Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov & Irina Rozanova, Ilya Rozanov & Svetlana Vetrova, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov & Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Yuna Hollander, David Hollander & Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander & Joe | Shane Hollander's Figure Skater Friend

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Joe | Shane Hollander's Figure Skater Friend, Irina Rozanova, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova

Additional Tags:

Dreams, Dreamwalking, Shane Hollander Can Dreamwalk, Ilya Rozanov Haunts The Narrative For A Bit, Irina Rozanova Haunts the Narrative, Soulmates, Kinda, Canonical Character Death, Slow Burn, except it's canon compliant so they're fucking but it's just off screen

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-21 Updated: 2026-08-31 Words: 32,333 Chapters: 4/6

periphery

Summary

They're having breakfast when he tells them. He only remembers because he'd dreamed weird again last night. This time it was an older boy, who was trying to stop a little golden-haired baby from crying.

“What,” says Mom, in that flat voice she gets when she's trying not to sound surprised.

“...what?” says Dad, who clearly hadn't been listening. That's fine, Shane forgets to listen too, sometimes.

“I keep dreaming people I don't know,” Shane repeats patiently. He can be patient.

Shane Hollander habitually ends up in other people's dreams, which is fine. It's a family trait, on both sides, to slip into the dreams of the people you love. What's less fine is how Shane keeps dreaming strangers.

Or: like if a soulmates au took several detours.

Chapter 1: desire line

Chapter Summary

Shane dreams a lot of people, and sometimes they're strangers.

Chapter Notes

baby's first heated rivarly fic :D

big thankyew to my friend hasan who proofread this and also helped with the hovertext part (read: did the whole thing) and also made sure I didn't delete the whole thing!! everyone say thank you hasan!! mwah!!

writing this fic has been an Experience, because I fell into a ramadan-induced misery state and noodling at this was just about all I could do besides decompose. eid mubarak! please lmk your thoughts in the comments!

you can find me on twitter! come say hi!

also: to see the translations, just hover over the text! and if you're on mobile, click it! (thank u hasan)

Shane dreams a lot of people, and sometimes they're strangers.

He knows he's only supposed to dream people he knows, but it just keeps happening. He doesn't understand why. He can't exactly get out of it, so he just tries to get through it by being as normal about it as possible. Or as normal as you can be when you—

He's in a bathroom.

It's nice, as far as bathrooms go. Green tile, clawed bathtub. Everything’s kinda blurry around the edges, the way most places in dreams are. He can't make out the patterns on the tile, though he knows they're there, in some instinctive way. There's mold on the ceiling, and a huge water stain spreading across the cream-colored expanse of it. Shane knows that it drips on some days. That one day, it will give out entirely.

He doesn't know how he knows this. He knows it the way he always knows things in dreams—deep in his bones, in a way that is unshakeable.

There's a girl in front of the bathroom mirror. She's a kid, looks like she's maybe seven or eight (like him!) and so she needs a stool to reach it. The stool is made of velvet and wood. The girl has a shock of dark curls spilling over her back, is wearing what looks like a nightdress. It's very purple.

In the reflection, which blurs and warps a bit the more Shane looks at it, he sees that she's carefully putting on bright red lipstick. She's kinda bad at it. It keeps smearing outside her mouth. She's got a bunch of makeup stuff scattered on the counter—

Her eyes, through the reflection, meets Shane's. They sharpen, bright and green, eyelashes clumpy with badly applied mascara.

She whips her head around, looking alarmed. She shoves the lipstick behind her back, looking caught, and says something. It sounds garbled and harsh, like. Well, like another language.

“I'm sorry,” says Shane, confused, “I don't know what that means.” It comes out in English, though he doesn't always end up speaking English in dreams. He doesn't know why.

She pauses, and squints at him. Says something again, the end of her sentence lilting upwards, like a question.

He shrugs. She frowns.

“Did you steal those?” he asks, even though it's clear she doesn't understand him. “Why would you dream about stealing stuff? Can't you just dream that you have ‘em already?”

He gestures towards her little collection, and she scowls. She opens her mouth, probably to say something sharp, because Shane always says the wrong thing, dreaming or awake.

But she's cut off by—something. The dream shifts, feels further away. The floor feels less there, the tiles blur together to form one big expanse of green. He doesn't exactly fall, but he feels the impact anyway.

He jerks awake to his alarm blaring, and sunlight stabbing his eyes.

Sometimes, Shane looks at himself and sees little stitched-together parts of his parents.

It's nice, most days. He loves his parents, even when they make him mad. And they love him, even when he's weird, even when no one in school likes him. Even when he cries because the lights are too loud, even when he won't eat because everything tastes funny.

It goes like this:

He has his mom’s freckles, he knows. Hers faded away sometime after she became a mom, but they're there in old, sun-bleached photographs—his mom, young and golden, grinning wildly at the camera, proudly showing off her chipped tooth, swaddled in hockey gear. He has her eyes, her hair, the stiff way she holds herself.

He gets the hockey from both his parents. Mom took to it on account of her brothers being general menaces on their school teams, who'd also dragged their baby sister onto the ice the second she could stand without falling over. Grampy says Dad was born in skates and stayed in ‘em until he got hurt in college. They bonded over hockey. Their first date was to a Voyageurs game.

From his dad, Shane gets his nose, his ears (read: they stick out a bit), and his Getting Mad When Clothes Feel Wrong. He has a lot of Dad's habits, actually. Like his Not Liking To Look At People's Eyes.

He gets his Every Day Has To Be Scheduled And He Has To Know If Things Change Beforehand Or He'll Cry thing from his mom. He gets his Keeping His Socks On In Unfamiliar Places thing from his dad. He gets his Really Loud Sneeze from his mom, which is funny because mom’s the smallest person in their family, besides Bachan.

He gets the dreaming from both of them.

Mom's louder about it, kind of. She and her brothers are all like battering rams, Dad says. They burst into your dream, and the whole thing warps, changes into something familiar to them. Their dream, or their memory.

“Is that why you don't like doing it?” Shane'd asked, back when he was still learning to put words to the way he dreamed, the way they dreamed.

“Well,” Mom had replied, distractedly folding a shirt (read: still neat, because otherwise she'd have to do it again), “It's rude. Not very nice to break up someone's dream and make it your own.”

“She used to want to do that with your nightmares,” Dad had added.

“Why didn't you?”

“Your Obaachan hit me on the head with a spoon and told me it'd stunt your growth,” Mom said, drily.

Dad's quieter. He slips into the corner of your dream, hovers there awkwardly. He's always just as surprised to be there as you are—where Mom sort of elbows her way into your head, Dad wanders in and looks kind of embarrassed about it, and hopes you don't notice him. Even though he says he's gotta want to end up there, that he only ends up in your dreams if he falls asleep thinking about you, he always looks vaguely surprised.

Shane's different, of course. Everyone dreams different, though most people don't dream at all. Not like they do.

But at the end of the day, there are two things Shane gets from both his parents, that he carries with him everywhere: Hockey, and the dreaming.

Mom dreams of the rink outside her childhood home a lot. In many of these dreams, at least the ones Shane’s stumbled into, she's laced up already. Stick in hand, eyes bright. She's younger today (read: tonight). She's young a lot, in this place.

She's still older than him, though. Gangly in the way teenagers are, face still smattered with freckles and the occasional zit. She's got her helmet on, is skating the length of the rink. Movements precise, clean.

Shane skates over before he realizes he's doing it. Or he tries—it takes him a while, because every time he skates over, she's further away.

He can feel the weight of a stick in his hands. Looks down, sees he's still in his pyjamas, patterned with little Bunsons and Beakers (read: he likes Bunson and Beaker).

“Mom,” he says, and it comes out Kaachan.

“Shane!” she turns to him, and grins broadly. She's still got her braces, which means she's in highschool, probably. Shane wonders if he'll ever get braces. He hopes not. Mom says they used to hurt when she ate.

She's at centre ice now, and so is he. He doesn't remember getting there.

He looks up at her, this girl who is his mom and also isn't his mom yet. She looks like him, but not. She looks like his mom but not.

“Wanna play?” he asks, and it comes out in Japanese. With his mom, it's usually a toss-up between Japanese and French. Which is weird, because in real life he mostly speaks in English with her—his Japanese is kinda bad, and he uses it mostly with Bachan and Jiji. And his uncles and aunts and cousins, sometimes.

But here, in their dreams, they speak Japanese. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know why anything happens in their dreams.

“Yeah!” Mom grins at him, wide and toothy. It's a smile he only ever sees when he's slipped into her dreams. In real life, his mom smiles smaller. He thinks it's beautiful both ways. He likes the way she smiles.

He smiles back, and skates over—he realizes, in that faraway way you do in dreams, that he's in his gear. A puck drops, and Shane finds himself skating towards it. He sends it sharp and fast towards Mom, movements fluid and easy in a way that he can and can't do in real life. Mom whoops, darting forward—but it's slid into the goal, clean as anything.

They end up chasing each other around the rink, playing keepie-uppies and shooting pucks. It goes on for hours, or what feels like hours.

Shane knows there's supposed to be a roof above them, in that bone-deep way. The roof isn't there, though. Above them, the sky is blue and sunny. The ice gleams bright, and his Mom laughs as they play together.

He wakes up to his alarm, like he usually does. In the next room, he knows that Mom's waking up, too.

He hits snooze, and closes his eyes again. Imagines he's still in that rink he's never seen in real life, Mom laughing bright and young and happy.

He tells them about the weird thing a few months after it happens. He didn't mean to keep it a secret. He just forgot, the way he forgets most things that aren't to do with hockey.

They're having breakfast when he tells them. He only remembers because he'd dreamed weird again last night. This time it was an older boy, who was trying to stop a little golden-haired baby from crying. Shane knew, in the dream, that the boy's mama was asleep, that his dad would get mad if he came home to the baby crying. He ignored Shane, mostly, in favor of angrily singing a little lullaby for the baby.

“What,” says Mom, in that flat voice she gets when she's trying not to sound surprised.

“...what?” says Dad, who clearly hadn't been listening. That's fine, Shane forgets to listen too, sometimes.

“I keep dreaming people I don't know,” Shane repeats patiently. He can be patient. Sometimes people don't understand what he's saying, or what he means. Which is okay, because there's a lotta times Shane doesn't understand what other people mean. And Mom and Dad never make a big deal of it, they just tell him again, and then again, until he does get it. So he can do that for them, too.

“Dreaming, or dreaming?” asks Mom.

“There has to be a better way to talk about this,” Dad mumbles into his coffee. Dad mumbles a lot when he hasn't finished his coffee.

Shane doesn't have coffee. Shane has a glass of orange juice and scrambled eggs and sausage and toast, and they're all on small separate plates because he doesn't like it when they all touch each other, and he hates those segmented plates because they are Wrong. Plates shouldn't have compartments, that's for lunchboxes. And Mom has coffee, but she also has toast and eggs. And Dad has coffee and toast and sausage because he doesn't like eggs in the morning, because they're not a morning texture for Dad. He likes them for lunch and dinner, though.

“Well,” says Mom, looking at Dad out the corner of her eye, “there's sweven, like your Grampy prefers—”

Dad grimaces, “Veto.”

“Veto,” Shane echoes, though he isn't sure what he's vetoing. Or what a veto is.

“There’s rêveur éveillé,” Dad suggests, “My mom's partial to that one.”

“Well, we aren't awake, that's the whole point,” says Mom.

“Not literally, honey—”

“I feel pretty awake when I dream like that,” Shane pipes up. Then, “One time I dreamed Uncle Hiro and he and I took a nap in a boat.”

“That's nice,” says Dad.

“Really? Hiro’s terrified of boats,” says Mom, frowning.

“It was a toy boat,” says Shane. “And the sea was made of Play-Doh. And also so were we.”

There's a long pause.

“That's…nice?” says Dad.

“He’s a grown man,” Mom mutters into her mug. Then, shaking herself, “F—heck, we got sidetracked! Shane, what do you mean, you're dreaming strangers?”

“I mean I dream and I'm in a stranger's dream,” Shane tells her. He's being patient again.

“Is it the same person?” says Dad. “Maybe you met them somewhere and forgot.”

“It's supposed to be people we know, David—”

“It's not just one person,” says Shane. They both stare at him. Mom looks like she’s really stressed out. Dad looks confused. “There's a really pretty lady who looks like a princess, and there's an older kid who has a lot of dreams about wrestling and also playing shinny and crying babies. He's not super nice, though. And there’s a girl who stole makeup in her dream one time. She's nice, I think?”

Another pause. Longer, this time.

“That's—”

“Have you ever asked them who they are?” asks Mom.

“Sure,” says Shane. “Sometimes I forget, though. Y'know, ‘cause it's a dream?”

Mom and Dad look like they do not know, actually. But that's okay. Shane is being patient with them, because they are being patient with him.

“And um,” says Dad, “have they answered?”

“Maybe,” says Shane. “I don't think they know what I'm asking, though. None of them dream in English. Or French. Or Japanese. And sometimes I only remember how to speak one of those. Or none.”

“What,” says Mom, in that flat tone again.

“Well,” says Dad, voice strained. “That's fun!”

He does not look like he believes this. Shane doesn't point this out, though, because Dad looks really stressed out now.

And he hasn't even finished his coffee. Poor Dad.

Shane has his own dreams, of course.

He's like his mom, and so a lot of his dreams happen at his hometown rink. Or the lake outside Jiji and Bachan’s house. Sometimes his dreams are in school, but those dreams are bad most of the time—he forgets how to write, or he's in his pyjamas, or he's losing all his teeth, or everyone sees that something is wrong with his face and they laugh and laugh.

When he was really little, Dad would show up in his dreams a lot. Sorry, bud, he'd say in the morning. That was an oopsie.

This was because he'd fall asleep thinking about Shane, he knows now. He'd be scoring a goal, the crowd going wild, and his Dad would be standing behind the net, looking around at everyone with raised eyebrows. He'd also be in gear, but he'd look surprised about it.

When Mom or Bachan dream him, the whole thing warps. He'll be running down the school hallway, and suddenly he'll be running on the wooden floorboards of Mom’s childhood home, or he'll be in skates, gliding across her rink, or skidding into Bachan’s kitchen.

Jiji doesn't dream. Shane can dream him, though. He’ll walk into Jiji’s garden, and see him kneeling in the grass, gently planting Black-Eyed Susans or Purple Coneflowers or Bergamot or Swamp Milkweed.

These are for the butterflies, he says one dream, hands stained with dirt and soil. They'll be by in the spring, and lay their eggs in them, and their little ones will eat their leaves. Shane blinks and sees a caterpillar already squiggling along on a leaf, a fully grown plant having bloomed where Shane and Jiji weren't looking. It stands tall and proud, littered with clusters of little pink flowers. Jiji reaches out, and the caterpillar crawls onto his open, dirt-stained hand.

Imo-mushi, he says, looking at Shane expectantly. He does this a lot, because Shane's Japanese is really bad. He's better at French and English.

Imo-mushi, Shane repeats obediently.

The caterpillar wiggles and sort of bursts open. Wings jut out from under its skin, and its body shrinks, and suddenly Jiji is holding a black-and-white-and-orange butterfly, body speckled with white freckles. Shane knows that this is not how butterflies work. Mrs. Laneway from kindergarten had told them all about larvae and pupae and adult butterflies.

Chou, says Jiji.

Chou, Shane repeats. He doesn't remember what language they'd been speaking before. Can't remember if it was English.

The butterfly takes flight, and Shane watches it go. The sky is bright and blue, and the clouds are fat and white. Above them, there's a cloud of little black-and-white-and-orange wings, all of them fluttering in one direction like a river.

Around them, the garden is already in bloom. Jiji can't dream the way Shane and Bachan and Mom and Dad and Gram and all his uncles and cousins do, but Jiji could change his own dreams to be whatever he wanted. (read: according to his Big Little Book of Dreams that Uncle Riku got him, this is called lucid dreaming.)

Jiji really likes gardening. He likes gardening when he's awake, and gardening in his dreams. It's his most favorite thing in the world, like Shane's most favorite thing in the world is hockey.

Shane's own dreams are a lot of hockey. So are Mom's. He likes that their dreams match, even when they don't dream each other.

His uncles dream of hockey too, but they're different from Mom's. Uncle Hiro and Uncle Riku dream of their old teams as teenagers, of playing with loud, laughing boys and being loud, laughing boys. Sometimes it's hard to tell whose dream he's ended up in, because he knows that Uncle Hiro used to sneak into Uncle Riku’s practices as a kid. And now, years later, Shane's sneaking into their practices in their dreams.

But other times, Uncle Hiro dreams of losing his kids at the beach, or being really late to work, or being lost in the hospital while his wife is giving birth somewhere. And sometimes Uncle Riku dreams of being on stage and playing the piano, or losing his sheet music, or going really fast in his car while listening to Madonna.

His Grampy doesn't like Shane dreaming him. Grampy can push him out, and often does. Shane will walk into a very small cockpit, and Grampy will turn around and push his goggles up and squint down at him. He's always younger in these dreams, hair still brown and curly.

Oh no, he'll say, This isn't for your eyes, champ.

But I wanna fly, too!

Sure, Grampy will say, a large, gloved hand landing on Shane's shoulder. But not like this. Go dream something nice for me, okay?

Okay, Shane will reply, before he lands back in his body, startled awake.

When Grampy shows up in Shane's dreams, it's because he wants to. He likes to watch Shane skate. He even tries to skate, some dreams. My knees can't do this when I'm awake, he always jokes.

Grammy doesn't dream, because she's like Jiji. Her own dreams are usually in places like libraries or schools or college. Quiet places, with lots of books. Shane can't read in dreams (his or anyone else's), but Grammy can. She likes to tell him stories or read him a book, just like she does in real life.

For the first few years of his life, most of Shane's dreams are with someone. After he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep, he is very rarely alone.

Shane gets used to stumbling into strangers’ dreams. He sees the girl again a few times, and she tries to talk to him despite neither of them understanding the other. He also sees the boy, the older one—he doesn't notice Shane most dreams. He keeps on playing hockey, or arguing with his friends, or whatever it is he's dreaming of that day. The older boy still dreams of the baby, but not as often.

The lady always notices him.

She's beautiful, like a princess from a fairytale. She has hair like gold, spilling over her shoulders, and big blue eyes. She wears a lot of dresses with flowers printed on them.

Her dreams make Shane feel strange. Like there's a little rock in his belly, like something heavy is pressing in around him. It isn't like nightmares—he’s dreamed his way into other people's nightmares often enough to know what that feels like. It's just. Uneasy. Like Shane's eaten something funny.

Today, Shane finds himself in a kitchen.

It's small, but sunny. There are windows everywhere, but Shane can't see them. He just knows they're there. He thinks he spies a window out the corner of his eye, thinks he sees a garden and a blue sky outside. It goes away when he turns his head.

In the kitchen is the lady.

The lady has her curly hair pulled back in a little bun, though a lot of her curls are falling out of it. She's wearing a flowery dress again, and a very blue apron. She's rummaging around in a drawer, muttering under her breath.

It isn't English. It's probably the same language that the little girl speaks, that the older boy yells and sings in.

She's looking for something. There's a lot of something on the stove, and Shane can't smell in dreams but he also kind of can, and he knows that the kitchen smells like something warm and rich. Something nice.

The kitchen is small. There's sunlight coming in through the window. The lady looks really stressed out. She also hasn't noticed him yet.

There's a stool next to the counter, and Shane climbs on top of it so he can see what she's cooking.

It looks like soup? Shane likes soup. Shane also likes broth. Shane also likes okayu, which is like if rice was kind of a soup. Or a pudding. While still being rice. Shane's just reaching for the big wooden spoon left by the stove, on the counter (read: this is called a fire hazard, his mom says so), when—

“Blyad!Fuck!” she yelps, startled. She skitters backwards, hand clutching her chest. She looks surprised.

Shane flinches, face going hot. He didn't mean to scare her. “Sorry,” he mumbles, pulling his hand back.

She makes another face, brows furrowing. “O,Oh,” she says, quietly, “Eto tol'ko ty, króshka.It's just you, little crumb.”

“Sorry,” he says again. Then, “Can I help?”

She says something again, looking apologetic. She reaches forward, but doesn't touch him. Says something again, in her soft voice, and it rises up at the end like a question.

“I don't know what you're saying,” Shane tells her. Then, “I can help? Mom lets me stir things sometimes.”

The lady doesn't understand, but she does usher him to the table and sit him down. She's muttering under her breath the whole time, in a frantic sort of way.

“On skoro vernetsya,He'll be back soon,” she mutters, “Mne pridetsya pospe…I'll have to hurry…”

She reaches for a shelf that Shane doesn't remember seeing before, pulls out jars and jars of spices, and gets more and more frustrated—sometimes they're empty, sometimes she pulls out a spoon and finds that whatever's in the jar has disappeared. One jar sort of melts in her hand and slips to the floor, and both she and Shane stare at it.

“Ew,” says Shane. It looks goopy.

“Mda,Ope,” she says, before muttering again. She pulls out another jar, off the little wooden wall-mounted shelf. It has not run out of jars. It may never run out of jars.

This next jar is filled with spiders. She shrieks, and throws it across the room. It falls with a clatter, and Shane flinches. The noise was loud, and she was loud, and Shane doesn't like loud noises. They make him feel small.

The spiders scuttle over the floor, and there are too many of them to have fit in the jar. This is normal, because this is how dreams work.

The walls look different, now. They are grey and dirty, covered in peeling paint. There’re patches of green and yellow towards the ceiling. The kitchen seems even smaller than before. Dustier. The light feels harsher, stranger. Shane doesn't know if there are any windows.

The lady is staring at Shane with big, watery eyes. It's scary, seeing a grown-up look like that. Her nose is going red, and her mouth is wobbling.

“Izvini,I’m sorry,” she whispers, “Izvini, króshka.I'm sorry, little crumb.”

