Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Zane Boodram, Troy Barrett, Rose Landry

Additional Tags:

i use this opportunity to promote my favorite ECHL team, low key major character death BUT NOT REALLY I SWEAR EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE, Nobody is Dead, maybe some of them are a little bit dead but that's the point so please relax, Soulmates, Magical Realism, Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Mystery, Past Lives, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Flashbacks, Memory Alteration, POV Ilya Rozanov, Ghosts, Eventual Happy Ending, Paranormal Investigators, Mild Smut

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of the cursed cottage

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-05 Completed: 2026-03-09 Words: 36,544 Chapters: 11/11

i'll believe in anything

Summary

"It had never really been in Ilya’s plans to start a Youtube channel for paranormal investigation..."

Ilya Rozanov is the playboy darling of the oft-forgotten ECHL who never quite lived up to his full potential, but he’s also known for spending the off-season hunting ghosts with his teammates Bood and Troy.

When they dare to investigate the tragic ruins of NHL legend Shane Hollander's former cottage, they are expecting to be confronted by a cursed haunting, a vengeful demon, or at the very least... some entertaining Youtube-worthy content. What Ilya is not expecting, however, is to form an inexplicable bond with the ghost of a hot hockey player and discover that nothing (literally nothing at all) is quite as it seems.

OR; Shane is a ghost, Ilya can see dead people, and it's entirely possible that they once knew each other in a past life.

Notes

this idea came to me in a dream and that is the only excuse i'm willing to offer for how convoluted this story is... there are ghosts! there are spooky haunted places! everyone is a little bit dead but not really haha what!

anyway, i already have this entire thing drafted, but i will be editing individual chapters and posting new ones probably daily.

mild warning for vague mentions of death ? obviously

Chapter 1: part one

“Oh, hell no,” muttered Bood from the backseat, leaning forward through the gap between Troy and Ilya to peer at the scene before them.

Troy put the van in park, grimacing with silent agreement.

“Is not that bad,” murmured Ilya.

“Dude…” Bood shook his head. “Are we seeing the same thing? This is fucked.”

Ilya shrugged.

He had seen worse than this, but he had to admit that it was pretty gruesome.

They were in the middle of nowhere, so far off the beaten track in eastern Québec that they hadn’t been sure if their rusty old van was going to make it down these twisting dirt roads.

But here they were, and there was no turning back now.

Troy killed the engine. For a few minutes, the three of them sat in silence, drinking in their surroundings.

The forest was dense and overgrown, threatening to overtake the shell of a cottage that had burned down thirty years ago. Ilya could tell that it used to be an impressive building, once showcasing more luxury than the average person could afford. Even in 1987, the year this place was originally built, it would have cost at least a million to bring it to life.

One-point-two million Canadian dollars, to be precise. Because, of course, Ilya had memorized every single detail about this place that he could.

He’d been obsessed with the Cursed Cottage, as the internet now called it, for years. Ever since he learned about the tragedy of Shane Hollander when he was still a kid back in Russia…

“I feel nauseous,” murmured Troy.

“Lucky you,” grumbled Bood. “I feel like I’m going to shit my pants.”

“Shut up,” Ilya told both of them. His voice was gentle, but they recognized the somber note in his tone and knew to obey.

Swallowing down the sense of foreboding rising in his throat, Ilya yanked on the door handle and hopped down from the passenger seat. His shoes squelched in the mud; scattered thunderstorms had been plaguing the area for the past few hours. Not out of the ordinary for a typical Canadian summer day, but eerie nonetheless.

Long grass and tangled ferns waved in a lazy breeze as Ilya moved closer to the abandoned remains of the cottage.

It was… strange. One half of it looked like the bones of a forgotten animal carcass, nothing more than crooked wooden beams and crumbled walls, broken teeth in nature’s lopsided maw. Blackened edges of old plaster and scorched tiles peered at him through dangling branches, the undeniable evidence of what happened here all those years ago.

The weird thing was that the other half of the cottage was relatively unscathed. The western side, the portion of building that sat closest to the lakefront behind it, hadn’t yet caught fire by the time first responders arrived on the scene in 1990. They put it out as quickly as possible, desperate to prevent a large-scale forest fire, as the story goes, but by then, the worst and most unresolvable tragedy had already occurred.

Ilya wandered closer to the cottage, stepping past what had probably once been the threshold and was now a vague opening in the front of the gouged-out structure.

Behind him, he could hear Bood and Troy finally getting out of the van, muttering to each other as they rummaged around in the back for their equipment. Ilya ignored them and moved deeper into the old cottage.

Overhead, the sun was shining brightly, as if the dark clouds and booming thunder that chased them all the way here was nothing but a figment of his imagination.

A sickening thrill zipped down his spine as he passed through the worst of the rubble. It was a familiar sensation, one that he’d known since he was a child.

Ilya had always fell oddly attuned to other planes of existence. Maybe it was a consequence of discovering his mother’s corpse, or maybe it was a symptom of having never felt truly connected to his homeland, never being truly grounded in this reality.

Either way, something about this land was definitely not normal.

It was like the trees around him were pulsing, breathing in tandem. The way the rainwater dripped off their branches made it seem like they were salivating, yearning to reach out and swallow him whole.

He rolled his shoulders, doing his best to shake off the disturbing thoughts.

The toe of his boot kicked aside a rock, sending it skittering across the rotted slats of pine that led into the less ruined half of the cottage. He passed by a bathroom with empty hinges in the doorway. The toilet was gone, leaving nothing but a gaping hole in the muddy floor tiles, but the clawfoot tub still stood proudly on the far end of the space. Ilya paused to peer closer, seeing that a hole in the rotted ceiling had allowed years’ worth of rain and snow to overflow the rusted tub over and over, creating a greenish concoction of algae and dead leaves.

He grunted under his breath and carried on down the hallway.

Despite the ruins behind him, this was actually considered to be the most haunted place on the property.

Which was weird, because it wasn’t even where Hollander died.

Ilya halted in the doorway of the main bedroom, recalling the grainy photographs they’d found online of what had once been a tasteful room with expensive furnishings and massive windows. An architectural magazine had once devoted half an issue to showing off this home the year after was built, so they had a good idea of what it was supposed to look like.

Some of the windows were still in tact, but most were nothing but shattered fragments of glass. A heavy branch had fallen through at one point, likely caused by one storm or another in the past thirty years. The branch itself now lay pathetically across the floor, still partially protruding from the room to where it had once probably offered some pleasant shade on the patio outside.

The bed, huge enough in the old photographs to suggest that the celebrated athlete who used to sleep here probably enjoyed more than one lover in his sheets at a time, was now nothing more than a rotted mahogany frame. The mattress had been removed at some point, leaving rusted springs that looked a little menacing to Ilya.

He frowned to himself. Not much was known about Hollander’s personal life. His hockey prowess was legendary enough that he was basically the patron saint of Québec and his original hometown of Ottawa, and he was even known to be beloved by fans of the Voyageurs’ greatest rivals. Everyone knew everything about his history-making statistics and the records he set that were still mostly unbroken even today.

And yet… when it came to digging up information about Shane Hollander the person, there wasn’t much of anything at all.

He didn’t have a wife. Didn’t have children. One Reddit thread claimed he had a brief affair with a former Hollywood starlet named Rose Landry, but it was hard to confirm when it all happened during an era before social media. A few former teammates of his, like the now-retired left wing Hayden Pike, had regularly been pestered for insider details about the elusive center, but none of them were interested in selling out their friend.

Which was a good thing, Ilya supposed. Inconvenient for him, sure, but still admirable.

Hollander’s parents were still alive, but they were old and gray, and Ilya couldn’t bring himself to reach out to them for comment. Not that he would even know how to find them. Yuna and David Hollander completely disappeared from the public eye following the untimely loss of their only son.

That was one of the strangest things about this place. They never came back here in the wake of Hollander’s death. They never bothered to have the place demolished and the property sold. In fact, in the immediate years following the tragedy, while greedy fans picked away at the ruins to claim whatever bits of the beloved hockey captain they could find, the Hollanders simply let it happen.

On the drive here, Bood had hypothesized that the Hollanders might not have known about their son’s cottage in the woods. That maybe it was a secret place where he could disappear from everyone, including his parents. After all, Hollander had been known to be an introvert. Quiet and focused on the ice, and a veritable enigma elsewhere.

Maybe it would have been different if he was alive nowadays. With the internet the way it was, Ilya was pretty sure that even Shane Hollander wouldn’t have been able to be as private as he was in the eighties.

Ilya shook his head, realizing he’d been staring at the rusted, rotting bed frame for several minutes. His limbs felt oddly light, as if he was floating. He shook out his arms and stepped back into the hallway. The sensation faded slightly.

The echoes of Bood’s voice rumbled in the background as Ilya continued moving through the ruins. He made his way across the ravaged floor plan and stepped past the jagged claws of a wall that no longer served as a barrier between inside and out.

This was the back of the cottage. Once a neatly manicured lawn, the grass was overgrown, clogged with weeds, and dotted with new saplings that had sprung up as nature slowly reclaimed her rightful place. Ilya moved through it all like he was wading through the sea, aiming for the lakefront glittering at him through the dense trees.

The lake was private, and many wealthy people still owned property around it, but nobody had come within five kilometers of this place since the fire.

It was weird, actually. This was prime real estate. At any point in the past three decades, someone could have snatched this property up and remade it into something new.

But it had been left untouched this whole time.

Ilya swallowed hard, his chest fluttering with unease as he navigated the subtle decline toward the muddy strip of beach. There was a rotting dock stretching out into the murky water, and one glance at it told Ilya he’d be stupid to set one foot on it unless he wanted to crash right through into the lake.

So, instead, he stood in the damp dirt that wasn’t quite sand and stared out across the sizable lake. There was a large boulder protruding from the water a few feet away. Maybe a pleasant place to sit and watch the sunrise, once upon a time.

Ilya felt a wave of unease roll through him as a cloud passed over the sun. He kept his gaze focused straight ahead, unblinking even as tears began to prick at the corners of his eyes. Despite the balmy weather, the hairs on his arms suddenly stood on end.

He wasn’t alone.

Not in the sense that Bood and Troy had caught up to him.

No, this was something else. He could feel it, lurking behind him. A presence, the way you might feel someone standing nearby you in an otherwise empty room.

Whatever, or whoever, it was… Ilya knew that he was being watched.

Observed, but not approached.

That was a good sign.

Especially considering the stories that had come from all the people who tried to investigate this place over the years.

Most people didn’t even make it all the way down the narrow road before they ran into trouble. Fallen trees or unnavigable potholes. Engine failure or flat tires.

One particularly spooky story came from a reputable medium who claimed that they kept driving in circles, looping around and around in the forest with no end in sight even though they swore they were driving straight toward the cabin the whole time.

Those who actually did make it to the property didn’t last long. Disembodied voices chased them off. Unbearable cold suddenly descending in the dead of summer freaked them out. Branches snapping at them out of nowhere, as if pulled back and set free by an invisible force, resulted in broken noses and brutal bruises. People claimed they’d been scratched by things they couldn’t see, or yanked at by hands that weren’t supposed to be there.

Basically, there was a reason they called this the Cursed Cottage.

And there was a reason why, over the years, this property had become infamous even among the paranormal community.

Don’t go there, veteran investigators warned. Seriously. Of all places, don’t fuck with the Cursed Cottage.

Even Troy, who was the most skeptical of their trio, had expressed serious hesitation over this project. He’d argued that there had to be a good reason why this place had never been cleaned up and resold, why anyone who attempted to do so couldn’t bring themselves to describe what they experienced without going pale.

Well, it’s our job to learn that reason, yes? Ilya had countered.

Troy didn’t have a good argument against that.

The lake water lapped at the thin shoreline.

Ilya swallowed hard. He was still being watched. The breeze kissed the back of his neck, oddly cold despite the fact that it was about 25ºC right now.

He resisted the urge to turn around, not wanting to scare off whatever entity had joined him here by the lake.

Was it Hollander himself? Had it been Hollander who violently stalked this property for years now? Could a quiet man who was never known to be naturally aggressive in life turn into a monster in death?

Ilya wasn’t sure.

So, instead of confronting it directly, he kept his gaze on the water, sparkling even under the passing clouds.

“Hello,” he whispered out loud.

There was no answer except a prickling at the nape of his neck, a tingling sensation that drifted below his collar and slithered down his spine.

It was not necessarily malicious, though.

If anything, it felt like curiosity.

So, he kept talking.

“My name is Ilya,” he murmured. “Ilya Rozanov.”

No response. He didn’t really expect one.

But if it was the ghost of Hollander… he’d been bilingual. Maybe English wasn’t his preferred language. And they were in Québec, after all, so any ghost who lingered here was probably a francophone.

“Salut,” Ilya tried again. “Je suis Ilya.”

His mouth, born to speak Russian and begrudgingly resigned to speaking English, stumbled over the French words, but he was pretty sure they sounded decent enough.

Then again, maybe he was making the wrong assumptions. This land belonged to other people long before the French arrived. But he didn’t know any of the indigenous languages.

He cursed himself internally for that. It was a research oversight, and he hated making mistakes.

The prickling sensation had settled at the base of his spine. Ilya tensed when the next gust of cool air felt eerily similar to an exhale against the back of his neck.

“Is okay,” he murmured. “C’est bon. C’est… tiguidou?”

Another soft puff of air, almost like a breath of laughter. Was this entity amused by his attempt at slang?

“I’m not here to upset you,” he assured the being. “We won’t take anything. We won’t leave anything behind, either. I promise. We just want to… learn. Observe.”

The tingling trailed back up his spine. Goosebumps erupted along his arms. He had to blink back tears again, not because he wanted to cry, but because he could never help these intense physical reactions to brushes with the paranormal.

Because that’s most certainly what this was.

“I’m sorry,” he continued. “I don’t know how to say any of that in French.”

A high-pitched ringing sounded in his ears. He flinched, and it stopped instantly.

“No, is okay. You didn’t hurt me. My ears can’t always hear speech from wherever you are. Try again if you can.”

Silence, but the presence crept closer. Ilya didn’t dare move an inch, didn’t dare take his eyes off the lake. He could feel it behind him, looming with that tentative curiosity.

Then, the ringing in his ears began again. Gentler this time. He closed his eyes, trying to focus, but no words came through.

When it went quiet again, Ilya felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment that didn’t come from within himself. The entity knew that he still could not hear him and it was not happy about it.

“That’s okay,” he assured it, opening his eyes. “If is easier, you can communicate another way. Can you throw something into the water maybe? One of these pebbles at my feet?”

Nothing stirred.

He knew better than to openly suggest that the entity try to touch him, even if that's what was already happening. In fact, it had been reckless to even offer it his full name to begin with. You had to be careful with the paranormal, had to keep in mind that the beings you were reaching out to might not be human at all.

“I heard stories about falling branches,” Ilya continued. “Are you the one who can do that? Can you do it now, without hurting me?”

Nothing.

Until, suddenly… CRACK.

On instinct, Ilya whirled around.

“Fuck!” Bood shouted several yards away, almost falling face-first into the long grass as he tripped over rotted rubble at the back of the cottage.

Troy, hovering right behind him, snorted. Clearly, they’d found their way through the remains to track him down.

Ilya frowned up at them from the bank. The presence was gone. The breeze was warm again. His spine no longer tingled.

Bood stood upright, then met Ilya’s gaze through regrowing forest.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Ilya shook his head. “I felt something.”

“Something?” Troy echoed.

Ilya looked over his shoulder toward the lake. “Someone, I guess.”

Chapter 2: part two

Chapter Notes

a note on dates and puck stuff: obviously, the irl voyageurs are actually the habs, but the cup wins mentioned in this chapter don't quite align with reality (habs won the cup in 1986, not 1984). there are some other inconsistencies throughout the story but i'll point them out as they come up! not that it really matters, but whatever

It had never really been in Ilya’s plans to start a Youtube channel for paranormal investigation.

In fact, it all started as a joke.

Back in Russia, he’d been a young hockey player with a lot of potential. He could have joined the KHL, or even been bold enough to enter the NHL draft after a particularly impressive success at the International Prospect Cup in 2008.

But, for reasons Ilya still couldn’t really explain, he decided to take it slow. He chose to take the university route, accepting an athletic scholarship to the University of Ottawa. He figured he could fuck around for a few years, enjoy some freedom away from Russia, and then decide if he wanted to fully sacrifice both his mind and body to professional hockey.

In the meantime, he met Bood and Troy, who also played for the university’s hockey team. He made other friends, too. He attended most of his classes. He enjoyed nights out with the rest of his teammates. He fucked women and men whenever he pleased.

And then, one night, when the team was in Montréal for a game against McGill, they went out to a club after, where they met a few locals. One of those locals was a guy named JJ, who told them all about how the warehouse that the club was located in was actually haunted.

The others had thought it was bullshit, but Ilya had felt the prickling at the back of his neck the moment he set foot inside the building earlier. It hadn’t been because of the pounding bass or writhing crowd. It was because there had most certainly been something otherworldly lurking in the shadowy corners, flitting about in between flashes of strobed lighting. A playful spirit, maybe two. Friendly, from what he could tell, and happy to soak in the energy that was so happily and freely given by the young people of the city who flooded this place.

So, when JJ suggested that they sneak down to the basement level of the warehouse via an alleyway that dipped underground, Ilya was the first to agree.

Long story short… Troy, who was majoring in film studies, got his phone out and started filming the whole thing like it was one of those corny paranormal documentaries that nobody really believes in.

Except, at one point, when the camera was pointed at Ilya, he felt a presence looming behind him. A ghostly chime of laughter had echoed in his ears, causing him to freeze. And, right behind him, an orb had appeared. Caught right there on tape, floating just past his shoulder as if it wanted to whisper something in his ear. Ilya played it cool, not wanting to disclose that this was not even the first, or second or tenth or fiftieth, time that something like this had happened. So, he laughed and acted like he didn't even notice that a spirit had reached out to him.

They’d pretty much forgotten all about it by the next morning, until Troy rewatched the footage. Bood was the one who insisted they upload it online, and Ilya didn’t mind.

When the video went viral, Ilya realized it was probably time to come clean to his friends.

I think I can see ghosts, he told Troy and Bood. Or maybe I’m crazy. I don’t know. Sometimes I hear things. I can sense things.

And, to his surprise, they’d taken him seriously.

Honestly, me too, Bood had even admitted. I swear I felt something weird when that orb appeared. Like, I heard something. A laugh or something like that, you know?

Troy didn’t hear it, but he believed them. He was also eager to find out what else he could catch on camera. He started doing research on the kind of equipment that paranormal investigators used, and Bood started looking into haunted locations in and around Ottawa.

And it continued like that for the rest of their university years, as nothing more than stupid adventures they took every once in a while whenever their schedules allowed it. They uploaded the footage to Youtube every time, and even though most people argued that the high flow of traffic to their channel was due solely to the fact that they were three hunky hockey players, Ilya knew that there were real believers among their audience.

That audience grew, too. Exponentially.

Meanwhile, Ilya, whose passion for hockey had limits to begin with but who also definitely didn’t want to go back to Russia after graduation, opted to join the ECHL. A couple steps below the NHL, sure, and definitely not the full breadth of his potential, but… it was simpler. Easier. Less pressure. It also kept him out of the spotlight, which meant that he was free to be openly bisexual without inviting the wrath of the major league.

Bood and Troy followed him to the ECHL, and they ended up in Trois-Rivières together playing for the Lions. In the off-season, they developed their channel into something more sophisticated and organized.

Nowadays, Youtube made them triple the money that their paltry ECHL salaries offered, and the three of them had earned a charming reputation for being the minor league’s own ghostbusters. It was funny. Ilya enjoyed it.

But he also took it very seriously.

Now, no longer down by the lake, he stands with Troy and Bood back in what used to be the cottage’s driveway. The clouds have cleared again, leaving golden afternoon sunlight to dry up the mud and dampness.

“You didn’t hear anything?” Bood asked him. Ilya had just finished explaining what he experienced at the lakeside.

“Just the ringing, like it was trying to communicate,” he confirmed.

Troy nodded slowly. “That’s happened to you before.”

“True,” Bood agreed. “Maybe it’s a weaker spirit. We could try an EVP later.”

Ilya shrugged. It was true that the recorder designed to capture Electronic Voice Phenomena would probably help to reveal more communication than ringing in his ears, but he wasn’t sure he agreed that the spirit was weak.

Actually, it felt very strong. Large, too. Expansive. As if it was less like a singular entity and more like a presence that was spread out across this property like a veil of fog.

Or something like that.

He scanned the trees, waiting to feel that tingling presence again, but all he felt was a general sense of foreboding. There was definitely something here, but he couldn’t quite tell what it was yet.

Bood and Troy were waiting for his direction.

“Let’s get started on the intro,” he said. “While we have good daylight.”

Because the investigation wouldn’t actually begin until nightfall. They’d bring out the night-vision lenses and infrared camera, the REM pods and EMF meters. It wasn’t just that filming in the dark added a degree of creepiness to the atmosphere for their audience. The undeniable truth was that spirits tended to be more active when the sun went down and the clock ticked closer to the witching hour.

They would camp here tonight. For two nights, if necessary. They also had a motel room booked in the nearest township, which was about fifty kilometers away, just in case things went as bad as they did in the stories they heard about this place.

Slipping into the routine they’d hammered out over the past few years, they started setting up the main camera to film the episode’s introduction. Ilya was, for lack of a better term, the channel’s star, and Bood was his charming sidekick. Troy spent most of his time behind the camera, where he was most comfortable. They also enlisted his boyfriend Harris for help with social media management, but he was too easily spooked to actually join them on the investigations.

Soon enough, Troy had the camera perched on a tripod with the most dramatic angle of the cottage ruins in frame. Ilya stood in front of it, rolling his neck and trying to shake off the weird tightness in his chest that he’d noticed for the past twenty minutes or so. Bood was lingering off the side, scrolling on an iPad where they kept their notes about haunted locations.

“He’s even prettier than you,” Bood chuckled, flipping the iPad around toward Troy.

Troy quirked an eyebrow at the image on the screen. “Fuck you.”

Boyd turned the screen toward Ilya, even though he’d already seen the man on it a thousand times before.

“Don’t you think, Rozy?” Bood asked with a smirk.

Ilya gazed at the image of Shane Hollander.

If he was being honest, pretty didn’t quite cover it. Hollander’s looks had somehow transcended the boundaries of handsome and beautiful, masculine and feminine. He’d been half-Japanese, with dark eyes that gleamed even through the poor-quality images captured of him throughout the eighties. In the photo Bood was showing him, an old marketing headshot taken in his jersey for the Montréal Voyageurs, his dark hair looked soft and silky to the touch.

Freckles, too.

Ilya had always been charmed by the hockey legend’s freckles most of all.

It was stupid, really, to be so attracted to a dead man. Maybe even a little disrespectful.

Whatever.

“Earth to Roz?” Bood pressed.

