Archive of Our Own

Luca knows he is high on the draft prospects— he also knows the Ottawa Centaurs have the second draft pick this year. He understands both of these facts as two, unrelated entities. It’s not until Ilya Rozanov, Brandon Wiebe and Zane Boodram take the stage to announce their draft pick that Luca realises:

Oh. That could be me.

He stares at Ilya Rozanov, who is currently scanning the arena. His eyes land on Luca and his mouth quirks up into more of a smile.

No, no, no, no, no— Luca starts thinking.

The Centaurs have enough forwards, they have Ilya Rozanov, Zane Boodram, one of the best playmakers in the league is their long time left wing. The Centaurs need defenders and everyone knows it, there are plenty of defenders in this draft pick who haven’t been taken—

“It’s our honour,” Brandon Wiebe starts. “To announce our pick as Luca Haas.”

Luca is light headed.

Now. Luca understands a few things right now. He understands that this was always an option, he also understands that he might be the most fucked anyone has ever been in the history of the fucking world. 

He stumbles out of his seat, aware of the joy from his family around him. He stumbles over his own feet, unable to wipe the grimace off his own face.

Luca Haas looks Ilya Rozanov in the eye. Ilya Rozanov, recently appointed captain of The Ottawa Centaurs. Ilya Rozanov, who Luca had a poster of in his bedroom from the ages of seven years old to seventeen… it’s probably in a box somewhere still. Ilya Rozanov, who Luca has done unspeakable things to on Archive of Our Own.

He gulps.

Ilya Rozanov grabs Luca’s hand, shaking it with a slightly wild look in his eye. Luca is one of the best prospects in the NHL for years, he knows this. He also knows that his phone is weighing heavy in his back pocket, his phone which has been logged into an Archive of Our Own account for years. 

An account which features some… disgustingly detailed smut about the man currently shaking his hand. He feels a bit unattached from his body, he would rather not be here in his own body right now.

He nods, doing his best to smile. He knows the cameras are catching every pained expression on his face. He is aware everyone is going to rip this expression apart, but still he can’t stop thinking about what has transpired.

Luca doesn’t actually need to sign with The Centaurs, he can sign with literally anyone else— he can force a trade. It’s been done before, it’ll probably be done again. He can not look Ilya Rozanov in the eye right now.

He signs with The Centaurs. He debates putting up a fuss and refusing to sign, but then he remembers they might send him to San Francisco instead… and Luca doesn’t want to go to San Francisco, he’d rather actually put his head in an oven.

Rookie camp is nice, Luca enjoys it. A lot of it is spent making friends and having barbecues at the beach between conditioning training. 

Bood runs a mean grill, and Luca is very good at avoiding Ilya Rozanov like his life depends on it. He spends a lot of time talking to Bood and cycling through people who aren’t Ilya Rozanov.

It only works for so long, eventually before a skate Ilya manages to corner him just before their first proper skate practice. 

Ilya is not wearing a shirt, Luca gives himself one moment to look.

His descriptions in fics weren’t inaccurate! That’s good. He tears his eyes from Rozanov’s impressively sculpted muscles and looks back down at his skates.

“Your English is very good,” Ilya fucking Rozanov notes and Luca’s entire body jerks up from where he’s tightening his laces on his skates.

Luca’s heart immediately jumps into his throat. Thanks, he can’t say, I got so good at English because I wrote you fucking Shane Hollander in great detail. Instead he just lets out a small awkward laugh and nods. 

“Seriously!” Ilya says excitedly, he sits down next to Luca on the bench.

Luca can not look this man in the eye.

“When I came to America I was awful at English,” Ilya probably does something amusing with his face.

Luca is not going to look Ilya fucking Rozanov in the eyes right now because his phone is on the bench next to him and his phone is still logged into AO3 and he still gets comments on that fic. His phone buzzes, taunting him.

Maybe Luca can get hit by a car right now. He could grab a skate and cut it across his throat. There’s a lot of things he could do right now to avoid this situation.

“Uh— I’ve had a lot of practice,” Luca says. “I watched a lot of English Youtubers.”

“Ah,” Ilya Rozanov says with a very sage nod. “Yes, you are very young.”

Luca is going to kill himself, he’s actually going to find the highest point to tie a noose and end his own fucking life right now because he can not do this. He can request a trade right, it wouldn’t be proper or correct but he can do that?

This is the fucking rookie camp.

He can not do this.

He resolutely, completely, absolutely can not do this.

Finally Luca ties up his laces, tightening them more than he probably should. He snatches his phone off the bench before rushing out to the ice. Ilya Rozanov makes a quiet and slightly confused noise behind him but Luca can’t deal with any of this.

He speeds onto the ice, finding Artemy Levin. Levin was one of the other people drafted this year— Luca thinks about twentieth? He’s tall, fairly broad, with brown roots and dyed auburn hair which he normally tends to have up in a tiny tuft of a ponytail underneath his helmet. Luca tries to remember more about this guy— he’s a defender and he’s pretty sure that everyone in the hockey world is scandalised he was picked so low in the draft.

Levin glances over Luca’s shoulder, to presumably Rozanov and then he looks back at Luca. Levin does a complicated thing with his face before shrugging a little bit and angling his body so Rozanov isn’t in his periphery.

Luca will die for this man one day.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Luca keeps his tone as light and airy as he can. “I’m— it’s fine. What’s up?”

Levin glances over Luca’s shoulder, before looking back at Luca. He hesitates for a few seconds before shrugging. “I’ve been good, a lot to do— it’s been good though. How have you found being away from home?”

Luca is more than willing to bite at the obvious attempt at a distraction and just smiles as he goes into a story from home about his sister trying to deck her maths teacher.

“Your English is really good,” Levin points out, then looks horrified. His eyes go wider. “Is that rude? I’m sorry—”

“Aren’t you Russian?” Luca adds. He was honestly expecting more of an accent, but more and more people talk with American accents. Still, even Luca hasn’t perfected making his voice not sound Swiss.

“Parents are,” Levin says. “I’ve lived here my entire life. I still know some Russian and I’m excited to hear what Roz talks about.”

Luca realises… he also knows an alarming amount of Russian, but instead of phrases like: hello, my name is Luca Haas he can say and write phrases like get on your knees and take what you’re given and that knowledge brings heat to his face.

“You know some Russian?” Levin says excitedly, and Luca wants to melt into the ground and die.

“Only uh— some basic stuff,” Luca resolutely refuses to make eye contact with literally anyone right now. “I can say please and thank you and I know some of the swear words.”

What he certainly doesn’t mention is that he learnt all of these phrases to write fanfiction. He’s also not going to mention how he normally used ‘please’ while writing his stories. Luca wants to die a little right now.

Is he going to spend his entire time with The Ottawa Centaurs wishing for death in various and increasingly absurd ways? It sure seems like it.

Levin gasps, excitedly. “If you hear me swearing in Russian, no you don’t.”

“If you hear me swearing in Swiss-German… no you don’t.”

Levin snorts, “Is that like different to normal German?”

And Luca, who has never thought of himself as particularly proud of his country, suddenly feels the most offended he has literally ever been. He has not pretended not to know High German most of his life to get out of conversations with German tourists to be asked if Swiss-German and High German are the same thing.

“Verzeu ke Chäs,” he shoots off before he can stop himself.

Levin just stares at him. “Uhm. Okay… it’s like German but less angry?”

“Häb d Frässä.” Luca's tone is relatively cheery as he grins at this man. 

“Alright!” He hears Rozanov yell. “Everyone, we’re getting started. Are we all excited for bag skates? We’re doing bag skates, everyone get excited! Don’t throw up, you’ll all be okay. I believe in you all. First of all we need to run some basic stick handling workshops—”

Groans pipe up all around the rink.

Luca, once again wonders if he can sign somewhere else.

Luca’s first game is the most stressful thing he’s ever done in his entire life. He tapes his stick three separate times (the first two weren’t good enough). His leg is going so fast that he’s pretty sure he’s going to vibrate out of his bones.

He’s not the only young person here tonight, Holmberg and Young have only been playing for a year and they’re still on their rookie salaries.

Today there’s just the side little note that Luca is starting with Ilya fucking Rozanov on his wing. They can both play wing, they’re both actually worse at centre, and Luca thinks it would’ve made more sense to play literally anyone else.

He holds his helmet in both of his hands. He’s eighteen and making his NHL debut. He’s been put on at the start of the season. A certain amount of Luca understands he is Ottawa’s future investment.

They already have strong people on this team, but they only have five or so years left in them. There’s about to be a wave of retirement and Luca is some degree of new hope.

He doesn’t want to let anyone down. He is on the team with one of the rookies of all time, who became captain historically young. 

Luca is not Ilya Rozanov.

He thinks he wants to be.

“Hey Haasy,” Rozanov says.

Luca looks up from his helmet. Everyone else has vacated the locker room, they’re all probably warming up. Rozanov is leant against the side of the wall, a concerned look on his face.

“Are you alright?”

Luca nods, looking back at his helmet. He swallows around the bile rising in his throat.

Ilya Rozanov steps forwards, he puts his hand on Luca’s shoulder.

Luca startles.

“You are not me,” Ilya starts. “They will want you to be. You are not me. You will be better.”

I won’t, Luca can’t help but desperately think. The scores that you and Shane repeatedly got in your early years are considered upper end, but not impossible anymore. You don’t even lead the scoring race anymore, Shane Hollander has pulled ahead into a league of his own and everyone knows no one is competing with Shane Hollander.

Instead Luca just nods, resisting the urge to look back down at his lap.

“I’m no Shane Hollander.”

Ilya laughs, a wave of fondness washes over his face. His eyes crinkle at the edges and it’s… maybe the realest smile that Luca has seen this entire time. “No, you’re not. No one is… but he is old and his backhand is weak—”

“What? No it’s not.”

