My Chaos

After a while of talking about how Anya acts the trainer says there’s nothing to worry about, Anya likes Shane just fine, it’s just that she sees him as the boss and is acting accordingly

And Ilya is like. But. I’m the one who adopted her? And raised her before Shane got here?? And the trainer is just like yeah well she sees you more like an equal. And Ilya is like WAIT she thinks Shane is in charge of both of us?? And the trainer is just like well do you interact in a way that would make her think that?

Ilya’s life flashes before his eyes as he thinks of all the times Shane has come over with a snack for Ilya and a treat for Anya, or all the times Shane has announced they’re all going for an after dinner walk, or pets Ilya’s hair and tells him he did a good job at practice, or the fact that he uses the same warning tone with Anya when she misbehaves as he does with Ilya when he’s causing problems on purpose

Goes.

And on the way she's thinking that Shane doesn't even have to know. She doesn't want him to know! Fuck, this is embarrassing for her and she knows how it'll look if anyone ever finds out but--isn't that kind of the point of being a mother? Being a little insane about your kids? And she promises herself that she'll just poke her head in and see if he's there and if he looks okay and then she'll GO and nobody has to know. And she's also thinking about the hours she spent driving in circles around their neighborhood when Shane was colicky just to get him to stay asleep for longer than a handful of minutes and she thinks about driving back and forth several times a week between Ottawa and Kingston when Shane was fifteen and had just been drafted to his OHL team and she thinks about all the vacations they didn't take and the way that she saw her whole life change form before her very eyes when Shane was eleven and a scout approached her and told her that her son was something special, something very special.

And this isn't any crazier than all of that right?

So she pulls into the parking garage and she takes the back way in, practically tiptoing already like Shane can hear her from all those floors up. And she gets in the elevator and scans the card to get up to Shane's floor and she tiptoes up to that door, too, and tries to make as little noise as possible on her way in.

The apartment is dark, almost airless, and Yuna for a moment wonders if Shane is even here, and if not where he would be at almost one o'clock in the morning. And then she's thinking Don't be foolish, Yuna, he's twenty-four and he lives in Montreal, he could be literally anywhere at one o'clock in the morning, and the voice sounds a bit like her own mother--

And then there is a sound from up the stairs and she realizes that it's music, playing realtively quietly, and she follows the sound of it up. It's coming from Shane's bedroom, of course, and she decides that this is more than enough proof that he is home and safe and alive, but then she hears a laugh and it--

Does not. Belong. To her son.

She's thrown for a whirl. Because what does that mean. There is a man in her son's bedroom who is not her son and what the fuck does that even mean--

Then Shane's voice does appear, just to say, "You're such an asshole," and the laugh comes back, louder this time.

And Yuna knows that she shouldn't. She knows that she's actively betraying her son's trust right now. She knows that she has absolutely no valid reason for moving towards the door when she now has proof that Shane is alive, well, and definitely has company of some...capacity that she doesn't know how to interpret at the moment (Though: Yes, she kind of does. There are only so many ways to interpret it).

But she's also not thinking very much at all, and her feet move sort of mechanically, and then she's peering through the slightly cracked door.

She'll realize, later on, that whatever cosmic accident or greater power formed this scenario did not do so with complete malevolence, because otherwise she could have certainly caught her son in a compromising position indeed. If she'd arrived even ten minutes earlier, she may have.

What she sees is already compromising enough. They are under the thin top sheet of one of the six identical bedding sets that Shane owns, and they are laying side-by-side propped against the pillows, not really cuddling by anyone's standards, but the thin sheet does nothing to hide that their legs are tangled together and the man (MAN) laying next to Shane has his hand in an extremely proprietary position on Shane's thigh. The music is coming from the phone in the man's hand, and they are watching it together, and Yuna--

Yuna is a fucking adult, and she knows what the words post-coital mean and what it looks like. And she is so violently embarrassed and her head is spinning with so many questions and so much regret that she almost doesn't realize who the man laying next to Shane IS.

Almost, because there is no power in the world that could prevent her from realizing that Ilya Rozanov is in her son's bed.

"You see?" Rozanov is saying, and it's absurd that Yuna's first thought is that he sounds different outside of press conferences and post-game interviews. Softer, younger. "This is called music video, Hollander. I know, I know, is very new thing for you, maybe scary-"

Shane snaps out a hand and slaps Rozanov in the shoulder, and Yuna--kind of winces, because that sounded actually pretty hard and she doesn't like the idea that she raised a kid who would treat someone they're in bed with that way--

But Rozanov grins, and Shane grins back, and then Rozanov is--rolling over and--

OH, oh God, she needs to leave.

And before she's out of earshot, she hears Shane say, "Why did this guy even want you in this music video?"

And Ilya fucking Rozanov says, "Well, probably they wanted big famous hockey player and they thought Shane Hollander, eh, too boring to ever be in music video--"

"Asshole," Shane says again.

"okay," shane says, after their plan has taken crude shape. the details will come later, after they put their phones down. "okay," he repeats, firmer. then soft again, "I'll see you soon."

ilya feels his strings get cut. he leans against a wall. "see you soon, shane."

svetlana is back in the living room when ilya returns. she whips around on the couch, phone in hand, says, "what the fuck did scott hunter do when I left the room? for five minutes?"

it's a rhetorical question. the tv broadcast has—for now—moved onto highlights of the actual game, but she has her social media open on her phone. ilya makes a vague, loose gesture with his shoulder. "kissed his pretty boyfriend on the ice."

she swears quietly, engrossed again in her feed. "unbelievable. it's your fault I missed it, ilya. your niece's gift is in your suitcase," she adds distractedly. it is. the whale plushie sitting atop the stack of kids' novels sitting atop his serviceably folded clothes. not as neat as hollander's always are. ilya runs his thumb over the edge of his phone case.

