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[OTT] F Shane Hollander signs with the Centaurs (8 years, $7.75M AAV)
HFBoardsMod · Jun 30, 2021
Forums > General Hockey Discussion > Trade Rumors & Free Agent Talk
1 2 3 … 8
Jun 30, 2021
This is fucking insane. There's team-friendly and then there's whatever this shit is
🤣👍 cens81, IcingWaved, 100PercentShot, and 2 others
Jun 30, 2021
>Be best forward in the NHL
>Be gay
>Be up for the last big contract of your career
>Get married to Ilya fucking Rozanov
>Follow him to Ottawa
>7.75M AAV
🤣 cens81
Jun 30, 2021
Very tidy bit of business. Having Rozanov, Hollander, Boodram, Barrett, and Dykstra all locked down for the next few years is absurd. Not sure how they'll make Haas work but at least they've got Holmberg/Boyle coming off the books soon. Never thought I'd say it but Ottawa might just be lethal this year?
👍 100PercentShot
Jun 30, 2021
puckhogger said:
>Be best forward in the NHL
>Be gay
>Be up for the last big contract of your career…
Rozanov is a steal too, he could have milked them for all they were worth after walking from Boston but didn't. The salary cap is literally getting gamed by the gay agenda lol
🤣👎 cens81, That Bears Fan, CENSNATION, and 1 other
Jun 30, 2021
Wow. Montreal in shambles.
🤣 cens81 and puckhogger
The buildup to Luca's sophomore season goes like this:
He spends the summer training in Zurich, as usual. His brothers and sisters tease him for becoming an NHL hotshot, which he accepts gamely if not with some sheepishness, and he enjoys breathing in the fresh, crisp Swiss air that Ottawa simply cannot replicate.
Then Anton Mikhailov happens.
Mikhailov, six-foot-three and touted as the future saviour of Ottawa's blue line, had been drafted fifth overall before the team ever even dreamed of seeing the playoffs. He'd spent a few years developing in the KHL, and after touching down in Canada for training camp and promptly admitting to living out of his suitcase in a Holiday Inn by the practice rink, Ilya forces the three of them out for lunch, staring at them balefully over his chicken pasta.
"What do you say," Ilya begins conspiratorially. He juts his index finger out and somehow manages to wag it threateningly. "You, rookies, Anton new to the city. You live together?"
It's clear that it isn't exactly a suggestion. Luca can tell as much. From across him in their plush leather booth, Anton smiles at Luca uncertainly.
"Um," Luca squeaks. Actually squeaks, because he's still searching, futilely, for his own spine whenever Ilya Rozanov is concerned. "I am not a rookie anymore?"
"Bah," says Ilya. It's a lost cause and they both know it.
Then he turns to Anton and murmurs something else, something low in Russian, that makes Anton bark out a sharp laugh. Luca has no idea what he's saying, but he thinks he catches an accented Hollander in there somewhere, which means it's probably full of embarrassing particulars a captain has no business imparting to his newest rookie.
"Okay then," Anton acquiesces. He doesn't seem too concerned about the multiple trips to Walmart penciled into his future. "Sure. Luca and I will live together." And then he stabs his fork into his pork chop like it's all very simple and easy.
By Friday, they're officially roommates.
—
Shane is only mildly irritated at Ilya's interference.
"Be honest," Ilya says, grinning. "You don't want a rookie in our house!"
"Well," tries Shane. Ilya doesn't have to make him sound so particularly ungenerous. It's just that, fundamentally, Shane is a married man. He has an unfairly hot husband and married-man needs. Sue him. "I mean, it's the leaderly thing to do."
"Oh, yes? Is leaderly thing to, ah, what is the word, subject rookie to our very healthy, active sex life? Make him hear how NHL superstar Shane Hollander likes to take it every night?"
Shane Hollander-Rozanov, Shane doesn't bother correcting, because that is so far from even the stratosphere of what is most pressing right now. Namely: Ilya's continued opposition of the most elementary forms of propriety.
Shane is sure that he's flushing an unflattering shade of pink.
"Ilya," he protests. Rubs his fingers against the bridge of his nose. "No."
Ilya, of course, is like a dog with a bone. "I tell him, ah, yes. My husband likes to take it very hard. Hope you do not mind. Sometimes we are up until very late, you see."
"We are not," Shane scoffs, having given up on the rest of that impassioned monologue. Hitting their thirties has meant becoming old and responsible and boring, if not in the bedroom then at least in the 10PM nighttime routine preceding the bedroom. There are still rules, after all. "Last time you tried to stay up past twelve on a day off, you fell asleep after ten minutes on the couch."
Ilya slaps one of his annoyingly large palms to his chest with a gasp. "Lies!"
There are photos. He'd been snoring with his mouth open. Shane has a burst saved to his favourites in Photos.
"Anyway," Ilya recovers smoothly, as if their conversation had never diverged in the first place. "Luca needs friends. He is too lonely; is not good for his performance."
Reluctantly, Shane feels himself defrosting.
What he thinks but doesn't say is: That never stopped me. He doesn't mention that he has the rings to prove it. He's heard enough of Luca Haas to see the parts of himself that Shane spent years viscerally uncomfortable with reflected back at him, patented wunderkind anxiety and vivid crush on Ilya Rozanov so large it could be seen from outer space and all.
If he were ever to see a therapist—something he staunchly refuses to do, at times to Ilya's chagrin—maybe he could admit that his relationship being perceived so openly still embarrasses him. That sometimes he worries he already sees himself too much, that he knows his faults too truly and deeply, that it doesn't take a genius to know he seeks control to salvage the ugly recesses of his being. That all he's ever wanted is to be normal. To be a consummate professional; a natural leader; a captain.
