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Luca Haas
Shane had never thought that a team could be so much like family—loving, kind, and actually paying attention to each other in a way that wasn’t just collecting chirping material for later. Sure, the Metros used to be his family in the way he thought they were supposed to be. They were each others’ groomsmen, they met each other’s wives and kids, and hung out after practices, but they didn’t actually talk about anything substantial. If you asked any of his own teammates about his drink of choice or anything about his diet, they would probably just shrug, saying, Shane? He’s too fucking lame to come out to the bars, so how the fuck would we know about what he drinks? Probably could do that immediately after they made fun of him for never drinking, so who’s to say how smart they actually were? All of those concussions and barely graduating from high school definitely didn’t help.
With the Centaurs, though, at every function there would be enough ginger ale and “bird food” (as Ilya loved to call it) to take home as leftovers for the next two days. So yeah, he loved his new team, but especially the rookies who were getting the support that he never did as a rookie himself. Granted, Luca was in his second season now and they were all the same age, or around there. Right now, though, Luca was the one worrying him.
He and Ilya had discussed how they were worried about his new-found pattern of constantly disappearing after home games instead of hanging out with the team or going out with the other rookies. Even during practice, sometimes he would stare off into the distance until someone called out his name, and even then sometimes would be unresponsive.
He knew Ilya worried too. They both recognized similar patterns of behavior from Ilya when he was going through the rougher patches of his depression.
“What if we have a child like me? Like Mama?” he had once said quietly in the dark privacy of their bedroom, and Shane had pulled him close.
“Then we learn to help them like we learned to help you,” he said simply, as if it was that simple. Even with years of therapy and the knowledge that it wasn’t his fault—wasn’t his mother’s fault—Ilya still struggled. He refused to pass on the genes that plagued him and his mother (his father was a whole other story they couldn’t touch quite yet) and so it had been quietly but mutually decided that if and when they were to have children, they would either adopt or use Shane’s genetics in the surrogacy.
“Unless I manage to get you pregnant first,” Ilya had joked, which was also something else Shane refused to touch.
Still, they were always vigilant with their rookies who were affectionately called “their quadruplets” in their team group chat.
Shane broached the subject first. “Do you think that we should talk to him about it?”
“Who? About what? This could mean many things,” Ilya snarked, but when Shane frowned at him, he sobered up. “Maybe. Maybe not. Could make things worse if we bring it up, make him feel like he needs to hide more.”
Shane could relate to that. While depression was never his particular struggle, the disordered eating that had been such a large part of his life was something he hated people bringing up, even when it was purely out of love and concern. “It could also make him feel like there are other people like him and that he’s not alone in this.”
Ilya’s mouth twisted. “Are we still talking about the depression, Hollander?”
That was a good point. They—mainly Ilya, because he had a seventh fucking sense for other gay hockey players, somehow (the sixth sense being hockey, of course)—thought that Luca was also probably amongst the gay or bisexual population of hockey players, although they wanted to let him have the chance they never got to come out on his own. “There have been studies connecting the depression that young gay people face with feelings of repression and lack of acceptance. He could be dealing with both?”
Ilya seemed to be weighing it over in his head. “This is also true. Do you want to talk to him? He has a very large crush on me. He may forget what I’m asking if I talk to him.”
“Fuck off.”
Shane does eventually talk to Luca. It takes a bit more time than Ilya may have taken, but sue him if he wants to rehearse the conversation. He was always worried about saying the wrong thing—which he did regardless half the time so there could be something to be said about the rehearsals being ineffective—so he practiced.
(Ilya made fun of him once he figured out that the whispers under his breath to himself were sentence options in this hypothetical conversation.)
A few days passed before he was able to catch Luca at the tail end of the group as they were trailing out of the hotel to go do their own things. It seemed as good a time as any, seeing as he was apart from the other rookies and it wouldn’t be terribly obvious.
“Hey Luca, do you have a second?”
