Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Post-Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced miscarriage, Past Abuse

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-10-13 Updated: 2026-10-28 Words: 13,991 Chapters: 3/7

Clarity in the Fog

Summary

Five years married and settled, Shane and Ilya want for nothing. Except, perhaps, for the impossible.

Notes

My personal gauge for horror is very broken (I read a lot of horror novels), but I think this story registers low on the scary scale. That being said, there are very much ghosts and uneasiness throughout. If I get feedback that I've misjudged the chill level, I'll update the notes and warnings.

If you've read my D20 fic, you will recognize a certain OC and her favorite protege. No previous knowledge is required as they have been entirely repurposed here, but I wanted to acknowledge it in case it's jarring.

Chapter 1: Unprepared in Preparation

The story hit in the middle of June. Salacious headlines splattered across the internet and the fragile remains of print media: Scientists Summon Spooks!, The Afterlife Lives!, Elaborate Hoax Raises Questions About Peer-Reviewed Publications, and most accurately, but least shared, Research Group Presents Possibility of Memory in Physical Form.

Ilya and Shane were in the middle of a tense playoff series at the time. They were sprinting after their second shared Cup win and that took all their focus. Some of the team might have had the time to discuss it, but none of them were the kind to follow the news with any intensity let alone during playoffs. Then they did secure the win and the next two weeks were occupied with press, parades and healing from the dozen or so minor injuries they'd collected between them.

Suffice it to say, it wasn't until they arrived at the cottage, spent a full day naked and catching up on missed orgasms, that they had the wherewithal to see what the world had been up to in their mental absence.

"You think it's real?" Shane asked with a frown as he read over an article.

"Fuck no," Ilya snorted, "it is a delusion, a scam, or both. Do you want more eggs?"

The summer whipped by far too fast, especially once the camps got underway. They did them in Montreal and Ottawa now, both of them more putting in appearances than actively coaching through the entire week. It was exhausting and fantastic. Shane heard a few conversations about the supposed ghost thing, but it was lost in the buzz of everything else. The season picked back up and they were off to the races again, the year blurring by them, caught in a handful of moments.

In the run up to the playoffs, an innocuous sounding email was forwarded from the Irina Foundation's outreach lead. It had a nothing sounding title. Shane's outgoing email message that time of year was always a professional gloss laid over 'can't think, will get back to you in a month or two'. He and Ilya had a personal assistant these days, and he triaged anything that was actually urgent. The system worked.

They got knocked out right before the end which sucked, but they could both use some time to recover. It seemed like every year it took a little longer to bounce back no matter what they did. At least Shane's hands were unaffected, so he could finally dig into his deeply backlogged emails that their P.A. helpfully divided up into folders for him.

He reached the Irina Foundation folder an hour in. Most of it was informative instead of requiring a response. The email that snapped him out of his haze had the subject heading 'Inquiry about potential collaboration'. There was a preface from the outreach lead explaining that while they didn't think the it was necessarily a good fit, the email had been intended for Shane and Ilya directly so she didn't feel comfortable declining.

 

From: gbuckhammer@postvivumcomms.com

To: outreach@irinafoundation.org

Subject: Partnering Opportunity

Good afternoon,

Our facility would like to extend an offer to Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov on behalf of the Irina Foundation. At Postvivum Communications, we have recently started partnering with mental health nonprofits as part of our desire to make our services open to more people that could benefit from them, but cannot afford them on their own. Several studies have been done on the positive mental health effects of our work. We have already partnered with Oval Women's Health Clinic in Montreal and the Toronto Grief Support Network. Contacts can be provided for reference at both organizations.

We are aware that our facility still operates under the air of heavy skepticism. No study or reference is likely to change the minds of those that have decided we are in the business of delusion or worse. To that end, we would like to offer your founders the chance to experience it for themselves without charge. If they are interested in this offer, please let us know and we will provide some potential dates. If they're not, but would still like to see what we're capable of, then the Foundation is welcome to designate someone else in their place.

In any case, we appreciate your time.

With warm regards,

Dr. Nicholas Crane and Dr. Shruti Bajaj

 

For a moment, a single thoughtless second, Shane hovered over the delete button. It was ludicrous, obviously. As Ilya had said nearly a year ago, they would eventually be found out out be hoax. If Shane had followed that impulse, if he had never paused, their lives would have looked quite different.

Instead, a curious itch came over him. Shane's curiosity was rarely aroused for new topics, but once it was, it was incredibly difficult for him to ignore.He googled. Within a few minutes, it became clear that most of the information that was out there fell primarily into two categories: baseless speculation and the driest academic papers ever written. The former were easier to read and mostly useless, the latter had Shane giving up a little past the abstract.

There was no website for Postvivum Communications though someone had bought the domain name. It came up as a blank white page. Their social media handles existed, but had no postings, not so much as an icon.

The two people that had signed the email had a little more presence though none of it personal. Dr. Nicholas Crane had attained his doctorate in chemistry fifteen years ago and gone to work as a researcher for a company that concentrated on batteries. The company had gone bankrupt five years ago. Dr. Shruti Bajaj had gotten her degree twenty years ago in psychology and been in private practice until four years ago. Their names were listed as the sole authors on the academic papers tied to Postvivum Communications. None of the layperson speculative articles had been able to reach them for comment.

"Shane?" Ilya called out, "What do you want for dinner?"

That shook Shane out of the vortex he'd fallen into. Pushing himself out of the patio chair he'd settled in 'for a few minutes' hours ago, he headed back into the cottage. Ilya was standing at the kitchen island contemplating a head of cabbage with narrow eyed intent.

"Do you think this is going bad?" Ilya asked Shane absently as he came in, "We only bought it yesterday, but there is a soft spot."

"We can cut around it?" Shane floated.

"Maybe," Ilya said, then glanced up at him, "You have that face on. What?"

"We got a weird offer and I don't know what to make of it."

"What offer?"

The head of cabbage escaped Ilya's attention, getting loaded idly back into the fridge. Instead he drew out the bag of bright yellow bell peppers and an onion. Cooking for themselves was a cottage luxury and it had a highly variable success rate. Things tended to go better if they both worked on it, so Shane located a knife and got to dicing.

"Remember how people got all excited about talking to ghosts last year?"

"Yes," Ilya said, pulling out the ground beef now, so a plan must be forming, "is that still happening?"

"It is. They're claiming that it has psychological benefits for people dealing with grief. Apparently they've already started working with some other mental health charities to give people the experience for free."

"They are not happy ripping off rich people? They need to disappoint people that cannot afford it too?"

"I don't know. They said me and you could have a free session to see if it would be a good fit for the Foundation."

"Ah," Ilya said and he stopped moving.

It was at this point that Shane realized maybe he should have deleted the email entirely. Surely, dangling this in front of Ilya was cruelty. This kind of hoax was made to raise and crush the hopes of people around one of the hardest events of their lives.

"Obviously we'll say no," he rushed to say, "even if it wasn't a hoax, it doesn't seem liked something we'd want to tie the Foundation too. It'll drag down our credibility."

Ilya blinked and returned himself. "You want grilled onions?"

They ate dinner and Ilya seemed fine. He showed Shane a video that Harris had sent him of Troy attempting to train their new puppy to sit while Chiron patiently modeled excellent behavior over and over, looking more exasperated than even Troy by the end. They both laughed a little over it and that led to the usual meandering discussion of getting a second dog. Ilya was always on the pro side and Shane on the anti side, but neither of them with any real firmness. If Shane thought that it was something Ilya really wanted he would capitulate and if Ilya was sure Shane was firmly against it, he'd stop bringing it up. It's one of those things they could bat around like soccer ball for years.

They didn't talk about the email.

After dinner, they evaluated the sky and determine that the predicted rain will likely arrive soon, so they settled on the couch instead of outside. They put on a movie and half-watched it, both of them fucking around on their phones. Then they threw those aside to actually fuck, a messy 69 affair that leaves both their lips red and their eyes bright.

The bed greeted them, accepting their tired bodies. They curled around each other and everything was perfect. Shane fell asleep with his husband pressed against him and everything right with the world.

He woke in darkness. The bed beside him had gone cold. It was far from the first time and Shane knew the protocol by now. Shuffling into some clothes, he moved through the house without turning on the lights. The rain was coming down hard now, lashing against the windows.

