Chapter Text
In the middle of playoffs, Luca realizes he’s more than fucked, because he never put two and two together: his final examinations for University are smack dab in the middle of the season.
When they’re traveling from Winnipeg to St. Louis, having made it to division championships, Luca decides he’ll start one his final paintings in the gate they’re going to wait at, continue it in his plane seat, and then let it dry perched on his lap. It’s inconvenient and ridiculous, but he doesn’t have a choice— he has back to back games for the next couple days, along with the flurry of travel and media time that the playoffs require, and the painting is due… well, tomorrow.
That is, until the TSA Agent, stone-faced, takes his paint.
“Wait,” Luca says.
The TSA Agent eyes the squeezy tube, and then him. “This is over the limit.”
Fuck. Fuck, of course. He keeps his paint religiously in his checked luggage, of course he does. Of course he does. Of course he—
Okay, it’s fine. He’ll find the nearest art shop and buy new ones. He has a gap of exactly three hours between landing and the game’s start, that’s plenty of time. He’ll skip the team bus and grab a taxi straight out of the airport, go to the store, buy it, and taxi to the arena—
“Haas,” Barrett says, behind him. It reads, let’s go.
Luca eyes his beautiful paint tubes all the way until they get ducked into the TSA’s little office at the corner of their private security line. Goodbye, paints. Goodbye, paints that are his favorite goddamn paints that he hauled all the way from Switzerland. Goodbye, his grade.
He must look outright upset when they’re at the gate, because Shane eyes him. “Were those important?”
“Yeah,” he replies, miserably.
Shane tips his head, lips pursed as he considers it. Luca, focus drawn at where he’s pulled up the instructions on his phone, makes a quick Google search.
The nearest specialty art shop is 15 minutes from the arena, but it closes at goddamn 3pm. The second nearest one is 20 minutes out, but it’ll be open when they land. He has watercolors in his checked bag, but the project requires gouache or oil or acrylic, and the ones just confiscated were his artist-grade quality ones, and his student-grade ones are back in Ottawa because he never uses them for final projects, and—
“Fuck,” Luca says. He sighs, clicks off his phone, and buries his head in his hands.
There’s a squeeze on his shoulder. Luca looks up, wincing as he adjusts from the dark cocoon of his hands to the harsh lighting of the airport, and squints.
Ilya nods towards the gate attendant. “It is time to board.”
As Luca gathers his stuff, LaPointe clasps an arm around his shoulders. “C’mon, Haasy,” he says. “You can find paint in St. Louis. It’s okay.”
Yeah, can he.
Luca nods. He sits his ass down onto his blessedly spacious seat, and tries to meditate enough to push the upcoming game to the forefront of focus.
By the time they’ve landed, about an hour later, Luca’s mostly forgotten about his confiscated paints.
He ends up on the team bus— he’s not stupid enough to actually potentially jeopardize anything game related— and then at the arena. As he pulls on his gear and he warms up, everything narrows to the ice and the ice alone.
There’s nothing else besides a sub 40 degree rink, the blaring jeer of a crowd, and the heavy, encompassing gear they wear. There’s nothing besides the ice, the blade that holds his weight, and the stick that’s an extension of his arm. There’s nothing besides him and getting a puck into a goalpost.
It ends up being a long game. A tough one, too. They’d gone into 2 rounds of 20 minutes overtime, the score stuck at 2-2, until Luca, with an assist from Shane, scored the winning goal. In a wave of noise, St. Louis fans had collectively groaned in the stands after the play, having lost to home-ice advantage.
Luca cheers along with everyone in the locker room, grinning as his teammates let’s goooo! around him. He gets bear-hugged multiple times; LaPointe, punching his mini speaker into the air, starts playing Swiss rap music.
Luca laughs at that. After showering and changing into sweats and a t-shirt, he pauses, sobering from the post-win thrill. Luca lets his head fall onto his locker door. His body is sore, tired in a pleasant way. The game was taxing; his lungs still burn with fatigue, legs still burn with fatigue, but the warm shower had helped lessen some of it.
The boys make plans for a more subdued post-game celebration, which is essentially an hour or two of talking over beers so as to not impact their playoff run.
Luca declines, apologetic about it, citing ‘quiet time to work’, which is code for ‘I need to figure out what the fuck to do.’
“Work on your final project at the bar,” Young offers.
Luca glares at him, shaking his head. At Hayes’ pointed look, he turns. “What?”
“You look like you’re having a crisis.”
Ilya snorts in the background. Shane slaps his shoulder.
Luca glares at him, and then Ilya. “I’m not.”
