Chapter Text
Jian Young, one of the Centaurs forwards, fucking loves his team.
He had been drafted to the Centaurs two years ago. His teammate Holmberg had been drafted that same year. They’d actually remained pretty distant from each other for a little bit, both focused on their own playing, both probably equally stressed about proving themselves. Young could count on one finger the amount of times they’d hung out— it wasn’t intentional; they were both on the stoic end, quieter in their methodical pursuit of hockey.
LaPointe had been drafted the year after. He was quite the opposite of them, and straight off the bat, started initiating plans. They started having movie nights, and started going out more often. In a way, Young was glad for it, and he was pretty sure Holmberg was too, though both of them made sure to keep their pockets of sacred alone time untouched, always available.
When Haas was drafted the next year, their group really solidified, and it was a good thing. Young considered the three of them really good friends, and he could tell that the three of them felt the same, probably. They stuck by each other— Haas was homesick a lot, though he tried his best not to show it, and the three of them always encouraged each other, propped each other up. Being a rookie was tough; being young on the team was tough. It was a battle to work hard, believe in yourself, and adjust to the sheer change that playing in the MHL was.
When they’re in the locker room, freshly showered, shoving on their post game array of team-logo’d sweatpants, t-shirts, or suits, depending on whether they have media that day or not, more often than not, Young finds himself catching a glance at Holmberg.
His nearly shoulder length brunet hair is dripping with water, wetting the collar and shoulder of his t-shirt. Holmberg curves to wring out the excess moisture with his towel, shaking vigorously. The outline of his muscles flex as he does.
Young looks away, back towards his own locker, and continues his own routine. He slides his socks on, shoves things into his duffel bag.
He and Holmberg live together, and they’re in the same building as LaPointe and Haas, who also live together, so the four of them leave the rink together, quiet after a long, grueling practice.
“Movie?” Holmberg asks as he drives them back, the sun setting around them.
There’s a ripple of agreement.
They end up at Young and Homberg’s apartment, sprawled over their couch. Young busies himself with making popcorn, and then makes his way towards them. There’s an open seat next to Holmberg— Haas is on the other end of the couch, LaPointe sprawled haphazardly on the loveseat adjacent to it.
Holmberg offers him a smile, and then lifts his arm, signaling the open space. Young settles down next to him, leaving enough room between them.
The movie drones on. At some point, Holmberg slings an arm around the back of the couch behind Young.
Hello Centaurs
LaPointe: [image attached of Young and Holmberg sleeping. Holmberg is slumped sideways on the edge of the couch, his arm slung around Young, who is pressed against him]
LaPointe: just thought i should put this out there
Haas: [image attached of a selfie of Haas and LaPointe, sticking their tongues out at Young and Holmberg sleeping in the background]
Hayes: Aw.
Dykstra: That’s sweet.
Rozanov: We should have team Finsta account.
LaPointe: where did you learn that word [crying emoji]
One night, Young carries two pints of ice cream— Mint Chip for him, Rocky Road for Holmberg— over to the couch, handing Holmberg’s over to the man.
“Thank you,” Holmberg murmurs, gratefully.
He’s watching the Admirals v Metros game. He lifts the blanket draped over his lap so that Young can settle next to him, then nods towards the TV. “I hope the Admirals beat their asses.”
“Yeah,” Young agrees, with equal fervor.
When the ad break comes, Holmberg clears his throat. “By the way. Monster Spectacular has a show in Ottawa a month from now. I got an ad for it. I checked the schedule, we have a home game the night before, so we’ll be in Ottawa.”
Young sits up. “Seriously?”
Holmberg nods. “We should go. If you want to.”
“Are you kidding? Of course.”
A smile flits across Holmberg’s face. “Awesome.”
His smile is so cute, Young thinks. And then: Fuck my life.
Haasy shows up to the club with eyeliner, glitter, glinting jewelry, and the skin at his hips peeking through. The three of them blink at him, and then chirp at him, because Haasy looks hot, and it’s their job to tease him about it, just a little bit. Haas cops a joint from a random guy. He flirts with the guy first, lets the guy shotgun weed into his mouth, and inhales it easily. Haas smiles easily, openly as he takes another drag, his eyes glazing over.