“It's okay,” says Shane, because he doesn't know what she's saying, but she sounds so sad. He climbs out of the chair, and stumbles a bit, because the chair's a lot bigger than he expected. The spiders are making their way near him, but he doesn't look at them. They make his skin feel prickly. He doesn't like spiders.

He's brave, though. That's what Mom says. He's brave. So he walks over, and gives the lady a hug. Hugs sometimes make him feel better. Hugs usually make other people feel better.

He realizes that he only comes up to her knee, and frowns. She's not that tall, right? She coos and picks him up, and settles him on her hip, the way Mom used to when he was really really little.

Wait, he is really really little. Like, as little as Baby Misato, who is two years old now. Mom says Baby Misato is like if Uncle Hiro cloned himself, but smaller.

“Why am I small?” says Shane. He finds himself clutching at her shirt, at the golden chain she always wears around her neck. On the chain is a cross, except it's got extra parts. Like if a regular cross got upgraded. Shane worries it with his fingers, absently, because he's small and being comforted.

“Ty takoy milyy!You’re so cute!” the lady coos, using that voice people use for babies, “Prosto khochetsya s’yest' tebya!I could just eat you up!”

“I'm not actually a baby,” he tells her. She does not reply, because she doesn't know what Shane is saying.

He's gotta figure out what language this is. Maybe he should learn it, if he keeps dreaming people who only speak like this.

She glances at the floor, which is now mostly spiders, and shudders. Shane takes the opportunity to grab a jar from the wall, and hand it to her. He isn't sure how he can reach it, because his arms are suddenly very short and chubby, but he does.

“Here,” he says. His voice is smaller, higher.

She takes it, and blinks. Balances him on her hip and twists the jar open.

There are no spiders inside, just red powder. She beams, and laughs. Coos at him again.

They finish the soup like this—Shane picks out the jars, and hands them to her. She pulls out vegetables and chops them after setting Shane on the counter, and chats at him while they wait. Shane listens, even though he has no idea what she's saying. This is because he is patient.

The floor is still mostly spiders, but neither of them look at that too much.

“—zhal', chto ty ne mozhesh' s nim vstretit'sya,—it’s a pity you can’t meet him,” she's saying, “Ty by yego polyubil.You would love him.”

“Uh-huh,” says Shane.

“Vy mogli by byt' druz'yami,You could be friends,” she goes on.

“Okay,” says Shane. She snorts.

“O, króshka,Oh, little crumb” she says, picking up a big ladle. She has a bowl in her hand, and fills it with soup. “Ty ne ponimayesh', chto ya govoryu.You don’t understand what I’m saying.”

“Yeah,” says Shane, making grabby hands at the bowl. He knows that's rude, that he should wait, but he's a baby right now. Babies get away with a lot of stuff. He could go draw on the walls and it'd be okay, because he's a baby. Not that he'd ever draw on the walls.

The lady laughs, and puts the bowl on the table. Picks him up and places him on the chair, and suddenly he's big enough to be looking down at the table, big enough to hold a spoon easy. He isn't sure where the spoon came from.

He wants the soup, though, and hungrily dips the spoon into the bowl.

Off to a side, the lady is leaning on the counter, peering through a window behind the stove. Shane has no idea when that window appeared. Outside, he can see a bright, green garden. If he squints, it's a grey city. It merges together, is both and neither.

She looks younger, all of a sudden. Like a teenager, a little gangly. She's wearing trousers and a very big button-up shirt, long hair wound in a braid around her head. She grins, “On zdes’! Moy Ilyushenka! He’s here! My Ilyushenka!”

Shane looks over, straining to see what she's looking at. He sees the garden—trees, and a gate, and a little figure running down a path, a glimpse of golden, curly hair, and—

He wakes up.

“Mom,” says Shane, stumbling downstairs blearily. He's still in his pyjamas, and he hasn't brushed his teeth, and he feels kind of crusty and gross, and going downstairs without brushing his teeth or washing his face or changing into new clothes or changing into Not Sleeping Socks feels wrong and gross but he's really really hungry, so—

“Mm?” says Mom, who is sleepily blinking at her coffee. Dad is staring off into space, blinking slowly.

“Can we have soup for breakfast?"

“Whuh,” says Dad. He squints at Shane.

“Why,” says Mom. It comes out flat, because she is sleepy.

“I want soup,” he insists. “I can make it? I dunno, I watched that lady make it, but there were like. Spiders.”

They both stare at him. Dad looks a little bit more awake.

“We didn't eat the spiders,” he adds, in case they were worried about that.

“What do you mean—”

“I dreamed the nice lady again,” says Shane, impatiently. He's been very patient, he thinks. “And I want soup.”

“Fuck,” says Mom, putting her mug down hard, “It happened again?”

It happens a lot, he doesn't tell her. This is called a lie of omission. Lying is bad, but Mom looks really stressed out.

“Swear jar,” Shane and Dad tell her. She grimaces.

As Shane grows older, his dreams change.

He dreams other people less. It's not every night anymore, just once or twice a week. He sees less and less of his uncles and cousins, and even less of his grandparents.

There was also one time he dreamed his fourth grade teacher, and this was so embarrassing he refused to go to school for two days. He faked sick and everything. Mom absolutely knew he was lying, because Shane is always bad at lying, but let it happen anyway.

He goes to skating lessons, and he doesn't make friends. He goes to Mites and still doesn't make friends.

He doesn't have a lot of friends at school. He has Jason and Andy, who sit next to him at lunch, and Jess who talks to him in class. But he doesn't dream any of them.

Shane knows that there's something wrong with him.

He's not stupid. He knows there's. Something. It's like he's half a step behind all the time. Or everyone has some kind of manual about being a regular person and Shane just never got it. It's like he's constantly trying to figure out the right thing to say, or how to hold his face, or how to stand right. He stares too much and can't look anyone in the eye. He doesn't like eating most things and he hates the lights at school because they're too loud. He can't talk to people. He can't smile right. He's been told he talks like a robot.

He doesn't mind it, most days. Really. It pisses Mom off, though.

“They don't know what they're missing,” she tells him fiercely, when Lisa Jennings invites everyone in his class to a birthday party but conveniently forgets about him.

“Sure,” he replies.

That night, he dreams the girl again.

Shane goes to sleep and finds himself standing on a balcony, overlooking a city. It's curiously empty, for a city—no lights in any of the grey buildings, no little people or cars on the streets. Above them, the moon hangs fat and full. It's snowing, even though there are no clouds.

He turns, and finds the girl crunched on the marble floor. Over the years, she's grown—her limbs getting longer and spindlier, her face sharper and narrower. She's taller than him, now.

She's wearing a nice red dress, hair spilling over puffy sleeves, skirt pooling on the ground.

She looks up, and scowls.

“A, eto ty,Ah, it’s just you,” she says, scowling. Her eyes are reddened, the skin around it smudged with little black spots.

“Were you crying?” he asks.

She scowls at him. She's not usually mad at him, but sometimes she seems frustrated at Shane's very presence. He doesn't blame her. He doesn't know how he'd feel about a stranger showing up in his dreams all the time.

“Ya zhdu koye-kogo,I’m waiting for someone,” she sighs, “Ilyusha.”

“Sorry I keep appearing,” Shane says, “I don't know how to control it. I don't know why I keep seeing you. Or the others.”

She mutters something in response.

“I wish I could understand you,” he says. She ignores him.

They stay like that in silence for a while, before she says, “A ya vecherinki nenavizhu i starayus' na nikh ne khodit'.I hate parties and try to avoid them.”

He frowns. “You know I don't—”

She ignores this and goes on. She sounds bitter and resentful, and speaks directly to him. She doesn't seem angry at him.

Behind her, a brick wall wavers between being a wall and a window. He sees flickers of a party, lit with gold, figures in gowns and suits all talking to one another.

She keeps talking. He catches some words—like Papa and nenavidethate and ustaltired. He knows exactly one of those words.

When she's done, she looks lighter, her mouth pulled into a grin. She breathes out, looking settled, and gestures with her hands.

Shane stares. She keeps smiling, expectant.

“Um,” says Shane. “I don't know, I can't. Answer.”

She nods encouragingly. He stands there, feeling weird.

“I think there's something wrong with me,” he says, after a while. “Not just—not the dream thing. That's. A lot of people in my family do that. The dreaming strangers thing is weird, yeah, but like. I don't know.” He sighs.

The girl nods solemnly, like she has any idea what he's saying. There's a sparkle in her eye.

Shane slides down the railing and settles down on the floor. He's in the clothes he fell asleep in—a pair of old running shorts and a Man From U.N.C.L.E t-shirt dad had given him at some point, with Illya Kuryakin posing with a gun. He knows, on some level, that he should be cold. But then, so should she.

“I don't think anyone actually likes me,” he says. “I don't understand how people make friends. My mom says I just gotta be myself, but I kinda think that's the problem. People don't like me. They think I talk like a robot. They think I look funny. The only thing that I have going for me is that I'm good at hockey.”

At this, the girl startles. “Khokkey?”

“...hockey,” he says.

“Igrayete v khokkey?Do you play hockey?” she asks, looking excited.

“Do you play hockey?” he asks, “Wow! I've never met a girl who plays!” Then, “Wait, that's sexist. My mom played. But she's a lady now, not a girl. Um, I know girls can play, just no one in my school does. And I don't get out much.”

Then, “Sorry, I forgot you don't know what I'm saying.”

The girl nods along, like she understands. Which, he knows for a fact she doesn't. “Prodolzhayte govorit’Keep talking,” she says.

“I don't get out much because no one wants to be my friend,” he tells her. “I don't know how to be someone that people like. My parents like me, but that's ‘cause they have to.” He sighs. “Mom used to talk about dreaming all her friends as kids. Dad used to show up in his neighbor’s dreams, ‘cause he used to hang out with them all the time. All I have are my parents, and you guys. I don't dream my grandparents or my uncles or cousins as much anymore, ‘cause we barely see them.”

He pauses. “It sucks. Sorry. It's stupid. I think I’m lonely. Pathetic, right?”

She hums, as though agreeing.

“It’s like everyone in the world was born knowing this secret language, except it’s only a secret to me,” says Shane. “I try talking to them, and it just comes out wrong. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

She nods again.

“You’re really easy to talk to,” he tells her. “You’re a good listener. Even if you don’t know what I’m saying.”

“My teper' druz'ya,We’re friends now,” she informs him.

He nods. She looks pleased. He has no idea what he just agreed to.

They spend the rest of the dream like this—talking at each other, past each other, even as the world blurs and fades around them.

Shane wakes up feeling warm and fuzzy, and he doesn’t even mind that no one sits with him at lunch that day.

The next time he dreams the girl, they're on a frozen pond, wearing skates. The sky is grey and overcast, like it's on the verge of snowing.

There're two little goals set up, though sometimes Shane looks and sees that they're just two pairs of large boots placed on opposite sides of their makeshift rink. They play shinny together, and she plays hard and fast, and she laughs loud and happy.

Sometimes, the pond isn’t a pond, and they’re on a cobblestone street—the ball is old and faded, and no one ever interrupts them. They have teams and then they don’t, players wavering in and out of existence.

Shane thinks she'd like playing with his Mom. He wishes they could dream each other.

Shane met Joe in skating classes when he was a kid, but he doesn't dream him until he turns eleven.

He knows why—it’s because he invited Joe to his eleventh birthday party, largely because his Mom kept looking sad about Shane having no one to invite. Shane had thought long and hard about who he could invite that would also want to spend time with him, and could only come up with Joe From Skating Class Who Also Talks On MSN Messenger With Him Sometimes.

They become friends pretty fast after that. They already were, but now they're friends in a way that means that Shane dreams him.

He tells Mom and Dad about this, and tries not to be too offended by how relieved they are. He also tells the girl he doesn't know the name of. And the lady. He doesn't tell the older boy, because he seems busy. He tries not to think about how they can’t understand him.

Joe dreams of the ice a lot, in ways that the other people in Shane's life don't. There's a stark difference between hockey dreams and ice skating dreams. They seem airier—the world sort of shifts to be focused on the blades of his skates, and everything else is sort of secondary. There's music, even when there isn't. Shane isn't always sure that he has a body.

Or maybe that's just Joe. Shane doesn't know enough figure skaters to be sure.

“I don't know how you move like that,” he says one dream.

“It’s like dancing, but not really,” Joe tells him. He's skating in neat, geometric loops around Shane. Joe's skating is very precise. He likes to skate neat, intricate little patterns on the ice.

These are called special figures. Joe says he doesn't do them competitively and they aren’t really a thing anymore, but his coach says he needs it to be a well-rounded skater. It's the whole backbone of ice dancing, he says.

Also, he says he really likes doing them, just for himself. This makes sense to Shane, because sometimes he wishes hockey could just be his and no one else's.

Sometimes, when he’s playing in someone’s dream, it really does feel like it’s his.

“Could you teach me?” asks Shane.

“Sure,” says Joe. “If the real you wants to. Real Shane will have to ask me, though—I never remember my dreams.”

“I always remember my dreams,” Shane informs him. Around him, Joe's skate—just one—has formed a little five-pointed filigree star around Shane, in a way that is probably impossible in real life.

The star shifts, becomes a spiral, then something like a snowflake. They’re in their old rink, the one where they met. Joe’s wearing a sequinned black shirt and matching pants—the sequins form little snowflakes. The stands are empty, except when Shane looks away—then, he can see a crowd shuffling and cheering out the corner of his eye, though he can’t hear them.

“Is figure skating more fun?” asks Shane.

“I dunno,” says Joe, doing another loop, “I never really liked hockey. No offense.”

“None taken,” says Shane. “I don’t know how not to like hockey.”

“I get that,” says Joe, “I’m the same way about skating—Coach Lilia says I have passion.”

“Coach Johnson says I gotta unclench,” says Shane.

“Well,” says Joe, audibly holding in a laugh, “have you tried doing that?”

Shane scowls at him. “I think I’m, like. Appropriately clenched.”

Joe wheezes out a laugh, which fucks up his pattern. He wobbles, puts his other leg down. “Please tell me you said that to his face,” he laughs.

“I didn’t,” says Shane shortly.

“Aw, don’t be mad! I think he’s full of shit anyway—”

“Yeah, I can see that—”

“No, really!” Joe insists. Then, after a beat, “Okay, maybe you do need to chill out a little—”

“Wow.”

“You do,” Joe informs him, “But I don’t really care. I like you, Shane. You’re possibly the only nice hockey boy in the country.”

Shane frowns. “Hockey boys are nice.”

“You’re an awful liar. You need to work on that.”

“I’m serious!” says Shane. He thinks of Dad, who was a hockey player, and who’s so nice that Mom actually has to sit him down and yell at him about being too nice to co-workers who are (her words) being massive fucking tools to him.

“They’re not nice to me,” says Joe, mouth twisted into a scowl. “They call me a fairy and a fag and a prissy little cocksucker.”

Shane startles. He’s heard all that, yeah, but everyone just kind of says awful things in the locker room or while chirping one another. Shane’s heard a lot of stuff about being Asian—not even Japanese, because they never actually remember he’s Japanese (read: half, on his mother’s side), but the nebulous concept of Being Asian. They also tell Shane that his dick has to be tiny, on account of the Asian thing.

But if they’re saying it to Joe, that isn’t chirping. That’s just being (Mom’s words) massive fucking tools.

“They shouldn’t say that,” says Shane, brows furrowed.

“That has literally never stopped anyone ever,” says Joe.

“Who are these guys? What’re their names? What teams do they play?”

“Shane,” says Joe, looking fond and amused, “What’re you gonna do? Beat up every guy who calls me a fairy?”

“Uh,” says Shane. He thinks about it. He isn’t very large, but he’s fast. And Uncle Riku once showed him how to throw a punch at his last birthday party. Shane doesn’t really drop gloves during games because it isn’t allowed and he likes going by the rules on account of his Mom and her blood pressure, but he’s a hockey boy. He can fight. Probably. “I can try.”

Joe laughs. “That’s very sweet, but no thanks. I can hold my own.”

“Do you want me to teach you how to throw a punch?” Shane asks earnestly.

“Oh my god,” says Joe, delighted. “Can you?”

They spend the rest of the dream off the ice, in a dreamy half-room that almost looks like someone’s living room, Shane teaching Joe how to throw a punch. The floor becomes ice sometimes, but they don’t wobble on their skates.

It’s only after he wakes up that Shane remembers that Joe forgets all his dreams.

99Fan4Ever: Joe I have to teach you how to punch someone.

Sk8trB0y: LOL!! Why??? POS BTW >.<

99Fan4Ever: That’s OK. Hi Mrs. Wilson or Mr. Wilson. Joe I need to teach you how to punch people.

Sk8trB0y: BUT WHY????????????

99Fan4Ever: My Uncle Riku says it’s an important life skill to have. Especially on the ice.

Sk8trB0y: OMG LOL!!! Hope U kno my Mom just agreed!!!

Sk8trB0y: She thinks Ur a cutie patootie!!! xD

99Fan4Ever: Thank you Mrs. Wilson :)

99Fan4Ever: GTG my Mom made dinner.

Sk8trB0y: C U L8TR!!!

He dreams the older boy again.

They're in a bedroom. It's a nursery, probably, because it has a little wooden crib in the middle of it. It doesn't have much else. Sometimes it doesn't even have walls—just nothing, in a room with a crib.

Shane's small in these dreams. Smaller than usual. He's even smaller than he was when he first dreamed the boy, and the boy’s remained ten or eleven all these years. Same pale, drawn face, same unruly auburn hair.

He's always trying to stop a baby from crying. The baby is tiny, all red-faced and wispy blonde hair. It fusses, opening its gummy mouth in sad little wails. The boy is always frantic, whispering little lullabies and shushing it.

He never lets Shane hold it.

“Blyad!Fuck!” he hisses when he sees Shane. “Snova ty! Malen'koye otrod'ye.You again! Little brat.”

“Why's it always crying?” asks Shane, and gets shushed for it.

The baby keeps crying. The boy hums, rocks it to and fro, he paces up and down the room that's barely a room. In the distance, beyond the walls that exist and don't, Shane can hear voices. A man is shouting. A woman is crying.

The boy flinches, face white, and clutches the baby closer. The baby never stops crying, even when it goes quiet.

Shane has been dreaming this dream for years. He never gets any older in it. Neither does the boy, or the baby he's holding. This dream stretches on forever. It's always long, and awful, and it makes bile rise in the back of Shane's throat. It's always the same. It only ever ends when the baby falls asleep, when whoever is outside this room stops yelling.

Outside, a woman is sobbing.

In here, the boy is singing.

“Spi, moya rádost', usní,Sleep, my joy, fall asleep,” he whispers, barely melodic. His voice is thin with fear, mouth trembling. “V dóme pogásli ogní, ptíchki pritíkhli v sádu—”“The lights in the house have gone out, the birds have fallen silent in the garden—”

A man's voice cuts in, sharp and angry. There're stomping noises. Then, suddenly, the sound of breaking glass.

Shane's been trying really hard to stay quiet and still, so as not to freak the baby out, but he flinches at this. Can't stop the wobble of his lip, which he hates, because he isn't actually a little kid, he shouldn't actually be scared.

The boy looks over, mouth in a flat line. There's something terribly old and terribly tired on his face, in his eyes. He looks, abruptly, much older than ten or eleven, though his face hasn't changed at all.

“Podoydi,Come here,” he says, holding out one arm.

Shane stares at him. He's holding the baby in the crook of one arm, even as it fusses and thrashes tiny fists against his shirt. It's escaping its swaddle.

Another smash. Shane feels smaller, more frightened, and scrambles forward. The boy scoops him up, and Shane finds that he's even smaller. Only a little bigger than the baby. He doesn't even feel put out by this, because he's small and being held.

The boy goes back to singing, swaying from side to side. The baby gurgles miserably.

“Rýbki usnúli v prudu,The fish have fallen asleep in the pond,” the boy whisper-sings, “Mésyats na nébe blestít. Mésyats v okóshko glyadít.The moon is shining in the sky. The moon is looking in the window.”

It's the same song as always. Shane's heard it often enough, remembers it just as much as he remembers his Mom's old lullabies. Sleepily, Shane mumbles, “Glaz-kee sko-ree som-kni.”

The boy pauses. Taps Shane's back, and corrects him, almost gentle, “Glazki skorée somkní.Close your eyes quickly.”

“Glazki skorée somkní,Close your eyes quickly,” Shane repeats.

“Spi, moya rádost', usní,Sleep, my joy, fall asleep,” the boy finishes.

“Spi, moya rádost', usní.Sleep, my joy, fall asleep.”

Shane doesn't know if the baby stops crying. He thinks he falls asleep in the dream, and wakes up feeling small and quiet.

All day, he hums a lullaby he doesn't know the meaning of.

Chapter End Notes

this fic is a love letter to all of those fics where two protagonists dream of one another for years before they ever meet. shane here just decided to take a much more complicated route. he'll get there eventually. not that he knows what there even is.

some thoughts!

1) if any of the russian (or the brief french) is wrong, just kill me. don't tell me about it, just murder me. i only speak two languages and none of them are russian or french or japanese. i'm sorry for my sins. however if a random word is misssing, ao3 ate it and you should inform me immediately. and then kill me.

2) sweven is an archaic english word meaning dream or vision

3) rêveur éveillé means daydreaming, or dreaming while awake.

4) I like the idea that none of them can choose the language they speak in these dreams, just like you can't choose much of anything at all in dreams, unless you're very good at lucid dreaming. which most of these guys aren't.

5) also here is the lullaby from that last dream! it will come up later.

lmk your thoughts! see you in the next chapter! :D

Chapter 2: dreaming and hockey

Chapter Summary

“Nothing feels real, sometimes,” says Shane, looking resolutely away from him. “Except dreaming and hockey.”

Shane keeps dreaming.

