is like steel despite the awkward angle, his fingers digging into Shane’s skin with how hard he’s holding on. Shane whips his head around to face him instead, suddenly furious. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Shane hisses, a breathless demand. “We can’t stop. He’ll die if we stop.” 

“Shane,” Rozanov says, his face collapsing into an expression that makes something in Shane’s own chest crumple in an instinctive reply. “It’s done.” 

“No,” Shane says, and he means it, but the word still comes out without conviction. Like whatever fell apart in Shane’s chest at the look on Rozanov’s face took out the foundations of every bit of Shane’s determination with it; his certainty that they could do this falling to rubble inside of him.

“It’s over,” Rozanov says, forcing the point. Pushing. 

He’s always fucking pushing, Shane thinks furiously, wildly. Why can’t he ever just— 

“He’s dead,” Rozanov says, even more bluntly, and just as suddenly as it appeared, all of Shane’s anger disappears, draining from him as if it had never even been there.  

“No,” Shane says again, but the word comes out somewhere between a gasp and a sob, and Shane feels himself collapsing back onto the ground, falling away from Riley as his arms go limp in Rozanov’s grip. 

“I’m sorry,” Rozanov whispers, his hold on Shane’s arms shifting, gentling. 

Shane barely hears it, eyes fixed on the sight of Riley lying spread out on the cold, unforgiving metal floor of the hold. 

His skin is pale, still with that same blue tinge that had been one of the first signs that Shane had had that something was seriously wrong with him. The catheter, the one that Ilya had—implausibly, incredibly—placed correctly, is still inside of him. The thing that had allowed all the air filling his chest to escape, relieving the pressure on his heart. Giving it room to begin beating again.

Now, the catheter is silent. There’s no air left in Riley’s chest to be released. There’s no air in his good lung either. There never will be again. 

Shane’s hand is shaking as he reaches out, trying to pick up one side of Riley’s shirt—the shirt that Shane had so hastily, roughly, carelessly, torn apart. He pulls the fabric up and over, covering one side of Riley’s chest, but when he lets it go to grab the other side, it just slides right back off. Leaving Riley, again, wholly exposed. 

“Fuck,” Shane says, his voice sounding weirdly distant to his own ears, muffled. Shane’s chest aches, and he isn’t sure if it's because he’s still breathing harder than he should be or if it’s something else—something worse. If maybe he’s now the one who’s dying. Shane’s eyes are burning too, but he blinks away the tears that are threatening to form at the corner of his eyes, refusing to let himself give in to the thousand shards of emotion sliding through his veins. 

It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. He can’t fall apart. Not now. Not after everything he’s done to keep himself together in front of everyone else—to keep them calm by keeping himself calm. 

In front of everyone else, Shane thinks, freezing in horror. 

He doesn’t want to look. He wants to shove his head into Ilya’s side and let the smell of the other man’s sweat overwhelm every one of his other senses. To close his eyes and lose himself in the darkness, the solid warmth of the man sitting next to him. 

He wants to never speak to anyone else ever again. 

He wants to disappear. 

But Shane has always understood the limits of the overlap between what he wants and what he can have. 

Shane turns, and looks out towards the rest of the hold. 

Shane meets Barrett’s eyes first, and he realizes with a sudden surge of guilt that he hadn’t thought about the teenager once since he’d ran past him to get to Riley and Rozanov. 

Barrett’s eyes are wide, scared, and it takes Shane longer than it should to move past that, to register the way that Barrett is standing. 

He’s moved, now standing in a spot that is closer to the middle of the hold than where he’d been the last time Shane had seen him, sprawled out on the floor after Riley had punched him. His body is facing outwards, towards the front of the hold, and he’s only managing to meet Shane’s eyes because he’s looking back over his shoulder at them. 

His arms are outstretched, as if to try and block other people from seeing the three of them kneeling around Riley’s body. As if he’s trying to stop anyone from coming any closer. But there’s no one trying to move past him. There’s not even anyone within touching distance.

There should be, Shane realizes, his mind running backwards. Mapping out the locations of the survivors from the last time he’d taken a look around the whole hold, when he’d been searching for Rozanov, comparing his memory against the present. 

There had been at least five people that had been closer to them than there were now. Searching them out now, Shane sees that all five of them are standing a handful of feet past Barrett. They’re clustered together, as if they’d moved away as a group and hadn’t wanted to split up afterwards. 

Or like they were moved as a group, Shane thinks, attention returning to Barrett, to the protective, defensive position he’s taken up between them and the rest of the hold.

Shane isn’t sure if what he’s feeling right now is gratitude, guilt, or some nauseating mix of the two. He’d been chasing the puck. He’d lost sight of the ice, of the play, and had left an eighteen-year-old kid to pick up the pieces. 

The hold is utterly silent save for the too-loud sound of both Shane and Rozanov still trying to catch their breaths. There isn’t a single person who isn’t looking their way. Shock and fear splashed across each of their faces. As clear and stark as a spray of blood against an otherwise-pristine sheet of ice. 

They’d all been here. They’d all seen it. 

They’d all watched Riley die.

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

Shane opens his mouth, hoping that by taking the first gesture towards speaking, the right words will somehow come to him. They don’t, and he closes his mouth without making so much as a sound. He turns, looking back towards Rozanov, but he looks just as lost as Shane feels. Just as shaken by the sudden awareness of the audience they should never have forgotten about. 

“Переведи для меня,” Yakov says, pushing himself to his feet. 

“Что?” Rozanov says, a question in his voice as he swings his head towards the paramedic. Seeing the other man standing, Rozanov drags himself to his feet, Shane following a beat behind. 

They trail after Yakov as he moves forward, until he’s standing next to Barrett, who looks between the three of them, his eyes still wide and scared and so, so young. 

Yakov gives him a nod, a small, reassuring smile on his face, and Barrett drops his arms. He shifts in place, as if he’s not sure if he should do anything else—if he should maybe move to the other side of the invisible line that he had created across the hold—but Yakov is turning away from him before Barrett seems to reach a decision. With Yakov’s attention off of him, Barrett ends up just staying where he is, Yakov standing at one shoulder, Shane and Rozanov at the other.

“Мне очень жаль, что вам пришлось это увидеть,” Yakov says, projecting his voice out over the hold. It’s somehow loud enough to reach every corner of the room without rising to a shout, calm and even. Despite not knowing what he’s saying, Shane can practically see the way that his tone alone is enough to release a small measure of the suffocating tension filling the air. 

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Rozanov says. Like Yakov, Rozanov’s voice easily carries across the room, though it doesn’t quite manage to bring with it the same diffusion of tension that Yakov had managed. His voice too close to a shout—too strained, too shaky—to be anything close to comforting. 

Well, to anyone except maybe Shane, who has to hook his thumbs into his pockets to stop himself from giving into the abrupt, bizarre urge to grab Rozanov’s hand. 

“В результате аварии легкие Райли пострадали, в его грудную клетку попал воздух—” Yakov says, clear and calm, and Shane forces all other thoughts from his head, focusing on the steadying cadence of his voice.

“Riley’s lungs were hurt, when the plane went down, and because of it, air got into his chest—” Rozanov says, making a gesture towards his own chest. 

 “И поэтому у одного из легких случился—”

“This made one of his lungs collapse,” Rozanov says. 

“Мозгу не хватало кислорода, поэтому он начал вести себя агрессивно,” Yakov continues.

“His brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen,” Rozanov translates, “which is why he punched Barrett.” The explanation earns Rozanov a startled look from Barrett, which he ignores. 

“Все это привело к дополнительной нагрузке на сердце и, в конечном итоге, его остановке—” Yakov continues, also ignoring Barrett’s reaction.

Though, judging by the wary look he shoots towards Rozanov, Shane thinks that Yakov might share Shane’s suspicion—that there might have been some embellishment happening on that last part of Rozanov’s translation.

Not that Rozanov appears any more bothered by Yakov’s reaction than Barrett’s, continuing to translate:

“This put pressure on his heart and made it stop—” 

“Мы попытались снизить давление с помощью декомпрессии—”

“We tried to remove pressure with…” 

Rozanov trails off, turning towards Shane, openly trying to catch his eye. It’s an unambiguous gesture, Rozanov making no attempt to hide the fact that he’s looking for Shane to fill in the gaps in his English. 

Shane kinda wants to throw up, at the trust that Rozanov is again so casually placing on him. 

“We attempted a needle decompression,” Shane says instead, raising his voice so that everyone can hear him, though he doesn’t look away from Rozanov as he speaks. “It was successful,” he continues. “We were able to release the air that was putting pressure on his lungs and his heart,” he finishes, and finally manages to tear his eyes away from Rozanov, looking out over the scattered crowd in front of them. 

The shock and fear is still there, easy to read on the faces spread out before them, but it’s less frenetic than it had been when Shane had first looked around the room. The immediacy of the emotion is slowly retreating from the room like the fear is a tide, steadily pulling further and further away from shore. Each passing second, each steadying word, siphoning away more and more of the tension, bit by bit and piece by piece. 

Shane turns, leaning forward slightly to catch a glimpse of Yakov past Rozanov and Barrett. He’s surprised to find the other man already looking back at him, a curious expression on his face, and—

Oh. Right. Of course. Shane had kind of just… jumped in and started talking.

Shane ignores the way he can feel heat beginning to spread across his face, nodding towards Yakov. The heat expands to his ears as the implication behind the gesture belatedly registers—nodding, as if the other man needs his permission to speak. 

Yakov, at least, doesn’t seem to take any offense, offering Shane a nod of his own in return before turning his attention back to the rest of the room. 

“У нас получилось, и мы смогли удалить лишний воздух из грудной клетки Райли,” Yakov says.

“What he said,” Rozanov says, gesturing at Shane. He ignores the startled look that Shane gives him, turning back to Yakov instead, expectant, but Yakov just frowns back at him, clearly confused.

“Шейн уже это сказал,” Rozanov says, and the confusion clears from Yakov’s face, and he again returns his attention to the other survivors. 

“Но, к сожалению, несмотря на все проведенные реанимационные мероприятия, нам так и не удалось снова запустить его сердце,” Yakov says.

“Unfortunately, we could not get Riley’s heart to start again,” Rozanov says, and Shane wonders if the twist of pain in Ilya’s voice is as obvious to everyone else as it is to him. “We tried very hard,” Rozanov continues. “I am sorry.” 

There’s no way for Shane to know this, but he’s certain anyways: that last bit had been entirely Rozanov. 

Shane pulls his thumbs free of his pockets so that he can shove his whole hands inside them instead. The soft cotton is a flimsy barrier, one that doesn’t feel half as strong as it needs to be to hold back the force with which the urge to grab Rozanov once again strikes Shane, but it’s all he has. 

Well, that and the dozens of pairs of eyes that are on them, once Shane belatedly remembers that they have an audience—that he’s not the only one witnessing Ilya’s pain. 

It’s a thought that should help, but it almost makes it worse instead. Shane wants to grab Rozanov. He wants to drag him away. To take him outside, to where there’s no one else to witness him, to judge him. 

They shouldn’t get to see him like this, Shane thinks. No one else should get to see him like this. 

It’s an insane thought to follow what was already an insane urge, but Shane still has to dig his nails into his palms to stop himself from following through with it. 

“Vaughn,” Yakov says, the careful way he says the name a jarring contrast to how smoothly he’d been speaking, and a welcome distraction from whatever the fuck Shane’s brain is doing.

Vaughn straightens at the sound of his name, looking between Yakov and Rozanov, but Yakov doesn’t say anything else, just tilts his head in the direction of the tarps covering the front of the hold—a silent command that requires no translation. Vaughn nods, saying something to Erika, speaking too quietly for Shane to catch what he’s saying, before standing and heading towards the front of the hold. 

Shane begins to head in the same direction, vaguely aware that Rozanov is following just a step behind him, but he doesn’t get far before he’s brought up short by the sound of Yakov’s voice from behind him. Turning, Shane sees that Barrett hasn’t moved, Rozanov and Yakov now strung out between them, with both Rozanov and Yakov looking at the rookie. Shane can’t see anything but the back of their heads, but he can see Barrett’s face, the confusion spelled out across his features as clear an indication as any that whatever Yakov had said, it had been directed at him. Sure enough:

“You too, Barrett,” Rozanov translates.

Barrett opens his mouth, as if to argue, but he closes it without saying anything, and when Yakov turns and begins walking again, it's with Barrett following just behind. 

Vaughn has already reached the front of the hold by the time they catch up with him, and it's standing in a small cluster to the side of the entrance to the hold that Yakov outlines what comes next. 

Shane has to swallow back the urge to argue, held back mostly by the way that the pain in his chest has failed to dissipate even though his breathing has all but returned to normal—or at least, what has passed as normal since the crash. With some distance, he doesn’t think he’s actually dying, but he can admit—even if only begrudgingly and in the privacy of his own head—that Yakov and Rozanov might, maybe, have a point about him avoiding further exertion. 

Maybe.

Still, it stings, to stand by and do nothing—waiting with Yakov and Barrett as Vaughn and Rozanov grab one of the leftover tarps and take it over to Riley’s body. There’s a painful care written into the way that they move him, and Shane has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop the sting of tears that again threaten at the corners of his eyes. 

Most of the survivors are looking away, Shane notices, so he forces himself to watch instead. To bear witness as Riley disappears inside the dark blue embrace of the tarp, an inelegant and insufficient funeral shroud, but still the best they can do. Better than they’ve done for anyone else.

It’s obvious how much of a strain it is for Vaughn and Rozanov to pick him up; the literal dead weight of Riley’s body is a challenge even with how strong both Vaughn and Rozanov are. It’s perhaps an even more grotesque reason than the last time Shane had the thought, but still: he’s grateful, that of all the people they could have been stranded with, that so many among them are professional athletes.

No one makes a sound as the small procession carries Riley through the hold, the only movement coming from Shane and Barrett as they move to help hold open the overlapping tarps. No one speaks after they leave either, and though the silence isn’t as full of suffocating fear as it had been before, it’s still heavy—oppressive enough that Shane thought he might be having trouble breathing through it no matter what, lung damage or no lung damage. 

Shane isn’t the only one who flinches, when there’s a clang from above them, the sound of footsteps. He can’t tell if he’s imagining the sound that comes after or not: the thud of something heavy being set down. 

It isn’t until Vaughn and Rozanov squeeze back through the gap in the tarps that Barrett tries to slip away. Once again, he’s stopped by Yakov, whose arm is already outstretched, blocking Barrett’s escape attempt before he manages more than a single step. 

“Нет,” Yakov says, as Barrett looks over at him, eyes wide and startled, then adds, “Карина,” his outstretched arm switching from a blocking motion to a beckoning gesture. Shane follows the line of Yakov’s arm, and finds Karina on the other end. She looks startled to have been addressed, but doesn’t hesitate before she stands and makes her way over to their small group. 

“Нужно подвести итоги,” Yakov says, meeting Karina’s eyes. “Розанов нам тут не помощник, сможешь вместо него?”

“Что?” Rozanov cuts in before Karina has the chance to say anything. “Почему нет?”

“Потому что ты был непосредственным участником,” Yakov says, looking towards Rozanov. “Как и я, Шейн и вон тот шкет, который зыркает как акула.”

 “Кт— Barrett?” Rozanov asks, looking baffled. “Как акула?”

Yakov seems to ignore whatever Rozanov just asked, turning back to Karina instead. “Поможешь?” he asks.

Shane chances a glance at Barrett out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge how the winger is feeling about his name popping up like a bright orange buoy in an otherwise incomprehensible sea of words. 

Like he’s thinking about throwing up, Shane decides, taking in the look on Barrett’s face. There’s a second bruise beginning to form below his eye; a doubling up of the dark purple moon curving beneath his eye. 

“Да, конечно,” Karina says, nodding. 

“Спасибо,” Yakov says, ignoring the scowl Rozanov is now sending his way. His eyes cut towards Vaughn instead, and then back to Karina, so fast Shane nearly misses it. “Спроси у Вогана, он сможет задержаться? Убедиться, чтоб обошлось без…”

Yakov trails off, but Karina finishes for him, her voice dry:

“Паника?” she says, and Shane wonders if that word is anything like what it sounds like—panika. 

There’s no way to tell from Yakov’s reaction. The paramedic doesn’t say anything else, just tilts his head in silent agreement, and Karina huffs out what might have been a laugh, if it hadn’t been so utterly devoid of any real amusement, before turning to Vaughn. Like Yakov, she seems happy to ignore Rozanov—he hasn’t tried to interrupt again, but he’s crossed his arms over his chest and is now glaring at everyone in turn except for Shane and, weirdly, Barrett. 

“Yakov wants to do a debrief,” Karina says to Vaughn. “On the…” she trails off, making a vague gesture towards the back of the hold. “Can you stay here, try and keep people from starting to freak out?”

“This was first time they all see someone die,” Rozanov cuts in. “Will be hard, to keep them calm.” His eyes run up and down Vaughn, cold and judgemental, and Shane can’t help but stare at him, baffled by the sudden turn in Rozanov’s mood. 

Is he seriously that pissy about Karina translating? Shane thinks, disbelieving but unable to come up with any other explanation.

Luckily, Vaughn doesn’t seem phased by it, whether because he’s at least somewhat used to Rozanov or because he’s just generally pretty unflappable—a personality trait that Shane has become both far more aware of, and deeply appreciative of, over the last two days. 

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Vaughn says, nodding towards Rozanov—who just seems even more annoyed by that response—before turning to Karina. “I’ll do my best,” he says, then turns to Shane. 

“I’ll do my best,” he says again, his gaze unwavering as he meets Shane’s eyes.

The words land heavier for their repetition, or maybe because there’s something different about the way that Vaughn says them the second time. Shane can’t put precise words to it but… there’s something there. 

Something that reminds him of every time Vaughn has called Shane Cap ever since the plane went down. An echo of the way that J.J. and Hayden talk to him. 

It’s as surreal as anything else has been in the last two days. Shane, Rozanov, fucking Troy Barrett, of all players, a Russian paramedic, and a Canadian journalist. All bundled up against the cold, standing in a loose circle in the fading daylight, just outside of the shadow cast by the hull of the downed plane they’ve been sheltering inside. 

Shane feels like he hasn’t even fully processed the fact that yet another person has just died, can still feel the fading echoes of compressions running through his arms. And yet here they are, with Karina carefully translating Yakov’s instructions for their impending debrief.

Critical, apparently, after losing a patient. To understand what happened. To process it. To learn from it. To do better next time. 

God. Shane really, really fucking hopes there isn’t a next time. 

“We’ll start with your reaction,” Karina says. “How you are feeling. You don’t need to say much, but everyone needs to say something.” 

Shane can practically see Rozanov swallow down whatever biting thing just leapt into his mind. But he doesn’t speak. 

Somewhat predictably, neither does anyone else. 

Karina looks at Yakov, somewhat helplessly; a silent plea. Yakov huffs out a breath, but speaks. 

“Я расстроен, потому что мы потеряли еще одну жизнь,” he says. “Но доволен вами и тем, как вы справились с этой ситуацией.”

“I am not happy someone else died,” Karina translates. “But I am proud of all of you and how you dealt with it.” 

“Не вините себя, вы все сделали правильно,” Yakov says. “Сам Господь Бог бы лучше не справился. Но мы не боги, иногда люди умирают, и с этим ничего не поделать."

“I want you to know you didn’t do anything wrong,” Karina says. “No one could have done better. Sometimes people die, and there’s nothing you can do to change it.” 

Oh, Shane thinks, blinking rapidly. 

“I’m scared,” Barrett blurts out. Shane doesn’t think he meant to speak, judging by the way that he looks like he kinda wants to bury himself under the snow when they all turn to look at him. Despite this, he squares his shoulders, continues, “I’m scared that other people are going to die.” 

That I’m going to die. Barrett doesn’t say it, but it’s clear enough in the tilt of his jaw, the shine in his eyes, the ways his hands shake. 

Shane can’t stop thinking about how young he is—Shane hasn’t shared the ice with him much, but from what he’s seen of him, the guy is an asshole, and not in the mostly annoying but occasionally fun way that Rozanov is. As much as Shane hates to admit it, Rozanov’s chirps, while aggravating and often brutally specific, aren’t cruel or hateful. The same can’t be said for Barrett; Shane’s spent most of his life hearing slurs casually tossed around the locker room and the ice like they’re nothing, but with how often Barrett spits out homophobic shit, you’d think he was trying to boost a stat. 

Yeah, my CF% is only 38%, but my faggots over 60 is elite, Shane thinks, and has to fight to keep his face blank, biting the inside of his cheek against what would be an incredibly inappropriate snort of laughter. 

“I’m scared too,” Shane says instead, because Barrett might be a bigot, but he’s also 18-years-old, and it wasn’t so long ago that Shane was the same age. He remembers what it was like, when he first joined the league; at once the best thing that had ever happened to him and completely overwhelming. Equally thrilling and terrifying. “And I’m sad and angry that we couldn’t save Riley.” 

Rozanov clears his throat. “Yes,” he says, voice thick. “Me too. That, as well.” His gaze skips from face to face before stopping on Shane, lingering, and Shane thinks that there might be something more specific that Rozanov is scared of. Something that he can’t say here, in front of everyone else. 

“Okay,” Karina says when no one says anything else. She turns to Yakov. “Следующий вопрос?”

“Теперь нам надо подумать,” Yakov says. “обо всем, что произошло. С начала и до самого конца.”

“Reflection,” Karina translates. “What happened, from start to finish.” 

There’s another long pause, but Yakov doesn’t jump in this time. Which makes sense—he wasn’t there when it started. Neither was Shane. 

Shane looks at Rozanov, raising an eyebrow. You’re not seriously going to make the rookie kick things off again, are you? he thinks, trying to push the same thing into his expression. 

Judging by the way Rozanov huffs out a breath, rolling his eyes, Shane thinks he managed to get it across—or something close enough, at least. 

“I was sitting with Barrett,” Rozanov says, “and we heard Riley swearing, talking to himself.” 

This part, at least, is familiar. As long as Shane doesn’t let himself think too hard about it, it’s just like breaking down a play after the fact. A clinical, dispassionate dissection: who did what, who went where, when and why. Hearing that Riley had predicted his own death is like a wave of icy water, but Shane makes himself move past that, forcing himself not to linger on it. Not as another indicator that something was seriously wrong, not as a horribly accurate prophecy.

The guilt is a bit harder for him to push past, as he’s once again forced to confront the memory of the accusation he’d spit at Rozanov when he’d first reached them, but Shane doesn’t say anything about it, skipping past it as he recounts his arrival at the scene. He has no desire to have an audience for the apology he knows he needs to give. 

There’s another pause when they reach the end of it all, with Yakov explaining why he’d told them to stop performing CPR. It’s a comfort, Shane supposes, to learn that they’d done CPR for as long as Yakov would have done in any other circumstances. That they hadn’t given up on Riley because of the specificity of the situation they’re in, but because it was time.

It doesn’t feel very comforting. 

“Чему это нас научило,” Yakov says. “И что мы можем сделать лучше в следующий раз?”

“Now we talk about what we’ve learned,” Karina translates, “and what we can do better next time.” 

“Barrett did a great job in clearing the scene of other people,” Shane says, and Barrett’s eyes go wide as he turns to look at Shane, looking completely thrown. Shane’s not sure if he’s shocked that Shane mentioned him at all, if it’s the compliment that’s throwing him off, or maybe both. 

Shane just hopes it's not down to any sort of… awe, or whatever, over Shane as a player. He has yet to figure out how to deal with the uncomfortable reality that other players look up to him—that there’s players now entering the league who cite them as his favourite player, who tell reporters that they look up to him, fuck. 

Still. Whatever admiration is there wouldn’t last long, if Barrett knew just how accurate his recently sneered accusation of cocksucker had been—aimed at Shane the last time they’d played Toronto; the other team was already down three at the end of the second. 

The prototypical defense of a middling team about to slip two points further away from any hope of making the playoffs. 

“It was smart thinking, and something that the rest of us kinda forgot about,” Shane continues, because whatever else is going on, the guy deserves to hear this—to know that he stepped in, when no one else did, in a situation that was objectively terrifying. Made even worse, for Barrett, maybe. At least the rest of them had understood what was happening. 

“We should have a plan for if something like this happens again though,” Shane says. “Barrett managed to make some space for us, and it would have been much worse if he hadn’t, but everyone was still watching the whole time.” 

Karina translates that to Yakov, who nods. 

“У нас не было возможности вынести Райли на улицу,” he says. “Но если снова случится что-то похожее, пусть Воган и Барретт выведут остальных наружу?

“We couldn’t have moved Riley,” Karina says. “If it happens again, maybe Vaughan and Barrett could get everyone out—”

“Всех, кто может ходить,” Yakov interrupts.

“They could get everyone who can move outside,” Karina finishes, with what was probably Yakov correcting himself. 

Shane turns that thought over a few times, before nodding. “Yeah,” he says. “That works.” 

They talk for a bit longer, but Shane is both relieved and guilty to find that they don’t really come up with anything else they could do differently in the future. Yakov suggests he could check everyone else’s lungs, to see if there was any sign of someone having difficulty breathing that they hadn’t admitted to, or hadn’t noticed, but that was it. 

It should probably make Shane feel better, knowing that there was nothing else they could have done. And it does, a bit, but mostly he just feels… helpless. 

He’s not used to there being nothing he can do to make sure there’s at least a chance at a better outcome to a losing situation in the future. There’s always something to improve—in his own performance, in his team’s. Strategy to refine. Skills to hone. Edgework. Shots. Passes. Things they can work on, can practice. And even if they lose again, he’ll know that they still tried, still got better. Can keep getting better. 

But there’s nothing to practice here. Nothing to improve, not in any way that matters. Not when, no matter what they do, they will always, inevitably, run into the brutal, hard limits imposed by their circumstances. 

“Хорошо,” Yakov says, clapping his hands together. “Отлично сработано.” He turns to Rozanov. “Дай сигу.”

Karina barks out a laugh that sounds like it’s been shocked out of her, while Rozanov just stares at Yakov, his expression somewhere between shocked and offended. 

“Иди нахуй,” Rozanov says. “Купи свои.”

“Это где же?” Yakov says, his tone demanding, challenging. “Не будь мудаком, Розанов.”

“I am an asshole,” Rozanov grumbles, digging into his pocket. “Famously.” 

“What?” Shane says, but no one answers him. He’s left to watch as Rozanov finally finds what he was looking for—his crumpled pack of cigarettes, which he holds out towards Yakov. The gesture—the unspoken offer—is slightly undermined by the scowl that marrs his face as he does it. 

Yakov, for his part, appears utterly unbothered as he takes the pack, deftly tapping out a cigarette. 

You’re a healthcare provider! Shane thinks, and just barely manages to swallow down. 

He does not need to hear whatever Rozanov would have to say to that, though it might at least get him to break his glare, unwavering even as he trades the pack for his lighter. Instead, he watches as Yakov places the cigarette between his lips, lighting it and inhaling with an ease that says as clear as anything else that this is not the first cigarette he’s ever had. 

He hands the lighter back to Rozanov, then takes a full drag, eyes sliding shut as he exhales, and Shane can only be glad that no one is looking at him, because he’s certain his face is hiding exactly none of the disappointment and shock he’s currently feeling. 

Yakov opens his eyes, and seems surprised to find that no one has moved. “Чего пялимся? Я не делюсь,” he says, making a dismissive, waving gesture with his hand.

Karina snorts, shaking her head, turning and heading back to the hold. Barrett looks between the three remaining men before following after her. Shane hesitates a moment longer, not sure what he’s waiting for. 

Whatever it is, it doesn’t come, and when Rozanov, grumbling under his breath, taps out his own cigarette, Shane too turns, and heads back inside. 

Shane is standing a few meters from the plane, his blanket once again wrapped around him like a cape, watching the stars wheel through the black expanse above him, when he hears the sound of snow crunching from behind him. He doesn’t bother to turn around, keeping his head tipped back. Eyes searching out the familiar shapes of the constellations he’d grown up looking at; Orion, Canis Major, Ursa Minor. The bright red dot of Aldebaran, the zig-zagging path of Cassiopeia.

It’s comforting, in the same way that the boreal forest around them is comforting, the sting of the cold against the back of his throat, the hush of the snow filling his ears. He might be an entire ocean away from home but in these things, at least, there is familiarity. Something he can hold onto, grounding him even in the midst of so much uncertainty. 

“I am not used to seeing them so clearly.” 

Rozanov’s voice isn’t any more of a surprise than the sound of footsteps had been, and Shane finally drops his chin, turning his head to look at the man standing next to him. Rozanov isn’t looking at him, his own head tilted back, looking up at the night sky. It’s probably just his imagination, but Shane thinks he can see the stars reflected in his eyes; tiny pinpricks of light shining against the darkness. 

He looks younger like this, Shane thinks. There has always been something about Ilya that has made him seem older than Shane, even though Shane knows that in reality, Shane is the older of the two of them, even if only by a handful of weeks. 

Maybe it was just that he was so much more experienced than Shane; with sex, sure, but also with smoking, drinking, partying… all the things that Shane had always avoided, determined not to let anything distract him from his goals. Or maybe it was the confidence that Ilya has always carried himself with. Even in situations where Shane can acknowledge in retrospect, Ilya had probably been just as scared and uncertain as Shane had been.

“No?” Shane asks. “Not even in Moscow?”

Ilya snorts, and tilts his head to the side, lowering his gaze to meet Shane’s eyes.

“What, you think we do not have electricity in Russia?” he asks, and Shane startles. 

“What?” he asks, then scrambles to add, “No, of course not, I just…” 

Shane trails off, realizing that he doesn’t really have an explanation to defend himself with. He hadn’t thought that they didn’t have electricity, but he supposes in a way, yeah, he had kinda thought that. Or at least, that it wouldn’t be enough to cause the kind of light pollution that would hide the stars from view. He tries to picture a Russian city, shining brightly in the darkness, and is embarrassed when nothing comes—he’s not sure he even knows what Moscow looks like, outside of the handful of pictures he’s seen of the Red Square in his Social Studies textbooks. 

Rozanov’s smile grows as the silence stretches on, smug and self-satisfied. The pleased happiness in his eyes glows almost as brightly as the stars above them, but he doesn’t say anything, just hums as he turns his eyes back towards the sky. 

Shane keeps his own eyes on Rozanov. Taking in the familiar slope of his nose, the curve of his lips, still caught in the lingering traces of a smile. The shape of his jaw is something Shane knows not just by sight, but by touch and taste as well. The way his curls brush his forehead equally familiar, even if they’re currently mostly crushed beneath the toque he’s tugged over them—a Team Canada one, Shane notes with no small measure of amusement. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane suddenly says, startling Rozanov as well as himself, judging by the wide-eyed look the other man turns on him. 

“What?” Rozanov asks. 

“I”m sorry,” Shane repeats, because he might not have meant to say it, but he does mean it. Needs to say it, needs to have Rozanov hear it. To know how much Shane means it. “For assuming that you’d done something to make Riley angry earlier—or, saying that I did,” he continues, clarifying. 

“Ah,” Rozanov says, shifting uncomfortably, no longer meeting Shane’s eyes. “Was not unfair, I think.”

“No, it was,” Shane says, insistent. “It was unfair.”

Fucking… Rozanov tries, again, to wave Shane off. 

“I am asshole,” he says. “Is not secret.” 

Famously, even, Shane thinks. Out loud, he continues to press: 

“No,” Shane says, and when Rozanov shoots him a look, corrects: “Okay, yes, you’re an asshole. But you wouldn’t pick a fight with someone for no reason. Especially not here. Not now.” 

Rozanov clicks his tongue. “I might,” he says. “I am not known for my, uh, restraint.” 

“Maybe not,” Shane concedes, “but I’ve seen how you’ve been acting with everyone over the last few days, Rozanov. You’re… you’re making people feel better. You’re helping them. You’re helping me.” 

Rozanov again looks startled, meeting Shane’s eyes, probably more out of instinct than anything. 

“You’re helping me, Ilya,” Shane repeats, trying to will the other man to hear what he’s saying. To really, truly hear it.

“Well,” Rozanov says, ducking his head. It’s too dark to say for sure, but Shane thinks he might be blushing. “I am Alternate Captain of plane crash. Would be bad look, да? To leave my Captain up to dry.” 

“Out to dry,” Shane corrects, and does not find it adorable when Ilya wrinkles his nose in a familiar expression of distaste. It’s only come up a few times, but Ilya has complained enough for Shane to know that there’s no love lost between Ilya and English idioms.

Shane thinks about leaving it there, but the way Ilya is avoiding his eyes is making a memory from an earlier moment crystalize in the back of his mind, sharpening under the focus of what might be a new insight into Ilya; the way he thinks, the way he acts. 

“Was that why you were getting pissy, earlier?” Shane asks.

He immediately wishes he hadn’t when Ilya’s expression shutters, his movements slow, cautious, as he raises his head to again meet Shane’s eyes. 

“When Yakov asked Karina to translate for the debrief,” Shane rushes to clarify. “You seemed…” 

Shane trails off, not wanting to use the word pissy again. Every other word his brain offers up seems worse though—angry, annoyed. Pouty.

Ilya shrugs, the movement tight, uncomfortable. It’s as good a confirmation as anything he could have said out loud, and gives Shane the confidence to continue:

“Yakov asked her to translate because it needed to be someone who wasn’t a part of the… emergency,” Shane says. Not that he knows that for sure, but he’s pretty confident in the assumption he’s making—it’s the only explanation that really makes sense, for why Yakov would have asked her to join them. “You couldn’t translate and also be a part of the debrief,” Shane continues. “That’s… it would have been too much. Distracting, or just— it wouldn’t have let you be a part of the conversation in the same way as everyone else.” 

“Yes,” Ilya says stiffly, “this is what Yakov said as well.” 

Well, that’s a point for Shane’s assumptions, he supposes. 

“Okay,” Shane says. “So…?” 

“So what, Hollander?” Ilya snaps, and Shane can practically see him trying to build his walls back up. “Okay, fine, was helpful for Karina to be there. I am sorry for being asshole about it. Is that what you are looking for? Fuck.” He punctures the curse with a sharp gesture, before bringing both his arms in, crossing them over his chest as he scowls at Shane. 

“Jesus,” Shane says, startled, “Christ, no, I’m not… I’m not trying to get you to apologize, Rozanov. I’m just… I’m trying to say that it doesn’t matter, that Karina needed to help with this one thing. She isn’t the one who’s been helping the rest of the time. That’s you.”

Risking a step closer, Shane snags the edge of Rozanov’s sleeve with his fingers. The other man at least put on a warmer coat this time, Shane distantly notes. 

“You are the one who’s been helping me,” Shane says. “Every minute since we got off the plane and stepped into this fucking nightmare. You were the one translating for Yakov when Karina couldn’t. You were the one who kept helping him with the patients when I went to help the guys with the shelter. You’ve been the one making people laugh, making me laugh. Fuck, Ilya, you did a fucking surgical procedure today. Successfully.”

Shane tugs on the fold of fabric caught between his fingers, relieved when Rozanov doesn’t resist, unfolding his arms despite the obvious reluctance on his face. He doesn’t look convinced, but he’s not blocking Shane out. He’s listening. 

“I don’t—” Shane starts, stopping as the words catch in his throat. He swallows, forces them out: “I don’t know if I could do this without you.” 

“Of course you could,” Ilya says, voice barely louder than a whisper as he raises a hand, freezing fingertips ghosting over Shane’s cheekbone, a touch so light that Shane can barely feel it. It sends a shiver through him anyways, one that has nothing to do with the cold. “You are Shane Hollander.” 

Shane’s lips quirk in a half smile. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Captain Hollander. You’ve mentioned.” 

Ilya shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Captain Hollander, he is… he is taking charge, he is big voice in room keeping people calm. But Shane Hollander is one saving us.”

Christ, Shane thinks, blinking. He kinda feels like he just got checked into the boards—his head ringing, vision blurring as the force of Ilya’s words rock through him. 

“Okay,” Shane says, ignoring the way his voice cracks embarrassingly on the second syllable. “My point still stands though. Like… maybe I could do this without you. But I’m glad I don’t have to. You’re… you make it easier. All of it. It would be… it would be so much harder without you.”

Ilya swallows, the sound loud in the silence of the night, the utter stillness of the world outside of the two of them. 

“I can think of one thing that is harder with me here, though,” he says. 

It takes Shane a second, and then he has to tilt his head forward, smothering his laughter into the front of Ilya’s coat, because god forbid someone hear him laughing and come outside to investigate. 

“You’re an idiot,” Shane says into Ilya’s coat, the words muffled by the wool.

Ilya lets out a pleased hum, raising his arms to wrap them around Shane’s back, Shane’s arms instinctively raising to encircle Ilya’s back in return. 

Shane can practically feel the satisfaction radiating off of him, the fucking asshole. 

It’s a bad idea. Shane knows it's a bad idea. They’re standing in the middle of a fucking field, right next to a plane full of other people—other players. Someone could come outside at any time—to see where either of them had got to, or fuck, just to pee. 

They’d need to turn the corner before they’d see them though, and the snow offers as good an advanced warning as anything.

Fuck it, Shane thinks. They’d survived a fucking plane crash. They’d almost died in a fucking plane crash. They very well might still die, if a snowstorm rolls in or they run out of food before they’re found or any number of a thousand other things went wrong. 

So, fuck it. Fuck it. 

Shane leans back, just far enough to catch a glimpse of the questioning look on Ilya’s face. It disappears a second later, replaced by a flare of heat, the last thing Shane sees before their lips meet and he allows his own eyes to slip shut. 

The taste of Ilya is another bright point of familiarity, blooming sun-bright against the darkness of the wilderness surrounding them. They meet each other easily, naturally, hungrily. Matching each other, move for move, blow for blow, before one of them inevitably attempts to one-up the other. As competitive in this as they are in anything else; the tangle of Shane’s fingers in Ilya’s hair—his toque falling to the ground, unceremoniously shoved off in pursuit of his goal—matched moments later by the freezing press of Ilya’s hand against Shane’s ribcage, burrowing past Shane’s blanket and multiple layers of clothing in its determined search for skin. 

They kiss and kiss and kiss, and above them the stars continue their steady turn; everything else forgotten.

Chapter End Notes

Shane: wow I can’t believe that I was so stupid to think that Rozanov was treating me like I was special; he thinks about me like he does everyone else
Ilya: [air raid sirens at the thought that Shane still might die]

thank you once again and always to britt (ao3/twt), for the emotional support, the writing support, and the nutritional support. the service in this establishment is, as always, impeccable.

want to give a shout out this chapter to The Tiger by John Vaillant—it's not a direct point of reference for this fic, but I've definitely been thinking about his descriptions of the tayga when writing. also, just a really, really fucking good book, 10/10 would recommend.

citations
Healthy Meals in the Sky? Air Canada Ties for First — Travel Pulse Canada
How Long Can You Live Without Food? — Healthline
How To Do Needle Thoracostomy — Rebecca Dezube, MD, MHS, Johns Hopkins University
What is doing CPR actually like — r/ems
Companion Document for the Advanced Life Support Patient Care Standards — Ontario Base Hospital Group

Chapter 8: Altair

Chapter Notes

Shane has always been good at controlling when he sleeps and for how long. It was a skill he’d had since he was a kid, and had been especially helpful when he’d hit high school, and juggling school and training and hockey had become more difficult than ever. Back then, it had been what had allowed him to get up early enough to get in a full run and workout before school, had let him nap on the OCT for precisely the amount of time that it took for him to get from school to the rink. 

In four years of doing that, he’d never once missed his stop. 

It had helped after he’d joined the MLH too—no matter how much shit the guys gave him about his early bedtime, he never had any trouble being ready to catch the team bus in the morning, to get himself to the practice rink hours before anyone else to go talk strategy with Thériault. His pre-game nap lasted exactly sixty minutes. He fell asleep the minute the team plane took up, and woke up twenty minutes before landing.

It helps now.

Shane refuses to let Yakov spend another night being the only one to lose sleep to check on the injured survivors. He doesn’t bother to raise it to him though—if nothing else, he’s certain that trying to get Ilya to translate that for him would just lead to him getting into an argument with Ilya about it, never mind whatever objections Yakov might have. 

It was stupid anyways. It wasn’t like waking up for a few minutes intermittently throughout the night was going to significantly impact his body’s recovery. The rationed portions of food they were all living off is probably the thing that was having the worst effect on his continued shortness of breath. And there wasn’t anything that either Ilya or Yakov could do about that, no matter how much Ilya glared at Shane for not taking the larger portion allotted for the injured and supply-gatherers. 

Shane didn’t even know why Rozanov was so up in arms about it anyways. Shane had agreed to having a larger portion the night before afterall, capitulating to Rozanov’s argument that participating in twenty straight minutes of CPR was probably more strenuous than anything anyone else had done that day, only on the condition that Rozanov did the same. 

Besides, he’s pretty sure his lungs are starting to get better anyway. Or, at least, they’re definitely not getting worse. 

Shane has spent far too much of his life measuring out his breathing, calculating the precise volume of his lung capacity. He knows he’s still not taking in as much air as he should, can still feel the heaviness sitting in the centre of his chest. He also knows he’s not taking in any less than he has since he first woke up to the choke of smoke filling the cabin. 

He knows that there’s not anything that any of them can do about it out here anyways. So instead, when he goes to sleep—making sure that there’s an appropriate distance between himself and Ilya this time, and ignoring the look Ilya gives him when he picks his spot—it’s with his mind focused on a single intention: one hour.

One hour later, Shane opens his eyes. 

There’s still a handful of other people awake—he can hear at least one hushed conversation, too quiet to pick out voices, much fewer words, while the rustle of fabric gives away the way that others are still trying and, presumably, failing to get comfortable. Shane’s eyes go to Ilya before he can stop them, and is relieved to see that the other man is fast asleep. The frown he’d levelled at Shane before Shane had shut his own eyes, blocking out the sight, still lingers on his face; in the crease between his eyebrows, the slight downturned tick to the corner of his mouth. 

Shane rolls over, and is satisfied to find that his guess for the timing of Yakov’s checks had been exactly correct: Yakov is pushing himself to his feet, stretching out with a muffled, pained groan. He looks equally as awake as Shane feels, which Shane supposes makes sense—he imagines that all paramedics are probably well-practiced in snapping from sleep to full alertness between one breath and the next. 

The look Yakov gives him when Shane mimics his movement, rising to his feet, is deeply unimpressed, but Shane just looks back at him, impassive and unrepentant. 

Yakov shakes his head, but doesn’t bother to say anything—Shane wouldn’t understand it anyways, and Yakov doesn’t seem any more inclined than Shane is to wake up either of their improvised translators. Instead, he gestures Shane towards their small cluster of patients, and they both begin to pick their way from person to person. 

They leave Max for last; already knowing, to some extent, what they’ll find. 

Max is looking worse—has been looking worse. His skin, still far too pale, is now covered in a fine sheen of sweat, catching the flickering light of the fire. His breathing had been getting shorter too, and he was running an obvious fever, the heat coming from his skin far too much to be excused by his proximity to the fire alone, though there was no way for them to know exactly how bad it was. For all the equipment in the med kit—pulse oximeter, glucometer, blood pressure cuff—there wasn’t a thermometer. 

Shane helps Yakov peel off the shirts they’d packed around the metal still embedded in Max’s shoulder, watching as Yakov’s face tightens as the skin beneath is slowly revealed. Yakov’s eyes are hard, lit only by the flames that dance across them, and it’s not hard for Shane to read the resignation in them. Something that Shane suspects he is being given the sole privilege of witnessing—if anyone else was awake, or at least close enough to see their faces, there probably wouldn’t be any sign on Yakov’s face of what he’s actually thinking. 

He wonders if that is why Yakov waited until the middle of the night to do this; to not have to hide, for just a little bit. Or maybe it was about what he would be able to hide—keeping the other passengers from seeing what lies beneath Max’s improvised bandages. 

The skin around the metal is red, swollen, and it wouldn’t require any real knowledge of first aid for someone to tell that it’s infected. The shirts that were pressed directly against it are heavy, wet with something far thicker than sweat, and Shane is grateful for the gloves that prevent him from feeling any texture; that the light is low enough that he can’t see more as he shoves the shirts into a garbage bag, tying it up and tossing it to the side to deal with later. 

Swallowing down the taste of bile, Shane follows Yakov’s silent directions, grabbing more shirts from the pile of extra clothing they’ve stacked inside a suitcase near the front of the hold. Working together, they rebuild the protective scaffolding holding the metal in place, Max swaying between them, eyes half-open and distant. There’s no sign that he’s tracking what they’re doing, no sign that he’s feeling any pain as Shane presses the shirts against his matching wounds; entry and exit. 

Fuck.

Shane finishes rebandaging Max’s shoulder, and looks up, meeting Yakov’s eyes. They don’t need a shared language for Shane to understand the message written there. It’s the same as it was the day before, when Rozanov had laid it out in English for Shane. 

But for all the prognosis hasn’t shifted, neither has the fact that there’s nothing they can do to improve Max’s odds.

Shane pulls off his gloves, exchanging a final look with Yakov before they split apart, returning to their separate spots. Shane lays back down, and if he’s slightly closer to Ilya than he had been before, well. It wasn’t like there was enough light left for anyone to notice, if they were looking. 

Yakov looks surprised, the second time Shane rises alongside him, rolling his eyes in reply to the smile that Shane can’t quite manage to hide in time. There’s something exasperated in the way that he gestures Shane towards their patients this time, a sarcasm that doesn’t need words in the slight bow to his back. Shane isn’t used to being so easily able to read someone’s body language, and he wonders if it has something to do with the lack of actual language exchanged between them. 

Maybe he’d have an easier time understanding everyone, if they didn’t actually speak to him either. 

There’s no change in anyone’s condition, and if Shane might pick a spot even closer to Ilya to lie back down in, there’s no sign that anyone is left awake to see it. 

Amusement greets Shane the third time he wakes up, accompanied by a slow shake of Yakov’s head. Shane grins back at him, and gets to work. 

Their check of the survivors doesn’t turn up anything new, but Yakov does ask to check Shane’s lungs—the request surprisingly insistent, for all that it’s communicated entirely through gestures and a glare that would make Ilya proud. Shane’s reluctance is mostly for show anyways, something he thinks Yakov can read on his face. Mostly, he’s just grateful for the privacy. That there’s no one else awake to see the way that Shane can’t entirely keep his shoulders from dropping in relief when Yakov pulls his stethoscope away from Shane’s chest with a satisfied nod. 

Shane had been certain his breathing hadn’t gotten any worse, even with the exertion of the CPR, but the confirmation settles something in him anyways. There’s no hope of anything short of a helicopter landing in the field next to the downed plane managing to untangle the building knot of anxiety growing in Shane’s stomach, but it does ease at least one strand. Even if Shane had already been fairly certain that strand wasn’t worth paying attention to anyways. 

The spot that Shane picks this time is close enough to Ilya that it would take almost no effort for Shane to reach out and touch him. To push his thumb across the faint crease still marring the space between Ilya’s eyebrow; to attempt to physically wipe away whatever fears continue to grip Ilya even in sleep. Shane shoves down the urge, pushes it to the same corner that he’s locked up the small voice that keeps asking him what the hell he thinks he’s doing. 

In the darkness and silence of the hold, it’s nothing worth thinking about. 

Fourth check. No changes. 

Shane’s knees brush Ilya’s when he lies down, making the other man shift slightly in his sleep. Shane freezes, but he doesn’t wake up, and after a moment Shane allows himself to relax. Closes his eyes, and allows sleep to reclaim him. 

Fifth check. No changes. 

Shane is more careful than ever as he lies back down, holding his breath as he matches the curves of Ilya’s body with his own. Leaving only a few inches for him to cross, once he’s lying down, to have his back pressed to Ilya’s front. He holds his breath again when Ilya makes some wordless noise, arm rising and wrapping around Shane, pulling him even closer. 

Eyes wide, Shane turns his head just enough to catch sight of Ilya’s face over his shoulder—certain, this time, that he’s actually woken Ilya up. Relief flowing through him at the sight that greets him; Ilya’s eyes are still closed, his breathing deep and even. The movement of his arm apparently some sort of unconscious instinct, rather than anything intentional or purposeful. The furrow has at least finally disappeared from his brow, Shane notes, before turning his head back around. 

Lying like this, he can feel the rise and fall of Ilya’s chest against his back. Can feel each exhale of warm breath ghosting across the back of his neck. If he tries, he thinks he can almost feel the beat of Ilya’s heart, transmitted through the proximity of Ilya’s chest, the place his wrist is pressed against Shane’s stomach. 

Shane closes his eyes, and falls back into darkness. 

Sixth check, and Shane opens his eyes to find Yakov already up, crouched over Paquette. 

Shane feels his heart jump in his chest, quickly checking his watch. His heart rate steadies slightly at the confirmation that he hasn’t overslept—Yakov starting this round of checks early, and without him. Shane feels a burst of annoyance replacing his initial panic, and he does his best to tell himself he’s being ridiculous as he reaches down to remove the arm wrapped around his waist.

Wait—

There’s an arm wrapped around his waist.

His heart begins hammering harder than ever as Shane abruptly remembers whose arm is wrapped around him. The warm weight of Ilya’s arm confirming that nothing has changed in the hour that he spent asleep—Ilya is still pressed up against his back, wrapped around him. The position, one that Shane was so certain would go unobserved, just as compromising as it had been when he’d let himself slip back into unconsciousness. 

Shane’s eyes flick back towards Yakov, but the other man isn’t looking at him. Shane isn’t even sure that Yakov has noticed Shane waking up, his back half turned towards him. Letting out a long, slow breath Shane tries to remind himself of just how dark it is in the hold. They’d only added more wood to the fire once, on their third check, and that had mostly burned down at this point. Unless he’d walked right over to them—which definitely would have woken Shane up—there’s no way that Yakov could see Ilya’s arm wrapped around Shane. 

You’re fine, Shane tells himself, willing his heart rate to slow. You’re fine. You’re fine. 

Letting out another slow breath, Shane finishes the movement he’d begun earlier—reaching down and carefully picking up Ilya’s arm. Still asleep, Ilya somehow manages to fight Shane anyway, letting out a sleepy grumble and pressing his face tighter against the nape of Shane’s neck, his fingers twitching, tightening their hold on the front of Shane’s coat. 

The darkness around them is the only witness to the helpless smile that steals across Shane’s face without his permission as he gently pries open Ilya’s hand. Ilya lets out another wordless noise of disapproval as Shane lifts his arm, slipping out from underneath it before setting it down just as carefully. He doesn’t wake though, and Shane stands with a wince, stretching out his back. The frequent interruptions of his sleep and the uncomfortable state of their makeshift bedding is beginning to wear on him, soreness tugging at his joints and muscles. 

If it wouldn’t make his calorie deficit even worse than it already was, Shane would definitely be trying to figure out if there was any way for him to do yoga. 

On the other hand, maybe it was for the best that he didn’t—he didn’t know exactly what Rozanov would have to say about Shane doing yoga, but he’s certain that the other man would have something to say. Shane figured it was pretty even odds whether it was something rude or something filthy—or, somehow, both—and certainly nothing he wanted to test while they were surrounded by other people. 

Stretching his arms up above his head, Shane crosses over to where Yakov has moved on to checking on Oak’s arm. Yakov glances up at him as Shane approaches, and Shane can’t stop himself from searching the other man’s face for any sign that he’d noticed Shane sleeping with Ilya. There’s no disgust or anger that Shane can find though. Mostly, the other man just looks exhausted, though there’s a mild sort of curiosity there too, as his eyes follow the line Shane’s outstretched arms cut through the air. 

Yakov nods towards Shane’s arms. “Болят?” he asks. 

It’s the first time either of them have spoken all night, and though Shane has no way of knowing the actual meaning of the question that was just asked of him, he feels like he has a pretty good guess. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, face pulling into an exaggerated wince that has a small smile tugging up the corners of Yakov’s mouth. 

“В жизни бы не подумал, что есть что-то более неудобное, чем говеные койки у нас на подстанции,” Yakov replies, rising and mirroring Shane’s since before he leans backwards, stretching out his own back. 

It produces a shockingly loud cracking noise that has Shane biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing, both from the sound and the surprised look on Yakov’s face. Yakov’s expression turns wry as he clearly catches the amusement on Shane’s face. 

“Староват я для этого дерьма,” he says, the complaint obvious in his voice even if Shane doesn’t understand the substance of it. Yakov shakes his head, then nods towards something behind Shane. “Надо бы снова развести, да?”

Shane turns, seeing that Yakov had been gesturing to the fire. It’s burnt down enough that there’s only a handful of flames still flickering warm and yellow, though the bed of embers is still glowing red beneath the blackened branches, promising that it will be easy enough to build it back up. 

“On it,” Shane says, guessing again at the question that Yakov had just asked him. He moves towards the pile of firewood, tracking Yakov out of the corner of his eye as the paramedic moves on to Maya. 

Shane’s eyes flick over towards Ilya, and he’s relieved to see that he’d been right—Ilya is little more than a slightly darker lump in the surrounding darkness. He’s barely identifiable as a person; Shane can’t make out anything about the position he’s sleeping in. 

With how dim it is, Shane can’t imagine that Yakov is doing much more than checking that everyone is still breathing. Which— Shane supposes that’s all that’s really needed, at this point. There’s been no changes all night, and little they could do if anyone else develops an infection.

Shane keeps tracking Yakov out of the corner of his eye as he arranges more of the wood gathered the previous day into a tipi above the embers. He stays crouched there until flames begin to lick at the bases of the fresh wood, light growing steadily with each new tongue that springs to life. 

He was going to need to send out people to get more wood again today, Shane thought, glancing back over at the stack of wood. They were going to burn through what they already had by the end of the day, if not sooner. 

There’d been less deadfall to find the day before, even with the people who’d been collecting wood going further from the plane. Harris hadn’t ended up using the axe to cut down anything yesterday—though they’d used it to break up some of the larger pieces of wood they’d found—but Shane was pretty sure that they’d need to start looking for smaller trees to cut sooner than later. Today, maybe. It wasn’t ideal—the axe wasn’t really meant for that purpose, for one thing, and it would cost whoever ended up doing it more energy than any of them had to spare. 

There wasn’t really any helping it though. They needed to keep the fire going. 

Shane straightens back up when Yakov begins to pick his way back towards him. He hadn’t spent more than a minute with any of the patients, which feels about as good a sign as Shane could hope for. Coming to a stop next to Shane, Yakov shoves his hands in his pockets, staring down at the growing flames. A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth, and Shane wonders what he’s thinking about. 

There’s no way for Shane to ask, and so they just stand there in silence, watching the fire bloom before them. 

When they eventually split off, Shane makes sure to lie down exactly where he had the first time, ignoring how much colder it feels than it had before. He tries to tell himself that it was because he’d just been standing next to the fire, but even in the safety of his own mind, it’s an obvious lie. 

Ilya finds Shane early in the morning, crouched next to the food bins with Erika, pulling out the tiny bags of corn chips that will be today’s breakfast offering. 

“The smoke is gone,” he says. 

Shane tilts his head back to look at him, biting back the first thing that springs to mind—sure doesn’t smell like it—because that doesn’t really even make sense. 

“What?” he asks instead. 

Ilya waves his hand around. “Not gone-gone,” he says. “But it is… there is less of it, да? Is… thinning.” 

Shane frowns, shifting to push himself to his feet before he starts getting a crick in his neck, but Ilya is dropping next to him before he can raise himself up more than a few inches. Erika looks between them as Rozanov settles into a flat-footed crouch, a curious look on her face, and Shane tries to will away his sudden self-consciousness—a near painful level of awareness of how close together he and Rozanov now are. 

She’s not a huge hockey fan—that much has become clear over the past couple days—but she’s from Montréal. She knows who they both are. Might even know about the rivalry—certainly knows about the one between their teams, even if she doesn’t know about the Hollander-and-Rozanov of it all. 

“The smoke?” Shane asks, forcing himself to focus, because if he keeps over analyzing every single interaction he has with Rozanov, he’s going to actually snap. It helps—a beat later, it finally clicks, what Rozanov is talking about. “From the other half of the plane?” he asks, just to be sure. 

Rozanov nods. “Yes,” he says. “Fire is burning itself out, I think.” 

“Shit,” Shane says softly, and Rozanov frowns. 

“Is good thing, no?” he asks. “No chance of whole тайга́ catching on fire around us, at least.” 

“I mean, yeah,” Shane admits. “Though… I don’t even know how far a forest fire could spread, in the winter. It’d probably go out pretty quickly.” He shakes his head, getting himself back on track. “No, I meant, it was a good signal.” 

“Ah,” Rozanov says, expression flattening as the implications of Shane’s words hit him. 

It’s not that Shane’s surprised that the fire has begun to go out—it was inevitable, really. There was only so much fuel to burn through—both from the plane’s engines and from whatever amount of the forest had caught on fire. 

It being expected doesn’t stop the loss from settling like a rock in the pit of Shane’s stomach. 

He’s still feeling optimistic about their chances of being found; certain, if nothing else, that the crash site is easily visible from above. It still hadn’t snowed, and the ugly scar the plane had carved through the earth when it had hit the ground remained a dark, obvious marker against an otherwise clean and white blanket of snow. But he also knew that the smoke had offered a signal that didn’t require half as much proximity as the bruised and exposed dirt. Rising thick and black into the air, stretching high into the sky before being dispersed by the wind, it had been an ash-filled hand, beckoning anyone who might be near towards the crash site. 

The plume an unmistakable beacon; a silent signal, calling out to the world we’re here, we’re here, we’re here. 

They still had the smoke from their fire inside the hold, rising from the hole left at the top of the overlapping tarps, but it was far thinner and less dark, dispersing quickly. They could try and make another fire outside, pack it with leaves and other green material that would produce far more smoke than their carefully dried firewood, but Shane was wary of the extra effort it would cost them—of diverting energy from keeping them warm towards a signal that may or may not help them be found. 

“We should make a marker,” Erika offers, and Shane does his best not to visibly startle at the sudden reminder of her presence. They both turn towards her, and Erika continues, “If we lay out a marker in the field outside, it’ll help us to be spotted from the air, and it’ll also communicate that there’s survivors.”

“What, like X marks the spot?” Rozanov asks, sounding slightly dubious.

Shane glances at him, wondering where he’d picked that up—what he’s picturing in his mind, to make him doubt that it will do anything to help them. Shane’s own mind conjures an image of a cartoon version of a pirate treasure map, and Rozanov shoots him an offended look at the huffed sound of amusement that he doesn’t quite manage to stop. His glare is quickly diverted, as Erika lets out an actual laugh—quick and surprised.

“X actually does— There’s a set of standard ground-to-air symbols,” Erika explains. “X is one of them—it means that medical assistance is required.”

“Standard, like international?” Shane asks, and when Erika nods, turns towards Rozanov, who is already pointing a finger towards him.

“Do not ask if we use in Russia,” Rozanov says, tone threatening, preempting Shane’s question. “Why the fuck would I know emergency signals for crashed plane?” 

There’s no hope of stopping his smile this time, so Shane doesn’t even bother to try. “I don’t know,” he says. “You know a lot of weird shit, Rozanov.” 

