Chapter Text
The Ottawa Centaurs' locker room smelled of stale sweat and cheap deodorant, a scent Luca Haas was beginning to associate with home. Or at least, a temporary, sweaty, NHL-shaped home. He sat in his stall, painstakingly taping his stick, the familiar ritual a small anchor in a sea of overwhelming newness. The roar of the pre-game crowd echoed from beyond the concrete walls, a living, breathing beast hungry for a win. Every clang, every distant cheer, felt like a direct hit to his nervous system.
"Stop winding it. You'll cut off circulation."
Ilya Rozanov's voice was a low rumble, laced with the kind of dry humor Luca was still learning to decipher. The large Russian leaned against the neighboring stall, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on Luca's fumbling fingers. He didn't look like he was trying to be intimidating, but he was Ilya Rozanov. Intimidating was his default setting.
"Sorry," Luca mumbled, loosening the tape a fraction. His hands felt clumsy, oversized.
"Is good to be nervous," Ilya continued, pushing off the stall and circling closer. "Means you care. Just do not let it make you stupid. Puck is not explosive device. It will not bite. Usually." A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Hollander will show you where to go. Just try to keep up."
As if summoned, Shane Hollander appeared from the trainer's room, already in his full gear except for the helmet tucked under his arm. His presence was a different kind of pressure. Not Rozanov's raw, gravitational pull, but a quiet, steady force, like the hum of a high-powered engine. The team's captain.
"He's not going to break, Ilya," Shane said, his voice calm and even. He gave Luca a small, reassuring nod. "You hear them out there? They're chanting your name already. Well, a version of it. Sounds like 'Looooo-caaaa'." He grinned, a quick flash of white. "Means they're excited. We're excited. Go out there and have some fun."
Fun. Luca wasn't sure the NHL was fun. It felt more like survival. Every practice was a test, every drill a reminder of the gap between him and the gods who lapped the ice with him. Rozanov, a force of nature whose hits could rearrange your internal organs. Hollander, a magician with the puck who seemed to see the game three seconds into the future. And here he was, Luca Haas, a wide-eyed kid who was just happy to be breathing the same air.
The horn blared, signaling it was time. The room shifted, the easy banter hardening into focused silence. Luca pulled his jersey over his head, the fabric feeling both impossibly heavy and flimsy. He followed the stream of bodies out of the room and down the narrow tunnel, the noise growing exponentially, washing over him in a physical wave.
He skated out onto the ice for warmups, the bright lights a blur, the thousands of faces a single, roaring entity. He did his laps, the familiar motions a comfort until he saw Ilya and Shane skating together near the other end. They moved with an easy, practiced chemistry, a conversation happening without words. Rozanov laid a heavy but clean hit on a practice cone, sending it skittering. Hollander deftly stickhandled around the debris, sending a perfect saucer pass over Ilya's stick blade into the net.
They were the team's heart. Rozanov, the snarling, passionate beast. Hollander, the cool, calculating strategist. And him? He is the spare part.
The game itself was a blur of violence and grace. Luca played sparingly, his shifts short and frantic. He was out there mostly to not mess up, to get the puck deep, to hit someone if they got too close. On one shift, he found himself on the ice with both of them. Ilya was barking orders in rapid-fire Russian-English hybrid, pointing, gesturing. "You! Low! Hollander, wheel!"
Luca did as he was told, chasing a puck into the corner. He was met by a defenseman twice his size who promptly pinned him against the boards, the impact stealing his breath. He felt a gloved hand on his back. Not an opponent's.
"Use your body, kid," Rozanov grunted right next to his ear, shoving him forward just enough to create a sliver of space. "He is not made of glass. Push back."
Luca dug his skates in, leveraging his weight. He managed to wrestle the puck free, sending a weak, desperate backhand pass toward the net. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't skillful. But it got there.
And it landed perfectly on Shane Hollander's stick.
Shane didn't even seem to look. He just one-timed it, a blur of motion that ended with the red light flashing and the arena exploding. Hat trick. As the team mobbed him at the net, Luca stood back, watching. He felt a strange, unfamiliar warmth bloom in his chest. He'd been a small part of that. A tiny, insignificant, but real part.
Back in the locker room after the win, the atmosphere was loose and loud. Music thumped from a speaker somewhere. Luca was meticulously cleaning his gear, wanting to be invisible, when a water bottle was shoved into his hands. Ilya Rozanov.