Young rolls his eyes exasperatedly at his antics. Haas is full of energy, has a sense of unapologeticness. His eyes shift around towards the rest of the team, and then they zero in on Rozanov and Hollander.
“Goddamn,” he says.
Holmberg’s next to him. “What?”
“Look at Roz and Hollzy,” Young says. Haas is still with the guy, and now they’re nearly pressed up against each other. The man has his mouth at Haas’ ear, saying something. He props a joint into Haas’ mouth, leaves a moment later with a laugh. “They’re looking at Haasy like they want to eat him.”
Holmberg looks. He barks a laugh. “Yeah.”
He and Holmberg also get absolutely plastered that night. The table they’re at has all of them scrambled, shoved tightly into the space. At some point, LaPointe scooches enough that there’s a single space made beside him.
Holmberg plops down on the seat. “Rude,” Young huffs, and then makes an oof sound when the man tugs him down onto his lap. He tucks his arm around Young’s waist, keeping him from sliding off.
They blink at each other, slowly, through their alcohol-induced brains.
LaPointe, next to them, has a shit-eating grin on his face.
“What?”
LaPointe’s grin grows wider. “Nothing.”
“You’re stupid,” Young says. “Tell him, Bergy.”
“You’re stupid,” Homberg says.
LaPointe flips them off.
It’s Hollander that he goes to.
Hollander is half-Japanese. He is one of the only people that looks like Young, a young half-Chinese kid from the suburbs of New Jersey, in their world of hockey. He had looked up to Hollander a lot, growing up. Shane Hollander did it. I can.
The man cares for all of them in a quiet way, less-showy. He’s a methodical person, which Young appreciates. He’s like him, in a way. Always thinking. “Shane?” He asks, and it comes out tense. He fidgets, eyes shifting back and forth between Shane and the wall, his chest welling up with something tight.
Shane’s eyebrows coax into something gentle, attentive. “What’s up? Are you okay?”
“I think— um.” And it’s the first time he’s ever said it, alluded to it, even put words to it. Fuck. “I think— I think I might… be— um. Into men, maybe. Bisexual.”
If Shane is surprised, he doesn’t show it. His eyebrows lift as he offers Young an encouraging smile. He seems to recognize the gravity of what Young’s telling him, seems to recognize that he’s the first to know, maybe.
Mortifyingly, a tear slips out, and then another. Shane’s expression softens. He wrings Young into a hug, rubs his hand across Young’s back.
“I’m proud of you,” Shane says.
“Why?” Young chokes out.
“It takes a lot of courage to tell someone.” They stay like that for a while. Young feels better, saying it. When they pull away, Shane quirks a lip. “You wanna tell me about him?”
Young’s mouth parts, just a little. “I really like him, I think. He’s my— friend. I don’t want to ruin anything.”
“Is he worth it to try?”
Young thinks about Holmberg. Thinks about how spending time with him is nearly the highlight of his days, thinks about the quiet nights in their apartment where they sit together, though silent. Thinks about how time drones on, without a care in the world. Thinks about how those are the calmest moments of his life— thinks about how that’s what ease feels like.
“Yeah,” Young says. “He is.”
They’re at LaPointe and Haas’ apartment today. Haas is sprawled across the floor, a canvas in front of him, paints, pencils scattered around the space. The rest of the three of them are sitting on the couch, watching Monty Python and The Holy Grail, throwing popcorn into their mouths as they do.
“Haasy,” LaPointe calls. He holds up a kernel. “Catch.”
Luca moves to catch the kernel in his mouth, grinning as he does. “Thanks,” he says, crunching on it.
Holmberg eyes the canvas, which is slowly turning into a lady. He’s about halfway there— her skin, hair are painted, and now he’s detailing her eyes, mouth, microexpressions, adding detail to each stand of hair.