Rozanov sniffs, exaggerated. “Да, yes, I am very cultured,” he says. “You would not understand.”

“No?” Shane asks.

“No,” Rozanov says, shaking his head with exaggerated disappointment. “If it is not hockey, you do not care to know it.” Rozanov pauses, reconsiders, adds, “or strange Canadian wilderness survival. Hockey and forest: Shane Hollander’s two hobbies.” 

“I don’t know that I’d call either of those things hobbies,” Shane replies dryly, then forces himself to turn back towards Erika. Refusing to let himself get distracted by the normality of going back and forth with Rozanov, no matter how good it feels—its familiarity still warming, every time, no matter what else is going on around them.   

“So, what are you thinking?” Shane asks, running through their options in his own mind. “We’ve got the suitcases,” he says, answering his own question before Erika gets the chance. They were still all in the messy pile outside they’d tossed them into after emptying them of everything useful. They were mostly black, but that would maybe stand out even better than something brightly coloured, given the stark contrast they’d have with the surrounding snow.

Erika nods, then adds, “We’ve also got the life jackets. We’d need to use rocks or something to hold them in place, but they’re bright yellow.”

“Maybe we pin them between the suitcases?” Shane suggests. “We can make the X as big as possible that way.” Plus then no one is wasting energy hauling more rocks around, he thinks. 

Erika nods again, then looks around with the hold with a frown, her eyes eventually landing back on the two of them. “I don’t actually know where they ended up?” she says. “They were under the seats…”

“Oh,” Shane says, feeling oddly sheepish as he admits, “we just… threw them into a pile in the cabin. They’re still up there.” 

It’s just—it feels rude, now that he’s saying it out loud. Which is ridiculous—they completely ripped apart the cabin to get all the cushioning out, not to mention the bodies that are still up there. It’s not like they were creating some sort of mess for Erika to clean up, and Shane really doubts that she cares about them being… disrespectful of the space or whatever. 

“Well, that’s convenient,” Erika says with a grin, making Shane feel even more dumb for feeling bad about it. “I’ll grab Carter and Troy after breakfast, we can go get that set up.” 

Troy? Shane thinks. Why Troy?

“Oh, you don’t have to—” Shane tries, but Erika cuts him off with a wave of her hand. 

“Nah, we’ve got this,” she says. “It’ll be good to do something other than just handing out food—I was starting to feel bad about not volunteering to get wood.” 

“You haven’t just been handing out food,” Rozanov says before Shane gets the chance to. When Shane glances at him, he finds him frowning at Erika. “You spent all yesterday boiling water.” 

Erika had pretty quickly taken charge of the water purification efforts the previous day. They’d been able to boil the water by just putting the kettles on the embers of the fire, saving them having to figure out some way to suspend them above the flames. Still, between the disparity between the volume of snow collected and water produced, the time it took to boil and the time it took to then cool down, the whole process had proved just as painstaking and slow-going as Shane had predicted, and he was glad that they’d started while they still had bottled water to keep them going in the interim. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Erika says with a shrug, avoiding Rozanov’s eyes. Shane wonders for the first time if she feels like she should be doing more. If she maybe feels like she should be in charge. He dismisses the latter as soon as he thinks it—she’s seemed happy enough to let Shane take the lead. The memory of their first conversation replaces it, and Shane registers, for the first time, how young Erika looks—around the same age as Shane, or maybe just a couple years older. 

It makes him want to ask her how long she’s been doing this, but he swallows the question down. Knowing the answer won’t change anything, and if it’s what he thinks it might be—not long enough—it might just make her more uncomfortable and uncertain. 

And if there’s one thing that none of them can afford to be doing right now, it’s second-guessing each other. 

“There is no ‘I guess’,” Ilya says, insistent. “Will be going in the letter, when I nominate you for Order of Canada.” He raises his hands, beginning to tick off his fingers, “Got us axe. Knows international codes. Makes water from snow without even a single leaf in it—”

“Why would there be leaves in the water?” Erika asks, confused. 

Ilya ignores her, continues, “and, of course, best meal service of any flight I’ve ever been on.” 

Erika’s lips twitch upwards in a helpless smile. “I don’t know,” she says. “I think Carter is picking it up pretty fast.” 

Ilya gives up on ticking off his fingers in favour of tilting his hand from side to side. “Is okay,” he says. “Not very professional though. Won’t even wear uniform.” 

“I mean, I’m not exactly in uniform either,” Erika says, now grinning as she gestures towards her mismatched outfit of other people’s clothing. 

“Yes, but you are pretty enough to get away with it,” Ilya says with a wink, “Vaughny, not so much.” 

Erika laughs. “I’m gonna tell him you said that,” she says. 

As a threat, it’s not very effective—Ilya shrugs, says, “Good. He should know. Maybe it will get him to step up his game.” 

“Step up his game,” Shane echoes, disbelieving. It has the unfortunate effect of drawing Ilya’s attention to him, and the other man drags his eyes up and down Shane—an obvious, showy gesture that has Shane fighting not to blush. 

“Don’t worry Hollander,” Ilya says. “Your game is doing just fine.” 

He punctuates the line with another wink, and Shane scowls back at him. Way too fucking obvious, he thinks at him as hard as he can. Rozanov, unfortunately, either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. 

Or maybe he does, since he turns back to Erika, hooking his thumb back at Shane, pretending to whisper as he tells her, “Not his backhand though. Very weak.”

“My backhand is fine,” Shane protests. 

Unsurprisingly, Rozanov ignores him, slowly shaking his head as he keeps eye contact with a now-laughing Erika. 

“He is in denial,” he says, still in that same obnoxious fake-whisper. 

Shane rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he says, then shoves the handful of bags of corn chips he’s still holding into Rozanov’s hands. Startled, the other man has to scramble not to drop them, scowling when he catches Shane smirking at him. 

“Make yourself useful,” Shane orders.

“Okay, Captain Breakfast,” Rozanov says, doing a terrible job of pretending to be offended. 

“Wow,” Shane says. “That’s a new one. Is there anything I’m not captain of?” 

“Not Captain Backhand, that’s for sure,” Rozanov says, rising back to his feet with an exaggerated groan. 

“My backhand is fine,” Shane repeats, and is again ignored, Rozanov turning towards Erika instead. 

“Come, Erika,” he says. “We will show Vaughn what proper, professional meal service looks like.”

“Okay,” Erika says with a laugh, rising to her feet. 

Shane stays where he is, watching them as they make their slow way around the room. There’s more than one burst of laughter in response to something Ilya says, thought Vaughn’s is by far the loudest, accompanied by a ‘Fuck you, Roz’ that rings through the hold. It makes something in Shane’s throat tighten, seeing how easily Ilya talks to all of the survivors—not just the players he already knows, but the other athletes and ordinary travellers too. 

It leaves the uncomfortably bitter aftertaste of jealousy in his mouth, and Shane tries his best to shake it off, busying himself with rearranging the food bins. Shane does fine with other people—sure, he might not be the life of every party, and has gotten more than one comment about him being weird or standoffish, but his team likes him. Guys on other teams like him. He shouldn’t be jealous just because it seems to come so naturally to Ilya—and there’s no other reason for him to be jealous, watching the ease with which Ilya jokes around with everyone. 

Ilya loops back around to Shane once they’re finished handing out breakfast. He makes Shane swap a chip with him. Winks when he once again tells him it tastes better than his own chips.

Shane doesn’t know what his own face does in response, but judging by the smirk Rozanov levels at him, it’s almost certainly embarrassing. 

Barrett is standing alone by the suitcases when Shane ducks outside, and Shane walks over to join him, looking around. There’s no sign of Vaughn or Erika, though he’s pretty sure he can hear Vaughn’s voice coming from somewhere up near the nose of the plane, so he figures they’re probably up in the cabin, getting the life jackets. For a second, Shane balks from the thought, surprised that Vaughn wouldn’t get someone else for this part, before he remembers that they’d left them all in a pile just outside the door to the cockpit. 

The cold has been a challenge to deal with, but Shane can’t help but feel grateful for it—he doesn’t want to think about what they would have had to do, if it wasn’t cold enough to freeze the bodies. What the cabin would look like, smell like, at this point, if they weren’t. 

“Hey Barrett,” Shane calls out once he’s only a few feet behind the kid. He isn’t trying to scare him, but Barrett startles anyway, dropping the suitcase he’d been picking up as he spins around to face Shane, eyes wide. 

Shane smiles, an attempt at reassurance that falls flat, Barrett looking no less nervous for the effort. He tries a small wave, which feels worse, and still doesn’t help. 

“Hey,” Barrett finally says. “Um, you here to help with the suitcases?” 

“No,” Shane says, hooking his thumb back over his shoulder towards the plane. “Doctor’s orders. I’m not supposed to be exerting myself.” Not that picking up empty suitcases took much effort, but Ilya had been annoyingly insistent that Shane didn’t help. He’d done more of that bullshit where he said that it was something that Yakov had said without even asking the paramedic.

So, less doctor’s orders and more fuckbuddy’s orders, but Shane certainly isn’t about to say that to Barrett, even if the thought makes his lips twitch upwards with an amusement that he has to forcefully shove right back down. 

“Oh,” Barrett says, looking confused. “Okay.” 

“I just wanted to say again, how well you handled the situation yesterday,” Shane says. “It was a really scary situation, and you did a really smart thing, moving people back, despite that.” 

It hadn’t been Shane’s plan when he’d come outside—he’d just wanted to see if the three of them had managed to find everything they’d need to set up the marker in the field—but the thought had been in the back of his mind since the previous day. 

He meant what he’d said—it had been an impressively level-headed move by Barrett. He also hasn’t been able to stop thinking about how young Barrett is. How alone he is.

Shane’s technically the kid’s captain right now, and even if Barrett is a bigot and an asshole, it doesn’t hurt to try a little bit of positive reinforcement. If nothing else, it might spare Shane some of what are quickly becoming the other player’s signature chirps—his homophobia might not be creative, but Shane’ll give this to him: it is consistent. 

“Oh,” Barrett says again. “Um. Thanks? I mean, I don’t know that I did much.” 

“You did,” Shane says. “None of us thought of it. If you hadn’t stepped up, people would have been a lot more scared than they were. It was a good move.” 

Barrett swallows, attempts something that is probably meant to be a laugh. One hand comes up to awkwardly rub at the back of his neck. “Thanks,” he finally says. He’s avoiding Shane’s eyes, but the word sounds more genuine this time—more certain, like he’s actually listening to Shane.

“Okay,” Shane says, deciding that he’s probably made the guy uncomfortable enough. “I’m going to—”

“Can I ask you something?” Barrett blurts out, startling Shane enough that he stumbles, caught in the middle of turning to begin walking towards the front of the plane. 

“Um,” Shane says, recovering and turning back around to fully face the other man. “Sure?” he finishes, trying not to sound as trepidatious as he feels. 

Barrett looks like he already regrets even saying that much, his eyes flicking nervously over their empty surroundings before landing back on Shane. 

“Are— are you and Rozanov, like… friends?” 

Shane blinks. Blinks again. 

“What?” he asks. 

“Just, like, he’s basically been following you around everywhere since we crashed?” Barrett says, the words tripping over each other as they rush out of his mouth. “And I know there’s the whole translation thing, but it kinda seems like you… know each other better than that?” 

There’s a faint buzzing sound growing in Shane’s ears, and he can feel his fingers beginning to grow numb. He forces his breathing to stay even though, keeps his gaze steady on Barrett. He’s pretty sure that his face has gone totally blank—a reaction that he’s sure Barrett will be able to see, but he can’t afford to try to get his face to do anything else, not until he knows for sure what Barrett is actually asking. 

“Well,” Shane says, speaking slowly, carefully, “we have known each other since we were younger than you are now.”

“Right, right,” Barrett says, nodding fast. “It’s just… the rivalry?” 

Shane forces a smile onto his face, hoping that Barrett is too busy with whatever panic he’s experiencing to notice how stiff and unnatural it is. 

“I mean, we’re both pretty competitive,” Shane says, which is at least true, “and it doesn’t help that we play for teams that are, historically, um, rivals.” 

“Yeah no for sure,” Barrett says, nodding again. “That’s cool. That, like, you respect each other like that.” 

“Cool,” Shane echoes, stiff smile still firmly in place. 

“I guess I just was surprised by the like… way he jokes around with you?”

“Well,” Shane starts, searching for something to say that’s not a total lie—or at the very least, is believable. 

“And like, I was really confused about how Rozanov was acting when you were still on the plane?” Barrett says in a rush before Shane can get anything else out. 

“I mean, not every interaction we’ve had in the last six years has been in front of a press gallery,” Shane says, then blinks. Processes what Barrett just said. Frowns. “Wait, sorry, what? What do you me—”

Shane doesn’t get anything else out, once again interrupted—this time by the sound of his name coming from behind him. Vaughn’s booming voice is unmistakable, and Shane isn’t surprised to find Vaughn and Erika picking their way down the slope next to the plane when he turns around. Both of their arms are loaded up with small clear backs, through which the bright yellow of the life jackets still manages to shine.

“What are you doing out here?” Vaughn asks, adopting a mock-serious expression as they draw level with Shane and Barrett. “I know Roz’s got you under orders not to do any heavy lifting.” 

“Right,” Shane says, “heavy lifting.” He aims a pointed look at the packages filling Vaughn’s arms, which he’s pretty sure are about as heavy as a paper bag. 

Vaughn laughs, and Shane feels his face settle into a smile that is much closer to real. His whole body still feels drawn tight with suppressed panic, but he manages to keep it tamped down, continues:

“No, no lifting,” he says. “I just wanted to check if you’d found everything you needed?” 

“Oh yeah, don’t worry about it, Cap,” Vaughn says, unceremoniously dumping his armful of life jackets onto the ground. “We’ve got it covered.” 

Erika catches Shane’s eye, rolling her own eyes in good-natured amusement, and a little bit more of Shane’s panic fades. “Seriously,” she says. “We’re all good out here.” 

“Okay,” Shane says, raising his hands. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” 

He gives them all a final nod before turning and heading back towards the plane. He keeps his eyes on his feet, his thoughts racing. It could be worse, he decides by the time he reaches the tarps. It’s probably the best thing he could hope for really, because he was sure Barrett wasn’t the only one who’d been wondering about the way he and Ilya had been acting. 

Friends is normal. Friends is safe. Friends makes sense, even with their famous rivalry—it wasn’t like the idea of being buddies with someone on a rival team was an alien concept to anyone else who competed on the level they did. Even for the non-hockey players, it was a legible explanation for the obvious closeness between two people who had no real reason to be close. For the non-athletes too, maybe, depending on how closely they followed sports.

Shane pushes his way through the tarps, trying his best to shake off the last of his panic as he runs back over Barrett’s questions, his own replies. Shane hadn’t said anything incriminating. And nothing about Barrett’s questions said that he thinks there is anything going on other than an unexpected friendship. They’re fine. They’re fine. 

It isn’t until Shane’s inside, blinking as his eyes try to adjust to the comparatively dark hold, that his mind again returns to the last thing Barrett had said. His eyes find Ilya, standing with Yakov next to the fire, the two of them speaking in rapid-fire Russian. Ilya looks annoyed, arms crossed over his chest, while Yakov seems to have traded some of his impassivity for impatience, frowning back at Ilya. 

Shane watches the two men talking, and wonders:

What did you do when I was still on the plane? 

Yakov takes a nap in the early afternoon. Shane should probably do the same—his sleep was just as intermittent as Yakov’s had been. But he doesn’t like the idea of sleeping when everyone else is still awake. The memory of Riley’s sudden decline into full-blown tension pneumothorax is too fresh in his memory. He’d gone from being fine to not breathing in minutes, and even if Yakov had checked everyone’s lungs, making the chances of that exact same thing happening relatively slim, it didn’t mean that something else couldn’t happen. 

And what would happen, then, if both Shane and Yakov were asleep? If both of them had to shake off sleep while being immediately thrown into a medical emergency? Better for one of them to stay awake, and Yakov had had two interrupted nights of sleep to Shane’s one.

Yakov had made some gesture towards Shane taking a nap too, raising an eyebrow when Shane had shaken his head. He hadn’t gone to Ilya to translate for him though, which Shane was grateful for—Ilya would have insisted that Shane sleep as well, if he found out that Shane had been up half the night. Which— maybe Yakov knew that and had decided to spare Shane the inevitable argument.

It doesn’t matter in the end. Nothing happens. 

“Hey, um, Shane?” 

Shane looks up from where he and Yakov are crouched down next to Maya’s feet, Shane checking her pedal pulse. Maya meets his eyes easily enough, but there’s something in her expression that looks uncomfortable. Maybe even nervous. 

Uncomfortable isn’t a surprise—they’ve done their best, but there’s no real way to not make the full-leg splint anything else—but Shane’s not sure why she’d be feeling nervous. 

“Yeah? What’s up?” Shane asks. “Is it your leg?” 

He looks back down at where his fingers are pressed against the bared skin of her ankle, sudden worry rocketing through him. They’d been checking regularly, and there’d been no change to her pulse on any of their previous checks. It seems fine now too—a bit fast, maybe, but nothing overly concerning. What he can see of her skin on her leg seems fine too—not overly pale or flushed. 

Shane looks back up at her, but there’s no sign that her body is fighting off an infection on her face either, no signs of a developing fever. But maybe they’d missed something? They’d been so focused on her leg, and Shane knows he’d done a full body survey when he’d first checked her, but maybe something new had developed while she’d been stuck sitting here, legs bound. 

Fuck. Fuck. He should have been more thorough, he should have—

“I, um, I really have to pee?” Maya interrupts Shane’s racing thoughts, and he blinks at her, thrown. 

“Oh,” he says, then looks down at her legs—still tied together. “Oh,” he repeats, and Maya laughs, tight and strained. 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Sorry, I’ve been trying to hold it but—”

“Don’t do that,” Shane interrupts, alarmed for a new reason, mind flashing to a different type of infection, one that they would have no better hope of treating than they would sepsis. “You should pee if you need to pee.” 

He looks at her legs again. How she was going to pee was an entirely different question, one that she also had no answer for, judging by the now wryly amused look on her face. 

Shane looks at Yakov, who is looking between Shane and Maya with a questioning look on his face, then turns to where Ilya is standing behind them, his hands shoved in his pockets as he looks out over the rest of the hold, a slight frown on his face. He must catch the movement of Shane’s head out of the corner of his eye though, because he’s turning nearly as soon as Shane is, meeting his eyes. 

“What is wrong?” he asks, and Shane shakes his head. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” he says. “Maya just has to pee.”

“Okay?” Ilya says, frown briefly deepening, before his eyes move over to Maya and understanding crosses his face. “Ah,” he says, then turns to Yakov. “Майе нужно по-маленькому.”

Yakov, bizarrely, grins at whatever Ilya just said to him. 

Shane opens his mouth, ready to demand that Rozanov tell him what the fuck he’d said, but he doesn’t get a chance before Yakov is speaking, his voice more animated than Shane thinks he’s ever heard it. It’s certainly happier than he’s ever sounded, still smiling as he speaks: 

“Реально?” Yakov says. “Ух бля, наконец-то хоть одна охуенная новость с тех пор, как рухнул наш ебучий самолет.”

Rozanov frowns, looking as thrown by Yakov’s response as Shane feels, which at least erases Shane’s worries that Rozanov had made some sort of stupid joke instead of actually translating what Shane had said. 

“Охуенная новость… это то, что ей надо поссать,” Rozanov says, speaking slowly, doubt heavy in his voice.

“Чтоб ты знал, олигурия—довольно частое последствие травм и шоковых состояний, даже когда почки напрямую не задело,” Yakov says, “и если она сама по себе не проходит, это значит, что человеку становится хуже, а там недалеко и до гиповолемического шока или сепсиса… так что да, то, что она просится поссать—это просто охуенчик.”

“Передам ей наши пламенные поздравления по этому невротъебенному поводу,” Rozanov says.

“Завали-ка ты хлеборезку,” Yakov says. “Просто скажи Шейну, чт—” 

Rozanov doesn’t let Yakov finish, turning to Maya. 

“Yakov says congratulations on needing to pee,” he says. Maya blinks at him.

“There’s no fucking way that he said that,” Shane says. 

Rozanov shoots a smirk at him, before turning back to Maya. “He says is a good sign,” he says. “Means your whole body is doing better.” 

“Okay…” Maya says slowly. “That’s good? I guess?” 

Rozanov nods, and there’s a moment of silence before Maya gestures back down at her bound legs. 

“So, how do I…?” 

“Wow,” Rozanov says. “You are not very good mermaid, Maya. Do not even know how to pee?” He shakes his head, mock-disappointed, and Maya laughs. “Don’t worry, I will ask mermaid expert,” he adds, turning back to Yakov. 

“Ну и как?” Rozanov asks, and Shane and Maya both watch in silence as Yakov turns to look at Maya, running a critical eye over her legs.

“Одну ногу отвяжем,” Yakov finally says with a decisive nod. “На сломанной оставим шину, так нам будет проще ее двигать.”

“А ноге это не повредит?” Rozanov asks, sounding worried. 

Yakov shakes his head. “Не, должно быть нормально,” he says, still looking at Maya’s legs, frowning slightly. “Вообще я подумал—в принципе, когда убедимся, что бедренная кость без смещений, предлагаю оставить шину только на одной ноге. И мне будет удобнее, и она сможет хоть как-то шевелиться.” Yakov turns to look at Rozanov. “Переживаю, как бы у нее тромб не нарисовался,” he says, “от постоянного-то лежания.”

Rozanov doesn’t quite manage to hide the worry that crosses his face, but Shane’s pretty sure that Maya doesn’t catch it—there’s no sign of it on her face, anyways, when Shane glances over at her. It’s gone by the time Shane looks back at Rozanov anyways, the other man dropping into a crouch to more easily meet Maya’s eyes as he smiles at her. 

“Bad news,” he starts, but he’s still smiling, and when Shane looks at Maya again, he’s relieved to see that she doesn’t look worried. Still, Shane levels a glare at Rozanov when he turns back to him out of principle. Rozanov, unsurprisingly, ignores Shane, continues, “you will no longer be mermaid.” He signs, big and exaggerated. “Yakov and Shane will take away your tail,” he says. “But don’t worry, I won’t let you turn into ocean foam.” 

“What?” Shane asks, at the same time as Maya laughs. 

“What about my voice?” she asks.

Rozanov shrugs. “That, I can make no promises about,” he says, making Maya laugh again. 

Shane resists the urge to ask what again. Barely. 

Rozanov turns towards Shane. “Yakov says you can switch splint to just broken leg,” he says, “and if bone does not move, can just leave splint on one leg. Will be much more comfortable, да?” 

He directs the latter comment at Maya, who nods, eyes wide. “Yeah, Jesus, that would be… fucking amazing,” she says. 

“Okay!” Rozanov claps his hands together, rubbing them as he turns back to Yakov. “Что нужно сделать?” he asks.

The process of switching the splint to one leg turns out to be fairly straightforward. They remove the scarves and belts binding her legs together. Ilya holds her foot until all the bindings are off, then cautiously releases it, all of them staring intently at Maya’s leg, ready to jump in and pull it back into place if there’s any sign of the bone moving. 

Nothing happens though, and Shane releases the breath he really shouldn’t have been holding before he and Ilya use the same scarves and belts to tie the stick to her right leg alone. 

It’s only once that’s done that Shane realizes that there’s a second part to this whole thing that he hasn’t thought about. 

“So,” he says, looking from Maya’s leg, which she can’t bend or put any weight on, to her face. “Who— I mean, you’re still not going to be able to—” he makes a vague gesture in the air, “—so, uh, who would you like to help you? It’ll probably take two people.” 

He glances at Ilya, looking for confirmation, but the other man just raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Why are you looking at me?” he asks. “I do not know peeing procedures.” 

“Wow,” Shane says, “so much for Nurse Rozanov.” 

Ilya narrows his eyes at him, but doesn’t say anything in reply, turning to Yakov instead and asking, “Чтоб ей помочь, понадобятся двое, так?”

“Скорее всего,” Yakov says. “Если она не против, то я помогу. Ну или попросим девчат.”

“Yakov says yes, it will take two helpers,” Ilya says. “He can help, or we can get women to help, if you would be more comfortable.”

“Oh,” Maya says. “Yeah, no, that’s— honestly, I think I’d prefer Yakov to help? And… Shane?” She pauses, looking at Shane, who quickly nods his agreement. Maya lets out a breath. “Yeah, if Yakov and you can help, that works for me.” She makes a face, half smile, half grimace. “Honestly, I’m less concerned with… privacy, or whatever, than I am with being dropped.” 

Shane laughs. “Fair enough,” he says, then looks at Yakov, nodding when he catches the other man’s eyes. 

“I can get Karina, for translation?” Ilya asks.

Shane shakes his head. “I think we’ll be okay without,” he says. “Unless you’d want her there?” he checks with Maya, who also shakes her head. 

“No, that’s okay,” she says. “I think an audience of two is enough for me. And I imagine this will part will probably be pretty straightforward. Not to sound overly-confident, but I do have a decent amount of experience in peeing.” 

“Ah, but this is peeing in woods,” Ilya says. “Very different.” 

Maya shoots him a flat look, though she can’t quite hide the way her mouth keeps trying to tilt up into a smile. “Please,” she says. “I’m Canadian. I was raised peeing in the woods.” 

Ilya blinks back at her, looking genuinely thrown for a brief second before he shakes his head with what Shane is pretty sure is an only slightly exaggerated expression of disgust. 

“Canadians,” he spits out like a curse. “You are all insane. Why pee in woods when toilets exist?”

“Camping,” Shane and Maya say at the exact same time. He turns to look at Maya at the same time that she turns towards him, and when she starts laughing, Shane can’t help but laugh as well.

“Bah,” Ilya says, throwing up his hands before rising to his feet. He points between them. “You are all insane. Your culture is insane. Не страна, а дурдом, набитый психами.” He shakes his head again before stalking off. Shane turns back at Maya, finding her already grinning back at him. 

“Okay,” he says, returning her smile. “Ready to go?”

“Like I’ve been training for it my whole life,” Maya says, still smiling, before her expression falls into something more urgent. “No, seriously though. I’m like. Two minutes away from peeing my pants.” 

“Shit, right, yeah,” Shane says, and scrambles into action.  

This time, when Shane hears footsteps coming up from behind him, he’s looking at the ground, not the sky. 

The black of the suitcases manages to stand out against the white of the snow even in the darkness, aided by the blue wash of moonlight painted across the field and the frozen lake beyond. The life jackets are less visible, disappearing into the shadows stretching between the spaced-out suitcases, their bright colour eaten up by the darkness. Shane doesn’t know how visible any of it is from above. He also knows that the search, if it has started, would have been put on hold when the sun went down. 

“Y’know, if I didn’t know any better, I might think you were stalking me,” Shane says when Ilya comes to a stop next to him. He doesn’t turn to look at him, but he can see him out of the corner of his eye—not looking at the marker, but past it, at the snow and ice and forest beyond. 

Ilya snorts. “Would not be very difficult, I think,” he says, gesturing towards where Shane’s boots have sunk into the deep snow. 

Shane smiles before he can stop himself, ducking his chin down further to try and hide it. It’s bullshit—there’s footprints all over the previously relatively undisturbed field from Barrett, Vaughn, and Erika laying out the marker in the first place—but he decides to let Ilya have it.

Partially. 

“Well, it’s not like there’s many places to go,” Shane says.

“What do you mean?” Ilya asks. “Many exciting places to travel to around here. There is big snow pile, other big snow pile, tree, tree, tree—”

Ilya cuts off when Shane laughs. Shane is familiar enough, at this point, with the self-satisfied smile that Ilya gets every time that he makes Shane laugh that he doesn’t have to look to know exactly what expression the other man is wearing. 

“Right, right,” Shane says, shaking his head. “I don’t know how I forgot about all of those thrilling local destinations.” 

“I do not know either,” Ilya says. “Is pretty embarrassing, to be honest. Not very Captain Wilderness of you.” 

Shane lets out an exaggerated sigh, the performance slightly undermined by the smile he still hasn’t managed to wrestle back down. “It’s just so hard to balance it all,” he says. “Y’know, Captain of the Plane Crash, Captain Breakfast, Captain Paramedic—”

“Ah,” Ilya says, cutting Shane off. “I am actually Captain Paramedic now.” 

Shane finally gives in, turning to look at Ilya, needing the other man to see the full depth of the incredulous look Shane is giving him. 

“How are you Captain Paramedic?” Shane asks. 

Ilya, looking annoyingly smug at having gotten Shane to look at him, shrugs, languid and dismissive. “I did field surgery,” he says. “You said this yesterday, remember? Or are you also Captain Memory Loss now?” 

“Fuck off,” Shane says through a laugh. “Fucking— Captain Memory Loss?” Ilya still looks far too pleased with himself, so Shane continues, “Besides, if anyone’s getting promoted to Captain Paramedic, it’s Yakov.” 

“No,” Ilya says, shaking his head. “I am better. Yakov told me so himself.” 

“Y’know, if you’re going to lie about what Yakov is saying, you should really pick something more believable.” 

“Patients too,” Ilya continues as if Shane hadn’t spoken at all. “They have been talking. Saying wow, Nurse Rozanov is greatest of all time, he should be Captain Paramedic instead.”

“That’s even less believable,” Shane says. 

“They say, how can we trust Shane Hollander to be Captain Paramedic?” Ilya continues, undeterred. “He is only second best player in league. Best player in the league Ilya Rozanov is much more trustworthy.” 

“You are not a better player than me,” Shane says, more out of reflex than anything, then adds, “but yeah, sure, you be Captain Paramedic. Good luck with that.” 

“I do not need luck,” Ilya says, a broad grin stretching across his face. “I am naturally full of nurture.” 

“Nurturing,” Shane says, “and I don’t believe for a second that anyone has ever in your entire life called you naturally nurturing.” 

“Is not true,” Ilya says, shaking his head. “They say wow, Captain Paramedic Rozanov, you are so kind and nurturing and have such good edge control.”

Shane snorts. “Okay, whatever. I didn’t even want to be Captain Paramedic in the first place.”

“Yes, well, you still lost it to me and that is most important thing,” Ilya says, and it’s only now that Shane realizes that they’ve both turned to fully face each other, that his head is tilted back slightly to keep meeting Ilya’s eyes, barely a handful of inches of open air separating them. 

Shane’s eyes flick across Ilya’s face, taking in the open happiness there. How unguarded he is, how much lighter for a few minutes of sniping back and forth with Shane. The question jumps to Shane’s tongue so suddenly that he almost lets it slip out, only just managing to clench his jaw shut around it at the last second. 

What did you do when I was still on the plane? 

He hasn’t stopped thinking about it all day, turning it over and over in the back of his mind even as he checked in with the other survivors, coordinated the evening rations with Erika, counted and then recounted their remaining food stores. Its edges have been worn smooth with the repetition, turning it from something sharp and dangerous to something that could drop from his tongue without consequence. It was a false gentling though; Shane knew that it could still draw blood, if he let it. 

It’s a question that would leave them both exposed by its verbalization; both vulnerable to ask and vulnerable to answer. It would expose something, for Shane to ask, and even if he doesn’t quite know what it would be, he does know that he doesn’t want to risk Rozanov seeing it when Shane hasn’t even figured out yet what it is. It would ask Ilya to expose something as well, and as much as Shane feels like there’s still so much about the other man that he doesn’t know or understand, Shane knows with certainty that there is little that Ilya hates more than being open in that way. 

Their conversation on the rooftop the night Shane had won Rookie of the Year had taught him that, if nothing else. 

“Do you think your parents and brother are scared?” he asks instead. 

Ilya blinks at him, the smile slipping off his face as his eyes shutter, any sign of emotion disappearing as if it had never been there. 

Shit, Shane thinks. 

“What?” Ilya—Rozanov asks. 

“I keep thinking about it,” Shane says, scrambling to somehow undo the damage his question had done. A hasty bloodletting; a desperate act of atonement. “How scared my parents must be. If they found out on the news or if someone told them.” 

“Why?” Rozanov asks, voice flat. “Is not like you can change anything about it, out here.”

“No,” Shane says, “but—”

“They will find out you are alive when we are rescued,” Rozanov interrupts. “What is point in worrying about it before then?”

“I don’t know, I just… you seriously haven’t been thinking about it at all? How they must be feeling? How they found out?” 

Rozanov shrugs, stiff and tight. 

“I doubt they care,” he says. “Or maybe they do. Would be very embarassing, for me to die in plane crash before I can win gold for Russia.”

“What?” Shane asks, the word barely louder than a whisper. Pulling himself together, he continues, stronger, “I’m— I’m sure that isn’t true. They’re probably—”

“Oh, you know my family now, Hollander?” Ilya snaps, taking a frustrated step back from Shane, running his hand roughly through his hair. “I am telling you, they would not care. Fuck.”

Shane stares at Ilya, shocked by his reaction, the sudden anger that has twisted his face into a mask Shane feels like he hardly recognizes anymore—so alien to how Ilya has been looking at him ever since the plane went down. 

He hadn’t— nothing that Ilya had said when they’d talked about the Olympics in Shane’s stairwell had— except he’d said maybe, hadn’t he? He’d said his father would be there, that his brother might be there. Nothing about his mother.

Another memory: that rooftop in Vegas, and the way that Ilya had said I go home in three days like it meant something else. The way that he hadn’t said anything when Shane had said that that must be nice. The bitterness in the look he’d shot Shane; an expression that Shane hadn’t known Ilya well enough to label at the time. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane says. “I didn’t realize…” 

He trails off, not sure how to end that sentence. He hadn’t realized Ilya’s own family didn’t care about him? Didn’t love him? Saying either thing so baldly feels cruel, but Shane doesn’t know what else to say. 

Ilya glances at him, then scrubs his hand over his face. “Блять,” he whispers, then, louder but still muffled by the hand partially covering his face, “Is fine, Hollander. You did not know.” 

“But I should have, shouldn’t I?” Shane says. “You were… you told me. Kinda.” 

“Tch,” Ilya kisses his teeth, pulling his hand away from his face to flap it dismissively. “Is my fault. Should have known you would not understand.” 

Shane doesn’t quite manage to stop himself from flinching back from Ilya’s words—so similar to the accusations that had followed him his whole life. The way that he constantly felt like there were things he was missing in conversations, layered meanings that he couldn’t figure out. Things that everyone except him seemed to understand without even trying. 

Ilya doesn’t miss the flinch either, his expression immediately softening—not much, but enough that Shane feels like he can breathe easier. Enough for him to know that he hasn’t completely ruined this conversation, at least. 

“Sorry,” Ilya says. “I should not have said that. Family is… complicated, for me.” 

“No, I’m sorry,” Shane says. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“Is fine,” Ilya says, more firmly. “You did not know.” 

“Okay,” Shane says. He doesn’t say anything else—he doesn’t know where to go from here. How to recapture the easy proximity they’d been sharing before. The warmth in Ilya’s eyes as he’d looked at Shane. If it’s something he can get back at all. 

Ilya looks at him for a long moment before blowing out a gusty sigh, tilting his head back to stare up at the night sky for a moment. He meets Shane’s eyes when he looks back down, raising his arms and making a beckoning gesture. 

“Come here,” he says. 

“What?” Shane says. 

“What, you need me to say it in French too?” Ilya asks, then repeats the gesture, sharper and more impatient. “Come here.” 

Uncertain about what’s happening, Shane takes a tentative step forward, then another when Ilya doesn’t do anything except wave his hands towards himself again. A third step brings him within range, and Ilya’s arms wrapping around him brings him the rest of the way there, Shane stumbling slightly as he finds himself being held against Ilya’s chest, his own arms wrapping around Ilya in a mirror of the way they’d stood the previous night. 

“I really am sorry,” Shane says again, his words muffled by the fabric of Ilya’s coat. 

“Oh my god Hollander,” Ilya groans. “Enough with the apologies already. So fucking Canadian, господи.”

Safely hidden against Ilya’s coat, Shane lets himself smile.

“I think you like how Canadian I am,” he says, and Ilya scoffs. 

“Absolutely not,” he says. “Is your worst trait, I think.” 

This time, it’s laughter that gets muffled by Ilya’s coat. 

“Oh yeah?” Shane says, leaning back to meet Ilya’s eyes. “What’s my best trait then?” 

“Your ass,” Ilya says without hesitation, accompanied by the least surprising grope Shane has ever received. 

“You’re an ass,” Shane complains, smacking Ilya’s hand away. It would probably be more convincing if he wasn’t half-laughing as he says it, but oh well. 

“Yes,” Ilya admits easily. “But you like this about me.” 

“I don’t know that I’d go that far,” Shane says. 

“Okay,” Ilya says, “so what do you like about me then?” 

Shane watches Ilya’s smile falter as soon as the words are out, like he hadn’t meant to ask it, or maybe that he’s just realized that he might not want to actually know the answer. It has Shane pausing, the instinctive answer of your cock suddenly feeling awkward and clumsy in his mouth. 

He could still say it, he knows. Ilya had just told him that his favourite thing about Shane was his ass, for fuck’s sake. It would be the easy answer, the predictable one. It would let the moment pass them by without any risk of further bruising to either of them. But there is a difference, Shane thinks, between not causing more hurt and soothing the hurt already done.

What do I like about Rozanov? Shane thinks.

His cock is, somewhat embarrassingly, definitely up there, which makes Shane feel oddly slutty for someone who’s had sex with a grand total of two people in his whole life. The way he smiles when he actually means it. How careful he is with Shane when it really matters. How hard he works to make people laugh. How rude he is, in a way that Shane now knows is more of a performance than anything else. He’s even starting to like Ilya’s sharp edges, now that he understands a bit better the reasons for them. 

“I think I just like you,” Shane says, because any of those answers feel like both too much and not enough. It’s not until Ilya goes completely still in his arms that Shane realizes that what he’s actually said might be so much worse. 

Fuck, what if Rozanov thinks that Shane has like… a crush on him or something? That’s not— Shane didn’t mean it like that, he’s not— They’re not— They don’t do this, they don’t talk like this, but they’re—

“Can you say that again?” Rozanov says, cutting through Shane’s rapidly spiraling thoughts, fumbling through his pockets until he finds his phone. “I want to record it.” 

“Fuck off,” Shane says around a surprised laugh. He looks down at Rozanov’s phone, knowing already that it’s just as dead as anyone else’s but unable to stop himself from checking anyways, just in case. The screen is black though. Ilya isn’t recording him. He wouldn’t, even if he could. 

Ilya heaves an exaggerated sigh. “No one will ever believe me now,” he complains. 

“Well, maybe if you talked less shit, people wouldn’t think you were lying all the time,” Shane says, before adding, reluctantly, “we should get back inside.” 

“Probably,” Ilya says, and he at least sounds equally unenthused at the idea. He ducks his head down, bringing their lips together. It’s a quick kiss, soft and barely there; already over before Shane has time to realize what’s happening and what a bad idea it is. Ilya ignores the questioning look Shane gives him, or maybe just doesn’t see it, stepping back before dropping into an exaggerated half-bow, making a sweeping gesture through the air, towards the plane. 

“After you, my Captain,” he says. Shane shakes his head even as his smile gives him away. 

“Thank you, lowly Alternate,” he says, his smile widening at the sound of Ilya’s laughter even as they begin to walk, side-by-side, back towards reality. 

Shane hears it as soon as he wakes up. He squints at his watch, noting the time—2:00 a.m. 

If he has to try and find some good in the situation, there’s that, at least; this time, there won’t be any other witnesses. 

Well, almost no one—Shane isn’t surprised to find Yakov already looking back at him when he sits up, his expression grim. He shakes his head when he meets Shane’s eyes, jerking his chin towards where Max is sitting, propped up the same way he has been since they first moved him to the hold. It’s the only way they could position him, to not risk the metal being pushed through him in one direction or the other, but Shane wishes now, more than ever, that they could have found a more comfortable solution. 

Pushing himself to his feet, Shane meets Yakov in the middle, both of them dropping into squats next to the injured man. His breathing is rapid, shallow. Startlingly loud in the otherwise still and silent hold. The low light made it difficult to see, but Shane thinks there might be a blue-ish tint to his skin. 

Not that it really matters—Shane didn’t need the confirmation of seeing his skin tone to know that he isn’t getting enough oxygen. They could get the pulse oximeter or blood pressure cuff, of course, but Shane doesn’t move, and neither does Yakov. The exact measurements don’t matter. There isn’t anything they can do either way. 

Max has been burning with fever for over a day, the smell of infection and necrosis becoming strong enough to register even above the general stink of sweat and smoke that fills the hold. Strong enough that the other patients have shuffled themselves as far away from him as they can get and still remain within the rough zone that is acting as Yakov and Shane’s… clinic. Shane glances towards where the other patients have clustered, and feels his heart plummet when he’s met by two sets of eyes, glimmering in the darkness, caught in the faint light of the fire. 

Across the fire, Maya and Paquette watch in silence. 

“Недолго осталось,” Yakov says softly, and Shane nods. He doesn’t need to know the exact words to understand that Yakov is thinking the same thing he is. The same thing he can see clearly reflected on Maya and Paquette’s faces. 

This is the end. 

Neither of them say anything else. 

When Max finally stops breathing, the sudden silence leaving Shane’s ears ringing, it feels like a mercy just as much as it doesn’t; whatever deliverance it offers arriving hand-in-hand with a crushing sense of betrayal. 

It’s nauseating, to feel relief over someone’s death. 

It would be one thing, Shane thinks numbly, if his relief was just for Max—that he’s no longer struggling for air, no longer suffering. But it’s not just for him. It’s for himself, and Shane wants to collapse backwards, to curl up on the dirt and wrap his arms around his head. To go outside and bury himself in the snow. To claw his skin off and scream at the stars and disappear into the darkness. He wants to escape, to forget. 

He doesn’t want to keep doing this.

He can’t do anything else.

Shane forces himself to his feet, moving to stand next to Max’s hip. He crouches back down, beginning to slide his arms beneath Max’s. That’s as far as he gets though, before a hand is suddenly pressing against his chest, stopping him from moving closer. 

“Не надо,” Yakov says, gratingly soft. Shane looks up at him. “Только хуже себе сделаешь,” Yakov says, expression serious, and then, quieter, like he’s speaking more to himself than Shane, “еще и Розанов мандеть начнет.” Louder, he continues:

“Разбуди его или Вогана. Пускай сами разберутся, ну или хоть припахай их, чтоб тебе помогли.” Yakov jerks his head out towards the larger hold, where everyone else still lies, fast asleep. Unaware, for now, that their number has just been whittled down by one more. 

Shane follows the direction of Yakov’s gesture. He didn’t know what else Yakov had said, but he could pick out the names, at least. Rozanov. Vaughn. Shane shakes his head. 

“I don’t want to wake anyone else up,” he says. 

“Shane…” Maya’s voice is a surprise. Shane had almost forgotten about their small audience of two; that there were others, beyond Yakov, who might protest Shane doing this alone.

Shane turns his head towards Maya and Paquette. Maya looks uncertain, eyes moving between Yakov and Shane. Her eyes dart past Max each time, as if she’s trying not to see him, even though he’s impossible to avoid, not with how close Shane and Yakov are to his body. 

“You shouldn’t try to move him on his own,” Paquette says, voice far more certain than Maya’s tentative interjection. “Wake up Rozanov. You know he’ll be pissed, if you don’t.” 

I do know that, Shane thinks. How do you know that? 

He’s too numb to panic though, just shakes his head. Paquette looks at him for a moment, frowning, before he bends over, pulling off his remaining shoe. Sitting up, he scans the darkness for a moment, just long enough for Shane to realize what he’s about to do.

“Don’t—” Shane starts, pulling back from Max with alarm. His back hits Yakov’s legs, knocking him off-balance, and he doesn’t even manage to get his feet back under him before Paquette finds his target. 

The shoe sails silently through the air, a white blur that quickly disappears into the darkness. The dull, muffled sound of it hitting something is barely audible. Shane has a second to be relieved that Paquette didn’t hit the metal hull and wake everyone else up before the relief disappears, swallowed up by the sound of a sleep-roughened voice biting out a sharp curse. 

The Russian is as familiar as the voice itself, and Shane settles back onto his heels, resigned. 

He doesn’t have to wait long for a shape to untangle itself from the surrounding shadows, to begin making its way across the hold towards them. Rozanov’s face is twisted into a scowl that is too sleepy to be threatening, rubbing his eye with the heel of one hand. He’s clearly still working his way to full consciousness, Paquette’s erstwhile shoe gripped tightly in his other hand. 

“Какого хуя,” he says before his eyes widen, startling as he realizes how many people are looking at him. His eyes scan across the four of them, stopping when he finally spots Paquette’s guilty, sock-clad foot. “Paquette,” he says slowly. As with his scowl, the attempt to suffuse his voice with anger is undermined by how syrupy it is, still thick with sleep. “What the fuck.” 

It’s more a question than a statement, but Paquette still answers. 

“Holly needs help,” he says, gesturing at Shane before holding out the same hand, reaching towards Rozanov. “Give me my shoe back.” 

“No,” Rozanov grumbles. Despite his refusal, he steps forward, closing the distance between him and Paquette, not hesitating before he deposits the shoe into Paquette’s waiting hand. He turns towards Shane as soon as the shoe leaves his own grip, eyes running over Shane. His anxiety is obvious, face scrunched with worry. “What is wrong?” he asks. “What do you need help with?”

Shane bites his tongue against the sudden surge of anger that rushes through him. He’s so fucking tired of this shit, but snapping at Rozanov now won’t change the fact that he’s already awake. 

“Max died,” he says bluntly, distantly relieved to hear how steady and even the words come out, when he feels anything but. “We need to move him up to the cabin.” 

“We, huh?” Rozanov says, eyes narrowing in suspicion, flicking between Shane and Paquette, obviously piecing together the cause of his rude wake-up call. “Okay,” he eventually says, attention settling back on Shane. “We will move him.” 

Shane isn’t sure if he’s more thankful or angry that Rozanov decided not to call him out on wanting to do it on his own. I’m fine, he wants to scream. Stop treating me like I’m going to break. 

It’s making me feel like I’m about to die. 

“Fine,” he says instead, and stands. Yakov moves at the same time, clearing space for Rozanov to join them. 

Rozanov can’t quite hide the reflexive gag that rolls through him as he draws near, the smell of Max’s rotting wound finally hitting him. Shane swallows down the sharp words that fill his mouth in reply—taunting, cruel. Unhelpful. Gestures silently down at Max’s body instead. 

“I’ll take his shoulders, you take his legs,” Shane directs, and again has to fight the urge to scream when Rozanov shakes his head.

“I will take his shoulders,” Rozanov says. 

He at least doesn’t point out what they both already know—whoever has Max’s shoulders will end up taking more of his weight than the person who takes the legs. 

Shane breathes in, then out. Waits, until he’s certain he can speak without giving himself away.

“Fine,” he says, short but neutral. Good. He can’t quite stop himself from continuing though, tone turning sharper, meaner, as he adds, “you might want to take off your coat.” 

Rozanov glances down at himself, confused, but his expression is purely cautious when he looks back up at Shane. He hadn’t missed the cutting edge slipping into Shane’s voice. 

Shane gestures carelessly down at Max. “Unless you want to get pus on it?” he asks. 

His voice is still too hard, and Rozanov is no longer the only one who’s noticed, judging by the look Yakov shoots him. Shane ignores the other man, keeping his own gaze fixed on Rozanov. Challenging and unflinching. Unforgiving, of them both. 

Rozanov doesn’t rise to the bait, just nods, swiftly taking off his coat, tossing it towards Paquette who catches it with a huff and a roll of his eyes. There’s concern on both his and Maya’s faces, but Shane ignores that as well, moving to stand between Max’s feet as Rozanov walks around to stand behind him. 

It takes them a minute to figure out how to pick Max up, navigating around the shard of metal that killed him, pierced through him; trying to avoid it doing the same to Rozanov. He ends up with his arms wrapped around Max’s waist, the muscles in his arms bulging as he stands up, bringing Max with him. 

The position means that Rozanov is taking on nearly all of Max’s weight, Shane barely doing anything as he rises to his feet in a perfect mirror of Rozanov’s own movement, his hands wrapped around the back of Max’s calves. Shane is at least able to claim the uncomfortable position of being the one who has to walk backwards, his back already towards the entrance to the shelter. He glares at Rozanov as they begin to move, daring him to argue. 

Rozanov doesn’t react, doesn’t say anything aside from what might have been a mumbled thank you to Yakov when the other man holds the tarps open for them. The paramedic doesn’t follow them outside though, leaving them to step out into the night in tense, solitary silence. 

The wind is biting, freezing cold, lashing across Shane’s face like a whip. Despite this, Rozanov doesn’t show any reaction, not so much as flinching as it strikes at his bare arms. 

They keep moving.

Rozanov follows after Shane, easily matching his pace, his steps staying steady even as his breathing becomes more and more laboured. It gets worse as they begin to make their way up the hill of snow formed by the plane driving into the ground, and Shane finds himself slowing instinctively in an attempt to ease Rozanov’s breathing. The snow along the slope is at least now so packed down that there’s barely any give left to it as they pick their way up towards the cabin, and they make it to the open doorway without incident. 

Inside, Shane tries his best not to look at the other bodies; those that were laid out when they took apart the seats, those that have been laid to rest since. Only one chair remains in the first class section, none of them willing to try to pull the branches out of Beaton’s body to get at the seat beneath him. For the rest, only metal skeletons remain, a careless dereliction that casts a false sense of age over the interior of the cabin. The pale moonlight leaking through the windows only adds to the ghostly effect, making it look like months or maybe years have passed since this plane first fell to the earth, rather than days.

They put Max down, moving without speaking to lay him next to Riley’s tarp-wrapped body as gently as they can. It’s not gentle enough, but maybe there wasn’t ever going to be a way to avoid what happens next.

Rozanov releases Max’s shoulders and, with a nauseatingly meaty, squelch, the weight of Max’s own body coming to rest on the floor is what finally pushes the metal the rest of the way through his shoulder. 

Shane gags, acid filling his throat, while across from him, Rozanov nearly unbalances as he flinches away from the sound, only just barely stopping himself from falling onto his ass. 

Swallowing down the taste of bile, Shane pushes himself back to his feet. Rozanov mirrors him, shaking away his own reaction. It leaves them standing in silence, looking at each other. The distance between them defined by the length of Max’s body.

Rozanov opens his mouth. Shuts it. Begins to move, walking around Max’s body, and Shane can’t just keep standing there. Not when Rozanov has managed to find a way to get his feet to move. If he can do it, Shane can do it too, and so he does.

He doesn’t get far—no more than a few steps towards the open cabin door—before he’s stopped by the feeling of Rozanov’s hand landing on his shoulder. It feels heavier than it should, his palm resting like a brand against Shane’s shoulder, burning straight through his heavy coat. 

Shane shrugs him off immediately, a harsh, jerking movement, but he doesn’t even manage another full step before Rozanov’s hand is back, his grip tighter this time, pulling Shane to a stop, using his own momentum against him to turn Shane to face him. Shane clenches his teeth, raising his eyes to meet Rozanov’s. 

“What?” he grits out. 

The darkness has once again turned Rozanov’s normally light eyes nearly black. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking, though Shane can see that he’s searching Shane’s own face, attempting to read Shane in return. 

If he asks Shane if he’s okay, Shane really will scream. 

“You are angry,” Rozanov says. 

“No, I’m not,” Shane lies. 

“You are,” Rozanov argues, his voice calm in a way that makes Shane want to hit something. 

“I’m not,” Shane repeats. It’s even less believable on repetition, the words squeezed out through now-gritted teeth. “Whatever, it’s fine. We need to get back.” 

Rozanov frowns, but the moonlight doesn’t give anything else away; whatever he’s thinking, Shane can’t reach it. 

“What is wrong?” he asks. An echo, from earlier, from below. It’s not enough; it’s too much.

“What’s wrong?” Shane repeats, voice shaking as he takes a sudden step towards Rozanov. It startles him, his eyes widening, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t back down. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong is that people keep dying and I can’t. Fucking. Stop.”

Stop it, Shane means to say. Stop them. Save them. But the words collide on his tongue, and Rozanov is speaking before Shane can untangle them. 

“Shane,” he starts, voice hesitant, and Shane finds himself abruptly blinking back tears. “I do not think this is good for you.” 

“Yeah, no shit,” Shane snaps, though he’s careful to keep his voice quiet—aware, despite the black fog swirling through him, of all the people still asleep beneath their feet. 

“You are taking on too much,” Rozanov says. “You have been getting up in the middle of the night to help Yakov—because you were doing this last night too, weren’t you? But you didn’t sleep when he did. You are worrying all day about food, about water. How much wood we have.”

“Yeah, because I have to,” Shane bites out. “We’re fucking stranded in the wilderness Rozanov, I don’t have a fucking choice.” 

“Fine, you must do these things, fucking Captain Hollander, but ебись оно все, Shane, you are not God. You cannot stop people from dying.” 

“I fucking know that,” Shane says. “I’m not fucking delusional, Rozanov.” 

“Okay!” Rozanov says, throwing his hands up before taking a deep breath, visibly forcing himself to calm down. “Okay,” he repeats, softer, “so, you know you are not God. Why are you blaming yourself for people dying then?” 

“I’m not…” Shane starts, but he doesn’t finish, the denial withering and dying on his tongue, unspoken.

“I told you before, Shane,” Rozanov says—too soft, way too fucking soft, and Shane can’t, he can’t— “You’re not alone. You do not need to carry it all yourself.” 

“Don’t I?” Shane says, sounding tired even to his own ears. “I can’t… everyone is relying on me, Ilya. Everyone. I can’t falter. I can’t break. I can’t afford to.” 

Ilya’s face twists, and he takes a cautious step towards Shane. “I know,” he says. “I know you cannot do this, down there. But we are not down there. And I am not everyone. You can put it down, with me. Я могу тебе помочь, Шейн.” 

Shane sways closer to Ilya; instinctive and unthinking. He’s exhausted, suddenly. Still.

“You said, yesterday, that I am helping,” Ilya continues when Shane doesn’t say anything. “Let me help you, Hollander.” 

Shane shakes his head, lips pressed tightly together. 

“Хороший мой, дай я тебе помогу,” Ilya says, and Shane has no idea what that means but he can feel it. 

It’s enough; it’s too much. Shane tips forward, into Ilya’s arms. 

He lets himself fall apart, tears soaking into the thin fabric of Ilya’s shirt, shoulders shaking as he fights not to make any noise. Trusting—stupidly, foolishly—that Ilya will be willing to put him back together again afterwards. That there will be enough of him to be pieced back into something resembling a whole person. 

The fourth morning since the plane crashed—the third time they wake up in the cargo hold-turned-shelter—brings with it an unsettling realization. 

Fighting to survive in the wilderness is difficult and terrifying and endlessly stressful. 

It is also, after a certain point, routine.

They hand out breakfast—pretzels again. Yakov and Shane check on the injured as Ilya makes his own rounds, checking in on everyone else, making them laugh when he can. What has become the established group of firewood gatherers head out. The more recently established and much smaller group of people in charge of turning snow into potable water begin the painstaking process of collecting, boiling, and cooling. Yakov takes a nap. Shane ignores the way that Ilya’s lips press together as he holds back whatever comments he wants to make when Shane refuses to do the same. 

The firewood group returns in the early afternoon, and everyone takes a break from their various tasks—Shane’s attempt to balance the need to maintain their resource levels with the fact that the limited calories are clearly beginning to wear on everyone. Even those who have been getting larger portions are visibly flagging at this point, the drop in energy palpable throughout the entire cargo hold. At the same time, a new tension has begun to replace the former energy as hunger begins to turn people snappish, putting everyone on edge. 

Shane’s keeping an eye on it, but it’s not a problem, not yet. And there’s nothing that he can really do about it, either way. The food they have is the food that they have, and he’s already distributing as much per day as he’s comfortable with, given the uncertainty of the timelines they’re working with. He’s also certain that attempting to bolster their rations by foraging for food would cause far more trouble than whatever potential meagre returns it would offer. 

He doesn’t want people to waste energy on it unnecessarily while they still have food from the plane left, sure, but more than that he doesn’t want to cause a panic by prompting the realization of just how hard getting more food is going to be any earlier than is absolutely necessary. If they got to that point—and god, did Shane hope they didn’t get to that point—he’d deal with it then. 

He’s already run through every possible thing that could go wrong that he can think of at least a dozen times. Honing and refining his plans for how to respond to each of them until they’re as burned into his mind as any of the Metro’s plays. He knows exactly what he’ll do, what he’ll have the other players do, in each situation. Has contingencies for each possible outcome, ready to pivot the play on a second’s notice.  

If there’s another unexpected medical emergency. 

If there’s a storm. 

If they run out of food before they’re found. 

If they hear a plane. 

If one of the tarps covering the front of the hold or the straps holding them in place breaks. 

If a pack of wolves realizes that behind all the noise and strange smells is a large source of food, just waiting to be found. 

If the axe breaks. 

If the weather turns warm, and the bodies in the cabin begin to thaw.

If—

If—

If—

By the tenth time that Shane tries, and fails, to conjure up something he hasn’t already thought of, he finds his thoughts drifting back to the previous day instead. Not to the conversation he had with Ilya in the cabin—he still feels far too raw from falling apart to actually let himself think about what it might mean, that he did that, that he did it in front of someone else, that he did it in front of Ilya—but to earlier. 

To the question he hadn’t dared to ask, the one that still hasn’t stopped replaying itself in the back of his mind, over and over again. 

What did you do when I was still on the plane? 

After last night he feels less certain that Ilya would refuse to answer at all—not after Shane had let himself fall apart in front of him. But Shane doesn’t want him to tell Shane as part of some sort of fucked up exchange; a pound for a pound of flesh, of tears and sweat and blood and all the horrible, tangled things that Shane has never let himself think about. 

Besides, there was still the chance that Shane was overreacting. Barrett hadn’t even been in the league for a full year. He knew the media version of Rozanov—filtered through snippets from pressers and cocky sound bites—but he didn’t know Ilya. Maybe the whole thing was actually just Ilya being Ilya, unrecognizable only because Barrett didn’t know what that looked like. 

There were others here, though, who did know him. 

“Hey Vaughny, can I talk to you about something?” Shane says, tilting his head towards the far corner of the hold, a silent add on: in private. Vaughn turns away from where he’d been talking to Erika and Karina, tilting his head up to meet Shane’s eyes. His smile doesn’t waver despite its obvious edge of confusion, and he nods. 

“Yeah, for sure,” he says, offering a departing smile to Erika and Karina before hopping up, following Shane over to the spot he’d gestured to. 

Shane takes a look around the hold when they stop, double-checking, but they’re far enough away from everyone else that there’s no chance of being overheard. Most importantly, Ilya is as far away from them as he can be while still being inside the hold—sitting next to Paquette near the fire, his back to Shane as he talks with the goalie. 

Reassured that they aren’t being watched, Shane turns back to Vaughn, who’s still looking at him with that same friendly but slightly confused look. Some of Shane’s nerves over starting this conversation must be showing on his own face, Vaughn’s smile finally fading into concern as he meets Shane’s eyes. 