Chapter Notes

please be warned for non explicit canonical character death

Joe, it turns out, has a wicked right hook. At least that's what Dad says.

They're in the backyard, and Shane has set up a little practice-dummy—a plank of wood, wedged into the grass, with an old cushion tied to it. Dad walked in on Joe aggressively pummeling it, because Shane told him to imagine That Guy Who Calls Him A Fag All The Time. Shane thinks Joe's gotta a lotta pent up aggression, despite being built like a very graceful collection of toothpicks.

Joe's decided on a name for the thing and everything. Backstory and all. This has really upped his enthusiasm for pummeling it.

“You'd be a great hockey player,” Dad tells Joe, looking amused. He's doing that thing where he peers at someone over his reading glasses.

“I’d be awful,” Joe says primly, “I can't pay attention and none of the rules make sense to me and I don't want to be in a locker room with the stinkiest guys in the nation.” He turns to Shane, “No offense.”

“None taken,” says Shane, “It can get pretty nasty in there.”

“Yeah,” says Dad, “When I was a kid, my Mom would threaten to throw us out if we didn't do our laundry immediately after practice.”

“Fair,” says Joe.

“One time a guy tried to make me eat his sock,” says Shane. “It was really gross.”

Joe and Dad both stare at him.

“Eugh,” says Joe, with feeling.

“Is this why you had that dream about a sock strangling you?” asks Dad, looking concerned.

Shane grimaces. He hates when Dad walks in on nightmares. He always wants to have Conversations about them, and Shane always wants to climb out of a window about it.

“You gotta start punching these guys, Shane,” says Joe solemnly. “Show ‘em what’s what.”

“Well, hold on now,” says Dad.

“Mom says I don’t need to stoop to their level, I just need to be better than them,” says Shane.

“Well, my mom says you shouldn't start fights, but you should finish ‘em,” says Joe.

“Joe,” says Shane, “That's The Aristocats. That's the cat from The Aristocats.”

Joe pauses, a revelation happening on his face. “Oh my God,” he says.

Dad laughs, eyes crinkling. “Well,” he says diplomatically, “It's not bad advice.”

“Sure, if you're a cartoon cat,” says Shane, because he's biologically hardwired to be a killjoy.

“Her name is Marie,” Joe informs him, “And she's a lady.”

“Uh-huh,” says Shane. Then, before the conversation can get further derailed, he adds, “If I promise to punch the sock guy, can we drop this?”

“Hold on,” says Dad, “I want to address this. Son, are you getting bullied?”

Shane would rather die.

“No,” says Shane, “I've already decided. I'm dropping gloves about it. Penalty be damned, I guess.”

Joe pumps his fist in the air. “Yesss! Mr. Hollander, can you record it?”

“I don't know if I can condone this, Joe.”

“Too late,” says Shane, “You're an accomplice now.”

Dad stares off into the middle distance, resigned. “Alright,” he sighs. And then he walks off, looking vaguely stressed out. Shane hopes he doesn’t bring this up with Mom. Shane and Joe then decide to get some more practice in, in the form of tackling each other to the ground. The dummy, for the moment, is spared.

The next time Shane dreams the lady, he’s on a very familiar frozen pond.

He’s wearing skates. He is also small again, and he knows it in that bone-deep way you know things in dreams. He doesn’t know where he knows the pond, but he knows he’s been here before. It’s a wobbly expanse of thick, fresh ice, and the trees and snow around it waver in and out of focus. Above him, the sky is blue, and the sun is bright and cold.

He looks over, and sees the lady. She’s all bundled up for the winter, in a bright blue coat and a thick knit hat, and she’s skating alongside a little boy.

“Hi!” says Shane, skating over. Because he’s wearing skates.

A lot of dreams have him in skates, on the ice.

The lady looks up, and brightens. “Króshka!Little crumb!” she cheers, and she looks young and happy. This dream isn’t choking Shane, the way her dreams often do. This dream feels light and airy, kind of like Joe’s dreams. “Eto moy syn, Ilya!This is my son, Ilya!”

The little boy, who is maybe five or six, is holding her hand. Shane can’t make out his face, it blurs in and out of focus. All he can see for sure is curly blonde hair, just like the lady’s, and a pair of very sharp blue eyes. Also like the lady. Shane can't make out much else—the boy's coat changes every time he looks at him. He's like an impression of a boy, though Shane can tell he's being smiled at.

Shane also knows the boy's smile is beautiful, in the way you know things in dreams.

“Hello,” he says, feeling inexplicably small and shy (read: this may be because he is small right now), “I’m Shane.”

“Shane,” the lady coos, reaching down to pinch his cheek.

“I just realised I never introduced myself,” says Shane, frowning, “That’s rude, I think.” He just never remembers. He often forgets things in dreams. Like languages.

The lady coos at him again. Probably because he's small. He really needs to work on that, it keeps happening to him.

The little boy skates over to him, as sure and precise as Joe, and holds out a blurry, indistinct hand. Shane blinks at him, and then at the lady. She says something encouraging.

Shane can't quite grasp the boy's hand, even when he does. He knows he's holding it, that he's getting tugged along, but he can't feel it. It's odd—he’s never really interacted with someone that someone else dreamed up.

He thinks he hears the boy laugh. It's clearer than his face, sounds more real and solid than the pond or the sky or the sun. For a moment, Shane thinks they've locked eyes.

The boy's eyes are very blue, or green, or something else. They are laughing, and Shane knows the boy isn't real, but he suddenly feels very shy.

They skate together while the lady watches. She seems content to watch them play, smiling softly. She still looks tired, because she always looks tired, but she looks happy.

When Shane wakes up, he knows he'll spend the rest of the day itching for the ice again. Unfortunately, he still has to go to school.

He keeps remembering the boy's laugh. He doesn't know why.

“Do you ever remember your dreams?” asks Shane, even though he knows the answer.

“Nah,” says Joe, fiddling with his shoelaces, “I don’t think I dream at all, really. I sleep like a tree the second I close my eyes.”

"That’s not right, everyone dreams—wait,” says Shane, squinting over at him. They’re at the park, because Mom kicked them both out of the house (and the backyard) in a fit of Wanting Her Son To Get Fresh Air Without Beating Up A Dummy. “Did you just say like a tree?”

“Yeah, y’know,” says Joe, “You sleep like a tree.”

“No, you sleep like a log,” says Shane.

“Now, how would you know how I sleep?”

“No, the saying is—whatever,” Shane huffs, “Everyone dreams! That’s like, scientifically proven!”

“Well, not me,” Joe says smugly, “I’m special.”

“Yeah, you’re special, alright,” Shane mutters.

Joe cackles, delighted, “Shane Hollander! I heard that!”

“You are my least favorite friend,” Shane informs him.

“Then I’m also your favorite friend,” says Joe, nonplussed. “I’m your only friend.”

“I’m your only friend!”

“That’s not true,” says Joe, “I have Miss Lilia!”

Shane twists around on the bench to stare at him, baffled. “Your coach?” he says, “You can’t be friends with your coach!”

“Sure I can,” says Joe, unrepentant. “You’re just jealous because your coach doesn’t like you.”

“My coach likes me fine,” says Shane.

“You once told me he walked in on a couple of guys trying to pretzel you into a locker and he just kept walking,” says Joe.

“That’s just what guys do!” Shane scowls, “My Uncle Riku used to put me up on random shelves or on top of cabinets when I was little. One time he left me on the fridge.”

Joe snorts, “Yeah? And what’d your mom do about that?”

“She chased him down with a hockey stick,” Shane tells him, even as Joe dissolves into giggles at the image. “Which was nice, her getting revenge and all, but I’d still be up on the shelf while she was trying to murder him. Usually it was Dad who’d get me down.”

“That’s beautiful, man,” Joe wheezes, before abruptly becoming serious, “But you have to know, that’s different.”

“Yeah,” says Shane quietly. “I know.”

And he does.

They sit in silence for a while. Joe’s still fiddling with his shoelaces. Shane knows for a fact Joe can tie his laces successfully, on account of it being an important skill for when you put on your skates, but today he seems to have forgotten how to do it entirely.

“Why'd you ask?”

Shane looks over at Joe, startled. “Hm?”

“About dreams,” Joe clarifies, “Why’d you ask?”

Oh. Right. “I always remember mine,” he shrugs.

He's talked about this with Mom. In a dream, in her childhood rink, with a version of her with her braces still in.

It's normal to feel anchored to your dreams, she'd said, It's how we connect to the people we love, and the things that are important to us.

He didn't know how to tell her the thing niggling at him. Now, awake and in the park with Joe, he tries. Because Joe won't remember if he tells him in a dream.

“Sometimes they feel more real,” says Shane.

Joe stares at him. “More real than what?”

“Nothing feels real, sometimes,” says Shane, looking resolutely away from him. “Except dreaming and hockey.”

He can feel Joe staring at him some more. Shane doesn't like looking people in the eye most times (read: makes him itchy, deep down in his bones), but usually he can circumvent that by sort of staring at their forehead or their chin or, if he's feeling brave, their nose. But now, he can't bring himself to do even that.

“That's not good,” Joe says, after a long moment.

“Yeah,” says Shane. “Probably.”

“I get it, though,” says Joe. “Kinda. I only feel like me when I'm on the ice. Everything else is—it’s still me, but not really. Not really.” Shane thinks of the Joe in his dreams. How he moves so effortlessly, how light and airy everything is except for the blade of his skates. How the world reorients itself around where he touches the ice.

“Yeah,” says Shane. “I get it.”

They don't say anything else for a while.

Sometimes, when he dreams the lady, she’s in a ballet studio. She always looks younger here, maybe eighteen or nineteen. She dances the way Joe skates in his dreams—like nothing else is quite as real, like the world is sort of centered around her feet. There is music, even when there isn’t.

She doesn’t speak, in these dreams. She smiles, and dances, and the wooden floorboards turn into a stage, and she dances around him. She dances with him, even though he can’t dance.

There’s never an audience watching them. All the seats are always empty.

99Fan4Ever: I did it :)

Sk8trB0y: Wat?????

99Fan4Ever: Dad got it on tape :) I dropped gloves :)

Sk8trB0y: OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M COMING OVERRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!! DON'T MOVE DON'T MOVE!!!!!!!!

99Fan4Ever: OK :)

The boy is dreaming about the crying baby again.

It occurs to Shane that he hasn't seen the boy dream of anything else in a long time. No more hockey games, no more friends laughing, no more gaggles of boys running down the streets of a cold city. It's always this—a baby, a room that is both too small and not here at all, and a man shouting at a woman outside.

This time, the baby is still in its crib. The boy is sitting on the floor next to the crib with his head in his hands, curled up.

The baby is crying. It's always crying.

Outside, Shane can hear the man's voice. It's deep and loud, and he's speaking in a language Shane still hasn't learned how to recognize. The room is barely real, just fades into shadow—but Shane knows there are people outside in the way he always knows it.

The boy doesn't move. He stays crouched down, curled up. He looks small.

Shane stares at him for a moment, and reaches for the crib.

Shit. Shane's small. He can't reach the top of the crib. He can't reach the baby. The bars of the crib loom over him in a way they shouldn't, warped in a way that only happens in dreams.

The man’s voice outside reaches a crescendo, and Shane can hear quiet sobs. The woman’s voice sounds smaller than usual, and no less scared and sad.

The boy doesn't move. His head is buried between his knees, his hands tangled in his hair.

Shane reaches for the still-wailing baby through the bars of the crib. He can't reach it. He should be able to, but he can't.

“Spi, moya rádost', usní,Sleep, my joy, fall asleep,” Shane sings, patting the bedding like that's going to do anything, “V dóme pogásli ogní, ptíchki…The lights in the house have gone out, the birds…”

The baby keeps crying. Outside, the voices don't stop. The boy doesn't move.

There's a crash, the shattering of glass. Silence.

The baby keeps crying. Its face is red and scrunched up, miserable. Shane wonders if a baby can cry itself to death, because sometimes it seems like it might run out of air and choke on its own sobs. Shane really hopes it doesn't die.

The air is thick, suffocating. Shane can feel it in his chest, his belly. He doesn't know if he can breathe.

Outside, the woman is crying again. Big, ugly, heartbreaking sobs. Shane almost doesn't understand how he can hear it over the baby. He keeps trying to sing, but he can't really hear his own words.

The woman sounds familiar. He doesn’t know why.

“Eto nikogda ne konchitsya,It will never end,” the boy whispers to himself. Shane doesn't hear it, so much as feel it, deep in his bones. He almost understands it, but not quite.

“What?” he says, feeling small and frantic and frightened.

The boy lifts his head. He looks pale, eyes blank and faraway. He looks older than his face, he looks gaunt and tired. He doesn't look at Shane.

“Eto nikogda ne konchitsya,It will never end,” he says, low and bitter, “Tak budet vsegda.It will always be like this.”

Shane opens his mouth—he doesn't know what for. To comfort him? Maybe? He doesn't know. But he's cut off by something that's never happened before.

The door opens.

Shane's never seen a door in this room. It barely has walls. But there's a door now, and it opens.

The boy jolts like he's been stung, and scrambles to his feet. He looks, somehow, even paler. Smaller, even.

The baby's stopped crying. The room is holding its breath.

The figure at the door looms like a shadow, backlit by bright white. Shane can't make out a face, but he sees it open its mouth.

Shane wakes up with a start, heart hammering.

“Mom?”

“Hm?”

They're in her car, on their way to practice. Shane's nose is still taped up, on account of busting it open when he went after Jukebox (don't ask) at practice last week. Mom's still mad about it, and madder still because Dad made the tactical error of cheering while recording the whole thing. Apparently that, and bringing the camera to a practice match at all, made him look like an accomplice.

According to Mom, “I promised Joe” isn't a good enough reason to randomly drop gloves, tackle a teammate and smash your helmet into his nose. After wrestling his helmet off. And calling him a butt-ugly dick-face.

Shane could've told her what the guy called him right before he did all that, but he didn't. Mom worries about him enough, he thinks.

“What does it mean if you keep dreaming the same thing over and over?”

These are called recurring dreams, he knows. Everyone has them. His ancient, battered Big Little Book of Dreams says it could be caused by any number of things, from stress and anxiety, to big life transitions.

He asks Mom anyway, because Mom knows things about dreams that his old book doesn't.

“Is this about Hiro and his Play-Doh dream?” asks Mom, sounding exasperated. “I swear, every few years, he'll start dreaming in Play-Doh for no godd—uh, goshdarn reason, and the rest of us just have to deal with it."

“...no,” says Shane, baffled. “Was it a boat again?”

“No,” says Mom, “We were inside a Play-Doh whale. And then he had the audacity to get annoyed when I changed our dream to be a nice beach."

“A whale? Like Pinocchio?”

Mom snorts, “Well, I was thinking more Jonah, but sure. What're you talking about?”

"Um,” says Shane, “Nothing specific. Just, y'know. Generally.”

“Uh-huh,” she says suspiciously. She narrows her eyes at him through the rearview and everything. Shane keeps his face as blank and as casual as possible. “Well,” she goes on, “It can mean anything. Sometimes you're stressed—”

Shane knows this.

“—and sometimes you're stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“Sometimes,” Mom says, “Something happens to you, and time passes by, but you're still there. In your mind. You get stuck. And sometimes your dreams reflect that.”

“Oh,” says Shane.

“It's not always bad,” says Mom. “And it's not always forever."

“Okay.”

“Your Dad used to have a lot of dreams about crashing the car on the way to the hospital while I'm in labour,” she tells him, “because he was so scared for a while that something like that would happen.”

"Did it?” Shane asks, even though he knows the answer.

“No,” says Mom, even though she knows Shane knows. “Your birth was smooth sailing. It was the after that was rough—you had an awful case of colic.”

“Uncle Riku told me my head was so big I nearly cracked your bones,” Shane says.

“Uncle Riku’s full of sh—uh, crap.”

“Pretty sure that's still a swear jar word, Mom.”

“I won't tell if you won't,” Mom says primly. “Or is Dad the only parent you conspire with?”

“He didn't do much conspiring,” Shane informs her. “I don't think he has it in him.”

“Ah-ha!” she says accusingly, “So there was a conspiracy!”

"Uh. I want a lawyer.”

“Shane Hollander!”

Shane dreams the girl again. She’s in what looks like a cartoon house built inside a tree stump, and she's having what appears to be an argument with a giant ladybug. The ladybug is wearing a bowtie and a bowler hat.

Shane looks down at himself. He's in his Illya Kuryakin shirt, which just so happens to be the shirt he usually sleeps in. He is, however, also wearing a bowtie.

“What's going on here?” he asks. She huffs, shoves a bowl in his hand and points at a pair of smaller ladybugs on a cartoon sofa. They look sort of polite, if ladybugs can look polite.

“Are these your children?” asks Shane, baffled. She ignores him and goes back to arguing with the bug. “Is that your bug husband? Are you having bug marriage problems?”

She pauses her tirade and scowls at Shane, before shoving him at the littler ladybugs. They are not cartoon ladybugs. One of them is wearing a pink dress, and the other is wearing green overalls.

Shane looks down at the bowl, and finds that it's teeming with actual, tinier ladybugs. He's also holding a wooden spoon.

He looks back up at the kid bugs. They look expectant.

“Am…I supposed to feed you?” he asks, “Because I think that's cannibalism. Or something.

He sits down and feeds them anyway. He isn't sure how they're eating. One moment, they have unsettlingly human mouths, and then they have little pincers. Shane doesn't think ladybugs actually have pincers. They make gross crunching noises as they eat.

Eugh.

Meanwhile, the girl and the bigger ladybug have reached a crescendo, their argument a confusing mix of a foreign language and miscellaneous chittering. She makes a frustrated noise, and the big ladybug stomps out of the house. He slams the cartoon door.

She stands there, looking irate. Arms crossed, tapping her foot. She's wearing an oversized shirt that says “Чебурашка,Cheburashka,” and has a picture of something that's either a monkey or a mouse. Or both.

She stomps over and sits down

"Bad day?” he asks, feeding the bug with the dress. He thinks that means it's a girl, but who knows what the rules are for large ladybugs. Shane sure doesn’t

“Ya nenavizhu muzhchin,I hate men,” she says, “Ya khochu razvestis.I want a divorce.”

Shane makes what he hopes is an understanding noise. He's about to ask more questions, fully aware he will not be getting an answer, when a giant watercolor caterpillar bursts through the door and eats them all.

Shane wakes up confused, mostly. The next time he sees a ladybug, he steers clear.

Sk8trB0y: SHAAAAAANE!!!! y iz ur mom asking my mom if ur gettin bullied >.>

99Fan4Ever: Please play dumb.

Sk8trB0y: doooont sweat it!!!! I told mom 2 tell her we arent friends anymore :3

99Fan4Ever: NOT THAT DUMB!!!!

A week after the Shane Are You Getting Bullied Incident—wherein Shane did a pretty decent job of playing dumb until Dad broke under Mom's relentless grilling—Uncle Hiro shows up at their door with little Misato in tow.

This is kind of weird, because Uncle Hiro lives all the way in Toronto, and doesn’t like a drive longer than two hours. It’s also a Tuesday, so Misato should probably be in school. Which is why Shane just sort of stares at them when he gets home from school and finds two extra shoes on their little rack—a pair of worn, ladder-laced Docs right next to a pair of much smaller white sneakers with pastel pink laces.

“Uh,” says Shane, peering into his living room, “Hi?"

Uncle Hiro is sprawled on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. He’s wearing a rumpled shirt that says DAYGLO ABORTIONS and a pair of jeans that had probably been black once, but is now a worn grey. He doesn’t have his old eyebrow ring anymore, just two little imprints where it used to go. He doesn’t acknowledge Shane, just lies there looking like a very pale, freckley spider.

“Hi,” says Misato. She’s perched next to her dad in that ginger way of hers—she always looks kind of like she wants to be somewhere else, which Shane can sympathize with. Her hair’s longer than before, brushing her shoulders, and she has bangs now. She’s wearing a U2 shirt and sparkly pink tights, and matching pink socks. Shane can appreciate the coordination.

“...is he okay?” Shane asks.

She glances over at her dad, who hasn’t moved. “No.”

“I’m an awful father,” Uncle Hiro announces to the ceiling. Misato rolls her eyes, and gives Shane a long-suffering look that Shane’s seen on Bachan and his Mom, and also in the mirror. It’s startling to see on a ten-year-old.

“He’s being dramatic,” Misato tells Shane, as he takes off his shoes.

"I’m the worst Dad on Earth,” Uncle Hiro says, voice flat and tired, “They’re gonna take my kids away. I’ll be childless.”

“Look on the bright side,” says Misato, “That way you'll get all the Honey Shreddies for yourself."

Uncle Hiro groans dramatically, and covers his face with his arms. He sort of slides down the sofa, slumping like he’s trying to melt into the cushions. Misato pats his arm consolingly.

“Do my Mom and Dad know you’re here?” asks Shane.

Uncle Hiro peeks out from between his arms, looking sheepish. “Well—”

“We let ourselves in using the spare key under your doormat,” Misato says.

“Oh,” says Shane. Mom and Dad won’t be home for a while. Misato gives him that tired look again.

“Do you guys want something to eat?” he asks, because Mom says that you have to offer food to guests Or Else. “I can, uh. Make tea. Or sandwiches.”

“Point me at your sandwich ingredients, and I’ll make ‘em,” says Uncle Hiro. Then, squinting dramatically, “Can you even make sandwiches? Aren’t you six?” Shane can see the little smile in his eyes, even though he’s keeping his face serious. Uncle Hiro is Fucking With Shane (Mom’s words, though she doesn’t know Shane heard this)—he might not play hockey anymore, but most of what comes out of his mouth is either a chirp or something close to it.

“I’m twelve,” Shane says.

“Jesus,” says Uncle Hiro, clutching at the neckline of his shirt. He’s sitting up now, and his hair is sticking up everywhere.

