Rating:

Not Rated

Archive Warning:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander/Rose Landry

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, rose Landry (mentioned)

Additional Tags:

Inspired by Resident Evil (Movie 2026), Spoilers for Resident Evil (2026), Infidelity, (rose does not show up on page but technically shane is still dating her when this takes place), Mpreg | Male Pregnancy, Pregnant Shane Hollander, BAMF Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Violence, some gore, (will be warnings in notes), different endings optional, Choose Your Own Adventure, optional:, Abortion, happy ending either way, Friends with Benefits, something significantly worse than both enemies or lovers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Alternate Universe

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-10-16 Words: 5,101 Chapters: 1/5

misery, meet company

Summary

Tasked with transporting a potentially life-saving package to Loon City General, medical courier Ilya Rozanov tries not to lose his—or Shane's, his years long situationship that also happens to be pregnant with his baby—in the process.

Notes

my smut muscle has atrophied from so much kinktober so we're doing a little bit of scary in the middle. as of right now this is planned out to be five chapters and relatively short, but we all know how that tends to go for me, so take it with a grain of salt! hopefully completely posted by oct 31.

when I initially had this idea I wanted to make it much more interactive to mimic a video game, but once I actually started writing it I didn't feel like I could adequately flesh out all the branches of different choices the way I wanted to without it getting wayyyy longer than I planned for. thus, only the mpreg choice remains skjhfkyshdgf so both mpreg lovers and shanebortion truthers can (hopefully) enjoy equally <3

raccoon city -> loon city
umbrella corp -> crowell corp

CLICK THE DROPDOWN ARROW TO 'UNLOCK' THE CHAPTER !

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

only warnings for chap 1 are discussions of abortion, a minor car accident and mentions of blood, but no one is hurt.

Start New Game

Ottawa General is a fucking mess. Ilya’s familiar enough with it to a point of necessity, but he doesn’t think there’s ever been a time that he wasn’t relieved to get in, do whatever he needs to do, and get the fuck out. 

Today will be no different. The sun is already beginning to set behind the tall trees, and Ilya is eager to have this particular job completed. He’s flashbanged by white fluorescents the moment he steps through the revolving doors into the lobby, the well-trod gray, scuff-marked tile blurring beneath his feet as he passes over it. 

Ilya’s never liked hospitals. Never liked being sick. It makes him think too much of his mother, of still air and grief and the scrub of cloying antiseptic and stains that don’t come up. 

Regardless. He goes where the money is. 

The waiting room is worse. There’s a kid throwing a tantrum in the far corner of the room, a man slumped over with his head in his hands. Ilya passes another woman with some sort of gash in her leg and has to immediately look away, his own stomach turning at the sight of— 

“Hollander?” 

He’d taken the furthest route away from the woman, which spit him out in the other corner. In the apex of it there’s Hollander, his head snapping upward at the sound of his name, his eyes wide when they land on Ilya’s. 

He blinks, then squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Fuck,” he mutters. “What are you doing here?” 

“My job,” Ilya drawls like a question, lifting his badge to dangle it outward before letting it drop against his chest again. “What are you doing here?” 

“Nothing,” Shane says, and bristles, as if he hadn’t asked Ilya first. Visibly by himself, he says, “I’m here with Rose.” 

“Really,” Ilya presses. He points toward the entrance to the patient rooms. “Because I am about to go back there through those doors. Maybe I will say hello if I see her, hm? Unless you are lying, of course.” 

“I’m not lying.” 

Ilya smiles, nods. “Okay.” 

Shane huffs, then rolls his eyes and reaches for a magazine on the side table next to him, starts flipping aimlessly through the pages. With a smirk, Ilya enjoys the sight of him a moment longer and then drags himself toward the front desk. 

It’s a nightmare, as he’d anticipated. There’s a line, and he feels shitty about cutting it when the people in front of him have actual potentially life threatening things happening even if he’s technically allowed to go around. 