“He has the weakest backhand of anyone alive,” Ilya continues but he’s grinning. “Your backhand is stronger, you are quick. You were the first prospect for a reason, I can not help it if San Francisco decided they needed defense. Their loss is our gain.”

Luca shrugs.

“Hey,” Ilya says. “One day you are going to break Shane Hollander’s speed record, and it will be great and I will bother him about it so much that he thinks he’ll die and it will be good. You’re fast, let’s show them how fast you are.”

Luca finds himself back on the ice, stretching and annoying LaPointe and Holmberg as he follows them around the ice. He feels a little bit like a lost duckling who is clinging to the other younger players.

Holmberg is surprisingly kind about it all things considered.

When the face-off happens they shove Luca into the face off circle, he logistically should not be playing centre, wings can take faceoffs. The captain of the team should not be swapping their positions so Luca can do this.

Luca can hear the roar of the crowd around him, he can see people in red and black jerseys shaking signs and screaming excitedly. The music from the warmups drowns out as Luca skates into the middle of the ice.

Standing across from him is a player Luca only vaguely knows, one of the centres from Calgary. He tilts his head to the side.

“They’re lettin’ toddlers onto the ice now?”

Luca can feel the heat rising to his face.

“Seriously— there’s some sort of labour law against this, right?”

Luca clenches his jaw, thinks about hitting this guy with his hockey stick. That’s probably not a super great look all things considered though. Luca taps his stick against the ice a few times to calm himself down.

He skates forwards, hunching over as the ref skates out into the middle ice too.

Luca thinks he should say something smart and witty and funny, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say though. He knows Ilya Rozanov would’ve made three fucking comments by now and put this man on the verge of tears.

But he’s not Ilya Rozanov. 

He’s Luca Haas, and he’s fast. He’s Luca Haas

They tap their sticks together, Luca can hear his own heartbeat in his ears as the noise of the sticks hitting each other clangs out through the arena. The puck raises over their sticks— and it drops.

It hits the ground and Luca is immediately tearing away with it. He lobs it over in Rozanov’s direction as he skates around one of the defensemen, turning a sharp angle to skate away and then continuing to go forwards. 

Rozanov shoots it between that defender’s feet and it lands right on the edge of Luca’s stick.

Luca grabs it, skates as hard as he can. Crosses into the offensive zone. Their goalie is already butterflying, Luca can shoot it over their shoulder— he keeps his stick low, not willing to give anything away—

He chips it over the top of the goalie’s shoulder.

The buzzer goes off ‘All I Do Is Win’ starts blasting through the arena. Luca finds himself grinning as Bood skates straight into him, wrapping his arms around Luca. 

A moment passes and then more and more people are joining the hug pile. Luca is crushed in the middle and he’s laughing because holy shit, he scored his first NHL goal on his first game, on his first break-away, on his first time having possession of a puck.

He laughs and laughs as Bood knocks on his helmet multiple times. Rozanov comes up to him, throwing an arm around his shoulders and hugging him hard to his side.

“Good job!” Rozanov yells at him over the roar of the crowd, he presses the puck into Luca’s hand. “This is where it all starts!”

Luca doesn’t wipe the smile off his face for the rest of the game.

Luca doesn’t mean to learn as much Russian as he has. When reading Hollanov fics it just… kind of happens, the same way Luca knows more Spanish than average because of his Klance stage. He once got a decent way into a Russian learning course because he wanted his Hollanov fic to be accurate.

While Luca isn’t fluent, he recognises more words than most people. He is aware of how to say absolutely filthy things in Russian, and he’s pretty sure his pronunciation for those things is better than he cares to admit. He recognises the common pet names people threw around in fics, the common phrases, I love you and I’m going to fuck you stupid are two that Luca still remembers.

It happens on a bus. He’s heard Ilya talk Russian before, most of the time it’s Ilya swearing. 

The rest of The Centaurs are inside a petrol station getting arms full of snacks and whatever else they want. Luca has been awake for about thirty seconds after Young shook him awake when they stopped.

Luca leans back against the window, his eyes fluttering shut. 

Hockey has been good, the addition of Troy Barrett has… been weird. There’s a whole media thing around it, and everyone keeps wanting to ask Luca about it. Luca thinks if Dallas Kent is a rapist he should go to jail, he doesn’t know why Troy was the one moved. 

He also knows he is not allowed to say any of this.

When the announcement of Troy’s trade came through, Bood grabbed all the younger players and explained they were going to keep their mouths shut about Troy, and never ever ever give a comment to the media about it. Luca still doesn’t really get why—

It’s been weird. 

Troy Barrett on the team has been weird, Luca has respected his hockey for years, but he’s clearly slipping. Right now Luca is only on the first line because Troy Barrett is not doing well.

All the older players seem to just be aware of something that’s happening, hence why they’re taking more breaks on the bus than they used to before Troy joined. There’s more motivation to do team activities.

LaPointe, Holmberg, Young, Chouinard’s and Luca’s group chat has been going off recently.

Even half awake Luca can feel his phone buzzing in his pocket, he’s sure it’s updates on everything odd that the older players have been doing. 

Luca steadies his breathing, he’s just going to go back to sleep and eat whatever snacks Young brings back for him. He can freak out about the Centaurs being weird because Troy Barrett joined later.

He needs some fucking sleep.

“Poka-poka!” He hears Ilya say excitedly from the back of the bus. His tone is a low thing said with so much affection. One day Luca would like someone to say goodbye to him with that amount of adoration in their tone.

 Luca closes his eyes again, picking up his jumper and wedging it against the window as a pillow.

“Lyublyu tebya.” 

Wait. What?

Luca whips around from his spot to look further up on the bus.

Rozanov has the phone held to his ear, a gentle expression on his face as he smiles. Rozanov looks at Luca and must see something in his expression.

“Blyat.” Ilya says, eyes boring into Luca. “No, no, everything’s fine— no, it’s fine. People are coming back onto the bus. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” Rozanov hangs up the phone before a response can come from the other end.

Luca stares at Ilya for a long moment.

“You know Russian?” Ilya says quietly, there’s something tight on his expression. Whatever was just in his eyes has been stamped out, his shoulders are hunched and he looks prepared for a fight.

“Uh— not really,” Luca says.

“But you know lyublyu tebya,” Rozanov says.

Luca nods.

“I was just talking to my friend Svetlana,” Ilya says, but the blank expression in his eyes doesn’t go away. “She is my childhood friend from Russia. We are very close.”

Luca knows that makes no sense, Ilya also seems to be aware that makes no sense. If he was talking to Svetlana, someone who Luca has met, he wouldn’t switch back to English. But… Luca just nods.

“You tell no one about this.” Ilya says.

Luca nods.

He turns back around in his chair, slumping against it. He has heard Ilya Rozanov say he loves someone on the phone. Then immediately got incredibly defensive.

Luca swallows.

He tries not to think about all the fics he wrote about Shane or Ilya calling each other in the silent moments they get. He tries not to think about Ilya, while a good captain, is often impossible to contact.

He tries not to think about the photos Ilya sometimes sends the team group chat that are in Montreal.

Some things… Luca isn’t supposed to know.

The day after the plane incident Luca finds himself sitting on the beach. He has his legs crossed underneath him as he runs his hands through the sand. His eyes focus on the blueness of the water as he tries to think of anything to do.

He’s already talked to his family, he’s already messaged his friends back home that he’s okay. Now Luca is sitting on the beach, quietly watching the waves move in and out. It’s been a while since Luca has been to the beach.

A few years ago he went to Genoa with his family, that was probably the last time though. He runs his hands through the sand again. He should go to the beach more, it’s nice. He cranes his head back, feeling the sun on his skin.

If this is it when it’s supposed to be cold he can not imagine it when it’s supposed to be warm. 

Sand shifts around him, and in a second Ilya is sitting next to him.

Ilya thumps onto the sand next to him. He has his arms bracing himself as he watches the water too. He groans, very loudly and theatrically before laying down on the sand. He covers his face with his arm.

“Are you okay?” Luca asks.

“I came here to ask you the same,” Ilya says. “It was scary, yes?”

“A little,” Luca picks up a rock buried amongst the dirt. “I mean— a lot, it was a lot scary. I just kept thinking about Mama, she already lost her husband… she can’t lose me too.”

“I am sorry about your father,” Ilya says quietly. “I didn’t know.”

“No one does,” Luca murmurs.

“How did he die?”

Luca immediately feels the familiar grief settle in his stomach. He shakes his head and feels the despair weigh on his body again. “I don’t— I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Ilya says quietly.

“It makes going home hard,” Luca says.

Ilya nods, and Luca knows that he understands this feeling buried against Luca’s chest. The way someone who has died can only haunt your home, Papa never went to Canada or America, he is not woven into the roads and stones the way he is in Zürich. 

“I don’t think I will go home again,” Ilya says.

Luca turns to look at him. “What, why?”

Ilya hesitates. “There is nothing left for me there.”

Luca tries to imagine it, the idea of never returning home. Home which holds his family, home which holds all the places intertwined with his heart— the place he had his first kiss, his childhood home, the museums he spent years running around with his friends.

The little things, his favourite cafes, the street he can walk down and everyone there knows his name. All of those things would be lost if he could never go back, he’d lose a part of himself, he’s pretty sure.

“Aren’t you going to miss it?” Luca asks.

Ilya nods. “Yes. Every day. It was bad, but it was home.”

Luca nods, Zürich is not perfect in every way. There are plenty of people and places that Luca hates there, but still that hatred is calming in a way. It’s his hatred in his space. He hugs his legs to his chest because that feels like the correct thing to do.

“I’d like to go back,” Ilya says quietly. “Just one last time.”

“I’d always wanted to go to Moscow,” Luca lets out a small smile.

Ilya is quiet for a very long time. “I don’t think Russia is safe for people like us.”

The silence that stretches out between them says all it has to. Luca turns his head to the side, looking at Ilya.