He’s a really good artist. His portraits are amazing. Somehow, he manages to seep every last drop of human into his paintings, infusing them with warmth.
“That woman looks really familiar,” Holmberg says. “I can’t place it.”
Young squints at the painting. “It looks kinda like Rozanov.”
“Irina Rozanova,” Luca confirms. He glances at the outline of the woman, blinks down at her, something in his expression going soft.
“Rozanov’s mom?”
“Mhm.”
“Oh,” Holmberg says.
Young glances at Luca, who’s looking at Irina Rozanova with some sort of personal warmth in his eyes, some sort of fond respect. “Is this for Roz?”
“Yeah. Shane asked me to paint it.”
“That’s kind of you.”
Luca shrugs. “It’s nothing.”
Matteo Holmberg thinks he might absolutely fucked. Not only is he pining for his goddamn teammate, they live together, which means that it continues to grow with time, not fade.
They’re very similar. Their apartment is quiet for the most part. They barely talk, co-habitat in somewhat of a floating silence instead of conversation, chatter. Both of them prefer it that way— their social batteries are often dwindled after practice, after chirping and hanging out with the team for the better part of the day.
So. They just operate together without a word said. Cook dinner together. Sit on the couch together, Young doing sudokus, Holmberg reading a book. It’s perfect. It’s fucking perfect.
Except for the fact that Holmberg is fucking whipped about it.
With the similarity in their training diets, they cook meals together, and therefore end up eating together, too. Young is a big fan of classical music: he’s put Beethoven’s 7th Symphony on tonight, playing from the speakers he had gotten a couple months ago. Today, at the dinner table, like always, the only noise is the music floating into the room, the noise of forks scraping their bowls.
Holmberg looks up to find Young staring at him. Holmberg stares at him back. The moment drags on.
At some point, both of them go back to their food, neither of them saying anything about it.
When the reporter asks about Luca’s dad, and Luca doesn’t come back to the locker room, Holmberg, after a silent look between him, LaPointe, and Young, leaves to go check up on Luca.
It was a hard interview to watch. Luca had been upset for weeks leading up, getting more and more blank as time droned on, and to no avail. He’d declined their invites for a while, and LaPointe, a couple days ago, had stopped them after practice, told them he didn’t know what exactly to do, because Luca wouldn’t really even get out of his room outside practice.
So they did what they could. They offered their normalcy up— Luca would know that they were there for him, but they wouldn’t be overwhelming him. It seemed to help, a little bit.
Holmberg nearly opens the door, but he hears a familiar lilt of Russian accent float. He pauses, hand half-outstretched towards the handle, and strains his ears.
“I’m just tired,” Luca chokes out.
“Okay,” Rozanov says, his voice holding a warmth that he’s only ever heard him use with Hollander. “That’s okay.”
Luca’s crying picks up again for a moment. It cuts cleanly across Holmberg’s heart— it’s hard to hear, the sheer amount of grief coming out of his voice.
“I’ve got you,” Rozanov says. He repeats it, again and again, and then switches to murmured Russian.
There’s some rustling as Luca calms down. The bathroom quiets again.
“D’you know what could make me feel better?” Luca asks after a while, his voice lighter now, the familiar playful lilt in it trickling back in, though exhaustion carries into his voice.
There’s a grin in Rozanov’s voice. “What, Haasy?”
“A kiss.”
Holmberg nearly fucking makes a noise, right then and there, almost fucking gives himself away, when he hears the sound of two lips pressing against each other. Behind the door, Luca hums.
Holmberg turns and leaves.
And— and, Luca is his hotel-room roommate, and he doesn’t fucking show up that night. It’s gotta be a prank, this. There’s no fucking way. Luca would never do that. Rozanov would never fucking do that to Hollander. What the— fuck. What the fuck.
Luca does end up coming back later, and Holmberg notices the look on his face. And— right. His dad, today. So Holmberg says, genuinely, “I’m sorry about your dad, Haasy.”
Luca sends him a smile, worn. “Thank you.”