Ilya stood at the glass looked out over the lake. During the day Ilya was a fidgeter, always on the move in some way. At night, especially these wee hour reveries, he could be statue still. For a moment, Shane went still too, watching him. The everydayness of being together meant Shane didn't always take stock of the man before him as much as he once had. It was nice sometimes to look at Ilya, strong and healthy and beautiful.

"You're staring," Ilya accused without looking away from the lake.

"Yeah," Shane agreed, coming to stand beside him. "Nightmare or couldn't sleep in the first place?"

"I slept," Ilya said wryly, "there was some thunder. It woke me."

With a nod, Shane nudged his shoulder against Ilya's. He was welcomed under his husband's arm and he slid an arm around Ilya's waist in return. The rain falling across the dark lawn was hypnotizing. Shane let it lull him until Ilya decided to talk.

"I cannot stop thinking about it."

"I figured," Shane said.

They were reflected in the glass, themselves, but diluted. Was that what it was like? Some low opacity version of the person you used to know, silent and staring back at you?

"I hate that I would like to say yes."

"Why?"

"Because," Ilya said thickly, "it is hope like sugar that hides a poison."

"We could ask what the process would look like," Shane offered, "we don't have to say if we'll do it one way or another."

"Would you think less of me?" Ilya asked, "If I walk into a trap that I know is a trap?"

"No, I get it. I'll be standing right next to you the whole time too. We'll both walk into it. Okay?"

"Okay," Ilya said and raised his other hand to wipe quickly over his eyes. "I love you."

"I love you too," Shane said, giving him a half-hug. "I would love you more horizontal right now though."

"Ah, if you insist," Ilya winked at the glass doppelganger of himself or maybe he meant it for Shane. Either way, it was a blurry parody of the usual gesture.

They got back into bed. Shane rubbed a hand in slow circles over Ilya's chest. He'd started doing it idly one night when he was anxious, touching his husband always a relief for him, and they'd discovered that it soothed Ilya immensely. One of those lovely moments of simpatico they had.

Tonight, it worked on Ilya, but Shane found he couldn't fall back asleep in turn. He thought of their watery reflections, smattered with droplets. Since Shane had learned the full shape of Ilya's grief, he had tried to imagine what it was like. The first death Shane had experienced was his maternal grandmother dying when he was fifteen. He'd loved her, but in an absent 'four visits a year' kind of way.

What would it be like to lose the one stable person in your life at twelve? Not only to lose them, but to know they made the conscious choice to leave you? The longer Shane had sat with it and the longer he and Ilya made a life together, the greater the impact seemed. Obviously, Ilya was a grown man with a great job, friends, in-laws that thought he was wonderful, and a loving husband. The suffering wasn't a terrible heavy burden anymore.

Instead, it had the weight of a few grams of gold hanging around his neck. Not exactly an albatross.

And yet.

Shane saw it in how Ilya bonded with Mom and Dad. He saw it with how Ilya found the sunrise outside sometimes, incorrectly dressed for the weather and mouthing half of a conversation to himself. It was there in his eyes when he watched Jackie picked up a crying Arthur and cuddled him close. It was there in the tension around his mouth when Shane shook out a few painkillers into his palm and dry swallowed them mindlessly. Sometimes, it just arrived all at once without warning, visible in Ilya's thumb running over his jaw again and again.

Maybe this would help. Or maybe it would make it so much worse.

With a tired sigh, Shane kissed Ilya's shoulder. Maybe he was the one who was being foolish. Maybe he should say 'no way, this is ridiculous' and Ilya would agree and the door would go unopened.

In the morning, he even considered saying it, but Ilya was in a boisterous mood and he kept making Shane laugh with his impression of the Centaur's GM. They went for a long run keeping an easy pace so they could still talk. They made breakfast together, then decided to take out the kayaks. The rain of last night had left the world fresh and green.

Could ghosts even be real on a day like today? It seemed impossible. Surely they were relegated to storms and late fall nights when the trees were skeletal.

With that conviction settled in him, Shane dashed off the reply email while Ilya was in the bathroom. Then he went back outside and got out the kayaks. They raced around the lake and splashed each other far more than any water safety instructor would approve of. The dock substituted for a bed, their bodies bared to the heat of the day as they made love. It would be hours until he saw the next email and they were wonderful ones.

Even once a date was set for an introductory meeting, Shane and Ilya's summer unfolded in the idyll lushness of their limited free time. They saw other people occasionally, but mostly they kept to themselves. It was nice to pretend they were the only two people in the world sometimes.

So it was very jarring to get dressed properly and drive into Ottawa. Shane was behind the wheel as he was most of the time now. Ilya's love of driving seemed tied to the cars he had sold years ago now. He prefered Shane's steadiness at the wheel. Even the backseat driving and chirps had faded away with time. Now Ilya only commented when someone else was being a jackass. Otherwise, he took his job of DJing very seriously, introducing Shane to whatever artist had caught his attention recently.

Normally, it was one of Shane's favorite things. He loved having Ilya beside him on drives that were once made alone. No matter how many years had gone by, the novelty of having his favorite person with him for all the tiny mundane parts of life filled a part of him he hadn't known was empty.

Today though, Ilya had put an old playlist, then turned to stare out the window. His right thumb ran over his jaw against and again while his left hand was laced through Shane's with a shade too much pressure.

When they pulled into the parking garage and there was nothing practical left for him to do, Shane made sure to keep Ilya's hand in his. What else could he do? There were no platitudes for something like this. They silently crossed the street to a bland office building. It wasn't the company's actual office, only a day's lend so they could meet with them at their convenience. Shane was glad this wasn't where they actually did things. The building was cold and corporate, the floor they got off on devoid of even a plastic plant.

At the end of the hall with '139' printed on it and a yellow post-it that someone had quickly written, "Please knock."

"We could still turn around," Shane floated to Ilya, who stared at the post-it like it had checked him to the boards unexpectedly. "We don't owe them anything."

Ilya gave him a tight smile and knocked.

The door opened.

Behind it was a trim middle-aged man with a comically big mustache and a bald head. He wore the kind of business casual Shane would expect from anyone on a Friday in the Centaurs' back offices. Behind him was a tiny waiting room with three chairs and niche for a receptionist that apparently didn't exist.

"Mr. Rozanov and Mr. Hollander? I'm Dr. Crane, please come in."

The look Ilya shot Shane said, 'Can you fucking believe this?' and Shane met his gaze with a 'Fuck it, at least it'll be easy to say no'.

They followed Dr. Crane down a narrow hall and into a small barren office. There was a desk with two chairs behind it and two chairs on the other side. In one of the chairs behind the desk sat a woman with long black hair, red cat's eye glasses and a serious expression on her face. She wore no makeup and no jewelry. If she was a con woman, she was an uncommonly bland one. Like Dr. Crane, her clothes were neat and business casual, utterly forgettable. She stood when they came in.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," she said, extending her hand. Her accent seemed British and Shane tried to remember if he'd seen anything about that in her short bio, "I'm Dr. Bajaj."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Shane."

"Ilya," his husband said coolly, "who was this office borrowed from? A foreclosure?"

Dr. Crane laughed while Dr. Bajaj gave a single-shoulder shrug. "It seemed more important that we came to you than to have a perfect space."

"Why not a video call?" Shane asked even as he took a seat.

Ilya sat down beside him, his attention all on the pair before them.

"I prefer immediacy," Dr. Bajaj said, "and our clients need to see that we're real people."

"You wouldn't believe some of the questions we get," Dr. Crane agreed, taking out a small pad and pen from his shirt pocket. "I'm sure you have many of your own. Do you want to ask us things or would you prefer we gave you a quick rundown first and then questions?"

Shane waited for Ilya to say something. This was after all, his meeting more than Shane's. Nothing. Ilya was still holding his silence, face still. Apparently it was Shane's turn to pretend to be normal. That was fine.

"Why don't you give us the rundown first," Shane decided. "We can ask after."

"Great," said Dr. Crane, "there's a lot of information about us out there that we haven't provided. Honestly, we didn't intend to go public with our services at all, espcially not last year. The leak was from a person in my family, I'm sad to admit."

"You couldn't control for it," Dr. Bajaj said crisply, "it happened, we have to accept it and move forward."