His head jerked up, so in his own world that he was taken aback by his alternate captain’s words. “Um, yes. What’s up?”
“Uh, I just want to say that you don’t have to talk about anything that, you know, you don’t want to. But, if there’s something upsetting you, you know that Ilya and I—or really everyone on the team—is here for you, right?” Shane almost stumbled over several of the words, his practiced sentences getting mixed up in the moment.
“I mean, yes?” Now Luca started to look stressed out. “Why, have I not been playing well?”
“No! No, nothing like that. We just noticed that you seemed maybe a bit more distracted? Outside of the rink. On the ice you’re great, no doubt about that. But you haven’t been going out as much with Young and the others.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” A pink flush seemed to be crawling up his neck up to his cheeks as his eyes darted around the lobby. “No, I’m great. Honestly. I think I’ve just been a bit tired. With practice, you know. I think I’ll go take a nap, actually!”
And with that, Luca darted out of the lobby and up the stairs. Shane thought it was a bit counter-productive that he was tired and chose to go up that way instead of waiting for the elevator considering they were on the eighth floor, but far be it from him to understand the kid’s strange habits. Then he frowned at himself for thinking about Luca as the kid. He couldn’t believe that he was ten years older than the second year NHL player. Maybe he should go take a nap.
(Ilya laughed at him when he detailed the encounter with him and even harder at the last train of thought.)
Ilya knew that, despite all of Shane’s strengths at noticing things as a captain, he was not the best at going about these sorts of things subtlety. For all that he loved his husband and his hockey ability, going unnoticed was not in his skillset.
Fine, he sighed to himself. I suppose I’ll just have to do it myself.
And he did, although it wasn’t immediately. He understood the art of being subtle. He landed Shane, after all.
After the talk with Luca, though, opportunities to find out what was happening presented themselves less. He thought that Shane scared him off, even if his husband would never admit that.
Clarification arrived in the most ironic way possible—over text. Luca’s texts, of course, which were read over his shoulder on a plane to their next game when Ilya and Shane were sitting behind him and Young. Honestly, he hadn’t felt almost this blindsided since the time he missed clocking Scott Hunter to his face.
Because of course the reason that he had been withdrawing—no, more like escaping—out of the rink was to go to somewhere, not to get away. Because of course the person he was texting was a male name with a red heart next to his name.
This new generation and their lack of subtlety, Ilya thought to himself. To Shane, though, he murmured, “Думаю, с ним всё в порядке.” ("I think he's okay.")
“Luca? Did you see something?” he whispered back, but immediately after they both heard a sharp exhale—Luca’s signature laugh when he didn’t want others to know that he thought something was funny. (Which was usually when Ilya said something that everyone else found horrible and awful, but at least someone had his back in that terrible locker room.)
“Я тебе расскажу в отеле.” At least at the hotel they wouldn’t be overheard by the rookies directly in front of and next to them.
When he does tell Shane, he’s worried for Luca at first: worried about the potential fallout, his career, and what the media may say about them influencing the young and impressionable rookies. Of course, they would be the ones influencing their impressionable captain, evidenced by Ilya’s snickers when they were in room 667.
He doesn’t have enough time to be too worried once Ilya gets on top of him, though.
—
Will Holmberg
Holmberg and LaPointe were always together. Like. Always. In the one year that they had been together on the team, they had only been seen without each other longer than two hours maybe a handful of times, usually because one of them was sick (although it was never long before the other joined) or some petty argument. It was Bergy and Pointy, Pointy and Bergy.
But that was why it was so shocking when, for the third day in a row, LaPointe walked into the locker room without his shadow attached to his hip.
“What, marital problems?” Ilya chirped, and LaPointe scowled.
“Fuck literally all the way off, Rozy.”
Luca rolled his eyes. “It’s something with Bergy. Obviously. He’s going through some stuff but Pointy is taking it personally.”
“Et tu, Brute?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Literally you were the one that sent the message!”