“You are,” Hayes says.
“You are,” Holmberg adds.
Luca opens his mouth to retort, and then stops. “It’s just this stupid thing, it’s a series of three quotidian moments on canvas, either gouache, acrylic, or oil paint, depending on your preference. My preference is gouache. I already finished two of them, I just need to do the third one. I have all three canvases in my stupid carry-on suitcase, it’s taking up all the damn room.” He sighs, uncapping his protein shake. “It’s technically due a week and a half from now, but I have to ship them to Switzerland in time, which means I have to ship them from here, like, tomorrow, because I can’t submit photos of my paintings since my professor insists that my work be displayed in the class exhibition, and now that my paints are gone, two of them are going to match in medium, and the third isn’t, which is not good. I’ll probably use my oil paints but paint thin enough that it can dry in a day or two, if I’m pushing it.” As he talks, the pent-up thought-processes come slipping out, fragmented in a stream. It helps to verbalize it, at least. “I’ll— what is the word for föhn— oh, blow dry— hotels have blow dryer, right? I mean, they always do…”
Barrett blinks. “I’m going to pretend like I know what you just said. And I’m going to nod supportively, so you feel supported.”
LaPointe clasps a hand on his back. “Why can’t you just use watercolor, or something. Those dry fast, right?”
“The instructions don’t say watercolor,” Luca grumbles.
“Email your professor,” Shane offers.
Luca shakes his head. “I don’t want special treatment.”
“You played into overtime twice!” It’s Dykstra, this time. “You made the Swiss people proud with your winning goal! I’m sure your teacher will be happy to give you accommodation.”
“I don’t want an accommodation,” Luca says, and it comes out a little petulant.
Hayes considers him. “I never realized you actually have to… work on that stuff,” he says. “The last time I turned something in was when I was in high school.”
“Okay, grandpa,” Holmberg replies, rolling his eyes.
“Shut up, Bergy.”
“Good luck, man,” Barrett says, to Luca.
“I’ll figure it out,” Luca replies, and then bangs his head on the locker door again. He closes his eyes. “It’s fine. I think.”
Hayes turns his attention to Shane and Ilya. “You guys coming?”
Shane, too, declines the group invitation, citing wanting an early night. Ilya, wagging his eyebrows suggestively, says, looks like I am not coming either, then.
Holmberg groans.
Coach Wiebe pops his head in, reminding them about press in 5.
Since they’re all in the same hotel, Luca, Shane, Ilya, and a couple other players who declined to go out with the team head back together. Luca ends up in the elevator with Shane and Ilya, which is a fact, if he weren’t preoccupied thinking about goddamn paints, he might’ve processed.
Their room is a couple of doors down from his (and Dykstra’s) room. As he sifts his key out of his pocket, he says, “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Ilya replies, with a wink. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“I wish,” Luca grumbles.
Shane smiles, knowingly.
Before he can think too much about it, Luca pulls on a black, muscle-hugging long-sleeve shirt and his black low-rise jeans, tucking a black belt with gold accented clasp. He switches his silver earrings for tiny gold hooped ones, wets his hand and combs it through his hair, fluffing it.
He lines a thin streak of kohl at his waterline, forgoes anything else, and then grabs his canvas, tucking a handful of his sketch pencils into his back pocket.
He looks at himself in the mirror. He looks good— he looks like Luca in Switzerland. Some of the anxiety his chest melts. No matter how long it’s been, old routines always make him feel marginally better. Like this, he can focus on his art. He’s dressed up, inconspicuous against a crowd of city-goers in the night, and, for the most part, blends into a stranger.
There’s a knock on his door. Luca opens it, blinking as he does. Shane and Ilya, whose expressions have shifted upon seeing his outfit, are also dressed up, though not nearly as much as he is. Shane is wearing a casual black button up, sleeves rolled up to the middle of his arms, Ilya in a loose long-sleeve and jacket.
“St. Louis,” Ilya says, eyes flickering appreciatively down his figure before coming up to his face, “Is known for jazz club.”
“Blues,” Shane corrects.
Ilya nods. “Yes, blues. The music. We are only here for three more days, and we have never actually explored here in our years of visiting for games, so we decided, why not. If you weren’t busy with your painting, we were going to ask if you wanted to join us.”
Shane eyes the canvas he’s holding, lips upturning. “Although, it seems like you already have plans…”
“I was going to hit a bar,” Luca admits. He clears his throat, then ushers them inside, closing the door behind them. “I was going to sit and sketch whatever I saw, and then come back and paint it. So. Yeah, I’d love to come.”