"Of course," Dr. Crane said with a small nod and a smile shot in her direction, "thank you. Because our plans weren't laid yet, we were forced to make some decisions rather quickly about the technology and how to utilize it. It's stable for client use. We can stay sustainable by charging a relatively small percentage of our clientele. The studies we've run have proven that it's helpful for people who have had a hard loss a few years in the past, so it seemed like a good idea to offer it those in most need."

"Impossible to determine what the 'most' need is, of course," Dr. Bajaj said, "so instead, we partner with mental health organizations and have them refer individuals to us. From a humanitarian standpoint, that was why we reached out to you. From a more mercenary one, there is only so long we can hold the dogs of public at bay and it would be helpful to have some prominent well-respected people to give us some positive testimonials. To be clear, those aren't required for you to use the system, we'd just like to be transparent about our hopes."

"You think we will be influencers for you?" Ilya asked wryly.

"Maybe," Dr. Crane said, more solemn than he'd been before, "like Dr. Bajaj said, it's only a hope. Not everyone has an experience they're comfortable sharing with their own loved ones, let alone the world."

"Why not?" Shane asked with a frown.

"That gets to the meat of things," Dr. Crane said, the pen ticking back and forth in his hand.

"If you move forward with us," Dr. Bajaj said, "We will find three days where we have availability and you're able to come to our facility. We're close to Montreal and we'd encourage you to get a hotel room. You want to drive back here every night."

"During those three days," Dr. Crane picked up where she left off seamlessly, "you will have a total six sessions to divide between you however you like. We have no control over who you will encounter, but generally each encounter is with someone different. Very rarely a deceased person will show up twice or even three times, there's no apparent pattern to it."

"But they show up. Dead people," Ilya said, emotionless.

"They do," Dr. Bajaj said with the same lack of intonation. "There is no requirement that you come all three days. If after the any of the sessions you decide we're liars or you're too disturbed by what you've encountered, then you leave without consequence. There is a contract for you to sign, but it will only be a restatement about our rules for the encounters and our requirement that nothing be filmed or photographed. We will ask you to leave your phones outside the chamber."

"Chamber sounds kind of ominous," Shane said.

"I prefer anteroom," Dr. Crane supplied, his mustache twitching as he smiled, "see, Shruti? It's a better vibe."

"We aren't deciding it by 'vibes'," Dr. Bajaj said shortly, "chamber was your word in the first place."

"What's an anteroom?" Shane asked.

"Small room that leads to another room," Dr. Crane said, "I like the sound of it and it's basically what it is. It's the small room that leads…well. Somewhere. We don't know where. Wherever isn't here."

"Excuse me?" Shane blinked.

"What he's trying to tiptoe around is the 'afterlife'," Dr. Bajaj said with a snort, "which neither of us believe in. Very difficult situation to be in when you're in the business of talking to those that are certainly dead."

"You do not believe in an afterlife?" Ilya asked, his voice rising on the end of it.

"Not even a little. If anything, all of this has made me more sure there isn't one," said Dr. Grant merrily.

"How?" Ilya demanded.

"It's very clear once you encounter these entities that they have not experienced anything beyond their death or, more accurately, nothing they can remember," Dr. Bajaj said with another one-shouldered shrug. "Many clients have asked their relatives about their lives after their deaths and they have nothing to offer. They do know that they're dead, but they recall nothing of their own demise and nothing after. Generally, they don't want to talk about it and change the subject."

"Like a regular uncomfortable person?" Shane could kind of imagine that. He bet if someone asked him how he'd died after it had happened, he wouldn't want to talk about it either.

"Exactly," Dr. Bajaj said, "Most of their memories cease roughly three to four hours before death. They're not ghosts in the sense of being trapped somewhere. They're not suffering or in a joyous ecstasy. Most report being in a neutral mood at first. 'Fine' is the most common answer."

"They have come back from the dead and they are 'fine'?" Ilya was shaking his head. "This is insane."

"From their position, they were living their lives and then there was nothing. Now they're back because they felt 'a pull towards something'. A near universal response. It's maddening for us too, I assure you," Dr. Crane said ruefully, "everyone wants answers from us. They want to change the world's religious shape and all we can say is 'everyone seems fine'."

"It's frustrating for the outside world, but very useful for our clients," Dr. Bajaj said briskly as if she could pull them past that point with sheer professionalism, "You don't have to concern yourself with where they were or are. You can certainly ask them, but I would recommend getting through that part speedily. While we provide a three hour window, most of the time the deceased person leaves of their own accord before that time elapses. "

"Prove it," Ilya challenged. "You have so many words with no evidence."

"The evidence will be there when you are," Dr. Crane said simply. "We know that's not compelling, but we've found that showing videos of other encounters is ineffective. People accuse us of faking it."

"And it feels wrong," Dr. Bajaj said for the first time a little softness creeping into her expression. "The dead are our clients too. The living can consent to this, but they can't. There's no legal precedent for them to sign a release form. We err on protecting their privacy over marketing."

"Who are you people?" Shane asked, unable to hold back any longer. "You're the project leads and you come out here yourselves to scout us for a free sample, but you've got nothing to show us except this place and your notepad?"

"We're not really anyone," Dr. Crane said simply.

"What does that mean?" he pressed.

"It means about five years ago the company I'd worked for as head researcher went bankrupt. On my way out, I took the hard drives with my work on it. Technically they were the property of the company, but the company was about to ceased to exist," Dr. Crane said with a rueful smile, "turns out, one of them wasn't my research. It was decades of a scanned academic journal I'd never even heard of that stopped printing in the early 90s. No idea how it got there. I was out of work and bored, so I started reading. Found this crazy article translated from Russian as it happens. Some guys over there were working on something else that sounded…I don't know. Bad. But instead of doing that, they claimed they started seeing ghosts."

"And you believed this?" Ilya asked, everything about him radiating displeasure.

"No, of course not. I thought they'd lost their minds. I kept thinking about it though. My wife said 'Why don't ask Shruti? She's the smartest person we know. She can tell you these guys were nuts and then you can move on'. So I called her."

"The content of the article was lucid," Dr. Bajaj said, "and the method was sound. Only their outcomes seemed unusual. I suggested it could have created a hallucinogenic effect."

"And I thought, well, hallucinogens can be fun!" Dr. Crane said with a hint of mischievousness.

"What?" Shane asked flatly.

"Some hallucinogenics may be useful in therapeutic environments," Dr. Bajaj said calmly, "I've never found the appeal on a personal level."

"I dropped acid in college. Good times. Anyway," Dr. Crane continued, "I asked what she thought about me giving it a go myself and she said, 'that would be ill-advised, especially alone'."

"Which led to me to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere in January without heat, setting up equipment I'd never seen before," Dr. Bajaj said exasperated. "But it worked. It worked and then we realized we were absolutely fucked."

The word came out so stiffly starched that Shane almost didn't clock it for a second. He met Dr. Bajaj's eyes and she regarded him calmly.

"Why fucked? You can print money now," said Ilya, still dripping with disdain.

"I didn't need money, Mr. Rozanov," Dr. Bajaj said. "I had a solid private practice and a comfortable life. Now I have an ethical headache the size of the moon, a thousand questions with no answers, and papers I have to write like I'm a doctoral student all over again. I went into private practice to avoid this outcome and it has fallen on me nonetheless."

Her tone sheered from crisp to downright irritable and right then, Shane knew things were decided. No amount of cheerful talk from Dr. Crane would have won Ilya over. Nor the tightly pressed and professional answers of Dr. Bajaj. That annoyed crack in her veneer though? Catnip.

Ilya leaned in a little, only a fraction, but Shane knew this man very well. "Tell us more."

Chapter 2: The First Visitation

"If you don't want me to do it, you should say it," Ilya said, not for the first time.

"For fuck's sake," Shane said, tossing the toothpaste down with exasperation, "stop making me your fucking excuse for your nerves. I told you that I'm backing your play here. It's your call."

"And that is not sufficient," Ilya said.

"Clearly!" Shane gritted out, "What do you want from me here? Do you want me to play bad cop? Fine. They could still be crackpots. Or maybe it's all true and it's worse than not doing it anyway. I don't know. I don't have any more information than you do about this."

All the lion roar's energy went out of Ilya all at once and he slumped beside Shane. The hotel bathroom light didn't do either of them any favors, but Shane always though Ilya looked beautiful anyway. Even when he was being an asshole. The mirror showed Shane the image he'd grown used to at night. Both of them shirtless and a little worn around the edges from the day. Usually Ilya had an arm looped around him or their hips pressed together. They rarely took turns in the bathroom, preferring instead to get in each other's way and to brush their teeth together even when they were bickering.