When he finally makes it through the doors to the exam rooms, it’s no better. There are all sorts of alarms going off distantly, the rattle of old cart wheels, the hiss of a curtain being yanked closed. Ilya winds through the blank, unsettling hallways until he reaches the small conference room he’d been assigned in his outline, and the nurse helping him is all too happy to hand off the package and promptly get back to work. 

“Hey, um, miss—?” Ilya tries, hot on her heels back through the bay. “I need you to sign—” 

She takes a hard turn into a room where someone is doing a poor job of concealing a wail, and Ilya gets one glimpse of red on her scrubs before he decides he’ll get someone else to sign that the package has been handed off accordingly. 

The in-house pharmacy window is nearly as packed as the front desk, but it’s just less enough that Ilya skids to a stop near it, willing to use his courier privileges this time around. 

He flashes his badge at other grumbling patrons as he shoulders his way through, but pauses just to the side of the window when he realizes it’s Shane standing there, face pinched and turning red as he talks through the glass. 

“I’m sorry,” Ilya catches the med tech saying. “According to the information you provided us with, we aren’t able to prescribe you the medication to terminate.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Shane grits through his teeth. “I did every test you guys insisted on. I answered all of your questions. I was told I would be able to leave here with them tonight.” 

The noise in the room swells and fades again, and Ilya loses pieces of the conversation to the noise. He presses in a little closer, nosy, and also not too fond of the glassiness in Shane’s eyes when he blinks. 

“I—I can’t do this right now. I’m only twenty-six, and I’m working, I have a girlfriend, and—and the other father is—” his gaze darts around him before he finishes his sentences, then dies altogether when it lands on Ilya. He does a double take, his stance defeated. 

Oh. Ilya understands now. 

“Is right here,” he says, sauntering up the rest of the way to toss an arm around Shane’s shoulder and give what he hopes comes off as an amiable squeeze. “And we will be taking our business elsewhere,” Ilya glances pointedly down at the scrawl of her signature on her name tag, “Andrea. Good day.” 

He steers Shane out the way he came, out into the waiting room and through the lobby until they’re back outside. The second their shoes hit concrete Shane is breaking free of his hold, taking several steps back to put space between them. Ilya starts walking toward his car anyway, already knows that he’ll follow. 

“What the fuck?” Shane hisses from behind him. “Business? Ours?” 

Ilya unlocks his car. “Get in.” 

Shane scoffs. “I think you’ve already done enough.” 

“This clinic is a piece of shit. Everything is a mess in there,” Ilya says. He lifts up the bag on his arm. “I have to deliver this to Loon City General. Nice little town up in the hills where no one gives a fuck what you do, yes? We will get you the medicine there.” 

Shane crosses his arms over his chest. “I can handle this myself.” 

Plucking a pen from his pocket, Ilya bites off the cap and scribbles a signature similar to Andrea’s on the line, then re-caps it and sticks the folded paperwork in the netting on the outside of the bag. 

“Like you just did in there?” 

“Maybe, yeah, if you hadn’t dragged me out of line.” 

“Oh my God, Hollander,” Ilya groans, pulling the car door open. “Fine. Do whatever you want. I have to take this heart or kidney or spleen or whatever the fuck to whoever is needing it. So. Get in or get out of the way so that I can pull out.” 

“Because apparently you’re so good at that,” Shane mutters. He stares at Ilya’s raised brow for another handful of seconds, standing directly in front of Ilya’s headlight, and then curses. “Fucking—fuck. Fine.” 

Ilya gets into the car and starts the engine, cranking the heat up to salvage what was already left in it from earlier. He’s dressed warmly already, wearing an undershirt, a long sleeved shirt, a thin jacket and a thicker one on top of that. The beanie on his head keeps his ears warm at least, even if he can feel the cold in his jaw and face. Shane, on the contrary, is shivering in his passenger seat, and Ilya is thinking now that maybe his crossed arms are more because of the temperature than his attitude. 