“I’m ten,” Misato adds.

“Jesus,” he balks, looking at his daughter with mock-horror. “When did that happen?”

“Two months ago,” Misato tells him.

“What! Where was I for this?”

“You were baking the cake!” Misato says, and her face isn’t flat and blank anymore. She’s smiling, giggling. “And putting up balloons and setting up the stuff!”

“Huh,” says Uncle Hiro, “You sure you turned ten? Does your Mom know about this?”

“She was there, too!”

“She was also there when Misa-chan was born,” Shane adds.

“Hmm. I vaguely remember this."

Uncle Hiro ends up making a really gross peanut butter and pickle sandwich for himself, while Misato and Shane eat the rice that Mom’d left in the fridge. Uncle Hiro also makes them some omelettes, muttering under his breath about not being held responsible for raiding his sister’s fridge.

"He eats that all the time,” Misato tells Shane in a stage-whisper, as Uncle Hiro bites down into his gross sandwich.

“Ew,” says Shane, with feeling.

“Don’t knock it ‘till you try it,” says Uncle Hiro with his mouth full. “Open your hearts."

“My heart is closed,” says Misato. Shane nods.

Uncle Hiro is on his second extremely gross sandwich when Mom lets herself into the house, walks into the kitchen, and jumps about a foot into the air in alarm.

“Jesus fuck!” she yells. Then, “Hiro? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Wow,” whispers Misato, sounding impressed. “She's really loud.”

“Hockey lungs,” Shane says sagely, and then, “Mom, swear jar!”

“Put it on my tab,” she grumbles, “Hiro, answer the question.”

“It’s not my fault you always keep your spare key in the same place!” Uncle Hiro says, and his voice takes on a whiny tone that he only gets when he’s talking to Mom or Uncle Riku.

“Why didn’t you call ahead?” Mom yells.

“That honestly didn't occur to me,” Uncle Hiro tells her

“What the fu—fudge,” she hisses. “Does Jun know you're here?

“This was actually her idea,” says Uncle Hiro.

Mom stares at him for a moment, looking baffled. “Why couldn't you just break into Riku’s house?” she sighs.

“He's been having a lot of dreams about losing his teeth,” says Uncle Hiro, “so I figured it was a bad time.”

Mom sighs again, sounding resigned. “Alright. Sure. What do you want?”

Uncle Hiro makes a face, but Shane can't tell what it means. He looks kind of like he's biting his tongue and sucking on a lemon at the same time. Shane glances over at Misato, and finds her making the same face, but littler.

“Shane, Misa,” says Uncle Hiro, after a pause, “Why don't you guys go and. I dunno, play outside? Get some fresh air?

Misato looks like she's about to argue, and so Shane rushes to say, “Sure! Misa-chan, I can show you the dummy my buddy Joe and I made. We beat it up sometimes.”

Mom makes a face like she isn't too thrilled with his choice of distraction but has other things going to focus on. Shane knows for a fact he's going to hear about this later.

They end up in the backyard, Misato glowering glumly at the dummy. He's made of musty old cushions tied to a stick, wearing an old McGill shirt. His face is also a cushion, and he's wearing a battered old goalie helmet that no one recalls the origins of. His arms are also sticks. Joe had, in a fit of artistic vision, scribbled a sad face on his cushion-face.

“His name’s Jean-Philipe and he sucks,” Shane offers.

Misato looks at him, unimpressed.

“He plays hockey and he's from Quebec,” he goes on. “My buddy Joe likes to beat him up.”

“Dad thinks I'm broken,” she announces.

Shane squints at her. “Did he say that? ‘Cause if he did, Mom would beat him up. Your Mom would beat him up."

“Well,” says Misato, “He didn't say that—”

“Yeah,” says Shane, “‘Cause he'd get beat up.”

Misato gives him the stink-eye. Unfortunately, she's tiny and very cute, so this doesn't have much of an effect.

“Why do you think you're broken?” asks Shane.

“I can't dream,” says Misato quietly, “And no one can dream me.”

Shane stares at her. It occurs to him that he's stumbled into her father's dreams, and her big sister's, but never—

“Oh,” says Shane. How did he not notice that? He feels, abruptly, like an idiot.

“Dad said I might just be a late bloomer,” she says, and Shane winces. He hates when people say that about him. “But I regular-dream just fine.” Her chin quilts a bit, and she blinks fast. “And Miyuki keeps talking about how she and Dad hang out in dreams all the time, and she hangs out with Mom and our cousins and Jiji and Bachan and—and even you—”

Shane winces again. He hadn't even noticed—but in his defence, he hasn't seen Miyuki in a while, either. And he barely dreams Uncle Hiro anymore. But, he's realizing now, he's never dreamed Misato.

“So you can't dream?” he asks.

“Which would be okay, I think,” says Misato, miserably. “‘Cause Mom and Jiji can't dream other people either, but people can still dream them. It's not fair. Everyone else gets to do that, and I'm stuck dreaming on my own.”

“Oh,” says Shane, feeling useless. He can't imagine that. He's always had someone to dream, someone to dream with. Even when he dreams his own dreams, on nights no one slips in, he knows in his bones that he isn't alone.

He doesn't like that he's never noticed Misato’s absence. He wonders what else he hasn't noticed.

“That sucks,” he offers, and she sniffs.

"It does,” she says, voice thick. “And Dad thought I might just be a late bloomer, but I don't think that's how this works. And last night, Mom and Miyuki had a cool dream together and it—it’s stupid, I don't wanna be a crybaby about it—”

"No, I'm a crybaby about a lotta stuff, it's okay,” says Shane. “One time I lost a game and I tried to break my stick. And I cried.”

“You would cry over losing a game,” says Misato, scathing.

“Hey!”

“It just sucks,” says Misato. “Everything sucks. I'll never be normal."

Shane doesn't know what to say, because he never knows what to say when someone's upset. He shuffles forward and tries to hug her. Misato lets it happen, sniffles into his shoulder. She’s fully crying now.

“So, how’ve you been?” she asks, despite her tears, muffled by his rapidly dampening shirt.

“Um,” says Shane, floundering for something, “I ate a really gross egg a few days ago?”

Misato pulls back, eyebrows raised. “What?”

“It was really gross!” Shane says, “It was like. Bad! Like a soft-boiled egg gone bad!”

“That's your update?"

“It's been haunting my mouth!” says Shane. “I felt gross for days! I can't even look at an egg anymore."

Misato rolls her eyes. “Okay, you big baby.”

There's a pause. Shane tries really hard not to scrub at the damp spot on his shirt, where there is snot and probably tears, because that'd hurt Misato's feelings. And he honestly might die if she starts crying again.

“Do you wanna beat up Jean-Phillipe?”

“How's that gonna help?” asks Misato, incredulous.

“I dunno,” says Shane, “It helps my buddy Joe calm down. And also me, sometimes. It's very soothing. Just imagine someone you hate.”

“I don't hate anyone,” says Misato. Shane does not believe that.

“Okay,” says Shane, “Maybe imagine the concept of Not Dreaming.”

Misato stares at him.

“...okay,” she says.

Uncle Hiro and Mom find them like this: Shane cheering Misato on as she tackles Jean-Philipe to the ground, pummelling his smug face in with her little fists, hollering in Japanese.

They look baffled. Mom's looking at Shane like he's going to get another talking-to.

But Misato's laughing, and Shane was able to scrape off some of the snot on his shirt when she wasn't looking, so he's counting this one as an overall success.

That night, Shane decides to take a leaf out of Dad's book, and tries to dream Misato. Thinks about her real hard, the way he imagines Dad does when he wants to dream someone.

It doesn't work.

Instead he finds himself in what looks like an empty house, with that older boy again. He seems to be looking for something. Shane tries to help him look, but he isn’t much help, on account of not knowing what they’re looking for.

They keep passing by an empty crib. Shane asks the boy where the baby is, and gets no response.

He wakes up feeling lost and strange and angry. He doesn’t know why.

Months later, he dreams the lady again.

The air is thick, buzzing in a way that he can feel on his tongue, in his bones.

He’s in a room. There isn’t much in it—or, more accurately, there’s a lot of it that’s blurred at the edges, fading out into darkness. He can make out a door, a bed, a dresser, and a very familiar crib.

She’s curled up on the bed, and she looks. Small. Eyes blank, tired. She looks paler than before, and there are shadows under her eyes. She looks thinner. Gaunt. Even her hair seems duller, falling in limp tangles over her shoulder.

She’s in a white nightgown, spotted with little flowers, Her bed is a tangled nest of blankets and clothes. Shane can spy out little baby clothes, tiny booties and onesies, and older-kid-sized jerseys and shorts, and winter coats for even bigger kids, and a beautiful white dress, all silk and lace, with a gauzy veil tossed on top of it. There’s a pair of beat-up pink ballet slippers, the ribbon tangled in the wedding dress.

On the dressing table, there are a collection of pill bottles, all empty. And an empty water bottle. The crib is empty, and uncomfortably familiar. Shane is sure he’s seen it, even though the lady’s never dreamed a crib before.

He doesn't like that it's empty. He doesn't like any of this, actually.

“Are you okay?” Shane whispers.

She doesn’t look at him. Or she does, it just—it seems like she can’t see him. She just looks through him. Like she can’t see him at all.

He doesn't like that.

“Hey,” he says, and reaches for her hand, “Miss? Are you—”

His hand goes through hers. Just—passes through, as though she weren’t anymore real than the dream around her. Which. Has never happened before. Never, in all the years Shane has been dreaming and dreaming others. He’s always been real, and so has whoever he dreams, or dreams him.

He tries shaking her shoulder, and his hand passes through again. Something trembles in his chest, and he feels strange and wobbly. Scared? Sad? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t—

The bed is solid enough, at least. He climbs on, and tries reaching for her again, but his hands don’t work.

In the distance, he hears a voice—a boy. He hasn’t heard this voice before.

Or maybe he has. It sounds familiar.

“Mama?” cries a boy, who Shane can’t see, who might not even be in this dream, “Mama? Mamochka? Mama—Mama? Mommy? Mama—”

He sounds hurt. He sounds like he is crying. He sounds like someone’s carved out his insides. He sounds so, so scared.

Shane looks around frantically, feeling a strange, scuttling fear claw up his throat. He looks over at the lady, and finds her eyes slipping closed. “You should wake up,” he whispers, trying to reach for her again, “Someone’s calling you.”

She can’t hear him. Her eyes close, and she goes very, very still.

That’s when Shane realizes that the bed is wet. He looks down and sees that there’s—there’s water. Water, rising from the floor and flooding the bed, flooding everything. It’s rising rapidly, and Shane staggers to his feet, alarmed. It rushes up, around his ankles, then his knees, then his waist. And then he’s treading water, surrounded by those clothes—kid’s clothes, baby clothes, what looks like a wedding dress, the ballet slippers. He thinks he catches a glimpse of her necklace, the gold chain with the funny-looking cross, and then he’s underwater, struggling to breathe, and then—

He’s in a theatre. It looks familiar, though he's never been in the audience. Not that there is an audience. It's all empty, besides him. No one in any of the seats, which—he twists around to see—seem to stretch on forever.

There's water rising under his seat.

She's on the stage. There's a spotlight shining on her. There's music, which sounds strange and distorted and far away, like he's hearing it from underwater.

She's dancing. Twirling, pirouetting, leaping across the stage, movements fluid and gorgeous. It’s beautiful. She's beautiful. Shane is simultaneously so close and so far from the stage. She’s a little pale bird, dressed in a white leotard, faraway and remote, and she’s also right in front of him, dancing like she did in his other dreams, in that studio he’s never really seen.

She looks so small. She looks younger again, like she's almost an adult but not quite.

The water keeps rising. It's up to his chest, now.

Somewhere, a boy is still crying. Mama! he says, and it's faint, but it sounds like a scream, “Mama, pozhaluysta probudites’! Mamochka, Mama— Mama, please wake up! Mommy, Mama—”

She keeps dancing. She's so beautiful.

The water swallows him. He can't see anything but the impression of a dancer, cast in the bright spotlight.

He hears one last, warbled cry of Mama, before—

Shane wakes up cold and strange.

“Mom? Dad?” says Shane, quietly.

It's still dark outside—three thirty-five am. Way too early, even for Dad, who is hardwired to be a morning person the way Shane's hardwired to be a hockey person. He stands at the foot of their bed, feeling stupid and small.

He's twelve years old. He shouldn't be here, in the dark, feeling strange and shaken and frightened after having a bad dream.

He shakes Dad awake anyway. He chooses Dad, because he's less likely to ask questions. Mom's hardwired to ask questions the way Dad's hardwired to be a morning person.

“Dad?” he says, voice small and young in a way he hates but can't stop.

“Mmhm? Shane?”

“Dad,” he whispers, feeling his eyes sting. He woke up and cried for about an hour and five minutes, and then he puked in the bathroom. And then he tried to sleep for about twenty-three minutes before he gave up. “Dad, can I sleep here? Please?

Dad blinks himself awake, brow scrunching. He looks up at Shane, frowning. “Wh—What’s wrong, buddy?”

“I had a bad dream,” he says, small and stupid and scared and young. He doesn't elaborate.

“Oh, bud,” Dad sighs, shuffling over. “It was real bad?”

He's talking to Shane the way he used to when he was a little kid, and he hates it, he hates it, even as he feels something in his chest settle. He feels like a little kid, and he's trembling as he crawls into his parents’ bed in a way he hasn't done in ages.

“It was so bad,” he replies, voice thick with tears.

“Was it your dream?” asks Dad, “Or someone else's?”

“Someone else,” says Shane, as Dad drapes the quilt over him. Then, tears spilling over, “I dunno why I'm—I was scared. She was so sad.”

Dad rubs his back. His hand is broad and warm and gentle and very, very real. Shane stops trembling, feels his body warm up bit by bit.

“Who was it?” Dad asks.

“The lady.”

“...the stranger?”

“Yeah.”

A pause

“Shane,” he says, hesitant, “I didn't know you were still—still dreaming strangers.”

“I'm sorry,” says Shane. His eyes are already drifting shut.

“No, that's not—okay. Okay. Let's talk about it in the morning. Get some sleep alright, champ?”

“Okay,” says Shane, or maybe he doesn't. He isn't sure.

He doesn't dream again that night.

Dad and Mom want to talk about it, and his dreaming random people. They ask him about it over breakfast, but he doesn't know how to answer any of their questions. He doesn't know why it happens. He doesn't know anything. He doesn't talk about it. He doesn't want to talk about it. He never wants to talk about it. He hates dreaming. He never wants to dream again. He hates it, he hates it.

It doesn't matter, anyway.

He never dreams the lady again.

Chapter End Notes

if you think about it, shane and ilya have technically met. kind of. sort of. a little.

some thoughts!

1) sorry to hasan for not letting him do the formatting everyone go in the comments and say I love you hasan so he doesn't explode me with his mind. also say thank you hasan for beta reading!!!!!! thankyew for punctuation police. I am small and stupid and bad at html.

2) I like the idea that, to shane, it's acceptable that people are racist and homophobic in his direction on account of everyone in hockey being Like That, but it is not acceptable that they say all that to joe, because joe doesn't play hockey. he's like well of course they say all that and do all that to me, it's hockey. but joe? joe doesn't even go here! joe should punch them.

3) unfortunately joe is incredibly funny to me. he is a marie from the aristocats kinnie. he's so baby. so is shane. they're all baby.

4) also some of you in the last chapter said Wow You Made Me Feel Bad For Alexei/Andrei and to that I say. I'm sorry for continuing my crimes.

5) also some of the different ways that people dream in this fic are loosely based on people I know! this fic is also a love letter to dreams. like hiro, I have a friend who inexplicably has a lot of dreams where everything is play-doh. like joe, my sister didn't remember her dreams as a kid. like yuna and her mom, my best friend can control the settings of their dreams, if not much else. like alexei, I grew up having awful stress dreams about my siblings. this isn't really relevant to the story it's just a fun fact. a fun pukner fact.

unrelated again but shane getting put on shelves when he was small by his uncle is sponsored by my uncles and their complete lack of regard for child safety. or their own safety, when those children realised they could just bite them.

6) svetlana's big marriage dream is sponsored by all the weird bug dreams I've had over the years. sorry to svetlana. also don't examine how so many of these dreams center around domesticity and domestic unrest.

7) dayglo abortions is a real canadian punk band formed in 1979. unrelated but they got arrested like seven months ago in ohio for drug possession. godspeed. hiro is a big fan.

8) sorry for the hiro and misato part being Long :( it does become kind of relevant later but I know not everyone likes ocs :(

but also I really like the idea that misato wants to dream like her family not because she wants to be special, but because she wants to be normal. like this is so natural to them. yay.

9) sorry about irina guys

 

also. updates may be sporadic because of who I am and also because I am busy. I have a job. I'm so tired. I'm eepy.

please let me know what u think in the comments! also ilu!

Chapter 3: the boy in the corner of your eye

Chapter Summary

She never learns his name. She often thinks of asking him, but she only remembers in the waking hours—in her dreams, she thinks of nothing but the dream itself.

There's a boy popping up in people's dreams, over several years.

Chapter Notes

hello my friends, i am sorry for not updating for 300 years but i got:

1) bronchitis
2) an unrelated surgery coming up
3) really sad
4) really busy

and that kinda put a damper on my writing abilities. sorry :(

ALSO EVERYONE SAY THANK YOU HASAN FOR BETA READING AND PROVIDING MANY FUN INSIGHTS!

Svetlana Sergeevna Vetrova often has vivid dreams.

As a child, she used to get them confused with reality. She'd wake up, mouth dry and eyes sticky, and go about her day thinking she'd already gone to her Papa's fancy party, and be promptly informed that it was still days away. She'd realize she never got her new dress, that she didn't get upset because everyone was cooing at her and pinching her cheeks, that she didn't sneak out onto the balcony and meet a strange boy who spoke gibberish.

Her Mama says she needs to get her head out of the clouds. She says there's nothing that will come of losing yourself to things that aren't real, that she needs to be focused on her life.

She's right, all things considered. But Svetlana cannot stop dreaming. When she tells her Babushka this, she only gets a loud laugh, a pat on the head, and a whispered, Just try not to lose your way, Svetka-Konfetka. Dreams like these can swallow you whole, and you're so sweet. They'll gobble you right up.

She never tells anyone about the boy. She doesn't know how she'd explain it.

The boy has been there for a long time, ever since she was a child. He isn't in every dream, but he's in enough of them that Svetlana can't help but think of him as a friend—which is strange, because he isn't real.

She never learns his name. She often thinks of asking him, but she only remembers in the waking hours—in her dreams, she thinks of nothing but the dream itself. She's always thoroughly preoccupied by a game of shinny or stealing into an abandoned theatre or stealing her mother's makeup or chatting at (at, not with) the boy.

She never remembers what language he speaks, so she can't ask about it when she wakes. It all sounds garbled, like any language besides russkiy yazyk escapes her.

She is sixteen, and she can only dream in her mother tongue.

One night, she finds herself dreaming of a balcony again.

She recognises it immediately. It's small and cramped, an ashtray precariously balanced on a railing, overflowing with butts. The sky overhead is grey and dreary, thick and ready to burst. Behind her, a tiny doorway leads to a bedroom—she knows, without looking, who is inside. Her Ilyusha and Sashenka, her boys, tangled in one another in a mass of limbs and hair, snoring like twin steam engines. She's in one of Ilyusha’s shirts, buttons all undone and hanging past her ass, hair askew and holding a dwindling cigarette.

This is why she has trouble telling her dreams apart from what's real. Some nights, they're things that really have happened.

Next to her is the boy.

He's bigger than her, now. Has been for a while. She's known him since he was as little as her, all big brown eyes and chubby cheeks, covered in freckles. Now, he has grown broader, taller—she doesn't know for sure, but he seems like he still plays hockey. They play together, some days, on a pond that Svetlana doesn't see nearly as much in the waking hours.

The boy looks over at her, and promptly turns red. Likely because she's wearing nothing under her stolen shirt, and hasn't bothered to button it up.

“Whais yor sheertun buton’d?” he whines, covering his face with his hands. His ears are bright pink.

Svetlana laughs at him, flicking her cigarette in his direction. She knows it irritates him, even though it isn't real. (Even though he isn't real.)

“Oh, lighten up,” she snipes teasingly, “I'm luxuriating after a good fuck.”

He looks askance at her, scowling. It's cute on him, more like a pout. He never seems to know what she says, but he knows enough to pick up on when she's making fun of him. Which is often.

It's just so easy! Even when they don't understand each other. Even when he isn't real.

“Yoonoa dhatstuffcan killya,” he says, looking pointedly at her cigarette, at the overflowing ashtray.

“Oh, boo,” she says. “Maybe you need a good fuck. Might fix you.”

“Aidunno waatyoo jussaid,” he says, brows furrowed, “buht fuhkyoo aneewai.”

She sticks her tongue out at him. He makes an expression like he's trying to resist retaliating, but she can see the urge on his face. She wonders if he has any siblings. Wonders if he squabbles with them like he does her, if they tease him like she does.

She often forgets that he isn't real. He can't have siblings if he isn't real.

“So,” she says, “How've you been? Are you still mad about whatever you were mad about last time?”

She looks at him, eyebrows raised. Waits.

This has become a well-worn rhythm between them over the years, her and her dream boy. She'll bitch about her day, and he'll bitch about his. They never understand one another. She has told him things she would never tell another soul. He listens, dark eyes serious, though he knows none of it.

Her deepest secrets, with a boy who isn't real, who doesn't know what she's saying anyway.

He sighs tiredly. “Dhagais’r stiltrayinna saik meyowt,” he says, fiddling with the string of his sleep pants. He's wearing a shirt that he often appears in, though it has not grown with him—a faded white shirt featuring a blonde man posing with a gun, the text on it incomprehensible. It strains around his shoulders now, fits snugly over his chest. “Eetrealysucks,” he says, the corners of his mouth turned downwards. “Idunnohaoto makem stop. Laik, nomater wateye do, dheiseeme ass somesorta owtsider.” A beat. “Dossenthellpthat eye’v neverhadda gerlfrend. Dheithink samthings wroang withme. End’onestlee? Dheiaarn’t wroang.”