Hell, if they waited until they weren't bickering to do things together, they might as well get separate houses.

"I'm sorry," Ilya said. It came more easily to him these days. More easily than it even came to Shane. "I think I am too full of feeling right now."

"It's a lot," Shane confirmed.

They had left the door open to cancelling every day. Preseason would start next week. Originally, they had planned to go back to the cottage. When Dr. Crane had called and offered them the an opening that aligned, they'd both almost said no reflexively. But when would they have three days off in a row again with an extra day or two to recover?

They had talked it in circles around and around until they got in the car and drove to Montreal. They had picked the hotel the Raiders used to stay in, joking about turning the break into a prolonged bit of role play. Shane was fully prepared to be a drunk fan or a maid with bad timing, instead of going to an address they would only receive in the morning for 'security purposes'.

"You are thinking about getting kidnapped again," Ilya declared.

"Yeah, well," Shane sighed, "seems possible."

"Maybe there is still time to install trackers under our skin like a spy movie?" Ilya suggested, eyes bright now.

"Fuck off."

They didn't talk about it anymore. They fucked, they slept, they got up and ate breakfast. They got in the car and followed the directions away from the city. Neither of them mentioned turning around or doing something kinky instead. As they had probably been bound to as soon as Shane mentioned the email to Ilya, they were committed to their course for better or worse.

The facility was not in a sketchy warehouse district as Shane had imagined nor was it in another sanitized corporate building. Instead, it was behind a gate and tall stone wall in the far reaches of suburb he'd never had a reason to visit. A guard checked their IDs, buzzed them in and then they were creeping up a long driveway to a single story building that could have been a private medical facility for wealthy elderly people.

"That's because it was," Dr. Crane said when Shane offered his opinion as they stepped into a much nicer class of waiting room than the last one. "It needed a lot of seeing to, so it was relatively cheap."

"Don't get him going, he'll ask you five thousand questions," Ilya warned, but these days it was fond. Like he hoped someone would let Shane ask.

"I'd love to answer them someday, but it's a busy day. We have two antechambers operational right now and today we'll have them both going. Dr. Bajaj will be observing your sessions, but there will be no recording on either side."

"It said this in the contract," Ilya said.

"I'm glad you read it. Not everyone does. I'm going to turn you over to Evan. He's going to orient you, which might include some more repeating the contract, and take your phones off you, then you're good to go!"

They followed Dr. Crane through some freshly painted hallways into a pleasant little office. Behind the desk was a young serious looking man with a fuzz of dark hair, skin so pale that he could've been one of the 'deceased people', and a beaky nose.

"Ilya, Shane, this is Evan. Evan, please take care of our these two. Okay?"

"Yes, of course" Evan said. His voice was startlingly deep. "Come in and have a seat."

Evan dutifully recited all the various disclaimers again without much inflection, ticking things off a list in front of him. When he got three-quarters of the way down, he slowed and feeling leeched into his voice. For the first time, he looked up at them and made eye contact. He had very dark eyes.

"You've requested a joint session. You're aware that means the deceased persons could be attached to either one of you? That we have no control who comes?"

"Yes," Shane said. Ilya nodded.

"Dr. Crane said you're both bilingual, right?"

"Russian and French," Ilya offered. "Shane is learning a little Russian and I know a little French."

"That won't matter," Evan said.

"It won't?" Shane asked bemused.

"Yeah, so…" Evan took in a deep breath then expelled it slowly. "Welcome to the madhouse. This is the stuff we don't say up front because it makes us sound really nuts, but I promise it's true. No matter what language they speak, you're going to understand it because none of it is actually out loud. They talk right into your head. You don't notice at first because you're kind of hearing it while their lips are moving. My advice is not to think about it, it seems natural enough until you think about it too hard."

"They talk in your head," Ilya said flatly.

"Yeah," Evan said with a hint of apology. "Also even with the glass, you're going to be able to smell them. Not a dead person smell! No rot or anything. They'll smell like you remember them smelling even if you don't think you remember it. It's an in the head thing again."

"That sounds intense," Shane said for want of anything else.

"It can be nice," Evan said, then barrelled on, "Then there's age thing."

"What 'age thing'?" Ilya asked warily.

"Okay, so you're going to remember them at the age they died, but they don't necessarily show up like that. We don't know why. Best guess is they go to the age they really felt like or when they were happiest maybe? That's a guess though. None of them notice they're not the right age and when you ask they're just confused, so no answers there. We've had an 85 year old show up as a 12 year old. No one younger than that yet."

"But we'll recognize them?" Shane checked.

"You always know them," Evan said with the weight of the world. "That's the big stuff. The rest you know. No phones. No trying to break the glass. That's more for you than us. It's really thick and you'll hurt yourself trying. If somehow, you got through, the gas you'd let in would be toxic to you and the deceased person's stability will fade and they'll depart. Any questions?"

"Many," Ilya said, "but I think doing it will answer them faster than asking."

"It can," Evan agreed and got out a metal box, holding it out to them. "Phones, smartwatches, anything like that. If you try to hide a device on you, we'll end the sessions and ask you to leave after making sure the recording is deleted. We don't record anything either. What we don't have can't be stolen."

What else was there to do? They dropped everything into the box and watched Evan set it back down on his desk. Then he stood. "Let's go."

"That's it?" Shane asked. "I thought-"

"If you want, I can take your blood pressure and wave a wand around you," Evan said dryly, "it won't do anything, but some people like a ceremony."

"Do you tell them it's pretend?" Ilya asked, a hint of amusement leeching back into his voice.

"Yep," Evan said, "still makes some people calmer anyway. It's a whole thing. You want it? We can use some of the numbers for studies eventually. Probably."

"We're good," Shane said quickly, "we get enough of that at work."

"Right, you're basketball players or something?" Evan said as if nothing could be less interesting to him. "This way."

"Basketball?" Shane hissed at Ilya.

"You are too short for it, I think."

"I'm taller than you!"

"Mm, no, that is your Reeboks."

"This is a literal fact, you asshole," Shane growled.

It was an old familiar thing to play tug-of-war over and it got them to the very threshold. Dr. Bajaj stood by what seemed like a very ordinary door. She was once more dressed like it was another day in a corporate office. Evan fell in beside her and though he should have towered he had terrible posture to her ramrod straight spine which made them nearly level. For a brief, hysterical moment, Shane though they looked a little like a mad scientist and her henchman.

"Good morning," she said, sweeping her gaze over them. "We're ready to get started. Evan, please open the window.""

Evan reached out and slid open a panel to reveal a bizarre discrepancy in the institutional architecture: there was a window into the wall that wouldn't have been out of place on a very nice home. At this angle, the overhead lighting created too much glare for Shane to see through in. There was only Dr. Bajaj and Evan, stretched and warped in reflection.

"We will both be here through all six sessions," Dr. Bajaj said, "if at any point you need assistance or have a concern, you can wave at the window and one of us will enter to help you. Of course, you can leave at any time, but if you do leave the room then the connection is broken. We can't promise that who you're speaking with will return. The odds are very low, in fact. That can be a good thing sometimes. It puts the power into your hands to terminate the connection."

"Do people do that?" Shane asked. "Leave?"

"Sometimes," Dr. Bajaj said, "and we hope that you will too if an interaction becomes difficult. If one of you stays, the deceased person may still disappear, it depends on who they've connected with. All right?"

Ilya made a scoffing sound, "What about this is 'all right'?"

"Nothing," Evan said with a grimace, "but we're all here, so we've decided it's all right enough to get on with."

"Well put," Dr. Bajaj said, instead of continuing. She gave him a remarkably fond look. "Did you eat yet?"

"I'm good," Evan mumbled, a flush rising on his cheeks.

"I'm only asking-"

"I did," Evan cut her off, his eyes on the ground. "We're in front of clients!"

"Yes, of course, my apologies," she said.

The uncomfortably familiar moment made Shane want to leave more than any promise of what was on the other side of the door. Ilya tapped his hand the way he did when he found something very funny that he wanted to clue Shane in on, but couldn't in the moment. Being married was weird and wonderful sometimes. Shane had never had a secret code with someone before.

"You have to open the door yourself," Dr. Bajaj said, her focus returned to the them. "Otherwise we could pull a visitor by accident."