Exhausted from the day, Luca is out like a light the moment he hits his twin bed. Holmberg lies awake, a little nauseated. He doesn’t fucking know what to do.
He must be more than a little visibly shell-shocked. Young picks up on it the moment they make their way back to Ottawa, and then their apartment, narrows his eyes. “You good?”
“I think Roz is cheating on Hollander,” Holmberg blurts out, and oh, does it hurt to say. “With Luca.”
Young blinks. And blinks, and blinks. His mouth parts. “What?”
“I heard them kissing.”
“You what?”
“When I went to go check on Luca? Roz was in the bathroom already. And Luca— um. Fuck. Luca said he’d feel better if Roz gave him a kiss, and so he did.”
It’s Young’s turn to look a little shell-shocked. “Oh my god,” he says, but there’s something else in his voice.
“What?”
“Bergy,” he says faintly. “I think the three of them are fucking.”
“What?” Holmberg says. “I— Jesus. I mean, I fucking hope so.”
“It makes sense, now,” he says. “They were looking at him like they wanted to eat him. Maybe they are eating him.”
Holmberg blinks. “You think the three of them are fucking?”
“Yes.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
Young winces. “I don’t know. I think— we’re going out tonight. We should— um, watch them, maybe? And if— god forbid— it’s not like that, then we… we— fuck. We talk to Luca.”
“Okay,” Holmberg agrees.
Very luckily, and within the first hour of them going out, Holmberg and Young indeed figure out that the three of them are at, the very least, fucking. The three of them disappear, subtle enough that only they pick up on it because they’re spying on them like they’re in a goddamn spy movie, into a single occupancy bathroom. Luca had gone first, left the door unlocked; Hollander and Rozanov, a couple minutes later, had trickled in, locking the door behind them.
Looking like fucking idiots, Young and Holmberg are silent, still as they press their stupid fucking ears to the door, trying to listen in.
Big fucking mistake to listen in.
They pull back after nearly two seconds, share a look, and back the fuck away.
“They want to eat him,” Holmberg deadpans.
On the tail end of their social battery, they end up leaving sooner rather than later, bid goodbye to their teammates. When they get back to their apartment, the silence, stillness is a welcome thing.
Holmberg and Young freshen up, sit on the couch across from each other, their toes touching whenever one of them shifts. They’re sharing a weirdly long blanket, the two ends of it pooled, respectively, at their waists.
Young’s doing a crossword. They don’t talk, except for when he reads out the occasional clue to him.
“Wrigley product. Three letters.”
“Gum.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He does a couple rows. “Anise Aperitif. Four letters.”
“Ouzo.”
This continues for the entirety of the puzzle. When they’ve managed to figure the entire thing out, nearly an hour later, Young grins at him. “We did it.”
Holmberg finds himself smiling back, and thinks I’m so fucked. “We did.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“You can’t believe we did it?”
Young huffs a laugh. “No. I can’t believe Luca’s being dicked down by Roz and Hollzy.”
“Well, yeah. Me neither.”
A silence drifts between them. They blink at each other, and then both of them grin.
“I can definitely believe it, actually,” Young muses.
Holmberg snorts. “Yeah.”
Alexander LaPointe, or Alex (his family, friends) or Pointy (his team) for short, is not a fucking idiot. Not only that, he’s not blind. His favorite genre of books and movies are Hallmark, those fuckass cheesy romcoms that are stupidly cringe and yet funny as hell. He’s a sucker for a good romance story, and he’ll goddamn meddle if he has to for the greater good.
“If people on the team were secretly pining after each other,” LaPointe says, randomly, when they’re getting ready to leave for practice. “What would you do?”
Luca’s face goes alarmed for a second. He opens his mouth, then closes it. “Um.”
LaPointe eyes him dubiously. “You haven’t noticed?”
“Noticed?”
“Jeez, Haasy,” LaPointe grumbles. “Now you’re making me look like an idiot.”
Luca blinks at him, and then narrows his eyes. Some amount of relief cracks through his expression; he lets himself smile, dipping his voice into something scheming. “I think I know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay. Well, what would you do?”