“That sounds rough,” she says, sympathetically. Then, “Whoever is bothering you, you should kill them. You have the shoulders for it.”

“Thancksfor lis’ning,” he says, sighing again. “Idunno wat’todo. Maibee eye’l finaleetayk jes’ickaa up’on dhatdayte.”

“I'm being serious,” Svetlana informs him, “I could kill them. Actually, Ilyusha can kill them. He's got bigger shoulders than even you, dream-boy. He'll kill them, I'll hide the bodies. You can just stand there and look pretty.”

“Mommkeyps telingme eyejust needtu proov’eyem beterdhandhem butlaik. Dhatsnot enuf. Eyelalwais bee dif’rent. Shinoas’dhat, eyenoa shinoas’dhat. Shijust cantacksept dhat bee'ng thabestat samthing dasntmeen peep’l willaik yoo.”

“Mm,” says Svetlana. “I’d offer Sashenka’s help but honestly, he's useless. He'll stand around looking pretty with you. You can bond over it and everything.”

“Andeye aymm dhabesst,” he says, his frown more pronounced. He looks over at Svetlana with furrowed brows and forlorn eyes. He's so upset he forgets to be put off by her bare tits poking out from her unbuttoned shirt. That usually sends him into conniptions. “Dheyjus’ haetme aneewai.”

She tries to look understanding. Wonders what has him so upset. She wonders if it's a girl—or a boy. Svetlana knows she's pretty, has had boys’ eyes following her for as long as she can remember. Men, too, even when she was just a girl. Ilyusha has busted his knuckles open on many a grown man's face. 

But this boy, her dream-boy, has never looked at her. He'll turn pink and swat her away if he walks in on a dream where she's topless, he'll throw a blanket at her, yelling at her in gibberish—but he never peeks, never looks interested.

She recalls how Ilya and Sasha have started looking at one another. They've been looking at each other like that for a while, now.

But maybe her dream-boy just sees her as a sister. She knows he's handsome, can see he's growing into a beautiful man, but she's somewhat repulsed by the thought of kissing him. Not like Ilya, like Sasha, who she's grown so entangled with that she doesn't know where family ends and desire begins. This boy exists only in her dreams, has never sparked so much as a flicker in her.

With him, she's still a child. She knows nothing of sex, she's still a girl. Even when she's as old as she is, she's a child. And she sees him the same—he’s a tall child to her. They're both just tall children.

She wonders what that says about her. That she dreams up a boy who doesn't desire her in the least, who doesn't understand a word she says. Who she doesn't understand, who she can't imagine kissing.

“Yortern,” the dream-boy says, looking at her with his solemn eyes. “K’mon. Gedditoutta yor sistem.”

She hums. She knows, the way you know things in dreams, that it's her turn to speak.

“I'm worried about Lyosha,” she says. “He's being—he’s being such a bastard to Ilyusha. I'm worried he knows about him and Sasha.”

He nods, looking sympathetic. She feels a rush of affection for him. He looks so clueless.

“Not that I'm supposed to know about him and Sasha,” she says, voice low. “They think they're being sneaky. God, boys are so stupid.” At this, her dream-boy nods sagely, and she has to bite back a laugh. 

“They think I don't know,” she goes on. “They think I haven't seen—you know, we all fucked the other day? As you can see—” she says, and jerks her thumb at the scene behind her. The boy obligingly looks over, and blinks in bafflement. His eyebrows go up.

Svetlana turns, and is brought short.

The wall and doorway and room behind her have both dissolved while they were distracted. The balcony they're on is now standing alone, like a badly constructed tower, suspended in a bright blue sky. A giant cloud, fat and fluffy and white, rolls languidly past them. There's nothing but sky above and below.

“Shoor,” says the boy drily. “Dhis maitaswel ha-pen.”

“This is not what I wanted to show you,” she informs him, vexed. He laughs, probably at how annoyed she looks.

“Anyway,” she stresses, and he rearranges his expression into his Listening Face, “As I was saying. We all fucked, and they kept getting caught up in each other. Which, you know, it was a good view, don't get me wrong. They're very pretty boys. But they're clearly having a little dalliance behind everyone's backs—even mine! And I don't mind them not telling me. I don't!”

The boy nods understandingly.

“Okay, maybe I do,” she admits. “I wish they'd tell me. But I understand! That's not the point, anyway—I’m afraid Lyosha’s cottoned on. I don't know why he's so. So awful these days. You know, he wasn't always? He was nice, even to me. Now he's just—”

The words die on her tongue. She doesn't know how to talk about this.

“He looks at me, now,” she whispers, “in a way he never did before. I don't like it. It's like he's undressing me with his eyes. I hate it. I hate it.” Her voice cracks, and her dream-boy looks alarmed. He leans closer, mouth turned down in that concerned frown, lips pursed. His eyes don't so much as flicker towards her tits.

“Men always look at me,” she tells him. “I know I'm pretty. I've always known it. I wish I could know it less. I wish they wouldn't see me.”

“Eyekud beet emup,” the boy says earnestly. “Eyedoant reelygofer droping gluvson dhi eyce buteye no hau’tu thro apunch.”

She nods. Imagines he's offering a solution. 

“He wants to fuck me,” she tells him, “He looks at me like a piece of meat. He never used to.” She feels her lip wobble, feels like a child, a little girl. “Sometimes I think that's all I'll ever be. Just a good fuck. A pair of tits and an ass to look at. You know?”

He can't know. He doesn't know what she's saying. And even if he did, he's a boy. This doesn't happen to boys.

And even if it did, he isn't real.

Inexplicably, it's this thought that makes her finally cry. She sniffs, scrubbing at her eyes, chin quilting. 

“Hei, heiheihei,” he says, reaching out. She's startled by his gentle hand on her shoulder. She doesn't know if they've ever touched, in her dreams. He feels warm, real. “Doantcrai. Wat’everitis, eyebet yoocan fixit. Yoor priti strongrait? Andifyoo kant, eye’l figyur owtaway tu claimmbin dheir dreemsand freekkemowt. Eyecan dewit, probablee.”

He pulls her close, into a hug. She sniffs into his shoulder. He feels warm, solid and real in a way dreams shouldn't be.

“I feel so disgusting,” she says into his shoulder. “And I can't even tell Ilyusha, because he'll just try and murder him. God, he actually might do it. I hate how people look at me.”

He hums, rubs her back. It's so reminiscent of her mother, the way she used to rub Svetlana's back after she'd cry herself sick because the boys in school were being cruel to her. Back when she was little, when she was still Svetka-Konfetka. It makes her cry a bit harder.

“You never look at me like that,” she says, pulling back. She must look so ugly, blotchy with tears and snot, face twisted with emotion. She's left a horrible stain on his old shirt. But her dream-boy only looks worried, looks horribly sad for her. “You’ll never look at me like that, will you, dream-boy?”

He seems to understand she's asking something of him, seems to understand how solemn she's being, and nods. He looks so awkward, but his gaze is earnest.

“Ugh,” she says. “This isn't what I even wanted to complain about!” She pulls back, and wipes at her face. “Anyway. So, Sasha and Ilya—”

Her dream-boy settles in to listen, nodding at the right moments, as obliging as ever. He agrees when she calls her boys idiots. He nods when she says they need to pull it together. He is with her when she says they're total assholes for not telling her about it. After all, they've both stuck their dicks in her, the least they can do is let her know when they're sticking them in each other! He agrees with this, too.

She wakes up alone in her room, feeling lighter. Goes about her day unburdened.

There is a boy on the train with him again.

He keeps finding himself on trains. It barely makes sense. He doesn't even like trains. They're boring, they're stuffy, they're—

Aleksandr Ivanovich Novikov is on a train. Outside, the window shows nothing but a flurry of snow. If he peers closer, he thinks he can make out a silhouette of a city, a wrought iron tower in the distance. It never gets any closer.

The innards of the train changes every time. Today, it's rich and opulent, all gold trim and velvet and marble. Sasha doesn't know if marble even goes in trains. Wouldn't that weigh the train down? But then again, trains are already so heavy.

There's a boy in the train car with him.

Sasha ignores him. Sasha has a newspaper in hand, is flipping through it. He can't read it. None of the words on it make sense. They're like impressions of words, really. He still knows, on some level, that it's talking about how beautiful Paris is in the summer. Just that, for some reason.

“Izzit Paris agayn?” the boy asks, walking over. He paused by a window, peers out into the thick falling snow.

“Fuck off,” says Sasha. He never has any idea what the boy is saying. He talks like he's gargling rocks.

“Yoolaik tutravul?” 

Sasha scowls at him. The boy looks expectant. Sasha imagines he's been asked about his grand plans. 

“I'm going to Paris,” he says primly, “I'm going there and I'm going to have a lovely time. And I'm never coming back.”

“Aimnotta bigfan oftrayns,” says the boy, “Tuumanni peepol. Lottasmels.”

“I'm going to go to parties, I'm going to kiss boys,” says Sasha, almost giddy. It can't hurt to tell this boy, who seems to have no fucking clue what Sasha is saying. He has the general aura of someone who doesn't have a fucking clue about anything in general, which Sasha can almost pity. Almost. 

“I'm going to be a DJ or something,” Sasha says, “I could do it. Maybe I'll be a rich, beautiful man's beautiful lover. Whatever. The important thing is I get the fuck out of Moscow and I never have to watch a game of hockey again.”

The boy perks up, dark eyes going bright. “Hohkee? Yuplay hohkee?”

“Oh my God,” says Sasha, despairing, “Not you too.”

“Dhatsso kool! Maibee dhatsdha cunnekshan bitweenyugais—hohkee! Orlaik. Skayting.”

“I am sick and tired of hockey,” he informs the boy, grimacing at how he smiles when Sasha says hockey again. “My father’s endlessly disappointed I don't play, and Svetka and Ilyusha will not shut up about it. Which is also why they aren't going to Paris with me—and neither are you, by the way. There's no hockey allowed in Paris, I've decided.”

“Yoorgonna plai hohkee inParis?” the boy asks. 

Fuck’s sake.

“I despise you,” Sasha tells him. “You are the bane of my existence.”

“Maibeewee kanplai togetha sumtaim!”

“You sound too happy. I'm going to push you off this train.”

The boy smiles at him. Goddammit, he's cute. Sasha's even more annoyed. There can't be two cute boys on a train together, there has to be a limit or something. And it's not like Sasha can even kiss this one. He's far too earnest to kiss. Might give him hives.

It's a long train ride to Paris. They never even get there—Sasha just gets a lot of gibberish questions with the word hockey in there somewhere, and wakes up extremely annoyed.

Hayden Pike isn't necessarily surprised when he dreams about Shane Hollander.

After all, the kid's his roommate now! And honestly, he's all anyone's talked about for months—the hotshot from Ottawa on everyone's minds, second overall draft pick, already making headlines with an intense rivalry with some Russian kid. Hayden knew of Shane Hollander before he ever met him. Pretty much everyone did.

Of course, it turns out the kid's an incredibly awkward dude, which Hayden hadn't been expecting. Unless he's on the ice, he always looks a little like he's trying real hard to stay in his own skin. Which Hayden has some experience with—his little sister is also the kind of person to have never relaxed a day in her life, bless her.

Hayden's only a year older than him, but Shane still feels so young to him. He just gives off the impression of an easily spooked woodland animal who wished on a star to become a hockey player and didn't account for all the socialising he'd have to do.

Jackie says he's like if Bambi got buff. It's an image Hayden's trying to shake. Mostly on account of having to share a room with him on the road.

He's a great roomie, too! Very considerate, despite being an only child. God knows Jackie was a nightmare to live with at first, never having had another person up in her business like that for an extended period of time. But Hayden grew up with three sisters, none of whom had any concept of personal space or Things That Belong Just To Hayden And No One Else, so he's been primed for this shit.

And, y'know, Shane's never stolen his shampoo (his sister) or his shirts (his other sister) or eaten all his snacks in the middle of the night and pretended like they'd never existed (Jackie) or clogged the toilet and blamed him (also Jackie) or walked in on him changing and tried to continue a conversation with him while his dick was out (his dad) so really, Shane's got a leg up on everyone else Hayden's ever shared a space with.

All this is to say—Shane’s Hayden's roommate on roadies, and he's a pretty good one. They're in each other's pockets all the time now, and he's been hearing about Shane Hollander and his incredible hockey skills even before that, so—

In his dreams, Shane's always kind of surprised to be there. 

Not that Hayden's aware that he's dreaming right now. Well, he is and he isn't. He knows, on some level, that he has no business driving a bus down the streets of Toronto with a menagerie of animals hollering at him from their seats. But also, he's late for a game (read: not his game, technically, he's just the coach) and Shane's being supremely unhelpful.

“Hayden,” says Shane, squinting at the map he's holding with trepidation. He looks like he has no idea why he's here. Some assistant coach he is. “I think something's wrong with this thing.”

“No way!” says Hayden, “The guy who sold it to me said it's a reliable map of the Toronto public transit system!”

“...the penguin?” asks Shane incredulously, “The penguin with the bowtie?”

“Yeah?”

“Hayden, this map is changing every time I fucking blink at it.”

“Well then, stop blinking!”

Shane stares at him flatly.

“How much further, coach?” one of the girls yells from the back. It's the giraffe—Genevive? Hayden's a horrible coach, he doesn't even remember all their names.

“Yeah! I gotta pee!” yells another, a parrot who is wearing a jersey. Hayden didn't know parrots could do that. Maybe he's a bad person. 

“We're working on it!” Shane yells back. Then, under his breath, “Hayd, the map’s being weird again.”

Hayden, who is trying his best to drive this goddamn thing on a road that keeps developing sharp turns where there were previously none, says, “C’mon, Shane! I thought you were supposed to be good at navigating!”

“Literally who told you that?”

“I dunno,” says Hayden, “You just seem generally competent.”

“That's racist, probably—”

“What—how?”

“—also people only think that because I'm bad at making facial expressions!”

“What?”

“It's true! It's like—oh wow, that looks bad.”

Hayden turns to the road, which Shane is staring at in bafflement. It's dissolving. Like, actually dissolving. There's this void opening up below, yawning and massive and empty.

“Aw, nuts,” says Hayden. “We're definitely gonna be late.

And then the void swallows them all whole, bus and map and menagerie team and all.

Hayden wakes up to Shane already awake on the other side of the room, still tangled in the sheets of his little twin bed. He looks just as confused as he had in the dream, and annoyed about it.

Hayden can't help the laugh he lets out. He can't wait to tell Jackie about this. She loves hearing about his weird-ass dreams.

Svetlana moves to Boston two years after Ilya gets drafted.

She's done with her studies, and she gets a job. She’s been flitting in and out of Boston anyway, shamelessly breaking into Ilya’s apartment the way he used to slip into her house back in Moscow. 

Except she doesn't need to shimmy in through a window. She has a key, because they're grown-ups now, and grown-ups don't need to climb the sides of buildings and through little windows in order to see their friends. It's all very novel.

She never brought Sasha with her on account of two things: One, he keeps claiming that America is a cursed fucking country and will corrupt his soul, which is rich coming from someone who recently went missing somewhere in Oslo and was found four days later staggering out of a forest rave. And two, every time he and Ilya are left alone in a room these days, they tend to clam up and aggressively avoid eye contact, which really puts a damper on any fun they might have.

But, at any rate, Svetlana moves to Boston. She's a car dealer. Her father had made a complicated face about it when she told him. Her mother seemed enthusiastic, if only because this meant that she'd be seeing less of her, now.

She finds herself popping in and out of Ilya's home in Boston like she owns the place. Ilya would come home, and she'd be in the kitchen eating his food, or on his sofa flipping through the channels on the TV, or stealing his clothes, or lounging in Ilya’s bed in one of his shirts in an attempt at seduction. 

Ilya's home is her home is her home is Ilya's home. This has not changed, even after they've moved continents.

And so, sometimes, Svetlana finds herself asleep in Ilya's bed. Sometimes, she wakes up to Ilya bundled under the covers with her, contorted so he snores like an engine, mouth slack and drooling.

Today, she'd planned on the seduction, but finds herself in a yoga studio in downtown Boston instead.

She knows this place, of course. In her first month in town, she'd been accosted by an alarmingly cheerful bottle blonde in her building who had summarily talked Svetlana into a weekly class with a gaggle of strange and upbeat women. 

She's in the yoga studio, and so is her dream boy. He's in a pair of old shorts and that same t-shirt he so often wears in her dreams. He looks around, feet bare on the wooden paneling, blinking at the floor-to-ceiling windows, the lines of rubber mats. He turns to her with raised eyebrows and says, “Heiiiii! Thissisneu!”

“Well,” says Svetlana, ignoring him, “I guess we're doing yoga.”

“Yoga?” he asks, blinking at her.

“Yoga,” she repeats, feeling a little bit of deja vu. She remembers being smaller, being Svetka-Konfetka still.

He purses his lips, and shrugs. “Shoor, wainot? Aimall’yoars.”

Her dream boy, it turns out, is awful at yoga. He's so stiff. Svetlana laughs at him, earning scowls and grumbles from him. He manages to learn the poses fast enough, but his form is terrible. He looks like a particularly poseable mannequin.

“Kanyuu stopmaykin funnoffmi,” he huffs, getting into Downward Dog.

“You look like you just discovered your joints,” Svetlana informs him.

“Aashoal.”

The dream drifts, sort of. It feels like they spend hours like this. At some point, she's trying to get him to do something called an Eight Angle, and he's cussing her out in that garbled language of his, and she's laughing so hard her stomach hurts. He feels solid against her hands, and the ache in her belly feels real.

The room fades in and out of solid reality—at some point, she's telling her dream boy to loosen his hips, and he's saying something presumably quite rude back to her, and she finds that they're lying on dewy grass, the sky above them a clear, spotless blue. The pond she grew up near is to their left, just as blue as the sky. Inexplicably, all the clouds appear to be in the pond, drifting in the water, caught in the reeds by the bank, curling in the grass.

At some point, Svetlana wanders over to the window of the yoga studio, and looks outside. Finds the streets of Moscow instead of Boston. If she squints, she thinks she can make out Ilya and Sasha and Sasha's little sister Katerina, and maybe herself, tumbling down an alleyway, clutching bags of pilfered sweets. Svetka-Konfetka and friends.

Her dream boy learns some yoga, and remains just a bit terrible at it all the while. Svetlana wakes up with a laugh caught on her face.

When JJ goes to sleep after a frankly nightmarish day of training camp and finds himself at the rink, he honestly considers killing himself with the blade of his skate.

“Can you kill yourself in a dream?” he asks the empty rink. It comes out in Quebecois, because all his dreams are in Quebecois. JJ has been told he needs to work on his English, but he was raised by a crotchety old papy who seems to resent knowing English at all. His brothers are no better.

“Please don't do that,” says a voice from behind him, and JJ almost has a heart attack.

“Motherfucker,” he hisses, clutching at his chest. He is in his pyjamas, a matching silk set covered in green and yellow stripes that everyone had worn to his friend's bachelor party—which had just been a particularly drunken sleepover that also involved sending increasingly unhinged videos to the guy's future husband.

Standing behind him, also in his pyjamas, is Shane Hollander. He’s wearing a pair of red athletic shorts and a Man From UNCLE shirt. JJ has never once seen Shane wear this.

“Are you going to make me do bag skates in my dream, too?” he demands. “Does the torture never end, Captain?”

“Calm down,” says Shane, nonplussed. His French is smooth and easy, which is very unlike every other aspect of his personality. Then, “You're very aware, for someone who's dreaming.”

“Yeah,” says JJ, “A drunk girl in a club bathroom once told me I had a very grounded aura.”

A pause.

“...why were you in the bathroom with a girl?” asks Shane, who might have sprung fully formed in some ice rink in Ottawa, and who might also be a nun of some sort. Like a nun for hockey. A nun for hockey who is also a man.

“Um. I got lost,” says JJ, instead of I was getting my dick wet and then we both got distracted because we were both really drunk and then she did a tarot reading for me and cried about her ex-boyfriend. Then, because it's itching at him, “What’s the male equivalent of a nun?”

Shane frowns. He shifts his weight, which is when JJ realizes that he's in skates, which makes sense. They're on the ice.

“...a priest?”

“Hm,” says JJ. “Different vibe, no?”

“I dunno,” says Shane. “Maybe a monk. Why do you ask?”

“I think you're like a monk for hockey,” says JJ, “Or, well. A nun for hockey, but you aren't a woman.”

Shane stares at him. “Sure,” he says, because he's a polite guy. He clearly thinks that JJ is insane. But that's alright, Shane often has the look of someone who thinks that all his peers are unruly puppies, and he's bemusedly trying to get them to eat their medicine by wrapping various pills in slices of cheese. He seems to be unaware that he is also a puppy, just a puppy with a C on his jersey.

There is an awkward silence.

“So,” says Shane, “Were you doing anything before I showed up?” 

“What would I be doing?” asks JJ.

“Well,” says Shane. “Uh. I dunno. Aren't people usually doing something in a dream?”

“Maybe you are,” says JJ, in a contrary tone, “I love doing fuck all in a dream. It's my favorite thing.” And, in case Shane gets any ideas, he adds, “If you make me do drills right now, I'm going to decapitate myself with my skate.”

“I don't think you can die in a dream,” says Shane.

“You don't know that!”

Shane rolls his eyes. JJ resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him. Shane often makes him feel like a boy, specifically a boy who is tumbling around in papy’s backyard and quarreling with his cousins. 