Wanting mostly to get out of there, Shane reached for the door. It was only when he had it partially open that he realized Ilya might've wanted to wait a second or do it himself. Too late. Shane moved forward and hoped it was the right move.

Shane didn't consider himself a person of much imagination. When he had tried to picture the space they were about to enter, he'd imagined all the trappings of an old-fashioned seance from a movie: a big round wood table, heavy brocade drapes, and maybe the smell of incense or something.

Instead, it was exactly as Dr. Crane had promised. A waiting room, if an oddly configured one. The only furniture was a table at the very center with two chairs at the center. The walls were a pale blue and there were several bland hotel-like paintings hung around the room. Both on their side and the other side. Because neatly bisecting the table was the glass. Extending from floor to ceiling was a thick sheet of glass. On the other side, the room continued in it's pale blue blandness, a single chair on the other side of the table.

"Huh," Shane said, "kind of underwhelming."

A high-pitched hissing noise cut through the muffled silence of the room.

"What the fuck?" Ilya asked, jumping back, hands flying up in front of his face.

"Sorry! We're piping in the gas. It's going to get murky over there," Evan warned from the other side of the door. "Have a seat, it goes fast."

This time Shane waited for Ilya to move, following his lead. Both of them sat down uneasily.

The other side of the room quickly went steamy like a bathroom after a shower. The door quietly closed behind them as the steam turned to a dense fog until only the table and chair were clearly visible. 

"Dramatic," Ilya said with a small laugh. 

"Didn't think the smoke and mirrors were literal," Shane added, pleased when Ilya winked at him. 

They were okay. One day soon, this would be a funny little story, an anecdote Ilya could tell at parties while Shane added in details.  The polish would remove the anxiety of the moment, their waffling back and forth, and the tightness around Dr. Bajaj's eyes.

Something moved in the fog. A spike of anxiety shot through Shane like a bullet. It was only a shadow. He was getting jumpy over a shadow. A few seconds went by and there was no jab from Ilya, no teasing remark. Ilya was watching it too, tracking as the shadow grew.

Then out of the fog came tendrils curling over the back of the chair. 

"Many mirrors and much smoke," Ilya said, but even the fake good humor had left him. 

"Holy shit," Shane said, the words coming out mangled. 

The chair pulled back soundlessly, the backrest disappearing into the fog. The enormous shadow loomed behind it. It came around slowly, jerkily, almost like it was detaching itself from the fog's hold. 

Then all at once, like a camera lens snapping into focus, the shadow became a man. He was large, taller than Shane and Ilya, and broader at the shoulder than them too which was saying something. The body said he worked hard and ate heartily, thick all the way through. Once he was seated, Shane's gaze landed on his face.  For a brief moment, he thought it was merely Ilya's reflection.

In another breath, Shane spotted the differences. This man's curls were bronze instead of Ilya's gold and his eyes were set closer together. His lips didn't have Ilya's charming Cupid's bow. But what they did do was pull into a wide welcoming smile exactly like his husband's.

"Ilyushka!" The boom of the man's voice was loud and effusive.

"Dedushka?" Ilya asked, leaning forward. His eyes had gone wide with wonder.

"Yes, my boy, of course. Ah, you did grow very tall! I knew Irinka's boys would grow be big men."

"I'm taller than Alexei now," Ilya said and there was a curl of childish satisfaction in that. Despite everything, Shane had to smother a smile.

"Poor Lyosha. He did want so badly to be the very biggest big brother. And who is this?"

Fuck. They hadn't actually talked about this. Why hadn't they talked about it? Shane glanced at Ilya, trying to tell him 'whatever you want is fine'.

"This is Shane," Ilya said and that felt right. Why get specific? "Shane, this is my grandfather, Ilya Barkov."

Grandfather! Shane had assumed uncle or maybe a cousin or worse, some sibling Ilya hadn't told him about. The man before them couldn't be a year older than forty. The age thing, Evan had said.

Ilya had a grandfather. Intellectually, Shane knew he had had two at some point, but they had never come up, so Shane assumed they were either dead before Ilya could meet them or just as awful as the majority of Ilya's family.

But Ilya wasn't tensed or flinching, he looked awestruck.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Shane said with real enthusiasm.

"That's good because you didn't have a choice about it. I had to see my grandson! He was still knee high last time he visited," the man that Shane was going to have to dub 'Grandfather Ilya' mentally to prevent confusion said.

"I was up to your waist at least," Ilya protested.

"You seemed smaller," Grandfather Ilya said, glancing at Shane with a look that he recognized. It was Ilya's mischievous sparkle. "This boy was always full of questions."

"Was he?" Shane asked.

The glee that filled him warred with the impossibility of the moment. Finally! Someone who could tell him childhood stories about Ilya, a treasure trove that he never thought he'd have access too.

"Oh yes," Grandfather Ilya laughed, "I worked as a machinist and when he was …mm, seven, I think, I took him to the workshop for an afternoon. There was this tough motherfucker, Petrov, who worked beside me. He never smiled, not for anyone. Almost never spoke, not even to me. My wife used to say I could get the trees talking."

"Ilya is like that too," Shane offered.

"Shane," Ilya said. Beneath the table his hand came to rest on Shane's knee.

"Do you not want me to…" Shane trailed off.

"No, it's good. Sorry. A lot of feeling," Ilya said softly.

"Mmm, we all had a lot of those," Grandfather Ilya rumbled.

"You were saying about Petrov?" Shane prompted.

"Ah! Yes, so I bring little Ilyushka with me and I tell him, 'Sit here, don't bother anyone, and I will get you something sweet after'. He had a sticker book to play with. I forget what was in it, but he was occupied with it."

"Superheros," Ilya supplied.

"Yes! Of course. Someone bought if for Lyosha, but he was too old for it," Grandfather Ilya said with a small head shake, "So I do my work and I forget that I have a little boy with me. Too used to being alone! When I remember and look up, no little Ilyushka! But I heard a laugh I didn't recognize. I look to my right and instead of silent Petrov, I see a giggling overgrown child. He had Ilyushka sitting on his worktable and was explaining how every piece of the machine fit together, giving them funny voices!"

"I remember that," Ilya said and squeezed Shane's knee, "I had forgotten him, but I can see his face now. He was very kind."

"Thanks to you," Grandfather Ilya said, leaning in himself in a perfect mimic of Ilya's body language, "I made a new friend with Petrov. He told me he had five children! Who would have known? He only smiled for them and now for me. Every week he would ask me how you were after that. How disappointed he was that I only saw you a few times a year. Except for that one summer."

Beside him, Ilya swallowed thickly. "That was a happy summer. But…"

"Ah, you want to know why?"

"I think I know," Ilya said, "but I would like to hear it from you."

Grandfather Ilya sighed and closed his eyes. His hand passed over his face, then came down to rub over his chest a few times. Already, Shane had to remind himself that the man didn't have a heartbeat or a breath. He seemed just as real and alive as anyone Shane had ever met.

"My daughter was so beautiful and smart. She was our youngest, me and my Lena. The other three were sturdy people. They were made for the world they were born into. Irina wasn't. Maybe it was our fault. Lena died when she was only fifteen, she still needed a mother's guidance."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Shane said automatically. Then had to sit with the idea of expressing apologies to a ghost for their dead wife. Should he offer them for the man's own death? So sorry you're dead, sir? Fuck.

"Thank you," Grandfather Ilya said, rubbing his chest again. "She was a very good woman. We loved each other like two shoes. I didn't know how to limp along without her. I think I ruined my poor girl, only saying yes and asking her to keep the house like her mother had. All the others were grown and I didn't have time for meals and laundry."

"I didn't know she did all that," Ilya said, low and uneasy.

"Oh yes, she took good care of me, but whenever she wasn't doing that, she was dreaming," Grandfather Ilya said fondly, "always telling me wild ideas that ran through her head. She had friends, but she loved being alone more. I thought- well. I imagined she would live with me a long time. There were no boyfriends. Then all at once, I come home and there is a man closer to my age than hers at my kitchen table. Military uniform and a bad handshake. I said yes because I always said yes to her. I should have said no. But then, no Lyosha and no little Ilyushka, so it's not a fair thing to ask an old man, is it?"

"I'm happy that Ilya is here too," Shane said after a beat of silence. "So that summer?"