“Okay,” Ilya replies, lips stretching into a satisfied smile. “Good.”
They settle inside a Blues Club that’s walking distance from their hotel. Luca scouts out an empty row of banquette seating in the back corner. It faces the entirety of the bar and open area, allowing easy access for perspective sketching.
Shane settles on the elongated chair that’s on the other side of him. Ilya, pressing a kiss to his temple, leaves them like that for a couple minutes, going up to the bar.
Luca tugs the sketch pencils out of his back pocket, letting them spread onto the table. A couple of them roll onto Shane’s side. He quirks a lip, gathering them into a neat line before they can drop off onto his lap. A couple minutes later, Ilya joins them again. He hands Shane a ginger ale, Luca a beer, and then props his own bottle on the table, sitting down beside his husband. Luca nods his thanks, pencil propped in his mouth as he surveys the area.
This is how the better part of the hour goes— Shane and Ilya converse, the latter’s arm slung across the back of their chair, voices low, while Luca, dead to the world, focus drawn tight, draws.
The music is a pleasant drone in the background of Shane and Ilya’s voices, all of it muddling together into a warm haze. Sporadically, Luca remembers his beer, takes a swig, and then props it exactly in the same position it had been in the first place. After the first couple times, Shane and Ilya, attentive, had noticed and started putting their drinks in the exact spots they originally were, too.
“I should draw Haasy,” Ilya jokes at some point, nudging Shane with the hand that’s slung around him. It’s loud enough that Luca’s attention draws at his name. He startles, looking up at them. “So cute, sitting there so focused.”
Shane laughs. “Mhm.”
Luca looks back and forth between them, heat trickling up his face. “You can’t do that.”
“Do what?” Ilya asks, grinning, like he knows exactly what.
Luca huffs, waving back and forth between them. “You can’t— distract me like that! I’m on a deadline!”
“Okay,” Ilya replies, good-naturedly. “We will wait until after your deadline is over.”
He’s almost done when the exhaustion of the game, long and cutthroat, hits him head-on. His ability to focus is fizzling out, at the end-stretch of its viability, and he starts slumping incrementally backwards into the cushions, at some point more tucked than upright.
He sketches quickly, less-detailed than he normally would, and hopes that the image of what’s in front of him sticks in his head. With a final push, cleans up the final sketch. Erases the corner of a whiskey bottle, makes it more curved. Tweaks with the bartender’s arm, adjusts the mid-motion shaking of a cocktail shaker.
“Okay,” he announces, shaking out his hand. “I’m done.”
Shane smiles, curiously. “Can we see?”
Luca nods. He looks back and forth between them, and then coughs, a blush coloring his cheeks. As he turns it around, the two of them stop, expressions varying in their shift. Shane’s eyes soften almost immediately, roaming his gaze over the sketch, then up to Luca. Ilya’s eyes have widened, a little astonished, something fond crossing over his smile.
It’s the bar— the musicians in the background, the bartender shaking up a cocktail, the bulbs of light dripped from the roof. There are a sleuth of people, bustling along their lives, heads thrown back mid-laugh, conversation.
But it’s them too. Sitting side by side, conversing in their quiet way, expressions affectionate and at ease. Ilya’s arm, which has been slung across Shane’s shoulder the entire night, is hanging there in the canvas too, fingers roughly sketched as they graze Shane’s shoulder. Shane’s eyes are crinkled at the edges as he laughs, mid-moment, at something Ilya’s said.
The sketch is of them, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov.
It’s about freedom. The openness of their relationship. The joy of it, out in the air, too.
15 years have been captured— 15 years of distance, discreet love, and, finally, open triumph. Luca has somehow captured the grief of their secret, the relief of no longer hiding, captured the call of, this is my husband.
“Luca, this is…” Shane’s eyes are watery as he trails off, fingers coming to rest at his mouth.
Ilya looks at the canvas and then at him, back and forth, again and again. His throat bobs as he swallows with emotion. “It is beautiful.”
“You guys are courageous,” Luca replies, earnestly. “You mean a lot to a lot of people. Not just as two hockey players, but as two people who love each other. And as two hockey players who love each other, too, of course.”
Shane exhales, a little shaky. He looks away for a second; Ilya puts a hand on his thigh, but he, too, blinks, eyes moist.
“I’ll give it to you,” Luca jokes, cracking a smile. “If I can negotiate it back from my professor.”
Both of them laugh. Shane shakes his head, fondly, and then reaches out and squeezes his hand.
Ilya clears his throat. “Mission accomplished?”
“Accomplished,” Luca echoes.