“Where is your jacket?” Ilya asks. 

“Left it in my car,” Shane murmurs toward the window. “Wasn’t really thinking about it when I went in.” 

Twisting in his seat, Ilya stretches to carefully buckle the courier package into its spot, and then grabs the thick hoodie he keeps in the backseat for when he forgets his jacket. He shoves it toward Shane. “Here. Put this on.” 

“I’ll warm up in a minute.” 

“What? You are afraid of cooties virus?” Ilya taunts. 

It gets the job done, at least. Shane grumbles as he pushes his arms through it, but looks marginally warmer once it’s pulled over his head, his hair sticking up in the back. Ilya stares at it for a second and then turns toward the front again, and pointedly does not let himself think about anything else that the hoodie is concealing right now. 

“Is your car even built for this kind of thing?” Shane asks as they pull out onto the main road again. 

“What thing.” 

Ilya can feel his glare. “The ice. Rozanov. Are you equipped to drive in the ice.” 

“Mostly just snowing right now. It’s thicker,” he shrugs. “We will be fine.” 

“You should have let me drive. I’ve lived here my whole life. I know the roads better.” 

“Has to be my car, technically. For the delivery.” When he huffs again, shifting in his seat, Ilya glances over. “Why? In a hurry?” 

There’s a little bit of traffic in town, enough cars on the road to have cleared them somewhat. It’s impossible to drive through without nostalgia nipping at his heels, reminding him of better times. What goes up must come down, Ilya figures. 

“I want this done tonight,” Shane answers belatedly. Ilya turns on his blinker toward out of town. 

“That is why you waited until seven o’clock to go?” 

“I didn’t go at seven, asshole. I went at four, as soon as I got off work, and they were busy, so I had to wait.” He reaches forward to fiddle with the air vent. “Why are you accepting orders after hours out of town anyway?” 

“What do you think,” Ilya asks without really asking. “Double pay for extra drive and later time. And it’s level A.” 

“What the fuck is level A?” 

“I don’t know. Probably urgent.” 

“Right,” Shane says. “You seem very… urgent.” 

“Would you prefer that I get us killed?” Ilya offers. 

He blows out a long, dry breath. “You always were such a tease.” 

At some point, Shane stops fiddling with the AC and starts messing with Ilya’s radio instead. Adjusting the sound back the way he likes it—which mostly just means turning Ilya’s bass much lower than Ilya himself enjoys it—before he leans back in the passenger seat a bit more gingerly than he typically otherwise would. 

The volume stays low, just enough to be background noise next to the sludge of light snow around the tires. It’s thicker out here than it had been in the city limits, the trees even taller, Ilya’s headlights taking over as the last dredges of the sun dissolve. 

He tries to sneak glances in Shane’s direction as they drift further from Ottawa, but it’s dark and Shane very obviously doesn’t want to be observed at the moment. He’s got an elbow resting on the door, cheek against his fist, other hand tucked into the pockets of the borrowed hoodie. To anyone else he’d looked bored and irritated, which is fair. Logical, maybe. But Ilya thinks the twist of his mouth, the gauntness of the skin stretched underneath his eyes means something else. Something he isn’t allowed to ask about, probably. 

“So,” he hedges eventually. “How have you been?” 

“We saw each other a few weeks ago.” 

Well. Yes. Ilya is perfectly aware of how they’d ended up in this situation. He adapts. “How have you been for the last few weeks, Hollander?” 

Shane sniffs. “Fine.” 

Ilya smooths his palms around the steering wheel, slick with heat. Must be the temperature. He reaches to turn it down a few notches, which makes the radio somehow softer and the silence in the car even louder between them. He fights the urge to run a hand through his hair, fingers twitching. 

“The hospital is a ways outside of Ottawa.” 

“Yeah…?” Shane glances at him. 