“Everything good, Cap?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, blowing out a long breath. “Yeah, everything’s good, I was just— I wanted to ask you something.” 

“Of course,” Vaughn says. “Anything.” 

It’s said as easily as anything else Vaughn ever says until it isn’t, his expression faltering slightly as his eyes cut to the side, back towards where Erika and Karina are sitting. Shane can’t even begin to guess what that’s about though, so he decides to ignore it, to take Vaughn’s offer at face value and forget the rest. 

“Barrett mentioned something to me yesterday and I was hoping to get your perspective on it, as someone who was also there, because I was a bit… confused, by it?” 

The question—workshopped and edited in Shane’s head for at least ten minutes before he walked up to Vaughn—comes out nearly as smoothly as Shane hoped it would, save one small stumble. His voice stays calm at least, without any undercurrent of tension that would give the question away as anything other than idle curiosity. 

“Okay?” Vaughn prompts, some of his concern fading with the implication that this really isn’t about anything serious. 

“He said that Rozanov was kind of acting strange when everyone first got off the plane,” Shane says. “And since I wasn’t there, I was hoping you might be able to tell me if you noticed anything... off about him?” Shane pauses, leaving a careful three seconds of silence before he continues, this time intentionally hesitating over the words. “I just… after everything with Riley, I wanted to make sure…”

“Oh,” Vaughn says, eyes going wide as he reaches the conclusion that Shane was hoping he would—that Shane is worried that Ilya might have been showing symptoms of something that hadn’t otherwise yet been caught. “Oh, yeah, no,” Vaughn continues, “I mean, he was definitely acting weird, but I don’t think… I mean, if it was like Riley, it would have gotten worse by now, right?” 

Shane shrugs, not even having to pretend to be uncertain, because it’s not like the possibility that Ilya could have some hidden injury hadn’t occurred to him before, even if he’d been checked over by both Yakov and Shane. 

“Maybe?” he says. “If it was a lung issue, probably, but if it was… if he hit his head, or…” Shane trails off, letting Vaughn again fill in the blanks. 

“Right,” Vaughn says, frowning. “Yeah, fair enough. Okay. Um… I guess he was like, being super aggressive?” 

It’s Shane’s turn to frown, surprised. “Aggressive?” he asks. 

Vaughn nods. “Yeah, like, I really thought he was going to be, like, a problem-problem. He was arguing with me every time I came out that he should be let back on the plane, and I’m pretty sure Karina kept arguing with him when I went back in. And it wasn’t just— like, I had to physically block him from just shoving past us.” 

“Oh,” Shane says, not sure how to react to that. He’s not sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. It just… didn’t make any sense. Why would Ilya be fighting to get back onto the plane? What could he have been—

“But he calmed down when you got off the plane,” Vaughn says, putting an abrupt stop to Shane’s thoughts, “so I think he was just worried about you?”

“What?” Shane says before he can stop himself, too thrown to think better of it. 

Vaughn shrugs. “I dunno man,” he says. “I mean, you guys are friends, right?” 

“Right,” Shane says. 

The word comes out a bit too faintly but Shane’s head is spinning too much for him to properly regulate his tone. The small sliver of his brain that isn’t occupied by trying to process what Vaughn is telling him catalogues the confirmation that Shane had been right: Barrett isn’t the only one who’s noticed the way he and Ilya have been acting. As much as Shane wishes that people weren’t noticing, it’s reassuring too—like Barrett, Vaughn had obviously concluded that the simplest explanation was the one that made the most sense: that they were friends. 

Normal. Unremarkable. Not worth more than a passing thought. 

“Right,” Vaughn echos, “and like, I don’t think he saw you before he got off the plane, so he didn’t have any way to know that you were okay.” He pauses, shakes his head as he huffs out a half-laugh. “Would have been pretty fucking helpful if he’d just said that that was why he wanted to get back on the plane,” he adds. “Then I could have just fucking told him that you were okay but…” Vaughn trails off, shrugs. “I mean, you know what Roz can be like. God for-fucking-bid the guy just tell you what’s actually going on without being a total asshole about it first.” 

“Yeah,” Shane says with a laugh that he can only pray isn’t actually as strangled as it sounds to his own ears, “god forbid.”

Vaughn, luckily remaining totally oblivious to the tail-spin his words are sending Shane into, laughs. “Honestly man,” he says, “I thought he was gonna take a swing at me if I told him no one more time, so. Glad you came out when you did.”

There’s a joke there about coming out that Shane’s brain tries to latch onto, lips briefly twitching upwards, before he manages to get himself back on track. 

“Me too,” Shane says, “I mean, I’d hate see your pretty face get even more fucked up.”

Vaughn laughs. “Fuck off,” he says, grinning. 

“No, I’m serious,” Shane says. “We’ve got a strict policy in this plane crash. No ugly flight attendants allowed.”

Vaughn snorts. “The policies can’t be that strict if you’re still letting me get away with not being in uniform,” he says. 

Shane shrugs, putting on a falsely sympathetic expression. “Well, we do try to be understanding of certain extenuating circumstances,” he says. 

“Like the fact that my face got fucked up in the fucking literal plane crash?” Vaughn asks, dubious.

“Like your ass being too big for the skirts,” Shane says, and Vaughn lets out a surprised laugh, shaking his head. 

“Fuck Holly, you’re funnier than people give you credit for, you know that?” 

“Am I?” Shane asks, completely ruining the bit in his surprise. Vaughn gives him a look that Shane can’t quite interpret before clapping his hand on Shane’s shoulder, giving him a small shake. 

“Yeah man, you are.” He pauses, expression turning considering. His voice, when he speaks again, is slow, deliberate. “Y’know, I’m really glad you’re here, dude.” 

Despite how carefully he’d been picking his words, it clearly wasn’t quite careful enough—Vaughn pauses, wincing, and Shane can’t help but laugh. Vaughn shoots him a mock scowl before continuing:

“You know what I mean,“ he says. “Honestly dude, I don’t know what we’d have done without you. Probably froze to death in the cabin with the bodies.”

It’s Shane’s turn to wince. “I’m sure you would have figured something out,” he says. 

“Maybe,” Vaughn concedes with a shrug, “but it certainly wouldn’t have been half as good as this.” He gestures around the hold. “Seriously, Hollander. You’re a fucking miracle worker, man.”

Shane suppresses the instinct to try and wave him off again, taking a second to really take in the obvious sincerity on Vaughn’s face. To think back over the last few days—to Carter’s relentless cheerfulness, his insistence on looking on the bright side, on not letting anyone linger in the worst of what’s happened to them. The way that he listens to Shane; not questioning once why Shane is the one giving orders, even though he’s been in the league for way longer than Shane. Taking on whatever Shane asks of him without complaint, no matter how grim. 

“I’m glad you’re here too,” Shane says, which brings a familiar grin to Vaughn’s face, an expression that Shane can’t help but mirror. “Seriously, Vaughn,” he says, continuing his intentional echoing of the other man’s words, “I don’t have the words for how much you’ve helped. I think everyone would be a whole lot more scared and freaked out without you.” 

“Aw, shucks Hollander,” Vaughn says, still grinning, “you really know how to make a girl blush.” 

“I do what I can,” Shane says, and—in a move that is, regretfully, all Rozanov—winks. 

Shane leaves Vaughn to rejoin Erika and Karina, picking his own path across the hold towards the fire where he’s relieved to see that Ilya is still deep in conversation with Paquette.

He’s not great at lying—there was a reason he practiced his questions to Vaughn so many times inside his own head—and while he’s sure he could come up with some excuse for why he’d gone over to talk to Vaughn, whether or not Ilya would believe him was an entirely separate question. 

Shane gets just close enough to hear what they’re talking about, not planning on lingering, but is brought up short when he actually processes what he’s hearing: what seems to be a surprisingly sincere discussion of Paquette’s knitting. Shane listens, bemused, as Paquette holds up what looks to be half a toque, explaining the different types of stitches to his bizarrely intent audience of one.

He manages to shake it off a moment later, moving on before either of them can notice them hovering behind them, crossing to where their water-boiling crew had set aside their equipment for the mid-afternoon break. Dropping into a crouch, Shane picks up the handful of water bottles that had fallen over, standing them back up before he begins to sort through the bottles, grouping them by how full they are. Focusing on mentally measuring how much water is in each, counting them as he goes.

That turns out to only occupy so much of his attention—only taking up so much of his time—and it isn’t long before he finds himself idly making minute corrections to his per-volume grouping of the bottles, barely paying any attention to what his hands are doing. The majority of his attention turning instead toward reviewing the insights provided by Vaughn. 

What did you do when I was still on the plane? 

Shane isn’t sure how to feel about the revelation that Ilya had been just as worried about Shane as Shane had been about him. Shane hadn’t even been able to think about it head-on—had avoided even looking in Ilya’s direction until he was certain that there was no one else that he had to help. He knew, with maybe even more clarity now than he had then, that if Ilya had been hurt, Shane wouldn’t have been able to help anyone else until he knew that Ilya was okay. 

He didn’t want to think about what he would have done if Ilya had been—

If he’d—

Shane didn’t want to think about it, and he didn’t need to. There was no point in thinking about it. Not when Ilya had survived. Not when he’d been basically uninjured, unharmed. Not when he’s still fine—is currently sitting only a few meters from Shane, pouting with his fingers tangled in a snarl of yarn as a laughing Paquette tries to untangle him. 

He doesn’t know what he would have done, and he is relieved to the point of nausea that he hasn’t had to find out. 

And Ilya hadn’t known if Shane was okay either. He’d left the wreckage with everyone else and, what, only realized once he was outside that Shane wasn’t there? Had he looked for Shane when he’d still been in the plane, and seen his seat was empty? Or had he not been able to tell, through the smoke? Could he have thought that maybe Shane was still in his seat, too injured to move? Dead? 

Whatever he’d seen, whatever he’d known, it hadn’t been enough. He’d still been scared; worried enough about Shane that he’d tried to fight his way back inside the plane. Shane could still remember the way that Ilya had said Shane’s name when he had finally left the plane, the way he’d run—

Shane’s thoughts snag as he runs through the memory, stumbling to a stop as he rewinds the scene in his mind. Shane had just come out of the plane, blinking in the light. He’d been trying to orient himself, eyes struggling to adjust, when he’d heard Ilya’s voice. He’d barely started to register what he was looking at, the snow and trees and waiting crowd, and he’d heard Ilya, heard him yell—

Shane. 

Ilya had called him Shane, the first time Shane had ever heard the other man use his first name. And Shane had said—

Ilya. 

Shane had called him Ilya and his hands had gone slack with relief, not even noticing the cases falling to the snow, too focused on the man running towards him, his own body jerking into motion, desperate to close the distance between them because—

Because Shane had been terrified. 

And so had Ilya. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

What the fuck was Shane doing? What the fuck were either of them doing? Were they insane? Or just stupid? What the fuck was wrong with him? With them? When the fuck did this even happen? When did it change? How? 

And how did he just not… not fucking notice?

No, seriously—how did he not fucking notice?

What the fuck. 

What the fuck.

Shane suddenly realizes that his breathing is speeding up, and consciously forces himself to slow down, taking deep, slow breaths until his heartbeat has quieted enough that he can hear himself think again. 

Okay. 

Okay. 

So this is— 

This changes things. Maybe everything, but that feels like something that Shane shouldn’t try to unpack until after they’re rescued. It’s too big to think about right now, and there’s no point anyway. There’s no world in which dropping something like that on Ilya when they’re stranded in the middle of the fucking Russian wilderness goes well—and, based on all the arguments Shane has accidentally stumbled his way into over the last few days, there’s no way that Ilya believes him, not now, not with everything else going on. 

Shane can’t just not say anything though. The idea of not saying even a sliver of this thing out loud to Ilya is incomprehensible, now that he’s realized the full scope of what they’ve stupidly let happen between the two of them. It’s too much, too big, to carry it alone in its entirety. 

And Ilya had said as much, hadn’t he? He’d said that Shane wasn’t alone. That he wanted Shane to share the weight of everything he was carrying. 

Sure, this probably wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind, but whatever. This was as much his fault as it was Shane’s. He could deal with Shane giving him a handful of this clusterfuck to carry, at least until they’re rescued. At which point Shane is absolutely dumping the whole thing right on top of his head because what the fuck, this fucking asshole—

Oh, Shane thinks, a final realization flickering to life in the back of his mind. 

It feels small, in comparison to everything else, but Shane knows that it’s not a thought that he would have ever allowed himself to have in any circumstance. Something that would have felt crushing, that would have threatened to split the earth beneath Shane’s feet, to shatter the foundations of everything he understood about himself. About what his life would look like, should look like. Could look like. 

It’s a thought that would feel like a curse if he wasn’t having it here, now; in the cargo hold of a crashed plane, thousands of kilometers from home, with no idea if or when they would be found. 

That he’s still alive feels too much like a miracle for that kind of fear to matter. 

It’s a thought that would feel like dying, except that Shane had survived when so many others had died. It’s a thought that would feel like the end of the world, except that Shane had watched Maya pull the wedding ring off her dead husband’s hand without flinching. It’s a thought that would feel suffocatingly isolating, except that Ilya had kissed him under the stars. 

Had held him in the darkness, when everyone else was asleep. Had refused to let himself be pushed away when Shane had felt like he was shattering apart. Had infuriatingly, relentlessly, refused to let Shane think for even a second that he was alone.

Ilya was an asshole, but Shane wanted him anyway. Wanted him in a way that he’d never wanted anyone else. He wanted, and he’d always thought he’d wanted… but he hadn’t, had he? He’d told himself he did but it had never… and he thought that that was just what it was like, what wanting was, but it wasn’t, was it? 

Shane had never wanted anyone the way he wants him. 

Oh, Shane thinks. I’m gay.

Shane isn’t sure how long he’s spent mindlessly moving the water bottles around before he finally blinks back into awareness. Almost certainly too long for anyone to believe he was actually doing anything meaningful with them, not when it was barely a task to begin with. But his luck seems to hold—when he chances a cautious look around, no one is looking back. 

Across the fire, Ilya has managed to untangle the yarn from around his fingers, now frowning with concentration as he moves the long needles he’s holding, Paquette leaning in next to him, watching him clumsily loop the yarn over one of the needles. To the left, Maya seems to be wholly occupied by the conversation she’s having with Petra and Robertson, and on the other side, Ayers, Oak, and Hendrix appear to be completely locked-in on what sounds like some sort of storytelling competition to determine which of them has had the most embarrassing fuck-up on an international broadcast. 

Shane should stand up. Should find something else productive to do, or at least pretend to do. He should wait for the right moment, a moment where everyone else is occupied with their own thing. A moment where Ilya isn’t, when Shane can catch his eye without anyone else noticing.

Instead, Shane coughs. 

It’s barely anything—it’s not a real cough, and he doesn’t want to fake one so hard that he sends himself into an actual coughing fit. 

Ilya’s head whips up anyways. His eyes land on Shane without hesitation, so clearly he, at least, wasn’t entirely unaware of where Shane was or what he was doing. 

It wouldn’t have really been a surprise before; it’s even less of one now. Shane has to bite back the smile that wants to spread across his face—half-giddy, half-hysterical. Instead, he just tilts his head towards the tarp-covered exit, keeping the motion as small as he can manage. Invisible, to anyone except Ilya. 

Ilya frowns, confused, but Shane doesn’t give him time to do anything else. He stands, and doesn’t look back as he crosses the front of the hold, pausing to snag one of the extra coats from the pile before slipping through the gap between the tarps. He keeps his movements unhurried, aiming for the kind of casual, unremarkable stride that barely registers. He’s not sure how successful it is—he’s never felt like he has less of a grasp on what’s normal than he does right now—but no one calls out after him, so Shane decides to take it as a win either way. 

Outside, Shane pauses to pull the second coat over his first, zipping it up before pulling the hood up over his head. He didn’t think to grab gloves, so shoves his hands into his pockets before walking towards the side of the plane. 

Turning, he follows the path drawn by the fuselage through the snow, past the open cabin door, to where the nose of the plane juts up from the top of the artificial hill of snow it forced into existence. 

In the shadow cast by the nose of the plane, the hill falls away, snow crumbling and rolling down to where the snow still lies in a pristine sheet, unaffected by the calamity that had so indelibly scarred the landscape only a handful of feet away. It’s down this hill that Shane heads, almost falling on his first step when his foot sinks far deeper into the snow than he’s expecting. 

Freshly reminded that not all of the snow surrounding them has been as firmly packed down by footsteps as the slope leading up to the cabin, Shane continues forward with far more caution. He looks around once he’s back on flat ground, and is satisfied to see that he’d been right—he can’t see the cabin door at all from here and the nose of the plane blocks him from being easily spotted from either side. Sunk into the shadows beneath it, he would be even harder to notice. 

Shane hears Ilya before he sees him, what has to be a steady string of Russian curses huffed out into the empty air. Shane allows himself a second to smile, unobserved, before he schools his expression. 

“Down here!” he calls out. 

“Бля.” Ilya’s voice is louder this time, obviously startled, and all of Shane’s work to wipe his face clear of any emotion is immediately undone—when Ilya’s head pops up over the top of the hill a few seconds later, he’s greeting by Shane smiling up at him, feeling more than a bit giddy. 

“What the fuck Hollander,” Ilya says. “What are you doing down there?”

“Come here,” Shane says, tilting his head towards the empty stretch of snow next to him. “I want to talk to you about something.”

“This is very ominous, Hollander,” Ilya says even as he begins to make his own slow way down the slope—his first step accompanied by an undignified, frantic pinwheeling of his arms as he tries not to fall down. It makes Shane feel better about having done the exact same thing, not that he would admit as much to Ilya, instead just grinning up at him in a way that earns him a mumbled shut up and a glare that isn’t even a little bit believable. 

There’s no other near misses though, and then Ilya is standing in front of Shane, looking around at their new hiding spot. Shane can see on his face the moment that he realizes how hidden they are, and the look on his face when his eyes eventually land back on Shane is one that Shane recognizes from an alleyway in Montréal only a handful of weeks ago. 

“You will murder me?” Ilya asks. 

“Maybe,” Shane says, and if it had been at all believable then, it certainly isn’t now—Shane can’t seem to stop smiling. “Depends. How good are you with secrets?” 

Ilya looks at Shane like he’s starting to become genuinely concerned that Shane’s finally lost it. 

“What do you think?” he finally says, in a tone that is half joking, half not—a test, attempting to gauge what Shane’s getting at. When Shane doesn’t reply, Ilya sighs. “I am very good with secrets, Hollander,” he says with exaggerated exasperation. “Why? You have somehow uncovered new secret since we last talked—” Ilya pauses, raising his arm to cast an exaggerated look at his watch, “—thirty-two minutes ago?”

Shane feels his smile widen, and gives up on stopping it. “Yeah, actually, I have,” he says, enjoying the way that Ilya’s confusion only seems to deepen, and Shane knows it’s his fault, that the way he can’t seem to stop smiling is probably freaking Ilya out at this point, but.

He can’t stop. Kinda wants to never stop, even if it’s probably making him look insane. 

He doesn’t actually want to freak Ilya out though, so he continues: “Do you want to know what it is?” 

Slowly, cautiously, Ilya nods. “Yes,” he says, his voice equally cautious, “I would.” 

“Great,” Shane says. “I’m gay.” 

Chapter End Notes

I wasn’t going to get into the logistics of people relieving themselves in this situation (there’s several options on the table for for how they could approach this, none of which I have any desire to detail lol), but Firefly_Named_Serenity and Redrikki commented on chapter 5 wondering how Maya in particular would manage with her mermaid tail, which had an interesting enough answer when I put it to Britt to make it worth writing out. so, this is our one (1) on-screen addressing of those logistics, and you’ll have to just trust that the rest of them have it sorted, even if the circumstances are less than ideal lol

if anyone's been wondering about the chapter title of chapter 7, it's a pair to this chapter's title and a reference to the story of Vega and Altair, lovers separated across the night sky. with all the time spent out under the night sky the last two chapters, it felt appropriately tragic ;)

a huge thank you for this chapter goes to dogpound, who provided the translation for all the Russian in this chapter, as well as corrections on the Russian in all previous chapters! I can't say enough what a gift it is to have a native speaker providing translation, and how grateful I am for you offering to help with this fic :))

and as always, endless thanks is owed to Britt (ao3/twt), whose graphic descriptions of infected wounds were equal parts repulsive and helpful and whose beta reading of this chapter has, as always, made it immeasurably better. I can't wait to get on a plane with you tomorrow, I'm sure working on this fic for the last few months will have only made me more normal about turbulence.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but with how many people have commented on how much they love Yakov, I also wanted to shout out the fact that Britt is the whole reason that he exists as a character! way back when I first started discussing this fic with her, she had the suggestion of having a nurse or paramedic be on the flight to provide deeper medical knowledge in addition to Shane's WFA, and thus, Yakov! (I went for paramedic over nurse for a few reasons but mostly because Britt is a paramedic irl, so this was the route that involved the least amount of research for both of us lol)

citations!
Star-Crossed Lovers in the Summer Triangle — Manitoba Museum
NHL players are all about pregame routine — The Canadian Press
Sepsis: Pathophysiology and Therapeutic Concepts — Dominik Jarczak, Stefan Kluge, Axel Nierhaus
Septic Shock — Sidharth Mahapatr,; Alan C. Heffner
Sepsis and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome — Won-Young Kim, Sang-Bum Hong
SAR: Search and Rescue — Transport Canada Aeronautical Information Manual
A guide to an improvised femoral traction splint in a resource-limited setting — S. Swanepoel, B. Bonner, B. Salence, K. Evans, S. Maqungo, N. Kauta
Nonoperative treatment with limited resources — AO Foundation

Chapter 9: Interlude // Carter

Chapter Notes

cw: f-slur

Carter cannot be developing a crush. 

He is in the middle of fuck-knows-where Russia, sleeping in the cargo hold of the plane that he was flying in when it crashed. He had never seen a dead body before this week; he doesn’t want to count how many he’s seen now. Doesn’t want to think about how many of them were people that he’d known when they were still alive. 

He’s tired, hungry, and dirty, and his forehead now not only hurts, but has started to itch in a way that he knows is a good sign but which is also driving him fucking crazy. 

He has no idea when, or if, they’ll be rescued. 

So, he cannot be developing a crush. Because that would be an objectively insane thing for him to do under these circumstances.

Next to him, Erika throws her head back, laughing at something Holly’s said, and Carter fights the urge to bury his face in his hands and groan. 

Fuck. 

He’s so fucking fucked.

Erika Thériault. 

Born and raised in a small town in northern Québec, the youngest of four girls, the daughters of first-generation immigrants from Abidjan. Moved to Montréal for university and stayed there even after she dropped out. Barely spoke a word of English before then; now speaks it better than Carter is pretty sure he does, and it’s the only language he knows. 

Started as a flight attendant with Air Canada almost exactly six months ago. Performed her third safety demonstration for a transatlantic flight four days ago.

Carter couldn’t remember what he’d said to Erika when she’d come by his seat before take-off—doing pre-flight checks and making sure the first class passengers were appropriately soaking in the luxury of their status, never mind the fact that they were all probably gonna be asleep the minute they were in the air. He did remember that whatever he had said had made her laugh, a sharp burst of sound that sounded nearly surprised out of her. He remembered, too, the way she’d blushed after, as if embarrassed by how loud and genuine her laughter had been. The rising flush was barely noticeable beneath her dark complexion but it had been there, if you’d been looking for it. 

And Carter had been looking for it. 

Is still looking for it, if he’s being honest. 

In, again, the middle of a fucking plane crash. 

Christ. He’s gotta get his head in the game.

Focus the fuck up. 

Lock in. 

His Captain is relying on him after all—which is also a bit of a trip, to be honest. Less of one than the whole plane crash thing, but still. 

Carter had seen precisely 0% of the last four-ish days coming, but if he had to rank them in order of how little he’d seen them coming, fucking Shane Hollander becoming his de facto Captain would be pretty high up there. 

It had been a total accident, the first time that he’d called the younger player Cap. The title had just… slipped out, more habit than anything. It’d been the tone that Hollander was using—the easy, calm command he’d taken of the situation so reminiscent of how Scotty handled tense, high-stakes games that Carter had just automatically shifted into the mindset of hockey. 

An easy fallback; the role he’d played on the Admirals for years now as a teammate, an Alternate Captain. There’d been such an indescribable relief in its familiarity, coming as it had in the midst of so much chaos, that Carter hadn’t even fully registered what had happened until hours later. 

It was less embarrassing, at least, than having called Hollander Coach; the only other option for men who Carter frequently heard—much less obeyed—orders from. 

Part of Carter felt like he should be trying a bit harder to take more of a leadership position himself. He’d been in the MLH a year longer than Hollander after all, and was three years older than him besides. But he was pretty sure that was just the toxic masculinity speaking or whatever—all the bullshit his childhood coaches and dad had always been pushing on him, back before Carter stopped talking to any of them—so Carter’s been pretty firmly ignoring those thoughts. 

It’s not like Carter actually wants to be in charge, if for no other reason than he has fucking zero clue what they should be doing; an issue that Holly clearly doesn’t have. 

Like, fuck, Carter knew the guy was a hockey savant or whatever, but the medical and wilderness survival shit was seriously on some whole other level. Carter would maybe be able to just wave it off as some weird Canadian thing—he’d grown up close enough to the border to know that not all the stupid stereotypes he’d heard about Canadians over the years were total bullshit, after all—except that it’s not like any of the other Canadian survivors of the crash had shown any sign of knowing even a fraction of the shit Holly did. 

Well, he supposed that Harris knew how to chop wood, but that wasn’t really that impressive. Especially when compared to all the crazy bullshit that Hollander had been pulling out of thin air. 

So—Alternate Captain of this plane crash. Carter can work with that. Even if one of the other men he has to share the A with is fucking Ilya Rozanov.

Which, look. Roz isn’t actually as much of an asshole as he loves everyone to think he is. Carter had already known that, even before this whole clusterfuck. So, there’s not any real reason for Carter to be mad about sharing the A with Roz, except that Rozanov’s ego is kinda unbearable at the best of times, and will almost certainly only be made worse by surviving a fucking plane crash, if they actually do all manage to make it out of here. 

Carter doesn’t even want to think about the kind of chirping material Roz will somehow manage to mine out of this whole disaster. 

Still, for all that the dude never fucking shuts up, running his mouth on the ice like that’s his job, rather than actually playing fucking hockey, Roz also treats chirping more like an art form than an excuse to say out loud every ugly thing that crosses his mind. Unlike a lot of other white players Carter could name, he’s never heard—or heard of—Roz saying anything racist, on or off the ice. Sure, he could be saving the worst of it for his mother tongue but... Carter kinda doubts it.

He’d heard about it first from St-Simon, years ago—that Roz always shuts that shit right the fuck down in the Raiders locker room. That he has been shutting it down, even before he’d gotten the C and all the authority that came along with the letter. So it’s not like it’s just for the cameras, or just a matter of keeping it out of the public eye.  

Vicky had been laughing the first time he’d told Carter about Roz, the two of them meeting up for drinks after a Raiders-Admirals game in the middle of Roz’s rookie season. About this fucking asshole Russian kid, who pulled so often it was like he was trying to break the record for most one-night-stands right alongside the rookie scoring record. Who partied like he thought he couldn’t die and had half the vets worried out of their minds for him. The other half nearly malicious in the way that they encouraged it—trying to knock him off his game; so blatantly, seethingly jealous of him that it was kinda embarrassing. 

But Vicky’d also told Carter about how Roz would get right up in the face of any guy he thought was being too aggressive towards a woman in a club, no matter how wasted he was or how much the guy out-weighed him. How he never took a girl home who was any more fucked up than he was. 

How he’d pretend to not get jokes that Vicky was 100% certain he fully understood, asking the guy who’d said it to explain it to him instead of just laughing along with everyone else. They way he’d then stare, blank-faced, at each attempt to explain without actually explaining, until the other guy, sputtering and increasingly uncomfortable, finally dropped it, never daring to attempt a similar joke again afterwards—at least, not where Roz could hear him. 

How he’d managed to get even the players who dropped the foulest shit you’d heard in your life without blinking to scrub nearly every slur from their vocabulary. Sure, he’d done it by acting like it was embarrassing that they couldn’t come up with anything more creative or clever, but hey—if it worked, it worked. 

And it did work—maybe too well, if Carter was being honest. There’d been a notable uptick in the quality and frequency of chirps from the entire Raiders’ roster since Roz had been drafted to the team that Carter—along with probably at least half of the rest of the league—wasn’t exactly a huge fan of.

Whatever. It didn’t really make a difference right now, anyway. Roz has been on his best behaviour since the plane had gone down—or, at least since Hollander had finally emerged from the plane, allowing Roz to start following him around everywhere he went. 

Seriously—it was like Roz was a freshly hatched duckling or something, one who’d imprinted on the first hockey player he’d seen. Already today, with the morning barely started, he’d once again attached himself to Hollander, his face impassive as he stands next to him now, listening to Erika and Holly discuss their—admittedly, limited—breakfast options.

For all his impassivity though, Carter already knows that whatever Holly’s play ends up being, Roz is practically 100% guaranteed to back him up. Which was another thing that was right up there on the list of things Carter hadn’t seen coming about the last few days.

Away from the cameras, Roz and Holly were apparently actually, secretly, friends. 

It had started to make sense though, when Carter’d found time late in the first day to actually stop and think about it. Carter knows how much time you end up spending with guys on other teams after all, especially when you’re as good as those two are—the league’s two biggest stars, inevitably dragged out to every single event the MLH put on, big and small. And even if Vicky hadn’t told Carter about the vindictive way that some of the vets had tried to ice Roz out before he got the C, even if Carter hadn’t heard all the shit that commentators and players alike liked to say about Holly being too soft or whatever, Carter’d already seen for himself how weird other guys could get about how good Scotty is. 

He might not have ever experienced it himself, not in the way they have, but Carter understands that there’s a specific sort of loneliness to being at the top—one that very few other players would ever be able to relate to. 

So, it does make sense that Holly and Roz would have become friends—bonding over their shared isolation, if nothing else. Just as much as it makes sense that they would have very intentionally hidden it from the rest of the league, nevermind the cameras. 

If it wouldn’t almost certainly be a violation of something in the CBA, Crowell would probably have strong-armed both the Metros and Raiders into putting some sort of clause in both of their contracts about feeding the rivalry—and all the respective ticket and jersey sales that came along with it. 

So, here they are. In the middle of the Russian wilderness, sleeping in the cargo hold of a crashed plane, collecting firewood and boiling water and rationing food and praying for rescue. 

And Roz and Holly are friends on the down-low, and Roz is behaving himself, and Holly is saving everyone’s fucking lives with his crazy wilderness survival skills, and Carter is developing a crush on a flight attendant at the most ill-advised time in human history.

Fuckin’ surreal, man. 

They settle on pretzels. 

Carter takes the small bags that Holly hands to him, loading up the cradle of his arms with small, crinkling plastic. It’s not a challenge for Carter to carry all of the bags on his own—aside from the way that they like to try and slip out of his grip—but Carter’s trying not to think too hard about how little food they’ve been eating. Or how little food is left in Holly’s carefully organized bins. 

Or what they’re gonna do, if the bins are emptied before they’re rescued. 

The actual process of handing out the bags requires little thought, at least, making it easier for Carter to avoid also thinking about all the things he has no control over. After three days, he and Erika have settled into a pretty solid distribution system, with Carter carrying most, if not all, of the food, and Erika taking packages from him, handing them out one-by-one as they make their slow loop of the cargo hold.

Honestly, Carter’s kinda having a blast being on flight attendant duty—and not just because it gives him an excuse to hang around Erika, though he’s given up on pretending, at least to himself, that that isn’t part of it. 

Beyond the simple reassurance of having something tangible to do—which Carter does appreciate—it also gives him a chance to do individual check-ins with all the other survivors. Holly’s obviously been making an effort to talk to everyone else at least once a day himself, even if it’s only for a handful of minutes—because, as Carter has learned, Hollander is a really fucking good Captain—but Holly’s also already got his hands full with all the other shit he’s trying to manage. 

From coordinating the wood-gathering and water-boiling efforts to handling their various supplies to managing the care of the injured people with Yakov, Hollander is already doing far more than his fair share in ensuring their continued survival. Not to mention the fact that Holly’s also got his own injuries to worry about, whatever they are—he’s been keeping it pretty locked down, all things considered, but Carter hasn’t missed how careful Roz and Yakov are both being with him. 

Carter doesn’t think that it’s anything life threatening—Roz would definitely be making it everyone’s problem if it was—but still. They really can’t afford to have Holly go down, so it’s important that they spread out some of the other responsibilities. That they give their Captain as much breathing room as they can. That they let him focus on the shit that actually requires his attention, and leave the other things—like checking in with the rest of the team—to the rest of them.

And really, what’s the point in the invisible A on Carter’s chest if he doesn’t step up and do his part to take at least some of his Captain’s stress away?

Team Woodcutting—the three most enthusiastic and consistent volunteers for the mission of gathering more firewood—are gathered in their usual spot midway down the left wall of the cargo hold. 

Carter hands each of them their allocated bag of pretzels, then listens to Finley Harris complain about the blisters he’s starting to get on his hands, a side-effect of volunteering his—slightly rusty, but still the best they have—axe-handling skills to the cause. Carter lets out a sympathetic hiss when the other man shows Carter his reddened palms before clapping his hand on one of Harris’ shoulders, praising how much firewood that they’d be able to get from the cause of the blisters—the handful of small saplings Harris had chopped down the previous afternoon. 

Felix Gálvez leans in at that point with a chirp about how Harris will have to let the rest of them have a turn with the axe now. Carter isn’t sure if the chirp is down to the innate, inexorable competitive impulse shared by all athletes, the fact that they share the same sport, or the long-standing rivalry between America and Canada extending even into alpine skiing. 

It sounds friendly enough though, and Harris is smiling when he rolls his eyes and shoves at the other man’s shoulder in return, so Carter figures they’re probably fine. That the third of their trio just watches the whole thing with an amused half-smile is an added assurance, although Carter will admit that he doesn’t really know enough about Winnipeg’s starting goalie to know if that’s his default expression or not.

Carter makes a mental note to keep an eye on it, just in case.

Kivelä himself is doing better at least, reassuring Carter that the mild concussion that Yakov had diagnosed him with that first day had faded to little more than a lingering headache. Carter is still feeling a bit on edge after the whole thing with Riley though, and is relieved when Kivelä easily agrees to his request that he check in with Yakov and Shane at some point today. 

Next up is what Carter has started thinking of as the Canadian Corner—a collection of Canadian athletes and non-athletes who are too injured for wood collection but not injured enough for Holly and Yakov’s fire-side medical zone.

The Murphys—who hail from Edmonton and who were quick to tell Carter, upon their first introduction, are huge hockey fans—are doing about as well as the circumstances permit. Breanna is still obviously in a lot of pain from her whiplash, but as she has done for the last few days, waves off Carter’s questions about her injury, more focused on her husband’s health than her own. It’s understandable even if it’s also frustrating.

Matthew seems to be doing okay at least, as far as Carter can tell. In exchange for the bag of pretzels Carter hands him, Matthew shares the reassuring fact that he’d already received whatever the Russian equivalent of a thumbs-up is from Yakov the previous evening, when the paramedic and Shane had done their evening rounds on the less injured of the survivors. 

Still, Carter makes a mental note to verify that with Yakov and Shane, and maybe ask if they can spare some more of their limited stores of painkillers for Breanna.

Jonathan Barry takes his package of pretzels with a particularly miserable-sounding thank you, only managing slightly more enthusiasm for the high-five Carter offers him for not throwing up for almost twenty-four hours. Neither of the concussions that Carter’s had in his career so far have been as bad as the one that Jon is powering through right now though, and he can only imagine how much more brutal it must be to be dealing with one out here. 

At least the light in the hold is limited, even in the middle of the day, Carter thinks, but doesn’t share out loud. He’s not sure it would do much to help cheer Jon up, with the man in question now staring down at his bag of pretzels like he can’t decide if he wants to eat them, pass out, or throw up. 

Sadie Stewart—another enthusiastic winter sports fan, though her interests are broader than the Murphys’ somewhat single-minded focus on hockey—seems to be in better spirits. Or, at least Carter hopes that her chipper recounting of nearly puking in pain after rolling over in her sleep and landing on her broken ribs is an indication of an overall cheerful attitude, and not, like, a secret brain injury. 

Carter spends a bit of time trading worst injury stories with her to try and suss it out, but it’s hard to tell for sure if Sadie’s got memory issues or whatever, since there’s no one here to verify the accuracy of the stories that she shares. Despite that, the extensive list of injuries she’s able to rattle off—including a broken wrist (snowboarding accident), a 6-inch gash down her forearm that required 30 stitches (barback bottle-flip trick gone wrong), and a concussion plus several missing teeth (thrown off a horse)—does make him think that the odds of a hidden brain bleed are pretty low. Especially since Yakov and Shane haven’t raised that as a concern, even after doing pupil and breathing checks on everyone. 

Instead, Carter thinks that he recognizes something in Sadie that she, perhaps unknowingly, shares with many of the athletes that she’s such a fan of—that her extensive list of past trips to the ER has left her with a slightly blasé attitude towards any injury, no matter how serious. 

Sonia Melendez is last, and although Carter knows that Yakov has also been checking on her, he still makes sure to confirm that her dislocated shoulder is also feeling about as good as can be expected, given their circumstances. Carter can tell that she’s starting to get restless from how little she’s been able to contribute with her left arm tied to her torso though, and suggests that she might want to see if she can help out with the water purification efforts—or maybe just head over to sit by the fire for a bit, and see if she can strike up a conversation with Maya. 

It’s not purely for Sonia’s sake that Carter makes that suggestion. Though he’s been worried about how Maya is doing ever since he’d first helped Holly get her out of the plane, he also hadn’t been able to spend a ton of time with her. Still, even from a distance Carter has noticed that she’s been spending more time sitting in silence than not, isolated from even the other patients surrounding her. 

The handful of conversations Carter has managed to have with her haven’t done much to lessen his worries either—broken femur aside, Maya hasn’t brought up her husband’s death at all. And sure, she might just not want to talk about it with Carter specifically, but he’s worried that it’s actually because she’s trying to suppress all of her emotions about it until they’re rescued. 

Which would be fair, given the precariousness of their circumstances and all of the other shit they’re all dealing with, but still—Carter isn’t sure that’s the healthiest thing to do, regardless of what other factors are at play. He’s done a few mental health seminars with the Admirals over the years, and the speakers all put a lot of emphasis on talking about your feelings and shit. 

Carter isn’t the best at opening up himself a lot of the time—more of that toxic masculinity stuff, probably—much less figuring out how to make someone else feel comfortable opening up to him. Maya might also not feel as comfortable talking about it with a man, which is where Carter is hoping that by sending Sonia over, Maya might have an easier time opening up about how she’s really feeling. Plus, women are usually better at the whole emotions thing in general, so. 

Wait, is that sexist? 

Shit. Shit.

It’s definitely sexist. 

Fuck. 

Okay. Well. At least Carter hadn’t said that part out loud, and Sonia had cast a worried look across the hold at Maya, so it was probably fine. Carter could work on his unconscious biases when they weren’t in a life-or-death situation. 

Maybe the people who do the Admirals’ mental health seminars could do one on sexism? Carter makes another mental note.

He'll ask Scotty about it when they get out of here.

In the opposite back corner of the hold, a solitary figure sits, a miserable-looking lump wrapped in a blanket, and Carter can’t quite help but frown at the sight.

Despite everything that’s happened over the past few days—his attempt to defend Roz from Riley, his management of all of the other survivors while Roz, Holly, and Yakov were too occupied with trying to save Riley to pay attention to anything else, his easy capitulation to being voluntold by Erika to help her and Carter set up the marker the day before—Troy Barrett has continued to keep his distance from everyone else. 

After a quick stop by their own established spot—dropping two bags of pretzels for themselves onto the empty cushions and handing a third to Karina where she’s sitting, hunched over and filling yet another page in her notebook with her incomprehensible shorthand—Carter and Erika continue on towards Barrett. 

It’s not like he’s limited in options for groups he could join, Carter thinks as they close the distance between themselves and the sad lump that is Troy Barrett, making sure to school his expression into something more neutral than his previous, instinctive frown.

Barrett has been volunteering to get wood every time the call goes out, so Team Woodcutting would be a solid pick. He’s not super injured, but he’d probably have no problem being accepted by the Canadian Corner regardless, given that he is Canadian. Not to mention the general, y’know, Canadian-ness of that group’s members—stereotype or not, Carter has a hard time imagining that crew turning away a scared teenager. 

Hell, Barrett has helped out in enough of the most tense moments that they’ve gone through as a group, post-crash, that Carter himself would be willing to group him in with who he’s begun mentally calling the Auxiliary Leadership Group—currently just Erika and Karina, so there’s plenty room for one more, if that one more didn’t seem to be more interested in voluntarily isolating himself from everyone else in the hold than getting to know any of his fellow survivors.

Carter supposes he should just be grateful that Barrett’s picked riding this out solo over joining Team Hangry, but still. It doesn’t sit right with Carter—not with the metaphorical A on his chest, not with the memory of how scared Barrett had looked after everything that had gone down with Riley. Not after the reminder of just how fucking young the kid is. 

“Hey Barrett,” Carter calls out as they approach. Barrett’s head jerks upwards as if startled, and Carter has to remind himself that he’s still holding a bunch of bags of pretzels, squashing the instinctive urge to throw his hands up to show that he’s come in peace. 

Christ, this kid is jumpy, Carter thinks. 

“Uh, hey,” Barrett says. 

“Can we interest you in some breakfast?” Carter says, smiling broadly, a hands-free alternative for showing that he’s not a threat.

He’s not sure how well it works, given that Barrett looks no less wary as Erika and Carter come to a stop in front of him.

“We’re offering pretzels, pretzels, or pretzels,” Carter continues, persevering in smiling down at the other player, hoping that at some point it will work to convince the guy to drop his guard. 

Barrett laughs—slightly strangled, but hey. Carter will take it. “Oh wow,” Barrett says. “Um. It’s hard to pick, with so many options.” He pauses, and when he continues it’s with a smile that looks marginally more real. “I guess I’ll go with... pretzels.” 

“Excellent pick, sir,” Erika says, plucking a bag from Carter’s arms and delivering it to Barrett with a wink—clearly picking up on Carter’s unspoken mission to try and get the kid to unclench.

Judging by the blush that immediately rises to colour his cheeks, Carter isn’t sure that Erika’s attempt has been any more successful than his own. 

In Erika’s defense, Carter doesn’t think that there’s anything she could have said to Barrett that would have helped the kid relax—with the way that he’d been watching Erika the other day, followed by his comment about her being nice, Carter suspects that he might not be the only one in this plane crash harbouring a crush for everyone’s favourite flight attendant. 

Reminding himself that it would be stupid to get pissed off and territorial with an eighteen-year-old, and that he himself shouldn’t be developing anything even close to a crush in these circumstances anyway, Carter refuses to let his own smile so much as waver. 

“You doing okay over here?” he asks instead.

“Oh, uh, yeah?” Barrett says, the plastic bag in his hands loudly crackling as his fingers reflexively tighten around it. Clearing his throat, Barrett continues, firmer, “I mean, yes. All good. Great, even. Doing, um. Yeah. Super.” 

Okay, well. It was a good effort, Carter thinks, even if Barrett kinda fucked it on the dismount. 

“Great,” Carter echoes. “Glad to hear it.” He glances at Erika, seeing the same worry he’s feeling reflected back at him in her eyes. Turning back to Barrett, he continues, pushing as much sincerity into his voice as he can: “If you ever want some company though, you can always come hang out with us.” He nods back over his shoulder to where Karina is still sitting, ignoring everyone else. “I promise, we don’t bite.”

“Ha,” Barrett says. “Uh. Yeah, okay. Maybe.” 

Christ, Carter thinks again. 

“Alright,” Carter says, powering past the awkwardness. “Well, enjoy your breakfast sir, and don’t hesitate to push the call button if you need anything else.” 

That, at least, manages to put a more real smile on Barrett’s face, his shoulders losing some of their tension as he nods his agreement, and Carter decides to leave it at that. The brief back-and-forth hasn’t done much to diminish his general worry for the youngest amongst them though.

While he’s pretty sure, at this point, that Barrett isn’t going to turn into the kind of problem that Carter had been certain he was going to be at first—given what Carter had learned about him from their few on-ice interactions so far this season, not to mention what he'd heard from other players, and seen online—he’s more concerned than ever that Barrett is in danger of turning into an entirely different sort of problem. 

Exchanging a look with Erika that confirms that she’s on the same page as him, Carter resolves to continue to keep an eye on Barrett, and moves on.

Team Hangry has posted up along the wall of the hold just beyond the spot that Yakov has claimed as his own, opposite Team Woodcutting and, as with Barrett, Carter makes sure to school his expression into something cheerfully neutral as he approaches. 

“Fucking seriously?” Roth says anyway when he catches sight of the bags Carter is carrying, once again affirming the accuracy of Carter’s mental label for the group. 

“Seriously,” Carter replies as cheerfully as he can manage, fighting to keep any bite out of his own voice even though, like—yeah, seriously. 

What the fuck does Roth expect? The supplies that they have are the supplies they have, and Holly is doing his best to balance them with both everyone’s individual needs and the uncertainty of how much time is remaining before they’re rescued. Christ. Carter gets that everyone is hungry and tired and scared, but being an asshole isn’t going to change the reality of the limits they’re all working under. 

Next to him, Thompson looks like he’s trying to project an equal amount of outrage, but it’s being slightly undermined by the way that the D-man can’t even turn his head an inch without wincing. Carter adds his name next to Breanna’s, for people that might need another dose of painkillers. 

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Roth grumbles, snatching the bag of pretzels Erika holds out toward him. Her expression doesn’t waver from the polite customer service smile she’d put on when they’d approached the group, and Carter wonders if Roth even realizes that he’s being treated like a problem passenger.

At least Roth has still been volunteering for wood gathering duties—Carter can only imagine how much more unpleasant the other man would be acting, if he was getting the smaller quantity of rations going to those who aren’t expending extra energy on resource-gathering. 

Carter would be inclined to put Roth’s bad attitude down to the fact that Dominic Riley had been hanging out with their group before he’d died, something that had to have hit them worse than it had the rest of them, except that it had started to show itself long before Riley died. It could just be down to the general shittiness of their circumstances of course, but Carter’s gut told him that it wasn’t that either—or at least, it wasn’t just that. 

He’d first noticed it about half-way through that first day, when the general agreeableness that Roth had started out with had begun to slowly evolve into muttered complaints and rolled eyes. Reviewing when he’d begun to notice the change, Carter had come to the conclusion that it probably had more to do with Hollander stepping into the role of Captain than anything else. Compounded, maybe, by the unambiguous way in which Rozanov had been the first to slide into the position of Alternate.

Carter doesn’t know Roth all that well—he’d been playing for Vancouver his whole career, and had only made it to All-Stars once, on a fan vote, so Carter hasn’t ever met the guy on-ice or off more than twice a year. But he knows that Roth played under Holly in Juniors, and he’s very familiar with the specific bitterness with which certain players approached their former Captains. 

It doesn’t help, probably, that Holly is more susceptible than others to being the target of that particular type of hostility. A charming combination of jealousy and racism means that even those that Holly had dragged alongside him to one victory or another could end up resentful and vindictive. The whole thing only compounded by what was probably more than a bit of homophobia—something that fed into how other players felt about Hollander, regardless of whether or not the rumours that Carter had heard about him being gay were true or not.

Carter hasn’t asked Holly about Roth’s obviously one-sided and almost certainly undeserved beef—he doesn’t want Holly to be worried about managing Roth’s feelings on top of everything else—so he doesn’t know for sure either way, but enough of Roth’s comments have been focused on Holly that he feels pretty confident in his conclusion. There’s not much Carter can do to change Roth’s mind though—it’s not like he’s going to be able to talk Roth out of a bias that probably long precedes the plane crash while they're still in the middle of a plane crash—so he’s mostly just been keeping an eye on it, trying to diffuse any complaints coming out of the group when he can. 

It’s been going… okay, Carter thinks. Thompson has been standing down when pressed at least, and Roth has stopped saying anything that’s blatantly and specifically against Holly within Carter’s hearing. He doesn’t have much faith that Roth isn’t still stirring up shit when he’s not around though, given the persistently sour looks on Kazie and Sam’s faces when Holly does his daily Captain’s speech. 

Carter doesn’t have as good of a grip on what might be driving their issues with Hollander—whether it’s just the internalization of whatever bullshit Roth’s been feeding them, or if it’s something else. Unlike Roth and Thompson, they have no professional reason to dislike Hollander, and as far as Carter can tell, neither of them know Hollander personally—Kazie is a freestyle skier for Team USA, and Sam is just a random dude who had been headed to Sochi to watch the games. So it probably isn’t some pre-existing dislike for Holly as, like, a person. 

Maybe they’re fans of one of the many, many other teams that Hollander routinely embarrasses on the ice. Maybe they don’t like how much younger than them he is. Maybe they don’t like that he’s half-Japanese. 

Whatever it is, it doesn’t really matter—Carter just hopes that they, along with Roth and Thompson, can keep a lid on it until they’re out of here. 

“C’mon, man,” Carter tries. “It’s the same as everyone else is getting.” 

“Yeah,” Roth says, “and it’s fucking ridiculous. We’re gonna to starve to death before we can get found at this rate. If we get found.” 

“We’re not going to starve,” Carter says, keeping his tone and face placid—something he’s unfortunately, and luckily, had plenty of practice with over his life. “And we’re going to be found—like Hollander said, we’re in the area that they’ll be looking first. It’s just a matter of time before we’re located.” 

“It’s been days—” Roth argues, pushing himself to his feet in a way that makes Carter tense.

He can only hope that it’s just that Roth was feeling disadvantaged, sitting and glaring up at Carter, and not that he’s gearing up to start an actual fight.

Roth gestures broadly as he continues, “—and there hasn’t been any sign of so much as a plane going by.”

“That’s true,” Carter says, aiming for placating, “but none of us know how long it takes for a rescue operation like this to get off the ground. We’ve got the marker out now though, and plenty of food to keep us going in the meantime.” 

Roth scoffs. “Yeah, sure, this sure looks like plenty of food,” he says, voice heavy with sarcasm as he waves his bag of pretzels.

“It’s enough to get us through to being rescued,” Carter says, keeping his voice and expression calm, refusing to react to Roth’s antagonism. “It’s being rationed for a reason, sure, but no one is going to starve.” 

“You sure about that?” Roth challenges. 

“Yeah, dude, I am,” Carter says, fighting to keep his rising annoyance out of his voice. “Holly and Erika did the math on it. I know it’s not ideal, but we’re working with what we have.” Roth opens his mouth, clearly prepared to keep arguing, but Carter continues before he can, cutting him off. “Look, we’re going to need to have a group go out and gather firewood again today. Why don’t you volunteer for that? You’ll get a bigger portion for dinner that way.” 

“Yeah, because I’ll have burned through more calories than all of the lazy assholes that aren’t doing fuck-all to help us get rescued,” Roth says, though Carter thinks he maybe sounds at least slightly placated by the reminder that there’s a way for him to get more food. 

“Bro,” Thompson says from his spot on the ground next to Roth, affronted. 

Roth at least has the grace to look apologetic as he glances down at the other man—having been reminded, Carter assumes, that Thompson is one of those lazy assholes, with his injury preventing him from volunteering for any of the tasks Holly has been offering up.  

“Sorry dude,” Roth says, “I didn’t mean—” he cuts himself off with a sigh. “Whatever,” he says, and his voice is no less bitter than when he first spoke, but he doesn't say anything else as he sits back down.

Carter lets some of the tension flow out of him; reassured that Roth isn’t looking to start a fight. Not right now, anyway. 

“Alright!” Erika says, brushing past the moment with the kind of cheerfulness that can only come from exhausting experience. She hands out pretzels to the rest of the small group. The others seem to have been slightly more reassured by Carter’s words than Roth—or at least are embarrassed enough by Roth's behaviour to just accept the bags with nothing more than strained smiles and nods of thanks. 

“Jesus Christ,” Carter mumbles under his breath as they walk away, and can’t help but smile at the way that Erika has fight to stifle her responding laughter. 

Since I wasn’t there, I was hoping you might be able to tell me if you noticed anything... off about him?

Carter doesn’t realize that he’s frowning until he returns to his spot sitting with Karina and Erika, and Erika takes one look at his face and immediately asks him what’s wrong. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Carter quickly reassures, smiling when Erika relaxes.

“What did he want?” Karina asks, her tone curious but not demanding—the kind of question that indicates only a general interest, rather than an attempt to dig for a headline.

Carter eyes her for a second anyway, weighing his response. Holly hadn’t said that he shouldn’t tell anyone else what they’d talked about, but he did know that Holly was a private guy in general, and probably wouldn’t want his words repeated, regardless of subject. Especially if the person they were being repeated to was a journalist, even if right now Karina is currently more of a back-up translator and fellow survivor than anything else. 

Still, Holly’s question has Carter re-evaluating his own previous assumptions, and he can’t say he isn’t curious to hear what Erika and Karina might have to say about the whole thing, as people who don’t know Holly and Roz personally. As someone who doesn’t know shit about hockey in general, as someone who knows them only from a media point of view. 

Glancing over his shoulder, Carter sees that Holly is now over on the far side of the hold, crouched by the fire and doing something with the water bottles. He leans in towards Karina and Erika when he turns back around anyway, raising his shoulders like that’ll make it less obvious that he’s talking to them. 

“He was asking about how Roz was acting when Holly was still on the plane,” Carter says, keeping his voice low to avoid anyone else overhearing. 

“Oh god, yeah,” Karina says, eyes widening even as she matches Carter’s volume, mirroring him by leaning in closer. “I forgot he wouldn’t have seen any of that,” she continues, then huffs out a laugh. “Fuck, I thought we were going to have to, like, restrain him.” 

Carter lets out his own quiet half-laugh, because yeah. The thought had also crossed his mind in the moment, with how physically aggressive Roz had gotten, something that had only escalated after Carter had come out to ask Erika about the med kit. It’d probably actually helped that it had been Karina who’d been left to argue with him after that, Carter belatedly realizes. 

Unlike Carter, who Roz has actually punched before, it would likely take a lot more for Roz to be willing to punch a woman, especially outside of the context of a hockey game. 

“Yeah, I guess he was worried it might have been something like what happened with Riley?” Carter says, watching both women’s expressions sober at the reminder. “So he wanted to check that I hadn’t noticed anything else.” 

“Marde,” Erika says, “I hadn’t even thought about that.” She bites her lip, casting a worried look toward the front of the hold.

Carter shoots another glance over his shoulder, following her line of sight to where Roz is… knitting with Paquette? Beyond them, Holly is still fucking around with the water bottles, and Carter shakes his head, smiling as he turns back around.

They’re both so weird—no wonder they became friends. Which, actually, that reminds him—

“Erika, you said you don’t watch hockey at all, right?” Carter checks, pulling Erika’s gaze back towards him. The concern fades from her expression as she does, and she shakes her head, smiling. 

“No, sorry,” she says. “But I’m sure you’re very impressive.” 

“One of the best,” Carter says, unable to stop himself from being briefly distracted by the opportunity to brag, giving Erika a cheeky smile as he continues, “they don’t let just anyone play for Team USA in the Olympics, you know.” 

Erika laughs. “So I’ve heard,” she says, and Carter tries not to feel flustered at the sound of her laughter, or the—flirty??—smile she shoots at him. 

He’d been briefly worried, when Holly’d said he wanted to ask Carter something, that the other man was going to ask what was going on with him and Erika, and is still incredibly relieved to have been spared the humiliation of having to confess to the world’s most ill-timed crush to his Captain. He doesn’t think Holly would tell him to cut it out or anything, but the threat of potentially being told to keep it professional in the middle of a plane crash is going to haunt him for a while. 

“But you recognized Hollander, right?” Carter continues, double checking the assumption he’d made after their first post-crash conversation, when Erika had cut off his attempt to describe what Holly looked like—so that Erika could bring him the first aid kit—with the assertion that she knew what Shane Hollander looked like. 

“Well, yeah,” Erika says. “I live in Montréal.” 

She doesn’t add anything else, like that alone is enough of an explanation, and maybe it is—Carter has seen the giant banner of Holly that they sometimes hang on the front of the Bell Centre, not to mention the seemingly endless stream of ads and magazine features that Holly does. Hell, he’s seen Holly on billboards in fuckin’ New York. He can only imagine that the frequency with which someone might be confronted with Holly’s face is even higher, living in the actual city he plays for.

“Fair enough,” Carter says, conceding the point before turning to Karina. “And you said you’ve done coverage of Montréal–Boston games, right?” 

Karina nods. “Not a ton,” she admits. “I’m still pretty junior, and those games are so high profile that the network prefers to have more senior staff doing the pressers for them.” 

“Huh,” Carter says, not having considered previously that there might be any sort of jockeying for who provides coverage of what games. 

He knows he lives in a pretty isolated bubble, professionally speaking, which has very weird and specific rules around comportment and interactions with everyone from fans to other players to management. His mom and both his sisters are all teachers—which he knows from their rants over the years comes with a lot of its own specific kinds of internal politics—but he hadn’t really considered what that would look like in other careers. 

“Have you ever had the chance to interview either of them yourself then?” Carter asks, pushing past the realization that he should maybe consider expanding his social circle a bit. 

“I’ve spoken to Hollander a few times, for non-Boston matchups,” Karina says. “For the Montréal-Boston games I’ve covered, they had me with Rozanov. Mostly because they wanted the chance to do interviews with him in Russian, I think. It’s why I got selected for the Olympics, so…” 

Karina trails off with a shrug, and Carter privately thinks that that must kind of suck—to know that the big career opportunities you’re getting are less about your talent, and more about the fact that you just happen to speak a non-majority language.

“Okay, cool,” Carter says, because even if he knew how to comment on that, this probably isn’t the time for it. “I guess Holly’s question about Roz got me thinking, and I was just… What do you guys think about their relationship?” 

Erika and Karina both frown at him, in near perfect sync.

“What do you mean?” Erika asks, beating Karina to the punch.

Carter shrugs, not really sure how to phrase it when the question is still so nebulous even inside his own mind. 

“I dunno,” he says. “I guess I just… I mean, the whole narrative in the media is about the rivalry, right?” Karina nods, while Erika makes a face that seems to say if you say so. “But clearly they’re actually friends,” Carter continues, feeling validated at the easy nods he gets from both women in reply, “so I guess I just was wondering if that was as surprising for you, as people who don’t know them.” 

“Wait,” Erika says, surprise obvious in her voice. “People don’t know that they’re friends?” Carter and Karina shake their heads at the same time, and Erika’s expression turns even more confused. “How?” she asks, baffled. “They’re like… all up in each other’s space? Constantly? And I mean, we were just talking about how freaked out Roz was when he didn’t know that Shane was okay.” 

