Chapter Text
When Evan Dykstra was in sixth grade, he was voted Most Observant during their end of year superlatives. In seventh grade, he’d been voted Most Trustworthy. He had been angry— another kid had beat him out, twice in a row, for Most Likely to Become a Professional Athlete, which was what he wanted to be voted for, but, whatever. He digresses.
His teacher had been right— Dykstra is an observant man. He knows he is. He loves drama, though he’ll never really instigate it, loves picking up on little clues. He’s trustworthy, too. It’s his brand— he’ll never air someone’s situations out to anyone else (except Caitlin, of course, because she is his beautiful, beautiful wife), never utter a word. He’ll observe, nod along, and then chuckle to himself and file it away into his brain.
This is all to say, Luca Haas, their resident rookie, is not subtle.
He and Luca have been away-game roommates for the better part of the season, give or take some days. He’d known about the university thing long before anyone else did, and he’d known, because of that, Luca hadn’t really meant to keep it a secret.
After games, Luca would shower a second time, wear pajama pants and a t-shirt, and then splay out on the bed with his laptop, a tablet, and occasionally a notebook. Headphones in, and while Dykstra would usually pull up whatever live blockbuster movie was playing on the TV, he’d go at whatever work he was doing, the night silent between them.
One time, Luca had fallen asleep over the blankets, hunched over his laptop. Dykstra grinned, snapped a pic, and then gently settled him so that he was tucked under the cover, shutting his laptop and putting it away on the nightstand.
When he’d done so, he’d caught a very confusing diagram of a bunch of lines and C, H, and OHs.
Dykstra glanced at Luca, glanced back at the diagram, and huffed a laugh, shaking his head.
(A couple weeks later, when Luca seemed to be struggling with a particularly hard problem:
“You know, Caitlin’s a microbiologist.”
Luca had popped his head up. “I know. That’s pretty awesome.”
Dykstra nodded his agreement, then glanced obviously down at his notebook pointedly. “She’s really good at that sort of thing.”
“Oh,” Luca said. “I— thanks.”)
One night, when they’re playing Montreal, a player chirps: “You look tired man. Isn’t it tiring sleeping with one eye open? Y’know, rooming with a gay, and all?”
Dysktra drops his fucking gloves.
Not only that, he lands a hit so hard he gets ejected from the entire rest of the game.
Rozanov does not look upset, but he does have a blazing curiosity in his eyes, something that says, I am your Captain so you answer me.
“What did they chirp?” Rozanov asks.
It’s not in his tone, but Dykstra is Most Observant, so he knows. “It wasn’t about Hollander,” he assures.
Rozanov looks a little relieved, but the moment Dykstra opens his mouth, and then closes it, he narrows his eyes again, jutting his chin up.
“It was about Haas,” Dykstra says.
Rozanov’s eyebrows lift in surprise, and then he’s equally livid again, equally upset as Dykstra.
“I’m not going to repeat it. It was fuckin’ gross.”
“Okay,” Rozanov says, seeming to accept it.
Luca has a habit of calling his sister at any given moment, at any given time during the times of day where their time-zones align. When he’s brushing his teeth. When he’s piling continental hotel breakfast onto his plate. When he’s slipping on his shoes to go grab a snack from the vending machine. When he’s sketching. When he’s in the locker room before, after games.
Most of the time, they barely talk. Luca just has her on the phone.
Dykstra has started calling his own sister more often, because of this. She’s two years younger than him, lives in Vancouver. She’s a physician, which means her schedule is as wack as his is, but it’s always been sort of an excuse to play phone tag.
He calls his sister. She starts calling him back.
They’ve always been close, but for the first time as adults, Dykstra feels like they’re close, like really.
The first night Luca spends the night elsewhere— usually, when he goes home with someone after a night out, he’ll end up back at his and Dykstra’s room instead of spending the night with them— he slips back in the next morning in his signature black clubbing clothes, a sketched canvas in hand.
Dykstra’s throwing on a shirt as he pauses to raise an eyebrow at him. “So you did go out, after all.”
“I needed a muse,” Luca replies.
Dykstra eyes the sketch in his hands and snorts. “Roz and Hollzy are your muse? Haas, I know you have a crush on them—”
“—I do not—”
“—and all, but, man, you’re making it obvious.”
Luca grumbles, “Leave me alone.”
“Weren’t you supposed to ship your painting out today?”
“I’ve got to cram it, tonight,” Luca groans, ducking into the bathroom.
“Weren’t you supposed to cram it last night?” Dykstra smirks. “Too busy?”
“Shut up.”
“Who was the guy? Met him at the bar?”
Luca pauses, and then a grin stretches across his face. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess you could say that.”
“What the ever-loving fuck does that mean?”
That night:
“Haas, shut the fuck up.”