He likes Ilya even more, though. Wants them even more. That's always been the problem.
"We can… have them over," he finally concedes. Shane remembers being young and untethered and holding the expectations of a flailing Voyageurs franchise on his shoulders. Their locker room had always been jagged at the edges, the fans impatient with him and the team and the pithy words of aging ownership. He looks at his husband, tall and proud and honey-toned and deceptively gentle, and he folds his hands over his lap with a sigh. "We should invite them for dinner a few times, at least."
From the way Ilya's face immediately lights up like a Christmas tree, this is clearly the right thing to say. "Yes! We will host! I will make the steaks."
Shane laughs. "You like hosting way too much for someone who's bad at it," he tells him patiently. He reaches for Ilya's hand and softly tangles their fingers together, Ilya's callused skin like an anchor against his knuckles.
"What," Ilya scoffs. "I am a master of meat! The boys, yes, they all love my meat."
"Ilya. Love. Never say any of those words in that order ever again."
Ilya's ensuing pout is not cute. It isn't.
—
"I will take this room, yes?" Anton asks the moment they step through the hallway, pointing at the door on their left.
They've been roommates for all of five minutes and Luca is already staving off a conniption. The nice thing about living in Kanata is that housing is pretty much dirt cheap by professional hockey player standards, ELC notwithstanding; Ilya's realtor hooked them up with a townhouse in under a week like it was nothing, and now they have two wholly unnecessary floors and a laundry basement with a backyard patio all to themselves. Luca thinks about sharing a communal area with Anton's charming, boyish face for an entire season and feels a little bit faint.
You see, the problem with Anton Mikhailov is that he can't be real. He simply cannot be. Luca is sure of it.
Moreover, Luca is quickly realizing that Anton's entire… well, entirety, is a little bit distracting. Even if he'd rather be sentenced to an hour of bag skate than admit as much. Luca's too old to be getting flustered by a mop of dark hair and an uneven grin and striking green eyes, no matter how dangerously they flicker in the light.
"Um, yes. That is… fine," he manages. Something inconveniently rock-shaped lodges in his throat.
"Awesome," Anton says smoothly. Then, "I am excited to be playing with you."
Luca blinks. Oh.
"Me too," he admits, and this time the words come easier. Everything is easier when it's about hockey. Even before training camp, he'd watched some of Anton's tape and been mesmerized by how lithe and technical he was in spite of his size, how effortlessly breaking ankles at the blue line seemed to come to him. Watching him skate in real life hadn't been any different; Luca had felt that gnawing hunger, hot and molten, returning to him. Found himself blinded by the sheer potential simmering under the surface.
He continues, diplomatic, "You are a great skater. It is a good time to be in Ottawa, I think."
"Oh. Yes, thank you," Anton accepts quietly, and the shy tilt of his smile causes Luca approximately one hundred thousand damage points. He's turned toward the door and wrapping a hand around the handle when he leans back and says, their eyes meeting, "Hey—what do they call you here, by the way? Lulu?"
"Lu—" Luca splutters and trails off. He is far too pale and blond to be blushing this easily. It's a horrible curse that all Haas siblings must bear. "What. No!"
Anton laughs. "Kidding. But it's a cute name, yes?"
"It's Haasy," he informs him sullenly. "I am not twelve years old."
"Hm," Anton accepts noncommittally. "Okay, sure. Haasy. See you for dinner?"
Luca is so, so fucked.
Eric Gauthier
@egauthier
Morning skate lines ahead of the season opener ✍️
Boodram - Rozanov - Barrett
Pulkkinen - Hollander - Haas
Johnson - Gilbert - Dillon
Krejčí - Nyquist - Ernst
Holmberg - Dykstra
Boyle - Mikhailov
Chouinard - LaPointe
Hayes
Eriksson
#Centaurs
10:35AM · Oct 14, 2021
After many years of serious hockey, Luca is pretty sure he has shared a locker room with every type of player there is. He himself knows exactly where he stands in the pecking order; he was on the smaller side in juniors, and even after a solid growth spurt has looked consistently twelve for about ten years now, which he recognises makes him a particularly easy target. He's used to being chirped for his regimented approach to the game, for being able to rattle off scores and records from ten years ago in his sleep, for eating and breathing and sleeping everything hockey.
He loves the pattern of it, though. It's like drawing. Everything is a shape on top of a shape on top of another shape. Hockey and art are both about cycles, in the end, about numbers and seeing the bigger picture before etching out the details. It's all premeditated. It's what separates the good from the elite.
At least, that's what Luca thinks.
Shane Hollander is ultimately—of so very many things, all of which would take approximately three books and a multi-season primetime television series to fully uncover—a revelation.
Early into Luca's rookie year, one of the first pieces of advice Ilya ever gave him on the bench was, "You spend too much time on iPad, is no good. Just play the game." Luca remembered feeling somewhat affronted and more than a little envious that anyone could live so untethered from their own reflection. Maybe that's why it's such a relief when three-time Stanley Cup champion Shane Hollander joins the team and immediately sticks his nose in a screen after their first shift together.
"Sorry," Shane says belatedly, scooting over to allow Luca to lean in. "You need this?"
"Um," Luca says uncertainly.
They watch in companionable silence as Shane flubs a breakaway opportunity. Shane hisses and tilts his head to the side, clucking his tongue.
"That was dumb," he offers simply, in a very, oh, well, kind of voice that betrays the hard and focused glint in his eye. Then he sits back up, and Luca watches him consciously square his shoulders and settle all the way down his spine. It's kind of scary. Also pretty cool.