Karina laughs. “Yeah,” she says. “I cannot emphasize enough how much this,” she waves her hand around in a small circle in the vague direction of Roz and Holly, “is not how they usually act around each other.” She pauses, then adds, more consideringly, “or at least, I guess it’s not how they act around each other when they’re in the public eye.” 

Erika doesn’t look any less confused after that explanation. 

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I was thinking,” Carter jumps in. “Like, even before they’d first played against each other, the coverage was all about which of them was the better player.”

“Christ,” Karina says with a laugh, “I’d almost forgotten about how crazy everyone was already going over them, even in Juniors.” She turns to Erika, explains: “It was wild, like nothing I’d ever seen, and I’ve been following hockey media since I was a kid. Like, they were both just teenagers, but the headlines were still all about how they were going to change the game, and arguing over which of them was better.” A pause, before Karina tacks on: “Even though it’s obviously Hollander.” 

Carter bites back a laugh, thinking that that last was probably more about patriotism than an actual objective opinion. Judging by the look Karina shoots at him, his face has given away his thoughts anyway, but she doesn’t say anything, just shakes her head, smiling. 

“Exactly,” Carter says, refocusing on the rest of what Karina had said. “Like, it was basically predetermined for them, right?”

“So what, they didn’t even get a choice in how they were being talked about?” Erika cuts in, making a face when Karina and Carter both nod in reply. “Criss, that must suck.” 

Carter shrugs, because, well, yeah, but that was just… hockey. Fuck knows Carter has gotten his own fair share of pre-written narratives over the years. It pisses him off, sure, especially when at least half of them are little more than thinly-veiled racist profiling of him as being a more aggressive player than he actually is just because he’s a black man, but there’s not much he—or any other player—can do to unwrite those stories. 

The best you can do, as his mom always reminds him, is rise above. Don’t do anything to feed into them. Don't say anything about them, because that will just make it worse, or get you kicked back down to the AHL. Keep silent and remember your media training. Plaster a smile on your face and pretend that you’re not burning up inside. 

Karina is wearing a slightly guilty look in reply to Erika’s observation, which Carter isn’t sure is entirely earned—not when she’s not the one who set up those narratives, or in a position of power that would allow her to challenge them, even if she is part of the system that perpetuates them.

“Not to mention the fact that you know that the league makes a ton of money off of the rivalry,” Carter says in an attempt to move them past the media angle, and because he’s always happy to take any chance he can to throw shade at the league. 

“Oh, for sure,” Karina quickly agrees, obviously relieved to be moving on. “Like, they sell tickets to Montréal–Boston games at playoff prices, even during the regular season. Plus Hollander and Rozanov have been the best selling jerseys in the league since I think maybe their rookie season?”

“So what, your bosses are making them act like they don’t like each other just so they can make more money?” Erika asks, incredulous, looking at Carter. 

“I mean, I wouldn’t say making,” Carter says slowly, because the MLHPA would certainly have something to say about it, if that was the case. “But I’d guess that there’s… pressure. Expectations. Even if no one’s saying it directly.” 

“Shit,” Erika says. “Okay, tabarnak, I guess it makes sense then, right? That they’d hide the fact that they’re friends.”

“Yeah,” Karina says. “It would be an actual media circus if it ever got out. Honestly, I’m kinda surprised that they’re not keeping up the act.” 

“It’d be kinda hard to, under present circumstances,” Erika points out, and Karina shrugs.

“Yeah,” Carter agrees. “I mean, hard to care about that shit either. Like, when Roz thought Holly might be dead or whatever, I doubt the rivalry even crossed his mind.”

“Exactly,” Erika says approvingly, and Carter tries his best not to preen in response. “Like, what the fuck does that matter, when you don’t know if your friend is okay or not?” 

Carter remembers the pure terror on Roz’s face when he’d been trying to get back onto the plane—a terror Carter had had no context for at the time, but which had been shocking in its strength anyway. The fear and anger in his voice as he’d demanded that Carter get out of his way, as he’d snapped that Carter was ‘mistaking the problem I have'. The way that Carter had been absolutely convinced that Roz was about to deck him, when Carter had told him to either fucking explain it then, or else shut the fuck up.

Even now, long after Holly’d first emerged from the plane, Roz still hasn’t really lost that edge that he’d had back then. He’s still hovering around Holly, looking out for him. Trying to make him laugh. Guarding him, making sure that he’s okay, that he isn’t over-exerting himself.

For all that Roz has been doing to keep everyone’s spirits up, to help out wherever and whenever he can, it’s not difficult to see the stark difference between what he’s been doing for everyone else and what he’s been doing for Holly. The way that Roz doesn’t treat anyone else the way he treats him.

Like, Carter had caught Roz glaring at him when he’d been talking to Holly just a few minutes ago. For no other reason, as far as Carter could tell, other than the fact that Carter was having a conversation with Holly without Roz’s supervision. As if he was already pissed off at even the possibility that Carter might do something to upset Holly.

“Still,” Karina says, “it is kinda crazy, to find out that they’re friends, behind all the rivalry stuff.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Erika says stubbornly. “Like, they obviously care about each other a lot.” 

“Yeah, no, for sure,” Karina quickly agrees. “It’s just… wild, after so many years of hearing nothing except about how much they hate each other.” 

That’s one word for it, Carter thinks, shooting another look over his shoulder. He’s surprised to find that Holly has disappeared from sight, and equally unsurprised to see that Roz has vanished right alongside him.

Movement next to the pile of extra coats catches his attention before he can turn back to Erika and Karina, and Carter frowns when he realizes that it’s Barrett, standing alone as he pulls on an extra parka. 

“Sorry,” he says, already beginning to stand even as he turns back to Karina and Erika, “I’ve just gotta…” he trails off, jerking his thumb behind him in a way that offers no real explanation. Erika and Karina wave him off anyway, and Carter quickly crosses the length of the hold, reaching Barrett while he’s still in the process of pulling on another pair of gloves. 

“Hey Barrett,” Carter says, more resigned than anything when the sound of his voice makes the other man visibly startle. Barrett's expression is wary when he turns his head to meet Carter’s eyes, and Carter tries to put as much friendliness into his voice as he can as he continues, “You headed out for a piss?” 

“Uh,” Barrett says, looking down at his gloves, “no?” 

“No?” Carter presses, raising an eyebrow. 

Barrett shrugs, exaggeratedly casual. “I was feeling a bit bored,” he says. “Figured I’d get back to looking for more firewood.” 

“We always go out in pairs, remember?” Carter says, not waiting for Barrett to respond before he bends down, snagging one of the extra coats for himself. “I’ll come with you.” 

The expression on Barrett’s face says that he’s not exactly thrilled about Carter’s offer—probably because he knows it was less an offer and more of an order—but he doesn’t try to argue, standing silently by as Carter layers up. He looks even less happy about the pair of sunglasses that Carter hands him, but still doesn’t say anything to disagree with Carter’s unspoken command, shoving them onto his face and silently following Carter towards the exit.

It’s cold outside but the sun is shining brightly, and Carter tips his head back as they pause outside of the overlapping tarps, closing his eyes against the light. The hold isn’t totally dark, not with the fire and the light that comes in through the hole left open for the smoke, but it’s nothing compared to outside, with the snow making everything a thousand times brighter. 

For all the years that Carter has spent in New York, a city that is no stranger to snow, he still misses this—the way snow will blanket the landscape outside of a city. The bright, clean purity of it a stark contrast to the way that snow in the city turns to brown slush nearly the moment it touches the ground. He doesn’t get to go home often in the winter, and he can admit that he still finds the wilderness around them beautiful, despite all the fear and pain and death.

When Carter finally tilts his head back down, opening his eyes and looking for Barrett, he finds Barrett already looking at him, a curious look on his face, like he wants to ask what Carter was doing. Barrett doesn’t say anything though, just jerks his head towards where the woods start just beyond the nose of the plane, and Carter nods, following when Barrett loops around to the far side of the plane. 

The snow on this side is less densely packed down by footsteps than on the other, compressed a hundred times over as it is by the back-and-forth of the trips they made to the cabin on that first day and since. There’s still a solid path that’s begun to form though, narrow and purposeful, leading towards the woods, and their steps are quiet even in the stillness as they begin to follow its winding lead. 

They’re just past the nose of the plane when Barrett abruptly stops, suddenly enough that Carter nearly walks right into him. Carter frowns at the back of Barrett’s head, but Barrett doesn’t turn to look at Carter. He’s staring at something off to the left, eyes wide, face frozen in what looks like shock, and Carter’s stomach drops like a lead balloon.

A rush of adrenaline surges through Carter as he begins to turns his own head, following the direction of Barrett’s gaze. He can't help but think about the debate that he’s been having, on-and-off again, with Yakov and Roz, and is filled with the horrible feeling that he already knows exactly what's stopped Barrett in his tracks.

Please just don’t be a Siberian tiger, he thinks, because he’s still not entirely convinced that either Yakov or Roz know what the fuck they’re talking about when they claim that there’s no tigers in this part of Russia. 

It doesn’t take long, for Carter to spot the same thing that Barrett had, the only movement in the otherwise still landscape, and—

Oh.

Okay, so.

Not a tiger.

Oh thank God, Carter thinks. Then, oh shit. 

Then, oh fuck.

Carter moves without any further thought, one hand grabbing for Barrett’s face as the other wraps around his chest, probably digging into some of the crash-gifted bruises they all share. Barrett makes a muffled noise—shock and protest, maybe fear—against Carter’s palm, but he’s off-balance and surprised, his attempts to pull out of Carter’s grip hampered by the way that Carter is already pulling him backwards, forcing Barrett to stumble along with him as he fights to keep his feet under himself. 

He manages to get them halfway down the body of the plane before Barrett breaks free of his grip—safely out of sight, but definitely not out of earshot. Barrett turns to face him before Carter has the chance to try and grab him again though, face flushed bright red and set in a scowl. Carter's braced for him to immediately start yelling, and is surprised when Barrett doesn’t say anything, just silently shakes his head at Carter before turning and stomping off in the opposite direction from where they'd originally been headed. 

The stomping makes Barrett's footsteps louder than Carter would like, but he doubts that like, tackling the guy would be any more stealthy, much less whatever argument would surely result from Carter attempting to tell him to stop walking so fucking loudly, so he just follows him without comment. He’s still relieved when Barrett doesn’t even so much as look towards the entrance of their shelter when they pass by it—confirmation, at least, that the guy isn’t immediately planning on bursting into the hold, loudly shouting to everyone about what he and Carter had just accidentally stumbled upon. 

There’s another path spiking out from the plane in this direction, leading away from the back of the plane, towards the forest. It’s where Carter would have probably ended up dragging Barrett, if the younger man hadn’t managed to shake off his hold, and so Carter doesn't try to stop him, just trails silently behind Barrett as he makes his furious way down the path. 

It’s another relief—Barrett clearly equally as unenthusiastic as Carter is about the idea of having whatever the fuck conversation they’re about to have where someone could potentially overhear them. It also gives Carter time to think, watching Barrett walk, his shoulders raised up, tight and tense with anger. 

Carter has heard plenty of slurs in his time in the league—whether on or off the ice, targeting him or others, specific or general—and there’s not really anything that anyone could say that would register as unusual, much less actually shock him. Faggot in particular gets tossed around like it’s a party favour, right up there with pussy and bitch. So it says a lot that only halfway through his first season in the show, Barrett has already gotten himself a reputation for being especially vitriolic in his homophobia.  

As much as it’s a relief that Barrett hadn’t made any move towards announcing what they’d seen to all the other survivors—a group which includes a fucking journalist, fuck—it also has Carter on edge. Because Barrett has to have some sort of idea of what he wants to do with the secret they’ve accidentally stumbled upon, and if it’s not immediately telling everyone, Carter isn’t sure what it might be. 

Maybe he’s thinking he’ll wait until they’re rescued, and he’s safely away from whatever beat-down he’d surely earn from Roz, before he tells the whole world what they’d witnessed? Maybe he isn’t planning on outing them at all? Though Carter doesn’t think that’s likely, especially after that clip of him that went viral a few months ago, the one that caught Barrett talking to Dallas Kent in some random Toronto bar, saying that fags didn’t belong in hockey. Carter remembers seeing it making the rounds on Twitter; remembers too the entirely insincere apology Barrett had been forced to issue afterwards, all spit-shined, PR-polished bullshit. 

Fuck, maybe he’s planning on, what, Jesus Christ, fucking blackmailing them?

Whatever he’s thinking of doing, he’s definitely as aware as Carter is that he’ll have to convince Carter to go along with it. Or—if he isn't just assuming that Carter is gonna be down for whatever hate crime he's currently concocting—he'll be trying to come up with some lie to sell Carter on. Something that will cover up his actual plans, to make sure that Carter won’t intervene or try and figure out a way to stop him. And whatever it is, Carter will find a way to stop him. He has to.

Carter isn’t the smartest guy in the world, but he pays attention. He watches the news. He knows just how bad things are in Russia for gay people. He'd been floored by the bravery of the openly queer athletes who’d decided to come to the games despite the danger. Had been equally understanding of the ones who had decided not to risk it, or who had refused to go to Russia on principle and in protest. 

He doesn’t want to think about how much worse it would be for Roz.

Ilya Rozanov. The pride of Russian hockey. The fucking Captain of their fucking national hockey team. Loud, famous, rich. Worshipped on his home soil and Boston alike. 

Christ, this could get Roz killed.

Okay, so, Carter is going to maybe need to beat the shit out of a teenager. Whatever. He can grapple with the moral implications—and what the fuck he’ll say to explain it to the rest of the survivors—later. Right now, he has to focus. 

No matter what it takes to keep Barrett’s mouth shut, Carter's going to fucking make sure he does shut it. 

The plane is long out of sight when Barrett's angry stomping finally slows and then stops. He doesn’t turn around right away, just stands there, shoulders tight as he stares out into the dense forest. The snow fills the landscape even here; sinking into pits around the trees, piled high in the empty spaces between them, the smooth drifts rising and falling with the shape of the forest floor hidden beneath them. They’d left the well-trod path behind a while ago, and while Carter can see a few meandering trails of footprints through the snow around them that say that others have been out this far before, there’s no one else out here now. 

Just Carter, Barrett, and the dragging silence between them, growing heavier and more tense with each second that passes without either of them speaking. 

When he turns around, Barrett’s face is set. Locked down with a completeness that would make Carter worried in nearly any other circumstances. Locked down in a way that speaks to years of practice. It’s not perfect though, and Carter can see that Barrett’s eyes are still bright with anger. A hint of what might be fear. 

Good, Carter thinks viciously. He should be afraid. 

“So?” Carter asks when it becomes clear that Barrett isn’t going to be the one to break the silence. He tries to keep his voice as neutral as possible, despite the mix of anger and fear souring in his own stomach. “What’s the plan?” 

Barrett’s forehead creases in the slightest frown, briefly breaking his flat façade, but it’s gone just as quickly as it had arrived, the blank mask tugged back down more firmly than ever. 

“What do you mean?” he asks after a long pause, and his words betray him where his face does not—his voice wobbles, cracks. 

Carter shrugs, trying to keep the gesture loose, casual. Not too casual—this is a big deal, and it would be weirder for Carter to be having no reaction to it, for all that he doesn’t want to give Barrett any hint of what Carter’s real reaction is. Not before he’s had the chance to get a sense of how Barrett is planning on playing this. 

“You’re the one who led us out here, dude,” Carter says. “I assume it wasn’t just to stand around and stare at each other.” 

Shit. Carter can hear himself speak, hears the thread of anger in his voice that he hasn’t quite managed to hide.

He can only hope that Barrett doesn’t pick up on it—or that, if he does, he assumes that Carter is angry for the same reasons that he is. 

“You’re the one who fucking, like, grabbed me, man!” Barrett argues, anger rising. “You put your hand over my fucking mouth.”

“Yeah,” Carter says, because yup, no denying that one. Still, he shrugs again. “I didn’t want you like… yelling something at them and giving us away.” 

“What the fuck,” Barrett says flatly. “Giving us away? What the hell does that mean? And what the fuck do you mean, yelling something at them? What the fuck would I yell?” 

Fuck this, Carter thinks. Barrett’s already on the defensive anyway—which was probably kinda inevitable, after Carter’s earlier manhandling. There’s no walking that back, and clearly Barrett isn’t willing to move past it without an actual explanation. So fine. Whatever. All cards on the table. 

Carter will just have to see where the chips fall. 

“Oh, I dunno—” Carter starts. 

He takes a step closer to Barrett as he speaks, shaking out his shoulders as he draws himself up to his full height. Making sure that Barrett feels every inch of the size difference between them, every minute that makes up the years that Carter has spent in the MLH while Barrett was still dicking around in the kiddie leagues. A silent reminder of every second that Carter has spent in the penalty box, every time he’s made it onto hockeyfights.com. 

“—maybe something like fucking faggots?” Carter suggests. He smiles, knows there’s nothing friendly about it. “Or maybe cocksucker, I’ve heard that’s a favourite of yours. Or maybe— what was it you said to Kent again? That fags don’t belong in hockey?"

Barrett’s face loses the last of the redness that his anger had brought to his skin, going nearly sickly pale instead as he sways slightly in place. The mask slips from his face right along with the blood, and he looks younger than ever, small and scared and uncertain. 

“I— I didn’t—”

“You didn’t what?” Carter interrupts. His voice is hard, aggressive, but he can’t afford to gentle it. Not if he wants Barrett to believe how serious Carter is about this. Not if he wants him to believe whatever threats Carter is going to have to level at him to convince him to keep his fucking mouth shut. “You didn’t mean it?” Carter continues, “I saw that bullshit you posted, Barrett. There’s no way you wrote that apology, much less meant it. I know that you called Segal a fag the literal next game you played.”

“That wasn’t—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Carter snaps, and Barrett’s mouth clicks shut. “Man, I’ve been on the same ice as you, remember? And players talk—something you might actually know if you weren’t too busy calling every single player in the league who isn’t on the fucking Guardians fucking slurs.” 

Barrett swallows, the sound loud in the otherwise silent forest. His eyes are wide, wet in a way that is going to make Carter feel really, really bad if he actually thinks about it—Barrett’s age a spectre hovering in the back of his mind, threatening to collapse his resolve at any moment—so he doesn’t. Reminds himself, instead, about what’s at stake.

This could get Roz killed. 

“You’re a homophobic piece of shit, Barrett,” Carter says, harsh and biting. “And everyone knows it. So there’s no point pretending otherwise now. But I need you to hear me when I say that I don’t give a shit how much you think gay people are gross, or don’t think that fags belong in the league—” 

Carter practically spits out the slur; is satisfied when Barrett physically flinches away from the sound of it.

“—you can think whatever you want, say whatever you want,” Carter continues. “I don’t give a fuck. But if you even think about telling fucking anyone about what we saw back there, I will fucking end you, you understand? I’m a friendly fucking guy, Barrett. I’ve got friends on every team in the league. If I so much as hear a fucking whisper about either Roz or Holly, I’ll have every single one of them gunning for you until your legs are so shattered you’ll be lucky to ever be able to walk again, much less skate.” 

If Carter had thought Barrett was pale before, it’s nothing compared to the way that his face goes completely bloodless at Carter’s threat. There’s no hiding the fear in his eyes—for all that Barrett was able to completely lock down his expressions earlier, there’s no way that he’s pretending now. 

Good, Carter thinks again, just as viciously as before. 

“Do you understand me, Barrett?” Carter presses, because he needs to hear Barrett say it out loud. Needs to hear that he believes Carter’s threat in his words and in his voice, not just in his eyes, before Carter will maybe, maybe, be able to relax. 

Barrett swallows again before he manages to summon up his voice, shaking and full of fear. 

“I understand,” he says. 

“Do you?” Carter says, still pressing, because this is too important for him not to. 

He needs Barrett afraid, and not just right now, with Carter standing in front of him. He needs the fear to follow him, to stay with him when he makes his way out of this forest, out of this country, back onto the ice. He needs him to believe it down to his bones. 

“Fucking—yes,” Barrett snaps out, a ghost of his previous rage flickering back to life, sparking in his eyes. “Christ.”

The proof of Barrett’s anger fills Carter with a sick sort of vindication—he’d been right to push, to dig for the hateful rage, only briefly buried by fear. The emotion a confirmation, one that belies his words.

Barrett still isn’t convinced. Not all the way. 

“I get it, alright?” Barrett continues anyway, his voice tight and defensive as he crosses his arms, his posture mirroring his words, his shoulders hunching, making him seem smaller. “You don’t have to keep— I’m not going to fucking say anything, okay?” 

Carter arches an eyebrow at him, disbelieving. “Aren’t you? Not even when Roz scores right in front of you and throws some smug, egotistical chirp at you? Not even when Holly hands the Guardians their asses for the fourth time this season? When you’re standing with a microphone shoved in your face asking what you could have done better against them? When you've got the perfect ammunition to take them down right there, just waiting for you to pull it out?” 

“Fuck you,” Barrett snaps. “Fucking— no. I’m not— I wouldn’t out someone like that, Jesus fuck.”

“Oh, okay,” Carter says. “Got it. So you’re, what, just gonna harass them about it privately, is that it? Hold it over their heads?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Barrett says, unfolding his arms to shove his fingers into his hair, tugging on it as he steps back from Carter, “no.” 

“C’mon Barrett,” Carter says, watching as Barrett begins to pace; a short, tight back and forth. “You gotta understand why I’m having a hard time believing that you’d just happily keep this secret. I mean, you don’t think gay people should play hockey, and here’s the two best players in the league, kissing each other—”

And they had been kissing. Carter still hasn’t had time to fully process it—too focused on making sure Barrett isn’t about to ruin their lives and careers—but if that was their first kiss, he’ll eat his fucking skates. 

Christ, no wonder Roz had been freaking the fuck out about whether Holly was okay. 

They were like, in love. 

Fuck.

“—so it’s gotta piss you off, right?” Carter continues. “Knowing that—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Barrett interrupts him, stopping his pacing so abruptly that he ends up swaying slightly with the extra momentum, his arms falling to his sides as he turns to stare at Carter. His eyes are wide and wild, and Carter can’t read exactly what emotion is on his face, but he can tell it’s not anger—not anymore, or at least not entirely. “I’m not fucking pissed off,” Barrett continues, voice edging higher. “I’m fucking— this is fucking insane and— and fucking amazing, and I can’t even think about— because you keep fucking threatening me!”

Carter blinks. Frowns. “Amazing?” he asks, voice heavy with all the disbelief he’s feeling. 

“Yeah!” Barrett snaps out, throwing his hands up. “Fucking— it’s fucking amazing, you asshole, and I can’t even think— I can’t even—”

“Can’t even…?” Carter prompts when Barrett fails to continue. 

He has no idea what Barrett is trying to say, but whatever it is, it’s clearly not even close to what Carter had been expecting, and Carter really needs Barrett to get a full sentence out so that Carter can understand what the fuck is going on with him.

“I can’t even be happy,” Barrett says, voice cracking with anger and something Carter can’t identify. “Because you’re being so— and I get it, okay? I get it. I know what I— I know this is my own fault, okay? I do. But I can’t— and they’re the best, right? Like, you get that, right? They’re the best players in the entire fucking league and they’re fucking, what, gay? Like, what the hell, man?”

Barrett cuts himself off with a laugh, high and wild, and Carter is more certain than ever that there’s something else happening. Is certain, too, that he’s completely missed whatever the hell it is, because there’s nothing bitter and hateful in Barrett’s voice anymore, and Carter can’t think of a single thing that either of them have said that would account for the abrupt shift in his demeanour. 

For all that Barrett is edging towards something that Carter is tempted to describe as hysterical, there’s also something almost… happy? in Barrett’s voice, the tilt of his head. The way his mouth keeps tugging helplessly upwards, even though he still looks like he might start to cry. 

Or, maybe not happy. Happy is too mild, too small. It’s more like…

Joy. 

“And it’s like— like, if they can be the best,” Barrett continues, “if they can be together and also at the top of the league, then maybe… maybe it doesn’t matter, right? Like, it’d be okay?” 

Barrett’s voice is almost pleading, like he’s desperate for Carter to reassure him, and Carter is more confused than ever, even as something in his gut warns him: he needs to be very, very careful about what he says next.

“What would be okay?” Carter asks slowly, cautiously. Each word delivered with a measured and deliberate calmness, carefully neutral.

“If I was gay,” Barrett replies, voice cracking at the end. “It would— it could be okay, right? It wouldn’t— I wouldn’t lose everything? Maybe?” 

Carter stares at Barrett for what’s probably too long, the word gay echoing in his head, rolling back over their entire conversation like a seismic wave. Washing over each stuttered denial, each stubborn refutation of Carter’s accusations. Travelling back, even earlier; to a different continent, and to slurs spat on the ice, one by one. Reshaping and recontextualizing it all.

Well, Carter thinks, that’s one way to avoid having anyone accuse you of being gay.

The pleading hope on Barrett’s face begins to slip the longer the silence stretches out between them, but it’s not until fear begins to inch its way back in that Carter finally manages to shake himself free of his thoughts. Shit. Okay. 

New problem. 

“Yeah, man,” Carter says, careful and as gentle as he can. “Yeah, it would be okay.” 

Barrett doesn’t look entirely convinced—fear still lingering in the back of his eyes—but some of the building tension falls from his shoulders. He lowers his head, looking down at the ground as he drags his hands through his hair again, letting out a slow, shaky breath.

“Hey,” Carter says, and when Barrett doesn’t look up, says again, “Hey. Barrett. Troy.” 

The first name does the job—Barrett slowly raises his head, cautiously meeting Carter’s gaze. Everything about his posture screams wariness, like he’s five seconds and a single wrong word from Carter from bolting. Still mentally adjusting to the changed stakes of this conversation, Carter realizes that he can’t let that happen. 

If nothing else, if Barrett runs further away from the plane and gets lost in the woods and dies, Holly is gonna fucking kill him. And then Roz would probably find a way to bring Carter back to life just so he could kill him again for stressing out Hollander. 

Good thing that Carter is so extremely equipped for this conversation, and definitely the right person to be having it. And with Troy fucking Barrett, of all people.

Christ. 

Maybe Carter should have let Holly and Roz catch them catching them after all—Carter isn’t sure he’s ever felt more underprepared for a conversation in his life. There’s not really any other option though—he’s just gonna have to wing it, and pray that he’s not about to fuck this kid up even more than every other hockey player he’s ever spoken to already has, apparently. 

“It’s okay if you’re gay, Troy,” Carter says slowly. “You don’t— it doesn’t have to mean that you lose hockey, or anything else.” He pauses, hesitating over his next words before deciding that it’s worth saying out loud, even if it feels a bit redundant, given how much time he’d spent threatening Barrett over the exact same thing. “I won’t tell anyone,” he says. 

Barrett laughs, short and thick, like his sinuses are clogged with all the tears he still hasn’t let fall.

“Yeah,” he says. “I kinda got that.” 

Well. That’s something, at least.

Barrett wraps his arms around himself, eyes cutting to the empty space just next to Carter’s left ear. Carter can see that he’s gearing up for something though, and doesn’t say anything as he waits. 

“Thanks,” Barrett finally says, quieter than ever. “I— I’ve never said that to anyone before. I haven’t even— I haven’t even told my mom.” He tries for another laugh, but it comes out choked, dying nearly as soon as it begins. “Kinda hadn’t even told myself,” Barrett continues, “even though… even though I did know.” 

Letting out a shuddering breath, Barrett frees one of his hands to hastily wipe at his eyes—pushing up his sunglasses to rub away any evidence of the tears that had only just barely begun to tip over the edges of his lashes.

“Shit,” Carter says, as all of the guilt that he’d been trying to dodge earlier, when he’d still thought that Barrett was nothing more than a homophobic teenage asshole, slams into him all at once. “Fuck, Troy, I shouldn’t have— I didn’t mean to…”

He trails off as Barrett waves him off, the gesture not half as easy and casual as Barrett was probably trying to make it. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, voice less steady than ever, still avoiding Carter’s gaze as his arm returns to join the other in wrapping around his own waist. “I kinda— I kinda did that to myself, didn’t I?” 

He laughs again, and Carter has to fight not to flinch back from it. It’s nothing like Barrett’s previous attempts to play at humour—the sound is harsh, biting and bitter. 

“You thought exactly what I wanted everyone to think,” Barrett says. 

“Christ, dude,” Carter says. “Can I give you a hug?” 

That finally gets Barrett to look at him again at least, eyes wide with surprise. 

“What?” he says.

Carter doesn’t bother to repeat himself, just steps forward and wraps his arms around the kid. Barrett is stiff as a board against him, but after a long minute Carter feels him begin to relax, bit by bit, until he finally pries his arms free from where they’re trapped between them, tentatively raising them to wrap around Carter in turn. Carter waits until he feels Barrett start to stiffen back up, delivering two solid pats to his back before he releases him, stepping back to meet his eyes. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Carter says, putting as much sincerity into his voice as he can. He pauses, then grimaces. “Sorry I kinda cornered you into it.” Barrett looks like he’s about to argue, so Carter quickly adds, “Even if there were good reasons that I… thought what I thought. It still sucks, that you felt like you had to tell me when you weren’t ready.”

Barrett shrugs, a poor pantomime of casualness. 

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s… good? Maybe?”

Carter really doesn’t think that he’s qualified to answer that, so he doesn’t. There is one other thing though, that he’s still stuck on.

“So, the stuff with Kent…?” 

Barrett shakes his head as he lets out another one of those laughs that Carter is starting to hate to hear from the younger man—acidic and self-deprecating, filled with an anger that Carter can now tell is turned nearly entirely inward. 

“Like I said,” Barrett says. “I hadn’t— I hadn’t faced it, not really, but it’s not like… I did know, even if I… and like, it was bad enough in Juniors, you know? And I just… I really, really didn’t want to fuck it up. Not after everything it took to get here, not when I was finally so close to… so when I got to training camp, I guess I just… I figured, if I swung first, then no one could swing at me. And Kenny is— I mean, it’s not— he’s— but it’s… it felt… it felt like the— the safest option. And he’s— it’s not great, but he’s a good friend, even if he’d…”

Even if he’d hate me, if he knew, Carter silently finishes for him when Barrett trails off into silence. 

Shit. This fucking kid. 

“I get that,” Carter says slowly, because he does. He’s not sure he’d make the same choice, in Barrett’s position, but he’s spent too much time ignoring the hate speech being thrown around in dozens of different locker rooms to pretend that he doesn’t understand where Barrett is coming from. “But Barrett, you know that’s not your only option, right?” 

Barrett shrugs, and it could maybe pass for a concession except for how his face is practically screaming that he thinks Carter is full of shit. 

“No, seriously, I mean it,” Carter presses. “I mean, have you ever heard Roz say anything homophobic?” 

Carter doesn’t bother to mention Hollander—never mind the fact that Holly’s almost definitely gay, Carter is pretty sure that Holly is the only guy in the whole league whose media training has never once slipped. There’s a reason that he’s got a reputation as Canada’s Golden Boy, even if he can secretly be a bit of an asshole, and can actually give as good as he gets, if he deigns you worth the energy of chirping.

Which actually might explain him and Roz, now that Carter's thinking about it. 

Barrett opens his mouth like he’s about to argue, then slowly shuts it, a furrow creasing his brow as stares down at the ground, trying to think of a time Roz was caught being homophobic. The frown only deepens when he clearly comes up blank, stays on his face as he slowly raises his head to again meet Carter’s eyes. 

Carter offers him what he hopes is an encouraging smile. “That’s all I’m saying,” he says. “You don’t have to swing first to protect yourself. There are other options.”

“The Guardians…” Troy starts, and then trails off, and Carter fights to keep his wince off his face. 

Right. There is that. 

“Look, you’ve got two and half years left on your contract, right?” Carter says, and at Barrett’s cautious nod, he shrugs. “So, maybe when you hit the end of your contract, or even before then, you talk to Toronto about moving to another team.”

“They won’t…” Barrett starts to argue, but there’s no real conviction in his voice, even before he trails off into silence. 

“Maybe not,” Carter admits, “but there’s at least two teams that have captains that we now both know wouldn’t have a problem with a gay player. So, maybe you get your agent to poke around those two teams. Maybe you get them to tell the Guardians front office that you’d be interested in a trade, if something comes up.” 

“I still can’t like… make them trade me,” Barrett says. 

“No,” Carter agrees, “but you could maybe start trying to tone it the fuck down with the homophobia a bit, dude. Or at the very least not say it when there’s any phones or cameras around—” 

And Jesus Christ, Carter isn’t condoning it or anything, but he can’t believe that he is the one having to tell Barrett this—what the fuck are the Guardians’ vets playing at, that they haven’t drilled even the absolute basics into their rooks’ thick skulls?

“—but either way, if you make yourself a bit less of a picture-perfect culture pick for the shittiest team in the league, odds are pretty good that they’d be more willing to look at moving you in favour of someone who more appropriately fills their asshole quotia.” 

Carter shrugs.

“Maybe a trade happens. Maybe they can’t get the salaries and positions to line up, and it doesn’t work out right away, but it does later. Maybe it doesn’t ever work out, and you sign a contract with the Guardians that ends the second you’re eligible for unrestricted free agency. Whatever might happen, you’ll never know if you don’t try.” 

Barrett is chewing on his lip as Carter speaks, but the furrow in his brow has lightened, and it looks like he’s actually hearing what Carter is saying, even if he doesn’t look entirely convinced by it. There’s a pause after Carter finishes speaking, and he watches as Barrett turns everything Carter just said over in his mind. 

“I don’t know— I don’t know if I can do that,” Barrett eventually says, speaking slowly. He sounds torn though, like he wants to do it just as much as he isn’t sure that he can. “They... I mean, they drafted me.”

“Plenty of guys leave the teams they’re drafted to,” Carter points out. “And if it’s a trade, well… then it’s not even your choice, is it?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Barrett says, though there’s no more conviction in his voice than there was before.

Carter decides to leave it for now—he’s not talking the guy into changing the entire trajectory of his career in some Russian forest. Even if he could, it’s probably not the time. He’s planted the seeds. He can water them later, once they know they’re not all gonna starve to death in the middle of fucking nowhere. 

Still, as he throws his arm over Barrett’s shoulder, using it to turn them back towards the direction they’d come from, he can’t quite help himself from making one last pitch.

“And hey, if neither Boston or Montréal are for you, New York is basically the same as Toronto, except for how it’s much, much better.” 

Carter grins when the shoulders beneath his arm shake as Barrett lets out a burst of startled laughter—the first real laugh Carter has heard from him, maybe ever. 

“Sure, right,” Barrett says. 

“Seriously,” Carter says, using his grip on Barrett to shake him. “And look, I’m at least pretty sure that Scotty’s not homophobic, and I’m definitely sure that he wouldn’t be an asshole about it.”

“Comforting,” Barrett says, dry as dust, and it’s Carter’s turn to laugh before he finally releases Barrett, letting his arm drop back down to his side. 

Carter doesn’t say anything else after that, letting the silence of the forest wrap around them, interrupted only by the occasional burst of the sharp, cackling caws of ravens. Leaving Barrett, and himself, to process everything that they just talked about. 

Fuck. Carter can’t believe he found out that there’s not one, but three gay players in the league in a single afternoon. And not even just three in the league, but three in this plane crash. Which, now that Carter’s thinking about it, really feels like some kind of homophobic hate crime from God.

Christ. 

Carter would be having words, the next time his mom managed to talk him into going to church with her.

Well, maybe not three gay players, Carter thinks after turning the thought over in his mind one more time. Barrett and Hollander, sure, but there’s no way that Roz was gay, not if even half of the stories that Vicky’s told him over the years are true.

Bisexual, maybe? Not that it’s any of Carter’s business, but hey. 

If he wants to speculate in the privacy of his own mind, that’s between him and God, who’s maybe homophobic anyway, so Carter doesn’t really give a shit about His opinion right now. 

Fuck, and Carter had thought that finding out that Holly and Roz were friends was wild. He really hopes that this is the last crazy revelation hiding inside this plane crash. Sure, he’s young and an athlete and all, but the human heart can only take so much. He’s gonna go gray before thirty at this rate—assuming he even lives that long. 

The trees have begun to thin around them by the time that the sounds of voices begin to drift through the forest towards them, signalling the resumption of the snow and wood collection activities by the larger group. Carter can only hope that Roz and Holly had managed to pry themselves apart before anyone else had the chance to make the same discovery he and Barrett had. Though with how loud people were being, they’d certainly be able to hear them coming. The wood gathering crew in particular were—

“Shit,” Carter says, coming to an abrupt stop, staring blankly at the trees in front of them. 

Barrett gets a handful of steps further before he realizes that Carter has stopped, stopping in turn to shoot Carter a questioning look over his shoulder. Carter meets his eyes. 

“We didn’t get any wood,” he says. A beat, and then Barrett’s eyes go wide. 

“Shit,” he echoes. 

They turn around.

Chapter End Notes

I don’t know anything about Carter Vaughn from the books, so apologies if I’m committing any sort of character assassination here lol. apologies as well to Gloria Grey—I only learned of her existence when I was reading Vaughn’s wiki while writing like, chapter 3 of this fic, and I was already too emotionally invested in his crush on Erika at that point to change course.

this chapter also had me realizing that I fucked up Vaughn's career timeline—Vancouver 2010 would have been the year before Vaughn’s rookie season with the Admirals, so chances are not good that he would have gotten the invite to join Team USA at that point. we’re just gonna pretend that he was crushing it so hard in the AHL that USA Hockey decided to give him a chance.

thank you as always to Britt (ao3/twt) for her beta, her unwavering enthusiasm for this story, and for explaining how trades and free agency worked in this era to me. my brief foray into reading the CBA for myself had nothing on her explanations, especially when delivered over cheap malbec.

thank YOU as well for reading!! I truly can't say enough how floored I've been by how lovely the reception for this fic has been, and how blown away I am by your enthusiasm for it!! each and every comment, ask, and recommendation is so, so appreciated!! *mwah*

citations!
NHL & NHLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement (Sep 16, 2012 – Sep 16, 2022)

announcements!
note that the below contains mild spoilers for the plot of the remaining chapters, so read no further if you want to remain entirely in suspense about what's still to come :)

there's been a lot of questions about where this fic ends; I can share at this point that it will cover both the rescue and its immediate aftermath. the last chapter also features three separate POVs, which I'm fairly confident will also make it much longer than I want any single chapter to be, so this is also a bit of a heads up that that might end up being three chapters lol.

and if that still doesn't sound like it'll be enough Carrion Comfort for you, I'm excited to share that I have (at least) two additional parts outlined for this AU—and yes, one of those will be the article Karina writes after they're rescued!

Chapter 10: Insurrection

Chapter Notes

Ilya stares at Shane. Whatever he’d expected Hollander to say—whatever he thought he might have brought Ilya outside for—it certainly hadn’t been this. 

“What?” Ilya says. 

“I’m gay,” Shane says again, eliminating any remaining doubt that Ilya had somehow misheard him. 

Which still leaves Ilya with the question of why Shane is looking at him like that—eyes wide, waiting. Expectant, except that Ilya has no idea what Shane’s expecting of him. His smile has at least fallen into something more familiar—shyer and smaller than the alarmingly manic expression he’d first greeted Ilya with. 

“Okay,” Ilya says, and watches as Shane’s face falls, the last of the smile disappearing from his face. 

“Okay?” Shane repeats—asks. 

Ilya shrugs, completely lost. “I don’t know Hollander, what do you want me to say?” he asks. 

“I don’t know,” Shane says, pulling his hands from his pockets to cross his arms, hugging his sides. It’s a protective gesture, or maybe just a self-soothing one. Either way, it’s confirmation—Ilya is somehow fucking this up. “I just… it’s kinda a big deal, y’know?” 

Ilya blinks, frowns. “Did—” he starts, slowly, cautiously, “did you not know?” 

Shane frowns back at him, then looks down, avoiding Ilya’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I guess I thought I was maybe… bi, or something? Or—” Whatever else Shane thought is lost as his voice goes even quieter, words stumbling together into something Ilya can’t pick apart. 

“By?” Ilya asks.

“Yeah,” Shane says with a shrug, eyes briefly flicking up to Ilya before returning to the snow. “Like… you’re bi, right? So, I thought maybe…”

Ilya shakes his head, because that had not been what he’d been asking. “Hollander,” he says, waiting until Shane looks back up at him to continue. “What is by? By what?”

Shane blinks quickly, visibly recalibrating to Ilya’s actual question. “Oh,” he says, “no, sorry, bi like, bisexual? Like, you like both men and women?” 

“Ah,” Ilya says. Tries, “Bisexual.” He likes it—likes the shape of the word on his tongue. Feels it settle onto him, into him, this new English word—close, to the same in Russian, but different. Better. More… accurate. “Yes,” he says, “this is probably correct.” He pauses, reconsiders Shane’s earlier words with the clarity of understanding what he was actually trying to say. 

It’s not how Ilya should react. It’s certainly rude, if nothing else. But, well. Ilya can’t quite stop himself.

He laughs. 

Whatever. Shane likes that he’s rude, he thinks. Or maybe not, judging by how he’s now scowling at him. 

“Seriously?” Shane snaps. “I come out to you, and your reaction is to laugh at me?” 

“I am sorry!” Ilya says, which would maybe come across as more sincere if he wasn’t still laughing as he says it. “It is just… I never hear about you with women. You thought you liked women?” 

It was true—Ilya had never heard about Shane with girls, with any girl. There were the rumours, too, spread from locker room to locker room from former Metros, from men who’d once tried and failed to keep up with him in Juniors. Not so direct as to affix a label to him, not yet, but not subtle in their implications either. Quiet, for now, because Shane was young and intense and the captain of one of the Original Six teams and the pressure that he is under is a shield that Ilya isn’t sure that Shane knows he carries. Quiet, because jealousy was an ugly thing, one which provides an easy dismissal. 

But Ilya won’t tell him about those—not now, not with the vulnerability of this moment already straining under the pressure of Ilya’s helpless laughter.

“Okay, well, sorry that we can’t all be huge sluts!” Shane bites back at him, which unfortunately just makes Ilya’s smile—which he was barely making any attempt to suppress in the first place—widen further. 

“Is okay,” Ilya says generously, “you are still a slut for me and my cock.”

“Oh my god,” Shane says. “Can you please take this seriously? I’m like… I’m having this big realization, fuck. This is fucking— this could ruin my life, you get that right?” 

Shane might as well have shoved Ilya back into the snow bank, the way that ice washes over him, freezing his breath in his lungs. 

“I know this, Hollander,” Ilya says, the words coming out as cold as he feels. “You really think I don’t know this?” He waves one arm out at the empty landscape around them, the tayga that is nothing like the familiar streets of Moscow but no less indelibly a part of Russia. “I am Russian and you think I don’t know this?” 

The anger slips from Shane’s face as quickly as it had arrived, confusion replacing it, written clearly into the small furrow that appears between his eyebrows. 

“What do you— is this about that law that people were talking about? The propaganda one?”

“Yes, Hollander, obviously is about the law!”

“But— I thought— the IOC wouldn’t—”

“Who gives a fuck about the IOC?” Ilya snaps. “The IOC does not live here. Putin makes nice for Olympics, says laws will not apply to athletes, is all good. So great, athletes come and compete, go home, no problem. But Russia is my home, Hollander. I do not get to leave and go back to perfect fucking Canada where no one gets disappeared for sucking cock.” 

“Disappeared?” Shane says, barely louder than a whisper, expression blank with shock. “Is that… could that really happen? To…” 

Shane can’t quite force himself to finish the sentence, but Ilya hears it anyway. 

Could that really happen to you? 

Ilya doesn’t blame him for not being able to finish it. Not with the nausea that fills him every time he thinks about it himself, the terror that has only grown stronger the older he’s gotten. The more he’s come to understand that there are far worse consequences to getting caught than the beating he’d thought he’d been risking when he’d been a teenager, sneaking around with Sasha. 

“I don’t know,” Ilya says, the words short, searing; each one a burning ember, blistering his lips as they fall from his mouth. “I don’t want to find out.” 

“Fuck,” Shane breathes. “Christ, Ilya, I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”

“Don’t,” Ilya says, cutting him off with a wave of his hand. “Do not apologize for this Hollander. I would not— I would not want you to feel this way. I am happy that you do not.” 

Ilya means it, and thankfully this time Shane seems to understand this. Ilya watches him hesitate over what to say next, and Ilya wishes, sometimes, that Shane was as cowardly as he seems to think he is, because within nearly the same second that he falters, he pushes himself onwards.

“The law’s new though, right?” Shane asks. “And if Putin is willing to, like, wave it for the Olympics…” Shane trails off when Ilya scoffs, the noise sharp and bitter, dismissive. 

“Is just… performance, yes?” Ilya says, the words equally bitter. “To make Russia look good in front of rest of world. The law would not have passed if it did not have support.” 

It’s Ilya’s turn to hesitate, but he refuses to let Shane beat him in even this—if Shane can be brave, Ilya will be too. 

“It has been getting worse here, for a long time,” he continues. “This law… is just giving legal backing to what is already happening, you know? So now, when police break gay man’s face, they can say was because of crime, not because he was gay. When someone is— when someone is beaten to death, they—” 

Ilya’s voice cuts off, his throat clicking dryly as he attempts to swallow. Shane is staring at him, eyes wide, and Ilya can’t stand it, can’t stand seeing the pity there, the pain that should belong to Ilya alone. An ugliness that should never have touched Shane. That wouldn’t have touched him, if it hadn’t been for Ilya. 

It’s typical, really. Classic Rozanov. He always does this. Can’t seem to stop himself. Everything good in his life, he always finds a way to ruin or lose. Stumbling his way through life like a contaminant, leaving stains like bruises behind on anything he so much as brushes against. Always too greedy, too needy. Wanting too much. Holding on too tightly, then watching everything crumble to dust in his hands anyway. 

Ilya looks down at the snow covering the ground between them. White and pristine, save for the handful of footprints left by Shane crossing it. The slight shuffling motions he’d made as he stood there, waiting for Ilya. 

Looking back up, Ilya forces a laugh from his throat, ugly and harsh. “Sorry, ignore me,” he says. “Is not important. This is your big moment, no? Is not every day that second best player in hockey tells best player that he is super gay.” 

“Supe—” Shane starts, outrage clear in his voice, and for a second Ilya thinks that his attempt to bait Shane into distraction has worked. But Shane cuts himself off just as quickly as he’d started and outrage is replaced by horribly open sincerity as he begins again: “It is important,” Shane says, infuriatingly calm. “It affects you, so it’s important to— it’s important to me.”

Why? Ilya wants to scream. Why take on these burdens that are not yours to shoulder? Why make my problems your own? 

They will ruin you and I am not worth a great many things but I am especially not worth your ruin, Shane Hollander. 

I will stain you and wreck you and in the end you will come to hate me for it. 

The same way they all do.

This is the way it will go, Ilya knows. There is no other option. Nothing he can do to change it. No matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries. 

It always ends the same. 

Ilya doesn’t say any of it out loud, but he doesn’t have to—Shane must be able to see it, or at least some of it, because he keeps going. 

“Look,” Shane says, taking a deep breath, “it’s—Vaughn told me about… about how you were acting when I was still on the plane.” 

Ilya didn’t think it was possible for him to feel colder than he already did, but Shane’s words send him crashing through the ice, his heavy coat and boots pulling him deeper and deeper into the freezing water suddenly surrounding him. 

He had already known he was going to drown for Shane Hollander, but he hadn’t thought this would be how it would happen. 

Ilya remembers. Of course he does. How could he forget? 

He’d come back to awareness slowly, brought back by the sluggish drip of blood from his nose. He’d wiped it away, the sharp pain that accompanied the touch bringing back the memory of his face bouncing off his own knee in the horrible turbulence of the plane’s descent. He’d touched it again, more tentatively, and been relieved to find that it wasn’t broken, only sore. 

It had been the last time he’d felt relief, because when he’d finally sat up, when he’d finally turned around…

There’d been no sign of Shane. 

Ilya had let Carter Vaughn herd him off the plane, because he’d said that they all needed to exit, and if Shane’s seat was empty—and it was, Ilya had checked, once he’d stood, that it had not just been an accident of angles that meant that Ilya just couldn’t see him—then he must already have gotten off the plane. 

Except then Ilya had gotten outside, and there was no sign of him. 

He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said to any of them—to Vaughn, to Karina, to Yakov. But he didn’t think he could ever forget the strength of the fear that had seized him in that moment, standing outside in the snow, alone. Blocked from returning to the plane, with no idea if Shane was safe or hurt or—

A fear so all-encompassing, so all-consuming, that he hadn’t cared that he was making a spectacle of himself. Hadn’t cared how obvious he was being, what he was risking. Hadn’t cared if anyone figured it out, if everyone figured it out—not when he hadn’t seen Shane since he’d last met his eyes, wide and scared, across the falling plane.

It hadn’t been until Shane stepped off the plane that Ilya had remembered what it felt like to feel anything but afraid. 

When Ilya doesn’t reply, Shane keeps going:

“And I just… I didn’t look for you,” he says, and Ilya has already been shredded to ribbons, his composure hanging by a thread. He doesn’t stand a chance, doesn’t have a hope of hiding it.

Ilya flinches.

“No!” Shane says, abrupt and too-loud, throwing up his hands and taking a step towards Ilya. “No, no, not like— I couldn’t.” 

He stops, swallows. 

“I couldn’t look for you, Ilya,” Shane continues, voice shaking. “Because if you were— if you were hurt, or if you were— were dead—” Shane’s voice cracks on the word dead and he pauses, taking an unsteady breath before he continues “—and there were so many other people who were hurt. Who were dying. Who needed help. And so I— I couldn’t look for you. I just couldn’t. Because if you had been— if you had been… I— I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to help anyone else. I wouldn’t have been… so I couldn’t. I just… couldn’t.”

“Oh,” Ilya says, the word barely more than a whisper. Too honest in its smallness. 

“And that’s— that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Shane says. “Why I wanted to talk to you. Because people are noticing, Ilya. So we need to be on the same page about this.” 

It takes effort for Ilya to collect himself, but he’s had a lot of practice, is accustomed to shrugging Ilya Rozanov back over himself like an ill-fitting coat. To painting the performance back over the cracked and peeling man beneath. Regardless of how difficult it is

Ilya sculpts his face into a frown, steadies his voice. 

“About what?” he asks.

“About what we’re telling people,” Shane says, and he too sounds steadier—calmer, now that he’s focusing on something tangible. Something that he believes is still fixable. “Vaughn and Barrett both said they thought— or assumed, or… whatever, they— they think we’re friends, now. Like, that we were already friends, before all this, and that we just hadn’t ever… told anyone, I guess. Acted like it in public.” 

Ilya’s frown deepens. “No,” he says. “We are rivals, Hollander. Did everyone hit their heads? We hate each other, remember?” 

Shane snorts, then laughs at the disbelieving look Ilya shoots at him—because what the fuck is there to find funny in all of this? 

“Yeah, I think that ship’s kinda sailed,” Shane says. “For us, and for them.” 

“Well, get the ship back then!” Ilya says. “We cannot— we cannot be friends, Hollander.”

“Sure we can,” Shane says, with a shrug that is not half as easy and casual as he probably was trying to make it. “We’ve known each other since before we were drafted, we see each other at every MLH event…” he trails off, shrugs again. “The rivalry is just… competition and press bullshit.” He hesitates, then admits: “That’s what I told Barrett anyways.” 

“You told Barrett this?” Ilya asks, incredulous. 

What the fuck, Shane? 

“He was asking if we were secret friends!” Shane says, throwing up his hands, defensive. “What the fuck was I supposed to say? Oh, no, we’re not friends, we’ve just been hooking up since our rookie season?”

“Summer before,” Ilya corrects, unthinkingly. “Hollander, this is…”

“It’s good, right?” Shane cuts in before Ilya can find the right words in English to fully capture what a horrible idea it is. His voice is eager, but Ilya can hear the way that it is not just Ilya that Shane is trying to convince—he’s also trying to convince himself. 

“It makes sense,” Shane continues, “and it’s believable. And like… it might be kinda nice, right? To not have to sneak around all the time? To be able to like, be seen together in public and have it be fine? We can just… hang out, and it won’t be a big deal.”

“Won’t be a big deal?” Ilya echos, disbelieving. “Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, and it won’t be a big deal?” 

Shane winces, deflating slightly. 

“Okay, it’ll definitely be a big deal,” he concedes. “At least at first. But like, surviving a fucking plane crash is a much bigger deal, so maybe everyone will be too fixated on that to even really care? Or maybe not, but like, either way it’ll calm down eventually, and then it’ll just be… normal.” 

“Normal,” Ilya repeats flatly. 

“Yeah, normal,” Shane says, whatever uncertainty he’d been feeling now replaced by a stubborn tilt to his jaw; one that Ilya recognizes. 

It's an expression that Ilya has come to dread seeing, given how often it has acted as a portent in the midst of a game. A warning and a promise both; that Shane is about to do something that should be against MLH regulations in the name of fairness if not decency, that would be impossible for any other player to pull off, and which would almost certainly embarrass every single opposing player on the ice with him. 

“Because we need something normal that we can put out in front of everyone else, Ilya,” Shane continues in all of his stubborn, stupid bravery. “This isn’t— this isn’t staying out here. Not with how many people have seen us… acting the way we’ve been acting. People are going to talk, no matter what we do now. So we need an explanation that other people can accept, that makes sense and won’t leave them with any reasons to… to keep looking.”

“The rivalry—” Ilya tries, but Shane doesn’t let him get any further.

“Fuck the fucking rivalry, Ilya!” Shane says. “I don’t want to go back to how we were before, to— to never seeing each other and sneaking around and all the stupid secrets and being scared all the time that we’re going to get caught and— I can't do it. I can’t. Not after this, not after realizing—”

Shane cuts himself off, lips briefly pressing tightly together in a thin line. He sucks in a sharp breath through his nose, continues: 

“Look, we need something normal that we can put out in front of other people, because the way that I feel about you… it’s not normal. And… and you can tell me to fuck off or that I’m wrong or… but— but I’m starting to think that the way you feel about me isn’t normal either.” 

Ilya stares at Shane, feeling completely lost for how to react to everything the other man had just said. To the gauntlet, suddenly tossed down onto the ground between their feet. 

Shane stares back, unflinching. Refusing to back down.

And like before—like always—Ilya cannot let him win.

“It is a good thing you just told me you are gay, Hollander,” Ilya says, speaking slowly, “otherwise I might think you are homophobe.” 

Ilya watches, satisfied, as Shane blinks. Watches him think—reviewing his own words in his head like game tape. Watches as a slow blush begins to creep across his cheeks. 

“Shut up,” Shane mumbles, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “Obviously I didn’t mean it like that.” 

“No, no, I think you did,” Ilya says, a smile blooming on his face, buoyed by Shane’s embarrassment. 

He steps into Shane’s space, tugging his hands back out of his pockets and guiding them towards Ilya’s sides. Only releasing them when he feels Shane give in, wrapping them the rest of the way around Ilya of his own volition. 

“Is okay, Shane,” Ilya continues, rubbing his thumb over Shane’s freckles, his pretty blush only deepening at the gesture. “I like that you are not normal.” 

“Yeah?” Shane breathes. 

“Yeah,” Ilya says, even though he knows—

Even though he knows that this doesn’t change anything, not really. 

One day this will end, and Ilya doesn’t know how much of himself will survive when it does. How long it will last before then; how much he can ruin Shane before Shane will decide that he’s had enough. Before he realizes that Ilya isn’t worth it. 

Ilya will take it anyways. Whatever he can get. However long it lasts. What difference does it make?

He’s already drowning. 

Tilting his head down, Ilya doesn’t have to close the last few inches remaining between them—Shane pushes up to meet him. 

Their mouths meet, and Ilya forgets the ice. Forgets the fear, forgets Russia. Forgets the stains that he leaves on everything he touches, the way that everyone leaves him. The inevitability of the ending. 

Here, now, there is only this: the familiar taste of Shane’s lips, sour from days in the wilderness but still so perfectly, wholly Shane. The noise that Shane makes, deep in his throat, desperate and hungry. The way that he grabs at the back of Ilya’s coat, as if to somehow force them even closer. The soft brush of Shane’s hair, threading between Ilya’s fingers as he pushes his hand inside Shane’s hood, forcing the fabric back and off. Leaving Ilya free to tilt Shane’s head to the side, gently moving him to an angle that allows Ilya to deepen the kiss. 

It’s not enough, but it never is. There’s no amount of Shane that feels like it can satiate Ilya’s greed: his desperate, gnawing hunger for everything that Shane will give him. Nothing that Ilya can do to satisfy the empty thing inside of him that is always craving more. Not when what he wants is for it to never end, even as entropy and the inevitability of ruination demands that it does.

And still, Ilya wants and he wants and he wants. 

And even if it doesn’t change anything, even knowing that the inescapable ending will be all the more terrible and brutal for it…

Just this once, Ilya decides to let himself have.

Shane heads back inside first. 

He argues with Ilya about it first, because of course he does. Ilya isn’t sure if it’s the conversation they just had or too many days of too little sleep and too much hunger that has Shane not caring about them being seen returning together. Whatever it is, and regardless of the conversation they just had, Ilya can’t help but worry that Shane will regret it later. Knows, too, that even if Ilya does decide to go along with Shane’s stupid, insane plan, they still need to be cautious. 

Too much, too fast, and people will begin to wonder. Will begin to question the lie that Shane has only just started to tell. 

Ilya wins the argument eventually by shaking the pack of cigarettes that Shane rescued for him as a silent excuse. Shane frowns at that—that adorable, pinched, annoyed look that Ilya is so, so fond of, and so fond of being the cause of—but bites back whatever comment he wants to make about the smell or Ilya’s health or both. Ilya knows that it’s not because he’s given up on harassing Ilya about smoking though—he’s pretty sure it’s actually down to the fact that Shane feels like a hypocrite, for still disapproving so much when he was the one who gave them to Ilya in the first place.

It has no right to make Ilya feel as warm inside as it does, a blooming, gentle heat that is a far cry from the burning rush that he’s much more accustomed to feeling for the other man. 

It’s a dangerous feeling, on top of a dangerous conversation, and it has Ilya’s feet itching with the need to run. To block out Shane, to pretend that none of this ever happened. But there’s nowhere for him to go, so instead he just waves Shane off, watching him pick his way back up the slope alone, the reluctance Shane’s feeling telegraphed less in his face and more in the slowness of his movements, the way he can’t seem to stop himself from casting a final glance back down at Ilya when he reaches the top, before he finally disappears from sight. 

Ilya taps out a cigarette, frowning when he realizes how few are left. He’s definitely not sharing any more with fucking Yakov, he decides as he flicks his lighter. It’s a much nicer lighter than the shitty gas station one that he was struggling to light when he first met Hollander, all those years ago; a flame springs to life on the first try, and he raises it to kiss the tip of the cigarette.

