Chapter Text
Shane was never leaving Canada again. Yes, they had cold and snow, and god knew there were days he imagined going to a team in Los Angeles or Florida and never again having to scrape ice or shovel snow. But at least in Ottawa the land and sea didn’t try to kill him.
He was maybe being dramatic. But he’d not been enjoying his trip to Tokyo before the earthquake hit, and it had not made the day any more enjoyable. If he were there with Ilya and his parents then sure, he’d probably be having a nice time. But that was because his mother ran family trips like it was the navy, and his dad and Ilya would happily be along for the ride without much expectations, and they would all know that no he did not want to spend his time in the busiest tourist trap areas, being photographed, for hours on end, for four days straight.
But Rolex wanted to take more of the watch market from Casio, and they had a half Japanese spokesperson at their disposal, and no, Shane, the fact that you don’t speak the language will just come off as endearing, it doesn’t matter that the idea of needing other people to accommodate around you is your literal nightmare. It’s just one week, it’ll be fun, we promise.
They had all been really nice about it, and his stylist said of the North American celebrities they brought over for these kinds of things he was one of the most polite which felt a little better, but still. He was the guy who would spend an hour trying to open a stuck jar before asking someone for help, needing help to order breakfast had him googling how long a person could go without eating before they starved.
The one good thing is they had wanted a woman to be in the ad campaign with him and jumped when he’d off-handedly suggested Rose, who was happy to spend a week in Japan with Shane and away from the stand-still her current movie was at while they were stuck in rewrites.
It was the most complex campaign Shane had been involved in, both photography shoots and filming so they could have commercials and print and digital ads. The “story” of the ad was it was a glamorous day in the life of two celebrities wearing matching His and Hers watches.
The first day was the two of them having coffee on a hotel balcony overlooking the city in fancy silk pajamas. Then it was them buying breakfast from a street vendor, even though they weren’t even allowed to eat the food because it might muss their makeup, meaning Shane just had to stare at and smell delicious food for hours before letting people on the crew eat it.
Then it was them looking like they were being fitted for a tux and ball gown. Then standing on a rooftop in the outfits overlooking the city at night, their hands on the railing to show off the watches.
This was their final shoot day, and it was the most elaborate. The director had described it as a final sort of fantasy sequence. In practical terms, they’d been taken out on a boat to what had been called an island, but was mostly just flat rocks sticking out of the water. They were in their fancy outfits again, but Rose’s hair was down rather than the fancy updo, and Shane was carrying his tuxedo jacket over one arm with his shirt halfway unbuttoned. They were also barefoot, which was cold for Shane but Rose said it was better than trying to stand on the slippery rocks in the heels they’d given her, which Shane couldn’t argue.
Earlier, the assistant director had come over and shown a picture she had taken while the director and photographer were chatting. It had been of Rose and Shane huddled together against the wind, matching pink towels around their shoulders to keep them somewhat warm and dry between takes, holding paper cups of warm tea they were drinking through straws to preserve their makeup, both faces intent and concentrated as they tried to drink as carefully as possible. Shane had to admit it was cute and kind of funny and said he was ok with her posting it to the Rolex instagram with a caption of “COMING SOON…” as a promo for the upcoming campaign. She’d even managed to get an angle where their matching watches were showing.
No doubt Harris would be sharing the picture to the Centaurs social media. Shane had also noticed his wedding ring was visible in the photo, so he would likely tag Ilya with some couples joke. He loved playing up the fact that two members of the team were married.
God, Shane missed home. He was so ready to go back. The time difference had made talking to Ilya difficult, and at any time one was usually at the end of an exhausting day while the other was just getting up. Shane just wanted to be home, in bed, with his husband and their dog, letting Ilya play with his hair while Shane happily complained about the trip, feeling Ilya’s deep rumbling chuckle against his cheek where it rested over Ilya’s heart.
The last thing he’d texted Ilya was a picture of the boat that would take them out to the island with the caption “Final day, wish me luck.” Ilya had responded with a heart and kissing emoji.