He has his head resting on his arm, he generally looks at peace. There’s something sad in his eyes, something that Luca doesn’t really know how to grasp. Sometimes, when Ilya thinks no one is looking, a certain sad look sets into his expression again.

“No,” Luca says. “I guess it isn’t… I don’t know if I could give up my home for anyone.”

Ilya smiles, sad at the edge. “I made a new home, it is okay. My… my special person is worth it.”

“You really love them, huh?”

Ilya’s smile turns into a soft and gooey thing. His eyes soften and he looks truly lovestruck. “He loves me… and he is so afraid sometimes, but he loves me so much. I think one day he might not be so afraid, one day I won’t—”

Ilya lets out a frustrated sigh.

“I wish I could say more. I can’t. It is risky.”

Luca nods. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

Ilya’s jaw clenches. “I want to. I just— he is so afraid, I think I am too. One day the world can know about me…”

Luca nods, because one day the world will know about him. One day Luca will have a boyfriend, and he’ll be able to stand on the path of the other queer players who did all of this first. Scott Hunter and Troy Barrett and maybe one day Ilya Rozanov will add to that list.

“Moya ochered' skoro pridot,” Ilya whispers to the sky.

Luca knows skoro, soon. He feels that’s the only part of the sentence he really needs to know. 

He thinks for a few moments, then he hugs Ilya. 

He wants to thank Ilya for so many things, for being a role model, for being Luca’s captain. 

While Ilya never taped his stick on pride nights, he instead gave pucks to people with rainbows on their cheeks and clasped hands. He wants to thank Ilya for the whispers that Luca saw on Tumblr from “insider sources” that Ilya was strict on the Boston Bears for pride nights. He wants to thank Ilya again for being that strict.

He wants to thank Ilya for more. For being queer and maybe fixing a little bit of the emptiness in Luca’s own chest he didn’t even know was there.

Ilya wraps his arms around Luca. He lets out a small noise somewhere between a laugh and sob.

“Sorry.” He mutters. “Don’t get soft on me Haasy.”

“Never,” Luca says. “Thanks. You’re a good captain.”

Ilya breaks the hug, frowning. “You are getting soft on me.”

Luca rolls his eyes, shoving at Ilya’s shoulder and huffing. He looks back out at the water, he can see out of the corner of his eye Ilya grinning widely.

“So did you frame the coffee I got you?”

Luca frowns, but is aware he has the receipt tucked in a box with Ilya’s signature on it. Ilya had signed it as a joke, then Luca had gone riffling around in the bin because of course he was going to keep a receipt with Ilya’s signature on it.

Ilya fucking Rozanov got him coffee! Luca would get that fact tattooed on his forehead if he could.

He knows his face is going red, and Ilya laughs next to him, collapsing back onto the sand.

Luca would like to say, for all intents and purposes he is incredibly normal about finding out Shane Hollander is gay.

For someone who ran a Tumblr and Twitter and AO3 account dedicated to how gay Shane Hollander is he reacts incredibly normal.

For someone on the frontlines in 2016 because of the whole Rose Landry thing, he reacts more than normal.

Luca finds out like this: he’s next to Troy fucking around in his stall.

It’s not that Luca doesn’t get along with Troy, it’s that they really don’t spend a lot of time together.

They’re now on different lines, Luca is only on the second line, which feels a little bit rude for an alleged generational talent. Still, he has thirty points and it’s only earlyish in the season. He’s doing okay for someone on such a high scoring team.

(Not as well as Ilya Rozanov at eighteen. Never as well as Ilya Rozanov at eighteen.)

Luca is bowed over his phone, watching replays of Troy’s goals that night. The rainbow tape around all of their sticks as they speed through the rink is good.

He watches his own replay footage from last weekend. He managed to set up a very pretty assist he keeps watching. He also keeps watching all the pride flags waving in the stands.

“What was it like?” Luca asks, tilting his phone towards Troy. 

“Good.” Troy says. “It was really good. I hope everyone else gets to experience that some day.”

“Everyone else?” Luca narrows his eyes at his phone.

“I mean I hope one day people like Hollander can—” Troy’s eyes go wide as he cuts himself off. His mouth falls open and he gapes at Luca.

Luca stares back at Troy, his phone clutched loosely in his hand. “Hollander’s gay?” Luca manages, his voice is tight and his head is spinning.

And right now Luca might be the most vindicated person of all time. He grips his phone tighter, and tries not to fucking pass out.

Troy opens and closes his mouth. “It’s just a rumour.”

Luca immediately feels his heart kick up. His body doesn’t know the difference between being told that Shane Hollander is gay and being shot at. He can hear his heart as he stares at his phone.

He spent a non significant amount of his youth arguing Shane Hollander was gay. He spent years writing about it, projecting his own experiences and fears and concerns onto Shane in fics and fanart.

Luca’s mouth is dry.

Hollanov is fucking real and Luca is going to pass out. He knows his heart is beating a dangerous amount, his vision is blurring at the edges. He doesn’t know if that’s from tears or something else.

“Haas?” Troy says. “Are you alright—”

The best player in the modern day NHL is gay. Luca was right. The best player today is also gay, and Luca was right and he wrote about it. 

Somewhere, in the back of his head a fourteen year old Luca Haas who stares at the picture of Ilya Rozanov on his wall and doesn’t get why his stomach twists is celebrating.

Somewhere, in the back of his head a ten year old Luca Haas who loves watching Shane Hollander and wants to be just like him some day is celebrating.

Right now, Luca stands by his locker and realises Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are dating and in love. Another part of him aches because Luca isn’t supposed to know about this— how long has it been a secret?

How long will it be a secret?

“Haasy—”

Luca Haas finds out Shane Hollander is gay, that Hollanov is real, and that Luca was correct as a teenager in the span of twenty seconds.

He passes out on the twenty-first second.

When Luca wakes up again he’s laying flat on the floor. Most of the team is crowded around him, Terry is crouched next to him, a hand on Luca’s neck, checking his pulse point. Luca is embarrassed about the entire thing… incredibly embarrassed about the entire thing, actually.

Ilya fucking Rozanov crouches down next to him, and Luca tries not to explode from the feeling of Ilya fucking Rozanov brushing hair off of his forehead. Luca understands that is a perfectly normal action.

He also understands that he’s pretty sure he’s living a fanfiction he wrote once upon a time. That one was about Shane taking a hit on the ice and Ilya comforting him, which is a ridiculous thing to think about right now.

Oh god he wrote smut about Ilya Rozanov.

Worst of all it was actually pretty good.

And now Ilya Rozanov is kneeling next to him, all concerned— and Luca is pretty sure he’s dead because stuff like this would not happen even in his dreams. He can barely think as he stays flat on his back.

“Kill me,” Luca mutters. He looks around for any skates nearby so he can drive them into his throat repeatedly. He’ll make this actually deserving of medical intervention.

“It’s not that bad,” Ilya says in a tone that implies it actually is very much that bad. 

“Okay Luca,” Terry is saying. “I need you to be honest with me right now. Are you under the influence of any substances?”

“No,” Luca wants to die. He actually wants to let Ilya Rozanov walk on his head while wearing skates. “I’m not even the legal drinking age here.”

“That very rarely stops people,” Terry laughs. “Okay— you did take that bad hit a few games ago, I think we need to get you checked out at the hospital.”

“I’ll take him,” Ilya says. “It is not bad enough that he needs an ambulance, right?”

Nononononono, Luca thinks desperately. This is his nightmare, he’s living a nightmare. 

The Centaurs start talking about the logistics, does Luca need an ambulance? It all fades out as Luca stays on the floor, staring up at the ceiling uselessly. 

He found out Shane Hollander was gay.

Then he passed out.

He hates his life. He glances over at Troy who has an expression on his face that Luca can’t really determine, his eyes flicking back and forth between Ilya and Luca.

Does Troy think he’s homophobic?

Luca is going to actually drive a knife into his throat.

He’s eventually dragged to the hospital, it turns out when Ilya uses his Captain’s Voice on Luca, Luca can’t really do much about it but follow exactly what Ilya tells him to do. Luca is pretty sure Ilya could have told him to drive off a cliff and Luca would’ve.

That’s besides the point. Mostly.

He’s always hated hospitals. This isn’t much of an exception, they decided he probably doesn’t need the ER, so they’ve sent

Luca crosses his arms, tapping his foot against the ground. Ilya sits next to him, scrolling through his phone mindlessly. He’s playing videos slightly too loudly for two people waiting in the waiting room right now.

His eyes scan across the people sitting across from him, they definitely recognise Ilya and Luca notices more cameras directed at him than he likes. He glances at Ilya, then realises he doesn’t actually want to see what’s on his phone.

And Luca resolves himself to not immediately ask if Ilya is dating Shane Hollander. It would make sense though, Luca knows it would make sense because Luca ran a blog about why it made sense for years. He only stopped in like… 2019? It’s only been two years since then.

He can not ask about Shane Hollander right now.

The Foundation, Ilya moving to the Centaurs, the All Stars Game. Everything is starting to click into place in Luca’s brain and he hates it, because the more that clicks into place the more Luca feels like he shouldn’t know. He wrote fics about the homophobia in the NHL for fuck’s sake.

It’s so risky. What Shane Hollander and Ilya are doing is so risky and Luca’s heart breaks about it. The league has begrudgingly accepted two gay players, those gay players were with very normal people. Not the captains on teams.

Luca sits on his hands as he looks out across the waiting room.

“Do I need to call your mother?” Ilya says.

“What? No, why?”

“That’s what people with normal families do, yes?”

Luca actively chooses to not think about the implications of that sentence, or that once again it perfectly lines up with what Luca wrote as a teenager. You know your parental issues are pretty bad if a thirteen year old picks up on them.

“I don’t want her to worry. I’ll tell her when something is actually wrong.”

“You passed out in the locker room," Ilya deadpans. “It sounds like something is wrong.”

Luca screws his eyes shut. “My mum doesn’t need to worry,” he eventually decides on. “If something is actually wrong I’ll tell her, okay?”