"You did not fall down," Ilya stated, as if that were a major accomplishment.
"Uh, thanks," Luca said, unsure how to respond.
"That pass," Ilya said, leaning against the stall again, a genuine, if rare, smile appearing. "Was ugly. But was effective. Hockey is ugly game. Be effective."
Shane came over then, toweling off his damp hair. "He's right, you know. Ilya's passes are usually uglier, but effective is the key word." He dodged the playful swipe Ilya threw at him. "You got me the hat trick, Haas. First beer's on me. After we ice your shoulder. That guy had you good."
The roar from the arena followed them, a ghost in the city night, but the sounds of The Loose Puck, the team's unofficial post-game watering hole, were of a different species. Here, the noise was compressed, intimate—the clink of glasses, bursts of laughter, the thud of a pool cue connecting with a ball, and the low, constant hum of a dozen overlapping conversations. The air was thick with the smell of fried food and spilled beer. For Luca, it felt like walking into a different kind of locker room, one without the protective layer of padding and purpose.
He sat awkwardly in a rounded booth, wedged between a defenseman who was already three sheets to the wind and a rookie from the AHL call-up who looked even more terrified than Luca felt. Shane had bought the first round, placing a beer in front of him with a clap on the shoulder that was both encouraging and bone-jarring. "Good game, kid. Don't be a stranger."
Ilya, predictably, held court at the bar, a cluster of players around him listening to some gesticulated story. He caught Luca's eye at one point and raised his glass in a mock salute before returning to his audience, leaving Luca to navigate the social waters on his own. He nursed his beer, the condensation cool on his fingers, and mostly just listened. He learned about the goalie's new dog, a winger's disastrous vacation, and the intricate, surprisingly complex politics of who got to control the dressing room music.
An hour or two bled by, a current of camaraderie that Luca stood on the bank of, watching it flow past. The crowd began to thin. Players peeled off in ones and twos, citing early morning practices, kids at home, or simple exhaustion. The boisterous energy gradually simmered down to a low, contented murmur. Shane was one of the first to leave, with a final, firm handshake for Luca. "Get some rest. See you tomorrow."
Soon, it was just a handful of them left: Ilya, still holding court, though his audience was smaller; a couple of other grizzled veterans; and Dmitri, who had been sitting quietly in a corner booth for most of the night, observing everything with a thoughtful intensity that was even more unnerving than Ilya's bombast. Dmitri was older than most of them, a wise, steady presence on the blue line who spoke rarely but always with purpose.
As the last of the stragglers paid their tabs and headed for the door, Dmitri finally rose. He walked over to Luca's booth, his movements unhurried. He didn't sit, just loomed with a gentle authority.
"Haas," he said, his voice a low, gravelly hum. "Good work tonight."
"Thank you," Luca replied, sitting up straighter.
Dmitri's gaze drifted over to the bar where Ilya was arguing playfully with the bartender about a hockey highlight on the TV. A small, knowing smile touched Dmitri's lips. "The official team bonding is over. Now for the real one." He looked back at Luca. "There is an after party. At my place. A few of us. Less noise. Better vodka. You should come."
It wasn't a question. It wasn't quite a command. It was an invitation, but one that felt like a test. Luca's mind raced. Going home to his empty apartment and replaying every shift of the game was the safe option. This… this was unknown territory. A private gathering with the old guard.
"I… uh, yeah. Okay," Luca managed, the words feeling clumsy in his mouth.
"Good." Dmitri gave a short, decisive nod. "We leave in five minutes."
Luca took a deep breath, drained the last of his warm beer, and pushed himself out of the booth. This felt more significant than the game itself. Walking over to the bar felt like crossing a rink during a shootout. Ilya saw him coming, a glint of amusement in his eyes.
"Decided to join land of living?" Ilya said, paying the bartender.
"Dmitri… uh… invited me to his place. For an after party," Luca said, feeling like a tattletale.
Ilya's laugh was a short, sharp bark. "Ah. The Council of Elders summons. You have been judged worthy." He slung an arm around Luca's shoulders, the weight of it significant and strangely steadying. "Is good. But be warned, the vodka will be stronger. Good luck and be smart. No drugs."