“Hm?” Ilya furrowed his brow, waving his hand dismissively at the iPad. “Yes. Fine. Very pretty.”

Bood snickered. Troy rolled his eyes.

Ilya sighed. “Are we ready?”

Troy nodded, shooting him a thumbs up.

“We’re rolling,” he confirmed after pressing a button on the camera.

Ilya sank into his on-camera persona. The smirking daredevil who ventured into the most haunted locations across North America, the cheeky hockey captain who led a charming double life for the public to be entertained by.

He winked at the camera lens, spreading his arms wide to showcase the disaster zone behind him. “Welcome back to a new episode of Puck Paranormal, everyone. As most of you know, I’m Rozy and I’m here with the boys to investigate what will probably be our most intense haunting to date. Right behind me, you can see the—”

A sharp snap cut him off. Ilya jerked around just in time to see a thin branch drop off a tree several meters away. It caught on the dense foliage on the way down, then finally fell with a dull thump inside the cottage ruins.

Probably just the wind. Just nature pushing a rotted tree limb past its breaking point.

Ilya turned back toward the camera and grinned.

“As I was saying,” he continued. “We’re at the Cursed Cottage, where we’ll be camping out for the next couple of nights in hopes of capturing evidence of the horrifying hauntings that have allegedly taken place here for decades. We’ve come here despite the countless warnings of our colleagues and friends in the paranormal community, and we know the risk we’re taking, but we’re determined. After all, as hockey players ourselves, it’s personal…”

Troy signaled for him to pause. Ilya waited while he adjusted the camera settings. He shoved his hands in his pockets, gaze drawn to the thick wall of trees just behind Troy.

The prickling sensation returned to the back of his neck as the leaves shifted despite the lack of wind.

A squirrel, Ilya reasoned. Despite his abilities, if that’s what you wanted to call them, he always preferred to exhaust all logical explanations before accepting that something was caused by paranormal phenomena.

He squinted at the leaves, which continued to shift and flutter. It was soundless. No rustling, no whisper of noise to accompany the movement.

Troy looked up and noticed that Ilya wasn’t looking at him or the camera, but at something over his shoulder. He glanced back nervously, then turned to raise his eyebrows at Ilya.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

A cool tendril of air against his cheek, too subtle to be a breeze.

“Are you—” Troy began, but Ilya held up his hand.

Troy fell silent, but quickly pressed record. Bood watched Ilya.

Ilya simply waited quietly, actively avoiding the urge to tense up as the prickles once again traced down his spine. That cool breath—because that’s what it had to be—ghosted over the shell of his ear.

He shivered.

And then, just as quickly as the sensations came, they disappeared.

Ilya glanced around, but that same presence he felt down by the lake had faded away again.

He cleared his throat, turning his attention back to the camera.

“What was that?” Bood asked.

“Same thing,” Ilya muttered. “I don’t know. Let’s just keep going.”

So, they did. Ilya launched into a rundown of the reported paranormal experiences people had experienced here, specifically emphasizing that nobody had ever been able to last a full night camping on the property.

“There’s a strong likelihood that the hauntings that have allegedly occurred on this land are ancient,” he said to the camera. “Centuries ago, colonization and multiple wars undoubtedly bled violence into this land, welcoming inhuman, or perhaps even demonic, spirits. This wouldn’t be the first time that we’ve encountered entities of that nature.”

Ilya’s ears started ringing again. He paused.

Then, in the distance, a hollow shout. Ilya’s head snapped toward it on instinct, but he was the only one of them to react.

“Did you hear that?” he asked the guys.

“Hear what?” Bood replied.

“It was like a—like someone was shouting something…”

“Like a person? We’re the only people out here.”

Ilya nodded, once again turning his attention back to the camera.

“Yes, as Bood said, the closest property is miles away,” he said to the dark lens. “It was probably just a fox or something. What was I saying?”

Bood turned the iPad screen toward him, showing him Hollander’s face again.

Right.

He rolled his shoulders. Focus.

“Of course, the most famous tragedy to occur on this property involves the untimely death of hockey legend Shane Hollander.”

Ilya swallowed hard, choosing to ignore the odd sensation that began at the nape of neck again. This time, it was almost like someone was twisting one of his curls around their finger.

He was standing alone, though. Both Bood and Troy were several feet away.

And he had a task to complete. So, whoever, or whatever, was touching him without invitation right now would have to wait a little while to get his full attention.

It was just that… as the minutes passed, he could swear that whatever had found him down by the lake was growing more and more eager.

“For those viewers who don’t know puck,” Ilya continued. “Shane Hollander is one of the most iconic hockey players who ever lived, inarguably going down in history with names like Gretzky and, more currently, Crosby. From a very young age, hockey scouts knew that he was a prodigy, and he proved them right. He was drafted by the Montréal Voyageurs in 1983, and anyone you ask will agree that the 1984 Cup victory after an eleven-year dry spell was due to his early contributions to the team.”

Ilya carried on to describe the kind of player that Hollander was, calculated and highly intelligent, as well as the sort of man he was off the ice. For example, even though he kept to himself, he was known to donate to many charity organizations. Basically, despite his private nature, he was considered a good person.

“In 1990, after winning Montréal another Cup, Hollander did what he usually did during the off-season… he disappeared. Very few people knew about his private cottage in the Chaudière-Appalaches region of Québec…”

Ilya paused, chuckling at his horrible pronunciation.

“Very little is known about what happened that tragic night in July of 1990,” Ilya said, lowering his voice for dramatic effect as another cloud passed overhead. “All we know is that, at some point in the night on the tenth of July, a fire began over here in the northeastern corner of the cottage.”

He gestured behind him to indicate the spot where pretty much nothing remained because that’s where the fire had the most time to gnaw at the structure.

“Neighbors noticed the smoke even in the dead of night, but by the time the nearest fire squad arrived... Hollander was already dead.”

Behind the camera, Troy grimaced. Bood also cringed. Ilya didn’t blame them. Even now, thirty years later, the loss was still a sensitive subject. It didn’t matter that they weren’t even alive at the time. The demise of someone that special was a shame no matter what.

“The official cause of death was ruled as asphyxiation,” Ilya continued. “However, for years afterwards, the public speculated that this wasn’t the full story. After all, Hollander was an athlete in his prime, and the fire had not become so large that it blocked all exits. Many think that he could have easily gotten out and called for help… so why didn’t he?”

Before Ilya could continue, Troy made a strange jerking motion, yanking his head to the side and clapping his hand over his ear.

He and Bood stared at him as he shivered and glanced around, rubbing at the side of his head.

“Sorry,” he told them. “Weird noise in my ear. Probably just a mosquito.”

Ilya considered telling Troy that he’d been hearing high-pitched noises pretty much since they arrived, but Troy had never experienced attempts at communication from the other side, so he really didn’t want to freak him out.

Not yet, at least.

If it happened again…

But, actually, the fact that it happened in the first place…

“I have such a weird feeling in my stomach,” Bood interjected.

“Please don’t shit your pants,” Ilya sighed.

Bood rolled his eyes. “Just keep going.”

“Yeah,” Troy murmured. “We’re losing light. And battery, too.”

Ilya frowned. “The battery should be fully charged.”

“Yeah, I fucking know that.” Troy squinted at the digital feed on his side of the camera. “It was fully charged when I started recording, like, twenty minutes ago. But now we’re at twenty-four percent.”

Typical. Spirits could often feed off electrical waves. Rapidly declining batteries were a common issue for them, and they’d learned to prepare for it accordingly.

Ilya began again.

“Ever since that night, nobody has ever been able to figure out why Hollander couldn’t save himself. He was alone. There was no evidence of foul play involved. The autopsy revealed that there were no substances in his bloodstream that could have negatively impacted his cognitive or motor function. He was not injured, despite the aggressive playoffs he’d just battled through.” Ilya reached behind his head, idly scratching at the spot where something had begun toying with his curls again. He thought he felt another breath of cold air on his fingertips, but dismissed it in favor of finishing up this longwinded introduction.

“Some people thought that maybe he was just a heavy sleeper, that the smoke had already spread and choked him to death by the time he could have woken up.” Ilya outwardly cringed. He’d gotten used to talking about death, had even witnessed it himself, but sometimes it was a little too much. “But Hollander’s body wasn’t found in his bed. He was found, oddly enough, on the kitchen floor, right in the middle of the worst of the blaze, arms outstretched as if reaching for something…”

Ilya trailed off.

Then…

ILYA!

He gasped sharply, whipping around.

That voice again. The one that shouted before. It was coming from the direction of the lake this time.

“Holy fucking shit,” muttered Bood. “Was that…?”

“I heard it, too,” Troy said.

Ilya was too busy staring through the ruins toward what he could glimpse of the lake, though.

Under his breath, he whispered, “Do it again.”

Nothing.

“Do it again,” he repeated. “I heard you that time.”

“Rozy?” Bood called out.

Ilya held up a hand in his direction to quiet him.

“It’s okay,” he breathed to the unseen entity. “I heard you. You can try again whenever you’re ready. I’ll be listening.”

When he turned back toward the camera, the guys were gaping at him.

He shrugged. “What?”

“I heard your name,” Bood said, eyes wide. Troy nodded in agreement.

“Just the wind,” Ilya suggested.

“Definitely not,” argued Bood.

“Not my name, then,” Ilya corrected. “Just… French.”

“Dude, what?”

“Il y a… it’s a French phrase. Come on. We’ve been living in Québec for years, man.”

Bood scoffed.

Honestly, Ilya didn’t know why he was denying it. He was certain it was his name. He heard each distinct syllable sounded out with careful intention, which was decidedly not how a Québec francophone would have pronounced the aforementioned phrase.

But the fact that this entity was already audibly saying his name, and they’d only been here for a couple of hours…

“Fuck,” sighed Troy, glaring at the camera. “It’s dead.”

Chapter 3: part three

Chapter Notes

here comes the boyyyy :)

They spent the rest of the afternoon setting up their equipment around the property. Small night-vision cameras were secured to various spots to offer multiple angles of the ruins, both inside and out. This was in hopes of capturing a floating orb or a shadow creature, or possibly even the faint outline of a humanoid ghost.

But whatever they could manage to capture on camera was never as detailed as what Ilya saw with his own eyes. Sometimes, if the spirit was strong, he could see them as clearly as if they were a real person. It was rare, but it happened.

Most of the time, if he saw anything at all, it was a ghostly visage or a cloudy blur.

Alongside the cameras, they set up two EMF meters on opposite ends of the cottage, one in the general area where Hollander’s body was found and another resting on the rusted mattress springs in the back bedroom. They were supposed to detect disruptions in the electromagnetic field, which would happen if a spirit happened to float nearby.

They had other tricks, too. Little cat toys that lit up when touched and strings of lights that would illuminate when motion was detected. They spread these out through the cottage as the sky darkened overhead.

Then, when they were satisfied with the set, they prepared their campsite. They’d recently invested in a tent large enough for the three of them, as well as a portable fire pit and fancy camp stove. As afternoon drifted into evening, Ilya built a fire in the pit while Bood lit citronella torches to ward off the mosquitoes. Troy fiddled with his camera, checking batteries and ensuring everything was in working order.

“I keep waiting to not feel creeped out,” Bood said some time later when he settled down on a log beside Ilya. “Usually, after a few hours in an especially spooky place, I can get comfortable, but…”

“But not here,” Ilya finished for him. “I know.”

Troy frowned at them from across the fire. “It’s fucking weird.”

“I mean, it’s the Appalachians, man,” Bood said.

Ilya raised a brow at him. “What does that mean?”

“The Appalachians? Oldest, spookiest, most haunted mountain range in the world?”

Troy snorted. “Man, those mountains are down in the American South.”

“Um, hello? Am I the only one here with any brain cells left?” Bood scoffed. “Rozy literally said in the intro that this is the Chaudière-Appalaches region. Appalaches. Fucking French for ‘Appalachian’?”

“Oh,” Ilya and Troy said at the same time.

“We’ve been living in Québec for years, man,” Bood mocked them, repeating Ilya’s rebuke from earlier.

Ilya snorted. “What do stupid mountains have to do with anything?”

“You seriously don’t know the stories?”

He shrugged.

Troy, however, chimed in, “That’s, like, Mothman territory, right?”

“Sure,” Bood said. “Other stuff, too. Nobody truly knows what lurks in the old mountains, but there are plenty of warnings from people who have lived in them for generations.”

“Warnings?” Ilya frowned. “Like what?”

“Like, never whistle at night.”

Troy huffed. “Why not?”

“Because it will attract the evil spirits, obviously.” Bood shook his head. “And there’s another rule…”

Ilya and Troy waited.

Bood cringed a little before continuing. “I mean, it’s pretty much the main rule, you know? If you ever hear something in the forest calling out your name… no, you didn’t.”

Ilya wasn’t easily spooked, but his blood ran cold at that.

“What does that mean?” Troy asked. “‘No, you didn’t’? But, what if I did?”

“No, man, like you’re supposed to act like you didn’t hear it. Don’t answer it. Don’t go toward it. Don’t even look in that direction.”

“Yikes,” murmured Troy. “I guess Rozy already broke that rule.”

“It wasn’t my name,” he insisted.

“Well, anyway,” Bood continued. “This is the northernmost stretch of the Appalachians, which means there’s a chance that same shit happens up here, too. These mountains are ancient, man. Like, pre-human ancient. Pangea ancient. The earth is magic.”

Troy chucked a twig at him. “Fucking magic, dude? Seriously?”

“Cursed, then,” Bood amended. “I’m just repeating what I’ve heard. And all I’m saying is that, now that I’m here, I totally believe it. Freaky shit happens here. I mean, maybe that’s what happened to Hollander.”

Ilya pursed his lips. “What does that mean?”

Bood threw up his hands in exasperation. “Like maybe the reason why nobody can think of a logical explanation for how he died is that there is no logic to it. Maybe it’s something more… mystical.”

“Yeah, right,” Troy muttered.

Ilya, however, remained quiet.

He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t believe in magic. He didn’t even really believe in curses.

To be honest, he barely believed that he could see ghosts. More often than not, he was pretty sure he was crazy. Like maybe something broke inside him the day he discovered his mother’s lifeless body…

A metallic droning noise broke through his thoughts.

The EMF meter was going off inside the cottage.

The sun had only just set a minute ago. The sky still had some light left in it.

All three of them rose to their feet in unison.

“I guess we’re starting early tonight,” Troy said, hoisting his camera onto his shoulder.

And so they did.

***

“Is there a spirit with us right now?” Ilya called out into the shadowy darkness of the bare, jagged remnants of the cottage’s kitchen. “Was that you who touched the EMF meter? Can you do it again for us?”

Troy had the night-vision lens aimed at him. Bood, his faithful co-star, stood beside Ilya.

They were met with silence.

“It won’t hurt you,” Ilya said to the darkness. “All it does is make a noise and light up if you touch it. That’s how we know that you’re here with us.”

Still nothing.

Bood took his wordless cue to chime in.

“We’re not here with the intent to bother you,” he said, reciting the same speech he gave at most of their haunts. “We don’t want to send you away or force you to do anything you don’t want to do, but we would really appreciate it if you communicated with us. My name is Bood, and this guy beside me is Rozy. Behind the camera is Troy. Will you talk to us?”

Nothing.

Ilya sighed. “Probably just a fluke. We can reset it.”

But, as he reached for the EMF meter, it went off again. With his hand still at least three feet away from it. Ilya pulled back, but it continued going off. It lit up red, emitting the electronic drone that had become so familiar to him over the years.

“Thank you,” Ilya said to the empty air. “Can you stop touching it now?”

Immediately, the EMF meter went silent.

“Sick,” murmured Bood. “Can you do it again?”

Silence.

“Please and thank you?” Bood prodded.

Troy snickered quietly.

Still nothing.

“What if Rozy asks?” Bood suggested. “Maybe it likes you better.”

Ilya rolled his eyes, but asked, “If there is a spirit here with us, could you please reach out and touch this device again?”

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep, sang the meter, lighting them up with the blinking red lights.

“Now stop, please,” Ilya murmured.

It stopped.

“Thank you,” he said. “Let’s communicate this way—if the answer to my question is yes, tap the device. If the answer is no, stay silent… is this the same entity that I’ve been sensing since we arrived?”

A brief beep. A flash of red.

Ilya nodded. “Okay. You’ve been with me the whole time, haven’t you? In the bedroom, down by the lake, watching me from the trees.”

Beeeeep.

“Fuck,” breathed Bood.

Ilya stared at the EMF meter, his heart pounding.

“Was it you who was… touching me? I could feel you… my neck… my hair…”

Bood was gaping at him, but Ilya was staring at the vague shape of the device in the darkness.

Beep. Beep.

A shiver raced down Ilya’s spine, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

“Can you do it again?” he asked.

“Dude!” hissed Bood. “Golden rule!”

Ilya only shrugged.

Bood huffed and turned his face to address the camera, “For the record, do not fucking do this at home. We do not recommend ever inviting an unknown spirit to touch you. You never truly know who or what you’re speaking to, and welcoming the touch of an entity is one way that very dangerous things can happen. Like a fucking possession.”

“Stop cursing so much,” Troy muttered behind the camera. “It makes editing a pain in the ass.”

Ilya ignored them. He was still waiting for an answer to his question.

“It’s okay,” he said gently to the barely-there presence that hovered in the deepest shadows of the room. “I consent. You can touch me.”

Bood sighed again and shook his head at the camera, but he didn’t protest.

Ilya closed his eyes and waited.

A moment later, the back of his neck prickled. Then, a sensation like the tip of a finger pressed to his skin, twisting around the end of a curl. Just like before.

It was almost like a caress. More tender than any touch from a spirit he’d felt before. Usually, touches were brief and clumsy. Brushes of contact or awkward tugs. Accidental bruises when the spirit didn’t know their own strength and, once, a scratch from an entity that simply wasn’t interested in politeness.

Ilya shivered.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Dude, what the fuck is happening?” Bood asked.

The touch withdrew, and Ilya felt it’s absence with an odd note of disappointment. He lifted his hand to the hair at the back of his neck.

“It touched me right here. Very gentle.”

“So, it’s a friendly spirit?” Troy asked.

Ilya shrugged.

Bood cleared his throat lightly. “Is this—are we speaking with Shane Hollander right now?”

Leave it to his costar to get right to the point.

The silence stretched for several seconds. Ilya was about to ask the question a second time, thinking that maybe this spirit wasn’t interested in communicating with someone who didn’t have as deep of a connection with their plane of existence.

But then the EMF meter lit up again. Yes.

“Holy fucking shit,” breathed Bood.

“Stop cursing!” snapped Troy.

“Bro, Mr. Hollander, I’m your biggest fan,” Bood carried on. “Seriously. I mean, that first playoff game in 1989 against Hartford—”

“Shut up,” Ilya interrupted. “He might not remember.”

Bood clamped his lips shut. It was true and he knew it. Spirits might know who they used to be when they were alive, but that didn’t mean all of their memories were still intact. Some of it could get lost along the way between life and death, and bringing it up might confuse or upset the spirit.

“Hollander,” Ilya murmured. “Can you… can you talk to me? Can you say my name again?”

It was a shot in the dark. Ilya couldn't be sure that it really was Hollander who called out his name so clearly that afternoon, but... it was worth asking.

Silence. The EMF meter remained dark.

Still, they waited.

When it was clear that the answer was a resounding no, Ilya spoke again.

“Is okay. If you can’t speak right now, can you try something else?” Ilya swallowed hard, glancing around at the darkness that seemed to thicken with each passing minute. “Can you show yourself to me?”

In the quiet that followed his question, he heard only the distant chirp of crickets and the lazy lapping of the lake against the shoreline. The leaves rustled with a breeze, old limbs groaning deeper in the forest.

“You can take energy from our equipment if you need to, but you won’t need too much,” Ilya added encouragingly. “Is very easy for me to see spirits. In the dark, especially.”

Silence.

“The others won’t see you,” Ilya continued. “Unlikely, I mean. Bood, maybe. But probably just me. If that helps.”

Nothing.

Ilya shuffled his feet.

Troy spoke up then. “Hollander, would you rather show yourself to Rozy somewhere else?”

Beeeep. A flash of red light.

Yes.

“Where do you want him to go?” Bood asked, then immediately shook his head at his own open-ended question.

But Ilya was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

“The lake,” he said. “You want me to go down to the lake.”

Beep.

Ilya nodded. “Okay. I’ll go now. I will meet you down there, Hollander.”

Bood nudged him. “Should we hang back?”

Ilya signaled Troy. “Follow at a distance. I don’t think he is shy. Not really. I think… I don’t know. Maybe at least you will get an orb on camera.”

The guys nodded.

So, with nothing but a flashlight to guide him, Ilya picked his way through the ruins and back down the sloping lawn of overgrown grass.

Bood and Troy followed, but paused at the edge of the ruins while Ilya continued on.

Silver moonlight glowed on the water. Ilya felt his stomach swoop with anticipation, his heart rate picking up as he carefully navigated the overgrown weeds and ferns.

There was a camera secured to a tree down here, angled at the lakeside. Still, there were no promises that it would pick up on what Ilya’s eyes might see.

He glanced back toward the guys far behind him and then stepped onto the damp patch of sandy dirt. Troy would likely keep the camera on him, but he was certain that Bood would provide some quiet commentary, or perhaps take this moment to provide some more information about the history of this property. Maybe he would even take the chance to talk all of that nonsense about Appalachian magic again for the viewers’ benefit.

For now, though, Ilya kept his focus narrowed on this small, semiprivate moment. He gazed out at the dark water.

“Here I am,” he whispered. “Just focus on me, okay? You can borrow energy from my flashlight if you need.”

Ilya gazed around him, unsure where the spirit might appear. He pictured Hollander in his mind, his glittering eyes and pretty freckles.

It occurred to him that it might not be Hollander at all. Sometimes, entities will tell you want they think you want to hear. It’s happened before. Not to the point where anything dangerous happened, but sometimes entities just want to be noticed and they’ll do anything to get that attention.

So, if this wasn’t really Hollander, Ilya told himself that he wouldn’t be disappointed. Whoever it was… whatever it was…

He swallowed hard, glancing down at the flashlight gripped loosely in his fist. The light flickered even though he knew they put fresh batteries in all of the equipment before leaving for this trip.

Then, about ten feet ahead of him, a misty cloud took shape. It hovered above the boulder he’d noticed earlier, the one protruding from the lake like a natural seat. Ilya stepped closer.

“Is that you?” he breathed.

The mist became thicker, swirling. Ilya shivered, noticing a sharp drop in temperature.

Slowly, the cloudy wisps took form. A head, a neck, shoulders… a broad torso… strong arms braced on the rock beneath him… muscular thighs curving down into legs that dangled casually into the water…

The breath rushed out of Ilya’s lungs and, without meaning to, he took a slight step backwards.

The ghost’s eyes tracked the movement.