“Okay…” Ilya glances back down at his phone, he glances at Luca again. “What should we do if you get hurt?”

“Huh?”

“It’s hockey,” Ilya says, waving his hand uselessly. “If you get seriously hit… do you want me to call your mum or is there…” Ilya pauses for a long second. His mouth twists to the side and something in his eyes get sad again. “Is there someone else I should call?”

Luca shakes his head. “Call Mama.”

“There’s no one else?”

Luca shakes his head.

“And you?”

Ilya’s mouth falls open a little bit.

“Who do we call?”

Ilya opens and closes his mouth a few times, his face flashes through so many emotions that Luca can’t keep track of them. Ilya rips his eyes away from Luca, focusing on a spot against the wall.

“Bood,” Ilya eventually decides on, he keeps his eyes straight ahead. “Svetlana Vetrova.” He closes his mouth and looks away from Luca. There’s something sad on his face again. 

Luca wants to grab Ilya by the shoulders and shake him back and forth. He wants to grab him and scream ‘I KNOW ABOUT YOU AND SHANE’ and he wants to hug Ilya and he wants to scream ‘IT’S OKAY TO LOVE HIM’. 

Instead, Luca clenches his jaw and looks ahead.

Silence stretches between them, and Luca wants to tear his own insides out. The feeling in his chest wants to get out, he needs Ilya to know how good he is, he needs Ilya to know that he’ll always always be on his side.

“You’re a good captain,” Luca says quietly. “You know we have your back right, always?”

Ilya lets out a small chuckle. “Sure.”

“We do,” Luca says. He doesn’t look Ilya in the eye because he’s not sure if he can actually do this while looking him in the eye. “I’ve… I’ve always looked up to you. That’s never changing.”

Ilya laughs, rolling his eyes. “Thanks Haasy.”

“Luca Haas!” a doctor calls out.

Luca gets to his feet probably too quickly, his entire head spins and his vision fades at the sides.

He throws his arms out in front of him, and Ilya is quickly on his feet. He catches Luca’s arm, keeping him steady as Luca’s vision swims. Ilya holds him for a few more moments, concern lacing his features.

“You’re okay,” Ilya says slowly. “We’re going to walk nice and slow to the nice doctor.”

“I’m fine,” Luca goes to shake Ilya off but immediately his vision starts swimming again. Ilya shuffles again, putting Luca’s arm over Ilya’s shoulders as he starts walking towards the doctor. Luca’s head spins and spins.

Maybe he has a brain tumour— maybe he’s going to die young and then go down in NHL history for being such a brilliant talent taken too soon. Luca doesn’t actually want to die young, maybe it’s just some vertigo.

He’s had vertigo for years, maybe it’s just worse right now.

Ilya turns to look over his shoulder to glare at someone pointing a phone at the both of them. The phone immediately goes down and the young woman looks at least a bit sheepish about it.

With Ilya’s help Luca manages to get to the doctor’s office. He sits down in the chair and feels exhausted. Ilya floats around the door.

“Is it alright if your captain stays in the room?”

Luca nods, closing his eyes. 

It feels like suddenly he’s forgotten how to exist, he knows something is wrong and now feels wrong. His head is still spinning, his entire body feels shaky. Low blood sugar? That doesn’t make a lot of sense because he did eat an entire bag of gummy worms on the way here.

“Alright… Mr Haas, just some preliminary questions. As far as you’re aware are you under the influence of anything?”

“No.”

“Are you aware of any history of diabetes in your family?”

“No.”

“Any history of blood clots?”

“No.”

“Okay…” the doctor hums, tapping her fingers against her desk. “We’re going to look for post concussion syndrome. We might need to get you in for a CT in case there’s bleeding around the brain.”

I passed out because I found out a famous hockey player was gay, Luca wants to say, I’m fine. He does feel terrible, maybe he’s placebo-ed himself into thinking he’s ill. He should be fine.

“Actually…” the doctor squints at Luca. “I normally don’t check for this in men straight away but it can’t hurt.” She rummages around in her drawers before pulling out some device. “Please give me your finger, it’ll prick a little bit.”

Luca does what he’s told.

There’s more movement and useless questions as the doctor runs some sort of tests. She turns back to the little test she’s run with a little bit of Luca’s blood. She pauses for a second, eyebrows furrowing as she looks at the result.

“That can’t be right,” she mutters.

“Is he okay?” Ilya asks.

The doctor is quiet for a few moments, eyes narrowed at whatever result she has pulled up. “Mr Haas I do not think I’ve seen iron levels this low in a man in years.”

Luca groans. “What?”

“And you’ve been playing professional hockey?” Her eyes dart to Ilya, then she looks spooked about being reminded this is Ilya Rozanov she’s talking to right now. “Uh— Mr Haas, you are going to need an iron transfusion, you probably needed one months ago.”

Luca puts his head in his hands.

“Have you been sleeping poorly?”

“Uh— I sleep?”

“No matter how much you sleep does it not feel like enough?” she asks. “Fatigue, brain fog, bouts of depression?”

“Uh—” Luca glances at Ilya. “I mean. Maybe?”

The doctor sighs. “Okay, we need to do proper bloodwork on you—”

Luca looks up from his knees. “I’ll still be able to play against Boston, right?”

“Okay— Mr Haas I need you to understand that low iron levels are considered anything under twelve, it’s generally on a scale up to four hundred but can go higher… your iron levels are three. That is dangerously low.”

Luca puts his head in his hands and tries not to scream.

“I think it might be best if you skip the next game, your iron levels are dangerously low. We need to also look at why that might be, it’s not that common in men. How much red meat do you eat?”

Luca is going to kill himself.

Luca has had some pretty horrifying moments in his career. The moment he found out he was being drafted to the Centaurs and his face did that because he had written gay porn about his captain-to-be. The moment he tripped vaulting over the wall and landed on his face so hard he had to immediately be hauled off the ice, he broke his nose! 

His clumsiness despite his skill on the ice has become a bit of a running joke. Still, he mostly manages to keep himself together. He avoids saying anything that immediately will alarm Centaur fans that he’s been on Tumblr since he was actually twelve years old.

He resists the urge to say Canada is “fucken wimdy’ every five seconds, because that was an old one that had snuck its way into his vocab. Every time Young and Holmberg talk complete shit Luca stops himself from saying “and then the bus clapped”, the few times weed has come up “bunt” is on the tip of his tongue.

The issue would never be him saying it around the team, the issue would be if it got out to the wider public. He knows a fourteen year old queer teenager is frothing at the mouth to hear Luca mutter about pissing in ballpits underneath his breath, because he also does that… way too much.

He spent too many of his formative years on Tumblr, it has categorically fried his brain and he’s probably never going to recover.

He finally slips. 

Luca ties his skates up, making sure his laces are tucked in the way he always does. The new laces feel weird underneath his hands, he got used to how worn his last ones were. He likes these ones though, they’re red and black and match the jersey.

“I like your shoelaces,” Ilya says excitedly.

Luca smiles at his laces. He is also very fond of them. “Thanks,” Luca says. “I stole them from the president.”

Then Luca’s brain catches up with what he’s actually said.

Holy fuck.

There is a moment where confusion sweeps over the locker room, everyone stops what they’re doing to turn to him. Luca feels his face immediately warm and his entire face starts burning as everyone just looks at him confused.

Behind him he hears Harris cackle.

Oh God. Luca whips around to see Harris grinning at him.

“What?” Ilya says he looks around at the team to see if anyone knows what Luca is talking about. “Is this an English joke I do not know? What is the punchline?”

“It might be a Swiss thing,” Young says, his eyes narrowed at Luca.

Harris starts laughing even harder.

Luca would like to die, he’s going to actually go find a truck to walk in front of and then the truck is going to hit him and that’s going to be great. He looks over to the exit of the locker room, he can totally kill himself actually. He’s pretty sure there are cars outside of the Tire Centre, if not he can drive to Montreal and ask a Montreal fan to run him over with a car.

He’s pretty sure they’d do it.

Luca eventually turns to see Harris basically on the ground, clutching his stomach as he laughs. Harris manages to look up at Luca, and then he breaks out into shrieking laughter again as his eyes land on Luca’s shoelaces.

Of course Harris is a Tumblr gay.

“Is this a reference to something?” Bood asks, his voice slightly frantic as he looks between Luca who probably looks suicidal, and Harris who is actually, genuinely on the floor laughing. “What is happening?”

Luca knows how straight hockey is, but fucking Christ. Even the people Luca knows are queer on this team have clearly never heard of Tumblr, let alone opened it. He understands the very obvious reasons this might happen, but still.

“If we could never speak about this again,” Luca squeaks. “That would be amazing. I am going to run into oncoming traffic now—”

“What president?” Ilya asks. “Biden?”

“Trudeau?” Bood asks, his face screwing up. “Who did you steal your shoelaces from?”

“Simonetta Sommaruga.” Luca says, because he knows no one in this room will know who that is. “I stole them from Simonetta Sommaruga.”

“Who?” Dillon asks.

Luca stares at all of his team for a few moments. “I think I can hear Wiebe calling for me, okay goodbye!”

Harris is still laughing on the floor as Luca moves past on his skates, not even caring about damaging the blades. 

“That’s Switzerland’s president?” someone says as Luca leaves. “Did Luca actually take them from Switzerland’s president—”

“He must have,” Bood says.

Luca is going to get more creative with how tries to kill himself. He’s pretty sure he can hang himself using his shoelaces, then the guys can keep debating who Luca actually got them off. He could probably garotte himself?

He’s going to do something drastic.

Luca understood in a roundabout way that his fic would get more traction after Shane Hollander and Ilya came out. It did, and Luca gained a ridiculous amount of followers very quickly on Tumblr and Twitter, and then was livid that both of those were doing as well as his Instagram account.

Then Luca starts seeing it around more on the internet, fanart with the line underneath it. “The First Husbands of Hockey Making History” and not all of them know that it came from Luca’s fic, it’s broken containment.