The mask of cold anger sat on Grandfather Ilya's face in the same way it could come over Ilya's. "She was pregnant again. Another woman would've glowed. My Irinka looked so sick. I could see when I visited. I tell her, come stay with me and bring the boys. I will ask for some time off, I never take any. I wanted to look after my girl properly for once. Instead, he shows up with only the boys. I take them all summer and it's good, but then the end of the summer, I brought them back to her. She wasn't pregnant anymore and she looked so tired. I couldn't stay. I should have anyway."

Beside him, Ilya made a soft noise so pained that Shane grabbed for his hand on his knee, lacing their fingers together to remind him he was there. In a strong tide, Ilya could be whipped out to sea. It had taken Shane a long time to learn the way of tossing him a rope. He couldn't home to drag him back to shore, but he could make sure he didn't go too far out, ensure that they stayed in sight of each other.

"I didn't know," Ilya said, his voice surprisingly steady now, "I thought she was depressed again."

"Depressed," Grandfather Ilya took the word, rolling it around in his mouth, "I thought of it as an illness of the soul."

Ilya sighed, "Also accurate."

"You were what made her happiest in life. You and Lyosha," Grandfather Ilya said. "She loved you fiercely."

Shane had been practically glued to Ilya's side every day of the last five years. In that time, Shane had heard many compliments aimed at his husband that ranged from the insincere and shallow to the heartfelt and deeply personal. Some of them had come out of his own mouth.

None of them had been as kind as that single statement. This could very well be a hoax. A con. Maybe there was a reckoning to be had, an unseen price to pay. It didn't matter. There was no world where Shane made a different choice knowing that Ilya would get to hear those words.

"You believe that?" Ilya rasped, clinging to Shane hard now.

"I know it," Grandfather Ilya said. "Little Ilyushka, tell me. Did you become an animal doctor like you wanted?"

"What?" Shane asked, eyes going wide. "Oh my God, you liar."

"I did not lie!" Ilya protested.

"You said you always wanted to be a hockey player!"

"Always that I remembered!"

"You forgot that?" Grandfather Ilya's mood shifted as fast as Shane's Ilya apparently because he laughed in a deep rolling way. "You tried to rescue every loose animal in Razvilka that summer. I had to convince Mrs. Betrova not to take you over her knee when you tried to steal her cat."

"She was waving her broom at it," Ilya groused, "I thought she might hit him."

"He got scratches all over his arms from the cat too," Grandfather Ilya told Shane with a wink.

"He was an asshole," Ilya confirmed.

"Ilya is a professional hockey player," Shane offered in return, "one of the best. He's the captain of the Ottawa Centaurs."

"Where is Ottawa?" Grandfather Ilya asked with a small frown. "You left Russia? You could play in the KHL surely?"

"There was more money here," Ilya said, "and I like Canada."

"Ah," Grandfather Ilya studied Ilya intently for a long moment, "tell me about it then."

Sitting back and listening to Ilya tell his grandfather about his adopted country gave Shane a choking kind of joy. Ilya described the scenery, the friends he'd made, the team, and even the Russian market a half hour from their house that they still made the drive to regularly.

"And you are happy? In Canada with…" Grandfather Ilya trailed off, accessing Shane as if seeing him for the first time, "your friend?"

"Yes," Ilya said intently, "and mostly because of my friend."

Grandfather Ilya folded his arms over his chest, tipping the chair back on to two legs. It brought Shane's awareness back to the fog. It had encroached around the chair, clinging jealously to Grandfather Ilya's curls and shoulders as he swung in close to it. Bits of him started to fade back into fog, then re-emerge when he tilted forward. Motion sickness roiled through Shane watching it.

"That is a very good kind of friend to have," the sentence was spoken with great care. Each word coming out a little more slowly than the next. "Ilyushka, it is very good to see you happy and grown. Will I see Lyosha too?"

"I don't think so."

"Tell him when you see him that he should scrub under his nails. He always forgot and no woman will have him like that," Grandfather Ilya said, then knocked his fist against the table and started to rise. "You were always very tidy. I knew you would have an easier time finding someone."

"I don't know if I would call it easy," Ilya muttered.

Shane only barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. "Are you going?"

"Yes," Grandfather Ilya said, "you're busy young men and I'm very tired. Be good, Ilyushka."

"I will," Ilya said, getting to his feet. Shane did too in case he was missing some silent polite cue. "Goodbye, Dedushka."

Without further fanfare, Grandfather Ilya stepped into the fog. He turned to a shadow again, diminishing in shades of gray until there was only mist.

"Are you okay?" Shane asked.

"No," Ilya laughed a little wildly, "but I could have been much worse. It was him, Shane. You believe me that it was really him?"

"I do," Shane said.

The door opened behind them, Dr. Bajaj's voice reaching across the room.

"We recommend a break between sessions. If you'd like to walk around the grounds, it's still nice outside. We'll be ordering in lunch soon if you want to join us."

They said yes to both, Ilya silent as Shane ordered for them. Then they escaped the powder blue hallways for the richer promise of sky blue. There were a few white clouds moving swiftly overhead and a flock of swallows chasing after them. A sidewalk led around the building and through what must've once been manicured gardens in the building's previous life and now grew riotously in every direction. Someone had hacked back the worst of it from the path. Shane spotted dozens of bees, a few moths, and a single butterfly darting through the flowers.

Beside him, Ilya was still quiet. Shane left him to his silence, still holding his hand. The path terminated abruptly, the garden continuing beyond until it collided with the treeline. A wrought iron bench rested amid the chaos of tall grasses and Ilya sat down heavily on it. Standing in front of him, Shane kept watch over the greenery, listening as some small creature scurried by.

"He died when I was ten," Ilya said, "I don't know of what. Before that, Mama drove us to see him two or three times a year. Then there was that summer. He was very good to us. If you added it all up together, we only spent maybe three months together, but they were always good days."

"He loved you a lot," Shane said.

"Mm. I think so. I haven't thought of him in a very long time. Is that terrible?"

"You had a lot of death to deal with," Shane said.

"It was good. Remembering. Sometimes…. I don't know. You remember so much about your childhood and it feels like there's something wrong with me that I can't."

"You know what Eli says about that."

"Yes, Shane," Ilya scoffed, "I know."

Two years ago, Galina had moved her practice. It had been hard on Ilya to transition to someone new, but privately, Shane liked Eli better. He'd never met either of them, so it probably wasn't fair. Nor was it fair to think Ilya had made more progress with Eli. Galina had laid the foundations and Eli had gotten to take over when a lot of the hardest work had been done. Still, Shane appreciated that Ilya came home quiet and thoughtful most of the time from his sessions instead of tense and nervy. Most of the time, Ilya didn't tell Shane what went on in therapy, but he'd let things leak over the years.

Eli would want Ilya to say something positive after that, to turn the thought around. But Shane wasn't Eli.

"I'm glad we came here," Shane said instead.

"Me too," Ilya said after a beat. "If it means this much that you met my grandfather, I cannot imagine if she does come."

Pulled by the magnetic force that Shane no longer had to resist, he took a step forward so Ilya could rest his forehead against Shane's stomach and Shane could cup the back of Ilya's neck, connecting them.

"It was so cool to meet him. I knew you'd be a cute kid."

"The cutest, of course," Ilya said into Shane's t-shirt.

"Animal doctor though. Should've seen that coming."

"I was six!"

Lunch was served in the staff room. Neither doctor was present, but Evan was there, sharing a table with another young person with long black hair with chunky pink streaks dyed through it. They were arguing, but very quietly and eating off each others plates as they did so. It was unclear to Shane if they were flirting or actually annoyed by each other like good friends could be sometimes. Or maybe they were enemies forced together by proximity.

He didn't usually think about strangers this much. His mind, scattered and distracted, was latching onto things that made sense.

"We talked to a dead person," he said, halfway through his sandwich.

"Yes," Ilya said, "I was there."

"Holy shit," Shane whispered, "I got to talk to your very dead grandfather. That was- holy shit."

Under the table, Ilya capture Shane's left knee between both of his.

"This is good," Ilya said wryly, "I like when we take turns having mental breakdowns. Very tidy."

"I didn't know you were named after him," Shane said, grasping for any kind of mundane thing to ground him again.

"Mama wanted something else, but Papa was insistent on family names. Alexei is his father's name. I think he wanted me to have his grandfather's name and Mama wouldn't agree. She didn't argue with him much, but she wanted her father's name if it was a family one."