The smoke burns as it floods his lungs, and he closes his eyes, savouring the feeling, the rush of nicotine flowing through him nearly dizzying. The motions are familiar, grounding; tuck the lighter into the pack, now that it’s empty enough to fit inside. Shove the crumpled cardboard back into his pocket. Raise his hand to take the cigarette with two fingers, pulling it away from his mouth. Exhale, the thin white trail of smoke leaving his lungs disappearing in seconds, stolen away by the wind racing across the frozen landscape. 

Friends, Ilya thinks, turning the word over in his head, contemplating the shape of it, the weight of everything that comes along with it. 

It’s not that absurd. He can admit that to himself, at least, even if it had felt insane when Shane had first said it. Still feels insane, if he’s being honest, even if Shane is right—it makes sense, and is an explanation that will be simple enough for others to accept, once they have time to get used to it. He has to fight against the urge to shy away from it anyway. 

It might make sense, but it also feels… dangerous. It’s too easy—easy to get lost in, to get comfortable with. 

Rivalry is… harmless. Rivalry is making outlandish claims, and then actually doing it. It’s scoring fifty-four goals in his rookie season and then losing the Calder. It’s beating the best time for the shot accuracy contest and then losing the title minutes later. It’s brutal checks and scowls traded across the dot; distance and hatred and chirps. 

Most of all, rivalry is safe. 

Friends is not safe. Friends is treacherous, in a million different ways that Ilya isn’t sure that Shane understands.

He doesn’t know yet, after all, about how greedy Ilya is. How much more he wants, always; a ravenous itch beneath his skin, insatiable. How it wrecks everything he touches. 

And even if Ilya were different—if he were kinder or better or less selfish—it would still be dangerous. 

It’s a bad idea. Ilya knows this. He wants it too badly for it to be anything else. But even knowing that, he’s not sure he’s going to be able to resist it.

Hollander has always made him stupid like that.

How much more dangerous can it really be? whispers a voice in Ilya’s mind that sounds annoyingly similar to Shane. It’s the only excuse Ilya has for why he listens to it. Why he lets himself give into the thought, turning over the forbidden apple in his mind, considering its shape, the bright skin hiding poisoned flesh. 

To be fair, it’s not like people could pay more attention to them than they already do. Well, they will, probably—Shane had been right about that. Ilya doesn’t even want to think about what the media will be like about the plane crash, if they do actually manage to survive it. But even that will die down eventually, leaving them, what? Able to be seen talking off the ice? Spending time together in public? Not having to be constantly paranoid, constantly hiding?

Would that actually be so bad? 

No, Ilya thinks. It really wouldn’t be. 

That’s the whole problem. 

Ilya takes another drag off the cigarette, and breathes out his wanting—or tries to. 

Whatever. This whole thing is probably just some sort of temporary madness anyways. Brought on by Shane’s damaged lungs. His oxygen-starved brain. His hunger or his exhaustion or the strange, liminal landscape between survival and death that they’ve found themselves suspended within. The delusion of their twilight circumstances making Shane think things he never would otherwise. 

The way that I feel about you… it’s not normal.

Shane had sounded so certain, for all he’d been stumbling over his words. But Ilya knows that there’s no way that Shane means it, not really. Not beyond this temporary isolation, this purgatory that has briefly freed them from the shackles of reality. 

Not in the way that Ilya, in his stupidest, most hopeless moments, has wished he would mean it. 

I’m starting to think that the way you feel about me isn’t normal either.

Shane has no idea how right he is about that, at least.

Shaking his head at himself, Ilya flicks the end of his cigarette into the snowbank. It disappears from sight immediately, only the barest smudge of black ash showing where it had landed. 

Turning, Ilya moves to head back towards the plane, but he doesn’t get more than a few steps before he’s turning right back around, cursing himself as he stomps back to where he’d discarded the butt. Sticking his hand into the snow, he has to dig around for the small shape of the cigarette, burnt down to the filter, his fingers nearly numb by the time he finally, triumphantly, brushes against it. 

Still cursing his own stupidity, Ilya turns to head back up the slope, for real this time. 

For fuck’s sake, there’s an entire fucking plane already marring the forest, the detritus from it breaking apart as it fell strewn all over however many kilometers strech between them and where the tail of the plane landed. Who gives a shit if he throws one tiny little cigarette butt onto the ground beside it? 

Fucking Hollander, Ilya thinks as he reaches the top of the rise, barely pausing as he throws the cigarette butt into the open door of the plane as he passes. He puts as much force behind it as he can, but it’s too light for that to mean much, a white smudge wavering and wobbling through the air, fluttering unsatisfyingly to the ground. 

Fucking idiot, Ilya thinks, stomping down the slope towards the entrance to the cargo hold. But no matter how much he curses himself, no matter how many times he reminds himself he’s being stupid and reckless, it still isn’t enough. Not against the helpless, foolish thoughts continuing to rush through his mind, the dangerous warmth that only burrows ever deeper into his chest. Not that it’s a surprise. 

If calling him a fucking idiot was enough to change him, Grigori would have managed to fix him years ago. 

Ilya has to dodge to the side to stop himself from immediately running into a broad, puffy coat-encased back as he slips back through the tarps. Blinking quickly, Ilya tries to force his eyes to adjust. It doesn’t do much—he’s still struggling to pick out concrete shapes in the darkness by the time that the chatter of overlapping voices lets him understand what’s going on anyway. 

Friendly chirping, bets on who will find the most wood: the group of foragers are getting ready to go back out. 

Eyes finally accustomed to the darkness, Ilya takes in the small crowd milling around next to the entrance to the hold. The shambolic group, made up of all of the usual suspects, is too occupied with pulling on a second then third layer to note Ilya’s return. Ilya has to dodge more than one elbow as he edges around them, eyes instinctively searching the rest of the hold before he can think better of it. 

By the time his brain catches up with what he’s doing, it’s too late. 

He’s already found him. 

Standing next to the fire, Shane has already shed the extra layers he’d pulled on to meet Ilya in the snow. Even in a dirty hoodie and sweats, he’s unfairly beautiful, the flickering light of the fire accenting his cheekbones, highlighting the slight upward curl of his lip. Despite himself, Ilya finds his gaze lingering on the other man, as helpless to resist the magnetic pull of his presence as always. He at least manages to stop himself from frowning when his awareness expands enough for him to notice that Shane isn’t alone, though he feels like he’s more than justified in his reaction. 

They can’t even speak to each other without Ilya being there, so why the fuck does Yakov need to stand right next to Shane all the time? 

Predictably, Shane catches Ilya’s eye before he can convince himself to look away. Shane doesn’t gesture Ilya over though, his eyes flicking away from him after only a second. It’s hard to tell in the dim lighting, but Ilya is pretty sure that Shane is looking at Yakov. Even though, again, he can’t even speak to him without someone there to translate. 

Which must mean, what? Shane is happy to just spend time with the paramedic? Even without being able to actually say anything to him? He just likes being around him that much?

Great. Now Ilya doesn’t just feel like an idiot, he also feels fucking pathetic. 

Turning his back on Shane doesn’t feel like much of a victory, but it’s the best that Ilya can do in these circumstances, so he’ll take what he can get. Tugging Ilya Rozanov tighter around himself, he steps forward into the loose crowd gathered around the hold’s exit. It’s not a large enough group for Ilya to lose himself inside of it, but he does his best to surround himself with them anyways, alternating chirps with exaggerated, babushka-like fussing over scarves draped too loosely, jackets not zipped all the way up. 

It works well enough in the end, distracting Ilya, however temporarily, from the weight of the presence of the man behind him.

It’s not until the group around him begins to bicker over who gets which pair of sunglasses that Ilya pauses, frowning. He does a quick headcount, confirming that the number is one shy of what he expects. A second count returns the same number, and Ilya’s frown deepens. He steps back from the crowd for a moment, leaning to the side and peering back into the shadowed depths of the hold. Worry tightens his throat when his eyes land on an empty seat, occupied only by a crumpled blanket. 

Where is Barrett?

Ilya’s eyes quickly scan over the rest of the hold, but there’s no sad, lonely figure to be found in any other corner of the scant space. Trying not to panic, Ilya forces himself to do a second, slower scan over the shadow-filled metal shell, double-checking that the darkness that fills their temporary shelter hasn't managed to swallow Barrett up. 

Nothing. 

It’s not a surprise, though Ilya had been hoping he’d been wrong. But there’s not really anywhere for Barrett to hide himself, not with how small the space is, offering nothing larger than a seat cushion to disappear behind. 

Not even a homophobic, gay teen who seems to spend at least 90% of his time trying to physically will himself right out of existence could manage to go entirely unseen.

Fuck. Forget starvation and exposure—if these fucking morons have somehow managed to lose the youngest member of their rag-tag crew while Shane was outside making out with Ilya, Ilya is going to kill them all himself. 

Shane is going to lose his mind when he realizes that Barrett is gone. He’s going to blame this on himself, for not being here to notice Barrett leaving alone, because God for-fucking-bid there’s a single burden that Captain Shane Hollander doesn’t place entirely upon his own shoulders. Or, maybe not only on his shoulders, because there’s no way that Shane won’t also blame Ilya.

Not that the blame would be misplaced. After all, if it hadn’t been for Ilya, Shane wouldn’t have had any reason to sneak out in the first place. Sure, it had been Shane’s ill-timed gay revelation that’d had him wanting to speak to Ilya alone, but even if Shane hadn’t said as much explicitly, Ilya feels pretty confident that he can take at least some credit—or blame—for that too. 

Christ. 

Troy Barrett is going to freeze to death and Shane is going to think that it’s because he admitted he’s gay. 

Fuck, he isn’t ever going to let Ilya within a hundred feet of him ever again, is he? They’re never even going to get the chance to try to be friends in public while fucking in private, because Shane is going to blame them both for the death of Troy fucking Barrett, and he’s going to decide that he feels very normal about Ilya, actually, and that on second thought, forget the whole ‘I’m gay’ thing, Shane’s actually very straight. Maybe the straightest man to ever play hockey.

And then they’ll go back to North America and Shane won’t ever speak to Ilya again. He’ll force himself to marry some poor Canadian woman who he has absolutely no interest in and Ilya will have to watch it all play out on TV, knowing, the whole time, exactly what it is that he lost. They’ll spend the rest of their careers not speaking and then they’ll both retire and Ilya will go back to Russia and he won’t even get to see Shane on TV anymore. He won’t ever get to see him ever again. 

All because the second-most-awkward gay Canadian to ever pick up a hockey stick decided to wander out into the Russian wilderness alone to fucking freeze to death. 

Shit.

Shit, shit, shi—

Wait.

Ilya’s increasingly frantic thoughts come to a stumbling stop at the same time that his fruitless, desperate scan back and forth of the hold does. Shoving down the relief that tries to surge through him, Ilya forces himself to take another slow look over the hold. Making himself double and then triple-check before he finally allows the emotion to bloom to life inside his chest, letting out a long breath as his shoulders drop with relief. 

Barrett is still missing, but so is Carter Vaughn. 

Thank Christ. Barrett hadn’t just wandered off alone—he’d had the good sense to take someone with him. Or Vaughn had had the better sense to follow him when he’d tried to head out by himself. Either way, the relief sweeps through Ilya like a cooling balm, how ridiculous his spiraling thoughts had become embarrassingly obvious in retrospect, in the clarity offered by the abatement of the panic that had been spurring them on. 

As much as Ilya is loath to think anything good about an Admiral, even he can admit that Vaughn has been a helpful presence over the last few days. Plus, Saint Vicky likes him, so. There are far worse people to accompany a sad homophobic gay teenager while he wanders through the Russian wilderness.

Which, to be honest, kind of sounds like the plot of one of those trashy books that Sveta loves to lie about not reading, but Ilya’s certain that the actual explanation for Vaughn heading out with Barrett is something much more horribly wholesome. If nothing else, Vaughn’s embarrassingly obvious and deeply heterosexual crush on Erika makes any alternatives fairly unlikely, but even without that fact, Ilya has never gotten anything even close to that vibe from Vaughn.

More likely, Vaughn saw Barrett trying to leave alone and forced him to follow the buddy system, because unlike half the players here, Vaughn isn’t a total idiot. Or maybe he decided to take Barrett out for a nature walk himself, to try and get the kid to open up to him through the beauty and wonder of the outdoors or whatever. 

Vaughn was disgustingly earnest like that. 

Still, however off-putting Ilya found it, he could admit that Vaughn’s painful sincerity was far better than the other options. Certainly, it was the best Ilya could hope for, as far as the Admirals go—Ilya supreses a shudder at the thought that he could have just as easily been stuck out here with fucking Scott Hunter. 

Ilya would say that Hunter’s old body would have simply exploded from the force of the crash, but since he’d somehow managed to survive the asteroid that had taken out the rest of his friends, Ilya doubted that a plane crash would actually be enough to kill him. Which, if Ilya was being totally honest, would probably be for the best. 

There was so little eye-candy in this league, they had to keep the ones they had around for as long as possible, even if they were old and annoying and bad at hockey. And have maybe overheard him and Shane fucking, once.

Without his permission, Ilya feels a small smile creep onto his face at the memory. Fuck, Shane had been so freaked out about the possibility of Hunter overhearing them. Not that it’d been enough to stop him from coming to Ilya’s room, of course. Or to stop him from moaning Ilya’s name when Ilya had sucked his cock, teasing at his hole with a spit-soaked finger. 

That had been a good night. Made even better by Shane’s admission over text, a few weeks later, that the real reason Shane took issue with Hunter was that the Admiral’s Captain was never as good as he could be. That he was so inconsistent that it undermined everything that did make him good. That he always seemed to be holding something back, never quite rising to meet the challenge offered by facing off against Shane. 

Only Shane, Ilya thinks fondly. He doubted that there were many other players in the league, if any, who would get mad about an opponent not playing against him well enough. 

Remembering far too late that he’d been trying not to be quite so pathetic about Shane—though Ilya had probably lost all hope of achieving that somewhere between you’re an incredible player to watch and a cancelled flight that he had no right to be as upset about as he was—Ilya forces himself to focus back on the group of people in front of him. 

Unfortunately, they don’t offer much of a distraction. While Ilya had been briefly lost in visions of Troy Barrett’s frozen corpse and everything it would cost him, they’d apparently come to some sort of resolution over the divisive issue of which sunglasses went to which person. Half of them were already out of the hold, and the remaining few weren’t far behind.

Still, Ilya hasn’t gotten to where he is in the league by ignoring the openings in front of him, no matter how narrow. 

Following the stragglers out, Ilya makes a big production of waving them off, dabbing fake tears from his cheeks and vowing to never remarry, if they never made it home. 

A chorus of fuck off Rozs is all he gets for his efforts. 

Typical. 

Ilya waits as they disperse anyway, watching as the bulky dark shapes of the heavily-bundled men and women, stark against the snow, disappear, two-by-two, into the forest. Eventually all he can see of them are in glimpses, shadows of movement amongst the trees. And then even those sparse flickers of movement vanish, leaving him with no excuse to continue to linger here, nothing left with which he can cling to in a doomed effort to avoid what inevitably awaits him back inside the hold. 

He considers having another cigarette, before he remembers how few are left, and sighs instead, resigning himself to his fate. He’s as relieved as he is regretful—pathetic or not, he can’t entirely ignore the whisper of anxiety that winds through his chest every time Shane is out of his sight. 

He tries not to think about how much of a problem that’s going to become, if they survive this. It’s not like he’s going to be able to keep an eye on Shane then, once they’re back to their real lives, to separate cities in separate countries. 

The distance is just another reason that this whole thing is doomed, but that, at least, is a problem for later. For now, neither of them are going anywhere, and, with a final, fatalistic sigh, Ilya turns around, slipping back into the hold. 

Ilya’s eyes are quicker to adjust this time, and he tries not to examine too closely the way that it makes him feel, when he sees that Shane is no longer standing with Yakov. Not that he’s gone far, standing to the side of the food bins with Erika and Karina. They’re leaning in towards him, listening, and as Ilya watches, Karina lets out a loud laugh at something that Shane says. 

Something ugly and acidic boils in Ilya’s stomach, harder to ignore than his previous emotions, and Ilya is embarrassed by the way that he has to actively remind himself that Shane just told Ilya that he’s gay. Not that it matters to Ilya, either way. Shane can flirt with whoever he wants to. The acid is just… indigestion, probably. Some sort of weird hunger pang.

The way that I feel about you… it’s not normal.

The words echo in Ilya’s head like a churchbell, a deafening, clanging ring that Ilya can’t quite manage to completely block out, even if he knows that he should. Even though he knows that it’s all just temporary. That hockey is Shane’s only true guiding star. That once the threat of death is no longer hanging over their heads, Shane will remember that. That this hope will kill him, if Ilya is foolish enough to allow himself to believe otherwise—to believe, completely.

Like it wasn’t already bad enough. 

Like Ilya wasn’t already drowning. 

Shane couldn’t just leave well enough alone. He just had to go and tie an anchor to Ilya’s legs, the weight of it pulling him down even faster, even further. Down into the depths, until he’s so deep that he can’t see anything but the endless black void surrounding him. Until he’s lost, totally and completely, heavy in the cold embrace of everything he wants and cannot have—or has, and cannot keep.

Whatever. Whatever. 

It’s a half-hearted attempt to preserve whatever little remains of his dignity and self-respect that has Ilya forcing his feet to turn him towards where Yakov is still standing next to the fire. No matter how badly they want to take him to Shane instead. It’s a shallow victory anyway—he can’t quite prevent himself from stopping with his body angled slightly outwards, just enough that he can still see Shane out of the corner of his eye. 

Yakov greets him with a nod, the brief acknowledgement of Ilya’s presence all that he offers him before his eyes fall back to the apparently far more interesting fire. Ilya follows his gaze, and realizes that the fire, while still not interesting enough to justify Yakov’s fixation on it, is brighter and higher than it had been the last time Ilya had seen it. 

Recently fed, the fresh wood has been carefully placed in the same odd pyramid-like formation that Ilya has noticed Shane use to build it back up before. The unstained logs on top slowly blackening at the edges as flames dance against them in a now-familiar pattern. 

Ilya looks from the fire to the pile of wood still waiting to be consumed, and is relieved to see that there is enough left that, for tonight at least, it doesn’t seem like their continued warmth will be dependent upon the success or failure of the group he’d just waved off. 

Turning back to the fire, Ilya tries to be inconspicuous about it as he shifts a few inches closer to the flames. He probably should have grabbed an extra layer before he followed Shane outside earlier, but he’d been too anxious to delay chasing after Shane any longer. The few minutes that he’d forced himself to linger with Paquette had been bad enough—the slow extraction from their conversation an attempt to not to raise any suspicions. To not make it obvious that he was leaving only so that he could follow Shane. 

Shane’s cough had been so unmistakably fake that it was nearly embarrassing, but even that hadn’t been half as embarrassing as the way that Ilya hadn’t been able to stop himself from worrying about it anyway.

Ilya had regretted the lack of any extra layers the moment he’d confirmed that Shane wasn’t dying. He’d felt warmer briefly, when he’d been kissing Shane, but that had been a false warmth; its illusion now exposed in the way that he has to fight not to shiver, the nearly painful way that feeling has begun to return to his toes. Fuck, he really didn’t understand why anyone would willingly choose to expose themselves to this shit, much less enjoy it. 

The wilderness was a nightmare, the forest a purgatory, the snow and cold a curse he couldn’t escape. 

“Cold?” Yakov asks, as if he can somehow read Ilya’s mind. His expression is neutral, but there’s a trace of amusement in his voice. Ilya refuses to give him the satisfaction of glaring at him the way Ilya wants to though, just barely glancing at him. It’s little more than a flick of his eyes, Ilya making sure to keep his face utterly placid as he returns his attention to the fire. 

“No,” Ilya says, and it might not be believable, but at least it doesn’t come out sounding like a lie.

Yakov doesn’t even do him the favour of pretending to believe him, no longer even trying to hide his amusement as he snorts. 

“Well, lucky for how not-cold you are,” Yakov says, “Shane decided it was time to build the fire up a bit higher when you went back outside. Unrelated, I’m sure.” 

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Ilya thinks, and has to grit his teeth together to stop the words from escaping his mouth. 

“Lucky,” he says instead, and ignores the way that he can’t quite keep the sharpness out of his voice this time. 

Yakov, the fucking asshole, seems utterly unphased. 

“I think he doesn’t trust me to do it,” Yakov says, still infuriatingly cool. “The first night, I just threw a bunch of wood on when I noticed it was dying down. But when I woke up in the morning, it’d all been rearranged, and the new wood that had been added was all—” he gestures down at the fire “—neat and tidy.” 

Ilya follows the direction of Yakov’s gesture, down towards the fire and the, admittedly, very neat way that the wood has been arranged on top of it. Ilya can admit that it is very Shane to have an opinion on how a fire is built, even if Ilya doesn’t understand the significance of the very specific way that the logs have been added to it. Uncertain whether there’s an actual reason for the formation, or if it’s just another one of Shane’s particularities. 

This might be the most uninterrupted time that they’ve spent together, him and Shane, but Ilya has known for years—ever since the first time he watched Shane fold his clothes before they had sex—that Shane likes things to be done a certain way. He’s caught, in glimpses, more and more of Shane’s habits over the years—some disguised under the superstitions and demands of hockey, others much more obviously unmotivated by anything other than Shane himself. 

Ilya hoards each and every one in his memory like a prize. Precious, in the certainty Ilya has that Shane hides these things from nearly everyone else. Precious, in the uncertainty of whether Shane meant for Ilya to see them at all; scared that he might try to hide them from him too, if he ever was to realize that Ilya has been collecting them in his memory.

“The next night,” Yakov continues, undeterred by Ilya’s lack of a reply, “I mentioned to him that it looked like the fire was getting low, and by the time I turned back around, he’d already finished building it back up again.”

“Yes, well, you are a city boy,” Ilya says. “It’s not a surprise, that you’d be bad at making a camp fire.” 

Yakov raises an eyebrow at him, a wordless accusation: this, coming from another city boy? Ilya ignores it, too focused on the question Yakov’s story has pulled into the forefront of his mind. He hesitates over it, but in the end his need to know wins out. A victory that was inevitable, really. 

The force of his worry is insurmountable, no matter the consequences. No matter how much it risks showing his whole hand. 

That is, if he hasn’t shown it in its entirety already—if fucking Troy Barrett and Carter fucking Vaughn could somehow manage to see through him despite the protective barrier of his mother tongue, Ilya can only imagine how much more clearly Yakov has seen him.

“He hasn’t been sleeping much, has he?” 

Yakov at least does Ilya the favour of not hesitating in return—he shakes his head immediately, cutting a quick glance over his shoulder towards Shane. An instinctive check, confirming that Shane isn’t listening to them. Nevermind the fact that he couldn’t understand them, even if he was. 

“He’s been sleeping intermittently,” Yakov says, “but he’s been getting up every time I do. I tried to get up less last night, since hourly checks are really a bit of overkill at this point, with how stable everyone is, but he woke up even without me.” He pauses, shrugs. “I got up too, when his moving around woke me up, but there might have been a couple I slept through. I’m not sure.” 

Yakov’s voice has turned apologetic at the end. It doesn’t do much to make Ilya feel better about what he’s telling him. 

“You’ve been taking naps though,” Ilya points out. “In the day, once everyone else is up.” 

Yakov nods, his expression turning unhappy. “Yes,” he says. “I tried to tell him he should do the same, but he refused.” 

Ilya frowns in return. He hadn’t translated that request, so how—

“Karina translated this?” he asks. Demands, really, anger burning hot and sudden in his chest. Had Yakov gone to her on purpose, to intentionally keep Ilya out of the loop? Why? He had to have known that Shane wouldn’t admit shit to Ilya himself, that—

“No,” Yakov says, cutting off Ilya’s growing anger at the knees, leaving him suddenly rudderless. “It was a… silent conversation. But he knew what I was saying.”

“Ah, so you don’t even need words to communicate with him anymore?” Ilya snaps, the words breaking free before he can stop them. Regret is heavy and immediate. 

It’s too much. Far too much. Forget showing his hand. He might as well have just handed Yakov the whole fucking deck. 

Yakov’s eyebrow goes back up, and Ilya barely manages to shove down the urge to punch the expression straight off his stupid face. He knows nothing, Ilya tries to tell himself. It doesn’t work, and fear joins the churn of worry and anger in his stomach. 

“You are good at that, you know,” Yakov says, and the confusion manages to slice through the fear far more than Ilya’s failed attempts at self-reassurance because—what?

“What?” Ilya asks.

“Not needing words to understand what people are saying,” Yakov says, but when he raises his hand to gesture, he doesn’t do what Ilya is dreading—doesn’t point straight at Shane—but instead makes a broad, sweeping motion out towards the rest of the hold.

Ilya must look as confused as he still feels, because Yakov doesn’t wait for him to ask what again, continuing:

“You’re very observant. Perceptive. You can read people, read what they’re actually thinking and feeling.”

It’s not an… unwelcome observation. It is, in fact, something that Ilya prides himself on. No one has ever agreed with him when he’s bragged about it before though, much less brought it up unprompted, and he finds himself staring at Yakov, mind scrambling after something innocuous to say in reply while he tries to figure out what Yakov’s game is. 

“I know you’ve been calling yourself Nurse Rozanov,” Yakov continues, apparently unbothered by Ilya’s continued failure to respond, the corners of his mouth curling up in silent amusement, “but I think, in another life, you would have made a very good social worker.”

Whatever Ilya had been expecting, it hadn’t been that—he barks out a laugh, startled and incredulous.

“I do not think so,” Ilya says.

“No?” Yakov says. “Why not?” 

His expression is open, placid—like he’s actually asking. Like he actually wants to hear what Ilya has to say. Like the answer isn’t at once obvious, or best left unsaid.

“I do not think anyone would want me to be around children who are… in bad situations,” Ilya says. “I do not think they would take me very seriously either, if I tell them not to do drugs and to stay in school.” 

Ilya is laughing by the time he finishes speaking, his mind conjuring an image of him standing in front of a gym full of teens, telling them to make good choices while a slideshow of all his tabloid and gossip blog appearances plays out on the screen behind him. He supposes in that sense, he might actually be good at it, fucking scared sober lectures or whatever that shit was that Carmy had told the team about that one time. He certainly has enough very public examples of him making very, very bad choices. And even more—and even worse—private examples.

Though, on second thought, maybe not—don’t do blow off a stripper’s tits was probably more effective when it wasn’t followed up with or else you might grow up to become the top goal scorer in the MLH.

Yakov doesn’t laugh. The traces of amusement he’d still been carrying have actually totally vanished, Ilya realizes when he refocuses on the other man. There’s a small line drawn between his eyebrows, and his eyes are dark and unwavering as he stares at Ilya.

“I don’t think that’s true at all,” Yakov says, and even if he’d bothered to try, Ilya wouldn’t have had a hope of stopping the disbelieving snort he lets out in reply.

Yakov doesn’t say anything else, but his frown deepens, and after a tense handful of seconds, Ilya finally realizes—

“What, you are serious?” he asks. “You know, just because you have seen me on TV does not mean you know me—”

“No,” Yakov interrupts, “it doesn’t. But I’m not talking about seeing you on TV. I’m talking about seeing you here, now. Seeing you check in on everyone. Making sure that no one is forgotten. Balancing everyone’s moods. Cheering them up. Pushing when they need to be pushed, backing off when they need you to back off.”

“I— I don’t—” Ilya stutters over his words, thrown by the revelation of just how closely Yakov had apparently been watching him, nevermind the rest of what he’d actually said. 

“You like to help people,” Yakov says with a confidence that is absurd, given how little time he’s known Ilya. “You like to take care of them. And you’re good at it. Trying your best to help people, even when the odds are stacked against you.” Yakov shrugs, casual in a way that makes Ilya feel even more insane. “So, social worker.”

Ilya opens his mouth, but when his mind remains frustratingly blank, shuts it again. 

To his relief, Yakov lets the silence stand this time, allowing Ilya time to catch up with everything he’d said. 

Ilya couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t been nice, to hear Yakov say that with what had seemed to be complete sincerity. It wasn’t like he was wrong, either—Ilya did like to help, to care for others. The problem was that Yakov didn’t know the rest of it. Didn’t know about the stains, about the greed, about the ruin. 

He would not say half as many nice things, Ilya knows, if he did. 

Like fuck is Ilya saying any of that shit to fucking Yakov though. Ilya does what he does best instead—he deflects, shrugging after what seems like an appropriate amount of time to have allowed for meaningful personal reflection. 

“Maybe,” he allows—lies. “That is not… that is not something anyone has said to me before—” the truth, this time, “—I suppose I had not thought about it like that.”

“That is… very surprising to hear,” Yakov says, frowning again. “People must be very happy to only see what they expect—or what they want to see—for no one to have said that to you before.” 

“Yes,” Ilya says dryly. “This is generally how it works with people. Maybe you are not familiar?”

“With being famous?” Yakov counters easily. “No, and thank God for that. Maybe they would see you more clearly, if you were not. It is a shame that they do not try though. You are a very kind man, Ilya. You try.”

Ilya’s learned his lesson—this time, he doesn’t snort, doesn’t scoff. Doesn’t let himself react at all.

“You don’t think so?” Yakov asks anyway, raising an eyebrow, and—

Ilya has spent his entire adult life—and a good chunk of his childhood before that—perfecting the art of deflection. It was essential to the successful deployment of the character of Ilya Rozanov; the thing that made all the smoke and mirrors believable. 

Look at his smile, the way he scores goals, the way he winks, shirtless and sweaty, while making outrageous claims. 

Don’t look at the things that lie beneath; the bruised and bloody child, a battered body he hides, a wounded thing that lives curled up inside his ribs. 

Look at the photos of him stumbling out of a club at sunrise with two women hanging off of him, speculate about how many STDs he’s probably gotten at this point, complain about the league not punishing him for drug use even as photo evidence racks up millions of views on twitter.

Pay no attention to the ocean that suspends this shell of a man in an endless, perpetual state of drowning. 

Ilya has spent most of his life practicing. He’s really, really fucking good at it. So, of course, this fucking bastard asshole paramedic turns his head and looks directly at the hand hiding the trick, the one that Ilya is so desperately working to distract him from. 

Honestly, what the fuck is Ilya supposed to say to that? Clearly, lying is getting him nowhere, but he’d rather spend the night sleeping in the cabin of the plane with the corpses than answer Yakov. 

You don’t think so? 

Maybe if he set himself on fire, that would be enough of a distraction to get Yakov to fucking drop it? Ilya could probably make it believable, pretending to have accidentally stepped too close to the fire…

“I would like to be,” Ilya says, setting aside his plans for self-immolation for now in favour of a truth he could stomach saying out loud. “A good man. I do not know that I always manage it.” Only a half-truth—he knows exactly how little kindness he manages—but hopefully honest enough to get Yakov to look back at Ilya’s other hand.

Or not—Yakov lets out a near-silent disbelieving hum, and Ilya barely manages to stop himself from punching him right in the face. 

“I think you manage it plenty,” Yakov says with more of that unearned confidence. “Though I suppose I am seeing you in different circumstances than most.”

“Yes,” Ilya says, shrugging on a cocky grin, even if he isn’t holding out much hope for its effectiveness. “Most people just see a blur before I am smashing them into the boards. Or scoring on them.” 

Yakov snorts. “Sure,” he says. “And clearly you’re good at it, the, y’know—” he waves his hand in a vague, directionless gesture, “—performance of it all.” He pauses, huffs out a nearly silent laugh. “I was very confused that first day,” Yakov continues, smiling, crooked and amused, “when Karina explained the whole rivalry thing to me. If people would be surprised to see you acting the way you have with everyone else, I can only imagine what they’d have to say about the way you treat Shane.”

The words land like a blow, and just like that the fear that had been briefly subsumed by the painful experience of having Yakov poke and prod at the worst parts of him flares back to life as if it had never left at all. 

Ilya swallows, and hopes that it isn’t as loud to Yakov as it is to his own ears. “Ah,” he says, “yes, well, it is like you said, no? Unusual circumstances. It would be pretty stupid, to care about all of that right now.”

“Stupid,” Yakov echoes in what is either agreement or accusation. He pauses, then adds, “Have I told you why I was in Canada?” 

It’s not at all what Ilya had been expecting him to say—such an abrupt change in topic that Ilya finds himself stumbling to reorient himself. 

“No,” Ilya finally says after what is probably too long of a pause. 

Yakov nods, unsurprised. A rhetorical question then, and Ilya feels dread join the rest of the things crowding his chest. Yakov is steering this conversation somewhere, and Ilya has no idea what waits at the end.

“I was visiting my sister, in Toronto,” Yakov says. He pauses, and his next words are slow, deliberate. Careful. “She introduced me to her partner. Alex.”

Ilya frowns, less certain than ever about what Yakov is getting at. 

“She also told me that she isn’t planning on ever returning to Russia,” Yakov says. 

“Oh,” Ilya says. “That must have been… difficult, to hear.” 

Yakov’s lips twitch in a smile that he only just manages to suppress. It does nothing to hide the bright spark of amusement in his eyes at Ilya’s awkward attempt at sympathy. 

“I did not take it well at first,” Yakov admits, amusement disappearing as something like sadness replaces it. “I asked her if there was not some nice Russian boy she could marry instead.” 

“Understandable,” Ilya says, as if he is not equally guilty of failing to resist a Canadian man.

The amusement is back as Yakov shakes his head. “She told me that there would never be a nice Russian boy,” Yakov says. “I believe her exact phrasing was something along the lines of, ‘What part of ‘I’m a fucking dyke’ is so confusing for you, Yashka?’”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ilya sees Shane’s head twitch in their direction at the English word, but he just as quickly returns his attention back to the two women in front of him. Fast enough that no one other than Ilya would have caught it. 

Ilya keeps his own eyes focused on Yakov, careful not to so much as let his eyes drift in Shane’s direction. It’s a start, but he still needs to reply. To say something. Anything, really. He’s already been silent for too long. 

But his mind is as empty and blank as the snow outside; a static-filled nothingness. Fuck. Fuck. He needs to speak. He needs to say— 

“It is probably a good thing, then, that she never plans to return,” Ilya says. 

There. Not an admission, only an acknowledgement, delivered as flatly as he can make it. 

Ilya isn’t an idiot. Everything about Yakov’s tone—about him saying any of this to Ilya in the first place, even knowing who Ilya is, who he is to Russia—points towards one thing. Yakov’s attempt to tell Ilya something without actually saying it. Not a threat, which would be more expected, but something gentler, kinder.

Something along the lines of I know.

I see you.

You can trust me.

But Ilya isn’t an idiot, and even if the tayga around them looks nothing like home, the soil beneath them is still soaked in the blood of his ancestors. His motherland has never been kind to him. He would be a fool to expect that to change now. 

Yakov’s lips curl upwards into something too sad to be a smile. It’s its own kind of acknowledgement, delivered without surprise but with something close to regret, or perhaps just wistfulness. For a better world, maybe. For a better Russia. 

Or maybe that’s just Ilya, once again projecting his own terrible and impossible wishes onto someone else. 

“Yes,” Yakov says. “Probably.”

For a second, Ilya thinks that that is the end of it—that Yakov will drop it, and they will go back to ignoring the thing that neither of them have yet to say out loud.

Ilya should be so lucky. 

“Perhaps that is something that more Russians living abroad should do,” Yakov says, carefully neutral. 

“Perhaps,” Ilya says, equally neutral. 

“It’s a hard decision,” Yakov says. “Certainly not one to make lightly, or loudly. But it is an important one to make.”

Ilya has to actually work to bury his flinch this time, but he does bury it. “It is,” he says, his voice thankfully not giving away any sign of his near-stumble. 

There’s a longer pause this time, as Yakov watches Ilya, his eyes careful. Considering whether or not to believe him, maybe. Trying to figure out if Ilya actually believes that what Yakov is saying could ever possibly apply to himself, or if he’s just agreeing for the sake of agreeing. 

He is. He needs them to stop talking about this, and he doesn’t really care at this point—he’ll say whatever it takes to get Yakov to drop it. He can’t just walk away though, no matter how tempting it is at this point. He can’t afford to. Regardless of what Ilya thinks he knows about Yakov’s intentions with this conversation, the consequences if he’s wrong would be— well. Ilya just needs to figure out how to end this fucking nightmare of a conversation without giving Yakov anything he could even hypothetically use against Ilya. 

Besides, what’s the point? All these things they’re dancing around actually saying—those sort of things are for other people. People who don’t have the weight of an entire nation’s expectations pressing down on their shoulders. People who don’t have a sick father and a useless drug-addict brother who couldn’t be trusted to take care of a fucking house plant, much less the hateful, bitter man that raised them both. 

People who have something worth losing everything else for.

Maybe some of that shows on his face. Maybe none of it does. Maybe it’s just a shot in the dark. Maybe it’s a paramedic’s intuition, the years of experience that draws the eye straight to wounds anyone else would look right past. 

“I guess the question is, what cost is it worth paying to be happy?” Yakov says.

The question is a dagger, aimed straight for Ilya’s ribs. It comes attached to a rope that he can pull himself out of this pit they’ve become trapped in, so he lunges for it with both hands anyway, uncaring of how much blood spills along the way. 

“To be happy?” Ilya says, allowing expression to finally return to his face, his lips curling upwards, sardonic. “That is not very Russian of you.” 

This time, Yakov does not pull Ilya back down into the hole with him—he rolls his eyes. “Oh yes, I’m sorry, how could I forget?” he says. “We must all be miserable, always.”

“It is in the anthem, I believe,” Ilya says. 

“No, that was the Soviet anthem,” Yakov says. “It’s on our money now.”

“No, no,” Ilya says, “it’s not on the money, it’s what makes us money—our finest national export.”

“Ah,” Yakov says. “But still, the domestic market has always been much larger for it, hasn’t it?” 

Ilya laughs at that, and is surprised that it feels mostly real—and only comes out sounding slightly strained. Yakov’s also laughing, and Ilya doesn’t think he’ll ever fully shake the fear of the real conversation that lay beneath the conversation they just had, but maybe he can pretend, at least for now, that it was all in his head anyways. That Yakov didn’t mean what Ilya thinks—knows—he did. 

It’s not much, but it’s all Ilya has, so.

He’ll take what he can get. He always has.

By late afternoon, everyone is back in the hold. 

There’s still plenty of daylight left, so they could theoretically still be doing more wood-gathering and water-purifying, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that people are running out of energy to spend all day working. It was inevitable, really. Even with Shane and Erika’s careful balancing of portions, there was no avoiding the fact that, after four days of too much labour and not enough food, the limited rations have started to make their toll known.

No one is starving.

Not yet. 

But, there’s a shared hollowness to the faces filling the hold that wasn’t there when they’d first crashed. People’s movements have become more and more sluggish, reacting on a delay that is soon going to become dangerous, if it hasn’t already. The conversations have become quieter too; voices increasingly subdued in the face of the exhaustion dragging on them all, growing heavier and heavier by the day, if not the hour. 

Shane notices it too, because of course he does, and Ilya isn’t surprised when he makes the decision to call an end to any sort of work hours earlier than he has any of the preceding days. Ilya is relieved to find that he’d been right, when everyone returns to the hold—Barrett and Vaughn do reappear together, the freshly broken branches they’d gathered added along with all the rest to their dwindling supply of firewood. 

Even freshly replenished, there is less than there had been before. Vaughn pauses next to where Ilya and Shane are standing near the fire when he gets back, informing them in an undertone, expression grim, that they’d had to go even further out to find any dead branches today. And even before the burden of exhaustion was factored in, with only one axe to their collective name, there was a hard limit to how much chopping of fresh wood could be done. 

Shane receives Vaughn’s words with his jaw set tightly, arms crossed across his chest. Ilya is thankful, once again, for the low lighting in the hold. If it was any brighter, someone else might be able to notice the way that Shane is shaking. As it is, the dimness offers a protective shield, rendering the shaking invisible to anyone other than Ilya and fucking Carter Vaughn. It’s the only thing that could give Shane away, his expression not so much as flickering as he listens to Vaughn talk. 

Even if they’d been standing in the middle of the field, in bright daylight, Ilya doesn’t know that anyone other than him could spot the fear that shines in the depths of Shane’s eyes. 

Shane’s expression doesn’t change when Vaughn excuses himself with a nod, heading over towards his usual spot, where Erika, Karina, and, intriguingly, Barrett, are now waiting for him. Ilya can’t help but be curious about what Barrett and Vaughn talked about while they were out in the wilderness, wading through the snow. They had to have talked about something, and whatever it had been, it had been significant enough to manage to do what a fight, a medical emergency, a death, and multiple previous attempts to engage Barrett in any type of conversation had failed to do. 

Unfortunately for Ilya’s gossip-loving heart, he has more important things that need his attention, and he turns back to Shane, though he still silently vows to himself to pester Vaughn for details the first chance he has. 

Shane’s biting his lip, but he stops as soon as he notices Ilya looking at him. 

“It’s not good, is it?” Ilya says, so quietly it’s barely a whisper. 

“No,” Shane admits, confesses, voice equally soft. There’s no hesitation, no wariness in the way he divulges this information to Ilya. 

It shouldn’t make Ilya feel as warm as it does, but Ilya is beginning to accept that he has no ability to control such things.

“We’ve got two more days of food, if we don’t cut the rations further, which I’m starting to think… we should maybe consider doing that. But if we do, I’m worried that no one is going to have any energy, and we’re already having to work harder to get wood.”

“At least there’s lots of water,” Ilya says. 

There is—Erika and her team have become nearly frighteningly efficient, re-filling the water bottles as fast as they’re emptied, despite how drawn-out and laborious a process purifying the snow had proven. Another positive: for all that it takes forever, the physical effort of producing more drinkable water is low, especially when compared to gathering more wood. 

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Which is good—you can survive up to three weeks without food, so long as you have water. I’m honestly more worried about the firewood at this point. It doesn’t really matter how much food or water we have, if we can’t keep warm.” 

“So if we can’t find more wood, or no one has enough energy to keep gathering it…” Ilya trails off, not wanting to say it aloud. As if that will somehow make it less likely, or less true. 

If they lose the fire, they won’t need to worry about starvation or dehydration—they’ll freeze to death first.

Shane swallows, shakes his head. His voice is more determined when he continues, but Ilya can still hear the fear that underwrites every word. 

“We could pull the whole shelter back, hang the tarps deeper in the hold, layer them up more. If we make the space a lot smaller, our body heat will be able to do more to keep it warm.”

“Will that be enough?” Ilya asks and waits as Shane thinks it over. He can practically see the process written out on Shane’s face—can see him flipping through whatever survival handbook exists in his mind, looking for the answer.

“No,” Shane finally says, brutally honest. “Probably not.” 

“Oh,” Ilya says, and he can only hope that he’s doing as good a job as Shane is, at keeping his fear off of his face.

Shane lets out a long, slow breath, as if to steady himself, and Ilya realizes it's not that Shane is doing an impossibly good job of keeping the fear off his face. It’s that this pronouncement didn’t make him any more afraid than he’d already had been. Without any active input from himself, Ilya feels his own fear begin to retreat, going quiet as he watches Shane continue to think.

“The problem is that the walls of the hold aren’t offering any insulation,” Shane says. He’s speaking slowly, like he’s turning over each thought one last time before he vocalizes it. “They’re absorbing the heat, not keeping it in,” he continues, “and we don’t have enough materials to make them insulated.” 

Another pause, longer than the last, Shane’s brow furrowed in thought. Ilya’s starting to wonder if he should try prompting him when Shane finally begins to speak. 

“It’ll take a lot of energy, which no one really has to spare at this point,” Shane says, “but I think… I think, if we can’t keep the fire going, our best bet might be to try and make quinzhees.”

Ilya waits, but Shane doesn’t offer anything comprehensible as a follow-up to this incomprehensible suggestion. He isn’t even looking at Ilya at this point, is staring down at the ground, brow still creased as his weird, wonderful brain continues to try and figure out what the best play is, or whatever. 

“Hollander,” Ilya says, when he’s waited as long as he can bear. Shane looks up at him, blinking rapidly as he attempts to return from wherever he’d gone. “What?”

“What?” Shane asks, now blinking in confusion.

“You know I don’t speak French, Hollander,” Ilya says. “Is very rude, to use words that you know I don’t understand.”

“What?” Shane says again. “I didn’t— oh, you mean quinzhee? That’s not French, that’s… actually, I’m, uh, not sure which specific language it is, but I’m pretty sure it’s First Nations?”

As far as explanations go, it’s remarkably unhelpful.

“First Nations?” Ilya asks, and Shane frowns at him. 

“Yeah?” he says. “Like, uh, Indigenous?” Shane’s cheeks begin to turn pink as Ilya keeps staring at him, and he shifts from foot to foot, suddenly looking oddly uncomfortable. “Um, I think Americans still— Americans still use, um… Indian?” 

“Ah,” Ilya says as the pieces finally click into place. “You do not use this in Canada?” he asks, curious. 

Shane shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It’s, uh, it’s considered pretty offensive? We use— well, there’s a lot of individual tribes, which all have their own names but— as like, larger groups, it’s, um, Inuit, Métis, and First Nations.”

“And quin-zee is First Nations?” Ilya asks, and Shane nods. 

“Yeah, it’s a type of snow shelter,” he says. “You make a big pile of snow, and then hollow out the middle to make a sort of snow cave.” 

“A snow cave,” Ilya repeats flatly. “And this is warmer than hold?” 

“Yeah,” Shane says, looking unaccountably excited at the prospect. “Because snow is a really good insulator, so it's really efficient at keeping in body heat. You actually need to poke a hole in the top, to keep it from getting so warm that it starts melting on the inside.”

“And you have done this?” Ilya asks, incredulous.

Shane—because he’s Captain fucking Wilderness and maybe also because all Canadians are insane—fucking nods.

“Only once,” he admits, nearly sheepish, as if it’s somehow embarrassing that he hasn’t spent more time doing one of the most incomprehensible things Ilya’s heard in his entire life. 

“It wasn’t like— it was just in my parent’s backyard in Ottawa, but honestly, they’re not hard to build. It’s mostly just the shovelling so… it’ll be a lot of effort, and a lot of energy, to make them for everyone. But you can make them big enough for more than one person to fit inside them, although there’s— or, I guess, I assume there’s a limit to how large you can build them? I don’t— the one we made was just big enough for me and my dad.”

“Not your mother?” Ilya asks, and Shane laughs, shaking his head.

“Not in a million years,” he says. “Camping was always me and my dad’s thing.” 

“Ah, so Yuna is only sensible Hollander,” Ilya says, and Shane startles. 

“Wh— how— why do you— You know my mom’s name?”

Oops, Ilya thinks, and tries desperately to think of an explanation that isn’t ‘yes, of course I know your mama’s name, I’ve spent a very normal amount of time watching every video that anyone has ever made about you’. 

It’s as much of a relief as it isn’t, that Ilya is saved from having to come up with an answer by the sound of a loud voice cutting through the quiet air of the hold.

“Okay, fine, if no one else is going to say it, I will,” Roth says from where he’s risen to his feet, arms crossed in front of his chest, his little group of sycophants standing alongside him. His eyes scan across the entire hold, before settling on Ilya and Shane, now turned to face him. His expression is hard, his mouth set in a sharp line. 

“If anyone was going to find us, they would have done it by now,” Roth continues. “We can’t just keep sitting here, waiting for something to happen.” 

Roth pauses, his eyes flinty, unwavering.

“No one is coming for us.” 

It wasn’t really a surprise, Ilya will think later. Not that it happened, or who started it. It had been brewing for days—Ilya had known that much, even if he hadn’t personally had the best line of sight on the resentment growing in that particular corner of the hold. 

Ilya’d known, even before the crash, that Roth didn't like him, but Ilya hadn’t ever thought much about it beyond that, not when there were so many players in the league who didn't like him. The virulence had been a surprise though, the genuine distaste captured in the sneer Roth had worn as he’d told Ilya to go fuck himself completely throwing Ilya off his attempted banter, the first time that Ilya had attempted to check-in with him, the same way he had done with all of the survivors. 

It stood out in stark contrast with the reactions of the other players stuck here with them. No one else on the plane had ever been on the same team as Ilya, outside of maybe an All-Star game or two, and most of them he wasn’t so much as friendly with, much less friends. The rest of them, however, were clearly as aware as Ilya was that their present circumstances transcended and superseded any stupid on-ice bullshit from the past. They had been willing to put any previous interactions aside, had taken Ilya’s teasing and overly-fussy check-ins in the spirit they'd been intended. 

Not Roth, though, who apparently cared more about holding a grudge than he did the fact that, if they didn’t all work together, they very well might die. 

There had been another potential explanation for his hostility, though Ilya honestly hadn’t been sure how plausible he’d found it. It had been two days since Vaughn had first pulled Ilya aside to share with him, in a whispered undertone, the things that Roth had been saying about Shane, and Ilya still hadn’t been convinced. It had just been… so outlandish, such a bizarre reversal of the status quo, that Ilya had still felt that it was even odds that Vaughn had been misreading the whole situation. 

Admittedly, Ilya might have been a touch biased, but still. The idea that someone might dislike Shane so much that that dislike would extend to Ilya, just because they’d seen Ilya have Shane’s back, was just… incomprehensible. A surreal reversal of the status quo; a ludicrous assertion, nearly comical in its incongruity with the contrast that everyone had always drawn between Ilya and Shane. 

Ilya is supposed to be the one that people see as a bad influence, who causes other people’s reputations to suffer from association. Russian, hard-partying, womanizing, and slutty; cocky and cocksure. Not Shane, Canada’s Golden Boy. Not Captain Canada, Captain Polite, Captain Too-Nice-For-His-Own-Good. 

Captain Slut, too, but Ilya was still pretty sure that no one other than him knew about that.

It was almost offensive, really. How dare Hollander sully Ilya’s reputation through Ilya’s association with him? 

That was Ilya’s job, not Shane’s. 

Not that it really mattered—whether Roth didn’t like Ilya because of Shane or didn’t like Shane because of Ilya or, hell, didn’t like both of them for their own sakes—the result was the same. 

Mutiny.

“We’re almost out of food,” Roth continues, “and we’re all already getting weaker with how little we have been eating. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed,” he says, eyes cutting across the hold before returning to Shane and Ilya. Or, no. 

Not Shane and Ilya. 

Just Shane.

On the other side of the fire Yakov slowly rises to his feet from where he’d been crouched next to Paquette, his eyes flicking back and forth between them and Roth. He’s clearly picked up on the tone, if nothing else—there’s a small frown on his face when he starts pushing himself upwards, but it’s gone by the time he’s fully upright, replaced with a careful, practiced nothingness.

“I want us to take a vote,” Roth says. “And, look, it’s nothing personal Hollander—” 

Ilya doesn’t quite manage to smother his snort, though it’s quiet enough that he doubts anyone other than Shane and Yakov—and maybe, maybe Maya and Paquette—could hear it. Shane still takes a step back, his heel digging into the top of Ilya’s foot in a brief, silent warning, before he returns to his earlier position. 

“—you’ve been doing a great job, figuring out all this survival stuff. But like, ever since we got off the plane, you’ve just kinda been telling everyone what to do, which I don’t think is fair. We didn’t exactly vote for you to be our leader.” Roth pauses, adds, “Again, no offense.”

All this survival stuff? Ilya thinks, furious. As if Shane isn’t the only reason you’re still fucking alive, you stupid motherfucker.

Shane might be psychic, or maybe he can just feel how tense Ilya has gone where he stands behind him, because he shakes his head, a barely perceptible movement, meant for Ilya and Ilya alone.

Ilya’s anger leaves a bitter taste behind as he swallows it, and it burns the entire way down, but he does swallow it. 

For now. 

“Okay,” Shane says, voice utterly neutral. “So, what exactly are you proposing?”

“I think we should take a vote,” Roth says, gesturing around at the collected survivors. 

“Seriously?” Vaughn interrupts, rising to his feet. On the other side of the hold, he, at least, is safe from Shane’s sharp heels, continuing uninterrupted, “We’re in the middle of the fucking wilderness, and you’re, what, mad that you’re not in charge?”

“No,” Roth says, but the evenness that he’s managed to corral his voice into is undermined by the flash of anger in his eyes. “That’s not what I’m saying.” 

“It’s not even like— no one’s ‘in charge’,” Melendez cuts in. She doesn’t stand up as she speaks—Ilya assumes because she, unlike Vaughn, understands that every additional person who moves to stand will only serve to ratchet up the tension further. “Shane is just the only person who actually fucking knows any of this stuff. We’ve been listening to him because it’d be stupid for us not to.” 

Ilya doesn’t even notice that Yakov has decided to take advantage of Roth’s eyes being temporarily off of Ilya and Shane until he’s crossed nearly half the distance between them. By the time that Melendez finishes speaking, he’s closed the remaining few feet, coming to a stop just behind Shane’s other shoulder, standing parallel with Ilya. 

It’s a stance that’s hopefully less threatening than if they were both standing level with Shane, the way that Roth’s sycophants are, though it’s still unmistakably a show of support. A choosing of sides; a confirmation that there are sides to choose from. Not ideal, maybe, but also maybe unavoidable. Predictable, too—Ilya would be surprised to learn that anyone had expected Yakov to take a side other than Shane’s. 

It also serves what was likely Yakov’s actual purpose in moving—it puts him close enough to Ilya for them to speak. 

“What’s happening?” Yakov asks. It’s quiet, his lips barely moving as he speaks. His eyes don’t move away from Roth, now that he’s again facing towards him. 

“Roth wants to take a vote,” Ilya says, doing his best to mimic Yakov’s way of speaking, hiding as much of the movement of his mouth as he can. 

“About what?”

“I don’t know,” Ilya says. “I think he maybe wants to leave?”

“What?” Yakov says, packing an impressive amount of incredulity into the whispered word. “Is he fucking stupid?”

Ilya doesn’t get the chance to say anything else before his attention is pulled back to the argument playing out in front of them. 

“—say that!” Roth says, anger finally beginning to leak into his voice. He pauses, composing himself, but though his voice is more even when he continues, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s already shown his hand. 

“I don’t care about being in charge—” Roth continues, shooting an offended look at first Vaughn and then Melendez before he finally turns back towards Shane. His expression tightens when he realizes that Yakov has moved, but he doesn’t comment on it, instead continuing, “—I just want us to take a vote about what to do next. Because personally, I don’t really want to just sit around doing fuck-all, waiting to starve to death. Especially when we haven’t even tried to look for a road or a village or— or a fucking hunting cabin or whatever.”

Standing behind Shane’s shoulder, Ilya watches as Shane’s jaw tenses, then releases. 

“The best way to be found in any circumstance is to stay exactly where you are when you get lost,” Shane says, and his voice is still so, so even. Ilya can only see half his face, but from the sliver he can see, Shane’s expression is as neutral as his voice. If Ilya hadn’t seen the way his jaw had tensed, he might have thought that Shane was actually as calm as he seemed. Wouldn’t have any idea about just how furious he actually is.

Fuck, that’s hot, Ilya thinks before he can stop himself. 

He shoves the thought away as soon as it materializes, sending a stern reminder down towards his cock—behave. 

“We have no idea where we are, or what direction the closest settlement is in,” Shane continues. “If we leave here, not only will no one know where to look for us, we could also just as easily be moving further away from civilization as we could be moving closer.” 

“No one knows where to look for us anyway!” Roth says, anger now a steady undercurrent to his words, one he is apparently done making any effort to hide. “She said we were still on our flight path when we started to go down—” 

Roth glances towards Erika as he speaks, making an angry gesture in her direction to punctuate his words. He doesn’t seem to be at all alarmed by the way Vaughn’s expression turns thunderous in response, or maybe he just doesn’t notice it, already turning back towards Shane. 

It’s lucky, really—it means that he also misses what happens next, when Vaughn attempts to take a step towards him. He’s stopped only by Erika’s hand shooting up to grab the leg of his pants, halting him in his tracks. Ilya sends a silent thank you in Erika’s direction—her quick reaction acting as a silent and efficient diffusion of what would have certainly been a significant escalation of tensions before it can start.

Sycophant #1 and #2 do catch it though, and Ilya is satisfied to see them exchange a nervous look. He hopes it’s a sign that they’re beginning to second guess their choice to throw their lot in with Roth—and that when push comes to shove, they’ll back off rather than double down. 

Roth, oblivious, is still going.

“—and you said it’d be maybe a couple days before they found us, but it’s now been almost four full days! Which seems like it’s maybe a sign that we weren’t actually still on the right flight path after all. Which also means that, again, no one fucking knows where we are.” 

“There is nothing to say that we were off course,” Shane says firmly. “Erika spoke to the pilots after the decision had been made to attempt an emergency landing, and we were still on-course at that point.” 

“But we don’t know what changed between then and when we hit the ground,” Roth argues. “We could have gone way off course while we were going down.” 

“Sure,” Shane says, and Ilya can tell that how evenly Shane is still speaking is now starting to just make Roth even more pissed off, “which is why they’ll search within a radius, working outwards from where they expect to find us.”

“Will they?” Roth challenges. “Do you know that, or are you just fucking guessing?”

For the first time, Shane hesitates before replying, though there’s no trace of uncertainty in his voice when he does speak.

“It’s the most logical approach,” Shane says.

Roth scoffs, loud and harsh. “Right, okay. Great,” he says. “So we’re just supposed to wait here, starving and freezing, and hope that someone finds us on the basis of… what? What you think makes the most sense?”

“Okay, but it does ma—”

“Hey, that’s not fa—”

“I don’t think th—”

The sounds of multiple people attempting to speak at the same time fills the air, their voices layering atop each other in a jumbled mess, rendering them all incomprehensible.

It’s a good thing that Ilya has plenty of practice in capturing the attention of a room full of obnoxiously loud and rowdy men. 

“Roth is right,” Ilya says, pitching his voice just loud and deep enough to cut a swath through all the other voices. 

There’s a brief moment of silence, and then what seems to be at least half the room starts to speak at once, even more than had been protesting before. 

Their voices overlap in nearly perfect harmony, a dozen variations of what the fuck, Rozanov? bouncing off the ceiling and walls of the hold; Ilya’s own personal chorus in the Greek tragedy of his life. Which must make Shane—who isn’t one of the voices but is turning around to look at Ilya—his Cassandra, because Shane had been right. 

They weren’t getting out of this as anything less than friends. 

Fuck, Shane was never going to let him live this down.

Ilya doesn’t try to look at the faces of everyone loudly protesting his pronouncement, but the tone of their voices is unmistakable, their offense at Ilya’s apparent betrayal coming through loud and clear. He does catch a glimpse of Robertson—who looks so outraged and affronted on Shane’s behalf that it’s nearly endearing—and Paquette, who looks more confused than anything. 

He doesn’t see anyone else’s reactions, because Shane has finished turning to face him, and Ilya is helpless to do anything but meet Shane’s eyes, even as he braces himself for the hurt and anger he’s certain to find there.

Except—

There’s a little line drawn between Shane’s eyebrows, but there’s no trace of hurt in the curve of his lips, no bright anger burning in the depths of his eyes. Shane doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. Ilya can read the question written out across Shane’s face as clearly as if he had spoken it aloud.