“Nothing,” Luca says. “We should let them figure it out.”
LaPointe groans. “That’s so boring.”
“Yeah, but you never know.” His voice lowers into something thoughtful, and vaguely pensive. “They’re probably worried about the team, and about what it means. And that too, you never know where they’re at with all… that. Maybe they’re not out yet. It’s a pretty personal process.”
“Oh,” LaPointe says. “Yeah. You’re right, I didn’t think about that.”
Luca grins at him. “It’s fine. I think it’s more fun to watch them pine after each other.”
He’ll also bet the season on the fact that Luca is seeing someone. Or at the very least, he’s routinely sleeping with someone, because he starts leaving the apartment at night at least once a week. Twice a week, some weeks.
He doesn’t press. Haasy will tell him when he’s ready.
LaPointe can sense something is wrong before practice even starts. Holmberg is subdued. He’s got his headphones in, and when he shoots them a smile as a greeting, it comes up blank. He plays clinically, doesn’t waste his breath on chirps. A little concerned, Bood, Hollander approach him on the ice, but Holmberg shrugs it off, and goes back to drills. When Barrett, and later Rozanov, try, too, but Holmberg shrugs them off also.
After practice, Holmberg tells them to take his car and go back to their apartment building. He’ll come later, catch an Uber or something. He leaves, stick in hand, back towards the ice.
They don’t.
They end up back on the ice with him, though wearing their post-practice lounge wear, skates thrown on. The only person who has his stick is Holmberg, and he’s pushing puck after puck into the goalpost, angry.
Nobody talks.
After a couple minutes, Holmberg’s shoulders hunch. He seems to lose his fight, turns away from them, tensed.
LaPointe’s about to reach out, but Young is the one who does. He looks solemn on Holmberg’s behalf as he wraps his arms around him, pulling him in. Holmberg’s shoulders hitch.
Young swallows, and then turns to him and Luca. He clears his throat. “Would you two give us a moment?”
LaPointe is not a fucking idiot, and he loves a good slow-burn romance, but now is not the time to think about that. He nods.
“Of course,” Luca says.
When the two of them make their way towards the team gym to kill time, LaPointe asks, “Do you think he’ll be fine?”
Luca offers him a sympathetic smile. “Yeah. I think so.”
The 52 thing, LaPointe thinks, is an absolute fiasco. First off, he and Luca had been absolutely fucking going at it on the ice, checking each other, shoving each other, playing aggressive. Even the commentators picked up on it. When the final buzzer goes off, Luca looks like he just played the roughest game of his life. Which is, objectively speaking, not true, because they’ve had far worse games. Subjectively, maybe.
“Jesus Christ,” Troy mutters. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Haasy asks, shoving his helmet off with a wince.
LaPointe eyes him, and then glances towards the cheering Admirals, one particular cheering Admiral. “You were possessed. You were playing like a mad-man, dude.”
Luca huffs, running a hand into his sweaty hair. “He’s never going to let it go.”
“Who,” Holmberg asks. “Itten?”
“Yeah,” Luca says. “Fuckin’ bastard.”
Young’s skated over. He eyes Luca, though he looks more amused than anything. “Woah, Haasy,” he says. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“My mother is dead.”
Ilya has also skated over. He ruffles Luca’s hair as he barks out a laugh. “Nice work, rookie.”
“Thank you.”
LaPointe catches two things. One is the look Holmberg and Young exchange as they watch the exchange, and second is 52 waving over at them, Luca waving back at him.
In the locker room, Shane squeezes Luca’s shoulder. “Nearly a hat-trick, Haasy. Good job.”
Young coughs. Holmberg elbows him, shooting him glare. A moment later, he throws off his shirt and asks, “So. What did you say to him?”
“Huh?”
“He dropped his gloves.”
Luca shrugs. “Nothing important.”
Holmberg eyes him. “It looked important.”
“Random chirp,” Luca dismisses.
“And… he’s your friend?”