Maybe a little hot.
They look back out to the play just as Tanner crashes the net and rips a shot that goes just wide.
"Next time?" Luca tries, unsure why he's trying to talk up one of the best players in the entire league. God.
Immediately, he feels awkward and too small for his body. But before he can turtle back into his jersey or gnaw anxiously on the edge of his mouthguard or do something else equally juvenile that the camera is bound to pick up, Shane looks over at him and amicably nudges their shoulders together.
"Let's go get you one, eh?" Shane says.
Because—right. Before his life was completely upended by one of the biggest scandals in NHL PR history, Shane Hollander was in fact the tenured captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, and he was pretty good at his job.
"Okay," Luca agrees, because what else can he say?
—
"Fuckin' A, Haasy!"
Spirits in the locker room are high after they stomp Winnipeg 5-1. There's something about early-season wins that Luca especially enjoys, when the pressure has yet to fully build and the stakes are too low for them to get too caught up in their mistakes.
Tanner hollers and slaps Luca on the back. "Give him the stick!"
"Stick! Stick! Stick!" Roz shouts with far too much enthusiasm.
"Stick," Anton repeats from his locker, looking a little bit dazed.
The stick in question is, of course, an inflatable stick pony that has become their new player-of-the-game tradition. Luca holds it in front of him and smiles awkwardly for the camera. He wonders if Harris knows that his shit-eating grin is actually mildly terrifying, and that his sweet apple farmboy façade does nothing to disguise the fact that he is clearly the apex predator in the Centaurs food chain. Luca can see him. He sees through him.
Anyway. There's also a cowboy hat involved, horrifically, which he hurries to take off once Harris's phone camera disappears from sight.
"Aw," says a voice behind Luca that almost makes him jump out of his skin. He turns around to find Anton dressed down to his pants. "The hat suited you, though. Very handsome."
Through some divine miracle or another, or maybe because he does actually posess common sense, Luca manages to not fixate on that single word. Handsome. Instead, he rolls his eyes and turns around to start peeling off his jersey. "There is no—it makes no sense. We are the Centaurs. Not the Ottawa Cowboys."
"Yes, but the horses!" insists Anton. "Everyone will go crazy in the comments, when Harris posts that. Sweet little Lulu in a sexy cowboy hat."
Luca groans. "I told you not to call me that."
Anton very maturely sticks his tongue out. And they wonder who the twelve year old is. "Yes, but everyone here calls me Micky. Micky. Please, Luca, give me this."
Luca will do no such thing.
"I will do no such thing," he informs him, and is very proud of how evenly he manages it.
Anton huffs dramatically, but he still nudges him gently in the shoulder before turning back. Luca bites down on a pleased smile and sits down at his stall, casting a cursory glance over the rest of the room.
He makes eye contact with Shane, who doesn't seem to mind that Ilya keeps bumping into him every two seconds. Their stalls aren't particularly narrow, either; Ilya is obviously just keen to be as close to his husband as molecularly possible. A little cute, mostly gross. Definitely annoying. Shane tilts his head at Luca in silent question.
He isn't sure why he suddenly feels so caught out. Why it feels like he's metaphorically stuck his hand in the cookie jar, left a trail of crumbs in his wake. Obvious—too obvious. He tries for a shrug. Tilts the corners of his mouth up.
Shane returns the gesture and then camly goes back to peeling off his socks.
Which. Is probably fine.
hollanovas
38m
roz kissing holly on the cheek after his goal i'm going to throw up
hollanovas
23m
did anyone clip haasy and micky giggling on the bench together? they like each other soooo much
hollanovas
4m
wait. Guys… can we talk about the way the babies smile at each other in the potg video??? what the fuck. what the fuck is going on
The thing is, Shane sees it immediately.
It's a strange feeling—being thirty and finally made to reckon with your own obliviousness. He'd been seventeen at first and then suddenly twenty, so young and yet every year somehow impossibly older, the time slipping away from him like sand through his fingers. No one had ever thought to sit him down and say, Hey, did you know that you're hurtling headfirst in love with Ilya Rozanov?
No one could have. No one had ever even known.
With Luca, though, it's different. Shane takes one look at the way he ducks his head every time Anton stares at him for too long, at the way he can't seem to keep his fingers still when the boys sit together on the bench, the nervous tremors that run along his hands, and he just knows.
Shane likes Luca Haas. He likes him a lot. It's funny to think that he'd once felt completely irrational jealousy over this skittish mouse of a thing's childish crush, because—well. He gets it. Doesn't he? He likes Luca's focus and sincerity for the game, his structured dedication to working out, the rapt attention on his face when Shane explains the benefits that a consistent morning yoga routine has brought him.
"My sister Giulia does pilates," Luca offers seriously. Apparently he has, like, ten siblings. It explains a lot. "But yoga does sound a bit easier. You can maybe send me the videos?"
"Of course," Shane promises, and it feels weirdly invigorating to have a young player look at him like that again. He's kind of missed… well, having a teammate trail him like a lost puppy. Having a reminder that he does know how to lead. That it was his job for ten-or-so years.
He starts messaging Luca little things. Ilya glances at his phone on the plane back from a grueling road trip and furrows his brows contemplatively. The moment they make their way through the door and into the kitchen, Ilya immediately crowds him against the counter and fixes him with an elaborate pout.
"Shane," he demands. Very Seriously. This is definitely a situation that calls for a Serious Face. "Why did you steal my rookie?"
"He's actually not a rookie anymore," Shane reminds him boredly. "Remember, two is bigger than one?"
"No!" Ilya insists. "He is twelve. That is still a rookie."