What the fuck, Ilya? Shane's face says, but it’s not an accusation, not a condemnation. It’s a look shot across a sheet of ice, nothing more than a quick glance seeking to confirm the play rather than argue against it. Easy in the knowledge that, whatever it is, they’re in it together. That Shane trusts Ilya, even if he doesn’t understand what he’s doing yet.

Ilya’s so relieved that he could cry, but that would be both embarrassing and really undermine what he’s trying to do here, so he shoots a quick wink at Shane instead. He doesn’t wait for Shane to finish his responding eyeroll, raising his head to catch Roth’s eye instead. 

“We should vote,” Ilya says, once again pitching his voice to cut through the rising swell of noise. It’s not quite as effective this time, but the protesting does slowly petter out until there’s only a couple of voices remaining, grumbling under their breath but not trying to speak over him. “No one is prisoner here,” Ilya continues, “so it is fair, I think, to vote on leaving.” 

Roth’s expression is somewhere between smug and confused, though it quickly begins to tip towards the former when it becomes clear that Ilya isn’t about to say anything else. 

“Great,” Roth says with a smile, mean and cheerful, “well, if Rozanov agrees, then I think—”

“But it is not fair to make other people who want to stay leave,” Ilya says, cutting him off, watching with satisfaction as Roth’s expression slides back into frustration.

“Right,” Roth replies, clueless and scrambling, “which is why a vote—”

“Is the best thing to do, yes,” Ilya says, and doesn’t bother to hide his smile as Roth’s expression slides even further, crossing from frustration into anger. “Now, as you pointed out earlier, we have limited food. But since you are taking a blind chance in leaving, I don’t think it’s fair to give you more food when you might just end up freezing to death in a snowbank by the end of the day. But it would not be right to give you less food either, just because you want to make your own choice about what to do in plane crash.” 

Ilya raises his right hand into the air, his smile turning just as mean as Roth’s had earlier. Not that Roth is smiling now—he’s too busy fighting to keep up the glare he’s directing at Ilya. Even as Ilya can practically see the gears turning behind his eyes, his brain forced to work overtime as he attempts to catch up with Ilya’s fake-out. 

“I vote that anyone who wants to leave can take as many coats and mittens from the collective pile as they want to wear,” Ilya says, “as well as their portion of the remaining rations.”

There’s a pause, and Ilya thinks he catches more than one poorly stifled laugh as the last lingering pockets of outrage over his apparent betrayal are snuffed out. 

“Seems fair,” Paquette says with a shrug, and raises his hand. Slowly and then faster and faster more and more hands are raised. Ilya takes an exaggeratedly slow look around the room, pretending to count, before he returns his gaze to Roth. He knows his own expression is probably insufferably smug, but he at least manages to keep himself from smiling as he meets Roth’s eyes.

The anger is still there—maybe even stronger than before—but there’s panic too, and a level of fear that Ilya doesn’t even try not to revel in. It probably makes him a bad person, but whatever. As far as Ilya is concerned, it’s the least of what the asshole deserves.

“That’s not— I didn’t mean—” Roth stutters out, still desperately seeking to pivot despite the fact that his edges have already slid out from under him. 

“What?” Ilya asks, faux-sweet. “You do not think is fair? Everyone gets their share of the supplies we have. No one is forced to leave, no one is forced to stay. Unless…” Ilya trails off with a frown. 

He’s aiming for an air of genuine concern, but given the way that he can see Shane’s cheeks hollowing as he bites down to try and stop himself from laughing, Ilya suspects that he might be missing the mark, at least as far as sincerity goes.

Oh well. 

“Did— did you want to force people to leave?” Ilya finishes, completely giving up the pretense that he’s in any way being genuine. There’s no way anyone is buying what he’s saying anymore, not with that tone, but Ilya just can’t quite resist. 

Now that he’s noticed how close Shane is to breaking, he’s far more interested in seeing if he can push him over the edge than he is in continuing his pantomime. Even if dropping the act is all-but-guaranteed to just piss off Roth even more. 

Shane has to roll his lips inward as he fights to swallow his laughter, but he does manage to shove it down. 

Alas. Disappointing, but not surprising. 

Ilya should have known that it would take more than that to shatter the edifice of Captain Hollander. He supposes he has no choice but to try again some other time. 

Ilya returns his attention to Roth, who, as predicted, looks more furious than ever. He meets Ilya’s eyes for a brief moment before he glances towards the people bracketing him. Looking for someone to back him up, Ilya assumes. If he is, he must be disappointed with what he finds—noticing, at the exact same moment as Ilya does, that Sycophant #1 and #2 have taken at least two steps away from him, while Sycophant #3 has fully returned to his seat. 

If Ilya was a better person, it might even be enough to make him feel sorry for Roth. 

“It’s getting late,” Shane says, because is actually a good person. “Why don’t we all sleep on it, and anyone who wants to leave can head out in the morning instead.”

His tone isn’t sympathetic, or even gentle—it's back to its previous neutrality, which Ilya thinks is probably the right call. Ilya suspects that he might end up having to throw a punch or two in Shane’s defense, if Roth thought that Shane felt bad for him. Which Shane probably does, because he’s disgustingly sincere like that, but it doesn’t come across in his voice at all. 

In the end, all that Roth does is glare at him for a moment before snapping out a final, bitter, “Fine,” before stomping back to join Sycophant #3. He still looks furious, but for now, he seems content to just glare at the floor, fuming in silence. Ilya keeps an eye on him for a minute longer, watching as Sycophant #1 and #2 eventually make their slow, wary approach, rejoining their fellow wanna-be revolutionaries on the ground. 

Still a problem, Ilya decides, but one that has been diffused for now. Satisfied that no further arguments are imminent, Ilya finally allows himself to turn back towards Shane. He barely has the chance to meet Shane’s eyes though, much less try and figure out how Shane is feeling about that whole confrontation, before a sharp voice is again pulling Ilya’s attention away. 

Not that he has far to go—Yakov hasn’t moved from where he’d positioned himself next to Ilya, though he’s now turned his whole body towards Ilya. With his arms crossed and chin jutted forward, he’s scowling as he stares at Ilya. Clearly waiting for something, but—

“Ah,” Ilya says, and Yakov rolls his eyes. 

“The next time you decide to get into a fight with everyone, can you at least give me a heads up so I can go stand next to Karina instead?” Yakov says. For how acerbic his voice is, Ilya is pretty sure he’s not actually angry. Or at least not with Ilya—confused and pissed off, but more at the situation than anything else.

To Yakov’s own point, it’s not like Ilya could have translated while also keeping up his half of the argument. 

“In my defense, he started it,” Ilya says. 

It is, admittedly, a bit of a childish defense, regardless of how true it is. It does at least get Yakov to snort out an ugly-half laugh, his arms dropping back down to his sides. There’s a second of hesitation, Yakov’s eyes flicking to Shane and then back to Ilya.

“But you did finish it, yes?” he asks, and Ilya nods, watching the last of the tension drop from Yakov’s shoulders. 

“Good,” he says, then continues, not looking at Shane in a way that feels annoyingly, frighteningly, pointed. “I’m going to go ask Karina for the recap then.”

“Okay,” Ilya says, playing dumb. “Have fun.”

Yakov shoots him an unimpressed look that tells Ilya exactly how much he isn’t fooling him before he makes his departure. 

Ilya doesn’t watch him go, turning—instead, again, finally— towards Shane. He’s relieved to find Shane already looking back at him, and Ilya’s eyes quickly flick across his face, trying to—

“Yo, that was fucking crazy,” Vaughn says, sliding in next to them with all the subtly of a bull in a china shop.

Shane must be rubbing off on Ilya in more than one way, because Ilya very, very politely does not tell Vaughn to fuck off. He doesn’t even so much as loudly sigh, limiting himself to briefly closing his eyes as he prays for patience. He ignores, too, the way that Shane’s eyes are bright with silent laughter at Ilya’s expense when he finally forces himself to pay attention to Vaughn’s excited recap of the entire confrontation—as if they hadn’t all been there when it had happened, less than five fucking minutes ago.

A now familiar scene: Ilya alone, cigarette in hand. Facing out across the wilderness, not turning his head even as the sound of footsteps draws closer and closer to his back.

Then, less familiar:

“Yo, that was fucking crazy.” 

It catches Ilya mid-inhale, making him choke as the smoke that had been halfway to his lungs is caught up in what should have been a surprised burst of laughter, but instead comes out as a painful coughing fit. Eyes watering, still coughing, Ilya turns to glare at Shane. 

It’s hard to keep up even the pretense of anger in the face of Shane’s laughter, his smile broad and delighted. There’s a wicked edge to it, like Shane thinks he’s gotten away with some particularly clever prank, and Ilya is torn between which he wants more—to dump Shane onto his ass in the snow or to lick the laughter right out of his perfect mouth. 

It’s the latter—it’s always the latter—but they’re once again in the middle of the field, without even the cover of darkness to excuse that sort of recklessness, so Ilya swings his leg out, attempting to sweep Shane’s feet out from underneath him. It would probably have been a lot more effective if he wasn’t still coughing—as it is, Shane dodges him easily, still grinning. 

“Asshole,” Ilya chokes out.

“No, that’s you,” Shane says. 

There’s a joke there, maybe, about Shane’s asshole, but Ilya doesn’t bother to try and chase it down, choosing to focus on getting his breathing back under control instead.

“Thank you,” Shane says when Ilya’s coughing has finally subsided. 

Ilya could play dumb, but—

Well. There’s a lot of things that Ilya is tired of playing pretend about. 

“You don’t need to thank me,” Ilya says, shaking his head. 

Shane, because he is an asshole, whatever he says, rolls his eyes. “Just take the fucking thanks, dick,” he says. “I appreciate it.”

Ilya shrugs. “Yes, well, is no problem really,” he says, shifting uncomfortably and avoiding Shane’s eyes. “Was not even about you. I just wanted to fight. I am much better at it than you anyway.” 

“Yeah, because you’re an asshole,” Shane says, and when Ilya risks a glance at him he sees that Shane’s eyes are still lit up with amusement. “But seriously. It means a lot to me, that you had my back.” 

Ilya, because he’s never learned how to avoid things that he knows will hurt him, tilts his head to the side as he meets Shane’s eyes. “Because you were not expecting it?” he asks. 

Shane shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I knew you’d have my back.”

Ilya blinks at him, no idea what to say to that. He had hoped—had thought, even, when Shane had looked at him without any sign that he shared the sense of betrayal being sung out by Ilya’s chorus, but—

Thinking that Shane had trusted him at that moment is one thing. Having Shane confirm it out loud, it’s— 

It’s—

It’s drowning, but this time, Ilya thinks he might not mind the water that’s filling his lungs, not when it tastes this sweet.

“Anyways,” Shane says, and now it’s apparently his turn to avoid Ilya’s eyes. “I just wanted to say—”

Shane cuts himself off abruptly, and there’s a long silence, one that stretches on for far longer than one of Shane’s occasional moments of hesitation usually lasts, too long for the handful of seconds he will sometimes need to gather his thoughts. Ilya keeps looking at Shane, waiting for him to continue, but Shane doesn’t show any sign that he’s about to finish whatever he’d been saying. 

He doesn’t actually look like he’s paying any attention to Ilya at all, eyebrows crowding in around the crease of the frown that’s replaced his earlier openness and amusement. Shane’s head tilts to the side slightly, his frown deepening, and then his head is suddenly snapping up, his whole body turning to the east as he stares up at the sky with wide eyes. 

“Shane?” Ilya asks, alarmed. “What ar—”

“Shhhhh,” Shane cuts him off sharply, flapping one hand in Ilya’s general direction without so much as a glance in his direction. “Shut up,” he hisses, then, “Do you hear that?” 

“Hear—?” Ilya starts before he thinks better of it, shutting his mouth in deference to Shane’s command as he turns in the same direction as Shane. Straining his ears, all he can hear is the now-familiar sound of the wind as it rushes across the field, the creak and groan of it shaking the trees, the distant, barking caw of the ravens, the—

Wait. No.

There is— there’s something else, there’s—

There’s—

What is that?

It’s not something Ilya’s heard out here before, it’s—

It’s—

“Fuck,” Ilya breathes, and now he too is desperately searching, eyes scanning the empty sky above the dark line drawn across the horizon by the forest. 

They’re in the last stretches of daylight before the sunset will begin to take over the sky, staining it pink and red, blue steadily darkening, fading into star-speckled darkness. The sun hasn’t started to set yet though, and there’s still plenty of light left to illuminate the sky, the white curls of the sparse clouds that stretch across it, the dark specks of the birds that wheel through it, the—

“Fuck!” Shane says, accidentally slapping his hand off Ilya’s elbow before he manages to actually grab his arm the way he was probably trying to in the first place. “Did you see that?” 

Ilya nods dumbly, even though he’s pretty sure Shane isn’t even looking at him, his eyes still searching the sky. Hoping, the same way Ilya is, for another glimpse, however brief and distant. 

Far away, too far to reach them today. Already gone, the sky once again empty of everything but clouds and birds, the sound disappearing alongside it.

But it had been there. They’d both seen it. 

A flash of sunlight, reflecting off a metal wing. The distant, deep growl of an engine. 

They’re inside the radius. 

Chapter End Notes

My endless thanks continues to go to britt (ao3/twt) for all the care and attention she provides this fic. and also me. we are both humble houseplants, blooming under her attention.

Quick hit end notes!

• This has been asked a few times, so just want to make it 110% clear that there is no relation between Erika and Coach Thériault! ngl I didn't even notice the overlap until it was pointed out to me—it’s just a very common Québécois surname (I also picked it before I’d decided Erika’s parents were from Côte d’Ivoire, where it is distinctly not a common surname, but c’est la vie)
• Similarly, somehow didn’t clock I’d given two OCs the same surname (Riley) until someone else pointed it out
• The life lesson from this is maybe don't post a screenshot of your excel seating chart because if you do, you're forever locked in on your OC's names, whether you like it or not
• There are no citations for any of the non-medical wilderness survival stuff because I am simply bestowing Shane with the same knowledge I have! (including the fact that I have both made and slept in a quinzhee lol)

Chapter 11: Rescue

Chapter Notes

Ilya is surprised he manages to sleep that night. 

He’s surprised anyone manages to, really. 

He’d had a brief debate with Shane the day before, before they’d gone back inside, going back and forth on whether they should tell everyone else what they’d seen—whether it would be better to provide them with some much-needed hope, or if it would just make everything worse, if they weren’t found today. Whether it was worth risking the potential fallout, when there’s no way for them to know how long it will take the searchers to spot them, for the rescuers to make their way over to their location. 

In the end, they’d landed on telling the truth. 

It would be good, Shane had said, to give everyone a reason to keep believing that they will be rescued sooner rather than later, especially after the whole thing with Roth. Besides, Shane had continued, he thought they should get a bonfire ready to light outside, in addition to the marker that they’d already laid out in the field, as an additional signal to catch the attention of any passing planes. That it was worth it regardless of whether it took one day or several for them to actually, finally be found—that it was more important to make sure that they were doing anything, everything, they could to make it as easy as possible for them to be spotted. 

And if they were doing that, people would definitely have questions about what the fuck they were doing, and why they were doing it now. 

The look on Roth’s face when they made their announcement was just an added bonus, really. Even if it had resulted in Shane jabbing his elbow into Ilya’s ribs when he’d caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye, and realized what a smug look Ilya was giving Roth. 

Whatever. Worth it. 

The only real reason Ilya has to regret the whole telling-everyone thing is that all of the survivors are now up at the crack of dawn, excited and terrified in equal measure. Which— Ilya isn’t going to pretend that he doesn’t feel the same, and that it isn’t a large factor in how early he’d ended up getting up as well. But it does mean that Ilya doesn’t get a chance to meet Shane outside for what has become their morning routine of standing in the snow and silence, trading whispered words and gentle touches. Those too-brief, stolen moments, shared only with the slowly rising sun, the stars winking out one-by-one, all the more precious for their fleeting nature. Lost, today, in the low thrum of energy that the hold wakes with, driven by fear and excitement and too-little sleep.

Ilya hasn’t had the chance to talk to Shane alone at all, actually, and it is maybe making him more cranky than it should. It grates on him, a persistent itch under his skin, a craving he isn’t used to and doesn’t know what to do with. It just— it feels wrong, to not have kissed Shane at all since the previous afternoon. To not have had a chance to hold him, to really hold him. To feel the steady thud of Shane’s pulse beneath his fingers, the rise and fall of his chest at once an indulgence and a benediction.

Yes, Ilya is aware that he is incredibly, irrevocably fucked. 

He’s trying not to think about it. 

The bustle of activity around the plane offers some level of distraction at least. The news that they might be rescued, might even be found as early as today, has people accessing stores of energy that none of them realized they had left. There’s only a handful of people who aren’t outside, and even then, Paquette had made a valiant attempt to argue that he should at least be allowed to sit outside and watch, even if he couldn’t help. He’d still been pouting about being told no the last time Ilya had seen him—still sitting next to the fire, left under the watchful eye of Yakov, the other man doing his best to pretend he wasn’t laughing at Paquette’s petulance. 

Maya had had no such compunctions. When Ilya had left the hold, she’d still been openly laughing at Paquette. 

Outside, the normally empty field in front of the plane has turned into a buzzing hive of movement as everyone who can do something does whatever they can to help prepare the bonfire under Shane’s careful directions. 

It’s an even stranger structure than the one that Ilya has become used to seeing inside the hold, and one that requires surprisingly little sacrifice of their good firewood. 

In the centre of a large circle, as cleared of snow as they can get it, they start with the familiar—a handful of the dried logs and chunks of branches from their stack of firewood, leaned together in a pyramid-like shape. The centre is filled with crumpled paper, pages torn from books scavenged from various bags and pieces of carry-on luggage. Ready to be set alight at a moment’s notice. 

It's what is being built around that smaller stack of wood that is like nothing Ilya has ever seen before. 

Freshly-cut, a handful of small trees, green and flexible, have been bent and fixed together into what is almost a dome, meeting at the centre less than a foot above where the small pyramid peaks. Atop of those is being laid what is apparently the final ingredient, and the thing that the majority of the survivors are now bustling back and forth from the woods to gather—the live branches of evergreen trees, their needles a bright, brilliant green.

Newly torn from the trees in the surrounding forest, the branches are being layered atop each other, giving a roof to the dome and cascading down the sides. A small opening has been left at the base on the side facing the plane, through which the smaller stack of wood can be reached to set it alight. The branches would, Shane had informed a slightly skeptical audience, help the fire produce as much smoke as possible. 

There was also a small pile of whatever bits of plastic and rubber they could scavenge from the plane growing on the ground to the side of the green-covered dome. That, Shane claimed, would serve a similar purpose—unlike the white smoke produced by the burning wood, the plastic would pour a black cloud into the sky as it burned. Once the fire had been started, they’d be able to toss it into the flames, transforming the smoke into something which would be far easier to spot from a distance, standing out starkly against the white-blanketed land surrounding them.

Vaughn had asked why they weren’t just starting with the plastic then, and Shane had admitted that he had no idea how well it would burn, and didn’t want to risk them not being able to get any fire going at all by choking it up with plastic from the start. There’d been some debate about that, but no one else had ever tried burning plastic, and eventually they’d agreed that it made the most sense to start with the fire they knew they could start, and add the plastic once they were sure it wouldn’t cause it to go out. 

It’s still early in the day when they run out of room for more branches. The dome is completely covered, leaving the whole thing looking like some sort of strange, unsettling hut in the centre of the field. Like at any moment it could shudder to life, rising up on chicken legs to disappear into the woods, leaving them with nothing to show for their efforts. Like if he peered inside the dark opening he would find Baba Iaga waiting for him inside, stretched out across her stove, grinning at him with her iron teeth and complaining about his Russian scent.

It’s a good thing, then, that Shane, whose Canadian-ness practically radiates off of him, has been the one who’s been sticking his head inside the hole. Though Ilya’s not sure he really likes the idea that Baba Iaga might not be as offended by the smell of a Canadian as she is a Russian. Ilya, she would probably try to cook. Maybe decapitate him, gouge his eyes out. Nothing so terrible, nothing he wouldn’t expect; not with who he is, who she is.

Who knows, though, what her and her bony legs would do to nice, polite Shane Hollander.

Ilya fights off the urge to pull Shane away from where he’s bent over, peering into the hut. He considers the possibility that he might be, just a little bit, starting to lose it.

Next to the hut, the pile of plastic they’ve been able to scavenge is a welcome reminder that the world is not all trees and shadows, and that the magic tales his Mama used to tell him were never anything more than stories. 

The pile—toothbrushes and phone cases and the empty plastic trays from the pre-made meals they’ve been surviving off of—isn’t huge, and could almost certainly be made larger. But more and more people have been returning empty-handed to loiter in the field, left at loose ends with no further gathering left to do. Or at least, no further gathering that they’re willing to do, because not a single person has made a move to go inside the cabin of the plane. 

Ilya can tell he isn’t the only one thinking about it. An untapped and untouched resource, less than a hundred meters away from them. It would be hard not to be thinking about it. There’s something about scavenging through the cabin that seems like it would be almost sacrilegious though. Ilya isn’t sure if that’s just because he has been back inside—if the others simply don’t want to have to see more dead people if they don’t have to. Maybe he’s the only one who feels like it would be uncomfortably akin to stepping inside a tomb. Maybe he’s the only one who doesn’t want to do it not out of a fear of seeing the dead, but because it would feel too much like robbing a grave.

It doesn’t really matter. Shane would never ask anyone to go back there, other than maybe Vaughn and Ilya, but since he isn’t asking—and isn’t trying to do it himself—Shane must think that the amount of plastic that they already have is enough. That whatever else they might be able to find is not worth the cost of bothering the dead.

Between the hut and the plastic, they’re as ready for the fire as they can be, and Ilya can tell that he isn’t alone in feeling some of his energy slipping away with that knowledge. The rush to get it built, get it ready before a plane appears, before they lose their chance to grab its attention, had given them all the kind of desperate motivation that they hadn’t had since the crash. A spike of adrenaline sufficient to wash away the dragging weight of their shared exhaustion, the clawing, cramping clench of hunger. Without anything else to do, they seem to sag all at once, reality a brutal weight landing squarely back upon their shoulders. 

It also leaves them all with nothing to do but stand around, looking antsy and lost as they stare up at the empty sky above them. 

Ilya takes a look around the group, at their faces, hiding nothing, expressions flickering between hope and defeat, and heads over to stand next to Shane. Unlike everyone else, Shane is not looking at the sky. Frowning down at the hut with his characteristically intense level of attention, Shane seems to be searching for any lingering flaws. Focused enough on it that he doesn’t even seem to notice Ilya’s arrival.

“Shane,” Ilya says, and gets to experience the pleasure of watching Shane visibly startle. He turns to look at Ilya and—

God. Ilya isn’t sure he’ll ever get used to the way that Shane looks at him now. 

It’s not that Shane hadn’t ever looked at Ilya like that before the crash, but it’s a look that Ilya has only ever seen under the cover of darkness, hidden away behind locked doors. That he usually has to work for, even then, coaxing Shane into loosening even a fraction of the impossibly tight grip he keeps on himself. To let Ilya see him unguarded and open, his eyes shining even in the darkness, bright with all of the emotions that he normally never so much as lets himself hint at.  

Now, Shane looks at Ilya without hesitation, without Ilya doing a single thing to lure him out. He looks at him under the bright, clear light of day. He looks at him, and Ilya also understands exactly what that look is saying far more clearly than he ever has before. Knows, now, that it means far more than he ever would have dared hope for, if he had ever been foolish enough to hope for such things. 

Ilya would have never thought it was possible, but somehow, impossibly, Shane is even more beautiful like this, with his dark eyes lit up in the warm morning light. Eyes that Ilya has always known only when rendered dull and cold by darkness, revealed to be a fractal universe, an endless, spiraling, splintering of a thousand shades of brown. Ilya thinks that he could spend a hundred years in that universe and still never find its edges. He thinks he could lose himself in that universe. He can’t think of anything he wants more.

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

How the fuck is Ilya supposed to survive this? How is he supposed to let this go? How can he be expected to just return to his life as if this never happened? To go back to only seeing Shane in glimpses on his TV, in stolen hours that are never enough, that are so easily eclipsed by the months they spend hundreds of kilometers apart? How can he be expected to live off of only texts and calls; distant, fleeting digital points of contact that already hadn’t been enough? 

Seconds, minutes, hours. Always slipping past faster than they should, the sands falling through the hourglass, falling faster than gravity should allow. Only falling faster the harder Ilya wishes for them to stop entirely. 

It already hadn’t been enough, but after this, Ilya knows that it will never be enough. He’s lost the ability to pretend it ever could, not now that Shane has so carelessly opened his mouth, spilling out everything that they’d both been pretending not to feel. Leaving the white snow stained red with their wanting.

“What is it?” Shane asks. “Is something wrong?” Shane turns away from him, and Ilya tries not to notice that even this already feels like a loss. 

Shane’s eyes anxiously dart across the faces of the people scattered around them, heads tilted back as they continue to watch the sky. He’s frowning when his eyes finally land back on Ilya, confused by the absence of any obvious emergency. 

“They are going to start getting anxious,” Ilya says, careful to keep his voice low enough for it to reach Shane  and only Shane. “Is there anything…?” 

Shane’s frown deepens as he thinks, casting another look around them—looking, this time, not at the survivors but at the empty landscape around them. When he again turns back to Ilya, he nods, and—in a move that sends a jolt of electricity through Ilya’s entire body, strong enough that Ilya briefly thinks that it might actually stop his heart—reaches out and grabs Ilya’s hand. He squeezes it once, tight, before releasing it again. It’s instinct, for Ilya to look around them. He wishes, immediately and viscerally, that he hadn’t. Wishes even more that he didn’t feel like he had to.

Still, he does it, and finds only what Shane had presumably already seen—no one is looking at them. 

Shane sees him do it—it would be impossible for him not to. But he doesn’t look upset, doesn’t look like he also wishes Ilya hadn’t done it. The look on Shane’s face isn’t resignation either, but Ilya thinks that that might ache less than the wistfulness that Ilya finds in his eyes, the unhappy twist of his mouth. 

He isn’t sure if it makes it better or worse, to know that Shane shares Ilya’s pointless, impossible wishes. 

Ilya isn’t sure what his own face is doing, but whatever it is, it has Shane reaching out, squeezing Ilya’s hand one last time before he steps back from him. The respectable handful of feet that he puts between them might as well be an ocean for how it makes Ilya feel. 

He doesn’t know how he’s going to survive this.

“Okay!” Shane says from where he now stands, two feet and two-thousand kilometers away from Ilya. He’s using his captain's voice again, raised loud enough to draw everyone’s eyes towards them. “First, I want to say thank you to you all. You’ve done a great job this morning—the fire’s all ready to go.”

“Should we— should we light it now?” Barrett asks tentatively, half-raising his hand like a schoolchild hoping to be called on in class. He catches himself before it can go all the way up at least, drops it back down, ears flushing bright red as he fights to hide his embarrassment. 

If Ilya wasn’t still just barely managing to smother the urge to tell him to stay the fuck away from Shane, he’d be half-tempted to coo over Barrett’s little crush on him. It’s equally annoying and endearing, leaving Ilya with the somewhat contradictory urge to both threaten to put his skate blade through Barrett’s eyes if he so much as looks at Shane again and to pinch his cheeks and babble at him like the world’s most insufferable Babushka. 

“Not yet,” Shane says. “We don’t know where the SAR planes are launching from, how long it’ll take them to get back out to our location. If we light it too soon, it might burn itself out before they get close enough to see the smoke. But we will want to light it as soon as we hear any sign of an engine, so everyone keep an ear out for that.” 

Shane pauses, and a few heads turn back towards the sky, as if Shane’s words might have been some sort of cue, a summoning spell that would cause a plane to instantly materialize out of nothing.

Alas. No such luck. 

The sky remains stubbornly empty.

The wide expanse of blue above them is partially obscured by the clouds that drift across it; more today than there had been the day before. They’re denser too, gathering together in thick white clumps that clog the sky, but not so many as to form a solid blanket. Not so many as to render them invisible, Ilya thinks. Hopes. 

“Between the marker and the fire, we’ve done almost everything that we can do to draw attention to ourselves,” Shane continues. “There’s still a few more things that we can do to increase our visibility, but they’re pretty minor, so—” 

Shane cuts himself off as a handful of voices rise up, overlapping questions formed of different words but one meaning: we don’t care how minor they are. We want to do them. We want you to tell us what to do.

Fuck. Captain Hollander, everyone. Sending a wave of energy through his team, jumping from person to person like a chain of lightning. Made all the brighter and more effective for the desire having originated in them, with seemingly no recognition of the way that Shane had guided them into their wanting.

It is absolutely criminal that Ilya can’t kiss him right now. 

“Oh, okay!” Shane says, and Ilya has to swallow down a burst of inappropriate laughter. Good to know that Captain Hollander isn’t any better of an actor than Shane is. “In that case, we want to take a look around the plane for anything that’s brightly coloured or reflective. We’re looking for anything that will be visible from a distance, that will stand out from the snow and trees, that we can spread around the field. We don’t want to crowd the marker because that’s signalling that we need medical assistance, so just make sure to leave a few meters of clear space around it.” 

A chorus of enthusiastic agreement greets Shane’s words, and there’s a renewed flurry of movement as various people peel off in pursuit of their new mission. A few linger, mostly those who are still injured enough to make scavenging difficult, but even those that remain look more focused as they return to scanning the horizon, like they’ve decided instead to lock in on Shane’s suggestion that they keep an ear out. 

“Do you think it will be today?” Ilya asks softly, once the crowd has dispersed. 

Ilya doesn’t know how to interpret the expression on Shane’s face when he turns to meet Ilya’s eyes. Isn’t able to untangle it before Shane is looking away, tilting his chin back as his eyes search across the empty sky. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, expression still unreadable. “I think it will.”

Kivelä sees it before anyone else has the chance—fucking goalie eyes, even here. He shouts something, pointing up at the sky, and even if Ilya doesn’t understand what Kivelä is saying, he still knows. 

They all do, even before a rush of cold wind races across the field, bringing with it the high whine of a distant engine.

There’s an immediate, wild scramble. Barrett, standing the closest to the entrance to the hold, practically trips over his feet as he rushes to squeeze through the tarp. Vaughn runs after him, yanking the tarp back to clear his return path. It dislodges several of the rocks helping hold the tarp in place, and even as one half of Ilya’s mind catalogues it as something they’ll need to fix later the other half is shouting in delirious, hysteric excitement, that no, actually, they won’t. 

That soon enough, whether in minutes or hours, it won’t matter at all. 

Barrett re-emerges barely a handful of seconds later, sliding back into view, clutching a burning stick of wood. Ilya is reminded that there’s a reason that Barrett was chosen for Team Canada despite his age when he pushes out from his side-ways slide in a smooth, effortless change of direction. 

In a sprint that would put a summer Olympian to shame, Barrett takes off across the field towards where Shane is waiting for him, dropped into a crouch by the entrance to their bough-capped hut. Even as he runs Ilya can see the way Barrett’s eyes are frantically bouncing from the hut to Shane to the burning branch in his hands. Barrett doesn’t let it slow him down at least, even as he very obviously comes to the conclusion that he has no ideas for how the fuck he’s going to hand the branch off to Shane without burning at least one of them. 

Shane must see it too, because he starts gesturing for Barrett to bypass Shane entirely, waving frantically towards the hole in the side of the hut. The clear direction, and the obvious relief it brings with it, is apparently all that Barrett needs to dig in and find the last of his hidden reserves of energy, and he puts on an extra burst of speed as he closes the remaining distance between him and Shane. 

With only a handful of feet left to go, Barrett doesn’t so much as come to a stop as he falls to his knees mid-stride, skidding across the dirt and snow strewn ground. It might not be graceful but it is effective, and when Barrett loses the last of his forward momentum just shy of his goal, he makes up the difference by collapsing forward onto his stomach, shoving the burning stick forward into the shadow-filled opening in what is nearly a single, uninterrupted flow of movement. 

There’s a moment of silence, of tense anticipation. A collective holding of breath, half of the gathered faces tilted up, eyes scanning the sky, searching for another glimpse of silver, while the rest remain fixed, unblinking, on the shadows that have swallowed both Barrett’s hand and the burning branch. 

A moment of silence, and then they hear it—the sound of wood catching fire, of flames crackling to life. The darkness of the hut’s interior is cut through by a bloom of light; a dim orange glow that grows and grows until Barrett finally pulls his hand out with a hiss, shaking the heat and soot off his fingers. He pushes himself back onto his knees, shuffling away from the hut, still shaking his hand as he stares at the flickering light cast by the hidden fire at the centre of the hut. 

The second Barrett is clear Shane is replacing him, lying down and sticking his head nearly all the way inside the hole. Ilya can just barely see the way that Shane’s cheeks puff up as he blows out his breath. Feeding the hidden fire with a slow and steady stream of oxygen. 

The brightness continues to grow, brighter and brighter, until finally Shane too is forced to pull away. He doesn’t go far, barely moving a handful of inches back from the hut as he pushes himself up onto his knees. No one else moves, all of them standing utterly still, barely even daring to breathe. As if, were they to disrupt the tableau—Barrett and Shane kneeling in the dirt, the rest of them shadowed statues scattered behind them—it would be enough to cause the fire to go out. 

It doesn’t. 

Their collective breath is released with all the force of a mountaintop collapsing as white smoke begins to leak through the needles piled atop the hut. It’s little more than a handful of thin white curls at first, quickly torn apart by the wind, dissipating into nothing. It quickly begins to grow though, more and more smoke turning thicker and thicker, until there is a steady plume of smoke rising from the roof of the hut. Thick enough that the wind can’t pull it apart. Thick enough that it doesn’t dissolve, clinging together even as it rises higher and higher into the empty air high above them. 

Ilya chances a glance up at the sky, but there’s no new flash of silver. No sign of movement at all, aside from the ever-present birds, their dark shapes still wheeling through the empty air high above the forest canopy, indifferent to anything happening below them.

The waiting quickly becomes unbearable. 

They’ve been catching the occasional, fragmented sound of a plane’s engine, growing louder and then fading away again in a nauseating taunt. Ilya knows that it’s because the plane is flying back and forth, moving north and then south as it crawls westward, scanning the landscape beneath it as it goes. It doesn’t stop him from wishing it would just hurry the fuck up. That the pilots would just know, somehow, that there is nothing hiding in the stretch of forest they are flying above. That it would just skip the empty stretch of land, and fly directly to them.

Shane has been watching the fire, waiting on some unknowable measure of flame height or whatever. Eventually he must find it, whatever it is, and he kneels back down to feed a toothbrush into the hut’s glowing mouth. He stays like that, bent over, peering nervously into the opening, despite the fact that even Ilya can tell that, at this point, the fire is absolutely not going to be snuffed out by a single toothbrush. 

It is, unfortunately, deeply endearing.

After several minutes Shane must reach the same conclusion because he grabs another toothbrush, followed by a phone case. Piece by piece, the pile of foraged plastic and rubber is fed into the glowing entrance of the hut. Slowly, the smoke begins to change, turning first grey and then black. Thick and oily, it stains the already blackening and curling needles of the boughs covering the hut, turning them black and shining. They all have to take a step back from the fire then, the smell of the smoke turning choking, noxious. A poisonous cloud, made all the more repulsive for how clear the air had been. 

The scents of pollution and garbage, the things that Ilya never really registered as part of the air in the city, had somehow managed to fade from Ilya’s memory over the short days that they’d been here, and he realizes only now that it has been marred just how used he’d gotten to the clean, untainted air of the tayga. The loss made all the more terrible for the familiarity of the very specific scent of the smoke that is now filling the air—a smell that has Ilya’s stomach turning over, that echoes with the sounds of people screaming and the taste of blood. 

Shane tugs his coat up over his face and keeps going. He speeds up at least, now throwing in garbage by the handful, which spares them both the indignity of having Ilya grab him by his ankles to bodily drag him away from the smoke. The last of the plastic is tossed in just as Ilya is about to do it anyways, the voice in the back of his head screaming about Shane’s lungs too loud to ignore. Shane seems to have the same worry, or maybe he can just tell that Ilya is seconds away from doing something drastic, because he’s moving away the second he’s done, every last piece of scavenged garbage swallowed up by the flames. 

A dense, dark column of smoke continues to pour from the fire as Shane scrambles to his knees and then his feet, backing away from the fire until he reaches Ilya. They watch it rise in silence, cutting a stark black line across the sheet of blue and white spread out above them. Disconcertingly, unmistakably unnatural. As clear a sign as if they had somehow coaxed the smoke into spelling out actual words instead. 

We’re here and we’re alive. Please, God. Please find us.

We’re here. We’re alive. Please, God.

We’re here. 

We’re alive. 

Please.

We’re here.

We’re alive.

Please.

Find us.

Ilya doesn’t know if it’s the smoke that does it in the end. He won’t remember to ask later. All he knows is that an indeterminable number of minutes pass after Shane adds the last of the plastic to the fire. They continue to watch the fire burn, continue to trace the smoke’s winding, wavering path through the air. Continue to listen to the sound of the plane’s engine rise and fall and rise and—

Not fall. 

Ilya waits, but the sound of the engine doesn’t begin to fade, just keeps rising and rising. Growing louder and louder until it’s louder than it’s ever been, closer than it’s ever been. Until a shape suddenly tears itself free of the clouds, cutting across the sky towards them. 

A plane. 

Around Ilya, people are screaming, jumping, waving their arms, but Ilya is a statue in their midst, standing utterly still, frozen in place. He’s not sure he’s even breathing as he watches the plane draw nearer and nearer. Next to him, Shane is nearly as motionless as Ilya, but he somehow finds the will to do what Ilya can’t—he reaches out, wrapping his hand around Ilya’s wrist, bruisingly-tight. 

Locked together in silence and stillness, they watch the plane approach.

It’s small, white with orange and blue stripes stretching from its nose towards the tail. Ilya can’t read the word painted in orange above the stripes from this distance, but he can tell that the lettering is in Cyrillic. Can make some guess at what it might say. Knows it doesn’t really matter. Whatever the actual words are, they can only mean one thing. 

They’ve been found.

The plane’s shadow reaches the field first, casting them into shade for a brief second before the body of the plane catches up with it, the impenetrable shell of the fuselage completely blotting out the sun as it passes over them. The darkness only lasts a second but it leaves Ilya blinking against the brightness when it lifts. Even as his eyes are struggling to catch up with the sudden shift in light, his body is already turning, not needing any conscious input from him. 

Shane turns with him and they follow the path of the plane as it continues onward. 

The screams have stopped, everyone now standing silently, unmoving, as the distance between them and the plane steadily grows larger and larger. The gulf between them widening, growing further and further until the plane once again disappears from sight, swallowed up by the clouds. 

Ilya’s stomach plummets as he listens as the sound of the engine begins to fade. Acid burns his throat, numbness creeping into his limbs as he waits for it to disappear entirely. To announce, unseen, the departure of the plane, alongside any hope they might have had that they’d been spotted. 

Nearby, someone is crying. Maybe more than one person.

Except—

The sound isn’t fading anymore.

It’s getting louder.

It was turning around, Ilya realizes, feeling equal parts idiotic and so relieved that it’s nearly nauseating. 

Seconds later he’s proven correct—an apparition, a miracle; the plane reappears, shredding its way back through the clouds. It’s heading straight towards them, but this time it’s rocking back and forth, tilting its wings from side to side. For a brief, terrifying moment Ilya is filled with a blinding fear that it too is about to crash. 

Logic is quicker to reassert itself this time though, wrestling down the fear by force of a single thought: it’s a signal. 

They’ve seen us. 

Ilya is terrified to let himself feel hope, relief. 

He feels it anyways. 

There’s more people crying now, as they watch the plane once again steadily draw further and further away in the same direction it had originally come from until it vanishes from sight entirely, eaten up by clouds and distance. Ilya can tell that they are not the same tears as earlier though—the sobs tearing through the air fed not by despair, but relief. Forced out by an alleviation that is nearly painful, or maybe just one that makes all the pain worth it. Something like Maya’s leg; a brutal realignment that leads to a peace that makes every second of pain worth it a hundred times over. 

An assurance that feels closer to holy than it does any sort of earthly promise of salvation. 

Ilya blinks quickly, swiping at his own face, just in case. Doesn’t bother to check if his fingers have come away stained with water and salt. Turns, instead, to Shane. 

Shane, who is already looking back at Ilya, his eyes shining brightly with his own unshed tears, a grin cutting across his face, wide and wild. It’s manic, uninhibited, and Ilya can’t help but match it, his smile so broad it nearly hurts. Shane laughs, high and bright, and Ilya can’t stop himself from matching it, too. He can’t stop himself from following through with the impulse that seizes him next. He doesn’t want to. 

Fuck it. 

Shane was right. 

Here, now, maybe even afterwards they are—strangely, terribly—friends. 

Laughter still spilling freely from his throat, Ilya doesn’t wait for the sound to stop before he pulls Shane into a crushing hug, Shane’s arms wrap around him immediately, squeezing him just as tightly. Like Ilya, Shane’s still laughing or maybe he’s just crying now, the sound muffled where he’s pressed his face into Ilya’s shoulder, and Ilya thinks he might be doing the same. Shane’s saying something too, the words unintelligible, smothered in fabric and snagged with laughter and sobs. Ilya replies anyways, words stumbling out of his mouth, an uncontrolled and incoherent mix of Russian and English. 

Thank you God and you did it and we did it, we survived. 

Ilya doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. They’re alive. They’re alive and they’ve been found. They’re alive and they’ve been found and Shane is in his arms and he is warm and whole and laughing.

Who the fuck cares who might be watching them? Who gives a shit about what they might think?

They’re alive. 

They’re alive.

It's a long time before anyone is capable of anything other than crying and laughing and hugging each other—because when Ilya finally persuades his arms to release the tight grip they have on Shane, he finds that they were far from the only ones clinging to whoever was closest. Any sense of calm is further delayed when Yakov, clearly tired of waiting for someone to come and tell those still inside the hold what the fuck is going on, pushes his way out of the tarps, sparking a fresh round of hysteria. 

Yakov’s eyes scan across the scattered survivors, all yelling at him in English, too overwhelmed by emotion to remember that Yakov can’t understand them. Not that a translation is really needed. By the time Yakov’s eyes meet Ilya’s, his professional mask is utterly shattered, equal parts hope and fear clearly spelled out across his features. 

Ilya nods, and Yakov whoops, making both Ilya and Shane laugh as he immediately whips around, disappearing back into the hold. Ilya can’t make out the words, but he can hear that Yakov is excitedly shouting out the news to the patients still inside. The language barrier once again rendered utterly meaningless in the face of pure elation, the sounds of more voices joining Yakov’s in celebration quickly follow, leaking out into the field from behind the tarp, making Ilya laugh again. Or maybe he’s crying again. He can’t tell anymore. Doesn’t really care. 

They’ve been found.

The world becomes a blur after that, everyone returning to the hold in a frenzied rush. The frantic pace is probably unnecessary, given it will probably be a while before someone returns for them. Still, Ilya can’t help but get caught up in it. Doesn’t really try not to. 

All across the hold, people pack up whatever personal items they’d managed to save, movements made clumsy with urgency. Bags that Ilya hadn’t even noticed being tucked away for safekeeping are pulled out from between seat cushions, are stuffed full of whatever’s within reach. 

Karina shoves her notebooks into a worn backpack. Erika starts to pack their remaining food before seeming to remember herself, bursting into a fresh wave of tears, shoving her face into the chest of an alarmed-looking Carter Vaughn. Ilya helps Paquette pack up his yarn and needles, making some nonsensical promise to the goalie that he’ll keep learning how to knit when he gets home. 

It’s not until he’s stepped away from Paquette that Ilya realizes that he doesn’t have anything else to do. His own carry-on is long-disassembled, what little was in it sacrificed to the collective need. The only thing he really has left to save is his phone, but he’s kept it on him the whole time, a useless rectangle of metal and plastic weighing down his coat pocket. There’s nothing for him to collect. Nothing for him to save.

Before Ilya can get too mired in the unpleasant twist of that realization, Yakov is waving him over to where he’s standing next to Shane, crouched down and talking quietly to Maya. Ilya moves over to join him with a bloom of relief, shaking off any other thoughts in favour of shooting a questioning look at Yakov. 

“They’ll be coming back in helicopters,” Yakov says, handing Ilya a Sharpie. 

Ilya takes it automatically, then stares down at it. He has no idea where the fuck Yakov dug up a Sharpie from. Has even less of a guess as to why he’s given it to Ilya.

“They’ll only be able to take a couple of people at a time,” Yakov continues, either ignorant of or indifferent to Ilya’s confusion, “and who knows how many of the flight medics will know English.” 

“Okay?” Ilya says, uncertain what that has to do with the Sharpie. 

“They’ll need to know medications, allergies,” Yakov says. “We’ll write them on people’s arms so they won’t need a translator.”

“On their arms?” Ilya asks, raising an eyebrow, though he feels slightly foolish as soon as he says it. It’s not like they have fucking… lanyards or whatever. Nametags. Sheets of stickers. Index cards to write on: I might have survived a plane crash, but I won’t survive a banana.

“Better than their foreheads,” Yakov says with a crooked grin. “Come, we should do it now before people start going back outside.” 

“Okay,” Ilya says, then looks down at Shane—helpless, as always, against the candle-light pull the other man has on his foolish, moth-skinned heart. It’s a balm to his ego, at least, to find Shane already looking up at him, a questioning look on his face. 

Ilya brandishes the Sharpie at him. “We are going to write medications and allergies on arms,” he says, and Shane’s face clears of any confusion. 

“Makes sense,” he says, then shifts, suddenly awkward. “Um. Have fun?” 

Ilya laughs. “Okay,” he says. “You too.” He shoots a wink at Maya, who rolls her lips inward, swallowing down her own laughter. She does a passable job of schooling her face by the time Shane turns back towards her, and Ilya leaves them to return to their conversation, following Yakov as he sets off towards the nearest person. 

It only takes until the second person they approach—Sonia—saying the word succinylcholine out loud to Ilya for Ilya to realize the flaw in this plan, because he doesn’t even know what that is in English. He has no idea how the fuck to even begin to try to search his mind for the word in Russian—if he even knows it, which he can admit is fairly unlikely. 

After some discussion with Yakov, they land on having him slowly, painstakingly write it out phonetically, and just hope for the best. 

The next allergy is, thankfully, far easier, though Ilya thinks it's probably pretty unlikely that Ayers’ is going to run into any shellfish in the middle of a medevac. 

Eventually they end up back where they started. Neither Maya nor Paquette have anything that needs writing down on their arms, so Ilya suggests that he just draw a big arrow instead, pointing down towards their respective legs, in case the paramedics need help figuring out where their injuries are. 

“What if they don’t notice?” Ilya presses on a laughing Paquette. “They might think there is something wrong with other foot and before you know it, whoops, they have cut that one off.” 

“Why would they amputate his other foot?” Shane asks, exasperated and amused in equal measure. 

Ilya shrugs. “Infection,” he says. 

“What infection?” Shane says. More exasperation than amusement this time. Ilya tries not to let any of his satisfaction show on his face. 

“Just a little bit of writing,” Ilya wheedles at Paquette instead, ignoring Shane. “The word ‘foot’, with arrow pointing down. Maybe small drawing of foot being cut off, for clarity.” 

“Clarity, right,” Paquette says, eyes bright with amusement. He pauses, huffs out a laugh, and then continues: “Yeah, you know what, why the fuck not?” 

Ilya cheers with victory, trying not to preen too much at the strangled laugh that escapes Shane, poorly disguised as an irritated scoff. 

Paquette shrugs off his coat, and Ilya crouches down next to him, uncapping the marker and drawing a careful line down Paquette’s arm, ending with a downwards-pointing triangle on the back of his hand. Moving back up, Ilya writes foot on Paquette’s bicep, the word coming out far neater than his first few attempts at writing on skin. 

Riding high on that success, Ilya moves on to the promised drawing of a severed foot. It is almost immediately obvious that he may have made a slight miscalculation. Which he really should have seen coming—he can’t remember the last time he tried to draw anything other than a hockey play, much less drawn on skin. There’s no backing out of it now though, not with Yakov, Shane, Paquette, and Maya all watching him. 

Ilya does his best to ignore the eyes on him. It at least doesn’t take long—less than a minute later, he is forced to confront the reality that, at this point, he’s just making it worse. Recapping the marker, Ilya leans back and tries not to look as resigned as he feels. He’s had plenty of practice, at least, in looking cocky even when he feels anything but. 

There’s a long moment of silence as the others all take in the results of Ilya’s efforts. 

“It looks like a potato,” Shane finally says, breaking the silence, which is apparently all that’s needed to send the others into a fit of laughter. 

“It does not,” Ilya argues, then looks back down at his drawing. 

Okay, there is, maybe, something slightly potato-like about it, but there’s also toes! Potatoes don’t have toes!

“Potatoes don’t have toes,” Ilya says, pointing. 

“Is that what those are?” Maya asks with what is—very rudely—genuine surprise.

“Obviously!” Ilya says. 

“Why is it wet?” Paquette asks, half-laughing through the words.

“It is blood!” Ilya says. “It’s bleeding!” 

“Oh my god,” Maya says, laughing even harder. “Stop. I can’t breathe.” 

“None of you appreciate art,” Ilya says with a huff. “Very uncultured. Is embarrassing for you, I think.”

“It’s okay, Rozanov” Shane says, eyes bright with amusement as he reaches out to pat Ilya’s arm in faux-sympathy. “You’re still the second-best hockey player in the league, even if you draw like a toddler.” 

No one wants to remain inside while they wait, even if it is warmer, and eventually they all end up back outside. Maya and Paquette insist on being moved outside as well, so they bring out a bunch of the cushions, using them to build up a little pad for them to sit on, propped up against the outside of the hold and wrapped up in what’s at least half of the blankets. 

“It’s probably good to have them outside,” Shane says once they’ve moved to stand far enough away from Paquette and Maya so as to not be overheard. “They’ll be the first ones out anyways, and it’s not that cold out.” 

Ilya thinks that there might be more of a risk of the two of them overheating than there is of them freezing, given how many coats and blankets Shane’s piled on top of them, but whatever. He’s pretty sure Shane’s more trying to convince himself than Ilya. Not that it’s really working, judging by the anxious looks Shane keeps shooting in their direction. 

“It’s not,” Ilya says anyway, because apparently this is just who he is now. “It’s practically balmy.” 

“Balmy?” Shane repeats, and he finally stops shooting looks over at Maya and Paquette in favour of staring at Ilya, bringing the full force of his incredulity to bear down upon him. 

Ilya just barely manages to stop himself from grinning. Affects an unconcerned shrug, instead. 

“Yes,” he says. “Balmy. You know, warm?” He shakes his head. “And you think my vocabulary is bad." 

“Fuck off,” Shane says, doing a terrible job of fighting back a smile. “I know what balmy means.” 

The smile disappears as quickly as it had appeared though, and Shane’s right back to shooting anxious glances at Paquette and Maya before Ilya can think of a way to keep their back-and-forth going. Ilya swallows down a sigh, but doesn’t bother to try and fight it. Trying to keep Shane distracted is clearly as losing a battle here as it’s always been. Looking around, Ilya instead searches the sparse crowd until he finds Yakov standing next to Karina. Catching his eye, Ilya jerks his head towards Shane, an unspoken request.

Yakov’s expression is cautious as he approaches, flicking between Ilya and Shane as if trying to figure out if Ilya’s called him over because of Shane or because of Shane. 

Ilya doesn’t bother to drag it out. “They’ll be the first ones out, yes?” he says as soon as Yakov is close enough that he doesn’t have to shout to ask the question. He gestures as he speaks, trying to be as subtle as he can as he points towards Maya and Paquette. Yakov follows the direction of Ilya’s hand, then frowns. 

“Second,” he says after a pause, meeting Ilya’s eyes as he comes to a stop in front of him and Shane. 

Ilya frowns, but he only gets as far as opening his mouth, the words who’s first then? not even managing to begin to hatch on his tongue, before Yakov is continuing:

“Shane will be first.” 

Ilya’s stomach drops, his heartbeat a sudden, deafening drumbeat, pounding in his ears. 

“What?” he says, quieter than he means to. 

Ilya had known, of course, he’d known since that first day, but— 

But it had seemed like Shane was getting better. He’d thought Shane had been getting better. 

Had he— had he missed something? Was there something that Yakov had noticed, that Ilya hadn’t? Was there—

“He’s been getting better,” Yakov says, cutting off Ilya’s rapidly spiralling thoughts. The fear now thrumming in his veins is less easily silenced and only increases as Yakov continues, “but I’m still worried about his lungs. There’s not— without scans, there’s no way to know if there’s the kind of damage that might still cause something like a pneumothorax.”

“Fuck,” Ilya says, his fear at least an effective distraction from thinking too much about the look on Yakov’s face—too knowing, too sympathetic. Too close to pity.

“He’s not going to want to go first,” Yakov says. 

He’s right, but it still makes Ilya want to scream. 

You don’t know him. You don’t know him like I do.

“No shit,” Ilya grits out instead, the words dripping from his mouth like acid.

Yakov doesn’t even do him the favour of pretending to look even a little bit confused or off-put by Ilya’s venomous tone. His voice and face remain as mild as ever as he continues: “You’ll talk him into it?” 

The confidence in Yakov’s voice is a knife, shredding into Ilya’s soft underbelly. It’s a medal, hung around Ilya’s throat and worn with a vicious, victorious pride even as he thinks I do not deserve this. It’s a noose, it’s a warm fire on a freezing winter’s night. It’s too many shots of vodka mixed with too many lines of coke, it’s a cup of tea sweetened with jam being gently pressed into his icy fingers.

“Yes,” Ilya says, because there’s nothing else he can say. Because anything else would be a lie, or a truth that he can’t afford.

Yakov nods, looks at Shane. “You’ll go first,” he says to him. 

Shane blinks back at Yakov, uncomprehending, but Yakov doesn’t wait around for Ilya to translate, just shoots one final, infuriatingly meaningful look at Ilya before he turns and heads back towards Karina. 

Ilya’s nails bite into his palms with how hard he’s clenching his fists. His teeth grind against each other, feeling like they might shatter under the pressure of how tight he’s squeezing his jaws together. His pulse is still pounding in his throat, fear and anger and helplessness an ugly, black knot in the centre of his chest. 

“Was I right?” Shane asks. “They’re going first?”  

Ilya forces himself to take a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Forcing as much of the tension gripping his body out alongside it as he can. He doesn’t reply to Shane, looks around them instead, taking in how close together everyone is standing. 

“Come,” Ilya says, grabbing Shane’s arm and tugging. He doesn’t look at Shane, because he knows that he’s probably freaking him out, and if he sees Shane looking scared right now, Ilya won’t be able to stop himself from—

Something. He doesn’t know. Knows that whatever it is, it won’t be something either of them can afford. 

Ilya drops Shane’s arm as soon as Shane begins to move, keeps avoiding his gaze as he heads towards the far side of the plane, Shane following silently behind. It’s barely more than an illusion of privacy, but it’s the best they’re going to get. Shane won’t be willing to go any further away from everyone, not without an explanation first, and Ilya can admit, at least to himself, that he doesn’t really want to go any further either. Even if more distance would, theoretically, also afford them more privacy. 

He knows there’s no way that a helicopter could arrive without them noticing it. Not even if they went past the treeline, not even if they went far enough to lose sight of the plane entirely. 

He’s still not willing to risk it. 

“What is it?” Shane says, worry a sharp spike punctuating his voice, and guilt joins the mess of other emotions churning in Ilya’s chest. He ignores it, ignores all of it. Meets Shane’s eyes. Sees the worry reflected there, too. Worry, and fear.

“They won’t be first,” Ilya says, because he’d rather have Shane’s anger than his fear and because there’s no avoiding it. Anything else he might say first is just a waste of time. A pointless delay for an unavoidable outcome. “You will.” 

Shane blinks at him, confusion quickly giving way to disbelief.

“What?” Shane asks. “No. Why— why the fuck would I be first?” Shane’s voice sharpens as he continues, disbelief giving way to anger, just like Ilya had known it would. “What the fuck, Ilya? What does that fucking mean, I’ll be first? Did you—” 

Shane cuts himself off abruptly, sucking in a deep breath. Ilya watches some of the anger fade as he breathes back out; a tide, slinking away from the shore. It provides an unintentional demonstration, too: Shane’s breathing sounds better, but it still doesn’t sound right—too fast, too shallow.

Ilya would point it out, except—

Except, judging by the look on Shane’s face, he doesn’t need to—Shane had heard it too, or maybe he’d just felt it. 

Felt the tug on his lungs, the way that they bottomed out far sooner than they should have.

“I don’t need special treatment Ilya,” Shane says anyway, because god for-fucking-bid Shane fucking Hollander ever admit that he’s feeling anything less than 100%. He sounds less pissed than he had before, at least, even if the things he’s saying are now pissing Ilya off. “I’m fine.”

“You are not fine,” Ilya says, and when Shane just glowers at him, adds, “Okay, you are maybe fine right now—” Ilya deserves some sort of award, for resisting putting scare quotes around the word fine. Even if Shane might have managed to hear it anyway, judging by the deepening glare he’s still aiming at Ilya. Ilya ignores it, continues, “—but you might not stay fine.”

Shane blinks, anger giving way to confusion. “What?” he asks.

Ilya takes a deep breath, bracing himself—for Shane’s reaction, for his own, for both. 

“Yakov is worried about your lungs.” 

Ilya watches as Shane takes the words in. Turns them over in his mind. Sees the moment that every other feeling lingering on the edges of Shane’s expression gives way to fear as he remembers, Ilya thinks, the same thing that has been haunting Ilya ever since it had happened. 

Riley had been fine too, after all. 

He was fine, until he wasn’t. 

He was fine, until he was dead. 

“Is that— I thought, since my breathing’s been getting better…” Shane trails off, biting his lip. His arms come up, wrapping around himself. Self-soothing again, in a way that makes Ilya ache to replace Shane’s arms with his own. He doesn’t know if it would be welcome though, so he forces himself to stay where he is. Breathes through the ache. 

“Yakov says there is no way to know for sure, not without scans,” Ilya says. “Even if it feels like it's been getting better, there might still be something that could… go bad.”

Shane, for some absolutely incomprehensible reason, looks almost comforted by that. He’s nodding, forehead scrunched in though. “Right,” he says, “and that decompensation would be a lot faster than anything that would happen to Maya or Paquette.” It’s phrased like he’s finishing Ilya’s thought, even though Ilya doesn’t even know what the fuck decompensation means. 

Fast, on the other hand, fast he knows. Riley had been fast. There and then gone within minutes, with barely any warning. 

Ilya feels like he might throw up. 

Shane takes another deep breath. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.” 

There’s still fear lingering in Shane’s eyes, but his shoulders settle anyway, the last of the tension of their brief almost-argument fading away. Comforted by understanding, maybe. The lack of certainty balanced out by the logic that underpins Yakov’s decision. The confirmation that he hadn’t been imagining it—that his breathing has been sounding better. Even if he’s still in danger—more danger than either of them had known.