Dark eyes, deeper than the night sky.

Ilya corrected his movement, planting his feet.

It was him.

Shane Hollander sat before him, perched on the boulder as if he’d been waiting here for him all day. As if they’d already made plans to meet here and Ilya had simply forgotten.

He wasn’t fully corporeal. His coloring was faded and the edges of his form were fuzzy, blurring in and out of focus.

But it was him.

Holy shit.

Hollander’s ghost was wearing a white t-shirt and tiny gym shorts, the kind of ones they wore back in the eighties. Ilya thought they looked greenish, or maybe yellowish, but the haziness made it difficult to tell.

“Hi,” Ilya whispered.

He wasn’t thinking about the cameras. He wasn’t thinking about the guys. He wasn’t wondering if any of this was coming up in the footage.

All he could do was gape at the ghost that nobody had ever reported seeing before. Thirty years of poking and prodding at this property and all anyone had ever claimed to witness were horrors beyond the average person’s comprehension. Sure, there were whispers that Hollander’s ghost was lurking around, and of course there were the theories that it was Hollander himself performing the violent haunts. Plenty of reputable mediums had attempted to come here and contact him, but had never actually gathered proof that it was him.

So, why…?

“Why me?” Ilya murmured, taking a step closer to Hollander. He barely noticed that he’d waded into the water, the lake soaking into his shoes and socks.

Hollander watched him with what Ilya could only describe as a neutral expression. Pure curiosity, cool interest. Maybe a little bit of wonder.

Perhaps he’d been trying to show himself to someone all along, and Ilya just happened to be the first person who bothered to look in the right place.

But, still. Why him?

“Are you…” Ilya trailed off. There were the usual questions that he asked whenever he managed to make contact with an entity, but for some reason, all that came out was, “Are you okay?”

In response, Hollander’s ghost tilted his head to the side. Faint pinpricks of shadow formed the memory of his freckles, catching Ilya’s attention.

He stepped closer again. The ghost’s eyes drifted down the length of Ilya’s body, pausing at the water that was now halfway up his calves, then traveled back up to his face.

There was only a few feet between them now. If Ilya wanted to, he could wade the rest of the way in and hoist himself up onto the rock beside Hollander.

But why would he do that? Why did he feel the strangest urge to be closer to him? Where was this odd sense of déjà vu coming from? As if they were old friends, or something like that... as if they’d spent so many hours of their lives sitting on that rock together?

“Can you talk?” Ilya asked.

The ghost parted his lips. They were so… fuck. Even hazy and pale, they looked so sweet and plush.

Ilya felt an inexplicable rush of misery that there was no version of reality where he could ever kiss those lips.

Which was a ridiculous thought, of course.

Hollander closed his mouth again. It was answer enough. No, he could not speak. Not right now, maybe. Not here. Not like this. Not to him.

“Do you know what happened to you?” Ilya asked him.

Hollander’s wavering gaze drifted past Ilya toward the shadowy bones of his cottage. A slight shift in his visage was easily translated as a nod.

He understood who he was. He remembered that he died here.

“Have you ever spoken to anyone who has visited this place before?”

But Hollander didn’t seem to be listening. His gaze was still on the ruins.

Except, no. That wasn’t quite right. His eyes were tracking something just slightly above Ilya’s head, as if something tiny was darting around in the dark, though Ilya didn't sense anything other than Hollander.

He glanced up, but all he saw were jagged slashes of starlit sky through the canopy, twinkling lights that flickered and winked. When he looked back to Hollander, the ghost’s eyes were directly on him again.

“Is it you?” Ilya asked. “Is it you that’s been scaring people off? Or is there something else here? Is there something that we should be careful to—”

A hollow, miserable howl cut through the night.

Ilya jumped, nearly tripping over a tangle of weeds in the water.

A fucking wolf?

No.

A loon. Right. Creepy fucking birds with red eyes.

Canada was so stupid.

He looked at Hollander, hoping he didn’t seem like a complete loser for getting spooked by a harmless bird.

Hollander was smiling at him, though. It was subtle, but the amusement was obvious.

Ilya let out a breath of surprised laughter.

“I’m not scared,” he insisted.

Hollander’s smile deepened.

The loon called out again. Ilya didn’t flinch.

Well, barely.

In his hand, the flashlight had died. Hollander had seeped all the energy he could from it.

“What can I do to help you?” he asked, knowing that he probably didn’t have much time left with him. “Are you stuck here? Do you need more energy? Do you—fuck, I don’t know… do you want me to get a priest or something? Maybe he could help you move on?”

The amusement in Hollander’s expression died. Another ethereal shift of his head, a blurred shake from side to side, came across as a resounding no.

No what, though? Ilya had fucked up by asking too many questions at once. No, he wasn’t stuck? No, he didn’t want a priest? No, he didn’t want to move on?

No, Ilya couldn’t help him at all?

“Tell me what to do,” Ilya urged him, taking another step deeper into the water. He didn’t care if there were leeches or snapping turtles or whatever else. Something in him begged to be closer. “Tell me how to help you. If you can’t speak now, leave a message for me somehow. I’ll be here for two nights. Give me a sign however you can and I will try to help you.”

Hollander was staring at him in that purposefully neutral way again.

Then, the ghost shifted. His arm lifted, reaching toward Ilya.

Ilya moved closer. The lake water soaked into the hem of his shorts.

Even though he knew what would happen, knew it was futile, Ilya reached out toward that transparent hand.

And when his warm, solid fingertips passed right through Hollander’s palm like he was nothing more than a wisp of smoke, Ilya tried not to frown too deeply.

But Hollander…

He looked devastated. Horrified, maybe.

And it was this final image, of Hollander’s night-dark eyes swimming with impossible tears, that Ilya had before the ghost faded into nothing.

Ilya stood there for a full minute, staring at the empty space where the last surviving piece of Shane Hollander had been sitting mere moments before. He’d never known the man personally. Had only ever thought of him as a hockey legend that, in another life, Ilya might have enjoyed trying to beat his records. But he wasn’t even born yet when Hollander died.

Yet…

For some reason, he felt a little bit like his heart was breaking.

Numbly, Ilya turned and waded back through the water to the shore. He climbed up the incline to the ruins, where Bood and Troy were waiting. They’d stopped recording so that Troy could replace the batteries again.

“Did you see him?” Ilya asked.

Troy gaped at him in the darkness. “See who?”

“Hollander. Did you see him?”

Bood’s eyes widened. “He was there? Like, actually there?”

“He…” Ilya glanced back down at the lake. Hollander was long gone. There wasn’t even the slightest pinprick of sensation on his neck now. “I spoke to him. I saw him. He’s here. You didn’t see anything? Nothing at all?”

“Nothing,” Bood murmured. “Not even an orb, man.”

Chapter End Notes

i'm going to need every single fellow canadian reading this to collectively agree that we are going to ignore the fact that ilya waltzing around with bare legs in long grass in the middle of the woods ISN'T a blatantly careless blood sacrifice to the local tick population. ticks don't exist in this au (but the 1989 playoffs where the habs did, in fact, face off against the hartford whalers in the first round DOES).

(the whalers don't exist anymore. they relocated to north carolina in 1997 and now the canes are (as of 6 march 2026) number one in the eastern conference. none of that is important information for this story.)

thanks.

Chapter 4: part four

Chapter Notes

thank you for all the kudos and comments !!! i've been writing fanfic for a while just for fun with my friends, but this is my first time ever posting it anywhere, so it really means a lot that people are enjoying it :) i love that the general consensus seems to be that nobody can quite figure out where this story is going lol because, as i said, this idea started out as a dream, so i also had no clue what the hell was happening. me and ilya have that in common in this chapter especially...

The rest of the night was a bust. They checked the footage on the camera that was aimed at the lakefront. All it showed was Ilya’s backside as he stumbled into the lake, seemingly talked to himself, and then reached out toward something that wasn’t there.

He'd described what happened to the guys, of course. And they believed him, of course, but maybe only because they’d rather believe that the ghost of Shane Hollander was real than dare to believe that their friend was experiencing psychotic delusions.

Still, they diligently tried to capture activity until well past the witching hour. Even if Hollander had lost interest in communicating with them for the rest of the night, there was a chance that other spirits were present and willing to reach out.

But, in the end, there was nothing. The EMF meter beeped a couple of times, but they ruled it out as a fluke. The infrared camera didn’t pick up on anything. The motion-activated cat toys and string lights remained dark.

Which was fine. Really, it was. They’d had plenty of adventures that resulted in nothing. Plenty of attempts at gathering content, only to end up with nothing of value to upload to their channel. It was all part of the process.

And, honestly, they didn’t have nothing. They had footage of that falling branch, and they could probably find a way to enhance the audio on that shout they heard. The shout that was maybe, but not definitely, Ilya’s name on the wind.

Plus, they had Ilya’s sworn statement that he talked to a ghost. Some of their viewers would eat that up without hesitation, no questions asked.

But what the guys cared about was proof. Otherwise, they were just idiot hockey players stomping around in the woods telling ghost stories. Fuck knows they’d received comments like that before. And Ilya knew that this side hustle was ridiculous, but it mattered to him that people took him seriously. It always had. Even when he was younger and dumber, he had never been able to fully silence the part of himself that yearned to be worth something more than what was on the surface.

Bood and Troy felt the same way, more or less, so they kept at it through the night. Then, when the hour drifted past four in the morning, they crawled into their tent and passed out within seconds.

Ilya had always been a heavy sleeper, too, and that's why he never heard the trees whispering to him until long after sunrise. Whispers that coaxed him into a dream...

***

He knew this place.

A club. Velvet Haze. Boulevard Saint-Laurent. Montréal.

But… he’d never been here before. He was certain of it.

And yet, as he carefully shouldered his way through the dense crowd, he moved with the relaxed confidence of a man who knew this place like the back of his hand. Multicolor lights reflected off sweat-dampened foreheads. Midriffs and thighs and shoulders were left bare, necklines plunging low, hands roaming.

Here, people could be free. Here, nobody cared who you were.

Someone squeezed his hand.

He glanced down, noticing for the first time that he was holding on to someone, guiding them through the pulsing throng.

A man. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Freckles. Broad shoulders.

So fucking beautiful.

The breath was stolen from Ilya’s lungs. Who was this man who apparently belonged to him? Or, at least, belonged to him enough that he trusted Ilya to shepherd him safely through a chaotic, smoky club with sticky floors and music louder than his own thoughts?

Why couldn’t Ilya remember his name?

Ilya squeezed back automatically, and then they made it to the center of the dance floor. He moved on instinct, almost like someone else, or perhaps some other version of himself, was in control of his body.

He turned toward the man and reached for his waist, tugging him closer. The man laughed, smiling in the way that was so rare for him. So bright and unmeasured. He had learned to smile like that when they were here together, learned that this was one of the few places where they could indulge in unbridled joy.

But… how did Ilya know that?

None of this was making any sense.

And yet, it all kept happening.

The man leaned into Ilya, bobbing to the beat. They pressed their foreheads together, letting the music take over. Their bodies were flush against each other, and Ilya’s stomach swooped at the stiffness of this man’s cock pressing through layers of fabric. The man grinded against him, eyes glazed with desire, lips parted on a silent gasp.

Ilya wanted to devour him. He always wanted to…

What the fuck was his name? Where was he? What was happening?

The man whimpered softly, brushing his nose against Ilya’s in a gesture that he somehow understood to mean, More… more… kiss me…

Ilya pressed his lips to the man’s pliant mouth, sliding his tongue inside without hesitation. He vibrated with a moan, digging his fingers into Ilya’s shoulders as he clung to him. Closer, closer…

He didn’t know how he knew it, but Ilya was certain that he never felt more like himself than when he was kissing this man.

And it didn’t matter that they were surrounded by hundreds of people. None of them were watching. None of them cared anyway. Men were kissing other men. Women were kissing other women. People defying the so-called laws of gender were writhing to the beat, unapologetic and wild.

It was a dangerous time to be like them. Dangerous to be queer, dangerous to even want to touch each other. There was a blood disease spreading everywhere, killing their community in horrifying swaths, but it was moments like this, moments of utter bliss, where they could forget that the world outside was falling apart.

And Ilya wanted more. So much more. He wanted this man so badly it hurt. His chest was literally aching. He was pretty sure he was going to die from this craving.

The man was whimpering again, moaning into their hot, open-mouthed kiss with little bursts of, “Mm… ah… yes…”

Ilya couldn’t take it anymore. He was going to explode. He was going to rip this man’s clothes off in front of everyone and fuck him right here on the dance floor.

As if the man could sense the direction of his thoughts, his lips curved into a smile.

“Let’s go, Ilya,” he whispered.

“Go?”

How did this man know his name, but Ilya didn’t know his?

“Come fuck me in the bathroom,” pleaded the man. “I want you so bad.”

Ilya growled in agreement. They’d done it before. More than once.

But, again, how the fuck did Ilya know that?

Still, he didn’t question it when the man smirked and took his hands, walking backwards through the crowd as it parted, albeit a little stubbornly, for his strong and powerful frame.

But then something strange happened to the scene around him. It went hazy at the ages. Colorless. Muted. Ilya blinked, gazing around in confusion as the music, the lights, the people, this man who he loved—fuck, he loved this stranger, didn’t he?—disappeared around him.

***

With a jolt, Ilya sat upright.

His heart was beating so fast, he felt like it might shoot off into space like a rocket. He pressed a hand over his chest to quell it and tried to get his bearings.

He was in a tent. His legs were tangled in a sleeping bag and the thin mat beneath him was partially deflated.

On either side of him, two sleeping bags were equally rumpled, but empty.

He took a deep breath, running his fingers through his hair. He could tell by the brightness of the light piercing through the green-and-beige material of the tent that it was late morning. Outside, birds were chirping. Leaves were rustling. Chipmunks were chittering.

Bood and Troy were talking somewhere nearby.

Right. Ilya was in the middle of the woods in eastern Québec, camping on the property of the Cursed Cottage.

And, last night, he spoke to the ghost of Shane Hollander.

He shook his head, the details of the dream already slipping away. He could barely remember it, could barely summon the image of the man who had driven him crazy with desire.

He’d never felt that way about anyone before, though. Never. Not even his favorite regular hookups could compare to the way his blood was rushing with longing, his skin buzzing with the need to touch, to claim, to hold tight and never let go.

Ilya leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He cursed in Russian under his breath.

It had felt so real.

But it couldn’t have been.

Because he was positive he’d never actually been to that club before.

Determined to prove himself right, Ilya fumbled in the mess of sleeping bags and pillows and wrinkled clothes until he found his phone. He only had one bar of service out here, and it faded completely if he leaned too much to the left, but he managed to load the search engine and type out the words Velvet Haze Montréal.

“It’s not real,” Ilya assured himself. “I just made it up.”

But the first result that came up was an entry from a blog dedicated to the history of Montréal nightlife, of all things.

And there it was…

A venue called Velvet Haze.

Located in Montréal, QC, Canada.

On Boulevard Saint-Laurent.

Open from 1982 to 1989.

So, that was it. That last detail alone proved it. There was no possible way that Ilya could have ever been there. He was born in 1991, and he didn’t even move to Canada until 2009.

But then why did it feel so familiar to him?

Ilya smacked his cheeks lightly to snap himself out of it. None of this mattered. It was just a dream. His subconscious was overactive from all the excitement of yesterday. That was it. Maybe someone told him about Velvet Haze at some point. A viewer or a fan, or maybe even the team’s head coach, who was old enough to have been clubbing in the eighties.

Then, with a deep breath, he hauled himself up onto his knees, yanked open the zipper of the tent, and climbed out.

“Nice of you to join us, Sleeping Beauty,” snickered Bood.

Troy smirked at Ilya. “You were sleeping like the dead, dude.”

Ilya blinked blearily at them, his eyes adjusting to the sunlight. They were gathered around the fire pit, cooking up the eggs and sausages that Bood packed in the cooler. If not for the disturbing fragments of the cottage just behind them, it would be a pleasant scene. He could almost convince himself that they were just friends camping in the woods, and nothing strange was happening at all.

His mind was still muddled, though, and he was struggling to find the part of his brain that stored his English abilities.

“Mmf,” is what he managed at first.

Ilya felt strange. Stiff and oddly itchy. Like his skin was crawling with something. Like he was neither here nor anywhere else. He glanced down at his bare arms to confirm that there were no mosquitoes or ants nibbling on him.

“You good, Rozy?” Bood asked.

Ilya cleared his throat. “Need to… wash. Lake.”

“I was going to take a dip, too,” Troy said. “But there’s a ton of algae and shit.”

Ilya didn’t care. He waved off Troy’s warning and headed down toward the lake. This time, he skirted around the edge of the old cottage. When he was out of sight, he relieved his bladder in the bushes, then stumbled through the barely-there path his footsteps had traced into the overgrown grass yesterday.

At the lakeside, Ilya yanked up the hem of his shirt and chucked it off into the grass. He stripped off his shorts next, then waded into the slightly murky water in his briefs.

He just needed to clear his head. Needed to dunk his head under the cool water and clean off all the dazzling confusion that was threatening to overwhelm him.

Ilya dove under the surface, swatting aside the slimy roots of lily pads to make room for himself as he kicked out toward deeper water. As he went, the water cleared up for him to swim in earnest.

His head broke up into open air just long enough for him to swallow a gulp of air, and then he was plunging under again.

The heat of that dreamy club… the way that man gasped into his mouth… the rush of his blood straight down to his cock… the innate knowledge that he belonged to that stranger just as much as that stranger belonged to him…

It didn’t make sense.

The man almost looked like…

No.

Impossible.

Ilya choked down a lungful of air again and then flipped to a backstroke, gazing up at the sky as he slowed his pace and lazily kicked back toward shore.

Nothing was wrong. It was just a dream. Today, they would review last night’s footage again and discuss the plan for tonight. Then, hopefully, they would capture enough content tonight that they could scrape together a good episode. Ilya would maybe get the chance to contact Hollander again, maybe have evidence of what was truly causing the paranormal violence in this place, and then they would pack up and leave again in the morning.

And Ilya would never come back. Because... why would he? This was an abandoned, decrepit cottage in the middle of nowhere. It meant nothing to him. There was probably no curse. No Appalachian magic in the earth. Nothing but the sad, lonely ghost of a former hockey player who would eventually get bored enough and move on to the real afterlife.

And Ilya would move on, too. He wouldn’t think about the glittering amusement in Hollander’s eyes or the way the ghost had smirked when the loon call startled Ilya. He wouldn’t think about the hazy freckles and strong arms. He wouldn’t think about how impossibly familiar Hollander had seemed to him. Not because he was a legendary athlete, but because…

Because…

Ilya emerged from the lake, stalking up onto the sandy patch of dirt that formed a tiny beach. He shook his head like a dog, water flinging off his wet curls, then stooped to grab his shorts.

And that’s when he saw it.

Right there, in the sand. Tiny pebbles, carefully lined up and arranged to form letters.

Letters that spelled out: REMEMBER.

Ilya stumbled back a step, his feet splashing in the shallows.

Leave a message for me somehow, he’d told Hollander’s ghost last night. Give me a sign however you can…

He hadn’t thought Hollander would take his request so literally. Spirits weren’t usually so straightforward. Most of them were barely strong enough to leave a handprint on misted glass, let alone manipulate enough stones to spell out a word.

“Remember,” Ilya whispered to himself. Then, to the pulsing forest around him, he added, “Remember what?”

He was alone down here, though. He knew that. He was not being observed. His neck did not prickle.

Still, he asked, “What did I forget?”

But the trees did not have an answer for him.

Chapter End Notes

fun fact, velvet haze is based on the irl legendary montréal club called purple haze, but instead of an 80's queer discotheque it was more like a 90's grunge rock venue. i wasn't even born yet by the time it shut down but my dad and uncle have told me all about it a hundred times and i just really love my city so i thought i would pay a subtle homage instead of making up something random <3

Chapter 5: part five

Chapter Notes

i had unexpected free time so i thought i would toss out another chapter yayy

For some reason, Ilya didn’t tell Bood and Troy about the pebbles. He swiped his hand over them, scattering them at random once again, and marched back up the slope to join them for breakfast.

He obviously didn’t tell them about the dream either.

He didn’t tell them anything.

He simply went through the motions, helping to review the footage from their various cameras and then contributing his suggestions for what they would try on their second night.

“I’ve had goosebumps all day,” Bood muttered to himself as late afternoon slipped deeper into early evening. “Fucking weird.”

Troy furrowed his brow. “It’s hot as balls, man.”

“Yeah, which is exactly why it’s fucking weird.”

“I’m just saying…”

“Don’t you feel weird?”

Troy shrugged. “Not as weird as yesterday. I don’t know. It’s just probably a natural reaction to seeing this freaky cottage and knowing what happened here. Just normal human anxiety instincts kicking in.”

“Sure,” Bood muttered.

Ilya, for the most part, ignored them. He hadn’t felt Hollander’s presence since last night. He hadn’t felt anything at all. No other spirits. No entities. Just the general aura of mysticism and tragedy that clung to this place, the remnants of misfortune that couldn’t be prevented.

But, as night started approaching in earnest, Ilya knew he had to say something to the others.

“Do you guys ever have, like, really vivid dreams?”

Bood quirked an eyebrow at him. “Sometimes, I guess.”

Troy answered, “Not really.”

Ilya nodded. “Hm.”

“Why?” Bood pressed.

“Had a really intense dream last night. Probably nothing.”

Troy paused fiddling with his camera. “Like, a dream about this place?”

“No. A dream about a place I’ve never been before, actually.”

The guys waited. Ilya bit his lip. He wanted a cigarette. He’d kicked the habit a couple of times already, but the old addiction always came back to him when he was feeling particularly unsettled.

But he had no reason to be so unsettled. Nothing bad had happened. They’d experienced none of the creepy bullshit that so many people claimed to witness here. Honestly, all things considered, it was a pretty boring adventure so far.

“It’s… nevermind.” Ilya rolled his shoulders.

Bood tilted his head to the side. “No, tell us, man.”

“I was at a club. In the dream, I somehow knew it was a club that I went to all the time. And I knew the name of it, too. Velvet Haze.”

“Sick name,” murmured Bood.

“I Googled it after I woke up,” Ilya continued. “It actually exists. Existed, I mean. Past tense.”

“Really?” Troy asked. “Huh.”

“It was apparently a popular club in Montréal, but it closed in 1989.”

“We weren’t even alive in 1989,” Bood said.

“I know.” Ilya shrugged. “But I swear… it wasn’t even like it was a dream. It was more like a memory.”

“A memory?” Bood made a quiet hm sound. “That vivid, huh?”

“And there was a… a man with me.” Ilya wasn’t ashamed to admit it. These guys didn’t care that he was bisexual. Troy was gay, after all. Bood was the world’s most passionate ally. In fact, their whole team was bizarrely accepting compared to the rest of the professional hockey world.

But, still.

“A man?” Troy snorted. “Was he hot?”