Shane pats Ilya on the arm before sidestepping around him to walk up to the fridge, pulling out a pack of chicken breasts. "There, there. You'll live."
—
Ilya does live.
But worst of all, he meddles.
Later, in bed, Ilya's arms wrap securely around Shane's waist and hold him steady. He muffles sleepily into his neck, "I am very glad you are happy on the team."
"Mm."
"I mean, you are, yes? Happy."
There's a slight uptick in his voice then, an uncertain waver that Shane hasn't heard on a relatively good day in a while. Shane twists his neck as much as their position will allow and presses a messy kiss against the crown of Ilya's hair.
"Of course I am. Don't be ridiculous." Which is probably not the kindest thing he could say in the moment, and maybe he is a terrible husband for that. But, honestly. "I have you, and the team is great. And Wiebs is a good coach. We're good. This is—" his throat closes up all of a sudden, and he blinks harshly to stave off the large wave of emotion that crashes into him. "This is… all I've ever really wanted, I guess."
The noise Ilya makes then assuages Shane's insecurities about Feeling Every Emotion All The Time. It's hard to believe, sometimes, that things can actually work for them. That they don't have to keep looking back over their shoulder, that sometimes life can simply be… lived.
"Okay. Yes," Ilya finally says, low and soft and reverent. He slowly moves them over to cradle the side of Shane's jaw with his fingers, bringing him in for a lazy kiss.
Shane is just starting to get into it, whimpering embarrassingly as Ilya bites particularly harshly at his bottom lip, when Ilya pulls back and says: "By the way."
"Mm?" His brain is operating at about fifty-percent capacity right now, and he would be more than amenable to slipping away into that vague and hazy headspace, which is of course why Ilya has to go ahead and immediately ruin it.
"Do you think Luca still has a crush on me?"
Shane's instinctive reaction is to push his husband away. "What the fuck, Ilya!"
"What!" Ilya shoots back, landing in a boneless heap on the mattress and staring up at him, affronted. "Is just a question!"
"And I would love to hear why you're choosing to bring this up now."
"Well, you see, I'm kissing my beautiful husband who always makes the most beautiful noises, of course, and I remember—okay, I will say it. I think Luca might be a bit in love with Anton."
"A bit?"
"Is the way I look at you," Ilya confesses proudly. If he were a bird, he'd be puffing his chest out.
Shane sighs.
"You are fucking ridiculous," he says, because he really can never win around this man.
hollanovas
1d
Anonymous asked:
hey, so i'm kind of new to the cens and was wondering if you could tell me more about the baby roommates??? i keep seeing posts about them but i'm only familiar with luca. hope this isn't annoying to ask
of course anon! so anton is our new guy who was drafted a year before luca, but he's been in the khl ever since and just signed his elc last summer. he and luca are roomies now (both at home and on the road), largely thanks to roz's influence:
"It's not like he gave us much of a choice," Haas recounts wryly. "Roz is not easy to say no to."
"Yes. Holly knows this best," Mikhailov cuts in mischievously, and the boys both laugh. The camaraderie between them comes so easily, you'd be hard-pressed to guess that they've only been sharing a house for two months. (x)
(crying) also apparently they like to sit on the same bed after games and watch tiktoks together, which luca "accidentally" revealed during one of the q&a segments harris (censmin, also troy's bf!!!) forces the team at gunpoint to do.
another thing about luca is that he's… very shy and adorable and the baby of his family so all the guys on the team like to chirp him. anton does too but i mean, they're close in age and you can tell he sees him as a peer and is kind of protective of him. they're always together + talking on the bench + hanging all over each other while getting off the ice. it's kind of obnoxious tbh. here are a bunch of gifsets of them cellying this season (1) (2) (3) (4) LOOK AT THOSE SMILES!!!!
also, this was c r a z y but haasy is also a really good artist (the guys will occasionally call him picasso), so censmin once had him do a bunch of team portraits that they taped to their locker name plates as a joke. not to sound completely insane or whatever, because anton is objectively a pretty guy i guess (the cens have a decent amount of pretty guys in general though. totally not biased!), but his anton portrait was SO much better than everyone else's that it was kind of glaring. please look at this tweet i'm begging you. and when grilled about it luca got all flustered and said that he sees anton the most so obviously he knows his features best. obviously…….. Obviously.
i could go on but i think you get the picture. they just really really like each other, and we also like to joke that hollanov have lowkey adopted them because shane and luca get along well and roz has said that it's fun to have a russian teammate even if it's annoying that anton is so young and doesn't know any of his memes. the guys call shane luca's mom all the time which is kind of a whole Thing. but that's for another time 😀
hollanovas
8m
Anonymous asked:
Wow! There is something so wrong with the Ottawa Centaurs.
:))))) (smiling through the pain)
December rolls around, and Shane and Ilya take it upon themselves to host the team Christmas party, because, well. Who else. The team all trickle in wearing festive toques and ugly sweaters, some of the older guys pitching in with nice wines and plates stacked high with seasonal cookies.
Thirty minutes into the function, Ilya finds Shane on the couch and presses a heavy arm around his waist.
"We have to get the rookies together," Ilya announces without preamble.
"Jesus," Shane mutters. Talk about subtle. "Have you ever left anything alone for once in your life?"
He grins. "No. Is how I got you!"
He points over to where Luca and Anton are chatting by the fire. Anton's dark hair has fallen into his eyes, and the way he leans in surreptitiously and crowds Luca with a well-placed arm by his side screams interest. It's cute and entirely ridiculous. Luca's smile comes much more easily with him than it does around the rest of the team, like he knows he doesn't have to try as hard. That he can just… be.