The sound of the hairdryer turns off. Luca’s voice, apologetic, floats out from the bathroom. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you blowdrying your painting?” Dykstra blinks blearily at the alarm clock. “It’s three in the fucking morning. Go to sleep.”
A couple months later, Dykstra is pretty goddamn sure Luca’s seeing someone. It’s a little weird though, because instead of him sneaking off in one particular city, he’ll be gone after the game at nearly any away game, regardless of where they are.
Sometimes he’ll stay there, wherever there is, and show up in the morning. Sometimes he’ll come back long after Dykstra is asleep, and then, when he wakes up, the rookie will be sprawled in his bed, dead to the world.
“So,” Dykstra says, one night when Luca comes back earlier than his bedtime, freshly showered and in the same clothes he’d left the arena in. “You gonna tell me about—” Luca is gay, so. Safe bet. “Him?”
Luca glances at him, offering a shit-eating grin. “No.”
“He follows you around, man,” he says. He raises his eyebrow and guesses, “Diplomat? Actor?”
“Nope,” Luca replies, popping the ‘p’.
“Oh, I know. Travel blogger.”
“Nope.” Luca narrows his eyes. “How do you even know it’s the same person every time? It could be different people in different cities.”
Dykstra shrugs. “A hunch.”
“Seriously?”
“Mhm. You’ve been smiling more recently.”
Luca flips him off as he makes his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Dykstra grins, and then goes the fuck to sleep.
Luca’s drunk off his ass. He’s staring at Roz and Hollzy, who are across the bar, and turns to Dykstra and Hayes.
“They’re so fuck— fuckin’ hot.”
He and Hayes exchange a grin at Haasy’s expense. Hayes clears his throat.
“Is that so?”
Luca turns affronted. “Y’don’t think so?”
“Sure,” Hayes agrees. “They’re hot.”
“1st and 5th hottest men in MHL,” Luca recites. He blinks. “I th’nk they should— should both be 1st, though.”
Dykstra slings his hand across Haas’ shoulder. “Yeah? Me too.”
“Yay,” Haasy says.
At some point, he makes his way to them. Shane says something, head tipped back with a laugh as he reaches out to steady Luca, his hand wrapped unassumingly around his side. Luca leans against him, sags a little bit, lets himself stay tucked there.
It’s friendly. Or, at least, it looks so, on the outside.
In hindsight, maybe he should have clocked it.
One night, Luca declines going out with the team for dinner, and when Dykstra gets back, he glances at the TV a little wearily. There’s a nature documentary playing, the camera spanning across a beautiful expanse of mountain. Luca nods at him in greeting, and then goes back to watching the documentary, his eyes a little quiet as he does.
As Dykstra throws off his shoes, he says, “Wow. That’s a beautiful place.”
“Yeah,” Luca says.
The narrator says something that strikes familiar. “Switzerland?” he asks.
Luca nods. Dykstra notices his throat is worked up, the twinge of wetness at his waterline. He’d been crying. Maybe just a little bit, nothing that was obvious, but— Dykstra’s his sixth grade class’s Most Observant, and he damn well will continue to be.
Homesickness rests in Luca’s eyes. It’s called a sickness for a reason— he looks partially devastated, tired of it.
Dykstra remembers when he was drafted. He’d played for Toronto in the early years of his career, and it had been close enough to his hometown of Manitoba. Close enough, he thinks, because at the time, he’d thought the roughly 2 hour flight was far, but looking back— looking at Haas, who was an entire ocean away— it didn’t seem like much, really.
“Over the summer,” he says. “You should invite all of us. We can make a vacation out of it.”
Luca glances at him. “Yeah. That sounds fun.”
Dykstra sits himself on the edge of Luca’s bed, facing the TV, and on the side that won’t obscure Luca’s view, and watches the documentary. “Where would you take us?”
“Oh,” Luca says. “That’s a good question.”
Luca tells him about his favorite cafe, his favorite bars, the ones he’d go with his friends. He tells him about the rink he grew up skating at, about the lakes that would freeze over in the winters, the ones that his dad would take him skating to, about his sister, and how as a kid, watching her dance recitals would push him harder hockey, in the newfound hope of doing something good with his life, doing something special. He talks about Zurich, about the trains he’d take to Munich, or longer summer trips to Lake Como in Italy. He talks about his favorite hiking spots, his favorite streets. his university, which he’s never once actually physically attended a single class in.
He talks for a long time.
Dykstra listens.
By the end of his spiel, Luca’s tone has perked up into something nostalgic, the good type. He clears his throat and says, “Thank you.”
Dykstra smiles. “No problem.”
After a game with Toronto a couple weeks later, the Centaurs end up staying an extra night, which they make use of, going out together on the free night.