“If you’re tired, after, we can stay in a motel.” 

“You can’t afford a motel.” 

“I can afford a motel,” Ilya argues. “Plus, this medicine… you need somewhere to take it, right?” 

Shane’s brows furrow. “Like… at home?” 

“Or at the motel,” he offers. 

“Why would I do that?” 

“So I could be there for you,” Ilya says, maybe too earnestly. He swallows, and his voice comes out only a hair louder than the hum of the engine when he adds, “I missed you.” 

“No,” Shane stops him immediately, readjusting in his seat. “We’re not doing this.” 

“Doing what?” 

“This. You don’t miss me, Rozanov.” 

“I have no reason to say it if I do not mean it.” 

“You miss the sex,” he posits, exasperated. “And the sex is what got us into this. You don’t miss… me. We’re not—compatible like that. Remember?” 

“Like you and Rose, you mean?” 

He flashes him a look. “Roz.” 

“What? I cannot ask about your girlfriend?” 

“No, you can’t.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because.” 

“Good reason.” 

“You’re such a child,” Shane huffs. “Look, Rose and I just got back together before I found out about—this, and I just—I just need to take care of it before she finds out so that we can get back on track.” 

Ilya pauses at this. 

“You did not tell her?” 

“Of course I didn’t tell my girlfriend that the guy I fuck sometimes when we’re on a break got me pregnant,” he snaps. He rubs at his head again, and Ilya thinks there must be an ache there. “There’s no point. It’d only stress her out.” 

“So instead you are the one who is stressed out.” 

“I know this might blow your mind, but not everything is a competition. Some things just… are. And that’s all. I’m taking care of it.” 

Ilya doesn’t bother asking if his parents know. They live in a cozy, storybook-looking house in the nicer part of town, where the family neighborhoods are, and if Shane won’t even breathe a word of Ilya to them, he certainly isn’t going to tell them about this. Unless it were to pursue some sort of legal action against him, maybe. But he thinks Shane is benevolent enough not to do this. Probably. 

The roads begin to blur together just like the hospital hallways, one steep curve feeding into an identical corridor of white road suffocated with dark, looming greenery on the sides. Shane had been right that the further they get the harder it is to keep total control over the shifting of the tires, especially for Ilya who rarely goes past the city limits unless it’s for work. But Shane’s eyes have closed and Ilya thinks he isn’t feeling well, so he focuses on maintaining a steady speed and direction as the tires trudge through the snow, windshield wipers flicking white dust repeatedly from the dash. 

Just as he thinks Shane might’ve managed to get some rest, a vibrating buzz radiates from his lap. It makes an awful noise where the edge is pressed against the hard plastic of the door, and both of them jump at the suddenness of it, Shane cursing as he fumbles it out of his pocket. 

“It’s Rose,” he tells Ilya, staring at the screen. 

Since it seems like he’s waiting for something, Ilya says, “Okay.” 

Another few seconds, long enough to risk going to voicemail, and then Shane hurriedly presses accept and puts the phone to his ear. “Hey, babe. Yeah, no—I am, it’s just taking a little while longer than I thought.” He pauses. “I’m sorry. Dinner sounded great, really. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow. I’ve got the day off.” 

He can’t hear what she’s saying, but he can hear the long, steady breaths that Shane’s trying to take in through his nose while she talks. Ilya reaches into the glove compartment and blindly pulls out a spearmint lifesaver to toss into Shane’s lap, pretends that he doesn’t see the flush on his cheeks as he picks it up and puts it in his mouth. Those are typically used for a different purpose, but it’s all Ilya’s got at the moment. 

“No, that’s fine. Yeah, I promise. I’ll call you back when I’m on my way home and we can—Rose? Can you hear me? Babe?” he pulls the phone away and then back to his ear. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’ll call you back when I have service again, alright? Love you. Bye.” 