“I think so.”

Bood laughed. “You think so?”

Ilya sighed. “I can’t really remember his face. Or anything, actually. I didn’t even know his name.”

Bood opened his mouth to say something, but then—

CRACK!

All three of them whirled around at the noise. A heavy branch, crumbling from rot, fell off a precariously crooked tree several meters overhead. They watched in silence as it ripped through the foliage and landed right on the sunken roof of the back end of the cottage.

Ilya flinched as the branch struck with such force that the roof groaned, splintering under the weight and giving way at the edge as bits of moss-coated shingles crumbled to the ground.

Little by little, this place continued to fall apart. Maybe, in another decade or so, there would be nothing left at all.

Ilya glanced at Troy.

“Probably just the wind,” his friend suggested.

“Probably,” Ilya said.

“There’s no fucking wind,” Bood reminded them.

Indeed, the breeze that had been lazily ruffling the leaves yesterday hadn’t made an appearance today. The day had been hot and stagnant, sticky and a little miserable. But at least with night coming, the humid heat was giving way to a cooler temperature.

“Let’s just get started,” Troy said. “I want to get some B-roll.”

So, they got to work. They filmed some eerie shots of the property that they could edit into the episode with Ilya’s or Bood’s voiceovers layered on top.

Then, when the sun dipped below the horizon, they entered the ruins and Troy aimed the camera at Ilya.

“We had a fairly eventful night yesterday,” Ilya said to the camera, Bood nodding beside him. “But tonight, we’re going to amp things up. We’re going to try the Estes Method.”

Bood jumped in to explain. “For those of you who don’t know, the Estes Method requires one person to undergo partial sensory deprivation with nothing but a sweeping radio spirit box playing in these noise-cancelling headphones. The idea is that spirits or entities who might not be able to communicate through audible channels can reach out via the radio waves, and the person listening will relay snippets of what comes through.”

While Bood spoke, they picked their way down the hall toward the bedroom via the dim light offered by Troy’s headlamp.

“As usual,” Bood continued. “I’ll be the one going under.”

Ilya wasn’t a fan of the Estes Method. Or rather, he wasn’t a fan of being the one to go under, to be ungrounded and untethered, drifting in the realm of stuttered fragments of ghostly voices. The one time he’d tried it, he vomited immediately after.

So, Bood was the one who took the lead on it now.

“We’ve decided to do it in here, in what remains of Shane Hollander’s actual bedroom, in hopes that we can invite him to answer Rozy’s questions with me as the vessel.”

Bood crouched down on the cleanest patch of muddy, mossy floorboards and then settled back against one of the bedposts. Ilya and Troy joined him on the ground, trying to get as comfortable as possible. Troy kept the camera rolling as Ilya helped Bood connect to the spirit box and secure the bulky headphones over his head. Most of what Bood was about to hear would be droning radio static and vague gibberish, but if they were lucky, a few words might come through here and there.

Ilya helped Bood place the blindfold over his eyes. Then, for the audience’s benefit, he checked that Bood could neither see him nor hear him by snapping his fingers in front of his face.

At last, he tapped Bood’s knee as the signal to start.

“Ready,” Bood told him. He flicked the spirit box on. Ilya and Troy heard nothing, but Bood was officially under.

Ilya took a deep breath, sinking into his body and closing his eyes. He recalled the sensations that Hollander had offered him yesterday. The tingles down his spine. The fingertips twisting in his curls. The breaths dancing across his jawline, his cheekbones.

“If there are any spirits present here with us tonight, we invite you to speak with us,” Ilya recited aloud, opening his eyes and turning his attention to Bood. “My friend here is listening to a feed of radio waves that can help you send messages to us. Try to—”

“Yes,” Bood interrupted. His voice was monotone, the way it usually was when he was simply parroting what he heard.

Interruptions were common during the Estes Method. Bood couldn’t hear Ilya, after all. He would simply be spewing out whatever came through, and they’d be lucky if it matched up with what they asked. It was a questionable method, really, but so were most things when it came to paranormal investigation.

“Yes,” Ilya repeated. “Yes, you understand?”

“Talk. Yes. Fuck, this shit is loud.” Bood’s voice sounded more normal for that last sentence, indicating that what he said wasn’t a repetition, but his own contributions.

“Yes, you will talk to us,” Ilya confirmed. “Okay. Thank you. Is this the same spirit we communicated with last night? Or is this someone e—”

“Me. Me. You. Me. It’s—bro, what the fuck? It’s me.”

Ilya glanced over at Troy, even though he could barely see him now that he’d switched his headlamp off. They usually didn’t get this much feedback.

Troy’s shadow shrugged in the darkness, the red recording light flashing lazily.

Before Ilya could continue, Bood said, “Hello. Hello. Me.”

“Hi,” breathed Ilya. “I can hear you, yes. I can tell you’re trying very hard to reach out. It’s okay. Is this—”

“Ilya.” Bood went rigid. “Dude, holy shit. That was definitely your name.”

Again, Ilya glanced at Troy. He could tell that the other guy was wide-eyed and slack-jawed, keeping his composure only well enough to keep the camera angled at Ilya and Bood.

“Wow, again,” Bood muttered. “Rozanov.”

Ilya swallowed hard as goosebumps erupted all over his body.

It was fine. Ilya played professional hockey. Just the ECHL, sure, but it wouldn’t be totally out of the ordinary for his name to be floating around on the radio waves. Maybe there was a hockey channel revisiting their most recent playoff run just for something to talk about in the off-season.

“Roza,” said Bood without prompting. “Rozanov. Rose. Ow, fuck. There was like a high-pitched sound…”

Ilya tapped Bood’s knee, their signal for him to ask if Bood wanted to be pulled out. It was only safe for people to be under for ten to fifteen minutes at a time, after all. Any longer and they could get trapped in a trance.

Bood slapped his hand away and shook his head. He was okay to keep going.

“I’m here,” Ilya said. “It’s me. I’m Ilya Rozanov. Is this Shane Holla—”

“Me.”

“Okay. I understand. Hollander is here with us again.”

“Me.”

“Yes,” Ilya said, trying not to show how much he was trembling. Hopefully the night-vision lens would leave those details a little blurred. “I know. It’s you.”

“You. Remember.”

Ilya tensed. The pebbles in the sand. REMEMBER.

“Yes, I got your message,” Ilya answered. His neck was prickling again. “I remember you. We all do. Everyone remembers who you were. You were—”

“No,” Bood interrupted. “Fuck, that was—No. You don’t remember me.”

"Bro..." whispered Troy. "A full sentence."

“I do remember you,” Ilya insisted, confused. “You are Shane Hollander. You played for the Montréal Voyageurs.”

“No. No. No.”

“No, what?” Ilya shifted as the prickling became sharper. “No, you aren’t Hollander?”

“Please.”

“Can you—”

“Rozanov.”

“I understand. It’s me. What do you need me to—”

“Rozanov.”

Ilya cringed at the slack expression on Bood's face. He looked different like this, somewhat unlike the friend who only ever called him Roz or Rozy.

“I know," Ilya replied. "Yes. I am Rozanov.”

“Rozanov,” Bood repeated, then huffed loudly. “This is fucking weir—Rose.”

Troy chimed in then, which he rarely did. “Are you saying ‘Rozanov’ or ‘Rose’? Which one?”

“Talk to Rose.”

“You are talking to Rozanov,” Troy answered.

“Rose. Talk. Rose.”

“Who is Rose?” Ilya asked. “Is she another spirit? Is she here right now, too?”

“No. No. Remember. No. Ow! OW! FUCK!”

With a jerking motion, Bood ripped the headphones off and flung them onto the ground, shaking his head and wincing in pain.

“What the fuck was that!?” Troy shouted.

“Ugh, fuck,” Bood groaned, rubbing the sides of his head with his palms. “Man, that has never happened before.”

Ilya was gaping at him. “What? What happened?”

“Like, some kind of scream,” Bood said, blinking fast and shaking his head, as if trying to shake off an echo. “It felt like it was inside my skull. Bro, that was freaky. What the fuck were you even asking it?”

Before Ilya could answer, a metallic creak sounded from right behind Bood.

He lunged forward to get away from it, nearly crawling into Ilya’s lap. All three of them scrambled away from the bed.

“Dude,” whispered Bood. “That was definitely the bed springs.”

Ilya nodded silently.

The rusted springs, jagged and ominous, were barely visible in the darkness.

Suddenly, a loud clattering sound, like a rock rolling over broken tile, came from the opposite direction.

In an instant, all three of them were on their feet.

Ilya inhaled slowly, trying to calm his heartbeat. His entire spine was tingling again, his blood rushing with chaotic heat. He felt like there was a fire inside him, crawling up his throat, choking his lungs.

He coughed, but it came out like a breathless wheeze.

“Rozy?” Bood clapped him on the back.

Ilya shook his head, waving him off. “M’fine.”

“Something is definitely here,” Troy said from behind the camera.

“Yeah, no shit,” breathed Bood.

“Hollander?” Ilya called out. “Is it still you? Can you show yourself to me again?”

Behind them, the rusted springs groaned again. Louder, this time.

Bood let out a yelp and stumbled further away from the bed, but Ilya’s feet remained planted.

He stared at the shadow of the bed frame.

“You’re right there, aren’t you?” Ilya murmured, trying to keep his voice calm as he let his eyes flutter shut.

In his mind, Ilya reconstructed the version of this bedroom that Hollander would have called home. A plush mattress with crisp linens, washed with detergent that smelled like a spring breeze. Thick carpet underfoot, dense enough that bare toes would sink right in. It was soft, so soft against the bare skin of his back, when Ilya laid down on it and reached for the dark-haired man who eagerly crawled into his lap…

He wrenched open his eyes.

How did he know any of that? How could he have possibly known what the rug, which was now nowhere to be seen, felt like against his skin? It felt like a memory, felt just like last night's dream.

REMEMBER.

But how could he remember something that he was sure he’d never experienced?

Slowly, he turned away from the bed to face Bood and Troy, who were now on the other side of the room, hovering together in the doorway as if some invisible force was preventing them from coming in here again.

“Dude?” Bood asked nervously.

Ilya shook his head. His eyes flashed to the camera.

“I don’t… I saw something. I think.”

“What did you see?” Troy asked.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking off the images that clung to the edges of his mind like cobwebs. “It’s nothing.”

A dull thunk echoed in the wake of his lie. In unison, Troy and Bood ducked for cover.

Ilya gaped as a chunk of plaster ricocheted off the wall right above where there heads were a moment ago, then landed on the ground by Troy’s foot.

“Holy shit. Holy fuck. Oh, holy fucking shit,” Troy hissed, leaping back to his feet and tripping further down the hall.

“What happened to not cursing?” Bood asked, but he was hurrying after him with just as much skittishness.

“Something just threw that at us!” Troy exclaimed.

“It could have been—”

“It wasn’t the fucking wind, man!”

“Maybe an owl—”

“A fucking owl, dude? They don’t have arms to throw with!”

Ilya remained where he was, standing alone in the bedroom, listening to the muffled sounds of their argument as the guys retreated from the zone of attack and disappeared from sight.

He glanced around at the shadows, frowning.

“Don’t hurt them,” he said firmly. “Please.”

A ghostly kiss of breath along his temple was his only answer.

He let his eyes flutter shut again. In the background, he was aware of Bood and Troy shuffling around in another part of the ruins, describing to the viewers what just happened, but he wanted to take advantage of this brief moment of relative solitude.

“Hollander,” Ilya whispered. “What do you need me to remember? Is it… are those your memories that I’m seeing?”

It wasn’t something that had happened to Ilya before, but he knew of mediums who could glimpse into the memories of spirits. They could pick up on what lingered in the atmosphere, whatever parts of their lives that the dead clung to with all their strength.

“Ilya…”

He gasped sharply as a shiver raced down his spine.

That voice. It came from both within and without. Warm and silky, with an undeniable note of tenderness.

Well, that was definitely an improvement on the high-pitched ringing Ilya heard yesterday.

“I heard that,” Ilya murmured. “Say it again. Say my name, please.”

Ghostly fingers dug into the hair at the base of his skull. Ilya dropped his head back into the touch, biting back a moan.

It felt so good.

The sensation continued up to the crown of his head, sharpening ever so slightly as if dull nails scraped against his scalp. He trembled, the front of his jeans becoming tighter all of a sudden.

“I’ll say your name if you say mine,” he whispered. He paused for a moment, then breathed out, “Hollander.”

The fingers tugged lightly on his hair. Ilya tilted his head to the side automatically.

A brush of cool air just below his ear. It traveled down to the curve of his neck. Ilya titled his head further, silently asking for more.

What the fuck was happening?

Did he even care?

“Ilya…”

This time, the whisper was directly in his ear.

Ilya’s bones turned to jelly, and it was a miracle that he remained upright. He groaned softly, leaning back into what he swore was a wall of something nearly solid, both hot and cold at the same time.

“Rozy?” Bood called out, his voice echoing down the hallway. “Are you alright in there?”

Instantly, the presence dissolved into nothing. The fingers retracted. The cool kisses disappeared.

Ilya’s cock was half-hard, though.

Which was crazy, of course.

Because there was no way that a ghost had just turned him on like that.

The ghost of… fucking Christ. Shane Hollander.

Shaking as if he’d just endured a dangerous rush of adrenaline, Ilya took a few deep breaths until his erection deflated.

Then, on clumsy feet, he left the bedroom.

He felt strange. His head was light and buzzing, as if full of bees that wanted to fly off with his mind in their grasp. He felt like he was floating as he walked, carried on an invisible current, barely registering the steps he was taking.

When he found the guys standing just outside the ruins in the rubble that used to the be the front steps, Ilya halted.

Troy turned toward him, aiming the camera automatically, his face partially concealed.

Bood stared at him from where he stood beside Troy, not even in the shot.

“Roz?” he asked. “You okay?”

Ilya stared numbly at Bood. “Da.”

“That was Russian, man.”

Ilya swallowed hard. He couldn’t think straight. He wanted to go back to the bedroom, wanted to be left alone here in this darkness, wanted to feel Hollander’s touch again.

But… did that mean…?

Shane Hollander liked men.

Or, at the very least, the ghost of Hollander did.

Or, at the very very least, the ghost of Shane Hollander specifically liked Ilya Rozanov.

Liked him enough to do whatever he just did to him.

“Man, you look pale,” Bood muttered, stepping toward him and peering closer. “And you—Jesus, dude. Your pupils are so dilated right now. Did you hit your head or something? I swear to fucking God, if you get another concussion…”

“Bood,” snapped Troy.

Bood glanced back at him. Troy was staring at Ilya, though.

“He’s… that’s not Rozy.”

It’s me, Ilya tried to say. But all that came out was a gasp. He tried to lift his arms, tried to roll his shoulders and shake off this overwhelming, floaty sensation.

He couldn’t.

Hollander, he attempted to say out loud. Again, nothing came out.

So, he turned inward, because he knew what was happening to him.

You have to let go of me, he shouted into the abyss of his own buzzing mind. Please let go. You’ll hurt both of us.

Bood reached for Ilya, placing his large hands firmly on his shoulders.

Coffee-brown eyes locked with his. Dark, but not as dark as…

“Rozanov,” Bood said sternly. “Come back to me, dude. It’s me. Bood. Zane Boodram. Alternate captain and left wing on the Trois-Rivières Lions.”

Ilya stared dumbly at him. There was pressure at the base of his spine, more insistent than the pressure of Bood’s hands on his shoulders, even as the man squeezed hard enough to bruise. Ilya leaned back into that spinal pressure, sinking further into the droning hum of invisible bees.

“—and you are Ilya Rozanov,” Bood was saying. “Captain of the same fucking team. Center forward. Star of the show. Ladies man extraordinaire.”

“Not just ladies,” Troy cut in.

“Right, sorry,” said Bood. “Not just ladies. They all fucking love you, man. All the genders. You know that, right? You know who you are. You know who I am. This is your body, dude, and I need you to come back to it, okay?”

Bood shook him lightly.

Hollander, please, Ilya begged internally. You’ll hurt yourself if you dig too deep into me. I’m sorry, but you can’t be in here. You have to let go of me.

Or maybe the problem was that Ilya wasn’t letting go of him.

Ilya threw all of his focus into his lungs, drawing in a deep breath.

These were his lungs. His oxygen, flooding into his bloodstream. His veins, spreading through his muscular system. His flesh, his bones, his beating heart. His individual breaths, in and out. In and out. His throat, his voice, his tongue, his lips. His eyes. Blink. Blink again. Swallow. Inhale. Exhale.

This was his body. And as good as it felt to let Hollander’s presence wash over him, possession was not an option. If Hollander got stuck, and then tried to rip himself free in a panic, his spirit could be shredded into nothing but tatters. He might never be able to pull himself back together again. Might disappear entirely.

Might never whisper Ilya’s name again.

So, with a metaphorical push, Ilya shoved away the presence that so sweetly and tenderly clung to him, that attempted to curl around his spine like flowering vines.

All at once, Ilya felt a terrible release. He trembled violently and slumped forward, remaining upright only because Bood caught him and managed to hold him steady in an awkward embrace.

Ilya let out an involuntary sob, even though he was not in pain. Not physically, at least.

But it felt like someone had just yanked his heart clean out of his chest. Suddenly, the darkness felt too intense. The cool night air felt unbearably frigid, as if it was no longer July but instead the dead of winter.

In fact, when Ilya breathed out a stuttered exhale, it fogged in front of him.

“Did it just get really fucking cold?” Troy asked, still hovering a few feet away.

Was the camera still rolling?

Bood shivered a little, patting Ilya’s back.

“Are you with me, Roz?” he murmured in Ilya’s ear.

Ilya swallowed hard.

“Yes,” he managed. “Is okay. I’m… yes.”

Slowly, Bood pulled away from Ilya. He kept his hands planted on his shoulders until he was certain that Ilya wouldn’t collapse.

Hollander was gone again. Not even a wisp of him remained. It made Ilya want to cry, though he couldn’t explain why. He didn’t know Hollander. Hollander was dead. In fact, Ilya should probably be pissed at the ghost. He’d just touched him without invitation, then tried to fucking possess him.

Bood turned to glance at the camera.

“Did you get all that?” he asked Troy.

His breath fogged in the air again as he spoke, but it was already warming up again.

“Yep,” Troy answered.

“Right,” whispered Bood. “Okay.”

Ilya stared at the camera lens, at the flashing red light. He felt exhausted all of a sudden. Impossibly tired, right down to the marrow of his bones.

“I—I think we need to leave,” Troy said.

“Yeah,” Bood instantly agreed.

“Let’s, um… just explain to the—the viewers… holy shit…” Troy could barely keep the camera from shaking.

But all Ilya could do was stand there and try to stay conscious.

He was vaguely aware, then, of Bood running through a quick explanation of what they were pretty sure just happened to Ilya. The footage would show their fogged breath, and the genuine terror in Bood’s voice as soon as he realized what was going on.

They had the content. The evidence. More than enough to make a seriously crazy episode.

And yet… Ilya didn’t want to leave.

It was stupid. He knew he needed to get out of here. Knew, deep down, that a possession attempt was the biggest red flag that any paranormal investigator could run into. It was the ultimate boundary, the cue that whatever you were doing needed to stop immediately. That it was time to leave. Time to vacate the area before the entity tried to latch on again.

Before it managed to follow you home.

Ilya blinked lazily, another wave of exhaustion sweeping through him.

“Rozy?” Troy prompted.

“M’fine.”

“We need to go,” Bood snapped. “We’re leaving, dude. Now.”

“S’okay,” Ilya tried to argue. “M’good. Keep going.”

“No fucking way. We are leaving. I’m your alternate, right?” Bood shook his head in exasperation. “You’re off the ice. I’m stepping in. We are getting the fuck out of here right now.”

He was right. Ilya didn’t want him to be right.

They had to leave. Ilya couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less.

“Roz,” Troy said, dropping the camera from his shoulder. He was no longer recording. “Go sit in the van. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I am okay,” Ilya insisted. But he wasn’t entirely sure that the words came out in English, because both Bood and Troy looked at him like he was decidedly not okay.

And, really, he was exhausted. He felt like he’d just survived several hours of practice, a full tournament, running a marathon, and getting hit by a bus all in quick succession.

So, when Bood draped an arm over his shoulders and guided him toward the van, Ilya didn’t protest when he was coaxed into the backseat like a child. He sat there, slumped crooked against the window, while Bood and Troy quickly scurried around the property and collected their equipment.

Nothing else happened. No more branches fell. No stray chunks of plaster were flung at the guys. Ilya stared through the gnat-splattered window as his friends quickly broke down their campsite. He wanted to get back up and help them, felt frustrated that he was letting other people take care of him like this when all he'd ever known was taking care of himself, but he was fading fast.

In fact, by the time everything was loaded into the van and Troy was guiding them back down the narrow dirt road in the pre-dawn darkness, Ilya was already fast asleep.

And this time, the sleep was dreamless.

Chapter End Notes

ghost shane was just hungry guys my client is innocent !!! let him crawl inside ilya's skin!

Chapter 6: part six

Chapter Notes

this is kind of a filler chapter where i mostly just put ilya in a little jar and shake it for a bit. i will probably be posting again later this evening though :)

When Troy parked outside Ilya’s apartment building some hours later, Ilya could tell that neither he nor Bood was eager to leave him alone. He’d only woken up from his deep slumber a few minutes prior, coming back to the waking world only when the van’s front left wheel caught on a pothole and jostled Ilya enough to shake him awake.

He was home. Sort of. His concept of home had always been a little vague, a little nuanced.

Bood glanced back at him from the passenger seat. “You sure you don’t want to come back to mine, man? I bet Cassie will have a big breakfast already waiting.”

“S’okay,” Ilya said, pushing open the door. “Tired. I will see you guys later.”

It was obvious that Troy and Bood were still uncertain about leaving him to his own devices, but Ilya was a grown man. He could handle the aftermath of the cottage on his own.

So, he grabbed his things from the back, said a final goodbye, and then marched up the steps to his apartment. The van didn’t pull away, however, until he was inside.

Fucking mother hens.

In the dim quiet of his humble abode, Ilya sank down onto his lumpy sofa.

Once upon a time, he fantasized a different life for himself. As a young kid back in Russia, he dreamed of being rich and famous in North America. He wanted to be a hockey star, a millionaire. He wanted fancy cars and a big house. Designer clothes. All the stupid, simple joys that money could buy.

But then his mother died, and life just felt too serious and fragile for him to dare to dream so big. What if he got everything he wanted, only to lose it all in the end anyway?

Also, with all the humility he could muster, Ilya knew that he was one of the best players in the world from a very young age. The problem was that it was incredibly lonely at the top. Nobody truly challenged him, and that was too boring for him to bear. With no one to match his caliber, he slowly lost motivation to push himself.