It’s been everywhere.

He does not expect it to be at the fucking playoffs.

The warmup lap after Ilya’s speech is pretty good, Luca feels his muscles relax and like he’s ready to do something impressive here. He chats with Young as they skate around, then he starts doing the ‘slutty little hockey stretches’ as people on Twitter keep referring to them as.

Luca stares up at the stands, there are plenty of rainbows and signs littered everywhere. His eyes trail across all of it, he can’t help the small smile starting to come across his face, the amount of joy he feels in his stomach.

Maybe one day this will be for him too.

The First Husbands of Hockey!!! One of the signs read, then underneath it is a little, Making History!

Luca stares at the sign.

It’s a reference to his fic. Luca knows it’s a reference to his fic, he knows it because the person holding the sign is his age and has what looks like a very old fan-made Hollanov jersey that Luca remembers buying because he has his own back home.

He considers curling into a ball and dying, he considers doing a lot of things—

Luca stares at the bench. Coach Wiebe is kind, Luca is pretty sure if he faked being sick he could get out of this game. He knows it’s the playoffs, he knows he should want to play this.

His eyes travel over the stands more.

There are more signs about the first husbands of hockey making history together. Luca wants to scream because that’s a term he coined! He made that up, and everyone thought it was a good name and now he’s pretty sure commentators are going to use it.

Luca can’t hide the horror on his face as he skates over to the bench.

Luca skates over to the bench, looking at Coach Wiebe as Coach Wiebe is hunched over a whiteboard, talking to one of their analysts closely. 

“Haas?” Coach Wiebe looks up, scanning Luca up and down. “You don’t look super great. How’s the iron levels looking?”

Luca has no clue.

His eyes trail back over the stands, his eyes land on the word ‘AO3’ and he immediately turns his head away. “I— yeah I’m not feeling great. Can I not be on the starting line, please?”

Coach Wiebe opens his mouth, then closes it again. His eyes soften as he looks at Luca, and Luca does his best to look like an afraid and confused rookie. 

An afraid and confused rookie who is about to win the Calder, and is second in point-scoring on The Centaurs, but a rookie either way. Coach Wiebe has young kids, Luca is willing to use this to get out of playing while he has to witness the word AO3 on the stands. 

“Yeah,” Coach Wiebe says quietly. “We can get Terry to look at you if you’re unwell.”

“I think it’s just nerves,” Luca mumbles. “I mean, it's the playoffs! We made it to the playoffs in my first season and I’m just— yeah I feel a bit ill.”

Coach Wiebe looks genuinely sympathetic, he makes a small noise, looking down at his whiteboard. “That’s alright, I am going to make you check your iron.”

Luca resists the urge to groan. He just nods, because as someone with iron so low they thought he had celiac… that’s probably a fair shout.

He nods.

Luca collapses onto the bench, putting his head in his hands and doing his best to ignore the fact Ilya Rozanov is definitely seeing signs with references to a fic Luca wrote when he was a teenager. 

This is fine.

They check his iron, it’s fine. Luca manages to look appropriately surprised by that.

When Luca finally does get on he vaults over the stand and watches as Barrett scrambles back over to him.

He scores his first NHL playoff goal seven seconds into him being on the ice, an immediate slap shot from about fifteen metres out.

Even Shane Hollander, the most competitive man ever, looks almost proud. He skates over to Luca, giving him a sharp nod.

“Good shot.”

Luca has a million chirps he should probably say to Shane Hollander, about their goalie being useless, about— anything.

Instead, he looks at the way Shane Hollander’s longer hair is stuck to his neck underneath his helmet, the way sweat is sliding down his face and the small, but genuine smile on his face.

Luca has played against Shane Hollander before, and still he literally can not think. His mouth goes dry as he watches a bead of sweat travel down the hollow of Shane Hollander’s throat.

“I have your trading cards,” Luca blurts out instead.

Ohmygod.

Hollander raises an eyebrow. “They ship those to Switzerland?”

“You know where I’m from?” Luca asks, feeling lightheaded again.

"Played left wing for the ZSC Lions under twenty division. ZSC Lions wanted to take you but an NHL scout got there first. You turned eighteen just before the draft— thirty goals and twenty-two assists with the ZSC Lions. Second fastest in the league right now.”

“Yeah… you’re the fastest,” Luca mutters dreamily.

Hollander doesn’t quite smile but there’s something sparkling in his eyes. “Don’t forget it.”

He skates away.

Luca feels light headed as his shift ends and he moves to the bench. Play resumes and Luca feels a little dizzy.He clambers over, feeling more like a monkey than a human person and he collapses onto the bench. His shoulder brushing against Ilya’s as he looks at the play in front of him.

“Stop looking at my fiance,” Ilya hisses.

Luca mumbles an apology.

“First husbands of hockey…” Ilya mutters.

Luca feels his entire body go stiff, he stares at Ilya with horror. This is his nightmare, he is living a nightmare.

“I like this,” Ilya says with a firm nod. “It makes us sound like hockey royalty, which we are.”

Luca nods, watching as Holmberg speeds down the ice, passing it back and forth with Young in a way that is deeply impressive.

The rest of the game Luca refuses to look at the stands.

Shane’s and Ilya’s wedding is atrocious. It’s one of the worst weddings Luca has been to, and still he smiles the entire time.

Then he drinks.

Then he drinks, and then he’s so drunk he barely remembers his first drink. He throws his arm around Harris then buries his head against his shoulder. He groans.

“You okay there Luca?”

“They’re so hot,” Luca whines. “On krasivyy.”

Harris laughs. “Okay, we’re going to find you some water and some actual food.”

“On krasivyy,” Luca whines again, because it’s one of the Russian phrases he actually knows.

Harris leads him to… not a chair, because they don’t have chairs, but a log that is kind of functioning like a chair. “I’ll be right back. Stay there.”

Luca nods. He can listen. He’s good at listening, he listens to Ilya Rozanov all the time.

Harris wanders off, maybe to get his boyfriend too. Why does every gay guy on this team get a boyfriend? Luca wants a boyfriend.

He turns his head to the grooms.

They both look so fucking hot Luca doesn’t even know what to do with himself. He wants to scream, and then he wants to ask to be their third— he doesn’t actually want to, he thinks.

Although he did write probably too much Y/N fanfiction with Ilya Rozanov. And fuck he’s so beautiful with his cheekbones and his beautiful blond hair and he’s so caring and kind and only he would be able to lock down Shane fucking Hollander, the poster boy of all of hockey.

Their suits are tailored and it shows off their waists, it hugs their shoulders and Luca kind of wants to bite the junction between their shoulders and necks.

“You’re very red,” Harris notes, handing Luca a glass. He follows Luca’s eyes before snorting. “Ah. Makes sense.”

Luca can’t tear his eyes away from how they dance with each other, loving, but also like they’re three seconds away from actually fucking on the floor.

“Sixteen year old me was so right,” Luca mumbles.

“Hmm?” Harris says.

“To write porn of them fucking each other,” he sighs dreamily. “They’re so hot.”

He sips at his water and feels good. The water has ice in it, Harris is very thoughtful like that. Harris is the best.

“Wait…” Harris squints. “You did what?”

“Write Hollanov porn,” Luca sips at his water again. “And reader and Ilya porn, and one time Cliff Marleau and Ilya— I know what Ilya’s dick looks like now I could be more accurate.”

Harris has a very funny expression on his face. “Oh God—” he pinches the bridge of his nose. “You lot are going to make me grey.”

“You’d be soooo hot grey, Harris. Troy wouldn’t know what to do with himself.” Luca searches around for another drink. “I was really good at writing porn too! I was so famous and cool.”

Harris sits down next to Luca, and Luca slumps against him.

“What account name is it?” Harris asks, voice a mix of concern and amazement.

“Lululuca8124— 2481? I dunno. I have a Twitter account, it has as many followers as my hockey account. That’s so messed up. Am I as good at hockey as writing porn?”

Harris is very quiet next to him. Luca looks over his shoulder, he has Luca’s AO3 account open. Which is exciting! It’s been a while since Luca looked.

Harris’s thumb is hovering over the threesome fic.

“Luca— what do these words even mean?”

“Oh, yeah dacryphilia is being turned on by crying. Like finding tears hot. Omorashi is basically just a piss kink but it’s about kinda getting off on the embarrassment.”

Harris looks up from his phone to look at Luca. “I am not supposed to know this about you.”

“I’m not into that stuff,” Luca mumbles. “I barely even like sex, everyone on Tinder wants to hook up and like— I’m not letting anyone I don’t know that close to my dick! What if they bite it off? I need that… to like pee.”

Harris sighs. He keeps scrolling through the account, as he reads each tag he gets increasingly worried. He lets out a small breath and looks at Luca.

“You should probably take this down.”

Luca hums. “No.”

“Luca if you get found out—”

“I won’t!” Luca says excitedly. “I haven’t, I mean I deleted the real crazy ones—”

“Luca, what is crazier than you writing Hayden Pike and Ilya Rozanov taking turns with Shane Hollander until he needs to pee so badly he cries?”

“You don’t wanna know,” Luca mumbles. “I can delete that… it’s kinda hot though.”

Harris lets out a deep breath through his nose. “Okay.” He says. “Alright buddy. How’s the water.”

Luca looks down at the glass with the slowly melting ice in it. He smiles widely and holds it up like it might hold life’s answers. “Good! Thank you Harris, I love you Harris. Your boyfriend is so lucky, Troy Barrett doesn’t know what to do with all that.”

Harris laughs. “Thank you for your concern, we’re just fine though.”

Luca groans. “Why does every gay Centaur get to be gay, I wanna be gay. Harris, do you know any hot gay men?”

“None in your age range sadly.”

Luca frowns. “I can be a sugarbaby.”

Harris sighs and looks up at the sky. He takes another deep breath before glancing at Luca’s glass. “Do you know how you’re getting home?”