“Okay?” Ilya asks, unable to resist pushing, just a little bit. Knowing Shane too well, maybe—knowing that it is worth double-checking, for this. Even if he’s risking pissing Shane off again.. “You’ll go first? No arguing?” 

Shane doesn’t look pissed off though. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m not— I’ll go first. No arguing.” He smiles, small and crooked. “Promise.” 

There’s a joke there, maybe. Something about Shane not arguing with Ilya being a sign that something really is wrong. The words taste like acid bubbling in the back of Ilya’s throat though, so he swallows them back down. Reaches out and takes Shane’s hand instead. Squeezes, and feels Shane squeeze back. 

“Okay,” Ilya says, his voice coming out rougher than it should. Smaller than he would have liked.

Shane doesn’t comment on it. “We should get back,” he says. He’s still holding Ilya’s hand. 

“Yes,” Ilya agrees. He doesn’t let go. 

“Someone’s going to come looking for us.”

“Yes.” 

Neither of them move. 

“Come find me?” Shane eventually says, voice small and hesitant. “In the hospital, or wherever? If I’m the first one out, I don’t—”

“Yes,” Ilya interrupts. “Of course. I’ll— I’ll find you. Promise.” 

A ghost of a smile flickers across Shane’s face.

“Okay,” Shane says, and loosens his grip on Ilya’s hand, preparing to step away. His eyes widen in surprise when he’s instead brought to a sudden halt when Ilya’s own grip abruptly tightens. His expression a match for Ilya’s own wide eyes because he just realized—

“Do you have allergies? Medications?” Ilya asks.

“What?” Shane says.

“I did not ask you before,” Ilya says, gesturing towards Shane’s arm. “Do you have any allergies? Take any medications?”

Fuck. Fuck. He can’t believe he’d skipped Shane. Can’t believe that he’d forgotten that they wouldn’t still be together, once they were rescued. That Ilya wouldn’t be there to keep translating for him. 

Or maybe he’d just been trying not to think about it; a stupid, selfish impulse that could have killed Shane, that could have—

“Oh, right,” Shane says, looking relieved. “No, no medications. I do have an anaphylactic allergy to wasps?” He huffs out a half-laugh. “I don’t think that’ll come up though.”

Ilya gapes at Shane. 

Fuck. He really could have actually killed him. 

“You can be killed by wasp?” Ilya says, words coming out louder than he means them to. His hand spasms, gripping Shane even tighter. “Little sting and you die?” 

“Um,” Shane says, eyes wide. “Yeah, I guess? I carry an epi pen though. Not like, now, because it’s the middle of the winter, but—”

“I did not know this,” Ilya cuts him off, running his free hand through his hair, hoping that the gesture helps hide the fact that it’s shaking. “You never tell me this.” 

“It didn’t… seem relevant?” Shane says. 

“Not relevant?!” Ilya says—too loud, again. He drops Shane’s hand, shaking his head and digging in his pocket for the Sharpie. Uses his newly freed hand to point towards Shane’s arm. “Give me arm,” he demands. 

“What?” Shane asks, lips twitching upwards. As if anything about this could possibly be funny. “Ilya, I don’t think—”

“Arm,” Ilya orders as his fingers finally find the marker. “Now,” he adds as he pulls the Sharpie out, using it to again point demandingly at Shane’s arm. 

Shane opens his mouth and Ilya braces himself for whatever dumb argument Shane is about to try and make. To his surprise Shane closes it without saying anything, awkwardly shoving up his multiple layers to give Ilya access to his forearm. 

“Fucking thank you,” Ilya mutters, using his teeth to uncap the marker, grabbing ahold of Shane’s wrist with his spare hand.

Shane still doesn’t say anything, just watches in silence as Ilya carefully writes allergy on the soft skin of the inside of his forearm. Ilya pauses, now starting to feel a bit nervous about Shane’s silent compliance. But when he chances a glance up at Shane’s face, he finds that Shane doesn’t look annoyed or impatient. Instead there’s a small smile curving his lips upwards, his eyes warm and soft as he looks down at Ilya. 

Ilya feels his face heat, and he hastily looks back down. Returns the tip of the marker to Shane’s skin, concentrating on keeping the lines clear and legible as he writes wasps. Leaning closer, Ilya blows gently on the fresh ink, encouraging it to dry. It doesn’t smudge when he tests it a few seconds later, running his thumb over the edge of the first letter, and Ilya finally drops Shane’s arm, satisfied. 

Recapping the marker, Ilya drops it back into his pocket. Watches Shane roll his various sleeves back down. Avoids meeting Shane’s eyes until he can’t, until there’s nothing else for him to look at. 

Shane’s already looking at him, when Ilya finally forces himself to meet his eyes. Still with that same small smile, and the wind must be picking up, bringing a rush of cold air with it, because Ilya feels his cheeks go even redder in reply. Which just makes Shane smile wider. 

He still doesn’t say anything though, casting a quick glance around them instead. Satisfied that they’re still alone, Shane closes the sparse distance between them, pushing up to press a ghost of a kiss against Ilya’s mouth. 

“Thank you,” he whispers against Ilya’s lips.

He steps away before Ilya has a chance to kiss him back, walking quickly back towards the corner of the plane. Shane pauses just before he reaches the edge of the fuselage, glancing back over his shoulder at Ilya, smiling when he meets Ilya’s eyes. 

And then he’s gone, disappearing around the corner of the plane. Leaving Ilya standing alone, feeling oddly unmoored and off-kilter.

“Okay,” Ilya says to no one, and follows. 

The brewing anxiety that had been growing among the survivors as minutes had turned into hours disappears the second they hear the helicopter approaching.

Thunderously loud as it beats its way through the air towards them, it’s easy to see it coming. Flying lower than the plane, its bright yellow fuselage is unmissable, a colour that appears nowhere in nature, or at least nowhere in this country. Bracketed by red, the side of the helicopter is stamped with a bright red cross—a symbol that needs no translation. No one speaks as it approaches, as if afraid that this might still be some sort of illusion, posed to shatter under the force of even a single word. 

And then it arrives, and speaking becomes impossible anyways. 

The field that they have spent five days sleeping next to once again proves itself a boon: the helicopter lands quickly, easily. Ilya feels a strange twist in his stomach as it lowers itself towards the snow-covered ground and he catches his first glimpse of the pilots. The tinting of the glass makes their faces difficult to make out, their features shadowed by their white helmets, but they’re the first new people that any of them have seen since the doors of the plane closed behind them in Toronto and Ilya is surprised to find his throat tightening as he swallows, hard, against the urge to start crying. 

He’s at least not alone in that, he realizes as he looks around. Erika again has her face buried in Vaughn’s chest, her shoulders shaking as she cries. Vaughn’s own expression is more stunned than anything, staring blankly at the helicopter even as one hand smooths soothingly up and down Erika’s back. Karina has her hand clasped over her mouth, but it does nothing to hide the tears cutting down her cheeks as she too stares unblinkingly at the helicopter. Barrett has dropped into a crouch next to her, too overwhelmed to keep standing.

Ilya feels a tug at the back of his coat, and he knows, even before he turns, that it’s Shane who’s taken ahold of a fistful of the fabric covering his back. The look on Shane’s face is a mirror of the others that surround them—a stunned, overwhelmed relief, the blank shock that this is real, that this is actually happening. 

They’re being rescued.

The blades of the helicopter are still spinning when the door on the side slides open, disgorging two men in dark blue flight suits. They’re wearing the same bright white helmets as the pilots but the patches on their uniforms give away that they do not share in that occupation, and Yakov immediately breaks away from the larger group, jogging over to meet them halfway. He starts talking as soon as he reaches them. 

Ilya can’t hear what he’s saying but he can see the surprise that flashes over both men’s faces, the briefest glimpse of relief chasing after it before their expressions settle into the blank, neutral professionalism that has become so familiar from watching Yakov work. The flight paramedics follow Yakov as he leads them back to where Shane and Ilya are still standing, Yakov keeping up a steady stream of words the whole time. Ilya can see that more than a few people look surprised that Yakov isn’t leading them towards Paquette and Maya, tracing their path towards its natural endpoint. 

Ilya has the belated realization that he should have perhaps told more than just Shane that he would be the first one evacuated. Ah well. Too late now—even if Ilya wanted to waste the handful of seconds he had left with Shane, he’d have to tell people one by one, the sound of the helicopter far too loud for anything else. 

Then Yakov and the other paramedics are close enough that Ilya can hear what they’re saying, and he forgets about everyone else entirely.

“—still hearing fine crackles in both bases on inspiration,” Yakov is saying, “but lung sounds and respiratory rate have improved in the last seventy-two hours. Though, given that he’s a professional athlete, those values are almost certainly still well outside of his baseline. He did have a setback related to exertion—“

“Exertion?” asks one of the flight medics, and Yakov grimaces, a barely-there twitch of the mouth that Ilya never would have noticed if it weren’t for how much time they’d spent together.

“Resuscitation efforts,” he says. “A cardiac arrest, secondary to a tension pneumothorax. Not his own, as I'm sure you've guessed,” Yakov continues, gesturing towards Shane. “He's had no supplementary oxygen, no anti-inflammatories, no pain management, and instructions to rest have been heeded sporadically at best."

Understatement of the year, Ilya thinks with what he’d like to believe is more sarcasm than fear as the trio come to a stop in front of them. The shorter of the two flight paramedics, a middle-aged man with a thick black moustache doesn’t even glance at Ilya, turning directly to speak to Shane. 

“Sounds like you’re up first,” he says. “You okay to walk over to the helicopter?” 

Like seeing the faces of the pilots, hearing a voice other than Karina or Yakov’s speak Russian leaves Ilya breathless. 

“He doesn’t speak any Russian,” Yakov says before Ilya can pull himself together enough to speak. He nods towards Ilya. “You should take him too.”

Ilya feels Yakov’s words hit him with near physical force. He’d been bracing himself to watch Shane disappear inside the yellow belly of the helicopter, to watching it get smaller and smaller until it finally vanished into the distance. Leaving him—as healthy as the best of them, with no reason to go and every reason to stay behind. To help translate, to wait for the very end. 

Wondering, the whole time, whether the helicopter had made it to the hospital. Whether something had gone wrong. Whether Shane was still fine. 

He’d never even considered that Yakov might send them off together. 

“Shane has been helping me with treating the casualties,” Yakov continues. “He can give you a full-rundown, so dispatch can give the hospitals an idea of what to expect. Ilya can translate, if you take him with you.”

Gratitude lands like a punch to his gut. Ilya doesn’t know if Yakov is telling the truth or just making excuses so that Ilya can stay with Shane. He doesn’t really care. 

True or not, he’ll take it. 

He’ll fucking take it.  

The younger of the two flight medics’ eyes widen as he follows the direction of Yakov’s nod and realizes exactly who Yakov is gesturing towards. It’s only a brief slip though, and he gets his expression back under control a second later. 

The older man doesn’t so much as blink. He trades a look with the younger medic, then looks back at Yakov, shrugging with that familiar Slavic indifference. Ilya hopes that this urge to cry every time he sees another human do something even somewhat familiar passes soon. It’s going to get very embarrassing, very fast, if it doesn’t. 

The older paramedic looks at Ilya, then. 

“I’m Boris,” he says, then tilts his head towards the other man, “this is Dmitriy. He can walk?” 

“Yes,” Ilya confirms, nodding, then turns to Shane. He has to fight not to smile when he sees the annoyed pinch between Shane’s eyebrows. Too much Russian without translation, apparently. 

“I told them you can walk,” Ilya says. 

“Oh,” Shane says. “Right.” He glances at Boris and Dmitriy, clearly just now realizing that he won’t be able to communicate with either of them. 

“Well?” Ilya says, making a shooing motion with his hands. “You want to make me look like a liar, Hollander? You want to stay in this field forever?” 

Shane looks back at Ilya, and Ilya immediately regrets reaching for a joke, for not saying the most important part out loud first, before anything else. Shane looks… well. 

Heartbroken, is the word that comes to mind, even though Ilya knows that’s just his own foolish, wishful heart speaking. Shane might like him, but… not like that. Not so much that it will break his heart, for them to be separated. Not the way it will break Ilya’s. 

Of course, none of that matters. Not right now. 

Ilya will take what he’s given, and worry about running from the beating later.

“Don’t worry Hollander,” Ilya says, after what is probably too long of a pause with neither of them saying anything. “No one will die just because you aren’t here to fuss at them like Babushka. There are already more helicopters coming.” 

There are—at least two, yellow specks emerging from the horizon, drawing closer and closer. Ilya knows that Shane has also noticed, had seen his eyes drift over Ilya’s shoulder minutes ago, clocking their approach. Has been distantly aware of other people around him noticing them as well, pointing towards them in obvious relief. 

“They will suffer without my charm and wit, of course,” Ilya continues, “but alas—” he shrugs, “—too bad, there is no avoiding it. Yakov says I must go with you.”

“What?” Shane says—breathes, really. Ilya isn’t sure if he actually hears the word or if he just reads it in the shape of Shane’s mouth, the stunned look on his face. There’s a flicker of fear, his eyes cutting to Yakov and then back to Ilya. 

“Yes, is true,” Ilya says, glancing at the flight paramedics, who are starting to look slightly impatient. “I have been promoted to flight nurse, so I can help Captain Plane Crash tell these nice men about all the gross injuries.” 

Shane blinks back at him, looking slightly stunned. 

“Good?” Ilya prompts when Shane doesn’t do anything else. He’s starting to feel the pressure now—they need to go. He doesn’t want to piss off Boris and Dmitriy, and they need to clear the field to let the other helicopters land. 

Shane blinks at him again, and Ilya decides to take that as confirmation. 

“Good,” Ilya says. “Let’s go.” He makes a shooing motion again, and this time Shane goes. He still looks slightly shocked, like he’s still processing the sudden change in plans. It's a good thing that he’s too much of a good Canadian boy to keep other people waiting on him for very long. 

Christ. Ilya is so fucking fucked. 

Boris leads the way, Dmitriy walking next to Shane, keeping an eye on them as he goes, his hand hovering behind Shane’s back, not quite touching but ready to catch him, if needed. Ilya takes a second to make eye contact with first Yakov and then Vaughn, nodding at each man in turn before he hurries after the others. He catches a few other people’s eye as he goes—blows a kiss to Maya and Paquette, waves to Karina and Barrett, who’s still in a crouch, looking like he’s still trying to process the fact that they’re actually getting rescued. He’s almost at the helicopter when he catches sight of Roth, and, look. 

Ilya has never claimed to be a good man, much less a magnanimous one. Plus, Shane isn’t even looking at him—too busy being guided into the helicopter by the paramedics. Ilya is safely out of kicking distance, even if he was looking. 

Pausing with one foot on the railing, Ilya grins at Roth, waving as he mouths bye-bye as clearly as he can. He’s not sure if it's legible, but either way Roth looks furious. Ilya’s still grinning as he pulls himself up into the helicopter, Boris slamming the door shut behind him. Shane’s getting settled onto the stretcher set up in the centre of the helicopter’s hold, looking deeply put-out. It’s not like he can argue with Dmitriy, who’s directing him with hand motions on where to lie down. Even if Shane spoke Russian, it's even louder here, in the belly of the helicopter, than it had been outside of it. 

Ilya’s not sure how the fuck he’s supposed to translate anything Shane might have to say about the other survivor’s injuries like this, but he doesn’t really give a fuck about that anyway. Not when Shane’s lying on a stretcher in front of him, not when Ilya’s being pointed towards his own seat. Not when the helicopter shakes and then tilts, the world outside reorienting itself in a dizzying blur as they begin to rise up into the air. Ilya reaches out, grabs the railing of the stretcher. The closest he can get to holding Shane’s hand. 

Shane looks at Ilya, then at his hand. Reaches out, and wraps his own fingers around the bar, a few inches below Ilya’s hand. Ilya looks at their hands, so close together, and then has to look away before he does something stupid like actually grabbing Shane’s hand or starting to cry. 

Ilya’s eyes land on the window of the helicopter just as it tilts again, turning around. Outside of the window, already small and getting smaller: the smoke-stained and mangled front of a plane, sitting at the heel of a carved channel of churned and raw earth, a giant ‘X’ rendered in suitcases and lifejackets. A scattered handful of people, bright specks against the white backdrop of a snow-covered field. Growing larger as everything else grows smaller, the forest, the true extent of the tayga slowly revealing itself as the wilderness stretches out, further and further as they rise higher and higher above it. Blurring into an indistinguishable smear of green and white as Ilya finally loses his fight against the tears that have been burning at his eyes ever since Yakov said that he should go with Shane. 

The helicopter straightens, tilts, and there’s nothing by sky outside the window, nothing but the roar of the engine and the thudding sound of the blades rotating above their heads. Ilya’s hand slides down the bar, and he feels it come to a stop pressed against Shane’s. Ilya doesn’t look, because as long as he doesn’t look then it’s still just an accident that he doesn’t have to correct. 

Closing his eyes, Ilya takes a deep breath in. Slowly exhales. Focuses on the warmth of the side of Shane’s hand pressed against his; a wordless, sightless reassurance. It’s nothing, a narrow, barely-there point of contact, but still, Ilya swears he can feel the steady beat of Shane's heart. Rationally, yes, Ilya knows he is probably feeling the pulse in his own palm. But Ilya is battered, exhausted, hungry. Has used up every ounce of rationality, every excuse. 

His heartbeat; Shane's heartbeat. One's as good as the other, as far as Ilya's concerned.

Chapter End Notes

Ilya, exhausted, hungry, slightly delirious: In Russian folkloric tales with an adult male protagonist, the Baba Iaga traditionally occupies the role of a villain, which is why she will try to take Shane—a good, polite canadian boy—from me. In this essay, I will

thank you all for your patience! This chapter kicked my ass, but we got there in the end.

as I'm sure you'll have noticed, the chapter count has gone up! as predicted, the epilogue was going to be like, 20k longer than any other chapter lol, so. we're dividing it up instead. that said, there's going to be a lot of POV overlap in this one, so idk if I'll be able to post any of them until they're all done? so there may be a longer wait than "usual", but! on the bright side, it'll be a huge update all at once if it is lol. I also changed my mind about one of the POVs so there's actually going to be two (2) new POVs in those chapters 👀

thank you as always to britt (ao3/twt) for the beta, for listening to me complain about this chapter for a full month, and for helping to ensure that the ending slapped.

citations!
Search and Rescue Signals: Ground-Air Codes and Acknowledgement Procedures — ATPL(A), CPL(A), IR(A) and PPL(A) Syllabus
Mass evacuation of victims from emergency areas by medical modules aboard the aircraft of EMERCOM of Russia — I. Yakirevich, A. Popov
In love with the sky: How Moscow air medical service works — mos.ru
Baba Iaga and the Russian Mother — Andreas Johns, The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp. 21-36

(yes, I did read a full academic article about the Baba Yaga just to do a bit about Ilya getting weird with exhaustion and hunger. it was really interesting though, so! worth it, probably.)

01.10.26
i know it's been a while, so just wanted to provide a reassurance that the last three chapters are still coming! and I promise i'm making them worth the wait... the word count on them is currently at 42.5k combined 🙈

Chapter 12: Epilogue // Yuna

Chapter Notes

Yuna is aware of David following just behind her as she rushes down the hallway, but the sound of the footsteps chasing after her is a distant background noise, barely registering beneath the buzzing that’s been filling her ears ever since their translator—Valentina—had relayed Shane’s room number to them. Her attention instead solely fixed on reading the steadily climbing numbers of the rooms they’re hurrying past, only a scarce sliver sacrificed to dodging around the occasional other person, eyes tearing away from the room numbers only long enough to make sure she doesn’t run directly into them. 

1102

1104

1106

Rendered as nothing more than blurred shapes in the periphery of her mind, the only distinction between hospital personnel and patient is the colour of the paint smear they leave behind in the back of her eye. She should probably be paying more attention, because it’s not just doctors and nurses and patients moving through these corridors, and her awareness does briefly sharpen whenever the paint smear turns green, though even then, she can’t bear to fully redirect her attention. 

1110

1112

1114

The guns the soldiers are holding in the cradles of their arms are clearer than anything else about them, but they have yet to make any move to stop her and David, even as she feels their eyes follow them as they continue onwards. The soldiers probably know who they are anyways—if not precisely then at least generally. Valentina had told them that the Sklifosovsky Institute had cleared the entire wing for the survivors of Flight 771, had locked it down to anyone except authorized medical personnel and approved visitors. And Yuna knew that the tags that were clipped to the front of her and David’s shirts advertised them as that. 

1120

1122

112—

Yuna realizes how close she is to tipping over from walking to running only when she nearly passes the door to 1124 entirely before she’s able to pull her feet to a full stop. For a second all she can do is stand there, staring at the number painted on the wall next to the closed door. The black paint is chipping slightly, the lightly bumpy texture of the wall beneath giving the numbers a pebbled texture. The numerals are still legible though, unmistakable, even if whatever is written just under them remains unintelligible, despite the way that the shapes of the letters themselves have become increasingly familiar to her. 

It’s Valentina’s voice that finally snaps her out of it. 

“I will go to the lounge down the hall, yes?” she says. “Give you a moment of privacy with Shane.” Yuna catches movement out of the corner of her eye—Valentina pointing, maybe, in the direction of the lounge. She can only hope that the affirmative hum David makes means that he’s actually looking at where she’s pointing, because the scarce handful of Russian phrases that they’ve picked up over the last two days won’t get them very far if they manage to lose their translator entirely. 

The sharp sound of Valentina’s heels striking the linoleum picks up and then swiftly fades, leaving behind Yuna, David, and the closed door. A broad, warm hand presses into the small of her back, and Yuna leans back instinctively, pressing her weight into her husband’s hand. 

“He’s okay,” David says, his voice low, right next to her ear. Soothing in its familiarity, the calm steadiness that she has relied upon for decades no less effective in these circumstances, no matter how alien and uniquely terrible they may be. “Dr. Antonova said that he was okay, remember?” 

Yuna draws in a long, slow breath. Lets it back out. Pulls up the memory, lets it play out in her mind—

“The chest x-ray confirmed pulmonary barotrauma from the plane’s descent,” Dr. Antonova says. “It is likely that he held his breath through at least part of the descent, which meant that his lungs weren’t able to appropriately equalize to the pressure changes, resulting in physical damage to the tissue of his lungs.”

A severe looking woman in her late-middle age, her grey hair pulled back in a bun that is nearly military in its precision, Dr. Antonova watches them carefully as she speaks. Her English is heavily accented, but smooth; the cadence of it familiar, given every other time that Yuna has ended up in an emergency room because of her son. It’s as soothing as it is disquieting.

“However, there were no signs of pneumothorax on the x-ray, and there don’t appear to be any tears in the pulmonary tissue,” Dr. Antonova continues. “We were also able to rule out pulmonary hemorrhage, and overall, it seems like your son’s lungs are recovering well on their own. We’d like to keep him on high-flow oxygen for a few more days to help that process along, and he may need further evaluation to rule out emphysema in the future, but overall your son’s lungs are in as good a shape as we could hope for under the circumstances.”

David’s hand, wrapped around hers, squeezes once, twice, and Yuna lets herself lean into his side. She won’t be able to fully relax, not until she is able to lay eyes on Shane and confirm for herself that he’s okay, but for the first time since she’d picked up her phone to the news that the plane carrying her son to the other side of the world had disappeared, she finally feels like she can breathe. 

—lets it settle her, shaking off the last of her frustration at how long it had taken them to get here, to the door of her son’s hospital room. Getting the phone call notifying them that the plane had been found and there were confirmed survivors had been a jolt of hope that had left Yuna’s stomach twisting in knots, scared to let herself feel anything close to relief when they still didn’t know whether Shane was one of those survivors. 

Learning that they were only getting that call hours after the SAR plane first spotted the crash site had been infuriating, made worse by the fact that they wouldn’t tell her anything else until they had positively identified all the survivors. 

The second call, the one that had told them that Shane was alive, that had informed them of which hospital they were being taken to had cut Yuna off at the knees. The time that it had taken for them to get from their hotel to the hospital had been torture, only made bearable by the tight grip of David’s hand around hers. 

It hadn’t ended when they’d gotten to the hospital, and Yuna isn’t sure how she made it through the indomitable amount of time that had seemed to stretch out in front of them as they’d slowly picked their way through the crucible of security and red tape standing in their way of getting into this wing. Had thought she might finally just start screaming when they had then had to spend what had felt like an equally endless amount of time searching for the doctor who could actually tell them where their son was, how their son was. 

They were here now though. Finally, finally, they were here. And yet… Yuna was still hesitating, arms hanging limply by her sides, making no move to open the door. 

Dr. Antonova said he was okay, she tells herself as firmly as she can. It’s not that she doesn’t believe her, not really, but…

But what if Dr. Antonova was wrong? What if she wasn’t telling them something, what if Shane wasn’t actually okay? Or if they’d somehow misidentified the survivors? If Shane wasn’t actually here? What if Shane was de—

If any of that was true, then opening this door would be something they wouldn’t be able to come back from. A truth they couldn’t un-know, one that would destroy any shred of calmness that Yuna has managed to gather. That would shatter the illusion that all of their desperate, frantic prayers—all of their tenuous hope, wearing thinner and thinner with each passing day that SAR had ended the search without finding any sign of the lost plane—hadn’t been for nothing. A brutal, final revelation: that they hadn’t been answered after all. 

But as long as they stay on this side of the door, Shane is still okay. 

“Yuna.” David’s voice is soft, but firm. It’s enough, the smallest weight all that’s needed to tilt the scales, to re-ignite the yawning need to see her son.

Yuna reaches out, and turns the doorknob.

Stepping forward, Yuna pushes the door inwards as she does, keeping pace with the door as it moves backwards, revealing more and more of the room. She doesn’t make it further than a handful of feet into the room, however, before she comes to an abrupt stop. Next to her David stops too, which at least confirms that she’s not experiencing a stress-induced hallucination. 

Yuna takes three steps backwards, just far enough that she can lean back out into the hallway, reading, again, the numbers painted on the wall next to the door. 

1124.

Straightening, Yuna retraces her steps, stopping once she’s back next to David. 

Oh God, Yuna thinks when she blinks and the sight in front of her doesn’t magically change, feeling herself teetering on the edge of hysteria, worn raw with terror and exhaustion and hope. I was right.

They misidentified the survivors. 

Beneath a tall window covered in gauzy white curtains, there’s an empty space where a hospital bed would normally sit, marked out by the scuff marks on the floor, the linoleum there a slightly different shade than the rest, unbleached by sunlight. On the right sits all the familiar accompanying sights of a hospital room: a monitor, an empty IV pole, a small rolling table with a blue plastic cup, bendy straw sticking up over the rim. On the other side are all the other expected pieces of the tableau: a small wooden bedside table and a plastic chair, severe and uncomfortable-looking.

It’s the person sitting in the chair that has Yuna sinking deeper and deeper into the bleak understanding that her terrified what ifs on the other side of the door hadn’t just been the product of five days filled with too much fear and too little sleep. 

Confirmation that she hadn’t been catastrophizing over nothing, that her anxiety was horribly grounded, that the reminders to herself that she was being irrational had been the actual irrational thoughts.

Sitting isn’t really the right word. Just shy of where the bed would sit if there was one, chair pulled tight against the wooden table, Rozanov is collapsed sideways onto the top of the table. Crunched up awkwardly, spine twisted, his head is pillowed onto one bent arm, the other hanging loose between his legs. 

Fast asleep.

Rozanov looks younger than Yuna knows he is, his curly hair sticking up messily, the dark circles under his eyes rendered even darker in the stark shadows cast by the fluorescent lights flickering overhead. The pale, mint-green scrubs he’s wearing are clearly borrowed—the pants are too short for him, leaving an oddly vulnerable stretch of pale skin exposed between the hem of the pants and the top of the white socks that are all he has for footwear. His face is slack in sleep, but there’s still a lingering tension in his brows, a slight wrinkle denting the skin between them. 

In any other circumstance, Yuna might have said he looks angry, but like this she thinks it might be something closer to… worry. 

“Is that who I think it is?” David whispers, and Yuna nods, because if she tries to speak, she thinks she might just start crying and never stop. “Huh,” David says. “They must have given us the wrong room number.”

They must have given us the wrong room number.

Fuck, of course. Of course. Jesus Christ, obviously they wouldn’t have told them that Shane was alive if they weren’t sure of his identity. And there’s definitely no way that the SAR team—and certainly not the doctors in fucking Moscow—would mistake the captain of their fucking national hockey team for anyone else. 

Okay. Okay. 

They were told the wrong room number. Okay. Fine. That’s— that’s manageable. 

Still, while Yuna is glad to see that Rozanov is alive—

Because no matter how much she doesn’t like him—has resented the way that Shane has always been forced to split the spotlight with him, has never been allowed to shine on his own, has been annoyed by his ego and his showboating and the way he gloats over wins—she’s certainly never actually wished him dead.

—he is not the hockey player she is looking for. 

For all that she had hesitated over actually entering the room, Yuna’s nearly unbearable desire to see her son hasn’t abated at all. Is maybe worse than ever, after that brief, terrified spiral.

They need to find their son. 

They need to go and get Shane’s actual room number.

Yuna doesn’t so much as get the chance to begin to turn around though—much less to head out of the room, to start trying to track down Valentina—because it’s at the exact moment that she decides on their next steps that Rozanov jerks awake. Literally jerks, his whole body jolting as he wrenches himself upright, the movement sudden enough that Yuna can’t help but jump slightly in response. His eyes are wide, frantic, racing around the room, and it’s clear that he doesn’t remember where he is. A fact that is confirmed by the way his body slowly relaxes as he fully processes the sights around him, all the signs that he’s safe, that he’s in a hospital. That the rescue wasn’t a dream. 

Rozanov’s eyes come to a stop on her and David, and Yuna watches his brow furrow in confusion for a brief second before his expression clears. He relaxes further, leaning back into his chair as he smiles at them. The expression is small, but there’s a genuine warmth to it that Yuna does not understand. His whole reaction is baffling, made no more explicable for what he says when he finally opens his mouth.

“David, Yuna,” Rozanov says, his voice like gravel, accent heavier than Yuna’s ever heard it. “I am glad to see you. I was not certain if you would have made it to Russia.” He pauses but Yuna doesn’t have enough time to even begin to process the fact that he somehow knows their names, that he’d been wondering if they were in Russia, before he’s continuing, “Shane will be very happy to see you.” 

What the fuck, Yuna thinks, and tries desperately to think of something that she can actually say out loud. 

“The doctors took Shane for another test,” Rozanov continues before Yuna can come up with anything, gesturing towards the empty spot where the bed should be. “Um, эндоскопия? I am not sure what it is called, in English… they put camera? Down here?” 

Rozanov traces a line down his throat towards his stomach. He looks uncertain, another expression that Yuna isn’t used to seeing on his face, and one that makes him look nearly as young as he did when he was asleep. 

Endoscopy, Yuna thinks. Then, oh, thank god. 

This is the right room. 

It explains the lack of a bed, if nothing else.

“They said they would have to put him to sleep for it, so would be a while,” Rozanov continues, looking down at his wrist. 

Yuna follows the direction of his gaze, unsurprised to find that Rozanov also wears a Rolex. Not because he has a sponsorship, she thinks, the usual smugness that would accompany that thought muted by circumstance, but peeking through despite it. It looks like it’s the exact same model that Shane wears most of the time, and she wonders if that was on purpose. Some sort of taunt, or just another way to prove that there’s nothing that Shane can do that Rozanov can’t at least match him in. 

Though that’s maybe putting far too much weight on how occupied Rozanov is with his and Shane’s rivalry. 

“I… do not actually know how long ago they take him,” Rozanov says, raising his head to look between Yuna and David, expression turning slightly embarrassed. Apologetic. “But I think maybe will not be much longer?” 

Yuna finally finds her voice. “Oh,” she says. “Um. Were you sitting with him, before that?” 

“Ah,” Rozanov says, shifting slightly in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “Yes. I did not want to— um, he does not speak Russian, so…” He trails off, shrugs, his shoulders tense.

“Oh, that’s very kind of you,” David says, as sincere as Yuna has ever heard him. “Thank you for doing that. We— we really appreciate it.”

Rozanov somehow manages to look even more uncomfortable at that, waving them off with a gesture still clumsy with sleep. 

“Is, uh, no problem. But you are here now, so… I will go. Give you your privacy, for when he gets back.” 

Rozanov nods sharply, just once, and stands. For as decisive as the movement is, Yuna doesn’t miss the way he sways slightly in place, his face going pale. It only lasts for a handful of seconds and then Rozanov is standing as firm as ever, looking past them, at the open door. Eyes on the goal as he prepares to leave them to wait for Shane alone. 

“No,” Yuna says, surprising even herself. It certainly surprises Rozanov, if the way his eyes widen in response is any indication. Ignoring the way she can practically feel David side-eyeing her, Yuna continues, “Don’t be ridiculous, you should stay. Wait with us.”

“Ah, I do not know…” Rozanov trails off, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

Yuna should probably let it go, especially with how uncomfortable Rozanov looks, but… she still doesn’t know where her son is, except that he’s not here. Is somewhere else in this hospital, alone. She doesn’t know how he is either, not really. Doesn’t know what the fuck happened to them, how they managed to survive out in the wilderness. How they got so lucky, that they survived the crash in the first place. 

She does know that Rozanov was with Shane though, both when the plane went down and through the aftermath. Knows too, now, that he has been sitting at her son’s bedside the entire time they’ve been in the hospital. Is still here, waiting for Shane to come back. That he, too, has been alone.

She also knows that he’s the same age as her son—and even if she’s technically always known that, the knowledge sits differently now, seeing him standing in front of her in this hospital room, sleep-foggy and uncertain. 

They’re both so young, and Rozanov looks terrible, and she doesn’t know when Shane will be back, and—

“You should stay,” Yuna says again, as firmly as she can. A thought occurs to her, and she tacks on, somewhat belatedly, “Unless you have your own room you should be getting back to…?”

“Right, yes, my own room,” Rozanov says, nodding. “Should probably go back before nurse hunts me down. Russian nurses are very scary, you know. Lots of needles and other sharp things.” 

He smiles at them, but it’s barely a ghost of his familiar, infuriatingly cocky grin. Yuna frowns back at him because she’s pretty sure he’s lying, but she has no idea why.

“Is there someone there waiting for you?” she asks. “Your parents?” 

All traces of emotion vanish from Rozanov’s face at the question, his eyes going blank and flat like a slate being wiped clean. It’s a more familiar expression than the uncertainty he’s been wearing; a look that she's seen dozens of times on broadcasts of games and interviews and award shows. Rather than being comforting in its familiarity though, Yuna finds herself unexpectedly disconcerted by it. She’s not sure why, except… 

It was just so quick, so complete. All the anxiety, the tentative happiness, the youthfulness, disappearing in a blink. It gives it away as a mask, a performance, and that, Yuna realizes, is what makes it unsettling. 

Was it always a performance? she wonders. 

And if it was, then what else has Rozanov been hiding, every time she’s seen it before?  

“My father is very busy man,” Rozanov says. “The nurse says my friend is on her way though, so I should probably…” 

He trails off, mask slipping, anxiety bleeding back in as his eyes once again flick to the open door behind them. He doesn’t make a move to step forward though, and Yuna abruptly realizes that they are—however unintentionally—blocking his exit. 

She doesn’t move. 

“What about your mother?” Yuna presses, and whatever emotion had begun to leak back into Rozanov’s eyes once again vanishes as his gaze snaps back to her. His eyes are hard, heavy, and he doesn’t look away from Yuna even as the silence stretches well past the point of becoming uncomfortable. 

“My friend is on her way,” he eventually repeats. 

“Okay,” Yuna says, because whatever that was, she can tell that it's not something she should press on. Certainly not right now anyways. She makes a mental note to herself to look up Rozanov’s Wikipedia page later, and soldiers onwards. “Well, why don’t you wait for her here then?”

The mask fully slips at that, Rozanov’s expression turning incredulous as he stares at her in open surprise. Yuna is expecting him to keep arguing but instead he surprises her by snorting, shaking his head, a crooked grin shattering whatever remains of his impassive mask. 

“Okay, да, I will wait,” Rozanov says. “Excuse me, I will just—” he gestures towards the hallway, immediately contradicting his agreement by crossing the room, squeezing past them to get to the doorway. 

Rozanov is already at the threshold before Yuna can decide whether or not she’s willing to actually try and physically stop him, but he doesn’t go any further than the doorway. Pulling open the door, he sticks his head out into the hallway, turning his head left, then right, before he raises one hand, waving. He says something in Russian to someone she can’t see. Whoever it is replies, and Rozanov says something else before he finally turns back around, smiling when he meets their eyes. 

“They will bring us more chairs,” he says, and it’s only then that Yuna realizes that the chair Rozanov had been sleeping in is the only one in the room. 

She’s a bit embarrassed of how surprised she is at the thoughtfulness of the gesture. At this point it’s become more than obvious that she has made a lot of assumptions about Rozanov that are far more ungrounded than she ever would have guessed. Assumptions that have nothing to do with who he actually is—assumptions that she is pretty sure he wanted her and everyone else to make, sure, but assumptions nonetheless.

“You can take that one, in meantime,” he offers, looking between them as he gestures towards said chair. Yuna shakes her head in the negative. Can see David doing the same out of the corner of her eye.

For all the stress and fear and lack of sleep that both of them are still suffering from, Rozanov has certainly experienced far worse over the course of the long days that they were stranded out in the wilderness. Just the way that he’d gone pale when he’d stood made the argument on its own for him keeping the sole seat for himself. 

Besides, Yuna was in no hurry to try and explain to a bunch of angry Russian doctors exactly why they’d allowed the captain of their national hockey team to faint while alone in a hospital room with him.

Once again Rozanov surprises her by not arguing. Instead, Rozanov’s earlier amusement sparks back to life, a small smile once again breaking across his face. 

“I do not suppose arguing will get me very far,” he says, shaking his head, and even if it’s phrased like a question, it sounds more like a statement—spoken with far more certainty than Yuna thinks could possibly be warranted, especially considering he’s only just met them.

Still, he’s not wrong. He must read that on her face, because he huffs out an amused breath, not waiting for a response before he crosses the room, retaking his seat. 

There’s a pause after that, none of them seeming to know what to say next. It’s undeniably awkward, with Yuna and David just standing there, waiting, while Rozanov sits in the sole chair. Yuna can tell that Rozanov is feeling it as well, for all that he’s firmly settled into the chair, his legs sprawled out in an affectation of calm relaxation. His crossed arms give him away, the muscles of his forearms tense even as the rest of him slumps downwards, one finger tapping anxiously against the outside of his arm.

Thankfully it’s not too long before a pair of—nurses? orderlies?—come in with two more chairs, no less uncomfortable-looking than the one Rozanov is sitting on. 

Rozanov trades some rapid-fire Russian with the two hospital workers. Yuna thinks she might recognize the word for thank you somewhere in there, but that’s about all she can glean from it. Whatever was said, the end result is the two strangers leaving, departing with a polite nod and smile in Yuna and David’s direction. 

Relieved to at least be freed from the need to just awkwardly hover in the middle of the room, Yuna is quick to claim one of the chairs they’d left behind, arranged in a short row on the opposite side of the empty space from where Rozanov is sitting. David follows her, settling into the other chair, letting out a noise—one of what Shane had long-ago labelled his dad groans—as he does.

“They said they will try and get update on Shane,” Rozanov says once they’re settled, and Yuna nods stiffly in reply. She’s grateful and resentful at the same time—hates that she can’t just ask herself, is beyond relieved that Rozanov had thought to do so on their behalf. 

It also gives them nothing to do but sit here and wait. 

For a long moment, no one says anything else. Yuna’s never been great with silences, but she doesn’t feel particularly confident in her ability to strike up anything close to small talk in these circumstances. Knows that she’d already fucked up the conversation about Rozanov’s parents, even if she still didn’t understand the exact nature of her misstep. Now that they’re all sitting it feels even weirder than it had before, for none of them to be saying anything.

Yuna casts a pleading look at David, who gives her a small, fond smile in reply before turning to Rozanov.

“So, Rozanov—”

“Ilya, please,” Rozanov interrupts, and David nods.

“Ilya,” he starts again. “You’re from here, right? Moscow?” 

Roza— Ilya looks surprised, like he wouldn’t have expected them to know even that little detail about him. As if it hadn’t been mentioned dozens of times over the years, in broadcasts of his games and articles about him alike. 

“Um, yes,” he says. “I— I grew up here. Still have apartment in the city.”

“You come back here in the summer then?” David asks, and Ilya nods, slow and oddly wary, as if expecting them to somehow turn that knowledge back against him. David just nods back, steady and polite, clearly choosing to ignore how nervous Ilya looks. 

“That must be nice,” David says, and when Ilya’s brow furrows in confusion, clarifies, “to get to spend some time at home, speaking your first language, that sort of thing.”

David has clearly taken the same lesson Yuna has from their earlier exchange—he doesn’t mention seeing family. 

“Ah, yes,” Rozanov says, visibly relaxing. “Though my friend who is coming, she has moved to Boston very recently for work. So I get to see her more often now.”

“Oh!” Yuna says, surprised. “That must be nice, to have someone you know from here living in the same city as you. Is she someone you’ve known for a long time?” 

“Да,” Ilya says, relaxing further as his expression softens into a fond smile. “Sveta has been a very good friend, ever since we were both very small. I do not actually remember first time we meet, was so long ago.” Rozanov pauses, and amusement flashes across his face, leaving something almost sly behind as he meets Yuna’s eyes. “You may have heard of her father?” he says in a teasing lit. “Sergei Vertrov?” 

Yuna gapes at him. “Really?” she says. “You’re friends with Sergei Vetrov’s daughter? You know Vetrov then? Have you trained with him?” 

“Yuna,” David says, equal parts teasing and chiding. Yuna waves him off. This is the first part of this conversation that she’s felt fully equipped for—and is a far more pleasant distraction from worrying about where Shane is or why the fuck they’re doing an endoscopy than awkward questions about Rozanov’s summer plans. 

Roza— Ilya just laughs in reply anyway, shaking his head in amusement, so clearly she hasn’t offended him. If anything, she feels almost baited—like he’d somehow anticipated her reaction.

“Shane asks the exact same questions when I told him,” Ilya says when he’s done laughing, eyes bright, which almost certainly confirms her suspicions. Yuna decides to take it as a compliment, this thing her and her son share. If nothing else, it seems like Ilya is mostly teasing—friendly, rather than malicious. Even if the way he’s talking to her is still more oddly familiar than their brief conversation has earned him. 

Shane, Yuna thinks. Another point of unexpected familiarity. She hadn’t really thought about it when Rozanov had said it earlier, too focused on what he’d been telling them about where Shane was, but it snags in her brain now. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him refer to her son as anything other than Hollander. That was all press, of course, but… still. 

There’s something there, something catching, about the way his mouth finds the shape of  her son’s name. The way that he’d known exactly what sort of reaction mentioning Vetrov would get from her. The fondness accompanying the amusement on his face as he compares her reaction to Shane’s. The easy way that he talks about Shane. The revelation that he hasn’t left Shane’s side since they were rescued.

She wonders, again, what happened to them out there, but she knows this isn’t the time to ask. 

“Yuna’s pretty passionate about hockey,” David offers, equally amused. 

“Ah, so this is where Shane gets it from?” Rozanov asks.

“Ye—”

“No,” Yuna interrupts David, shooting a half-hearted glare at her husband. “David also played hockey, at McGill,” she continues, turning back to Rozanov. “They won the national championship twice while he was on the team.” 

“Sure,” David says, waving her off as if it was nothing. “But I wasn’t the Captain. And I’m not the one whose old teammates still refuse to call them by anything other than their nickname.” He gives her a significant look, and Yuna sniffs.

“Fine,” she relents with a roll of her eyes, looking back at Rozanov, “he gets it from both of us.” 

Rozanov’s eyes are bouncing back and forth between them, an almost bemused look joining the lingering amusement on his face. 

“What is old nickname?” Rozanov asks.

“Oh, we don’t need to—” Yuna starts.

“Killer,” David interrupts, gleefully talking over her.

“Killer?” Rozanov echoes with near equal glee, his wide eyes moving from David to Yuna. “And you raise son who wins Lord Talon?” He shakes his head. “Must be very disappointing.” 

Yuna bites down on her instinctive flash of protective anger at what is clearly meant as a harmless joke, swallowing down both her first and second response. 

“Well, at least Shane is winning awards,” she says instead, as mildly as she can manage. 

Rozanov’s expression flickers for a moment before amusement again reasserts itself. “Ah, but Raiders will win Cup this year,” he says, then shrugs, smug, “so…”

Yuna scoffs. “You wish,” she says, even though privately, yes, she can admit that the Raiders are looking good for the Cup this year. Better than the Metros, anyways, still struggling to build up their roster around Shane and playing with an injured goalie. 

They’ve been downplaying how bad Miitka’s injury is in the press—why, Yuna doesn’t know, when anyone with both eyes and an iota of common sense would be able to spot the way that he’s been favouring his left side. Not that Yuna has to rely only on what she can see—she’s heard more than enough from her son to know that it will probably have them out in the third round, if not the second. 

The Metros would be able to handle the Saints, would even more easily handle the Admirals, if Hunter manages to drag his team past New Jersey. But as much as it pains Yuna to admit it, she doesn’t think they can handle the Raiders. 

Not this year, when Montréal hasn’t managed to pull together a proper tandem in years. When the call-up from Laval that they’ve had in-and-out of the net for the past month looks like he’s about to shit himself every time he takes the ice. Not when his .885 Sv% is more of a credit to Montréal’s defense than his own skill.

The Raiders, on the other hand, have been burning down arenas across the US and Canada all season. They’d almost certainly get the Guardians in the first round, and Toronto loved nothing more than to squeak into a wildcard spot and then immediately shit the bed. The Metros would probably be the only team in the East that could stop them, but that was only if their goaltending was up to their usual standard. Barring a medical miracle, the Metros were just too weak in net to fend off Rozanov this year. And after that… well. 

The West is what it is. 

Of course, all of that was based on how things had been before. 

Before the crash. Before fourteen MLH players had gone missing. Before both Montréal and Boston lost their Captains to the vast, hostile expanse of the Russian wilderness. Before five days in which no one knew if any of the missing players were still alive.

Yuna runs her eyes up and down Rozanov. Aside from what Dr. Antonova had told them about Shane’s injuries, she had no idea how any of the other survivors had fared. She didn’t even know who they were, though clearly Shane was not the only hockey player to make it. She can’t see any obvious sign of injury on Rozanov at least, though his cheeks were visibly hollowed in hunger. 

She wonders, again, what exactly happened to them out there. It’s still probably not the right time to ask, but— Rozanov is here. Has been here, waiting at her son’s bedside. And apparently hasn’t had his own family come to see him—and isn’t expecting them to. Even though they’re already in the same country as Rozanov. Maybe even in the same city.

My father is very busy man, Rozanov had said. 

Christ. Yuna hadn’t met Rozanov’s parents at the draft, but she’d seen him with a man that she’d assumed was his father; shorter than Rozanov but holding himself like he was taller than he was. The straight-backed posture of someone who was used to—who expected—to be treated with deference. A man with narrow lips and cold, flat eyes, noticeable even at a distance.

She’s glad, now, that she hadn’t had the displeasure. Or maybe she isn’t—if she had, she would know who to call and yell at. 

Who the fuck didn’t come see their son in the hospital? When he’d just survived a plane crash? When he’d been missing for five days? When the SAR team kept phrasing their updates to the families in excruciatingly careful language—the kind of language that was intended to avoid any false hope. The kind of language that said it without saying it—they’re probably all dead.

Sure, she’d always thought of Rozanov as older than Shane, even though intellectually she knew he wasn’t. His attitude, the tabloid headlines, the way he acted in interviews… all of it combining to make him seem older than he actually was. Colder and harder. 

And that might have been wrong, and unfair of her, but they were also assumptions drawn from a distance, as the mother of his sworn rival. As a stranger, someone who didn’t know him. His parents, on the other hand… 

His parents should know better. 

His parents should look at him and see a boy, their boy. No matter how old he is now, he is still their son. One they could have so easily lost, one that needs his parents now, maybe more than he ever has before. 

That is what they should see when they look at him; not the adult man he is now, but a child. The same way that Yuna looks at Shane and still sees the lingering traces of him as a baby, as a gap-toothed five-year-old, as a far-too-serious teenager complaining about her bringing him the wrong hoodie after a game.

“How are you, Rozanov?” Yuna says, abruptly and probably rudely—only realizing after the words are out that the conversation had moved on without her. She can feel her cheeks heat but refuses to show any other sign of embarrassment even as David, who’d been in the middle of saying something about his work, turns to shoot a fondly exasperated look at her. 

Rozanov blinks at her, obviously far more thrown off by her sudden interruption than her husband. His mouth opens and closes once before he finally, tentatively speaks.

“I’m fine?” he says. “And Ilya, please.” The corner of his mouth quirks up, a barely-there sign of amusement. “If you keep calling me Rozanov, I will think we are in post-game scrum. Will start telling you about importance of getting pucks in deep and playing full sixty minutes.” 

Yuna laughs before she can stop herself. Next to her, David lets out his own quiet snort. 

Fuck, she’d always known that Roza— that Ilya was charming. She’d been, in fact, quite consistently annoyed by it. But now, rather than finding it grating, the way she always had when watching him on TV, Yuna finds that it is actually, embarrassingly, kind of working on her. 

It’s just… it’s different, in person. The way that Ilya speaks, the way that he is clearly working to put them at ease. There is still that element of put-on cockyness, sure, but it is also obvious now that Ilya is just… like this. Funny and personable, quick to throw out a joke to make everyone around him more comfortable. 

Still, she’d seen beneath the mask now. Enough, at least, to know that his reply might be just as much a smokescreen as anything else. 

“No injuries?” Yuna presses. 

Ro—Ilya, Christ, that’s going to take some getting used to—shifts in his seat, the only outward sign of discomfort at her line of questioning. Yuna doesn’t back down though. She’s seen the same sort of discomfort from Shane. The discomfort of someone who doesn’t want to seem weak. Shying away from vulnerability, no matter how important it is that they be honest. 

“No,” Ilya says when the expectant silence has dragged on long enough that it’s clear that Yuna isn’t about to back down in the face of awkwardness. “No injuries. Well. Minor bruises, small cuts.” He shrugs, small and tense. “No big deal. Not like others.” 

“Others?” Yuna says, curiosity taking over before she can think better of it. 

Ilya opens his mouth but hesitates, reconsiders. “I do not think I should say,” he finally says, speaking slowly. “Is, ah, private? Medical information, you know.” He shrugs again, even more tense. Like he’s expecting her to demand that he tell her anyway. 

“Oh, of course,” Yuna says quickly, trying to shut that down as decisively as possible. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” Ilya just shrugs again, so Yuna changes track. “You look thin though. I can’t imagine you had much to eat?”

“Ah, no, not really,” Ilya says, mouth twisting in an expression that wants to be amused but doesn’t quite manage it. “Will probably never be able to eat a pretzel again, to be honest.” 

Yuna laughs, hoping it doesn’t sound quite as forced as it feels. David lets out a soft huff of laughter, sounding far more genuine. 

“No huge loss there, at least,” he says. 

“Yes, I suppose not,” he says, smile loosening. “And a good point. Luckily, Shane appropriated all the vodka for sterilization, so could not get sick of that. Though it was all Canadian vodka anyways, pah, basically rubbing alcohol.” 

“Oh yeah,” David says, nodding and huffing out a half-laugh. “It might not be the most patriotic thing to say but… well, I always try and buy the Russian stuff, if I can.” 

“A man of taste!” Ilya says, pointing at David as he straightens in his seat, his smile now wide and genuine. “What is your favourite? There are many you can only get here.”

Yuna lets the sound of her husband and Ilya enthusiastically discussing Russian vodka fade into the background, her brain still stuck on Shane appropriated all the vodka for sterilization. The words repeat in her head over and over again, accompanied by the faint, staticy buzz of fear. She half wants to demand that Roza— that Ilya explain exactly what he meant by that, but she has a horrible feeling that she already knows. 

She was the one, after all, who had insisted that Shane take that Wilderness First Aid course in high school after he’d come back from a camping trip with David with his knee scrapped to hell and back from slipping off a boulder. 

Yuna isn’t sure if it’s better or worse that Ilya had so politely declined to tell them what injuries the other survivors had faced. The lack of knowledge both leaving her imagination the space to run wild—conjuring everything from scrapes and bruises to open fractures and disembowelment— but also sparing her the specificity of knowing exactly what Shane had needed to use his training for. 

Fuck, that had been so long ago too. Shane had been, what—fifteen? sixteen?—when he’d taken the course. If nothing else, his certification has definitely expired at this point. Not that anyone had probably been asking to look at his credentials, but still.

Yuna is signing them all up for a CPR class the second they’re back in Canada. At the very least. The Wilderness First Aid had been run out of a camp in Northern Québec, so would be a bit more difficult to arrange. Maybe Shane would want to do it in the off season?

Pulling out her phone, Yuna makes a quick note to herself to look up some options when they get home. 

Yuna is still looking at her phone—she’d gotten slightly sidetracked, her intention to just make a note turning into her looking up different levels of civilian medical certifications in Canada—when a sudden screeching noise has her jolting so hard her phone nearly tumbles right out of her hands. Raising her head, the source of the sound is easy enough to identify—Ilya is now standing, his entire body so taut with tension that she can see his hands trembling slightly, clenched into fists at his side. 

He must have stood up very abruptly, for his chair to have been dragged so harshly across the floor when he did, but though he does look visibly paler, he isn’t swaying dangerously the way he had before. Still, she isn’t sure he should be standing right now, not when he’s shaking like that. Opening her mouth, Yuna doesn’t get a single word out before she realizes exactly where Ilya’s unblinking gaze is fixed.

Next to her, David sucks in a sharp, shocked breath. 

Yuna stands, the sound her own chair makes as it is shoved backwards lost beneath the growing sound of static filling her ears. 

Indifferent to the reactions of the people ahead of it, the hospital bed entering the room continues to slowly squeak forward. The nurse pushing it doesn’t even look at them, her attention completely occupied by making sure that the bed doesn’t hit the doorframe on either side of it. The bed itself is piled high with blankets, all wrapped and tucked around the figure laying, half-reclined, in the centre of it. His normally large frame rendered small and fragile by dint of the sheer volume of fabric swaddling him, or maybe for reasons that run far deeper than a trick of perspective. 

His face is barely visible amongst the blankets, but there’s not a single part of Yuna that isn’t certain of who it is. Shane, she thinks. Feels, like the reverberating of a struck gong, the knowledge ringing through her entire body; like a tether, snapping tight. Resonating through her blood, her bones.

Shane.

Oh Shane.

Oh my baby.

Shane. 

Shane, Shane.

My baby. 

My baby.

Yuna doesn’t really make a decision to move. One second she’s standing, staring in shocked silence, and the next she’s next to the bed, hands frantically scrabbling through the blankets, desperate to find skin, to feel the evidence of the continued drumming of a heartbeat that she knows better than her own. One that started inside her, grew inside her. One that has been running around outside of her for more than twenty years. One that she misses no less now than she had the day it had first slipped away from her. 

She’s vaguely aware of words being spoken near her in a foreign language, of a different, deeper voice replying, but she can’t even begin to care about what might be being said. Not when her fingers have finally found skin, both of her hands wrapping around the arm she’s finally managed to find, gripping it tighter than she thinks she’s ever held anything before in her life. 

“Ow,” slurs a voice from the very centre of the pile of blankets, and Yuna watches her son’s eyes slowly drag open, forehead scrunched in a confused, upset frown. It’s the exact same expression he used to wear whenever he encountered a new food texture as a toddler. The same look he’d worn nearly every morning before they’d figured out they needed to cut the tags out of his shirts. The same expression she’d seen the last time she’d made him a smoothie, instantly smashing her rather hopeless prayers that he’d somehow not notice she hadn’t been able to find his usual brand of protein powder at the grocery store. 

Yuna sobs. 

“Mo-m?” Shane says, voice still slurring. One eye shut, the other squinting against the light as he tries to focus on her, with what seems to be medium success. Yuna remembers then—Ilya had told them. Shane would have been put under for the endoscopy. 

Oh he’s still so groggy, Yuna thinks, and starts to cry even harder.

“Hey bud,” David’s voice drifts to her in the gaps between her own desperate, choked breaths. Through the film of tears, she sees Shane’s head tilt in the other direction as David comes up to the other side of the bed, running a careful hand over the top of Shane’s head. Making what was already a disastrously bad case of bed-head even worse. 

“Daaaad,” Shane says, and he seems to have at least processed their presence because his lips are curling up into a goofy, easy little smile. 

She doesn’t think that she’s seen him smile like that in at least a decade. 

Yuna only realizes that she’s starting to feel a bit light-headed from how hard she’s crying when she feels a careful hand brush against her elbow. Turning her head, she finds Ilya standing beside her, his expression cautious as he looks down at her. 

“You should sit down,” he says slowly, carefully. Yuna opens her mouth but before she can start to argue, Ilya is already continuing, “if you can let go for moment, the nurse can move the bed, and you can sit next to him, да? Just for a moment.”

For a second Yuna just stares at him, then she turns and sees that—okay, yes, the nurse is still standing at the head of the bed. Her expression is clear of any signs of impatience—or anything else, really—but Yuna still feels a wave of embarrassment rush through her. This poor woman probably has so much to do, and here Yuna is— 

“Right,” Yuna chokes out, voice clogged with tears. She clears her throat. “Right,” she says again, more clearly. It’s maybe the hardest thing she’s ever done, but she lets go of Shane’s arm, steps back from the bed. She takes advantage of her hands being temporarily freed, wiping at her face with her sleeves, clearing away enough tears to make the world at least slightly less blurry. Sees David doing the same across from her.

The bed squeaks as it again begins to move forward. Part of Yuna feels like she should be offering to help, but she doesn’t. She just stands, and watches as the nurse pushes the bed the rest of the way into the room. Waits as she spins it around and backs it into the waiting space left between their scattered chairs. Continues to wait, impatience steadily growing, as the nurse checks the placement of the IV in Shane’s left hand, straightens the cannula draped over his ears, fishes leads out from under the pile of blankets, plugging them into the monitor.

Distantly, Yuna registers that Ilya still has his hand cupped around her elbow. Not a grip, not really. Just a gentle pressure, and the promise that she won’t be allowed to hit the ground if her legs give out beneath her. She doesn’t think they will, but it's a sweet gesture. 

Yuna would smile her thanks at Ilya, but she’s pretty sure that she’ll just start crying again if she tries to do anything with her face right now. 

The second the nurse has cleared Shane’s bedside—the reattached monitors pinging out their steady, reassuring, mechanical heartbeat—Yuna is moving forward. She loses track of Ilya for a moment in her rush to get her hands back on her son—to feel his real, living heartbeat beneath her fingers again. This time she manages to find Shane’s hand, wrapping her own fingers around his and trying her best not to squeeze quite so tightly this time. It must work—all she gets in reply this time is a small, sleepy smile. 

