It started with just manly, physical comforting. Shane was used to that. Neither of them had ever been the touchy-feely type, but it was different now. Since all this had happened, a hug, a hand clapped to the back of his neck, a forehead pressed against his own, was not uncommon. So at first, Shane hadn't been surprised.

He'd been sat alone again, on his bed with his elbows resting on his knees, and thinking of nothing. Rick came in without knocking, and Shane just looked at him blankly.

"Hey," Rick said quietly. He closed the door behind him, and understood Shane's withdrawal, his silence, without him having to say anything, and sat beside him on the bed. After a while, he put his hand on Shane's shoulder and rested his head against his own. The silence, coupled with that motion, was enough to make Shane uncomfortable, but he didn't have the heart to say anything about it. He closed his eyes, emotions stirring uncomfortably, breathing harder and trembling slightly. Rick had never seen him cry before, but Shane supposed it didn't matter now if he did.

But Shane didn't cry. He kept breathing and not talking, and Rick moved his arm around him to his other shoulder, and let his hand rest where Shane's neck and shoulder joined. In normal circumstances, it was a moment where both should have stiffened and backed off, but things were far from normal, and so they barely noticed. Shane swallowed and breathed out shakily, wondering where to begin, when Rick pressed a kiss into his hair.

That made him tense. Rick had kissed him on the cheek at his wedding, sometimes on the forehead in a handful of other fraught, emotional events, but this felt different.

"Rick," Shane muttered, about to push back and away, but when Rick just dropped his head against Shane's again, he decided to let it go. Who gave a fuck about social norms anymore anyway? It didn't mean a goddamn thing. Rick began to massage Shane's shoulder with his hand, and because it was soothing and the nicest thing anyone had done for him for a while, Shane let him, and gradually the contact stopped feeling so strange.

He was calmer now, and Rick's hand on the hem of his shirt barely registered, nor, for a second, the movement of his lips from his hair to his neck. He stiffened. "Rick," he said in alarm.

"Shane- " he said in a quiet, forced way. Then Shane felt him exhale. "It's all right." He said it so quietly, Shane thought he must have misheard him. And then Rick began to kiss his neck and slid his hand under the hem of his shirt.

"Rick," he said again, one more token protest, although he was beginning to feel hot all over, and when Rick pulled him down onto the covers, he didn't resist.

He still didn't tell Rick what he'd done.