Thus, he reasoned that it was better to stick to a comfortable middle ground. University-level hockey. The ECHL. A moderately nice two-bedroom apartment in a decent city not too far from the glamour of Montréal. A practical vehicle that was good in the snow but still pretty enough to impress his lovers.

Ilya knew he’d reached far below his full potential. Even his current coach often seemed puzzled over the fact that someone who could have been one of the greatest players of the decade was seemingly content skating circles around the rest of the team.

When he was seventeen, most speculation around his hockey career revolved around the possibility of him being the number one draft pick that year. He often thought about who he had hoped would draft him. The teams who’d had a rough year previously would have had first dibs, of course. In 2008, that included Boston. Montréal, too. He probably would’ve preferred the Bears. They favored physical aggression and raw power, and that was Ilya’s specialty. Montréal had a more gracefully calculative offensive style, a legacy they had stuck to ever since…

Ever since Hollander.

Ilya flopped sideways on the sofa, letting his head drop onto a throw pillow. He knew he should unpack, should shower, should find something to eat. Instead, he reached for the remote on the coffee table and switched on TSN. There wasn’t much going on in the off-season, but the mindless chatter of the sportscasters calmed Ilya’s frayed nerves.

If he’d been drafted to Boston, that meant his biggest rival would have been Hollander’s team. He probably would have been determined to break Hollander’s records just to prove a point. He could be a real bitch when he got competitive, and he wouldn’t put it past himself to try to outdo a dead man for the sake of it.

But, then again, even a dead man wasn’t all that motivating for him. It’s not like a ghost could fight back.

Ilya squeezed his eyes shut.

A dead man. He was dead. Hollander was dead.

He didn’t know why he felt the need to remind himself of this. Maybe because he could still feel the remnants of Hollander’s touch in his hair, on his neck, and down his spine. Not in the sense that he was suspicious that the spirit had followed him home…

It’s just that memories really do hold a lot of power.

There was so much that Ilya wasn’t telling the guys. That was another problem.

It’s not that he was necessarily embarrassed to explain that he got half an erection from being touched by a ghost. He already knew that Bood was into some real freak shit, and even shy boy Troy got up to some scandalous nonsense with Harris.

It also wasn’t that he was worried about how Troy and Bood might react to the possibility that Hollander was queer. He knew they would believe him. He also knew that they would never tell anyone else.

But it wasn’t Ilya’s truth to tell. Not even thirty years after Hollander’s passing. He didn’t deserve to be outed like that.

Also, Ilya didn’t have any tangible proof. He’d probably sound like a psychotic idiot if he tried to explain it to their viewers.

No, I swear. Hollander probably liked men a little bit. I know because he ran his ghostly hand through my curls a few times.

“Stupid,” Ilya murmured to himself.

Not to mention, being gay in the eighties was definitely its own unique nightmare. Ilya knew about the AIDS epidemic. Knew that, though it had affected pretty much everyone, there was basically an entire generation of queer men missing today because of it.

Was it scary for Hollander back then? Did he know people who got sick? Who had died?

Was it possible that he had gotten sick? Is that what happened in the cottage? Had they not known what to look for in the autopsy and chosen instead to designate asphyxiation as the cause of death? Or did they see for themselves that Hollander had been ill, but the medical examiner decided to keep that hush in order to preserve the athlete’s glorious legacy?

Ilya’s imagination was definitely running away with itself.

Maybe Hollander never even explored that side of himself. Maybe he kept those desires hidden deep under the surface, or only indulged in them when he could escape to his private cottage during the off-season.

After all, there were those rumors that he was involved with that actress…

Ilya bolted upright.

Rose Landry.

Talk to Rose.

Rose. Talk. Rose.

That’s what Hollander had said during the Estes Method.

Ilya had assumed he was trying to say his name, and that ‘rose’ was the closest thing available on the radio waves when he couldn’t send through a full Rozanov. He’d thought that he was just asking Ilya to talk to him.

But, no.

He was relaying instructions.

Ilya grabbed his laptop, a clunky thing that he’d barely touched since university—barely touched during uni, if he was being honest—but he kept it close at hand whenever he needed to get some admin done for their channel.

He opened the search engine and typed in, Rose Landry actress.

Ilya breathed a sigh of relief when the first thing he noticed was that she was still alive.

Born in 1966. A year younger than Hollander, then.
That made her fifty-four years old.

God, if Hollander was still alive, he’d be in his mid-fifties now. That should probably kill whatever lingering desire Ilya felt for the spirit’s touch, but it was hard to be reasonable when he was only capable of imagining Hollander as a man his own age.

Ilya searched further for information about Rose Landry. She was born in Michigan. Attended a prestigious theatre academy. Started acting young. Won two Oscars by the age of twenty-five.

Then, in the mid-nineties, she quit acting entirely.

Ilya clicked on a Reddit thread to dig deeper.

According to overlapping narratives from various commenters, nobody knew why Rose left the industry. She never got married and didn’t have kids, so it wasn’t like she abandoned a life of stardom for devoted motherhood or something like that.

But it wasn’t as if she disappeared, either. Rose had remained active on the periphery of the industry for decades. She opened a school for the arts aimed at underprivileged youth in Montréal. She donated to all kinds of charity organizations. Including those dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community.

“Interesting,” Ilya said to himself.

Rose Landry Shane Hollander he typed into the search bar.

Not much came up. Just a couple of vintage paparazzi pictures showcasing Rose wearing a jacket with huge shoulder pads and Hollander in a neon t-shirt. So eighties. In one of the pictures, Hollander had his arm draped around her shoulders, and they were smiling at each other, but it didn’t look particularly romantic.

Or maybe Ilya was just seeing what he wanted to see.

Why he wanted to see anything other than proof that Hollander was in love with Rose Landry was beyond him.

He shook his head at himself and went back to his previous search.

It was easy enough to figure out where Rose lived nowadays: New York City, where she was pictured every once in a while attending philanthropic events.

Ilya pouted. That was annoying. He’d begun the process of applying for Canadian citizenship, but it was a long road, and he would still have his Russian passport for a while longer. Which meant that something as seemingly simple as crossing the American border to take an overnight trip to New York was not as easy for him as it was for Bood or Troy.

If it was the regular season, it wouldn’t be so tricky. They had staff who handled these things for away games, who waved their magic wands and made sure that all of their foreign players had the visas they needed. All Ilya would have to do was wait until they were scheduled to play New York or New Jersey, and then he could figure out how to slip away for a little while to…

To what, exactly?

Track down a random lady and tell her that her dead ex-boyfriend told him to go talk to her?

He’d probably sound like a crazy person. Probably be arrested, and then deported. To Russia.

Ilya cringed.

Talk to Rose.

The words wrapped around his mind like a vise.

Ilya knew he should let it go. It was in his best interest to move on from what happened these past couple of days. They would upload the episode and then start planning the next adventure.

Then the season would start and Ilya would have hockey to focus on again.

Even as he thought these things to himself, Ilya kept clicking and scrolling through various articles about Rose Landry.

And then… boom.

Just like that, an opportunity sprang up in front of him.

Rose Landry to Award the National Theatre School of Canada with Million-Dollar Endowment, read the headline.

Ilya clicked on it. NTS was located in Montréal.

The article was dated a few days ago, and it succinctly explained that Rose Landry would, indeed, be coming to Montréal in about ten days to donate a huge chunk of money to the same school that she trained at when she was young. There would be a whole ceremony. A gala, or something like that.

Ilya could be in Montréal next week. It was only an hour and a half away.

But how would he cross paths with Rose?

He had some money in the bank. More so from the Youtube channel than the ECHL, but plenty enough that he could justify making a donation of his own. And the arts were a worthy cause, after all. If he was generous enough, he could probably earn his way into a last-minute seat at the gala.

Or he could stop being fucking insane about this.

Ilya pursed his lips. Then, with a frustrated huff, he slammed his laptop shut.

He stood up and stalked down the hall, chucking off his clothes as he went.

He took a long shower, washing off the sweat and grime and lake water muck that clung to his skin. When he was done, he slung a towel around his hips and busied himself in the kitchen. He made a bagel. Puttered around and listened to the nonsense still droning on the television. He answered a couple of texts from Bood just to confirm that he was still alive, still Ilya.

But by the time he threw on a fresh pair of clothes and considered whether or not to head to the gym just to keep his hands busy, he knew that his efforts to stay distracted were futile.

He opened his laptop back up, found the number for the NTS donation line, and dialed it before he could think too hard about what he was doing.

Chapter End Notes

a note on ilya's characterization in this story: it's a little OOC, isn't it? or... is it? i don't really know. tbh rachel didn't give us a whoooole lot to work with and most of what i'm drawing from is connor's incredible performance. as in, even though the world knows show!Ilya as this cocky, snarky, mischievous instigator, the truth is that he is actually an extremely soft and sensitive person. he's thoughtful and observant, he cries more than anyone else, and at the very core of him is a boy who wants to be loved the way that he loves others (even if he lashes out like a cornered animal when shane tries). so, basically, i was thinking about what causes that hard outer shell to form, and i would argue that it comes down to NHL stardom, being forced to perform hatred for a rival he actually adores, and the pressure his father puts on him... so, who is ilya without all of that? who is he when he doesn't have shane, doesn't have the NHL spotlight, doesn't have his father breathing down his neck and expecting him to be a symbol of russian pride... i think what we have is a boy who is a little more pensive, a little more gentle, and a lot more relaxed. but i don't think this version of ilya is necessarily "better" because what it really comes down to is that there is so much missing from ilya's life in this au. he is not himself. or at least not the himself that he's supposed to be.

another small note on ilya's dad: i haven't mentioned it in this au, but i wrote this with the thought in mind that his father is just not in ilya's life anymore, either dead or just a deadbeat. if he can't use his son as a symbol of his own strength and influence, i imagine that a narcissist like grigori rozanov would consider ilya to be totally useless to him. plus, if ilya is out as bi in the echl... yeah, i don't think it would be like the dynamic they have in the show.

anyway! blah blah blah shut up bisoubug!!!

Chapter 7: part seven

Chapter Notes

just got back from the club
we're posting this raw
fuck it we ball

For about a week, Ilya’s life went back to normal.

He followed his trainer’s off-season workout regimen. He went out for drinks to celebrate their rookie Luca’s birthday. He acted perfectly normal, the extroverted and charming Ilya Rozanov that everyone knew and loved. He also dutifully offered his input as Troy edited the Cursed Cottage episode little by little.

In the regard to that last task, however, he hadn’t yet been able to bring himself to actually watch the footage. For the most part, he just agreed with whatever Troy and Bood suggested, and hoped that they didn’t notice he was unable to relive those two nights in the woods.

Not because he was scared.

It was just that, if he let himself think too much about the cottage, about Hollander, his mind would trip and fall down into a rabbit hole that he didn’t have the strength to claw his way out of right now.

Because, in the meantime, there were more dreams.

The first night after returning from the cottage, Ilya dreamed about Velvet Haze again. The same man, dark and beautiful and so fucking enticing. In that dream, Ilya had pulled the mysterious stranger into a dirty bathroom stall. He’d delivered a simple command, an almost-casual on your knees, and the man obeyed without hesitation.

In the dream, the man had wrapped his lips around Ilya’s cock like he was starving for it, sucking him just the way he liked. Literally exactly the way he liked. As if the man knew Ilya better than he knew himself, knew that he liked it messy and hot and wild. The man had drooled on him, gagged on it with delight twinkling in his eyes.

And when Ilya had woken up, he was hard as a rock.

He’d had to jerk off twice just to get himself to calm down.

Then, on the second night, another vivid dream. Not in a club this time, but in a swanky hotel room with a view of a glittering city beyond. Just like the first dream, Ilya somehow knew that he was in Las Vegas. That it was his suite, that he had just accomplished something wildly impressive, though he couldn’t recall the specifics.

And he also knew that the naked man who crawled toward him on hands and knees… who nuzzled his cock through his trousers like he was worshipping it… who turned around with a contented purr and raised his ass in the air for Ilya to claim…

He knew that it was the same man from Velvet Haze.

The third time, they were in a nondescript stairwell. Fully clothed, but Ilya’s muscles were pleasantly tired in a way that suggested he’d just enjoyed a thorough romp in the sheets. They’d been talking about something strange. The Olympics, he was pretty sure. They were hosted by Canada in 1988. He had a dull understanding that he and this man were meant to be opponents during this event, but the tender kiss that concluded their murmured conversation suggested anything but that.

When he woke up, he didn’t know how he knew any of that. He chalked it up to an overactive imagination.

But, every night, he slipped back into these dreams that felt insanely real. So real that he was finding it harder and harder to deny that he had already lived these moments before.

It was impossible. Ilya wasn’t alive during the eighties.

Logically, he understood that he was probably a little too bored in his waking life, and that’s why his subconscious was going so crazy at night.

But, he’d been bored often enough throughout his life. In fact, Ilya would go as far as to say he found most things boring. He liked thrills. He liked taking risks. He liked having fun. It was why he enjoyed hockey. Why he drank and fucked to his heart’s content.

And, recently, he hadn’t been doing much drinking or fucking.

When he considered it, he couldn’t bring himself to follow through. He couldn’t explain why.

Anyway, even if he was generally bored, there was no reason why that meant he’d suddenly have dreams like this. It was a brand new experience. Something that had begun that first night at the cottage.

Something that had not stopped since.

The worst part about the dreams was that, even though they lingered in the back of his mind for days afterward, it was nearly impossible to actually nail down any real details about them once he’d woken up. He knew the facts, like the inexplicable years and the exact locations, but he couldn’t recall the actual scenes themselves once he’d woken up.

He couldn’t remember the man.

He didn’t know his name, as hard as he tried. Even if he said it out loud in one of the dreams, that knowledge was ripped away from him as soon as he opened his eyes.

All he could manage to grasp on to were the basics. The man had dark hair and dark eyes. The man was sweet, but not innocent. Gentle, but not weak. Quiet, but not stupid.

And he had put enough details together to understand that he and this man lived similar lives. As in, this bond between them was a shared secret that nobody else knew about. He knew that the man was just as strong as him, just as powerful and physically confident. That his stamina was just as impressive, if not more so.

So, it made sense to conclude that he was an athlete like Ilya.

Really, the most reasonable conclusion for Ilya to make then was that he was experiencing the beginnings of a psychotic break. All this ghost hunting had cracked open too many carefully laid walls inside his brain and now he was falling apart from the inside out. This man was not real. These dreams were not memories. It was all just figments of Ilya’s imagination that his brain was using to create some kind of bizarre coping mechanism for the fact that, when it really came down to it, Ilya Rozanov was leading an extremely unsatisfying and unfulfilling life.

But he could worry about that later.

***

Ten days after returning from the cottage, Ilya drove to Montréal alone.

He didn’t tell Bood what he was doing. Nor Troy.

He didn’t tell anyone.

Not that it mattered. It was late July and they still had another month before they had to report with the rest of the Lions for formal training. Everyone was enjoying themselves.

The Cursed Cottage episode hadn’t gone live yet. Troy claimed he was still perfecting a few things. Ilya didn’t really care either way. At this point, his thoughts about the cottage had gone far beyond their stupid Youtube channel.

He was venturing into obsessive territory, and he knew that he should be keeping the guys in the loop, but…

Talk to Rose.

Remember.

Ilya was wearing his nicest suit. A five-thousand-dollar donation had squeezed him onto the guest list. It was a reasonable dent in his bank account, but it wasn’t dire.

He didn’t really have much of a plan for the night. He hoped that the opportunity to speak with Rose Landry would fall right into his lap. He was a handsome man, after all. Opportunities to speak with women were usually easy for him to come by.

When Ilya arrived at the venue in downtown Montréal, he tossed his keys to the valet, gave his name at the entrance, and then slipped inside.

He’d been to charity functions before. The ECHL usually had an annual charity initiative that they all participated in, and it usually involved some kind of event like this.

So, Ilya went through the motions. He smiled and small-talked and schmoozed. He acted like he was supposed to be here, like he wasn’t some random guy who forced his way into this event.

During dinner, one person at his table even recognized him.

“I was wondering what happened to you!” chuckled the middle-aged man who was, apparently, on the Board for the Montréal Voyageurs. His wife seemed to be the one who dragged him here, and he was delighted at the opportunity to talk puck at an event that was all about the arts.

“I’ve been playing for the Lions for four seasons now,” Ilya told the man politely. That is what happened to him. He made a decision and he was fine with it. End of story.

The man shook his head, though.

“A real shame, if you ask me. Not even the AHL? I understand getting nerves about the NHL spotlight, but I know for a fact that the Rocket was interested in snatching you up.”

Ilya, who was raised on learning how to accept snide commentary with perfect neutrality, all thanks to his father, didn’t even cringe. Nevermind that they both knew he would never have fit in with the Laval Rocket, the Voyageurs’ official farm team.

“I appreciate that, sir,” Ilya replied calmly. “But I’m content where I am.”

“Content,” he replied with a lighthearted scoff. “That can’t be true. You were a teenage phenom! You could be the star center on an Original Six team right now!”

“Thank you, sir,” was all Ilya said.

The man sighed and leaned in. “Listen, if you’re interested in a promotion anytime in the next couple of years, let me give you my card. I’d love to be the reason that Montréal was able to get their hands on the elusive Ilya Rozanov. Fuck knows all of Québec—shit, all of Canada—would kiss the ground I walk on if I brokered the deal that got us a Cup for the first time since 1993. We were cursed when we lost Hollander, I’m telling you.”

It was a miracle that Ilya didn’t flinch at that last part. What the man said didn’t make much sense. Hollander helped Montréal win the Cup in 1990, but then he died. When they managed to win again in 1993, Hollander wasn’t there. Which means that a so-called curse like that would have been a little delayed.

Then again, it was pretty crazy that a Canadian team hadn’t won the Cup for twenty-seven years, and that Montréal was the last one to do it.

But because Ilya knew that protesting would only make this more difficult, he simply accepted the man’s card and chose not to respond to any of that insane commentary.

Thankfully, soon after that, dinner was politely interrupted by the presentation of the main donation by Rose Landry.

And there she was… all the way across the room, stepping nimbly onto the stage to give her speech about the importance of the arts and whatnot. Ilya barely listened.

In her fifties now, Rose Landry was arguably just as stunning as she was in her youth. It was a different sort of beauty. More refined. Elegant. She wore a tasteful black gown that Ilya had to admit made her figure look absolutely incredible.

She was kind, too. Ilya could tell that much, even from his table at the back of the room. He was good at reading people, at picking up on signals that most missed. Subtle red flags, hidden green flags. Everything in between. Once again, a benefit of his not-so-ideal upbringing.

So, when the donation was officially announced and the speech was wrapped up, when handshakes were exchanged and dessert was cleared away… Ilya stood up to mingle.

He was patient about it. Understandably, people flocked to Rose in hoards. They wanted to thank her for her generosity or brag about how they’d been a huge fan of her work back in the eighties and nineties.

It took Ilya half an hour to even get within spitting distance of her. He nursed a flute of champagne as he casually maneuvered closer to the woman, making small talk with those around him.

After another ten minutes, he was finally close enough to speak to her.

He waited for her to finish her conversation with someone else, and then politely reached out to brush his fingertips against her elbow to get her attention.

“Ms. Landry? I was hoping to introdu—”

Ilya’s sentence was cut off the moment Rose turned around and locked eyes with him.

Cut off, because her reaction to the sight of him was so sudden and intense that it stunned Ilya into silence. In the span of a single second, Rose’s eyes went wide with shock, her jaw dropping almost cartoonishly. Her skin paled, then colored again with a rush of rosiness in her cheeks.

Then, inexplicably, she was engulfing Ilya in a hug.

She threw her arms around him.

“It’s you!” she gasped. “Oh, my God. It’s really you!”

Her voice was trembling, and when she pulled back just enough to meet Ilya’s eyes again, he was surprised to see that there were tears spilling down her cheeks.

And there was so much familiarity in her gaze. So much undeniable affection.

Like she knew him. Like she cared about him.

But Ilya had not gone completely crazy yet. He knew that this was the first time he’d ever met Rose Landry.

Rose sniffled, swiping at her cheeks. When she noticed that several people nearby were staring at the scene with mixtures of confusion and amusement, she let out a fluttery laugh and said, “Sorry! I’m just such a huge Lions fan!”

Ilya choked on a laugh. That couldn’t possibly be true.

“I…” Ilya clear his throat. “I’m… I don’t understand.”

Rose squeezed his shoulders, smiling through more tears as she gazed up at him.

“Ilya,” she said. “It’s so good to see you again.”

He furrowed his brow. “Again?”

Something in her expression shifted. Maybe a trickle of confusion, or a note of embarrassment at the way she was fawning over him and he was so very clearly not playing along.

It’s just that, of all things, Ilya really didn’t expect this meeting to go like this.

“Let’s step outside, okay?” she suggested. “I need some air, I think.”

Ilya was so completely baffled that all he could manage was a nod. Rose laughed again, dabbing under her eyes with the back of her hand, but her makeup hadn’t even budged under the deluge of tears.

She slipped her hand into the crook of Ilya’s elbow and steered him through the crowd. He allowed himself to be dragged along behind her, trying not to look too bewildered as heads turned to observe Rose Landry’s supposed reunion with a bottom-tier-league hockey player half her age.

They stepped out into a hallway, then curved back around into a narrow, emptier hall.

At last, Rose pushed open a metal door and they emerged into a quiet alleyway.

It was a balmy evening, and Montréal nightlife was in full swing past the mouth of the alley. The hum of clubs and bars up and down the boulevard rumbled under the pavement. Laughter echoed up to the dark sky, and the tumbling, carefree cadence of Québécois French mingled with morsels of English formed a pleasant melody underneath it all.

Rose faced him, sniffling lightly as she tried to slow her tears.

With fluttering hands, she fussed over his suit jacket, smoothing over the wrinkles that her surprise hug had creased into the material, then carried on to straighten his tie. It felt oddly maternal in nature, although there was no way that he ever had that kind of relationship with this woman.

He could swear he didn’t know her.

Ilya waited, letting her do… whatever she was doing.

But he was left waiting for a while, because as soon as she brought herself to meet his eyes once more, she burst into sobs again.

“It’s okay,” Ilya told her, patting her bare shoulder even though he really didn’t know what he was comforting her about.

“Sorry,” she sighed, shaking her head and throwing up her hands in playful exasperation. “You probably think I’m crazy. It’s just… I hoped I would… I mean, I wanted to believe that…”

She trailed off, taking another minute to collect herself. Ilya pulled the silk square out of his pocket and offered it to her so that she could dab the tears away. She accepted it with a watery smile.

“I hope I don’t sound rude when I say this,” Ilya began. “But, if we’ve met before, I don’t remember…”

Rose sniffled again, nodding as if that’s exactly what she expected him to say.

At last, she took a deep breath and asked him, “Is he with you?”

“I…”

“Please tell me he’s with you. I mean, even if he also doesn’t remember, I just miss him so much. And we weren’t sure if this would even work, you know? It was crazy. Impossible. But, God, I’d give anything to see him again. He was my best friend.”