"It's a good name," Shane said, meeting Ilya's eyes so he would see he meant it, "it's my favorite name."

The smile he got for that was worth it. Shane hadn't said anyone else's name as much as he'd said Ilya's over the years. These days, it fit perfectly on his tongue, pronounced the same way Ilya himself said it when he introduced himself to people.

"He seemed okay about us," Ilya ventured, "right?"

"He did," Shane agreed, "I think. He's a lot like you. Hard to tell what he's really thinking. A little obnoxious about it too"

"Who knew? Bothering Shane Hollander is a genetic trait."

Shane didn't engage. He had a bigger thing to tackle. "Do you want to tell her if she comes? You don't have to. I get it."

"If?" Ilya stared at him as if Shane had suggested he wanted to set himself on fire. "It is all I want, Shane. I want her to know you more than- I dream about it still."

"Still?" Shane asked, all thought of food gone from him. His appetite fled. "I thought those stopped years ago."

"Mostly it stopped," Ilya tempered, "but yes, once a year or so. Sometimes. I have that dream."

"I wish you'd said. They always made you so sad, baby," Shane said, the endearment escaping without his full consent. It was generally reserved for home, their privacy still so closely guarded.

"It's nothing," Ilya sighed and dropped his sandwich, barely touched, back to the plate. "I can't even remember the last time."

"Tell me next time."

"Maybe there will not be a next time."

The hope in Ilya's face scared Shane shitless. Meeting Grandfather Ilya had been mostly delightful. If Irina Rozanova arrived in that mist, there were a thousand things that could go wrong.

The worries Shane had been cultivating on the way here had been about the con, the hoax, the way they'd be made to look like fools. A very different set of concerns were now presenting themselves in increasingly terrifying layers. What would happen to his husband if Irina was not the woman in his head? What would he do if she wasn't accepting of Ilya choosing a man? What if this meeting, impossible before, and now perhaps, close at hand, broke the man he loved clean in half?

Fuck. What if she didn't care that Ilya was with a man and just didn't like Shane specifically? He'd accidently escaped meeting the parents for fifteen years and now it was near at hand.

"If you're done eating, we're ready for you," Evan said, his low voice rumbling through the staff room. His lunch companion had disappeared. "But you can take a few more minutes if you want."

"No," Ilya declared, sweeping up both their plates, "we're ready."

Shane had never felt less ready. He got up and followed Ilya anyway.

Chapter 3: The Second Visitation

It had been absurd to think he was ready for it now. Like a fool, Shane had figured they had done this once and he had a general idea of how things would play out. The hissing of the gas didn't make him jump, the slow clouding of the room only unnerved him a little. When a shadow stirred in the mist, he knew what would come out of it. Or had some idea anyway.

There were no tendrils this time. Simply a man stepping out of the fog. Warring feelings of relief and disappointment fought it out with no clear winner. He dropped into the chair with a boneless sprawl.

For a brief moment, Shane wondered if this was Alexei. He'd never seen so much as a picture of him and he'd never pressed Ilya for a description. Why would he? But Alexei was very much alive. A few times a year, he spoke to the lawyer Ilya used to manage Katya's trust. The lawyer dutifully only told Ilya that they'd spoken and how much money had been withdrawn along with proof that it had been used only on Katya's needs. The last time had been two weeks ago.

So Alexei was alive and not this sprawl of limbs. The man appeared in his twenties. His hair was short, dark and spiky. His eyes were light, but sunk deep which kept them shadowed. The nose had definitely been broken at some point. He wore a hoodie and his hands were shoved into the pockets. It was only as he cocked his head slightly to one side that a hint of ink appeared, a single spindly leg that crept out to graze his neck.

"Spidey?" Shane blurted.

The neutral expression dissolved into a small smile. "Hollzy. Long time, no see, kid."

"You know him?" Ilya asked, whatever disappointment he might be feeling shoved back by his surprise.

"Yeah," Shane said, "sorry, when we were talking about possibilities, I kind of…I didn't consider it."

It would be really rude to say 'I forgot he was dead' in front of the man.

"You're Rozanov, right?" Spidey regarded Ilya with interest. "You wouldn't remember me, only squared off the once."

"George Baldwin," Shane supplied. "He was our goalie at World Juniors in '09."

"You were a bitch to play against, man," Spidey said, shaking his head, "I kept telling the boys that I was doing my best, but you were on fire."

"You were not very easy to get around," Ilya offered which was mostly the truth. From what Shane could remember now. "You knew Shane from Juniors?"

"I knew him since he was twelve," Spidey said with a grin, "We were almost always on the same team. Luck of the draw."

"He was good to me," Shane said.

The hazing in juniors had been intense. He and Ilya had compared stories over the years and neither of them had come up with favorable ideas of the others peers. If this had been Ilya's old teammate, Shane would have jumped to some ugly conclusions quickly himself.

"I had to look out for him," Spidey said firmly, "He was so fucking good already when he turned up and we were all older than him, you know? Some of those asswipes wanted a piece of him all the time. He could stand his ground, but he was only a little guy."

"I wasn't," Shane protested.

"Not for long," Spidey shrugged, "but you started out that way."

All at once, Shane could feel that body. The one that had been powerful, but prepubescent, not yet cracking five feet tall. He'd already been the kind of talented that made scouts circle you like sharks and got your name in local papers. The older boys had been less than thrilled. Spidey, a gangly fourteen year old when they'd met, had seemed to enjoy bearing his teeth at the worst of them.

"Guess I did," Shane allowed.

"We had some wild times," Spidey said, eyes alight. "You tell your guy about all that?"

"Some of it," Shane said.

"You could tell me more," Ilya said eagerly. "I always like little Shane stories."

Given the bounty of little Ilya stories Shane had gotten this morning, it was probably petty to complain about that, but Shane wanted to anyway. It wasn't like his parents weren't thrilled to tell Ilya every embarrassing thing that Shane had ever done before his balls dropped. It was hard to imagine what Spidey would have to say anyway.

"There was that party at Gelf's place,' Spidey said thoughtfully, eying Shane up. "I thought about that a lot. For years, actually."

The chill that swept over Shane made him hunch over a little, his stomach churning. Lunch was no longer so well setteled.

"What about it?" Shane asked coldly.

"I remember trying to get them to lay off," Spidey said. All glee had been ironed away. "Guess I didn't try hard enough. I regretted that a lot, kid. Just so you know. I'm sorry for that."

"Just how it was," Shane said. He could feel Ilya's gaze on him, but he couldn't meet it. "That was the one I told you about. With the ice water in January. They did it to a bunch of us, not just me."

"Fuck," Ilya said, "and you didn't help him?"

"I told them to knock it off," Spidey said wryly, "but those guys were huge and one of them the coach's kid. Don't act high and mighty Rozanov. None of us got out of those years with clean hands."

Ilya didn't have a come back for that. Frankly, neither did Shane. He'd never hazed anyone, but he had stood by and watched it happen. In the beginning out of sheer relief that it wasn't him, later because he felt tenuous enough in his status that he was terrified to risk it. It was only when he was made captain and he knew no one could topple him that he really stepped in. Even then, there was only so much he could do. When you pushed against it too hard, they just started doing it where you couldn't see.

"I remember afterwards the most," Spidey said. "Tried to give you a blanket, at least, but you just walked right by me like you didn't see me. Don't think I've ever felt that lousy in my whole life. I know you probably felt worse."

"I don't really remember," Shane stared down at his knees, "I mean I know what happened. I remember standing out there. I know I was okay by the morning. The details are gone though."

"Good," Spidey said heavily.

"Is that why you came to see me?"

"Sorry?"

Shane lifted his head, forcing himself to look at a face that he had nearly forgotten entirely. The last time he had seen Spidey was 2010. A bunch of the local guys who Shane had played with in juniors had come to one of his first home games in his rookie season. They'd taken a picture with him outside the arena and he'd gone out for drinks with them. The night had been pleasant, but Shane had already felt the detachment settling in. That era of his life had ended. He didn't even dream about it. It had sloughed off of him like a snake shedding a skin.

"Did you want to talk to me so you could apologize or something? Because it's fine, man. Maybe you weren't a hero, but you weren't the one that did it. Even if you were. Some of those guys only did it because someone did it to hem and we were kids," Shane said evenly. "It's fine."