"svetlana."

"mm."

"I will not be going to russia."

she breaks from her phone. frowns at him. "what do you mean?"

"I have to be somewhere else."

"where?"

"ottawa."

blinking green eyes. svetlana knows him better than anyone on this planet. he sees her gears turning. there is nothing on the surface of his life that would take him to a place like ottawa, nothing even on the deeper layers svetlana has almost exclusive access to. but there are few things about him that she is completely unaware of. what he has refused to lay bare for her she's deduced the shape of anyway, purely from the nature of his refusals. he sees her eyes flick to the tv. an ad for beer is playing. that's not what she's thinking of.

"is it for a person."

she says more than asks it. either way ilya responds, "yes."

"jane."

"yes."

she lifts her chin, slowly. "montreal jane who is from ottawa." they look at each other, ilya doesn't speak. eventually she shakes her head. "shane hollander, ilya? really?"

rest stops on highways

trails by the highway just out of earshot of traffic

schools during breaks

those little beaches right next to ferry docks

your friends living room once everybody but you is asleep

the lighting section of home depot

A lot of these places are called liminal spaces - which means they are throughways from one space to the next. Places like rest stops, stairwells, trains, parking lots, waiting rooms, airports feel weird when you’re in them because their existence is not about themselves, but the things before and after them. They have no definitive place outside of their relationship to the spaces you are coming from and going to. Reality feels altered here because we’re not really supposed to be in them for a long time for think about them as their own entities, and when we do they seem odd and out of place.

The other spaces feel weird because our brains are hard-wired for context - we like things to belong to a certain place and time and when we experience those things outside of the context our brains have developed for them, our brains are like NOPE SHIT THIS ISN’T RIGHT GET OUT ABORT ABORT. Schools not in session, empty museums, being awake when other people are asleep - all these things and spaces feel weird because our brain is like “I already have a context for this space and this is not it so it must be dangerous.” Our rational understanding can sometimes override that immediate “danger” impulse but we’re still left with a feeling of wariness and unease. 

It started with someone listing "places with uncanny energy," like gas stations on a road trip, empty movie theaters, etc.

Then someone reblogged it and said those are called "liminal spaces," defining liminal as in-between, neither one thing nor another.

Tomorrow (July 4th, 2026) is the 10 year anniversary of the-crepes-of-wrath's comment, which:

Predates the 2020 spike in interest by four years

Predates the original backrooms post, and the the creation of r/liminalspaces by three years

Predates the earliest mention that KnowYourMeme attributes to Twitter by two years

I'm pretty sure this is the moment the term "liminal spaces" was attached to this sort of imagery, and it's TEN YEARS OLD TOMORROW!

So I like to imagine Ilya and Shane doing this whenever something moderately exciting happens.

Ilya finally gets a recipe right that he's been working on for a week? Shane's tasting it and slamming Ilya against the pantry.

They beat a difficult level in their video game? That's a cup-winning level celebration that results in the couch nearly getting broken.

Shane passes his level 1 Russian language test? Ilya's jumping on him and knocking them both to the floor in celebration.

Anya tosses her ball up and it accidently lands in the decorative bowl on the coffee table? That's a goal and they're (gently) throwing themselves on the floor to celebrate with a very confused but very excited Anya.

Unless.

You consider that the Metros know that Shane absolutely does know how to fight. They've all done checking clinics with Shane. They've all wrestled and roughhoused with Shane. He's strong and he's fast and he wants to win.

The Metros understand that Shane doesn't fight, not because he can't, but because he's a little too good at it. And Shane generally doesn't even like violence. He likes to win by playing the game, not hurting the other team.

So he gets a tutor. He meticulously researches her (she's from Moscow, so he'll learn from someone with Ilya's same accent). She's signed to more NDAs than he can count. She has 10 years of experience, she's certified to teach English and Russian, and she has 4.8 stars on MyTutor.

Shane pays her a frankly concerning amount of money to make house calls. Twice weekly, unless he's on the road, she arrives at his apartment to teach him foundational Russian. She gives him workbooks, Russia cartoon recommendation, podcasts for beginners, etc. He tells her he's learning because his boyfriend is Russian and she outlines a course that focuses on domestic language first (as opposed to travel or business). She even teaches him what she calls a 'culture course' with lessons on Russian music, food, and various traditions.

She's only a few years older than Shane and he actually finds himself looking forward to her visits. At this point, she's the only person other than his parents that knows he has a boyfriend.

About 4 months in, Shane finally feels comfortable enough to ask about what he'd been very excited about learning.

"You want me to teach you how to talk dirty to your boyfriend?" Ekaterina raised an eyebrow.

"Um," Shane blushed. Was this a little too far? Was this inappropriate to ask of a tutor? "Yes? If - If that's okay, I mean."

A slow smirk spread over her face. "This will be fun. Fun for me, now. Fun for you, later."

"I made a list," Shane admitted. He wasn't going to back out now, he put a lot of thought into his list. He turned to it in his Russian notebook and handed it to her.

She scanned over it indifferently. "You will use all this in one night?"

"Yeah, probably. Is it too much?"

"It is good you have a Russian man," Ekaterina said. "They have good stamina. Mostly, anyway."

And while it was a little embarrassing for Ekaterina to correct his pronunciation of please let me suck your cock, it helped that she seemed just as comfortable with that as there is tea on the stove.