He doesn’t sound all that disappointed to have gotten disconnected, but Ilya is gracious enough not to point this out. Shane’s jaw works side to side as he sucks on the candy in his mouth, both his hands in the pocket now in his lap. 

“She is not a good cook?” Ilya asks. 

Shane’s head rolls to face him where it’s leaning back against the seat. “How did you get that from that conversation?” 

“Your face did that thing after she mentioned dinner.” 

Quiet spills into the humid air between them again. Shane’s face turns back toward the window to monitor the snowfall. 

“You’re supposed to be watching the road,” he tells Ilya weakly. He shifts, pulling a little at the seatbelt. “My appetite has just been… hard to accommodate for lately. It’s not her fault.” 

“Why not just tell her you want something different?” 

Shane exhales, and Ilya can hear the crack of his teeth as he bites through the hard candy, eyes closed in the passenger seat. “Just drive, Rozanov. Please.” 

Ilya just drives. 

 

+

 

Shane falls asleep sometime over the next hour. He’s slumped toward Ilya in the passenger seat, one knee folded up toward his chest, chin smushed against his shoulder. 

Ilya doubts it’d been on purpose, but he’s glad that he’s resting anyway. He’d seemed like he needed it. 

The asphalt is completely covered in thick white up here that glows bright in front of his headlights, tall green trees reaching in toward each other on either side. It’s mostly a scattering of small local towns dotted throughout the way to the city, and the roads are thinner, less trafficked. Ilya hasn’t passed a single car since they’d headed this direction. 

He splits his time between staring straight ahead and, when the view gets so monotonous that the image of it burns in his retinas when he blinks, he glances over at Shane. When he’s sleeping like this, Ilya doesn’t have to come up with an excuse. 

He’s the same as he always is but undeniably different, shoulders hunched and an arm wrapped around his middle while he takes deep, tired breaths through his nose. Ilya wishes he were shocked or angry or something, but all he feels now is guilty. It’s always fun to tease Shane about butting into his life in different ways, to pester him about his tumultuous relationship status or fuck him in places Ilya knows will make him think of him the next time he sees them. If he’s honest, Shane is one of the most solid, sturdy pillars in his life. On and off again, sure; but they always, consistently and throughout years, relationships, and phases, find their way back. 

But a pregnancy shatters that illusion of fun, casual adjacency, and more importantly, it takes away his choice. Shane comes back to him every time because he wants to, because for some reason Ilya must provide something that warrants this many chances. Ilya would much rather keep seeing him when he chooses it, even if it’s never really enough as he wants himself, than to only see Shane every other weekend when they’re sharing joint custody of a kid. 

Shane hadn’t asked what Ilya wanted, but it doesn’t matter. Shane’s always been smarter when it comes to things like this. If Ilya possessed an ounce of that, he’d have stopped seeing Shane years ago, before… just. Before. Before he’d been let close enough to have blown up his life like this in the first place, maybe. 

He glances toward the passenger seat again, the dark stain of his freckles more visible against the paleness of his cheeks. Checking the road once more, Ilya reaches carefully across the console to sweep the tip of his thumb above his fingerless gloves over his brow, and smiles to himself when it twitches slightly, Shane’s head shifting toward the touch. Ilya takes his hand away. 

Shane shivers when he does, and Ilya frowns, reaching for the air vents to adjust the heat again. He’s glancing between the road in front of him and the piece of shit that is his AC unit, panning from total darkness to blinding white, when suddenly there’s a blur of darkness bleeding into the vast ivory in front of the car. 

Ilya yanks both hands to the wheel and immediately tries to stop or swerve, but the snow around the tires makes the brakes useless. His body breaks out in a cold sweat when there’s a loud, distinct thud regardless of his efforts, but his focus shifts, desperately just trying to keep them from sliding off the road. 

The hand he shoots out toward the passenger seat wakes Shane fully when it connects with his abdomen, clutching the material of his hoodie as the car wobbles and skids, finally, turbulently, slowing. 