“Nope.”

“Troy and I can take you,” Harris lets out another deep sigh. “I didn’t think you’d be the one to cause me the most trouble.”

“I’m causing you trouble?” Luca asks, pouting. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sweet,” Harris says with a smile. 

Luca doesn’t remember a lot more of the night, he’s pretty sure he dances with Holmberg in a way that will have Luca needing to clarify if Holmberg is actually straight in the morning. He’s pretty sure he is, straight guys can get gayer than gay guys for some reason.

He remembers drinking way more than he should of, and he’s pretty sure he remembers Ilya and Shane literally running off to probably have incredibly hot and athletic sex because that’s probably a thing they do.

Luca’s last hazy memory is Troy and Harris helping him into Troy’s car as Luca is rambling about something.

“Okay, okay,” Harris says, amusement is lacing his tone. “Luca, you're speaking German.”

“Ja,” Luca says, then laughs because that’s the funniest thing in the world. “I just think— what do I think? I forgot.” He is very carefully put in the car, and Harris slides into the seat next to him, a bucket on his lap.

“Please do not throw up in my car,” Troy says as they peel away back towards Luca’s place.

“Mhm,” Luca says thoughtfully. “Is Holmberg gay, why was he doin’ all that?” Luca feels his body careening to the side, and he doesn’t even care because he lands against Harris. Harris lets out a small noise that’s almost laughter.

Luca hums thoughtfully. 

“Holmberg isn’t gay,” Harris says. “You would not be coming home with us if he was gay.”

Luca nods thoughtfully. “The Centaurs are soooo gay, Shane Hollander is joining us. That makes… many gays, so many gays, we will single handedly make a pride parade and then we’re going to beat up Roger Crowell and he’s gonna get hit with the colour of the rainbow and then I am going to eat his flesh.”

“Alright Rookie,” Troy says quietly. “Maybe let’s stop threatening bodily harm.”

Luca considers it. It’s probably a good idea. 

The rest of that conversation is hazy in a good way, Luca is pretty sure he got talked down from beating up Roger Crowell, and then he got returned home by Troy and Harris. 

Troy and Harris had managed to unlock his apartment door (Luca didn’t know which key was his and which was his key to his childhood home, then he started crying… Troy took over after that.) Harris commented on how clean it was, and then Harris had tucked him into bed which was very sweet. Luca felt like a little kid again.

And Luca wakes up with sun shining in his eyes, not as much of a headache as he should have and the mortifying snippets of memories from the wedding.

Including talking to Harris about his moonlighting writing gay porn about various important figures in the NHL. Luca is horrified to realise that he explained what dacryphilia was, then horrified to realise Harris had scrolled through them and found the threesome fic.

Luca needs to delete them. He needs to delete his fics and run a knife through his fucking throat and then he needs to curl into a ball and try not to die and then he’s going to actually kill himself. His mother will miss him, but she’ll understand why.

“Fuck,” Luca mumbles, he fumbles for his phone.

There’s a lot of messages, the Centaurs’ Groupchat is full of people checking they’re alive. Luca sends a thumbs up and then rolls facedown on his pillow. It’s two in the afternoon. Luca has no clue when he got back last night.

His phone buzzes.

Harris. Excellent! Someone Luca can tell about his plans to actually die.

Harris (DO NOT RESPOND)

Good morning! Painkillers and water are on your bedside table. I’m pretty sure Troy is sending hangover food to your place

Luca Haas

i’m actually gonna do it this time

I TOLD YOU WHAT DACRYPHILIA IS

Harris (DO NOT RESPOND)

From a PR perspective I would delete them and scrub all your accounts. This is NOT a good look if anyone ever finds out. From the perspective of someone who likes reading gay drama just get rid of the intense smut ones

Luca Haas

YOU READ THEM!?!??!!

throwing myself off a balcony

Harris (DO NOT RESPOND)

You live on the first floor

Luca Haas

going to young’s to throw myself off the balcony

my fucking bad

Harris (DO NOT RESPOND)

It’s up to you! I really liked them but as a Professional I think it’s a bad idea to keep them all up sorry

Luca Haas

you’re going to need a new left wing

i am actively killing myself

Luca stares at his phone. He looks at Harris’s contact information and really, really debates if he can actually get traded to another team. He thinks he can. They’d probably let him. 

Maybe the Centaurs could get some decent defense and stop Wyatt Hayes from having to put up Fleury numbers.

Then he thinks about the fact he wouldn’t get to eat Bood’s barbecue ribs again.

He can stay with The Centaurs for now.

Luca will just never ever, ever be able to look Harris in the eyes ever again, which is fine.

He hopes.

Luca is still trying to get used to the fact Shane fucking Hollander is going to be on his team. He’s still trying to get over Ilya Rozanov being his captain and now again Shane fucking Hollander is on his team. 

Luca gets back from Zurich, a smile on his face and feeling more like himself than he had that entire year and… Shane Hollander and Ilya fucking Rozanov are there to pick him up. Luca had asked for Bood, or Harris.

Sure.

Luca stares as Ilya walks up to him, breaking away from some teenagers talking to him. Shane looks lost for a second before giving what looks like a polite goodbye and following after Ilya. Ilya stops in front of Luca before drawing him into his arms and hugging him tightly.

Ilya lifts him off the ground and Luca squeals, kicking Ilya in the knee and he’s dropped onto the ground.

“Luca!” Ilya says incredibly excitedly. “How was Switzerland?”

“It was good,” Luca is unable to wipe the smile off his face.

“Are you ready to win the cup this year?” Ilya yells, to the point where people around them are starting to look at them.

“Hell yeah!” Luca yells, even though it seems incredibly out of place and someone has their phone out. 

Ilya finally decides to drop Luca onto the ground, which is impressive because Luca isn’t much smaller than Ilya in just about any way. 

Standing to the side is— Shane fucking Hollander, he looks effortless. He’s wearing a pair of pale jeans and a hoodie that Luca is pretty sure he’s seen on Ilya before. His hair is swept off of his eyes and it’s longer.

Shane Hollander looks at him, a smile on the edge of his mouth.

“Uhm,” Luca says. “I’m Luca, Luca Haas— it is an honour to play with you… sir?” He holds his hand out towards Shane, because that feels like the polite thing to do.

Ilya’s entire face brightens up. “Sir! You are old now, Hollander.”

Shane just shoots him a look, although the fondness in his eyes defeats some of the aggression.

“Haas,” Shane takes his hand and shakes it. “It’s good to meet you, Rozanov never shuts up about you. Now we can have two Calder winners on the same team.”

Ilya’s mouth falls open, he whips around to look at Shane. “What are you saying, Hollander?”

Shane shrugs one shoulder, before giving Luca a conspiratorial smile. “Well, since your captain doesn’t have one—”

“I have a Hart!” 

“Yeah, ten years ago,” Shane grins. “I have one from two years ago and another Conn Smythe—”

Ilya scowls. 

Shane looks back at Luca. “I’m Shane, I’m looking forward to playing on your line… even if that means playing with Tanner Dillion.”

“Shane—” Ilya groans. “He’s not that bad. He is still in the second line, and you can not trash talk players to other players.”

“His stick handling is on level with some of the kids at our camp,” Shane snaps back. “He should really be third line and Young should be on ours—”

Shane’s eyes land on Luca again, like he’s forgotten Luca has been here this entire time. Shane’s shoulders hunch slightly and he turns away, then very pointedly walks towards the baggage carousel. 

He’s playing on a line with Shane Hollander. He’s going to pass out— he watches, feeling a bit dazed as Shane Hollander walks towards the baggage carousel, probably to pick up his bag.

Ilya laughs, nudging Luca in the ribs. “Stop looking at my husband.”

“I wasn’t— that’s not— I wouldn’t—” Luca stammers. “He’s Shane Hollander! He is hockey personified, I’m playing on a line with hockey personified and he’s excited!”

“You did not freak out this much when you met me,” Ilya frowns. “I am much better at hockey.”

Luca really, genuinely looks at Ilya. He tilts his head to the side. “You don’t actually believe that, right?”

Ilya’s mouth falls open.

“I mean— you’re a better two-way forward, Shane is the sniper of all time though. I don’t even know how he sees some of those shots— he’s always led you in goal scoring, you generally have more assists but—”

Luca looks at the expression on Ilya’s face, mouth dropped open and eyes wide as he properly looks at Luca.

“He’s Shane Hollander,” Luca mumbles, but this shouldn’t need justification because again… Shane Hollander.

“Hollander!” Ilya cups his hands to his mouth.

Shane reacts like he’s been shot, as a bunch of eyes automatically land on him. His shoulders hunch up higher and he gives Ilya a sharp look. Ilya must see something in it because he jogs over to Shane.

Luca follows because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to do.

“Where were you nineteen years ago?”

“I was eleven,” Shane deadpans. “So probably at school, at the rink, playing with Lego.”

“This is your son,” Ilya grabs one of Luca’s shoulders, pulling him forwards. “He just rambled lies and slander about why you are the best hockey player.”

“He is hockey,” Luca mumbles, which is ridiculous because everyone knows Shane Hollander is the best, and everyone knows that Ilya Rozanov is the only person who has ever given Shane any trouble.

Shane gives Luca a smile, and Luca watches how it’s strained on the edges.

“Oh fuck!” Luca says. “My bag—”

“Which one?” Shane says, already starting to speedwalk away. 

“Uh— the blue and yellow one.”

Ilya snorts next to him, crossing his arms as they watch the giant blue and yellow suitcases amongst all of the boring black and grey bags. Shane basically sprints after them, hauling the two ridiculously heavy bags off of the carousel before either Ilya or Luca can react.

“Luca Haas,” Ilya says a little bit dreamily. “If you marry someone—”

“Make sure they’re like Shane Hollander?”