They end up back in the hotel. Luca, holding the canvas in one hand, fumbles for his room key. Before he can stop at his door, Ilya holds up his and Shane’s key, wagging it through his pointer and middle finger. Luca, reading the gesture, blinks, a little surprised, but nods, more than willing.
Ilya unlocks their door, then closes it behind them. Before Luca can register the movement, he reaches out, one arm under Luca’s thigh, one arm under his armpit, and hauls him up into the air.
Luca shrieks in surprise, laughter bubbling up from his chest. “Hey!”
Shane plucks the canvas from Luca’s hands, ensuring it doesn’t drop from where Luca’s suspended into the air. Luca lets his arms grip around Ilya’s neck, still giggling as Ilya carries him into the other room.
He’s dropped unceremoniously onto the bed, his weight bouncing at the force. And then Ilya, grinning, climbs up onto the mattress, straddling him.
“Oh,” Luca says, pupils dilating.
“This is okay?” Ilya asks.
Luca nods. “Yeah,” he says, barely a whisper. His tone reads: this is more than okay.
Ilya kisses him, languidly, like that. One of his hands slips under Luca’s shirt, splaying against the expanse of his abdomen. His lips pepper a trail from Luca’s mouth to his jaw, then back up to his mouth. Luca reciprocates, tilting his head to accommodate for it.
Ily straightens a moment later, then moves up and off to the side, though he doesn’t cease the contact at his abdomen. “We cannot let Shane feel left out.”
“No,” Luca agrees, voice hoarse.
Luca props himself up onto his elbows, and blinks, a little dazed, as Shane reaches out and runs a thumb across his cheekbone. “Pretty, pretty boy,” he murmurs.
The thing is, he’s come to expect it from Ilya, who’s more outward with his flirting, more bold with it. It always makes him fluster, it always makes him blank out for a second, but Shane— the way Shane says it, god.
Luca’s lips part. His breath catches into a whine, so soft it’s barely there.
This time, it’s all encompassing. Ilya’s hand is still under his shirt, Shane’s mouth is all over his.
“Holy shit,” Luca says, when they break apart. He re-props himself up onto his elbows, pulls himself so that he can rest his back against the headboards, and then looks back and forth between them.
“You are always saying, holy shit. Or, this is the best day of my life,” Ilya muses, sitting back so that he can lean on his hands.
Luca glares at him. At Ilya’s faint laugh, he grabs a pillow and chucks at him. “You guys are the hottest men I’ve ever laid eyes on. Forgive me for having a reaction!”
Ilya raises an eyebrow, an expression slithering into something amused, piercing. “Hottest men, huh? Hollander, do you hear this?”
“I heard,” Shane replies, snaking closer to Luca. Ilya follows, his hand finding Luca’s thigh.
Hottest men, indeed, Luca thinks.
Later, when Shane and Ilya come out of their shower, Luca is sprawled on their bed, eyes closed, the lines of his face smoothed out. He had showered first— while he did, Ilya had stripped the sheets and replaced them with clean ones.
He’s wearing Shane’s sweatpants and Ilya’s t-shirt. He’d tried to leave right then and there, afterward— his room was three doors down, no biggie— but Ilya had huffed, reaching into a pile of clean clothes. Luca wasn’t an idiot enough not to take up that offer. He had half the mind to take a photo of himself and send it to his friends, but it’s morning in Switzerland, which means his phone would blow up with the horde of calls and texts he’d probably receive from their supportive freaking out.
Luca had meant to leave while they were showering, but he had wanted to say goodnight. In between the exhaustion of the day, waiting had turned into tipping sideways to lie down, which, combined with feeling warm and pleasantly hazy, had turned into drifting off.
Shane tilts his head, fondly. Ilya’s lips quirk.
“Luca,” Ilya whispers, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Luca, baby.”
“Hm?” Sleep hasn’t completely dragged him under yet, so Luca blinks awake readily, alertness trickling into his eyes. “Oh, shit,” he says, pushing himself upright. “Yeah, I should get going.”
“I just wanted the blanket,” Ilya teases, voice low. “You can go back to sleep.”
Luca eyes him, and then Shane.
Shane nods, too, expression sure, firm in his Shane way.
“Okay,” Luca agrees. “Okay, sure.”
That is how he drifts off— tucked half into the crook of Ilya’s shoulder, Ilya’s hand scratching gently at his hair, Shane tracing faint, repetitive circles on his back as he does his nightly 30 minutes of reading before bed.
“Shit,” Luca says, half-asleep, words quiet.
They startle. “What is wrong?” Ilya asks.
“My sketch,” Luca murmurs. “I was supposed to paint it.”