Later at Dmitri's, the bass was a physical thing, a fist punching the plaster of the ceiling, rattling the half-empty bottle of beer in Luca’s hand. He stood pressed against a wall in the kitchen of a downtown condo that probably cost more than his entire life. The air was thick, a soupy mix of expensive cologne, spilled liquor, and the cloying sweetness of a vape pen someone was puffing on the balcony.
“You loosening up?”
A heavy arm slung around his shoulders, nearly buckling his knees. It was Dmitri, a man whose grin was as wide and dangerous as a shark’s. His breath smelled of whiskey and smoke.
“Yeah,” Luca lied, his throat tight. “It’s a great party.”
“Great parties require great party favors,” Dmitri slurred, steering him away from the kitchen and toward a sliding glass door that led to the balcony. The cold night air was a welcome slap, but it did little to clear Luca’s head. Dmitri fumbled in his pocket and produced a small, mirrored compact and a credit card.
Outside, a few other players huddled around a patio heater, their faces flushed red from the wind and the drinks. One of them, a defenseman named Riley, gave Luca a nod. “Haas. Finally joining the grown-ups’ table?”
Luca’s stomach twisted. He’d been one of the newest on the team and was feeling like a kid at his older brother’s friends’ house, perpetually on the outside, waiting for an invitation that never seemed to come. This felt like the invitation, but the door it opened led to a dark room he’d only ever been warned about.
“Come on,” Dmitri said, already tapping a fine, white powder onto the mirror. He expertly chopped it with the edge of the card into four neat, parallel lines. The motion was practiced, almost artistic. “Just a little confidence boost. Helps with the... nerves.” He winked. “And the women. And the performance on the ice.”
The women. Luca scanned the living room. They were beautiful, polished, the kind of women who looked at hockey players and saw dollar signs and status symbols. He’d tried talking to one earlier, a blonde with a laugh like shattering glass, but his sentences had come out clumsy, his thoughts muddled by the beer and the sheer overwhelming noise of it all.
He watched as Riley, the defenseman, leaned forward. With a rolled-up bill held to one nostril, he inhaled one of the lines in a single, fluid motion. He sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and leaned back, a blissed-out grin spreading across his face.
Dmitri turned the mirror toward Luca. The white lines stared back at him, pristine and menacing. The bass thudded from inside, a relentless heartbeat. You’re one of us, the music seemed to say. Prove it.
“Your turn, kid,” Dmitri’s voice was low, encouraging, but with an iron core of expectation. “Live a little.”
Luca thought of his dad. His dad, who’d driven him to 5 a.m. practices for fifteen years, whose face had been a picture of pure, unadulterated pride on draft day. Don’t screw this up, he could almost hear him say, a ghostly echo in the roaring night.
He looked at Dmitri’s expectant face. At Riley’s lazy, contented smile. At the other players, whose eyes were all on him now, the test subject. The beer in his stomach soured. The peer pressure wasn't a push; it was a vacuum, sucking all the air out of the space around him, leaving no room to say no.
He reached out and took the rolled-up bill from Dmitri’s fingers. It was warm and flimsy. He leaned over the balcony railing, the city lights a dizzying blur beneath him. He brought the tube to his nose, the plastic cold against his skin.
The world narrowed to the small, white line and the frantic, desperate rhythm of his own heart. He closed his eyes and inhaled.
A sharp, chemical burn shot up the back of his throat, so intense and foul it made his eyes water instantly. His head snapped back. A metallic tang flooded his sinuses. For a horrifying second, he thought he was going to be sick right over the railing.
Then, something else happened.
A jolt, clean and electric, sizzled through his nervous system. The noise from the party—the bass, the laughter, the clinking glasses—sharpened, each sound suddenly distinct and crystal clear. The burning in his nose faded, replaced by a strange, humming energy that vibrated in his teeth. The knot of anxiety in his stomach didn’t just loosen; it dissolved, atomized into a million glittering particles.
He straightened up, blinking. The city lights weren’t a blur anymore; they were a dazzling constellation of precise, brilliant points. Dmitri was clapping him on the back, a booming laugh erupting from his chest.
“There he is! There’s the guy we drafted!”
Luca found himself smiling, a real, unforced smile that stretched his cheeks wide. The world felt… lighter. Faster. More colorful. He took a swig from the beer bottle, the liquid crisp and cold, and it tasted like the best thing he’d ever drunk.
“Let’s get another round,” Riley said, grinning.