Shane’s hand is on top of his when they come to a stop, both of them breathing hard in the aftermath. It twitches against him for a second before he rips it away, unfolding himself and using the door and the console to sit up further in the seat. 

Tentatively, Ilya checks the rearview. Nothing. He glances at the side mirrors. Nothing. The courier bag sits idly in the backseat, still where he’d buckled it in. 

“What the fuck was that?” 

“I don’t know.” Ilya hastily takes his hand away and pretends it isn’t shaking as he unbuckles and reaches for the handle. “I will look.” 

This time, it’s Shane that shoots out to grab his arm. His eyes are wide when Ilya glances over his shoulder. “You’re getting out of the car?” 

“Yes,” Ilya says. “I need to see what we hit.” 

“It was probably just a deer. Or something.” 

“Deer do not make that noise when they hit the car,” he mutters as Shane’s hand falls limp from his arm. “I am on thin fucking ice with my visa, Shane. If they find out I hit someone while I was working and did not report it I will be fucked.” 

In the passenger seat, Shane, who still seems to be waking up, runs his fingers through his hair and then drags them down his face with a groan. 

“Fuck. Fuck. Alright, fine. Just—hurry.” He glances toward Ilya again. “Be careful.” 

Swallowing thickly, Ilya nods. He is not used to seeing Shane worried for him. Probably still confused from being woken up. 

“I will.” 

Adjusting the collar of his jacket around his neck, Ilya opens the door and steps out, quickly shutting it again behind him to keep the heat in. With his hands in his pockets he hikes his boots around to the red burn of the tail lights, the thick backdrop of white snow painted crimson. 

He stops a handful of feet away and glances out in front of him, the winding road and the tall trees, the heavy blanket of pitch darkness suffocating the surroundings. Without the hum of the old engine and the AC running it’s terribly silent, the only signs of life sitting in the car behind his back. 

Ilya walks a little further, toward where he can see the tire marks in the snow. The tail lights are thinning out this far, but Ilya still sees red. He stops on a half-step when he realizes, gaze fixed on the deep scarlet stains. 

Shane’s voice rings out from behind him. “What is it?” 

Ilya keeps his eyes shut and head to the side until the wave of nausea passes. “Stay in the car, Shane.” 

“I’m not playing damsel in distress just because you knocked me up, Rozanov,” he calls back. Then again, more hesitantly, “What was that?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean you don’t know. It’s not—there?” 

“No,” Ilya forces his eyes open and scans his surroundings to double confirm. “There is blood, and I think maybe some kind of prints, but there is nothing here.” 

“So what the fuck are you doing then?” 

“I am not fucking good with blood, Shane. Just—give me a second,” he calls. “Please get back in the car.” 

“Fine.” 

Ilya takes in another deep breath and glances toward the bloody prints, pulling his phone from his pocket to turn on the flashlight and appraise them more closely. They lead out to one side into the dense thicket of trees, and underneath the white wash of new light, they look strangely… human. 

Fuck. Fuck. Ilya winces as he lifts the flashlight toward the treeline, but the blood stops just off the side of the road where the distance between two tree trunks yawns black and cavernous, either inviting him in or warning him away. 

Ilya stumbles back from the edge of the road. He can figure out his visa shit later, but he can’t do it if he gets mauled or murdered out here in the middle of fucking nowhere. 

The driver’s side door is locked when Ilya hurries back and yanks on it, and it takes him a belated few seconds to realize that it’s because Shane is already in it. He blinks plainly at Ilya when he motions for him to unlock it, until Ilya eventually huffs and rounds to the passenger side, more than just the cold making him shiver. 

“You are not driving,” he says when Shane lets him in. 

“I don’t think pregnancy effects my driving ability,” Shane replies dryly. “We should have just taken my car anyways.” 

“There is ice on the road. I am better at driving on it. I can get us there safe.” 