Luca makes a face. Young snickers, says, “So he’s your ex. No wonder he was hitting you into the boards so hard. Bet he wanted to hit something else, too.” His eyes flicker to Rozanov and Hollander as he says it.
Luca laughs, smirks. “Maybe.”
And now, freshly showered and looking less like he’ll keel over, Luca’s all dressed up, wearing a navy quarter-zip and slacks, hair combed back neatly.
“Wow, Haasy,” Ilya teases with a raised eyebrow. His voice harbors a weird tenseness, an edge to it. “Moving so fast? Going on a date, already?”
Holmberg and Young exchange another fucking glance.
Luca shakes his head. “No, not a date.”
“No?” Shane echoes, curious.
“No,” Luca confirms. He lingers a moment, his eyebrows a little expectant like he’s waiting for them to say something. Roz and Hollzy don’t, so he slips out with a broad wave to the team, his duffle bag slung across his shoulder.
When LaPointe was five years old, he wanted to be Spiderman for a living. Years later, it might be coming nearly true, because his spidey-senses fucking tingle.
After New York City, the four of them, having flown back to Ottawa that morning, pile onto Holmberg and Young’s couch for a quiet night. Young cooks up mac’n’cheese as the rest of them decide on what movie to watch.
Luca’s upset. It’s weird because Rozanov and Hollander had also been weirdly on edge today, though they did a better job at masking it. He goes outside on their balcony for a smoke break, closes the sliding door behind him.
“I don’t know how to help,” Young says.
LaPointe eyes Luca, who is taking a drag of his cigarette, and adds, “Yeah. What was in the air today? Roz and Hollzy were pissed today.” Holmberg and Young exchange a glance. LaPointe narrows his eyes. “Guys. What.”
“It’s not for us to say,” Holmberg says. “I mean— it was by accident that we found out.”
“Found out what?”
“Man, I really wish I could say,” Young replies. He winces. “I’m sorry, Pointy. I swear it’s because it’s not our place.”
And. Fair.
“I get it,” he says. Young still looks a little upset about it. LaPointe huffs a laugh, clasps a hand on his shoulder. “Seriously.”
Things blow over. Or resolve themselves. LaPointe doesn’t know which one exactly, but he’s glad for it. Luca is smiling more again, is gone from the apartment at least two nights a week again, and mentally, LaPointe starts calling whoever he’s seeing his fuckuationship, just for the fun of it.
A couple weeks later finds Luca heading out in the evening, slipping his wallet in his back pocket, grabbing his keys.
“Hot date?” LaPointe asks from behind his screen, wiggling an eyebrow. “Are you ever going to tell me about him?”
Luca laughs, throwing on his sweater. “I will, I promise.”
“But not today?” LaPointe teases.
“Not today,” Luca confirms.
They’re having another movie night, though the vibe is a little subdued after their particularly grueling practice. Tonight, Luca had picked Lord of the Rings, the first one, insisting they watch the trilogy together.
Holmberg and Young are sitting pressed together. When the Fellowship leaves Rivendell, the two of them are nearly asleep. Young’s head is crooked into Holmberg’s neck, Holmberg’s chin resting at the top of his head.
“I know I said we shouldn’t intervene,” Luca whispers, to him. “But this is killing me.”
“Yeah,” LaPointe agrees.
“They’re, like, a married couple that isn’t together yet. It’s like they’re dating. Except neither of them knows it.”
“Yeah,” LaPointe agrees, again.
Luca pulls out a pocket notebook and a pen out of his pocket, the one he keeps on him as religiously as his phone or wallet. He shakes his head as he huffs a gentle laugh, and then glances at them, putting his pen onto the paper. LaPointe snorts as Luca roughly sketches the two of them, tucked into each other, and then tilts it up to offer him a look.
“That’s good,” LaPointe replies.
Luca rips the paper out of his notebook, and then puts it on Bergy and Young’s coffee table.
LaPointe grins. He eyes Luca thoughtfully. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Your person,” he says.
Something mildly crosses into Luca’s expression. He seems to decide something, and then wiggles his eyebrow. “Do you want to know something crazy?”