Ilya nods. “Willing to grab your bags, willing to pick up the starstruck rookie from the airport because you thought it would be funny—”

Shane returns, wheeling both of the bags. He’s slightly out of breath as he rolls the yellow suitcase towards Luca. He keeps the handle of the blue one in his own hand.

“I can take it,” Luca says. “You really don’t have to—”

“It’s alright,” Shane says, and Luca doesn’t really know how to stop Shane Hollander from taking his bags. He wants to pass out. That feels like a theme today.

“Can we get lunch, moye rasteniye?”

Luca is very brave and strong and doesn’t react like he knows exactly what Ilya is saying. ‘My plant’ is an odd one, and Luca honest-to-god has no clue why he actually knows that one. He looks between the two of them.

“Please?” Luca says.

“There’s nowhere nearby that—” Shane looks down at his phone, he takes a deep breath, screwing his eyes shut. “What do you want to eat, Haas?”

“Uhm—” Luca stares between the two of them.

He doesn’t really know why Shane Hollander looks like he’s about to be executed and why Ilya Rozanov looks like the fate of the entire universe is held in Luca’s hands right now. He glances back and forth a few more times.

“Uh, I’d kinda like a burger? But if anyone wants anything else that’s totally okay we can do whatever you guys want I’m not picky at all—”

“Luca,” Ilya says. “It’s fine. Let’s go find a burger, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Ilya can you drive?”

Ilya seems to relent, nodding as the three of them head back to whatever car. Luca follows behind them and pretends not to notice the way Ilya’s and Shane’s hands brush against each other, he also pretends not to notice the way Shane jumps out of his skin whenever they touch.

Luca finds the floor much more interesting to look at after that.

The burger place is one that Ilya chooses, promising that they have a bunch of healthy options and Shane seems to agree after looking on his phone. It’s a diner style place on one of the side streets of Ottawa. It’s two in the afternoon on a Thursday, so there’s not many people here.

The burger place is perfectly millennial, with bar stools and fairy lights and fake greenery littering the entire place. The tables are kind of sticky and have QR codes instead of normal menus on them. 

Shane spends ten minutes complaining about it and Ilya makes bigger and bigger heart eyes the entire time.

There’s music playing which Luca vaguely recognises from being played when he was a child that Ilya is singing along to very happily. 

Shane is doing his best to look annoyed, but is unable to wipe the fondness off of his face as Ilya does the dumbest shoulder shimmy in the world.

Luca is third-wheeling, perhaps the hardest he’s ever third-wheeled, and he was once in a friend group of six other people who were dating. He’s pretty sure two of them are going to get engaged soon— the other two couples broke up and ruined the friend group which is a bit inconvenient.

Their food comes out decently quickly, and Luca immediately digs in. Ilya has ordered four burgers and then dramatically winked at Shane and Shane had rolled his eyes so hard it looked like it hurt.

Lunch is fine and normal, as normal as having lunch with the first husband’s of hockey and Shane fucking Hollander.

Luca spends his time counting Shane Hollander’s awards, or at least the ones he knows. Shane is a three time Stanley Cup winner, he’s also a two time Conn Smythe winner, Hart Memorial winner. winner of the Calder Memorial Award in his rookie year, three time Art Ross winner, winner of the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy two years in a row, Shane is a Ted Lindsay Award recipient, he’s the 2016 winner of the Mark Messier Leadership Award. Montreal are four time Prince of Wales Trophy winners. 

Luca is going to fucking pass out.

That Shane Hollander is eating burgers with him, that same Shane Hollander is apparently “looking forward” to playing on Luca’s line. 

It’s a good lunch all things considered, Luca only fanboys a little bit about some of the goals he’s seen Shane make. He keeps talking about one against Ottawa in 2019 and Ilya keeps grumbling about that game.

Luca spent literal days going through Shane Hollander statistics in 2016 to write him better, and that is incredibly embarrassing and he is not going to tell anyone under threat of death or torture but… it’s still fun.

“Just how do you see them?” Luca says. “I mean, I’m no Shane Hollander but like— how do you set up these scoring opportunities, your ability to see shots is… unparalleled? How do you even train for that?”

“Oh, yeah,” Shane says. “So when I was younger I was kinda… already great, so sometimes I would have to do like 1v5’s against the rest of the team and… it just kinda worked that way, I wanted to win so I got better and better and then when I came to the NHL it was similar.”

“Because Montreal is bad,” Ilya adds with a nod, before taking a bite out of his burger which sends the toppings sliding out the back of it. Ilya starts swearing, and picking up the burger-sauce covered vegetables with his fingers. “They build a team around you and then they— forget to put anyone else competent on.”

“They’re competent,” Shane mumbles, but it doesn’t feel that convincing.

“We are going to crush them this season.”

“We crushed them last season,” Luca adds. “And that was before we had Shane Hollander.”

Shane pulls a face. “You did not crush us.”

Ilya picks up a bit of tomato that fell out of his burger, shovelling it into his mouth. “We made it past the first round of playoffs, I can not say that about you and your awful, terrible team that was only good because you were good.”

Shane rolls his eyes. “They have a new rookie… apparently he’s… okay.”

“We have a Calder winner,” Ilya reaches forwards, picking a fry off of Luca’s plate. “Oh those are good— and apparently we have very good defense too. They’re moving him up from uh— the New York Griffons, they’re—”

“The affiliate team, I know. Why aren’t they in Ottawa?”

“We have the Pegasus and the Griffins, Griffins is the AHL, Pegasus is the CHL— I don’t know why it’s in New York though. They’re apparently bringing us Artemy Levin, who was a legend on the Griffins.”

“New York has the most varsity hockey teams of any US state,” Luca mumbles. “Statistically if  you’re gonna find good hockey players in America they’re gonna be in New York. Where’s Levin from?”

“He’s from New York City— going to Brooklyn College right now. I think he’s moving closer to the start of season,” Ilya runs a hand down his face. “We will crush Montreal with our team of babies, Wyatt Hayes, Troy Barrett, Shane Hollander, and most importantly, myself.”

“What about Bood?” Luca asks. “I love Bood. His playmaking skill is some of the best on the team.”

“You are very sweet,” Ilya says, then reaches over to pat Luca condescendingly on the head. “Oh! Luca, I had to ask you about something. You’re young, yes.”

“Uh… yeah?”

“What’s Aye-Oh-Three.”

Luca feels his heart drop.

“Um, what?”

“People write stories about hockey players there!” Ilya asks excitedly. He bends over his phone and starts scrolling rapidly.

Shane’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

“Fanfiction,” Ilya says, he finds whatever he’s looking for and tilts his phone towards Shane. “Look! They write about Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, they are in love— this one has them adopting a child.”

When Luca was young he accidently walked out onto the road and almost got hit by a car, he remembers the feeling as he saw the car rushing towards him— the terror that had filled his entire body.

This is that feeling but worse.

He is doing his best to be casual about the entire thing, his eyes very much boring into the burger in front of him

Shane lets out a small, shocked laugh. “How did you find this?”

“My Twitter showed me it,” Ilya scrolls on his phone again. “Ooooh, they’re having sex in this one… what are they doing with their hockey sticks?”

Luca hunches further over his burger.

“Ah,” Ilya looks up. “I forgot, our rookie doesn’t know what sex is.”

“I know what—” Luca splutters around his burger, he doesn’t want to say ‘I have had sex… kind of’ because he is talking to Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander. One of whom is his captain and the other who plays on his line now and there’s a fourteen-year-old version of himself in his brain who is screaming to not tell Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander about sex.

The nineteen-year-old in Luca’s brain, otherwise known as Luca’s brain, is also screaming at Luca to not mention the fact that he wrote enough porn about these two that it’s truly disturbing. This same part of his brain is also telling Luca not to confess that a decent amount of the stuff he does know about sex is because he was reading Hockey RPF.

He also wrote emotional things, which is somehow more embarrassing… he did write the most popular fic in the fandom and that was popular because it had like… heart and soul behind it.

“Do they write about you and I?” Ilya says.

Luca can feel his heart dropping further and further into his stomach.

“Oh yeah, they do,” Shane says, with a shrug. He looks back at his burger, a pained expression coming across his face. He shoves the plate over to Ilya and picks at the side salad he got. “They’ve been writing about us for years… I used to find it kinda weird.”

Luca debates running into traffic. He instead looks up from his burger, pretending to be a normal amount of interested about this, he can feel his heart beating in his throat. They are in dangerous territory.

He can feel the urge to reach out to his Tumblr account and scream, or Twitter— or anything. He needs to be saved from this conversation. Luca stares at his onion rings like they might offer him some answers.

They don’t.

“There’s this one that’s really famous,” Shane says. “Some of the signs people hold up reference it. I think that’s where the first husbands of hockey came from.”

No, no, no, no, is all Luca can uselessly think of. Luca saw those signs. He wants to cry.

He looks at the cutlery no one has touched because they’re eating burgers, and who in their right mind would eat burgers with a knife and fork. He’s pretty sure he knows what to hit which would make him bleed out here.

Luca might even get blood on Shane though, and— his shirt is probably worth as much as Luca’s car. Luca has a nice car too, and he’s pretty sure he’d rather crawl over broken glass than get blood on Shane Hollander.

Instead of doing any of this, Luca takes a bite out of his burger. He misses Canadian and American food, the food they make without a single care for health. Luca probably shouldn’t be eating this before the season starts.

He takes another bite.

It’s so, so, so good that Luca can almost forget about the horror that is his life.

“Oh?” Ilya says. “What is it called?”

“Uh—” and then Shane pulls out his phone. “

Luca is going to melt into a puddle, and then he’s going to die, and then he’s going to melt into a puddle and then he’s going to die. What is happening? Why is Shane Hollander pulling the fic Luca wrote as a teenager up on his phone?

Why is this happening?

Who did Luca wrong in a past life?

And Shane opens it— way too quickly, he places his phone on the table next to Ilya, then goes back to picking at lettuce. “‘Never Knew Loving Could Hurt This Good’ apparently the title is from a Troye Sivan song. It was… kinda helpful though.”