Shane and Rose were standing out on the rocks, staring dramatically over the water with the horizon behind them, Shane feeling ridiculous even though the director assured him he looked very James Bond, when it hit. The ground beneath their feet suddenly began shaking violently, Shane immediately slipping on the wet rocks and falling onto his tailbone, Rose landing on top of him a second later.
The crew scrambled to secure the equipment, but even still there were sounds of objects splashing into the water and swearing in various languages. When Shane looked up he could see waves sloshing onto the rocks and sweeping away bags that had been set on what they thought was a safe enough distance in. The boat they came over on was rocking alarmingly back and forth. Shane spotted a lone high heel carried away with the tide.
After about a minute the shaking subsided and a few crew members let out nervous laughter. And then, more swearing as everyone began looking around and realizing what all had been swept away.
“Oh shit,” Rose groaned, looking over Shane’s shoulder. He turned to follow her gaze. “My purse.”
Shane was going to reassure her that she could get a new one when they got back to land, and then remembered they had both put their phones in it while the shoot was going. It also had their wallets and hotel keys.
“That’s… Fuck.”
The rest of the shoot was called off, no one wanting to stay out on the tiny rock away from shore in case aftershocks hit, the director saying they had gotten enough pictures that they at least would have something to work with, and they all piled onto the boat to head back.
Rose disappeared for a few minutes, and when she plopped back down beside Shane, she was looking particularly triumphant.
“No worries on tonight, I talked with the Rolex rep, they’re extending the boat rental through tomorrow so we can stay here. I’ve never actually slept on a yacht before.”
Shane blinked. She was right, it was one of those fancy yachts rich people rented, Shane had kept forgetting since they had only spent a few minutes on the deck and most of the interior had just been used as a place to keep the equipment and crew who weren’t needed during the photos.
Rose’s ability to solve problems never failed to amaze Shane. It hadn't occurred to him that they could just walk up to someone there and ask for help with the problem; he’d been ready to fend for themselves. This was why he needed people like Rose and Ilya around, Shane’s instinct to problem solve often gave less convenient solutions than their instinct to just ask someone for help when they needed it.
“What about all our stuff at the hotel?”
“She said not to worry about it, she’ll handle everything, we can just hang out on the boat and relax and we should have everything we need for our flight out tomorrow.”
“That’s nice of her.”
Rose rolled her eyes, stretching out next to him. “She probably just wants to keep us from suing them for almost dying in an earthquake, or getting thousands of dollars of our stuff swept out to sea.”
“Well, so long as she makes sure people back home know why we- Wait, thousands? How expensive was that purse?”
“... Don’t be mad.”
“You knew you had to bring something to sit on rocks and get covered in ocean water and you brought something worth thousands of dollars?”
“I don’t think you understand how cute it looked with the pink sweatpants I brought to wear after the shoot.”
“I do not.”
-
Shane groaned at a knock at the door. He and Rose were in the master bedroom of the yacht, technically sharing the king sized bed even though, really, it was so big they could have both stretched out like star fish and still not touched each other. Which was good, because when she slept, all four of Rose’s limbs became compelled to stretch as far away from each other as possible. In their brief time dating, Shane had woken up multiple times with her forearm flung across his face.
“Mmyeah?” Rose sat up first, rubbing at her eyes. Sleeping on the water had been odd, especially after the earthquake. All of Shane’s dreams had been him trying to run towards something while the ground beneath his feet swayed and tilted with each step.
A nervous young man entered the room with a laptop. Shane vaguely recognized him and was pretty sure he was the assistant of someone important they’d met on their first day in Tokyo. Maybe he was a big Rose Landry fan and that was why he looked ready to throw up. Or maybe he just wasn’t a fan of boats.
“Good morning. Um, there has been some… Developments overnight.”
Shane scootched himself into a sitting position by the headboard.
“Like what?” Had there been an issue with the pictures? Did Rolex want them to extend their stay to do more? Or maybe the hotel was giving them a hard time about giving back their stuff without talking to Shane and Rose personally.