“Guys. Please. The locker room doesn’t need to see any more bloodshed,” Hayes said.
Bood, who was lacing up his skatings, nodded vehemently. “I still haven’t recovered from last season.”
The locker room collectively shuddered. Rest in peace, Chompy.
“Haasy, don’t make fun of Pointy—he’s never been without his emotional support teammate for so long. These are dangerous times,” Dykstra said, pointing at Haas who looked down appropriately (even if it was to avoid laughing). “Pointy, I promise you will survive. There are worse things in the world.”
“Like your music taste,” Chouinard muttered and that got the players in the locker room chuckling.
“And this is what I get for trying to help,” he sighed. “My fucking bad.”
Ilya was tired. Not old, because he was not Scott Hunter, but he hadn’t quite realized how young the rookies were with their constant problems. Not that he minded, because at least he no longer had to deal with his situationship, but now that he was on the other side of it, it definitely looked a bit silly to outsiders. Like no, your girlfriend doesn’t hate you. Yes, you should apologize. No, do not get her flowers because she’s allergic, you idiot.
He was reminded of how tired he was when he noticed Holmberg clinging to his phone like a lifeline, constantly ducking out of the locker room and at the end of practices like he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Haas and LaPointe didn’t know what was wrong with him, and Young minded his business far too much. Made him terrible at gossiping and at finding out what was wrong with the other rookies. (They would all be rookies until they got married, despite their frequent complaints.)
Shane had a scheduled lunch with Rose, so they had come to the rink in two separate cars so that he would be able to go see her for the full two hours. Ilya liked to take his time in the locker room, dilly-dallying and making his captain-ly rounds before heading out. Even if some people weren’t as forthcoming at some times, it was good for team morale and bonding.
On his way out of the rink, though, he noticed Holmberg talking on the phone, leaning against the outside wall off to the side. He probably wouldn’t have even seen him if he hadn’t decided to park by the side entrance.
“Yes, please. No, you could never. Yes. Okay. I will.” His voice softened. “I know. I love you. I’ll see you soon.”
Ilya knew that Holmberg had a close friend back home in Vancouver who he visited whenever they played. She was in university and quite smart, but the worried tone that he had taken with her made Ilya think that this was probably what was causing him to be so withdrawn.
“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,” Ilya said, raising an eyebrow. He had practiced last summer and the entire team was subjected to the results. “Is this why we haven’t seen you at team outings for so long.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, first of all,” he scowled, “and second of all, it’s none of your business.”
“William.”
“Ilya.”
So this was a quite touchy topic. Usually pulling out their first names got them to spill, or at the very least shape up. “You care about her. Is she in trouble? Do you need to go home?”
He scoffed. “Are you benching me?”
Ilya sighed. Honestly, he was so combative sometimes. Good on the ice, not so good off of it. “You said ‘I’ll see you soon.’ I interpreted.” He frowned. “I am your captain, yes, but I am also a good listener. If you want a real adult to help, you can talk. I have good advice.”
Holmberg roughly scrubbed his face, exhaling sharply. “I– I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. It’s just…it’s not even really my thing to talk about. She’s just going through things, and I don’t want to make it worse, but I don’t know if there’s any way that I can help her.”
Ah. This Ilya could help with. “Well,” he started carefully, “just because the situation may be about her doesn’t mean that you cannot have feelings about it. Helplessness is not a fun place to be. You can talk to people in, how do you say it, pretend situations?”
“Hypotheticals?”
“да, yes. That. In this case, in that case, what would you do?”
“I guess.” He kicked at the small rocks on the concrete. “I dunno. Hypothetically, if a friend had like, anxiety and depression and was at a really hard school that made it worse, what could I do about it? I can’t really help with the medication, because she takes that, and I’m too fucking dumb to help with her physics and shit, so literally what else would there be?”
“You can just be there and she can talk to you. Send her snacks, book a massage. Call her while she’s studying.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I should’ve thought about that.”