They end up skating together. JJ tells Shane that he isn’t allowed to make him do drills, because he isn’t Captain while JJ is dreaming. Shane informs him that maybe doing more drills would make him a faster skater, and proves his point by flitting ahead, gliding across the ice like a bird riding a thermal, lazy and sure. JJ laughs and gives chase, and they circle around one another like children. There’s a gleam in Shane’s eye when he skates, and it makes something childish and happy alight behind JJ’s breastbone.

He doesn’t know how long they play for. At some point, JJ catches up to Shane and says, “Hey, wanna get out of here?” 

Shane twists, starts circling him languidly. “Can we do that?”

“Sure,” says JJ, “This is my dream.”

“Again,” says Shane, “You're weirdly aware while you're dreaming.”

“I don't like that you're judgmental even in my dreams,” he says, and Shane barks out a laugh. 

He manages to cajole Shane off the ice, and they leave the rink. The in-between is fuzzy as fuck, on account of this being a dream, but they end up at a smoothie place. It's small, all sunny pastels, and the counter is manned by a stuffed IKEA shark. None of the other customers (mostly hockey players) comment on this.

“Oohh, I want a kale smoothie,” says Shane, peering at the menu board above the counter.

“They don't actually serve smoothies here,” JJ informs him. “Just pizza, and sometimes Timbits.”

“What the fuck.”

JJ laughs at him. His day of nightmare drills was worth this look on his Captain's face, even if it isn't real.

He laughs even harder when the pizza gets to their table (because they're at a table now), and tries to introduce itself to Shane.

Cliff Marlow doesn't always remember his dreams, but he can definitely count on a weird one if he eats a late-night slice of cheese.

He knows he shouldn't do it! It always gets weird in his head if he does! But sometimes he'll be tucked up in bed, and he’ll have an inexplicable hankering for one. Just one. Like, a slice. Sometimes he’ll be fancy about it and eat it with a cracker. Some nights, he decides to be an adult and actually makes himself a grilled cheese (in which case his dreams are even weirder), but most nights, he just wants a slice. Especially if he’s drunk. Cliff loves himself a drunken Kraft Single.

Anyway, he’s in a grocery store, and he’s trying real hard to read his shopping list because his wife will kill him if he fucks up another grocery run. He really doesn’t wanna end up on the couch because he brought home the wrong cooking oil or something. But the shelves are blurring together to form one weird brand-blob, and he’s having trouble actually reading the list in his hand. 

Jesus, is he illiterate? Is he actually illiterate now?

“You need some help with that?” 

Cliff jumps about a foot in the air, clutching at his cardigan (why the fuck is he wearing a cardigan? He has literally never owned a cardigan in his life). 

“Sorry,” says Shane Fucking Hollander, “I gotta stop doing that.” Then, in an unreasonably alarmed tone of voice, “Marlow?” 

“That’s me,” says Cliff, like Hollander needs clarification. Maybe he does. Cliff doesn't know what goes on in the guy's head. He thinks Shane Hollander was engineered in a lab to be the polar opposite of Roz. Actually, Roz might've been engineered in a lab, too. Maybe they were rival labs.

“So what brings you to Boston?” asks Cliff, to be polite. This prompts Shane Fucking Hollander to look at him with an expression of such profound disdain that Cliff feels a little part of his soul shrivel up. Jeez. 

“What're you doing?” asks Hollander, instead of dignifying that with an answer. 

“Groceries,” says Cliff. “I think I'm forgetting how to read.”

“No, you just have trouble reading when you're. Y'know,” says Hollander.

“...how would you know when I have trouble reading?” Cliff asks suspiciously.

“I meant the general you,” says Hollander. He leans over to peer at the crumpled paper in Cliff's hand.

What the fuck is a general you? Cliff is afraid to ask. 

Wait. Cliff's at the grocery store. Hollander's at the grocery store. Cliff's buying stuff for his wife. Hollander is here, in all his extremely bitchy glory, mouth pursed, squinting at the list in Cliff's hand. Hollander had, earlier, offered to help with shopping. Cliff doesn't know much of anything right now, but he knows his wife will be mad if he doesn't get everything right. Hollander just judged Cliff real hard for asking him what he was doing here. Like judged him real hard.

Is. Is Hollander Cliff's wife?

“Eggs,” says Hollander decisively, “And olive oil, and, hm. I think this says sriracha? And….milk? This part’s smudged.”

Oh God. Hollander’s his wife. Shane Fucking Hollander’s his wife. Roz’s gonna kill him. And Cliff’ll have to fight him, too. He has to defend his wife’s honor and shit.

Jesus. His wife.

Okay. Okay, he can handle this. He’s a grown man. He can be married to Shane Fucking Hollander. 

“Eggs,” says Cliff, nodding decisively. He scans the shelves, barely registering how the labels shift. Hollander taps him on the elbow, and guides him to the dairy aisle. Cliff grabs a basket from somewhere, and holds it out so Hollander can put a carton in it. Hollander also makes to hold the basket, but Cliff can’t let him do that. He’s gotta carry the basket for his wife. 

Hollander makes quick work of the shopping trip. He’s scary good at locating groceries, even when the shelves shift and change, even when they seem to be everywhere and endless. Cliff doesn’t remember paying, but he hopes he did. He can’t let his wife pay for everything. The guy already did all the work shopping. That’s the kinda shit that ends in divorce papers. Especially when it piles up.

Cliff doesn’t know when he ended up at his apartment, but he does. And Hollander’s there, too. Which makes sense. On account of them being married. 

Cliff starts putting stuff away, and so does Hollander. He’s actually mildly alarmed by how Hollander appears to know where everything goes, until he remembers that they’re married. 

“Hey, uh. Honey,” says Cliff, trying something out. Hollander turns to him and stares, looking completely thrown. Damn, does Cliff not call Hollander pet names? That’s fucked up. Is he like, a bad husband?

“Uh,” says Hollander.

“Honey,” says Cliff firmly. He’s starting today. He’s gotta shape up. “Where d’you want me to put the leeks and shit?”

Hollander stares at him some more. “Um. The, uh. Drawer? In the fridge?”

“That makes sense,” says Cliff. Then, because he’s being a good husband, he adds, “You’re so smart.”

“...thanks?”

They lapse into awkward silence. Man, he’s bad at being married. Hollander’s gonna divorce him for sure.

“Shit,” he says after a while, “I forgot the buttermilk.”

“We can just use vinegar or lemon to make some with our regular milk,” says Hollander absently.

Damn, that’s smart. Cliff’ll have to remember that. “Smart,” he says. Then, before the silence gets awkward again, he holds up the egg he’s putting away and says, “Y’know, I ate a bad devilled egg a few months ago and I’m still kinda fucked up about it.”

Hollander lets out a surprised snort of laughter. “What!” says Cliff, encouraged, “Y’know how you eat something fucked up and you feel it sort of haunting your body until you shit it out? That egg has been haunting me beyond the grave. Or beyond the shitter, I guess.”

“Jesus,” Hollander laughs. 

“You know!”

“No, I do,” Hollander says, “I ate a bad soft-boiled egg once as a kid and I refused to eat eggs at all for a solid year.”

“You get it,” says Cliff. “It's hard to trust after something like that.”

“Sure.”

Cliff's kinda fuzzy on what happens next. He makes dinner, he thinks, and it's rough because every egg he cracks open just reveals a fully alive chick. Hollander ends up corralling them into a cardboard box while Cliff redirects and makes boxed macaroni. He also makes a salad. Hollander looks like a salad guy.

The carrots make a concerning sort of squeak when he cuts into them, but he tries not to think about that.

Dinner goes okay. It's kind of stilted and awkward, though. Man, his marriage is definitely on the rocks. He needs to buy Hollander flowers or something.

He wakes up midway through doing the dishes, while Hollander dries them. 

Groggy, hungover and baffled, Cliff staggers over to his laptop (he doesn't know where his phone is) and Googles Am I Gay Quiz.

He fails. Like, zero.

Fuck. Okay. He manages to get to his feet, feeling nauseous and miserable, and hunts around for his phone. He bypasses the passed-out girl in his bed, and also the fact that he can’t remember her name. He finds his phone buried under some suspiciously damp pantyhose.

He texts Roz.

ROZINATOR 🥵🍆💦🏑

Hey brotjer

Canyou be gau

Gay

But late

marly what the fuck

are you talking about

Roz imseroua

Serious

Cani be gay . But bat at it.

Marly

are you having stroke

Ok so I did gay test online

Got a 0

So Im late to being gay 

AND Imbad at it

have you considered

maybe you are NOT gay

No I think might be

Why???

did you sleep with a man

I saw you leave with beautiful woman last night 

did you misplace her and find a man

MISPLACE????

No I fucked her

But I thinkim gay

Had a dream about hollander

WHAT

Yeah

I think he was my wide

Wife

WHAT?????

Yeaj I think I was a bad husband

:( 

Marly what the fuck

Hey dont be homophobic man

you had sex dream about hollander

?????????????

Nah man

We went grocery shopping

Had dinner and shit

what

Anyway I need to get better

At being gay I think

what the fuck

Brb the girls waking up

Wants round two 

;)

Marly

do you know what being gay means

Joe hasn’t seen Shane in a few years. But here he is now, on the ice in Sochi.

Of course, they aren’t actually in Sochi. Sochi was months ago by now. He got gold and everything.

Shane had hit him up, asked to come and watch. It was sweet of him, considering they haven't been in touch in years. Well, unless you count Joe sending him Facebook memes and Shane dutifully reacting with either a thumbs up or a laugh emoji.

They're on the ice in Sochi. Joe knows it's Sochi, because he recognizes the crowd watching him, knows the thrum of the arena and the ice leeching into his bones, knows where he is in his teeth, in his chest. He skates his program, and Shane is skating alongside him, looking up at the cheering throng with big eyes.

Shane doesn't look the way he did when Joe saw him last—a grown man, an Olympian in a Team Canada fleece. He looks the way he does in Joe's fondest memories, a gangly kid covered in freckles, tooth chipped from slamming into the boards one time, hair short and choppy and certainly cut by his mother in the kitchen, wearing an oversized Man From UNCLE shirt and shorts and a pair of battered skates.

Joe's a kid, too. He often is, in his dreams. He's wearing an Avril Lavigne shirt and a pair of pyjamas pants patterned with Marie from the Aristocats. He hasn't owned either in a long, long time.

He's also wearing his medal. Gold, like he's always dreamed.

“You can't skate like that in real life,” Joe tells Shane.

“Fuck off, I totally could.”

“Nuh-uh,” says Joe. He's talking like a kid because right now, he is one.

He knows he's dreaming, though. He knows not everyone does. But he knows he's dreaming, and he knows he's a kid right now.

“You still skate like a hockey boy,” Joe goes on. He breaks from his program, twirls around Shane in a taunting circle. “Like a bull in a hospital.”

“It's bull in a China shop, genius,” says Shane, frowning. He looks so funny when he does that. 

“Why the fuck is the bull in China?”

“No, like those stores with—wait, why would a bull be in a hospital?” 

“Maybe ‘cause it sucks at skating?” Joe suggests.

“I hate you,” says Shane, very clearly trying not to laugh.

“Noooo you doooon't,” Joe sing-songs, “You came to watch me skaaaate! You watched me medalllll even though you didnnnnn’t!”

“I medalled, asshole,” Shane snipes.

“Yeah, silver. Laame!”

“I'll show you lame!” 

And with that, he lunges forward and tackles Joe onto the ice. The ice doesn't hurt him, because this is a dream, and because deep down, some childish part of Joe still believes that the ice won't hurt him.

They tumble around, and then he finds that they're rolling on grass, and there's a clear blue sky above them. They're laughing, like kids, like children, in a way Joe hasn't laughed in a long while. Shane's laughing too—he hasn't seen Shane in person in years before Sochi, but he'd kept up. He'd watched interviews and games and ads, and he knows Shane'd done the same. He doesn't remember seeing this laugh in any of those videos.

When they roll to a halt, Joe trying to give Shane a noogie while Shane tries to escape by gnawing on his arm, he realizes that they're in the Hollanders’ backyard.

The backyard in his memories, back in Ottawa. The massive chip in the fence where some cousin of Shane's had rammed into it. The little blue house, with the little herb garden that David Hollander tried and failed and tried and failed to grow. The little shed where they kept their lawnmower and some of their hockey gear.

The fucking dummy, planted in the soil, standing tall. A pillow strapped to a plank, wearing a faded jersey of some team Shane had hated, his head a basketball wearing a hockey helmet, a smug smirk sharpie’d onto his face.

“Oh my God,” Joe says, delighted, “It's Jean-Phillipe! I always wondered what happened to him!”

“He fell victim to a rainstorm,” says Shane, muffled by his mouthful of Joe's arm. “Dad was picking up scraps for days.”

“That's beautiful,” says Joe, with feeling, and Shane laughs. Then, “Hey, d’you wanna beat him up again?”

Shane lets go of his arm and grins up at him. It's all teeth, unpracticed and bright. “Sure!”

They beat up Jean-Philipe again. It's just as fun as it was when they were really children.

Joe's pummeling his stupid smug face, Shane holding him still, when Shane asks, “Hey, Joe? Can I ask you something?”

“Sure?” he says, pausing his brutal beatdown.

Shane shifts a little on his feet, looking nervous. He looks a little queasy, actually. Joe really hopes he doesn't puke, even if it is a dream and the puke won't be real.

“How'd you know you were gay?” he asks, quietly.

Joe freezes.

“What,” he says.

“I said how'd you—”

“No, I heard you,” says Joe, a little coldly. Shane wilts a bit. Maybe Joe isn't being fair. This Shane isn't even real. But he's a child, and his chest hurts. “It's just a stupid question, the kind stupid hockey boys ask.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” says Shane, bristling.

“What makes you even think I'm gay?”

“Well,” says Shane, a bit dryly, “The boyfriend was a giveaway.”

Oh. Yeah. He isn't actually twelve. He has a boyfriend. He fully forgot about Felix for a second.

“...oh,” says Joe. “You’re not asking because I seem like a fag?”

“No,” says Shane, sounding a bit hurt, “I'm asking because you posted the same picture of you sucking face with some guy about twenty times and then deleted all of them and then posted it again, all in one hour.”

“Oh my God,” says Joe, “I was hoping no one saw that. I was like, super drunk. On account of winning gold at the Olympics. You wouldn't understand.”

“Oh, fuck you,” says Shane, “Also, is he your boyfriend? I assumed because of the caption, but—”

Oh Jesus, the caption. Joe'd gleefully typed out “he ggotme PRESENTS I'm gna marry him 4EVER 🥰❤️” before jumping Felix's bones. 

“—I don't know I could've been reading into it, I guess.”

“No, you were right,” says Joe. “That was pretty gay. And also he's my boyfriend.”

“Cool,” says Shane.

“Still a stupid hockey boy question, though,” says Joe, resolutely ignoring the wounded look on Shane's face. He can't cutiepie his way out of this one. “Why are you even asking?”

“I'm, uh,” says Shane, awkwardly. “I'm asking for a friend.”

Joe blinks at him.

“For a friend?”

“Yeah,” he says, quietly.

“You think your friend’s gay?” 

“No, um,” Shane lets go of Jean-Phillipe, wipes his hands on his shirt. “He wanted to know how you know, I guess. Not you specifically. But like. The general you.”

What the fuck is a general you? Whatever.

“I mean, I don't know,” says Joe, a bit lost, “How'd you know you were straight?”

Shane looks a bit like he's going to puke again. He looks hunted. He looks like a cornered animal. He looks small and scared. He looks like he might cry.

Oh. Oh, Shane.

“I’ve never thought about it,” Shane says quietly. He's twisting his shirt over and over. Illya Kuryakin is faded and peeling, face warping and Shane worries with the fabric. Joe remembers that Shane's dad had given him that shirt, because they liked watching the show together. He also remembers the poster of Illya Kuryakin up in Shane's childhood bedroom—the only non-hockey poster he ever owned.

“Shane—”

“I don't know how to think about it,” says Shane.

“Okay,” says Joe. “That's okay. Are you—your friend. Is your friend, um. Okay?”

“Yeah,” says Shane. He worries at his lower lip. His eyes are real shiny, like he's trying very hard not to let anything spill over. “He's just. Curious.”

“Curious.”

“Yeah. Sorry for asking a stupid hockey boy question.”

“No,” says Joe, suddenly hurt, suddenly distraught. “I didn't mean that! You aren't a stupid hockey boy. You're the best of them. I swear. I was just being a bitch.”

“No, it was a stupid question—”

“Shuuut upppp,” Joe groans. “I'm saying sorryyyy for being a biiitch, can you just accept thaaat?”

“Sure,” Shane giggles, and his eyes are no longer big and shiny, so Joe takes that as a win. 

He sobers a little, and says, “I don't remember how I knew. I think I always did, even when I didn't. Like you know something, but you don't? You know?”

“Um. Kinda.”

“I do remember being mad at myself, though,” says Joe. “I remember being so, so mad that everyone was right about me. After everything, no matter how many medals I win or how many records I break, they'll always be right. Because it turns out that I am a prissy little cocksucker and a faggot and a homo and all that other stuff. They were right about me. They could smell it on me.”

“Oh,” says Shane. Fuck, his eyes are shiny again. Joe's awful at this. “How'd you, uh. Stop being mad at yourself?”

“I don't know. I just woke up one day and realized I didn't anymore. I don't know how it happened.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry this wasn't more helpful,” says Joe.

“No,” Shane says, looking over at Jean-Phillipe. “It was. I think.”

They stay silent for a while.

“Wanna keep beating him up?” asks Joe, because he can't think of anything else to say.

“Sure,” Shane smiles at him, young and bright, “One last time.”

Joe wakes up an indeterminate amount of Beating Up Jean-Phillipe time later, feeling young and disoriented. Beside him, Felix is starfished on the bed face-down, which should rightly suffocate him, but he genuinely might've evolved past the need to breathe. 

He scrabbles for his phone and texts Shane immediately.

shaney <3

shane 

shane 

shaney 

shaninator 

shaneberry

shanenana

shaneapple

Hi?

when r u in town nexttt

lets go owwwwt

lets partyyyy

💃🕺🎉🍾🪩🎶

Sure?

What brought this on?

i want u to meet felix!!!!!! :D

also i JUST had a dream abt u lol

it was sooo cute

we were beating up jean philippe

remember that guy???

i miss him 💔

fly high jp 🕊️🪦

What?

You said you don't remember your dreams

I remember that

omg 

you remember thaaat 😙💕

ya I took a tab fr my 21st

and now I remember alll my dreams 

its craazy

like it rewired my brain

A tab?

like acid

Oh.

ur such a square iluu

ur like 🤓

Well.

I do wear reading glasses.

omg 

NEEERD 🫵

this is u -> 🤓☝️

You are my least favorite friend.

u love meeeeee

Svetlana is at Ilya's house again, getting ready for a night out.

She's been getting ready for a while now, idly listening to whatever Ilya's watching on the TV. When she's finally done, she sends a picture to Sasha, who's been complaining to her about being ghosted by the ugliest man on Earth for the last three hours.

You look hot 🥵, he replies. Then, immediately after that, Should I join a monastery??? Is that the solution here???

You'd go stir crazy and kill someone, she informs him.

Probably yes. Then, Svetochka I'm going to die ALONE.

Svetlana snorts. She misses him like an ache in her belly. She does not, however, envy whoever is going out with him later tonight—a heartbroken, drunk Sasha is also a runner. She takes a moment to imagine him taking off down the streets of Paris, yelling in that horrid mixture of French and Russian he's developed over the years about how he'll never find love again.

She does not miss that.

She tucks her phone into her purse and steps out into the living room, heels in hand. Ilya's sprawled on the sofa, lit only by the TV, staring intently at whatever is playing.

On screen, someone is saying in English, It's my favorite place in the world. And, uh, my parents’ cottage—the one I grew up spending my summers at—is almost ten minutes away.

It's a very, very familiar voice.

She steps in front of him, blocking his view. 

“I'm ready,” Svetlana announces, “Unless you'd rather stay in and watch—”

She turns, and gestures to the big screen.

“—whatever this is.”

“Sorry,” says Ilya, visibly shaking himself out of whatever stone-faced trance he'd been in, “It’s so fucking boring I almost fell into a coma.”

Svetlana smirks, and turns to the screen. There's a quip about how hot Hollander is on the tip of her tongue.

She freezes.

There, doing some truly terrible yoga on the screen, is Shane Hollander.

She knows Shane Hollander. She's seen Shane Hollander many times. She has watched his games. She has watched his interviews. She has watched Ilya bitch about him many, many times. But somehow, until this moment it has not occurred to her that—

He is truly awful at yoga. 

She stands there, rattled and shaken and baffled and all sorts of things, barely hearing whatever reply Ilya gives.

She's seen his face for what feels like most of her life. She watched it grow out of the chubby roundness of childhood, watched him grow into his nose, watched him as he grew a scraggly little moustache and got little cuts on his chin from shaving, just like Ilya and Sasha. She knows him as a boy, even though he's a man.

Shane Hollander is not a boy. Well sure, he was probably a boy once, but he's a man. Her dream boy is always a boy in her mind. The way she's always a girl in her dreams, not a woman.

Shane Hollander is horrible at yoga. He's speaking English. Her dream boy, most likely, speaks English. She just can't tell, because she only ever dreams in Russian.

The video—whatever the hell it is—cuts to Hollander again, and Svetlana is face-to-face with her dream boy.

“Sveta?” says Ilya, getting up. “Aren't you coming?” He looks a bit worried.

“Oh. Yeah. He's fucking hot, right?”

Shane Hollander is hot, objectively. Her dream boy is not. She doesn't understand why she couldn't reconcile these two people as one until this moment. Doesn't understand why she's having trouble doing it even now.

Thing is, her dream boy isn't real. He's only a dream.

Why does he look like Shane Hollander of the Montreal Voyageurs?