“So can I.” 

The car, which had been evidently turned off sometime while Ilya was outside and is already beginning to yield to a seeping cold again, rumbles when Shane turns the key in the ignition, and then promptly does nothing else. 

He pauses to glare at Ilya as if he has control over it, and then tries again with the same result. 

“What the fuck? Why isn’t it starting?” 

Ilya sighs and swings open his door again. “Engine is too cold, maybe. Hold on.” 

He rounds to the front of the car this time, squinting against the headlights until he can get close enough to pop open the hood. The illumination of his phone flashlight unfortunately does not gift him any knowledge that he already did not have about the way that engines work, but there are several things that seem vaguely displaced by the collision, the passenger side a bit scuffed around the tire. 

“Whatever we hit knocked something loose here, I think.” 

Shane has already climbed out of the car to supervise over his shoulder and says, “Move. Let me see.” 

He rummages through the mess of wiring and hardware while Ilya holds up the flashlight, glancing anxiously around them at the empty road. He makes several noises to himself that all sound varying degrees of dismissive, and then holds out a hand for Ilya’s phone. 

“Give me that.” 

Ilya stays huddled close as he walks around to the passenger side and crouches behind the door, leaning into the small space near the floor liner. Leaning up against the outside of the back door beside him, the front of his body facing pointedly outward toward the treeline, Ilya waits while his car is audibly dismantled from the inside. 

Eventually Shane emerges with a sigh, rubbing at his temples. 

“Fuck.” 

“It is bad?” 

“Yeah, it’s bad. It’s the inertia switch. If it was just tripped then we could fix it, but it’s completely broken now. Was probably loose even before this.” He shakes his head, muttering to himself. “I told you to get this piece of shit looked at.” 

“I figured you would maybe prefer that I didn’t with your come stains on the backseat,” Ilya snaps. 

Shane stands, one hand pressed against his lower back. “Can you be fucking mature about something for once?” 

“I didn’t have the money.” 

“My dad’s friend owns the shop. I said if you tell them my name, they’ll—” 

“Yes, well, I did not know I would be driving around such precious cargo tonight or maybe I would have prepared better.” 

“You literally drive around precious cargo for a living,” Shane says, exasperated, gesturing toward the backseat. “Why did you even fucking take this job knowing your car isn’t outfitted for snow?” 

Ilya yanks open the door he’d been leaning against and reaches in to grab the courier bag, slipping it onto his shoulder. “You will have to be angry at me later. Come on.” 

“Where could we possibly be going right now?” Shane asks. “We need to call 9-1-1.” 

Ilya clicks his phone on to show him the screen. “No service.” 

He hesitates as Ilya walks back to the other side of the car, pulling out the keys and pocketing them just in case, rifling through the console for the mints and anything else that might be remotely helpful in this situation. 

“I—I can try Rose again. Or my parents—” 

“Yes, because being even deeper into the mountains in the middle of nowhere must have fixed the connection issue.” 

“God. Just let me fucking think, okay? Can you do that?” 

 “Think and walk,” Ilya tells him, tossing him his own phone he’d nabbed from the cupholder. “I have no car, no working phone, and no way to keep you warm. You can get rid of my baby when we get to the city, and once I drop this off, the money from the job will get us food and a way home and you do not have to see me again. But I am not going to let hypothermia kill you before that.” He raises a brow when Shane remains gawping at him. “Okay?” 

With one last anguished glance toward the cooling car, the last stubborn breath in Shane’s lungs collapses. He shakes his head, at a loss, and then looks at Ilya. 

“Okay.” 

With the bag on one shoulder, Ilya reaches out to shut the passenger side door and inclines his head toward the nearest glow of lights on the hill. “Let’s go.” 

Begrudgingly Shane follows, huddled close to his shoulder as they share Ilya’s phone light to see. The cold follows too; two of them, and three sets of footprints in the snow.

 

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