“And that is why you talk to friends. No one can know or do everything,” Ilya said, completely honest without any sarcasm to bubble-wrap his words. For once. “It is difficult for adults, too. It gets easier, yes, but with experience. You’re still young. This is part of the experience.”
“Wow, when did you get so wise?” Holmberg exhaled. “Okay. I’ll send her snacks. Maybe I can call her more, or be more available for her. I can send her my schedule so she knows when I’m free. She’s been wanting me to fix up my online calendar for a while.”
“да, yes. Good steps.” Ilya paused, trying to see if it would be received well. “You can also talk to someone. Not just for you, but sometimes it helps to get more ideas from therapist.”
He froze, then nodded. “You’re probably right. I’ll look into it. She’s been telling me that, too.”
“She sounds very smart. Women are like that, да? Should always listen to them.”
His face brightened. “She’s the smartest person I know. She’s going to school for math and economics. Actually so fucking cool of her.”
Ilya smiled. It was good to see the rookies have a support system outside of hockey. “Remind her of this every now and then. And please tell Pointy to stop being so pissy. Locker room gets so cold every time he walks in.”
—
Marc LaPointe
Ilya and Shane were having a lovely off day. There was no practice, Ilya had convinced Shane to skip his morning workout (in a way), and now he was making chocolate chip pancakes leisurely while Ilya nipped at his shoulder.
“Do you want these pancakes to burn?” Shane muttered.
“Hmm, maybe. I can think of something else to eat.”
He huffed. “I made these from scratch. Nothing will be happening until we eat these.”
“We?”
“I added protein powder. And these are semisweet chocolate chips.”
Ilya frowned, his hands slipping up Shane’s shirt. “Boo. Tomato tomato.”
“Who even taught you that? Was it Luca? He’s been heckling a lot more recently.”
“I know,” Ilya preened. “He is becoming more and more like his fun papa.”
“You know that Luca isn’t actually our child, right?” Shane poured the batter for another pancake. “He has his own parents who actually raised him.”
He gasped. “And now my husband is disowning his own child. What will the other children think?”
“The other—” He put down the batter bowl. “Ilya.”
“Shane.”
“Eat your pancakes.”
“Fine,” he groaned, drawing out the last sound. “Just know that you have made me a single papa. To four children.”
Shane leaned against the counter, a soft smile on his face. “It would be three at most. Young is quite responsible.”
“Unless he is around the other rookies.”
“Unless he’s around the other rookies,” Shane agreed. “Now sit at the table and eat.”
His phone started buzzing on the counter, and Ilya picked it up so he could flip the pancake. “What do you want, Bergy? It is our one day to make love and you are ruining it.”
Shane groaned. “Ilya. Be nice. Also put it on speaker.”
He ignored his husband (about being nice) and clicked the speakerphone button. “…and he has a 38.5℃ fever which isn’t the worst but like, it’s not great. At all. And I can’t tell what he wants. Like, he’s forgotten all of his English, and I just do not speak French like that.”
“And you didn’t call Luca, why? Haasy speaks French,” Ilya pointed out, but still was already making his way to their medicine cabinet to grab fever reducers and painkillers.
“Yes, but he’s spending his day off with his boyfriend. Friend who is a boy that he likes. Whatever.” Bergy’s tone was growing increasingly panicked. “The only other person I can think of who speaks fluent French is Shane.”
“Yes, yes, my Shane is perfect and the rest of the world must share his talent,” he grumbled half-heartedly. “We will be there in 30 minutes.”
“Do you need our address?”
“I already have it. 30 minutes. And keep making him drink water,” Ilya instructed and immediately hung up. “Our children need us, солнышко. This almost makes me understand Pike and his fifteen kids.”
“Hayden does not have—”
“30 minutes, no time to argue!”
“We come bearing gifts for our children!” Ilya said, dropping the tote of medicine and food by the door. “Where is the poor child?”