Has he always looked like Shane Hollander of the Montreal Voyageurs? Maybe he's become like Shane Hollander of the Montreal Voyageurs over the years, a figment of her imagination modelled after an attractive man.

But she isn't attracted to her dream boy. She doesn't want him. And he doesn't want her.

They're in the car. Ilya's texting someone. Likely his Jane. She needles him about her, but it's like someone else is doing that. She even says Sasha said hi, which is an abject lie. Sasha's saying, Svetochka do you think I'm ugly (((( and Maybe I should get laid.

She texts him back, but all she can think about is her dream boy.

She taught him yoga years ago now. They never did yoga together again. Hollander is just as stiff as her dream boy. Hollander sounds just like her dream boy.

Hollander is her dream boy.

She doesn't understand. But he isn't real. She doesn't—

They go out, they have fun. When Ilya asks her what's wrong, she lies and says her period’s coming up, because that usually shuts him up, and also because she can't say, I've been having dreams about Shane Hollander since we were children, or I've had dreams about a boy since I was a child and I think I've given him Shane Hollander's face.

So she goes out and drinks and dances and kisses a cute girl in the bathroom and goes home and closes her eyes and tries tries tries to dream. She's never tried to dream before.

She closes her eyes and she's chasing a drunk, laughing Sasha across the streets of Moscow with Ilya, yelling at him to slow down. No dream boy in sight.

Chapter End Notes

1) writing the language barrier from this side was soooo funny to me guys. no translation provided for whatever is going on with shane's speech because that's just english written funny.

2) i love the idea of sasha despising shane, not because of any jealousy or anything but honestly just because he looks too happy and plays hockey. he has enough hockey people in his life. he does not need another. and now this smiley motherfucker is in his dreams, infodumping about hockey in another goddamn language. he's on the Verge. i love him dearly.

3) hayden's dream is foreshadowing for his 400000 children

4) svetlana is really voicing my thoughts here when she says shane sucks at yoga. if you believe otherwise, that beautiful man has you under spells. this is why ilya thinks shane's good at yoga.

5) it is important to me that any time there is a circle of drunk girls saying "no YOU'RE so beautiful" in a club bathroom, JJ finds his way to them. he is one of them. he has an excellent aura. he also thinks shane is conceptually the funniest person ever.

6) i understand that some people were confused by the cliff marlow snippet i posted on twitter. for this i apologise, but if it helps, cliff is also confused. and so is shane. and, to make you feel better, imagine ilya freaking the fuck out about cliff having dreams where shane hollander is his wife.

it is also important to note that cliff, at least in this fic, is 100% straight.

7) i love joe so much im sorry hes become integral to this fic. he's my best friend. he loves shane dearly, even though they've grown apart over the years.

8) svetlana's Revelation Moment is something i've been looking forward to writing for SO LONG!!!!! :D

--

Comprehension Questions (optional):

1) In chapter one, we are presented with the idea that every person in Shane's family with the ability to dream has a quirk that makes their dreaming unique. What do you think Shane's quirk is?

2) Why do you think Svetlana took so long to make the connection between Shane Hollander of the Montreal Voyageurs and her dream boy, despite clearly having seen Shane Hollander of the Montreal Voyageurs several times over the past few years?

3) What do you think is the significance of the pyjamas Shane is wearing in other people's dreams?

4) Why do you think Shane is dreaming these people he doesn't know?

Please leave your answers in the comments below, and indicate which question you are answering. Each answer will get you a cookie 🍪.

--

also, if u want to find me on twitter, i am molarsweet!

Chapter 4: perchance to

Chapter Summary

He stops trying again. It was stupid, anyway. Rozanov isn't anything to him, and he certainly isn't anything to Rozanov.

Well. Nothing real, anyway.

Shane doesn't dream Ilya Rozanov.

Chapter Notes

Hi guys! Before you read—note the chapter count. I'm so sorry. The worms have overtaken my brain.

Also, I'm so sorry about the late posting. I've had everything in the universe happen to me. I had surgery to yank out a tumor. Two of my friends required diy suicide watch. I accidentally kicked a shark and I feel really bad. I got wasted and took a ritalin instead of a painkiller (BAD idea). I saw a guy eat an entire lobster in 54 seconds. I got sick again. You know how it goes.

Thank you so much for all the comments. I know I haven't replied (yet...) but know that I read and cherished every one! You guys are so sweet! and thanks so much to everyone who answered my questions at the end of the last chapter! I loved reading all of your interpretations and thoughts. also some of you were RIGHT on the money. I love you guys :')

The thing about dreaming is, Shane doesn't know how to talk about it.

Well, he does and he doesn't. Dreaming was always a fact of life, in the same way eating and sleeping and hockey was. They call it dreaming, which is different from just having a dream, but also it isn't. Even when Shane dreams alone, he knows, somewhere in his bones, that it's an open door. Someone might walk in, and it's a door he keeps open gladly.

For the first few years of his life, Shane was never alone after he fell asleep. He looks back, and his childhood memories are all tangled with childhood dreams—his own and other's. It took a long time to understand the difference, to know that there was a difference.

Grampy called it sweven—it’s an archaic word. Middle English, though the actual word probably referred to actual visions and the like. He used to say it was the word his mother taught him, and her father before her. To Grampy, to Dad's side in general, it's no different from a regular dream. You dream, and you dream.

Grammy used to call them rêveur éveillé, which just means daydreamer, kind of. Or waking dreamer. She'd heard stories of dreamers, even before she met Grampy. Turns out, there are more of them in Nice, which is where she grew up. They don't have a lot of words for it, either.

But, as Mom used to say, they aren't awake when they dream people. So maybe that isn't right.

Mom's side of the family doesn't have any words for it at all. Jiji and Bachan don't talk about it in the waking hours. If Shane ever brought up something about a dream (even if it was their dream that Shane was there for), someone would surreptitiously shush him, or strategically change the subject.

Shane got the memo fast, which was rare for him in those early years.

But he talked about it with his parents, kind of. They talked about it, when—when he started dreaming strangers. And when he had that. That one dream. The one he doesn't like to think about. And later, when the Misato Situation came to light. Shane's parents never dissuaded him from asking questions about it, answered every single one with that endless sort of patience that all parents seemed to have when their children learned how to wonder about things.

Even so, the fact remains; he doesn't know how to talk about it. Or, more accurately, he doesn't know how to talk about it with anyone who doesn't already know what he's talking about. He doesn't know how to introduce the idea, because he doesn't have the words for it. He can't ever talk about dreaming people with someone who isn't already dreaming people or who doesn't know about people who dream people.

This is also the problem he has with Ilya Rozanov.

The girl—now a woman, but always a girl in Shane's mind—is wearing a dark red dress. It's slinky and stops somewhere in the middle of her thighs, neckline plunging low, shimmering in the low light of the massive room they're in. It looks like some kind of party had happened here—there are tables with abandoned flutes of champagne, a chandelier with several of the lights blown out. There are streamers everywhere, littered on the marble floor. Shane can't quite make out the walls, but he feels like there are eyes on him. He knows there's a staircase somewhere, but he isn't sure where. Just that it's carpeted in red, that it's here somewhere.

She's busy rummaging in her purse for something, muttering under her breath. Shane inches closer, noting to himself that he's still in his old pyjamas. They're always tighter on him in her dreams, like he kept growing and they stayed the same.

“What're you looking for?” he asks, peering over her shoulder.

“Ebat!Fuck!” she yelps, jerking away. She takes a moment to blink at him, before rounding on him, scowling. “Ty teper' reshil poyavit'sya?So, you've decided to show up now?”

“Sorry?” says Shane, confused. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

“Ya tebya nenavizhu,I hate you,” she hisses.

“Okay,” he says. “I don't know what that means, but I know it was rude.”

She huffs and turns away, and starts rummaging in her bag again. She mutters something, and Shane watches with amusement as her hand disappears into it. Then her wrist. Then her arm, on and on, until she's elbow deep in a little black purse about the size of a small chihuahua. There's a lot of rattling and shifting noises happening in there.

“What're you even looking for?” he asks, peering over her shoulder. She tries to nudge him away with her shoulder, and sort of ends up aggressively bumping into him.

“Otvalit’,Fuck off,” she hisses, “Ya zlyus' na tebya!I’m mad at you!”

He squints. “Is that an umbrella?”

She yanks the umbrella in question out—it’s unreasonably long, a vivid red and covered in yellow polkadots—and tosses it over her shoulder. Shane watches it land on the marble floor, and start sinking. Into the floor.

“Okay,” he says.

She starts pulling stuff out, looking increasingly irate. A fancy-looking make-up bag, which she deposits on Shane's hands without even looking at him. A pair of battered old skates, which Shane thinks he recognizes—she’s worn them in her dreams, on a lake Shane hasn't seen in some time. She hands this over to Shane, too. She also pulls out an empty thing of tic-tacs, a series of passports, a pair of extremely tall red heels, three separate containers of some kind of food, an empty can of something labelled Жигулёвское, a very familiar animal print shirt—

Shane's arms are very full. He accidentally drops one of the passports. It lands with a wet plop, and immediately starts sinking into the marble.

“What—” he opens his mouth to ask again, when she deposits a live fish onto the pile.

Like. A living fish. It's alive, and flopping around frantically. Shane thinks it's a herring?

Understandably, he yelps and jerks back, thereby dropping the small mountain of miscellaneous items in his arms. And also the fish.

Most everything plops onto the ground, and starts sinking. The fish, however, flips into the air and sort of. Swims away.

They both watch it go.

“Kakogo khuya?What the fuck?” she says, with feeling.

It bumps into a wall. The wall warps where it makes contact. Shane feels kind of nauseous looking at it.

“Eugh,” he says, with equal feeling.

She turns to Shane, looking baffled. “Ya iskal pasport,I was looking for my passport,” she informs him.

Wait. “Passport?” he says, eyebrows raised.

“Da, passport!”

“Your passports are right—oh.”

She looks to where he's pointing, and they both watch her passports—two red, one navy blue—sink into the floor.

“...ya yeye dazhe trogat' ne stanu,I’m not touching that,” she says. Then, something seems to occur to her.

She looks up at him with wide eyes, almost accusatory. “Eto vy!It’s you!” she hisses. She points at him, jabbing a finger into his chest. Right into poor Illya Kuryakin’s face.

“You say that a lot,” Shane tells her.

“Ty Shane Hollander!”

Shane startles, heart thunk-ing.

“I—” he falters. “I'm Shane Hollander?” He points at himself. Now they're both pointing at Shane.

She stares at him.

“Shane Hollander?” she whispers, looking completely baffled.

Which, okay. That's fair. Probably. If Shane thinks about it. She's into hockey, obviously. She's crazy good at it. He wonders if she's in the PWHL sometimes, but he's fairly familiar with the teams and he thinks he'd recognise her. And there's no way she wouldn't be first line, if she actually played.

So, being into hockey and being into it enough to be good at it, odds are she's probably heard of him. Statistically. Not that he's bragging. And it's probably weird to realize she's been hanging out with some random hockey player in her dreams.

“Shane Hollander,” he nods.

“Kakogo khuya?What the fuck?” she says again, with equal feeling.

“What's your name?” he asks. She's still staring at him. “I'm Shane. Uh, but you already knew that. I guess.”

“...Shane Hollander,” she parrots, looking lost.

He taps his own chest. “Shane Hollander.” Then, he points at her and raises his eyebrows encouragingly.

She points at herself. “Svetlana,” she says, after a pause. “Vetrova.”

He beams at her. There's an answering grin on her face, bright and sunny. He feels like they're two kids again, talking about hockey with exactly one word in common.

She points at him again. “Shanya.”

He frowns, pointing at himself. “Shan-ya?”

“Shanya,” she says, firmly. Then, she points at herself. “Sveta.”

Oh. He laughs, feeling giddy. “Hi, Sveta! Nice to meet you!”

“Rada poznakomit'sya, Shanya, Nice to meet you, Shanya,” she says, smiling just as big.

They stand there for a moment, buzzing with energy. He has dreamed her for longer than he can remember, he thinks. And it took till now, well into their adulthoods, for them to ask each other’s names.

In Shane's defense, names don't really mean anything in dreams. Sure, he's Shane, but he really isn't. He's just dreaming.

The thing is, dreams are real the way hockey is real.

He isn't really Shane when he's on the ice. He doesn't have to be anything once the puck’s dropped.

And when he's dreaming, he's nothing at all. Like on the ice.

Like when he's with—

“Wait,” he says, after a beat. “Vetrova? Like Vetrov? Sergei Vetrov?”

The girl—Sveta!—blinks, and laughs. “Da!” she says, nodding happily, “On moy Papa!He’s my Papa!”

“Holy shit! That's so cool!” Then. “Wait, you're Russian!”

“...Ty dura....you’re an idiot.”

“Oh, fuck off,” says Shane, sensing judgment. She's a very judgemental person. “You just sound kinda European to me. We're in a dream!”

“Tebe povezlo, chto ty privlekatel'nyy,You’re lucky you’re pretty,” she informs him.

“Ugh,” says Shane, rolling his eyes. “Shut up. Tell me about your dad. I won't get a word, but I wanna hear it.”

And, perhaps gathering from context what he means, she acquiesces. Or, more accurately, she talks at him, and he nods along, and assumes she's doing what he asked her to. He catches a few words, like “dokumental'ny,documentary,” and “zhestkiye sustavy,stiff joints,” and Ilyusha, and “pristal'no smotrel,staring intently,”. He hmms and ahhs appropriately.

Neither of them pay any mind to the fish, still swimming around the still air of the ballroom until it propels itself into the back of Shane's head.

He wakes up with Sveta’s laugh ringing in his ears.

Shane first met Rozanov at seventeen. He has, in the years since, had various and sundry dreams about him, the nature of which he can never disclose to another human being without immediately blowing up into gnarly little ribbons.

But he's never dreamed him.

Shane has dreamed a lot of people, over the years. Less now, as an adult. He's wondered about that, sometimes—he used to dream his school teachers if he got too attached, once dreamed Joe at the drop of a hat, and didn't stop dreaming him till they were so far apart that they only ever saw one another via a glimpse of a profile picture on a screen, a fleeting Instagram post or Facebook rant Joe'd put up. And even then, all it took was one conversation in Sochi to dream him again.

He dreams none of his teammates besides Hayden and JJ. He dreams his Mom less than ever, and his Dad even less than that. He once dreamed Jackie Pike, but only once. He hasn't dreamed his cousins or uncles or aunts in years.  

He dreams his strangers less and less, too. He almost never sees the boy from the train anymore—when he does, he's in Paris, looking happy and grown into his sharp features. He's still as grumpy as ever, though. He hasn't dreamed the fretful boy or his little infant charge in longer than he can remember. He sees the girl—Sveta, his friend Sveta—fairly often, but even that gets sparse sometimes. Occasionally, he'll dream fucking Boston Marley, for some reason.

He hasn't dreamed the golden-haired woman since he was twelve. He tries not to think about that. He gets nauseous and cold and afraid anytime he remembers her.

All this is to say, Shane has never been so alone, after he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep.

Mom always told him he's supposed to dream the people he loves. She told him this, because he kept dreaming a whole lotta random people, and it kept freaking her out.

Maybe Shane just loves less, now.

Anyway, he's never dreamed Rozanov, even though he's certainly dreamed about him.

Which should be a good illustration of his own feelings on the guy. Which is nothing. Shane feels nothing for Rozanov. Why would he feel anything else?

It's just sex. They're just. Fucking. It's hot, because Rozanov is built like a Greek statue that was kissed by a loving sun and granted the ability to play absolutely insane hockey. It's hot, because Rozanov has a hot mouth and laughing bright eyes and big, warm, steady hands that settle at Shane's waist, and because Rozanov knows how to take Shane apart and put him back together, because Rozanov cores Shane out and leaves him aching and wanting, because Rozanov kisses him and kisses him and kisses him—

It's just sex. So it makes sense that Shane doesn't dream him.

But Shane is lonely at night, when he sleeps and dreams nothing but his own dreams, and so he tries anyway.

It never works. 

Then, Sochi. Shane stopped trying after that, because he felt stupid. They weren't anything.

Trying to dream someone has never worked for Shane, anyway. He never did manage to dream Misato.

He tried again, right before Vegas. Their encounter in Vegas was hot, on an objective level, but Shane gets a strange, suffocating ache in his chest every time he thinks about it. No idea why.

He stops trying again. It was stupid, anyway. Rozanov isn't anything to him, and he certainly isn't anything to Rozanov.

Well. Nothing real, anyway.

He doesn’t dream Rozanov, but he sure dreams fucking Boston Marley again.

Boston Marley is, Shane has learned over the course of several dreams, a weird guy.

A lot of his dreams are in Boston, which makes sense (Boston Marley, duh), but sometimes Shane finds that he recognises the streets of Quebec in the hazy landscape of the guy's dreams. His Mom, Shane's inferred, is Canadian, though he seems to have grown up in Boston.

Another thing about his dreams, is that he and Shane are always married.

No, Shane does not know what that's about.

“Hey, honey,” says Boston Marley absently, “Pass me the shovel?”

Shane, who's been occupied with staring at the dead body for twenty completely baffled seconds, startles. “Huh?”

“The shovel,” Boston Marley repeats, in that alarmingly nice tone he keeps using, “That old bastard won't bury himself.”

“Right,” says Shane. “And, uh. Who is he, again?”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Boston Marley, briskly, “We just gotta get him six feet under before the cops show up. Let's get moving!”

“...okay,” says Shane, because this might as well happen.

He gets handed a shovel, and they get to digging.

They're in a park, in broad daylight. The sky is blue and endless, and the clusters of trees around them look unreal. They look sort of like paint splotches unless he focuses, and even then, they look kind of hazy. There are people walking past, blurry and indistinct, like impressions of finger paintings, movements jerky and stuttering.

The shovel sinks into the grass like butter. It slices through easy, too easy. Boston Marley grins at him, and Shane smiles back.

“What'd you want for dinner?” asks Boston Marley.

“Uh,” says Shane. He finds it hard to think, because he's never really thinking when he's dreaming. Then, a frisson of something goes up and down his spine (for a given value of spine), and he says, “Can we have pancakes?”

“For dinner?” says Boston Marley, amused.

“I want pancakes,” says Shane, because this is a dream, and because he isn't really Shane. “And maple syrup. And butter.”

“Real Canadian there, honey.”

“I want a Snickers,” Shane says. He has a hankering. “I want ice cream.”

“Fuck yeah,” says Boston Marley, “Oooh, you wanna get pizza? I want cheese.”

Shane hasn't had pizza in God knows how fucking long. Shane doesn't eat pizza.

But he's dreaming.

“Let’s get pizza,” he announces, and Boston Marley cheers.

They make quick work of digging the hole. The body is rotting, fetid and bloated. Shane thinks he can see worms and maggots writhing under pale, greyish skin. He can't make out the face.

Boston Marley gently lowers the body into the hole. He's so tender, cradling the body close for a moment before putting it down, despite the rot and stink and worms.

Shane doesn't remember filling the grave in. Boston Marley takes his hand (because they're married) and leads him out of the park.

They end up in their kitchen. Or, more accurately, the kitchen that is most likely Boston Marley’s kitchen in real life, and inexplicably theirs when Shane finds himself dreaming the guy. Shane always knows, unerringly, where everything is in this kitchen. So does Boston Marley, but this is his kitchen.

They find all the food they'd wanted on the table, and Shane feels giddy with excitement. They sit facing one another, facing towering stacks of pancakes (chocolate chip!) and a steaming pizza pie, and a little pile of Snickers bars. And somewhere, he knows, is a tub of Gold Medal Ribbon.

He eats. He drowns the pancakes in syrup. He digs into the pizza with both hands. Boston Marley eats with him, and laughs when Shane gets sauce on his face.

“Man, Hollz—uh, honey,” he says, because apparently he's really committed to this whole marriage bit, “You're really going to town.”

“‘M hungry,” says Shane, because he is.

“I can fuckin’ see that.”

“Shut up,” says Shane, “Or you're sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Shane's also committed to the whole marriage bit. Let no one say that he can't be funny.

They eat in silence for a while, until Shane says, “Pass me the syrup?”

The hand that passes the bottle over is rotting. And not Boston Marley’s. They both startle, and turn to the person that's appeared at their table.

Or maybe he's been here the whole time. Shane doesn't know.

The corpse, the one they'd just buried, grins at them. Or, it tries and fails, on account of having most of its mouth and cheek rotted off. It's all flesh sloughing off the body, and exposed teeth and bone.

Shane stares.

“Aw, Dad,” says Boston Marley, sounding immeasurably exhausted, “Why can't you fuckin’ stay dead?”

What.

Shane opens his mouth to say something, like maybe ask what the hell for perhaps the first time in all his years dreaming, but then—

He wakes up in his shared room with Hayden, belly empty.

shaney

shaneatron

shanespeare

Hi

Shanespeare?

i think ur like a little poem 💕

?

😙💕💕💕💕💕

Did you want something?

can I not text u ☹️

randomly ☹️

You usually do.

I hate u bad

anyway I had another dream

about u

it was cute!!!!

Yeah? What was it about?

well we were kids again

we usually are

when I dream about u

isnt that funny?

Yeah

we were sledding down a hill

remember when we like

broke ur uncles sled and we had to use a trashcan lid

we were WAY too old to b doin that btw

anyway we were doing that except the snow was like alive

and sth was chasing us

but it wasnt scary

we were laughing so hard

and then we crashed onto the lake

like onto the ice

but it didnt hurt

and then we were in my bedroom

on like

omegle

and we MET AVRIL LAVIGNE

ON OMEGLE ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

What was she doing there?

idk what avril lavigne does with her time

who r we to judge

You think she's on Omegle?

SHUT UP SHE MIGHT BE

omg what if we did actually secretly chat with her….

and we never knew….

I'm sure she had better things to do

shaney i KNOW ur not actually this much of a wet blanket u bitch

:)

i hate uuuu ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

im not telling u the rest of my dream ☹️☹️☹️☹️

How will I survive?