"They're cute," Shane allows.
"We are also very cute!"
Shane makes an ambivalent gesture with his hand. "Eh."
"Take that back," Ilya demands, wrestling Shane deeper into the couch until he has him pinned to his back, running his hands along his body and tickling his sensitive spots relentlessly. "Say it! We are also cute!"
"Fu—hah—cking get off me, you freak!" Shane wheezes. He giggles helplessly as Ilya slowly eases off him, accepting the apology kiss that lands sloppily on the corner of his mouth. "You are so annoying."
"Ah, yes. But you love it."
"If I agree, will you drop this ridiculous scheme?"
"Shane," Ilya says mournfully. "They are so young. And in love! It is our job to make it happy!"
"Your job, maybe. You're the captain here."
"Oh, yes, okay. Everyone knows you will have A very soon. No need for drama."
Shane sighs and sits back up against the couch, letting his legs splay out. Ilya quiets and leans into his side, the noise of the party—generic Christmas jingles, glasses clinking, what sounds like Troy shouting at Wyatt for cheating at cards while Harris cackles delightedly next to him—fading slowly into the background.
The thing is, he gets it.
The hockey is good. Really good. They haven't been off to a start this hot in about fifteen years. Their center depth is finally contender-quality; Luca has found his footing in the league, is less afraid to play physical, to battle hard; Wyatt is firmly in the zone, and Anton is proving to be everything he was promised to be. Slick, smart, quick. They're firing on all cylinders.
Shane's parents are good. Anya is good. The fans are good. Ilya—is the best.
In the end, he's indulged worse vices.
Ilya must see something on his face, some kind of resignation or maybe even reluctant acceptance, because he whoops and goes in for a hungry kiss.
"We're in public!" Shane hisses under his breath, but he lets himself be pulled in for more anyway. Fuck it.
When Ilya finally backs away, he graces him with his cockiest, most shit-eating smirk. "You cannot resist me."
"If your ego gets any bigger, you won't be able to fit into your helmet," Shane informs him. He elbows him in the side. "So what is this grand plan of yours?"
Ilya shrugs. "Simple. You deal with Luca and talk to him about his anxious little feelings, how hard it is to be cute little superstar who likes hockey too much, maybe lock them in a closet if he doesn't listen. I will talk to Anton."
They twist around to look at the fireplace again, and—
Shane squints. "Wait. Where did Luca go?"
—
Luca doesn't know if this is, like, a rich-person thing, but the lights in the Hollander-Rozanov kitchen are far too bright.
He's been nursing a peach-flavoured Clearly Canadian for the past ten minutes because he doesn't trust himself around alcohol in the vicinity of Anton Mikhailov. He knows he's a lightweight and is only a little bit embarrassed about it; being tipsy is usually fun at team parties because it loosens him up just the right amount, to the point where the guys collectively treat him like an abandoned puppy they found on the side of the road and patiently indulge his nervous ramblings. But if he opens his mouth and accidentally reveals the suspiciously Anton-shaped hole in his chest, he might actually die. He will have to die.
So.
Luca is sober.
Someone clears their throat behind him. Luca snaps his head around and finds himself face-to-face with none other than Shane Hollander. Rozanov.
Jesus. It's a strange life when you're experiencing romantic crises next to your childhood idol's kitchen island at twenty-one.
"Hey. How are you feeling?" Shane asks him gently.
"I am…" Luca thinks about it. "I am doing okay. You?"
"Been worse," Shane shrugs, which is probably an oversimplification. "Any reason you're hiding out here by yourself and not with the boys?"
Suddenly, Luca feels a dizzy sense of déjà vu crash into him. He remembers nervously clutching a beer just like this back at Monk's while Ilya teased him mercilessly, asking, You don't like sex? Remembers not knowing how to elaborate the fundamental particularities of his beliefs. He hadn't known, then, everything that Ilya was hiding.
Luca purses his lips. Weighs his options.
"Can I ask you a question?" he tries instead.
Shane shoots him a wry grin. "Is it about hockey?"
"No," Luca tells him miserably. "Well, maybe. In a way."
Hockey haunted everything they did, in the end. Reality was like a specter looming over the enormity of his feelings and desires. Luca Haas had only ever dreamed of one thing, and now everything else terrified him.
"I think I understand," Shane says, because he's Shane Hollander. So maybe he does know everything.
Luca just has to ask. To reach out and grasp it. He just has to say, I want to know. How did you make any of this work? What am I allowed to take?
So he does.
—
It wasn't every day that Shane let Ilya kiss him in public, or at least as public as a team party got, so he'd taken his time kissing him long and slow, even offered a soppy Russian epithet that had earned him a weak slap on the arm, before finally making his way to Anton. When he does, he points out to the patio, and Anton raises his eyebrows before following silently toward the door.
It's been a few months now since Anton officially made the team. His English has proven to be unfairly good for someone who's only ever stepped foot outside of Russia to play hockey; kids these days, Ilya thinks disapprovingly. Too much time on the Internet. Never mind that Instagram has been offloaded from his phone for the past few weeks at Shane's insistence, something about being too obnoxious and everyone already knows we're married, you don't have to keep proving the point! and other adorably shy, self-conscious mutterings that Ilya had gladly indulged before making a big show of logging out for his wonderfully fussy husband.
Ilya is obsessed with being married.
Nevertheless, Anton.
They lean their backs against the wall, inhaling the brisk winter air. Ilya slides his hands into his pockets and rues the fact that he doesn't have any cigarettes to really drive the picture home. Small sacrifices, in the grand scheme of things.