Holmberg hovered awkwardly. It was only the second time that Ilya and Shane had been over, and the first time had been in a team setting with everyone else there, so it was less awkward. He also just felt very useless in the face of LaPointe getting so sick and having nothing on hand, both in terms of medicine and medical knowledge. “He’s in his room. Second door on the left.”
Shane picked up the bag and made his way over there. “I’ll get the medicine in his system.”
“Bergy,” Ilya said as Shane opened the door. “You are going to rip the carpet with your stress. Sit down and breathe.”
“I think it’s to wear a hole in the carpet, Cap,” he muttered, but did so regardless. “Sorry, I just freak out whenever anyone gets sick. It’s just really stressful.”
“Stressful, yes, but you have team to help you now,” Ilya said in a way that he found helped Anya relax. How different were rookies and her, really? “Shane is very good at these sorts of things. Where is your kettle to make tea?”
“Kettle?”
“Oh my god.”
Shane, the second he entered the door, he heard a faint, “C’est juste ma tête, il n’y a rien d’autre (It’s just my head, there’s nothing else)."
“Et il n’y a pas quelque chose avec ton corps, tes jambes, rien (And there’s nothing else with your body, your legs, anything)?" Shane asked, switching to French like it was his second language. Which it was.
“Je ne crois pas? Mais mes yeux et la lumière, c’est trop vive (I don’t think so? But my eyes and the light, it’s really bright)," he groaned.
“Oh, ça c’est facile, c’est déjà changé (Oh, that’s easy, it’s already changed),” he said, quickly lowering the lights. He definitely had a migraine with the light sensitivity. “Mais tu dois prendre ces cachets. C’est Tylenol, pour la fièvre et la douleur. Mais tu dois t’asseoir (But you do have to take these. It’s Tylenol, for the fever and pain. But you do have to sit up).”
“Ugh, je peux pas.” Despite saying this, though, he forced himself to sit up. Immediately after doing so his body shook with dry, heaving coughs. Shane forced himself not to take a step back and cover his face. It would not make the poor kid feel any better about his sickly state.
“Here. Tylenol.” He downed it as quickly as he could, and then he handed LaPointe a little cup of syrup. “And this is for the cough. Especially since it’s dry.”
“Merci. Désolé.” He seemed on the verge of tears. “C’est affreux. Je déteste ça.”
“Je sais, je sais.” The poor kid looked awful too. “Mais maintenant, tu pourrais juste dormir, n’est-ce pas?”
“J’espère,” he muttered, but slumped back down to slip under his comforter again. “Merci encore. Je t’en dois une.”
“Remets-toi vite, ouais?” He turned to close the door softly. “Dors bien.”
He found Ilya and Holmberg in the kitchen with steaming mugs of tea. “I gave him Tylenol and a cough suppressant for now. He should be good for the next four hours, but whenever he wakes up, definitely give him a cup of ginger tea to help.”
“I showed him which tea to make for each problem,” Ilya said proudly. He had recently gotten into the different types of tea thanks to Yuna (and no, that did not make him old, Shane) and Shane found that extremely cute.
He squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Ilya.”
Holmberg gagged. “Parents can’t do this in front of their kid.”
“Anyways, make sure to give him this one for when he has a dry cough and this one for when it’s productive, wet cough. And then keep giving him Tylenol for body aches and fever, but if he stops having a migraine, you can maybe switch to Advil depending on what works better. This one is for numbing a sore throat, this one is for if he has issues sleeping. Try to get him to take this vitamin C drink and make sure he gets enough food down and keeps it down.”
He stared at his captain with wide eyes. “…Yeah, no. I totally got all of that.”
“He wrote it down because he knows children forget a lot,” Ilya added helpfully. “Here.”
“Thanks,” he said sheepishly. “I kinda got lost after the productive cough.”
Shane furrowed his brow. “That was the first sentence?”