Rozanov and Hollander had flown out earlier that morning, off to Ottawa early for some business with the Irina Foundation.
Luca’s drunk off his ass again. At the end of the night, Dykstra wrings him back to their room.
“I sh’d call ‘em,” Luca’s saying. He’s said it a couple times on their walk back across the hallway, wanting to call them, text them. And— Dykstra gets it, honestly. They’ve all been there, and god knows he still calls his wife to wax poetry to her whenever he’s a couple shots too deep.
Dykstra huffs a laugh. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, buddy.”
Luca glares at him, then sways, plopping haphazardly down on the bed. He blinks at the ceiling, slowly. “They’re not ‘ere today.” He fishes for his phone, squinting. “I w’nna talk— talk to ‘em.”
Luca takes nearly an entire minute typing in his six-digit passcode. Dykstra grins at this, and then asks, because fuck it, he’ll enable the kid if need be, “Do you want help? I can type their number.”
Luca seems to agree, shoves his phone at Dykstra. The man takes it with a laugh, then pulls up his phone app.
“Who do you wanna call, bud?”
Luca blinks again. He squints, some sort of inkling of secrecy crosses his expression. He grabs his phone back, and then, slowly, brings up Shane Hollander’s contact.
“Um,” Dykstra says. “That’s Hollzy, Haas.”
“I know,” Luca replies. He blinks at the contact, a dopey grin floating over his face.
“Haas—”
Luca clicks the call button, calling Shane fucking Hollander. It’s Rozanov that picks up two rings later, his Russian accent flooding the space.
And— Dykstra isn’t trying to eavesdrop, but the room is goddamn silent, so the voices float into his ears, anyway.
“Hello, Haasy,” Rozanov says, his voice abnormally warm.
“‘lya,” Luca slurs.
There’s a laugh at the other end, something gentle, though amused. “How much did you drink, malysh?”
Dykstra makes a mental note to search up malysh.
“Not m’ch.” Luca pauses. “How was y’r meeting?”
“It was good, malysh.”
“Where’s Sh’ne?”
There’s some rustling, and then Shane’s voice drifts in. “Right here, baby.”
Dykstra almost— almost makes a noise, but he doesn’t, but force of sheer willpower.
He blinks a couple times and then a couple more times, and then goes to his side of the room instead. For the sake of whatever privacy they deserve to have, for whatever this is, Dykstra plugs his earbuds into his ears and turns up Billy Joel.
Luca stays on the phone with them for a while. He’s smiling in a way Dykstra’s never seen before, so openly and genuinely— which he’s sure is the alcohol’s doing, too— in a way that Dykstra’s rarely seen before in anyone, really. He knows it’s rare, this type of adoration on someone’s face. It’s rare, this.
It’s the way Caitlin looks at him. It’s the way he looks at Caitlin, who is the love of his life, and his favorite person on this planet.
And so Dykstra, always the observer, keeps his mouth shut.
He does search it up, later. Baby. Malysh means baby.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Caitlin
Evan: I have insane gossip for you.
Caitlin: No way. What happened?
Evan: Guess.
Caitlin: A fight?
Evan: Nope.
Caitlin: An affair?
Evan: Well, not quite. A consensual one, maybe?
Caitlin calls him. Dykstra laughs as he picks up, shaking his head fondly.
If Luca remembers it, he doesn’t bring it up, so Dykstra doesn’t either. It’s a little funny, now, knowing where Luca’s slipped off too, or where he’s coming back from.
Fucking Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov’s hotel room, is where.
Dysktra can’t fucking believe it.
And somehow, on the other hand, he absolutely can.
When Luca goes down during their game with Winnipeg, Dykstra starts to understand the extent to it, because the look on Shane’s face is horrifically desperate, worried. He’s good at concealing it, so Dykstra knows it’s only Rozanov and himself (now that he has context enough to notice) that see it.
The medics swarm. Luca makes a noise, something that resembles a low whine, something pained.
Beside him, Young puts a hand on his mouth, makes his own noise. Dykstra swallows, comes up to squeeze Young’s shoulder.
“They’ve got it,” the referee tells Hollander.
Hollander looks ready to murder him. Rozanov puts a hand on his husband’s shoulders. He himself looks cleanly shell-shocked, but he masks it, keeps his posture straight, captain-like.
And— fuck. They really care for him. They really do.
“Fuck,” LaPointe’s saying. He’s panicked. “Fuck. Fuck.”
“He’ll be okay,” Barrett replies, though it comes out hollow.
When Luca, high off his ass on pain meds, tweets, ‘do you think they would want a third?’ Dykstra has half the mind to reply, I think you are their third, kid.
He doesn’t.
Evan Dykstra is both Most Observant and Most Trustworthy, and he intends to keep it as such.