Ilya furrowed his brow, his mind struggling to make sense of her rapid English. His Russian brain always took over when he was overwhelmed.

At last, he managed to ask, “Who?”

Rose cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Who are you talking about?”

Just like that, all the joy and hope in Rose’s expression drained away. She took a step away from Ilya, seeming a little off-balance for a moment.

“Oh,” she whispered, eyes glazing over. “Oh, I see.”

Ilya, not knowing what else to do, launched into an explanation.

“I know this is going to sound crazy, but…” He described what happened as best he could, stumbling over words as he went, and tried to make the whole thing seem not insane.

As in, yes, he was a hockey player by day and a paranormal investigator by night. Yes, he could see ghosts and communicate with entities beyond this plane of existence. Yes, he went to the Cursed Cottage where, yes, he’s pretty sure he spoke to the actual ghost of Shane Hollander. And, yes, he told him to talk to her.

Ilya left out the part about the ghost kisses and almost-possession.

“…and I understand if everything I’ve just said makes me seem like a psycho, but I have proof,” Ilya continued. “We have footage. Also, if you wanted to, you could talk to my friends who were also there and witnessed most of it. I swear, I—”

“I believe you,” Rose gently interrupted. The color had returned to her face, and even though she still looked devastated, she was no longer staring at Ilya as if he was the human embodiment of all her greatest disappointments.

Ilya raised his eyebrows. “You do?”

“I do. I know he…” She closed her eyes, pausing to collect herself as soon as it seemed like she might start crying again. “I knew it was difficult for him to move on. I knew that there was a chance he might still be there. It’s just that, when I saw you…”

Again, she trailed off.

“I don’t understand,” Ilya said, a trickle of frustration bleeding into his tone. “What is going on? Why do I feel like I’m supposed to know you? Why did Holla—why did he seem to know me already, too? I was born in 1991. He died in 1990.  We were never alive at the same time. None of this makes any sense to me. And I keep having these fucking dreams…”

Rose’s lower lip start trembling again.

Ilya braced himself, but she thankfully she refrained from sobbing again.

“I can’t explain it. It was just a story he told me once, something about the lake and—and I didn’t…” She sighed, eyes widening with apology. “I don’t know why he told you to talk to me. He knows I can’t. He knows it won’t work if I just tell you everything.”

He waited for the English words to make sense in his head.

They didn’t.

“I don’t understand,” Ilya repeated for the second time.

Rose stepped forward, cradling his face in her hands. “I know. Even I don’t fully understand.”

“But—”

But why are you touching me like we’re old friends? Like I’m someone you might have cared about? Why are you crying at the sight of me as if I’m someone you never expected to see again?

“You have to go back,” she told him, still holding his face between her palms. “You have to remember, Ilya. That’s all I can say. Remember.”

Ilya jerked out of her grasp. “Remember what?”

Rose winced with obvious regret. “Go back to the cottage, Ilya. You were always supposed to find your way back there. All the stuff that happens there—he was always trying to get your attention. I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”

He gaped at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, backing away toward the door they’d exited through. “Go to the cottage, Ilya. And, when you do, can you tell him… tell him I miss him?”

Ilya stared at her retreating form. He didn’t know what to say. He was pretty sure he’d been rendered speechless.

Rose shook her head, tears threatening to run free again, but she turned away before Ilya could be certain.

Then she flung open the door and ducked back inside, leaving Ilya standing alone in the alley.

For a while, he stood there in stunned silence. He didn’t know what to do. He definitely didn’t want to go back inside.

So, he turned around and wandered down to the mouth of the alleyway.

When he emerged on the sidewalk, he realized what street he was on.

Boulevard Saint-Laurent.

The same street where Velvet Haze used to be.

And, because it was one of those random details that Ilya could somehow cling to from his dreams, he knew the address. The club had once been located at number 3699.

He sidestepped a group of girls fast-walking in stilettos, choosing to ignore them when they all turned their heads to do a double-take. Tonight was not the night for that.

The building nearest to him, a red-lit bar with leather lounges, had 3548 emblazoned in gold letters over the arched entrance.

He was close.

So, Ilya crossed the street to the odd-numbered buildings.

A few minutes later, he was standing in front of 3699.

It was… a grocery store.

Ilya almost laughed.

Of course, he could easily see how the building had once been utilized as the massive nightclub that he’d gone to in his dreams. In the eighties, it would certainly be the perfect place for crowds of people to form a churning sea of delightful debauchery. In fact, on either side of the grocery store—which was darkened and locked down for the night at this hour—plenty of similar bars and clubs were in full swing.

Ilya stared up at the stone facade, ignoring the currents of revelers swarming around him.

It was only then that the truth struck him.

A truth so painfully obvious that he wanted to kick himself for not realizing it right away.

Because, of course, the man from his dreams wasn’t just some guy.

It was Shane Hollander.

Chapter End Notes

(yes indeed it's true a canadian team has not won the stanley cup since 1993 and the habs were the last to do it. this is a very sensitive topic for us, including me who was not alive until 2002. shane hollander WE NEED YOUUUUU!)

(also yes this au does vaguely take place in 2020. and covid doesn't exist. just go with the flow ok?)

Chapter 8: part eight

Ilya was probably very stupid.

But… oh, well. There was no turning back now.

Literally, because this winding dirt road was way too narrow for him to maneuver his vehicle around to reverse direction. His only option was to keep going until he reached the cottage.

And then he could consider if he wanted to turn right back around.

He was alone this time. He’d taken his own vehicle. Brought his own tent and camping supplies, gearing up for a few nights away just in case.

Just in case what?

Honestly, he didn’t know.

Again, Ilya was probably stupid.

Troy and Bood didn’t even know that he’d left town again. Bood was busy celebrating his wedding anniversary with Cassie, and Harris had surprised Troy with one last romantic getaway before training started again.

In fact, nobody on the team knew that Ilya would be gone for… an indeterminate amount of time. Which was probably bad, considering he was the captain, but he couldn’t imagine that he would be needed for anything captain-related at this time of year.

He hoped not, at least.

It was late afternoon when Ilya pulled up to the cottage.

Nothing had changed. Obviously. It had only been two weeks.

Ilya turned off the engine and sat there for a while, staring at nothing in particular.

Then, because there was really no point in acting shy about this ridiculous situation, Ilya got out of the car and made his way directly through the ruins and down to the lake. He paused on the beach to kick off his shoes and shrug off his shirt, but he was already wearing swimming trunks. He’d figured that this was probably the best place to start once he arrived and had prepared accordingly.

He waded into the lake, the water reaching his waistline by the time he got to the boulder where Shane Hollander’s ghost had first shown himself to Ilya.

He hopped up onto it and took a seat, leaving enough room for someone to sit beside him. If they felt like it.

Ilya didn’t bother waiting for the prickles on his neck or ghostly exhales against his skin. From the moment he put the car in park, he’d known he was being watched.

Observed from a distance for now, just like the first time.

So, Ilya started talking.

“I talked to Rose,” he began. “She, um… she was happy to see me. Which was weird, because it was my first time meeting her. I think. I don’t know. Nothing is making much sense to me right now, Hollander. Part of me wants to believe that you’re not even him. That maybe you’re just a clever demon who knows exactly how to get under my skin, and that you’re slowly driving me insane with all of these dreams and… fuck. Whatever. But the other half of me knows that this is real. I know that you really are Hollander—or what remains of him. I know that I’ve been having dreams about you ever since I first set foot here. I know that these dreams take place in the eighties, even though I wasn’t born until the nineties.”

Prickling… tingling…

Ilya kept his eyes on the horizon, where the sunset was lighting up the surface of the lake in hues of pink and orange.

“It’s weird because I can’t deny that something about you feels familiar,” Ilya continued. “At first, I thought it was just because I’ve spent my whole life hearing about you. You’re a legend, after all. Even people who don’t know shit about hockey have at least heard your name before. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? Somehow, I know you. Somehow, we… I don’t know, Hollander. Sometimes, in those dreams, it’s almost like I’m… like I love you. And you love me. But, again, that shouldn’t be possible.”

Ilya closed his eyes when the cool fingertips found their way back to the curls at the nape of his neck, but he kept talking.

“Bood was saying all of that shit about how there’s magic in this region. Is that true? Is that why you’re stuck here? Is it—does it have something to do with me, somehow? You left that message on the beach. ‘Remember.’ Rose said the same thing to me. She said that I had to remember. That she couldn’t explain. That, if she did explain, it wouldn’t work. But what the fuck is ‘it,’ Hollander?”

He leaned into the touch as those barely-real fingers sunk into his hair again, stroking with soothing motions.

He had started babbling in earnest, but he didn’t know what else to do.

“Is it possible that we… fuck, this is going to sound so stupid… is it, like, a mixed-up timeline thing? Was I actually supposed to be born in 1965? Or were you actually supposed to be born in 1991? Did our wires get crossed? Who even does the wire-crossing in that situation? God? Is He even real?”

Ilya paused, laughing at himself. The fingers withdrew slightly, but only so that they could trace soothing circles down his spine. Hollander was listening, and he hadn’t said anything so offensive that he’d scared him off yet, so maybe one of these bullshit theories that spewed out of him would strike gold. Maybe, if he said one thing right, Hollander could give him another sign.

“Rose misses you,” Ilya whispered. “She told me to tell you that. She’s… nice. It’s, um, pretty obvious that you weren’t romantically involved with her. Maybe I should have asked. I don’t know. Does that mean you like men, Hollander? Are you gay?”

A flutter of breath against his cheek. Almost like a laugh.

As in, Duh.

“Right.” Ilya sighed. He opened his eyes, marveling at the watercolor sunset. Hollander was with him now, but he probably wouldn’t be able to communicate until it was fully night. Spirits grow strongest when the veil is thinnest.

“I’m sorry I don’t remember,” he said to the glimmering water as the sun sank lower. “I’m sorry I don’t even know what I’m supposed to remember. I mean, if I’m meant to believe that those dreams are memories, I think remembering more would require me to understand what the fuck is going on, you know? Because if I existed at the same time as you, but I also exist now, what happened to the past me? Why does nobody remember the original Ilya Rozanov? And does that Ilya still have the same family? Are his parents still gone? Is his brother still… whatever?”

The sun was a burst of light just barely clinging to the tree line. Violent streaks of red cut across the sky. It looked like fire, but Ilya shivered.

The ghostly touch was still and steady now, resting at the base of his spine.

“So, what is the point, then? If I remember, will I go back in time? Will I relive it all like it’s the first time, or will I know that I went through all of this to get back? And if I’m supposed to know you back then, does that mean I’m still supposed to lose you in the end? That I’m supposed to—to fall in love with you? And then somehow carry on existing after you die? Can’t I stop it? Can I save you? Is that what I’m supposed to do? Is that my entire purpose? To save the greatest hockey player who ever lived from an untimely death in 1990? Is that why I’m such a fucking loser in this version of reality? Because, when I really look at it, I actually have nothing to lose?”

Ilya let out a long exhale. He couldn’t remember ever speaking that much English at once.

When did your English get so good?

Ilya’s head snapped up.

The voice hadn’t come from an external source. It wasn’t the ghost.

It was inside his head. A snippet of a memory, maybe.

The voice that spoke it was so soft, so sweet, so familiar.

Ilya watched the sun disappear below the horizon. A loon cried out in the distance, raising the hairs on his arms. The sky was still a grayish-blue, but it was now officially night.

So, already suspecting what he might see, Ilya finally turned his head to glance at the available space beside him on the rock.

Shane Hollander’s ghostly figure was smiling at him. Gentle and calm, having patiently listened to that entire rant.

“Hi,” Ilya whispered.

Hollander’s grayish, vaguely translucent knee was only an inch away from the warm, living flesh of Ilya’s thigh. Almost but never touching.

Ilya thought back to the devastation in Hollander’s face when he reached out and couldn’t make contact with him. When he realized that the best he could do was a few gentle strokes against Ilya’s neck before he ran dry on strength.

At that thought, Ilya blurted, “There are batteries and some random electronics in the car. Fully charged. You can drain them, or however it works. It’s okay. I want you to be able to stay with me for as long as possible.”

Hollander nodded.

“So…” Ilya murmured, taking this opportunity to admire Hollander’s beauty up close. It wasn’t the same as seeing him in his living form, but still. Those freckles. “Where do we go from here? I asked a thousand questions. Do you have answers for any of them?”

Hollander’s head shifted, blurring in and out of focus. Ilya read it clearly enough, though. He was nodding toward the cottage. Then, wordlessly, the ghost hopped off the rock and floated through the water toward the shore. He glowed slightly, emitting a silvery light. The lake was completely undisturbed by his motions.

But the message was clear. Follow me.

Ilya hopped down from the rock, splashing loudly as he waded toward the damp semicircle of dirt where he left his shoes and shirt. Hollander carried on ahead, floating through the long grass, while Ilya tugged his sneakers back on, but left his shirt behind. At the very least, he didn’t want to risk stepping on any broken glass in the deepening darkness.

He caught up to Hollander, who led him through the ruins toward the western half of the cottage.

Toward the bedroom.

Ilya’s stomach flipped. He had no contingency plan in place if Hollander attempted to possess him again.

And yet, somehow, he had come to understand that it had been a mistake. Hollander had gotten as caught up in the moment as Ilya, and then he just kind of accidentally fused to him.

Probably.

Ilya paused in the center of the ruined bedroom.

Hollander halted beside the bed. Then, in a fascinating blur of light and transparent limbs, he lay down on the bare springs.

He glanced up at Ilya expectantly.

“You want me to lay beside you?”

Hollander nodded.

“On the rusted springs?”

Another nod.

“What if they stab me? I could get tetanus.”

Hollander pursed his lips.

Those lips…

Ilya swallowed down his unease and stepped toward the opposite side of the bed.

Certain that the rusty coils of metal would totally collapse beneath his weight, he carefully lowered himself onto them. They groaned loudly, and they definitely weren’t comfortable, but they weren’t quite as jagged as they looked.

Inch by inch, Ilya arranged himself beside Hollander’s ghost until he was staring up at the half-rotted ceiling. He caught glimpses of starlight through the canopy where a gaping hole in the roof had formed a natural skylight.

This was weird. He was in bed with a hockey legend.

In different circumstances—very different circumstances—Ilya would be pretty fucking pleased with himself right now.

“I didn’t bring a spirit box,” Ilya admitted, turning his head to look at Hollander, who was already watching him. “So, if you needed that to communicate…”

Hollander shook his head.

Ilya felt a strange but not unpleasant pressure on his eyelids.

“Remember…”

The ghost of Hollander’s lips didn’t move, but he knew that he had spoken.

So, Ilya closed his eyes, and then he waited to remember.

Chapter 9: part nine

Chapter Notes

just a mild warning for a very sad topic up ahead

For a while, nothing happened. Minutes ticked by. Crickets chirped. Owls hooted. Loons howled.

Ilya remained aware of Hollander’s quiet presence beside him.

Then, as if something in nature clicked into place, everything went silent.

Ilya drifted into something that wasn’t sleep, wasn’t a dream, wasn’t a hallucination, wasn’t…

He didn’t know what this was, but he let the current that Hollander brought him into carry him along.

The sensation of the hard, cold springs pressing into his back and thighs faded. He felt something soft beneath him instead. A mattress. Fresh linen.

Golden sunshine glowed against the backs of his eyelids, and he dared to open his eyes.

The roof was no longer rotted through. Instead, glossy slats of wood formed a peaked ceiling, from which a fan dangled and lazily churned the warm air above him.

It was daytime in this reality.

Ilya felt peaceful here. More peaceful than he’d ever felt in his life. As if this was the one place on earth that he could truly be comfortable.

And he was not alone here, either.

Ilya turned his head to the side again.

Shane Hollander, whole and solid and alive, stared back at him.

The breath rushed out of Ilya’s lungs. It was the first time he’d gotten a real glimpse of the man from his dreams, the man who became the ghost.

He marveled at him. At the curve of his nose and the charming dip of his cupid’s bow. The twinkle in his onyx eyes and the dance of freckles across his rosy cheeks.

Ilya was so enamored by his beauty that it took him a second to realize that Hollander was speaking to him.

“—and maybe, eventually, we could be together. Like, for real.”

God, his voice. Ilya wanted to taste it on his tongue. Wanted to swallow each word and savor the salty-sweetness of every sound.

“Ilya?”

He blinked at Hollander, something else clicking into place in the back of his mind.

“Shane,” he answered.

Shane sighed with playful impatience. “I know it’s a lot to ask. I know that, right now, being in a gay relationship is just not… well, things are getting better, I guess. They’re coming up with treatments and making a lot of progress. The community is really, you know, coming together. Or whatever. Maybe even someday it could be legal for people like us to get married.”

Ilya felt his brow furrow with confusion. This really was a memory, then. This was the past.

This Shane didn’t know that, in 2005, gay marriage would be fully and officially legalized in Canada. He didn’t know that, one day, there would be real and effective treatment and prevention for HIV/AIDS that would continue to save millions of lives. He had no idea how much better things were going to get.

Of course, it was still difficult in Ilya’s timeline. Especially for hockey players. It was an ongoing battle, but things were getting better. Scott Hunter was out and proud in the NHL. And, if you included the AHL and ECHL, many more of them had come out over the years. Ilya. Troy. Ryan Price.

Ilya stared at Shane, who took his dumbfounded silence as a cue to continue.

“It would be a risk, obviously,” whispered the beautiful boy laying beside him, haloed in afternoon sunlight. “We still have, like, at least fifteen years of our careers left. Maybe twenty. At least, I do.”

Ilya scoffed.

Shane grinned. “But, like I said, maybe things will get easier as time passes. I mean, it’s 1988. Imagine how much will be different by 1998. Or, like, 2008. A lot can happen. Maybe we wouldn’t have to sneak around until retirement. But, either way, if you went to Ottawa, we’d be closer. Only a couple of hours away. And the rivalry wouldn’t be as intense if you were no longer playing for Boston…”

Ilya was simultaneously deeply confused and simply trying to ride the wave of whatever this memory was trying to help him remember.

“Anyway,” Shane sighed. “It’s just a thought. If we worked together on the charity, the newspapers and the fans would stop giving a fuck about the fact that we’re supposed to hate each other. A fresh crop of rookies will come in eventually anyway. People will lose interest in us. It’s inevitable. So, eventually, we could… maybe… be together.”

Somehow, Ilya knew what he was supposed to say next.

He gazed at Shane, understanding washing over him like the gentle lapping of the lake against the shore.

“Do you really think that far ahead, Hollander?”

“I do. About this.”

“And is that really what you want?” Ilya whispered. “To be together?”

“So much. So much it scares me.”

The emotion behind the memory flooded into Ilya at those words. He could feel it.

He could remember it.

And knew, without a doubt, what came next.

He rolled onto his side to face Shane, mesmerized by the tender vulnerability in his gaze. Shane reached for him automatically, like it was as natural as breathing for him to claim Ilya as his.

Ilya ducked his head and pressed a kiss to Shane’s bare chest, shifting to settle between his spread thighs. Only the thin barrier of their cotton briefs separated their bodies, and Ilya wanted to touch, to feel, to explore, but he needed to do something else first.

He tilted his head up and pressed another kiss to the hollow of his throat. Shane made a tiny sound of contentment.

And then, for the first time that this version of Ilya could remember—though he understood now that it was most certainly not the first time in history—Ilya pressed his lips to Shane’s mouth.

It was a soft kiss. Brief. A blossom of warmth between them, a shuddering point of contact from which light seemed to explode like sparks.

Ilya pulled away.

“I love you,” he said to Shane.

Shane’s lips parted in wonder. “Holy shit.”

Fuck. Did I do it wrong? Am I fucking up the memory? Is this not—

“I mean…” Ilya’s heart pounded.

“I love you, too,” murmured Shane.

Oh, thank fucking God.

Ilya breathed out a sigh of relief, burying his face in the curve of Shane’s neck.

“Fuck, Hollander,” he mumbled.

“I love you so fucking much, Rozanov.”

A chill zipped down Ilya’s spine. He blinked, clinging to Shane even as he felt an invisible force yanking him away. A sharp tug behind his sternum dragged him off Shane, and before he could even let out a shout, the scene dissolved and Ilya was falling through icy darkness.

He kicked his legs and wheeled his arms, trying to cling to something in the shadows.

What had happened? What went wrong? Where was he going?

How did he get back to that sunny bedroom? He wanted to spend the rest of his life there.

Because, fuck, he had loved Shane Hollander.

And Shane Hollander had loved him, too.

He didn’t understand the full story, remembered only bits and pieces, but it had felt so good. So right.

At last, Ilya stopped falling.

With a loud thunk, he crashed into a hardwood floor. He grunted in pain, just barely avoiding letting his head collide with this new surface beneath him. His hip ached from the impact, and the persistent knee injury that had been plaguing him since last season flared with a dull reminder that he was still real, still alive.

“Sorry,” said a voice behind him.

Ilya rolled over with a groan to find Shane kneeling beside him. Not the same Shane as the one he’d just left in that bed, but a slightly older Shane, with the barest hint of stubble on his upper lip. This one was fully clothed in a t-shirt and tiny green shorts.

The same outfit that ghost Shane Hollander wore.

But he didn’t look like a ghost here. He looked totally alive.

Where was here anyway?

Ilya lifted his head. He was, most definitely, on a floor. Still in the cottage, but the intact version. They were in the lounge area that had once been beside the kitchen, shiny and relatively new. No longer burned by fire or in the process of being reclaimed by nature.

“Sorry,” Shane said again. “I’ve never tried to bring someone else to one of my own memories. It’s harder for you to make the trip, I guess. Since you’re, um…”

“Alive?”

Shane Hollander, who was now neither ghost nor person, snorted softly.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You could have warned me,” muttered Ilya, bracing his palms against the floor so he could sit up. “I was having a good time back there.”

Shane sat back on his heels, cheeks coloring. Ilya marveled at it. Was this really the ghost that he first saw down by the lake two weeks ago? How could he feel so much more real here?

And, again, where the fuck was here?

When was here?

“I wasn’t sure if you were, um, comfortable reliving what happened after that,” Shane explained.

“Did we fuck?” Ilya asked, lapsing into an impossibly familiar rapport with this man that he was not, logically speaking, supposed to know that well.

Shane smirked. “Yes. Obviously.”

“Was it good?”

“Again, yes. Obviously.”

“I am top, yes?”

Shane gave him a look, then repeated for a third time, “Obviously.”

“Hm.” Ilya gazed at him. This man that, once upon a time, somehow and someway and somewhere, he was in love with. But instead of asking how it all began in the first place, he blurted, “We don’t switch?”

Shane made an impatient sound that was somewhere between a scoff and a laugh.

“No, Ilya. We don't.”

“Thank God,” Ilya replied.

A smile danced on Shane’s lips. Ilya wanted to kiss them again. He wanted to kiss him and never stop.