“Um. Anyway, thank you for all of this.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t think we have anything for being sick, honestly.”
“Shane is very prepared to help his kids,” Ilya said, nodding seriously.
Both Shane and Holmberg’s protests erupted in tandem. Oh, how he loved rage-baiting his team. (And Luca for teaching him the word “rage-baiting.”)
—
Adam Young
It wasn’t that Young was homophobic—of that Ilya is mostly sure. And he would say mostly since Young had been incredibly receptive to Ilya’s relationship with Shane (“Holy generational pull, man, that’s fucking insane!”) and the team as a whole was weirdly invested in their relationship. Several edits had been sent in the group chat.
Regardless of that, though, neither Shane nor Ilya could think of a reason why he was suddenly avoiding the two of them.
At first they had chalked it up to him being busy and ducking out, or maybe even just general awkwardness for some reason. Who knew what the kids were doing these days anyways? But as the weeks passed and it got even more awkward—to the point where even Hayes was giving them all weird looks—so Ilya probably had to do something about it. The unfortunate things a captain must do, honestly.
But it was in the middle of playoffs and it wasn’t affecting his game in the slightest, so he allowed himself to ignore it for a bit so that he too could focus on his own hockey.
“So do you want to finally get a hat trick, or should I do it again?” Ilya chirped, and Shane rolled his eyes, pulling on his gear. Being on the same team really only made the teasing increase, a surprise to no one who had spent more than five minutes in Ilya’s presence.
“You’re so funny, Rozanov. Really.”
“Вы вчера вечером говорили совсем другое,” he said, a self-satisfied grin settling when Shane’s face heated. Even though he didn’t know what Ilya said most of the time in Russian, it was 95% guaranteed to be something dirty. Or referencing something dirty. (The other 5% was sappy and he wasn’t sure if that was any better.)
“Shut the fuck up. There are Russians on the other team.”
“And? Ты так громко шумишь в отеле. Они знают, как ты поешь.”
“Rozanov.”
“Hollander.”
“Ilya.”
“Okay, okay. Fine,” he groaned. “My husband wants me to be sad and lonely. I understand.”
On the way out of the locker room, Young avoided eye contact with both Shane and Ilya again.
“Guys, you don’t understand. Literally. It’s actually so fucking bad,” they heard a voice say, identifying it as Young’s after a beat. Shane and Ilya shared a concerned look. They were coming back from a night swim at the pool and were walking past the room that Young and Luca were sharing. Shane would bet money that the other two were in there too.
“Do you think we should knock?” he whispered.
“Of course not. We listen and then use the information,” Ilya whispered back. “Why would we knock?”
“What if it’s something serious?”
“Then we find out? Honestly, Hollander. Now shush.”
Shane rolled his eyes but settled down next to his husband right outside of the door.
“…and the worst part is they don’t even realize!”
“Okay, but have you considered just telling them?” That one sounded like Haas.
“You dumb bitch, he can’t just tell them! It’s been like, two years.” Holmberg, who was no doubt giving Luca a judgemental look.
“It can’t be that bad, right? I mean, Hollander can’t know enough to be too bad,” Haas reasoned.
“Wha…” Shane started, but Ilya covered his mouth with his hand. “Shh.”
“That’s what you’d think if you were wrong.” Young’s voice started to get more hysterical. “He has phrases, like, fucking memorized to whip out on the ice. Do you know what it’s like to be playing against fucking Toronto and your C and A start talking about their plans for the night? Because I do!”
Ilya had to take his hand back to stifle his own cackle as he heard the rookies all laughing at Young who was no doubt pouting as he so often did. There was no way the rookie understood Russian and had survived for so long without breaking.
“Oh my god.” It took Shane a moment to come to the same conclusion. “Poor Young. Oh my god.”
“Maybe he will learn some new vocabulary,” Ilya whispered gleefully. “Oh, this is too good. Too good.”