"Oh. No, I…." Spidey hesitated. A faint pink flush rose on his cheeks. Ghosts could blush. How? They didn't have blood. Could you still feel shame from beyond the grave? That was terrible news. "I was thinking about later than that. Guess I wanted to apologize too, but…"

"But what?" Ilya asked. Shane knew that tone. That was his husband having scented blood in the water.

"When you guys were outed, I tried to write you," Spidey said, his eyes darting away, "but I had no idea how to actually reach you. I texted, but you'd changed your number which made sense. I know you probably hadn't thought of me in years, but I was in the hospital and I had all the time to think."

"Yeah," Shane said roughly, "I heard. I'm sorry that I didn't-"

"It's okay," Spidey cut him with a shake of the head. Ilya's knee pressed to his. "We hadn't talked in a long time. I just kept thinking about you and- fuck. You probably don't even remember. We'd been drinking a little and it was crazy late. That rooftop in Vancouver."

"Oh. That," Shane said.

"What?" Ilya asked.

"It was nothing. Sort of. Or not nothing," Shane amended. Nothing wouldn't bring the dead to visit, surely. "It didn't become anything."

"I almost kissed you," Spidey said softly. "Sorry, I know that's probably weird to say in front of your husband, but when else am I going to say it?"

"You did?" Shane asked strangled.

A memory, dusty and worn around the edges for examination, snapped into new focus. Before Ilya, it had been the thought that had squirmed past faceless women when Shane had been trying to jerk off.

"Yeah," Spidey said was if it were nothing, "You were the sexiest guy I knew by then. No more shortstuff. And you knew you were good, but you never bragged. Just like…you were. You knew we all knew, so you never said it and it was hot."

"I say this all the time," Ilya said, "very pretty."

"He didn't say pretty," Shane pointed out, even as he leaned a little towards Ilya. He felt unmoored and Ilya was always his anchor. "He said I was hot."

"I also say this," Ilya said. "You need me to die first? Make it more convincing?"

"Don't you fucking dare," he hissed at him.

The laugh startled them both. Spidey was watching them with something approaching hunger.

"So you were hot for Hollander," Ilya said, leaning back in his chair, the false relaxation of a snake waiting for a mouse to get close.

"I didn't think I had a chance in hell. I mean, I thought maybe sometimes he was looking at me, but I figured it was mostly because that's what I wanted to see," Spidey said with a shrug. "Anyway, it wasn't smart to try. I knew what happened to gay guys. When I got passed over for the draft it was a fucking relief, honestly."

A relief. Shane would never have fully recovered if he hadn't been drafted.

"You went to college, right?" Shane asked instead of saying anything like that. He did recall some kind of email chain to that effect.

"Yep," Spidey said, popping the 'p'. "Thought I'd do like sports medicine or something, but it wasn't for me. Wound up taking a bunch of random shit, graduated with something like an English degree. Taught high schoolers for a few years."

"They let you do that with the whole…" Shane gestured at his throat.

Spidey laughed again, shaking his head. "Wow, you really never changed, huh? Yeah, they let guys with neck tattoos teach, believe it or not. As long as I didn't start trying to mark up the kids."

"You have a neck tattoo?"

Everything about this experience had been surreal, but Shane wasn't sure what to make of the mundane weirdness of two phases of his life meeting. Ilya's nose was practically pressed to the glass as Spidey shed his hoodie. When he took it off and dropped it behind him, it vanished into the mist. Could he get it back? Did he need it?

The delicate tattoo of the spider (it came after the nickname) was as dark and spindly as Shane remembered it. It was a certain kind of spider, but Shane couldn't remember which. The memory had died before Spidey himself. What Shane remembered was him turning up with it and every adult in the vicinity losing their minds. Technically, he'd been an adult, freshly eighteen, but that didn't change their minds. It would ruin his life.

Instead, Spidey would live ten more years and become a fucking English teacher. Cancer ruined his life, not a spider that Ilya was currently regarding with intense interest as Spidey grinned up at him. Of course Ilya could charm the dead. Why not?

When Ilya sat back down, he was grinning, jealousy wiped away by the itch of curiosity being well scratched.

"You knew someone with a neck tattoo," the delight spilled out of his husband in every direction, "You knew someone with a neck tattoo that wanted to kiss you."

"Two facts were mostly unrelated," Spidey said with a head shake. "Though I probably got the neck tattoo because it felt good to like…externalize the bullshit of being gay in the most homophobic environment on the fucking earth, right?"

That wiped the smile off Ilya's face faster than Shane had ever managed. "Tattoo is better than what others have done, I think."

"But you guys did both. You got to be queer and play. It was so fucking cool," Spidey said. "My boyfriend, he wasn't a sports guy, but even he knew you by the end. He couldn't get over that I knew you, Holzy. Even when I told him we hadn't spoken in years."

"You had a boyfriend?" Shane asked.

"Yeah, I was out by then," Spidey cocked his head to the side. "You think I couldn't pull a hottie, Hollzy?"

There was a boyfriend. Out there, someone might be missing Spidey the way Shane might miss Ilya were their positions reversed. The horror of it was far more stark than mist and voices in his head.

"I know you could," Shane reminded him, "almost pulled me if I knew what was happening. Do you- can we tell him something? For you?"

The soft approving noise that Ilya usually only made during very particular sexual moments laced into Shane's ear and lit him up on the inside. Not the time nor the place.

"Oh, huh," Spidey frowned, "I guess that depends on how long it's been."

"Five years," Shane provided. "Why does that matter?"

"Man, I'm hot shit, but I truly hope he's found someone else after five years. He was only twenty-four, you know? Be weird if you turned up at his place and told him that his dead ex-boyfriend had a message from the beyond the grave while he's got a new guy."

"It's your call. I could email him, maybe?" Shane floated. What was the etiquette around contacting the living with the dead's missives?

Spidey's gaze rose upward, staring into the mist. Eventually he shook his head. "You know, I took a long time about dying. I think I told him everything. There's no secrets I need to reveal."

"What is his name?" Ilya asked. "We can at least maybe check on him. See if he needs things."

"Wow, yeah I guess you guys are rich as hell, right?" Spidey nodded once. "Yeah, okay. Theo Goddard. He lived in Ottawa, studying to be a pharmacist. Don't know if he…yeah."

"I'm sorry you didn't get more time with him," Shane said, then winced. "Or should I not say that?"

"No, it's cool. I'll take it," Spidey said, getting to his feet. "Don't worry about it, Hollzy. I was, then I wasn't, then I was again for a moment. With you. There are worse things."

Then he turned and before Shane could protest, he was gone.

"What the fuck," he whispered to himself.

Ilya's arm went around him and Shane collapsed against him.

"I'm sorry," Shane said, "that it took one of your chances."

"We have four more," Ilya said and kissed his temple. "I do not get to meet your crushes. I liked it. Very cute."

"He wasn't- I didn't-" Shane sputtered.

"I think a little, you did."

"I didn't know that's what it was."

"Mmm, that does not make it less true."

Outside the door, Evan and Dr. Bajaj were waiting as if they'd never moved.

"What now?" Ilya asked them.

"You got back to your hotel and process a little," Dr. Bajaj said. "If you're up for it, you come back tomorrow."

"That's it?" Shane checked.

"That's it," she said.

"Do some people not come back?" Ilya asked.

"Everyone comes back," Evan intoned. He didn't blink much, Shane realized. "It's hard to stay away from. It's why we started limiting sessions."

"That's a new thing?" Shane asked.

"New since we started getting regular outside clients," Dr. Bajaj said, her eyes cutting towards Evan than away. "I recommend having a good meal and an early bedtime. All of this takes more out of you than you would think."

They didn't talk on the way back to the hotel. Over dinner, they kept things to milder topics. It waited until they were in bed, Ilya's arm thrown over Shane's waist and his lips pressed to Shane's shoulder.

"It was a lot even when it wasn't the people we were thinking of," Shane said.

"Mmm," Ilya ran his nose over Shane's shoulder, settling in closer, "we barely moved and I am very tired."

"It was good though, right?"

"Yes, I think so."

Shane ran his fingers through Ilya's hair. "It was hard to think of what to ask in the moment though. Do you want to make a list, maybe?"

"Yes, I think so," Ilya said, "good idea. In the morning though."

"In the morning," Shane agreed.

Two down, four to go. Shane fell asleep curled around Ilya and dreamed of nothing.