Yuna only has a handful of seconds to stare at her beautiful, precious son’s wan and pale face before she is reminded of Ilya’s presence. The reminder is silent, and delivered without Ilya even stepping into her line of sight—the edge of a chair seat pointedly nudges against the back of her knees. Yuna learns then that she was right—her involuntary smile in response is accompanied by a choked sob. 

She sits down.

“Долго ему еще отходить?”

It takes longer than it should for Yuna to realize Ilya isn’t speaking to her. It’s instinct, an unthinking flow of logical thought: he’d pushed a chair under her, he must be speaking to her, she looks up at him. It takes a few more seconds for her to realize that his words are unintelligible not because of how hard it is to hear anything over her own laboured breathing, but because he’s not speaking English. 

It’s helped along, at least, by the fact that he isn’t looking at her. Arms crossed, face once again that blank mask, he’s looking at the nurse instead. 

“Вот-вот должен прийти в себя,” the nurse says with a glance at Shane. “Он очнулся почти час назад, реакция пока еще немного заторможенная, но скоро все будет в норме.” 

“Час? А какого хрена его там целый час держали?” Ilya replies, brow furrowing. 

The nurse matches his expression, frown for frown. “Уважаемый, не беспокойтесь. Пациент все это время был под наблюдением,” she says. “Чтоб анестезиолог мог исключить нежелательные реакции на седацию."

“Понял, извиняюсь,” Ilya says, uncrossing his arms to run a hand through his hair. “А что—”

The incomprehensible conversation has at least provided enough of a distraction that Yuna has mostly stopped crying. It's enough that her voice only shakes slightly when she finally runs out of patience, wiping the fresh tears from her face in a pantomime of composure as she cuts Ilya off mid-sentence.

“Sorry, what’s she saying?” 

The nurse and Ilya both turn their heads towards her, and Ilya’s mask slips again. Guilt, this time. For forgetting that they wouldn’t understand them? For something else? For hiding something from them, maybe? Something about Shane? About—

“She is saying that Shane won’t be all…” Ilya trails off, waving a vague hand towards the totality of Shane—attempting to encompass, Yuna assumes, his general state of sleepy confusion. 

Yuna glances back at Shane and sees that David has claimed Ilya’s old chair, pulled up close to the edge of the bed as he murmurs soft reassurances at Shane. Yuna isn’t sure Shane is entirely following David’s words but he does look like he’s doing his best—his eyes fixed on David’s face as he listens to his father speak. 

“—for much longer,” Ilya finishes. “He was in, ah, recovery? For a while already. So they could make sure he was waking up okay.” 

“And he did?” Yuna asks, too worn down to even try to hide the anxiety that punctuates her words. “He woke up okay?” 

“Yes,” Ilya reassures with a firm nod. 

The way that he almost seems to be willing Yuna to believe him, to trust him, is a reassurance of its own. The desperation of the boy who cried wolf, pleading to be believed with the wolves at the door, does, after all, have a very different texture than the desperation of a liar. 

“Okay,” Yuna says, glancing from Ilya to the nurse and back. “Does she know what the results are? Of the endoscopy?” 

“Endoscopy,” Ilya repeats in a whisper, as if trying to commit the word to memory before he turns to the nurse, switching to Russian as he repeats, Yuna assumes, her question. 

The nurse looks between Ilya and Yuna, hesitating.

“Это родители,” Ilya adds, and whatever he said seems to overcome whatever hesitation the nurse had had. She relaxes, releasing a tension that Yuna hadn’t been able to spot until it was gone. 

“У меня такой информации нет,” the nurse says, “но скоро подойдет доктор, и с ней все обсудите.” She pauses, again looking between Yuna and Ilya, and then at David and Shane. Her eyes land back on Ilya as she continues, “Может вам переводчика позвать?”

“Не надо, я останусь,” Ilya says quickly. Just as quickly a flicker of regret flashes across his face, buried nearly as soon as it had appeared. He doesn’t say anything else though, and either the nurse didn’t see it or she doesn’t care—she nods, her own expression unchanged. 

“Ну, где кнопка вызова вы знаете, если вдруг понадобится моя помощь - не стесняйтесь нажать,” she says, shooting a polite, distantly professional smile at Yuna before she heads back towards the door, shutting it behind her as she goes. 

Yuna turns back to Ilya the second she’s gone, but she doesn’t have to ask. 

“She didn’t have the results,” Ilya says, dropping into David’s abandoned chair next to her. “But the doctor will be by soon.” 

Ilya isn’t looking at her as he speaks, his eyes fixed somewhere over her shoulder—on Shane. It’s the same place that every cell in her body is screaming for her to look, even with the reassuring warmth of Shane’s hand in hers, but she keeps her eyes on Ilya for a moment longer. Just long enough to see the way his eyes go dark and unreadable, the way his hands flex and release on his thighs, as if aching to reach out, before he crosses his arms again instead, leaning back in his seat. 

Yuna catalogues it all—the tension in his shoulders, the set of his jaw, the thrumming energy resting just below the surface—and files it away for later.

Turning away from Ilya, Yuna scootches her chair closer to the bed, crowding in near enough to rest her arm on the mattress as she takes in the miraculous sight of her son. Like Ilya, Shane’s face is visibly thinner, the exhausted circles under his eyes bruise-dark. Made worse, maybe, by the contrast with the bright white of the sheets surrounding him. His lips are chapped and cracked and his freckles have darkened from the sun, made worse by the obvious parlor underlying his normally warm skintone. 

But he’s smiling, even if it is small and directionless. His eyes are still bright and alive, even if they’re less focused than Yuna is used to. His head is still tilted towards David as he listens to him, even if his slightly distant expression is only reinforcing Yuna’s earlier assumption that he’s not entirely tracking what David is saying. 

Shane is alive.

Her son is alive.

Yuna frees one of her hands to wipe roughly at the fresh wave of tears running down her cheeks. She’s so sick and tired of crying, of the headache it gives her. Tired of being scared, so afraid that she can’t think. Tired of this country. Tired of this hospital even, despite only having arrived here less than a handful of hours earlier. 

She wants to go home. She never wants to set foot on a plane again. She wants to lock Shane in his childhood bedroom and never let him back out. She never wants him to do anything that could even vaguely be considered dangerous ever, ever again. 

None of that is particularly realistic, she knows, and certainly none of it is happening right now, so instead Yuna keeps her eyes on Shane and tries to convince her fear to dissipate, to be washed away by the steady rise and fall of his chest. The reassuring, unwavering beat of his heart measured out in green lines on the monitor above his head. The vague hum of agreement that he’s occasionally letting out in lieu of a reply to David. All these signs—so small, so easily taken for granted—that her son is alive. That he’s here. That he’s safe. 

For now, it’s enough.

For now, it’s all that really matters. 

The doctor—a new one, not Dr. Antonova—comes by not long after. Shane has fallen into a restless, shallow doze, sleeping off the last of the anesthesia, so they all stand as the door shuts behind the doctor. He follows them as they all move to the far side of the room, attempting to avoid disturbing Shane’s clearly much-needed rest. 

Ilya introduces them, or at least Yuna assumes he does—she hears their names, anyway, and the doctor—Dr. Mikhailov—gives them a warm smile afterwards. He has kind, dark eyes, magnified behind thick, round glasses, and hair that has gone mostly grey. He doesn’t speak a word of English.

“Молодой человек, вы для нас переведете?” Dr. Mikhailov says, voice pitching upwards in a question as he turns to Ilya. 

“Постараюсь,” Ilya replies, sounding uncertain.

Dr. Mikhailov hums, turning back to Yuna and David. “Значит так, Шейну провели эндоскопию, и она, собственно, подтвердила то, что мы и так предполагали, а именно множественные язвы в желудке,” he says. He meets both their eyes in turn as he speaks, the steady weight of the eye-contact reassuring, despite their inability to understand what he’s saying.

Ilya watches Dr. Mikhailov as he speaks but turns to Yuna and David before translating: “They did an endoscopy,” he says, the new word enunciated with a slow, careful precision. “It confirmed that—”

“Sorry,” Yuna interrupts, looking between Ilya and Dr. Mikhailov. “I don’t know— I’m not trying to be rude or anything Ilya, but I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you being told Shane’s private medical information.” She pauses, before reluctantly allowing, “At least not without him being awake to agree to it.”

Ilya looks startled—odd, considering that he was the one who refused to tell her about the other survivor’s injuries in the name of privacy earlier. The surprise doesn’t last long though, disappearing, a slow flush rising to his cheeks to replace it. “Ah, yes,” Ilya says, rubbing the back of his neck. “He, uh, he did. Agree to it. Before.”

“What?” Yuna asks, too surprised to modulate her tone—to try and hide her shock. 

Ilya shuffles in place, blush deepening. “We got here,” he says, avoiding eye contact, “and, well. We did not know— and I could understand what the doctors were saying, so he— so Shane said it was okay. If they told me y’know—” he makes a vague gesture with one hand, “—stuff about him.”  He finally looks at Yuna and David as he finishes, a quick flick of eye contact—gauging their reaction to this revelation. 

“Oh, um, yes, of course. That makes sense,” David says, recovering from his surprise faster than her. “And… and of course, if Shane said it’s okay, then we don’t have a problem with it.” 

Yuna shoots her husband an incredulous look because really? Don’t they? But he just shakes his head at her, a minute assurance, and Yuna sighs. Turning back to Ilya she waves her hand—go on.

Ilya still looks slightly uncertain, eyes flicking between her and David, but he clears his throat, continues, “Yes, okay. So, they performed endoscopy—” still spoken slowly, carefully, as if it is critical for him to get it right, “—and confirmed that he has stomach…” 

Trailing off, Ilya frowns into space for a long moment, clearly frustrated. 

“Бля,” Ilya mutters—a word that, Yuna assumes from tone alone, must be a swear. Ilya looks at Dr. Mikhailov. “Простите,” he continues at a normal volume, “Не думаю, что смогу это все правильно перевести.” 

Ilya’s mouth twists as he looks back at Yuna and David. “I do not know medical words so well,” he says, voice heavy with what almost sounds like shame. “Sorry. We will need to get translator, I think.”

“Oh,” Yuna says. “Oh. Well, that’s not a problem. Ours is somewhere just down the hall—Valentina Nikitichna.”

Ilya looks surprised again, like he wants to ask them for more information, but he doesn’t, turning back to Dr. Mikhailov instead. “У них есть свой переводчик,” he says. “Она где-то в коридоре ждет, как я понял? Зовут Валентина.”

Dr. Mikhailov nods. “Наверное в комнате ожидания,” he says. Секундчоку, я ее приглашу.” Shooting another warm smile at her and David, Dr. Mikhailov holds up a finger, the gesture understandable even if the exchange preceding it hadn’t been—be right back. He heads back out the door a moment later, leaving them alone with Ilya. 

Yuna glances back towards the bed, confirming that Shane is still asleep. There’s a tug, nearly irresistible, to return to his side now that the doctor has left, but she resists it, knowing that she’ll only risk waking him up, that she’d have to return to their small, standing cluster soon enough.

“Sorry,” Ilya apologizes once they’re alone, pulling Yuna’s attention away from her son. “I should have— the nurse offered to bring a translator. I should have said yes. The medical words… I should have known I would not be able to do it.” 

“Oh, there’s no need to apologize,” Yuna says without thinking, an instinctive politeness. 

Yuna’s surprised to realize, after the words are already out, that she means it too. Part of her is frustrated, admittedly, at the additional delay in learning what’s going on with Shane, but her slight annoyance is thoroughly eclipsed by the sincerity of Ilya’s apology, the obvious guilt that shadows his eyes. Besides, while Ilya maybe should have known, he’s also exhausted and starved. Has just survived something deeply traumatic. 

It doesn’t seem fair, under these circumstances, to hold him to account for lacking that kind of foresight. 

Ilya doesn’t look like he’s convinced—or at least, isn’t so convinced that it erases the guilt still marring his features—but he just nods. 

“Your translator though, she is good?” Ilya asks after a moment. “How did you find her?”

“Oh, we didn’t,” David says. Ilya frowns, confused by David’s, admittedly, uninformative response, so Yuna tacks on:

“One of the Ministers reached out, offered to provide a translator for the duration of our stay.”

Ilya’s frown only deepens at Yuna’s addition though. “One of the Ministers?” he asks. “Do you remember which one?” 

“Ah, I believe his name was… Puchkov?” David says, glancing at Yuna, who nods in confirmation.

“Yes,” she says, “it was, ah, Vladimir Puchkov.”

The confusion disappears from Ilya’s face then, along with his frown, but Yuna doesn’t think that it’s because their answers have cleared everything up for him. Or rather, that they had, but that the information that they had provided them wasn’t the reassurance that they had assumed it would be. The lack of expression that follows is too complete for that—too similar to the mask he’d been wearing earlier. A burying of emotion, rather than an abatement of it. 

It makes Yuna unspeakably nervous, given their topic of conversation, but she is also very aware of where they are. Of how much she doesn’t understand about the nuances of what is or isn’t okay to ask about. 

After all, while Yuna likes to think of herself as relatively well-informed to begin with, she also now has a much better understanding of the politics of Russia than she had had a week ago. 

It had started with the phone call she and David had had with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the middle of trying to get their emergency visas arranged, and had been followed by an online spiral. The hours that Yuna had spent researching might have been, admittedly, more of an attempt to distract herself from her fear over Shane as they’d prepared for their flight than anything else—because there was only so much research you could do while half-out of your mind with worry, much less retain—but it had been enough for her to begin to understand the full scope of the restrictions that existed in the country they were headed towards. 

And whatever hadn’t fully sunk in then had been thoroughly reinforced by the somber briefing provided by the people from the Department of Foreign Affairs who had met them at the airport. 

That briefing had hammered home the fact that they could expect to be under surveillance. Had given them the broad outline of the types of things they needed to avoid saying or doing while inside Russia’s borders. It wasn’t half as specific as it would have needed to be for them to navigate the actual politics of Russia, but as the people from the Department of Foreign Affairs had stressed, their emergency visas had been granted in a clear show of good faith and international cooperation. That no one was expecting anything of them other than to follow where they were directed, to navigate only the narrow scope of what was needed for them to find out what had happened to their son. 

As long as they didn’t do anything to rock the boat, they wouldn’t have to worry about the sharks swimming beneath the surface of this particular ocean. 

Yuna wasn’t stupid. She had understood what being offered a translator by the Russian Government had meant. She also knew that their acceptance of the offer provided its own kind of statement back to the Federation—a declaration that they had nothing to hide. That they were only here for their son. That they didn’t care about anything other than the hope that he might be found alive.

It had been the truth. 

It’s still the truth. 

Yuna doesn’t say anything else and neither does David or Ilya. 

The uneasy silence that follows at least doesn’t last long—a few minutes later the door is once again being swung open, and Dr. Mikhailov steps back into the room, followed shortly after by Valentina. Dr. Mikhailov rejoins their loose circle and Valentina stops next to him, greeting Yuna and David with a smile and a slight nod before turning to Ilya. 

“Valentina Nikitichna,” she introduces, extending her hand. 

“Ilya Rozanov,” Ilya replies, shaking her hand. It’s clear that Valentina has already recognized him, but she doesn’t seem surprised to find him here, or in any way awed by his presence. Her expression is blank enough, however, that Yuna isn’t certain if the lack of either reaction is genuine, or if she’s just as adept as Ilya at burying her actual thoughts and feelings. 

The conversation is easier, after that. There’s a few moments where the back-and-forth stumbles as Dr. Mikhailov uses a more technical term, one that Valentina does not have the English for, but she’s able to find the layman’s equivalent after a moment’s thought each time. The benefits of having a professional translator and something that makes Yuna glad that they did accept the Minister’s offer, regardless of the strings attached. 

The discussion of Shane’s diagnosis and treatment plan ends with a promise from Dr. Mikhailov to stop by in a few hours to check in on Shane again, before he excuses himself from the conversation to take a quick look at Shane before heading back to his other patients. Ilya follows him over to the bed, hovering with obvious anxiety as Dr. Mikhailov looks between Shane and the monitor. 

Yuna feels a light touch at her elbow, drawing her attention away from her son, and she turns her head, finding herself meeting Valentina’s eyes. The translator tilts her head to the side, and Yuna exchanges a glance with David before they both follow after her, walking over to the doorway. 

“Would you like me to stay?” she asks, voice low—nearly a whisper. Yuna looks at David, confirming with him, before they both turn back to her. 

“No,” David says, shaking his head. “I think we’ll be okay for now. Though if you can come back when Dr. Mikhailov returns…?” 

Valentina nods. “Of course,” she says. “I will talk to Dr. Mikhailov, and the nurses. Tell them to come grab me whenever they come by.”

“Thank you,” Yuna says, feeling a small fraction of her fear and worry leave her, relieved by the reassurance that there won’t be any more delays in them receiving updates about their son as they come. 

Valentina smiles at her. “It is what I’m here for,” she reassures, and then sobers, continuing, “I also wanted to check… you are aware that Shane has given permission for Mr. Rozanov to be informed of his condition and the details of his treatments?” 

Yuna looks at David, then back at Valentina. “Yes,” she says slowly, cautiously. “Ilya said as much. Was that not—” True, she thinks, but doesn’t say, wary of being the one to voice the suggestion of anything like that. She doesn’t actually think that Ilya had lied either, but she’s also not sure what else Valentina could be getting at.

Valentina is already shaking her head though. “No, it— Dr. Mikhailov confirmed that Shane gave his permission for that. They even brought in one of the hospital’s translators, to confirm.”

Yuna breathes out, somehow managing to feel relieved despite not really being worried in the first place. Relieved by the confirmation, perhaps, that she’d judged Ilya correctly—that she wasn’t so tired and scared that she’d lost her ability to read other people. Out of the corner of her eye she can see the same sort of relief wash through David, his shoulders dropping. 

It’s reassuring, as well, to get a translation, however delayed, of the exchange between the doctor, Ilya, and Valentina that had opened the earlier conversation—Valentina hadn’t translated it in the moment, but she must have been confirming the same thing Yuna had, the first time Dr. Mikhailov had attempted to share the results of Shane’s tests.

Valentina doesn’t look like she shares their relief though, expression still somber as she continues, “Did he tell you that Shane also gave him permission to act as his medical proxy?”

Yuna’s hand goes to David’s arm without any thought from her, steadying her as her eyes go wide and she stares at Valentina in shock. Remembering herself too late, she still does her best to recover, loosening her grip on David’s arm and forcing the shock to fade from her expression as she shakes her head in reply. 

“No,” Yuna says as evenly as she can manage, “he didn’t mention that.” 

“They didn’t know that you were in Russia,” Valentina explains, “and, well. They weren’t sure what was going on with Shane, if he might… need someone to do that, for him.” 

It would almost sound like Valentina is defending Ilya, except for the way that her eyes give her away.

Valentina looks almost as uneasy as Yuna feels.

Yuna nods her head with as much conviction as she can muster. “Of course,” she says, trying to push a certainty she does not feel into her voice and surprising herself with how evenly the words come out. “That makes sense. I know Shane is used to doing that sort of thing as a Captain—Ilya must be as well. It's natural, that he would be willing to step up like that.” 

It’s a lie—Shane most certainly has never acted as a teammate’s medical proxy. Yuna sincerely doubts that any hockey captain has ever been asked to be another player’s fucking medical proxy because of their title, but it’s all that her brain—scrambling to navigate the feeling that they are suddenly standing perilously close to the edge of a cliff, close enough that a single wrong step will send them plummeting over the rim—can come up with as an explanation. Yuna glances at her husband, catching his eye easily. Knows that he’s heard her silent plea for backup when he keeps eye contact with her.

“That was very considerate of him,” David agrees, still just looking at Yuna,  as if he’s not at all considering Valentina’s presence as he speaks. “We’ll have to find some way to thank him.” He pauses, lips quirking upwards, before adding, “Maybe we put in a good word with the PHWA, get him nominated for the Lord Talon.”

“Okay, well, I don’t know that we need to go that far,” Yuna says, her voice somehow managing to sound amused despite her feeling anything but.  

It seems to have landed—when Yuna finally looks back at her, she finds Valentina looking relieved. Or no, not relieved—settled. Like the source of her disquiet, whatever it was, set at ease by the explanation that Yuna had, quite frankly, pulled out of her ass. 

Yuna doesn’t know what, specifically, had troubled Valentina about the situation, but the same instinct that had had her rushing to construct an explanation told her that it was not the same as the source of Yuna’s own surprise. An instinct that had come with a warning—that she needed to provide an explanation. That whatever conclusions Valentina was inching towards, right or wrong, were dangerous. That her attention needed to be redirected—to be pointed towards something easy and palatable. Something that didn’t require any further thought. 

It leaves Yuna with another layer of relief: her bullshit is believable. Has been believed. 

“Okay, good,” Valentina says. “I am glad that you are not uncomfortable with it.”

David shakes his head. “We’re just glad Shane had someone watching his back when we couldn’t,” he says, pausing briefly before continuing, “though… would you mind telling Dr. Mikhailov that we’ll be acting as Shane’s medical proxies going forward, now that we’re here?” 

“Of course,” Valentina says, nodding.

“Thank you, we appreciate it,” Yuna says, and then forces out a laugh, light and airy, again surprising herself with how natural she manages to make it sound. “And I’m sure Ilya will be thankful, as well, to be relieved of the responsibility.” 

“Yes,” Valentina agrees with a smile, “I’m sure he will be.” 

Yuna smiles back at her, searching Valentina’s expression as she does, but to her relief she can find no lingering trace of Valentina’s earlier tension. 

Dr. Mikhailov chooses that moment to approach them, thankfully cutting off the need to say anything else. He confirms that Shane seems to be doing well, that his lungs sound good, and that he will likely be much more alert when he wakes up again. With a final directive to push the call button if anything changes, and another assurance that he will be back in a few hours, he departs, Valentina following him after a final reminder that they can come and get her at any time. 

Yuna doesn’t fully relax until the door shuts behind them, once again leaving them in their own private bubble. She looks at David and isn’t surprised to find him frowning at the closed door. His expression clears when he turns towards her, but still—she knows him, knows that he is just as troubled by the exchange with Valentina as she is. Knows that he can easily read the worry that she is sure is written all across her face. 

David shakes his head in reply to her unspoken question. “I don’t know,” he says. Yuna swallows against the lack of reassurance, against the feeling of being left adrift in her own uncertainty. 

Yuna chances a glance over at the bed and is unsurprised, at this point, to see that Ilya has claimed the seat nearest Shane’s head, his expression anxious as he watches their son sleep.

“I think,” Yuna says slowly, quietly, “that we need to be very careful about what we say about Ilya.” 

“Yes,” David says, just as quietly, his expression grim. “I think so too.”

Ulcers. 

That was the word that Ilya had gotten stuck on, earlier. Open sores in the lining of Shane’s stomach, filling his stomach with blood and causing the sharp points of pain that had prompted the doctors to order the endoscopy. Common and easily treatable, thankfully. 

What was far worse than the actual injury—what would haunt Yuna, long after Shane had recovered from them—was the cause. 

“They were likely caused by stress,” Valentina had translated.

By stress. Stress.

Her baby had been so stressed that his body had started eating itself. 

It is becoming near unbearable at this point, Yuna’s need to know. 

What the hell happened out there?

Yuna is already watching Shane’s face when he wakes up, and seeing his eyes blink open feels like reaching the surface of a lake after too long underwater; the desperate relief of oxygen flowing into lungs too-long deprived of it. He’s blinking slowly, like each lift of his eyelid takes conscious effort. Still, even as she shakes off the last of his sleep, it's already obvious that he’s more alert than he had been when he’d first gotten back to the room, a tension that he hadn’t been holding before drawing his shoulders tight. His eyes are sharp, focused, as he takes in his surroundings. 

It doesn’t take long for Shane’s eyes to find her, and Yuna can see him registering it fully this time: who she is, that she’s here. What it means, that she’s in the same place that he is. 

“Mom?” Shane asks, a low croak. His head turns, automatically searching for the other half of his parents. He finds David quickly—exactly where he had expected him to be. “Dad,” he says, and this time it’s not a question but an exhalation: relief shaking some of the growing tension from his shoulders, letting him sink back into his pillows.

“Oh, sweetheart, here—” Yuna starts, beginning to turn towards the rolling table and the plastic cup she’d noticed there earlier. She doesn’t even get halfway there before the cup is being pressed into her hand, and she shoots a grateful smile at Ilya. Not that he sees it—his eyes are already fixed on a point beyond her. On Shane. 

Now that Shane is awake Ilya looks, if it’s possible, even more worried.

Another thing to think about later—right now, Yuna turns her back to Ilya, standing up as she does. Leaning over the bed, she spins the straw to face Shane. He can, admittedly, probably manage holding the cup on his own, but Yuna doesn’t give him the chance, lifting the cup towards his mouth before he can gather himself up enough to protest.

“Small sips,” she says, and feels another ounce of the pressure ease off her lungs at the exasperation that she sees briefly flicker across her son’s face. 

Still, annoyed or not, Shane listens—drawing in small, careful mouthfuls of water. There’s still a few inches of water left in the cup when he leans back, and Yuna just barely manages to stop herself from urging him to finish. She forces herself to sit back down instead, though she keeps the cup in her hands, at the ready. Just in case.

Shane’s eyes move back and forth between her and David. They only land on Ilya once, pausing on the other man for a beat longer than he has on either of his parents. Something that Yuna can’t read moves across Shane’s face as he looks at Ilya, an expression that she doesn’t think she’s ever seen before. Shane’s moving on before Yuna can pick it apart though, and whatever it was has vanished by the time he meets her eyes again.

“When—” Shane cuts himself off, clearing his throat with a wince. When he continues, his voice is still hoarse, but no longer quite as gravel-rough. “When did you get here?”

“We got to the hospital a few hours ago,” David answers and Shane’s eyes drift over to him, following the sound of his voice. “But we got to Russia on the… eighth?” David glances at Yuna for confirmation, and Yuna nods. 

“The eighth,” Yuna corroborates. “Two days ago.”

“Oh,” Shane says, voice small. Then, louder, “Sorry to keep you waiting.” 

Yuna laughs, and then sobs, a fresh wave of tears overtaking her so suddenly she doesn’t have time to brace against it, much less try and suppress it. 

Shane makes a wordless, panicked noise, and Yuna does her best to wave him off with one hand, wiping at her face with the other. 

“Sorry, sorry,” she says, trying to force her voice steady. “Ignore me. I’m just— I’m so glad you’re okay, Shane.” 

“Yeah,” Shane says, “me too.” He sounds almost shocked, like he still isn’t convinced that he is. Like he was so certain that he wouldn’t be okay that his brain is still trying to catch up with this new reality where he is okay. His eyes land back on Ilya again. “I think… they were still picking people up?” Shane says, and Yuna can tell he’s speaking to them, even though his eyes haven’t left Ilya. “Did they…?” 

“They’re done,” Ilya says, leaning forward, hand stretching out like he can’t help it. It lands on a stretch of empty mattress, his fingers flexing once before going lax. “Yakov came by. Everyone got out.” 

“Thank fuck,” Shane says, sinking further into his pillows. 

Who the fuck is Yakov? Yuna thinks, but bites her tongue. Reminding herself, again, that there’ll be plenty of time for questions later. 

She can keep them until then, no matter how deeply they pile up in the meantime; clogging up the space behind her teeth, filling her throat. 

“And the endoscopy?” Shane continues, and Yuna glances at David before looking back down at their son. 

“They found a couple of ulcers in your stomach,” Yuna says. 

“You’ll be totally fine though bud,” David jumps in. “Don’t worry about it.” 

Behind her, Ilya snorts, and Yuna’s head whips around, outrage on the tip of her tongue. Ilya doesn’t seem to notice her looking at him though, or is just ignoring her glare. Once again, he’s looking past her, amusement dancing in his eyes as he looks at Shane.

“Yes Shane, do not worry,” he says, voice teasing. 

“Oh fuck off,” Shane says, but there’s no bite to it, and when Yuna chances a look back at him, she finds her son’s face bright with an answering amusement. 

“What?” Ilya continues, face scrunched in false confusion. “Is bit like telling you not to care about hockey, нет? Is just not possible, I think.”

“Fuck off,” Shane repeats, tone clearly trying for—and failing to achieve—annoyance.

From across the bed David catches her eye, one eyebrow going up in the barest hint of a question. Yuna gives an equally small gesture in return—a shrug, because she has no fucking idea either. Surviving a plane crash together was one thing. This—this familiarity was something else altogether.

Was it even possible, to put aside years of bitter rivalry just like that? Like it was nothing? Was five days really long enough, to get to know someone so well? 

Though Yuna supposes it is far from the first time that they’ve interacted off the ice—from the CCM shoot the summer before their rookie year to All-Stars to the annual awards show. Not to mention the number of times that Yuna has caught Shane obsessively watching and rewatching Roz— Ilya’s interviews. Something that perhaps was a habit shared by Ilya in return. 

Yuna had never asked Shane about it—he’d gone bright red, every time she’d caught him at it, and had seemed so embarrassed that she’d never been able to bring herself to push. 

She now, somewhat, regrets her past restraint. Maybe if she’d pushed then, she’d have a better idea of what the fuck was going on now.

“So, ulcers?” Shane asks, his tone turning serious, though there’s still some lingering amusement in his expression, even after he refocuses on Yuna and David.

“Yes,” Yuna says, all other thoughts falling away as she looks down at her son. She reaches out, brushes his hair away from his forehead. The movement stutters slightly at the sight of a fading bruise hidden beneath the dark strands. It’s clearly several days old; a mottled yellow that probably wouldn’t even be visible anymore if it wasn’t for the stark white light cast down by the faintly buzzing fluorescents hanging above them. 

Clearing her throat, Yuna forces herself to continue, “They’ll heal on their own, but they’re prescribing you a couple of medications to help it along—to reduce the stomach acid and protect your stomach lining while it heals. And you’re already on antibiotics.” 

That, at least, hadn’t been a surprise—most likely all of the survivors were being given them. Yuna has been trying to leverage her knowledge of that fact to beat back the worry about them being prescribed to Shane specifically. So far to only medium success. 

Shane frowns back at her. “Why… ulcers? But I didn’t… I wasn’t taking ibuprofen or anything like that, so why…?” 

Behind her, Ilya makes a small, uninterpretable noise.

“No…” Yuna says slowly, reluctant to voice the thing that is still making her feel like her stomach is the one eating itself.

“It was the stress, buddy,” David thankfully jumps in, voice low, soothing, reaching out to give Shane’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

“Oh,” Shane says quietly, blinking as he processes that. It only takes a second and then his eyes widen, jumping to some point behind Yuna—to Ilya, again. 

Whatever he sees there has him wincing, a flinch so slight that Yuna would have probably missed it if she wasn’t still so desperately fixated on watching her son for any hint of something else going wrong. If the illogical, adrenaline-fuelled part of her brain wasn’t still whispering that Shane might disappear if she stops looking at him for longer than the time it takes to blink. 

There’s no mistaking the look on Shane’s face as he looks at Ilya this time. One that leaves Yuna with yet another thought that she can’t voice, another question to clog the dam filling her throat: 

Why are you apologizing to him?

Neither Shane nor Ilya say anything out loud though, and eventually Shane turns back to his parents. Looking between them he clears his throat, which just leads to another wince—one that has Yuna raising the cup back up. Shane catches the movement before she can stand though, quickly shaking his head, warding off the unspoken threat.

“I’m fine,” he says aloud, reinforcing the gesture, and ignores the doubting look that Yuna and David—and maybe Ilya too, who knows—level at him. “Just… a little sore.” 

“Dr. Mikhailov mentioned that you might feel a bit sore from the tube,” David says, voice heavy with sympathy. “It shouldn’t last long though.” 

“Okay,” Shane says, “and what about— did they say anything about— about my lungs?”

“Wow, Hollander,” Ilya cuts in before Yuna or David have the chance to reply, “did the drugs give you amnesia?” 

Yuna turns to again look at Ilya, and finds him looking at Shane with an expression that is all fond amusement. Ilya leans back in his chair, crossing his arms as he continues: 

“Your lungs are fine. You, ah, bruised them? When plane was crashing. Held your breath.” Ilya pauses to shake his head in mock disappointment. “Very embarrassing, but will be fine. Doctors say you are just as good at healing as you are at hockey. Will be healthy again in no time.”

Which is… not how Yuna would have phrased any of that, but technically isn’t incorrect, so she doesn’t say anything. Looks to Shane for his reaction instead, and is surprised to find him actively fighting off a smile.

“Okay, first of all, that wasn’t even what I was asking,” Shane says, once he’s managed to wrangle his expression into… well, Yuna thinks it’s meant to be exasperation, but is being actively undermined by the fact that Shane is still barely managing to hold off a smile. “I meant did they find anything new in my lungs?”

A pause, long enough for Yuna to glance back at Ilya, finding him looking at Shane with a far more convincing mimicry of exasperation than Shane managed. 

“They looked at stomach, Hollander,” Ilya says. “What, you do not know the difference between stomach and lungs?”

Yuna attempts to catch David’s eye, but he misses it—too busy looking between Ilya and Shane like he’s a spectator at a tennis match.

“Oh my god,” Shane says, “obviously I know the fucking difference between my stomach and my lungs, Ilya, I just meant—”

“No, honey,” Yuna interrupts, giving up on getting any help from the other side of the bed. “They didn’t find anything new about your lungs.” 

Shane looks thrown by her interjection, blinking at her before finally offering her a small smile, easing down from the half-upright position he’d risen into without her noticing. 

“Okay,” he says. “That’s good.” 

There’s a moment of silence, and Yuna assumes that Shane is trying to figure out if he has any other questions. It’s a surprise, then, when his eyes slide back over to Ilya.

“So… you admit that I’m good at hockey?” Shane asks, almost slyly. 

“What?” Ilya says, startled. Caught out. “No, I did not say this. You must have misheard, Hollander.”

“No, you definitely did,” Shane insists, voice turning smug. “You said that I’m just as good at hockey as I am at healing.” It’s a tone that Yuna doesn’t think she’s ever heard him use—if only because she almost certainly would have told him off for unsportsmanlike behaviour, if she had. 

“I do not remember saying this,” Ilya says. It’s obvious that he knows he’s lying, though his face gives little away.

“You heard him right, Mom?” Shane says, looking at Yuna, then David. “Dad? You heard him say that I’m good at hockey?” 

Yuna opens her mouth, ready to defend her son, but—

“Okay, okay, fine,” Ilya cuts in before she can manage to get so much as a word out. “You are… okay at hockey.” 

Yuna begins to frown—an instinctive response to the insult—but she’s still looking at Shane and sees the way that his expression only grows more triumphant at Roza— at Ilya’s reply.

“Okay enough to win Rookie of the Year,” Shane counters. 

Ilya blows a raspberry at him, which is immature enough to draw Yuna’s attention back to him. 

“Oh wow, big deal. So you win one award, years ago,” Ilya says, rolling his eyes in a way that does nothing to disguise the obvious warmth shining out of them as he looks at her son. “Who even cares about that anymore? Besides, who was first draft pick again?”

“And I’m the one who’s fixated on things that happened years ago?” Shane volleys back. “Right, okay, remind me who won the scoring race last year then?” 

“Statistical outlier,” Ilya says. “Should not count—”

“Stati—”

“—was just luck—”

“—I’ll show you luck—”

“—how? You are sad little invalid, lying in hospital bed—”

“—sad little invalid who’s five goals ahe—”

“—on two more games—”

“—oh so you’re gonna get two hat tricks then?”

“—yes? Is easy. Not that you would know—”

“—gotten more Gordie Howe hat tricks than real ones—”

“—okay, Mister Lord Talon over here—”

A knock abruptly cuts off the dizzying back and forth, both Ilya and Shane falling silent as they look towards the closed door. 

Yuna does the same, more than happy to put off unpacking what the fuck that had been for later, but before any of them can make any move to get up and open the door it’s being pushed open. Only a few inches at first, slow and tentative, and then faster, like whoever is behind it has been reassured by the lack of protest. 

It’s too late by the time that it occurs to Yuna that she maybe should have been protesting—the woman is already stepping into Shane’s room, letting the door swing shut behind her—because she isn’t anyone Yuna has ever seen before, and clearly isn’t a doctor or a nurse. 

Yuna doesn’t think the woman is any sort of employee of the hospital in fact, judging by the fact that she’s wearing sweatpants and an oversized Raiders hoodie. A bulging tote bag is dragging down one of her shoulders, and her dark curly hair is piled atop her head in a messy bun. Her face has an unmistakable pallour to it, wan and drawn. Dark circles under her eyes speak to a level of exhaustion similar to the one that Yuna has been seeing reflected back at her by the bathroom mirror in their hotel room. 

The tightness around the woman’s eyes doesn’t fade as she scans across the small group gathered around Shane’s bed. That changes when they finally land on Ilya, tightness vanishing as her whole body slumps in relief. The heavy tote bag she was carrying thudding to the floor provides the most obvious evidence; slipping from her shoulder as the tension leaves her all at once.

“Илюша,” the woman breathes, and begins to move.

Ilya barely has enough time to stand before the woman is crashing into him, her arms flying up to wrap around his shoulders. Her grip is tight enough that her knuckles go pale as she drags Ilya down towards her. Ilya holds her back just as tightly, his arms wrapping around her as he follows her downwards pull, tilting his head to accommodate her as she buries her head in the crook of his neck. 

“Гаденыш, блять, мелкий,” she says, muffled, “Я же почти поверила, что ты там сдох. Я думала ты—” 

The woman doesn’t get anything else out, her words cutting off as she begins to cry. Ilya’s scrubs do little to muffle her choked sobs, and the sound of them has Yuna quickly turning away from the pair. 

The way that the woman is crying is far too similar to the way that Yuna had cried when she’d first seen Shane—wrought from the kind of desperate, brutal relief that hurts to feel. That hurts almost as much to witness. That deserves whatever privacy it can get.

It’s as she’s turning away that Yuna sees it, and remembers. 

My friend is on her way, Ilya had said, and splayed across the back of the large hoodie the woman is wearing—large enough that it might have originally belonged to a 6-foot-something hockey player—are two numbers. Still legible, despite the way that the fabric has twisted and warped under Ilya’s grip. 

81.

Sergei Vertrov’s daughter then. Yuna wishes she could remember what Ilya had said her name was and not just her father’s name. It’s a relief, at least—Ilya’s reaction had already mostly confirmed that the woman isn’t just some random Raiders fan who’d somehow snuck into the hospital to track him down. Still, it’s comforting to know who she is beyond that, given that they’re all still in Shane’s hospital room. 

Yuna’s eyes slide past her husband, unsurprised to see that he hasn’t felt the same urge to look away as she has. David, because he is a huge sap—and also maybe, just a little bit, better at dealing with emotions than Yuna—is instead smiling as he watches the two friends reunite, his eyes warm and shining brightly. Yuna tucks her own smile at her husband’s response away, moving on to her son, and this time she is surprised.

He also hasn’t looked away. 

Shane has always been far more similar to Yuna than David in the way that he tends to shy away from strong emotions. Ever since he was a kid, Yuna has watched Shane struggle to express his own feelings, and struggle even more to see and understand those of others. He can be equally hard to interpret in return, even for Yuna and David, though Yuna likes to think that they’re at least better at reading their son’s expressions than anyone else. 

His expression now, as he watches the reunion unfolding near the foot of his bed, is impossible to parse, but even so—there’s no missing the way that his eyes are shining. Bright with a wetness that isn’t quite enough to tip into actual tears, but is far closer than he usually gets. Leaving Yuna, once again, with the feeling that there’s something that she’s missing.

Ilya’s voice provides a welcome distraction, coming low and rough from just behind Yuna’s shoulder.

“Света, Светик-семицветик,” he murmurs, and—

Right.

Sveta. Her name’s Sveta. 

“Все же хорошо,” Ilya continues. “Я тебе клянусь. Ну чего ты? Смотри, жив-здоров. Ну прости меня.”  

If he’s trying to calm her down, it’s not working—whatever Ilya says just makes Sveta cry harder.

“Убить тебя, долбоеба, мало,” she forces out between gasping breaths.

Ilya laughs, the sound choked, like he’s fighting not to let it turn into tears of his own. “Повезло, что в мы больничке, очень удобно, реанимация под боком,” he says, and Sveta’s answering laughter breaks across another sob. 

Shane’s expression is still unreadable. 

Yuna chances a glance back, just in time to watch Sveta pull back out of Ilya’s arms, just far enough that when she punches Ilya in the shoulder it has enough power behind it to make him sway back from the blow. The look on Ilya’s face is so comically, exaggeratedly offended that Yuna has to actually work to smother the laughter that wants to force its way out of her throat. 

Risking a look at David, Yuna finds her husband already looking back at her, his eyes bright with matching amusement. 

Yuna and David, like Shane, were only children, but she’s seen enough of other people interacting with their siblings that even if Ilya hadn’t told them that he and Sveta grew up together, Yuna thinks she might have guessed as much from that punch alone. It is, after all, a very specific kind of violence that is born of growing up together—a violence that isn’t actually meant to hurt. A violence wrapped in and delivered with the kind of love that struggles to be captured by clumsy words; perpetually insufficient. 

“Я там, значит, почти сдох, и вот такое ко мне отношение?” Ilya says, voice heavy with the same offense he’s still wearing on his face. Yuna looks back at them just in time to see Sveta roll her eyes even as she uses one of the sleeves of her—possibly stolen—hoodie to wipe the tears off her face.

“Заслужил,” she says, “поговори мне еще тут, говнюк.” The last word comes out choked, strangled, but Sveta powers through it, wiping her sleeve more firmly across her eyes. It doesn’t help much, not when her eyes almost immediately well back up as she looks up at Ilya, but Sveta seems determined to ignore that as she adds, “Я пиздец как рада, что ты живой.”

Ilya makes an almost wounded noise, moving as if to hug her again, but she holds out an arm to ward him off, looking over at the other three residents of the room for the first time instead. Her eyes widen when she reaches the bed. 

She must have been too distracted to recognize Shane when she’d glanced across them before—too focused on looking for Ilya—but the way that her head immediately whips back around to look at Ilya says that she knows, now, exactly whose hospital room she’s in. Ilya’s face pulls into what is almost a grimace before he shrugs. Sveta gives him what seems to be a significant look in return, though Yuna doesn’t have a hope of guessing at what it means. 

A whole conversation, held in silence. Inscrutable to everyone else around them.

“I’m so sorry,” Sveta says, turning back to the rest of them, and Yuna should have known better—Ilya had told them that she lives in Boston now—but somehow she’s still startled by Sveta speaking English. Her accent is lighter than Ilya’s too, though still unmistakably present. “That was terribly rude of me—it’s nice to meet you. I’m Svetlana, I’m an old friend of Илюшка.” 

Sveta—Svetlana?—steps away from Ilya, offering her hand towards Yuna. Yuna shakes it on reflex, her mouth shaping her own name with equally little conscious prompting. She’s left feeling slightly bemused as she watches Svetlana round the end of the bed. David, given a measure of forewarning that Yuna was not, manages to stand before she reaches him, stepping away from the bed to repeat the same exchange of handshakes and names. 

“Shane Hollander,” Svetlana says after she’s released David’s hand, her eyes sharp as she turns to Shane. Shane blinks back at her, clearly thrown—whether by the use of his full name or the sharpness of her gaze or the firmness of her tone. Maybe all three. Yuna trades a look with David, not sure if they should intervene. 

Svetlana continues before they can make a decision either way. “I am a very big fan of yours,” she says, still with that sharp firmness. Shane blinks again, nonplussed, but is quickly distracted by the exaggeratedly pained groan Ilya lets out, drawing all eyes back to him.

“Светик, умоляю, я чуть не помер, ну давай не будем меня позорить,” Ilya says, looking up at the ceiling with his arms crossed defensively across his chest.

Svetlana—the only one of them who hadn’t turned to look at Ilya—rolls her eyes. “Ignore him,” she says to Shane, who’s now looking between her and Ilya, wide-eyed. “He’s just shy—he’s also a very big fan.”

Ilya mutters something—a swear or insult, if Yuna had to guess, going off his tone—and Svetlana flashes a pointed smile at him, equally mean and fond, before she turns back to Shane. 

“The nurses, when they told me where to go, they said that Ilya had declined his own room—” 

It’s Yuna’s turn to shoot a sharp look towards Ilya, who doesn’t even bother to try and hide the fact that he’s purposefully avoiding catching her eye.

“—and has been here the whole time instead,” Svetlana continues. “I hope he has not been too annoying.” 

“Annoying—” Ilya starts, back to his earlier exaggerated offense.

“Only a lot,” Shane interrupts, looking like he’s finally regained his footing, smiling up at Svetlana. She laughs in response, almost loud enough to fully cover up the disgruntled noise Ilya makes.

“Oh, I like you,” Svetlana says, and then steps up to the edge of the bed, bending over and kissing Shane’s cheek before anyone has the chance to react. Shane’s cheeks are pink when she leans back, and Yuna has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling and further embarrassing Shane. “I am going to steal dear Илюшка for a little bit but I promise to bring him back fed and showered and much more pleasant to be around, okay?”

“Um. Sure?” Shane says with an uncertain glance at Ilya. Whatever he finds there seems to give him some sort of reassurance because he looks far more confident when he turns back to Svetlana. “Yeah, no, for sure. That sounds good,” he says, and then, surety stumbling slightly, “I’ll, uh. I’ll see you later, then.” 

“Yes,” Svetlana says firmly, “you will.” She pauses, smiling as she adds, “I think we are going to be very good friends, Shane Hollander.” 

Svetlana doesn’t wait for Shane to reply—for the best, probably, since Shane’s face says he’s once again fully lost his edge in this conversation—turning and heading back to Ilya instead. She grabs his arm as soon as he’s within reach, once again reminding Yuna of her own reaction to being reunited with Shane.

“Yuna, David,” she says, nodding to them both in turn. “It was very nice to meet you both.”

“You as well,” David says, easy and affable, thank God. Yuna takes the out offered by her husband’s quickly reply, smiling and nodding her agreement. 

Svetlana gathers up Ilya and her abandoned tote and then they’re gone, leaving just as abruptly as she’d arrived.

“Well,” David says into the silence left behind by the door shutting behind them, “she certainly seems like a force to be reckoned with.” 

Yuna laughs, relieved that it comes out only a little bit forced. “Yes, I’d say so,” she says, shaking off the last of the disorienting whirlwind of the last few minutes and turning back to Shane. He’s still looking at the closed door, a slight frown creasing his forehead. 

“Shane?” Yuna prompts when the silence drags on a bit too long, slightly concerned. 

Shane startles in the only way he ever does—subtle enough that most people never notice it, nothing more than a couple too-fast blinks as he drags his eyes to his parents. 

“What?” he says, then, “Oh, yeah, no. She does.” He pauses. “Did you know that her father is Sergei Vertrov?”

This time, there’s nothing forced about Yuna’s laughter. 

“—anything from Team Canada?” 

Shane’s strained, faux-casual tone has Yuna looking up from the CBC news app where she has it open on her phone, tuning back into Shane and David’s conversation just in time to catch the tail end of Shane’s question. The look on Shane’s face matches his tone—an affected disinterest that isn’t fooling anyone, much less his parents. 

It makes Yuna smile, despite it all. Shane has always been terrible at any sort of lying or pretense, ever since he was a kid, trying to hide the fact that he’d once again broken one of the basement windows practicing his shooting. It had made him a very easy teenager to raise. Not that Shane would have been difficult as a teenager even if he had been a good liar, based on the things that he had attempted to lie to them about. 

Yuna still remembers fondly the time that fifteen-year-old Shane had tried to convince them that his coach had told him he should be watching every MLH game, played by every team, for the whole season. To help with his backchecking, allegedly.

Glancing back down at her phone, Yuna makes sure to lock it before she slides it back into her pocket. She catches David’s eye as she does, shrugging apologetically in reply to the question in his gaze. She hadn’t caught enough to know what Shane was asking, except that it was something about Team Canada—probably about the Olympics. 

The content of the news alert lingers behind her eyes even after her phone is out of sight— 

Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev has announced the successful rescue of twenty-six survivors from flight 771, which crashed en-route to Moscow on Feb. 6. 187 of the 211 people on board, including the crew, were Canadian. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has confirmed that while the identities of the survivors have been communicated to the Government of Canada, their names will continue to be withheld from the public until the families of all passengers have been contacted. Coordination between Russia, Canada, the U.S., and several other countries continues as Russian Search and Rescue teams work to retrieve the bodies of the deceased… 

—but she does her best to shake it off as she fully refocuses on her husband and son. Judging by the look on David’s face as he turns back to Shane, he really wishes she was the one fielding this question. Guilt swirls in her stomach at the look of discomfort on her husband’s face, and Yuna resolutely swears to herself to not look at her phone again. No matter how badly she wants to know what information is being made publicly available—if it’s anything more than what they’ve been told. 

“Yes,” David says, “we’ve been in touch. They were very concerned, obviously, but they’ll be very happy to hear that you’re doing okay.” 

That you survived goes unspoken.

It wasn’t just Shane and Ilya, either. Shane had told them that there were eight other hockey players among the survivors. He’d gone quiet and distant after that, and Yuna had felt sick at the realization that he was probably thinking about the ones who hadn’t made it. All of whom would have been men Shane knew. Some, maybe, only by name and reputation. More that he’d have known personally. Known details of their careers, their lives. Things that you only got told when you shared a locker room; bonded together by team or nationality or both.

Yuna knew from the articles that had been published while the plane was still missing that there had been fourteen MLH players on the flight. Ten survivors. Four dead. She does the math instinctively, unthinkingly. 

211 people on board. 

26 survivors. 

185 dead. 

“And the Olympics…?” Shane asks. There’s something small and hopeful in his voice, and Yuna forces herself to focus on that instead of the brutal reality that her and David were in the very, very small minority of family members who wouldn’t be receiving the kind of phone call that divides your life into a stark before and after. 

As a distraction, it’s not exactly a pleasant one—Yuna’s stomach sinks as she realizes what Shane is hoping for. 

David shoots another pleading look at her, and she scootches her chair even closer to Shane’s bed, grabbing his hand and drawing his attention to her. She squeezes his hand, trying to silently communicate comfort. Whatever expression she’s wearing must give her away though, and Yuna is forced to watch the hope fade from Shane’s eyes before she has the chance to get so much as a single word out.

Swallowing hard, Yuna voices it anyway. “Canada dropped out of the men’s hockey tournament, honey,” she says. 

“Oh,” Shane says, voice small. He shakes his head, blinking quickly. Adds, slightly firmer, “Right, no, yeah. That— that makes sense.” 

Shane’s voice wavers at the end despite his attempts to keep it under control, and Yuna squeezes his hand tighter. She can see David doing the same out of the corner of her eye, though his reassuring squeeze lands on Shane’s calf instead, in deference to the IV needle taped to the back of Shane’s left hand.

“I mean,” Shane continues, pushing past the waver, her brave, brave boy, “there were what, nine of us on the flight? And I can’t imagine anyone would have been too enthusiastic at the thought of getting on a plane to replace us.” 

Shane’s attempt at laughter is so shattered that Yuna has to fight not to physically wince away from the sound. 

“That’s not— I mean, probably not,” David says, “but— c’mon kiddo. Your teammates didn’t want to play while you guys were still missing.” 

Didn’t want to was probably an understatement. Yuna hadn’t been able to bring herself to watch more than a few minutes of the interviews with the other members of Team Canada, but even the handful of clips that she’d caught had been enough for her to see just how devastated the other players were. 

The interviews with the coaches and the President of Hockey Canada hadn’t been much better, though Yuna had forced herself to watch those all the way through, just in case the leadership of Hockey Canada had been told something her and David hadn’t been. She couldn’t think about those interviews for too long though, not without feeling like she was about to black out with rage. 

The fact that it was Thériault—her son’s own fucking coach—who hadn’t quite been able to hide his annoyance at the Board of Director’s decision to drop out was something that Yuna was saving to unpack once they were safely back in Canada. 

She could already tell, with a distant sort of dread, that the conversations that she would need to have with Shane about that were going to be difficult and ugly.  

Shane swallows. “Right,” he says again, voice wobbling even harder, and his hand tugs against Yuna’s grip. She reluctantly lets go, feeling her heart break for what feels like the thousandth time that day as Shane uses his newly-freed hand to wipe at his eyes, clearing away the tears before they even have the chance to fall.

“They’re definitely not letting anyone skip the chartered flight again though, eh?” Shane says, a desperate attempt at levity, spoken as if his voice isn’t still thick with unshed tears. It’s an attempt to put on a brave front that Yuna knows is more for their sake than for his own, and so Yuna forces herself to smile when he looks at her, even as the words land like a dagger plunging directly into her heart. 

It’s a cruel reminder, but unintentionally so; Shane has no way to know how often she’s cried into David’s chest over the last five days, overwhelmed with grief and guilt. 

It had been for her, after all, that Shane had skipped the chartered flight—delaying his travel to celebrate her fucking birthday. Because he wouldn’t have seen her until after the Olympics otherwise. So, instead of taking the chartered flight with the majority of the team, Shane had driven to Ottawa to spend two days with them, then down to Toronto to catch his flight to Sochi.

A commercial flight, one that he would never have been on, if it hadn’t been for her.

Flight 771.

Yuna doesn’t know if any of that is readable on her face, but she suspects at least some of it is, since David immediately draws Shane’s attention off of her with a laugh—one that, thankfully, manages to sound mostly real.

“Yeah, probably not,” David says, voice light, and Yuna is so, so, so endlessly grateful for this man. For pulling Shane’s attention off of her, yes, but also for gracefully side-stepping the truth that would certainly break Shane’s heart if either of them were forced to voice it—

There is absolutely no way the MLH is letting any of its players go to the Olympics ever again.

“So, Ilyushka tells me that you are a very big hockey fan.” 

Yuna drags her attention away from the slightly bemusing sight of Ilya Rozanov joking around with her son and husband, tilting her head back slightly to meet Svetlana’s eyes. 

They’d realized that they had once again run out of chairs when Svetlana had returned with the as-promised freshly showered-and-fed Ilya. It had barely given the younger woman a second’s pause though—instead of waiting for the rest of them to stumble through an awkward renegotiation of the seating arrangements, she’d paused only long enough to drop a pile of unfamiliar pre-packaged food and cans of pop on the foot of Shane’s bed before hopping up to sit atop the small bedside table.

It’s from her perch atop that table—which Yuna is still just barely holding back from saying something about, because she is not this girl’s mother—that Svetlana now blinks back at her, her brown eyes wide and guileless. There’s nothing about her tone or expression that says that Yuna is being mocked or made the butt of some secret joke between the two Russians however, so Yuna nods, allowing a small smile to accompany the gesture. 

“I am,” Yuna says. “You?” She nearly winces the second the question is out of her mouth—of course she’s a hockey fan, she’s the daughter of fucking Sergei Vertrov—and just as quickly scolds herself for that thought—so what, just because her father was a famous player, she has to like hockey? She can’t be her own person?

“Oh, very much so,” Svetlana replies, cutting off Yuna's internal self-recriminations. Kicking her feet slightly, Svetlana’s smile widens, oblivious to Yuna’s inner conflict. “It can be very annoying, hanging out with all these hockey men who think they know more than me, but also a bit fun, нет?”

“Fun?” Yuna asks, frowning slightly. She doesn’t think that sounds fun at all—knows, actually, from decades of personal experience just how profoundly not-fun can be.

“Да. Yes,” Svetlana says, waving a hand expressively as she talks, “you lure them in by acting as dumb as they think you are, make them feel all safe and like their dicks are exactly as big as they pretend they are and then—” Svetlana pauses, snapping her fingers, “—бац, you mock their playing with as many references to obscure facts as you can manage.”

Yuna hums, not sure what to say. She can’t say she hasn’t ever thought about doing something similar. Had even, admittedly, done it a time or two when she was younger—

Back when she was still in her undergrad, and some meathead hockey bro at a house party had decided that the best way to flirt was to treat her like an idiot. Not David, of course—never David. It was one of the things that had set him apart when they had first met, drinking Molsons in the kitchen of one of her teammate’s off-campus apartment. From the very start David had always been more than happy to let her take the lead, leaving Yuna feeling nearly drunk off of his attention; the way he just sat there, listening to her rant, starry-eyed and smiling. 

—but that had been a long time ago. Her conversations with men who think they know more than her now are usually far more strategic. Based soly on what will leave whatever exec she’s talking to with the best possible impression of Shane’s family, insofar as they are seen as an extension of Shane himself. Her words constructed entirely around what will benefit Shane’s career, each word carefully calculated before being precisely deployed. 

Svetlana must notice that Yuna isn’t sure what to say, or maybe she just takes Yuna’s hum as answer enough. Either way, she continues:

“So, tell me, Yuna Hollander,” she says, “who do you think will win the cup?” 

Yuna narrows her eyes. “Not the Raiders,” she says, shooting a pointed look at Svetlana’s hoodie. She worries, immediately, that it was too aggressive an answer for their circumstances—not to mention being mostly a lie—but Svetlana just laughs.

“I don’t know that that is your real answer,” she says, voice teasing. “I’m sure you are loyal to the Metros—”

“Obviously,” Yuna says, trying for a friendly tone that is probably still a bit too sharp.

“—but you cannot tell me you think they will win this year” Svetlana continues, breezing past Yuna’s reply, seemingly unbothered by her sharpness. “Not with Miitka hurt.” 

Yuna straightens without thinking about it. “You know about that?” she asks, trying not to sound as suspicious as she feels.

Judging by the way that Svetlana laughs again in response, Yuna’s is fairly certain that she hasn’t succeeded.

“Anyone with eyes can see it,” Svetlana says, waving her hand dismissively, before sucking on her teeth, continuing, “I do not know why they bother to try and downplay it in media. And you can only go so far with a hurt goalie.”

Yuna hums, unwilling to say anything that might come across as a confirmation. Svetlana’s eyes are bright with amusement anyways, her smile only growing. 

“Okay, okay,” Svetlana relents. “What do you think about the Admirals then? Will they make it past the Saints?” 

Yuna is exhausted, emotionally-worn down and raw. She snorts before she can think better of it, all of her usual diplomacy disappearing as she opens her mouth, the words falling from her before she can remember herself enough to stop them.

“If Hunter can remember where the net is for an entire series, maybe,” Yuna says, and Svetlana laughs, leaning forward. 

“I like you, Yuna,” Svetlana says, speaking with the same blunt confidence with which she’d declared that she and Shane would be good friends. “Tell me more about what you think of Scott Hunter. He is frustrating, no? So good and yet…” she trails off, blowing a raspberry.

Yuna can’t help but smile in reply. It reminds her too much of Ilya making the same noise earlier, and she thinks that if they didn’t look so different, she might have actually easily mistook the two of them for siblings. 

“Well,” Yuna starts, settling into the comfort of a conversation that she knows how to have, a topic that’s as easy as breathing. 

A relief, in the midst of a day that had been full of conversations that were anything but.