Anton breaks the silence by saying, "Are you not embarrassed, calling him ridiculous things like your little dishwasher?"
"No. My quick wit is how I made Hollander fall in love with me," Ilya informs him proudly. He continues, a pitiful note to his voice, "Poor Tosha. You wouldn't know romance if it was right in front of you!"
Anton wrinkles his nose. "I know what you're trying to do, you know."
"Ah. Do you?"
"I don't need your help. Luca, maybe he does. I don't know. But the matter is ultimately up to him."
Ilya considers this. It's a comfort to realise that Luca is much more like Shane than Anton could ever be like him. They've never spoken about such matters before, at least not directly; it had simply never occurred to them. The first time at lunch, Ilya had said, Hollander worries that our walls are too thin, I'm sorry, and Anton had laughed and accepted the crudeness of his confession without so much as a flinch.
It was the larger details, though, the tender truths, that terrified him. Had eluded him for years.
Anton is impossibly younger than him. At his age, Ilya was already sneaking into hotel rooms and meticulously taking Shane apart, holding him down and fucking him deep so he'd feel him for days, wanting more than anything for the memory of each ephemeral encounter to hold. They'd been transient nothings. Schrödinger's lovers.
"That may be true," Ilya accepts. "But still, all relationships require good communication."
"I am a great communicator," Anton argues. He lolls his head to the side, and Ilya sees a flash of sudden shyness overtake him. It's always funny—the things rookies choose to get coy about, as though Ilya could possibly hold any sort of esoteric judgment in his fist. "I was—quite good in school. I liked literature the most. Plus, I studied English meticulously."
Ilya raises an eyebrow. "Did you really? I didn't even know you could read."
"Don't project onto me, dude."
The insolence. The disrespect. "Yes, yes, okay. But studying Gogol doesn't mean knowing how to romance someone, come on. There is no love to that!"
"Of course he was the only one you remember," Anton laughs. "Do you really think so little of the classics? But, no. I like… I've always liked stories about people, and hardship, and romance. I like the way Luca sees the world, that he loves art almost like I do, that he has an—indomitable creative spirit. Luca is special to me. And he is also very fucking good at hockey."
Ilya can't help it. He grins like a fucking loon.
"Oh, what are we going to do? You are both just too cute!"
"Shane is right. You are annoying."
Ilya huffs and grabs hold of Anton's oversized body, rubbing his knuckles harshly against his messy mop of hair. "And you don't know how to respect your elders." The vice grip makes Anton yelp, and he twists and wriggles out of his grasp until there's a flush to his face that isn't just from the cold.
Ilya schools his expression into something more serious.
"Okay," he begins. "Maybe I don't know much about—how it is, for you." Life for Ilya had always seemed overly complicated. He'd met one of Svetlana's friends once, at a party with too much vodka and a lot of beautiful women, who'd told him about her family of small-town teachers and office workers and then said, You know, some of us just lived normal lives. It's been years now since he last went home. He doesn't know anything about what it's like to be twenty in Saint Petersburg, where Anton grew up and then laced up. Ilya doesn't know whether he's saying this for Anton or himself when he finishes, "But I know that sometimes the things you think are easy are actually hard, and sometimes the things you think are hard are actually very easy. And I am here as your captain and also… whoever you need me to be."
Anton's mouth quirks up gratefully. His cheeks still have fat to them. He's probably smarter than Ilya ever was, but there's so much he hasn't ever lived, and Ilya wants—no, needs him to know that. There are lifetimes between them.
"Yes," Anton accepts. "Of course, yes. Thank you."
It's a lot of emotion all at once. Ilya swallows harshly.
"Would you happen to have a cigarette?" he asks abruptly.
"Really?" Anton does a scarily accurate impression of Shane's unimpressed face. "It's almost 2022. I actually care about my body condition."
Ugh. "All of you! So impossible!"
—
On their last road trip before the bye week, Luca and Anton experience firsthand the displeasure of being next-door neighbors with mama and papa.
"Jesus Christ," Luca says faintly. He needs to—ah. So he's already sitting down, it seems. "They are really… um. Hah. Yes."
"They are really going at it," Anton finishes sagely. "You can say it, Luca. Have you never had sex before?"
Before he can embarrass himself further, Luca crosses his legs self-consciously and folds his arms over his ankles. Maybe if he stares a hole into the sheets he can ignore the way their captain's headboard is creaking furiously into their wall from the other side. "You think you are so funny."
Anton snickers. "That's not an answer."
"Of course I've—ugh." Luca sticks his tongue into the left side of his cheek. He refuses to be baited. "It is just not polite to…"
"Listen in? Talk about it? It's not like they give us much of a choice."
That is true. He is a little too horrified to ever face Shane again. He hadn't even known it was possible for the human body to produce such noises.
Luca's voice is faint when he declares, "I think I need a beer."
"Yes," Anton agrees easily, already heading to the mini-fridge. Then he scoots Luca over so he can sidle up next to him in his bed. Luca feels the body heat emanate from him like a ray of sunlight on the beach, hot and focused and comforting. He lets their thighs press together, their fingers brush when he accepts the cool can handed to him, chewing on his lower lip as he pops the tab open.
Anton presses his left hand against Luca's hip and says, "You are very cute when you blush."
Christ. Luca needs to be about three more beers in before he can unpack any of that.
"I don't—" Luca laughs nervously. "I don't think so."
Anton just shrugs, like this is a normal response, like everything they're doing is okay. He's good at that, Luca thinks. Anton is like a rolling wave, carrying them from shore to shore. "Okay. I will open TikTok now."
"Yes."
"If you're sure."
"Anton!"
He doesn't move his fingers, though.