SHANE ☹️☹️☹️

Okay tell me.

I'm listening!

ok…

anyway we met avril lavigne

and she was like wow joe im suuuch a big fan of ur skating

and i was like WOW HOW DO U KNOWME

and she was like

well I looove ice dancing

and she wanted to meet irl

and u said lets drive 2 her place

but we couldnt drive

Because we were kids?

YRAH

bc we were like

🤏 this big

Well

I was taller I think

NO??????

I WAS ALWAYS TALLER THAN U

I'm still taller

SHANE WERE TGE SAME HEIGHT

we're*

the*

IHATEYOU LET ME FINISH MY DREAM STORY

Okay! Keep going!

ok

so we took the trashcan lid

and we were like

gonna sled to avrils place

Avril?

You're on a first name basis now?

yes my close personal friend avril!!!

actually

OUR close personal friend avril!!!

Wow

So what happened next?

guess

We crashed into the lake again?

yeah 😞

Hahaha

and then I woke up!!!!!

dreams with u in it r always so fun

ik we never hang out irl anymore

but when I dream abt u its like we’re just hanging out again ☺️

ik thats stupid

It's not stupid

I get it

omg ilu

do u ever dream abt me

Yeah

I do

u should tell me abt them sometime!!!

are we having fun in ur dreams?

Of course

Always

🥹

Shane doesn't dream Rozanov. He tries, and he just doesn't.

Instead, he finds himself in an unfamiliar house, in an unfamiliar hallway, with unfamiliar walls. He is small again. Very small.

Shane can't make out the ceiling, or even most of the walls, because everything is cast in shadow. His feet are bare, and the carpet under them is inexplicably damp. The wallpaper, yellow and patterned with faded white birds, is spotted with mold.

There are a lot of doors. He's very small.

“Papa?” someone calls out. Shane startles, and it's only then that he realises that he's scared.

Someone rounds the corner, footsteps heavy and urgent. It's a tall, tall man—or maybe he's regular sized and Shane's just real small—with receding auburn hair and and unkempt beard. He's pale, dressed haphazardly in a pair of Nike tracks and a rumpled red-and-white striped t-shirt. He's holding an orange bottle of pills in his hand, shaking it fretfully as he walks.

“Papa!” he calls out again. He sounds scared. And angry. He pokes his head into one of the doors. He doesn't open it, but it's open anyway. “Ya tebe govorila chtoby ty ne shlyalsya gde ni popadya!I told you not to go wandering around!”

“Hi,” says Shane, quietly.

The man stops, turns to look at him. Blinks.

He looks down at Shane uncomprehendingly and whispers, “Cho za khuyn?What the fuck?”

“Sorry,” says Shane. “I think I'm lost?”

The man stares some more. He mutters something under his breath, and steps forward. Shane, because he's small, small enough that the damp carpet and the molding walls and the looming shadows scare him, reaches out, arms up. The man scoops him up, settles him on his hip.

He carries on his search.

“Papa!” he calls out. Shane is content to curl up against him as he goes from room to room, looking for his father, voice getting increasingly angry.

The first room they check looks like a study. It's very fancy, lined with big windows and lots of shelves. There's a large table with an ornate chair. Everything's really dusty, though, which makes Shane sneeze.

“Bood zdarof,Stay healthy,” the man mutters, before saying again, “Papa! Ty dolzhen prinyat' lekarstvo!Dad! You have to take your medicine!”

The next room is a bedroom. Shane shivers, because it's really cold. It's also very empty. No furniture, besides the bare, unmade bed.

The room after that is a kitchen. Inside is a young woman with straight blonde hair, leaning out a little window and smoking. She doesn't look at them. The man ignores her.

“Bespoleznaya suka,Useless whore,” he mutters.

“Suka,” Shane echoes absently.

The man startles and looks down at him, as though he'd forgotten about Shane.

“Ne hovory tak,Don’t say that,” he tells Shane. Shane nods, despite not understanding.

He feels like he never knows anything. He feels like he's never known anything at all.

The next room they walk into is a bedroom, cast in shadow. Shane can see that it's dusty, in a way that makes him squint and wrinkle his nose.

The man walks into the room, calls out, “Papa? Papa?”

There's a bed in the room, because this is a bedroom. On the bed is a pile of clothes, and an unmoving person. Shane can make out a fluffy white dress tangled in the pile. A pair of ballet shoes.

Baby clothes. Little jerseys.

The person in the bed has long, curly gold hair. She also isn't moving.

Shane feels strange and frightened. He tightens his hold on the man, who seems not to notice him at all. The man walks around the room, and walks back out.

Shane breathes a little easier once they're out.

The next room is a nursery. It is also empty.

They stumble around a bit, the rooms all blending into one another, until they find themselves in the kitchen again. This time, they find a little girl with auburn hair in pretty ringlets, sitting on the floor and playing with a doll.

”Sonya?” the man says, sounding baffled. “Chto ty zdes delayesh?What’re you doing here?”

She looks up, and Shane realizes that her eyes are very familiar. They're bright and blue.

“Papa!” she coos, and makes grabby motions with her little hands. The man kneels down and scoops her up, settles her on his other hip. He doesn't put Shane down.

They keep walking.

The girl peers at Shane and smiles. He can't make out her face. He reaches out and tries to grab her hand, but it passes through.

Shane's never been able to touch someone that someone else is dreaming. Except that one time, when—

They walk into the bedroom again. The man walks past the person on the bed. She still doesn't move. Shane can make out pale limbs, her golden hair.

There's someone curled up next to her, shaking a bit. They're small, the way Shane is small, the way the little girl is small.

“Someone's here,” he whispers. He doesn't know why he whispers. He feels small and strange and frightened.

The man pays him no mind, walks out of the room without looking at the bed.

They go into the study again, another living room, a completely different kitchen lit with morning sunlight and with a plate of eggs left on a table, another bedroom, a nursery, the study again, the first kitchen again, the nursery again—

They end up in the bedroom again. The person on the bed is still unmoving. The little figure curled up next to her looks up.

It's a little boy, just as small as Shane and the little girl. He's crying, face frozen. He isn't really making any expression, but his eyes look very, very sad, and there are fat tears dripping down his face.

“Lyosha,” he calls, voice small and hurt.

The man turns, and freezes. “Ilyushka,” he says, sounding alarmed. He rushes forward, and grabs the boy. He stares at the person on the bed—a lady, Shane thinks, hazily. A very familiar lady.

She looks cold. She looks beautiful. She isn't moving.

The little boy makes a hurt noise as he's lifted. Shane can't find the little girl anymore. The man doesn't drop Shane. He also seems to have forgotten that he's still holding him.

The boy peers at Shane. Shane can't make out his face, but his eyes are very blue and very familiar.

The man keeps walking.

Time bleeds into itself, and the rooms become one long blur. The man calls out for his Papa, and no one answers. Sometimes, the boy cries. Shane reaches for him the way he did the girl, and startles when they actually manage to touch.

His little hand, just as little as Shane's, is warm and real.

The boy smiles, sniffling. Shane can almost make out his face.

“Hi,” Shane whispers. The boy doesn't reply. Shane doesn't know if you can talk to someone that someone else is dreaming. The answer appears to be no, considering the boy doesn’t answer.

The man stumbles, and they're in front of a door again. This one, Shane knows, leads outside. The man reaches out, though both his arms are carrying children, though he shouldn’t have any more arms to spare. The other boy clinging to him calls out, “Papa?”

The man fumbles with the doorknob, and manages to get the door open. A flurry of snow hits Shane in the face, the light blinding him.

He can barely make out a figure, standing in the bright, blinding snow. Tall, and small, and looming, and frail, and old, and cold, a singular shadow stark in his vision.

“Papa!” the brothers cry out (because they have to be brothers, what else would they be?). “Vernis' v dom! Postradayesh! Get back inside! You’ll get hurt!”

The figure turns, and—

Shane wakes up cold, feeling small and strange.

Shane hasn’t dreamed his mom in a while.

They still meet, though! They still hang out! Sometimes.

“What about that Calvin Klein offer?” Mom asks, squinting down at her phone. Her reading glasses are perched on her head, and Shane’s willing to bet real money that she’s going to ask him to help her find them in about five minutes. Dad also does this all the time, but he also has a disease where he thinks he’s hilarious (he kind of is) and will turn it into a whole bit given half a chance.

“The what,” says Shane.

“Honey,” says Mom, looking up at him. There are wrinkles around her eyes, now. He keeps noticing them, and being unreasonably surprised by them. It’s an ongoing, endless process. Sometimes he’s in the grocery store, and he remembers how bad Dad’s back is, and it makes his chest go tight with terror. “You’ve been CC’ed in every email.”

“Oh.”

“You replied to one of them,” says Mom.

“Oh,” says Shane again. “What’d I say?”

“You said you'd think about it,” Mom informs him archly. Shane accepts this one, because it's becoming increasingly clear that he did not think about it.

“Mom,” he says, ignoring the pinch in his chest, “I can’t do an underwear ad.”

“Why not?” asks Mom, like she’s landed on Earth three days ago and has no idea how much chirping Shane will endure. He gets enough shit for being on billboards already, and that’s Rolex and Reebok. If he’s up there in 4K in his goddamn underwear, he’ll be hearing comments about his dick until the heat death of the universe.

“Mom,” he says, trying to convey all of this to her telepathically.

“Shane,” says Mom, who has decided not to understand him, possibly because she's never had to share a locker room with the most annoying men in the country.

“I'm not doing it,” he says, resolute.

“Shane, we’ve had this conversation before,” Mom says, brows pinched. The plates between them are cooling, ignored. “You need to pursue a more mature image —”

“What, exactly, is immature about my image right now—”

“I don't understand why you can't just trust me—”

“—just because I don't wanna be on a billboard in my tightey-whiteys—”

“—so many people would kill to have the opportunities you have, and you still insist on being ungrateful—”

“—and they're not even my tightey-whiteys! They're sponsored tightey-whiteys! Will I have to flash ‘em in public like the Reeboks?”

Mom recoils. “Shane, don't be crude!”

“We're talking about an underwear ad,” Shane says drily. “Some people would say that's already crude.”

“Shane Hollander,” says Mom, and Shane looks up at the ceiling. “I did not raise you to be so regressive in your thinking—”

“Well, Mom, maybe I'm a conservative—”

Okay, now neither of them are making sense.

Shane feels like a teenager again, which often happens when he and Mom are alone without Dad as a buffer—not always in a bad way. Today's just. A bad day.

The conversation fifteen minutes later looks something like this:

“Shane, I'm sorry, but you have to rise above schoolyard taunts, you can't let these people limit you—”

“Okay, so maybe the Mitty example wasn't a good one, he was genuinely just kidding around. Also, JJ made fun of his dick about five minutes later, so I can't even be mad at the guy.”

Mom looks appalled. “What?” Then, “...what about his dick?”

“Well,” says Shane, awkwardly, “It’s kinda. Uh. He's kinda bad at keeping it. Clean.”

“Oh,” says Mom, “Ew.”

“Yeah, it's pretty nasty.” Then, in a whiny little tone he hasn't used in years, he goes, “Mom, they're all so fuckin' nasty.”

Mom snorts into her hand. “Oh, I can imagine.”

“No! It's so much worse than you think! Like—you remember Leroy, the AHL call-up from last season? He had a lucky cumrag.”

“What?”

“Which he only washed when we lost a game.”

“What?”

“And we know this,” says Shane solemnly, “because he kept the thing in his locker.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“Why would you tell me this?”

“Felt like you had to know the kind of room I'm working with here.”

“Well honey, I really don't need all the details—”

“Hey, guys,” says Dad, and they both startle hard enough it jostles the table, and consequently Mom's unreasonably tall glass of lemonade. It spills onto Shane's (read: largely untouched) salmon.

“Whoops,” says Dad, grabbing a napkin. “Sorry!”

“You have got to stop doing that, David!”

“Has this been happening more often?” says Shane, amused.

“Every damn day,” Mom gripes.

They mop up the mess, and Dad oohs and aahs over Mom's pasta salad and orders the same.

“So,” says Dad, “What’re we talking about?”

“Tommy Leroy’s lucky cumrag,” Shane informs him.

“...ah,” says Dad. Then, “Hey, I knew a guy like that! Except he kept his first condom in this box in his locker, because scored his first hat trick right after he lost his—”

“I do not want to hear about Ducky Daniels right now,” Mom groans.

“Ducky?” asks Shane.

“His full name,” says Mom, with an entirely straight face, “is Rubber Ducky Daniels.”

“Well, his name’s Henry—hey, he was there at your first Timbits game!” says Dad.

“...why?”

“He was the referee.”

“Right.”

“Anyway,” says Dad, before Shane can ask any follow up questions about Condom Guy, “Weren’t we going to talk about the Calvin Klein thing?”

“Oh we did,” Shane tells him, “I'm not doing it.”

“Wh—no, that is not what we agreed on—”

“We didn't agree! We're not agreeing! We're having a disagreement!”

“An argument, even,” says Dad mildly.

They both turn and glower at him. In response, Dad pinches mouth shut in that way he does when he's trying not to laugh (and therefore die). Shane strongly suspects that it's because he and Mom are making the same goddamn face again.

“Can you try and be helpful, David?” says Mom.

“Well,” says Dad, “Why don't you wanna do it, bud?”

“I don't want to be on a billboard in my underwear.”

“...I see.”

“Shane, you're being reductive.”

“I'm gonna be chirped until I die—”

“That's such a shallow reason—”

“Is it? Is it really, because—”

This goes on for another hour. Shane never finishes his salmon, which is probably for the best. On account of the lemonade it's been marinating in.

Shane doesn't dream Rozanov again.

He hates himself for trying. He doesn't know why he tries, just that he does. He doesn't even really know how he's trying, doesn't know any more than when he was a kid. Unlike hockey, he can't just practice and get better at dreaming.

He finds himself with Sveta again.

They're back in that city, the one she loves and hates.

They don't speak at first. They're playing shinny, which they haven't in years. They're laughing, wordlessly batting around their little tennis ball. Sveta wavers between wearing a nice pantsuit and some deeply impractical platforms, and a pair of Adidas running shorts and oversized Raiders shirt. Shane's in his pyjamas.

The cobblestone street doesn't hurt his feet, the same way the ice never hurts him when he's dreaming.

“Score!” Shane yells, after he gets the ball past one hastily-constructed goal. He pumps his fists in the air. “And the crowd goes wild!”

“I'll get you for this, Hollander!” Sveta yells.

“I’d like to see you try, Vetrova!”

“Get over here, you smug asshole!”

“Hey now,” says Shane smugly, “I'm the smug asshole.”

Sveta makes an inarticulate noise, torn between a laugh and something frustrated, and charges him. Charges him!

He yelps and starts running, and she chases him down with her stick in hand.

“Ref!” he hollers. “Ref! Are you fucking blind, don't you see this shit?”

“My father will pay off the ref!” Sveta yells, gaining on him with the speed of the Terminator, if the Terminator also had on an ancient shirt with a cartoon mouse that could also have been a monkey. “No one will save you now!”

He screeches as she tackles him from behind, sending them both tumbling onto the ground, which sort of swallows them both whole.

They wrestle and jostle and roll their way into a large, almost endless bed. It's very pink.

Shane lands face down on a pile of pillows. Sveta lands on top of him.

Because she seems to be primarily composed of very elegant toothpicks and curly hair, Shane ends up getting stabbed by her elbows, her chin, and also her knee.

“Get off!”

“You should be able to handle me, you big baby!”

“You’re stabbing me with your elbows!”

“Oooh, big strong Shane Hollander can't handle a little elbow? Pathetic.”

“I fucking hate you,” Shane groans, shoving her off. She goes easy, cackling at him.

The bed they're on feels endless. It's plush and overrun with little pillows, the walls of the actual room blurred and hazy. He can't see beyond the bed. It's all pink comforter and pink pillows and a scraggly little brown bear and the pink canopy above.

Caught in the canopy are little ladybugs. They're crawling all over the fabric.

“Ugh,” says Sveta, “They're back.”

“The bugs?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Have to get rid of them. Stupid little things.”

“I can help,” he volunteers.

“Sure,” she sighs. “Hold out your hands.”

Shane sits up and obligingly holds his cupped hands out. She gets up, wobbling a little on the plush mattress, and reaches up to pluck a little bug from the canopy.

She drops it in Shane's hand. It looks up at him. He isn't sure how, but it has unsettlingly human eyes. It's also about the size of his thumbnail now, which doesn't seem right.

She drops another one in his palm. They stay very still, no scuttling or anything.

“Whats up with the bugs?” he asks.

“They infest the house sometimes,” she says, frowning. “Awful things.”

“They're kinda cute,” says Shane.

“Ew,” says Sveta, with venom.

“Okay, the eyes are freaky,” Shane concedes.

“I hate them.”

“Okay,” says Shane. Then, “Should I, uh. Squish ‘em?”

“No!” says Sveta, glowering down at him. “They are only babies, Shanya! It's not their fault they're so ugly!”

“...right,” says Shane. “That makes sense.”

The pile of bugs stay very still in his arms. They blink up at him.

“What do I do with them?” Shane asks, staring down at the hundreds of little eyes.

“Mm, I don't know. Do you think we should send them to college?”

Shane blinks. “Uh, sure. Did you ever put aside a college fund for them?”

“I did,” says Sveta grimly, “But that rat bastard took it with him when he ran off. Useless man.”

“That motherfucker,” Shane says, with feeling.

Faintly, he registers that he has no idea what Sveta's talking about. Or what he's talking about. But also, he knows exactly what they're talking about.

When he imagines the (ex?) husband they're probably talking about, he keeps imagining a giant ladybug. A familiar one? He can't tell.

“Maybe you can take out a loan?”

Sveta plops onto the bed, dejected. The bugs in his palms look at her sadly, still unmoving.

“I don't want more debt!’ she sighs. “Things are already bad enough. I never should've trusted him. I never even wanted kids! I hate kids!”

“You couldn't have known,” Shane says, in a soothing tone.

“I should have,” Sveta laments. “All men are evil.” A beat. “Except you. And Ilyusha. And Sasha.”

“Thanks,” says Shane, drily.

“Actually, Sasha is a little bit evil. But he's very cute, so we let it slide.”

“Understandable.”

She reaches over, and scoops up a few of the little ladybugs. They scuttle onto her hands, her wrists, up her arms. She grimaces.

They talk about college for a while—Sveta has a degree in business management and also did stints as an assassin in the summers. She studied in France. Or was it Italy? Or Russia? Or was it Boston?

“Hey, I know a guy in Boston,” says Shane.

“I also know a guy in Boston,” says Sveta, delighted. Then, “Well, I know many guys in Boston, but there is one guy who is my best friend.”

“My Boston guy isn't my friend,” Shane tells her, because this is a dream. “He isn't my anything.”

Sveta coos. She tugs him down onto the bed and hugs him close. “Shanya,” she says softly, “did a boy make you sad?”

Shane's chest hurts.

“He doesn't make me sad,” he says, and he sounds young and sad and small. “He's really sweet.”

“But?”

“He makes me sad sometimes,” Shane concedes, “But I shouldn't be. I shouldn't let him make me happy, either.”

“Why not? You should be happy, Shanya. You're too sweet not to be.”

“I don't feel sweet.”

“I don't make the rules.”

“That doesn't even make any sense!”

The conversation devolves further after that. He doesn't know if they're even using words, just that they're talking. Some of the ladybugs migrate to Shane's body, scuttle all over his chest and arms.

There might be more of them. He can't tell.

He thinks he falls asleep mid-sentence. Which really just means that he wakes up.

Shane goes about his day turning Sveta's dream over in his mind. He didn't quite talk to her about Rozanov, but it's more than he's ever managed before.

Not that he wants to talk about Rozanov.

But still, he wonders why he can't. He knows why he shouldn't. But he could, hypothetically, talk to Hayden about Lily, even if he can't talk about Rozanov.

But he can't. For one thing, what would he even say?

There's a man who fucks me, and I want him all the time even though I can't think about him. I've never dreamed him, even though I dream people easy. I dream complete strangers. I've dreamed teachers that I got too attached to. But I've never dreamed him, so I know we really are nothing. I just can't convince myself of that.

Or: There's a girl, her name's Lily. No, I can't tell you why you haven't met her or why you've never seen a picture of her or why I can't show you her Instagram or even tell you anything about her. No we're not dating, we're not friends with benefits because we aren't friends, we're nothing, we aren't anything. But I text her and I think about him even when I'm not thinking about him and I do that all day until I fall asleep and then I can't dream him.

Or: I think something's wrong with me.

He turns it over and over in his mind, all day through morning skate and practice and heckling Comeau in the locker room for asking for dick pic critique (it was bad) and going home and—

It's as he's letting himself into his apartment that it dawns on him that he and Sveta had understood each other the whole time.

Chapter End Notes

okay, I usually do a very detailed end notes situation but like. I've had the most awful brain fog these past few weeks. so instead, have more questions! I'm sorry. for every answer, you get a ladybug🐞

you don't have to, though! I love any and all comments, even the ones that's just keysmashes and/or emojis. ilu.

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Comprehension Questions (optional):

1) What do you think is the significance of the recurring theme of ladybugs in Svetlana's dreams?

2) The following is an excerpt from the chapter above. What do you think it means?

Sure, he's Shane, but he really isn't. He's just dreaming.

The thing is, dreams are real the way hockey is real.

3)  What do you think about the way shane and yuna's relationship has changed/developed over the course of shane's career? Do you think this has affected Shane's dreams?

4) Why are there certain dreams prefaced with the fact that Shane can't dream Ilya?

5) Why do you think Svetlana and Shane understand each other now?

6) Why do you think the author has chosen not to bring Ilya on screen yet, beyond the briefest glimpses?

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ses you in the next one!