“Yes,” LaPointe replies.
“It’s two people. A couple. They’re married.”
LaPointe’s jaw drops, despite himself. “Haasy, you lucky bastard,” he says. “Leave some for the rest of us.” Luca laughs, bright and airy. “Like, seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Is it— good? Safe? You’re treated well?”
Luca smiles. Warmth trickles into his eyes. “Very well,” he says. “It’s a little hard to explain. I don’t have a good way to put it. I’m not involved in their relationship as a boyfriend, or anything. We just— we’re seeing each other, I guess is how I’d describe it. Casually. Physically, obviously. But also in a way where we all care for each other. The way R— they put it, it’s something special. And we’ll treat it as such.”
“Oh,” LaPointe replies. “I mean, yeah. That makes sense.”
“Yeah.” Luca offers him a genuine smile. “It’s good, Pointy. It’s really good.”
LaPointe softens. “I’m glad.”
He doesn’t mean to peek.
At one of the dinner parties Rozanov and Hollander host a weekend later, LaPointe finds himself drifting into one of the hallways, going down the line of miscellaneous art, photos that are sprawled on the wall. He gets to the very edge of the hallway, and turns to go back, before a familiar voice floats out.
Hollander’s saying, amusedly, “We are hosting a party right now, Rozanov.”
“Oh,” Rozanov says. “I will be quick. Right, malysh?”
And— that’s fine. This is Rozanov and Hollander’s house. They can do whatever the fuck they want. LaPointe turns to leave, again, until—
There is a very, very familiar laugh that rings out.
Genuinely, he doesn’t mean to peek, but the door to Rozanov and Hollander’s goddamn bedroom is cracked open. LaPointe’s mouth parts.
Luca’s being bear-hugged by Rozanov from behind, so much so that his weight is nearly entirely supported by the man, his toes barely touching the ground. Luca’s laughing, the noise resembling something more of a giggle, as Rozanov starts peppering kisses on the side of his neck, then ears, nipping at the skin. “Hey,” he protests, a smile evident in his face.
Ilya grins. “Right, malysh?”
“Yes,” Luca replies.
And Hollander, who’s watching them. There’s nothing near shock, disgust in his expression. The sheer amount of adoration in his eyes is something they’ve only seen reserved for Rozanov— and.
And LaPointe blinks, steps back so slowly he won’t make any noise, turns around, and leaves.
It’s two people. A couple. They’re married.
Goddamn.
Bergy & Young
LaPointe: i found out. too many ppl here to talk so im texting
Bergy: [crying emoji]
Young: About damn time, man. I didn’t want you to feel like we weren’t telling you to make you feel left out.
LaPointe: no, i get it
LaPointe: wow
LaPointe: is it weird that im not surprised
Bergy: We said the same thing
Young: [crying emoji]
When the party winds down, LaPointe calls an Uber for the four (three) of them. When it comes, LaPointe gathers Young and Bergy (and, supposedly Haas), lets them know their ride is outside.
“You guys go,” Luca says. “I think I’ll stay and help clean up. I’ll catch an Uber back afterward.”
Rozanov comes up next to him, eyes crinkled, and wrings an arm around Luca’s shoulder. And if you didn’t know, it would come across as friendly and nothing else. “That is nice of you, Haasy.”
Shane’s looking at the two of them, and again, if they didn’t know, they would’ve thought that the fondness in his eyes was for Rozanov and Rozanov only.
But they know. It’s for Luca, too.
Shane shifts his gaze towards them, still warm. “Thank you for coming.”
And— and in the nature of them being his friends, in the nature of how good of a fucking game they could play with him, in the nature of how goddamn hilarious it would be if they insisted to also stay and help clean up, they exchange a glance between the three of them. Young’s lips pull in a sort of amusement, Holmberg’s eyes reading something like: really? LaPointe tries not to grin.
But they don’t. Offer to stay, to help clean up. They don’t chirp, tease. Allude to anything.
The look in Luca’s eyes.
And, beyond that. The look in their eyes.