—
"If I weren't a hockey player? I dunno, maybe something with business. I did go to UMich for two years."
"Go Blue!"
True to form, they're forced to film one last Q&A video before Harris releases them for break. Luca tries to school his expression so he looks less like startled prey being hunted for sport.
"I'd open a barbecue restaurant," Zane says directly into the mini mic, to the surprise of absolutely no one. "In fact, I still can. Retirement is going to look great on me."
"Chill out, man," interjects Wyatt. "You've still got a few miles left on you."
"What am I, a car?"
"Yeah. A Ferrari, you fuckin' beaut!"
There's a ripple of laughter as Harris shuffles over to Shane, who considers the question with intense consternation before saying, "I would have stayed in sports, probably. Coaching. Is that allowed?"
"No! You can't do something related to hockey."
"A physio?" he tries.
"Fine," Harris allows grumpily. "But it's boring."
"It's a Q&A video. I'm not going to lie!"
"As for me," Ilya announces quickly, because of course he's sitting right next to him. "I have many. Circus tiger man. President. Olympic diver. Shane Hollander's house husband."
"Who even taught you that word?"
Ilya looks inordinately pleased at having his flirting attempt acknowledged. Harris hurriedly moves on before their foreplay derails the entire video.
"Uh, well." Luca is next, tragically. He looks to his right, where Anton is just off-camera. "This is obvious, I think? I would have tried painting, maybe. Or animation. Something with art, although it does not pay so well."
"Cute," says Anton.
Harris coos. "And you, Micky?"
"I would write," he shares, whip-quick and definitive. "Anything. Poetry. Children's books, TV. Good stories. Important ones."
"He is quite good," Luca says. "I have…" he lowers his voice, turns to look Anton in the eye. "Can I say this?"
Anton shrugs with forced nonchalance, but his smile is timid and pleased as he tucks a strand of hair behind his ear.
"I have read some of his poems. Already they are very good in English…" he trails off. Doesn't know what else to say about it, how it'd felt to have this beautiful boy next to him open up his chest and present him with the visceral feeling mass inside of it. Anton mouths a silent, thanks at him. Luca dares himself not to blink.
Neither of them notice Harris leave.
Afterward, there are quick muttered goodbyes while they exit the rink.
"I wish I were going to Cabo," Shane says sullenly once he hears of Luca and Anton's joint vacationing plans. Everyone on the team is off the hook now that Shane and Ilya are here, soaking up all the All-Star attention.
"Oh no, my name is Shane Hollander and I make millions of dollars and am leading the league in assists, my life is so hard, I have to go put on an ugly jersey and do trick shots in Miami to grow the game!" Evan warbles mockingly.
"You'd understand if you'd ever been voted," Shane shoots back to a chorus of oohs.
"Well, I hope our room is next to Dallas Kent so we can bother him all night," Ilya shares cheerfully.
Miikka, who already sees enough of Shane as his liney and does not need to be subjected to any more of their marital hijinks, blinks. "Oh, so you do know that you're obnoxiously loud on the road."
"Well!" Shane flushes.
Ilya shrugs. "What? I am good lover, I have beautiful husband with perfect hockey ass, of course I must pleasure him with my massive—"
"Ilya," Shane warns in a deceptively light tone. His terrifying, frozenly polite Canadian smile sends shivers down the back of Luca's spine.
Ilya harumphs but actually settles down.
Zane hoots. "Holy shit. You are so whipped!"
The accusation doesn't even seem to bother a shrugging, satisfied Ilya. Huh. Maybe he really is Shane Hollander's house husband.
Before Luca and Anton can get to their car, Ilya jogs up to them and places a hand on Anton's shoulder. He whispers something in Russian to which Anton holds up an unimpressed finger. Ilya cackles.
"Have fun, Luca!" he says kindly.
"Um," Luca whispers, but Ilya is already sauntering away, running his hand down Shane's back and giving him a very conspicuous slap on the butt.
Luca turns back to where Anton is haphazardly tossing their bags into the trunk. "What did he say?"
"Hm? Oh. He told me to use protection."
Luca almost hits himself with the car door.
mimi⁶
@mikhailover
guys, friendly reminder that your tweets are PUBLIC and censmin sees EVERYTHING. pls be normal
9:24PM · Jan 29, 2022
m! 🔒
@mikhailoverpriv
ok so they're fucking.
7:25PM · Jan 29, 2022
Luca gets way too drunk in Cabo off an endless supply of deceptively fruity cocktails.
As a final test of his willpower, Anton tans beautifully. Luca stares woefully at the way his shoulder muscles flex when he dips himself into one of the resort pools, swim trunks slung low and teasing at the jut of his hipbones.
The thing is that, in all twenty-one years of his existence, sex has never been evident to him. That much Luca knows.
But in the end, it's Anton. They've known each other for months now, and he's tipsy and his fingers ache to reach out and grab. He'd been loose with beer in a hotel room two weeks ago when he'd stared at Anton's plush pink mouth and wanted desperately to lean in, to capture it between his teeth.
Luca rubs his palm against his eye, grinding the muscle in. It's getting late and the sun is starting to set in a beautiful orange arc above the horizon. Slowly, he begins to unbutton his shirt, watches Anton watch him. He leaves it in a heap by one of the beach chairs and takes a step forward. Then another, and another, until he's falling gently into the shallow water, submerging himself fully.
As he sinks, his fingers find purchase in the slippery fabric of Anton's shorts. The sound is foggy here, everything blue and diluted and undulating in a geometric rhythm, and Anton lets himself be pulled down until they're both holding each other in the dark.