Shane quickly stood up, yanking him up with him and dragging him away from the door towards their own room. “Oh my god,” he repeated once they were safely inside the privacy of their hotel room.
“солнышко, it is okay, yes? I do not say anything too crazy,” Ilya said, holding the back of Shane’s neck in the way that calmed him down. This time was no exception. “I say, oh, you missed me. I love you. We will make love tonight. Normal couple things.”
“Ilya!”
“I joke, I joke. I will talk to Young about it later. He will survive. It is nothing he has not heard already about girls in locker room. This is not different, okay?”
“You know that it is.”
“Not here,” he said firmly. “This locker room is good. You are okay here.”
“…You’re still going to stop scarring the rookies for life, right?”
“Not a fucking chance, Hollander.”
(However traumatized Young was from what he had overheard on the ice was nothing compared to when Ilya started chirping him in Russian.)
(Haasy and Bergy laughed at him. Pointy had to pay up. No one was winning except for Ilya.)
—
Shane Hollander & Ilya Rozanov
LaPointe adored his team. He had worried that there would be the same type of toxic masculinity and homophobia that plagued the hockey locker rooms while he had grown up, but he had been incredibly lucky to have been drafted by the Centaurs. Some of his friends that he had grown up with were unfortunate enough to be drafted by teams like Toronto or Montreal, and while they cared less about the crass words and slurs thrown around when they were younger, the vitriol that those teams fostered were enough to make them keep their heads down and wait to be traded.
He loved the friendships he had with both the other rookies (even though this was Haasy’s second year, and Young’s third year, they were all spiritually rookies) and veterans alike. There was no hazing—unless you counted having to endure Rozanov’s chirping during practices or Dykstra’s horrible music taste in the locker rooms—and the team genuinely cared about each other.
There was even a group chat with the rookies and the “team dads” where Hollzy and Rozy were constantly bombarded with “adulting” questions. Most recently LaPointe had asked about how to get a stain off his shirt, to which Hollzy had responded to make a paste of Dawn dish soap and hydrogen peroxide.
It worked, but Shane didn’t have to know that he had to buy both of those ingredients. (And yes, he had dish soap, just not Dawn, and he was too scared to ask if it mattered).
Every other week Holmberg asked how long to cook chicken and if he would get salmonella, and it was only every other time that Rozanov would respond saying that maybe the salmonella would make his passing better. Hollander had quietly slipped him a meat thermometer after the fifth time, though—a gift that Haasy never failed to make fun of him for.
They had just played against LA and won 5-2 with every rookie either making a goal or an assist. They were planning on exploring and so Young had rented a car to get them around without having to call a million cars to drive them around—which he had bitched about since none of them had U.S. driver’s licenses and so therefore it defaulted to him.
Right now, though, he and Bergy were playing on the Nintendo he had brought to kill some time before crashing. No one had wanted to really go out which was out of the norm but not particularly unusual.
Roz and Hollzy were going out to dinner to celebrate—something about their anniversary? All of the married guys were calling their wives. Troy had plans with an old friend in town, and Haasy and Young were turning in early for the night. Lame, if you asked him, but much better than what some of the other MLH rookies did in their free time.
“Dude, you fucking cheated!” Bergy shouted. “Be so fucking serious right now, literally—”
“It’s not my fault you suck. I’ve never met anyone so bad—”
“Oh hell no, get your ass over here,” and that was the last thing that he heard before a heavy weight collapsed on him.
“Are you tackling—” LaPointe caught a stray elbow to the stomach, “Ow, oh my god get off of me!”
A few minutes later—with the sheets on the bed they were sitting on somehow completely joining them on the floor—they finally settled. Holmberg’s arms and legs were splayed out on the floor, LaPointe’s leg trapped underneath the other player’s arm.
“I definitely won that, by the way.”
“You bitch.” Bergy perked up sharply. The barest hint of buzzing could be heard. “Is that your phone or mine?”