Shane’s own eyes flicked down to Ilya’s mouth as if he was thinking the same thing.

But then Shane let out a sigh and leaned further away, shifting to sit on the floor with his elbows propped on his knees. Ilya’s stomach squirmed with disappointment. Which was stupid. Of course this Shane didn’t want to makeout with this Ilya. This Shane loved a different Ilya.

An Ilya that could actually remember everything that happened between them, not just vague feelings floating around in the pit of his stomach.

Ilya bit his lip, looking around at the cottage from his vantage point on the floor. It was nice, even with the outdated appliances and old school touches. It was a comfortable place, too. Welcoming and safe.

A million questions danced on his tongue.

“I still don’t understand,” Ilya admitted, turning his attention back to Shane.

Shane nodded. “I know.”

“I loved you.”

“Yes.”

“You loved me.”

“Yes.”

“We had a plan to be together.”

“Yes,” Shane sighed.

“So, what happened?”

To Ilya’s horror, Shane’s eyes suddenly swam with tears. He turned his face away, lower lip trembling. Ilya wanted to reach for him, wanted to pull him into his lap… an urge that shouldn’t have made sense to him. After all, in his mind, for the most part, he was still the Ilya who knew Hollander as the tragic young athlete. He was hot, yes, and he’d had all those dreams about delicious moments that he and Hollander had shared, but… if he was being honest, even with the knowledge that he loved this man, he couldn’t make sense of it.

Because why would they do this to each other? Why would they risk it? Why wouldn’t they just… find other people to love? Why didn’t Hollander find a nice man in Montréal? Someone who didn’t play hockey? Someone who was easier to hide for a little while longer, until he decided to come out?

It seemed like torture to Ilya. Fun, maybe, at first. Exciting. Ilya liked to flirt with danger, after all. Hooking up with someone who was apparently supposed to be his rival seemed like the sort of thing that would pique his interest.

But for it to last years… it seemed like both of them had to be pretty dedicated to the cause.

Maybe Hollander’s ass was just that enticing. Maybe Ilya’s dick was just that addictive.

Or maybe, all along, there had always been a little something more lurking under the surface.

He was still waiting for Shane to answer his question.

Shane, who was dead and not supposed to be able to cry, who now looked at him with tears streaking down his cheeks.

“Something bad, Ilya,” he whispered. “Something bad happened.”

Ilya’s heart lurched. “Yes, I know. You died.”

“No, that’s…” Shane sniffled loudly, wiping away his tears and collecting himself with impressive efficiency. “There’s more.”

“Tell me. I want to know.”

Shane bit his lip. “I can only tell you some of it. Otherwise, I have to show you. You have to remember, otherwise you won't be able to see the way back and—it’s a lot to explain.”

“Well, we have time, yes?” Ilya gestured around him vaguely. “I don’t know how to get out of here on my own.”

Shane nodded. “Yeah. We have some time.”

Ilya waited.

The maybe-ghost of Hollander got a little blurry at the edges. Just for a half a heartbeat, but it was enough for Ilya’s pulse to skip with panic.

But Shane was solid again a moment later.

“As you heard, in that other memory, it was the summer of 1988,” Shane explained. “It was a big year for our rivalry. We had the Olympics that winter, to begin with.”

“Russia won gold,” Ilya recalled.

“Well, it was called the Soviet Union back then.”

“Ah. Yes.”

“And Canada didn’t even get a medal that year,” Hollander said, frowning as if the loss still felt as fresh as yesterday to him. Maybe it did. “Then our teams faced each other in the second round of the playoffs. Boston and Montréal, I mean. You won. Again.”

Ilya cocked his head. He'd played for the Bears?

“But Boston did not win the Cup that year.”

“No.” Shane pursed his lips with distaste. “It was the Oilers.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, we’d been involved for… a while, I guess, by then. About six years? We’d been taking bigger risks. Going to clubs together. Stuff like that.”

“Velvet Haze.”

A wistful smile washed over Shane’s face for a few seconds. “Yes. You remember.”

Ilya nodded. “It was the first thing I remembered, actually.”

Shane snorted. “Figures.”

“Continue, please.” Ilya didn’t want Shane to start fading again. He didn’t want this to end. He wanted to understand.

He was desperate to know everything. Even if it was bad.

“So, anyway, things were a little awkward after the season ended. There was other stuff, too. We’d had an argument at one point, and then there was this whole thing about me allegedly dating Rose Landry… we didn’t talk for a little while. But, the point is, by the time the season ended, I had come to terms with the fact that I was gay, and I knew that I wanted you. I wasn’t totally sure if you wanted me, at least not as much as I… whatever. Long story short—I took a leap of faith and invited you to this cottage.”

“I said yes.”

Shane smiled. “You did.”

Ilya couldn’t help smiling back.

“The memory you just saw sums up what happened here that summer,” Hollander told him, cheeks coloring again. “Plus, other stuff…”

“I hope lots of that ‘other stuff,’” Ilya murmured.

The corner of Shane’s mouth twitched. “Yeah.”

“So, what happened?”

Shane exhaled, visibly deflating. “When summer ended, nothing worked out the way it was supposed to. You tried to get traded to Ottawa to be closer to me, but then I guess some wires were crossed or someone wasn’t being totally honest with you, and they opted to acquire Dallas Kent instead. It put them too close to their cap to afford you, too.”

“So I stayed in Boston?”

“No.” Shane bit his lip. “It was shitty. They were unhappy that you even suggested wanting to leave before your free agency started, and you didn’t have an NTC in your contract, so it wasn't really up to you to decide if you could just stay for a little while longer. And the fanbase was pissed. You know how that franchise can be.”

“Petty?”

“Mm. So, to summarize, they went behind your back and took a deal with Florida in exchange for a defenseman and future considerations.”

“Ouch,” muttered Ilya.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Fucking Florida?”

Shane sighed and shook his head. “It was crazy. Like, the biggest sports news for quite a while.”

“But then why haven’t I heard about it?” Ilya asked. “If all of that happened, why is there no evidence of my existence all the way back then in my timeline?”

“I’ll get to that. I hope.”

Ilya nodded and gestured for him to continue.

“Anyway, yeah. You went to Florida. I stayed in Montréal. We were still in the same division, but people just weren’t as interested in our rivalry anymore. Plus, the trade scandal just… kind of fucked with you. And then your father died. It was awful. You, um, got depressed, I guess. And we were so far apart. I didn’t know how to reach you. You never picked up the phone when I called.”

It would have been hard, Ilya realized. There was no texting in 1988. The internet was still a new concept, so there wasn’t any social media. Even email wouldn’t have really been viable. So, Shane’s only option was to contact him via fucking landline.

“Fuck,” Ilya muttered.

“So, yeah,” Shane sighed, frowning down at the floor as if it pained him to explain all of this to Ilya’s face. “We might have been in love, but it… it wasn’t enough, Ilya. We drifted apart. We lost touch. By the end of the season in 1989, we were practically strangers to each other again.”

Ilya swallowed past a lump in his throat. “And then what?”

Because that couldn’t be it. And Shane still wasn’t looking at him.

“And then what?” Ilya repeated.

Shane drew in a shaky breath. “Back then, there was a pretty bad health crisis…”

“Yes. I know.”

“It had been going on for almost a decade by then, and things seemed to be slowly improving, but people were still dying all the fucking time. It was…”

Shane shuddered. Ilya watched his lower lip tremble.

“Bad,” Ilya finished for him.

“Yes,” Shane answered, a fresh tear rolling down his cheek. “It was bad.”

“How… bad?”

A quiet sniffle. A muffled sob. Shane turned away, shaking his head.

Ilya scrambled toward him, unable to hold himself back anymore, reaching out and pulling him into a clumsy embrace of tangled limbs as Shane clung to him with all his strength.

Could a ghost leave bruises? Ilya hoped so.

Shane calmed his crying after a moment, and Ilya pulled back.

“Tell me what happened, Shane.”

“I…”

“Did you get sick? Is that what happened?”

Shane buried his head into Ilya’s chest. “No.”

“Tell me. Please.”

“You,” Shane breathed, teardrops still clinging to his eyelashes when he lifted his head to look at him. “You got sick, Ilya.”

Chapter End Notes

sorry for the cliffhanger, but i'm a slut for theatricality.

Chapter 10: part ten

Chapter Notes

gentle warning for suicide/death (i am as brief and vague as possible)

“Oh,” Ilya murmured.

He got sick. Contracted the incurable illness, maybe from one of the lovers that he might have taken in a pointless attempt to forget that he would never get to be with the true love of his life.

Shane blew out a shaky breath.

“By the time I heard the news, it was 1990,” he said, leaning out of Ilya’s embrace, even as they remained sitting closer than before. “You’d been on injury reserve the entire season, and the league was being extremely secretive about the reason why. I only found out because your friend Svetlana—actually, do you even know her in this life?”

Ilya furrowed his brow. “I don’t think so.”

Shane nodded. “I guess you wouldn’t, since she… well, the point is, back in the eighties, I knew her as your childhood friend.”

“And she was your friend, too?”

“Oh. Not really. It’s just that she was—or, I mean, I guess still is—in love with my best friend Rose. It’s hard for me to stay up to date with current events, but Rose visited me here a while ago to tell me they’d gotten married.”

Ilya nodded. “Huh. The internet did not say anything about that when I Googled her.”

Shane shrugged. Maybe he didn’t know what Google was.

“So, my friend Svetlana, who was dating your friend Rose, told you that I was sick,” Ilya prompted him.

“Yes.” Shane met Ilya’s gaze, perhaps searching for something. Maybe searching for proof that any of this sounded familiar to Ilya. “As soon as I heard, I tried to reach out. You ignored me, but I kept trying. Then, finally, when the season ended, you called me back. You… you didn’t have much time left. Maybe the weight of mortality made you soft. But I invited you here, insisted on taking care of you, and you let me. You came. Because you still loved me and I still loved you.”

Ilya gazed at him.

Something sprang free inside him. A carefully wrapped package, an unpleasant truth that he had tried his best to avoid acknowledging.

“I am the one who died here,” Ilya whispered.

The look Shane gave him was indescribable. It was worse than devastation. It was utter and absolute anguish. It was pure agony that Ilya, who had experienced plenty of loss, could not even fully comprehend just by looking at it.

“Yes,” Shane answered. “You died.”

Suddenly, a musical chime trilled from overhead. Ilya jumped at the unexpected noise, his gaze falling on an analog clock on the far wall. It was chiming the hour. Midnight.

Ilya had forgotten that he was inside a memory.

He looked back at Shane.

“You have to just watch now,” said Shane, who was getting hazy at the edges again.

Ghost Shane rose to his feet, gesturing for Ilya to do the same.

Ilya obeyed, dull horror washing over him as he followed Shane to the bedroom again. The room that, thirty years from now, was thought to be the most haunted place in the cottage ruins.

Nobody had ever understood why, though. Because everyone knew that Hollander died in the kitchen.

Ilya’s stomach dropped.

The space was as intact as it had been in the previous memory, but no longer full of sunshine. In this reality, the curtains were drawn against the dark evening beyond, and the only light in the room came from the yellowish glow of a bedside lamp.

Ilya was laying in the bed, still as stone, tucked neatly under covers that had been pulled up to his armpits. Shane, the memory version of him, sat on the edge of the mattress. He’d left one of Ilya’s arms untucked, and held one limp hand in both of his.

Ghost Shane retreated into the periphery as Ilya drew closer.

Neither memory Shane nor memory Ilya noticed him.

He was so… pale. Almost purple. He could see the sores on his exposed arm, could see how terribly thin and frail he’d gotten. He barely recognized himself.

The rise and fall of his chest was so infinitesimal that Ilya almost didn’t catch it.

Not dead yet, he confirmed. But, soon.

Soon, indeed, because memory Shane was sobbing. He squeezed memory Ilya’s hand, but that Ilya was too far gone into the realm of the unconscious. Maybe he wouldn’t get the chance to wake up again. Maybe he’d already seen his last sunrise.

Ilya choked on his next inhale, tasting the salt of tears that he hadn’t even noticed started falling.

“Please,” memory Shane whispered, rocking back and forth as he cradled Ilya’s hand between his. “Please don’t leave me. Please, Ilya. Don’t leave me here in this life without you. Please.”

Ilya wanted to go to memory Shane. Wanted to tell him that he was alive, somehow. Alive, but lost in another timeline. He would be okay. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.

Suddenly, memory Shane set Ilya’s hand aside and jolted to his feet. His eyes were red and raw, his expression wild with desperation.

Ilya watched as this Shane swept past him and stalked through the cottage. He followed, sensing ghost Shane lingering close behind him.

Memory Shane went out through the back door and emerged onto the lawn. Not overgrown with weeds and littered with rotted branches in this memory, but dutifully mowed and coated in a layer of dewdrops.

Ilya watched as memory Shane stumbled down to the lake, where a fully intact dock still stood. The water was not as murky, and the lily pads hadn’t yet joined forces with the algae population to takeover.

Memory Shane stopped short of the small strip of sandy beach and collapsed in the grass. Moonlight washed over his back as he bowed forward over himself and dug his fingers into the earth.

Then, all Ilya could do was watch as this Shane pressed his face to the damp grass and let out a heart-wrenching scream.

Ilya had never heard anything like it. It was pure grief given sound.

It brought Ilya to his knees.

Ghost Shane hovered close at his side, but Ilya’s attention was glued to the other one.

Memory Shane was muttering something to the grass. Ilya half-crawled closer to hear.

“Please don’t take him from me,” memory Shane begged the earth, the lake, the sky above. “I can’t do it. I can’t live without him. I don’t want to live without him.”

Ilya crawled closer. He reached out for him, but his fingertips went right through memory Shane’s body as if he was the ghost.

I’m right here, he wanted to say.

“I’ll do anything,” memory Shane was pleading, eyes squeezed shut and forehead pressed to the mud. “I know I have no right to ask. I know that it’s selfish and unfair. I know that so many people have lost the loves of their lives. I know that my pain isn’t special, but I am begging you… please don’t make me carry on without him. I love him. I love him. He’s all I want. He’s the only thing I care about…”

Sweetheart, Ilya tried to whisper to him, but he suddenly was incapable of speech.

He tried to touch memory Shane again, but he wasn’t real enough in this place to make contact across the divide.

“All I want is a second chance,” Shane prayed to some unseen god. He was rocking back and forth again, fingers digging into the damp ground as if he was trying to claw his way right through the center of the earth. “If he has to die, don’t let this be the end. Let me go with him. Let me start over with him again. I can do it better this time, I swear. I can be better. I’ll… do better. I don’t know. Anything. I’ll give anything. Nothing in this life is worth it if I don’t have him, so give me a different one. Please. Please.”

Ilya was on his hands and knees beside memory Shane, trying to scream, trying to jostle him out of this. Trying to comfort him. He remembered… he remembered that Shane could get overwhelmed by his own internal battles sometimes.

He’d learned how to bring him back, though. He could rememberhow to touch him with steady hands, how to coax him away from the edge with gentle reassurance.

Because this was Shane. His Shane. Shane, who he loved.

I’M RIGHT HERE, Ilya tried to shout.

But he was useless. A pointless observer.

Shane was sobbing in earnest, muttering a string of please please please please please please please into the earth.

And then, a disturbance in the water. A musical splash, a ripple outward from a single point in the shadowy depths.

It was enough to catch Shane’s attention. He lifted his head, gasping for air as he gazed toward the lake.

Ilya stared, too.

There was something glowing under the surface. A silver-white ball of light. It trembled under the circular ripples, growing brighter as it rose to the surface.

But Ilya quickly realized that it wasn’t just a glowing orb.

It was an entire spirit.

A head rose from the water, pure white and dazzling bright. Beside him, Shane had been shocked into temporary silence and stillness.

The spirit emerged from the lake slowly, floating toward the shore. She revealed herself to be a womanly figure with vague, hard-to-catch features. Lips and eyes and a nose, details going in and out of focus as the glow ebbed and flowed. Long hair spilled around her bare shoulders.

And, as Ilya continued to stare, the spirit’s attention flickered from Shane to him.

It was aware of him. It could see him here, hovering in a memory that both did and didn’t fully belong to him.

But the spirit didn’t seem to mind. She turned her attention back to Shane as she stepped onto the shore, halting her approach a few feet away, so bright that Shane had to squint as he gazed up at her from the ground.

Ilya sat back on his heels.

This was the spirit he felt on this land. He’d assumed that it was multiple spirits at first, and then amended that it was only Shane who occupied this place.

But, no. This was the spirit who he’d sensed pulsing in the breaths of the trees. The spirit that had drawn his attention toward the lake in the first place. The spirit that had been watching all along, observing while ghost Hollander observed him.

But she was not an ordinary ghost. Ilya had never seen any creature so bright. It was as if she was made of pure moonlight.

And he knew, deep down in the marrow of his bones, that the spirit was ancient.

Fucking hell. Bood was right. This place was magic.

When the spirit spoke, her voice came out sounding like the whisper of leaves fluttering in a gust of springtime wind. Strong and invigorating, dripping with power.

“I have heard your pleas,” said the spirit.

Shane sniffled, gaping up at her. Maybe he thought he was dreaming. He’d always known his Shane to be a practical man. It was true that he had quite the imagination in the bedroom, but he did not think that Shane would easily believe in a spirit rising from the lake in answer to his prayers.

Then again, his poor Shane was having a very bad night. He was probably willing to believe in anything right now.

“Please,” whispered Shane.

“I can give you one chance,” said the spirit, her hollow voice vibrating through Ilya’s bones. “He will die, it is true, but I can ferry him along quickly to the next life, and I can tie your soul to his so that you might follow—”

“Yes,” Shane gasped. “Please.”

Maybe don’t interrupt the ancient being, my love, Ilya thought to himself.

The spirit didn’t seem to mind, though. She made a strange sound that Ilya interpreted as a sigh of sorts, and then continued speaking.

“In your next lives, you will not know each other consciously. You may be different people entirely. You may not even be inclined to fall in love again.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “Just… please don’t let this be the end. No matter what we become, I know I can find him again. I know that I will love him, no matter what life we meet in.”

“It may go wrong,” cautioned the spirit. “He may get stuck here while you move on. You may get stuck here while he moves on. You might both get stuck here, but only in fragments that cannot remember each other or cannot communicate at all. You might both move on into realms far beyond my influence.”

Shane nodded, swiping at his tear-streaked cheeks with a muddy palm.

“I’ll take the risk. Anything is better than this.”

The spirit wavered slightly. Ilya wondered if she was considering whether she truly wanted to help him.

She made another sighing sound. “You will leave your parents behind, at least as you know them now.”

At this, Shane cringed. “I…”

“You will leave your friends behind. Your whole life. All of it will be gone. Is that worth it?”

Shane trembled, steely resolve flooded his dark gaze. “He is worth more than the entire world to me.”

Fuck, Hollander. Whatever the fuck happens next, remind me to tease you for that line the next chance I get.

But it occurred to Ilya that this was it. There were no more chances. Whatever was about to happen next was the final moment of a thousand different final moments.

If what the spirit described was about to happen, it was already obvious what went wrong. It was the second option she mentioned before. Hollander got stuck here, and Ilya moved on.

Ilya, the whole soul and mind and body of him, moved on into the next life without Shane. Such was the force of Shane’s loving push for him to get another chance at life that Ilya was erased entirely from their little sliver of history. He was born again in June 1991, less than a year after this very night, and he literally started over. Completely and entirely.

And Hollander had been here this whole time.

The lake spirit observed Shane for a long moment.

“If something goes wrong and you do get separated, I can offer you one small boon,” she told Shane. “No matter what happens to your souls, you will be drawn together. If your spirit gets stuck here and he carries on, he will feel himself drawn to this place. He won’t be able to explain it to himself. He won’t understand it. He won’t remember what happened here. He won’t know you the way he knows you now. But he will try to find you again.”
Shane, visibly baffled and distressed beyond salvation, murmured, “And if he does? If he finds me?”

“He has to remember.”

“Remember me? But, how? You said—”

“As I said, your souls will be tied together with invisible string. You cannot undo that knot. He will feel it, right in the core of himself, and if he can follow that string back home… if he can remember that he loved you… all will be well.”

It was unfair, really, to be throwing all of this at a man who would probably reach into his chest and rip out his own heart right now if it meant saving memory Ilya’s life.

But at least the spirit was offering something. At least someone had answered Shane’s prayers. Ilya had been screaming at the universe for as long as he could remember, and he’d never gotten a response.

“Okay,” Shane replied. “Yes. Please. I want this chance. Just tell me what to do.”

The spirit’s glowing gaze shifted, drifting past Ilya toward the cottage behind them.

“He will not last the night,” the spirit told Shane. “He will go soon, and I will be here to push him along, but you will have to be ready to go, too.”

“Ready to go, as in… ready to die?”

“Yes.”

Shane nodded. He had that look on his face that Ilya loved so much. That raw, merciless determination. Because, fuck, he remembered so much more of it now. He remembered leaning over center ice across from this man, grinning while Shane glared him down. Once his Shane set his mind to something, he would not back down.

Now that same man was about to kill himself just for the barest hint of a second chance at a happy life with Ilya.

And he could do nothing to prevent it. He was invisible to Shane. Inaudible, too. He couldn’t convince Shane that he might be able to live without him after all. He could not beg him to reconsider, could not remind him that he had Yuna and David and Rose and… fucking Hayden Pike… and fuck he had a whole beautiful life without Ilya. He was Shane Hollander, star center of the most legendary team in sports history. He was everything and, really, Ilya was pretty sure that he was nothing at all. By comparison, at least.

But this was not Ilya’s decision to make. This final act of love belonged to Shane.

So, as the spirit nodded at Shane and then shrunk into a tiny ball of light once more, both he and Shane watched as it floated up toward the cottage and slipped inside in the blink of an eye.

Ilya watched as Shane took a deep breath and stumbled to his feet. His hands and knees were caked in mud, and there were bits of damp grass clinging to his skin, but Shane did not seem to notice any of that.

Ilya scrambled upright, feeling a familiar floating sensation as he hurried to keep up with Shane.

They went back inside the cottage.

Ilya hovered by the windows as Shane paced to the middle of the lounge and halted, hands planted on his hips. Shane closed his eyes and tipped his head back, his face upturned to the ceiling. He took a deep breath, then shook out his limbs and launched back into action.

He went down the hall. Ilya was right on his heels.

Once again, Shane returned to memory Ilya’s bedside. Still unconscious. Probably already halfway dead. It scared Ilya to see himself like this, but he supposed he already knew where he was going.

The trick, he guessed, was that he had to make sure Shane actually came with him this time.

The lake spirit was nowhere to be seen, but Ilya could feel her presence pulsing with power. It engulfed them, swallowing the cottage whole.

“I love you,” Shane whispered to memory Ilya. “We’ll find each other again, I promise.”

Then, Shane rose to his feet again. Ilya kept close.