I am going to kiss you, he thinks to himself, projects as loudly as possible. The words aren't necessary. Haven't been for a while.
If you ask, neither of them will know who leaned in first.
—
"Everything is very… complicated here," Anton contemplates later, apropos of nothing. He's trying to dry his hair by vigorously rubbing it out with a towel over the hotel sink. "For Ilya, I understand, it's hard for him to hide because he is a slut. But I promise I will not… what is the saying. I will not jump your bones on the ice."
"Dude," Luca says faintly. Then, because there's nothing else to say, "Okay."
Anton smiles and takes Luca's hand, tracing the ridges of Luca's knuckles with his index finger. Luca moves in until they're flush against each other, wrapping his arms around Anton's middle, and is only mildly embarrassed by how much he likes the picture they make in the mirror.
Anton continues, "I like you, you like me. Yes? I tell my parents, my sister, you tell your one million thousand siblings."
"Four."
"And you are the baby. Cutest."
"Stop it," Luca complains. He gets enough of it from the rest of the team.
"Okay. Sorry," Anton concedes, not sounding very sorry at all. "But… people ask, we tell them. We talk. If not, we just live as ourselves. It's not so hard."
Luca thinks about it. The five minutes he'd spent on Grindr before getting startled at a particularly bold proposition from a faceless profile far too close for comfort. Trying to craft a fucking Hinge CV soundbite-by-soundbite before realizing it was all futile, that he was a romantic at heart but, also—maybe more pressingly, more importantly—a professional athlete with expectations too deep to ever dig out, that the two couldn't coexist as long as he was who he was.
It's different with Anton. That's what it comes down to.
Moments on the road, laughing at conversations through the walls, Anton offloading his vegetables onto Luca's plate at team dinners because he gets too embarrassed to make requests in fancy restaurants. Chel rounds on the basement TV, trick shots after practice until Roz comes out half-naked and yells at them to get off the fucking ice, Anton chirping him for his morning yoga routine only to join him a moment later, entirely aware of what those Short Shorts do to him and reveling in it. Like an asshole. Which he is.
Moreover, kissing in the pool until Luca swallowed too much water and it got decidedly unsexy. The feeling of Anton sinking his fingers into his hair, angling his face for better access, the warm, wet slide of skin against skin.
Is it so hard?
"No," Luca agrees. "It's not."
"Okay," Anton says resolutely. Some of his hair is still dripping down his back, and he shakes it out haphazardly while Luca splutters and ducks away from him. "Then I will take you to bed now."
Well. Luca isn't about to complain.
—
"Hah! Oh, Luca. This makes me so very happy. And now Shane owes me one hundred dollars."
"What the fuck," Luca mutters. Because honestly. What the fuck.
The first practice back, Ilya takes one look at him and knows. Luca resists the urge to pull at the collar of his shirt and sniff it surreptitiously. Does he smell like he got sexed up in Mexico? Is this some freaky extended form of gaydar that only old gay married men are equipped with? Did Ilya waterboard this out of Anton before practice over Telegram?
"Do not worry, Haasy, is okay. I am just the most perceptive." A pause, slightly too pregnant. "And also it would maybe not hurt to wear a neck guard."
Oh god. Oh god.
Luca slaps a hand over his neck with a horrified squeak. He's going to die here and now, in a dingy hallway of the Bell Censplex, tragically forcing the object of his first teenage jerkoff fantasies to bear witness.
"Oh god," he manages weakly.
"Or you can just wear it proudly," Ilya adds, bumping him in the shoulder. "First practice back! Bye week! You went on a sex trip and had hot sex! Is normal. I did this too. And I was at the All-Star Game."
"I do not think the circumstances are quite the same."
Ilya smiles, a little crooked and on the edge of bittersweet. "Ah, yes. But that is a good thing, right?"
Is it? Maybe. Probably. He's certainly glad he never fell for his draft-year rival—which would have honestly been impressive, considering he went to Anaheim—that he never had an illicit years-long affair that culminated in global scandal and a whirlwind summer wedding. Luca Haas does not possess the temperament for such spectacle.
"Yes," Luca accepts. But… "Sometimes I think it feels too easy."
"Good," Ilya tells him plainly. There's no malice in his tone, only fond amusement. "For you, it gets to be easy."
Then he ruffles his hair and gives him a little shove down the hallway. "Okay, let's go. Tonight you score four goals or we trade you to Arizona."
Well, at least he would be on the first line.
Scoring
1st Period
Luca Haas (21)
OTT M. Pulkkinen (26), S. Hollander (47)
1-0 OTT Score · 06:24 Time · Snap Shot
2nd Period
Hayden Pike (12)
MTL Unassisted
1-1 Tied Score · 08:58 Time · Wrist Shot
Luca Haas (22)
OTT A. Mikhailov (26)
2-1 OTT Score · 12:31 Time · Backhand Shot
3rd Period
Luca Haas (23) PPG
OTT S. Hollander (48), A. Mikhailov (27)
3-1 OTT Score · 17:05 Time · Snap Shot
r/hockey • 10m ago
dicktrickedindallas
[OTT (3) - 1 MTL] Haas snaps it home on a late-game PP to complete the hat trick!
[Video]
rozanosaurus • 2m ago
OTT - NHL
CrazyCatDude55 • 2m ago
MTL - NHL
hollanovas
5m
anton whispering sweet nothings into luca's ear after his hat trick. i have nothing polite to say about this 😇
mimi⁶
@mikhailover
GET FUCKING CENS'D BABYYY!!!!
10:33PM · Feb 12, 2022
m! 🔒
@mikhailoverpriv
ok so this time they actually are fucking.
9:25PM · Feb 12, 2022