“Considering that you’re sitting on your phone, it’s probably mine,” LaPointe sighed, kicking his arm off his leg so that he could go grab his phone.
“Oh, that’s weird. It’s Roz.” He swiped to pick up. “What’s up, capitaine?”
Bergy counted the polka dots printed on the curtain next to his head as LaPointe talked to their captain. One. Two. Three. “Oh. Yes. Okay.” Six. “Yes, yeah. I do have the address.” Ten. Eleven. “Okay. Right. I can be there in under an hour.” Fourteen. “Thank you.” Sixteen. “Bro. What the fuck.”
“What did Roz want?”
“You’ll never guess who that was.”
“You already said it was the captain, dumbass.”
“It was his phone number, but it was the police.”
Holmberg scrambled to sit up and LaPointe had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. “What the fuck? Are you fucking with me right now? They literally went to dinner. There’s no way they got arrested when Shane was with him.”
“We’ll go find out apparently,” he said, grabbing his jeans. “They can be released to someone, but apparently they’re drunk as fuck.”
“Oh my god? What the fuck,” he repeated. “Wait, how are we getting there? Are you calling a car?”
LaPointe already had his phone up to his ear. “Yes, you and Luca. Be ready in five minutes. We need to go bail the capitaine and his husband out of jail. Why would I lie about this? No, I don’t care. Get up.”
“Do all of us need to go?”
He stared at him. “And deprive us young children of the joy of bailing our dads out of jail? Of course we all need to go.”
“Young you are the worst driver in the world holy fucking shit that was a pedestrian—”
Many things in life could be blamed as the reason Luca was here. His mother loved hockey, and so she got him into the sport. That started it, but maybe the real blame fell on Ilya Rozanov for being his idol and inspiring him to continue. Now it would be Rozanov’s fault that he died in the middle of Los Angeles in a car with the rest of the younger Centaurs with an insane driver behind the wheel.
“I love you all but I need everyone but Holmberg to shut the fuck up.” Young’s knuckles were white with how tightly he was gripping the steering wheel. “Haasy, please. This is LA. The pedestrian will be fine. Pointy, you scream like a goat giving birth. Stop. Bergy, tell me when to turn left.”
“…at that last signal.”
“Nevermind. Bergy, give Haas the phone.”
Fifty minutes later, they made it to the police station that was apparently closest to where Shane and Ilya had their dinner reservations. It was only a thirty minute drive but Luca made the executive decision to not voice that.
“We’re here to pick up Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov?” Young told the officer at the front. “An officer called us on Rozanov’s phone.”
She made them fill out some paperwork regarding their release—luckily no charges or bail, so they didn’t need to call the team lawyer—and finally let them see their teammates.
LaPointe whistled, pulling out his phone for a picture of them sitting on the same bench in the holding cell. Their heads were slumped over on each other’s shoulders with Rozanov’s on top. “Oh, they got fucked up.”
“Here I was thinking that they got into a bar fight or something crazy and they literally just got too drunk. Those old fucks,” Holmberg said affectionately.
“Don’t talk about our parents like that??” Luca said, his eyebrows scrunching up in offense.
All three of them turned to him. “Luca,” LaPointe said seriously. “You know they’re not actually our parents, right? It’s important to me that you know this.”
“Haasy is our first-born, do not lie to him,” Rozanov’s voice came gruffly from the holding cell. “Why are there metal poles between us?”
“We’re very disappointed in you two. We leave you alone for one night and you land yourselves in jail,” Bergy ribbed. “Hockey players are so crazy these days.”
Hollander’s eyes fluttered but he stayed firmly asleep. “Do not wake up,” Ilya muttered, although he was still very clearly drunk. “His freckles are dancing.”
“Oh, this is going to be a long night,” Luca muttered.
(Did it take them another hour and a half to load the two of them into the car, haul them into the hotel, and settle them in their hotel room? Yes.
Did they also get enough blackmail material for the next two years? Also yes.)