Shane paced down the length of the hall, then turned around and went back. Turned around again and then paused in the kitchen. Restless. Scared.

Ilya observed as Shane leaned over the stove and crammed his arm in the space between the back of it and the wall. The sound of metallic twisting reached his ears, something being unscrewed, followed by a soft clink.

A subtle hiss of something under pressure being expelled.

Then, the scent of propane.

He was going to gas the place?

Fucking hell, Hollander, Ilya tried to say. Surely there is a better way to go?

Ilya wasn’t sure if he had any real recommendations, though. It wasn’t like memory Ilya was going in the most peaceful or pleasant way. Dying in his sleep, yes, but after months of pain and suffering.

And his mother… it had been pills. Shane didn’t have anything like that. Everything he put in his body was organic and clean.

Ilya drifted along the periphery of the scene. If this version of him died in this memory, would he die in real life? Was his body even still in the future? Was he anywhere at all anymore?

Shane huffed with frustration. He was staring at the stove as suffocating gas bled into the breathable air. It was too slow, though. Too weak of a flow. Too little propane in the tank to fill this grand cottage. Ilya could see the realizations form one by one in Shane’s eyes.

And yet, when Shane began rummaging around in the cupboard, Ilya wasn’t ready for what came next.

As soon as he realized what was about to happen—when he saw the box of matches in Shane’s palm—it was already too late.

“SHANE!” Ilya screamed.

Shane struck the flint at the same time that Ilya’s voice, for the first time since he followed memory Shane down to the lakeside, echoed out loud and clear.

Ilya watched in horror as Shane whirled around and locked eyes with him.

But then the match sparked to life, and that small flame was exactly enough to turn a somewhat worrisome gas leak into a disastrous tragedy.

An explosion of flame engulfed Shane instantly, swallowing him whole.

Ilya screamed as he was blown backward by the force of it. He fell and smacked the back of his head against the wall, vision going blurry for a few seconds while all he could feel was heat, heat, heat…

Fire bloomed hungrily in the kitchen, greedily eating away at everything it could touch.

Ilya crawled toward it, because that’s where he had last seen Shane. The smoke ravaged his lungs, and he tried to keep low, but it was futile. He was wheezing, his eyes stinging so badly that he could barely keep them open.

Shane. He needed to get to Shane. His body wasn’t working properly, all floaty and hard to control, but he had to… he had to…

But when Ilya dragged himself around the corner of the kitchen island and squinted through the roaring flames, what he saw was beyond words.

And he knew that, no matter how many lives he was forced to endure after this one, he never wanted to see this again. Never wanted to see Shane like this.

His body…

Ilya choked on a sob.

“Please,” he rasped. “Shane…”

He reached for what used to be the hand of the man he loved, his fingertips grazing blackened flesh.

Ilya was certain that this wasn’t supposed to happen. Something had gone wrong again.

Where had the spirit gone? It was his turn to beg.

“Ilya.”

The voice echoed from the smoky hell that clouded Ilya’s peripheral vision. He threw all of his strength into turning around, into angling away from the burning corpse.

And there he was.

Not entirely here, but not entirely gone. An outline of the freckled boy with stars in his eyes, swirling in the smoke. The ghost of the man. The memory of him.

“Shane,” Ilya gasped.

He crawled toward him. He hadn’t gotten a chance to look down at his own body, but part of him wondered if he was still in one piece after that blast. It certainly felt like he’d fallen apart.

He was unraveling, little by little. Fading.

Shane, too, was fading. Ghost Shane, the real one. The Shane that brought him here.

The Shane that loved Ilya, just as he loved him in return.

Ilya lunged toward the beloved visage that floated among the curling smoke. He dove into it, just to feel one last warm embrace from his Shane.

A ghostly hand curled around the back of his neck as Ilya’s vision went out of focus again.

“I’m here,” whispered Shane. “I’m with you.”

But Ilya was no longer certain that he was here. He was being pulled again, tugged by a string that had unspooled from his sternum. 

Ilya inhaled an ashy plume of smoke because it was the only way he could think to hold on to this hazy, elusive version of Shane. He choked on this insurmountable love, but relished the burn all the way down. He would let it kill him.

As the darkness encroached, Ilya knew that it was over. Shane was smoke in his lungs and ash in his hair. Heat on the nape of his neck and a fiery thrill that had chased him from the moment he first laid eyes on him.

With his last breath of awareness, Ilya thought about the spirit’s final promise.

… if he can follow that string back home… if he can remember that he loved you… all will be well…

Ilya remembered. Ilya loved him. He loved and loved and loved so fucking much that it hurt. That had to mean something, right? Had to be worth something.

Follow that string back…

He felt the tug again.

So, instead of being afraid, Ilya gave in and let it carry him home.

***

2008.

Regina, Saskatchewan.

International Prospect Cup.

Ilya felt weird.

He’d been feeling weird since he woke up that morning.

It all started when he was startled out of sleep, jolting so intensely that he rolled right out of bed and spilled onto the floor. He’d almost felt like he’d been tossed across the room by the invisible hand of an ancient god.

But that was impossible. And stupid.

So, Ilya got up and started his day.

The weirdness continued, though. He’d been struggling to remember where he was. Or even what day it was.

At one point, he had to stare at himself in the mirror above the sink in his shitty hotel room and remind himself out loud of the most basic details.

“You are Ilya Rozanov,” he had said to his reflection.

He’d been unable to shake the feeling that the Russian words felt both familiar and strange in his mouth, as if he’d spent a long time not speaking his mother tongue and was only now coming back to it after a long time.

But that wasn’t right. He’d lived his whole life in Russia. He spoke Russian every single day. He could speak English, if absolutely necessary, but he wasn’t very confident about it.

“You are seventeen years old,” he’d reminded the Ilya in the mirror.

That felt true enough. He felt young in the sense that his bones seemed oddly tender inside his own body. As if they were exhausted by the fact that he was still growing. As if he had already done so much growing and, fuck, could they please just be done now?

“You are—” At that moment, Ilya’s voice had given out as a cough wheezed out of his lungs. They felt raw and ragged, maybe even a little bit burnt.

“You should probably try to quit smoking,” he’d amended.

He coughed again, shaking off the lingering heat of what he’d been sure was a very weird and gruesome dream. There’d been so much fire.

“You,” he’d continued, jabbing his finger at the glass as he stared himself down. “You are going to be the best fucking hockey player that ever lived. Better than Gretzky. Better than Bobby Orr and Gordie Howe. Better than…”

He’d trailed off then, certain that there was another hockey legend right on the tip of his tongue.

But his mind came up blank, so he decided to move on.

“You are going to be rich and famous and have as many sports cars as you like… and lots of sexy women.” He paused for a moment considering. “Sexy men, too, probably. That would be nice.”
Ilya rolled his shoulders, satisfied that he had grounded himself back in reality.

Except, there was still one more thing he needed to get straight.

“This is the most important part,” he told his reflection. “Today, you are going to beat Team Canada in the final and prove to the world that you deserve to be the number one draft pick this spring.”

So, with all of that settled, Ilya had carried on with his morning, convinced that whatever weirdness he’d woken up with was long gone.

And it was, for the most part. He got through team practice well enough, even though his attention kept drifting to a boy he noticed sitting with his mother in the stands. A boy who was observing him from afar, exactly as Ilya had been doing to him for just as long.

It was weird, too, when there was an inexplicable tugging sensation in his sternum at the same time that he looked up toward that boy.

Weird, indeed, that he got the strangest sense of déjà vu about it. Like maybe it wasn’t the first time that the back of his neck had prickled with acute awareness of the boy’s attention…

By afternoon, Ilya figured that a cigarette might help get rid of the weirdness. Sure, he’d resolved to try to quit earlier that morning, and his lungs were still feeling a little bit ragged, but… oh, well. He was young and unstoppable and a single cigarette would definitely not change the entire trajectory of his life.

Of course not.

So, he slipped away from his teammates and crossed a barren, snow-swept parking lot. He leaned against the metal doors at the back of the rink for shelter against the freezing Canadian wind, and bowed forward in an attempt to get his lighter to spark. It was nearly empty, but Ilya was determined. All he needed was a spark.

One single spark.

He was so focused on coaxing a flame to life that he didn’t notice when he was no longer alone.

Not until a sweet, raspy voice said, “Ilya Rozanov?”

Ilya turned around.

There he was. The boy. The one who'd been watching him earlier. He’d never seen him up close like this, and thus hadn’t really considered the fact that this boy was… pretty.

He had freckles.

But, obviously, Ilya already knew exactly who this boy was.

This was his greatest rival. A polite Canadian boy who was the only person good enough to truly compete with him.

They’d been circling each other from opposite sides of the globe for years already. Perhaps, from the moment they came into this world, they were poised to collide.

The boy stepped forward with a timid smile, seemingly unaware of the definition of the word rival, and extended his hand toward Ilya.

“Shane Hollander,” he said. “I—I wanted to introduce myself.”

Ilya wanted to smile. This boy was so… lame? Boring? A little bit funny?

Kind of cute?

Yes, maybe very cute.

Ilya shook his hand. Mirroring calluses from their shared sport met palm to palm, rough but familiar.

And maybe, in another life, Ilya might have left it at that. Might have greeted this boy with nothing but stoic silence or might have growled something rude at him in Russian so that he would scamper off and let him smoke in peace.

But this boy was so… something.

So…

So very…

Ilya didn’t know, but a part of him really wanted to find out.

Which meant that when Ilya slipped his cigarette between his lips and flicked the lighter again, finally setting the tip ablaze, and this Shane Hollander had the audacity to tell him, “I’m not sure you’re supposed to smoke here,” all Ilya could really do was smile.

Perhaps, in one of those other lives, Ilya would have only barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes and then uttered a sardonic Okay.

But in this life, the only one that he could ever remember living, something told him that Shane Hollander had a sense of humor hiding underneath the boring surface.

So, Ilya held out his mostly empty pack of cigarettes toward Hollander.

“You want one?”

Hollander’s eyes widened. “No! I mean, uh… no, thanks.”

“Good,” said Ilya. “Because I did not really want to give you one.”

There was a brief pause, during which he was certain that Hollander was trying to figure out if Ilya was, indeed, teasing him.

But then Hollander relaxed just the slightest bit and laughed.

Ilya allowed himself to laugh, too.

And that was how it happened this time around.

They met, they laughed, and everything else that followed was a consequence of all the inextinguishable love that came before.

Chapter End Notes

the end... kind of.

stay tuned for an extra epilogue chapter where i attempt to tie up all these dangling threads :)

Chapter 11: epilogue

Chapter Notes

i just wanted to say real quick that i am so happy that this weird little idea that popped into my head has been received so well. as i said, it's my first time actually posting fanfic on a public forum, so i was a little nervous. your comments have been so sweet and thoughtful and funny.

anyway, i will shut up for a few min and give you the rest of the story now...

Many years later.

Eastern Québec, Canada.

“Is that a gray hair I see?”

Shane lightly swatted away his best friend’s hand as she pretended to pluck a silvered strand—which definitely wasn’t real, by the way—off his head.

“Rose,” he warned her.

“Oh, please,” Rose laughed. “Your life is amazing, and it keeps getting better. How can you still be so afraid of aging?”

He snorted. “I’m not afraid of aging.”

“So, you’re just vain,” she quipped. Then, for good measure, she winked.

Shane searched for a comeback, but then a head of thick brown curls appeared in his peripheral vision and a slender arm curled around Rose’s waist.

“Is my wife harassing you again?” Svetlana sighed, eyes twinkling.

“She is,” Shane answered, nodding emphatically. “Please save me.”

Rose pretended to scoff in protest, but she was leaning into Svetlana as the taller girl pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Happy retirement, by the way,” Svetlana told him, lifting her glass of wine to bump it against his bottle of ginger ale with a soft clink. “It’s about time. I thought they might be performing government experiments on you at one point. Or that the Voyageurs were keeping you in a cryo chamber to preserve you between games.”

“No way the Voyageurs would force him through that,” Rose chimed in. “He’d willingly do it to himself.”

Shane rolled his eyes, but he was laughing.

It was true that Shane had taken his sweet time retiring from hockey. He was forty-four now, but he was positive he could have kept going for at least another season or two. It’s just that everyone was being so dramatic about it, as if Gordie Howe wasn’t fifty-two by the time he officially retired.

But Shane was ready to begin this new chapter of his life. Rose and Svetlana had been the ones to plan this retirement party for him at the cottage, and even though he didn’t love surprises, he was grateful. Last week, they’d officially hung his jersey in the rafters at Centre Bell, right alongside his husband’s, which had already been up there for a few years at that point.

Speaking of his husband…

“Have either of you seen my—?”

“Moy pomidor,” purred a voice in his ear.

He felt a large hand settling on the base of his spine, circling around his waist as soon as Shane turned around to meet the glittering gaze of Ilya Rozanov.

Ilya, his teammate, his husband, the father of his child…

Shane grinned, accepting the soft peck that Ilya planted on his lips. He was vaguely aware of Rose and Svetlana snickering and floating away to give them some space, and he tried to remember that their cottage was currently full to bursting with people, so he definitely couldn’t drag Ilya off to the bedroom right now, but…

“I see that look in your eyes,” Ilya murmured, waggling his eyebrows. “Save it for later, you little slut.”

“Ilya!” gasped Shane, leaning back only far enough to smack him on the shoulder. “Don’t say that! There are kids here.”

Indeed, there were about a dozen children running around on the lawn, and a half dozen more splashing in the shallows of the lake further beyond. The whole team and other players they considered friends, including their partners and children, had been invited. As Shane watched through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Troy and Harris looked to be refereeing a game of duck-duck-goose, and Bood and Cassie’s daughter had just tapped a gangly blonde five-year-old on the head.

The other kids cheered as the girl leaped up and, without much effort, caught up to the other girl and tagged her out.

“She’s faster than me,” Shane said with a laugh.

“Yes,” Ilya agreed. “Because she is as fast as me.”

Shane snorted. “Asshole.”

But it was true. Their daughter, little Irina, was a speed machine. A natural athlete, even if she didn’t actually share either of her fathers’ genetics. They’d adopted her about four years ago, not long after Ilya declared that he was ready to retire from professional hockey and wanted to be a sexy stay-at-home WAG daddy.

Ilya’s words, not Shane’s.

“At least she’s burning off all that sugar,” Ilya commented as their daughter continued to reign supreme over the game outside.

“Yeah, the sugar you gave her,” Shane muttered.

Ilya just chuckled, kissing him on the cheek.

Even now, after more than two decades of marriage, Shane was still coming to terms with how sweet, how tender, how playful his Ilya could be. When they’d first met, they were rivals, and Shane had known Ilya to be fickle and bitter and impatient.

But Shane had his flaws, too.

And, in the end, he was pretty sure that nothing could have prevented him from falling in love with Ilya Rozanov. Looking back, it had felt inevitable from the start. Like they’d been on a fast track toward this happily ever after since…

Well, since forever.

Things hadn’t always been easy, though. They’d been rivals to begin with, after all, and they’d been drafted onto opposing teams with one of the most famous rivalries in sports history. But then, in time, they became free agents. Shane signed again with the Voyageurs and Ilya went to Ottawa to be closer to him. An incredibly romantic sacrifice on Ilya’s part—one that still made Shane’s heart squeeze with unbearable affection.

And maybe they would have stayed like that until retirement. Would have lived a couple of hours away for the next twenty years, sneaking around to see each other whenever they could and calling it a life.

But they loved each other so much that it wasn’t long before they realized they couldn’t keep it a secret anymore.

So, Shane came out as gay to his team. He tested the waters. The majority of the team was supportive, and everyone else was more apathetic than outright unhappy.

Ilya’s team was also supportive of his sexuality. It helped that Ottawa had a weirdly high concentration of queer players already, Shane supposed.

Things got a little trickier, however, when they decided to do the big reveal.

They did their best to choose the right moment, and they started small. One evening, after the Voyageurs had just beat the Centaurs at home, Ilya and Shane gathered their respective teammates at Hayden Pike’s house. Hayden already knew, and he was happy to play host for this so that it could take a little bit of pressure off his friend’s shoulders. At that point, JJ also knew. And Troy and Bood, who played with Ilya, also knew.

And, by the end of the night, both teams had discovered the long-hidden truth.

They knew that Ilya and Shane were not only engaged to be married at that point, but that they had loved each other since they were eighteen. Even if, at that age, they didn’t know it was love that they were feeling.

Not everyone was thrilled by the news. The rivalry between Shane and Ilya was a big deal. A much bigger deal than Shane being gay or Ilya being bisexual. And there was a moment when Shane was terrified that he might have to leave his team, the team that he had given everything to, just to feel comfortable loving the man that was the true center of his universe.

But, in the end, nothing had to be quite that tragic.

Because, the next season, a forward on the Voyageurs unexpectedly ducked out of his contract to go play for his home team in Europe, and Montréal was suddenly desperate for depth at center.

And even though Ilya had come to enjoy playing for the Centaurs, the Voyageurs took advantage of the NHL's so-called "Greatest Love Story” and leaped at the chance to offer Ottawa a deal that they literally could not refuse.

It wasn’t even Shane that had pulled the strings, though he knew he’d proven himself enough that he did have a certain level of influence among the franchise’s executives.

It’s just that Montréal really wanted Ilya. There was one guy on the Board in particular was not willing to take no for an answer, almost like he still had something to prove from a past life.

So, for the next decade, Ilya and Shane played for the same team. They won five Cups during that reign, three of them back-to-back. It was the kind of thing that hockey fans would be talking about for as long as the sport continued to exist.

The names Rozanov and Hollander would go down in history, side by side.

But, now, Shane preferred to think about the future instead of the past.

A future where his best friend Rose had fallen in love with Ilya’s childhood friend Svetlana, and now had a cottage of their own on this same lake. A future where he was pretty sure that Ilya was going to convince him to adopt another kid, and Shane would pretend to hesitate, but inevitably give in anyway because parenting with Ilya had proven to be the most incredible experience he’d ever shared with him.

And in this beautiful future, they would get to watch their friends, former Centaurs and Voyageurs alike, grow old with the loves of their lives, too. They’d all get gray hairs, whether they liked it or not. They’d get wrinkles and sore backs and cranky attitudes about how the world keeps changing for better and for worse.

Their children would get older. They always do.

And someday, they would fall in love, too.

It was a nice future, Shane believed. One that he was looking forward to.

Eventually, the party wound down. Their friends slowly coaxed their kids away from the lawn and the lake, packing them into cars to head home in the fading evening light. Rose and Svetlana wandered off to their cottage just a little ways down the lane. Yuna and David claimed Irina for a sleepover that night, with the little girl hoisted up on her grandfather’s shoulders as they departed for their cottage on the other side of the lake.

And, soon enough, Shane and Ilya were alone again.

Shane puttered around in the kitchen for a while, cleaning up empty bottles and cans, then wiping down the counters. Rose had promised a full cleaning service would be arriving the next day to take care of it, but Shane was… Shane.

Eventually, however, he found himself wandering outside into the balmy night air. The crickets chirped pleasantly, his bare feet swishing through the grass as he made his way down to the lake.

Ilya was already there, perched on the large boulder that jutted out of the water like a throne made just for the two of them. Over the years, Shane used to find him out here at sunrise, sneaking a cigarette and watching the sky turn from gray to pink to blue. Eventually, he finally kicked the smoking addiction, but nothing would change the fact that Ilya liked to watch the night fade away. He was drawn to the light, happiest in the daytime, and Shane liked to think that it was because, despite the dark things that still clung to him after all this time, Ilya was sunshine incarnate.

And Shane had dark things in his past, too. Things that he had always felt, but could never quite explain. Things that, nonetheless, always felt less scary when he was with Ilya.

His husband turned when he heard Shane splashing through the water, a soft smile already curving his lips.

Shane hoisted himself up onto the rock and leaned his head on Ilya’s shoulder.

“What are you thinking about?” Shane murmured.

Ilya tilted his head back to stare up at the night sky. “The stars.”

A soft breath of laughter. “Poetic.”

Ilya nudged him with his shoulder. “I’m very poetic.”

Shane turned his head to press a kiss to Ilya’s jaw. Idly, the pad of his thumb stroked over his own palm, searching for the familiar metal band around his left ring finger. All these years, and he still couldn't believe that he belonged to this man. Or that this man belonged to him. 

For a little while, he watched the love of his life watch the stars, then tilted his own face up toward the twinkling pinpricks of light.

“You see that constellation right there?” Shane asked, pointing toward a particularly bright star in the east. It hovered low near the distant treetops, reflecting onto the surface of the lake with slightly more ferocity than the pair of stars on either side of it.

“Mm,” Ilya replied, seemingly too busy melting into the twist of Shane’s fingertips around the curls of the nape of his neck to form words.

“Those three stars are supposed to form the points of a crown,” Shane told him.

“Crown for who?”

“The Lady of the Lake.”

“The lady…?”

Shane laughed softly. “It’s an old story. My grandparents told it to me. They say these mountains are full of mystical energy, and that there’s a powerful being—a goddess or something, maybe—who lives in this lake.”

“Hm. Spooky.”

“Not really. According to the story, if she thinks you’re pure of heart, she’ll grant you a wish, but only if you truly need it.”

“Ah.” Ilya hummed quietly, closing his eyes when Shane sank his hand into his hair and tugged playfully. “I already have everything I could ever want. I don’t need a lake witch lady.”

Shane grinned, nuzzling into Ilya’s shoulder. “She’s not a witch. Just, like, a spirit.”

“A spirit?”

“Yeah, like a ghost.”

Ilya breathed out a laugh. “I don’t think I believe in ghosts.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“But I believe in you, my sweet lover.”

“Gross, Ilya.”

Another laugh. “Let’s go inside, moy lyubovnik.”

And so they went, tangled in each other’s arms as they stumbled out of the lake and across the grass to their cottage in the whispering woods. They had eyes only for each other, had never stopped craving the other like it was the first time, could never help the fact that the rest of the world tended to disappear whenever they got a little too lost in one another.

So, because of that, they didn’t notice the way that especially bright star shimmered and shined just a little bit brighter for them above the glittering lake.

Almost as if to say, Welcome home. I am so glad you found your way.

Chapter End Notes

roselana truthers rise up!!!

quick note: i knowww i knowwwwww i fuckin knowww wahh wahhh "the author didn't have them join the centaurs together" blah blah blah. LISTEN. i was born a habs fan and i will die a habs fan, so there is not a single cell in my body that is willing to make a montréal team the bad guy if ottawa gets to be the good guy. sorry bout that :)

also !! i have just begun drafting a new story! it's going to be A LOT goofier than this one and also with quite a bit of smut hehe so umm stay tuned for that if you want. otherwise, i will always want to drift more toward paranormal/horror themes in my writing, so there's a chance that more stories like this one (maybe shorter, also maybe scarier) might happen. yay !

ok anyway love ya thanks for reading !!!! bisou bisou 💋