“Yes, um…”
The terrified man looked around awkwardly until Rose patted the bed, inviting him to sit down. He sat as lightly on the edge as he could, showing them the laptop screen. It was an article, written in Japanese.
“So, some items lost during the photo shoot washed up in Tokyo bay a few hours after the earthquake.” He scrolled to show them pictures people had taken of camera lenses and battery packs floating in the water, Rose’s one shoe, as well as a few pictures of Rose’s purse and its contents emptied out onto the ground and spread out so the items could be seen. Including Shane’s wallet, open to show his ID, and his waterlogged phone, complete with the Centaurs #24 phone case.
“Since your last known picture was out on the little island, and then your things were in the water, and people called your hotel and were told you never returned last night, people were talking online and this article was posted.” He scrolled back up to the title. “It says ‘Rumours Claim Rose Landry and Shane Hollander May Be Dead After Earthquake.’”
Shane stared at the assistant, the words not fully sinking in. “I…”
The assistant continued looking down at the screen and not at Shane or Rose. “And we think someone in the US tried to use something like Google translate to read the article and it didn’t get the tone across properly, because within an hour this article was written.”
It was similar, having the same pictures, but the implication of the slight wording change in the headline made Shane’s stomach drop. Instead of rumours claiming they might be dead, this headline read “Sources Say Rose Landry and Shane Hollander Killed In Earthquake.”
Shane’s breath began coming faster. Fuck. His parents. Ilya. They each had news alerts for each other’s name, the second this was posted Ilya would have gotten the notification.
“What time is it in Ottawa right now?”
“7 pm.”
Rose hugged herself. “And when were these posted?”
“7 am Ottawa time.”
Twelve hours. Shane’s depressed husband who loved him more than anything in this world had spent the last twelve hours thinking that Shane was dead.
His instinct was to reach for his phone to call Ilya, explain what happened and talk him down. But his phone was dead in some tourist’s pocket by now, and after spending the last decade with a cell phone, Shane hadn’t needed to memorize phone numbers since he was a kid, and his panicked brain was of no help trying desperately to conjure it, or those of his parents, or Hayden, or anyone at all helpful. And since they all were who they were, they kept their numbers unlisted.
And, of course, he was sitting in front of a laptop with the entire internet at his fingertips, but he always clicked the computer generated “secure” password that was a bunch of random numbers and letters, so he couldn’t remember the logins to any email or social media. And even if he did, with stupid fucking multifactor authentication it would probably not let him in without texting him a code…
“Shit,” Shane finally said. “Fucking holy shit.”
Rose got up and started pacing, hands in her hair. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! People can’t think I’m dead, holy shit, this is… This can’t… My parents… My brothers…”
Shane closed his eyes, trying to think, trying to focus. He needed to get in contact with someone back home, anyone who could get a message across that he was alright. He could imagine Ilya looking down at his phone, still rumpled and out of sorts from sleep, and seeing the headline that his husband was likely dead. Calling the hotel, begging to speak to Shane, only to be told Shane had left the previous morning and never returned, that a representative from the photo shoot had called and told them to pack up Shane’s things because he wouldn’t be coming back for them.
God, he had to know some useful phone number, something! The last time he’d had to memorize a phone number was back when he was a kid and his parents had him recite the number of the neighbor across the street in case of an emergency and he ever needed help.
Wait.
“Can I borrow your phone?”
The man handed it over eagerly and Shane took a deep breath, praying that this actually worked. The phone rang and rang before going to voicemail, but Shane relaxed when the familiar old voice confirmed it still belonged to the man he’d known as a kid. And Shane, eternal hater of asking for help, did his best to complete one of the most awkward tasks of his life.
“Hi Mr. Chabaud, this is Shane, David and Yuna’s boy. Um, this is going to sound strange, and trust me it’s a long story, but when you get this could you go across the street to my parents house and tell them the news is wrong and I’m not actually dead?”