“Hell yeah,” Luca heard himself say, his own voice sounding foreign, louder, more confident. He led the way back inside, no longer feeling the pressure of the bodies around him but the thrill of being at the center of it all. He wasn’t on the outside anymore. He was in.
And he had never felt more lost.
The world had shed its skin. Colors were no longer just colors; they were living things. The deep crimson of a woman’s dress pulsed with a slow, sexual rhythm. The neon blue of a cocktail shimmered like a captured piece of the arctic. The bass was no longer a fist; it was the planet’s new, better heartbeat, and Luca’s own blood thrummed in perfect sync.
He was on a plush white couch that seemed to swallow him whole, a fresh beer sweating in his hand. This one was his fourth? Fifth? The number was a meaningless squiggle, a forgotten detail. Beside him, Dmitri was telling a story about a road trip in Calgary, his hands flying, his laugh a series of loud, satisfying explosions. Luca was laughing with him, head thrown back, the sound coming out of him as easy as breathing. He wasn’t just listening; he was part of the story, another character in Dmitri’s epic, debaucherous tale.
“…and the zamboni driver, this old guy, he just looks at us, deadpan, and says, ‘boys, that’s not a moose,’” Dmitri finished, wiping a tear from his eye.
Luca howled. He didn’t know why it was so funny, but it was. It was the funniest thing he had ever heard. The humor was a physical sensation, a warm wave rolling through his chest.
“Haas here is a natural,” Riley boomed from across the coffee table, where he was attempting to roll a joint with the concentration of a bomb disposal expert. He looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and gleaming. “Kid’s got a hollow leg.”
“It’s the Haas metabolism,” Luca declared, puffing out his chest. The words felt important, profound. “Swedish. Viking blood.” He’d never said anything about his Swedish heritage before, never even thought about it much, but now it felt like a core truth, a secret superpower.
A joint was passed to him. The paper was crinkled, slightly damp from Riley’s clumsy fingers. Luca took it. He’d smoked weed twice in college, both times resulting in a paranoid spiral that had him hiding in his dorm room. This felt different. This felt like an initiation.
He brought it to his lips, the acrid smell familiar. He inhaled, pulling the smoke deep into his lungs. This time, there was no paranoia. There was only a widening, a sense of space opening up inside his skull. The smoke came out in a smooth, grey plume, and with it went the last clinging tendrils of the boy who had been nervous on the balcony. That boy was a ghost.
The room was spinning, but in a pleasant, carousel-like way. Faces swam in and out of focus, but they were all friendly, all smiling. The blonde woman from earlier—the one with the shattering laugh—was sitting on the arm of the couch now, her hand resting proprietorially on his shoulder. Her name was Jasmine, or Jessica, something with a J.
“You have really intense eyes,” she said, her voice a honeyed drawl.
Luca looked at her. Her face was a perfect, symmetrical painting. He felt a surge of something—not attraction, but power. He could have her. He was sure of it. He was one of them now. He was a hockey player. He was a Centaur.
“So do you,” he replied, and he leaned in to kiss her. It was clumsy, a collision of teeth and lips, but she didn’t pull away. She tasted of wine and lipstick. A cheer went up from the other players. He was a king on his throne.
Someone put another line on the mirror. This time, there was no hesitation. No second thought of his father, of draft day, of the boy from a small town who used to tape his own sticks. He didn’t need that kid anymore. He was a phoenix, and that boy was just ash.
He did the line. The burn was familiar now, an old friend. The rush was even better this time, a clean, white high that scraped the inside of his skull clean and painted it with gold. He stood up, feeling ten feet tall, invincible.
“Dance!” he shouted, to no one and everyone.
He grabbed Jasmine’s/Jessica’s hand and pulled her toward the living room, which had been transformed into a makeshift dance floor. Bodies moved in a sweaty, undulating mass. He was part of it, a single cell in a larger, vibrant organism. He didn’t know how to dance, but it didn’t matter. His body knew what to do. He moved with a fluid, animal grace he’d never possessed before.
He caught Dmitri’s eye over the crowd. The veteran raised his glass in a silent toast, a look of genuine, uncomplicated approval on his face. In that moment, it was the only thing that mattered. More than the game, more than the contract, more than anything. This. This feeling. This belonging.
He closed his eyes and let the bass take him. The night stretched out, infinite and glittering. He was exactly where he was supposed to be.