Ilya and Luca both look up at Shane. Shane’s eyes are on the table in front of him, he’s twirling his fork in one hand, eyes a little distant. He glances at the phone next to him. “Just read the tags.”

What the fuck does that mean?

Shane looks at the phone, he looks at Luca. He looks back at the phone.

“Ah,” Ilya says with a nod. “Dom Ilya Rozanov, yes this is true—”

“Ilya!” Shane hisses, hitting him hard in the shoulder. Ilya makes a small noise of pain, rubbing his shoulder.

“Okay,” Luca says with a laugh. “Uh— I need to pee real bad, so I’m going to do that and then I’m going to come back and then I’m—” he stumbles out of his seat, heading in a direction that might not lead to the bathroom but is away.

Luca stumbles to the bathroom, he puts both of his hands on the sink.

He looks himself in the eyes, then he points at the mirror. He looks a bit messed up, he hasn’t slept in twenty-six hours, his hair is a bit of a mess, he looks like he just came off a long flight and then the tightest layover he’s ever had to do.

He also looks like two men he looks up to greatly are about to find out about the fanfiction that Luca wrote of them. Luca is going to have to do something drastic, he doesn’t know what it is but something—

Maybe he can fake passing out? He managed to actually pass out when he found out Shane Hollander was gay, he can probably fake passing out. His iron is fucked probably, he can pass out again.

Shane was looking at him— Shane definitely saw the big ‘LUCA’ in the username and then saw how Luca looked like he was going to throw up. Luca groans, covering his face with both hands to hide himself from the mirror.

He drops his hands.

He points at himself in the mirror, leaning close. “Focus up Haas,” he mumbles to himself. “Fix your shit.” He still looks shit, but that’s okay. Luca rubs his hands down his face, trying not to sigh too loudly.

Luca feels like he’s in a club bathroom, telling himself to sober up again. He shakes his head, splashes water on his face to fight off the tiredness starting to seep at his bones.

He trudges back out towards Shane and Ilya, doing his very best to look normal about the entire thing.

“—it was comforting, I guess,” Shane shrugs, looking down at the table. “Even when we couldn’t see each other I could—”

“Luca!” Ilya announces too loudly as Luca sits down.

Ilya has finished scraping up everyone else’s food, and Luca suddenly doesn’t feel particularly hungry for his burger. He shoves the burger towards Ilya who pulls a face.

Shane is looking at Luca, eyes narrowed.

Luca is not a fan of that actually!

“Uh— can we head soon?” Luca says, “I think I’m starting to crash.”

Ilya nods sympathetically, Shane is still frowning. Shane looks down from his phone and then up at Luca again, his eyes are still narrowed. He tilts his head to the side, and then his entire face lights up.

Luca is not a fan of that…

Ilya nods, before starting to shovel the rest of the burger into his mouth. Shane is momentarily distracted by whatever he was looking at Luca like with the sheer amount of joy that apparently comes from figuring something out by how gross Ilya is as he eats the burger.

“That’s two and a half burgers,” Shane frowns. “The season is about to start—”

“It is my treat before the season,” Ilya says through a mouth full of food. “Do not act like this is gross, you’ve use my toothbrush.”

“Ew.” Luca says.

“Well, the other option was not brushing my teeth,” Shane grumbles. “I wasn’t going to wait until the store opened to get a toothbrush.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Moya zubnaya shchetka,” he says in an adoring tone and Shane screws his face up.

Luca does not want to be here anymore actually. Luca stands up, his head spinning to the point he needs to grab onto the table. Did Luca take his iron supplements in Zurich? He doesn’t think he did— and that’s fucking horrifying at best.

“Oh shit,” Luca mumbles as Ilya is immediately on his feet, burger abandoned. “I’m fine, I’m okay— sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry,” Ilya frowns. “What is wrong?”

“Iron I think,” Luca grips onto Ilya’s forearm. “I’m fine, I just got up too quickly.”

“You have iron problems?” 

“He passed out from it once,” Ilya says cheerfully, like that’s something to be happy over. “His iron was three.”

“Three? That’s like dangerously low.” Shane says.

Thanks Shane Hollander! Luca wants to say. I was entirely unaware of this! Thank you for enlightening me about my medical issues, I was previously unaware of that.

“Yeah,” Luca says instead.

Luca looks up at the roof, and wishes that one of the obnoxious overhead lights swings down and kills him instantly. He would enjoy that more than he cares to admit. He manages to successfully resist the urge to put his head through a wall.

Not that he still doesn’t have the urge. More that he just doesn’t do it.

The three of them trudge back to the car, Ilya hovering annoyingly close. Luca passed out one time and suddenly Ilya is acting like he’s going to fall over and die. Shane, at least, seems to have no cares in the world as he moves towards the car.

Luca gets back in the back seat, leaning back against it.

“Uh— am I good to have a quick nap?” Luca says. “I promise I won’t drool on the seats, wow how much are these worth—”

Ilya snorts. “You are fine, Haas. Go to sleep.”

Luca leans against the door, his eyes fluttering shut before he can really stop it.

Luca wakes up incredibly confused as Shane fucking Hollander shakes him awake. He shakes Luca awake so gently, and for a split second Luca actually thinks he’s dreaming about Shane Hollander again.

Then he remembers that he has dreamed about Shane Hollander, and the real man, the myth, the legend is in front of him, shaking him awake. Luca’s entire body jerks upwards as he blinks the sleep out of his eyes.

“Shane Hollander,” Luca’s half-awake brain manages to say. “You— Shane Hollander,” he finishes with a solid nod.

Shane looks more than baffled. “Uh, this is your place, right?”

It is indeed his place, and Luca scrambles for his keys as he tries to get out of the car. He almost falls over again and Shane has to hold him steady, there’s a moment where Luca grabs onto Shane Hollander’s bicep and he nearly passed out.

Shane Hollander’s biceps are actually as solid as rocks.

Luca is going to pass out. He’s too gay for this, he’s going to pass out.

Shane and Ilya both help take his bags to Luca’s front door, which is ridiculous because Luca is more than capable of moving his suitcases, he had the entire way through the airport and that included the connecting flight.

Still, Luca isn’t going to complain too much.

Before they leave, Ilya wraps Luca up in a tight hug. He then knocks on Luca’s head in the way he normally does after Luca scores a goal. Except… there’s no helmet, so he’s just knocking on Luca’s head like a weirdo.

“See you soon, Haas. Don’t get too good, don’t want you breaking any records.” Ilya knocks on his head again and shoots him a wide smile.

“See ya, Cap.”

Luca goes to turn around and lug all his bags inside, he has big plans to immediately pass out for… ideally twenty hours. Someone clears their throat behind him, someone who sounds suspiciously like Shane Hollander.

Shane Hollander is standing in his hallway, he looks over his shoulder as Ilya leaves. Apparently Ilya doesn’t… notice that Shane isn’t behind him which makes Luca want to laugh.

“I’m looking forward to playing with you, you’re really good,” Shane says, and he does look earnest. He puts a hand on Luca’s shoulder, it’s warm. Luca should not get distracted by that. “Oh also, you should really finish your story.”

Luca has gone to hell, he is in hell right now and hell is where he is and he is going to die— 

“W— what? I don’t— what are you talking about? I don’t know what you’re talking about, what are you accusing me of, that’s ridiculous.”

Shane taps him on the shoulder twice more. “Finish it, I want to see the epilogue.”

“What— that’s— what? Are you threatening me to update my fucking fic? Is that what’s happening right now?”

Shane doesn’t smile, but he looks incredibly amused about the entire situation. “I’ll send you another cease and desist.”

Luca stands in his own fucking apartment hallway, his keys held loosely in his hand. He has his bags still in his hand, he has just gotten home from about twelve hours of travelling and two hours of fucking around with the guys he wrote gay smut of while he was a teenager. One of those guys sent him a cease and desist letter when he was fifteen. He slowly, slowly, turns to Shane Hollander who is walking down his hallway.

“That was you!” He screams. “You’re the one who had me Googling fanfiction protection rights at two in the fucking morning! That was you? Ohmygod did you read the—”

“Yep,” Shane says. 

“And you read the one where—”

“I read them all.”

Luca stares at him for a long moment. “I— you— what— I? You’re— you— you’re…”

“Also,” Shane says. “In chapter twenty-two you got my numbers wrong when you referenced the 2014 season. I had fourteen powerplay goals, not eleven.”

Luca just nods.

He thinks about going to bed, he thinks about how nice it would be to fall asleep face down right now. Instead, he starts rummaging around in his backpack to find his laptop. He pulls it up and opens the old document.

This document has been untouched for years.

Luca doesn’t want an actual cease and desist letter now Shane Hollander knows where he lives.

If Shane Hollander dies in a freak hockey accident in the next few days… well that’ll be a shame.

Luca wakes up very tired still, his face is mushed against his pillow and his entire body hurts. He turns his head to the side, bashing the top of his alarm clock with his hand. The soft glow that lights up the room reveals it’s 4AM. 

He glances at his phone, which is lighting up with notifications every few seconds. They’re mostly Tumblr notifications. Luca watches it for a very long time, before he groans and turns onto his side. 

Great. Now he’s supposed to play hockey with Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, and he’s supposed to act like he doesn’t want to be shot in the head every time someone calls them the first husbands of hockey.

Luca sees a notification pop up on his phone from Shane Hollander on Instagram. He thinks about replying to it, he thinks about the fifteen-year-old version of himself who was actually threatened with a cease and desist over fanfiction.

He then thinks of himself, right now, nineteen years old and watching his phone. This version of himself needs to look Shane Hollander in the eye and play a line on him for the next… who knows how long.

With a grunt, Luca rolls back over and goes to sleep. He dreams of Shane Hollander dying in an unfortunate zamboni accident, Luca, then strangely enough wakes up with motivation to write a fic about exactly that. Weird.